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EP24 PinTalk with Sterling and David

The Pinball Studio Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 12m·analyzed·Jun 10, 2026
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

SC pinball director discusses streaming setup, designer preferences, and tournament growth.

Summary

Sterling Martin hosts David Benke, South Carolina IFPA State Representative, discussing pinball streaming equipment setup (Carl rig, YOLO box), upcoming game releases (Transformers, Sonic, Fallout), and South Carolina's growing tournament scene with monthly events at Craft and Draft and Dave Doxus's house drawing 50-60 players. The conversation covers streaming technology trade-offs, designer preferences (particularly Keith Elwin design philosophy), and tournament logistics and growth.

Key Claims

  • David Benke is South Carolina IFPA State Representative and competitive pinball player

    high confidence · Sterling introduces David at episode beginning: 'State Rep for South Carolina and also just a competitive pinball player'

  • Craft and Draft in Irmo hosts a monthly tournament (third Sunday) drawing 50-60 players

    high confidence · David: 'Every month they do a monthly the third Sunday of every month. And we're getting, you know, 50, 60 players there'

  • Andrew Ford is the best player in South Carolina; David Benke is #2 in state

    high confidence · David: 'I ended up coming in second to Andrew Ford, who, in my opinion, is the best player in the state... He's number one and I'm number two in the state'

  • David owns a Jurassic Park pinball machine at home

    high confidence · David: 'Jurassic Park is my favorite game ever. I have one at home'

  • Keith Elwin games use intentional dual-feed mechanics for upper flippers (e.g., James Bond, Jurassic Park, King Kong)

    medium confidence · David discussing Elwin's design: 'If you shoot the right ramp on Jurassic Park, it feeds the upper flipper slowly. But if you hit the upper loop, it's fast' and James Bond example with Bond girl shot vs. lock shot

  • Steve Ritchie joined Jersey Jack Pinball and is designing Sonic the Hedgehog

    high confidence · David: 'Steve Ritchie is... one of the best' and earlier reference to Ryan McQuaid making Sonic game before Ritchie involved, but context shows Ritchie is now at Jersey Jack

  • David previously wrote a Sonic the Hedgehog rule sheet (last edited December 5, 2020) before Steve Ritchie official game

    high confidence · David: 'I made a rule sheet. No way. I mapped out a whole game of Sonic... The last time that I edited it was December 5th, 2020'

  • YOLO box costs $1,500-2,000 and simplifies streaming by consolidating multiple camera feeds into one signal

    high confidence · David: 'So it is expensive. They're like $1,500. Oh, I know. Two grand or something... you're only sending one signal. You don't need all these different transmitters'

Notable Quotes

  • “I think Elwin could do My Little Pony and I would buy it... I literally don't care. I do not care. If it's an Elwyn layout, I don't think that the guy can miss.”

    Sterling Martin @ ~42:30 — Expresses extreme confidence in Keith Elwin's design ability regardless of IP theme, reflecting broader community perception of Elwin as essential designer

  • “If you've got an upper flipper, you have to have a repeatable loop. Have to.”

    David Benke @ ~35:45 — Core design principle statement; reflects competitive player perspective on what makes upper flipper functionality engaging

  • “I feel like I may like that game more. Elwyn could do My Little Pony and I would buy it.”

    Sterling Martin @ ~44:00 — Demonstrates designer loyalty; willing to purchase Stern Transformers OR Fallout based entirely on which designer (Elliot vs. Elwin) is behind it

  • “He's just playing a character. I just find it hilarious... even back then he was controversial.”

    David Benke @ ~1:03:00 — Comment on Kaneda's content approach and community perception of his dramatic leaks and self-promotion tactics

  • “Ralph bought all the proper shit for them to do calls and send it to them. And then they recently just did something with Loser Kid and they didn't use any of it.”

    Sterling Martin @ ~50:15 — Criticism of Stern's audio/video production quality despite being provided professional equipment; reflects broader frustration with manufacturer's podcast/interview presentation

  • “Before Elwin came around, I mean, I always had George Gomez up at the top just because Giant Mnemonic was the first game that I fell in love with, really.”

    David Benke @ ~1:06:30 — Designer ranking; shows Gomez was top preference before Elwin emerged as design leader

  • “I usually everything he leaks, every content creator already has or has already seen. And he doesn't mention that part.”

    David Benke @ ~1:02:45 — Critique of Kaneda's leak strategy; suggests he's not actually breaking news but rather publicizing what insiders already knew

Entities

Sterling MartinpersonDavid BenkepersonKeith ElwinpersonGeorge GomezpersonSteve RitchiepersonJack DangerpersonAndrew FordpersonChad Patsperson

Signals

  • ?

    content_signal: Discussion of streaming equipment, rigs, and content creator strategies; David Benke planning major streaming initiative with new equipment

    high · Extended discussion of Carl rig, YOLO box, camera options (ZV-1, Sony cameras, YOLO S3), OBS vs. hardware solutions, and David's plans for tournament streaming

  • ?

    product_concern: Stern Pinball's poor audio/video production quality in interviews and podcasts despite professional launch videos; failure to use provided professional equipment

    high · Sterling: 'Ralph bought all the proper shit for them to do calls and send it to them. And then they recently just did something with Loser Kid and they didn't use any of it.' Comparison to George Gomez having 'terrible audio and video equipment'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Keith Elwin's intentional design of dual-feed upper flipper mechanics with variable ball speeds depending on shot source (fast vs. slow feed paths)

    high · David's detailed analysis: James Bond lock shot vs. Bond girl shot, Jurassic Park right ramp vs. upper loop, King Kong right orbit vs. mini flipper. Stated principle: 'there should be a way to feed the upper flipper soft and feed the upper flipper quickly'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Community preference/expectation that upper flipper should have repeatable loop shot; seen as essential feature

    high · David: 'If you've got an upper flipper, you have to have a repeatable loop. Have to.' Cited examples: Star Trek, Iron Maiden, Beatles, Doctor Who

  • ?

    designer_signal: Collectors and players exhibit strong designer-based purchasing loyalty; willingness to buy based on designer identity rather than theme IP

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.219

0:00
Hello and welcome to episode 24 of the Pinball Studio Podcast. I'm your host Sterling Martin and today we've got David Benke back in the house. State Rep for South Carolina and also just a competitive pinball player. But first off, let's mention the sponsors. Old Town Pinball. Do you need a new or used pinball machine? Check out his website, oldtownpinball.com. Also, the Electric Playground. Time to level up your game room with a new topper. Just head over to teppinball.com. And last but not least, Spooky Pinball. Order your Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Scooby-Doo, or Looney Tunes today. They also got that new cabinet speaker light kit. Definitely check that out. But anyway, welcome back to the show, David. How are you doing, sir? Yeah, man. Thanks for having me. This is going to be fun. Yeah, man. I've wanted to have you back on the show, and it sounds like we're maybe going to do this from time to time and just maybe chat pinball at least once a month. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you kind of pushed me to get all the equipment that I need, and now I've got a setup, and yeah, I'm ready to go. This is going to be fun. For sure. Yeah, I think some of that equipment probably will come in handy with your whole pinball streaming thing. Are you going to try to get more back into the whole pinball streaming thing? Yeah. So my wife got me the Carl rig last year for Christmas, and I haven't really utilized it. I filmed some tutorial stuff for Spider-Man whenever I had a Spider-Man Black, but I didn't release it because my camera wasn't good enough. There was Ball Trail, and I just wasn't happy with it, so I kind of haven't done anything with it since then. But I've got three new games that I haven't filmed, so I want to do all of that. And I've got some pretty big plans that I want to do for streaming. So there's definitely going to be stuff happening this year, for sure. That's awesome, man. I'm guessing you got one of those aluminum box tubing type streaming rigs. Is that what you got? Yeah. Oh, man. Exactly. I've always wanted to get one of those. Yeah. I mean, to be honest with you, I mean, I would not have it if it wasn't for Kristen because I looked into getting one beforehand and I just got overwhelmed with all of the information and everything. And I was just like, dude, this is too complicated. I'm not – whatever. It's like a whole spreadsheet, right? Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that it actually is easy, but whenever I just first looked at it, I was like, no, we're not. I'll revisit this. But it was something that I kept mentioning, I guess. Right. Kristen reached out to one of our friends that has the rig, and he sent her basically his order list, and she just copied it. Perfect.

  • David plans to stream South Carolina state tournament himself as state director

    high confidence · David: 'I want to be able to stream the state tournament myself... So we need somebody to stream the state tournament. And I'm always going to be there because I'm the state director'

  • Chad Pats is the new co-state director with David; Sarah Kelly is women's state director

    high confidence · David: 'Chad Pats, he is the new co-state director with me... And Sarah Kelly is the women's state director, and we all work together'

  • “I think that you could have more people than you do... If we had a larger capacity, I probably would maybe draw larger crowds as well.”

    David Benke / Sterling Martin @ ~1:20:00 — Tournament growth strategy discussion; suggests venue capacity limits player participation and tournament appeal

    • Sarah Kellyperson
    Kanedaperson
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Craft and Draftvenue
    Dave Doxusperson
    Transformersgame
    Sonic the Hedgehoggame
    Falloutgame
    Jurassic Parkgame
    James Bond 007game
    King Konggame
    The Pinball Studio Podcastorganization
    Carl rigproduct
    YOLO boxproduct

    high · Sterling: 'Elwyn could do My Little Pony and I would buy it. I literally don't care. If it's an Elwyn layout, I don't think that the guy can miss.' David considering Transformers vs. Fallout based on designer (Elliot vs. Elwin) rather than theme preference

  • ?

    venue_signal: South Carolina tournament scene experiencing rapid growth; Craft and Draft and Dave Doxus's house tournaments consistently draw 50-60 players monthly

    high · David: 'Every month they do a monthly the third Sunday of every month. And we're getting, you know, 50, 60 players there... It's just an amazing place to play' and 'We've been getting 50, 60 players' at Dave's tournament

  • ?

    competitive_signal: South Carolina state tournament results: Andrew Ford #1, David Benke #2; season is halfway complete with multiple opportunities for ranking changes

    high · David: 'I ended up coming in second to Andrew Ford... He's number one and I'm number two in the state. We're halfway through the year'

  • ?

    content_signal: Content creator Kaneda criticized for presenting already-known insider information as exclusive leaks; other content creators often have information before public release

    high · David: 'Usually everything he leaks, every content creator already has or has already seen. And he doesn't mention that part. It's like no one else wants to burn bridges, and he's usually the one to send it out to the masses'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Uncertainty about Sonic the Hedgehog release announcement timing; speculation it will be 'end of month' but unclear if sourced or rumor

    low · David: 'It sounds like it's going to be towards the end of the month. Everyone was kind of speculating at the beginning of the month, but I think Kaneda said it's coming out at the end of the month. We'll see. You know, I'm not sure if that's true or not'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Steve Ritchie joined Jersey Jack Pinball after extended tenure at Stern; now designing Sonic the Hedgehog

    high · Discussion of Ritchie as 'one of the best' designers now at Jersey Jack with Sonic design responsibility; comparison of Stern budget vs. Jersey Jack budget expectations

  • $

    market_signal: Stern game purchasers making buying decisions based on designer identity (Elwin vs. other designers) rather than IP theme alone

    high · Sterling deciding between Transformers (Elliot designer) and Fallout (Elwin designer): 'I'm sure I will enjoy it. But I'm only going to buy one more Stern this year... I really want to see Elwyn's game because even though I'm not the biggest Fallout fan, I feel like I may like that game more'

  • ?

    venue_signal: South Georgia venue (Pinball Palace) limited by physical space; could increase tournament size from current 24-player format to 28-32 players with rearrangement

    high · Sterling: 'I would cap it at 32. That way you could do a top 16 if you wanted... if we had a larger capacity, I probably would maybe draw larger crowds as well'

    • 3:29
    Shout out to Brett Smith. Shout out. Yeah, I've got a few friends that have that rig and it seems to work really well. I don't know who originally put all that together and this is the layout you need to order to build this rig because that website's not really a pinball website. They just kind of like manufacture custom metal stuff, if I remember correctly. Yeah, I mean, I think that it was Carl D'Angelo that started it. If it wasn't him, he gets a lot of credit for it anyway. But a lot of people have, you know, since all this started over the last, basically since COVID, a lot of people have made new iterations and improvements. And I mean, some people have just gone crazy with it. Yeah. Jamie was kind of mentioning to me, too, you can get one of these YOLO box. I don't know if it's the extreme or what, but you can kind of get away from using OBS as your whole layout. You can do everything within that, which I thought was really cool because OBS, everyone knows, is a little finicky from time to time. Yeah, so the cool thing about the YOLO box is I have been looking into that and I actually did talk to Jamie about that last night actually, surprisingly enough. But I knew that he had been using it just from listening to his shows and stuff and we've got mutual friends so I just kind of reached out to him. He said that essentially you get all three of your cameras or four of your cameras, whatever you're doing, and you pre-make your kind of your layout. And then you just have to transmit that one signal back to your computer. So if you go ahead and make your templates and everything and you get everything where you want it, you can't really adjust it. That's the problem. But if you get it where you want it, then it's a really good option because you're only sending one signal. You don't need all these different transmitters and everything. Oh, yeah. It's just kind of like a – Because it's the hub. It's kind of like an easier way to do it. Yeah. So it is expensive. They're like $1,500. Oh, I know. Two grand or something. But if you add up everything that – if you bought three separate transmitters, Axuns, and then there's also this new one. I think it's called Hollyland Cosmos. If you get one of those, that apparently is like really good quality. It takes away any stutter that you may get with the Axuns. But if you add up all of that and the capture cards and everything you have to get, I mean, you end up spending more money doing it the other way. But you also have a lot more flexibility because you can individually manipulate each camera and the camera has their own resolution. Like the YoloBox, you're getting basically a 1080p screen from all three of your cameras instead of each camera being 1080p. Right, it's the final output. But I guess even when you're streaming the other way of OBS, the end result is just going to be 1080 or 4K, whatever you're putting out to YouTube. Yeah. But no, I like the idea of it. I, you know, and it also depends on like what you want to do with it because, you know, if I just want to stream, if I just want to have our local tournament streamed, which is basically what I want to do. And I want to be able to stream the state tournament myself because in years past we have had a lot of problems, you know, locking down a streamer and being ready. And, you know, like Brett Smith has helped us out, but I don't think he wants to do it again. He kind of like decided last year that that he wasn't going to do it anymore. So we need somebody to stream the state tournament. And I'm always going to be there because I'm the state director. So it just makes sense because I'm into all this, you know, filming stuff that I just do it myself. So, yeah, you're the state rep. So at least, you know, you know, even if you're not maybe running all the equipment to say maybe you're still in the tournament, at least you'll you can provide it.
    7:35
    Yeah. And, you know, I can set it all up because I'm going to be there early anyway, getting a game set up. And, you know, I'm not doing it all by myself. The last time that you and I spoke on the podcast, it was before the state tournament.
    7:49
    This was the last year that Brian Merritt was helping. So now one of my best friends, Chad Pats, he is the new co-state director with me. Awesome. And Sarah Kelly is the women's state director, and we all work together. So if I get there, I can have them worry about the games, and I can get the stream set up and everything. And then we just need commentators, and there's plenty of knowledgeable people that are going to be at state. Oh, for sure. Yeah, you're going to have the best of the best for something like that. Yeah. No, that's awesome. Also that Yolo cam that you got recently, the little, it's like a webcam, but people have been raving over those. Like it's like DSLR, like quality, and it doesn't overheat. And it's Yolo. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. I wonder if it talks to like the Yolo box, like if the connectivity is easier or if you can do it through USB-C maybe. Yeah, so I know that you can connect it to the Yolo box. The YoloBox comes with multiple HDMI outputs and USB, which is another thing that if you're doing the Axunes and the wireless transmitters, you have to have HDMI. You cannot use a USB camera. So that makes it even more expensive because then you have to buy all these cameras that, you know, they're more expensive than buying just a $200, you know, YOLO S3 is what I have. I think those would be at least use that for the player cam, I think, because I've heard it works really good in low light situations. So if you're in a Demi arcade, you're still getting a decent quality video of the player, you know, if not a ton of distortion and stuff that you get from, you know, darker situations. Yeah. So from my previous tutorials I used to make on the South Carolina Pinball YouTube channel, I did that a lot during the pandemic. I still have a bunch of cameras, but if I was going to do all this stuff with the equipment that I have now, if I got the YOLO box, I would use – I've got a ZV-1 that I would use for the playfield, and then I would do the S3 for the player probably. And then I have a Sony 440X, which was kind of like the OG playfield cam that everybody used back in the day. I have that, and I would use that for the score cam, probably. Is that the Sony, like the little handy cams with the fold-out screen that everyone was using for a long time? Okay, yeah. I used to have some of those. There's two versions of it, and it's like the newer version of that. Cool. The only issue I've heard with like you get some of these really fancy Sony cameras is like the overheating issue with some of those cameras. I know that's why everyone loves the ZV-1 because it tends to not overheat like some of, you know, you can spend $2,000 on a Sony camera, but then it overheat after 45 minutes and do the whole restart. Yeah, that is something that like I never ran into, but I never really put them to the test, you know, like. I was filming tutorials, and the longest I think I ever spent filming a tutorial is maybe like, I don't know, an hour and a half or something. Yeah.
    11:25
    Because I just did one take, just played a game, talked through it, tried to do it like Bo and Karen's. It's really hard to do. Trying to play well and explain what you're doing well, one of those two things is going to go wrong. Like, I don't understand how he does it so well. It's incredible. But yeah, that's what I did. So I never had like a six hour, you know, I never had them on for six hours or anything like I would in a tournament. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've never dealt with any of it. I've just read up on it. And that's what people did like about that little YOLO cam. They're like, you can run it for, you know, five days. It's not going to overheat. I think that's the issue. Do you watch Triple Drain? I'm pretty sure you do. Travis's camera always dies after like 45 minutes and he comes back after like two minutes. I'm pretty sure. Oh, is that what it is? I'm pretty sure that's what it is because like those Sonys tend to do that. I could be wrong, but that's that's just that's hilarious. But yeah, that does happen all the time to him. That's kind of like like Gomez having like terrible audio and video equipment. But Travis is probably using like a $2,000 camera though. That's the problem though. It's quality, but you can run into those issues.
    12:42
    Stern, on the other hand, I've got a funny short story. Ralph bought all the proper shit for them to do calls and send it to them. And then they recently just did something with Loser Kid and they didn't use any of it. Oh my gosh.
    12:58
    Oh my gosh. So he just gave it to them? It was probably like his old stuff, I would imagine. I could totally be wrong, but I'm imagining, you know, like me, you accumulate some microphones and stuff, and, you know, he was probably like, hey, this is better than what they're using.
    13:14
    Yeah. Wow. Come on. Out of that building? There's so many smart people there. There's so many people that do stream. You got Jack Dangerous. How does Jack not know about it? The Godfather is like the godfather of pinball streaming. Just go in Gomez's office and figure it out for him. I really think like a Vendistern, it's a big place. You can find some small little area or cubicle where you just leave a Rodecaster and you buy a mic and you leave it plugged up. And when you do interviews, you go over there and you do your interview. I mean, you spend $2,000 and you have a professional setup because in the long run, it looks so much better. If they're going to come out and be on these podcasts and video podcasts that are getting thousands of views, you at least want to sound good. Yeah, I mean, they do so much promotion, especially whenever a new game is on the way or a new game has just come out. And that's all a professional. They do so much promotion. And yeah, you need it to look good. You can't have people that don't have as much invested in it as you do having really good quality stuff out there. And then you are looking, you know, just not up to par. Because they'll do that. At least they're good at making pinball machines. So, yeah, I agree. At least they do the, you know, like it's really professional, you know, hey, I'm George Gomez. And today we've got our new game Transformers. Like all that's really professional for the launch videos. But then they get doing interviews and it's just horrible.
    14:43
    Yeah. Anyway, what's your what's your thoughts on Transformers? Are you excited about it? Did you watch the cartoon as a kid? Oh my God. I am so excited for it. Yes, I did watch it. It came out before I was born, but I don't know if my dad was into it or what, but we used to watch it a lot. I had the toys. I was actually looking them up whenever I found out this game was coming out. I had Star Warp, which was the Decepticon F-14. And I had the Space Shuttle, which was, oh my gosh, I can't remember what it was called, but it was the Decepticon Space Shuttle. I had both of those. I used to play with them in the bathtub all the time.
    15:32
    We used to go to Hollywood Video and rent the VHS. I used to watch it all the time. I actually, I had a, uh, the first Stern Transformers, I had an LE. I bought that game. Oh, nice. I'm guessing it didn't last. I'm into it. No, I mean, that game, like, you know, I beat it fairly quick. You know, I got through everything fairly quick. I put up a monster score that, like, I just couldn't get back to easily. And it's such a grind to get like if you're getting over 100 million on that game, it's a grind, you know, and I just got bored with, you know, having to play for so long to get back to my high score. And I had already seen everything in the game. So, I mean, I only had it for maybe like six or eight months, probably probably maybe less than that, actually, probably five or six. But yeah, I mean the theme really speaks to me. I love the theme. I think that the layout looks amazing. So I'm pretty excited about it to be honest with you. See, I watched the cartoon a little bit. It was definitely probably reruns by then. But I had the toys more. I think – I don't know how I ended up with the toys. I think one of my parents' friends or something was like, hey, here's my kid's old toys and like ended up with a bunch of Transformer toys. But I remember they were cool as shit and I wish I still had them. I'm sure they ended up in a yard sale for 50 cents each. But yeah, so I mean it's a cool theme and it does speak to me nostalgically a little bit through the toys but hardly the cartoon.
    17:16
    But I definitely want to play it. It looks like a really cool layout from Elliot. I almost think it looks like an Elwynn design. So to me it looks like Elwynn and Danger combined. I think they definitely helped them. I see a lot of elements.
    17:32
    There's elements of Foo Fighters in there. There's elements of Jurassic Park. And I love both of those games. Jurassic Park is my favorite game ever. I have one at home. I really, I mean, I can't explain how stoked I am to have another dynamic layout. I just get really excited with layouts like this. Listen, I've been playing a lot of like Star Wars Fall of the Empire and, you know, obviously Pokemon just came out and I'm ready for something different. Yeah. And looking at the layout like I think that I think that he did a lot of really smart stuff The one thing that I don like is I don like that the upper flipper does not appear to have a repeatable loop
    18:20
    Isn't it kind of hard to see it on the premium LE model and like it's really visible on the pro as well? Yeah, I don't. I haven't played it. I haven't watched like a ton of stuff and I haven't played it because I like to go in blind the first time that I play a game. I don't want a bunch of preconceived notions. I want to be excited and I want to be surprised. I'm kind of the same way. Obviously, I have watched the game trailer. I've watched the little things here and there, and obviously all the podcasts are talking about it, so I have picked up some info. So it seems to me that the upper flipper shot, the main upper flipper shot is kind of like a 180 ramp, kind of like the tower shot on Jurassic Park or the wave ramp.
    19:08
    That's what everybody's seeming to say, which is cool. But to me, if you've got an upper flipper, you have to have a repeatable loop. Have to. Yeah, I kind of agree. Yeah, it makes it a lot funner for sure. Yeah, I mean, Star Trek. Oh, yeah. That's like one of the best things in pinball is repeating that loop. Iron Maiden, Beatles, Doctor Who, like all of these repeatable loops is just super fun. You almost sound like a pinball designer. I mean, that's what I want to do. I think about this stuff all the time. I think about it in a, I feel like a deeper level than most people do. Like with upper flippers, in my opinion, there should be a way to feed the upper flipper soft and feed the upper flipper quickly. So like on James Bond, right? Yeah. If you shoot the upper flipper and get it around the Bond girl shot, it'll come around super fast, right? But if you shoot the center shot, like the lock shot, if you shoot that from the right flipper, it goes slow because of how the ball spins or whatever. It comes around and it feeds the upper flipper slower so you can get a better shot. And I just feel like that's something that needs to happen. Same thing with Elwin. If you shoot the right ramp on Jurassic Park, it feeds the upper flipper slowly. But if you hit the upper loop, it's fast. Just little stuff like that, I feel like, make a big difference. And I think Transformers is going to be the same thing. That center shot, I think that depending on which flipper you use, it will determine how quickly it feeds that upper flipper. I'm also really digging, it's not on Transformers, but it's on a lot of pins lately, these mini upper flippers. I love the one in King Kong, how it feeds with the little gate that comes up or the wall that pops up, and it feeds it really nice and softly.
    21:16
    Yeah, that's another one. And Jaws. Yeah, that one. It's really cool, too, how it holds it by the pop bumper there, and you can kind of stage a ball there or hold a ball there. Yeah. So King Kong is the same thing. If you shoot the right orbit, it's going to kick it back around really fast. But if you hit it from that little mini upper flipper on the left and it passes over, then it feeds it slow. You know? Yeah. So Elwin gave you two ways to feed the flipper, and I feel like it's intentional, especially for Elwin. I think that's something that he thinks about. I mean, it has to be. He is the best. I agree. I love every one of his games. And I'm sure, see, I'm not going to buy Transformers right now, nothing against the game. I'm sure I will enjoy it. But I'm only going to buy one more Stern this year, so it's either going to be Transformers or Fallout. And I really want to see Elwyn's game because even though I'm not the biggest Fallout fan, I feel like I may like that game more. Elwyn could do My Little Pony and I would buy it. I don't know if I would buy that one. I would enjoy playing it, though. I literally don't care. I do not care. If it's an Elwyn layout, I don't think that the guy can miss. I think that at some point he's going to start repeating some similar things.
    22:37
    And it's – I mean because you have a limited amount of space. He's been good with it so far. But yeah, I agree at one point. But yeah, he has. He has. What's your – on another topic, what's your thoughts on Sonic? Are you a fan of that theme? Huge, huge fan of Sonic. Like, me and my brother were big video game nerds. Like, we had every console. We had a million games. Like, both of our rooms had games stacked up. Like, we played all the Sonic games. I mean... So you had a Sega. Oh, yeah. I definitely had a Sega. And before Ryan McQuaid was making his Sonic game, I went through and, like, made a rule sheet. No way. I mapped out a whole game of Sonic.
    23:28
    And yeah, it was really cool whenever he was starting to do it. Oh, I still have it. So the last time that I edited it was December 5th, 2020. Wow. But yeah, there's a lot of cool stuff on here. You wrote rules for a game you didn't get to use them in? I mean, I do it all the time. That's kind of like, that's one of my pastimes. At the time, I think this was when I was in school because I went back to school for commercial graphics 3D animation.
    24:04
    And in between classes, there would be like an hour or two-hour break or something where I would either work on projects or I would just design. I would just fantasize about rules. I've got a whole rule list for Thundercats. I've got Outkast, you know, the wrappers. I've got a whole rule set for Outkast. I've got all kinds of stuff, but yeah. That's awesome. And once I finally do my homebrew, you can happily write the rules for it. Oh, yeah. I've already got thoughts on that, too. And I have thoughts on how to feed that upper flipper slowly as well. Oh, yeah. Got to feed that flipper slowly. Gotta have the slow upper flipper feed. Yeah, Sonic, so I never had a Sega Genesis or Sega, any of the Segas growing up, so I had one buddy that had one, and that's the only one I ever played, so Sonic doesn't speak to me quite as much. I think they had a cartoon in the 90s, if I remember right. They might have, but if they did, I didn't really watch it. I haven't watched any of the movies, just because I guess I'm a purist. That's kind of how I am. If it didn't come out at least around the time of the video game, nah.
    25:22
    Yeah, I mean, I really don't think that they would do the movie, but it would make it a lot easier to do the movie with the assets and everything because trying to convert the old side-scroller assets to pinball screen is going to be difficult. I feel like they're going to have to kind of do the Deadpool route where they make their own animations, but they make it look like it's from the 90s. Yeah. I just don't see how they could just utilize the side-scroller video clips. I just don't know how they're going to do that. I'm pretty sure there was a cartoon back then, and if there was, that would be a great place to pull assets from and at the same time not pay people like Jim Carrey. Yeah, I mean, I'm really excited to see what they do. I mean, Steve Ritchie is, I mean, he's one of the best. Oh, he's one of my fans. Before Elwin came around, I mean, I always had George Gomez up at the top just because Giant Mnemonic was the first game that I fell in love with, really. Yeah. But Steve Ritchie is obviously undeniable. He's way up there. Oh, he's my second favorite. We're going to see what he can do. With a Jersey Jack budget, I think that he is going to go nuts. I think it's going to be like the return. I'm excited to see what it's going to be. It sounds like it's going to be towards the end of the month. Everyone was kind of speculating at the beginning of the month, but I think Kaneda said it's coming out at the end of the month. We'll see. You know, I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I did hear from a few other people that, you know, it's going to be later than sooner.
    27:05
    Yeah, Kaneda, he always seems to know what's going on, but he just doesn't present it in a very, like, I don't know. Well, the thing I find funny is, you know, he's always like, you heard it first. You heard it first. You get all this stuff first from me. I'm like, bro, I saw those pictures two days ago. It's just no one's stupid enough to – usually everything he leaks, every content creator already has or has already seen. And he doesn't mention that part. It's like no one else wants to burn bridges, and he's usually the one to send it out to the masses. But it is what it is. He can do whatever he wants. I mean, it's just a character. He's just playing a character. I just find it hilarious. I think it's funny. I don't listen to his stuff that much anymore. But I used to before he went to the paywall. I was listening to his stuff like all the time. And I mean, even back then he was controversial. Yeah. He's entertaining. He knows what he's doing. He does. Anyway, so what's tell me about the tournament scene in South Carolina. What's been going on there tournament wise for you guys? So the last time that I was on the podcast, we were getting ready for the state tournament, which was at Craft and Draft in Irmo. That has become a really big tournament venue for us. Every month they're getting they do a monthly the third Sunday of every month. And we're getting, you know, 50, 60 players there. They've added new games. It's just an amazing place to play. And the state tournament was incredible.
    28:39
    I ended up coming in second to Andrew Ford, who, in my opinion, is the best player in the state. So I'm not I'm not too upset about it right now. He's number one and I'm number two in the state. We're halfway through the year. You know, obviously all of that can change. There's a ton of opportunities for points this year because I have added a big monthly at Dave Doxus's house, which is in Pelzer, South Carolina. And we're doing it the Saturday after the Fellowship Friday night thing. So that's a big tournament that's been going on for like nine years that everybody goes to. So I am just adding a tournament the next day at Dave's to try to get people that can't make it on a Friday night or have to travel to show up. And it's been awesome. We've been getting the same deal. We've been getting 50, 60 players.
    29:45
    It's been worth a lot of whoppers and we're streaming it, which we've never had in South Carolina. So there's just a lot going on, man. That's awesome. Yeah. I wish we could build a little bit bigger scene here in South Georgia. Atlanta's got a really good scene.
    30:01
    Down here, it's just me and the Pinball Palace pretty much hosting the tournaments, which, I mean, we do good for the area it is. Yeah. I think that, honestly, I think that you could have more people than you do. I mean, you cap yourself. You have enough games to have more people at your tournaments than you do. Yeah, it's more of a space thing. And, I mean, we don't always fill it up by any means, but I feel like, yeah, if we had a larger capacity, it probably would maybe draw larger crowds as well. But I'm always wanting to fit more games in there. I did rearrange recently, though, so it did help out some. Yeah, I mean, I think that you got to – like, if I were you. And Bathrooms. I need like – Yeah, that is tough. I've got one right now, and then I'm building kind of a second one, but I'm slacking. So, yeah, once I finish that. So what I think that if I – and the exact setup that you have now, I would cap it at 32. That way you could do a top 16 if you wanted. Oh, boy. I might do that for some tournaments. So like my Halloween tournament's big every year, and then what's another big one? Usually our third year or fourth year anniversary, those are usually big, and sometimes the Christmas party. So maybe for some of those bigger ones, I'll extend it larger because you can at least hang out outside. So usually not everyone's inside the building. I mean, in South Carolina, we, you know, in the early days, we had 40 people crammed into Sarah Lindsay's house. Everybody standing in the hallways like, I mean, you, you, I used to do the house tournaments, man. The house tournaments were tough with the hallways. Like you got like 20 people trying to walk down a hallway at once. Yeah, it's, it's rough. You could, you could comfortably, I think you could. I don't miss that shit at all.
    32:09
    Because half the time there's a bunch of people outside hanging out on the porch watching the TV and eating or whatever anyway, and it's covered. So it's not like if it rains, then you're screwed.
    32:22
    So I think that you could comfortably do 32. And just as a serious tournament player, I would say, seeing a 32-player tournament versus seeing a 24-player tournament, to me, that is a lot more enticing. I think you would get more people to travel for it, maybe not from far off, but more people from Jacksonville, more people from – That's a problem, too. Like a lot of our bigger players or whatever you want to call it in Georgia, they're all further than the closest states. In the closest states, you know, they're more worried about their own state points. So it's really like I might see one or two people from Atlanta all year, which is crazy. Yeah. But there's a lot more players that go there. We get a bunch of Atlanta people at Dave's. We actually got somebody from Macon this last tournament, and I told him about your place, and he was intrigued by it. But then he also was like, oh, man, Savannah's kind of far. Yeah, it's a drive. Yeah. It's nice when you come. You have a place to stay. Yeah, I mean, I love it. It's amazing. I mean, I will be back for sure. But especially if you have 32 players. Oh, I know. I can definitely do 28 again. We've had 28 in there a few times. Shit, we've probably had like 30 at one point. So yeah, what's a few more players?
    33:53
    So I know that you tried a different finals format recently. How did that go? I enjoyed it. I don't know about the players. They were having some, well, they had a good time. I think they were getting tired. So it definitely lasted longer, and they were picking some long-playing games like Deadpool and stuff. But I kind of like it. If you have a bad first game, at least you got three more. We did one round three games.
    34:21
    Gotcha. So if you have a great mix of games, old and new. Or did I say three games? I meant four games. One round four games. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I think that, well, especially if you're doing four games, you could dictate that the picks have to be varied. Like you could dictate that you have to pick an old game. You have to pick, you know, there's a lot of different ways you can do it. You could pre-make banks. That's what I do at Dave's. I take I basically make three game banks and it's an old like a EM or an early solid state and then kind of like a mid so kind of like a late solid state early DMD and then a modern.
    35:13
    And the way that I set it up, it's like every bank, there's no bank that's like, but you're also doing top seed picks all the games like we some a lot of times. Actually, for the past few years, we do the top seed picks the first game winner of that game, picks the next game kind of deal. Well, that's what I'm saying. If you do banks, then just the top seed would pick the bank.
    35:41
    Whoever the top seed is picks the bank. Those are the three games that you're playing. And then the subsequent players just pick their position. And the way that I set up the banks is like there's no bank that's amazing. There's no bank that every game is just like awesome.
    36:01
    Yeah, there's like there is a, you know, there's a turd in every bank. So there's like usually two good games. I own no turds. One like shitbox.
    36:13
    Okay, well, you could put like let's say fire. There's a lot of people that don't want to play fire. It's an ass kicker. Yeah. So I mean you could vary it up You could switch it up You want to make the pick hard You don want to make it to where everybody just wants to play this one bank you know Yeah You got to have like some proximity minds out there Now, we have done before, like, Classics Finals, but not, like, 100% calling it Classics Finals. From my understanding, if it was in qualifying, it can be in finals, but not all the games from qualifying have to be in finals. Am I saying that right at all? So finals can be completely different games.
    36:56
    So I actually talked to Josh Sharp about this back in the day because I was at a tournament where they were using a bunch of games that were not in qualifying. And I reached out to Josh Sharp. This is like before Discord and all of that. I just reached out and he said, yeah, like there's famous tournaments that throw in extra games during the finals to add some variability to it.
    37:24
    No, you could do finals however you want. However, they are talking about – they just did their quarter drop, which is a quarterly update on basically what's been going on behind the scenes at IFPA and what kind of things they're discussing. And one of the things that they're discussing is if you separate by old and new or by era in the qualifying, then you have to do it in the finals or vice versa. They're looking at doing stuff like that, and if you don't follow those guidelines, there may be TGP reductions, so you're trying to be worth as much. So I know some tournament places, they'll flip-flop. I think Electric Bat's one of them. I could be wrong. Where one round is more of the modern games, and then, say, the next round is more classics. That way, everyone's kind of finishing more on the same time. All the games are in the tournament, but they're just kind of flip-flopping back and forth. That way someone isn't playing a really long play-in game and another guy just finished in five minutes. Yeah, I mean, that's what I do at Dave's. So he's got 40-something games, like maybe 44 games, and we basically do about half is old and about half is new.
    38:45
    And we alternate. We do eight rounds of group match play, and the first round is an old, and then we just go new, old, new, old all the way until round eight. You think that would be a problem as far as points in the future? Well, that's what I'm saying. So that's what I'm saying. I think that they are looking at just making it so if you do that, you have to carry that on into the finals. Okay, so you just flip-flop back and forth. Yeah, or you have to have – like the update that they gave didn't give a bunch of specifics because right now they're just talking about possibly nerfing it a little bit.
    39:25
    But that's what I think. That is what I think that they're talking about. Yeah, a few times we did, and I don't know. Where do you even draw the line with classics anymore? I feel like there needs to be a third category anymore. I look at classics, me personally, it's like your alphanumeric games and numeric games and EMs. And then I call them solid, or I mean not necessarily solid state, I'd say early DMD after that.
    39:57
    Yeah, so for me, I think that there should just be four. There should just be four categories. EM1s, solid states, DMDs, and LCDs. Perfect. I like it. Where do you put Ghostbusters? Because Ghostbusters is like a Spike 1. It's a Spike 2 game without a screen, basically. Well, in this scenario that I'm laying out, DMDs and LCDs would be considered new, and Solid State and EM would be considered old. So Ghostbusters would be in. So Fishtails would be with Ghostbusters? Yes. Really? I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere, just like you said. I know, I know. There's no perfect way to do it. Or do a date. Some companies were ahead of others. Yeah.
    40:49
    So there's some, like, I mean, Centaur was from 1981, and it had crazy multiball and stuff. Like, that doesn't, Centaur doesn't play like a 1981 game, you know? Right. But you have to, I mean, you have to make the distinction somewhere. When the ball saves started, that's where they started becoming longer players because you could just have a bad couple seconds draining the balls over where modern, you're going to get the ball back. Yeah, I like ball saves because there are games that can just kill your ass a rip, but I don't like long ball saves and I don't like a million ball saves. I feel like Rayday made Fall of the Empire incredible, but I also think that there's a ball save all the time. Everything that I do, I feel like I get a ball save.
    41:43
    There's a million modes that have ball saves in them in that game right now. It makes it cool because you feel like you're killing it, like you're playing for a long time, but I don't know. It's a little excessive, I feel like. All right, David. So like, what's your thoughts on all these companies making these remakes these days? Is it something that excites you anymore? Are you kind of getting burned out on it? What's what's your feeling on all of this and Americans now doing them? So the the thing that excites me about it is the potential for new rules. So I thought that the new rules that were added to Metallica was really cool. I just think that some of these layouts are really incredible, but they were just so you're talking about more of the modern remakes. Yeah, the modern remakes. But even – I mean I will even consider Cactus Canyon and Totan and Funhouse, all of those that are being remade.
    42:40
    Now I'm not saying that all of these enhanced rule sets have been incredible. Right. But the possibility of new rules to these already good layouts is exciting to me. However, I don't think – I played the Whirlwind Total Chaos at the Palace. Same. And it didn't seem – it wasn't really an improvement, I wouldn't say. Same thing with Funhaus. I played the Funhaus there, the remastered rule set or whatever. Yeah.
    43:19
    So I don't think that it's been executed well yet. Except from – I think Chicago Gaming probably does a better job at it because they added some to Cactus Canyon if I'm remembering correctly, right? They have, but I have not gotten to play it yet. Me either. And I'm not a huge fan of Cactus Canyon. Yeah. It's by far my least favorite of like the big four from the 90s. They all have that layout.
    43:44
    It's like a mile behind. Did they do anything for like Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars? They didn't do anything to those, right? No, they have not done anything to those. I know that they are remaking or they're doing another run of Attack from Mars, but I have not heard anything about new rules. I would love for them to add some rules to that, but those rules are already so good that it doesn't really need it. You just add a wizard mode or something. Yeah, I mean, but it's not necessary really on Attack from Mars, But I think that like Circus Voltaire and Totan could really improve from changing the rules. I think the problem is, is their teams. Like I feel like Chicago Gaming probably has a good enough team to write decent rules. Hell, they've made, you know, like Pulp Fiction was very good. Oh, that's amazing. I mean, what your boy Josh Sharpe did on Pulp Fiction is just incredible. But you got a good pinball guy. Who's better to write rules than a person that's really big into tournaments and rules to begin with? But I think some of these smaller companies, I don't know if they have those type of people. Are these more people that just build pinball machines and not so much into playing them? I think you need someone that's really a really good player that's explored deep into these games so they know what good code is versus someone that's not really good and you've never really been deep in a game. Yeah, I mean, I think that that's why Elwin is the best because he designs the games with the rules in mind. He comes up with the rules. And I just I just think that that is the recipe to make the best game. You have to have a high end tournament player that really understands the rules and how they affect what's fun. This rule affects that rule and all of that. Like these people that have taken it to that level, they're the ones that are going to make the best rule sets. Like that's why Ray Day is making the best rules right now at Sturr. Like he's a high-end tournament player. Elizabeth Gieske is a good tournament player. Yeah, she's killing it. And like you said, Keith Elwin doesn't code, but he does write the rules from my understanding or 90% of it and someone just codes it for him. He's not a programmer, but he's a rules designer. Correct. Some of these coders do have to come up with the rules. That's got to be like Elizabeth. It's like, damn, you're having to code and come up with what to do in the game? It's like two jobs, really. Yeah. And I think that she's done a great job from what I've seen, and that's one of the reasons why I'm excited about Transformers as well. Because I know that the way that she thinks about games is going to be maybe, you know, obviously we're two different people, but we're both tournament players. So she is going to think about that. That is not something that Spooky or American has done. Or Pedretti. Pedretti, I feel like, is the worst at it. You know, doing these remakes, like those guys just don't know how to write fun pinball. I mean, at least Spooky and stuff like there's stuff I've played that I certainly enjoy. Spooky is really great at making fun moments, right? Like they are obviously coming from a standpoint of being collectors, you know, like Bugs Dad was a collector first, then started homebrewing, and that's the perspective that they're coming from. So they know how they want the theme integrated and like, oh, it would be really cool if this happened. They are really good at that, but that does not make the rules great. Yeah, I agree. I would never, ever put Scooby-Doo or Beetlejuice or really any of those games. I can't, except for TNA, that's like the only spooky game that I would put in a tournament. Or actually Rick and Morty could be in tournament, but there are some things about it that aren't great. I feel like Spooky is more just your average person that wants to experience something that's really cool. It's definitely a world under glass kind of experience. I feel like there's different buyers. There's people that want to play a really interesting game, and then there's people that are just more worried about what it looks like. Like what toys does it have? What does the toy do? And, you know, cool modes, but maybe they don't make as much sense for tournaments and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. And I think that Spooky excels at that. But I think that if these other companies, if Pedretti and American and CGC, the ones that are making the remakes, If they hired high-end tournament players that have that perspective, then the rules would be better. I can't agree enough. Carl D'Angelo, he is going to be a superstar. Oh, it's just based on what I've seen. Keefe Elwin 2.0. I mean, it's the same thing. Yeah, exactly. And you know why? Because he is a top 50 player in the world. He knows pinball backwards and forwards. Exactly. He is an amazing player. He is the player that can do all of this shit himself. Like, if you ask Dwight Sullivan to go do all the shit in his code, he cannot do it. Oh, yeah. He can't. But Keefe can. Carl can. Ray Day can. Gieske can. You know? I think that's the recipe. So they just have a better perspective. That's the recipe for someone to write good code and good rules. I feel like you've got to be a tournament player or you've just got to be a damn good player that plays a shit ton of pinball and just knows, you know, I've beaten all these games and I know what a full game looks like. There's so many people that's like, I only play one mode of game and that's it. That's as deep as I ever get, you know, and I get one multi-ball started. Yeah, I feel like a lot of the coders that are not tournament players, their code is theoretical. It's like they are just like, oh, well, if the person did this and did that, then this would happen or whatever. But Keith and all of them, the pacing makes sense. The game comes together in a proper way. I think that from what I've seen for Transformers, what Gieske has laid out looks like the pacing is going to make sense. As you're working towards this, you're also building a little bit of that. Once you're done with this, then that is going to be close. And that's how the rules just fold on top of each other. Yeah, exactly. That is modern pinball. But where did she learn all this from? I'm probably playing some Keith Elwin games. But that's why you've got to be a tournament player, I feel like, to really be good at this job. Yeah, I mean, I really hope that they start doing – I hope that American hires somebody like that. Like, who knows who it's going to be? But I hope that they hire somebody like that that can take the code to the next level because all of these old layouts are so good. Like, dude, Funhaus is such a good layout, but the new code sucks. Whirlwind is probably my favorite game. Whirlwind is my favorite solid state game. I love Whirlwind. It's one of the first games that I started playing at the club. It's a fun game. It was like Giant Mnemonic, Whirlwind, 8-Ball Deluxe, World Cup Soccer, Stern Star Trek. Those were like the first group of games that I really got good at and learned. And I think that Whirlwind is just one of the best games ever. And the fact that they had new code, I was so excited to play it. And then I played it and I was like, what is this, dude? We could do so much more with this. I mean, you even look at their actual cornerstone games from, I call Pedretti and Pinball Brothers as one. They're all built in the same factory, and I think the same people are involved. But they all just suck, man. Like, Predator is freaking awesome, but I have not heard anyone like, dude, the rules and the code is so freaking good. And Predator, all I've heard is, like, Arnold's not in it, and the game's not fun. Yeah, I mean, that's another miss, because that layout, they basically stole the Whirlwind layout and made it a wide body. So they had room to make that an incredible game. But for whatever I haven't played it. I mean, try playing a Whitewood that has no rules other than shooting it. It's going to get boring really quick unless you add something fun to grab you and keep you and make you want to come back and play another game. I want a Dune so bad. I just can't bring myself to spend that much money on a game. But if somehow Dooms cost the same as a Stern Pro, I would have one behind me right now. Because it's just such a sick game. And then Winchester, dude, they hire the perfect guy to make this game, and it's some nobody, no nothing title, but it's just awesome. And nobody knew he was working on it. Dude, I remember I was pissed whenever that thing sold out in like three days or two days or however long it took because whenever it first dropped, my immediate reaction was like, damn, dude, I really don't want to spend 10 grand on a game, but dude, I think I have to. Like I really was about to order that shit because Carl made it. Right. And because the layout looked ridiculous and because, you know, they immediately had information on like what the code was like and everything and what he was talking about with like building up the jackpots, like going through the different rooms and like all the risk reward that he was talking about. I was like, this sounds incredible. Like, like I have to buy this game. And then by the time, like two days later or whatever, I really went to pull the trigger and they were all gone, man. Oh, my dealer called me. He's like, you want a Winchester Mystery House? And I'm like, I don't know what that is. And then I was like, oh, haunted house. That's cool. I like spooky stuff or not. I'm not saying spooky. I like creepy, you know, horror stuff. But and then, yeah, I was like, I'm going to think about it. And 20 power hours later, that pitch was sold out. And I like damn it I should have bought this game That probably would have been the one that spoke to me because so far the themes haven quite spoken to me I not big on Dune the movies The game fun I do like Winchester more, though.
    54:50
    Yeah, I thought that because that theme was so random that I was going to have more time. Same. I thought it was a horrible idea. I'm like, this is never going to sell out. I'll have plenty of time. It is like 24 hours. Yeah. So a lot of what was going through my head was I could buy this game and then lose my ass on it because nobody wants it. Right. But in my mind, I was like, dude, it's Carl D'Angelo. It's going to be good. I think I underestimated how big Carl's name is in pinball. I live in my little tournament bubble, so to me, he's like a rock star. Like I learned how to do a lot of flipper skills that I use every tournament from watching IE Pinball, right? So in my mind, I'm like, oh, this is the next Elwin. Like I have to get this. But I thought that like I didn't think I was the only person that knew about this, but I just thought that I would have a little bit more time. Well, at the same time, I think this is Iron Maiden. Basically, he's going to make a Godzilla at one point, and that's the one you really want. You know what I mean? Like this is his intro to pinball. Just wait. It's going to get better more than likely.
    56:06
    Yeah, I mean, and I don't I don't read. I don't know anything about Dundon Crawler Carl. Me either. But but if Carl D'Angelo makes it and it's something that he's passionate about, I'm on board. Right. I don't care if it's like a talking cat or whatever is going on. Like it's going to be sick. I know it is. I tried to listen to that shit, and I got – it was like a demo, but it gave you like the first ten minutes of the book. And I was probably like five minutes in, and I'm like, you know, this is just not for me.
    56:39
    Yeah, I mean, dude, all of these podcasters are talking about listening to it and stuff and reading it. I can't get into it. And it's because they want to be familiar with the IP because they're going to have to talk about it and whatever. Like me forcing myself on Fallout right now. I'm forcing myself to watch it. Yeah, to me, I just don't even need to know about it. I don't give a shit about soccer, but I love World Cup soccer. Agreed.
    57:09
    There's plenty of... I do not like Elton John, but that game rules. So good. You know? So good. There's tons of themes out there that I don't care about, but if the game is good, the game's good. I mean, I don't care about Iron Maiden, but that game is amazing. Yeah. I would much rather have Archer. I actually want to buy an Iron Maiden and re-theme it as Archer. No shit. And just redo the rules, like the exact rules that Iron Maiden has, but just do it Archer-themed with Archer videos and all that. I really, like I am, that's probably going to happen one day. I'm probably going to do that. Like after I do my first homebrew and I actually figure out like how all of it works. Right. The Archer game is going to happen because I love Iron Maiden, but I just don't care about the theme. As I have been buying more games, I'm realizing that I don't care about themes whenever I'm playing a game, But having themes that I like at home is kind of important to me. See, that's what I was going to kind of tell you about is, you know, if I don't like the theme, it doesn't mean I dislike the game. It just means I'm probably not a buyer because for me to spend, you know, $10,000, $13,000, $15,000, it's got to check all the boxes. It's got to be fun. It's got to be a theme I at least, you know, somewhat like. And then, yeah, you know. Yeah, that's something that I didn't really know about myself because I just haven't traditionally really been a pinball buyer. I have always just been a player, right? But the last few years I have started buying games and stuff, and whenever I am coming to my decision-making on whether or not I want it, it has to basically be either a game that I played early on whenever I was first learning pinball and I have some kind of nostalgia for it, Or it has to be a theme that whenever I walk down into my little man cave, it just looks sick. Yeah, it makes you happy to look at it. But it also has to be a pretty good game. The price is a lot for me.
    59:26
    Because, you know, like taxi, I don't care about taxis, but it's also $3,000 compared to, say, a $13,000 LE. So I can get past the theme a little bit easier on the cheaper games versus a brand new Unbox Stern or any other company's brand new Unbox game. Yeah, that taxi that you made, I played that at the Palace whenever we went on the way home from Florida. Don't remind me. Dude, that is a beautiful game. Oh my God, that's the best taxi I've ever seen. Oh, I know, because it's rad cowed, totally chromed everything, new play field, new everything. Yeah, I miss it. That was great. I had a good time playing that. I actually played – they have it right next to the Rudy's Nightmare. And I played one game of Rudy's Nightmare and was like, this sucks. Let's play Taxi. And I played it and I was like, dude, this game is awesome. Sterling did a great job. I knew that it was yours. I feel like you told me that you sold it to Kelly, but I wasn't positive. But then I was playing it and I was like, dude, this is the nicest taxi ever. Yeah, the taxi's there and the diner's mine there, or my old game, sorry, they aren't mine anymore. But I never redid the diner, but it plays well. Yeah, I don't think I even saw a diner there. It may be in the back. Maybe I just overlooked it or something. But I spent most of my time in the back. Okay, he led you back there. Yeah, I mean, we know each other a little bit. I used to go there kind of a good bit. And I just was asking – because like now he's got basically the whole front is all new games. And there was all kinds of old games I had never played before that are on the pinball map. And I was like, where's all these games? They're not on the floor. You got to go in the warehouse. Yeah, and he was like, yeah, I'll let you back there. You can hang out there for a little while. And I just stayed there. So I stayed in the back. I think that he was expecting me to go look around and play a game. That's usually what people do. And then come back up to the front, right? No, I was back there forever. He literally had to come back there and be like, hey, man, we got to get you back up here to the front. I was like, oh, okay, fine. Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff back there you probably won't see in a lot of places. He'll buy some one-off rear games and put them back there. But they're not big enough to put up front for the regular customers. Yeah, I mean, I got to play a gold ball. That game was sick. There's an actual gold ball in it. Yeah. Orbiter 1. There was a game that was, it's some kind of, like the theme is like a gambling fairy or something. I know what you're talking about, yeah. It's like a more brutal version of bow and arrow, and I really like bow and arrow.
    62:14
    But this game has stand-ups where the spinners are in bow and arrow. So on bow and arrow, you can just backhand those spinners and get it up away from the flippers, right? But on this game, if you screw up and hit it right there at that same spot, you're hitting a target and it's going down the middle. So I had a lot of fun on that. I love playing the old games. Oh, yeah, they're a ton of fun. I've made full circle. I started off with some older games, then I got my first turn and I was like, dude, modern games are so much better. And I got rid of all my old games and now I'm like, you know what? I really do like older games, especially in tournaments. I tend to do better on them. But yeah, I like new and old. I like all of them. So I'm about to send you pictures of my Supersonic.
    63:05
    I just got a mirrored back glass on it. Nice. Oh my God, dude. Is this the one I almost bought and like you ended up buying it? Yeah. Yes. Yep. This is it, man. It looks cleanly. She's all ready to go.
    63:19
    Yeah, it really wasn't that bad. It was cheap, too, from what I remember. It was $500. Fuck yeah, I should have gotten that game.
    63:27
    Yeah, I spent almost the same. The back glass. Yeah, exactly. That's what I was about to say. I spent almost the same on that. But I had to put in a new. I had to buy a new Transformer. Really? Yeah, I had to buy a lot of stuff. There's something wrong with the audio, with the soundboard. Always. And Ken Grant, he either fixed it himself or he sent it to the board guy. There's a really famous guy that works on boards that lives up near Ken. He might have brought it over there. But yeah, Ken has been having it at his house working on it for me. Probably just needed a capacitor kit. You can buy the capacitor kit and replace all of them. Yeah, I don't know exactly what he did. I bought the power supply or whatever, and I bought the rubber kit, and I bought the back glass, and he's just been playing with it. And like I mentioned on the podcast last time, he has let me borrow games for the last eight years. So I got a game that he had never had, and it was like a no-brainer. Of course I'll let you borrow it, Ken. You've let me borrow like 50 games. Yeah. So, yeah. That's an awesome thing to have. And then he ended up making it better. So, yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, soundboards. I can't wait to have it back. Soundboards can be tricky. A lot of board guys won't even touch them. They're like, I do everything but soundboards. I always used Chris Hibbler, but I think he just recently retired or he's trying to get out of it, Which is so sad because I've used him since I got into the hobby to fix all my boards. But I fix a lot of the stuff now, me and Neil. Neil's good at reading the schematics. I'm good at the soldering. So, you know, between both of us, we can get them fixed.
    65:22
    Yeah, I got a... So I have been on like a shopping spree, to be honest. So I picked up a Prospector the other day.
    65:33
    It's one of Kristen's favorite old games. So I got it for her. The cabinet is jacked up on the front. Like a big chunk is missing out of the front of the cabinet. So I'm going to have to pick your brain a little bit on redoing cabinets because I know you've done that quite a bit. Dude, I have fixed some horrendous cabinets, so I can definitely put you in the right direction on fixing that out. There's a few different methods depending on what the issue is with the cabinet. I'm probably going to have to move my little podcast studio that I've got down here. I'm probably going to have to move that into a guest room to make room for all these games I've been buying. Nothing wrong with that. The prospector is at Kristen's mom's house. I've got Supersonic at Ken's house. I've got a Gottlieb Spider-Man at Transmission Arcade in Columbia. I've got a Flash in storage.
    66:32
    I've got all kinds of stuff. And I see you all the time looking at shit. You're like, oh, how much is that? Are you selling this?
    66:41
    Oh, dude. So I am cooking up a little scheme to get me a Batman 66. No. If that happens. Can I borrow it? If that happens, you'll be first on the list. I want that game so effing bad, man. I want that game so bad. Yeah, I want it again. I had it for a while, and there's just so much to the code. There's so many different ways of playing it, and the meta has kind of shifted since I had it. Whenever I had it, everybody played Penguin, and then they did multiball and used their multiball to juice Penguin, and that was kind of the accepted strat. But now there's so many different strats. I picked Jamie's brain. He's crazy about the game. He loves it. Yeah, I saw there was some really high-ranked player did a deep dive on it on one of the West Coast shows. I can't remember the name of the show, but it was like a two-hour deep dive of the rules on that game. Yeah, and listening to that, I was like, damn, dude, I got to get this game again. So I'm working on it, Sterling, and whenever I get it, once I'm done with it, I'll hit you up. Hell yeah. I mean, I've always heard it's not the best tournament game, but not every game I have has to be in a tournament.
    68:05
    So we got it at Dave's, and some of Dave's games I don't put in the tournament. I don't put Godzilla in Dave's tournaments because it just plays too long. It's too nice of a Godzilla. It just plays great, and it'll take an hour to have a game on it. But Batman 66 actually has been playing pretty fast. I keep track of all of the stats, like the time stats, and it's been playing pretty fast because we tighten the tilt and we tighten the slings and move the rubbers up. And it actually is a pretty decent tournament game, to be honest with you. If you set it up hard, it's a good tournament game, I would say. Yeah, you close up the mount lanes, lose some rubbers on the out lanes, and make it nice, play nice and fast. I can see that. You haven't played my new Godzilla. It plays really long.
    69:00
    Dude, I mean, your old one played really long. I bought a freaking premium after all these years. I had the Pro, and like everyone has always told me, they're like, oh, Godzilla, you gotta have the premium. Gotta have the premium, and I've got the premium now, and I'm like, yeah. It's like the Pro is pretty good, too. Well, your Pro was the best playing Pro that I've ever played, for sure. Oh, my buddy got a good game. My buddy Robert just bought that game. Nice. But the premium, I mean, I do kind of agree. Like, if you're going to keep the game and you're not going to sell it, it's going to be bolted, then I would have the premium. But if you're shifting stuff around, like, I don't see any point in paying up to bring in the premium. So Godzilla, it's a lame answer, but it probably still is my favorite game, and I know it's a lame answer, and that's really probably the only reason why I was like, you know, if it really is your favorite game and you do enjoy it this much, might as well get the best model. So that's why I really made the job.
    70:08
    Yeah, I mean, it's not a lame answer. I mean, it is objectively an amazing game. It's just so good. It's so good. I always have a smile on my face, and I'm always having fun playing it. So I was like, it's time to get the better game. I do like the Mechzilla, the ramp, spinner, whole ordeal, that whole area. I do like that a lot. The building lowering is really cool, too. It's kind of annoying waiting for it. Dude, it's the same time on the pro. I timed it. So it goes, da, da, da, da, da. Yeah, right when the lyrics kick in, the second the lyrics click in is when the building's all the way down and when the magnet releases on the Pro. Exact same second. Oh, so they just time it with the music? Yep. It's not like a mech thing? Yep. Same exact timing. Yeah, I've heard so many people complain about that, and I'm like, really? It's the same timing other than the Pro doesn't always grab all three balls, so you might get one of them a little early, but, you know. Yeah.
    71:05
    But, yeah. Yeah, that game, man. I mean, I've never had one. I've never had one at my house, never borrowed one. I would love to have it. I would love to have it and learn it. But the problem is, is like, I can't justify buying one because there's one on every corner. Exactly. Like every place that you go has one. So it's like, I would just rather spend a few dollars. Yeah. So I am a place for players, so I got to have one. Like, what's the location of Father Godzilla? Godzilla. Yeah, I mean, it would be weird. It would be weird for you to have all of those games. It's like, you don't have Godzilla? Like, what the fuck? Yeah, that'd be very strange.
    71:42
    But, yeah. Well, anyway, David, it's been fun chatting. If you got any other topics or you want to go ahead and hang it up here? No, I'm good. It's close to my bedtime, so let's call it a day. I mean, we're going to be doing this a little bit more often, so we'll just talk to you next time. Yeah, thank you so much for coming on the show, and we're definitely going to do more of this. It's been a fun conversation, and yeah, I'll see you next time, David. All right, later. Later, man.
    72:30
    Keith Evaluice