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Episode 99 – Hot Garbage

Head2Head Pinball·podcast_episode·1h 59m·analyzed·Jul 8, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.021

TL;DR

Pintastic recap + Deep Root news + Joe hates Thunderbirds

Summary

Head2Head Pinball hosts Martin and Joe discuss their Pintastic 2024 experience, including tournament play, time with designer Christopher Franchi, and frustrations with Pirates of the Caribbean's limited availability. They cover news from This Week in Pinball's Deep Root facility tour (featuring multiple unnamed games in development), the sold-out Brisbane Masters tournament, a National Pinball Day petition, and Joe's first experience with Thunderbirds—a Home Pin machine he describes as fundamentally broken with poor design, uncomfortable controls, and terrible animation.

Key Claims

  • Pirates of the Caribbean is completely sold out; even Standard versions are gone

    high confidence · Joe discussing Pintastic experience; mentions seeing very limited inventory

  • Mr. Pinball (Australia) may still have Pirates of the Caribbean units available

    medium confidence · Martin states they have some left in Australia, references MrPinball.com.au

  • The last shipment of Alien machines (approximately 20 units) was sent to Mr. Pinball and shipped worldwide

    medium confidence · Martin discussing Australia's pinball inventory

  • Deep Root facility has empty production section; unclear if production has started

    medium confidence · Martin discussing This Week in Pinball article about Jeff Patterson's Deep Root tour

  • Magic Girl shipped with incomplete mechanics—only the middle shot worked; all magnets and upper playfield features were non-functional

    high confidence · Martin recalling streaming Magic Girl; Joe stating the 'actual magic was not there'

  • Brisbane Masters tournament sold out at 160 players, first time as Stern Pro Circuit event

    high confidence · Martin reporting on Australian tournament news

  • National Pinball Day petition is live and tracking signatures in real-time

    high confidence · Joe and Martin discussing active petition; signatures shown as 1,277+ during recording

  • Thunderbirds has fundamentally broken ramp mechanics—the main ramp functions as a jump ramp and air balls frequently

    high confidence · Joe describing firsthand experience playing Thunderbirds at Pintastic

Notable Quotes

  • “I really miss that game, and that game's amazing, and it really aggravates me there's not more of them.”

    Joe @ early in episode — Expresses frustration about Pirates of the Caribbean's limited production and high demand

  • “You locked a ball, and you lost your ball here, have your ball back.”

    Joe @ Thunderbirds discussion — Describes absurd ball lock mechanic in Thunderbirds where locks reset on ball drain

  • “This does not work. I played that and the entire time I was going, why is this a thing?”

    Martin @ Thunderbirds section — Direct condemnation of Thunderbirds; states he won't normally discuss Home Pin but makes exception here

  • “I don't know if I'm ever going to do that thing again. That was such a cluster F.”

    Joe @ Trash Talker tournament discussion — Joe expresses regret about winning Trash Talker tournament despite title defense pressure

  • “The actual magic was not there.”

    Martin @ Magic Girl discussion — Summarizes Magic Girl's incomplete state—beautiful but non-functional mechanics

  • “I found as many Tommy Dollars as I could, and I covered the entire, like, bottom glass of Lord of the Rings.”

    Joe @ Trash Talker tournament discussion — Joe's only way of enjoying the Trash Talker tournament was passive-aggressive obstruction

  • “It literally has the worst DMD I've ever seen. Like, it has worse animation than Gottlieb's did.”

    Joe @ Thunderbirds criticism — Joe compares Home Pin's animation quality unfavorably to 1980s Gottlieb machines

  • “The flipper buttons, it's like you're playing... those inlet buttons that concave in... Super uncomfortable to flip.”

    Joe @ Thunderbirds controls section — Identifies ergonomic failure in button design that degrades play experience

Entities

MartinpersonJoepersonChristopher FranchipersonTeolispersonEricpersonBowdenpersonJeff PattersonpersonBarry Ourslerperson

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Brisbane Masters tournament sold out at 160 players with international attendance (Escher Lefkopf, Bowden, Colin Urban coming from US); first Stern Pro Circuit event in Australia signaling growing international tournament infrastructure

    high · Martin states '160 players for the main tournament. That's amazing... first time it's a Stern Pro Circuit event'

  • ?

    machine_intel: Deep Root facility confirmed working on multiple games including designs from Barry Alsler (5+ projects), Dennis Nordman designs, Magic Girl remake, and one game with 'most ambitious mech ever attempted'

    high · Jeff Patterson's TWIP facility tour article detailing specific designers and game titles (Raza Retro, Atomic Zomba, Adventureland, Magic Girl, licensed IP title, throwback with ambitious mech)

  • ?

    product_concern: Magic Girl shipped with non-functional core mechanics (all magnets, upper playfield features, ball locks); only middle shot operational; represents significant QA/production failure

    high · Martin: 'shipped out a machine that had everything in it... but some of it either wasn't connected or there was no code'; 'beautiful box of lights'

  • ?

    product_concern: Thunderbirds (Home Pin) exhibits fundamental design flaws: main ramp air balls consistently, lock mechanic resets on drain creating infinite cycle, unclear shot geometry, poor button ergonomics, low-quality DMD animation

    high · Joe: 'it just air balls', 'never-ending doing that', 'worst DMD I've ever seen', 'super uncomfortable to flip', buttons like 'old wedge heads inlet buttons that concave in'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.079

0:00
Music You're listening to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. Find us on Facebook. Email us at headtoheadpeople at gmail.com or go to our website at headtoheadpeople.com. Welcome everybody to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is episode 99 and my name's Martin and with me, Joe. How are you Joe? Good, good. I'm finally not sick-ish. So that's certainly helpful. So were you sick when you were at Pintastic? Yes, I was still getting over being sick. I've been sick for a good two or three weeks.
0:53
So we did manage to record last week in the middle of Pintastic. Thank you for organising all of those podcasters. They were lots of fun and I really enjoyed the hours of editing. That was amazing. Thank you.
1:10
So tell me about your Pintastic experience. What were the highlights? Um, I mean, honestly, some of the big heights, I mean, I got to hang out with Christopher Franchi a lot, and he was a really awesome dude.
1:26
Got to see the pins, which is always amazing, and um... Wait, when you say the pins, you mean, like, the pinball machines? No, Mrs. Dr. Pins, of course.
1:38
You knew that. So yeah, I mean, and the thing I enjoyed really most was I got to spend a ton of time with Pirates of the Caribbean.
1:49

“If you're going to spend that much, you might as well spend the extra $700 or whatever it is to get the nice rails.”

Joe @ Pirates of the Caribbean discussion — Explains why even Standard editions command premium prices in secondary market

  • “Plan next year to come out but make it a couple of weeks and just travel around Australia.”

    Martin @ Brisbane Masters discussion — Invitation to Joe to visit Australia for extended tournament/vacation trip

    • Steve Bowden
    person
    Dennis Nordmanperson
    Robert Muellerperson
    Escher Lefkopfperson
    Colin Urbanperson
    Chuckperson
    Head2Head Pinballorganization
    This Week in Pinballorganization
    Deep Rootcompany
    Pirates of the Caribbeangame
    Magic Girlgame
    Thunderbirdsgame
    Brisbane Mastersevent
    Pintastic New Englandevent
    Trash Talker Invitationalevent
    National Pinball Day petitionproduct
    Mr. Pinballorganization

    collector_signal: Pirates of the Caribbean secondary market driven by limited production + game quality; Standard editions command inflated prices; buyers pressured to upgrade to Premium for rail/cosmetic upgrades due to limited inventory

    high · Joe: 'if you're going to spend that much, you might as well spend the extra $700... to get the nice rails'; 'you're going to have to pay top dollar for it'

  • ?

    community_signal: Joe's negative experience at Trash Talker Invitational despite winning; found constant trash-talking/crowd pressure incompatible with personal play style; expresses reluctance to participate again

    high · Joe: 'I don't know if I'm ever going to do that thing again', 'people would just be chanting... Joe sucks', 'it was just getting annoying'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Pintastic 2024 featured Fire (Williams 1987) as tournament machine; most players unfamiliar with rules; Joe discovered mid-tournament he played suboptimally (went for side targets instead of safer mid turnaround + inlane locks)

    high · Joe: 'I completely played it wrong', 'I got to watch Jason and Owen play... going entire time going man I'm an idiot'

  • $

    market_signal: Pirates of the Caribbean stock extremely limited; even Standard versions sold out; Australian distributor reports remaining inventory; suggests supply did not meet collector demand

    high · Joe: 'completely sold out now. There were some standards left here and there, but I think even those are gone'; Martin confirms Australia has LA models available

  • ?

    industry_signal: This Week in Pinball staff (Jeff Patterson) receives confidential facility tours and upcoming game previews but faces editorial constraints on disclosure; creates asymmetry where media can hint but cannot confirm details

    high · Martin: 'if someone's told us a piece of information in confidence, we can't talk about it. Others that are speculating can talk... but we can't. The reason... is tough on Jeff Patterson'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Deep Root facility includes Barrett Alsler's playfield design expertise and Steve Bowden's rules/features design, indicating methodical design process with separation of mechanical and code disciplines

    medium · TWIP article: 'Barry Alsler joined us and talked about... playfield designs while Bowden was explaining his ideas for rules, structures and features'

  • ?

    product_launch: Deep Root production section was empty during facility tour; unclear if production has started or was hidden from visiting media; suggests either early stage development or intentional non-disclosure

    medium · Martin: 'production section, which was empty. Maybe because production hasn't started. Unless they all just hid them'

  • ?

    community_signal: National Pinball Day petition (August 1st, Roger Sharpe's birthday) live on Change.org; signatures growing in real-time (1,277+ during recording); community engagement moderate; unclear if will reach government action threshold

    medium · Martin watching signatures increase live: '1,261, 63, 69... it just keeps going up'

    • And I really miss that game, and that game's amazing, and it really aggravates me there's not more of them. Yeah, so this is the thing. I don't know whether it is the fact that it is a limited run or the fact that the machine itself is as fantastic as people are saying, But those two things together really pushes up the demand for that machine. Yeah, you can't get it. It's completely sold out now. There were some standards left here and there, but I think even those are gone. And it's like if you want one, you're going to have to pay top dollar for it. And even if you had a chance to get a standard, if you're going to get a game like that, do you really want to get the standard version of that game? And get the regular steel rails and everything? If you're going to spend that much, you might as well spend the extra $700 or whatever it is to get the nice rails and all the other stuff that comes with it.
    2:40
    Well, you know, there's many advantages of being an Australian. You know, obviously, being in the future. We've talked about that. We're slogging that one. But we actually have, I believe, Pirates of the Caribbean left. So if you do want one... Really? Yeah, and I think they're LA's as well. So MrPinball.com.au. Maybe you want to ship one out from Australia. Yeah, I'm sure that'll be really easy. I'm sure that'll be... Well, I don't know whether you were aware, but the last shipment of alien machines, and I can't remember how many there were, but let's say there was 20 of them. The very last shipment went to Mr. Pinball, and he pretty much shipped them all around the world, not actually locally. So, you know, it happens. But people paid very, very top dollar for those. Oh, yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, I hope that they make more from talking to like four different people at Jersey Shack. All I got were very different answers from all of them, so we'll see. Some of them were not hopeful, others were very hopeful, and I just hope that we get a chance to play it again. And the best part was when we were playing in the, it was only, they didn't actually have any there, like in the vendor hall or anything like that. They just had it in the VIP lounge. So I was in there playing and I was playing with Teolis and teaching him how to play. And I put up the grand champion on it. And he had two more balls than me, still couldn't beat me, and Eric was coaching him the entire time telling him what he should be doing. And I still kicked his ass. So that was great. That was one of the highlights as well. Because Teolis needs to get his ass kicked sometimes. Well, but then when we think about the tournament that was there, he may have done better. I know, well he had to beat me eventually, right? I mean, blind squirrel theory. I mean, so, but you qualified quite high though.
    4:45
    Yeah, I qualified second and more or less I, first round it went for, I got a bye, so the second round I was in and then it came down to, The fifth game, which was, it was best out of five, and it sucks because, like, when, it was my choice, and when the game choice came up, if I had, if we had waited, like, literally, like, 30 seconds, X-Files and BK opened up, and both of us would have rather played that, but I had to take the only game that was really open that I had spent time on, which was Fire, so, went to play that, and more or less, I did not. I got to play it all. I got like 105,000 and that was more or less taking one shot per ball and dying from hitting the side targets for fire. And then after that I got to go on the stream and watch and commentate for a round or so and I got to see what you actually are supposed to do on fire. Which I didn't realize all the rules and I completely played it wrong. So that was unfortunate. Well, you just don't see that machine around. I mean, it wasn't that popular when it came out, and I haven't seen one in 20 years or so. Yeah, so, you know, I, and even my qualifying, it was on my qualifying ticket, and I still put up like 2-3 million on it, but I apparently did it really the hard way because I was going for the lit side fire targets, which I thought was the only way to get those, get the fire. And, of course, in the finals, I shot them and died every single time. But come to find out, the turnaround in the middle also spots you fire, plus it puts your post up, which means hitting it is very, you know, safe, plus it gives you a multiplier. So all those things, like I got to watch, like, Bowen, and also you can shat the inlane, which lights your locks, which I also did not realize. So I got to watch Jason and Owen play that and just go the entire time going, man, I'm an idiot.
    6:53
    I did this way the hard way. And this is just the chalk it up to that's just what happens when you don't have the experience. Stuff like this happens. So I wasn't too pissed off about it. And Lewis is awesome, so losing to him, I was fine. I mean, he's on my shit list now because then he lost to Tealus, which that's on the track. So who actually won? So what was it called? It was called like the Silver Brawl or something, was that right? Yeah, the Silver Brawl Rumble, I think. Rumble or something like that, yeah. So who won it? Bowden. Yeah. An unstoppable force. Yeah. After they changed out people in the podcast group, I went to go to the Jersey Jack seminar, I think. So we just watched, I saw like the bracket and more or less he ran over everybody in his way, including Bowen. He swept Bowen and then he swept a person I didn't know his name in the finals as well. So he was unstoppable. He was awesome. Another tournament that you were in obviously was the TTI, the Trash Talker, representing head-to-head. Obviously you won that fight. Jesus Christ. I don't know if I'm ever going to do that thing again. That was such a cluster F and I just... It's meant to be! I know, but it was just aggravating. It was super busy and it was... I don't know. It wasn't overly fun, at least for me. Well, if you go into it thinking I've got to win this, then it probably wouldn't be fun. And there was pressure because obviously I won it last year, you had to defend the title. But even though I won last year, for me the good thing about it was that I got to choose the charity that the money went to. But whether you win or lose, it actually doesn't matter as long as you're just having fun. It's a real shits and giggles tournament. Yeah, and it's not like I didn't enjoy it because I didn't play well or I didn't like my team or any of that stuff. It was just like, you know, I'm not a trash talker. I don't, like, giving, you know, people shit constantly. So, like, at multiple times during it, people would just be chanting, like, the entire room, just, like, chanting Joe sucks. And it's like, okay, like, I don't know. So it's just, like, I was just, like, it just, like, was getting annoying. And, like, we started on Oktoberfest, which was set to one-handed, and you had to be holding a beer. And then there were Tommy Dollars all over it. It was just like, what is the point? It was so ridiculous. And then every single time something would happen, they'd just be screaming at me. I'm like, this isn't fun. This is not what I want to do with my night. It just sounds so much fun. It really does. Well, you're more of like a shit talker and stuff like that. I don't do that, really. So more or less, I just become... It's one thing if you're participating on both sides. More or less, I was just there to get yelled at. So it was just kind of like, wow, well, you're punching back. Yeah, and super crowded, and it's just like, okay, like, eh.
    10:14
    I'm probably not going to do it again next year. What I mean is that you didn't win, right? No, even though we had, I mean, Chuck made sure that happened with, after he saw the team we had, he kind of like stacked the deck against us. So, I mean, a really good team. Bowden's the only one who really did good. The rest of us just sucked. And he was talking about how he was playing, you know, BK, the premium, and he was just like, yeah, they were just, they covered the entire bottom playfield with Tommy Dollars. And I'm like, he's like, you fools. What about the upper flipper? So he just, like, sat on the upper flipper forever, and he's just like, ha, ha, ha. And, like, the way he described it was hilarious. I mean, he put up, like, I think they had to I can't come off the machine because he was there for too long because that gameplay is too long. But, like, yeah, entire games, and, like, the entire, the tournament started off, like, they announced it, blah, blah, blah, and they were like, and, like, you know, if you're top, whatever, you're not allowed to pick games. And, like, Chuck specifically was like, you can't play, like, I can't play Lord of the Rings. And I was like, fuck you, Chuck. Like, that's, like, that's the one game I want to steal because of that. I found as many Tommy Dollars as I could, and I covered the entire, like, bottom glass of Lord of the Rings. so no one else could enjoy it. Because I was like, fuck you guys, you guys get to play my game, and I don't get to play Lord of the Rings, so you just suck.
    11:35
    Yeah. That was more or less how I had fun, is by the Tommy Dollars and stuff. It's like you still did get into the spirit of it in your own special way. I did, just not verbally. I don't know, even in fun, I don't like just flipping out or talking shit to people. So I was like, I don't know. It's just not my style. That's why I have you. You're my... Yeah, that's exactly right.
    12:01
    I'll be the one that made you while you're talking shit and I'll be like, yeah, what he said. Ooh, I'll be your hate man. So I'll tell you what, this is what my strength in all of that is. I'm not somebody that sits there constantly trash talking. I will just watch them do something that was either a shit shot or something that was really embarrassing and just go, oh, nice job, buddy. Everyone's watching you. And that's the kind of stuff that really gets people rattled. Yeah, but like, there wasn't, it was so packed, you couldn't even be anywhere close to the game that was being played. Yeah. Like, if you can picture the rooms, like, you couldn't get, really be watching anyone who was playing, so you would just do it from a distance and just be like, Adam, you suck. Jerry, you suck.
    12:48
    Oh, I could have heard that. Regardless of what's going on. Yeah, we were never going to win that. No, I didn't. That wasn't going to happen. No, exactly. So I was fine with that. Shall we get into some news?
    13:03
    Oh, yes, sir. We have got so much news this week. Wow. That sounded amazing. No, we don't really. But there's a couple of interesting things that happened, and these are This Week in Pinball, the site related. So they actually did their second tour of the Deep Root facility in, where is it, San Antonio? I think it is, maybe, something like that. Maybe it's Austin. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it's one of those. Yeah, Austin, I think. It's Texas. I can tell you that.
    13:37
    And if you go to This Week in Pinball, in fact, we will link the article. It's actually a really good read.
    13:44
    It's one of these things, I think we've said this before, When we get fed information about titles coming up, I kind of like that I know, but I'm disappointed because when it happens, it's not a surprise. So it then also puts me and you in an awkward position because if someone's told us a piece of information in confidence, we can't talk about it. Others that are speculating can talk as much as they want, but we can't. The reason why I'm saying that is that this would be, I don't know, I guess a bit tough on Jeff Patterson who gets to go to DEEP ROOT, see all the machines, but can only write sort of little hints about stuff rather than saying, I saw this machine, I saw this machine, I saw this machine, I saw this machine. So anyway, but what I wanted to do, I just wanted to read out the one paragraph. The whole article is really good, but the one paragraph I thought was quite interesting is when they go to a particular room with Barry Alsler.
    14:48
    And it says, the time I spent in this room was particularly exciting for me as a Pinball hobbyist, as Barry Alsler joined us and talked about some of his playfield designs. while Bowden, Steve Bowden, was explaining his ideas for rules, structures and features. We checked out playfield artwork for Raza, Retro, Atomic, Zomba, Adventureland. That's what it is, isn't it? They showed me a foam core design from Dennis Nordman that had a crazy ramp. I saw another Nordman design, this one a white wood, that had two unique physical ball locks on different areas of the playfield. Robert, this is Robert Mueller, showed me some of the animations that were going into this game. I guess that was Robert Mueller. As Bowden discussed his ideas for rules and features and structures. Next we looked at a licensed Alsa design. I was asking questions to Alsa and Bowden about his title which had a large physical ball lock, toys and a very cool bash target. We next looked at Magic Girl. I won't give anything away on that one but a lot of cool mechs and features planned. Then we moved to another Alsa design that is a throwback but with a twist and has probably the most ambitious mech I've ever seen attempted in a pinball machine. So, that kind of stuff gets me a bit excited. Yeah. I mean, that mech has to be really, really big. I mean, if you think of, it has to be bigger than Batman, which I assume is the current champion for 66. Yeah, the rotisserie, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess so. That's a little scary, though, if it's that big. Right, I know. I mean, one of the largest, you know, locking mechanisms I've ever seen. Like, what needs to be that big to lock balls? I don't know.
    16:31
    Like, yeah, is it necessary to be that large or is this just a sadistic? You know, the rest of the article talks about the fact that it's all well... I'm paraphrasing, but basically saying it's all well and good, you've got all these things. But, you know, he actually also did go into the production section, which was empty Maybe because production hasn't started. Unless they all just hid them because they knew someone from the media was going to be there, but they showed him everything else. I don't know. I want to get excited. I think that, yeah, I mean, reading the article, I was very excited to hear all this stuff. And it's, you know, obviously purposely vague, but even the stuff that they actually, you know, came out and said, it's like, oh, well, that sounds awesome. And, you know, I mean, he might not have his way to also point out, like, it's, you know, the machine is shaped properly. Yeah, it's just like, I'm like, geez, is this where we are? We have to, like, coddle people and be like, it's okay, it's in the same shape. It's okay, it's okay. Like, like, but I guess because we're all seeing pictures and people were sort of saying, oh, you know, if it's not going to be the same shape, I'm not going to like it. I think it was just one of those things where they had to actually say, you know, don't freak out people, these are still pinball machines, you're going to be okay. Yeah, and you know, the patents that we saw, you know, of the prototype with the playfield and all that stuff, that was also normal shape too. So it seemed that that could still be what ends up happening. I mean, I think they mentioned at some point that there was a special way that the playfield came out. Right. Yeah, which obviously we talked about when we saw that patent, so maybe they have actually implemented it. Yeah, or maybe they've just gone to the next level and they've improved it more. Yeah, I mean, I'm super excited about the Magic Girl portion of that, just because I don't know what the hell the rest of the stuff is, but I know what Magic Girl is, and I've... Have you played it? I haven't, but I've seen other people play it, and I mean, bar none, it is a gorgeous game that just doesn't have the stuff in it that was supposed to be in it, and if you can then get that in there, and, you know, I've always thought that Papa Duke has a lot of great pinball ideas when it comes to the stuff in his game, so if those, if they have the means to then put those things in there that were supposed to be in there, that's, I, honestly, that's the most important thing. The most exciting thing that's going to come out from them, in my opinion. I mean, the other game, I'm sure whatever they're else is doing is great, but I want to see an actual working finished Magic Girl. Like, that would be... Well, yeah. I did get to play it, and I actually streamed it a while ago. And really, because nothing was working, the only really thing that was working was the middle shot. So that's all you do is middle shot, middle shot, middle shot, because everything else was just either dead ends or into a scoop that did nothing. All the stuff that was, all the magnets and all the kind of stuff that lifted everything up to the top playfield, none of it worked. The actual magic. The actual magic was not there. So I've always said I just want them to finish this game because I think it will be a great game once it's finished and those mechs are working. But that's effectively what they did. They shipped out a machine that had everything in it, well, as far as ramps and toys and stuff, but some of it either wasn't connected or there was no code. So it just, you know, we often talk about it just being a beautiful box of lights. And it is stunning to look at. Yeah, this is really good art. Who was the person who did the art of that, was that? It was a spaghetti. Yeah. So, you know, it was hard going for him at the time, but he got an amazing career out of it, so silver lining. That's true. Yeah, that was like the first thing he did, and then everyone saw that and went, whoa. Want to do stuff that's actually going to come out? Yeah, correct.
    20:38
    So, anyway, news as it comes from Dek Root, but I'm hanging on, guys. Just make it happen, please. Yes, I cannot wait. Is it?
    20:51
    Bit of news, Australia type of news. So we've talked about the Brisbane Masters coming up. It is actually now sold out. 160 players for the main tournament.
    21:03
    That's amazing. Like, that's a big tournament, right? Yeah, I'm jealous. So I actually got a friend of mine, hi Nick, sent me a note saying, And hey, just letting you know, I think there's 14 tickets left. And I went, oh shit, I'd completely forgotten about getting my ticket. So bang, I'm in. Jeez. Wouldn't have that have been embarrassing. It would have been embarrassing. There's actually quite a few people from America coming over. So we've got Escher Lefkopf, we've got Bowen's coming over, Colin Urban I think is going to be here as well. So you know what, I think this is boating well for the future of this. And, you know, it's the first time it's a Stern Pro Circuit event. So, well done. Yeah, I would have loved to go, but I think I looked at the tickets. We were talking about it. $69. I was like, oh, man. Like, oh, as much as that would be awesome. That's a lot of money to get there.
    22:00
    It is. It is if you're only just there going for the tournament. So that was my dilemma with Pinberg, you know, which was if I spend, I think it was 2,500 Australian, which obviously is a lot less US, but let's just say it's about 1,600. And that was for me to get on a 22-hour flight to Pittsburgh to three or four days of pinball and then fly straight back. I kind of look at that and think, that's not really a sensible decision. If I was turning that into a couple of weeks of holiday, absolutely. And so that's the same thing. So really what I'm saying to you, Joe, is plan next year to come out but make it a couple of weeks and just, you know, travel around Australia and see other stuff. I would love to. If only it was that simple. I'll try. It's not complicated. You say the Da Vinci Code. This is true, but they only allow you to have so much vacation, so... Well, yeah, because I think you only get... Do you get two weeks of vacation time paid? Is that right? Yeah, more or less, plus a week of sick time, in quotations. Yeah, so we get four weeks of vacation, or annual leave, we call it, and usually between seven and ten sick days. So, move to Australia is kind of what I'm saying. You've got to say number one, right? Yeah.
    23:23
    Make them great again. So, speaking of things American, I don't know whether that's a good segue or not, Probably not. There is now, there's actually been a change.org, what do you call them? Is it a petition? Yeah, it's a petition, isn't it?
    23:42
    I don't even know if this is still a thing anymore. Like Obama cared about this stuff. I can't imagine that. I don't know. Like, I can just picture Trump up there being like, and we have a pinball day. It's going to be great. People are saying pinball is huge. He's like, okay, I just don't see what's happening. I mean, I don't know what's going to happen. That was a great voice. He's going to say that he's an amazing player and tons of people are telling him. No one knows more about pinball than me. No, he's going to say pinball's easy. Bet on it. So really what we're talking about is that there is this petition for a national pinball day on, what was it? I don't know, like, I don't know. Yeah, but what's the date? I think they're Adenpool. Oh, the social date. Yeah, there is. I should probably click on the link.
    24:34
    Whoa, someone just signed up while I was sitting here. Oh, there's another one. Is that you? No. Oh my God, actually now, look, as we're talking, it's still going up. Yeah. It's still going up. 1,261, 63, 69. It just keeps going up. 64. I don't believe this. So it is actually live going up as we look at this. So I think that's very cool. What's the day? I'm not seeing a date here. Is it the day that like Roger did the thing? It could have been. It was kind of like the first of October or something.
    25:13
    So anyway. But the question is, it's now up to 1,277. At the time of me doing the show notes, I had 1,253 or something. So it's still going up for National Pinball Day.
    25:31
    So the next milestone is for it to get to 1,500. The question I have for you is, I mean, I think a National Pinball Day is awesome. It's August 1st. It's Roger's birthday. There you go. August 1st. Okay. So, at what number of signatures does it get to where someone says, oh, actually, this is quite serious, let's do something about this? I mean, I remember this being a thing when Obama started it. Again, I don't know if this is still a functional thing anymore, but it used to be, I don't remember what the threshold was, But if you got enough signatures that, like, the administration would have to respond in some way. So maybe since it says the goal is $1,500, maybe that's what the threshold is. I thought it was more. From what I remember, I thought it was like $10,000 or something like that. But I know that that's what this more or less, this website is for, is that you do these things, and then, like, the administration, like, once it hits the specific threshold, Well, they have to officially talk about it in some way, whether or not they say, sure, we'll do this, or no. They have to at least acknowledge it. So, I don't know if that's still happening or not, but... So, what is change.org? Is that actually a government site? Yeah, it was. It was originally set up as a government site. I believe that this is the government site where you could put up stuff like that. Hmm, okay. So, hmm, fair enough. Yeah, I'm just curious. Well, yeah, I don't know whether it's going to happen. So, I don't know. What I'm trying to work out, I'm trying to work out whether this is just shits and giggles or whether this is actually serious. Yeah, I don't know if this is the one that was started. I don't know if this is that site or not. I never participated in any of the stuff over there, so, but I, the name sounds familiar, and I know that one existed. I don't know if this is the one or not, but, and I'm looking at the about, and I'm not overly seeing, well it does say decision makers at the highest level of government and business are engaging with their constituents and customers.
    27:50
    So, I don't know why they'd say at the highest level of government if this wasn't that specific one. Let's talk some stern stuff, shall we? I hate them.
    28:02
    No, don't even joke about it, right? People are saying that you hate Stern, people are saying that you hate Jersey Jack. I think we've talked about Deadpool this week, so people will say that you hate Deadpool. I heard I hate it spooky.
    28:17
    We've eliminated them all, so I think I'm just all in on what was the one who made Mafia? I haven't said anything about that. Oh, one thing I definitively hate, Thunderbirds. That game is hot garbage. That shouldn't exist. I played that and the entire time I was going, why is this a thing? This does not work.
    28:38
    So, you know, my somewhat policy is not to really talk about Thunderbirds or Home Pin, but I'm happy for other people to talk about it. Really, tell me about Thunderbirds. You got to play it for the first time. It was bad. What do you like about it?
    28:56
    That there were other playable games near it. I mean, I played it, I played, I think, did I play it twice? I don't know, it was one or two times, and it just super mega clunky. Like, the main toy on it is like this giant ramp that goes up and down, it starts up, you hit a thing underneath it, it drops, And then you're supposed to put it up the ramp into the lock mechanism. And you hit it, and it just, it's a jump ramp practically. It doesn't actually work as a ramp. It just air balls, and you hope it lands in the lock place. So it's just like this, boop. And then when you get into multiball, which it seems like that's the only thing to do in the game because we tried shooting other stuff and it didn seem to be doing anything So you do that and then even if you lock balls and you lose the ball it just clears your locks and you get to keep them and then you just keep going So it's like, oh, you locked a ball, and you lost your ball here, have your ball back. So it's just like this cycle of never-ending doing that. There's shots in the game where we literally couldn't figure out how they got there. Like there's this cross ramp that comes from the upper left that clearly looks, like it seems like the ramp, you have to go up the ramp to get there. But somehow it comes from that area and down. And we couldn't figure out where the hell the ball came from. Oh, that's the lock start. Yeah. Sorry, that's multiple start, yeah. So there's like a, I don't know, like there's like a trap door there that like moves so the ball can come up. So, I mean, did you, did, I know a lot of, it wasn't, Thunderbirds wasn't really popular in America, but, you know, did you ever watch the original Thunderbirds series with the puppets? Yeah, with the puppets. I remember. Yeah, okay. I was younger. So this was one of the Thunderbirds, the actual ships themselves, spaceships or whatever they were, actually came from the swimming pool. So what actually happens is up the top left, the swimming pool goes to the side and then the ball comes onto that ramp from up there. So, yeah.
    30:56
    Yeah, it's, I don't know. And then like the middle ramp is this long ramp that goes to just a pond in the back that the ball just falls into and it goes into the pop-upers. Yeah, but, I don't know. But every time you go up that middle ramp, you spot a letter on International Rescue.
    31:13
    Oh, well that changes everything. So you've got to spell International Rescue letter by letter. That's a long set of words. Yeah, anyway, so there you go. Now you hate homepins, so we're moving through all of the manufacturers. Skip B, you'll be on next. Yeah, it didn't, I mean, I guess it flipped okay. The buttons on it are completely unforgivable. Like, the flipper buttons, it's like you're playing, you remember those, like, old wedge heads had these, like, inlet buttons that concave in, which, I remember I put my hands on it and went, what the F is this? I'm like, what? Super uncomfortable to flip. Those things were super annoying. and it was just, and it has the, like, literally the worst DMD I've ever seen. Like, it has worse animation than Gottlieb's did, like, back in the day, which I, I don't know. Someone there was like, oh, it's thematic, because it looked really bad on the show. I'm like, ah, I don't think so. Nope, I think that this is just super low quality. And, uh, yeah. So, yeah, I finally get to play one. I regret every second of it. Uh, but now. Now I get where you're coming from. Right, well, because this is what I did sort of say to you. You know, is it as bad as everyone said? And you went, yeah, it is. And look, I think the thing of it is, you know, there's that saying that says, all pinball is good pinball. Well, I think we've now got the counter-argument to that. Yeah, I mean, really? Is that what you want people to play for the first time? If someone's saying, hey, you go, hey, pinball's back, man. You should go play pinball. And they go, oh, really? And then you really want to send them to a place where there's a Thunderbirds? You think that's going to be the thing where they go, oh man, Pinball is back, this is great. Or they're going to be like, what time capsule did this come out of?
    33:13
    I mean, I don't know. I don't know how that could exist in the current marketplace. I don't know how you can put that out and go, this will be fine. Even Mafia looked better than, I mean, it's still haven't played that, but that looks better. So you're more modern than... No.
    33:35
    I've played both. I think without playing Thunderbirds, if you looked at it side by side with Mafia, I think Thunderbirds actually looks like a good proper game. It is that, dare I say it, world under glass, right? Yeah, it's there. It's just not fun to play. But it sounds like I am going to the defence somewhat. But as a first game, you know what? Sure. It's actually a first game. You know? They've probably sold more than Mafia as well. So, you know. It's by far the worst first game, I think. If you look at America's Most Haunted, I think it's better. You look at Full Throttle, which is definitely better. You look at Wizard of Oz, which is worlds better. I mean... I'll tell you what I think it's better than, though. It's better than Magic Girl. I would rather look at that than play that. No, but that's what I mean. That's what I'm saying. Like, as far as a first game goes, in its current state, there actually is more to do in Thunderbirds than there is Magic Girl. It's true, but I'd rather have Magic Girl not working and being a paperweight in my living room because it's pretty. Oh, I don't think you would.
    34:52
    No, I wouldn't buy it because it's ridiculously expensive. No, it's exactly right. But you could sell a Magic Girl, you see. Yeah, so I know, I know, I get that as far as value goes, but if you were having something to play in your house, you would have Thunderbirds with its clunkiness, with its rules that make no sense, with its shots that don't really go anywhere, all that kind of stuff. There still is more in it than, and probably because it is, you can't see my air quotes, complete. If you look at, you don't have a button for air quotes? No, I don't, I should. But if you think about, you know, Magical, what's really super frustrating about that game is there is so much there that you can't shoot. So it's super frustrating, whereas at least Thunderbirds you go, oh well, it is what it is. Yeah, and you don't have the potential frustration. Correct. There you go. I'm calling it, I think right now, Thunderbirds is better than Magic Girl.
    35:55
    I know. Logically, that does make sense. I know. Emotionally, I'm completely wrong because there's so many other factors that you need to consider.
    36:05
    Anyway, we will better talk about Stern, right? I hate Humpen. All right. Move on. All right. So, a couple of things. Let's talk about a couple of things. So we know that Elvira is, you know, we've been told that it's due in October. So we are now in July. So are we going to get another Stern machine before then? And do you think we're going to get an announcement about Elvira next?
    36:36
    I don't know. I know. I'm learning the type rope that you constantly walk because now I know things that I can't say.
    36:48
    But thankfully, I have you, so if I say something I shouldn't have, I got you to protect me. I mean, if the virus was to come out in September, you gotta think there's another one coming. And I think the one that we think it is, it has to be that one, I think. Is this a sort of, how do we say this, Jurassic Park? Yes.
    37:16
    I think because, I mean, it just has to, just doing the math for the months. I mean, if October is going to be Elvira, then are they really going to leave, like, one or two months to sell Elvira before they drop another title? Like, that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. No. If they drop one now-ish, that they have multiple months to get that out there, sell it, and then they can... I don't picture them stomping on their own production like that. Although, I mean, then they're still going to fit in Tron, so I don't know. I don't think they're going to do Tron. But did you notice that I said Jurassic Park and not Jurassic World? Oh, obviously I realize that, but way to make it obvious for our listeners. Just in case people were going, oh, he meant Jurassic World. No, I didn't. Stop holding everyone's hand, Martin. Jeez.
    38:13
    Think for themselves. So... Super exciting. So, for, you know, I mean, not that Jurassic World wasn't good. I liked Jurassic World. The second one was terrible. But, you know, you get those member berries with the original movie. And, you know, the original Dedeas game wasn't the greatest game, so. Well, you're right. However, I did own a Jurassic Park. And when I started, you know, my very limited collection, when it was always like my fourth machine, which was going to be the one that was coming in and out, I went from my favourite machines historically and my second favourite machine was Jurassic Park and mainly because I'm a massive, and I mean massive fan of the movies. The original mainly, but I love the movies and I love the sound package and the call outs and I actually quite like the layout of the Data Reef Jurassic Park. I mean I hadn't really played it a lot since it first came out but then when I bought it and started playing it I realised it's effectively a cheaper version of Adam's Family. As far as almost layout and rules go there's a lot of similarities between the two. So, particularly rules, which is, you know, don't play modes, well maybe a couple of them, but effectively hit the ramp, get to rollover, get the scoop, start a mode, get to the end of that, start your wizard mode, bang, there you go. But the other thing that it's got... Yeah, I mean, to be fair, like, all those CDs are rip-offs of Adam's Family rules-wise. I mean, they're all the same, whatever, in that series of five games. It's pretty much all the same rules in all five of them, minus a couple here and there tweaks. Yeah. So that's why I think like, and I don't know if you can recall like ages ago when I actually had my Jurassic Park on site. The best thing about Jurassic Park is it is a sighted machine, like an operator's dream because they don't cost a lot to get and people put money through these machines because of theme alone. So I bought the machine for a certain amount. I sold it for $1,000 more than I paid for it. And I made, I think probably maybe two times what it cost in money. So two times the cost of it I got in money and then got an extra $1,000 for it. That right there is just, you know, a pinball operator's dream. There it is right there. And $1,000 in your money, so that's like $10 in real money, right? Yeah, right. It is. That's why I look at Jurassic Park and I just think, guys, if you can get one of these and you want to put it on site, you will not lose money. You will make money from it. But anyway, it is one of, I mean, when you think of the Data East games of that era, weirdly enough that seems to be the game I tend to forget exists because you don't see it that often, but in all honesty that is one of the better of them. Yeah. I like it better than Tommy, for sure. Oh yes. I'm not a Tommy person. No, I find Tommy, the layout to be a little bit more clunky and that scoop shot is too close and it's death if you miss.
    41:47
    In a way, it's a reversed Jurassic Park. In fact, if you have a look at them, it's practically a reversed Jurassic Park. Yeah, without all that goodness in it, really. Yeah, correct. So, anyway, that's my point. The point I'm trying to make though is, even though I really liked Data East's Jurassic Park, I sold it because it's still that sort of Data East that once you get to the wizard mode, that's it, right? And also it's still got a really, really freaking cool, you know, multiball sequence when you go into the, whatever the T-Rex multiball is, whatever it is. Dryball. But then when you get the Chaos letters, it then starts Chaos multiball, which is a six-ball multiball. Or you can, you know, hit your smart missile and activate that if you've got one target left or whatever.
    42:45
    That's so cool. Like, it's actually a really good game. But, anyway, back to my point. My point I'm trying to say is, oh my god, I cannot wait for another Jurassic Park.
    42:56
    Yeah, I think it's, you know, it's just like all the people when they complain about like, oh well, you know, we already have that theme, why do another one? It's like people said the same thing with Pirates and stuff like that. Yeah, well, yeah, but the new Pirates is really, really good. So it's like, I don't care about the original players anymore. So, you know, you can have the same thing, like, when eventually there's a Jurassic, you know what I mean, a Jurassic, yeah, a Godzilla, a new Godzilla pin, I'm gonna gleefully forget that the other one exists. Although, that one is a good game, as long as it just removes the god, pretending it's a Godzilla game, because it's not. But, yeah, I think that, I think it's a no-brainer, really. I'm just interested to see everything nowadays. What did they get? What is the license? What are we going to see in it? Are we even going to get the same amount of stuff we got in the Dadees one? Yeah. That's the only thing I really worry about. Well, okay, so if you think about the legacy that you've got to live up to, and we'll get to black that in a second because that'll be another segue onto that, But if you think about the legacy of Jurassic Park, the Data Race one, it has arguably one of the best toys in pinball ever, hands down, no arguments, done. That is the T-Rex. Sure, all it's doing is lifting down and picking up a ball, so it's actually quite a simple mech. But, fuck, it's really effective. And people love that. And whenever people sort of say, oh, I remember Jurassic Park, it had that T-Rex that goes and grabs the ball. How freaking cool is that? Would you agree? That's a great, right, Beck? Yeah, I remember the first time, although I think one of the first times I played it, it didn't work. It was probably not.
    44:48
    So I think I've seen it work at some point. Because like you'd come down and go, and then the ball would still be there and you'd go back up and be like, oh, like it's still there. Or sometimes it's just like shake it, shake, and then it's start multibob like, oh, really? That's what that does? It seems like a lot of wasted money to just do that. Yeah, I can imagine that you could do a similar, that'd be a cool throwback to doing a new mech that kind of does the same thing. Well, here's where it's really interesting, because if I do the same mech, people will go, no, you know, you haven't got any new ideas. But you've got to kind of do something that's as good, if not better, to be able to live up to it. What do you think? Yeah, and I mean, that mech, I believe it only would eat one ball, right? Yep, if I remember correctly. So I mean, you could have, you know, a cooler T-Rex that, you know, maybe that ate multiple balls, and then, like, I don't know. I mean, I don't get as picky when it's like, well, that mech was used back then. If you go down that rabbit hole, every single game is every other single game, and you're just never going to be happy. So it's just like, if they do it, and it's improved, and it's reliable, and it looks cool, because the toy itself is going to look way better. I mean, they could do all sorts of different things, but I wouldn't be opposed to them doing a similar mech like that. But I'm sure that they probably feel like they don't want to repeat it because they're afraid to hear the same shit that you're talking about. Well, that's exactly right. I mean, a good game's a good game, but, you know, from announcement to arrival, people, if it has the same mech, that's all you're going to hear about. And, you know, Stern people are pretty resilient these days, so they're not going to care, but, God, you know, for us, they have to hear it over and over again.
    46:40
    So I hope that they do take it in a new direction, and I hope it's announced soon, because I'd love a Jurassic Park machine. Yeah, I think that it would be, I'd love it and it would be great and certainly one of, you know, my great movies that I love and, yeah, it's, you know, as always, I just hope that it does the theme justice and it, you know, it's, and hopefully the person who we, and if the person we think is doing it is doing it, then I can't imagine the game sucking. Hmm. Yeah. Apparently they like lizards. Is there a life herd? So, a reptile? Giant maybe. So, hmm. Yeah. Well, that's one of the next one. Two lizard games in a row. Wouldn't that be great? Hmm. That'd be interesting, wouldn't it? And then people would be confused. Oh, they're just fixated with lizards now. I know. They can't win. They can't.
    47:41
    So, speaking of sequels. Oh, God. So smooth. Broom broom. Aw. There it is. I had to go back to the recording screen. Button anxiety.
    47:57
    So, Black Knight. A couple of things. First one is, I got to play it this week. Finally, I got to play Black Knight. It is here in Australia, I got to play it. How does it feel to be in the past, Martin?
    48:12
    It's... Well, two months ago. Funny enough, you should say that how does it feel to be in the past?
    48:21
    Because it kind of felt like that. I can do my own segues too. Honest. You can. You've done well. Because I didn't get it. Yeah, right? Well, I mean, I guess it's fun for what it is. My big issue is that it literally doubles the length of game time.
    48:48
    And I play it on a version that didn't have the... Are we moving on to the... Are you talking about the posts that now they've now implemented? Yeah. Which makes it play even longer.
    49:01
    Well, see, I don't think we've got the premiums or the limited edition here. I've only even played the pro that doesn't have the upper play field.
    49:09
    Oh, gee. Sorry, Moran. This is adorable. I thought you were talking about, ah, you finally got to play the pro. I finally got to play the pro. That's what I'm saying. So, you know, literally in the past because you guys have had it. But that's kind of what I was saying, like playing the upper play field felt like you were playing like BK2K or something. Well, okay, it does now. Now that we've seen that, because we were talking about whatever that physical enhancement was going to be, And effectively it's just a bigger post that makes the rubbers sort of come out a little bit so you get the ball up in that upper play field a lot more. It gets bounced. Yeah, you get that up like DK. Correct. Yeah, like you used to.
    49:50
    But yeah, no, really what I was talking about was just my initial impressions of Black Knight the Pro. And I probably had maybe four, five games. And it's as brutal as everyone has said it is, but that didn't bother me at all. So even when I had a longer playing game, I, look, and I reserved my judgment until we've actually got, you know, the final code, I guess, that's there.
    50:21
    But yeah, that's what I was sort of saying about the fact that I just, I didn't get it because I didn't feel I was playing anything groundbreaking. Um, yeah, I mean, rules-wise, there's not stuff in there that's, like, super groundbreaking, but I mean, it, like, the War Hurry Ups is a cool thing, the Flail is a really cool toy, and, but as far as, like, I mean, it's nice to have all the modes be so radically different from each other, and, but, yeah, I mean, and the whole sword, But I mean, you don't think it shoots like anything else really, right? I mean, it's very, pretty unique and I guess it's brutal-ness. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep, yep, yep, um, sure, it's, it's... You sound so inspired. I just, I just, I don't want people writing in saying that I hate Stern, because I don't, I love Stern. No, he is, no. But, I mean, I had mentioned that, you know, Steve Ritchie, you know, I just want to love another Steve Ritchie. And it's really good. It's a good game. But as I said, I just didn't feel like I was experiencing anything new.
    51:51
    There you go. Yeah, absolutely. My guess was wrong on you. I thought that you would really enjoy the game. I need to play it more. I think I'm actually going to like the Premium or LE more than the Pro. Just to break it up a bit. Just because it really is get into multiple, well get to mode, get into multiple and then mode out, get some points and rinse and repeat. So I just wanted to be a bit more variety. I did get the original Black Knight mode. Just hearing those sounds of the original Black Knight is so cool.
    52:30
    Yeah. Yeah, that's a cool mod. Yeah, I mean, it's... I mean, if you're looking for variety, I don't know if you're going to find it in the premium. I mean, it's... Because the far left kicker now, instead of it going on the ramp and feeding the right flipper, it now feeds the upper playfield. The center ramp now feeds the upper playfield.
    52:54
    And being up there isn't the most interesting thing, I guess? I don't know if... I described this to someone else when we were trying to figure out what our opinions were on it. It's like, like I mentioned, it doubles, it increases the length of the game by like 50%, But it only increases the fun of the game by like 15-20%. So like it's not a net gain in my opinion only because it just... Especially there's a cycle when you get into Catapult Multiball where Supers is all on the upper playfield. So if you get a trap on the left and you go up the upper playfield, it feeds the right flipper, you hit that far left kicker, it goes back up to the upper playfield. And it's like, you just do that forever. Yeah. There's no reason to do anything else besides that. And it just becomes like this thing where it just gets super grindy going for Catapult because while you're up there, all you have to do is hit the lock target a few times, get your locks, and then you, like, in the game we play, we got into Catapult like three times, plus the knight multiball, And it was just like, oof, like I had like 400 million. I'm like, okay, I'm kind of done on this. It's just, it's super grindy. So, I mean, I don't know what they can do to really fix that because I don't see a way to increase the difficulty on the upper play field. You know, now with this improvement. Well, yeah, they've actually made it easier. So it's like your shots are just, every time you hit a ramp, it's going up there. So you're not, instead of, you know, this fast-flowing thing, it's just, and who knows how long you actually stay up in the upper playfield after you've hit a center ramp or a left kicker, so it's like, it becomes very, I don't know, it's, I mean, the shots up there are fun, but I don't know if it's worth the downtime or the grind that it turns into. But, you know, I only got to play it like three times, so it's really not a fully fleshed out. Yeah, and look, it's only at .97 code, so there's still some, and it's usually these are the updates that I've, you know, I really think about Deadpool as sort of my benchmark there. The last few updates from, you know, .96 to 1.0 for Deadpool were significant updates. Yeah, but that was, you already had the playfield there, and I just feel like, I don't know what you can do to the code to fix the issues that I have with the game. Like, there's not, I mean, they've added, because they've added, with the recent code updates, they've added more reason to be up top. Like, they've added now, like, the loops will, and the lock target will, like, give you stuff during whatever mode you're playing. So it's like, okay, well, so even during modes now, I'm trying to just be up there. So then it's like, at some point, you find yourself not overly interested in the bottom playfield, because, like, up there, you have a constant access to a multiball that's safe, you can't drain while you're up there, and then, you know, you have the bottom multiball, which then you can just get during the top multiball. And then now you have this last chance multiball that more or less you lock some balls and then you drain out in an outlane and then you have a 30 seconds chance to relock your balls. And since your plungers are going straight to the flipper, it's not super hard to relock those because all you're doing is plunging. If you miss, it gives you another ball. It gives you another ball. So the rest of the playfield isn't even active. So it's like, that's super easy to get too, so I don't know, I mean, I think it's just definitely going to be a long player, no matter what they do. Yeah, I mean, is it though? Because everything else is really brutal. But the two easiest shots in the game go up top. Like the left orbit, I mean the left kicker is the biggest shot in the game. It has a drop target, but that drop target is not up that often. So that's always open so you can go up top. And then the center ramp, which is the next easiest shot in the game, and that always 100% goes up the top too. So it's like even while you're in the middle of doing the other stuff, you're still hitting those shots, which means you're always going up top. So it's like they're intertwined to a point that you can't really separate them. Like if you're playing bottom stuff, you're going to be going up top anyway. You're playing modes. Inevitably, all those shots are going to go up top. So it's like... I hear what you're saying, but that is also from somebody who is top 40 in the world. For us mere mortals that don't hit our shots accurately all the time, it's death. It's death if you miss your shots. That's how brutal the game is. Oh, definitely. And obviously, the only opinion I have to give is my own.
    58:14
    I'm just going by my impressions. That's what I'm saying. I was playing there with somebody, Andre, who'd played it quite a lot and he was nailing all his shots. I found that with most C-Ritchies. It was the same with Game of Thrones, definitely. Even Star Trek, definitely. I'd say probably Star Wars as well. Well, in that you, because the games are so fast, if you miss your shots, the rebound is brutal all the time. So therefore, hit your shots. And that just takes a bit of getting used to for you to know exactly where those shots are to minimize the impact of missing. Yeah, and really the key is to make sure you don't shoot specific things on the fly. Right. It's a very much a nice go game. That's exactly right. Yeah. Once you've flipped that switch in your head where you're not going to shoot certain stuff on the fly and the fact that most in-lane feeds can be transferred right over to the other flipper to a trap, it turns into this take shot, trap, take shot, trap. And it's a very safe management of going through that. But yeah if you just flailing away that game will kill you as fast as possible because of those posts that have rubbers on them which I can remember the last game that had that whereas you know there we have the blue posts like the blue you know I like little mini stand these days Yeah, the little mini stand-ups, you have those blue ones, then you have, like, the rods with rubber around them, like the full rubber, which are not super bouncy, but now you have actual round rubbers on there. So it's just like, you miss, and it's like, goodbye. I can't wait to see, like, someone is going to be playing too long, and someone's going to be like, you know what, I'm going to put white rubbers on these. I'm like, holy crap.
    60:02
    Yeah. But I'm glad you got to play it. I was a little surprised. I'm a little surprised by the fact you don't like it, but I think it'll grow on you. It will. My first impressions are good, played it, it's enjoyable, it's a stern, it's a Steve Ritchie, it's good. I'll tell you what I liked probably more than I thought I would, and that's the actual soundtrack. The metal soundtrack sounds great. The call-outs are awesome. Tell you what I think is my favourite thing on that game. The visuals are gorgeous. Right. So the visuals are great. The animation is awesome. But the lighting choreography on this game is superb. And this is Tim Balls in his element. The light show is just great. It really does communicate to you what's going on and whether you've done something really exciting. So I think kind of theme integration for this is really good. Oh, I think definitely. I mean, honestly, I think that this is the best LCD they've done. Yeah, I agree. Animations are top-notch. It's beautiful. And they made all this from scratch. It all fits. It all meshes well. It meshes with the sound. It messes with the rules. Everything, as a total package, it is an extremely tight package that's just right there. Which, you know, where is it? Do it.
    61:36
    I was just going to say, I'm kind of laughing because we've just spent God knows how long talking about Black Knight, and the show notes, all they say is Black Knight Enhancement Post. Yeah, we really haven't talked about that much either, so it's like, yeah.
    61:57
    But, yeah, it just, anyway, there you go, Black Knight. I think we were talking about, you were going to make a joke about the fact that it was a tight package, and then you started laughing, so I was like, boom, boom, there, you know. So, maybe I should have the buttons, because, I don't know. You should have the buttons. By the way, we have an open invitation for said Tim of Balls to come on. Yeah, it's just Ballsy Tim. Yeah, we'll actually get him on.
    62:26
    I've met Tim. Tim's a great guy. Oh, he's awesome. So, we'll do that. Anyway, so on to some other news. A couple of things.
    62:35
    Alice Cooper has finally arrived in Australia. I know. How long ago did you guys have them? Well, we just got our first one locally and not too long ago. Well, I would say the one that Boulin has in his house. Yeah, okay.
    62:49
    But also if you go to This Week in Pinball as well, they also have a deep dive of Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle and the photography of what they've done is beautiful. That game, it just looks so good. And for those people that are playing it for the first time, just remember, you need to adjust your play style to be able to hit your shots. People say, oh, you know, it's clunky and it's awkward. No, it's not clunky and awkward. Just the shots are in different places that you're used to. You're clunky and awkward.
    63:23
    It's not the game. I wasn't going to say that. Well, it's just like Houdini. It's just, you know, they're tight shots and they're in different places. You just have to, you know, yeah, speak of it, because we got to see, Bowen did a tutorial and talked about the game at Pintastic. He did a seminar about it. So I knew most of the stuff. It was one funny story that came out of it was that he was talking about the Magna save. And he was telling a story of how, like, Charlie was talking about it. And he was like, yeah, well, you know, I came up with this cool thing as Magnet does it. And then Bowen was like, oh, it's just like they do on, you know, Jamey Ron. Gold Knight. And he's like, what? He's like, yeah, they did that on that. He's like, no, I just came up with this. He's like, no, it's just what they did over there. He's like, oh. So it's a perfect example of how, like, every time you think you've come up with something new, it's been done. There's only so many things you can do. There's only so much you can do, exactly. And you know what? I will say I don't care that it's been done before. It is one of the coolest things that you will see in pinball. I think that Goldeneye is a very underrated Pimball machine and that thing itself, that magnet that saves the ball, is just one of the coolest features in Pimball. I'm so glad they brought it back again. Oh, definitely. I remember when I first did it, I was like, whoa, because I didn't notice it. I mean, I didn't pay attention enough to go down there, but I mean, it's super cool. My big worry is that if you look at GoldenEyes and what they look like now after doing that for so long, that area is pretty destroyed.
    65:10
    And they, on the Nightmare Castles, they have just the same thing that you saw on Stern's and stuff for magnets. It's just a magnet and then there's playfield around it. So I don't know about, I mean, even Stern had tons of issues with their magnets of similar design on Metallica and etc. Where they just, you know, they went to the new design that had the metal core around it to protect the playfield. So I don't know, hopefully that doesn't become an issue, although I can't imagine that it won't. Because it's just, if it's done it on all the other ones, I don't know why it wouldn't do it for this one. But maybe that's, I don't know if that's what stopped people from doing it since GoldenEye. I mean, it has to be one of the coolest ways to save a ball ever. Yeah, so it's like, if it hasn't been used again since then, I have to assume that it's been people, it's scared people away because of the damage that it causes. I don't know, I don't know why else you wouldn't revisit something like that. Unless there's some patents or something in the background that just expired. Yeah, possibly. Yeah, you could have. I remember when I first started the Melbourne Super Bowl League, that was the tournament that I ran, And we've got a location at Bartronica and they had Goldeneye. And it was really funny to watch people walk away after they thought they drained the ball. And then you see the magnet flick the ball up into play, but they've already walked away. Everyone else flips out. Whoa!
    66:38
    They're like, yeah, what just happened? I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, it's a circle. I think I see something, maybe something like that. I don't know if you could do something like that on the sides or something. But you probably couldn't directionally pull it off. Yeah. It probably just goes up and that's the only thing you could do with it. Yeah. Or if you had it like almost like a bit of a, you know, a centaur type thing, you know, bally's of the day where they had the outlines that sort of pushed them through a gate. Yeah, that's exactly what I thought of. I was like, oh, that'd be cool if you had them on each side and like if you hit the button at the right time, it'd throw it through a gate. But then I'm like, I don't know if you could do that because I don't think you can control the way that it pulses in a direction like that. If they could, Walking Dead wouldn't go down the middle or various other things where the magnet just says, screw you, because it goes in one direction.
    67:31
    But I mean, yeah, that was the first thing that popped in my head. Like, wow, it would be cool if you had a Centaur save or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
    67:37
    Or maybe it could just be a save. Even if it was just like a control just like this where it grabbed it and pulsed it, I don't think that you could throw it to the side like that.
    67:48
    That would be so cool though. Alright, someone get to it please. Yeah, please. Come on, deep. It's in their game. That's what it is. They're already doing it. Now one last piece of news before we get into the big sort of event of this week. And this actually came to me a couple of weeks ago, but obviously because we did the podcasting thing last week, we didn't really talk about it. And this was a Dutch pinball update. So it was actually a message to those people that are sort of in a bit of a, oh, let's face it, it's a closed forum on Pinside. Whatever, guys, everyone's spreading this.
    68:28
    And I'm just, I don't know what's happening, but I'm expecting that we're going to hear something about Dutch soon.
    68:35
    Somebody wrote, they said, Barry contacted me today through Messenger. There will be no update tonight. Normally they send out their weekly update.
    68:41
    However, at the last minute, there was supposed to be an update. However, at the last minute, there is some new shit that has come to light in a positive way. That's all I know. An update will come out in the next two weeks, which is probably any day now. So this is all I know. I have a glimmer of hope. Barry's still finding this. My advice is for those of us early adopters to keep our spots and don't sell for $1,000, which some have offered. What I hope it is, is that Sterns just purchased the games and just said, like, which, you know, the whole thing of this going on, like, it kind of has been really surprising to me that something like that hasn't happened. Because everyone who's seen those games, everyone who has touched those games and flipped those games says that Lebowski is amazing. It is one of the, like, people always say it is the best made game since early, but since Bally in their heyday or Williams in their heyday, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it's like, you'd think that either J.J.P. or CERN would just be like, everyone loves this game, seems like a slam dunk, unless there's some real shit show in the back where they, like, they literally, the license was pulled and they can never make any more. And it seems like one of those things like, okay, you're clearly, you can't make them. That's your problem. We make them. So we will make them, you know, sell the design to us or sell the license. We'll make them. And, you know, ta-da. I thought that that was going to be the way it was going to go eventually, but hopefully they found their own solution to that problem, but it just seems like it would be a simpler solution if someone else just bought it from them and said, okay, we'll make it now, because you guys don't have your shit together. So, I mean, this is what we don't know. There's probably just so much money locked up in so many different sides. And, you know, I think what we've heard is that, you know, Dutch don't have any money. And, oh, I don't know. Yeah, which would have been, you'd think that they'd be perfectly fine to just sell it off and just be like, you know, we can't handle this. Because, honestly, I thought that, I would have thought that the same thing would have happened with Aliens. I don't think it's that simple, mate. I know it's obviously not that simple.
    71:05
    It's wishful thinking. You'd like to hope that this is the way that things get saved. I mean, it's about to happen with Magic Girl, so it could happen. Because it seems, again, I haven't seen one, I haven't played one, but I've heard that Aliens is a good game. And I have touched and played Lebowski and that is a great game. No, I play both. And Alien was such a surprisingly good game. I thought it was going to be dreadful, but it's not. It actually looks great. Again, theme integration, you know, people were talking about, oh, you know, Sigourney Nick Weaver's not in it and blah, blah, blah, blah. But the immersion that you have in the Alien universe is absolutely there. And, you know, people also say, oh, you know, it's so dark. The darkness is actually what makes it really quite exciting. And the shots are better than you think. It's not clunky like people were saying. It's actually quite good. Yeah, and I mean, after the fact, I forgot where Roger was talking about it, but he hinted that he could have easily got Sigourney. They never asked. Or the way they went about it, they didn't go about it the right way. And it wasn't necessarily that she wasn't interested or that they couldn't get her, But they just botched the whole thing. So it's like, if a real company that does this bought it, you probably could get that. I know, obviously, that's probably wishful thinking and just going off of just hopes and dreams instead of actual things. But, I mean, you know, maybe someday it'll happen. It'd be a shame if something like that, some good games like that just disappear into the lore of pinball and we never see them again. It'd just be a shame. Yeah, we'll be. But anyway, maybe any day now we'll hear something about Dutch Pinball and who knows? I just, I don't know. It's one of those things, I just want it to end. Like just do something. Either can it or make it happen. Just do something. Yeah, it has been lingering for quite some time at this point. Quite some time now.
    73:07
    Anyway, that's enough of the news. Let's talk about Bally Williams' 90s Battle Royale. Oh, okay. Do you want some dramatic piano music for this? Absolutely. Okay. In a world. So, I'm going to cut that music. That's terrible. Bally Williams.
    73:33
    Zencaster, you're amazing. So, we did this a few months ago looking at Stern machines and trying to determine which was the best Stern using a bracket style voting formula, format type thing, whatever it is, right? And so, we always said we would do Bally Williams 90s machines and that's what we're going to do. And all I wanted to do today was just talk about the machines that have made the top 32 list. And in the next 24 hours after you've heard this episode, we will put a post everywhere with a poll tab bracket voting system. And next week on our 100th episode, we will talk about the results and we will have a special guest to help us go through this. Some would say the person that came up with this idea in the first place. I don't want to give too much away.
    74:38
    You're still living in the past, am I? Well, it seems fitting to have this special guest on for our 100th. So let's talk about the games, right? And I'm going to tell you the criteria. The criteria is anything that's on Pinside's top 100, well it could have been top 200 but we didn't need to go there, and the seeding will be based on the order of popularity on Pinside and it's anything that's really much dated either 1990 up to 99. Well, we know that pretty much they folded in 1999-2000, so it's going to cover everything that's in the 90s. So I think the oldest game that we've got in this might be like Whirlwind, which came out in 1990 and Funhouse, according to Pinside. So if someone comes back and says, oh, well, no, it actually came out in 1989 and it was manufactured, I don't care. It says 1990 on Pinside. Yeah. That's what I'm going by. Yeah, fuck off. Oh, okay. Right? So let's talk about some of these games. So I'm going to talk about them from the ranking on Pinside at the moment. There's no episode one on here. That's so disappointing.
    76:02
    That's right. But, you know, a lot of the games that we know and love are going to be there. So from the seeding you've got from Medieval Madness, Attack from Mars, Monster Bash, Twilight Zone, Indiana Jones, Adam's Family, Star Trek Next Gen, Tables of the Rabia Nights, Theatre of Magic, Scared Stiff, Circus Voltaire, Whitewater, Creations of the Lagoon, Shadow, Funhouse, Cactus Canyon, Dracula of the Bram Stoker's kind, Whirlwind, Congo, Fishtails, Getaway High Speed 2, No Good Gophers, Judge Dredd, Revenge from Mars, World Cup Soccer, Roadshow, Indianapolis 500, Champion Pub, Johnny Mnemonic, Safe Cracker, Doctor Who and Pinbot.
    76:45
    So, there are a lot of good games there. The reason why I just sort of say, like, I've sort of been on record, like, I sort of go the anti-popular. Meaning, if I was going to have a choice of these games, and, you know, Medieval Madness is currently number one on the Pinside Top 100.
    77:07
    And, you know, seeding-wise, I don't know where it's ranked, but Circus Voltaire might be 20th or so. So I'd take a Circus Voltaire over Medieval Madness because it's different. You know what I mean? Yeah. Medieval Madness is the better game, but I would prefer Circus Voltaire.
    77:25
    Yeah, it'll be interesting when we go through this of how we figure out what to pick. Yep. So if you think about it being a bracket, it means that Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars aren't going to come up against each other in the first round, right?
    77:40
    Not until the finals. No, it'll be something like 1 versus 32, 2 versus 31, 3 versus 30, etc. It'll be like that and there'll be a series of brackets. 32 becomes 16, 16 becomes 8, 8 becomes 4, 4 becomes 2, 2 becomes 1.
    78:00
    Bit of Spice Girls there for you. Nailed it. So guys, if you think I've missed a machine, let me know. But as of right now, that's the order. And Terminator 2 just missed out. I think it would be the 33-seeded machine. And then you've got Dinah, Dirty Harry, and whodunit. I mean, what's really interesting is you've got Safecracker in there and Terminator 2 isn't.
    78:31
    Yeah, that's true. I mean, even you said the Dirty Harry's not in here either? Correct. That sucks. That's a pretty good game. But no good go for this.
    78:45
    Yeah, that sucks too. Because I just don't like that game. Yeah, playing it for fun. In competition, that game's terrible. There's a reason why that thing's not used. It has a lot of problems with it. I'd imagine.
    79:01
    Anyway, so, is it time for Joe Tips the Top 100? I don't know. Is it? It is. I can't wait. Do I get my own special button music? That's what it's all about.
    79:15
    Yeah, I don't know. Here we go. We need a drum roll type thing, don't we? I'll get some special sound effects. We decided on the second, that dramatic building music. I thought that that was what... Well, we already did the piano before. Well, not that one. There was another one. A much cooler one. There we go. Here we go. Okay.
    79:41
    You can tell that fun is a runner. Yeah, it really is. Hey Google, pick a number between 1 and 100. Okay.
    80:00
    34. Cactus Canyon. Aww. Okay. Alright. This is a good one. Have you played Kekos Canyon much? Uh, some. I actually, ironically, I actually won B Division Papa on it.
    80:23
    Not for any super deep knowledge on the game. I mean, I know a decent amount of, I know mainly what you should be doing, but it's, obviously, That's a game that one does not typically have access to. And the only time I can play it is at Papa, really. I've never seen one outside of Papa. What are you going to do? When you head up to that machine in a tournament, what are you doing? Are you going for the different modes or are you going for multiball? Talk to us. So, I mean, the skill shot is not overly able to do skillful things with it because it's a spin. It's a spin. It's a funnel, isn't it? Yeah. Dope, yeah. Kind of. Yeah, so I mean the best thing you can try and do is if you're like one away on something, you can like soft plunge and put it in there. Either trying to hit one switch or no switches and just lock in what you have. Some of the ones that you can get in there are like locks, which are really good.
    81:22
    But mainly the rest of the stuff just gives you progress towards various things in the game. So mainly, yeah, I mean, if you're walking up to this game, your main objective in a tournament is to at least get you to your first multiball, which is going to be very basic. You're going to hit the mine, the mine's going to lift, you're going to put a ball in it, it's going to drop, you're going to hit it again, lift, blah, blah, blah, three locks, get you into multiball. It's your basic multi-ball at that point, so you're going to be hitting jackpots, and I believe that every jackpot you hit builds towards the Super Motherload, which is, you know, I think it's pretty close to the same rules as like, um, Total Annihilation, not Total Annihilation, um, yeah, Annihilation on, um, AFM, where you're hitting the other shots to build for the collect at the Super Jackpot, which is at the month. So that's pretty much all that that multiball is about. And then the second time around you have to hit it twice, and then it'll lift for each blocks.
    82:31
    So that's the basic stuff there. Another big strategy on this game that I've seen is that because bonus can be rather big in this game, I've seen a lot of people grind left loops to get up into the pop bumpers to build bonus X. And the bonus X can get, I'm not overly sure if it's capped, but I've seen it get really high. So 10 plus X, which I believe that the things that go into bonus are stuff you get just from playing the game, how many people you've defeated and stuff like that. So I've seen many, many, many millions in bonus. So that's another strategy I've seen a lot of people do is just grind left loops, get bonus X, and bank a lot of stuff in bonus.
    83:19
    The other stuff that's going on is you can hit each shot and each shot has its own mode that goes with it.
    83:28
    None of them I remember being super lucrative, but hitting the shots is what, if you get through all of the shots you get to a small wizard mode which is a multiball. Which, I mean, probably you're not going to see or get to in a tournament setting, so I wouldn't really spend the time going for them. Some of the shots are more dangerous than others, so I wouldn't really do that in a tournament setting. If you hit the bandit, and he's kind of like the bash toy in this game, you get bounties and stuff like that for defeating him and other various rewards. I'm not sure the exact rules around the bounty system and how you collect characters and defeat characters in that way.
    84:17
    But the other main rule in the game is going for the gunfight, which then eventually gets you to Showdown, which is the big exploit in the game. Yeah, the never-ending gun? Yeah, the never-ending game. So I believe that you get to them by, I think you collect them through the bounties and stuff like that. You'll light your gunfight and then, I mean it's a really cool feature in the game. Another one that it seems like I'm surprised it hasn't happened where you're going to hit a ramp, you're going to hit your in lane, posts are going to pop up and it's going to go into a moment like gunfight. So then it'll pop up all the drop targets one at a time, and the last one is going to be the one you have to shoot. It'll drop the post, you drill that dude, and that'll light that light solid. And then once you light all of them solid, it'll start showdown.
    85:12
    And then that multiball is pretty much all the drops come up, you hit the drops, you get jackpots. You hit all the drops down, you get another ball, and do that to infinity and beyond. Infinity and beyond. It never stops. And isn't it that if you keep just one of the targets up, you can just sort of be hitting around the playfield until you lose a ball and then there's a bit of grace period, get that last drop target, bang, all your balls come back, all the targets go up again, keep going. Yep, I believe so. I'm not sure if it's just a simple add a ball, you know, a la like Horde or something like that, or if it's a complete restart. I think it's only an addable. I don't think it's a full restart. I can't remember. I did stream this and went to that a couple of months ago, and I can't remember. I thought it might have actually been it brings you back to three balls. That totally could be the truth. I mean, in hitting those targets, if you look at the playfield, they're all in the meaty shots of the flippers, so I mean, they're not hard to hit. So just literally flailing around during this multiball, you'll play a long time just by doing that, but I mean, putting this in the hands of a skilled player who's going to trap and take controlled shots, like, it's really problematic, which is the reason why this was in B Division and not in A Division. But yeah, I think I'll not... There's some other things in the game, like if you hit the middle ramp, it starts the train mode and you can get an Akerball if you finish that. It's got to be one of the most visible... The police peril or something? Yeah, you have to save the damsel from the train tracks. That music I can hear now, it just drives me nuts. It's going to be one of the most expensive mechs that does the beast. Oh, it does. Go across the mic. I know. Diddly-dly-dly. Diddly-dly-dly-dly. Diddly-dly-dly.
    87:17
    Yeah. You're just like, you're just trapped hovel-rooting saying, kill her already. Just go. When she dies, it's like, she died again. Thank you, because at least that music stops, right? Yeah. So, isn't that the one where you've got to get the left and right ramps, but if you shoot it up the middle, Oh, it pauses the train?
    87:37
    Yes, I believe that is. Or is it the opposite? Yeah. The middle, I believe the middle pauses and you have to hit the ramps X amount of times to save the day. And each of the shots have their own special modes, but I don't really remember what they do. I remember Polly, the other ones I'm not overly sure what they ended up doing. I think maybe the left orbit was Super Pops or something. Probably, something like that. But what I do know is if you complete all the main ones, that's how you obviously get into Stampede, which is, you know, the same as Attack from Mars, Total Annihilation. And that's cool. That's good fun to get to. Okay, so then is that, okay, so that's the multiball I was thinking. So how does regular multiball work? Because I thought it almost worked the same way, because it built Super Motherlode. Yeah, so that's just the normal one through the scoop that's just on the left, which has that boulder that goes up and down the mine. So that's just your normal multiple, which has got one of my favourite call-outs ever, which is luck is lit, and so am I. I love it. I quote that all the time. All the time. Honestly, I had forgotten that that was this. I thought it was Champion Pub. They also have a lot of funny drunk things in there too. Yeah. So that's really all it is, is you hit it once, the boulder goes up, in it goes, three balls in, and then it's done. I think second time around, you've got to hit the boulder to go up, then lock it in, and then the boulder comes down. But like the rules in the multiball I thought it was you hit the shots and then they build towards the Super Motherload value at the mine So I thought it was kind of like Annihilation Yeah I think what happens is that each of the jackpots that you hit adds value to the Super Jackpot which is the Motherload So I think what you're trying to do is hit all the five major jackpots then into the scoop for the Motherload and it is increased because you've got multiple. Sorry, you've got jackpots. So hit the jackpots, enter mother load, rinse and repeat.
    89:50
    And all while that mine is going up and down. Correct. Yeah. So it's fun. It's fun. But it's fun. It'd be really nice if this got finished. Yeah, I agree. I think the theme is great. The playfield's, you know, kind of standard, but it's fun. And, you know, if they do end up doing it, I hope that it, like, well, we already talked about this, but with the old designer back, I kind of have some high hopes with this game getting remitted. Yep, I do. I think that what people are trying to do with this is that there's probably more exploits on this game than others because they never really got to continue polishing the code. So one of the things that people do is, so that showdown, which is the pop-up target one, which is never-ending, if you can time that with another multiball, then you are stacking those two multiballs forever. And I think that's what people try to do. Yeah, that's true. I remember that. And you remember there being some big uncapped thing with the multiball, I mean with the multipliers, right? Yeah, I think that's the full... I remember the big left player. Yeah, okay.
    91:15
    Yeah, this is a really bad choice for this, considering you're never going to see this in a tournament. Or at least you never should. No, you probably won't. This is kind of a throwaway game. If you are playing this outside of a tournament and it's just for shits and giggles, it doesn't matter what you do, because it's actually a fun game regardless.
    91:35
    The shots are sweet, the little pop-up targets are great. When that other sort of lane pop-up stops the ball and you see the four targets you talked about before and then you've got to pick it, it kind of feels like you are in a bit of a showdown.
    91:49
    Theme integration is great. They just kind of need to finish it with a bit of polish, balance the rules, stop some of the exploits, and it would be a much better game. Definitely. Yeah, I mean, this is obviously not that there's so many other Western teams to pick from for games, but this would be the definitive, like, Wild Wild West. The theme. They did a really good job with it, which is sad considering that it came when it did. It came at the wrong time. Yeah. It did. But, so bad.
    92:20
    Well, there you go. There's Joe Tips the Top 100. Practice Canyon style. Yeehaw. So, a couple of things that happened in my world this week. We started planning Flipout 2019. We talked about this the last couple of weeks. So this is the big tournament that I put on in Melbourne, usually October and November. Last year we had about 90 people hoping to get over 100. This will be bigger and better than last year, so that's getting exciting. Probably the big news that happened this week, Joe, I finally fixed something on my pinball machine. I know, I was super excited. I know, I told you, I was so excited. You're the proudest I've ever been of you when you sent me that picture. I'm like, yay! I know, right? So this isn't even like something that's simple. This was actually something that was quite a challenge and this was I had to replace a switch with the fork sort of thing on it. You know what, it's a fork switch, whatever. I don't know what the proper example or title is. Fork switch, sure. For my Lord of the Rings. So this is the Gollum hole, you know, vertical upkicker type thing. Technically it's the Gimli hole.
    93:32
    I call it the Gollum. Well that's where Gollum starts. The character strides actually Gimli. Yeah, yeah. So that's a thing. So I had to actually unscrew this thing, you know, unsolder, desolder. What's the opposite of solder?
    93:53
    Unsoldering? I don't know. Unsolder, desolder. Anyway, I had to take the solder off and put the new solder on and put it in. And it was in the most awkward position to get to underneath my playfield. But I did it and it now works and my machine's better. And also, this is what's really interesting. I don't know whether you know that you can get different types of balls. Did you? Sadly.
    94:18
    So you can get these things called ninja balls. Yeah, this is a discussion. So Ninja balls are the most polished balls you can get, Joe. The problem with them is that they get magnetised. So the type of ball that I needed to get was just carbon. So I finally got some carbon balls, put it back into my Lord of the Rings. This machine plays so much better now. Like, you know how people have always said how Lord of the Rings is a long player? And I'm like, I don't know where people are getting this from because my machine just plays so brutal. And what I've realised is that these magnetised balls are not just being magnetised to each other, but they're also sticking to the rails, so they just go out the outlanes a lot more. Now that I've got these, and also it was much harder to get it right up to the ring because it was getting some friction going up the metal ramp. Now, this game is just so much better, so much easier to play too. I've got to toughen that up again. Yeah, it's hard to really think of another game that's more that more magnetization can really F the game over and where it can happen the most. I mean, when it's in the ring, especially if you have the game set to the two-ball destroy the ring, then it can... it holds the ball a lot in the ring. Yeah. So it can easily happen like that. And it's a shame, it's like one of those, you know, one of those things where, you know, another reason, besides it being the best game ever made, to vault it, is that there's still some things in there that can be fixed and improved and that would make the game better, like getting it more reliable and getting the two ball, destroy the ring, actually, because most people have it turned off because it can mess with the magnet. I've turned it off, yeah. Yeah. So, if they could get that to work, because, I mean, when it's on, it's so cool, the fact that it holds it, and then to destroy the ring, you have to hit the ball out through the thing, and then the machine throws, like, just flips out, and it's one of the coolest pinball moments. Which I didn't even know it had that in it, because every game I played, it had that turned off, and then one day I played it, I'm like, what is this? Mm.
    96:29
    You know. Mm. So good. Well, congratulations. Thank you, I'm very proud of myself. And I did make it worse. So, that's usually what I've done. Now you have a buttery Lord of the Rings, which I really do. It is awesome. And when I was playing, people were like, oh my god, you are so close to Valinor. And I'm like, really, am I? And apparently I was. Yeah, I, for the first time after League one day, after I took a last on the game, the very next game I played, I got the closest I've ever been to Valinar. I had, the only thing I had left to do was get the super in, oh no, the only thing I had to do was destroy the ring. And I had accidentally started it, so I was going to start it for the third time, and I just died right before I finished it. Which sucked because I didn't realize that that was the final thing. So I thought that after I got the final six, I already got all the gifts and I already got to there back again. And I figured the only thing I had left was Return of the King's Super. So I figured once I did that, that's it. I did it. And I'm like, oh no. And I'm like, nope. The only time it looks to see if you've qualified is when you destroy the ring. And I'm like, ah, I have to destroy it a third time. And of course it's, yeah, by that point it's just so stressful and getting it in there. I only had a couple shots left and I died. It was terrible.
    98:01
    I just someday wasn't bothered. I just went, you know what, I've had a fun time. Whether I get to Valinu or not, I don't care. You own it. So you can do it whenever you want. You can go on that journey. This was on a guest game that's now gone. So I don't have that opportunity anymore. Well, no, it's not even that. It's more so I just have always felt that Valinor was so far away, I never felt that I was ever going to get to it. So I don't really bother. You know what I mean? Like, I've just sort of written it off and gone, eh, it's not a thing why you did so well. Yeah, probably. No stress. Just none. None whatsoever. Yeah. Well, for me, that's always been, like, the pinball goal. Like, that someday I'm going to get to Valinor. because that has always been my favorite game even when I first started. Before I even played Pinball that was my favorite game. And then like to find out like every time you do something it'd be like you're not the Valinor yet. And I'd be like what is that? I want it. What is it? And then no matter how good you did it was just like nope still not. You still need to do that for Valinor. I'm like what is this Valinor? So then finally once I got it's just one of those things I've never been able to achieve. I've gotten to wizard modes on a ton of other games. Never gotten close to that. Well that was the closest I ever do. With like five people behind me cheering me on, which was also, also stressful. And even more terrible.
    99:22
    Because that was the carrot. They need to fault this machine. They do. Oh my god. And then, well, I mean, they need to do it. And then I need to somehow control myself and not ruin my life.
    99:36
    You may actually have a machine in your home again. Yeah. But even though I shouldn't, and I, yeah, I don't know. But, I don't know. The longer this has gone and the more I've heard people talk about it, the less hopeful I am that it's going to happen.
    99:52
    Seems that licensing has changed so much in pinball, I don't know. It certainly doesn't seem like it can happen in its current form. It would have to be like a, you know, Deadpool reimagining of, they'd have to like Spider-Man it. Where it'd have to be like, okay, yeah, it's the same game, but now we're going with hand-drawn art and different voice actors and I'd be like, alright, well, it's not Lord of the Rings anymore, so. Well, if you think about the only thing that was really, that was criticized, I think, at the time and has since is that the art is pretty low res. I don't even mind the fact that it's, you know, photorealistic, like they've used a bit of clip-out of it because I think the way they've designed it looks quite good, but it's pretty blurry. Oh, definitely. And, you know, obviously if you give that to Franchi or Zombie Eddie or anyone, it would be, like, amazing. I just don't think that they're, yeah, they can do whatever they are, I don't care, as long as they don't touch the sound. Like, that's the Brit. Well, no, because that's the other thing that gets criticized is that the bitrate on some of the call-outs and the music is really quite, you know, scratchy, I think, is how I would describe it. It just doesn't sound, I guess, maybe they have better versions of them, but I mean, if you take the voice actors out, like, I don't know, if you take the sound and colors from the movie out, like, that's a deal-breaker for me. No, I think they would have the original source for all of those. I think just put a better sound system in the machine or put more memory in the machine itself so it can actually store and play high-res clips. Don't change the music. Don't change the call-outs. Just make it higher fidelity.
    101:41
    Okay, well, yeah. I guess I just picture that as a given that that's going to happen. Well, but you never know. They're not going to be allowed to do that, which I don't know. But yeah, I hope that if it comes to the point, like I've mentioned with 24 and stuff like that, where these themes where it's like you go to do the thing and you go to Fox and say, I want to make a 24 machine, and then they say you can't have Jack Bauer, and you say, well, it's nice talking to you, and then you just walk, because it shouldn't exist without that. And I feel like Lord of the Rings, if you go to them and they're like, yeah, sure, but you can't have Gandalf anymore and you can't have the Frodo custom callouts or the Gimli callouts, then I just go, alright, cool, then it's not going to happen then. And I hope that they don't force it if they lose what makes the game special and truly the best theme-integrated game that's ever existed, and they get that taken away, then I hope they walk and just say, alright, then it shouldn't be done. Because if that's gone, I just can't, it's not, the game's not the same, and it won't be worth doing.
    102:51
    I agree with you. Completely. So someday, I'm, you know, that's my white whale. I'm hoping that, you know, that they do it, and I can just imagine that game with an LCD of similar scenes that are DMD'd, and somehow, I mean, if it's money, then charge JJP prices. I don't care. Like, that's just, it's just like, it's like Harry Potter. Like, it's just, yeah, Charlie would pay charge to make money. And people will pay for it. Because, like, they talk about, like, well, but Lord of the Rings is out there. It's like, yeah, but Lord of the Rings, in its current form, would not be able to compete with that. So it's like, then it's, they're not really competing. Like, so, it's like, then just, just charge, just same thing like I mentioned with, with Harry Potter. Don't worry about the price. Just do it. People will pay. They will pay. Lord of the Rings is exactly like Harry Potter and that bank. Doesn't matter what it costs, people will pay for it. They will pay. And those people that have got money tied up in their Lord of the Rings original, you know, the limited edition, we're all going to scream that their machine's gone down in value. But that's what happens. Well, that's probably what's going to happen with... I hope that they do that with Tron because I don't think... Honestly, I don't think that they should... When they vault Tron, I don't think they should just vault the Pro. They should make a premium. They should make an LE playfield as a premium with all the stuff from that playfield and then put that out with a new art package, new armor, and it's its own thing. And that's what they should do for it because there's enough pros out there, but there's not enough LEs, playfields, and they've already established that that was the model before that existed. So why can't you go to it now? And if the people complain, it's like, it's still in LE. It still has the Chrome. It's still numbered. These are not. These are just so people can stop putting on these jerry-rigged light ramps on their machines, and this one actually works properly, and all this other stuff. I hope they do a premium. And I've heard people say, oh, well, it'd be cool if they did a premium, and they did the original art for, you know, do original Tron.
    105:01
    Sure. I don't know. I much prefer Legacy, but sure, whatever. I don't know how much sense that would make. Because it's like, you see all the original stuff on there. I agree, because if you then go back to the original, you have to take out one of the best things that the Tron pinball machine has, and that is the Dark Punk soundtrack. You'd have to take that out if you were going back to the original show. Yeah, and then you'd have to have the retro that's like, no, I don't, like, cool, it doesn't need to be retro. This is not based on that. The original is not as good, in my opinion, as the new one, and it's like, it won't fit. Hearing that and all this other stuff, seeing the retro, they have nothing to do with each other. No, no.
    105:45
    Even Tron, he's in a helmet now, so we're going to show him without the helmet? But he's on the play field with a helmet, and his name's different. Well, I don't know. I guess what I'm saying is that if you go back to the original, you have to go boots and all. You can't just have elements from the original. You would have to do new clips, DMD clips from the original. You'd have to have original music. You'd have to have original art. You'd have to have original. So it becomes a Spider-Man vault, effectively, because that had to have all new stuff. Which, you know, if that's what they gotta do, if that's what they feel is necessary for them to not just get, you know, pitchforked and, you know, angry mobbing. To say, like, yeah, it's a premium, it has all the features, but as you can see, it's a completely different game, see? It's different. It's not, you're at least, please don't burn our building down. Like, you know, if that's what they have to do, then sure, fine, I don't care what, I mean, I'm not gonna like as much, Because obviously I prefer Legacy and that soundtrack. But I mean, and I honestly don't think that that will do as well. I mean, there's a lot of people talking about the nostalgia of the original Tron. It's like, yeah, sure, I've heard people say that, but are they the people who are going to go buy this game? Probably not. You know, is it going to crush on location? Don't think so. But, you know, who knows? I mean, there's room certainly that if it's a limited run like that, they can certainly find out if it's right or not. But I don't know what the costs with that would be. Well, again, I don't know. And look, as we all heard when I mentioned it to Gary, he obviously, they know, they know the demands there. So we've always said if it was ever going to happen, it would have happened. They know. So, you know, I don't know. I don't know there's much that we can do. It's not like me bringing it up to him again. All of a sudden he says, oh, now that you've mentioned it, Martin, now we will definitely go through all the possible licensing hurdling, possible manufacturing hurdling, possible having to re-theme it or re-art it. They know the demand's there. There's got to be something stopping them from doing it. Yeah, and, you know, I mean, that seems to be the rumour that just won't go away is that Tron is next. So, who knows what form that's going to come in, who knows if that's actually right. It's not like Jersey Jack where the rumors are 100% accurate. So, you know, it's always, Stern, you know, from the show I heard tons of different things. I heard that, like, you know, the Jaws is 100% not happening because, I didn't realize this, but did you know that, like, if you get Jaws as a license that you only get the shark? That's it.
    108:34
    You get none of the other stuff from the movie. None of the characters. None of the actors, nothing. Not the music. Not the do-do-do-do-do. None of it. You just get the shark.
    108:44
    And I was told that that is why that will never happen because there's literally nothing that you can use. So why do it? Which makes a good point. Like, yeah, I'll just make a shark. Like, why pay for a shark when there's nothing about the Jaws shark that makes you think it's a different shark than another great white shark you could just make.
    109:06
    That's right. So you might as well just make it a generic shark theme as opposed to having to pay for anything that comes through, right? Yep. So I think that's definitely not going to happen ever again, ever. So I think that rumor can go to bed. Yeah, I think we need to move on from Jaws. Yeah.
    109:25
    So there you go. Anything else happen during your week? Well, besides getting GCs and stuff on dialed in or Armageddon Champion, that kind of stuff. I know, that was the first time I've ever done that. It was pretty cool. Everything came together.
    109:43
    But, no, I mean, just league's over, so now we're just waiting for the finals next weekend. So that hasn't gone on. I already talked about Pintastic this weekend. I'm not really. This weekend I had a pinball party today, which obviously is what you're referring to, And then tomorrow I'm going up to the Ice Ice Arcade to tune up and get the games ready for Pim Masters of New Hampshire. And then after that, I don't know if we're going to go to the tournament in Cambridge or not, or just... I'm so obsessed with the game, I might just go to Bit Bar after and play Pirates. You do play a lot of Pimball, though. Yeah, I do.
    110:25
    That's cool. There you go, boys and girls. You don't get this good unless you play. You play a lot. You do. You play obviously a lot of comps as well and that's how you get to be up there. Yep, and that's how you wrinkle out these oopsies where you play the game wrong in tournaments and it costs you and you don't advance because you don't know the rules. Everyone says that. I'm like, oh my god, Joe knows the rules. I'm like, no, still. I'm still learning. I know everything. Yep, so yeah, and that's why I didn't own games because I play so much outside. When I'm at home, I want to do home stuff. I want to watch TV and, you know, have people over and stuff like that. I don't want to play games. At least not pinball.
    111:06
    But, yeah, so, then, next weekend's huge, though. But we can talk about that next weekend. We can talk about next weekend. So, but, we'll talk about this next week. I also want to talk about other things, right, because I finished watching The Umbrella Academy. Have you watched that? I have been told I need to watch it, but I haven't. I mean, we just started watching Stranger Things.
    111:29
    I, for probably the fourth time, I'm not exaggerating, for the fourth time tried to start watching season two of Stranger Things. I loved season one. Season two just starts off so slow that I just can't bring myself to watch it. And now that season three's out, it's like, oh, I've got to try and force myself to just get through the first couple of episodes of season two, which are just so dull. But the reason why I bring that up, because I want to talk about it next week, and everybody had a think about it. Like current streaming services shows, things that are on Netflix that are really popular, so things like Stranger Things, could that make a good pinball machine? Because Umbrella Academy, if Umbrella Academy became this actual worldwide phenomenon, it would make a great Pimball thing, I reckon.
    112:27
    Yeah. I mean, Stranger Things, obviously, is an easy thing to do, an obvious thing. And I think the, you know, I mean, I just thought, just thinking when you mentioned that of like what they could do, It would be so cool if they could do, like the game came with pin stadiums on it and like there were modes where you'd go into the upside down and it'd turn on black lights and then like it'd turn off the general illumination so then now just the black lighted stuff that you, like kind of like Predator where you couldn't see stuff and then you turn it and a completely different art pops up that you couldn't see it, like that would be really cool. That would be awesome, wouldn't that?
    113:10
    That's a great idea, Trey Markman. Absolutely. I think Stranger Things would be a great pinball theme and a lot of people have spoken about that. I'm just putting out there with Umbrella Academy. Watch it, Joe, because visually it's fantastic. The storyline's great, but also the soundtrack, the music in this plays a really important part of the game, of the show. I'm not saying like music, you know, forms a part of the plot twist. It's not that. But each episode there'll be three iconic songs played that just really bring you into that show and kind of Guardians of the Galaxy type thing even though I do question the songs that they chose. It's that kind of thing where those songs were so iconic in the movie they play such an important part in the Pinball Machine. There you go. There's my vote everybody. Umbrella Academy. Do it. Yeah, and I think that that also, you know, same thing, obviously the same thing with Stranger Things, but I think that also might be a big problem, is that, from what I've heard, that music is a huge problem when it comes to getting music in pinball machines now, so getting that stuff in there. There's like two extra things to be licensed, yeah.
    114:26
    Yeah, so it's like, that's probably why you got the songs you did in Guardians. Yeah, that's exactly right. I don't think anyone's like, yeah, I gotta get that cherry bomb royalties.
    114:37
    It's like, you know, that really popular hooked on a feeling song. Oh, come on. Well, that is the most iconic thing from that movie.
    114:48
    The only thing is that they got the one thing they were allowed to have, so you gotta use it, you pay for it, you gotta use it as much as you can.
    114:55
    Yeah, and, yeah, you might as well. Yeah, that's the problem. Gotta get your money's worth. Exactly.
    115:02
    So last thing for the week, okay, this is our final week for our Penn Stadium competition. We've had so many entries. I think when you make the competition really easy, that means that you can have a lot of entries, which we did. The only one that really didn't get that many entries, well it still did get a lot, but not compared to all the others, was the one where we actually asked people to go and research how many colours you could actually get. Apparently building pinball is not easy, but apparently entering contests for pinball is very easy. It is actually very, very easy. So the last question I've got for you for your week five entries is, it doesn't matter, the actual answer doesn't matter, but the question is, what game do you think has the darkest play field? Meaning, what would stand to benefit the most from a set of pin stadiums? So this is not a game in your collection.
    116:02
    It's just a game that you know has got the darkest play field that would benefit the most from Pitch Stadiums. There's two that come to my mind, but we can talk about that next week. Oh, big marketeers. Yeah, people are not giving a shit. But that's it, there it is. All you've got to do is you've got to write in to headtoheadpinball at gmail.com. Title of your email is week five. Your answer is whatever machine you think has got the darkest playfield that would benefit the most from the set up in stadiums.
    116:34
    Yeah, and obviously your entries don't count unless you're on Patreon. No, that is not true. But we've actually had a lot of people sign up for Patreon throughout the competition. And once you get to the end of the competition, the next week when we do it, If you've set up a Patreon account now, all your entries are doubled. Not just the ones after, all of them. If you are a Patreon subscriber, by the time we draw, your entries are doubled. So just do it. And all future drawings of things. Correct. It's $3 a month. It's such fuck all money. And you support us. Which is, I mean, we're so supportable. You're now paying for our subscription to Zencastr. Which, if you like the buttery tones of our voice in this episode, thank you, Zencaster. And thank you for paying for it. Oh, there it is! Yeah.
    117:32
    Oh, sorry. And we have these nice new sounders that, oh boy, so much fun will be had. Cool. Well, that's not fun, but obviously it's baseball. We can have Teolas on and just play that over everything he says. We can do whatever. This is what your Patreon money goes to is us now paying for a subscription to Zencast. So thank you everybody. I appreciate it. Yes, thank you.
    118:03
    Awesome. Well, thank you very much, Joe. Looking forward to our 100th episode next week with our special guest. I wonder who it could be. Who is it? Oh my God.
    118:13
    It's J-Pop, right? Who else could it be? It couldn't be anybody else. And Nick Rivers. Yeah. Good to get him on. We did try to get him on at one stage, but he was just really busy. So, anyway. Yeah, he's a busy boy. That's why he retired. I would say that's why. I mean, I think it's because he couldn't hang with us, but I mean. Yeah, I know.
    118:34
    All right, so thanks everybody for listening. This has been episode 99. Please go to our Facebook page. Go to our website, headtoheadpinball.com. As I said before, email us at headtoheadpinball at gmail.com. We will do our best to reply to you. There's Instagram, which I very rarely use. There's also Twitter, which, you know, happens. So communicate to us whichever way you like.
    119:01
    Thanks, Joe. No problem. Thanks, guys. All right. Thanks, everyone.