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No Good Gottliebs (Premiere)

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·54m 51s·analyzed·Jul 24, 2016
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.023

TL;DR

Blockade hosts discuss theme parks, fan interactions, and Brisbane tournament results with classic pinball game scores.

Summary

Chris Freebus and Jared Morgan discuss personal experiences at theme parks, community interactions with a web show creator, Pinball Arcade tournament announcements, and Jared's performance at the Brisbane Pinball Club tournament with detailed game-by-game breakdowns of scores on classic machines like Black Pyramid, Magic, Meteor, South Park, Star Wars Data East, and Trident.

Key Claims

  • A BFDI (Battle for Dream Island) web show creator commented on Chris's son's pinball drawing and interacted with them on Twitter

    high confidence · Chris describes the creator responding positively to his son's drawing posted on Twitter

  • Major League Pinball is in talks with Farsight to completely take over monthly Pinball Arcade tournaments

    high confidence · Chris states: 'apparently he'd been in talks with Farsight to completely take over the monthly tournaments'

  • The proposed Pinball Arcade tournament format would include paid entry with all tournament tables included in the entry fee

    high confidence · Chris explains the entry structure: 'if you paid the entry, you would get all the tables that were in that tournament'

  • Brisbane Pinball Club tournament on July 18 used a lineup of Black Pyramid, Magic, Meteor, South Park, Star Wars Data East, and Trident

    high confidence · Jared provides detailed tournament results from this specific event

  • Match Play is used for Brisbane tournaments as a web-based scoring system

    high confidence · Jared states: 'We use a system called Match Play to do our tournaments, and that was a link that I just dumped in there now'

Notable Quotes

  • “And he looked and he goes, 'Well, that's the guy that made the show.' And I'm like, 'What?'”

    Chris Freebus @ ~06:30 — Highlights the unexpected moment when the web show creator commented on his son's artwork

  • “By the time I got done with that game, I'd scored 200 million and wound up taking number one on that table. What the hell? I don't know what I'm doing.”

    Chris Freebus @ ~51:00 — Describes unexpected high score achievement on No Good Gophers without understanding the scoring system

  • “I was number 49, right? The person that won the laptop was number 48. Now, granted, it was a random throw the cards into a drum... But even still, I was like, he's off by one number.”

    Chris Freebus @ ~15:30 — Humorous near-miss in Pinball Arcade tournament lottery drawing

  • “I ended up lifting the cabinet, like pushing the pinball machine so hard that it lifted off its front legs and slammed back down again.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~27:00 — Describes frustration playing Black Pyramid, resulting in a slam tilt

  • “I hate those games... I hate games like Pinbot because it's not about the score that you did while you have the ball in play. It's all about the bonus count at the end after the ball is drained.”

    Chris Freebus @ ~30:00 — Expresses gameplay preference philosophy regarding bonus-heavy vs. active scoring

Entities

Chris FreebuspersonJared MorganpersonBlockade PodcastorganizationWizardAmusement.comcompanyMajor League PinballorganizationFarsightcompanyBrisbane Pinball CluborganizationBattle for Dream Island (BFDI)productPeterpersonLoot CratecompanyMatch PlayproductMagic Mountain

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Brisbane Pinball Club holding regular monthly tournaments using Match Play web-based system with photo documentation

    high · Jared provides detailed tournament breakdown from July 18 event with 33 players and Match Play system documentation

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Player feedback requesting more local/regional coverage in pinball podcast content

    medium · Brisbane player Chris requesting 'you should do more Brisbane pinball coverage' at tournament

  • ?

    event_signal: Major League Pinball in advanced talks with Farsight to take over monthly Pinball Arcade tournaments with new format and prize structure

    high · Chris states: 'he'd been in talks with Farsight to completely take over the monthly tournaments' with discussion of format changes and paid entry options

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball Arcade tournament potential pivot to paid entry model with included table access to incentivize new player entry and fund prizes

    medium · Tournament director discussing 'if you paid the entry, you would get all the tables that were in that tournament' to encourage participation

  • ?

    community_signal: First-time playfield designer (Christopher Franchi reference context) learning Adobe Illustrator tools despite limited experience

    low · Chris discusses difficulty learning Illustrator flipper drawing tools despite previous success with similar functions

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.165

0:00
This is the Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jared. WizardAmusement.com, the site to visit for custom pinball shooter rods. Easy to install, totally unique. Mention Blockade Podcast for 10% off your order. WizardAmusement.com, sales, restoration, customization. you are listening to the blockade podcast i'm your host chris freebus aka shut your trap joining me as always all the way halfway across the world uh in the southern hemisphere jared morgan hey chris what's been happening this week uh a whole lot of nothing no that's not true yeah sometimes it feels like that hey sometimes it does no you know what actually we went to uh Universal Studios Hollywood, me and the fam. That's not nothing. That's cool. That's not nothing. And I got to go check out the Harry Potter world, which was all kinds of fun. Cool. The boy got a wand that interacts with certain window displays, that if you do the spell properly and wave the wand correctly, then something happens in the window. So that was kind of interactive and interesting. Yeah, wicked. It's a different kind of theme park that I'm used to going to. I typically I go to a place called Magic Mountain that's got 17 roller coasters or something of that nature second most roller coasters in the continental US sounds like a perfect place for me to go yeah that's usually what I go to whereas Universal it's almost all virtual well I shouldn't say virtual reality motion simulator rides that being said they really do a good job on them I was going to say you just reminded me about having Magic Mountain 17 roller coasters. We're actually getting one of the VR roller coasters down here at Movie World on the Gold Coast. So they're putting one in for us. They're going to be converting the Arkham Asylum inverted roller coaster to a Gear VR roller coaster. So that will be interesting. It opens a couple of months because all they're doing is just refitting everything basically. The roller coaster itself doesn't change. It's just this VR technology. So I guess, yeah, you can't call these things VR because there actually is now VR roller coasters. These are motion simulated roller coasters. That's right. These are motion augmented virtual reality. This is what it is. Motion augmented. Anyhow, sorry, I totally. No, no, no, no. But all these are, you know, throw on the 3D glasses, strap in and then get rocked all over the place. And, you know, it's the technology from when it used to be Star Tours in Disneyland with a just a small screen in the center of a long capsule and you rocking about. It's just slightly. Yeah, I remember those. We actually had a Batman like it was like a Batman adventure ride, Batman the ride at Movie World, which was basically, you know, you walk down, you know, it's all like themed inside. and you walk down the little alleys and there's like a big sort of console area and then they load you into the cars and you just get jostled around basically with a big screen in the front. It's like, meh, whatever. Imagine that now with proper VR goggles instead of this thing. So much better. Yeah. And as, of course, always is in these theme parks since they have you trapped, welcome to the $40 lunch. Yeah, the gouging. So, yeah, three people eating. Myself and the boy both had just chicken fingers and fries. The wife had a chicken breast on a waffle with fries. And then your drinks, yeah, about $42. It's a fair deal, right? That's a fair bit of money.
location
Universal Studios Hollywoodlocation
Movie Worldlocation
3:51
It's theme park stuff. It's funny, the last time I went down to Movie World or SeaWorld, SeaWorld in particular because I think it's more geared to families, but um like the food was if you didn't go for like the the crappy fast food from all the outlets you went to like some of the have like some restaurants there as well you can go to um and the food prices were actually okay maybe a little bit more than what you would pay normally if you're outside of a theme park but not like you know tens of dollars more like maybe a couple bucks more yeah it was good. They had a whole Simpsons theme land there.
4:32
One of the things that they had was Lard Boy Donuts. Now, I kid you not when I say that you'd only buy one donut, but that one donut was eight inches in diameter. How big? Eight?
4:50
Maybe ten? I don't know. It was huge. It was like a small pizza, basically. Yeah, it was like, here's a dozen donuts in one. Wow. And here's a knife and fork and like five plates. Right. It started coming up. Was it like glazed or was it a cinnamon? No, think about your classic Homer donut. So it's cake donut with icing on top and sprinkles. Oh, wow. That's hardcore. Yeah, we didn't buy one, but we saw them and we're just like, wow. Do you think dope? Nope. Do you not want one of those? Yeah, we were commenting, too, about how going to a theme park with a kid is a lot different than when I used to go as a teen or by myself kind of thing, where you knew you ate before you walked into the park, and then you go as long as you possibly can until your stomach's actually killing you, and then you basically buy a churro to hold you over until you leave the park, and then you eat again, right? That way you save yourself money, and yeah, when you have a kid with you, that is not an option. Give me all the foods. Yeah. It's pretty rough. Did not see, well, I didn't see an arcade to begin with, but yeah, I was halfway looking to see if there was a Simpsons pinball anywhere in there. And no, they often do have like machines scattered throughout the park. I know that like a dream world, which is another one of the, the big four down here in Australia. They do actually, well, they have had a little arcade, at one point. I remember going there when I was in high school and they had a Phantom of the Opera and a couple of other tables there a while ago, of course, but it was there. But I think they might have actually knocked it down now and put some more attractions there because you know how much space is so pre-embedded there. They want to make sure that there's stuff that big bang for butt. Well, considering that there was a Harry Potter gift store probably every 20 feet, I think they were maximizing their space with that rather than throwing in arcade games. Yeah. It's all about the market. Although, you know, that would be a pretty good place to put it, I would think. Because I remember the arcade was full when I went there when I was a teenager. Like, there were people all over the place. Maybe they were just, like, kicking tires and not actually putting tokens in. But, you know, there were great people in there. Right.
7:16
Other news that's happened this past week. So you all remember in last podcast, I mentioned that my boy had done a little drawing. It was a pinball with flippers for arms and a smiley face, and he was saying, this is our new mascot. Yeah, it looked really cool. Yeah. So then I decided to clean it up in Adobe Illustrator with my exceedingly limited skills.
7:40
I'm telling you, I can draw a circle. Drawing a flipper, it's like, why can I not do this? And you know it's easy. I know it is. I just don't know what tool to use to make it easy. You know, it's like I can draw a rectangle. Now let me grab some of the corners and just narrow them down. Nope. Won't let me. I'm like, I know I've done this before. How do I do it? So anyway, so I didn't clean it up. Posted that to to. Well, I posted both his picture and my picture to Twitter. And I commented that the style that my boy draws us in. My boy is 10. He watches this web show called Battle for Dream Island. It's a little animated web show Came out back in 2012 It's a silly piece of entertainment It's squarely where Probably 10 to 14 year olds live In terms of what they find humorous And everything Me as an adult There are some little amusing things That I like But by and large I was like God the writing on this is just Crap Horrible so anyway so I tagged the Twitter I actually didn't even tag it I just typed in BFDI I didn't even put a hashtag on it but one of the creators of the show then commented on our Twitter feed and was like hey I really like this that was actually the creator who commented yes that was actually the creator so I showed that to him and I didn't even know it was the creator I just showed the tweet where it was like hey I really like this I showed it to my son and was like, hey, somebody liked your thing. And he looked and he goes, well, that's the guy that made the show. And I'm like, what? So I responded back and said that my kid was kind of freaking out over this. And I wound up looking at that guy's Twitter feed and he posted some comment. Turns out that the reason why it's so well written for that age group is when they started making this show, the kid himself was 12 years old.
9:40
He's only 18 or 19 now. Wow. Yeah. So he was writing it for him, basically. Him and his brother, apparently. There's no better way of getting the audience right if you're writing for you. Right.
9:55
Which explained ample amounts about why the writing was the way it was. Because it was a 12-year-old's writing. Well, because I got really – my son wound up making me watch all 24 episodes or whatever. After the drawing went up. No, no, this is prior to the drawing. I've actually seen it before this had gone up.
10:14
But the way the thing ended, I was mad. I was like, what? What kind of an ending is that? That's crap. That's nothing. That's weak. I hate this. Who wrote this? And now I understand. It's like, oh, well, okay, you're forgiven. Good job. Hey, if I was that age and putting web content on, dude, you're miles ahead of where I am. So by the time you're in your 20s, you'll have figured this out and you'll be making millions. so anyway because that guy commented somebody else commented and then a few other people commented they liked it and then somebody else wound up redrawing it also and it made my redrawing look like utter crap it looked really good the redrawing yeah the only questionable thing that I have about it is he didn't make it the pinball round he made it kind of oval so now it kind of looks like an egg but you know what whatever so if If you go to our Twitter page, you'll now notice in the header, instead of the upside-down driveway cheese bumper sticker that's been there for years and years, there is now a new drawing that is our blockade mascot, the pinball with flippers. Very cool. Yes, it was pretty cool. So it was fun getting a response like that. It was something completely unexpected, just out of the blue. If I could see him, I'd just have him at the Twitter site now. yeah there he is he's cool and then of course we were thinking immediately should we put this on a t-shirt nah we'll just keep it as like a nice little thing that someone did for us and thank you for taking the time for doing this for us as well because it was pretty cool we love it when people interact with us like that and take time out of their day to actually do something for us it's great it's really cool so thank you The other bit of news, so you remember also I'd played in the tournament on TPA that was hosted by Major League Pinball. They were giving away a laptop. I was number 49, right? The person that won the laptop was number 48.
12:25
Now, granted, it was a random throw the cards into a drum. He spun the drum. He pulled out the drawing. But even still, I was like, he's off by one number. One number. the cool thing was, is the, uh, he wound up giving away four or five trans lights as opposed to just the two that I think he was initially going to, he just kept on drawing. And, uh, the last person to win a trans light was number 100. So it was like, Hey, that's pretty cool. You know, out of the top 50 got it, which is cool. It's good. Cause you know, they didn't have a Guernsey. Exactly. So I reckon people that were in the top 50, probably maybe should have been excluded to an extent or limited because they had a chance at a much bigger prize you know um one in three gaming laptops wasn't it one in three no it was only one gaming laptop ah no there wasn't there was just the one laptop being given away and then the translates yeah right cool um so while he was uh giving giving that away he kept on asking about doing future tournaments. And one of the things he commented on was apparently he been in talks with Farsight to completely take over the monthly tournaments Oh yeah Okay.
13:50
So this format could actually be a thing moving forward. Well, he was sort of, yeah. And he was starting to ask, Hey, did you guys like the five minute format and a couple of other formats? I threw out a couple of ideas and he was like, okay, yeah, that'd be cool. You know, switch things up and do it differently each month. he was talking about trying to secure prizes one of the things he mentioned though was talking about doing it being a paid tournament but the thing that would be if you paid the entry you would get all the tables that were in that tournament so and obviously it would be a lot less than what you would pay for those. However, that's great for new players that don't have any of the tables. Obviously, if I have all the tables, then I don't want to pay for an entry.
14:43
That's a good entry. It's a good way of encouraging people to get in and get an entry, but also get the tables so they feel like the game is free.
14:51
Right. But he was also trying to think of it just in terms of so that there could be good prices offered.
14:58
I don't like paid pinball entry just because I know that I'm not good enough to hang with the big boys, and therefore it's a severe form of gambling to me.
15:12
Yeah. It's like, I really don't want to pay this much money just so somebody else can benefit. Yeah. No. Exactly right.
15:22
A lot of times at work on Fridays, they'll do what they call $5 Fridays. So everybody kicks in $5, and then there's a drawing at the end, and whoever's name is drawn, they get the whole bucket of money. And I used to enter those, and then I never won once, and then since I just don't even bother because why?
15:46
Yeah, never win anything. Never win anything, you know, and I don't know. If the win ratio was higher, then maybe I'd contribute, but it's not. It's not. Yeah. So anyway, I thought that was an interesting a bit of something that might be happening in TPA. Yeah, that's that is rather interesting. I like I like the fact that someone new is taking it over because when somebody does that, of course, there's always new sort of interest in a drive to do it rather than just punch about every month like what's been happening. So, yeah, there might be a few different ideas coming in. and it will be interesting to see if this flows into other platforms as well although i know it's only a steam thing at the moment there might be a more of a drive to actually do it on other platforms who knows i think there's an android an android tournament director or you know something like that but having it in the app is great that they've been able to do that now because it's you know it it would stop the stuff that we are having trouble with you know for the the whole two and a bit years. About a year.
16:55
Our tournament of the month that we were doing. We did it. We started it in February. Not last year, but the year before. So February of 2015.
17:08
Interesting stuff. I like it. More community involvement is good for this sort of thing. Exactly. Hey, when we return, Jared's going to talk to us a little bit about some real pinball. But before that, a word from our sponsor.
17:25
So, have you, our listeners, gone and checked out Loot Crate? If you have, did you bother purchasing? Did you use trylootcrate.com forward slash blockade and then enter the promo code BRIDGETEN to get 10% off your order? If you haven't, what's wrong with you?
17:46
So, I looked over at the Loot Crate site itself, and I just want to clarify some things. The basic monthly Loot Crate is $13.95 a month, and that has over $50 worth of junk in it. That's a lot.
18:03
Currently, they're talking about having it featuring Rick and Morty, Mega Man, Futurama, and Star Trek Next Generation stuff. But you don't have to get just the basic Loot Crate. You can also get a Loot Anime. That's $24.95 a month with $60 worth of stuff in it. Or you can go Loot Gaming, and then all the Chaskies and everything that's in it is all gaming-related. There's also Loot Pets because, hey, why don't you haunt a T-shirt for your dog or a funny, cute little hat for your cat?
18:33
There's also, let's see, the Loot Gaming is $24.95 a month. Loot Pets is $19.99 a month. Then there's Level Up Plus, which is monthly mystery apparel. and that's only $9 a month. And then there's the big box, which is Loot Crate DX. It's $44.99 a month, has over $100 worth of stuff, and obviously the collectibles, apparel, home goods, stuff of that nature is better quality, you might say. Some of the less mass-produced, you might say.
19:09
But anyway, if you want to get a mystery fun box sent to you in the mail, every month hop on it go to try loot crate.com forward slash blockade enter the promo code bridge 10 get 10 off your first order good times so jared tell me about uh the conversation that you were having oh yeah this is funny hey so i was at the um uh the pinball tournament the brisbane pinball club tournament um the other week and i was talking to um a guy there one of the good players called Chris. And, um, he said that, ah, yeah, look, I only really ever listens to like, when you guys are talking about, you know, Brisbane pinball, you should do more Brisbane pinball coverage. So, okay, mate, here we go.
19:57
The last tournament, um, was cause we like to look after our readers here at the blockade. So, so the last tournament was, um, it happened on, it wasn't that long ago, actually it was on, uh, July 18. So it was pretty much last week on Monday. And we have our usual lineup of tables. The tables were Black Pyramid, which is an early belly. Solid State. Magic, which is a stern. Meteor, which is also a stern. Then we have good old South Park and Star Wars Dutter East and Trident. So there's a fairly large range of old games there.
20:38
Not quite what I'd call the quality collection, but, you know. No, it's not. The advantage is it usually makes for quick games. Yeah. So you can really bash through the tournament quite quickly. The thing that always holds everyone up, of course, is the DMD. So South Park and Star Wars, usually there's the weight on those while everyone's blasted through all the early sold states.
21:01
So I had to miss the previous event because my wife wasn't feeling so well, so I did the right thing and stayed home and helped her out with the kids. but uh we'll call it we'll call it the right thing what we all know it for is the uh not being in the doghouse for the next week that's that's the one that is correct so uh so um i'll start with the worst game which for me which was black pyramid this was the final game that i played and it was that bad that um i ended up lifting the cabinet like pushing the pinball machine so hard that it lifted off its front legs and slammed back down again. Ooh, slam tilt. Yeah, it was a terrible game. So the field of players was 33. I was 30th in that with a mammoth score of 219,050 points.
21:58
What a terrible score. What is in context is obviously I'm going to guess that most of our listeners, based off of that lineup, don't have a clue what's a good score what's not on these tables. So our regular good top player, Peter, got 7,995. Okay, so you sucked. Yeah, I really terribly sucked. But his was, there was a big gap between first and second. So Peter got 7 million and Chris got 3 million. So with a bit of change. So Peter's score was nearly 8. Wait, Peter, this is the guy that you said wins all of them, right? Yeah, he's a very good player. Okay, let's throw out his score. Yeah. Let's just concentrate on whoever came in second. We'll use the baseline. So 3,590,400. All right. So that game is all about getting the bonus count up because it is the key to getting a good score on it. I hate those games. Yeah. Basically, that game is all about it's basically shoot the left loop, shoot the right loop. The left loop is the spinner, and you build up your extra ball on that side, and your right loop is like a stack set of drop targets that you've got to shoot through. Then when you shoot through and you get something, I don't know what it is. That's why I don't get three million scores. That's why I hate games like Pinbot because it's not about the score that you did while you have the ball in play. It's all about the bonus count at the end after the ball is drained. That's right. I hate that. I want to see my score active and know that I'm actively not crossing my fingers for a good bonus at the end. I'm hoping that you get it. which is why it's a challenging game for tournament, because you don't know how you're going to go until you get there. You just basically have to do your best, build your bonus, and then hope to hell that you trump it. So that was a bit of a wash, that one. But the Magic wasn't bad. So Magic is a Stern Electronics game before Stern got bought out.
23:53
Early sold state. And it's pretty cool. It's a drop target city. Actually, that one's not. I'm thinking of Meteor, which is great as well. But Magic is, it's got a big sort of pop-up cluster at the top, and there's a few drop targets and stuff up there. The idea with that game is to shoot the saucer that gives you your bonus count, and you just basically build up your bonus, and you can collect your bonus at any time in the saucer. That can be very lucrative. And, of course, these early-told states are all about the spinner, so you just keep on slamming that spinner and building up your score.
24:28
So it's fun. That one... Yeah, well, no, it's fun. It's these older games. Hey, I don't know what it is, but I've had a really good season on them. Like that Black Pyramid score isn't indicative of what I normally do on it. I was having a terrible, terrible round on it. But for Magic, I was number four. So on a score of 405,060 points, the top score was Jason Lambert, who's another good player, but not as consistently good as Peter. and his score was 810. So pretty much half his score.
25:04
So that was a good game. Meteor. This one is a bit of a... For a solid state game, it's a bit of a winner because it's full of drop targets. It's got one, two, three, four banks of drop targets. Three banks of three and one bank of five.
25:24
And they're controlled drop targets as well. So if you shoot other targets in the play field, they drop. for you, which is pretty neat.
25:34
And that one, oh, yeah, I was sitting at 15th on that particular one. I can often get a lot higher than I did, which was 295,640.
25:47
But that game just wasn't rolling right for me. Peter, again, was at the top at 746. But the next score after Peter's was Nathan, and he got 682. So it was pretty close to the top score on that. So good job, Nathan. So South Park, the highest score on South Park was Mitch and he got 168 million, 834,000. I was down at number seven on that one at 102,000, no 102 million, 656,000. So not bad. Strangely enough, I'm just looking at the list and Peter wasn't really in the top on On that table, he had a bit of a bad run, I think. Let me interrupt here again. What was the top score on South Park? Top score on South Park was 168,834,000. Okay. In our tournament, the top score was 104,000,000, and the average score was 36,000,000. Okay. So if that gives you a clue as to what's going on in the Orange County Pinball League. Yeah. Well, that's not bad. I think anything over a million is pretty good on South Park.
27:03
So the South Park we've got, it's a little bit challenging. You know where Kenny is on South Park, and you've got that sort of a, it's not really a scoop, but it's a big gaping hole where... Yeah, huge gaping hole. Well, the operator, when he got the pinball machine, someone had done a ghetto Cliffy protector and they just put basically chrome metal there But what they did is they didn profile the metal down with the playfield So it's what they call proud of the playfield. So it's like a little jump ramp at the moment. The ball hits the edge of the metal and it just launches up into Kenny, basically.
27:43
So you get all the air balls in that area. They just need to take it out, get a Dremel and file back some of the playfield and get it flush. So that adds a different dimension to that game. And, you know, on the toilet, how the ball travels over the toilet lid? Yes. There's usually a bit of foam that's on the lower edge of the toilet to stop the ball from rolling off the toilet when it goes in the gap. And our game is missing that bit of foam. So you'll often find the ball just rolls off and sort of dribbles into the pop bumpers and bumps over the plastics a bit. So you'll sometimes get a ball feed into the pops, which is kind of okay. So, yeah, it's a strange game, the way ours is all configured. But overall, it plays okay. This game was Star Wars Dutter East. And this one's, if you've played this one before, it's all about, yeah, just get the Death Star. Get multi-ball started and then drop the gate so you can go super. And you'll get 100 million points just like that, I think. So it's all about the super jackpot in this game. And I managed to pull it off. I got 133,937,000. on that and the top score was um pretty much double that at 254 million so someone got super jackpot twice basically yeah so a good showing on that game um that's around my normal score on that game so if i get 133 i'm usually doing pretty well people seem to have trouble with that game i don't know why um with most batteries games it's all about to shoot the ramp shoot the ramp shoot the ramp, build up your score enough, and then go for the multi-ball activation. Get that. The last one, Trident. Trident, I did 201,550 on. Who needs Trident? It's a Stern Electronics. Most of the ones are Stern Electronics in this collection.
29:34
And, yes, 201,550, and the top score was 380,670. So I was number eight on that one. so not bad so the standings mean that even after I don't think it's I think it was just for the season which started like last week I think with those scores I'm number six at the moment equal with Chris who's a guy who said cover more podcast stuff so Chris that one's for you mate I just looked you up on the worldwide rankings. Yeah. Your current score shows you at 4,570th place. Yes, that's right. But you've got me by a couple of thousands because I'm ranked at 6,869th place. There you go. Totally blessing you, man. Bo and Kieran's better watch out.
30:35
We use a system called Match Play to do our tournaments and that was a link that I just dumped in there now. It's quite a nice system. It's all web-based and anyone can use their phone to enter scores. So you don't need to install an app or anything. It's all just web-based. If you have a look through the listing there, you'll actually see some photos uploaded by me. I was doing Super Selfie League while I was playing. Super Selfie League. There's a thing called Super Selfie League where you just go up to Pimble Machine anytime in a nominated venue and you play your game and then you take a selfie of yourself with the dot matrix. Oh, the score. Yeah. Right. Yeah, take a selfie. So you don't have to be there all in one night. You can do it whenever it fits your schedule. I think it's great. Yeah.
31:22
So, yeah, I was taking selfies. I was the only one uploading selfie photos at the event because I'm a geek. So, yeah. I won't go into the other TPA tournament that recently transpired. Other than to say I did amazingly come in ninth place in the silver bracketing, so I guess I'll be in gold next time. But what was funny was I was trying to improve my No Good Gophers score, which I kept on coming in at maybe, I don't know, anywhere between $55 and $70 million.
31:55
And I just honestly, I enjoy the table, but I've never bothered learning how to score on the table. Yeah.
32:04
And so it's one of those weird tables where, like I said, it's fun for me to play, but I've never had the interest to actually figure out the inner workings of it. Right. So I was sitting there struggling. I was like, ah, maybe it's just one of these things where if I can keep the ball alive long enough, I was hoping for a score of 90 million and that would be good enough to rank me somehow.
32:24
And so I'm sitting there playing it and I get multiball going and I'm so focused and that multiball started it. I had, I think, 14 million, right? Yep. I'm so focused on the flippers and the four balls bouncing around. I'm not even worrying about the top flipper to try and hit the jackpot. I'm just trying to keep balls alive, right? By the time that multi-ball ended, I looked up the DMD. I had 167 million. Jeez. I don't even know what the heck happened. I was so confused. I was just like, how did I do that gigantic jump? I mean, obviously, I must have been hitting some super jackpots. Or maybe some hole in ones. Hole in ones or something. Oh, the other thing is I wasn't even wearing my headphones. I had the volume off, so I didn't hear any of the call-outs. Just shooting the things. Right, right. And so by the time I got done with that game, I'd scored 200 million and wound up taking number one on that table.
33:25
What the hell? I don't know what I'm doing. And I was like, nope, I'm out. I'm done. Just keep flipping. Pretty much. And so then I was like, I need to try that on Theater of Magic because that's another one where I just, I've never bothered to learn how to get the massive scores that people get. Part of it is because I just, that table is so bouncy. And I got to say, No Good Gophers is really overly bouncy, too. It's in need of a good retune. tell it's one of those first two season tables.
34:00
It's really flat on Android 2 graphically. It's just... When you play it compared to... I've been playing a lot of Indy 500, and it's just like... The angles are different. The bounces are different. It just doesn't feel right compared to how they do their tables now. The one thing I noticed about No Good Goof is if you get a soft shot up the left, you know the the the upper flipper ramp yeah um if you if it goes back down it will always it's like it's on rails it will go nice and softly and feed your upper flipper so you can try again like just without fail and it should never do that would never do that on the real game but bounce around wildly and probably drain on you so yeah yeah that yeah it's just yeah it needs some tuning a um so do you hear that uh flippy floppy huh go put the notes in come tell the boys There's some retuning on No Good Gophers. I have a little chat to my mate Flippy going, mate, if you've got a chance, give that a bit of a tune. Please.
35:02
Normally what they do is if they're doing tables for tournaments, they will actually give them a bit of airtime and give them a bit of tuning and stuff like that before they shove them in.
35:11
So, yeah, he must have had a chance. I know they've been pretty slammed with all the stern stuff they're going to be working on, of course, and everything. so yeah I think they're running behind with all the tuning stuff at the moment I mean it's just obvious that it needs it but again you play any of those first season tables apart from the many podcasts ago we had submitted a list to Bobby actually of specific problems with a whole bunch of tables I think there was 8 tables specifically that they addressed and fixed the glaring problems that are on them. Those tables got a decent retune, but it wasn't universal across that entire season or anything else like that.
35:58
That had been the idea with when they were putting in the Flipper Physics 3.0 that they were going to go table by table and address things. Instead, they just kind of did a blanket okay, everything's got Flipper Physics 3.0, at least on Steam, and they didn't bother retuning all the tables.
36:22
So it's kind of a shame. Yeah, it's definitely a bit like that. I don't think we've seen Flip of Physics 3.0 on all the tables yet on mobile. I think it's only Steam that has it. Oh, I think Wii U wound up getting them too, if I'm not mistaken. Makes sense, because they were able to just release it on one hit. Here in the comment gallery, switch three flip, as we know him on the forum, says rebuild from the ground up and sell his premium table. No, rebuild from the ground up and don't charge us more. Just do what you should have done all along. Really? Okay. We don't need what happened last week with the pinball podcast blaming us for charging or asking for more pricing. No. Go make the game the way it is supposed to be. Don't go and call it hey, let's charge you again for this. No, you've got to do what you should have done all along.
37:20
Plainly, you can do it since it's been happening since season three. So it's just a matter of going back to those first two seasons and retuning all the tables, please. All the things. Yeah, all the things. I was playing Ripley's on my mobile phone because it's free. I guess on mobile you get four free tables a month. Yeah, you do. You get the core plus one extra. Oh, okay. So I was playing Ripley's, and it's interesting that the physics behavior, or some of the railroading, I should say, is different on the mobile than it is on Steam and what I was used to on PlayStation.
37:59
It was doing not as consistent certain bounces and other things were. And then the other thing was that I had a bunch of balls go right through the scoop. Not the scoop, the where the very target is. Yeah. It went right through the back of the very target. And there was one other section that I'm trying to think of where it happened, where the ball just right through. And I was like, whoa, wait a second. That's the mobile. Yeah. Some collision detection is a wee bit off. That being said, playing Theater of Magic on Steam, I can't tell you how many balls I had go right through the back of the chest and I'm not registered. I had quite a few that went, so that one doesn't exactly have the greatest collision detection either, apparently.
38:48
That's a bummer. I'm just waiting for the beta with massive anticipation for Frank Thomas' Big Hurt. I'm telling you, I can't wait to get my hands on that. Apparently, I checked in with the guys about that And I said, right, if this is going to be a thing, then you're going to have to make sure it's fast and brutal as far as that catch-as-nick goes. And they said, yeah, we're making it that way. And I said, if possible, take the drain post out of the middle of the flippers if you can get away with it because it will make it a lot more challenging than what it is normally. But they're probably going to have to leave it in because that's how it comes from the factory. So they have to make it like the factory. but yeah in the uh there's there's a thread that's uh titled uh do we really need more got leaves or something of that nature and um somebody somebody after the big hurt gotten mentioned uh the next post after that was like no i need my uh stargate and they mentioned one other and my comment to that was uh need is a rather strong word uh tolerate might be better I could tolerate Stargate. It's not a bad game. It's terrible. The big phallic glider thing protruding out of the pyramids. Stargate is such a completely cramped table. It feels like this narrow slot that you have to shoot with and the ramps are just super steep. Incredibly steep. They're the steepest ramps in all of Pinball, I reckon, those things. I just don't know how it would translate to TPA. Because, again, that's one of those tables where it's going to come off looking odd if there's no depth of field for how – I'm telling you, when I saw it for the first time, I was just like, are you kidding me? How am I supposed to shoot that? Right. Yeah. I mean, it's like a kid's slide straight up. Is it like an escape slide from an aircraft when it deploys We don need any of these Gottlieb premiere pieces of crap Just get the EMs in if you going to do Gottliebs Okay please just stop And all you people that are requesting oh, but what about Servant Savari and Cactus Jax? No, stop. They're crap. Okay? They're okay for a Gottlieb, kind of. Modern era Gottlieb, kind of.
41:26
They're one of those tables. The Gottlieb tables are ones that, you know, if you saw and they were in good condition, you put a buck in it and then you go, oh, that was fun, and then you would never play it again, you know, in an arcade. Like, oh, that was cool, I've got my godly fix now, I'll go and play a nice, you know, new Stern or something like that.
41:46
You wouldn't really go back to it time and time again. Like, you would have to in TPA. It would be relegated to nothing. Well, that's in another thread on the forum that is one of the speculation threads, I think speculation for table 53.
42:03
the comments have been being thrown out about it being the season of sports. And we've got the discussion going on about NBA fast break, which is like, yes, get that discussion. It's a more people are asking for it or whatever. And somebody mentioned that, you know, they, yeah, they put it on the, on their, like the last of the heap for Williams or in Bali DMD. I'm like, what? No, it's way better than, I mean, they had Popeye and Gilligan's Island before. It's like, you're high. but then, yeah, totally. But then they mentioned, but then they mentioned, um, uh, roller games and saying, yeah, I like roller games. But what they said was, but roller games isn't ranked as high, uh, on the, uh, pinball database as all these other tables. And it was like Comet and Road Kings and Sword to Fury. And, and, that'd be good. Sword to Fury would be pretty wicked. Of the tables, Swords of Fury would be the top pick that I would say, but it's still not better than a Roller Games. I'm sorry. If anybody thinks that a space station is better than a Roller Games, no. Sorry. No. Fire, no. That thing has no flow whatsoever. It has some of the most annoying soundtrack ever, and the artwork is an eyesore.
43:25
You know, it's – and that was my comment. It was like anybody that thinks Comet is more fun than roller games, don't talk to me.
43:36
Roller games is the Simpsons pinball party as far as everyone on Facebook is concerned. You know, I think too much stock is put into where these tables rank because I think Twilight Zone, if I'm not mistaken, is number one or number two, you know, ranked wise. And I barely ever play that thing. I mean, it's, again, for home purchase use, yes, that might be a different story. It might be fun because it's deep and all that, but it's certainly not the most fun table out there.
44:10
If you were in an arcade, and this is kind of my point, if I'm in an arcade and I see roller games, I drop everything I go and I play roller games for many quarters worth until I'm finally like, okay, I should probably play something else. I don't do that with any of the other tables that were on that list so yeah it's interesting to see what they pump into season six I wonder if the whole sports theme season will come to fruition I hope so yeah I think there's a possibility it will eh the only bummer is we're not going to get World Cup soccer because we're going to get AG soccer instead I mean I can't I shouldn't say meh, because I've never played it. I have. It's one of those ones that you walk up to go, oh, yeah, it's cool. Have a game. You go, yeah, that's fun. See ya. Right. And you walk away. As opposed to World Cup soccer where you're like, must put another quarter in. Totally.
45:08
Yeah. Yeah, so that would be the only bummer of that. But, no, I really do hope that they – that would be fun to get a whole bunch of these sport-themed tables in.
45:18
Because I think they're sorely lacking. Yeah, they are. Sports is one of those ones that I don't really get a lot of excitement about, like sports teams games. But the good ones, if they pull them off well, there's some good ones out there you go, yeah, they're fun to play, even though if you don't follow the sports ball, it doesn't really matter because they're still fun games to play. I just want my game to actually have something. I don't want it to be like some of these older Bally and Gottlieb machines, your EMs, where it was like, let's call this a gambling table. And yet there's really nothing on the table other than having a couple of pictures of cards on it that has anything to do with playing actual cards.
46:04
That's the same thing I feel with the sports. Don't just throw sports on there. Evil Knievel has very little daredevil on its machine. It was just purely slapping Evil Knievel on it and some Evil Knievel artwork. You know what I mean? So it's like I don't want a sports table that's like that. I want to actually have some kind of function, something that does remind me of the actual sport itself. It should represent it in some way. There's certainly some tables that do it better than others. Like, you know, Pinball Whiz is in the chat at the moment. He suggested 8-Ball Deluxe as a candidate for that, and I do agree. It's well-themed. And it's very – shooting drop targets is very much akin to shooting pool balls into holes. It's all about aim. And it's a great translation. It works really well. I think Break Shot from Capcom is another really fun game to play as well. I had a ball on that. I do know somebody pointed this out, and I kind of got to agree with them about Break Shot, though. And that is it is kind of easy. and if it's easy in person, you can only imagine how easy it would be in Pinball Arcade, in which case that would be just this grind fest that goes on and on and on forever. So I will recant my prior recommendations of, hey, if we get a Capcom, how about getting Breakshot? No, let's just get 8-Ball Deluxe in there. Yeah, that's right. Get 8-Ball Deluxe, get it done, and that'll be good. That'll be our pool table. That's not Cubeball Wizard because that's terrible.
47:31
The only time I play Cubeball Wizard is when I'm forced to because it's in a tournament. It's never a table that I choose to play. This is a classic example of theme completely getting munged in translation. So this is a pool-themed table with a Western theme. Well, because pool tables are often found in country Western bars.
47:51
They're found everywhere, in any bar. Yeah, but country Western bars. I get the country theme. It makes a bit of sense. Come on, have you ever seen a – you watch a pool tournament, right? Even you go back to the Hustler or whatever, you got your guys in the cowboy hats. That's who ruled the pool hall. Good old boys. I guess I'll have to pay it, but it loses any sort of meaning if it's outside the US. Would you rather it be a bunch of punkers? That would make no sense. Well, it would make about as much sense as having wager wheel modes and stuff like that on the table.
48:28
I don't know. hopefully uh hopefully we'll get in word soon of uh of what that new the next table after big hurt will be hopefully it'll be something good i i can only hope it can't be it cannot be imagine if they just did one season of gotley premieres and just totally trolled everyone who bought a season pass and said oh season seven is gonna be amazing you can't that would be mean they'll start you off with a really top-tier title, and then the rest of the season has got leaked through every year.
49:03
There's where it is. It's, hey, folks, season seven. Simpsons Pinball Party. Don't you want to buy the entire season? And then, yeah, everything else after that is like, hey, it's what is the... It's Genesis. And what's that Top Gun rip-off? and LA Heat or whatever. Operation Duck Bowl. That was actually an interesting game to play. It was terrible. No, no interesting.
49:35
It was interesting for $1, and then you walk away from it. $1, I wouldn't even pay that much. When I was in New Orleans looking for pinball machines, and I came across a Gottlieb Gladiator, I think was the name, the only reason why I played it was because it had a whole bunch of free credits on it. Yeah.
49:55
Yeah. That thing has the most vigorous shaker motor in any pinball machine. It's so bad that when it goes the first time, you nearly crap your pants.
50:09
I don't know if the shaker motor was working when I played it then. oh man it is strong that thing we've got like premieres is while their their rules and their layouts are often shoddy their mechanics are really really solid and this thing if it had coins we had the operator that was running it this is when i was quite young he got one new in box and the operator was running it said i've got to clear the cash tin every day on that because not because it gets like a noise it's just that is it the whole thing just rattles And it amplifies all the coins going inside this thing. And it's incredible the racket this thing makes. And it vibrates all the time.
50:51
Hey, everybody, we'd like to thank you for listening to the Blockade podcast once again. Our weekly dose of nonsense where not even we know what the hell we're going to talk about, but somehow we managed to fill an hour worth of it. join us next week when we talk about fill in the blank here and you know why don't you hit us up on Twitter of course most importantly you should be following blockade or at blockade I should say let me try that again most importantly on Twitter you should be following us at blockade that is when you'll find out when we go live with our blab sessions also So anything you do with pinball, that's where we post first. If you would like to follow Jared, you can do so at Jared Morgs. He likes to post all sorts of things about documentation of programming.
51:46
And other things as well. Primarily documentation about programming. Because I'm a documentarian, I tend to do that. So it's what I do. but some of it actually relates to pinball because I've done the pinball arcade new UI FAQ, which is now up on getbook.com. So if you search for Jared Morgs on getbook.com, you can read all about the new UI, which is basically like the old UI, but in a FAQ form, the old Android user guide, but I've just made it into FAQ so you can find the information quicker. And it's not really much point me doing anything more on it because the UI is in flux. So I've kind of like abandoned it for now. Lastly, you can follow myself at Shut Your Traps.
52:34
I don't know much of what I talk about other than repost NBA things or whatever. But, you know, for the most part, take it as you will. Sometimes I'll. Yeah, I'm not too witty on there.
52:48
So just follow the Blockade podcast. That's your best bet. Hit us up also via email at blah, blah, blockade at gmail.com. Go to our website, blockadepinball.com. That is where all of our episodes are archived and show notes tell you when to find your favorite bit because we know that you're rabidly re-listening and taking notes.
53:12
Yes. So let us take the notes for you in the form of timings. Yes. and last but not least why don't you go ahead and check out represent.com forward slash blockade dash shirt and make sure you get your t-shirt and why don't you go ahead and visit all of our sponsors too give them a little love won't you alrighty that's it for this session we'll see you all again next week bye bye see you later
53:46
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54:21
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54:34
It's a trick, basically. Hey, look, we found Shaker Motors. Let's just make it go off all the time because there's nothing else in this game except ramps. Makes you wonder whose wife was designing that. Oh, did I say that? I'm sorry.
54:50
Um...