Live from a very loud and entertaining Texas Pinball Festival 2024, it's Don's Pinball Podcast, Day 1 update, let's do it! Man, there's barely any light here. It keeps going out. It's almost like a thunderstorm is happening at the ABC Suites Expo Center in Frisco. It's Don from Don's Pinball Podcast. How are you doing? You know who I am. I'm here with Nicole Tavovich, my good friend from Virginia Beach. What's up, girl? Hey, guys. Yeah, so we're here manning the booth. We got our own booth here at TPF. We're halfway through the second day, and it's just ramping up and getting better the more time it goes on. We showed up yesterday, which was during pack-in day, and I think we closed the place out. They were kicking us out after midnight. It was completely nuts. And now today, we've got the full load in. All the new games are out here. The Princess Bride is here. There's a ton of Pulp Fictions. And we've played, I think, at least one lap on mostly everything. So I figured we could do a day one catch up and put this out there for everybody. So I'll just go down the list here. First off, surprise of the event is Turner Pinball's new cabinet design for Ninja Eclipse. It's one of the first places we went to. We spent like an hour over there last night talking to Chris Turner. Solid dude and solid machine. We've got like a full-size machine now, fully featured. and man, she's got hips, she's got legs, everything you would need, and a new price tag of under $7,000. We're talking barbecue pricing for Ninja Eclipse. I haven't made it over there to play it yet, but there's been a line steadily all day. Always fun. Yeah, so we'll head over there after we finish, but I'm going to try to get Chris over here to chat about his machine, right? You excited? I am. It's fun playing. I love the design of the new glasses. Alright. Also, adjacent to Ninja Eclipse, I like barbecues making a strong showing here. American Pinball's here. David Fix is here wearing his barbecue apron, his Berrios logo emblazoned upon it. And we've got three barbecues up at their booth. And Houdini's and there's Hot Wheels over there, too, for those of you of the Hot Wheels persuasion. But there's also a couple other barbecues floating on the floor that the distributors or owners brought as well. So we got on some barbecue. Did you get on some barbecue? I did get on barbecue. Okay. I know me and Danny were playing it earlier. All right. So you know preconceived notions. Give me your take on barbecue. Simple. Nothing too crazy. Now they said the same thing about me. Oh, stop it. It was fun, but it wasn't exciting. Now you like Hot Wheels, right? Yes, I do like Hot Wheels. So the game feels very much like the same scope of a Hot Wheels type game. There's no upper playfields. There's no giant mechanisms. There's no barbecue or George Foreman grill that rises from the play field to trap the balls into. And I'm not a single-level play field fan. I don't like them. You like the mechanisms and the fun, interesting things. Yeah. Maybe like a labyrinth, which we're going to get to next. Labyrinth was amazing. All right. So I had fun at barbecue again. I had fun when I played it before. I've heard everybody rake this game completely over the barbecue coals online. But so far I haven't really heard from anybody in the diaspora of pinball podcast station who's played it and got back to me. So I'd say play it for sure. Yeah, it wasn't horrible. Not my favorite, but still fun. It's strange. If I was to pick my top ten themes I want to see in pinball, my Goonies and other Ghostbusters, what have you, I don't think I'd pick Random Old Guy Barbecue. But it was fun. It was fun to hit the shots. So it's still pinball. It's still fun. Go check it out. Go play it. you know, wherever you can find it. There's a lot of background noise here, man. You know, they're not kidding when they talk about it's hard to hear call-outs and things. You know, I'll tell you where it is easy to hear call-outs, though, and it is in the special VIP L.O.'s Tea Room with barrels of fun. We got in there today. So if you pre-order a labyrinth or if you own a labyrinth, you get to go into the special VIP suite adjacent to the main expo floor, and you can play the game in the quietude and solace of a smaller room, basically. Yeah. All right, so this was your first time going in and playing Labyrinth. We played a couple of games on it. We played the Whitewood that they have there, and we also played the fully featured one, running the new beta code that's not even out yet with the new topper enhancements and the extra light package that happens during the multiball. And so for you, somebody who's not familiar with the Labyrinth movie and that lore, what are your thoughts? We want to hear them. It was fun, silly. I think the owner or somebody said that I drained, but I still laughed, which is great. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they would say, you're ball-drained, but you're still laughing. They said that that's what their goal was. Partly, you know, when you get into the bog of eternal stench, and then for the rest of the game, all the slings make fart noises, I mean, it gives me a giggle, right? So what do you think of the game as far as, like, a layout? Like, if you look at Barbecue that we played earlier, and then you just got out of the Labyrinth, like, what are you thinking? Layout's better, but again, I don't like the single-level playfields. I like the ramps. Okay. What do you think of the ramps on Labyrinth? it flowed well easy to shoot heck yes yeah heck yes so um yeah so well done so that was fun getting over there to um you know that VIP area as it were um and uh meeting with all the guys now I went over there they have the pin armor available too this is $410 right now for a complete package of some thick woven like military grade um pin armor well armament like a like a like a contoured blanket custom made for your pinball machine uh it's three pieces You put a piece on the backbox. You can fold it down, strap it, so no more shrink wrap. Everything's protected. And then there's like a big barbecue cover that goes over the entire machine. And then you can take the legs off and then transport it. The whole thing's completely wrapped. And I don't know how I can reasonably leave here without having a set of this. There's also a leg bag that comes with it. David Van Ass walked me through the whole process of putting it on, taking it off. And I dug it. I dug it. There was even an extension for the shooter rod, which, you know, I'm a modest man. I don't know if I could completely fill it. But it's there if you need the extra girth coverage. So that was fun. Their booth has been stacked all day. There's a lot of people here already on Friday. I mean we halfway through Friday it is It not even the big Saturday and already there tons of peeps around And I tell you where everybody at Everybody over at Spooky booth around their amazing new games I've been championing these two games. Looney Tunes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I'm a lucky boy. Hashtag blessed. I was invited over to their factory to see these games like 48 hours after the reveal. It was nuts. It was great. Wish come true, guys. Wish come true. I played these games, and then that day I put in my order for not one of them. I didn't pick one or the other. I picked both of these things. They both have the same exact layout, just like, you know, what was it, Halloween and Ultraman did. And I'm thinking, did I make a stupid mistake? No, good listener. I still support that decision. I'm having so much fun on both of these games. And finally, other people can see what I've been talking about this whole time. All right, so now what do you think about the Looney Tunes? It is not a single-level play field. It's not. I like New Toons over Texas. Whoa. Hot take. Yeah. People are asking me, Dawn, which one do you like better? And I get to tell them, you know what, I don't have to decide because I've got both of them. But I will say, like, now that I have both of them, if I had to sell one, right now I don't know where I'd come down, you know, if I had to get rid of one and keep the other, you know. Yeah. I figured if nothing else, I could own both of them. And if one really speaks to me, that's the one I can hold on to and I'd get the other one out. I still have that killer layout. Four ramps. Four flippers. Under flipper shot. magnets grabbing balls, dogs eating cats. It's nuts, right? But so far, they're solidly in my spooky corner. I love it. The shots and the layout and the playability on Scooby-Doo was a big step up from what we've seen from them, and this is like a gigantic leap from there even. So games are awesome. So you guys pre-ordered Looney Tunes, right? No. Come on. I wish. I know my boy Danny's been itching. He's looking at every game like, I think I need to get this one too. He wants every game, yeah. Now you guys just got a Jaws LE. We did. Amazing. I got to play a Jaws LE for the very first time today. And I love it. I'm in love with it. Just touching that polar white powder coat, like, it elevates the game so much. Yeah. It was actually Spooky's Scooby-Doo upper play field. They made me fall in love with upper playfields. I didn't like them until Scooby-Doo. And then we got Jaws. More playfields, more fun, you know? No, I don't know. Some people like the classic gameplay of the single level. I like being able to throw the balls up the new areas and play and explore. Well, like, Boot Fighters upper. Don't like it. Oh. That's why we didn't get it. Oh, come on. I don't like it. I like that one. Nope. That one you can go up and you can hang out on for a while. No. If you catch it. Jaws, Ellie, what do you think of that upper play field? You can't stay up there hardly at all. I stay up there longer on that one than I would on Boot Fighters. Stop it. No, I do. Girl, it's your machine level. I can get, sometimes I can get two shots off up there. Otherwise, it's like one and then done. If that, if that. It's a fast upper play field. I know people complain about them sometimes because they think they slow the gameplay down. I don't get that at all. Not from Foo Fighters. You know, if you don't want it, the upper play field, you can shoot up there, and the ball will still drain out just as fast as it wasn't even there, right? Yeah. And then Jaws, even though it's got that S-turn to slow the ball down, it still can rocket right through there. You know, and you've got to be quick. You've got to get the wheel award and everything. You've got to be quick at it. You've got to be quick at it. But Spooky Pinball, they've got that single level, no upper playfields, but there's like a whole upper airway, a verticality to the game, because of the four ramps and those wire forms and the branching paths and everything comes back to a flipper and the flow is there. If you're playing good, you can get the ball flowing around. Did you get that sense? I did. But I still... I liked Looney Tunes better because of the theme, the look. It appealed to me, so I think I had more fun playing that game. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I get lost in the maniac world of TCM, too, so that's why I can't decide. Because they both do what they do so great. They both play great, but they both play different because they're not coded. Yeah. Now, if you don't want to be in the grotesque environment of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you probably don't want to spend a lot of time there. But if you're cool with that, like walking into a Halloween haunted house, walk through, people jumping out of the corners, blood and gore everywhere, if you're into that, which I am, dear listener. Oh, I'm into that. I love all the horror. I just prefer to play these. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah, man. So we got here when they were just setting up last night. And what do they have? at least five, five or six Looney Tunes, one of which in Butter Cabinet. And even before, like, we weren't even getting close to being open to the general public. Like, four of the six were already sold of Looney Tunes. One of the TCMs was sold. And now, you know, like, by noon or so, completely all of the Looney Tunes are sold out that they brought. I was joking with him. I'm like, hey, do you want me to run up to Benton and grab some more games and come down? So did you sell out all these? And poor Bug and Luke are completely, completely exhausted. Yeah. They were like, no. Good for them, though. Like, please, no more games. Please, no more games. No, but the games are doing good. The people are digging them, and from what I'm hearing, like, they're screaming out of the factory. So I was going to try to segue into this a better way. I don't know how to do it. Should we talk about the multi-morphics? I'll talk about multi-morphics. Yeah, I didn't play that one. New game. So Princess Bride's on the show floor. There's, like, 15. No, not 15. Probably 8, 10 multi-morphic machines over there, and there's at least three Princess Brides. and they had the top level edition with the two swords on the side. I got to play with that. And let me just tell you, I was concerned that maybe the swords would get in the way. What's the part of the sword that you hold? Not like the hilt, but like the hand-holding part. That is right in the way, so it's like you're holding that with your hands on the buttons. But you can extend your fingers into the rest of the guard of the sword and get a good grip on that machine and just move it around. It was getting a little intense. But how'd the game play, Don? The game play's fine. I had fun with it. We'll go play it later so you can check it out. I'll show you more about what that multi-morphic even is because it's an interesting device. But the gameplay, I really liked it. The shots were very easy to hit. The middle ramp up the shot. The middle shot up the middle. The shot up the middle ramp. I need to sleep. Easily repeatable, as were the other ones. But again, my frustration from the game. Here it goes. There you go. Is having the flippers, the upper flippers on a separate button. There's two different buttons on the side you have to use to play. There's three on each side, you know, so that games can use different, you know, combinations of this. You can switch the modules out to change the game it is. But it gets kind of frustrating. If you're, like, playing fast and frenzied and you forget and your hand's on the wrong button, you're going to miss balls, right? And then even if you're playing properly, as the balls are coming around the orbits, You have to like knowingly switch your hand position to get to the other button or like play split finger or something people say you Get used to it. I'm definitely not used to it Somebody else commented and said that you know within the the adjustments of the machine you can set it So all the flippers are on one button But they said when you do that the flippers get weaker because they all drawing from the same power So I don know there probably a method to the madness and a reason they have it set up the way they do That's just my take on it. So I don't have one for you, or if you were walking by the booth, hello sir, bad pennies here. Bob my Venom killed it, man, that game is awesome. But the game itself is fun and that's where my frustration comes, because you'll see with the button thing. It's strange, it takes some getting used to. I think once I got accustomed to it, it probably wouldn't be that big of a deal. And that's probably why they always have them set up like this, because that's how they're used to. But, you know, it is what it is. So my take on it after playing it one or two times is I like the game. I think the gameplay is cool. The technology is definitely interesting. But, you know, the price point is kind of approaching. It's more than a labyrinth for the base model. You know, you're talking about $11,000 plus to get this game. And if you want the top end, it's $13,750. So you're talking about Jersey Jack prices. And so when you do that, I'm going to invite some more criticality to my decision. Not to throw any shade, I think the game's fun to go play. I want to go play it again. But that's like my first impression on it. This will probably evolve as time goes on. Now, you were hanging out with us last night. Yep. And then we went over to the homebrew area and we fired up Saw. Yeah. Incredible. What did you think about Saw? Saw was amazing. Nice. Violent and gory. Very. Yeah, absolutely. So this is a re-theme. This is a homebrew. It's a re-theme of Whirlwind, right? So you've got the three spinning discs there in the same layout. But similarities end right there. From the point that you plunge the ball, the ball plunger is a hacksaw with a hacksaw blade going through the cabinet in a sawing back and forth motion. And then the graphic on the front is a woman's leg being severed with the hacksaw. Like, just brutal! It was brutal! And then the gameplay is great because it's Whirlwind, so the shots are all awesome. and then the modes are like completely nuts like Glenn Wechner did the music there's a whole team of people on here my buddy Joe over there and everyone I get to meet everybody I should have wrote their names down because I don't want to venture trying to get them wrong for misremembering but the game is awesome the topper is like a screen perfect recreation of that jaw ripping device and then when your last ball drains the thing snaps it's got a pneumatic actuator in it the thing would snap a cat in half it's crazy Yeah, it looks very violent and a little unsafe. So I live streamed some of that. It's on a reel on YouTube. Go check that out. I did a Facebook Live last night that people have been sharing around. But, God, I want to go back and play that game some more. It's had a line the whole time. Spooky. You've got to wait, like, three or four people deep just to get close to one of their machines. They brought a ton of them. Labyrinth is on the floor, also drawing a huge crowd. There's a lot of Jaws' and some Foo Fighters out there. I played Foo Fighters with the new topper. And so, did you see the topper over there? I did not. We're going to go look at it. So my take is the topper's awesome, okay? My take is also the topper's really expensive, and so you've got to balance, right? You've got to balance that out. You know, I think Ford Testarossas are really awesome, but they're also really expensive, so I'm not getting one. But the product itself is great. It's on par with what we've seen from, like, the Godzilla topper from Stern. You know, it's as cool as the Black Knight topper, even though there aren't as many freedom degrees of movement. but the thing that I could see why up until now with Foo Fighters there's been modes that didn't have a lot of call outs you know New Orleans does but that's kind of it everything else the roadie will do call outs but that's about it and it's because there was a lot of call outs that were going to come from that topper voice which is now in there so I don't know if it's exclusive to people like you have to have the topper to hear the voice but like the topper lights up and moves his head around and I had my hands all over the thing today you know it's solid It looks great. It's got this cool kind of like comic book paint to it. You know, the head of the moving robot, Foo Bot, I've got to show you. It's sweet. It's pretty much like, it's three-dimensional, but only just. But it's got a lot of details painted onto it to where it looks like it's right out of a comic book. So I appreciate that. As far as motion, it does the same thing as the R2-D2 topper does. Just back and forth, that's all you get. So for it to be called the best topper in pinball, it would have to at least pose a threat to a cat. or have more degrees of freedom. But it's fun for what it is. I like the product. At $2,000, if I still had the game, I don't know, man. I don't know. Knowing me, it's like one-third the cost of a Foo Fighters Pro. I would not send that money to you. $2,000 just for the lighted plastics on top. Yeah, but, I mean, everybody that buys one is going to say the same thing. They're going to say, yeah, it was really expensive. Yeah, I really like it. and we're not going to learn our lesson. Nope. We're not going to learn our lesson. All we're telling them is, thank you, Stern Daddy. We like your $2,000. Please charge us $2,400 for the next one. You're right. That's what we're telling them, and I don't know that there's a way around that. These things are going to sell. People are going to buy them, and, you know, congrats to the design team because it looks really great. It's integrated fantastically. That's really what you're buying when you're buying the topper, is the integration of the lights and the synchrony of what's going on on the play field. It goes on on the topper. It's cool. I was hoping, because this game is based on a fictitious Saturday morning cartoon show with toy robots and things, I was hoping they would have had action figures of the whole band up there that would jiggle around or something. That's what I built up in my head, so maybe I should blame myself for my antisappointment because I was building it up too much. But what we got is very much toy-centric. But it looks like they took the same art from the play field, put it on plastics and lit it up with a head that rotates back and forth, in addition to some awesome call-outs. That's where I'm out on it. Yeah. Too generic for me. I don't like the traditional toppers. Hashtag topper rant. All right. All right, what else do we got? I think it might help if we speak closer to these mics. There's so much background noise. Like, normally these are pretty good. But, yeah, and I'm going to turn it down a little bit, and we'll talk a little louder. I don't know. No, we're at a crowded convention center hall. There's going to be noise back here. What else do we got? But we did Saw. I talked about the Stern stuff. It's so dark, I can't even read anything. Multimorph talked about that. What did you think? You played Pulp Fiction for the first time. I did. And you thought it was a pinball machine. Yeah, it was fun. It was fun. It didn't thrill me, but I'd play it again. $8,000. I'd rather have not Pulp Fiction. There we go. All right. That's it. So Pulp Fiction is a game that when it was released, I was like, I don't think this is for me. You know and then like now that I can kind of learn to appreciate kind of what they were doing the story behind it Blah blah blah like I'm in on it. I'm hype on it now, but like at first It's kind of like total nuclear annihilation you play that Huh and you a big fan Nope See I do not like that game the first time I played it I like what the hell is wrong with people saying that this is like the best game ever This is like what am I missing? Am I in crazy town? Like, it's flat. There's no ramps. You know, like, what the hell is it to this game? Right? Yeah. And then, like, once I started, you know, playing more and getting better at pinball and then playing it with people that really know what they're doing, it's the gameplay that people enjoy from it, you know? It's not flashy to lay out. It's not a lot to look at. The game is not good enough at playing it yet. Yeah, I mean, that was part of my problem. But once I learned all the rules of it and what you have to hit to start the reactor, then get up there and get the reactor going, and then blow up the reactor, and then yay, and then do the next one, it's like, okay, now I get it. But then you do it again over and over. It's very repetitive. It is. But I haven't got to Reactor 9. So that's a game that's great because of its gameplay. and if that's what you're into, you're really going to like it. But if you're like, I want some other fun stuff to do, I want to see things happen, it's not there. If you lock balls in the game, somebody else that you're playing with could just take it from you. Yeah, Danny. You're like, what the heck? Stealing my balls. What the heck, dude? I worked hard for that. Yeah, so it's like, F this game, flip it over. So on the spectrum between a game like Labyrinth, which just has fun stuff to do, no matter what you're doing, you're going to have a good time. There's two screens there, multiple stuff to have. And then to have TNA on the other end where it's just very much you need to drag the gameplay out of the machine to get enjoyment. Pulp Fiction is more on that side of the spectrum. I agree. Yeah. You know, I like LCD screens. Elton John is probably the bedazzled jewel even past Labyrinth as far as forget gameplay, forget rules. Let's just make the ball go do crazy stuff. Yeah. Get a ball on the piano, you know. Yeah, it's fun. It's flashy. It's pretty. I talked to my good friend, Ken Cromwell, over at Jersey Jack's booth today. Jack couldn't be here due to a scheduling conflict. He's somewhere much more warm and tropical right now. Not that I blame that guy at all for doing that. But, yeah, there's a ton of Jersey Jack's Elton John on this game floor. And right now it is still the season of Elton John. And so they're not ready to reveal what's probably going to be a bomb theme next. I can't wait to see what they got. Rumors abound about everything. I honestly have no idea what's coming. But it's going to be awesome. What's up, guys? How you doing? Thanks for coming by the booth. We're recording live right here. You having a good time? They're having a good time. All right. Everybody stop at the booth having fun. I've got golden tickets hidden around the game floor. People are digging it. There's a couple that are still unfound. If you find one, you get a free T-shirt. Here's how it works. There's a 3D printed 144 millimeter wide or long by I think they're 60 millimeters wide. They're the same size as an apron card. Right? I 3D printed them, and they got some text on them. They look like Wonka's cards that he gave out during the movie. I took them and I taped them to games. I taped them to the back of back boxes. I taped them to the bottom with the corner sticking out so you can see that little gold. And I saw that somebody went over to Ninja Eclipse and got that one. Somebody went over to the back of a Looney Tunes and got that one. There's another one on a banner from another company that we've already talked about, and it stuck to the back there. I was just over there. It's still there, so somebody can go find that one. There's one in the claw machine over at the Spooky Pinball booth. That one's kind of out in the open, but you've got to grab it. Where did I put the other one? Oh, it's on the bottom of barbecue. Or behind a backbox. Oh, I know. We'll have to go over there and see if that's the one that people have been finding. Yeah. But I'm going to do five of these every day, I think. They're fun. I'm having fun with it. And I think I'm going to start dropping more hints so people can find them. But if you're coming to Texas Pinball Festival or you know somebody that's already here, tell them to go find them, man. They're already out there. What are we looking forward to? The show is going until 1 a.m. tonight. Which means we're going hard. You know me and Danny went running today? They did. Yeah, we did. He's been trying to. He's a runner. My boy Danny from Virginia Beach. What a gem of a human. Wouldn't you agree? I would. You live with the guy. I do. He shipped me my Black Knight Sword of Rage after playing it first. A few times. We had to make sure it worked out right. So dude's in amazing shape, and he's a runner. And he's trying to get me back into running. And he's like, Don, I'm going to get you up at 4.30 in the morning. We're going to go run around Texas. And I said, no, that's probably not going to happen. I'm going to sleep right through that. But it did. It did. So we went out of the convention center in torrential rain, and we had to make a target run. So we ran up a block to get over to my hotel to get the car, and I did okay. I think I did okay. Let's see, yeah. I heard you did well. Oh, good. I didn't want to let him down, the poor guy. So we went running. It must have been at least 3K that we ran. Yeah, just shy of that, I think. Just shy. Almost just. Almost just. Okay, yeah. We'll probably do a full 5K next time. That's tomorrow. Oh, we're having so much fun here. So I've gone around and given some invitations to folks to come back and do some little interviewage. And I think we're going to talk to Chris Turner here soon. So I think we can wrap this one up, and then we'll jump back on with more information. I've got the microphones here all weekend, so I'll see if we can get some cool interviews with folks. And we're having such a good time. I was in my Wonka outfit walking the show floor. I thought I would do one lap and come back. It took me four hours, and I still never came back. Like, everybody was doing it. Kids were asking for pictures. I was giving out stickers. It was crazy. Yeah, we were live streaming, so go check that out. Oh, my God. What else? What are you excited for? What do you want to go do now? I want to go play more. I want to go find some lights. It's so dark over here. Yeah, it is dark. Maybe they're trying to give us a message or something. No, prices went up. All right. All right. Come by the Don's Pinball Podcast booth if you're in the vicinity. We got free stickers. I got apron cards, 3D printed that I made, $20. Grab them and go. I got Jaws. I got Stranger Things. It's crazy. I got one Godzilla left if somebody wants it. I got T-shirts for $30. Balls of Steel is here. Sterling Martin from Savannah, Georgia. He's got his logo here, also done by Mr. Michael Barnard, who's a gem of a human. He's got sign posters here for sale. Christopher Franchi's here. How you doing, buddy? Oh, dude. That happens a good time. Why is there a butane torch sitting on that guy's desk over there? What the heck could he possibly be into? Maybe he's doing those plastics. Anyway, Kerry Hardy's here being a great guy. We're having a good time, and we're looking good doing it, which is what it's all about. Let's go play some pinball. Let's go. I'm ready. All right. Thank you, everybody. Let's do an outro here. Don Smith of HawkeyeStream.com is how you find me or on Facebook. I know 1,000 of you that have made your way there already. Shout out to Nicole for being my co-host today. We're going to be here doing this every night, whether you want to listen to it or not. So be my guest. I'll try to get some cool interviews going. We had dinner with the Spooky Crew last night. It's all good, baby. Here in Texas. Ooh, barbecue. Later.