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From Meatballs to Mods

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·43m 29s·analyzed·Jan 30, 2017
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Blockade hosts review Rogue One & Al's Garage Band releases, then brainstorm creative pinball table mods.

Summary

In this Blockade Podcast episode, hosts Chris Freitus and Jared Morgan discuss recent pinball releases including Zen Studios' Rogue One table and Farsight's Al's Garage Band World Tour (an Alvin G title). They review gameplay mechanics, physics tuning issues, and platform updates before diving into a creative segment where they propose hypothetical modifications to existing pinball tables based on fan challenge Xtorque's request.

Key Claims

  • Rogue One table by Zen Studios is releasing on Tuesday with a price point around $5 USD (or $5.95 AUD)

    high confidence · Chris states 'I believe that Rogue One is going to be releasing on Tuesday' and discusses pricing at approximately five dollars

  • Al's Garage Band World Tour (Alvin G table) released by Farsight on Friday and is Farsight's first Alvin G emulation

    high confidence · Chris: 'Farsight released Al's Garage Band World Tour, which is their first Alvin G table'

  • Al's Garage Band World Tour has physics tuning issues, with insufficient table angle/rake making shots feel too easy

    high confidence · Jared describes floaty physics and Chris notes the center ramp doesn't require enough force: 'You can look at it and the ball will go up there'

  • Farsight was significantly delayed on Al's Garage Band World Tour release due to snow storms preventing staff from accessing the studio

    medium confidence · Jared: 'they were really, really up against it trying to get this one out' and Chris: 'they got dumped on them with snow and weren't able to exactly get to work'

  • Farsight fixed a long-standing infinite score bug in Firepower where multiball could loop forever

    high confidence · Chris: 'That's fixed now. It doesn't do that anymore. So they've obviously been able to squash that bug in that particular emulation'

  • Cactus Canyon (Gottlieb) is the next Farsight TPA release scheduled for the following month

    high confidence · Chris: 'Speaking of the newsletter, you did go ahead and post on Twitter what the hint for next month's table is... Gottlieb—welcome to Cactus Canyon'

  • Rogue One table has a wide-body layout with four flippers in line with each other and features seven pop bumpers in the center

    high confidence · Chris describes the table as 'very wide open bottom playfield' with 'four flippers total' and later: 'there are seven pop bumpers awaiting you'

  • Rogue One includes a zipper flipper activated by the skillshot, marking the first time Zen has used this feature in a Zen game

Notable Quotes

  • “IKEA is the biggest casino of homewares... it's the chips and lollies aisle for adults.”

    Chris Freitus @ Early in episode — Opening banter establishing rapport before diving into pinball content

  • “This seems like a wide-body table... more Valley wide body layout for the flippers. That sounds promising.”

    Jared Morgan @ Rogue One discussion — Initial assessment of Rogue One's playfield layout compared to classic Williams designs

  • “It's not obvious either, but it wasn't like, 'Huh? I don't... exactly what am I supposed to do? I don't understand.'”

    Chris Freitus @ Rogue One gameplay impressions — Praise for Rogue One's clarity of design compared to other Zen Star Wars tables

  • “The table just doesn't have enough tilt. It's not set up. It needs a little more rake to it.”

    Jared Morgan @ Al's Garage Band physics critique — Key criticism of physics tuning on newly released Farsight table

  • “I'm barely going to get one initial in here before I run out of time... which is what happened.”

    Chris Freitus @ Al's Garage Band initial entry issues — Documentation of responsive input lag bug in Farsight TPA high score entry screen

  • “They always seem to have this issue with Gottliebs or Gottlieb-likes... the emulation on the initial entry screens is always screwy.”

    Jared Morgan @ Al's Garage Band technical issues — Pattern recognition of systematic emulation problems across Gottlieb-era game ports

  • “Like all Gottlieb games, you put a quarter into it and you go, 'That was enough,' and then walk away.”

    Chris Freitus @ Cactus Canyon preview discussion — Humorous dismissal of Gottlieb game brevity/design philosophy

  • “No, folks, we're not going to say anything nice about Gottlieb this week. No. We totally filled that bucket last week.”

    Chris Freitus — Running joke about previous positive Gottlieb discussion exhausting their goodwill

Entities

Chris FreituspersonJared MorganpersonZen StudioscompanyFarsight StudioscompanyRogue OnegameAl's Garage Band World TourgameCactus CanyongameXtorquepersonNormanperson

Signals

  • ?

    code_update: Farsight successfully resolved longstanding Firepower multiball infinite score loop emulation bug

    high · Chris: 'You might remember...sometimes if you're in multiball, you can get this infinite score bug...Well, that's fixed now. It doesn't do that anymore'

  • ?

    community_signal: Farsight implementing detailed change log communications via newsletter, documenting platform-specific fixes across all versions

    high · Jared: 'they're going into details about what they fixed in the platform as a whole and what platforms it affects as well' and recommends fans let Farsight know they appreciate this transparency

  • ?

    community_signal: Fan community engagement through challenge questions on forums; Blockade hosts responding with creative design thinking and detailed hypothetical modifications

    high · Xtorque's challenge prompts extended discussion with hosts proposing specific modifications to 5+ existing tables with architectural reasoning

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Recurring pattern of emulation accuracy issues with Gottlieb-era games in Farsight TPA, particularly on initial entry screens

    high · Jared: 'They always seem to have this issue with Gottliebs or Gottlieb-likes...the emulation on the initial entry screens is always screwy'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Zen Studios Rogue One prioritizes clarity and straightforward playfield design compared to earlier Star Wars tables with confusing layouts

    high · Chris: 'unlike some of the other Star Wars tables where it's kind of this funky layout or weird design... this is very straightforward' and 'The table itself...very realistic'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.130

0:00
This is a blockade podcast with your hosts Chris and Jared You are listening to the Blockade Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Freitas, a.k.a. Shucky Trapp. Joining me, halfway across the world, Jared Morgan. Hello. How are you? I'm doing well. So we're recording a little later today because Jared had to go get pancakes with the kiddies at IHOP, and they were kind enough to invite me, but I couldn't make the flight.
0:58
No, it was Ikea. and we're getting full breakfast. Well, that just ruins everything. Yeah. I want to go to Ikea.
1:06
Yeah, you do, because they have really cheap and delicious breakfast there. I don't want to eat Ikea food. Ikea food's great. Ikea food is... Swedish meatballs.
1:18
Well, no, for breakfast, you get a full English. So you get, like, scrambled eggs, sausage. You get six meatballs. You get two little hash brown rosties. and you get a slice of tomato for $5.95.
1:33
So that's cheap. And then you can go and get a $2.50 bottomless cup of coffee. So it really gets set. Which you're going to need that coffee if you want to survive the long walk through Ikea. And we did actually go for a little wander through Ikea today, but we were doing it on a mission because today they had something for the kids and it was a find, it's a bit of a hidden item mission. You had a little map and on that map they had, the story goes that the IKEA parrots that you can buy in the kids section had escaped the kids section and had roosted in various different parts of the IKEA centre and you had to go and find them. So the kids went on their merry way with a little map with all the X marks the spots and we're looking for them everywhere. And it was quite a fun way to sort of keep them busy while we had a quick looked through the shop for a few extra storage items so um it worked it was good yeah um so i went looking for because i am in desperate need of uh more shelving for my dvds and blu-rays uh yeah because they're now just a lively story yeah they're not just piled on the floor because i've run out of shelving um so i went there with specific mission just look at the whatever racks they had. And I found that section probably within 10 minutes. They did not have a single thing that even remotely matched what I was hoping for. So then I went to make my quick escape.

high confidence · Chris: 'Skillshot activates a zipper flipper, which is kind of fun to see happen... the first time I've seen a zipper flipper in a Zen game'

@ Cactus Canyon transition

  • “Having a mini-playfield in there would just really make that thing go, 'Wow, you look up, walk up to go, right? That's pretty cool.'”

    Jared Morgan @ Judge Dredd mod discussion — Enthusiasm for proposed playfield architecture modification concept

  • “He checks into the pop bumper and he's like, 'Okay, let me wait for this.' Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. Okay, here we go. Now we're back. I'll just go get a beer.”

    Chris Freitus @ No Good Gophers mod discussion — Humorous illustration of excessive pop bumper time disrupting game flow

    • Judge Dredd
    game
    No Good Gophersgame
    Doctor Who: Master of Timegame
    Firepowergame
    Force Awakensgame
    Steamplatform
  • $

    market_signal: Zen Studios nearing UI capacity limit on Steam platform; only 2 blank grid slots remaining for future table releases before requiring folder implementation

    high · Chris: 'there is only two slots left that are blank... they're about out of space' and discussion of whether Steam will need to adopt folder structure like Android

  • ?

    announcement: Farsight Studios released Al's Garage Band World Tour (first Alvin G emulation) on Friday across most platforms

    high · Chris: 'Farsight released Al's Garage Band World Tour, which is their first Alvin G table. That's right. And I gotta say it looks really good.'

  • ?

    announcement: Zen Studios' Rogue One digital pinball table officially releasing with review copies sent to content creators

    high · Chris: 'the good folks at Zen have supplied me with a review copy' and 'I believe that Rogue One is going to be releasing on Tuesday'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Farsight Studios experienced significant weather-related production delays on Al's Garage Band World Tour due to snow preventing studio access

    medium · Chris: 'they got dumped on them with snow and weren't able to exactly get to work... those folks that can't work remotely had no hope of getting in there'

  • ?

    product_concern: Al's Garage Band World Tour has persistent initial entry screen input responsiveness bug affecting multiple input methods on multiple platforms

    high · Chris tried 'pushing the flipper button', 'keyboard', and 'mouse' with no success; Jared confirms: 'It's not responsive... I'm pushing furiously at about every five seconds'

  • ?

    product_concern: Al's Garage Band World Tour physics tuning inadequate; table lacks sufficient rake/angle making shots too easy and ball movement floaty

    high · Jared: 'The ball...felt like the table had no table angle at all' and Chris: 'You can look at it and the ball will go up there...the table just doesn't have enough tilt'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Zen Studios implementing zipper flipper mechanic in digital tables; first appearance in Rogue One

    high · Chris: 'Skillshot activates a zipper flipper... the first time I've seen a zipper flipper in a Zen game'

    • 3:00
    It's hard to get out of an Ikea. It is. They kind of funnel you through and then they force you down to their little marketplace area and trying to get out the exit of that just takes you into the floor where you can put everything on your pallet and it takes a while to get out of that. It was like, I'm trying to leave, but it won't let me. It's worse than a Vegas casino.
    3:24
    It's the biggest casino of homewares. Exactly. That's right. No, it's fun. And that marketplace is deadly. You walk through there and go, oh, yeah, actually, I do need a scrubbing brush. Oh, actually, I also need, like, drying racks for my plates that will go with the scrubbing brush. And then you end up walking out of there with a $1,000 bill because you're just going... It's the worst impulse buy aisle ever because it's the size of the top floor.
    3:54
    Yeah, basically it's an impulse buy aisle. It's the Chips and Lollies aisle for adults. That's all it is. Yeah, I don't have a problem with that.
    4:08
    Well, today we're going to talk about new releases. New shiny things. Let's start with the shiny thing that me and Jared called, I don't know, a month or two back, at least. Oh, yeah. Yeah, at least. And that is we went, hey, Zen, aren't you going to come out with a Rogue One table? I mean, it seems like an obvious call. Yep, absolutely obvious. And look what just happened.
    4:39
    So the Rogue One table should be ready for purchasing by the time you all hear this podcast. I myself, in the meantime, the good folks at Zen have supplied me with a review copy, so I was able to tinker around with it today. Now, Jared, have you even seen the play field yet? I've seen only static images of it, and I think there are some live streams around, but I haven't had a chance to look at them yet. So my first impression right off the bat was this seems like a wide-body table.
    5:07
    Yeah, most of them are, aren't they? Really? Yeah, but some of them feel narrower. This has a very wide open bottom play field. It's got four flippers total, but they're all kind of in line with each other. So you've got the flippers that are midfield and then down your regular place for the flippers. But it just feels like a classic Williams Valley wide body. Actually, I'd say more Valley wide body layout for the flippers.
    5:40
    That sounds promising. Yeah, the table itself for what I played, very realistic. I guess that's the basic way I would put it.
    5:55
    There's not a lot of... It's a Zoltan table. Yeah. But unlike some of the other Star Wars tables where it's kind of this funky layout or weird design of things or you're having a hard time figuring out where to shoot, This is very straightforward.
    6:12
    The thing that I liked immediately about it was up at dead center, up at the top, and you'll be shooting it a lot, I'll tell you this much.
    6:20
    There's basically a ramp that you go to. There's a bunch of stand-up targets at the rear that hitting each one spells out a letter of Rogue. When you hit all the targets that spell Rogue, that's how you start your mission.
    6:35
    So they're dead center at the very top of the table. But once you hit the stand-up, the ball drops down underneath the clear ramp you might say that you were seeing, where there are seven pop bumpers awaiting you. Oh.
    6:49
    Seven pop bumpers is very satisfying. I bet. Let me just tell you. I can imagine seeing the ball thump around in there. That would be pretty awesome. Yeah. And like I said, you'll be shooting that a lot until you hear the pop bumpers quite a bit. once you actually complete Rogue, there are ten missions that you can play, and they're fairly short. It's not the long, giant, extended missions. At least the first three that I played weren't. Unless you get in the aliens.
    7:23
    Right, where it goes on for quite a while. These are pretty, they're all timed, and they're pretty quick, and they're not multi-stage to the best of my knowledge and again i could be wrong i only i only hammered through it uh just for a little bit prior to doing the podcast here the uh and basically what happens when you start the missions the first one that happened was uh a simple we and we've seen it in the last couple of their tables that what i like to call the cardboard cutout that pops up and then starts roaming side to side um you know so you you hit that a bunch of times and that you know moves you forward. The second mission was one of those where it was, don't let the stormtrooper find you. So basically, you need to shoot only the lit lanes, and if you shoot anything else, then that's how you lose the mode, essentially.
    8:17
    And then the third was, hey, hit the scoop hole three times. Once you hit that, then you have to hit a particular ramp that's lit.
    8:28
    So there's variations of what happens during the missions. It sounds like you really have to explore the playfield quite a bit during the missions. You're not just shooting the same sort of regular things. No, the table is very symmetrical.
    8:42
    I mean, literally you could fold the thing in half and it's a mirror image of itself. So, two rams left and right, habit trails that are kind of a ram's horn, if you will, on the left and right. Like I said, you're shooting that center all over the place.
    8:58
    The voice work, again, I don't know if it's straight from the movie actors or if they just got their really good voice talent going, but it sounded pretty quality.
    9:10
    Very reminiscent of what Force Awakens for voice work was. That was great. I really found voice to be excellent on Force Awakens. Yeah, so it's not the annoying bad voice work that Zen sometimes throws at you. In the earlier Star Wars tables they did a bit of that badness. So yes. the music of it is sounds straight from the movie and I say that because it is very reminiscent of Star Wars themes but it always cuts short just like it did in the movie where it does its own themes in the movie but you can hear the those threads of what will become for when you get into A New Hope so yeah by and large I was enjoying it the ball had nice bounce to it. The slingshots were very lively,
    10:02
    which I think is kind of surprising to me for a Zoltan table. And again, it seemed very straightforward. It wasn't confusing what you were supposed to do.
    10:14
    It's not obvious either, but it wasn't like, huh? I don't... Exactly what am I supposed to do? I don't understand.
    10:23
    Skillshot activates a zipper flipper, which is kind of fun to see happen. So, yeah. That's the first time I've seen a zipper flipper in a Zen game. Me too.
    10:35
    So, all in all, it seems like they've got another winner on their hands. It'll fit. One of the things that I did notice, though, you go to select your tables, you faced with a giant grid Now I know this might be different on Android and iOS where you have folders but on Steam all the tables are listed boom right there in front of you in a grid, not put in folders. And there is only two slots left that are blank. Oh, okay. Sounds like they'll be shrinking down the icons a little bit more for the next couple of times. Do they shrink the icons, or do they introduce folders to Steam users, but they're going to have to do something because they're about out of space? folders work just fine on Android. In fact, I think it's kind of nice to have them grouped away like that. Yeah, because they have, as it is, they have all the tables grouped by theme right next to each other anyway. Yeah, I think they had to go with folders on Android because they ran out of room. So I'd say that you're probably up for folders, which, I don't know, might make cabinet users a little bit pissy, but we'll see what happens. They usually don't like folders in their cabinet builds. Yeah, I don't know. I think the integration with Zen and cabinets in general is actually pretty good. So out of the box. So I don't think there's going to be too much trouble there. Right.
    11:53
    So like I said, I believe that Rogue One is going to be releasing on Tuesday. I'm not sure on what the price is as of yet, though. Probably about five squids, I think.
    12:06
    Probably, maybe. Maybe $3.99 since it's only a single table. So in other words, five squids in peso Australian land.
    12:15
    So yeah. Yeah. So that's fine. Five bucks for a table of that quality is no problem. Now on to our next release, which you can currently buy at the moment as it dropped on Friday. And that is Farsight released Al's Garage Band World Tour, which is their first Alvin G table.
    12:37
    That's right. and I gotta say it looks really good. The graphics are crisp on it. There's quite a bit of text and it comes through very nicely. Yeah, you can actually read it. So hats off to Fursight on that. They did a good job of rendering it. Yeah, rendering it. It looks good. I messed around with it a touch. My initial observation is they need to do some tuning.
    13:11
    Oh, really? Oh, boy. Well, the ball, let's just put it this way. I tapped the ball to go around the loop on the left side, and it barely looked like it was going to have enough speed to make it, and it made the full loop all the way around, and I went, oh. So we're talking like a vacuum. It felt like a vacuum. It felt like the table had no table angle at all. Oh, that's a bit interesting. I probably agree. What's that? It is a little floaty.
    13:55
    It feels, it depends. If the ball's going slowly for some reason, it feels floaty. but if it's traveling at normal pace, it actually loses the floaty effect. It's a weird physics in this one. The other thing is the center shot, which is the spinning disc ramp, if you will.
    14:15
    Now, I got to play this table for the first time ever last year at the Arcade Expo, and that's where I got to play it with Norman, as a matter of fact. So I'm not surprised that this table came to Farsight because Norman really dug the table. but I don't remember the ramp being the easiest thing in the world to hit too because I mean again it's at the very back center of the table and as far as I remember you have to hit it with all your might to get that thing up the ramp and into the slot and in this TPA version it hasn't been that way you can look at it and the ball will go up there so again that to me feels like the table just doesn't have enough tilt It's not set up. It needs a little more rake to it. Yeah. You're probably right there. I think it could do with a bit more. I always say that with TPA tables, though. They all need to be steeper and harder, but, you know, I think they've got to balance it out with people who can't play pinball versus people who can kind of play pinball like me. The other area that they need to fix and fix correctly soon, because it always bugs me, is, hey, congratulations, you scored a high score. go ahead and enter your initials.
    15:29
    It's not responsive. No, that's the same on Android too. I'm sitting there pushing the flipper button to move the cursor, and I'm pushing furiously at about every five seconds. And meanwhile, the countdown timer is going click, click, click, click, click, click, click. And you're like, I'm barely going to get one initial in here before I run out of time, which is what happened. I can get all mine in. I can get all of my, which is EEL, is what I use on pinball machines. I can get that in fine on Android using a controller, but using a touchscreen, no.
    16:03
    They always seem to have, I was going to say, they always seem to have this issue with Gottliebs or Gottlieb-likes, and this one is a Gottlieb-like. So it's like the emulation on the initial entry screens is always screwy. They can't get the emulation right on it. So, yeah. Well, I really tried pushing that button furiously, nothing to no avail. I also used the keyboard trying to do that. That didn't work. And I tried using my mouse and pushing the arrows on the center select pop-up. That didn't work. So all around it failed for me with that.
    16:45
    So like I said, Farsight needs to do some patchwork on it. if I'm not mistaken, they were really, really up against it trying to get this one out. Yeah, I heard that. That's okay. So I'm really slammed with this one. And part of that might be because, well, they got dumped on them with snow and weren't able to exactly get to work. I've got a feeling the snow did have a big impact. I don't think anyone could get into the studio. So those folks that can't work remotely had no hope of getting in there.
    17:16
    So yeah, it's weather sucks, but And I think the fact that they've been able to get it out on most platforms except for, I think, Mac, iOS, and Weir, and I think Amazon as well, that's still a pretty good result considering the challenges they've had. What I have, like, I noticed in the newsletter, Chris, have you got the newsletter yet? Have you had a look at that? I did not look at it yet. Hmm. Okay. Well, the thing I'd like to see in the newsletter is they're going into details about what they fixed in the platform as a whole and what platforms it affects as well. Oh, very good. Yeah, they're actually – this is a longstanding request that the fans and customers have wanted. I think a lot of the time the what's new or, you know, what's been changed descriptions in the app stores don't really let you extrapolate too much. But in the newsletter, I think it's a great place to put more detail in that what's been fixed. So there's been lighting fixes across the board on Steam. Big Shot's got some DX11 playfield light issues fixed, and that's good. They've got some missing HUD stuff in the new UI, and Doctor Who Master of Time has got a whole lot of fixes.
    18:33
    So, yeah, go and read the newsletter if you haven't already subscribed and see what you think about the fixes. And I think if you like it, you should actually just let Farsight know on social media that that's something you enjoy reading because I'm sure it's not something that is trivial to produce across all platforms. So, you know, make your love known for it if it's something you'd like to see and you'd like to see more of that in future newsletters. I'm going to have to check with Big Shot. but it's immediately one of my big complaints with the DX11 lighting was that when the ball went over the insert, let's say the insert color was purple, the top of the ball would glow purple. Yep. That is not physically possible. That's not physically possible, and I think that's the type of thing they've probably fixed. One thing of note, though, is a blast from the past. You might remember if you've ever played Firepower that sometimes if you're in multi-ball, you can get this infinite score bug where the emulation just keeps looping and looping forever. Well, that's fixed now. It doesn't do that anymore. So they've obviously been able to squash that bug in that particular emulation. But it's been a long time coming, but it's happened to me a couple of times where I've been playing it. But hey, look, you know, all good things come to those who wait. And another thing of note is Star Trek's got a full DX11 lighting pass now. So the next gen should be looking pretty shiny.
    19:54
    Yeah. Because Firepower, I don't believe, is emulated. I believe they scripted that, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, totally scripted, which is why the loop bug exists, because something was wrong in their loop. I think they didn't close off something under certain conditions in the script, and it's looping infinitely. But I think that semicolon's probably been added where it needs to be added now, so everything's fine. Speaking of the newsletter, you did go ahead and post on Twitter what the hint for next month's table is. I saw it and groaned. Yeah, because it's our favorite manufacturer again. Guttlieb, welcome to Cactus Jacks. It's time to polka, everybody. Yay. Great. I've never played this one, so I guess.
    20:39
    Yeah, I've played it in virtual pinball. And, yeah, it's, you know, yeah. Yeah. It's one of those early Gottlieb premieres as well with the sort of speakers on the top of the back box, a little bit like Lights, Camera, Action and stuff, right? And the little teensy-tiny alphanumerics. Yeah. Oh, boy. Going to look forward to an exceptional sound package in that. Yeah. I've had a look at the play field. There's a big sort of circle in the middle with lots of lights on it that does something. And it looks like there's some drop targets and other stuff in there, So I'm sure we'll be able to smack the ball around in it. And like all Gottlieb premieres, you put a quarter into it and you go, that was enough, and then walk away. I imagine it's probably going to be the same with this one. No, folks, we're not going to say anything nice about Gottlieb this week. No. We totally filled that bucket last week.
    21:39
    It overflowing with nice and it not the smell So we not going to do that anymore So what else do we got here Well what we got is who was it On the Pinball Arcade fan forum, Xtorque, I believe? Yeah, it was Xtorque. G'day, Xtorque, if you're listening. He made a request or a suggestion of, well, Jared, why don't I let you describe it? You have a better handle on this.
    22:09
    Yeah, sure. So what Xtalk's challenge was to us was if you could mod an existing table and do whatever you like with it, what would you do to make it just a little bit more awesome? Now, I'm not saying he's made a caveat here that we shouldn't be tempted to just go, you know, medieval madness, no changes. It's perfect. We've got to think of a table that's sort of a little bit like you just feel there's something not quite right with it. and you've got a brilliant idea to take to the design floor and get them to add it onto the pinball. Think of it as like just the late whitewood stage. You go, I reckon we should do this, and then it'll be awesome. So I had a bit of a think about the idea, and I've got about five tables that I think could do with a bit of a tweak in TPA at least. All right, hit me with some real quick. Okay, so the first one, and I will totally say that I'm riffing off an existing idea here, which Farsa introduced into Doctor Who, and that's the, it integrates with the upper right flipper that you can now shoot what used to be called the hang-on lane with. But I think what that game could do with is just an extra ramp. It's just one ramp over and over again, if you like ramps. I think if you could actually put a crossover ramp fed by that upper right flipper and integrate that a little bit better into the game, perhaps have it looping around doing some crazy sort of habit rail looping, a little bit like the TARDIS going through the time stream, you know, flipping around and going upside down and doing a bit of, you know, all gymnastics on the ramp. That would really add to the game, I think, a bit of visual difference. of course you've got the problem with integrating a ramp into the already um spoken for area above the time expander but i think you could just do it in front of the time expander and still have plenty of room and making it a habit rail would still allow you to um view enough of the table that it wouldn't actually obstruct any views or anything like that so i think that'd be a good mod what do you think about that sure more ramps are always good in my opinion and i think too You have many ramps, and then they become bad. And then it's nuts, yeah. But I think the other thing they could do with Doctor Who is just get rid of a few of the stand-ups as well. There's a lot of stand-up targets in that, and I think the repair bank, or in Masters of Time, the doctor bank,
    24:39
    I reckon that could be really good candidates for drops. And I think that would actually really change the way that game played, because, of course, you know, when you hit a drop target, all the speed washes off the ball. So you wouldn't be able to do glancing shots up into the pop bumper loop and all that sort of thing. I think that would be interesting. Even if you wanted to, you could have drops in front and then have stand-ups beside it, you know, have a stage set of targets. That would make an even more interesting addition to the game.
    25:08
    So, yeah, or you could use the drops like shields for the repair stand-ups, if you know what I mean. You've got to drop the targets before you can hit the shields. Anyhow, yeah, that's an interesting idea. Now, on to the next one, which is Judge Dredd. Now you might think that Judge Dread is already a pretty busy play field. It's got a lot of stuff on there. But the thing about Judge Dread is a lot of it is decoration. So you've got the big death world, which when it was originally designed, was supposed to be a locking mechanism, but now really just doesn't matter. You can just do virtual locks all the time. And in fact, when the game is in compensation mode, because that mechanism isn't working, that's exactly what happens. It's just virtual locks. You don't get a lock in there at all. So get rid of that, save some money on that part of the bill of materials and make a mini playfield underneath very akin to a haunted house and having like an extra playfield underneath there. But actually have it full of slings and pops. And this is quite reminiscent of your comment about what you really liked about Rogue One. I think having a lot of slings and pops and having a danger area underneath there would actually make that part of the play field the Badlands which isn't really reflected in Judge Street because that's where you go when you're banished right in the Judge Street universe so you go down there in the Badlands and how would you enter the Badlands Chris? You would enter through the Outlands so instead of actually draining you have holes that drop you into the Badlands where you have a final battle down there. And if you can keep the ball alive, it will return to the play field. And if you can't, it drains and returns to the out hole. So, yeah, that's my idea for Judge Dredd. Okay. I think it's pretty cool. That would be pretty cool, I reckon. So doing something underneath the play field that would, you know, like maybe completing drop targets with like all the, like even putting magnets or something underneath there as well to screw around with the ball and actually battle the table even more to keep the ball alive so you can keep it and have it return to the upper playfield again and keep playing. It'd be a little tricky with it being all the way up the upper because the angle of view, I think that's why most of your sub-playfield things happen near the flippers because you can be directly overhead and see it. That being said, I've never really enjoyed any sunken playfield games now that I'm trying to think about it. I'm like, yeah, I don't care for black holes. I really hate haunted houses. ACDCs doesn't really do anything for me. I haven't gotten a hold of a Big Lebowski yet to know how theirs plays. Bowling. Yeah, that'd be pretty cool. I enjoyed the Wacka Car in Street Fighter 2. That was pretty fun.
    27:47
    Bashing that thing away is really fun. But I think if you did it right, it would add quite an extra dimension to the game because that's a big open area in the middle there, and having a mini play field in there would just really make that thing go, wow you look up walk up to go right that's pretty cool and um yeah be something different at least all right the other one all right so the next one i think that the thing with no good gophers is that whenever your ball feeds from the gophers through the subterranean um um trough it always comes out in the pot bumpers and for some reason they've put three pot bumpers really closely together in that area and it just the ball just seems to hang around in there so slows the game down a big time it really does it really does and i think if they just lost one pop bumper in there maybe thought about integrating something like the um town square shoot through or the addams family shoot through the graveyard style pop bumper layout and allowed you to actually shoot up into that up kicker that kicks it back into play and then integrate that into the game as well, that would actually really change the way that game played. Number one, it would drop down the amount of time spent in the pops, but it also gives you an extra shot to go for in the game. So I think that would be kind of cool to do in No Good Gophers.
    29:13
    What do you think about that? Like it? Yeah, yeah, I do. because it is the one aspect of that table where everything else is super fast and lots of flow and everything where, yeah, you're right. He checks into the pop bumper and he's like, okay, let me wait for this. Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. Okay, here we go. Now we're back. I'll just go get a beer. I'll go get a beer and then I'll come back. And oh, look, my ball's actually come down to the flippers again. And that's particularly frustrating when you're doing a time mode and the time doesn't actually stop when it's in the pops. The other thing they could do there as an acceptable workaround is just If you hold both flippers in, it just kills the power to the pop bumpers. And to their credit, that's something that Gottlieb do very well.
    29:55
    It's a little-known thing that on Big Hurt and Gladiators, you can kill the power to the pop bumpers by holding both flippers in and return the ball to play. So that's a bit of a tip.
    30:06
    The other thing is on the roller coaster series, Hurricane and Cyclone, sure, they've got ramps on them, But I actually get more of a roller coaster theme, honestly, by the big crazy ramp in Whitewater. That feels to me much more roller coaster-y than the ramps that they've got in those games. So what I would think would be better in those games is to really test the laws of physics in that game and completely and utterly redo the ramps in the game, in the feeds in the game, to make the path that the ball goes really rollercoaster-y. I'm thinking like even using something like an accelerator technology, like in the jump ramp in Nofea, how there's a little accelerator magnet on there that will actually fling the ball really fast. NASCAR has those also. Yeah, that's right. But actually have it on the ramp. And I'm thinking something like an Immelmann ramp, if you know what that is, where the ball actually goes up and then goes one way and then goes up and travels along the top of the ramp almost in an inverse way and then feeds back to the top of the playfield and then does some crazy stuff. There's so much stuff they could do if they use their imagination with ramps and less plastic ramps and more habit rails in that game. And Rollercoaster Tycoon does an okay job at it, but I think the sort of stuff in Cyclone and Hurricane could really be ramped up if they really re-engineered the ramps in that. and the last one and you're probably not going to believe I'm saying this as a game that needs to be modded or burned with fire but going nuts oh no so I think the thing I've been thinking about going nuts and the thing that I dislike about the table is that none of the shots feel good when you're shooting them it feels like work it does feel like work and I think the reason why it feels like work The upper left of that play field is a task. Yeah, it is. Now, I think I've worked out the reason for that.
    32:22
    And surprise, surprise, it's play field layout. But the thing that they could do here is I was thinking back, right, how could they make this play field open up a bit more and give you access to the upper play field which it probably the most fun part of the play field because you got drop targets up there you can shoot a captive ball and there other stuff up there too that okay um so what would be the way they could do that and i thought well how about they put all the assemblies that are on the bottom on subterranean platforms and actually have them pop up and down into play so if you shot a target the whole mechanism will pop up into ball reach, so you could actually shoot drop targets and all that. And then when you shot another target it would actually disappear again and you could actually shoot those upper areas of the playfield a bit better.
    33:12
    So essentially have you control where the playfield elements are on the table by shooting things. So no small amount of engineering would be involved in that, but... They can do it with pop bumpers. Maybe if they want to just do it with things like small assemblies like pop bumpers like disappear those underneath the table i mean look at something like uh zacharia who actually had a whole pop bumper slab with three or four playfield items all go up and down on a motor assembly you know there's you can pretty much make anything go up and down if you put enough engineering around it right and you know yeah it would completely make the building materials go up to like twenty thousand dollars for the game but you know Still keep the multi-ball. That's fine. I actually don't think that's a bad thing, but just make the play field a little bit more open and more accessible.
    34:03
    If you want to be a total massacress, hit the targets and make everything pop up again and go nuts. That's it.
    34:14
    I'm going to bring up one that I have brought up before, but every single time I play it, I have the same thought. I'm bringing up Centaur.
    34:23
    What I'm bringing up with that is when I played it in virtual pinball by the author Packdude, he had done his Packdude modification to it, made his own ROM set,
    34:40
    and he altered the game in two key ways. The first was when you activated multiball, it also activated a song of your choice. So you would go in with an MP3 that you had on your computer, go ahead and link that to the table, basically. And so as soon as you went to multiball, boom, your own music would start playing.
    35:08
    The key is finding the right kind of music to start playing. and I got really stoked when I had plunked in a tune from The Matrix, which was the Burly Brawl, and it just kicks in immediately with this, and it would frighten you almost as soon as that music would come. Previously, the table's just fairly silent. It's centaur, right? And then all of a sudden, there's just crazy orchestral driving percussion music kicked in. And whereas normally you're trying to keep multiball alive, just keep multiball alive, I was trying to keep multiball alive just so I could keep the song going.
    35:56
    Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, so that was the first modification that I loved. But the more important modification was once you went into multiball, the balls became glowing orbs. and I believe three or four different colored glowing orbs. And the best way I can describe them is it looked like the placebo balls, you know, with the little tendrils on it. But they were contained within the ball and didn't escape out the ball. Yep. So unlike what Zen does when your ball turns into molten hot fire or whatever and it kind of alters the shape of the ball, these, the ball shape, never changed. It just became a different color and it had these tendrils inside of them. now while the balls were glowing they were worth a certain point value but after a while playing them because you know hey you can keep multi-ball going for some time after a while they would lose their energy if you will and the only way to make them fire up again was to shoot them in like say on the right hand side of the table near the top uh there's a lane you could shoot in that it would capture the ball with a magnet, basically, and then release it again. Well, if you shot that shot, that's what would energize the orb again.
    37:11
    And it added this really cool dynamic because with Centaur, after a while, your multi-balls, you realize that all you're doing is just flipping the flippers and keeping these things alive. There's no strategy whatsoever going on because you've got, especially if you have all the guardians going and you've got five, or what was it?
    37:30
    Is it a maximum of five balls or is it four balls? I can't remember. I think it's five too when you have those all just going on the table there is no strategy it's just whack whack whack just let him score points for you five times right but this way all of a sudden it became oh no I've lost the energy on that ball and therefore I'm not getting the score value and so you're trying to shoot it again now if I'm not mistaken it's been a long time since I've played this because I don't have VP loaded up on my computer anymore but one of the other aspects was that you could only light the ball in certain lanes that corresponded to its color. So it really became you needing to do a shooter's skill set while doing multiball. It was really cool, really updated the table, made it feel very modern.
    38:23
    It's basically what Zen would do today. and I say that in terms of it's something that couldn't be done in real life on a table but by all means because it's already been done Farsight would be able to do it I just wish that they would contact him and be like can we use this and modify the hell out of the table and let us have that fun because it's the one reason or I shouldn't say the one there's a couple of reasons why I would keep visual pinball going on my computer but that's the key one that I miss. Yeah, that sounds really cool.
    39:00
    So, I guess that would be my modification that's already been done, but I would love Farsight to implement it again since I don't have visual pinball on my computer anymore. Well, thanks for the question, Xtalk. I think it was a good idea to think about what we can do with existing tables. I mean, there are models out there that do it all the time and it'll be interesting to be put into a designer's shoes and then have to realize those things that we actually said because I'm sure it's one thing to say, hey, let's put a mini play field in Judge Dredd and then actually have to do it and then convince the manufacturers that that's actually a really great thing. It'll earn you so much more money when you do it. That wasn't the question.
    39:41
    I was going moonshot here with my answers. Yeah. If you have any suggestions that we can use for something to talk about in the show, why don't you go ahead and drop us a line at our email, which is blahblahblockade at gmail.com. You can also go ahead and post on the Pimble Arcade fans forum. Whenever Jared posts that our podcast is available, there always is the possibility of putting a discussion, and that's exactly where Xherx's suggestion landed.
    40:16
    Or, hey, why don't you contact us on Twitter? The show is at Blockade. You can also follow Jared and I. Jared is at Jared Morgz. Myself, I am at ShutYourTraps. Follow us, follow the show on Twitter, and you'll always be up to date on all sorts of things that we happen to find interesting throughout the week. Last but not least, you can go check out our website, which is blockadepinball.com. There you can find all the downloads of past shows and Jared Post show notes and links to various sites, if we mentioned in an episode. Also, that's where you can find out how to buy T-shirts. And hey, remember Loot Crate? Yeah, you can still do that, too. You can also donate to us on PayPal.me, paypal.me forward slash blockade as well. Any amount.
    41:07
    Starting at 100. so far there's been an overwhelmingly poor response to that particular option but you know who knows i can't imagine why no but you know there might be some philanthropic person out there that goes you know what you want to spare a million dollars to share i'm going to give it to somehow i don't think we're in a charitable write-off but um we can we can make it happen It's always going to give us a million dollars. Yeah.
    41:39
    All right, gang. That's going to wrap it up for our show this week. Stay tuned next week when we'll talk about, who knows, we'll figure it out about 10 minutes before we start the show.
    41:50
    That's the best way to do it. All right. Hey, and look at that. We didn't talk about snacks. We didn't talk about movies. No, we did that before the show. Oh, yeah. That's right. We did talk about snacks at Ikea. All right. Never mind. That's right. Alright. I failed.
    42:08
    Well, until then, that's it. Bye-bye. WizardAmusement.com The West Coast leader in classic pinball. Makers of custom pinball shooter rods to buyer specifications. Swap out your standard ball plunger with something themed to your specific table. Installs in less than five minutes with no custom tools. Even if you don't own a table, looks great as a pinball memento to admire. Prices start at $39, but mention Blockade Podcast to receive 10% off your order. WizardAmusement.com. Sales, restoration, customization.
    42:45
    Don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that Blockade is delivered to. We can't prove unless you tell us how. Now stop listening and play some Pingol. I went to Ikea a few weeks back because I am in need of... Shut up already!
    43:13
    Every single time I say the word Ikea, my wife in the background goes, Ikea? She's like, we all do love going to the place. I would just strip all the furniture out of his place and just put it all out with IKEA stuff in a heartbeat.