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Episode 444 - Texas Pinball Festival Recap, Coin-Op Carnival Tour, Woodrail vs Metal Rail Games

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·24m 54s·analyzed·Mar 30, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.027

TL;DR

Texas Pinball Festival debut of Coin-Op Carnival and multi-bingo custom game; tour announcement

Summary

Nick Baldridge recounts his first Texas Pinball Festival experience, where he debuted Coin-Op Carnival issue one and exhibited his multi-bingo custom game. The event included a seminar with co-author Ryan Claytor and historian Gordon Hasse, strong booth reception, a Best Custom Game award for the multi-bingo, a post-event visit with designer Wayne Neyens, and announcement of a 16-stop, 10-state Coin-Op Carnival tour. The episode concludes with technical advice on restoring woodrail vs. metal-rail pinball machines.

Key Claims

  • The multi-bingo accumulated over 4,500 plays (button presses) across the Texas Pinball Festival weekend, averaging approximately 225 individual games started

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge, direct measurement at event

  • Coin-Op Carnival issue one is planned as the first of four issues, with outlines complete for remaining three issues, targeting biennial release schedule

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge, stated production plans

  • Wayne Neyens previously testified against Bally regarding bingo machines

    medium confidence · Nick Baldridge recounting context before showing multi-bingo to Neyens

  • The Abrams Planetarium at Michigan State University (April 14th, 6 p.m.) is the first stop of a 16-stop, 10-state Coin-Op Carnival tour

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge announcing tour schedule

  • Genco woodrail games from the 1940s often use DC power with selenium rectifiers, which can fail and pose fire hazards

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge, technical restoration advice

  • Wayne Neyens complimented the multi-bingo by saying David Gottlieb would be 'rolling over in his grave' if he knew about it

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge recounting conversation with Wayne Neyens

Notable Quotes

  • “That's a bingo. What's that doing here?”

    Wayne Neyens @ ~58:00 — Neyens' initial reaction upon seeing the multi-bingo custom game

  • “He told me that David Gottlieb would be rolling over in his grave if he knew. But the thing that really got me, really touched me, was that he said that he was really glad that I wasn't making games at the same time he was.”

    Nick Baldridge recounting Wayne Neyens @ ~62:00 — High compliment from a design hero; emotional validation of custom game quality

  • “It's a really cool presentation... It looks even cooler now.”

    Nick Baldridge @ ~70:30 — Enthusiasm for the planetarium 360-degree presentation on Coin-Op Carnival and Wayne Neyens

  • “I am extremely honored and humbled... they did understand the work and detail that went into making it.”

    Nick Baldridge @ ~50:00 — Reaction to winning Best Custom Game award at Texas Pinball Festival

  • “Not a single complaint or bad thing to say. I really am so just beside myself with how nice he was to do that for me.”

    Nick Baldridge about Eric Pripke @ ~54:30 — Expression of gratitude for unexpected help carrying multi-bingo cabinet off the show floor

Entities

Nick BaldridgepersonRyan ClaytorpersonWayne NeyenspersonTexas Pinball FestivaleventCoin-Op CarnivalproductMulti-bingoproductEric PripkepersonJonathan Houstonperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Coin-Op Carnival issue one successfully launched at Texas Pinball Festival with strong booth interest and positive community reception

    high · Nick reports high initial interest, many familiar and new faces purchased publication, received feedback during seminar that attendees didn't realize there were so many pinball publications

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival served as major venue for Coin-Op Carnival debut; approximately 225 multi-bingo games played over weekend; multi-bingo won Best Custom Game award

    high · 4,500+ button presses over weekend = ~225 individual games started; explicit award announcement; consistent player traffic throughout event

  • ?

    community_signal: Coin-Op Carnival seminar revealed that many community members were unaware of the breadth of pinball publication history from operator and collector perspectives

    high · Nick notes several comments after seminar indicating attendees didn't realize how many pinball publications existed prior to Coin-Op Carnival

  • ?

    design_innovation: Multi-bingo custom game features hand-drawn schematic, manual, reprogrammed code, and 3D papercraft models; demonstrates significant technical and artistic achievement

    high · Wayne Neyens praised it as 'outstanding' and 'really excellent'; won competition award; includes custom code modifications for gate switch reliability; features hand-drawn documentation

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Nick values double-award games and multi-coin bingo mechanics as design elements; uses Bright Spot as introductory game due to straightforward six-card mechanics

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.075

0:00
What's that sound? It's 4 Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to 4 Amusement Only. This is Nick Baldridge, a slightly more rested Nick Baldridge. It's been a couple days since I was scheduled to record, but I had driven halfway across the country to attend Texas Pinball Festival. This is the first time I'd attended the Texas Pinball Festival, and I thought it'd be a great idea, since I was going to be there for the release of Coin Op Carnival, number one, to bring the multi-bingo and share with everybody.
0:36
It was about 20 hours door-to-door from Richmond, Virginia to Frisco, Texas. It's a pretty long trip, and I love a long car trip, but that was very long. so I get to TPF and start setting up the booth and that includes the multi bingo got everything unloaded and got it all set up and ready to roll and set up the table with the few books that I had I had a box of books but I didn't have any of the other promotional materials like postcards and stickers and so forth those were arriving with Ryan a little later so the initial version of the booth was a little sad looking but thankfully Ryan got there and he had nice tablecloth that he'd sewn that was in the appropriate color to show off the books the postcards which mentioned our tour stops more on that later more books and of course t-shirts So we were ready to roll, and the initial interest was pretty high, and we were very, very pleased with how it went. Everybody was quite excited and happy to see the publication, and there were many familiar faces and new faces that picked up the publication as well, people that I hadn't talked to before but had corresponded with online, folks like Jonathan Houston of Pinball Magazine, several podcasters like James and Carol Willing from the EM Dungeon, Dennis and Tony of the Eclectic Gamers podcast, Whitney of the Broken Token podcast, Kevin Manning and Nick Lane of the Buffalo Pinball stream and podcast, and Jack Danger of Dead Flip, Tommy from This Flippin' podcast, Jeff from This Week in Pinball, and Jeff from Pinball Profile. Sean Farwell and his brother, creator of the Acrylic Pinball Project, and soon to be the Acrylic Bingo Project, Jerry Stellenberg of Multimorphic, Eric Pripke of Cactus Canyon Continued Fame, Todd McCullough, and many, many others who I wish I had had more time to chat with while we were there. It was really a whirlwind. While we were there, I got to see some other folks that I hadn't seen in a while, like Dennis Dottle and his traveling friend John, Jeff from the Pinball Podcast, and a large contingent of Richmond folks, Taylor Reese, Dan and Jesse, and Laura and Clark, Scott Denise, as well as Ryan Claytor, my co-author for Coin Op Carnival. And Ryan and I had a seminar on Friday night after Jersey Jack and before Steve Ritchie, and during that seminar, Gordon Hasse, pinball historian, joined us to kind of contextualize Coin-Op Carnival in the pantheon of publications which had come before and I think that context was very helpful. I got several comments after the seminar that many people didn't realize that there were that many pinball publications both from an operator perspective and a collector's perspective. So that was great. And Ryan and I chatted about the creation of the publication, including some of the research that went into various aspects of it. And previously undetailed features, such as the comics, which kind of glue together the introduction and various aspects of Wayne Nines' interview, as well as papercraft. And the papercraft are entirely Ryan's brainchild, and he did a fantastic job. There are 7% models of both featured games within issue number one, which are Gottlieb's Mystic Marvel and William's Space Pilot. And during the seminar, we had a brief period for Q&A at the end, and there was an audience member who asked why I had chosen Mystic Marvel as a featured game. And I responded that the double award games are extremely fascinating to me. Being a person who really enjoys multi-coin pinball machines, including the bingos, having the ability to wager a second coin against yourself, against the machine, is a really powerful incentive to draw out that extra nickel. And within the publication, I detail some of the mechanics and special features which are involved in Mystic Marvel. So hopefully everybody enjoys that and enjoys Ryan's review of Space Pilot, which is an EM arcade game where you're flying a spaceship and attempting to touch these metal trees. Very cool games and very glad to have those as part of the inaugural issue here. As we've mentioned on several shows, including this one, this is the first of a planned four issues. and we have the outline of each of the remaining three complete. And we just have to write, edit, draw. You know, all the hard stuff is left. But we're well on the way and we're very excited. With the release of issue number one and the reception that it's received so far just from the pinball sphere, we, or at least I, feel very recharged and ready to do it all over again. So I'm looking forward to working on issue two with Ryan, and hopefully we be working on that like crazy here before too much longer We have a lot of things in the pipeline though so we see But the plan is to release every other year and hopefully roughly So we'll see if we can stick to that schedule, but that's the hope. So let's talk about the multi-bingo a little bit, because there are a few things which I'm fairly proud of while we were down in TPF. The first is that there was a fairly consistent group of people who were learning about the game or playing it. There wasn't necessarily a line the whole time, but as soon as one person finished, generally another person would come up and see the game and wonder what the heck it was. So that was a chance to give them a foray into bingo pinball, and most people took to it very well. The most popular game was probably Bright Spot, which I tended to put people on if it was their first game, just to give them a feel for how the bingo mechanics worked, how the bingo cards interacted. Bright Spot is a six card. It was actually the second six card after Bright Lights, manufactured by Bally, and it has a chance at spotting one of the center numbers, so it's a pretty good game to start people off with. There's not too many features to confuse people, and it's very straightforward. Now, unfortunately, the multi-bingo did have a malfunction, and that is the gate switch. Now, there's a switch at the top of the shooter lane, which handles a few different things. One is the ball count, and the other is signaling the lifter motor that it needs to actually lift. So, unfortunately, there were a couple of instances where it counted balls incorrectly, and each morning I would come out, take the glass off, and just try to readjust that switch. And I did all kinds of crazy backflips to try to make that thing more functional. I also rewrote portions of the code on the show floor to try and make it less error prone. The problem is that if you have a big, big shot through that gate, when the ball hits it on the rebound, it can actually pulse the switch as well. So I had to tell it to ignore that, otherwise it would increment the ball counter, even if there was a ball in the shooter lane waiting. So that was very tricky and pretty irritating, but I did manage to get it ironed out on the last day, of course.
Gordon Hasse
person
Steve Ritchieperson
Jerry Stellenbergperson
James Willingperson
Carol Willingperson
Dennis Dottleperson
Abrams Planetarium at Michigan State Universityevent
EM Dungeonorganization
Broken Token Podcastorganization
This Flippin' Podcastorganization
This Week in Pinballorganization
Pinball Profileorganization

high · Nick explains choosing Mystic Marvel because 'double award games are extremely fascinating' and appreciates ability to wager second coin; selects Bright Spot as starter game for newcomers due to accessibility

  • ?

    product_strategy: Coin-Op Carnival planned as four-issue series with complete outlines for remaining three issues; targeting biennial release schedule

    high · Nick states 'this is the first of a planned four issues. And we have the outline of each of the remaining three complete' and 'plan is to release every other year'

  • ?

    event_signal: Coin-Op Carnival embarking on 16-stop, 10-state tour; first stop confirmed as Abrams Planetarium at Michigan State University on April 14th with 360-degree presentation

    high · Explicitly announced 16-stop tour with first confirmed venue, date, time, and description of Ryan Claytor's 360-degree presentation featuring Wayne Neyens' garage and office

  • ?

    product_concern: Multi-bingo experienced gate switch reliability issues at Texas Pinball Festival causing occasional ball count errors; issue resolved through on-site code modifications and physical adjustments

    high · Nick details gate switch malfunctioning 'a couple of instances' where it 'counted balls incorrectly'; describes daily adjustments and show-floor code rewrites; notes switch pulse issues on strong shots

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Wayne Neyens validated Nick Baldridge's custom game design work and expressed appreciation for the multi-bingo; offered high compliment about timing of design careers

    high · Wayne said multi-bingo was 'outstanding' and 'really excellent'; complimented by saying 'he was really glad that I wasn't making games at the same time he was'

  • ?

    community_signal: Texas Pinball Festival facilitated significant networking for Nick Baldridge with industry figures, podcast hosts, designers, and fellow enthusiasts; first in-person meetings with several people he'd corresponded with online

    high · Nick lists 15+ industry figures he met or reconnected with; notes first in-person meeting with Eric Pripke despite prior forum interactions; describes meeting as 'whirlwind' with 'many familiar faces and new faces'

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Genco woodrail games from 1940s require specialized maintenance attention due to component fragility, potential DC power selenium rectifiers, and wire insulation degradation

    high · Nick provides detailed technical guidance on identifying selenium rectifier fire hazards, checking wire insulation integrity, and emphasizing serviceability differences between 1930s-40s games and modern machines

    • 8:44
    But if anybody played it and had that ball count issue, of course I was generally standing right beside the game, and I was able to coax it into doing what needed to be done. but if anybody had that issue I do sincerely apologize it is one of those things that I wish that hadn't happened but hopefully for the most part it was completely invisible to everybody I did try to make it so that it wasn't very apparent if the game had malfunctioned by forcing the game to operate correctly through a remote keyboard which I had I'm sorry, that's not how it normally behaves And, of course, it's not behaving that way now, but it sure behaved that way on the show floor, and it was driving me crazy. So on to the good news, though. The multi-bingo had over 4,500 plays across the weekend. And, of course, a play is counted as a button press. So that includes every time somebody presses the yellow button to try and go for extra ball, every time somebody presses the red button to try to get a feature or advance their scores, same with the blue and the green buttons and the white buttons. So that was a lot of button presses, though. Generally, it's about 3,000 when I take it to York. So that averages to about 225 individual games that were started. That's pretty good. I'm pretty pleased with that. So, at the end of the show, there were a couple of interesting things that happened. There was an awards ceremony at the end, where the Texas Pinball Festival gave out awards for different games that were there. There were awards for Best 60s, Original Game, Best Restoration, and so on down the line. Best Video Game, and categories within for different time periods. At one point, they get to Best Custom Game, and they announced two runners-up, and then they called my name for the multi-bingo. And I was so honored and humbled that they would recognize what this game was. It wasn't something that had been there for multiple years, or something where word of mouth really had had a chance to spread, I thought, throughout the show. But apparently it had, and they did understand the work and detail that went into making it. And for that, I am extremely honored and humbled. So thank you so much for that award. So now the multi-bingo is multi-award winning. I'll have to tout that in all the marketing materials.
    11:22
    But seriously, that was really cool. Just what a nice way to cap off the weekend. So at that point, I had to get the game out of there, and unfortunately, Ryan had to reschedule to an earlier flight than he was anticipating, so he was not able to help me. And I, like a really smart person, decided I didn't need to bring a dolly. The loading instructions said that there were community dollies and so forth. However, of course, everybody else is vying for the same things, So it was a bit problematic trying to get out of there. Luckily, Ryan had conscripted Eric Pripke, who I was really looking forward to meeting, but hadn't introduced myself to, to help me. And so we get to talking, and I realize, hey, you're that guy. And we're both in the custom pinball forum, and we talk to each other fairly frequently. I just had no idea. What do you actually look like? So that was great to meet him And then I was able to borrow Bob Herbison dolly briefly to move the head of the multi which was great But then I was left with the body, and rather than impose on Bob any more, he was ready to go as well, I asked Eric what he thought we should do, and he suggested that we just try to coffin carry it out of there. So we did. So here's the hilarious thing. It's not just Coffin carrying it across the hall. It was carrying it all the way across the hall, then out a small door, then around the block, around the block a second time, and halfway through the next block. So essentially, he helped me carry it for about three blocks. Not a single complaint or bad thing to say. I really am so just beside myself with how nice he was to do that for me. So, Eric, if you're listening, thank you very much. And if you're not listening, thank you very much. I definitely owe him one or several ones next time I see him. And hopefully I see him again at some point soon. So all loaded up, ready to go, it's time to start the 20-hour drive home. But actually, I decided to make a detour thanks to Ryan, who suggested that I do that. So I ended up going to visit Wayne Nyans. And Wayne was looking forward to hearing about the release of the publication and how the reception was. And again, it was just everything about this weekend was so wonderful and really not a bad thing to say about it. And I let Wayne know all that, and he was very pleased to hear that. and I showed him some of the games that I'd been working on, including RoboFrenzy, some videos of it resetting and so forth, and we talked about design.
    14:22
    Just what an opportunity to have one-on-one time with one of your design heroes and get to discuss methodology and his approach to the process of creation. really something special and getting to speak to him as part of the series of interviews that we needed to do in order to create Coin Op Carnival number one was honor enough, but this is above and beyond so Wayne, for those who haven't met him is an extremely, extremely kind person he is also very, very generous and very willing to give of himself and his time. And I was cognizant of the fact that that is his nature, and I didn't want to impose upon him longer than necessary. So I talked with him about custom games for a while, and we talked about his games for a while and his time at Western especially, and I got to hear some great stories about that time. And then he asked if he could try out the custom game that I had in the car. And the custom game, of course, being the multi-bingo. Now, this was interesting to me because I wasn't sure how he would react to that because it's a bingo. And, of course, he had had to testify against Bally about the bingos, either Bally directly or operators or whomever. So it was just with some trepidation that I went out and set it up. The other thing is that the multi-bingo is pretty heavy. It's kind of difficult to set up by yourself, and I certainly wasn't going to ask a centenarian if he would help me lift the head of the multi-bingo. So I knew if I was going to set it up, I would need to do it myself. I also knew that I wouldn't likely have another opportunity to get his feedback on the game unless I set it up. So I went ahead and got it done. My back thanked me later, but at the time, it was totally fine. And Wayne got to see it, and he came out and he said, that's a bingo.
    16:43
    What's that doing here? So he tried it out. I told him what the premise of the multi-bingo was and how I had created everything, stitched everything together, done all the programming and so forth, and his eyes got really wide, and he told me it was just outstanding, you know, really excellent. And he played a game, and I started him off on Bounty, which is one of my favorite games.
    17:13
    Loaded him up with A, B, C, D on the screen and OK, and the time tree had happened to jump into after fifth. So he starts playing the game, and he's plunging balls, getting a feel for it, and he manages to knock three in a row vertically on the right-hand side of the bingo card. With After Fifth lit and okay, he was able to collect in all three colors. Really cool, and he really enjoyed that. He told me that David Gottlieb would be rolling over in his grave if he knew. But the thing that really got me, really touched me, was that he said that he was really glad that I wasn't making games at the same time he was.
    18:00
    That, I told him, was a really high compliment in my eyes, and I very much appreciated it. So Wayne also got to see the hand-drawn schematic and manual that I had made for the multi, and he was quite impressed. So cool to be able to show that to him. What a weekend, you know? Just a great weekend. and then I began the trip back and what a long trip it was. Wayne lives down in Arkansas and so that added considerable mileage to the trip It was already over uh 1300 miles uh from Richmond to Texas and that added another few hundred on top of that So I was feeling it at the end But again, I wouldn't trade any of that time. So the trip wasn't the end. There's more to the Coin-Op Carnival story, and that begins with the 16-stop, 10-state tour. The first stop of which is going to be the Abrams Planetarium at Michigan State University, April 14th at 6 p.m. Ryan is spearheading this one, and he is presenting a 360-degree presentation on Koinob Carnival and also Wayne Nyans. He was able to visit Wayne with a 360-degree camera and film his garage where he had his Spirit of 76, and Wayne tells the story of that game as well as his office and in his office there are framed pieces of artwork and photographs and Wayne points at each one and it zooms up on the screen and he tells you all about them. It's a really cool presentation. I got to see a sneak peek before Ryan had finished the programming with the person who runs the planetarium there and it was really cool then and he sent me a couple of sneak photo peeks, and it looks even cooler now. Beyond that, Ryan is going to have a small collection of Wayne Nyhan's designed games in the lobby after the presentation, as well as himself. He'll be signing the books there. So be sure you go to this event. It's pretty unusual and very neat. Before I go, there was a listener question. Listener Eric writes in and asks what some of the differences are between wood rail games and metal rail games. The wood rail games in question are Genco games, and they are a little bit different from other manufacturers. Most of the components are the same as with their metal rail counterparts, but there are a few differences. Namely, some of the Gencos actually have DC power, and as far as I know, those were only used in their flipper games. So the two games in question were made in 1941 and 1947, and so the 1947 game might have DC power going to the flippers if it was made after the invention of the flipper. but the 1941 game is going to be very similar to games that came before it that were made by Genco meaning there are going to be steppers, there are going to be relays, there are going to be switches and the biggest thing to be mindful of is that the components inside are a bit more fragile than those in their metal rail counterparts and when I say fragile, I mean you really don't want to break the switches inside those. They can be very difficult to replace compared to their more modern counterparts, which were made for serviceability. Some of the games from the 30s and 40s are not necessarily made for serviceability as we think about it today. So some of the units may have coils which are actually completely invisible to you. And if that's the case and a coil is burned out, it can be hard to diagnose unless you're blowing through fuses. So just pay close attention to the way things are laid out.
    22:19
    1941, you're unlikely to find a schematic. There may be one, but it's unlikely. So the nice thing about games from the 40s, especially the early 40s, is that the wiring is usually very straightforward. There's usually a sequence, and you can follow that in the relay bank just by looking at it and checking out the labels. If the labels are missing, then you're going to have to experiment in order to figure out what's going on. But I would suggest that you have the games on some kind of quick cutoff, a power strip, or the like. If your game uses DC power, it uses a selenium rectifier. This is an older style rectifier, and it can go bad. And if it goes bad, of course, it can put out way more voltage than it needs to on any given line and cause fire. It can actually burn stuff. So you want to look into that, and some people have them rebuilt, I've seen. and others just replace them with silicon. Either will work. There is no one way that works better than any other. The main thing is that it outputs the correct voltage. So whatever gets you there is really what needs to happen. The other thing to look for in Genco games specifically, and I've seen this in other games, but I tend to see it most often in Genco, is that the insulation on the wires has started to rot away. So definitely gently rub some of the insulation between your fingers on various points in the game, various wires on various points in the game, and make sure that the insulation is intact. If it is not, then you're going to have some really fun troubleshooting ahead of you. Otherwise, it's general stepper maintenance. Make sure everything's clean and lubricated and your switches are adjusted and look appropriate.
    24:22
    Well, that's all for tonight. Thank you very much for joining me. My name again is Nick Baldridge. You can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast at gmail.com or you can call me on the bingos line. That's 724-BINGOS1, 724-246-4671. You can listen to me on iTunes, Stitcher, Pocket Cast, via RSS, on Facebook, on Twitter at bingopodcast. you can follow me on Instagram also at bingo podcast or you can listen to me on my website which is for amusement only dot libsyn dot com thank you very much for listening and I'll talk to you next time