you're listening to the head-to-head pinball podcast find us on facebook email us at Welcome, everybody, to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is episode 115, and my name's Martin, and with me this week... It's Nacho Lemire. Or Ryan Singh. It doesn't sound like it, does it? This is Pin and Dr. Pin. Why are you here this week? It looks like your co-host kind of bailed on you again. Dude, what is up with that? I mean, a 24-hour pinball tournament is no excuse for missing Head to Head Pinball Podcast. this shit is weekly joe lemire weekly you're lucky i have your back and i'm here to fucking fill in for you buddy that's love i'm making a heart shape with my hands right now we love you joe we're trying to do justice yeah look in his defense somewhat if there is such a thing as a defense of this because it's actually been i think this will be like three weeks that that joe hasn't been on. Two things. First of all, last week, it was my fault. I didn't record because I'd absolutely lost my voice from the three-day tournament that I put on. But in Joe's defense, he's also a top player. This is the whole thing. We've now got a top player in the world on the podcast. To stay a top player, he's got to play in tournaments. And sometimes these tournaments happen to be on when we went to record. So there you go. That's what It's unbelievable how much you actually have to go and travel to these tournaments just to maintain your rank. Yeah, I know. I'm totally dedicated to you, Marty. I am here, thick and thin. I love that. And look, I only sort of messaged you a few hours ago and you're like, yeah, hell yeah. Dr. Pinn's like, yeah, I'm going to sew up this person and then I'm going to rush home and here we are on the podcast. I don't know whether that's exactly how it worked, but it seemed like that. That went in my mind. I may get called away, but if so, Mrs. Pinn will handle the reins. If so, we are screwed. No, I don't think so. Let's just hope you don't get called away. You won't get called away. These people can just fix themselves. Fingers crossed. Totally. They totally can. Obviously, in that time, Jeff Parsons did fill in for Joe, which was amazing. He was fantastic. We did actually have someone reach out to us and say that we did get a couple of things not quite right on Expo. you didn't go to Expo, did you? No. Unfortunately, no, man. We were watching all the videos and being jealous of all the fun that looked like it was going on there. Yeah. Well, the main things that we didn't get quite right were when we were talking about the Spanish games, of which there were a lot, and after we recorded that episode, I did post up on the Facebook website and it's also on the Slam Tilt pinball website as well on Facebook. There's a video that Ron did of the Spanish machines and they just look amazing. And the first point is that Rob Burke, who is the person that puts on Expo, well, now he puts on Expo, they were his machines. And also, it was noted that the one that we called out, Wolfman, that had the very suspect back glass, I don't know whether you guys managed to see it. Oh, yeah, we've got a picture of it right here. It's risque, I would say. Yeah. So there are others as well. So Nemesis and Terrific Lake. I looked up Terrific Lake and, you know, if we're honest, there's just a bit of boob popping out, like full boob. I mean, it's pretty much big, juicy monsters. if you look at that backlight. All of these monsters surrounding this woman who is so scared that she's, like, just trying to keep her clothes on at the edge of the lake. I know, and she just can't. She was so scared that her nip popped out. I would lose my mind. She's losing her boob. Marty, the Nemesis back last movie, we looked these up and we were laughing about it because the dragons that they're riding just look like giant phallic lizards. I mean, don't the neck and the head of these things. It's insane. I told Dr. Pin to get his head out of the gutter. I don't see... I see the naked women all over it. I don't necessarily see the dragons as phallic. Oh, you've got to see it. Yeah. On that back glass, Mrs. Pin, if you do look at it one more time, it's not just the rider on the right of the screen. it's the one down the bottom that's kind of leaning back yeah that's yeah all right you know that's not a dragon i mean that's it's just not i mean it's a maybe it's like a special dragon it's the snake yeah yeah i don't know i i didn't notice that i and you know i do tend to have like a a dirty mind of sorts and i didn't pick up on that until dr pin pointed it out i mean the theme of these these machines is uh you know it's a little risque i don't i don't know if this stuff would fly these days but oh of course it wouldn't yeah when we're talking about today's client with what's acceptable and what's not and and really what we're talking about is the fact that for the majority of these older machines it's the women that are really being degraded let's face it so and there's a lot of art but then when you go here you go oh shit this was actually pretty much soft porn rather than it just being women in compromising positions it's actually soft porn that's what it is a little bit a little bit i mean there's full nudity on the back glass so there's no real way to put it and totally is it like full frontal wolfman i can't tell if that's just like darkened in this picture our picture is in black and white so there's not quite the detail I would enjoy seeing. But I just wonder, does he have like a sarong? I mean, what is going on? Maybe he needs to manscape? Is it a cock sock? I don't know. It's just kind of a dark, dark spot. Yeah. It's a little, I just wondered like if they're going to totally make it soft porn, they better show us some cock too. I mean, I'm just saying. I'm just putting it out there. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm just saying, like, you know, the boobs are all over the place. Why not? A bit of gender equality is what we're saying here. Exactly. That's right. Yeah, exactly. So, anyway, so there you go. So the other thing that we got spectacularly wrong was when we talked about Canasta. So I know of Canasta as a card game. Am I right? Yep, me too. Yeah. Apparently it's also Spanish for basketball. Oh. Yeah, I looked this one up, and it looks like it was made by Quetzal Pinball, which I had never heard of, but they've made some... This isn't their first game. They made a Captain Nemo game. Did you see that one? I have played that. Really? How was it? It looks cool. It was really good. I played that at INDISC a few years ago, and it's a good game. It's a proper modern game that's a bit retro. So you would say it's kind of like a Bally Williams kind of alphanumeric type game. All right, that's cool. I mean, it has a screen in the middle of the play field like a lot of the newer games do. But as you said, it's not overly tricked out with toys and that sort of thing. And they obviously, their most probably recent before they made the announcement at Expo was Tokyo Perfect Drift, which is the single level, we say single level game, which looks really cool. It's all about, obviously, the car drifting scene in Tokyo, I guess you could say. Yeah, no, I remember seeing it on Twitter. So they make that game too, Quetzal. Correct. Correct. Okay. And so what they announced at Expo was another one called Super Canasta, which I thought was super cards. Super cards. Super cards, as in like a card game, canasta. Yeah. But it's not. It's not. Well, I mean, if the name confused you, the back glass should have cleared that right up. There's a guy. It was just like basketball players actively shooting basketballs on the backlash. So, I mean, I thought of cards at first too, but then I saw the pictures that Dr. Penn showed me. Is Canasta 86 the one made by Quetzal? No. So that's the one that was, I think that was made, I don't know when that was, but that's an older one. Got it. Well, it's good to know. Yeah. Cool, man. Who knew Spain had such a... A scene. robust pinball history. I knew nothing about their developers and it sounds like they've got their own thing going on over there, which is cool. The other thing that was brought up and we sort of just skimmed over it. We were being a little bit facetious as we are known to do on the show. So the collector's edition of Willy Wonka that has now got sort of announced at Expo, which we knew all of its features but we finally got to see it. And really what we said is that we kind of undersold it, which we did. We said, oh, you know, look, it's got different artwork and that's about it. But it actually, and I've actually had a really good look at some of the video footage from Expo that people took and some pictures, and it does look really good. And I don't want to oversell it too much because you didn't get one. No. No, we didn't. Listen, I was thinking about this. I think it's definitely the best version of the game that you can buy. There's no question about that. The question is, do you think the cosmetic changes are worth the price difference? So it's a 3K difference, I believe, right? That's considerable. US at least, yeah. Yeah, I think that's about right. So you're getting a lot of cool stuff there, but I kind of like the look of the blue trim and the LE, and the gameplay is the same. So really it's do you think it looks better with the Radcals and some of the other things like the, I guess you get the custom game speech, which is cool. Yeah, that is true. I think the under cabinet lighting is really cool. Yeah, that is neat. Just like as a total fanciful, you don't need this, but it's awesome feature. But I have no hard feelings and I have absolutely no regrets. We have the one that was, I think it's awesome. We love our Wonka. Yeah, we do. We love it. And I do like the look of it. I mean, I think they both look great. I think the play field of the CE is probably the nicest of them. But the artwork on all the playfields are great. But as it should be, you're paying like an extra arm for this CE machine. So, you know, you kind of have to decide, is it worth that extra arm? To some people, I think it is. And to other people like us, it just wasn't, you know? Yeah. And I'm pretty confident that we have the best topper as well. Is that your custom topper? That's right, Mrs. Finn. One of one exclusive topper. So when you talk about the $3,000, right? And you know what? We're not going to go to basic commerce here, but it's all about value, right? And value differs from person to person. So if you were to add up all the different things that you get for $3,000, so let's talk about it. Forget the individually numbered 1 to 500 because that's going to be my second part to this. So you get candy red armor. Sure. Which is cool. Candy red playfield wire forms. Now that can make a big difference when you're looking at it. I think that's very cool. That is cool. It is cool. the mirrored tricolor light animated topper sure oh yeah i did like it did you see the topper yeah it's it's actually the the wankatania that you saw initially is different now it's just a wanka it's a oompa loompa and a and a chocolate bar so it's a little bit different than what they initially had shown i i mean i always tend to go on the complete opposite side with toppers and i think dr pin does as well like we go over the top and this one is like underwhelming to me but maybe our taste is just a little overwhelming. You know what I mean? Our topper is the busiest thing you'll ever see. Oh, it's disgusting. It's fabulous. Some people say less is more. Exactly. Not either of you two. No, more is more. More is more. Yep. So anyway, so you get the topper. I sort of agree with you. I think it's a bit cool. But if you think about the previous toppers that have been, you know, Jersey Jack do go for, you know, The less is more, but more of a Perspex, you know, plate there and with some things in front of it and lights that interact. And if I think about, you know, my Wizard of Oz, which is effectively the Emerald City, it doesn't do anything. It's just a bit of Perspex. Yeah, taxi. Yeah, and that's kind of okay. That's their thing. And then you've got on the complete opposite scale of things with CGC's, Topper's, and now at Stern and what they're doing with Black Knight. They're now sort of going, let's not just stick lots of things on it. Let's make it interact and look cool as it moves. Right, which I think is awesome. Spooky pinball too, right? I mean, I think the topper game has been elevated lately. Expo kind of yield all of these new latest and greatest. And I know you're going to talk about that in a second, but I think it's a good thing now that the companies are doing more than what a third party can do. There's a lot of other toppers out there that are just a piece of plastic with lighting, whereas now you can get the mechanic piece in there and new tech that will make it kind of interactive with the game and the Black Knight's head turns and watches the ball. All that stuff is really, really cool and brings the topper into the game a lot more than it ever has been. Absolutely. And look, for me, the moment of, you know, where we moved into the new era of toppers was Attack from Mars. and it's not complicated. It's a big, imposing alien that jumps up and down like the little aliens do on the playfield. And from that moment, I've gone, oh, hang on, this shit just got real. That topper is freaking amazing. And it's not just because it's light. It's movement that draws your attention to it. That was the moment forward. Yeah, that's right. I mean, I think one of the things that I loved about Sarah's toppers is that she always has something dangling from the top of the topper that bounces around when you play. So we've got Charlie and Grandpa floating around in the fizzy lifting room. You've got the hunter-killer on T2 that just kind of moves around when you play. And if you elevate that to an actual mech that has lights. Yeah. I think it takes it to a whole new level. I mean, ours are ghetto fabulous, and we love them. But it's like we are not. For me, it's the light feature that is so amazing. If the lights can flicker with it and the alien eyes on the top of the attack from Mars kind of beam in as you're getting multiball, I mean, it's really awesome. Yeah. And now with the Black Knight actually talking to you as you play and its head actually moves to see where the ball is during the game. That's cool. I can't wait to see it. I've only seen it in a picture. It's so cool. I think it's a market that has been untapped in a lot of ways. I think it's something that pinball companies are all about making the money, so why not go a little bit further? Literally build up. There's also a lot of people that sort of go, oh, you know, toppers, I don't care about toppers. Well, I would argue that's because toppers haven't really been that great. I mean, they've been fine, but except for things like, if I can think historically about great toppers, there's not that many of them. One of them I would talk about is Doctor Who. with the Dalek that actually sort of turns around. That's freaking cool, but that's going to that next level. I think for the most part, people say, oh, I'm not really into toppers because they don't actually really add that much, but now they do. Right, before now, I mean, you had the Whirlwind topper that's been... Oh, that's cool. I love the... What's the fish one? Fish Tales. Thank you. The Fish Tales one I think is really awesome. I've always loved that one. I don't know. I think you add, you know, the coding piece into it, and it becomes a little bit trickier, though, because let's be real, these games are being released, and I feel like the code on the actual games themselves is very rarely finished when the games come out. So for them to, like, do extra code to make a topper work and interact is, you know, maybe that's asking a little bit too much. Well, that might be why it takes them months after the game is released to come out. I mean, the Star Wars topper hasn't even been out yet. yeah anyway so continuing on the collector's edition so you also get the mirrored back glass you've got the rad cows right so the cabinet artwork i you know they look great sure i don't know are you bothered about side red cows i think they're great man i if i like ours yeah i like you don't have any um any panels on the inside any um any of that stuff but it's still it still is immersive enough. I mean, it's a world under glass and it's, uh, I think the side art makes it a little bit more of that, but it's take it or leave it for me. Yeah. Again, $3,000. How much are you willing to pay for the, the, the extra side art? You know, for us, we, we didn't like the basic side art at all. I hated it. I was like the inner panels. I know, but the outside too. And the, that, you know, going from the, what is it? The Ellie to the CE? No, wait, the, SE to the L. What the heck, Jersey Jack? What the heck? Model 1 is the lowest. Going from Model 1 to Model 2, you get the upgrade a little bit. It's expected that you'd have a little bit of an upgrade from the second model to the third model. I don't know. I'm happy with ours. It's something that you can always add to your ... You can always add them. I think, Marty, that's what you're getting at. right? Like if you added the cost of all of these things together, would you hit 3K? I bet you would. Okay, so then I'll quickly go through the rest of them. So you've got the Gobstopper Shooter Rod, you've got the Collector's Edition Exclusive Playfield with Sparkle Candy Highlights. Worth it just for that. Sparkle! I love it. The side interior cabinet artwork. So, you know, you've got a red Most Secret Machine, laser-cut rule card, special under-cabinet LED lighting, There's Shaker Motor in Invisiglass. I think you guys get that as well. And you get Custom Game Speech by Julie Doran Cole, who was for Rook Assault, right? And you get a signed plaque, whatever. So I would look at all of those and I would say $1,500. Okay. Yeah. I would say that, just in my mind, $1,500, $2,000. But the point I make, and this is where I think people are very divided. People will look at this and say, well, it's a bill of materials. That's what it's worth. you've got to then think to yourself the special factor. Owning, and this is what I said I'll talk about later, you know, 1 to 500. So it's 1 of 500 machines. People are sort of debating whether they'll sell 500, but whatever. But it's that exclusiveness. It's the fact that you've paid $3,000 for something that nobody else has, and it's got all these things that you constantly look at that remind you you've got something that other people don't have. Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, it's impossible to put a price on the intangibles, right? What does it mean to use a very arbitrary number? And they seem to have found a niche where they can charge that and make it. Otherwise, they wouldn't have kept their prices the same over the last few games. Yeah, didn't the Wizard of Oz yellow brick, what's the latest one? The yellow brick road, like with the yellow trim and stuff. I mean, it was really beautiful, but I was like, I don't know if that's worth it. and like five seconds later they were sold out. And so clearly they're doing something right. Look, yeah, exclusivity. And, you know, we saw the Yellow Brick Road Edition at TPF. And just by looking at it, it looked really pretty. It really did. Oh, it was beautiful. There's no denying that this new model is going to be beautiful. The red's going to be beautiful. You know they're going to glam it up and glitterify it. It's going to be total Jersey Shore pinball machine awesomeness. I will say that if I'm going to spend that kind of money on a pinball machine, it's probably going to be a Jersey Jack just because it feels like a premium product. It looks like it too. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. That's what I thought. I just, as you know, in the show notes, I linked all the different elements that go into the collector's edition. And then there's that X factor, which is the exclusivity. And I would then say $3,000 if you've got the money, then that's fine. I think a lot of people get really angry about this kind of stuff because it does put the price point of that machine now out of the reach of a lot of people and that's when they think well it sucks that they do this and the value is not there. Well the value is not there because it's kind of out of your price range but for those people that are in the price range bring it on. Thank you. I'll put two in the cart. Here we go. Yeah totally fine with that as long as the gameplay experience is the same, then it really does not matter to me. And if you're happy with what you have, then that's great. And if you have the extra coin to drop on the extra features, then power to you. I think that you have to keep in mind too, that these machines for normal people are all out of normal people price range. I mean, if we're thinking about how much money I make as a teacher, I could never afford one of these machines ever. I mean, I just couldn't. It's too, too pricey. You know, teachers make nothing. Like, honestly, a lot of teachers have second jobs. So we are not going to be buying any Jersey Jack pinball machines, no matter what level. Don't you get like three months of holidays a year or something? Isn't that the case? Yeah, that's true. But I'm kidding. Not when you can make as much as I make at Target and get a to our discount you know it makes me think about the master's degrees that you put all those years in getting just saying yeah but you know it's the fulfillment and joy that you get out of seeing your students become better at the end of the year right oh yes absolutely absolutely not enough absolutely no it really is it totally is it is but you know i feel like a lot of times i have to say to Dr. Pin, we have to think about where we have come from and how far we have come since even the two of us met. This is not the type of machine that when we first met it was like my first car was like a third of a Jersey Jack pinball machine in terms of cost No I think it important to put it in perspective And we you know Deadflip did post something on social media the other day where he was just talking about how you know you don have to own a machine to be really into pinball You can go and I thought that was a great post. It is. It's extremely true. I mean, go spend 20 bucks at the arcade and play a ton of pinball. It's funny you should do a bit of a side note. So I've been thinking about, obviously, my Jurassic Park is on its way. Like, just side note, like, the pros have been delivered, the L.A.s have been delivered, and now the premiums have been delivered in the U.S. We still haven't got our L.A.s, and our pros only arrived last week or the week before. And just one more whinge of that. No one gives a shit. No one cares. I care for you, Marty. I care. Thank you. It's hard for us because we know that you are so passionate about pinball that you guys deserve to play this game. And I know you get a couple from Mr. Pinball in Australia, but it takes a while to actually get them in your home, right? Well, that's right. It does. So I was thinking about Jurassic Park because, you know, I know you two know, you know, situations may have changed in recent times. And so I'm thinking about Jurassic Park going, oh, do I actually really need to have it in my home? And I was talking to a friend of mine, Eric, whom I often stream at his place. In fact, I'm streaming at his house tonight. and I told him and I said, oh, I don't know whether I actually really need to have Jurassic Park and he said, well, come over to my house all the time because I'm getting one. You know, it's that. It's like I still get to play it. I just might not need to have it in my home. Well, and it's the kind of thing too that, you know, the whole for us buying the Wonka machine before we even saw it was very nerve-wracking. I don't know how people do that. I was honestly having anxiety over the whole process, which I'm sure you can imagine because I have anxiety over just about everything. I listen to your podcast. I remember the anxiety very well. But, I mean, it's kind of like a swimming pool, right? Like if you have a next-door neighbor who's got a swimming pool, why the fuck would you put in your own swimming pool? Like you can just go borrow somebody else's, right? But then it's the kind of thing where if you actually go over to your neighbor's house and you play the Jurassic Park or you jump in the swimming pool and you decide that you really need one yourself, then you can always go and get one too. I mean, I think it's just that people want to have it first, and that is what makes people preorder and get all hyped up about these games before they've even seen them. Yeah, I mean, we put a deposit down. We had seen the game before we actually pulled the trigger. But there are plenty of people who don't. Like, you're made in, right? Didn't you buy that site on scene? I did. That is correct. I'm glad I did. I loved it for the period that I had it. And I was lucky in that I sold it just at its peak for resale. So it's come down since then. But, you know, I effectively got my money back, which was perfect. I rented it for the optimum amount of time. But here's the other dilemma, right? So let's face it. We are comfortable. Sure. Okay. if we've got money to buy a machine, we can do it. If you think about somebody that has to, and I'm talking about most consumer products, if they have to save up for a particular product, how long do you think an average person would have to save up to be able to afford a pinball machine? I'm talking about a new pinball machine. I don't know what they are in the US these days, but let's say a 9K pinball machine, brand new. Oh, my God. So, I mean, like a Stern Pro is like six grand, right, US? I think it's about six grand. So I think about how long it would take me to make that as a teacher, period. Like not even counting taking all of my bills out of that. And it would be months, probably four months. So I wouldn't think you'd have to spend two and a half years saving if you saved about 200 bucks a month. Yeah, I mean, it depends. So you would honestly have to start saving for a pinball machine that you didn't even know you wanted yet. That's what I would do is I would just save the money so that I could buy a pinball machine and I would bide my time until one came out that I really loved and then I would bite the bullet and buy it. So you have absolutely nailed where I was going with this point because I would say for most people, really, if you want to outright buy a new machine, it's going to be, I would say, 12, 18, 24 months depending on your earning capacity, right? Absolutely. list. So let's just say it's 18 months and you're absolutely nailed it when you said, well, I'll have to save up and hope that something comes out. The problem is the machines that come out give us an emotional response. If it is a theme that we love, it's like, oh shit, I've got to have that machine right now. Well, these machines are only being produced for a certain period of time and we don't know how long they're going to be produced because we don't really know the demand for them. If If there's so much demand, Sturm will keep it on the line. If it's not, they won't. So it's the whole fear of missing out. So if you have to go, right, right now I'm going to save up for a Pimble machine, and then in 18 months' time there's, let's say, eight to nine machines being announced and released by all the different manufacturers, chances are you're going to miss out on something that you want. So how do you know what you want in 18 months? You don't. But, I mean, here's the thing, too, that if you are, I mean, for me, I've always been very organized and, you know, OCD about money. And so if it's the kind of thing where you're trying to do it responsibly, which is, which is, you know, what I would do if I didn't have my awesome husband who happens to be buying a female machine is responsible at all. No, I don't. But there's a responsible way to do it. And that would be to save up the money ahead of time so that you could buy it, right? And make sure that your other, you know, your life obligations are taken care of. Of course, absolutely. You have a college fund for your kids and you're paying off your mortgage and that sort of stuff. You can do all of that and then comfortably save some money, then have a pinball fund because you have to live your life too. You do, you do. But I think that for me, it would be if even if Jurassic Park came out and I was like, oh my God, I have no pinball fund, right? There's no pinball fund going. The great thing about the pinball world is that the turnover of these machines is exactly as you just described. You know, you had made in for a certain amount of time, you played it, you loved the shit out of it, and then you moved on. And I would be okay being the person that that machine had moved on to. And I think that for people who teach your jobs and have relatively limited income, that that is what they have to do is that they have to be willing to not go for the new inbox experience necessarily, which I think is awesome. I think it's still an awesome way to get exactly what you want. Yeah, I'd agree. Except there's people like me and you and all the other podcasters talking about how exciting all these machines are. It gets people a little bit excited about wanting it now. It does. The hype train is so real in this hobby. And the unfortunate truth of that is that every few weeks almost you have a new game to get hyped up about. Or rumors. But you know what? That's why there's places near us at least that they get every single new game. and they have the launch party for every single new game. And so when you have places that are relatively close that you can go and for $20 play all day, then that's what you do. That's how you get your fix if you can't afford it. It's tough though, Marty. I totally get it. I mean, I get the bug every time a new game comes out. I've thought a couple of times about Jurassic Park and how awesome it would be to own that. And then you have to check yourself and say, this isn't buying a new pair of sneakers. This is a $5,000, $6,000 purchase that could go to a lot of really great stuff like a family vacation and other things like that. So it's definitely something you have to sit there and really think through. If you knee-jerk it, you're going to probably regret it. Yeah. Yeah, agreed. That was deep, man. That was like a small bullet point and we went way off course on that one. I'm sorry. It was my fault. I get on a tangent and I'm very excited. No, I think it's a valid point because in our social world, when we're out seeing people and talking to people and people messaging, we're all excited about these machines. It's part of our lives now. So you sort of have to appreciate that it's not for everybody, but not owning a machine is actually okay. And that was the point, I think, I guess, that Jack Danger was making and everyone's making is just go out and play pinball. It's there. Yeah. Absolutely. Everyone's part of the community, whether they have a game or not. I mean, it's just the love of pinball that makes you a pinhead. Yeah, totally. Exactly. So speaking of toppers then, so we also did talk about the Black Knight topper, and we just talked about it previously as well. And we've also now seen the Alice Cooper Nightmare Castle topper. Have you seen it? We are looking at it right now, buddy. What do you think? It is cool, man. It's the sort of thing that it just endears a lot of people to spooky pinball as a company. It's just, I mean, it's a can be cool. It's a brain in a jar and how it's got eyeballs. So I like those Google eyes. If they were googly eyes, it would, it would enhance it a lot, but it's just, it's hard to beat that. And whoever came up with that idea must have had a really fun time making the pitch. Yeah. I like that. It has the lights that I, that I would hope are, you know, coordinated with the game somehow. I feel like it takes like, it almost reminded me of like a really awesome science fair project, but at the same time it does. It endears me to it. I feel like I like it a little bit more even though it's not quite as polished and sleek. Jersey Jacks are just like the plexi and it's very sleek. This one I feel like I liked because I think it looks like something that... It's campy. It's awesome. It almost is like a Mrs. Pin. But like way amped up. Because it's got mechs and it's got the flashing lights and that sort of thing, but it's fun. The freaking Google Eyes got me all the way. It is totally whimsical, and I don't even know. I mean, I'm sure it's related to the game, but it's not what you would think from Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle to have a brain in a jar on the top. And that's what I love about it is it's just totally over-the-top ridiculous. has no point except that it's just there. It is, yeah. Spooky brain-erator. I mean, even a little sign. Like the fact that over on the right, I'm looking at this picture right now, and it's like the hose nozzle, you know, like the hose on your outside, like David Fawcett hose thing, and it's just like chilling there on the side. Like I'm not sure what that would do, maybe flood the brain with water. I'm just, you know, it's like you think about what all these random things are on this topper, and it makes it even better. Yeah, I love it. I mean, if I had this game, I don't know how I could not own this thing. Yeah, it's exactly right. And as we sort of said before, the brain moves. It moves around in a clockwise and anticlockwise direction. Oh, my God, that's awesome. It's just crazy good. And this is what we're talking about with the toppers of today. Yeah. You need to have movement. I think movement is what takes it to the next level. It really does. I mean, honestly, even the ones that Dr. Pin and I, like Ghetto Fabulous make, every single one of them has something that's dangling so that at least, even though it's not a mech, it's not connected to the machine physically, it is somehow moving when you nudge the machine or, I mean, just the fact we've talked about how awesome it would be to hook up lights somehow. and I just feel like it took everything that we want to be able to do and made it possible for this game. I don't know. I really love it. Yeah. So there you go. Toppers. There you go. Toppers. So then let's talk about some rumored titles. Now, we've been sort of very, I don't know, subtle about some rumors in the past, but I just sort of want to call out rumors that I've heard and whether you've heard the same rumors and whether you think this is going to happen. So Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the first one I'm going to talk about. And apparently John Borg is on this. What do you think? So it's another remake, right? So I know that some people would put that as a knock. But I know a lot of people who are really excited about this one, who love the theme. And it has the potential to have a really amazing art package. I mean, it will be interesting to know how they go with it because the turtles have gone from, like, black and white back in the day up to, you know, full color, cartoony now. So I want to know who's on art and how they're going to make the machine look because that, I think, for me, would make it or break it. It's not a theme I'm overly passionate about, but I think it could be cool. Yeah, I mean. When were they black and white? Way back. Yeah, way back when. So their original comic book was black and white. And I mean, that comic was very, there was a lot of violence. The turtles would swear. I mean, it was very much not kid friendly. And now they're a Nickelodeon cartoon. So they've had a long evolution. Yeah. I only ever knew of them as the colorized cartoon on TV. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I feel like I, in general, do not like a re-theme. I feel like it's, you know, I've talked a lot about how, like, I don't need another freaking superhero machine, right? And this, so initially I was like, oh, man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But then I thought about it more and I was like, no, man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You know, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, heroes in a half shell, turtle power. It could be a lot of cool toys. It could be. Really awesome. You've got to have a vanilla ice Easter egg in the video mode or something. Oh, my God, small thing. That'll be in there somewhere. I mean, I think it has the potential to be awesome. What do you think, Marty? Has that show been popular in Australia? Yeah, it was very popular. And I think what was probably even more popular was the arcade game. Remember the four-player people game? It was awesome. When that came out, that just had crowds of people around it. It was really cool. I, no, I'm not fond of this theme at all, and probably for the same thing in that it was done, Data Reefs did one, arguably it's a terrible game, it just is but it's been done I just think, have we really run out of new, cool themes or, you know, licensed themes that we have to go back and do Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles No, I totally agree with that part, but given the fact that we don't have a choice and this is what they are doing, apparently I think that there could be a lot worse re-themes I feel like at least there's only one that has been in existence is that right? just one? what really gets me is when they make a second and a third and a fourth and then it's like oh my god come on there's so many amazing themes that you could do at least this one only has one other one I feel like they could do a lot with the technology too and the mods and the mechs and I don't know. So the original had the spinning wheels, right? Or the spinning discs on the surface. It was a pizza, yeah. And it had some ramps. But I don't remember. I mean, I played it a few times. I don't remember anything that really jumped out as a really cool feature of the game mech-wise or mode-wise. The sewer was kind of cool. You know, like the little thing that pops up kind of like, you know, on, what is it, Theater of Magic? The thing that pops up so you can... I don't think I saw that. Yeah, it's got that. Yeah. But it needs to be updated. I mean, I do think that with new art and really cool – I mean, like, who doesn't love a turtle? Everybody loves turtles. And then who doesn't love ninjas? Everybody loves ninjas. I don't know. And everyone loves mutants, so. Yeah. There you go. So the next one on the list is Steve Ritchie doing Led Zeppelin. Yeah, so this one – Growner. This is a growner for me. I'm going to get a lot of probably hate from this, but Led Zeppelin just will not do it for me. No, me neither. I'm completely not excited for this. But it's got, you know, I'll play anything. So hopefully the layout is good. And, you know, it'll be interesting to see if they do a re-theme of an older game a la, like, Beatles, or if they make this, like, a Rolling Stones type of newer Stern layout. Well, yeah, because there is a rumor going around that it could be a re-theme of Quicksilver. Okay. But if Steve Ritchie is on it, he wouldn't do a re-theme of something that's already there. He would do his own layout. Right. But let me tell you what I think about Led Zeppelin as a theme. Tell me, Marty. I'm going to. And rock band themes in general, there's been a lot of them. And we sort of go in between rock bands and movies or TV shows or whatever it is, or superheroes. There's the trilogy of what we go through. I don't mind rock band themes even though rock music is not my genre everyone knows I'm more into electronic music but I just think the energy that you get from rock themed machines is really good as a player just to be able to hear the aggressive sound and the way it interacts really gets the blood pumping so I think that they play a very important part in games that are released and they do obviously sell well. People have been talking about Led Zeppelin as a theme for God knows how long. Apparently, it's been a challenge to get the theme. And also, you know, Led Zeppelin, very popular band, and some of the songs that they do are epic. I could imagine them coming through would just be great. I don't love all their music, but some of the songs they do, I really love. And I could imagine that sound coming out of a pinball machine being really quite exciting. So I get that. But on the other side, I think Led Zeppelin. you had your time you had your time what about some current bands that could make a good team that are still rock band what is the most recent band that has a machine is it Aerosmith unless you count Alice Cooper yeah oh Alice Cooper yeah what about what about Iron Maiden I mean they were when were they the 80s Iron Maiden yeah of course yeah I mean but I totally agree with you I mean why not like why not bring it into the new age. I mean, I know pinball buyers are usually in their 40s and 50s, so they're shooting for people who are a little bit beyond like... The Jonas Brothers? The Jonas Brothers, exactly. They're not Chili Peppers or Madonna or Linkin Park or just some band that a guy in their 40s would still appreciate but is a little bit newer than the 1970s. Yeah, you know, my big problem with it is not even when the band existed. It's that every single band is white dudes. And it doesn't matter what they sing. Honestly, it doesn't matter if it's, you know, rock and roll. You've got Kiss, you've got Aerosmith, you've got the Rolling Stones, you've got now you've got Led Zeppelin. I just feel like like, how about something with a little personality? You know what I mean? Like what? I mean, it's terrible, but that's true. But Queen's the same. Queen would be the same in that it's a band that happened. Queen's got the whole fabulous, amazing... It's not just normal old white dudes. Old white rockers. Yes, exactly. It's not. It's not. But I get what you're saying, and I agree to an extent. But for those people that are massive Led Zeppelin fans, they would say, hang on, no, no, no, that's not true. They had all these different songs, and they had these different looks. But we just look back historically and think, well, it's just all white dudes doing that stuff back then. But there was a lot of different stuff that they did. Pink Floyd is another one that people say they would love as a band machine as well. And they went through many different styles as well. But we look back and go, oh, that's Pink Floyd. That's what their genre was. But they did do different things. What about like a female? And I know that like, you know, it's okay. I have to put on like my somewhat feminist hat. But like where are the freaking female singers? Like how about like a Whitney? Oh, my God, I would die for a Whitney Houston pinball machine. Oh, my God, I would literally die. Do you think there would be mass appeal for that, though? Listen, I don't give a shit if there's mass appeal. I would like it, okay? Maybe it's a one-of-one. What about Madonna? Do you think that would be? Madonna. I can see that. I don't know. And I'm not saying, like, I don't think that a Britney Spears pinball machine would do anything, right? But bring it into a little bit beyond the 70s maybe. That would just be really awesome. You know who I felt the most bad for when I heard this rumor was David Peck, who just went and built that entire Led Zeppelin machine. I know. Because he was so hungry for that theme. But, I mean, it's a great machine. He'll probably buy them both if the new one comes out. For me, if you're going to sort of have something more, and unfortunately they are white guys, I apologize. but a more recent band that I would love and a rock band is Muse, the band Muse. I think their music is very energetic so you would get that same sensory experience and they're still releasing records. So, you know, Muse. There you go. That's what I'm putting out there. I think there should be a rule. Like you cannot have a pinball machine if you're dead. Like, you know what I mean? Like if any member of the band has died. Of natural causes. Of yes. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like of any class. Just in general. Yeah, just in general. Like I feel like that. I don't, I just, I don't know. I feel like, again, there's so many more amazing themes that you could go with and music in general. There's so many amazing, amazing artists. I don't know. Led Zeppelin, meh. look the summary of it is and I know that we'd said this previously is that in the day and age that we're in at the moment where you need to effectively sell a certain amount of units it means that there's less risk that these companies are doing when it comes to themes and I would say obviously Spooky is being pretty risky with its themes as well Jersey Jack you would say they classic themes so they pretty safe and Stern have obviously got safe themes as well That what it about It about these companies thinking well we could do a Madonna but we don know how it going to sell We could do a Destiny's Child. We don't know how that's going to sell. We don't know. Like Muse, really is the fan base going to be the same fan base that's going to buy pinball machines? They just don't know. Yeah, it's tough. So you get safe themes. Yeah, and they don't want to gamble on it. I get it. Yeah. I get it. I don't like it. I don't like it either. You know what's going to happen is you're going to have to wait for another 20 or 30 years when the designers are of age where they can look back on what was popular in the early 2000s. And that's when we'll get the themes that we're talking about. Yes. I cannot wait for my NSYNC pinball machine. That's right. That's right. Oh, my God. Bye, Peppa. I've had so many chances to sing on this podcast today. I know. Just FYI, Pop is NSYNC's best song. Just putting it out there. Okay. I won't argue with that. We won't argue with you because we don't know what that is. Okay, well, look it up. So the other rumor, we had said this before, Brian Eddy doing Stranger Things. So what do you think about Stranger Things as a theme? Honestly, man, this is another dream theme for me. If this is Eddy and it's Stranger Things being his game, I would... We're going to need a stretcher for Dr. Pin if he finds out. I think in the basement because this is such a cool theme for me. We love the show and the fact that it's Brian Eddy's return to form and hopefully is a great shooting game. Yeah, there's so many amazing possibilities in terms of just the play field design. They could go in so many different directions. I love that. I came home from school yesterday, and I told Christian that one of the best, by far the best costume that I saw all day for Halloween was a little kid, couldn't have been more than like eight, and I'm thinking in my head, if this kid actually watches that show, he is going to have nightmares, but he was dressed up as the curly head kid with the lisp from Stranger Things, and it was the most epically awesome costume I have ever seen in my life, and nobody else, none of the other kids knew who he was, but I should do it. And I was like, this is amazing. You know, right there, that's a costume for the parents. Yes. Whatever, who cares? It was a costume for me too. And I feel the same way about the pinball machine. I just think it has so much amazing potential. How do you think they could incorporate the upside down into it? Oh, God, I don't know. It's got to be on the LCD screen, right? Yeah. I mean, they could do a lower play field, but I feel like that has a lot of mixed reactions. I don't know, maybe like a color changing somehow, like having a color changing thing when you hit a certain mode. People have talked about having a black light that shines and shows different things than you would see normally on the play field. Ooh, that could be really cool, yeah. That could be really cool. I'll play down multiball, Marty. I'll play down multiball. Demogorgon, Dash Toy, Scoops of Hoist, Switch Frenzy. There's so many options. There are. I think just talking about the blacklight scenario, because there have been some machines, I say some, probably two that I know of. One is Viper Knight Driving and the other is Predator had a blacklight as well. And in execution, they just don't work that well because you need a really dark room for that light to work. That makes sense. Yeah. Are the balls also glow-in-the-dark? I mean, how does that work? On Viper Knight Driving, they were. Yes, they had glow balls. That's cool. Yeah. I feel like technology now, it's like... The things that they could come up with are, they could come up with something amazing. Yeah, we're going to have faith in him. He's going to do it right. He's had, when did they announce he was coming back? TPF 2018, right? Yeah, it feels like two years ago, and that's what he's been working on. So, you know, here we go, speculation, that maybe it is taking him so long because they're doing something so radically innovative to be able to represent the upside down and the real world. That's right. It's going to be epic. You know what they could do too? they could do like a split play field so decorate it like have a line straight down the middle decorate the right side as the normal you know right side up and then decorate the whole left side as the upside down somehow split it or or top and bottom or you know somehow so you feel like when the ball is traveling in different directions that you're going into the upside down or yeah i don't know yeah so i've only watched the first season the second season i was two episodes in and I just went, oh, I'm not really enjoying this and it's somehow ruining the experience that I had of the joy of season one. You've obviously watched all of it. Should I persist? I would say yes. I think the third season is better than the second and the second one gets better as it goes. Yeah, it does. It's a little bit ridiculous, but the whole show is a little bit ridiculous. So, just embrace the ridiculous. I think season three was my favorite, honestly. It was so freaking good. It was so good. so I don't know I'll have to try I just found that the first two episodes of season 2 were so slow they were so slow I guess you're setting me up for something but you're losing me the pacing was so slow it was almost Walking Dead slowness yeah yeah yeah the same thing happened to us even on the first season of Walking Dead we just bailed we couldn't handle it yeah but then people tell us and they're like oh my god this is the best show ever how did you abandon it and I'm like dude that thing was it was it was awful it was so bad but I believe it that it got better but I just can't get there so I understand if you abandon your your attempts Marty it's okay we can still be friends yeah I know we will always be lifelong friends but I just I don't want to feel like I'm missing out on something that could be great and therefore when the pinball machine comes out I'm missing the context of the pinball shit so Walking Dead for example I never watched any episode of The Walking Dead I'd heard that that was coming out so i binged watched all of walking dead up until when the um pitbull machine came out because i didn't want to lose any of the context turned out i didn't really probably need to you probably didn't have to do that except except that there were characters yeah knowing the characters i mean it's the same thing for jurassic park right i mean you really don't need to know the movie to appreciate the game but it helps a little bit yeah so next rumor long long rumor and i'm just going to make a point here so that the rumor is that guns and roses is definitely next from jersey jack with toy story after and the point i want to make is that i heard toy story was being made i want to say three years ago and i i heard it from a very very reliable source at jersey jack and by very reliable i mean you don't get more reliable than this source at Jersey Jack. So what's happening? What do we think, guys? Is Guns N' Roses going to come next? And back to you, Mrs. Pinn. Are we looking at Guns N' Roses going, oh, another white guy theme? I am absolutely, like, dreading this. This is honestly only the second or third time. Like, I had forgotten that this rumor existed because I think I just had selective memory and I didn't want to remember that it existed. I just think that this is the I think this is such a wrong theme for Jersey Jack I just think it's so wrong well they haven't done a music pin right yet there's a reason for that and Jack I know he was a distributor and I know he likes Guns N' Roses I haven't talked to him you probably know much more about this Marty but I know he was selling the Guns N' Roses pins back in the day and he maybe thinks he can jazz it up and do it a little bit better. Who knows? And Eric Menear is tied to this one, I believe. So he did great things with Pirates. Editing. Yeah, exactly. He did great things with Pirates. So, I mean, it's kind of like a Keith Ellman thing. If he can make the game as great as his first game, which I'm sure he will, if not better, it'll be a fun game to shoot at the very least, even if you don't like the theme. Yeah, I mean, I feel like this one, though, it's like you think about Wonka coming out and there was so much amazing talk about how many people were excited about the theme. And I just feel like it's not there for Guns N' Roses. Like, I could give two shits what they do. And then when I stumble upon it at, like, Pinball Gallery in a year, I'll play it. And then, you know, then I can reassess. But, like, I just don't care about this one. Yeah, it's a theme that I don't know has, been as exciting as a lot of the other themes that have come out lately. I mean, there are a lot of people who love Guns N' Roses, but I don't know if it has the staying power of things like Willy Wonka or Jurassic Park. Are there people out there rocking Guns N' Roses in their cars now? I don't know. What do you think, Marty? Let me tell you why I'm excited about this machine. Okay. Two reasons. First, because Jersey Jack hasn't done a music pin before. So I'm really keen to know what they're going to do with the music pin with a company that throws everything at a machine. Like we've seen rock machines, obviously. We've seen them all from Stern. And we go, okay, there's a formula there. We talked about Wonka. And I know we've said if anyone was going to do Harry Potter, it has to be Jersey Jack because they would do it justice. I think we've yet to see a next level throw money at it music theme. So I'm really keen to see what Jersey Black is going to do with a music thing and also thinking about the sound system that they've got in it. Like, it's just going to sound great. Yeah. But also, Guns N' Roses in particular, I'm not obviously a fan, but I know so many people that are, and I think it would make an exciting rock band. Just the sound of the guitars and the energy from that. Again, so I said it before, I think this could be a great, great machine. Yeah, I mean, now that you say that, I love Jersey Jack, and I think that they always do stuff that surprises me, which is awesome. But I just wish it were something else, I guess. Yeah, no, I hear you with the music. I mean, if you hit the start button on a TNA and the sound system hits you in the face, I mean, there's no cooler feeling than that. And if you start Paradise City and you hear the guitar riff kick in when you hit start, that's going to bring you into the experience. So it's got a lot of potential, man. And Eric on the design has me even more excited for it. So the theme does nothing for me, but it could be a great game. And from Jersey to back, it probably will be. I'm basing a lot of my experience on the Data Reist Guns N' Roses. Even though it had its flaws, I think mainly layout was probably its biggest flaw. But when I visualize it and when I hear about it, and I played it relatively recently, it still has that X factor that just makes you feel good about playing a rock-themed pinball machine. I hope they get to do it again. No, I agree with you. I think part of not being as excited is that I know Toy Story is coming, and for us, that is a theme that is probably significantly more exciting, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, agreed. With a family with kids, Toy Story is going to be a pinball machine that is going to just knock it out of the park. Yeah. Okay. And again, with Toy Story, I think the toys and figurines you could have in it, the color palette would be very bright and vibrant. I think there's so much you can do with Toy Story. When I first talked about it, I said, well, I've known about this theme for so long. Why is it taking so long? Do you think they swapped it around? I mean, there were some rumors that maybe they changed the order for whatever reason. Yeah, yeah. I think there's a number of reasons that go into why they have to delay the release of machines. It could be licensing. It could be design. It could be, you know, like they've had with Pirates, with them trying to make a game so ambitious and work perfectly, they probably should have delayed that a bit further to get that right and get all the stuff that they wanted in it. But it's the business, and sometimes you've got commercial restraints. You've got to have machines out at a certain time for revenue to come into your business to be able to fund the people that you've got there and also further development. So there you go. last one and I know that you know about this we've talked about this, Haunted House Party from Spooky being Scott Danesi's next game and here's what I find hilarious about this is that Scott Danesi continues to reference Haunted House Party in fact he's actually the last thing I saw was an animation of a haunted house with some music, what I find funny is that it could be the most epic of epic trolls because Oh, it totally is. It could be that it's absolutely not Haunted House Party, or it could be that it is, and they go, well, we've been telling you for years that it's Haunted House Party. But either way, it's a troll, right? I mean, he loves – Either way. Scott loves to misdirect and troll people about his next title. But what do you think the over-under is that it actually is Haunted House Party? It's totally not. I don't think it is at all. Yeah. So when we were at Pinberg, Scott came up to me and they were only there for like one day. And he starts going into this epic backstory. I forget how we're even got talking about Haunted House part. And he's got this whole epic backstory to the point where like at one point, I mean, and I love you, Scott, if you're listening to this. But I kind of tuned it out because he just kept going and going and going and going. He's got the troll down so well. Oh, my God. It's incredible. He's willing to tell you all about the game that doesn't exist. The fake game. The fake game. Yeah. No. But then when it comes out, he's going to say. I told you about this. But you remember, Mrs. Pin. At Pinberg, I told you the whole backstory. Why are you surprised? No, I just love it because you know what? It means that we don't really know or what we think we know, we totally don't know. He's feeding the hype train. Everyone wants to know what the next game is from him. So he's telling you and he's just like satiating that need for that information. And now he's off the hook a little bit, right? Kind of. I think it's awesome. And I do think some of the stuff he says is true. You know, I mean, like that they've hit some snags or he has, you know, creative power over certain things. But, you know, it's like he talks all the time about how well they work together, all of them, and, you know, how well he works with the spooky team. and I think that stuff is totally true. But I think that this theme is like, I think he painted the side of a fake cabinet and made it say haunted house party and I fucking love it. I love the entire thing. I don't care what it turns out to be. It's awesome. Didn't you think it was going to be like a mouse party or something? Yes. I was guessing mouse frenzy. He showed us like the little end things and I was like, maybe it's like that old game Mousetrap. That would be really cool where it's like a, you know, like the boot hits the ball, hits the bucket that hits the thing. You know, it was that kind of thing. Yeah. What is it called? Goldberg. Yeah. Goldberg. Yes, that's the one. So, yeah, I don't know. I think no matter what it turns out to be, it's going to be great. It's kind of nice that we have, you know, we have Denise and we've got Menear and we've got Elwynn, and we get to see their next latest and greatest over the course of a year or two. Yeah, well, we refer to it as the difficult second album, and Elwynn managed to nail it, so let's see from these other guys whether they can follow it up. That's right. Yeah, for sure. Speaking of follow-ups, there you go. Nice segue. Thank you. So we had a picture revealed this week from our good friends, Homepin. Ah, lovely stuff. Showing their second machine, which has been apparently loosely translated to Chinese Zombies. And we'll link it to you. Not that everybody really wants to go to the Homepin site, but I'll do it anyway. And really all it is, it's just showing you a lit cabinet art with the DMD. and they've blurred out the play field so you can't see what's actually in the play field. So it's very little. Bang, there you go. Very little information. There it is. Except for this picture of this cabinet art. And I just wanted to say, I really like the look of this. I do for some reason. I know none of us are Asian culture experts, but I don't think I've ever seen an Asian zombie movie or references to zombies in Asian culture. I mean, is this the way that pinball is going to really explode on a scene? Do you think there's going to be interest? Oh, who would know, really? I know. This whole project, if you want to call it a project, is alien to us. It is a machine that's targeted to the Chinese market, which none of us are in. None of us understand. Obviously, we spoke to Gary Stern when he was at China about to do an expo. And then a few months later, he was out there doing another expo. So maybe there is an emerging market for pinball. And when we were looking at the machines that they had there, we were scratching our head and asking why they've got these machines. And they'll say, well, it's very Americana, which the Chinese love. But here's something that is geared towards them from somebody that's actually living in China that would know more than we would know, I guess. I guess. Right. But if you're going to try and be the company that really breaks into the scene and you're going to make your game themed around Asian culture or have a lot of Asian influence, I don't know if zombies would be your first choice. No, this is not a winner. There are a lot of – I know gambling, card games, luck are part of that culture a lot. I mean, why not do a game tied to like baccarat or pie gal poker? I mean, pinball and cards go hand in hand. I mean, why not make the logical jump rather than Chinese zombies? I mean, this is exactly what I would expect from home pain. Just saying. I mean, literally pick the most random shit ever and slap it on up there. I actually thought that the play field was covered in fog. I had no idea that they somehow whited it out, and I was looking at it like thinking my glasses were foggy or something. And I was just like, what the fudge monkeys is this shit? That's what I thought. I don't know. Maybe it's just because I do like quirky things that I like this because it's just not what I expect, nor do I understand. So therefore, I want to understand it. Yeah. Well, it's primarily for the Chinese market, but primarily does not mean only according to HomePin. So you could definitely buy this, Marty. You could be in on it. Listen, you're way closer to China than we are. That's right. You could just take a little trip up there. Yeah. I couldn't be further away from HomePin. Yeah. Don't. Not my thing, for sure. This one doesn't excite me whatsoever. I mean, like even less than old dude white bands. I mean, we're being honest, which clearly I am Well, 10 out of 10 for originality, maybe For sure We'll give him something You get some street cred for that I'll also give him credit for trying to break into that market I mean, pinball needs to be worldwide And China's a huge market So, you know, if he has success, good on him Yep Yep Good Move it on Moving on Social media watch all right a few things that have come up on social media this week the first one i noticed was a homebrew for uh effectively homebrew machine coming from italy for dragon's lair have you seen this i have yeah we we looked it up and we checked out some pictures of the play field i mean And this theme is pretty awesome. I mean, if you're into computer games, when this game came out, this was a freaking revolutionary game. It was like playing a cartoon. The graphics and the characters are a perfect fit for pinball, I think. It's got like a medieval madness vibe to it. And the play field and the cabinet look really far along, and they look fun. I mean, there's a big LCD screen in the backbox. It's got a castle scoop. It's got a big toy snake that crosses the play field and colorful inserts. And I think that snake is a magnetized ramp like in Pinball Magic by Capcom. You know how the wand comes out and the ball sort of travels underneath it magnetized? Yeah. I think that that's what that snake ramp is. The ball actually hangs underneath it via magnet. Wow, that's cool. I think it's a great theme. I mean, if anyone was to ever make this, I don't think the licensing fees would ever be, you know, through the roof. So it's a cool theme. Yeah, and all the animations are there. So, you know, most of the work's done. And if it's homebrew, I don't know whether they need to then worry about licensing. For this meeting, the programmers actually used their own voices to do the speech. So, I mean, you wouldn't have to... And they did that so they wouldn't have to hire actors. Licensing a little bit cheaper on that too? The part two of this story is... So, E.T. Pinball is the company that's doing this, the guy behind it. I can't remember his name. but I then started looking up other stuff they'd done and he actually had built a medieval madness from scratch, from parts and built the whole thing he said the only thing that he bought were the towers and plastic wraps everything else was just parts that he bought individually and built a medieval madness and I'm going to link it in the show notes because I want you to see it it looks and plays exactly like a medieval madness and made from scratch that's a good way of being able to learn how to make a pinball, don't you think? Yeah, I mean, that's pretty impressive. It's crazy impressive. I mean, we've done some touch-up paint on our playfields, and that was a... Pain in the ass. So building your own pinball machine, I can't even imagine. Well, so that's effectively the CGC model of planetary, right? You know, they got the ability to remake an old machine. They've done three of them. So now you know how to build a machine from parts. Why don't you make your own, which is what they're doing next. they're doing their own original but licensed theme title. Now has that been made official? It's the rumor. Okay, all right. Yes, I have also heard that rumor. I think that's really exciting because we love their stuff. I mean we have the Attack from Mars and we waiting patiently for the rumored Theater of Magic and cactus canyon and I can wait to see what they can do when they when they make their own game yeah and look back to your earlier point mrs pin you know when they do remakes and obviously you love your attack from and I love their remake of attack from ours and it feel it feels a void where people want to buy a new inbox of these games because second hand they're very expensive anyway but it still comes back to yeah you're just remaking an old game that we've already played yeah but i feel like this is it's a little different right so i know that this i think that the remakes that they make are of games that are awesome that just for us are hard to find um so you know i mean it's it's like i have only seen cactus canyon once and i loved that game so much and i think that once they remake it you'll just be able to find it more easily so i'm i'm actually okay with these remakes because they're not really doing much to change the original they're just making it more accessible i would also say with and now medieval is is part of this category as well i think they're enhancing the original through improved light shows and leds and obviously the toppers and now they're going back to medieval and enhancing that with lighting and toppers etc so they do take it up a notch so you are getting a new experience. But my point is, I'm really pleased that they are going to be releasing a new machine because they can. They know how to build machines now and they know how to have a successful commercial and production model. So good on them. Now, let's see what you can do with something new. Yeah, I think it's exciting. And to see what license they pick. Yeah. I know it's an original game, but if they go for a license that hasn't been done before, what they choose and what they do with it. You know, and they have to create the game from scratch. That's exciting. I would also add to that that there is a difference being able to replicate a machine and create a design that gives you satisfaction. Yeah, and it's as exciting as the games you're recreating. I mean, they're kind of up against themselves themselves in terms of, you know, they've been creating some of these iconic games that are loved everywhere. And so if they're going to create their own game, they're almost competing against that caliber of machine. Yeah. Well, if you think about the ones that they've remade, why have they remade those games? And I'll answer it by saying great theme, great layout, great call outs, just great everything. So they've just got to learn how to redo that. But then you've got to think of all the elements. Can they get a great theme? Can they get great callouts? Can they get a great layout to produce a great experience? Yeah, man. That's what's unknown. This is a company that has shown that from game one that they can put together a really nice pinball machine. So I'm hopeful that they'll be able to do it from scratch. Yeah. another thing that came up on social media i don't know whether you saw it there was an update from american pinball it just said update soon and then had the green letters from the matrix effectively ones and zeros and people went bananas thinking american pinball are doing a matrix machine i was one of those people i was texting back and forth with a friend of mine geeking out about the possibilities of them doing that. And, you know, we were joking that this is most likely not actually a matrix thing and it's probably just going to be a code update. And, of course, that's exactly what it was. And it had to be a troll, right? Let me tell you what I did. Yeah. So when that came up, this was when I was at Flipout 2019, which I'll talk about later. And we had Deval Vasani from American Pinball out for that. he is the president and owner of American Pinball. So I'd been speaking to him previously. So when I saw this, I literally grabbed my phone in front of me, walked straight up to him, shoved this picture in his face and said, what's this mean? And what did he say? He said, well, it's just a code update coming. I said, well, I thought this was going to be the Matrix. And if you were going to be releasing a Matrix pinball, I would give you money right now and I pulled a friend of mine over Eric, we mentioned it before, I said Eric come over here I said Eric, if American Pinball were going to release Matrix would you buy one he said yes and I have somebody else, a friend of mine that would buy one right now and DeVar looked at me and said hmm You planted the seed Marty, you planted the seed I mean you can definitely take credit for it when they eventually do release a Matrix game but it was an announcement to let us know that Oktoberfest code was coming up and it was released with updated animations, new music, voice call-outs and a match sequence. So there's that. The other bit of code update, Elvira. For those people that have got Elvira, have you guys played Elvira yet? Seen Elvira? No. We haven't, man. We have a launch party coming up on November 16th, I think, at the pinball place near us. So it'll be here soon, within two weeks. The other thing that I saw on social media, Jurassic Park related. Two things. Keith was on Deadflip doing another tutorial going through the latest version of the rules. But what I thought was really cool was he actually put up a series of pictures on Facebook of the journey till now, including sort of sketches and rules ideas and whitewood pictures from the development cycle. I thought it was very cool to be able to see that kind of stuff. Yeah, I liked it too. It was neat because you could kind of see both what they were trying to do and what they might have taken out of the game as they were going through it. And like Mrs. Penn, Sarah's biggest complaint about this is that the layout with the T-Rex is that it kind of looks like a long neck. It doesn't really look dancey. But if you look in his design stuff, I mean, it looks significantly more like a T-Rex. Like in one of the pictures, there's some arms on the side of the head. Yeah, I saw that. And in one of the models in the background, there are legs as well. So they must have slowly pared back on that. and then the goofy placeholders for certain things during the build like there was a where the jeep is now they had a gary stern bobblehead in one of the pictures joker action figure in another one so it's they seem to like to uh have some fun there for sure anyway behind the scenes it's kind of cool like i mean we're probably going to get a making of jurassic park video coming up soon because they seem to do that with all their releases but I've not seen anything like this, like the sketchbook of ideas from Keith Elway-Mazzy's designing this machine. It's very cool. Yeah, I loved it, actually. Any social media things from you guys? Yeah, so I saw a post by Stern Pinball, I think a day ago, about a social media artist. I don't know if you've seen the picture, but it's Cyrene Quiamco. I've never heard of her, but she's apparently been featured in four and entrepreneur and business insider, top 100 new establishments by Vanity Fair. So she's got a lot of credits to her name. And she's just bought a Munsters pinball machine and was showing it off. So it's cool to see she's got a gazillion followers on Instagram. So it's just spreading pinball's reach a little bit more. I thought that was cool. And then there was another Instagram post by American Pinball. Did you see the tease that they had up that just kind of showed a piece of a play field, but it didn't really say anything about it other than that they're, they said hashtag skunkworks, which I had to look up, and it's apparently a term for someone who is working on a new secret project. They're called a skunk? A skunkwork. Yeah, I don't know, whatever that means. I know what it means. It means it stinks. well just off the top of my head a skunk works project is a project developed by a relatively small and loosely structured group of people who research and develop a project primarily for the sake of radical innovation there's just off the top of my head just like just you didn't look that up or anything that was that was really really well put so i mean it was a super blurry image but it looks like they have playfield heart which is cool i looked at i thought it was a rhesus cup I totally got it looks like it maybe I'm just hungry there's a lot about you really yep pretty much where's the chocolate so anyway I think something's coming from American Pinball Sherlock Holmes is the rumor that everyone thinks it's going to be I don't know we'll see who knows I think that's the coolest of the themes that they listed off yeah it'll surprise us and give us something different yay I think that's the one that people want Poker Run no No, no, no. No. No. So there you go. So, guys, what did you get up to this week in pinball? God, there was like a lot, hot bit of nothing in pinball in this house. It was terrible. We have been so, so busy, Marty. It's insane. It's not entirely true. So I've been lucky enough to get selected to take part in the beta. Oh, that's right. The Wi-Fi connection for the Internet for Jersey Jacks. Tell us all about this. All right, man. So this is very cool. This is the future of pinball, and it's very exciting. There's not a whole lot to tell at this point because it's still really early on, but when you sign up, they send you this little Wi-Fi adapter, which they call a dongle. Don't you dare call it a dongle. I'm going to dongle you if you don't be careful with that word. It's super easy. I mean, I feel like it's very early in the process, but if this is the rough version of how it's all going to work out, it's going to be incredibly smooth to update your game over Wi-Fi. You just basically hook in this Wi-Fi adapter into your machine and download some code, plug a few things into the settings, and you're off to the races. So it should be pretty smooth. So the alternative to this, right, is that you go onto your computer, you download it onto like a zip drive, right, and then you bring the zip drive to your machine and update it that way? Is that how it usually works? With Jersey Jack, it's a little – it's not really that difficult, but there is one step in further. So with a stir machine, effectively, you download the zip file, unzip it, and put it onto a USB drive, plug it in, and away you go. With Jersey Jack, you need to use a bit of software that, I'm not using the right words, but effectively it transfers the zip file or whatever the ISO is onto your zip drive in the format that will then be used for the machine. So it's this one additional step rather than download, transfer, it's download, open up this bit of software, choose where it's going to, locate the ISO file and hit start. once it's done it then puts it on the drive and then you put it into your machine so gotcha so it almost has to like translate the code yeah it needs to just format it properly onto the zip drive well i i will tell you that uh christian over here is like the most excited guy ever okay he's had some he's had some downtime now that i'm working and so he'll get home you know if he's pre or post call and he'll get home early before i'm home from work and the girls are still in school. So the one day we come home and I'm like, hey, what'd you get up to today? And he's like, oh my God, I did this whole thing with the Jersey Jack machine. And he's telling me and I'm like, my head is spinning. And like, I have no idea what he's saying. But honestly, when it boiled down to it, it's pretty awesome. It's super innovative. I think it's going to be great if they can actually make it work. The whole beta group was kind of on this group chat. And I was just nerding out chatting with Joe Katz and Keith P. Johnson and Butch Peel. And You know, all the guys at Jersey Jack that you look up to and admire and to actually be helping them out is pretty cool. And the software is neat. So I'm definitely thinking that over the next few years, all machines that come out are going to have this type of tech, and you're going to be able to just turn your machine on or leave it on and have it do it automatically or turn it on and then just hit a few buttons and download your update instead of having to use Zip drives and USBs. So I hear what you're saying, but what I'm going to say is this. If it's just for downloading code, that's fine. Code updates don't really happen that often, and after a certain life cycle of a machine, they're few and far between, like once a year, if that. So I don't know whether you can tell me much more, but I'm assuming it's going to do more than just update code. I'm assuming that too, but I honestly don't know. they're kind of trickling this out slowly so we haven't even done a wifi update yet we know nothing truly we're hooked up to the internet and we have the code installed that basically allows you to do that and that was a very easy process so what comes from that in the future I don't know it's got awesome potential yeah it does you're kind of alluding to the fact that you can download new music and that sort of thing, Marty? Yeah, I'm just assuming all that or being able to be... Well, one other thing that the people that want with connectivity is the ability to play against other people, and that's fine, or to have like a global, you know, score system or leaderboard. The other one is for operators to be able to remotely see the diagnostics of the machine, audits, etc. I mean, all of that is awesome. So no matter what they do. I don't care what they do with it. They're going in the right direction. You know, Marty, I mean, I know that we know a lot of people who own games on location, and they're very good about updating code and that sort of thing, but I'm sure there's plenty of operators out there that don't do that as regularly as they should. So if you make it significantly easier for them, I think that's only going to benefit the players. For sure. Agreed. Yeah. Anything else happen? No, I don't think that's it. Just like the occasional recreational game, we have a, let's see, we're supposed to go to a pinball tournament in a couple weeks for the alvira launch that's it we're busy with halloween man we had um yeah we we went out trick-or-treating and um there was this is kind of a social media watch thing but the uh first first state flipper group in delaware uh one of the guys that we know out there chad hastings he helps run that and they actually had trick-or-treaters come by their house and they opened up their garage and had a Circus Voltaire out so that when they handed out candy, the kids could also play pinball. And he posted a bunch of pictures of the kids in costumes lining up to play. And I thought that was a really cool idea to kind of get kids into. That's awesome. Yeah, super cool. But outside of Halloween, man, that's it. I know you were much busier than we were. I know. I mean, you didn't have anything going on the last couple of weeks. Look, we had sort of said that maybe we would try to do a show last week, but I did say it before. my voice did actually go. Not completely, but it was pretty much gone. And if you watch back the stream of the Melbourne Silver Bowl Championship, you can see right at the end, my voice is very scratchy at the end. And, you know, I was losing my voice and all that kind of stuff. So, yes, we had the Melbourne Silver Bowl Championship at Flipout 2019, and it was fantastic. It was really good. I mean, the show itself, I mean, we don't necessarily have the mega shows that you have where you've got 500 machines. But, you know, we had 80 plus machines and that's quite a lot for us to have in any one location. You know, as I said, look, we had Daval Vazani come out from American Pinball and he came back, you know, really, really impressive. Turns out he is actually just one of the loveliest people you'll ever meet. So if you do see him at a show, go and say hello. Very smiley, very friendly, really good guy. And obviously loves pinball, which is cool. but we had all the latest machines were there, so from Spooky from Jersey Jack and from Stern and we even had a Mafia pinball machine which is actually a side note, so I played that last year and I've even streamed it and I kind of went, yeah you know, it's okay the flippers kind of felt like an old EM but Wayne from Mr Pinball, he's the guy that runs this and he owns that machine what he actually did he the the power for the from the for the flippers comes from you know i'm not technical when it comes to stuff but it comes from all its internal power supply and you know it's shared amongst everything so what he did he actually gave the flippers their own source of power and now this machine plays like tna it is fast ridiculously fast and has transformed the game it is so much more fun the code's a little bit basic and not great, if I'm really honest. But to be able to flip this with full strength flippers, it just turns it into a really fun game. And there was a lot of feedback that I got from the show where someone was saying, oh my god, I got to play Mafia again. It is different to what it was last year. And yeah, it is. That's awesome. One of the things that people love about that game is the spinners on the ramps, right? So with powerful flippers, you must really be able to... Yeah, yeah, you can rip them completely. But, you know, they rip and they come back really quickly, because it goes all the way around the orbit. So it's just a really fast game. So, I don't know. They only made 20 of them, so there's not much more that's going to be done to that machine. I would ask for a code update myself. Where are the remakes? They're coming, right? Eventually they'll be here. Well, I hope so. Yeah. I hope so. Anyway. But as far as the tournament goes, yeah, it was great. We had 83 people, I think, we had in a flip frenzy, which is big, and that was fun. We had about, I think, 66 in the main tournament, which was great. We gave out nearly $7,000 in prize money. Wow. You know what I mean? That's a lot, dude. We also had the, because you know my streaming channel is Melbourne Silver Ball, so we had the Melbourne Silver Bells and Chimes. Did you see what I did? That's so clever. I know. So we had a women's comp there, and I've got to tell you, the vibe that came from that area when they were playing was so good. They were just having so much fun, and that's the point of Bells and Chimes. Right there. That's exactly right. And the other thing that we had there was Kelts was there that had been shown, I guess, officially at Expo, and we had one there, and we got to string that as well. And, you know, I saw that machine probably six weeks ago. Even from six weeks to now, just massive transformation. It is just a fun game. They've already started selling them. So people are actually buying these machines. So I'll link to where you can buy them. But, you know, Kelts is a great game. Yeah, it looks really cool. I'd love to flip it. We saw the Whitewood at TPF. But as you said, it's matured so much more since then. It looks like a really fun game to flip. Yeah, I'll tell you what's really interesting about this. And I kind of knew about it, but I didn't really. And I still don't have all the details. But what you can do to customize this machine is amazing. So let's say, you know, you buy one. I say customizable, but they're all add-ons that I think you do need to purchase. But if you want custom call-outs for you, you can have them. It's a Celts thing, so it's Scottish. If you want your tartan colors or your house, what do you call it, shield or whatever it is, you know what I'm talking about, you can have that put in the machine. You can get all these different add-ons. You can just customize it the way you want, and they will put it on. So you get the standard machine and then all these add-ons. It's kind of like when you buy a car and you've got the options list. You can just buy whatever options you want. Yeah, but, like, you want all of them, so, like, really, what's the point of the list? You've got to make them all. Because some people might not want them. Yeah, I guess it's more the affording them part. It is cool that you can do that because there's a lot of people who buy the CE just for that one call-out with Batman style. Yes, that's right. So if you can get an entry-level customization, that's neat. That's something that not a lot of people offer at this point. Just a bit of pick and mix, really. Yeah, man. Anyway, I'll link to the stream that we did. Damien was there to talk to David, who did the commentary on my stream, who did a phenomenal job. I would encourage people just to support me, but also just to see that Australia does these great tournaments. The format of the tournament was effectively, I've ripped off InDisc. I've said it before. I ripped off Indisc. I did it again. Had a big streaming setup. The format of it was the old best game format for Indisc. And I think the production values were very good. I was very happy how it came out. People had a great time. I was very tired. I think, you know, this weekend that's just gone. It's now Sunday. I've been having about 12, 30 hours sleep per day just trying to catch up on. It's the pinball hangover. Yes. It was a massive hangover. It was a massive weekend. but it was good and we get to do it again next year. That's awesome. Congratulations on doing that. We saw some video of you emceeing. You did a great job. There was a lot of there's a lot of pinball celebrities there. You had Ryan C and Dr. John and Stacey Borg and the whole the whole crew was there. The whole crew. We were we had our good friend Rodney Rodney Commages he came over from America as well. So hey hey. Hey Rodney. So yeah. So there you go. That's it. That's awesome. That's it. So guys thank you so much for coming on at such short notice. I really appreciate it. Oh my gosh, you're welcome. Only for you, Marty, would I stay up this late. What time is it there now? It's like 11 o'clock. That is late. This is way past Mrs. Finn's bedtime. Dude, I'm usually passed out at like nine. Marty, you should see her now. She's got like a fuzzy blanket. You know what? Why are you going to be blowing up my shit? This goes beyond the husband code. You are breaking the code. This is good. Just to underscore how much love you have for Marty that in your semi-comatose state, Oh, my God. We're in such a fight right now. We love you, Marty. Thank you so much for having us, man. We're always on. We're winning you for these. No, totally. And I will just say that as we're speaking, Joe is awake at the 24-hour tournament, and I am so tired right now that I'm almost slurring, which means I am never doing a fucking 24-hour tournament. Ever. Honestly, I don't know how anyone can do that. No, it's batshit. I do 24-hour calls and I at least get like two hours of sleep.