Journalist Tool

Kineticist

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

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Hardy LIVE! Let's Talk Winchester!

Cary Hardy YouTube Live Streams·video·1h 47m·analyzed·Oct 14, 2025
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.024

TL;DR

Kerry Hardy discusses newly-announced Winchester pinball from Barrels of Fun after playtesting and providing design feedback.

Summary

Kerry Hardy streams live commentary about Barrels of Fun's newly announced Winchester Mystery House pinball machine. Hardy recently visited the manufacturer, playtested the game, and recorded promotional content. The machine features original theming, a collapsing tower mechanic, turntable, and code still in early development (25% complete). Hardy discusses her initial impressions, design feedback provided to developer David Van Ness, and specific gameplay modes like 'Whispers in the Dark.' The game sold approximately half of its planned 525-unit production run via deposits within hours of announcement.

Key Claims

  • Winchester sold approximately 50% of planned 525 units via deposits within about an hour of announcement

    high confidence · Hardy reports hearing from distributors that 'they've already sold at least half via deposits of the 525 units that they are planned to build'

  • The game is 25% code-complete at launch, with significantly deeper code planned than Dune's launch build

    high confidence · Hardy states: 'But it's 25%, but of what they plan to put into it, that's more than what Dune started out with. Like, they had a higher number in Dune, but the code's going to be much deeper on this'

  • Hardy provided design feedback that resolved approximately 90% of her initial complaints, primarily through flipper power adjustments

    high confidence · Hardy says: 'going down my list, I want to say we resolved 90% of my complaints. And honestly, a good chunk of that is because the flipper power was too weak'

  • Distributors were notified of the announcement at 11 AM on announcement day, with no prior leaks to the online community

    high confidence · Hardy notes: 'the distros were notified today, 11 o'clock my time. And it was one of those, who's going to leak it first?... So definitely kudos to the distros. It didn't leak'

  • The Winchester house address is 525, which is why Barrels of Fun chose that production number

    high confidence · Hardy explains: '525 is the address to the Winchester house. That is why they chose that number'

Notable Quotes

  • “I want to say we resolved 90% of my complaints. And honestly, a good chunk of that is because the flipper power was too weak. Once we cranked up the flipper power, particularly on the upper left flipper, then that resolved a whole bunch of issues.”

    Kerry Hardy@ 20:49 — Key design iteration example showing manufacturer responsiveness to playtester feedback

  • “My favorite mode by far... The mode is called Whispers in the Dark. And that's honestly Carl's favorite mode so far as well. This was the only one that really required some skill physically as well as skill shooting shots.”

    Kerry Hardy@ 28:16 — Highlights standout gameplay mode and depth of code design

  • “This game made me feel like I don't know how to play pinball. And it's because I was like, there's a couple of shots that are tricky to find off the flipper.”

    Kerry Hardy@ 22:11 — Indicates challenging shot difficulty and learning curve for the game

  • “I honestly think, this is just me speculating, I think that he was really expecting, all the way up until I shared the video with him yesterday, the featurette, I think he was anticipating me to really just shit all over this game.”

    Kerry Hardy@ 18:57 — Suggests manufacturer may have had low expectations for playtester feedback initially

  • “One thing I've enjoyed about this launch was being surprised and not having any leaks.”

    Chat commenter@ 11:58 — Community appreciation for announcement secrecy and controlled rollout

Entities

Kerry HardypersonDavid Van NesspersonBrian SavagepersonCarl D'AngelopersonJeffpersonBarrels of FuncompanyWinchester Mystery Housegame

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Manufacturer actively soliciting and implementing playtester feedback; 90% of initial design concerns addressed through iterative tuning

    high · Hardy's detailed account of providing feedback list to David Van Ness and resolution of flipper power issues and other mechanical complaints

  • ?

    product_concern: Playfield shot difficulty may present learning curve; some shots described as 'tricky to find' and challenging for experienced players, raising accessibility questions

    high · Hardy extensively discusses difficulty finding specific shots (upper right to left ramp feed), describes game making her feel inexperienced, notes layout familiarization required

  • ?

    leak_detection: Announcement successfully maintained secrecy with no leaks despite distributor notification; community was surprised by unannounced release

    high · Hardy notes: 'One thing I've enjoyed about this launch was being surprised and not having any leaks' and 'did like something happen today that i'm unaware of everybody's talking about a new pinball machine'

  • $

    market_signal: Winchester sold approximately 50% of planned 525 units via deposits within ~1 hour of announcement, indicating strong early demand

    high · Hardy states: 'I'm hearing that they've already sold at least half via deposits of the 525 units that they are planned to build'

  • ?

    announcement: Official reveal of Winchester Mystery House pinball by Barrels of Fun with planned 525-unit production and 25% code-complete at launch

    high · Hardy confirms playtesting, official trailer release, gameplay video dropping next day, and distributor notification at 11 AM announcement time

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.321

0:00
🎵 Thank you. That's when you get the negative feedback because you don't agree with how they think.
3:03
Turns out Stern was like, Gotcha, bitch! I just... I'm trying to wrap my head around this. Maybe they've learned something from every game, and this time, it'll be different. What?!
3:21
I gotta show everybody my wiener. It's my wiener. I mean, it's basically a Led Zeppelin jukebox with flippers. The game is going to sell. He just did a mic drop and then walked the hell out of the room. That's big dick energy if I've ever seen it. It's pinball. It shouldn't be too serious. I mean, if you take pinball to a serious level, you get the godfather.
3:47
Lie back down. I know I'm going to get some hate from those of you out there that are probably doing it, but that's what it is. The backlash says Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles right there at the top and four inches up. If that, the title's there again. That makes no sense. And I mean, what's concerning to me is that through the whole build process, no one brought it up that, hey, maybe we should make this a little bit better. No one mentioned it. We believe this idea to be the best course of action for us and for you, but mainly because it's going to cost us nothing. This is us. This is us.
Dirty Pool Pinball
company
Spooky Pinballcompany
Chicago Expoevent
  • ?

    product_strategy: Winchester features original theming with unique mechanics (collapsing tower, turntable, basement mode) designed for both home collector depth and location play

    high · Hardy emphasizes theme originality, specific mechanical features, and designer comments about multiple gameplay paths and progression flexibility

  • ?

    product_strategy: Code development at 25% completion with significant additional modes and features planned post-launch; developer receptive to community ideas at Expo events

    high · Hardy states: 'it's 25%, but of what they plan to put into it' and quotes developer encouragement: 'when you get time on this game and you have some ideas, throw the ideas at Carl and David'

    • 4:33
    We need to find out what these suckers will pay for a crappy product that your toddler drew for us. She draws on a first grade level. And the thing is, I know one of the people over social media has informed me that a lot of the times, at least as of three years ago, majority of the things that I would post or say to them was fucking blocked. Why are you promoting and asking for deposits on a game that's still six months out?
    5:09
    Hello, hello, hello, everyone. Audio and video check first guys Before we get this show on the road Can you hear me loud and clear?
    5:24
    I'm going to assume that you can see me obviously That should be good I think the last time I did a stream was when I had like Roger Sharp on It was like National Pinball Day And I was having issues with my audio just fading in and out Really aggravating the hell out of me on that one audio sounds good well everyone so uh did like something happen today that i'm unaware of everybody's talking about a new pinball machine coming out that's news to me all right why am i not the sizzle reel during the hearty I need to update the Zizzle, the stream launcher video with some newer stuff on there.
    6:13
    All right. So obviously I'm here because I know some of you out there obviously have questions. You're curious. I obviously cannot be the spokesperson for Barrels of Fun, nor do I think I am or anything. But I can answer basic questions. my time and experience and know-how and all that. But I will say that during this stream, although I do want to make this stream relatively short, for a variety of reasons. One, we're going to get a bunch more stuff in regards to the latest title on this. Like, for instance, I believe the gameplay with Carl D'Angelo, I think that drops tomorrow. For those of you paying close attention today, they accidentally dropped it at the same time they dropped their trailer.
    7:05
    But they recovered that and put it back on private. So that's done. It's ready to go. And I think that's dropping tomorrow. So expect to see that. I don't know what time. If I had to guess, maybe the 13th hour again, maybe sooner. but during this time also I will attempt to call up David Van Ness and or Brian Savage over there to just check up on them to see how they're doing how their day was I would like to assume going by what I'm seeing online that they had a pretty damn good day and the thing is i think a lot of you out there were curious i mean have i played it this is this is what cracks me up guys people are asking me if i played it and this is even funnier is that i had someone obviously that i don't really know but someone on facebook sent me my own featurette today and was like, check this out.
    8:15
    But people were asking me also after the featurette and everything, you know, like, have you played it, Carrie? And I'm like, yeah.
    8:24
    I went there and recorded all this stuff, spent all this time editing, but I never pressed the start button.
    8:32
    But so how did this even come about? because I think 99% of people in this industry, like, enthusiasts, did not know this was dropping.
    8:51
    Thought it was the other Kerry Hardy. Stringer, you coming to Expo? But did you order one? Sterling, no, I did not order one.
    9:05
    So as of mere, I don't know how many minutes ago, maybe within an hour or so, I'm hearing that they've already sold at least half via deposits of the 525 units that they are planned to build. but so anyways i have not known about this very long at all guys i i would say i've known about this the game itself uh less than a week technically less than a week i arrived there literally last Tuesday, and I was there until Wednesday afternoon, and I didn't start putting this video together or editing until Thursday night after work, and that's the thing is that when it comes to this featurette, I honestly did not plan to make a featurette, and David did not even ask me to make a feature ready. He technically didn't even ask me to do a video at all kind of thing. He merely reached out and was like, hey, you know, we got something that, you know, we'd like you to see, you know, if you're interested, you know, would you be, would you be available around this time in October? I'm like, sure. What is it, a game? And he's like, he's like, I didn't say anything about a game. For those that don't know David, he is very secretive. He keeps his cards very close to the chest.
    10:49
    And I did not know what I was going to come see kind of thing. He's like, yeah, we just want you to come check out something. You know, if you want to do, you know, record, do some video stuff, you know, you can. That's fine. So it wasn't like, you know, hey, we need you to come here and film our new game that we're releasing or anything like that. So I just packed up all the stuff, which I still have sprawled out back here behind me. Packed it all up. I assumed it was going to be a game. But even then, I didn't assume that I was going to be doing a featurette kind of thing.
    11:21
    I think this thing is amazing. This is something that Spooky aspires to, but Barrels of Fun does not make a good shooting game to date. Oh.
    11:32
    Charles, does that mean it will be at Scrapple Land? I don't know who that's going to. So is Spooky announcing Beetlejuice this week? Like, they didn't announce it, but they sure as hell dropped a little thing on Facebook today that would definitely kind of nudge it in that direction.
    11:55
    I'm holding out for Remington House. Okay. One thing I've enjoyed about this launch was being surprised and not having any leaks. Yeah, and the thing is, the distros were notified today, 11 o'clock my time. And it was one of those, who's going to leak it first? Where is it going to pop up kind of thing? Who's going to do it? And like, yeah, you know, I had a couple of distros that reached out to me kind of thing, you know, but it didn't get leaked out online and pictures or anything like that. So definitely kudos to the distros. It didn't leak. I understand why a distro in Europe decided to spoil the fun for Fall of the Empire.
    12:37
    I get it to an extent on that. But, yes, there was no leak. So, anyways, I go down there with all my equipment, and I get shown the trailer for the game. And I think at this point in time, they were still in the editing process of their trailer, and they're making the one that had Dirty Pool Pinball and Carl D'Angelo together. It was like the unedited version of it. but yeah they showed me the video and as I mentioned in my featurette it was one of those what is this kind of thing I immediately was like okay well it's obviously an original theme and once he told me I was like oh yeah I've heard of that place I mean I've heard about it and I was aware of it but I didn't really know much about it the history or anything and so that was one of my main goals that I felt that I needed to implement in the video that I was going to create, especially since I already saw what video they were about to put out. I'm like, I think there's going to be a good amount of people that are going to need a little bit of an education on here. So that's why I implemented the brief compressed history lesson in regards to Sarah Winchester and the house. So I'm hoping for those of you that were as unaware as I was that that was beneficial to you. But I felt like I needed to put that in there. The history was so good, very smart to put that in there. Thank you very much, Coleman Green. I liked it. I was like, I need to do this. And so and that was the thing is like after I saw this and they gave me a brief history on it. I was like, okay. And then I got to see it in the flesh and play it.
    14:33
    And here's the thing is like, you know me guys, I'm not going to sit here and like, you know, lie to you or anything. So I think that's why a lot of you decide to watch my content and you want to hear my feedback on how I feel about a game. And my phone has been blowing up and I've been busy at work today, guys. And so those of you that didn't get a message back from me in a decent amount of time, or I've been slow to respond, I have been at work. It's just the way the cookie crumbled today, so my phone's been blowing up, but I have been really busy, so I'm not purposefully ignoring anybody. So anyways, I get to see the game in its flesh, up close and personal, and at first glance, I'm just like, it's pretty. I'll definitely give you that. I mean, the colors, it's nowhere, especially in the last two games, we've had more of a brown tone, and I think that's what they've been getting some shit about in the last two games, like, oh, another brown game, and now we're getting more of a, what color is that, like an aqua, kind of a, I don't know my colors very well on this guy, but it's like a, it's like a, what is that light bluish green, like an aquamarine or something, but it's a bluish hue green, educate me. I don't know.
    15:46
    Bluish? I think it's more of a green teal. That's the color. Thank you very much, Jimmy. I don't know those weird colors. Like, oh, this is mod. I don't know what that is. But anyways, so I get to walk up to it and I see all the mechanical nature involved in it. The turntable, the collapsing tower, and going through the shots. Todd, Tucky, thank you very much right there for the $10 right there. Very much appreciated. Love you. Are we going to see you at Expo? I haven't really talked to you, man. It's been a while. We need to play catch-up or something.
    16:25
    I don't think you're going to be at Expo, are you? Usually I hear you talking about it or there's some kind of announcement.
    16:33
    Seafoam green. Maybe. That probably lines up. I have another show same weekend. Todd, I'm hoping since my work schedule has officially changed that I will be able to go to a show up there in your area, maybe like Allentown or something like that. I've got to figure out when that is because I sure as hell would like to go up there and visit you. We can go to, what is it called, Daddy Pops or Pop Daddies or Big Daddies or Daddy Pops.
    17:05
    It's one of those places that you guys always go to eat. But I would definitely like to go visit your place and turn the TNT facility and all that.
    17:21
    Daddy Pops, yeah. I'll just book fly to the Houston Expo show next month. I might go to that. So we might see each other for that. Since my work schedule has changed, I now have more of the weekends off. So that kind of works out better for me. I got tired of using all my PTO up on these shows.
    17:43
    Anyways, back to talking about Winchester. Guys, I'm going to get sidetracked and everything. So try to keep me on point here, what we're talking about. Anyways, so in order to understand my first day there, you have to also understand is that I was a little bit sleep deprived. I had just driven also five hours.
    18:06
    So I was not in the right mind state. So I'm just going to be real with you. My first day there playing that game was not a joyful experience, but it wasn't entirely the game's fault. It was, like I said, it was one of those where I even told David while I was there, I was like, David, I don't want to talk and tear this game apart because I really feel like my mind is not in the right place. I feel like I need to go to the hotel, make a list of the things that are pissing me off, basically, things that I would like to see changed or updated, and then we can go over it tomorrow. And he's like, sure thing, man, yeah. Like I said, he's not asking me to do this video or anything. He's merely, you know, if I want to record, do some video, and then after the game officially drops, I can drop and probably do kind of what I'm doing right now. So, I honestly think, this is just me speculating, I think that he was really expecting, all the way up until I shared the video with him yesterday, the featurette, I think he was anticipating me to really just shit all over this game. I really do.
    19:16
    So, anyways, I get back to the hotel, and I make my list. And I'm like, alright, this needs to be changed. I don't like this, I don't like this, this doesn't feel good. I didn't have any audio complaints. That was one thing. So kudos to Jeff at Dirty Pool Pinball so far. I do want more, but there wasn't anything annoying or things that I felt like needed to be changed. I just want more at this point in time. Because I feel like there are definitely certain shots that don't have a kinetic satisfaction to them, But I do feel that the code and adding sound or even feedback with a shaker motor can give me that feeling that I'm not getting with the layout or design, however you want to put it.
    20:07
    There's only like maybe one shot that I can really think of where I'm like, that's a little, eh. And I don't know if there's any kids watching, but like I said, when I came back into BrailleZip on the next day, I had a list. And I was like, all right, David, here's my list of things that I want to go through. And he's like, let's do it. Very open-minded. Very give it to me how it is. He wanted it raw and uncut. So that's what I gave him.
    20:30
    Anyway, so I was like, here's my problem. I do not like the way this shot feels. I do not like the way this feels. This right here. And going down my list, I want to say we resolved 90% of my complaints. And honestly, a good chunk of that is because the flipper power was too weak. Once we cranked up the flipper power, particularly on the upper left flipper, then that resolved a whole bunch of issues. I felt like whenever I was hitting that upper left flipper, trying to loop around, I felt like I was pushing my fingers through the flipper button to have enough momentum to make it around the loop kind of thing. And I'm like, oh my God, it's so aggravating. and like to make, because you have multiple shots off that upper left flipper guys.
    21:22
    And so adjusting the flipper power immediately reconciled my worries and conditions about that. I'm like, okay, good. We're good there. Okay, that fixed that problem kind of thing. And as far as like the other issues that I say, quote, issues, and it's merely them going, okay, this is what we plan to do with the code going forward kind of thing. And they explained to me, like, yes, we have, like, the blueprint in place. But now it's a matter of just building upon that to make it much deeper and better than what it is. I guarantee you guys that you're going to go and play this game at Expo.
    21:59
    And you're not going to get through the code like, I already knocked out the 25% that they're already claiming. You're not. And part of that is because the game is a little bit of a hard shooter for me. For me. I need to clarify this because this game made me feel like I don't know how to play pinball.
    22:21
    And it's because I was like, there's a couple of shots that are tricky to find off the flipper. And this is, I cannot wait for you guys to play this at Expo to potentially prove me wrong. Like, Gary, I didn't have a problem hitting that shot at all kind of thing. And then it can just be like me, Gary, you are just no good. I'm like, probably, but the shot that I'm still having trouble to find, and I'll tell you the shot because I want to see if it is just me, but it was the upper right flipper that feeds the left ramp. That's the staircase to nowhere shot. I was not able to make that consistently, and it's great when you make it, but it's aggravating when you don't, and I think it's aggravating because it's so good when you do hit it. So whenever you hit it and it just kind of bounces off, you hit a target, you hit it too late, too soon, it just gives you that feeling of, God, just go up the ramp. Give me that satisfactory feeling that I'm looking forward to getting again, and I wasn't getting as often as I would like, more than likely because of my lack of skill.
    23:27
    Now, the other thing that was a little aggravating, and like I said, they're going to, I don't want to say aggravating, but it was a little bit of a letdown, and that was the falling tower. I wanted more interaction with the tower. And it's like I only saw it fall down once, and that's because I got to a certain point in the game where it actually fell down. And there's a history behind this tower, and I really wish I would have put it into the documentary. I say documentary. Into the featurette, guys, because there's actually an interesting little piece. The earthquake of, what was it, 1906? There was an actual tower on the house, and the earthquake of 1906 caused it to fall and collapse. So that's why there is the tower in the game. Now, currently, it falls over when you reach a certain point in the game, and it creates a new ball path for you.
    24:17
    And I kind of wish that it would still give you a feeling of like, hey, I can move. Look at me. There's something in this game that does something cool, even though you haven't gotten to the point of seeing it do its thing. Whether it be the shaker motor vibrates, and the building kind of wiggles a little bit to give you that feeling of the earthquake, Just a little feeling of like, ooh, that was cool, something interesting to see. It's just a lot of the times I never got to see that point to where the building fell over kind of thing. Because it is damn cool when it happens, but it's just like it doesn't. I think that eventually they're going to code things in there to make that building more interactive throughout the gameplay.
    24:55
    Before I progress, let me get caught up on chat, guys. I don't want to just sit here and preach to you, so let me go through here and get caught up. So bear with me.
    25:05
    It reminds me of a clue, the board game with all the rooms. Yeah, I can see that. Last time they get you to do it.
    25:23
    How are the shots on the turntable? That seems basically impossible to get right and not clunky. The shots on the turntable are great. When the turntable gets into its new position, it creates a new ball path. There's a shot that basically goes and feeds the wheelbarrow. And I put that a little bit at the beginning of the video in regards to the history. There's a wheelbarrow, and that's implemented into the game. The ball goes up, and it gets held up by a magnet. Very good audio cue whenever it happens, and then it drops it down underneath the play field to lock your ball for wheelbarrow multiball. I think 525 units is a sweet spot. For those that don't know, 525 is the address to the Winchester house. That is why they chose that number.
    26:14
    And yes, this is a lower number than their other two titles. So, but yeah, they think it's a pretty good sweet spot. Scott, thank you very much right there for the $2. Preach, brother, and watch the sight lines of Satan.
    26:29
    All right, let's see here. Game looks super fun. David talked about longevity of adding codes. Hey, Kerry, game looks fun. I holding off until Spooky next game I also on that Diablo 4 grind Why Because I hate myself Yeah I can bring myself to play Diablo 4 again Not right now at least I can I just because that what it is. It's a grind, and I'm not in the mood to grind. But, uh, so, um, now I do have some gameplay, but I think that they do want to have that, like, shown, like, officially by them, and I think there's also definitely distros out there that would prefer that as well. I mean, obviously, every manufacturer wants their game to be shown in the best light possible, especially at launch, when people are wondering, should they put money down, should they not? And this is the great thing about the window that they have decided to launch this game, is that literally, guys, in a couple of days, you're going to be able to get all the video footage from people, you know, filming this gameplay. You're going to get that gameplay officially from them tomorrow to drop to get a better idea of how it shoots. And then you're going to get to see Carl, you know, wear this game out. Because there's one mode in particular that I really enjoyed. And I was proclaiming this to Carl and to David. I'm like, my favorite mode by far. And I'm going to, like, push you guys to do this whenever you play it at Expo. The mode is called Whispers in the Dark.
    28:07
    And that's honestly Carl's favorite mode so far as well. But, you know, they told me that all the modes will eventually be, like, fun and interesting like that kind of thing. But this was the only one that really required some skill physically as well as skill shooting shots. And I'll tell you how to do it. So when the game first starts, you have a key already on there. So you can hit the action button, and that key will unlock the basement. then shoot for the green shot which takes you into the basement and then you have to make your way to the basement hit some more white shots but once you start the basement basically the game goes completely dark and you have to find fuses while also warding off evil spirits now how do you ward off evil spirits? is that whenever you hear the sound that I actually have at the very beginning of the video that my feature read that, I'll play the sound for you, hold on, I've got all the assets here, so give me a second here, I will play this sound effect, uh, this right here, can you hear that, did it play through, I don't know if it actually played through or not, I'm not seeing the audio for my desktop, oh, it's muted, son of a biscuit, evidently it's different, it's amateur hour here at Terry's. Let's see here.
    29:35
    Let's go with this one. Why you no work? Let me check the audio make sure I'm hearing it on my end. Okay, I hear it right there What audio am I using here?
    30:04
    I want you to hear it because it's kind of freaky Maybe it's this one, let's try this one There we go So that time you should have heard it Let me turn it down because I think that was peaking pretty bad right there But you hear this sound effect so it already gets you kind of stirred up because it's a very like kind of frightening jittering sound that you're not expecting so while you're shooting in a very dark game and you have like a small faint shot that's like glowing red and that's the shot that you need to hit to find a fuse to get the lights turned back on and after so much time basically you hear that sound effect and you had to hold down the action button to ward off the evil spirits. I'm assuming you ward them off by flashing a camera. Basically, you're trying to take a picture of them, or you're flashing them with your camera or whatever. So you're holding that down, and the light show that you get as it powers up the rails on the side, so you're just like, come on, come on, come on, come on, and you hear the camera like, choo, and it basically wards the spirit off, and you can get back to playing with two hands to continue going through that.
    31:18
    Very cool damn mode. Difficult, too. But there's no time limit on that particular mode. So you can't time out on it. You can take the time all you want to. You can be as slow as you want to and just get through it. And Carl, he played that mode, and he beat it. And I was like, are you kidding me? So I know that it's not just like, oh, it doesn't shoot well. No, it's just that I'm unfamiliar with the layout. And I think this is going to be a very good game for the home, for you guys to spend a lot of time with it, to get used to it, to find those shots. Because it took me a while to find the damn shots.
    32:06
    Thank you very much for subscribing there. Let me see here. I hear the same sound when I leave the kitchen cabinets open. But that was my favorite mode, but they plan on putting a lot more of things like that into the game going forward. And I know a lot of people heard the 25% when they said on code and were like, oh, it's only 25%. But it's 25%, but of what they plan to put into it, that's more than what Dune started out with. Like, they had a higher number in Dune, but the code's going to be much deeper on this because there's so many different things that they can do with this game. And like they mentioned in my featurette, when you're at Expo, guys, and you get time on this game and you have some ideas, throw the ideas at Carl and David. Be like, hey, you know what would be cool? And just throw stuff at them. More than likely, they'll write the stuff down. They'll be like, you know what? That's a good idea. They're very receptive on feedback. And I would like to hope that's one of the reasons why they brought me in, just to get some initial feedback.
    33:15
    And so that's why I was like, these are the things that I would like to see improved. These are the things that are currently upsetting me. And one of those was the left out lane, which he addressed in the video. And if you watch the video, you can see that it definitely does go towards that left out lane quite a lot. And I didn't bother nudging or anything because I didn't want to disturb the video that I was recording. So I could have more than likely saved it by nudging, but I just kind of let the game do its own thing so that way the video would be nice and smooth.
    33:51
    Maybe it will be like an Avengers IQ fabulous home game, but less great on location. Yeah, and that's the thing that they mentioned is that there's so many different ways you can play this. Like I said, when I first started, I go to the basement because I really enjoy that mode. but when you get in there you can go you know what I'm going to make my way all the way up to this particular room like you can travel traverse the game and do whatever mode you want to do there's many different ways you can play the game if you want to start your seance multi-ball and work towards that you can if you want to go for the wheelbarrow multi-ball which I almost got into I got two balls locked, but I didn't quite get the third one.
    34:34
    I favor the basement. Yeah, I guess that can be taken dirty. But, yeah, so do we want to try to reach out to David and see if he's on the road? He's probably on the road right now to Chicago. We'll see how his day went.
    34:50
    And he may not even answer. Or he may be listening to this right now. let's give him a call. Let's congratulate him on an awesome day.
    35:11
    Let's see if he even answers. Come on, David. Your call has been forwarded to voice now. The person you're... I see how it is, David.
    35:38
    Doesn't want to talk to me, but he could be middle of driving. I tried. Maybe he'll call me back. If he calls me back, then we'll see what's going on.
    35:55
    Let's try Brian Savage. Let's reach out to him. Maybe he's available. They are driving? Well, yeah, they're driving. I know it, but they can still talk to me.
    36:17
    One of them can't. They're not both driving. I don't need them on a video call. It's an audio call. Don't act like people don't talk on the phone while they're driving. I mean, they may be carrying some, like, you know, some sensitive cargo and everything. Unsafe carry. Yeah, I am. I am very unsafe. Springer, thank you very much for the $2. Love you a long time. Did you answer me earlier when I asked you if you were going to be going to Expo? I don't think you answered me.
    36:54
    Someone mentioned Echo. That's probably from the speakers. I've turned those back off again, so there shouldn't be any more echoes. Sorry about that.
    37:05
    Let me try calling Brian up. Nobody is going to talk to me right now. All right. I tried. They could be busy. Maybe they don't want to talk to me. I was merely going to congratulate them on their release today because I think it's gone very well for them. I think it's gone better than they anticipated.
    37:55
    Jeff, since you're on here, why don't you contact me and I can reach out to you. Maybe you can give some insight on what's going on.
    38:11
    Or are you driving too? All right. So where did I leave off talking about the game? I'm technically a vendor, but I'll answer anything you want to throw at me.
    38:34
    Oh, man. Ah, Jeb, it's fine. But I'm liking what I'm hearing on the game so far. Like, for instance, that sound effect that I was just playing for them right there. Was that something on your doing? Are you doing, like, all the audio, or are you only, like, doing little stuff here and there? I don't really know, like, your entire role. Like, are you doing, like, all audio, like music and sound effects and call-outs, or how's that working?
    39:03
    I have done all the audio. Well, well done. Like, in particular, guys, I know you can't really – fuck it, I'll play it. I'm sure Jeff's fine with it.
    39:16
    Let's see here. the call-outs were damn good with some nice video, but in particular, I think it was the multi-ball. Let me see if I did it right.
    39:33
    Do I still have my headphones on? Let's see if it was this one or not. Hold on. You can hear little stuff that Jeff has put into this, like, little scraping sound. I can't even describe it, Jeff, what you're doing here. But it's got, like, this little stuff in the background that has a little bit of a, like, what the hell is that kind of thing? And the bass line on here is killing me. But, yeah.
    40:38
    I have no quarrels with the audio on it. But I got some of this. Let's see here. Some of the call outs.
    40:51
    There is some. Who did these call outs, Jeff? Who did these? Because I'll play these jackpot ones, guys. These call outs, whoever did them. I mean, we're talking like they have the gurgling and the, oh, it's all there. It's like, wow. Hold on.
    41:18
    Super jackpot! Is that a little bit better than the jackpot, Carrie? Jackpot. Tyler Cook is an actor and a friend of mine, has VO experience, but never in pinball. Yeah, boy, he did a great job. Whoever directed them did a great job with it Because where is it There is this one Where my wife was busting out laughing And I'm like you know what baby This is what I'm going to sound like next time we're in the bedroom Hold on let me see if I can find it Because Oh Super Jackpot A little bit of Verberation on there Yeah great direction on that one man Mega Seuss Jackpot! Ha ha ha ha ha!
    42:08
    I got goosebumps right there. That was really good right there. He's got two versions of it. Mega Seuss Jackpot!
    42:20
    Yeah. You don't hear jackpots with that much feeling in games these days, guys. That's pretty killer right there. What? When I heard that, I was like, holy shit.
    42:38
    So when you talk about when you nail a jackpot, it's like, oh, okay. That made me feel like that was good. Jackpot!
    42:46
    I see you brought a friend. That's when you had a player, I believe. Then you have some of the creepy things. I'm going to find you.
    43:00
    You shouldn't have come here. Join us. And what they're planning on doing is this is merely the beginning of the creepy factor of what they plan to implement into this game over time. I was, like, just throwing ideas, and I'm not even going to be able to say they're my ideas because they're like, yeah, that's what we planned to do. Yeah, this is what we, yeah. And I'm like, yeah, you could make it to where random things happen, like, you know, the knocker goes off or the shaker randomly goes off and a random scream or something to make people scared or jump. Like, what the hell was that when they're playing the game? And they're like, yeah, these are all things that are, you know, in the pipeline down the road. These are things that we're planning on that we want to do. And so this is the, like you mentioned in the featurette, this is a great thing about this particular theme is that when they have an idea or something that they want to implement or a certain audio or video, it's not one of those where they got to email it off to a studio and wait forever today to get it approved or denied or tweaks or whatever. I think that the people at Winchester, they still have certain say so, but they're very open kind of thing. The constraints are not there. Play the screen. Where's the main theme song? Okay, let's do the screen.
    44:31
    Some of the call-outs for the rooms. Ashes in the walls. Flicker in flame. The call room. The circle of echoes.
    44:44
    Shoot the staircase from nowhere. shoot the staircase to nowhere I wish I could but I can't the spirits will no longer receive your vibrations to tour deeper into the house collect keys on the upper drop targets and use the action button to unlock doors I got a feeling this is the guy that you're probably going to be using in the future I like it we can push them back to finish the last seal hey come back here back to the grand ballroom all right let's play the uh the main theme that he was uh telling me to here let's go here uh
    45:45
    Thank you. Just because it's like as you're traveling through. Let's see. Twin dining rooms. And the thing is, guys, you're probably not hearing everything I'm hearing in my headphones. He's got so many other little effects going on that you're not probably going to pick it up on the stream. You might. You probably did. But it's like, that's why I really appreciate what Jeff did with Dune. And then people were harping on me for always commenting on when I played Dune again after he came in and did his little touch with it. I was like, I'm very audio sensitive. Like, I think that that can honestly make or break a game.
    47:29
    And because, like I said earlier, there may be, like, physical or, like, not completely satisfying kinetic shots that are, like, kinetic satisfying. But that's when you have a sound guy that can come in and go, that when this happens, I can play this sound effect that gives you the audible cue that there's a physical satisfaction to it kind of thing.
    47:54
    I'm trying to keep up. It's so hard to type. I'll talk on the phone. I'll answer mine. Where's my phone?
    48:05
    Well, message me. I don't know how to contact you, Jeff, whether it be through a Facebook Messenger or whatever.
    48:27
    Let's see here. Multiball Saints Multiball? I played that one earlier. Okay. Let's do some more of the sound effects. No, not sound effects. Let's do call-outs. There is this one.
    48:44
    Where is it? The Seance Multiball because it's trying to read all these because I got a good chunk. I requested some assets so I can make the video a little bit better kind of thing. Once I figured out, you know what, I think I can turn my video into a featurette. I think I can do this kind of thing. Going through my footage and the interview, I was like, I think I can do this. And literally from Thursday evening, like every night I put in maybe three or four hours a night until I finished it, I think, Sunday, maybe even Saturday night. So it was a rush job, guys. So I'm not claiming that my featurette is like amazing or anything. That's just what I could do in the allotted time period, guys. Okay. So Jeff has sent me his phone number here.
    49:58
    California. Oh, man. Is this that Terry Hardy guy? This is the guy. You now have my number. I don't know if you want that. What's going on? I'm noticing that your phone number is like 1-800-HOTLIPS. That's weird. Yeah, that's my private business. Welcome to hotlips.com. Oh, my God. I've been talking to you this whole time. I didn't even catch it. That's how good you are at audio. You're like our biggest customer. That's how you are so good at audio. I didn't even realize that you were a transformer. All right. Let's talk about your audio, man. First of all, good job. Thank you. Did your coverage on this is awesome, too. I mean, you turned that video around in, like, record time. I don't even, how?
    50:42
    Just avoiding my children and wife and just sitting in front of a TV or my computer kind of thing. By the way, your rig is sick. I love your Mario World. Like, it looks like a bomb, to be honest. Like some sort of weird. Oh, this thing right here? Yeah. This is pretty cool. This is one of the reasons why I even chose the case. I was like, I need something kind of weird that just kind of has it in the background, because I'm not exactly the most attractive person, so I need to have the audience have something that's pretty to look at.
    51:13
    Well, good thing Enzo's not here, because he would say how beautiful we both are. I don't know. That guy.
    51:19
    So when it comes to the audio on this game, I mean, like, what is your primary goal? So I pitched pretty drastic measures when I was brought on board, and I was like straight up I was like look I want to do complete FM old school Yamaha light sounds on it and everybody was just like you're insane and I was like I think it's going to work like we're trying to make a game that has a lot of character a lot of like personality to it like it just to just do like haunted house door creaks and like gear sounds for like stuff turning around is just boring and uh Carl was like do your thing and I did and it's just you It's a really unique game, and it's the sound of it. It's somewhere in between Bram Stoker's Dracula, and it's also a modern pin, so it's really hybridized.
    52:12
    Carl went to music school. People don't know this. Carl plays trumpet. He went to music school, and he loves movie scores, and we were like, let's try to give every room its own sound, its own voice. You go in the basement, and the heartbeats are driven, and the sound effects, and it pulses a light, and you go into like the Twin Diner rooms, like every single room has its own personality and that was our design goal. That's a lot of rooms. It's a ton of rooms.
    52:40
    That's why I'm like, that sounds like a lot of work for you, man. With all the different sounds and effects and music going into this, like how many tracks of music do you have so far? Oh my God, it's a lot. Let me see. I think we're at least 30 right now and there's several hundreds of sound effects in the game. I'm playing... I don't do that cool feedback thing.
    53:07
    Playing some of the magnet grab. So the magnet grab, that's for the wheelbarrow, right? Yeah. Kind of like halts it and then releases it. That's a good example, too. That's like one of the more pure FM sounds. Because, like, the rotating, the turnstile is amazing. Like, it's a mechanic that, it's rock solid. It functions exactly how you would imagine. and the sound is so like what you would expect that you almost don even like it so transparent the experience and like that we just want people to get sucked in the game it just dope i so stoked for this game man i swear to god well like i saying like when it comes to the sound effects i like well so let me know they they're saying that whenever i play these sound effects they can't hear you so hold on let me play this ghost mega super jackpot so like like earlier guys when he's talking about when i was talking about like a kinetic satisfaction although it may not be actual physical he can add the sound effects like the macro it kind of gives you that appeal of like it sounds much more than it actually is so that's what i was really appreciating about it now i'm like oh i'm like that just the sound makes it more than what it truly is which is great kind of thing you know we're trying to get maximum dopamine right so because all these things play at the same time it's cool to hear them individually but like, you know, the music tracks are designed to have space so that all the sound effects can play over them. All the sound effects are in all the different keys and relative keys for that. So like as you're hitting ramps, like musically at all, like it just plays along. Like the drop targets are the 135 of the chord that the game plays in. So when you hit these drop targets, it like musically works too. So the whole thing, it just feels like overwhelming in like the best possible way. Oh, Jeff, I just got asked and I wish I had the sound. This is another compliment I gave David when I was playing it. The first time I hit that spinner and I heard that spinner sound effect, I was like, oh, my God, I love that spinner. That sound effect is great. Amazing. I kept complimenting about the spinner, but I don't have that audio file. Is there a way that you can, like, I don't think it's going to sound pretty because it's probably going to be just a simple little, like, bloop or whatever the hell it sounds like. It is a simple bloop. I set up a script in my audio program to, like, kind of try to replicate it slowing down so that I could test them. But, like, I'll give Dune the credit for, like, my spinner sounds. I think the spinner is, like, it needs to be one of the most important sounds in the game. Because when you hit it, you're hearing it a ton, right? And, like, Dune provided, obviously, with three spinners, it was just, like, an overwhelming amount of spinner sounds. So I kind of went through spinner boot camp on that game. Guys, I'm sorry I don't have the ability to show you a spinner. But if you tune in, I'm going to assume tomorrow they're going to be doing the gameplay with Carl. Thank you very much, Springer, for the $2 again. I think that tomorrow we'll get the gameplay, and then you'll be able to hear that spinner. But I do enjoy the spinner sound effect for sure.
    55:57
    Awesome. I love hearing all these one-offs. It's great. But I think when people hear the whole package, it's just going to click, and they're going to be like, I get it. This game is trying to be really more than the sum of its parts in the most, like, amazing way. I mean, Carl's amazing design. You know, you're looking at Brad's killer fucking plate-filled artwork. Trent's animations. I mean, Julian's animation for, like, the characters. Like, it really, like, everybody, dude, everybody gives a fuck about this game. We wanted to make a game that was just a risky game and just turned all of the different, like, you know, pinballs going in a stagnant direction. and I can't believe I agree with Kaneda, but he said some shit earlier. It's true, and, like, we took a risk, and I hope it pays off. I hope people appreciate what we're trying to do here. I think so far from the feedback I'm seeing online is very positive. I mean, you're going to have the one-offs, because obviously not every game is going to be for everyone, and I think that's a great thing, honestly. But I think the reception on it so far, I think, is definitely very positive from what we're seeing on it. And I was really hoping to get feedback from David, but evidently he's going to be busy trying to keep his cargo on the road right now.
    57:06
    They're hauling ass to get as many of these up to Expo so that people can play them. I know. If the game's awesome, it's great, but if nobody can play it, what does it matter? And we want to have four amazing working games at Expo for people to play.
    57:20
    So I'm curious, when it comes to audio, what kind of direction do you get? I mean, do you get the video assets first, and then you go, okay, I can figure out what can go with that video effect, or is it the other way around? You do audio and they do video. What's going on there? So I did kind of like a base template of stuff based on just like, you know, I play a lot of pinball, so I have an idea of what this is supposed to be and what the theme is. And so I laid down like a groundwork for us to work with, and Eric integrated all that stuff. And Carl actually lives fairly close to me, so I would drive over to Carl's place and check out the prototype with it, see what the timing was, see what the difference was with all the spinners. And since Carl obviously is set up to record footage with, you know, his experience with pinball and years of decades of broadcasting, he would send me video clips of what stuff looked like. And then from there I would be able to tweak it and adjust it and make sure that it thematically fit and everything else.
    58:12
    Hell yeah, man. But yeah, I'm, I'm definitely enjoying what I'm hearing with the game and I'm, I don't know if they're going to be able to bring like headphones for every game. Um, and I don't even know how many people would put them on. I mean, we'll see, but I plan to have one of them set up for headphones. for people that really want the audio experience. But, you know, it's Expo. Yeah. That's one thing I know that people are just not going to be able to really appreciate. It's the same thing with Dune is the way you utilize the bass. I'm like, oh, I love that low. I mean, you can't really feel it unless it's like, you know, you can really hear it. And I think at a show it's going to be really hard to get that. It's going to be challenging. It is. But, you know, the best part about Expo is a bunch of people get to come and play the game. The worst part is that it's not like the most ideal environment to experience it. But, you know, it's going to sound amazing regardless of it being in a fucking super loud concrete box. Yeah, that's for sure. They're going to have a room upstairs or downstairs.
    59:14
    So June's in its own private room. I feel like we're on the bottom floor next to JJP, as far as I know. I've never actually been to Expo, so I should preface that, that this is my first experience. But we have been talking about how to best present the game and some of the challenges of the environment. And, you know, I've interviewed Rob Burke on my podcast. So, you know, I feel like I know what we're getting into, but at the same token, it's just like, I just don't care. I want people to play a fucking game and be like, this is for you, you know, the pinball populace. People have been rallying behind it, too. You know, they're like, look, like, it's a game that's, you know, not a real IP, but at the same token, they're like, I'm curious. And I love that. And, like, I know someone that's really into haunted houses, and it was killing me not to give him a heads up. Not what the theme was or anything, but I even wanted to, like, let him know, like, hey, just so you know, a theme is headed your way. But I didn't even give him a hint or anything. I didn't say shit. But I was like, I hit him up after the release. I was like, but he was busy working. But he was, like, majorly into haunted houses and everything, and he's really loving what he's seeing. He's like, oh, I've been to the Winchester house plenty of damn times. that's awesome it's funny how many people are aware of what the winchester i didn't know anything about it when david told me about this i was just like the what like i have no idea what you're talking about uh but i was like but i like you know i think a haunted house is cool and no matter what like i'm in so even if you don't know what the winchester is you know what a haunted house is and that's it it's a haunted house game you know russell thank you very much right there for the 20 very much appreciated love you man uh someone was asking if they could bring their own headphones Do you know if there, I don't think there's a headphone jack, is there? So the output for it is an eighth-inch jack, so, like, you can just override the audio out of the box. But, you know, you've got to take the back glass off. I just, I don't think, I doubt that that's going to be a possibility, but we are trying to have a headphone jack.
    61:08
    Russell, like, Russell, are you drinking? Will the game be at Expo? I'm sorry if I didn't answer the first time. I got to be careful about him. Sometimes he starts drinking at night, and he's like, stop streaming because I drink, and I sometimes send you too much money. So, well, the game is. Send Russell over to our channel. Yeah.
    61:29
    Houston Arcade Expo. I would like to think that the game would be there. That I cannot answer. That's a damn question. I mean, I would think it would be, but don't hold me to that, Russell.
    61:39
    You know what? If David would pick up his damn phone, I would be able to answer that for you. But I would like to think, since they're right there, that it would just make sense. Double-dose superchats. No, actually. No, you think, no, accidentally hit it twice. Oh, my God, Russell.
    61:54
    Oh, no. Oh, man. No tagbacks. No refunds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's mine now, bitch. You better, hold on, let me build this one. This is the call-out for the seance multiball. Hold on. calling spirits near and far through shattered mirror and guiding star we summon now beyond the wall begin the science again i got fucking goosebumps on that one man so it's funny there's actually there's some story behind this stuff because uh i can i can i can contribute to this so i know even though i can hear it these these are poetry lines that carl had written that he wanted specifically for the ramp up to Seance Multiball. So, like, when this happens, there's this exactly 12-second build of just, like, this cacophony of noise as this poetry is being spoken. And he was like, people are going to be mad at me, but I don't care. You cannot skip this. It's like it's part of the experience of Seance Multiball. And so I had to take all these readings because there's, like, seven or eight of them. Because the other thing, like, there's currently over 450 call-outs in the game. And it's because there's so many different variations because Carl was adamant about how the experience needed to not be repetitive. So there's like six different seance multiball starts, and all of them needed to be timed so that it says multiball exactly when the multiball video starts to play. So we had to do some post-audio wizardry of time stretching them to try to make sure that the moment happened at the right time.
    63:28
    Comments are looking pretty good. Like, these are over-the-top call-ups. Like I said, guys, whenever I was hearing it, I was like, man, I was like, this is really good. Let me play the other Tomb in the Attic Seance Multiball. Calling spirits near and far. From tomb to attic, near and bizarre. Your tethered voices heed the call. It's time for Seance Multiball!
    63:53
    Oh, the added reverb and everything on there just makes it even sweeter. I love it. Amazing. Is there a real knocker in there? I don't know. I never activated the thing. I didn't play well enough to activate the damn knocker, but I would like to. I hope there is. Replay satisfaction.
    64:13
    It'll be the same as Dune. I mean, the framework inside is the same as Dune, as far as I know. I would like to think there's an actual real knocker in there, guys, because when I was talking about things that they need to implement, it's like random knocker sounds that, you know, to get you kind of going, what the hell was that? Like your game is possessed kind of thing.
    64:29
    I mean, to your point about making the ball searcher, I'm sorry, the track mode have certain things trigger. Like, that's on the list. But we wanted to make sure that, like I said, the audio package, the call-outs were in. Like, we want to show that a complete package is possible with a delivery for a new game. Carl does a really good breakdown of, like, what's in the game, how many rooms, how many multiballs. But, like, you know, you're getting a game. It's just, that's what it is.
    64:55
    Hell yeah, man. All right, man, thanks for your input on here. I'm going to let you go on here, but I'm glad to talk to you about this and kind of wish we probably should have planned ahead and had you here on video and everything.
    65:07
    I'll talk for about this game all day. I was telling David as I was watching, like, it was the unedited version of the, I think, behind the scenes or the making of when you were talking to Carl. And I'm like, I'm so jealous of Jess' microphone. Like, he always sounds like there's a microphone, like, right in front of him. And it's nowhere to be fucking found. I'm like, it's so good on audio that you can't even see how good he is It's hiding off camera I know, but it's like it just picks up just your voice and it's clear as day I'm like, damn it, here I am I have to get so many inches away from mine to be somewhat decent for crying out loud Yeah, but you've got that sexy radio voice with that sure mic, you know Definitely don't have a good enough voice as this call-out's do but all right all right jeff thanks for reaching out man all right appreciate it later man bye all right that was jeff from dirty pool pinball um and he is in charge of the entire audio package that you are getting on this game and i'm glad that he took over on dune because that really enhanced that game so i'm definitely curious to get everyone's feedback when they play this game this week at Expo. And if you don't play this week, don't worry. Like I said, they should be dropping the complete gameplay with Carl D'Angelo tomorrow. I would like to hope it's tomorrow. Don't catch me lying, but I think it is tomorrow. If David would just answer my phone call, then I would be able to tell you. But I'll let him drive.
    66:43
    It will be going, I will be going to it first thing on Thursday. Yeah, I'm curious to where the games are going to be. Evidently, there's going to be some on the floor, but Dune's going to have its own little special room. So I wish they would have gone through putting a small relic from the house on the game. I heard they decided against it. Yeah, that was a part of the featurette. I think I'll probably release the unedited version of my featurette, of the whole dialogue on my Patreon, guys, for you. But part of that, they were talking about how they could have, like, taken, whether it be a curtain or a piece of the couch, like Elvira or whatever, and put a little piece of that into every one of the games they could have. But you would be surprised. There is evidently a lot of people out there that believe it to be bad juju to have things like that inside their machines. So evidently they've sent a lot of things like this out to people, whether it be a small portion of the thing. And then people just feel like it's got a bad spirit or whatever, and they end up returning it to the Winchester house. And it's funny. I've even seen comments online in regards to the faux Ouija board on the apron. And people see a Ouija board and they go, nope, I'm saying no just because of the Ouija board type of thing. There are people that are that, like, superstitious and everything. And there was even a thought at one point in time to having it to where they could probably make maybe 666 games. but it's actually a bad marketing example to do something like that because there's a lot of people out there that don't like that number 666, and it would basically deter people from potentially buying a product, not just pinball, but all products in regards to something like that. Just market research for you right there, guys.
    68:39
    Will there be a chopper, cheap plexi castle with a few LEDs? I asked them about a topper, and there's not going to be a topper for this game.
    68:53
    Let's see here. Can't make Expo, so it would be cool if they had the game in Houston. Yeah, I'll try to find out whether or not the game will be in Houston. Kind of wish I would have asked that question.
    69:06
    Between this and Dune, is BOF going to steal the show at Expo? Maybe. See, I think due to the fact that Stern didn't show off The Walking Dead this week like it was anticipated to do, I think that's going to open up the door for all the smaller manufacturers out there. It's a good and bad thing. It's bad for Stern that they're not going to have a stronger presence at Pinball Expo, one of the biggest shows of the year. They're going to be showing off their Star Wars, and it could be good. All I'm saying is right now, the feedback I'm getting, the things that I'm seeing, I'm not excited about it. But I'm definitely going to play it at the Expo, and it could be great. Watch it be a game that I freaking love. But I'll play it at the Expo. But it's bad for Stern with that being their only game that they're going to be showcasing. But it's going to be good for all the other manufacturers out there, particularly the smaller ones, like Turner Pinball, like Barrels of Fun, like, you know, Hell, Jersey Jack. They're fine. They're coasting off on their Harry Potters right now. And Spooky, they're not going to have a booth, but they will have Evil Deads. I believe one of the distros is going to have a booth there with like four Evil Deads. And Spooky doesn't have anything to worry about. They're coasting. They're good.
    70:31
    Looking forward to hearing the release of Spooky's new game. Yep, I think we all are. Hopefully before December.
    70:41
    That's a hopefully. There is no date set. But if it's like it was on their last release, I would just say let's go towards that.
    70:54
    I know they're pumping out their Evil Dead right now. I want to say they're in the 800s is what I was hearing. So they're right there. They're getting towards the end of the tunnel.
    71:06
    Spooky confirmed the rumors because of this announcement. It will be between Barrels of Fun and Spooky.
    71:20
    Well, I mean, everybody's seen what Spooky has to offer so far for at least Pinball Expo. But, I mean, a lot of people probably haven't played Evil Dead yet. So that's going to be their chance to play that game. A lot of people still haven't played Harry Potter. They're going to get a chance to play that. I think we're going to see a bunch of Star Wars games from Tilt Amusements, and we'll see how that goes. But I foresee a lot of Star Wars, and I foresee a lot of people putting a game on Star Wars and then making their way over to other manufacturers.
    71:56
    That's my prediction. we shall see how it goes still two days till Expo CGC is due for an announcement yeah but you know CGC moves at the speed of smell so I don't think that they're going to announce anything just yet not till they get towards the end of their Merlin editions I think you're forgetting the greatest game of all time at Pinball Expo Pinball Adventures Elements Todd Walking Dead, Chance for Stardust, to redeem themselves. A lot of fans out. I think this is, I know that last week I did make a video and talked about The Walking Dead, and you're like, guys, you sound pretty confident that The Walking Dead's coming out this week. And I'm like, at the time, yes, I was.
    72:45
    And as things went by, more information came out. Star Wars needs more time to breathe. I think last year when they had X-Men And then they decided to drop Metallica Remastered It cannibalized the sales of X-Men Because a lot of people want the new and shiny And Star Wars as of right now It's selling It's doing, you know, good Distros are selling them, they're moving them But they're just not moving them as fast or as well as they were expecting to because it's Star Wars. But I think, slash hope, that they're starting to understand is that we're a little tired of Star Wars. The fatigue is real. It is there. There's no denying it. Give it a break for a bit. I know you paid a lot of money for your multi-year contract with them. Let it go for a while.
    73:49
    I have more dunes coming in. Yep. should drop The Walking Dead first. It's October. Yep, it's one of those things that makes sense. And for all we know, they may still drop it towards the end, closer to Halloween. There's still that possibility. I just know that from what I'm told, it's not going to be at Expo.
    74:10
    So, I mean, technically, if Stern wanted to basically kind of steal some of the limelight, they really could drop and provide a Walking Dead remastered. But like I said, I think they need Star Wars to move more units.
    74:29
    William, well, Disney killed it. Star needs to start taking some more risks. That's the thing. They don't want to do that. They can't do that.
    74:40
    It should be at Expo. Oh, well, yeah. In case those of you have not noticed this, over the course of multiple months,
    74:51
    the moves the Stardust Making are safe. Like, this will satisfy the majority kind of thing. Or this will satisfy, you know, just right there. This is the sweet spot kind of thing. I think the last risk that they took kind of bit them a little bit. Can anybody guess what the last risk was?
    75:17
    In my opinion, at least. I want to say the last risk thing that they took was X-Men allowing that layout. Yep, Kirk Hobbs is right there.
    75:31
    X-Men, uncanny X-Men. And here's the thing, guys. How refreshing was it when we saw that game for the first time? it was like a breath of fresh air. It was like, whoa, we've never seen this before. Or at least we haven't seen it in so long that it made it to where it was new. Something like, ooh, like Stern's trying something different. This is great. And if you had an X-Men that was dialed into perfection, then you had a great shooting game. And then the code was something to be, you know, That's another rabbit hole that could be going down. But yeah, since then, I think they were like, well, let's get things back in the center. We tried going off center. Let's get back to being in the straight and narrow, safe.
    76:22
    Disney. Freaking Star Wars. I wanted to love X-Men. And I think as a buddy of mine, he's got an X-Men. He's got a premium. I've gone over there and I play it, and I still love how it shoots. Gaves you a great Christmas vacation Would sell it licensed when we get Christmas themed That Christmas theme would be a hard sell I think I mean we're getting something a little closer to like The Halloween type of things you know But I think it spreads more than just Halloween A haunted house spreads more than just Halloween That kind of goes across All times of the year technically In a way It just kind of highlights more around the Halloween time But Christmas I think that's going to be a hard sell it was nice but jd had well i don't i don't know if my stream is still going or if my chrome just crashed let's see okay it looks like it's still there but okay my chrome just went errors occurred so all right so were there any other questions in regards to um Winchester because we kind of got off topic right there a lot are there any concerns I mean I want to be able to hopefully answer and satiate any possible concerns out there in regards to what you're seeing so far and it's one of those things like I'm right there with you guys When it comes to, I think there's been, I think the top, there's been two complaints, and a lot of it, and these are the things that I was telling David. I was like, these are some of the negatives that you're going to get from the public. One of the things, like this, because he told me the price. I was like, what are you pricing this at? And he said, you know, 11.6. And I was like, why kind of thing? And the reason behind that is because he's had to bring in more people for development, R&D and everything, more people into production areas. He's had to increase his staff. And so that's part of it. And the other part is the tariffs are involved kind of thing in that as well. I mean, I'm not going over exact figures with you guys, but it's pretty substantial, evidently, when it comes to ordering things. And I'm not going to sit there and be like, show me proof. Prove it to me. Give me the documentation. I want to see for sure that you're not just, you know, yanking my chain on this. But, you know, tariffs are affecting that. So that is a part of it kind of thing. But I think something also that people don't realize when it comes to original themes and non-licensed. So they think, like, oh, it's non-licensed, therefore the game should be a lot cheaper. Okay. So I get you because I was thinking the same thing, guys. But you've got to think, since it's not licensed, since it's an original theme, you don't have any assets.
    79:30
    Where do those assets come from? They have to be created. So, someone has to create something from close to nothing. And that takes time. Can you imagine how long it would have taken someone to animate or create Harry Potter scenes from nothing? versus them going, let's take this scene from the movie, ta-da, there it is.
    79:59
    So, just something to think about there. Something people don't really seem to think about. I mean, if you ask manufacturers, would you rather have a licensed theme or an original theme? I would think a lot of them would lean towards the licensed, because a lot of the assets would be provided kind of thing and that would take a lot of the work away kind of thing Like yeah they paying for it but they also saving some money
    80:28
    I'm going to have them call me. Let's see here. We might get David on here, guys. Audio chipping. testing one two three might be internet let me know if the audio gets better if my internet goes to shit is that better than dune audio fine they're behind my internet goes to crap right before i get david venez here on the phone still doing it. I don't really know what else I could do on the audio front. It looks like I should have a pretty good connection. Let me see if I can hear what you're talking about.
    81:22
    What you're talking about. I don't want you to have to hear that. In and out. I mean, I should be coming in loud and clear right here.
    81:33
    Your audio is perfect. Thank you, Matt. I don't know. We'll see. I mean, as far as I can tell, it looks like I have a solid interconnection. so David's getting off the road right now we'll see if he gives me a call
    81:57
    they need to reset their phones what happened to your pinball row okay so I guess we could talk a little bit about that. Let me go over here to this view. So the pinball row is still here. I'm just missing King Kong right here. But another game should hopefully arrive the week after Expo, but maybe not. We'll see. Also, Tales of the Arabian Nights. I have a buyer lined up, and we'll see if that gets booted out the door as well.
    82:33
    And I know some of you all be like Why are you getting rid of Tales of the Arabian Nights? Because no one plays the damn game I play it And when I play it I beat it It's a pretty game Not denying that But I beat it every time I play it Most of the time And the wife I've had to twist her arm basically To allow me to get rid of it I don't want to have a game that I don't play.
    83:04
    And that was one of the reasons why I moved Kong when I did. I just didn't want to play it anymore. I was done. Later. I'll play it later whenever the code improves. But I'm not going to sit here on a game that I don't play.
    83:18
    People were like, oh, you only had Kong for this long. You should have held on to it for another three or four months for the code to improve. How about no? if I'm not enjoying the game with the code being somewhat decent I mean like I want to still be able to enjoy and have fun on a game even though the code is somewhat in the works kind of thing but I'm not going to sit here on a Kong and wait and hope that something changes with the code sell it to Ralph or help Haswine yeah By the way, I got you down for the handle of Makers, correct?
    84:05
    I don't know, man. We'll see how Expo goes. I don't know if I'm going to drink all of that, for damn sure.
    84:11
    How's CD been for you guys? Here's the other thing, Hector, is that I've got a recent comment on one of my videos in regards to Circus Voltaire. And nothing personal. I love, cannot get enough of those comments. Nothing personal. And then they get personal. It's like, but I was getting, like, some crap for the game selection that I've got back here. Whenever I got rid of Kong, like, oh, judging by what you have behind you, I could tell that, you know, you just need to get better at pinball. The comment was cracking me up. But I was like, first of all, I'm borrowing Circus Voltaire. It's not a keeper kind of thing. And again, Hector, I'm the only one that plays it. I got it for the wife. She don't play it.
    85:13
    It's funny how we were talking about which machines are going and survivors on the TV in the background. Yeah. She is watching the survival girl We're going to figure out which machine Is going to get voted off this damn game room So Let's see here I know how we can get David on here Pretty quick We'll play a little bit Of gameplay of Carl playing It's Carl playing it not me So If you feel like or think that it doesn't shoot well It's on Carl. He designed the game.
    85:50
    We'll play just a little bit of it. Which one was it? Okay, so it was this one right here. All right, let's go over here.
    86:11
    Let me take it off that transition. I don't like that. alright so we'll play just a little bit of this I think this was his first game to play on arriving there so it was one of those where his first time to play a game that's got the art package we can turn the lights off Make it more romantic if you want to.
    86:46
    Give you that ambiance. You could kind of hear that sound a little bit. Romantic mode activated. But, yeah, so there's a little bit. I mean, it's not giving you the best viewpoint. So tomorrow, whenever they release the gameplay, that's going to be better for you kind of thing. come on David I'm going to call him again I told him to call me but he's not calling me am I selling Circus? No Circus isn't mine I'm selling Tales of the Arabian Nights though that's the other thing is guys that this game in a dark room I didn't need any extra lighting to light up the play filter or anything. The lights that are on the side of the game light up the play filter just fine. And if there's a moment where it looks dark or is dark, it's because it's on purpose, because you're in a creepy haunted house kind of thing. So when you're playing the basement, like I'm talking about, and it's dark, and you have just... There he is! Alright. Let's get David on the horn here.
    88:04
    Hey, Buttercup. How you doing, sweetie? So I'm live right now, and I've got you on a microphone, so don't go too descriptive on your feelings on me and everything. But currently got over 150 people right here watching, going over, talking about your game and everything. Wow. How are you today? I just wanted to give you a congratulations on your full launch today. I think it's going very well, and I just wanted to get your feedback on the whole experience today. So my whole experience was, A, I'm in a hotel halfway between Texas and Chicago. Well, no, halfway through Texas. And I think everything went to exactly how we wanted them to go. And loaded up the truck, and then the door didn't work, and we had to unload the truck and reload it again. So it's just been dandy. Oh, God. So I don't even know if you have exact figures, but I guess the rumblings that we're hearing so far from the distros is that at least half of your allotment of Winchesters have been accounted for, I guess, deposit-wise. That is correct. So I don't have exact numbers, but we are over 50% for sure.
    89:26
    Nice. from the feedback I'm reading online I think it's definitely very positive and I've been playing some of the sound effects and audio I had Jeff come on here for a little bit like I got with you right now when we talked about the game people are really enjoying the audio that they're hearing so far mate we uh you have no idea how excited the team is to get people to play this and what they're going to experience at Chicago is not even the full extent of what Kyle wants in this game. And at the beginning of all this, this is what, you know, letting Kyle do what he wanted to do. Let's make one of the best haunted house pinball machines we could make. And I think the Winchester is going to be that.
    90:17
    Yeah, I think it's looking pretty good so far from the feedback I'm getting online. A lot of the Haunted House fans, a lot of people, I'm even seeing people that didn't even know what it is, but after they looked into it and dove into it, they were like, hell yeah. And then I'm even seeing people in chat. I mean, I don't know how 100% accurate it is, but I'm seeing people in chat after just playing some of the audio they put in a deposit. So I don't know. Yeah, I think the biggest thing I potentially see is people are going to miss out. I've got a couple of friends already like, well, I'm waiting to play it at the show. and I'm like, I don't want to be, everyone will be yelling at me now on the team, like, don't say this.
    90:58
    But, like, you know, I'm concerned that there's people that have bought our previous games and they want to come and play the game at the show, which I want them to do. But there's a legit fear, because they have every game we've made so far. I really don't want them to miss out not having this one in the collection. so it's like you know x names like hey man like he's telling me i can't wait to see you again hopefully you remember me so of course i remember you and uh yeah i want to i want to play it before put my money down i'm like okay that that's cool but when i see the numbers rolling in i'm like dude i don't want to tell you better put your name down because i'm concerned you may miss out You know, and that's not what we intended to do, you know. So, but it's a good feeling too, don't get me wrong. Yeah, so like is Dune going to have its own room with these games? I mean, what's the setup going to be like? So the setup is we're going to have a tent on the floor where you'll experience Dune and Winchester under a tent scenario. So you should be able to get a much better light scenario of how the lighting and the immersion of that. but the room that we'll have on Friday and Saturday night will be... I'm torn. I don't know how many games we're going to take up there. It could be one of each. It could be two of each. But I want to very much not over-limit it, but make sure people can hear the audio and the visual package of both games.
    92:28
    So one will be on one side of the room, the other one will be on the other side, and people will be able to experience how they're intended to be.
    92:36
    Hell yeah. I was trying to see if there's any other questions. Chad, do you got any questions for David while I got him on the horn a little bit? I'm sure he's already worn out. We're in Texas. You said you're halfway through Texas. Where are you? We're at Lufkin right now, actually.
    92:49
    I don't even know where the hell that's at. That is... It sounds familiar. I guess I've just never been there before. It's like far east, isn't it? Yeah, far east. Yeah. Me and Carl D'Angelo are trumping through the United States together. That's how it was intended. So I've got the usual question, shipping estimate. I'm guessing, like, when do you plan on shipping? I think I've stated that you expect to be shipping this month. Absolutely. This is a Halloween game, so we want to be shipping at Halloween. We have pots in-house. There's still a few to be coming in and needs to be chewed seed and get the goods to go with it. But, yeah, we're going to be shipping at the end of the month. now also you've got to remember we're going to be ramping up so it's not going to be as fast as you know as they're all going to get hit at once where there's a learning curve for everyone on the line to build this game and also this will be the first time we'll be doing two games at once which was we always intended to do this so it's just going to be a learning curve for everyone online. It's going to be a learning career for us in management.
    94:02
    But again, we don't want to rush these out. We want to make sure they're good. We're going to make sure we support it and do the best we can. I'm getting a question. Someone's asking if you are hiring on the production floor. We are hiring on the production floor. But you've got to live in Houston. You'd be surprised how many people say can we get a job? And it's like, are you in Houston? No. That doesn't work.
    94:27
    Let's see, how long has the game been in development? This, gosh. It was before we even released the game. So regarding licensing, we had secured Winchester, Dune, and Labyrinth before the company even was publicly known back in October 13 when we launched Labyrinth. This is the last IP before you'll see the new IPs from where the studios and the licenses knew us as a pinball company.
    95:00
    Your hard hitters, your big bangers. Oh, yeah. Where there's going to be a little more constriction on Carl there. What he can and can't do. Just a few more. But actually, you know, it's kind of funny, like the overwhelming support for this. I mean, this is pretty much as close to the original IP as you're going to get, and we've got a couple of other little ones that I picked up just because I think it will be fun to do. And seeing the encouragement from this, it really gives me high hopes for these other little ones that we've got that hit our nostalgia, hits our demographic, low-run numbers, and they're going to allow us to do some really stupid stuff, just like Winchester has. And it gives me hope. Maybe there is truth behind people want sort of original themes where you can just go a little bit silly. So here's another question. I guess I'll back this up. I don't know how we always talk in the hobby and about, you know, original themes versus licensed themes. I mean, like if this game like sells all the way through, is that encouragement for you to look for another type of like original type of, you know, things to do down the road? Oh, 100%. So here's the thing. I've always battled this with people. You know, they talk about they want original things, but they never buy them. And that has been true for a long, long time.
    96:27
    Because what people think of an original theme, for example, Man of Madness, Whitewater, are games that weren't really that successful back in the day. But people who live with these games for so long, they become nostalgic to them, you know, and people recognize them how great those games are. But that took time. So when they think of an original theme, it's not really an original theme. It's an original theme that's been around a long time that actually has gotten its own kind of licensing in a way, if you know what I mean. So it's great to find licenses or original IPs, which we do have some ideas that we would love to do. And this gives me, yeah, I mean, this really does give me a contract. And we can maybe do some even weirder stuff. Yeah. All right. Well, one more question, and then I'm going to let you go. I'm going to wrap this stream up. I mean, how's Carl doing? How's he taking everything?
    97:23
    Carl is Carl. He's quiet. He's happy. Yeah, it's been an extremely exciting experience for him. And, you know, more power to him. He's led this team really, really well, and, you know, we're already talking about other things that we will be doing, what we were talking about before that, but it's just even more encouragement. Well, yeah. All right. Well, I look forward to seeing you guys up there at Expo. I'll be there Wednesday at some point in time. But, yeah, so just wanted to reach out to you, bad people on chat right here. Just thought I'd get your feedback on how your initial launch day was and everything. but it looks like it went pretty damn good. Look, I can't express my gratitude for the texts, the emails. I should have left Houston at least four hours before I did.
    98:22
    All I can say is the outpouring of support for an IP like this, again, that no one really has asked for. but when you let us get creative and you let us go you know if we have the freedom to be as you know what we can put in these games I can't wait for you guys to see what else we can do alright now I want to say one more but I remember someone was asking will we see this game at Houston Arcade Expo next month certainly will you will see this so you will be seeing this game going out to locations between now and obviously shipping. They will be very, very slow shipping, but the bulk of the shipping will start at the end of the month. So you'll see something on the West Coast. Hopefully you'll see something on the East Coast. You'll see a couple of games go out here and there. Europe, Australia. But again, I'm not going to rush these out because I want to make sure they're good, but we will be making them. Just remember, when we first launched Labyrinth, by the end of the 12 months, we had already shipped 850-plus games. so we're not going away we're going to manufacture these games we're not going to take forever there's too many other games we want to make and we can't wait to share every single one with you guys alright so are we getting the Carl's I keep saying one more question are we getting Carl's gameplay footage tomorrow well apparently I accidentally flicked it on this morning that you gracefully pointed out so I appreciate that so yes I will be on the road driving but yeah I will probably flip that on later on today unless people just want to wait to experience an expo ask them whatever I'm doing they want to see gameplay or do I want to wait to experience an expo what kind of question you know they're going to want this shit now who are you talking to these people want this shit now I showed them just a little bit of the footage I had of Carl playing it for the first time but I didn't show them a lot I figured you guys wanted a much better control visual of what the game looks like, especially with someone playing it. So, yeah, they're saying now. Release it now. Now. See it now.
    100:40
    Let's leave it for tomorrow. And, again, what Kyle has shot for you guys will be just a taste of what it is going down to the basement. But even, Kyle, from what Kyle shot and, Kerry, what you played, there's even been changes since then. Okay. I have such an amazing team with Eric and Trent and Julian and Josh. I mean, everyone from David Fawcett. Like, I feel so blessed with the rock team, the rock star team that I have. And I know I drive them crazy, but they also, you know, take it to the ultimate. and I just, with Brian and my family, I just, like, I just, I can't wait to play this with you guys. Well, actually, I'll get to watch you guys because I don't want to take everyone's time when they're playing it. I've been telling everybody, too, especially since you even mentioned it in the featurette, that, you know, if these guys think that they have a good idea to tell you about it, and by all means, if you agree, then you'll be writing this stuff down and trying to figure out how you can implement it in the game. this is the only IP that we have public that we will be able to add we've got to obviously stay somewhat safe but if you have spooky really crazy ideas bring them on because we have the team to make it we've expanded the animators, we've expanded our team overall this is a game where people can truly change how the game's going to play now I know Eric's like shut up David but we truly can actually do some really cool stuff in this game. And, I mean, Terry, I think you experienced some of the creepy moments. Yeah, I'm actually getting some feedback from you right now. Johnny Button's like a physical knocker. There's one in this game, physical knocker, right?
    102:31
    No, there isn't. What? There's no actual physical knocker, but we've got sound effects that make you go through your skull. Oh, come on, David. Get a physical knocker in there. Are you killing me, Smalls? I thought there was one in there.
    102:46
    Well, guys, I... See, it sounded that good. It sounded that good, guys. But, yeah, someone mentioned, like, a knock three times seance. You know, you could hear, like, the... We've been playing, like, we've been wanting to put haptic feedback speakers into a pinball machine for a long time.
    103:04
    We didn't get around on this one because it just didn't make sense with what we were doing with this game. But, yeah, I mean, bringing the ideas. I want to hear it. Midnight Madness, Dustin Echoes mentions right here. So they're playing the game at midnight. Maybe that game should shut off and something really freaky should happen kind of thing, you know?
    103:23
    You know, it's funny because Jeff has been playing with a lot of audio settings, and he's found a way where it feels like the audio is actually behind your head on some of the stuff, like sweeping left to right. So I don't know if that's just a personal, like, individual thing, but he does them pretty crazy like a doobie swinging around your head type of sound effects. Yeah, everybody's been complimenting the audio that I was playing for him and everything. But all right, man, I'm going to let you get some sleep, whatever it is. I know you've got to get on the road again. I'm going to wrap up this stream. I've been on here for like an hour and like 45 minutes. We're crying out loud. Actually, email-wise, I'm actually not looking too showy. Email, I have approximately only 20 emails. So that's fine. Okay, someone's asked about Topper. I think you've already said there's no Topper for the game, right? No Topper coming free with the game, but we do have a Topper in the works. Oh. We do have accessories. Again, if it needed to be in the game, it will be in the game already. If there's some accessories that can enhance the experience but doesn't affect gameplay, then if we can do it, we're going to make it happen. But I will tell you, the world current events has been quite trying on doing any really additional stuff. Got you. All right, David, thanks very much for calling, and we'll let you go. Thanks for hopping on here for a bit. I'm sure the audience appreciates also the feedback that you're giving them and answers to the questions, and I think a lot of them definitely look forward to getting their hands on this game at Pinball Expo, man. Mate, we're open door here, man. and I hope they come up and have a chit-chat and play Dune and play Labyrinth and play, obviously, Winchester. There's a lot of different stuff going around. All right, David. I'll catch you later, man. Take care, everyone. All right. Bye.
    105:19
    All right, guys. There you go. Ow! Shit. That's not funny. It's the funny bone, but it's not funny. Fuck.
    105:35
    Oh. Damn it. Anyways. Man. On that note, I'm going to end this damn stream and go cry a little bit. My God.
    105:54
    But hopefully gave you guys some information, some my thoughts and feelings on the game and everything for those that came in late. Sorry, but it's earlier in the stream when I talk about it. But it's not very humorous yet. But I was trying to think if there was anything else I needed to mention about it. But, yeah, I think definitely target for the home, for people to really dissect and play this for a large length amount of time, and part of that's going to be learning the shots. But he said that they've already made more adjustments since I inflated. So for all I know, maybe the staircase to nowhere shot, maybe I can make it.
    106:38
    We'll see. All right, guys, I will catch you on the flip side or later or however I want to say it. But love you a long time, and peace out.
    106:57
    Thank you.