Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Don’s Pinball Podcast is live!

Don's Pinball Podcast Live Streams (YouTube)·video·analyzed·Jul 6, 2026
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.020

TL;DR

Don reacts to Dungeon Crawler Carl announcement, criticizes P3 platform design, and shares game-building experience.

Summary

Don discusses the newly announced Dungeon Crawler Carl pinball machine from Multimorphic, expressing mixed feelings about the P3 platform's modularity, reliability, and pricing. He critiques the P3 system's design philosophy, comparing it unfavorably to potential fixed-playfield alternatives, and reflects on his experience building a Beetlejuice machine at a manufacturing facility. Don also covers upcoming Stern releases (Sonic, music-themed pins) and explores Pinball Brothers as an alternative manufacturer.

Key Claims

  • Dungeon Crawler Carl is coming as a Multimorphic P3 release with a significant mechanism in the back third of the playfield

    high confidence · Don citing Discord reactions and Jeff Hayes (voice actor) confirmation of the announcement; treats as confirmed via official/semi-official channels

  • Building a complete pinball machine takes approximately 40 hours of labor if you know what you're doing

    high confidence · Don's direct experience building Beetlejuice at the manufacturing facility over several months part-time

  • The P3 platform uses plywood buttons and has reliability issues that make it unsuitable for location/operator use

    medium confidence · Don's opinion based on personal experience and unprompted feedback from other P3 owners; treats as common industry complaint but not independently verified

  • Sonic Generations will see secondary market price depreciation similar to Guns N' Roses

    medium confidence · Don's prediction based on gameplay analysis and comparison to historically underplayed Stern releases

  • Scott Danesi designed Dungeon Crawler Carl and also designed Final Resistance (Multimorphic's best game)

    medium confidence · Don states Scott Danesi 'blacked out his post' regarding the announcement; implies this is known but notes he hasn't verified details

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm the world's premier P3 hater and everybody else loves it... my criticism of the system and my wishes for it are just for it to be better and it's based off of personal experiences”

    Don @ early segment — Establishes Don's position as a vocal P3 skeptic while claiming his criticism is grounded in community feedback

  • “It plays more like a tech demo that you'd constantly have to be fiddling with. And it doesn't work with locations.”

    Don @ mid-segment — Core critique of P3's unsuitability for commercial operator use

  • “I want to play it, though. I hope I don't get banned from their booth.”

    Don @ mid-segment — Indicates tension between Don's criticism and his enthusiasm for trying new games; hints at strained relationship with Multimorphic

  • “If I was Spooky, Barrels of Fun, hell, American Pinball, right now I would look at locking up the license rights for the Dungeon Crawler Carl or Netflix series”

    Don @ licensing discussion segment — Strategic recommendation for other manufacturers; identifies media adaptation opportunity window

  • “This would have been a cool Barrels game. This would have been a great Barrels 800 release... We all would have got our games, and it would have been fun.”

    Don @ licensing discussion segment — Expresses preference for Barrels of Fun as DCC manufacturer; reveals collector expectation for production numbers and delivery timelines

  • “T-Rex want to hunt. I want some more action. [Re: ball launch mechanism] It's not satisfying, man.”

    Don @ mid-segment — Articulates design philosophy preference for traditional plunger launches over soft-serve mechanisms on P3

  • “Do an original theme... Cryptozoologies, right? Cryptids, like Skunk Ape and Bigfoot and Yeti... then put Ozzy Osbourne's music on it”

    Don @ music pins discussion — Proposes design framework for narrative-driven music pins as alternative to literal/concert-only themes

Entities

MultimorphiccompanyDungeon Crawler CarlgameDonpersonJeff HayespersonScott DanesipersonBarrels of FuncompanySpooky Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    machine_intel: Dungeon Crawler Carl officially announced as Multimorphic P3 release via teaser trailer and voice actor confirmation (Jeff Hayes)

    high · Jeff Hayes announced via Discord; teaser trailer released; Don treats as confirmed news

  • ?

    product_concern: P3 platform exhibits chronic reliability problems including mechanical failures, component durability issues, and unsuitability for commercial venue operation

    medium · Don cites unprompted complaints from multiple P3 owners; personal wife's veto based on 'too many people that had bad experiences'; Don's own criticisms of plywood buttons and build quality

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Tension between P3's swappable module design philosophy and practical user preferences for fixed-playfield machines with traditional launch mechanisms

    medium · Don advocates for solid-wood fixed P3 variant; criticizes soft-serve ball launch on Princess Bride; argues modular cost/complexity outweighs benefits for operators

  • ?

    product_strategy: Dungeon Crawler Carl anticipated at $13,000+ with 1-year manufacturing lead time, creating friction with collector cash flow and FOMO dynamics

    medium · Don mentions '$13,000 and a year wait'; considers financial impact on ability to purchase other games; notes topper pricing at $750 extra

  • $

    market_signal: Sonic Generations predicted to experience secondary market price decline due to perceived lack of long-term engagement and core gameplay issues

    medium · Don compares to Guns N' Roses depreciation pattern; notes beautiful aesthetics but weak replay value; predicts eventual price reduction enabling later purchase

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

0:04
What a sunny fun day we're having here in Wisconsin. How you doing? How you doing? Down here. So, I I don't know. What's been going on today? I've been doing some QC on a game I'm building over at this place. And uh I just checked my Discord. It's blowing up because of the dungeon crawler Carl teaser trailer, whatever. Jeff Hayes, the voice actor from the uh the audio book series just came out and said like the pinball machine's coming and they're dropping it. Uh we know Multimorphic's about to drop something. This is probably it. And reactions are are fairly well solidified behind my own impressions, which I'm thankful for. At least I know I'm not a crazy person. At least I know I'm not a crazy person to the extent that like I'm the world's premier P3 hater and everybody else loves it. Like my criticism of the system and my wishes for it are just for it to be better and it's based off of personal experiences for people who have owned the machines, tried to route the machines, had problems with them, say the same thing I do, unprompted. Like they should make like a solid wood version, you know, without all the screen and everything or maybe just a smaller screen. You know, just for those of us that want to play the thing and route it and whatever. So, I don't know for certain that Multimorphic is doing it. So, they might release something crazy here pretty soon. And I think I'd be really happy about that. Um I don't think Barrels is ready to release their new game yet. But uh yeah, like like I would like it if they just did another trim of the P3 platform that was not interchangeable and a little bit more reliable, you know, felt a little more sturdy, didn't have plywood buttons, had uh you know, just like like double leaf switches for the upper flipper instead of having everything on two different buttons, you know, just cuz it's weird. Um and something that [snorts] would hold up. And I'm not alone. So, other people are saying it, too. I did a Patreon show where I really just kind of went into it. Like, these are my feelings. This is why. This is why I want to make the platform awesome cuz I do love the concept and the tech that's in there. But, it plays more like a tech demo that you'd constantly have to be fiddling with. And it doesn't work with locations. The things are really heavy. I don't know, but game's coming out. I don't even know what where I was going to go with this. I'm just My My head is frazzled. It's how I I really like this license for pinball. I like the idea of a pinball theme coming out when the subject matter is still super relevant, right? It's 600 lb. How much sturdier do you want it to be? I know. I know. Um, you know, it's the little things, too. I like it when a ball launches from the right lower corner of the game, zooms into the orbit, and then like we're in play, you know, where it launches midfield for skill shots. I don't like, you know, pushing a button and then the the pinball is vended to me like a gumball machine. Like, on Princess Bride, right? You hit the button and it's just this little scoop opens up. It's like, bloop, here's your ball. It's like, yeah, it's not satisfying, man. That's not satisfying. Like, um, yeah, you know, it's like uh uh chicken and dumplings meal might be delicious, but if it's just served to you as like soft porridge in a bowl, it's like, God, it's I want something, man. T-Rex want to hunt. I want some more action. So, I can't wait to see what this best mechanism in pinball is. And here's the the other problem. Let's stay on the P3 for a second. You know, the back third of the game field is where all the innovation's going to be. So, Dungeon Crawler Carl, right? If true to form, it's got the best mechanism in pinball you've ever seen. It's going to be that in the back third of the machine. The rest of the machine is going to be exactly the same as Heist. Exactly the same as Lexy Lightspeed. Exactly the same as uh Weird Al Yankovic, right? Uh the only way it won't be different is if you spend the extra couple thousand dollars for like the front half of the swappable playfield, and then the whole thing becomes unswappable anyway. Just make like one machine for $11,400. It plays Dungeon Crawler Carl. You can put it on location. It's bulletproof. You're going to have fun with it. And then you don't have to worry about the modules and stuff. Or the license to Barrels of Fun Spooky plus money for you to install. So, yeah. I mean, that's what I would do. Well, so here's the other thing I would do. If I was Spooky, Barrels of Fun, hell, American Pinball, uh right now I would look at locking up the license rights for the Dungeon Crawler Carl Amazon or Netflix series that's getting kicked off right now. The license for the the motion picture that's probably going to come out, you know, the the cartoon adaptation, something like that. Lock it up now, or start working on it, so in 2 years, when the movie's been out or the TV show's been out, and there's now video assets, you can put that in the game, and and release it with like full assets. Cuz the only thing they're going to have right now is the art from like the trading card games and like the the tabletop role-playing game. You know, did they license that? Like, what did they license? I still don't know. Obviously, the story, but is this all going to be original art based on the book and not a lot of the illustrations from the tabletop RPG game that's come out? There's so many questions in my mind. And then if you want one of these things, unless you're one of the first to order, it's going to take forever for your game to be built, and then modules will be getting shipped out, but you'll be sitting there like, I need the I need the whole system. I don't know. This is that's a whole thing. And then the topper's going to be $750 extra. Uh they're talking about like $13,000 and a year wait. I want to play it, though. I hope I don't get banned from their booth. How do you feel the art has been shared so far? Uh like, I've only seen, you know, the images that have been publicly released tied to the pinball machine. They look very brown, but they don't look all that different from a lot of the other crawler art I've seen. So, you know, I have to see the whole package all together.

  • “My house has like a no P3 Ryan Policky that my wife reiterated to me... she knows too many people that had bad experiences”

    Don @ personal segment — Indicates household-level consensus against P3 purchase; suggests P3 reliability reputation extends to spouses of enthusiasts

  • “It took me since January to get this done [Beetlejuice build]... constantly stayed terrible at everything I was doing cuz it was all brand new”

    Don @ manufacturing reflection segment — Describes assembly line efficiency vs. full-game builder experience; implications for manufacturing training and process design

  • “If they're asking people to pay money for their games, it would help them out if we knew who they were [re: Pinball Brothers]”

    Don @ Pinball Brothers discussion — Identifies transparency/brand communication gap as barrier to Pinball Brothers adoption in enthusiast community

    • American Pinball
    company
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Sonic Generationsgame
    Godzillagame
    Guns N' Rosesgame
    Foo Fightersgame
    Pinball Brotherscompany
    Euro Pinball Corpcompany
    Final Resistancegame
    The Princess Bridegame
    Portalgame
    Dialed In!game
    Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castlegame
    Beetlejuicegame
    Yukongame
    Winchester Mystery Housegame
    Fifth Elementgame
  • ?

    licensing_signal: Dungeon Crawler Carl pinball released before associated Netflix/Amazon series and film adaptations, creating strategic licensing opportunity for future multimedia-integrated versions

    medium · Don recommends other manufacturers 'lock up' series/film rights now; notes current version limited to book/trading card/RPG art; identifies 2-year window for video asset integration

  • ?

    design_innovation: Proposal for music-themed pinball design philosophy prioritizing narrative/thematic coherence over literal song interpretation

    low · Don's extended critique of concert-only music pins; proposes Cryptozoology theme + Ozzy Osbourne music as alternative model; references Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle as successful example

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Scott Danesi confirmed as designer of Dungeon Crawler Carl and Final Resistance; 'blacked out post' suggests intentional communication control

    medium · Don states 'Scott Danesi did the design'; notes post blackout; treats as known within community but not explicitly confirmed by Multimorphic officially

  • ?

    community_signal: P3 platform experiencing sustained reputation damage within enthusiast community; negative perception extends to household level (wives/partners aware of reliability issues)

    high · Don's wife veto based on 'bad experiences'; multiple unprompted P3 owner complaints; Don self-identifies as 'world's premier P3 hater' yet claims to represent common sentiment

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Factory production model uses specialized station assembly (pop bumpers, wiring, cabinet) to maximize efficiency; single-builder full machine takes ~40 hours of labor

    high · Don's direct observation and participation in Spooky/manufacturing facility; describes workflow of specialists vs. single builder; completed Beetlejuice build

  • ?

    venue_signal: Pinball Brothers experiences significant brand recognition deficit in enthusiast community; transparency/documentation gap identified as barrier to adoption

    medium · Don notes 'do you even know who they are?' questions; identifies design/facility/production transparency as competitive disadvantage; plans factory tour to remedy gap

  • ?

    content_signal: Don planning extended factory tour content of Pinball Brothers (Sweden/Italy); plans live streams during summer trip; considering documentary-style manufacturing transparency content

    high · Don explicitly states intent to travel to Pinball Brothers factory; mentions plans for 'big factory tours like they do in Hershey, Pennsylvania'; offers tour invitations to community

    • 6:00
    But, I mean the the art doesn't kill it for me. I think it's fine. It's kind of what I expect, you know. I haven't finished all the books, either. So, there's characters and things in there that like I I still don't know like I haven't gotten to the part about the shark and the mechanical legs yet.
    6:17
    You know, but I just I wanted I wanted Everglass decals, art blades, and I wanted um Horizon light system, and I wanted Thunder Down Under shaker, and I wanted a shooter rod that could be like a bomb that you're throwing or something or like a potion. Like, I wanted Barrels to do this game. You know, here's the exclusive. It's not spooky. So, who's that leave? It's not JJP. So, this would have been a cool Barrels game. This would have been a great Barrels 800 release. 500 direct, 300 to the Barrels Reserve Club. They would have started making it in November. We all would have got our games, and it would have been fun. I was cracking up on the dunking of Multimorphic. Like, uh I want to be in on it, man. I've been so close so many times, you know. Like, hey, here's a machine with with Heist and another module for like 6,500. I'm like, I mean, it's not bad, you know. I have fun playing Heist is fun to play. You know, but those Legends of Valhalla, you know, it doesn't mean I need to get it. And if I were to spend $13,000 on a P3 system, tie that money up for a year, and then, you know, they have they blocked my phone number? I don't know. And then I'd have to forego something else, you know. Like, I'm not going to forego what's next from these guys. So, I played it. It's awesome. Definitely getting that. Um it's not a shill. Don't buy it if If don't want to. I don't care. I'm going to get one. Um Sonic I've decided is fun to play, but I don't need to own it. And somebody made a comment today that they Toy Story forward Sonic. And I thought about it. And and for me, Final Resistance is awesome. I do love it. A DCC isn't with Barrels of Fun, then what's Barrels of Fun's next game? No clue. People are saying SpongeBob. I know I think they have SpongeBob, but I don't know that they're doing it yet. Whatever. It'll be something. Um but like Sonic when I was picturing my head, I'm like Steve Ritchie Sega Genesis, Sega logo, 16-bit graphics, fast gameplay, cool modes, play through all the stages, like super fun, right? And then it's Sonic Generations. So it's like they did Sonic 4, Sonic 5. So they like instead of doing Toy Story, they Toy Story forward. Instead of doing Sonic, they did modern Sonic, not like the Sonic that I want. And you know, it's it's fun and fast to play and the upper playfield's fun. I'm going to have a blast playing it on location, but like I'm not sinking $15,000 into that game. Looks pretty. Okay? I think the team behind, you know, light shows and cabinet builds and whatever and the topper, I think all that's fantastic. The core gameplay though, I'd hate to have that game looking as good as it does and then just like um Guns N' Roses, which also looks really great. It just doesn't get played that much, you know? And I think that it's it's a better game than Guns N' Roses. But Guns N' Ro- I I played Guns N' Roses like a thousand times at my house. It was great and then I'm and then I just wasn't playing it that much. I had Godzilla at the home. I played that like 1,700 times and then I just wasn't playing it as much anymore. And I think that's fine. It happens in pinball, you know, unless it's like, you know, a die-hard game. But um I just want some more longevity than I think I would have with Sonic. And then I do think the Sonic price is going to come down secondary market. You know, cuz I just don't think it's going to be like that one that like we all like have to have to have, right? And so then I can pick it up later cuz I I feel no rush to get it right now. Like I had I don't like dialed in that much. Like I wouldn't buy it, but I borrowed it from a friend. I had fun with it at home. I think that's okay. So. All right, the next game is a music pin. Please, can we can we not do music pins anymore? Like if you're going to do a music pin, do an original theme like you know, Haunted House, Jungle Adventure, you know, like like Scooby-Doo Saturday morning cartoon like Foo Fighters, and then put the music of that artist in there. Don't just do like lights, you're at the concert, it's only the music, you know. Put a story in there that's fun and compelling and then layer that on. I like the concept of Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle for that reason.
    10:35
    It's like a cool creepy castle. It's all original, you know. The shots are tight. I get it. It's not not a modern design. But like a modern design, you know, do a Haunted House, Spooky Woods, Crypto Creatures, Cryptozoologies, right? Cryptids, like Skunk Ape and Bigfoot and Yeti and stuff. Like do that and then put Ozzy Osbourne's music on it or something. Or do like you know, like like a battle game, like a medieval fight and then it's all scripted by Ozzy Osbourne. Put some vampires in it or something. I think you know, like like take that approach. I'm just afraid there's going to be like, "Hey, it's Van Halen." And it's just Van Halen music and then oh, you know, let's take art from an album and make that a pop bumper, you know. Or like Elton John, like make things too literal. Like he had a song called Tiny Dancer. Let's make a tiny dancer that spins around. Like that's not that's not fun. Oh, Crocodile Rock was very popular. Let's make that a multiball and then let's make a crocodile. Like I've never seen that crocodile before associated with anything with Elton John. Um but it was just like, let's take literal interpretations of songs and make that, you know, the mix. It's kind of weird. I don't know. Fun to play. Hell of a game, but this glare is so bad right now. There we go. Out of curiosity, do you know the square footage of Spooky Factory? Turner just said he's building 13,000 ft. I mean, I'll go ask. It's right there. I can go map it out with my feet. Offhand, I don't know. Um I'll have to check. But uh Turner should be like it seemed to be like at least that big. I mean, you can see. How many car lengths is that going down the side? 1 2 3 Like 10 car lengths by five. So, what's that? If a car is like 8 ft that would be what's 5 40 by 800? What's that multiply out to? 40 times 8 32. I don't I don't know. That's 13,000 sq ft. Spooky has two buildings. Spooky has this building, which is in multiple parts, and then they have this building. This is manufacturing, though. This is like uh also manufacturing, but this is like like raw material manufacturing, and this is like everything's put together here. Come out. I'll do a tour, man. Done with Cranky takes today. I don't want to be cranky, man. I just I really wanted to get this game, and my house has like a no P3 policy that my wife reiterated to me cuz I was like, but can we still get one? Um she's just had She knows too many people that had bad experiences, and she's just like, we're not doing that. You're not going to be financially responsible and do that, and get us a game that's going to be down more than it's up. I know, it sucks. Sucks, man.
    13:29
    Iron Maiden Iron Maiden was cool, but it like it had a theme or you know, it had all that Egyptian stuff in it. So, it's like you're playing this Egyptian tomb game. And then like like the modes were pretty well defined. Like here's a song, we created this kind of mode and story off of it. And it wasn't like completely narrative driven, but it was fun. You know, Beatles is fun, too, but I just wish it was more Uh it was kind of like a throwback game, so it's not a good example. AC/DC AC/DC was good. You know, there wasn't like an overall theme, but it was modes based on the songs, but there was a lot of cool stuff in there, you know. So, I guess it can work. I don't know. I'll be there for a minute, Amandus. To Aussie, get out here, brother. It's going to be awesome. Um I'm I'm I'm finishing up Beetlejuice right now. I'll share my thoughts on what it's like to actually build your own pinball machine. It turns out it's a hell of a lot of work. It's so much work. So much work. So, you know, it's like what these guys are doing it day in day out, man. I want to like everybody send them a pizza cuz it's crazy the amount of work. Okay, with the random live 4:00 a.m. Eastern. What? It's not 4:00. Oh, it is 4:00 Eastern. So, yeah, I just like I got I finished the QC for Beetlejuice. It's in there. Uh I'm going to have everybody look at it like one give it a once over, but it's shooting great. I'll box it up tomorrow. Um and so, I haven't been like following all the news and I saw the Dungeon Crawler Carl stuff drop. So, I wanted to go and just react.
    15:02
    It's more work than keeping our wives happy. Oh, that's that's Well, see, that's an impossibility is what that is. Oh, sweet. I got stuff delivered. Um we're going to go shop to prep for our summer trip that's coming up. Um Yukon Yeti should be complete by the time I get back from my trip, so that's super fun. Uh I did a lot of talking to Turner. Um I shared some news. If you listen to the patron show you got all that. So I'll probably crank out and just a general show here just to get everything caught up. I really want to get through like what the experience and processes have been building a game. I was convinced I was going to jump in and I wanted to build the next game they released. But now thinking about it, I think I don't want to do that and I'll tell you why.
    15:46
    Scott Danesi blacked out his post. Yeah, so oh yeah I heard so what do you call it Carl's coming out with a pinball machine soon. Multimorphic is releasing soon. We know that. I've heard Scott Danesi did the design and he did final resistance. Multimorphic's arguably one of their two best games. Not arguably just one of the two best that and portal followed by Princess Bride followed by I guess Weird Al. I just can't I don't like how it came out. So we'll see what this mech is. But if this is like one giant mechanism in a in a P3 module and like that's all we get and the rest is just screen dungeon door defender stuff. I don't know man.
    16:27
    Scott Danesi blacked out his post. What So what did Scott say? I haven't I haven't been following. Beatles is fun. I do like Beatles.
    16:37
    It's more work than keeping oh our I thought you said your wives like I have multiple. Resist the urge Don. What should I like urge to go and get one? I don't know. I don't need one right now. I'm just finishing Beetlejuice. I'll be a brand new game at home. Getting is coming soon. Don't I have another game on the way? Yeah, Winchester. I don't need another game right now but I would have bought Carl. Would have bought Carl if it was in a pinball machine. So I don't know if Jerry's ever going to come on the show. I've been hoping he would message me directly so I could talk to him. But everything is like through an intermediary you know and it's like I don't I don't want it's like trying to talk to Willy Wonka you know. He posted an ECC mug in front of his synth. Yeah.
    17:23
    Um, all right. So, nobody in this factory over here builds an entire game by themselves. Um, and that's a lot of work. You know, there's there's people that sit there and they will install all of the max pop bumpers, flippers, coils, and things, stand-up targets into a playfield. Then they put it on a wall for the next team and they go back and build another one. Like that's that's fun. Like cuz you have all of your tools that you need. They've got all of your parts right there and you can just kind of crank them out efficiently. Um, the next step is everybody wires up the whole game, wires up all the switches in the game. Um, and then when they're done with that one they put it on the wall and do another one. And it's like they've got their station, they've got their soldering tools, they don't have to reach for anything, it's all right there, and then crank it out. Me, I have to grab a playfield on the wall, I have to put in all the mechanisms, I have to go and wire everything. I have to go and over to the cabinet section and start building the cabinet. And then I have to run over and have someone show me how to do this, that, or the other. And then I have to book time to come in to do this part of it. And then like I have to go and build sub-assemblies, so I got to wait till somebody has time to show me. And, you know, can you come in after hours cuz we're not we don't want to impact the line. And so, what I would like to do just briefly, I would like to come in and just do like sub-assemblies, you know? And like when you're when you're assembling the playfield for like the final part, you're grabbing the sub-assemblies, sub-assemblies, putting them in, tuning them, and like that's what you're doing all day. So, you get really good at that part of it. But when you have to do it all, it's so much work. It's always like looking for the next specialized tool that you need. Uh, I did pick up a lot of skills though. Um, I'm very happy that I did it cuz like my my soldering skills went way up. I know how to put terminals on wires and and assemble Molexes and, you know, put the computer bits in there and uh voltage test the uh power supplies and adjust them. Like I know how to do all that now and I learned by building an entire machine. Um so I don't know that I necessarily want to jump in and build an entire another machine. You know, like if I'm building cabinets all day, I'm going to bring knee pads so we can get down on the ground and like put them together, you know, or I'm going to build a workstation that's ergonomically awesome. And you know, when I build something, you know, I want to then okay, I learned how to do this one thing. Let me go back and do it again better and then do it again better and get better and better at it. But with this process, every time I did something, I moved on to the next stage. And so I constantly stayed terrible at everything I was doing cuz it was all brand new. So I would like to come in and just like let me just crank out some subassemblies. Um you know, let me just sit there and wire and solder. I think subassemblies is probably my jam. Like that's where you build the ramps and build the mechanisms and attach the magnets and put the screws in and use the specially engineered parts to make it all go together. And I could build out a workstation that's got everything within reach and then I can just like get really good at it. That's what I want to do. Add a Q&A sticker. A funny or embarrassing moment for you. What the is he? I don't want to do this, YouTube.
    20:38
    Oh, I'm going to put the sticker on there. YouTube, you're being stupid. All right. I got to go we got to go shop for this trip we're going on.
    20:49
    A wide body might be easier since you have more space. Ah.
    20:57
    Is it a wide body that Have they said whether what the what the next one is that's wide body or not? I don't know. Spooky's the king of wide bodies, I'll tell you that. I don't think anybody else is doing them. I want Tell you what, I'll buy a P3 if they do a P3 wide body.
    21:13
    Can you imagine? Like a design like like a wide body 1/3 of a playfield Mac, and then you have to buy like a separate cabinet just to accept the wide body. Oh, Pinball Brothers did. You're right. You're right. What about Pinball Brothers? So, this is the thing. Um since I'm not spending $13,000 on Dungeon Crawler Carl, ostensibly that would open up money for say a Fifth Element if that were to happen. Now, I'm working on making inroads with Pinball Brothers. Um not only because I just want an excuse to go to Sweden, uh but I think it'd be really cool to get out there and like see what their process is. And I don't know that they have a lot of respect in the enthusiast space cuz we don't even know like largely, just like, you know, casual pinball enthusiasts, who's he who's running Pinball Brothers? Who are the Pinball Brothers? Do you know who they are? Can you name one of them? Are there one of them? Are there two? There's one. It's called Pinball Brothers, but there's one. Do you know the backstory? Do you know what these people look like? Do you know what their design studio looks like? Do you know what the factory looks like? The answer's no. I don't even know. So, I think going out there and like showcasing it cuz the games are designed in Sweden at their like production house, and then they're built in uh in Milan, Italy at uh the Euro Pinball Corp factory where Pedretti builds. And then where does Pedretti design? Do they Is Do they design local? Like we don't know any of this stuff. And I think, you know, if if they're asking people to pay money for their games, it would help them out if we knew who they were. So, I'm going to go out there. Man, the the screen keeps dimming cuz I'm like right in the sun. I can't read anything. I got to set my brightness up higher.
    22:54
    Oh, we got a long message from somebody. Oh, my things are all screwed up. This is from Andrew. What's up? DCC at Spooky Collector's Edition VIP experience. You come to Spooky for a week and get to work on your own pin. That would be awesome. Pick out your character backglass.
    23:11
    Yeah, so that was like the idea that a bunch of friends of mine had like, what if you could come down for a week and build your game? And then it turns out that it's about 40 hours of labor to put a game together. And that's if you know what you're doing. Now imagine you're like you need your hand held through the whole process. I think it'd be a mess. I think it'd be good to come out and like build a sub-assembly, um maybe wire a part of a game. I I think if you had a whole team of people and you got together and built one game together with everybody learning a little part of it. I think that could be a fun experience. Um but like [snorts] to come out for a for a week and build your own game. It took me since January to get this done. Now, I didn't have a lot of free time, also, but I I think it'd be fun to come out and like, here guys, we're all going to build a sub-assembly, you know, for a game, Beetlejuice, whatever it is. Um hey guys, we're going to install uh you know, here here pop-ups are already put in this game. We're going to learn how to wire up switches. So, here, you guys do these, you know, little things like that, like where you can learn the process and then take those skills home with you. I think that could be fun. Um you know, you'd have to charge for this. You know, they'd have to they'd build some some time to do it. They'd have to use some pieces and things. And like building your own game would be like a process. You'd have to like move in down the street or something to get it realistically to happen. But you know, I think it'd be fun to come out and like, let's learn let's do a soldering class, you know? Um let's do a how to build a mech class. Let's do how to wire a playfield class. Uh here's how you polish a translite. I don't know. This is the rig over here. Um this is what I bought instead of Sonic, by the way. Cost a little bit more, but it's it's pretty rad. All right, we got to go. You ready?
    25:13
    Someone's getting some dead bars. Where are you? Ah, she's over there. Big deal. Uh, oh, the dead lights are out now, so go buy them. Um, I thought they were going to charge 200 bucks for them. They're 179. Um, and I think they're doing a volume discount, so that's awesome. Um, and uh, we threw it on a game. We turned the lights off in the factory, and the glow that it provided was actually pretty sweet, so dude, side-by-side life, man. Dude, I know it's not real weight in Connecticut, right? But, you know, out here in Benton, you can jump in this guy, and you can just go cruise the whole town. You see the water tower out there in the background? Uh, you can pretty much drive on any road that's not like a major major road. And uh, you can fit like six people in this thing. There's a uh, a dump bed in the back, right? So, you can like bring cargo and stuff. Bring camping gear. Bring the dogs. And we can go tool around like all evening. In the summer, there's there's off-road trails here that connect all the little towns. You know, we went like an hour away on this thing just from our house. We just went out on the road, and then just took like small roads and stuff, and then found this old rail trail that you could take motorized vehicles on. It's great, man. People ask me today, Skateboarder Glenn was like, "Don, how's Benton?" And I'm like, "Benton's fantastic, man." We're in the country. I can come here and learn how to do pinball stuff, and and joke around, and and break stuff. And then, uh, you know, it's rural enough that you can go do fun stuff. And then, it's close enough to big towns like Madison and uh, Dubuque that you you got like Costco, Sam's Club, whatever you want. There's universities nearby. It's kind of a cool place, man. Y'all should come and visit, do a tour. How's the upper playfield of Goonies shaping up? I don't know, man. There's a way that I can tell you more. Um packs [clears throat] of two. I'm in. But can it hold But can it hold smokers? Oh, like like a smoker? Smoke meat? Dubuque, Iowa we would get dozens of hotel stays. Yeah, you know, so right, there's no hotel in Benton, right? Except for my house, come stay there. Um but Dubuque has hotels, Platteville, Wisconsin does, they're nearby. Like there's places to stay. And then you should go to House on the Rock, which is the greatest roadside attraction in the country, and it's only like an hour away. It's awesome, so talk to me if you want to come out. We should I want to do like big factory tours like they do in Hershey, Pennsylvania. All right, I got to go find Monica and see where she's at. Oh, she's left the keys in this guy.
    27:59
    Who takes the damn keys? Ugh, rude. All right. I'll talk to you guys later. I'll see if I can record tonight. It's going to be cash, man. And then um be out of town for a week, so I'm not going to do any podcasts from the road. I'm going to go out and visit Genghis. Um but I'll do live streams. We'll go We'll go Wi-Fi, we'll do live streams, it'll be fun. Thanks, Aussie, for hanging out, man. No upper on Goonies. Oh, damn it.
    28:25
    What about the three lower playfields? I guess the pirate ship could be the upper. I mean, all good ideas. I hope somebody does that theme at some point. All right, be cool.