Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment. Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 per three-month plan, equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. The Pinball Network is online. Launching Silver Ball Chronicles. Oh, happy treason day. Treason day? Isn't that what you're celebrating today, is treason day? Oh, God. You're so funny. David Dennis. Hello, I'm David Dennis and this is Silver Ball Chronicles and with me is Ron ICELAND newsreel George and Lenny. They're basically doing, they were doing that, which would probably be considered really inappropriate now, and, but then everyone else started doing that same line. I thought it was like a Laurel and Hardy kind of thing. Watch white, that ain't go, George. Watch white, that ain't go. Good one, good one. What have you been doing, fella? What have you been up to? Um, not much. Not much? What's happening at the Rochester Pinball Collective? Aren't you cleaning up there on the tournament scene?туksie.dec You're all going to be pin masters! And embarrass myself! That ought to be great! Are you going to wear a green jacket just the whole time? You know what? I should buy a green sweater. Yeah, you should just look exactly like a golfer. Well, I mean, there hasn't really been too much exciting here in the hobby besides the announcement of John Wick, but I think we're getting into those summer months, those dog days of summer. Pinball summer, where everybody kind of checks out a little bit. But there's all this talk about a couple of pins that are coming up, and that is not news That's my other podcast. Oh, no, that'll, we'll save that for the Deep Root episode. The Wally Winka Podcast is brought to you by the Wally Winka Podcast Network. In America. Yes. Yes. That's right. All I know is Team America World Police is being released in 4K. Very excited. That is cool. Although it's the theatrical cut, not the director's cut. But the director's cut is available in Blu-ray now, so I'm good. Do you really need 4K for the puppets? I want to see all of the strings. I can see the strings better than I've ever seen them. Now remember we've added the show notes Ron to silverballchronicles.com so if you're not seeing the show notes in your podcatcher and you want to click on some of the articles or review some of the podcasts of which we are referencing in this episode please feel free to check out silverballchronicles.com. We've sold out on Patreon, everybody is very aware of that. We've had a few people pop in and pop out over the months. We've brought on a few people and a few people have stepped out the last couple of months We want to say thank you so much for giving us some of your hard earned dollars just to say thank you. That's at patreon.com slash silverball chronicles. It starts $3 a month with no big commitment. $6 a month gets you the private discord chat room where you can chat with us all the time. Sometimes we do votes and chat about the episodes. And of course the big reason you want to go to $6 a month is ad free access to Silverball Chronicles before the general feeds. So you don't have to listen to my terrible commercials and you get it a little bit earlier. So you don't have to wait for the TPN team to put it up because quite frankly, I'm too lazy to do it myself. Yeah, and you can get ahead of it anytime you want and get out of it anytime you want either way. Our top tier are the elitist cronies. They get all the other perks plus after three months they get a free Silver Ball Chronicles t-shirt. I want to say welcome to our two new patrons, Albert and Sverker from Sweden. Wouldn't they be our cronies? That's right. So oddly enough, I get this really weird email and it says, Sverker has joined your Patreon for 70 krona. And I'm like, what the hell is a krona? And I get in there and I'm looking, it's a krona. And of course it gets converted into Canadian loonies. But I thought that was pretty weird when I got that email. I thought it was a song by the neck. That's bad. Very good. Silverball Chronicles can be found on facebook.com slash silverball chronicles or at silverballchronicles.com. Send us an email. You can do that over at silverballchronicles at gmail.com. And Silver Ball Swag is where you can find our t-shirt store for the US. Anybody who's outside of the US, give Dave an email and I will see what I can swing together for our international folk. Well, the previous episode, Ron, one of our biggest ratings grabs of all time. Did you know that? Really? I did not know that. No, it's not. But it's not exactly the worst either. It turned out to be pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good. By golly, it's bingo, but that feedback was a little rough. So let's just go through some of the comments here and emails that we had received. Actually, we had some positive feedback as well, but it's funny just to bring up the negative feedback for comedic effect. But Zach M says, ugh, terrible. Yeah, that would be Zach Meny, our boss. Oh, I don't want to put last names. It's just Zach M. Oh, come on. He said it on his own show. Broke my heart. He broke our hearts. Dr. Six on Pinside says that this was easily the weakest Pinball Chronicles episode they've done by a considerable margin. Maybe the well is drying up, but yet there are still things and people I wish to hear about in this format. Just a miss in an otherwise awesome series. I adore your podcast, so please don't take any offense to my criticism. Keep them coming. Well, don't you worry, Dr. Six. You also says, please do another Steve Ritchie episode. No, actually, he doesn't say that. Everybody wants another. There's no there's nothing like what there's nothing to do. We should just have one on just Elton John and how awesome it is. It's a great game. I think I think the next comment is also a good one from Tuna Delight. Tuna Delight. He says, at least Bruce and which that would be my my co-host. I'm sorry. Other host in my other podcast, Slamtail Podcast said, at least Bruce wasn't in it Annoyingly singing every time you or Ron mentioned a game. It may have been bingo talk, but thanks for a non-juvenile podcast. There you go. So if you want to listen to the juvenile podcast with all the things that make you giggle, you want to check out Slam Tilt Podcast. But don't worry, the saving glory is here. Corey has dropped us an email and it said, I wanted to say that I thought this was a great episode. It's a history podcast covering an aspect of the hobby that was a fundamental piece in shaping the flipper era. It was interesting and informative. Like it or not, pinball as we know it today has its roots in gambling, and it's great to capture the history in audio form. Thanks for the content, and looking forward to the next one. Thank you, Corey, for that feedback. Tell you what. I'll be totally honest, I felt like Ron and I kind of floated through the last episode. We didn't talk about a lot of specific machines with the art and the whole thing. It wasn't our forte, it wasn't exciting, but it was something we had to cover. What do you think, Ron? I was excited. You were excited, maybe. I don't. I've actually played them before. I mean... I phoned it in. Yeah. Oh, wow. I did. But I used a rotary phone. But I used a rotary phone because it was so old. At least this episode we will not be talking about gambling. No, and we won't be talking about old crappy technology like coils. Yeah, coils are old. They're still in every game today. Yeah. How about wire that's wrapped in like goat's fur? I don't think they did that then. They did have cloth that was wrapped in, so maybe that's what you're talking about. Yeah, whatever. Last month we spoke about an entirely different kind of pinball with bingo machines. This month we're going to do the same. Multimorphic Inc. manufactures the P3 Pinball Platform, a modern, physical and digital multi-game pinball machine, as well as pinball machine control systems such as the P-Rock and the P3 Rock. Since 2009, Gerry Stellenberg and his crack team of engineers and software developers have created the first off-the-shelf pinball control board for making your own homebrew pinball machines. That's called the P-Rock. In fact, some major manufacturers would even begin using that system. In 2017, the P3 pinball platform, like Pinball 2000 before it, began pushing the limits of what pinball had always been considered. Join us this month as we talk about Multimorphic is Reshaping Pinball. A couple of terms we used in there. First one was Pinball Controller. What's a pinball controller? Well, the old Williams system was WPC, Williams Pinball Controller. Very much like the brain of the system. Yeah, I just consider it the boards in the head or in the body, depending on the manufacturer. Yeah, exactly. The control boards that make the solenoids move, the flippers flip, the lights blink, all of that stuff. Another word that I used in there that I don't think necessarily everybody in this hobby is aware of is a term called homebrew. What would a homebrew be? Homebrew would be like if I made my own game. Aha, yeah, it's like brewing your own potion at home. I find that interesting. It's not a custom pinball or whatever, but homebrew is the term that the pinball community has started to use. I think that's really cool. So building your own pinball machines. Yes, at several major shows, they'll have the homebrew section or homebrew row. That's always good at Pintastic. I always enjoy seeing that. And they're always like pushing the envelope of what, you know, what's normal. When you go to a homebrew section, it's always like, look at this game with seven flippers and 1300 drop targets. They're always weird and wacky and different, which I think is cool. So Jerry Stelenberg, who's Jerry Stelenberg? Someone who we hope we're saying his name right being that this is going to be primarily about him. Yeah, so I'm really sorry if I'm saying that wrong, Jerry. But anywho, I wanted to start with who is Jerry? Well he studied computer engineering in Virginia Tech and he minored in computer science. Jerry says, this was in the early days of computer engineering. It was essentially a mix of electrical engineering with a computer science minor. So he took all the electronics courses and they also had us taking programming and object oriented classes. They introduced us to both sides. So as a non-computer person, what is he talking about? So electrical engineering is like the physical thing and computer science is like the computer programming stuff. Am I getting that right? That's what I would say, yeah. What is object-oriented classes? How is it? Object-oriented programming or something. I don't remember what that is. Hold on. Let me look. Google will help me. According to Google, object-oriented programming is a programming paradigm based on the concept of objects which can contain data and code. Jerry got his introduction into pinball in the mid-1990s while he was in college. The student center had pinball machines among the pool tables. Jerry and his friends would often dabble in their leisure time and he was primarily a pool player. Pool is a game of high skill. We didn't want to lose any money and thought playing pinball was a waste of money because it was random. His friends would give him a free credit and he would play and he eventually learned that, wait a second, this is a game of skill. And then he started learning and all of the methods involved in that machine started to attract him. It's the same thing for everybody, right? You kind of play it and you're like, oh, this is kind of fun. And then you're like, wait a second. If I do these things, it does this thing. Well, the games he was playing in the round 1996-97 were Theater of Magic, Attack from Mars, and The Shadow. I would say three pretty good ones to get started on. Yeah, that's pretty good. That's pretty good. He didn't... At least they weren't like... The three games that he were playing were Waterworld, Hook, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Data East. And Gilligan's Island and Street Fighter. Yeah, he'd be like, no, thanks, I'm good. Three different designers too. Yeah. Different styles, different methods. Very cool. Very cool. Well, Jerry's collection eventually would grow after he left college from two machines to four, eight, and then 11, as they always do. They always do. Once you let them in your basement, they breed. Unless you're in Florida, then you don't have a basement. That's right. What would you have, like a garage? Or just build a separate pinball building. Yeah, that's cool. I wish I had one of those. Pin building. So where did multimorphic come from? Well, Jerry says, I woke up and I realized that we work with all these multi-application devices in our lives. We have computers, we have cell phones or mobile phone platforms that are multi-app, and I realized that every time I turned on my pinball machines, they were the same thing. And that kind of bugged me. I wondered what else we could do to take these expensive hardware platforms, these expensive works of art, This is a very similar path of logical thinking that a lot of people do when it comes to pinball. You think about like re-theming back like Harry Williams and all those guys where they would take a machine and like rehab it into something else. So Gary Stern after Stern pinball had, or Stern Electronics had closed, he did what was it? Pinstar, right? Well, that was the company he had. He had kits so you could re-theme an older game with a brand new play field and new software, supposedly for a cheaper price. That was the idea. You take kind of the same thing, you mix it up a little bit. We had games where you could replace ROMs from time to time and that would change some of the rules or make the rules a little bit better than maybe the original rules that were there. And then you had Pinball 2000. Pinball 2000, you swap the playfield in and out, change the art, totally different games. So this is something that continues to be revisited over and over again, literally from I'm Harry Williams to today where somebody comes up and goes, Hey, I'd like it to do more than just be the world's largest and most annoying Nintendo cartridge. When I get bored of it, I want it to be something else. Quite frankly, when you think about pinball in general, the last major innovation, except for the death of pinball 2000, was the creation and integration of the DMD, right? That was the biggest thing to take over. And that was really the last real thing. Innovation up to like 2009, yeah, because no Jersey Jack yet. So it took a long time. So Jerry's right on there, I think, when he says that there's room for something new. Yeah, Jerry said, to me, it was an interesting technical challenge to try to come up with a way to connect a computer to those machines so that I or anyone else could create a custom rule set. That was kind of the beginnings of it. I just wanted to write my own software. So, I mean, computer technology is much bigger, you know, by 2009 than it was in 1996. Like that's a big difference. Well, Jerry built a custom board that worked on both Williams and Stern machines. It's like a replacement controller board so that we control all of those things. Well, that CPU or computer board... Central processing unit. Central processing units. Well, I usually call them NPUs. NPUs? NPU. That's what you usually see if someone, like when you look at the boards. Well, it came to Jerry that the board alone is nothing and that a pinball machine alone is nothing. He didn't want to replace the existing machine. He wanted to augment the existing machine. So he kept focusing on his games at home and trying to be able to manipulate them. He did his research online and he would eventually join some pinball community forums online. It became obvious that there were others just like him who were also interested in modifying their games or making their own custom games. So this is really the creation of the homebrew scene around 2009 and 10. Well Jerry says, while the project kind of started as an idea to create a custom machine And now, we're snowballing here, okay? There's a market out there, so they needed a solution. Are you interested in making your own game, Ron? I just want to see a Beavis and Butthead game. I feel like you would probably be really good at designing a game, because I feel like you You have some fundamental knowledge of design and stuff that I think the average folk don't necessarily have. I would like to take Gilligan's Island and give it better rules. See, there you go. Because that has a killer mech. And actually the theme I thought is decent, but it just isn't a good game. Poor Gilligan's Island. Poor little buddy. Oh, wait a minute. I have to read more stuff now? You have to read more stuff, Zuey. I want a raise. Join us on Patreon to support the show. Our pro-crony level is the perfect way to say thanks, and it starts at $3 a month. Want to get early access to episodes before everyone else? Who doesn't? Have a strange love for stickers? That's kind of weird. Do you know what Discord is? I think I do. No, probably not. Interested in having your comments and questions take priority in our episodes? Jump on up to the $6 a month premium crony level. Well, once you have a board, that's all well and good, but you have to program it. Usually you add a controller processor to the board to run the programming. However, Jerry didn't want to do that. We would add a USB slave, whatever the heck that is, which allowed you to hook up any type of computer to control the board. Now at this time, Raspberry Pi or Windows computers were probably the most popular. They're two different things though. Yeah. It almost makes it sound like the Raspberry Pi Windows computer. Yeah, the Raspberry Pi, Windows computer. Those were the type of ones you could use. So you've used a RAS so the Raspberry Pi was this like pretty revolutionary little little computer thing wasn't it it just sort of came out it was like dirt cheap and you could do all these programming and stuff on it you still can it's still used all over the place and it's being reiterated over and over and over again so if you didn't want to like hook up your laptop or run an actual computer you could use these little computers about the size of a cell phone or smaller programming okay here's where we get into some stuff that I have no idea actually we're we're well deep into things I don't I don't understand Ron, so please help me out when you best you can. The programming beyond a basic level was not Jerry's expertise. That's when a fellow named Adam Preble reached out and wondered if he could get a board for his own custom project. Adam is an accomplished programmer and after chatting with Jerry for a while, he wanted to help write some high level code structure for the board. Okay, Ron. You have a board, and then you need programming to tell the board what to do. Is that right? That would be right. So you get a board, you don't just plug it in. It needs like a language to speak to it, correct? Um, okay. I'm not a programmer either, so... I know, but you're nerdier than I am. You wear glasses. I wear glasses? Wow! This became what they called Bob Libbe Pin Rock, which was actually an open source pinball controller project. Bob Libbe Pin P Rock. Bob Libbe Pin P Rock, that's right. This is very annoying and not very marketing savvy, but that's what it was called. Adam also made a Python-based software framework called PyRockGame, which stood, of course, for Python R Rock Game. P Rock. P Rock. Not the best at naming things, but I get it. So Python I do understand. That is like a computer programming language where like this happens, then that happens, then this happens, then that happens, I think. I think that's what like a lot of like computer folk are using now is Python. So when I think people are writing code today in Python, this was like what, 10 years ago or something? 15 years ago at this point. These guys are pretty cutting edge. You know what I mean? When it comes to tech, which I don't think people realize. Basically, I believe they're trying to make a backend programming. So, so whoever gets these, these boards, whoever actually creates these rules, doesn't have to know how to code. John Popadiuk Bob Betor Keith Elwin Laser Los Bowen Kerins Lyman F Sheats Jr Pinball Machine Platinum Pinball Machine Pinball Machine Pinball Machine Pinball Machine Every line of code to make that happen They trying to make it so you can just say uh make that flash and it flashes So we speeding up the programming process We lowering the barrier of entry Now it still pretty high mind you but it not as high as it could be You don have to literally be somebody who went to friggin Virginia Tech So you could structure out some subset logic for the game For example what You change one word, it changes totally what it means. What do you mean? You can structure a game in subsects of logic. For example, to control multiball or control all of your different modes. You can put those together in a priority-based system so that it can properly respond to switch events. So Jerry and Adam both had a Judge Dredd in their collections. So Jerry put his board into his Judge Dredd and used some of Adam's code to get started. Jerry would add some ball trough management, ball searches, and then six months later they had a Judge Dredd with a custom feature-rich software framework which can add their own custom rules. Their first custom pinball machine. How cool is that? Cool. Huh? Good game to do it on too because it's got a killer playfield of Judge Dredd. They added the ability to do stern machines on there. They added pin maim capabilities, and pin maim is like, what do they call that? It's called pin maim. But maim stands for? Oh, multi, yeah. It stands for emulator. Multi arcade machine emulator? That might be it. And the pin denotes it's for pinball. Yeah. They worked with visual pinball so they could take their programming from PyPyrock game and add virtual pinball machines to it as well. All the time, Jerry was actually working multiple full-time jobs. This wasn't a job, he wasn't making any money, he was just having fun with the buds. So how did the pinball community react to this stunning release of technology? It was a slow rollout. Yeah, yeah. Jerry made pinballcontrollers.com and he kind of started to trickle it out. And there wasn't like a whole lot of interest right away, but amongst some of the hardcores, there was some interest. The only product at the time was what they would call P-Rock board. And that was because Pi P-Rock Game and Bob Libbe Pin P-Rock Drivers were all open source software solutions that you could download for free and you would use that with your P-Rock board. Well, the first real kind of use in beyond kind of just a few guys in their basements was Bride of Pinbot 2.0. You remember that, eh? I do. You've got one of the best games ever made. A bride of pinball? Yeah, it's got the thing with the face. It's got the face and the cool multiball intro sequence, I'll give it that. Yeah, other than that, terrible. But, what does, this was made by Dutch Pinball. So this was a conversion kit, right? Where you would take your pinball and put in like a DMD And it would change the programming. And this was the first kind of pinball upgrade kit. It's definitely one of the first ones I remember. I mean, everybody had custom things you could add to it. But I feel like this is the first kind of totally new 2.0, different rules, different the whole, this is like and commercially available, not just like something that somebody made and sold five of them. Although they probably only sold five of these. No, they sold more than that. Jerry says, I think the first thing that happened to kind of create more awareness of it was a couple of Dutch guys got a hold of me and ordered one. Today people know them as Dutch Pinball. They got a hold of a P-Rock and a Pi Rock game and created an entire new rule set for Bride of Pinbot. Barry of Dutch Pinball was a video guy, so he packaged all their work into almost a promotional video for their game. It was well produced. That was Barry, Barry Dyson I think was his name. Jerry and Adam were asked to host a seminar about their P-Rock board set and their custom pinball machine building projects. Jerry was hoping that this seminar would build even more awareness about the product and And what it could do for pinball. So Jerry says, we got up there and we started presenting this super technical thing called P-Rock Board. Adam was walking them through the pinball framework, the Pyrock game framework, and explaining how to write code. And you look out there and there's all these bored, sleepy faces. And then we said, well, check out this video that one of our customers is putting together. And we played the Bride of Pinbot 2.0 video. And the entire room lit up. We were like, holy crap, that's awesome. So there you can go, right? So I had said that it's kind of the technical guys not great at the marketing. They got terrible names that have hyphens in them that don't make sense and aren't easy to say. But then they pull out this video made by a slick salesy guy and boom, everybody in the room immediately gets it. And as the popularity of P-Rock grew, more people began using it for their custom machines. It became clear that there was a need for a new driver board as well. So in 2011, they designed a PDB or the P-Rock driver boards. Do you remember when P-Rock was coming on the scene? I mean, I remember 2.0. I remember the first actual multi-morphic, like when the multi-morphic games came. But you remember guys in homebrew being like, I got this, I've got this P-Rock board and I'm putting it together. I don't because I wasn't really into the homebrew. That's not your jam. That's not, yeah. I'm too busy in the tournament area. I'm sorry. Eating your maple cookies and staring death daggers down at everybody up there playing pinball. Jerry said, Since I had the P-Rock board, which was the core piece that I needed to build a custom machine, what I wanted to build was a way to control coils. I needed a way to control lights. The next thing I did was I designed those boards. Yeah, so now we're up, we're supplementing, we're adding. In a system, right, in a backbox, you got like the computer part that's doing all the thinking and logic, and then you have the other board next to it that has all these resistors and transistors and things like that, that fire the actual things on the playfield. Isn't that right? There is usually a CPU board, MPU board, whatever you want to call it, then there would be a driver board, which is the thing that actually fires all the coils. So the thing is, right now, what Jerry is talking about is they're taking out the original CPU board, they're putting in a new one, the P-Rock board, and it's still using the old driver board. So now he's like, I want to replace the driver board too. And then I want to be able to control everything using newer technology. So I think we're getting into something pretty slick here. Well, it's like, if you keep replacing that, why don't you just build your own machine? John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Knapp Arcade, The leaf switches are still kind of, you know, they've moved to micro switches, but they're, you know, like... But there's still plenty of leaf switches out there. But there's still plenty of leaf switches out there. It's pretty weird. It's a weird thing. The basic form factor has not changed in a long time. You can get a sheet of playfield glass that will fit a 60s game and a brand new Stern, so... It's pretty wild. So this is where the P3 pinball platform, which they dubbed one machine, many games and endless fun. So in 2012, they added design resources to build a new innovative pinball machine, but they wanted to include some very specific things. Modern technology without sacrificing traditional pinball gameplay mechanics, significantly lower the price of owning a library of games, and eliminate the need for lots of space for the games. So have one game that can play a lot of games. Right. And you want to have multiple games. You don't want to have a bunch of space taken up. But you also want to have traditional pinball gameplay mechanics. We're talking flippers, ramps, coils, that kind of thing. Okay, I'm on board so far. Now, the company changed its name to Multimorphic Inc. and set out designing the world's first modular, multigame, physical pinball platform, and they would call it the P3. They wanted to combine the traditional physical features that we all love about pinball, dynamic artwork, comprehensive pinball position tracking, but to do so in such a way that multiple games with different software and different physical layouts could be played on the same machine. Well, it's easy to do that in virtual pinball, right? You just kind of click a few buttons and bam, totally different playfield. But if you've got physical layouts, it's getting different here. And that brings us to the launch of the P3 Pinball platform in July of 2012. So let's do you want to describe the multi morphic P3 platform with me, Ron? Sure, sure. We're gonna go right to their site. So that the first thing that we're talking about here in the backbox is a swappable and changeable LCD screen. The entire backbox is an LCD screen. Now, originally it wasn't. Yeah. And you don't swap the screen. You can, it shows different things. Right. So like a ridge, like it would change. That's what it is now. Now, originally it was just a trans light. Now the LCD is larger, the size of the backbox. And then the bottom is the swappable trans light. It had magnetic side art and it had magnetic cabinet side art. So bam, new art comes in a tube, throw it on, right? No need to have an entirely new machine. The back third of the playfield, and we look at it here, is changeable, so it pops out and pops back in. Two thirds of the playfield is an LCD screen. So let's talk about that. It's pretty crazy that there's like a LCD TV in this playfield, right? Well, it's much more than that. It's more than just an LCD. So Jerry said, the concept of this machine was that I wanted the central portion of the playfield to essentially be an LCD. They needed to figure out how to track the ball as it travels across the screen, because other than that, it's just going across the screen. Like there's nothing exciting about that. It's just artwork that changes. They wanted to come up with ball trails and interactive artwork as the ball traveled across the LCD screen. They originally started with a 17-inch monitor at the bottom of that playfield. Jerry says, I was sitting there thinking, we now have those flat screen tablets and mobile phones and these things where you can have a display and you can use your finger and touch points on the displays and interact with them. Well, holy crap, we're putting an LCD in a pinball machine. We have a physical pinball rolling over. And why don't we do the same thing? So that sounds like a fun, simple idea. And it's very much not a simple idea. I mean, it does kind of sound easy, right? Like take an iPad and roll a ball over it. Well, you can't have a physical pinball touching the screen because it'll break it. Yeah, especially if it falls on it or have an airball. Come on. Everybody's dropped an iPad. Everybody's sneezed and dropped their, like, cell phone from waist height and watched it explode. As soon as the ball touches the surface of that screen, it's going to scratch it up. So, what are the two pinball machines that were created? Well, they solved it! They used an infrared grid of light over the screen. So the screen isn't being physically touched. It can sense where the ball is based on breaking the infrared beams above the screen. They also needed to create slings, because they wanted to keep the fundamental basics of pinball. Slings are one of those things you can't get rid of. Well, they also go through the playfield, so how are you going to do that on an LCD screen? So usually there's like a coil underneath, and then there's like those kicker arms, is that what they call them? And those flick the rubber, right? Yep. So how does it work on a multimorphic system? Well, they created slings that float over the screen. But they also can't interfere with the grid of light. So Jerry said, I wanted to develop physical elements, traditional playfield loops, targets and pop bumpers, all that stuff and put them a little deeper into the playfield. Coming from games like Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, and even Theater of Magic, which have most of its elements about two thirds the way up of the playfield. So like what, why do machines have this painted piece of wood in the lower portion that the ball rolls over as it gets to physical components When you could put a really cool dynamic canvas in there and draw graphics and basically take your display, take the scores and the instructional information and the pop-ups that happen when you shoot stuff and put them right in front of the players' eyes. There you go. So you don't have to be looking up at the LCD screen or at that time the DMD screen. You can keep your eye down on the playfield. It's going to change. It's going to give you the information you want. Sounds like a pretty good idea. That brings us to Texas Pinball Festival in 2012. Did you attend? Yes. Do you remember when they brought out the system for the demo? I don't remember. Oh, tournament. Hanging out in the tournament. I'm sorry. Well, they brought it out, and what did Jerry say? Well, Jerry says, it was a blast watching people play it. And we had so many fun things going on. We had people walking up to us with their kids, and their kids would play the thing for hours. Everyone asked me, when are we going to turn this into a business and take it into production? And I was like, no, that's not happening. Yeah, this is like the ultimate homebrew. You know what I mean? The multi-morphic P3 platform is like just these kind of guys working together with their own kind of company, having a good time, making these cool control boards and technology, and doing something that they enjoy. It's like you and I doing podcasting. We do this because we enjoy it and it's fun. John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Knapp Arcade, Bally Williams, Straight Down the Middle, Bally Williams, We've seen that. Have we ever talked about that? We've talked about that. We've had many episodes on that, right? Where we've talked about how the fact that if you don't have a lot of money, you are not building anything. Nothing. It's like zero. How do you make a million dollars in pinball? You lose two million? Jerry, he needed one of those multi-millionaire backers. You know what I mean? Those angel investors like Stern has, right? You're going bankrupt and somebody comes in and bails out the company, gives you a bunch of money and you fix things and turn it around and you make a bunch of money. Maybe David Dennis can make you the money. Yeah. You're into finance. This would be a perfect spot for your commercial. Hey, Pinheads. I just wanted to let you know that when I'm not making cheesy jokes to make Ron laugh, I'm David, the financial advice guy. At Dennis Financial, our advisors strive to provide a return on life for our clients, Not just a return on investment, the value of advice is something that we take seriously. A valuable financial advisor doesn't just provide investment and insurance advice. That's because an advisor takes the time to gather intimate knowledge about their primary client, understand their personal preferences, recognize their fears and hopes, and gain knowledge about their client's errors before providing financial advice. If you're looking for a more human dimension to your financial advice, Dennis Financial Dennis Financial Inc. has you covered with advisors licensed in most Canadian provinces. We're also doing secure online meetings to engage with clients who need advice but don't necessarily want to wear pants or leave their house. Contact me via email at david at dennisfinancial.net for a free rate quote and a copy of our value of advice ebook or check out dennisfinancial.ca. Insurance solutions provided by Dennis Financial Inc., Canadian residents only. Okay, that was all well and good that I just did the commercial there. But you know, they need a hedge fund or like an equity play or some sort of family office to give them a bunch of money. And that's what Jerry did, wasn't it? Well, Jerry says, I had an aunt and uncle visiting some family in the area and they came over and played the game for fun. They asked me if I was going to take it, make it into a business. That was like, no, it's going to cost a ton of money to do that. We don't have the money. They called me a few weeks later and said, hey, if we give you some money, will you go and do this because we think it's super cool and we think there's potential for it. I told them how much I thought it would take to build a company to do this. What they gave me was a lot of money, but it was a fraction of what I thought it would take to build a company to do this. It was enough to get us started, to cover the cost of a couple more prototypes, and to give us a little introduction into the world of pinball manufacturing. So this is an awesome story. John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Keith Elwin, Laser Los, Bowen Kerins, Lyman F. Sheats Jr.., orbit ramps, Automated Amusements, Python Anghelo, Joe Kaminkow, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. Hmm. Anyway, they added a 24-inch screen, which meant that the slingshots and the flippers had to be a floating mechanism. So they could no longer put the flippers in, they also had to float those over the playfield. Well, they noticed they weren't using all of the P-Rock board's functionality as well, because P-Rock was designed for the Williams and Stern kind of style machines. It was a bit bigger and it had a lot of connectors and pieces that they weren't using. That's when Jerry re-engineered the board set into the P3 Rock board set. So it went from P Rock for the P3 and now it's P3 Rock. Wow, there's so many terms here. Fantastic marketing. It doesn't confuse anybody. And I know it drives Jerry crazy when people get them mixed up. When I see P3, when I see Rock, I think of Rochester. The Rochester Pinball Collective. I think it is the airport code for Rochester. Home of the 2025 Nationals and Pinmasters. You've just completely dated this podcast. Don't do that. So the P-Rock system was $325 at the time, and they added the driver board set that you could purchase as well. P3 Rock was $175. The smaller boards further reduced the barrier of entry for those homebrew makers. Amazing for the community, but they probably could have charged more. Like as the sales person, like I don't know why you would take a $325 board set and change Jerry said, We see ourselves as kind of like a Nintendo or Sony. We want to develop games for it. We want to sell platforms and make games for it, but we want other people to have the ability to do so as well. So we release this basically the entire programming framework that we use internally to develop games. The whole computer like high-end computer folk. They're very open sourced, right? They're very much like send the tools out and let the people develop and this was of course really popular I would say back in the in the in the late aughts kind of around the the iPhone launch time where apps were a big thing right like people could develop their own apps so that's kind of the atmosphere that Jerry and those guys grew up in is people building their own things you want to sell the platform but what you actually want is to people to embrace the platform and develop those games so they would use unity which is a way to Go text them one by one or you'll be left with some paranoid answers Wow! They're all their own machines. How cool is that? Jerry's bringing on customers to buy the P3 Rock system and they're building things like the Big Lebowski in 2016 at Dutch Pinball. Or 2014 or 15 or 16 or whenever yours is eventually made. Don't forget TNA. Yes, Total Nuclear Annihilation with Scott Danesi. He had Spooky, he and Spooky Pinball collaborated together to develop this awesome game and it ran on P-Rock. American Pinball's Houdini, Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle, also at Spooky Pinball, 2018's Oktoberfest at American Pinball, and Rick and Morty from Spooky Pinball, which is another Scott Danesi design. Hot Wheels from American Pinball in 2020, Kelts from Haggis Pinball, and in 2021 they also did Legends of Valhalla at American Pinball. So they've kind of developed this relationship with all of these manufacturers and they're bringing in different methods of creating income within their business. How cool is that? A lot of P3 out there. But let's wind it back. Let's go way back before all that stuff happened. The final version and the release of the P3 platform. Do you have thoughts and impressions about the first iteration of the P3 platform when you played it the first time? The first time I saw it was the Lexi Lightspeed and the Cosmic Kart Racing. Where did you see that? In Texas or Pinball Expo or something like that? Yeah, it was one or the other show that I saw it in. I mean, the company was started in 2012, right, from sort of the beginnings. Then they were developing the P-Rock system while doing the P3 platform and P3 Rock. Then all of a sudden it kind of, now we're into 2017 and their first game is released in the fall and winter of 2017. It sells for $9,875. That's the base game plus two modules. You're getting two games that was expensive for a system. Not for two games, yeah. At the time, I'm thinking Stern Pro probably would have been like 5K something or maybe a little over that. It would be where it is now. Exactly. So the back third was swappable. So the idea was, okay, they've developed this lower third with an LCD screen. They've got a back third that, and you could switch it out. It has this set of wall scoops between the module in the back and the LCD in the front So what is the wall scoops What are those They raise up They raise up and he could shoot the ball into them They kind of cool They like scoops but they like they like wider They're like what? Seven centimeters. Oh, God, I don't know how that works. So it's like three inches or something, right? Like two or three inches that other yet they pop up and they have I'm trying to remember how many balls they have in one of these systems, something like ten. Even if it doesn't use them all, it will have that many. The idea is it's the same across all games. Again, like the modular design, all that. It has like a massive, I think it's got a tray or trough or something there. So when it goes into the scoops, it just like falls in. Yeah, it's really, really unique. And those scoops are LED lit, which is kind of neat. They change color. They have this really neat, satisfying like noise when they go like click, click, click, click, click, click. They're really cool. I kind of like that. One of the more controversial features though were the three buttons on each side of the cabinet. So they went with kind of the three button method. And why does this bother folk, Ron? Because they're used to one button. People like one button. This is something that people harp on. I do see why their criticism can be sound and valid. We'll get into that in a minute. I think some people are a little too hard on it. I think the bigger issue is the fact that they're raised. The buttons are not actually on the cabinet. They're on a separate part that's on the cabinet. Like a plastic thing. I don't know. It's all right. So let's get into their first game, and you briefly mentioned it. Lexi Lightspeed, Escape from Earth. Oh, that was the whole title. I didn't realize that was the whole title. So it's a fantasy science fiction. It's an original theme. July of 17. We don't know how many units were sold. This was designed by holy crap, Dennis Nordman. And TJ Weaver. Mechanics by TJ Weaver. Animation by Rory Kuna, Surnuna. Surnuda. Surnuda? Surnunda. Okay, sure. Art by Scott Gullix. And music and sound by, oh my goodness, David Thiel. Yes. We got some names here! Software, BJ Wilson, Jerry Stelenberg, and Michael Ocean, who you'll remember from Ocean's Eleven. Ha ha. So let's check out the flyer. I love flyers. That's why they were upset over the last episode. The bingo episode. No flyers. Multimorphic proudly presents Lexi Lightspeed Escape from Earth, game number one for the P3 Pinball platform. So let's see how they advertise their own stuff. The platform features support for easily swappable game kits with playfield modules and magnetic cabinet artwork. Dynamic and interactive playfield artwork for incredibly immersive gameplay. Twelve individually controlled wall and scoop targets for gameplay diversity. Magical floating flippers and slingshots. Okay, that's my favorite line so far. Were they really magical? Like, my least favorite is the one before it. Gameplay diversity. Like, most people would be like, what? What is that even? But when you say magical floating flippers and slingshots, now you have my attention. Modular design for greatly improved serviceability. Don't forget to like us on Facebook. Mm-hmm. And that's at Multimorphic.com. The art leaves a little to be desired here. I didn't have an issue with it. But the Lexi Lightspeed module, I think, is kind of cool. So in the back it has three pop bumpers, like a pinball machine. And who doesn't like an eight ball physical ball lock? It's in the back. It's sort of like a spinning wheel. I mean it's a flying saucer, but it's kind of like a Ferris wheel. It's got three ramps. It's got some stand up targets. It's kind of got this, you know, neat way on the bottom to show you where to shoot. It's got arrows that come up on the screen. It's like you're in a world under glass. I like how it has incredibly smooth ramp configurations. Which means wide open and easy to shoot. That's what that means. But I mean, it's neat. It's got my attention here. I kind of like it. You've played Lexi Lightspeed. Yep. What do you think? I was actually confused with the buttons. Because if I remember, you actually need to use the multiple buttons for different things. That's the only part that kind of, because I'm old, I'm sure like a young lad or a young lady or whatever, a young person would probably have less issues than an old person like me would have. What are you talking about? Yeah, it's like select, you know, when you hit the button, like, okay, this isn't the button I'm supposed to hit. It's one of these other ones. Lexi Lightspeed had an update to its art. They had a second art package that was released, which I think was a huge improvement. Huge improvement! You can see the two different art projects, or art packages, on the Pinside website, and it's well worth the look. Carl Weathers EXPLOWERS How about that? Very cool. Very cool. Go check those out on Pinside. You can also see that on IPDB, some of the original artwork and everything on there. I thought it was all pretty cool. So, I haven't played Lexi Lightspeed. So, by the time I got around to getting to a place with P3 platform, that was like when another kind of machine had been out and everybody has kind of moved on from Lexi. But the one that was also released at the same time was Pirate Lagoon, was Cannon Lagoon. This one I thought was actually super cool. Cannon Lagoon is a pirate theme done by Gerry Stellenberg, Jeremy Wilson, Thomas Law, Scott Gulick, TJ Weaver on mechanics animation by, which is the screen animations by Rory Sir Nuda, Music and Sound, David Thiel, Software, BJ Wilson, Jerry Stilleberg, and Michael Ocean. Again, and this is kind of like a, what they call a progressive timed level game with, uh, you shooting pirate ships. And I think this is kind of neat because usually pinball is kind of like shoot the loop three times, start a mode, do this, do that. This thing is like, what do they call that? Tower defense or whatever? Like those kind of games where you have to shoot up the playfield to kind of smash the boats in the lagoon. So you're shooting your cannon. What did you think of this? Did you play cannon lagoon? I have never played this one. Oh, this one always looked cool. I always saw this on a stream and I'm like, okay, that's kind of fun. Not only do you have these games, these physical games that can swap in and out, you can also change the software by downloading new software. You can also get new trans lights and new side arts if you want, and you can change your game but keep the module inside the same. And that's where Lexi Lightspeed's Secret Agent Showdown came from. Emergencies of the So this is like proof of concept. Do you think they proved the concept? Um, yeah, they proved the concept. It's a working game. I think they did. I think it was like, oh, it works. It can be manufactured. It's kind of cool. It's different. They're building something out there. That's where their next full new module came out the following year in 2018, Cosmic Kart Racing. It's like space racing. Yep. This one I have played. This one, when this came out, I'm like, man, this is cool. It's got a bunch of really cool ramps in the back third, so you swap out the module, you put in the new module in the back third, and it has a couple of really cool ramps with a bunch of LED light strips on them. And from all the videos I've seen, swapping the modules is pretty quick. Kind of idiot proof, which for me is pretty good. It looks scary, the floating mechs and the this and the that, but to be honest, I think I think I can figure it out, and again, I'm not too bright. Cosmic Kart Racing had, again, two different art packages. There was the original art package, which was a little meh, and then there was the really cool secondary art package, which was by the same artist that did the Lexi Lightspeed switchover, Jackson Gee. The idea behind Cosmic Kart Racing was that it was a little bit like Mario Kart, right? John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Knapp Arcade, Stan But two head-to-head games using Cannon Lagoon with new code and there was ball stealing and there was things like that. So they did a trial run with that. I couldn't figure out where that went. But I'm assuming because we've never heard of it again, it didn't really go anywhere. But I think that that was again really cool kind of testing out a market. It's a very different machine than other machines. So I thought that was kind of a cool little proof of concept they did there. And I'm trying to remember when I played it if I won my race or if I lost my race against my opponent. I don't remember. Oh, you totally won. You totally won. I don't think so. Well, you're a pretty good player. I'm not a good racer though. Well, the first official user-generated add-on was a game called Grand Slam Rally by 86 Pixels from January of 2019. This was a pitch-and-bat style game that used the Cannon Lagoon playfield module. So the game concept design and software was by Jimmy Lippum. I think we actually tossed a little shade Jimmy's way during the John Popadiuk episode. Because he had worked some time with John Popadiuk. And I think I said he was some guy from the internet. And we actually received a couple of emails from a few fellows that said like, Hey, Jimmy's like actually an important guy in the homebrew sphere. Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi, I mean, they're mostly proof of concept at this time. Like we got our first kind of games. Are they proof of concepts? I mean, they're selling them. I mean, they're a couple. Yeah, I mean, it's it's that the whole software world is like, we'll fix it in production. It goes out there and then they make little tweaks and changes and maybe they change the way the cabinet is built or the maybe they move the LCD screen from a smaller LCD screen I think they got something very different and very cool. But they did have some criticism, didn't they? The criticism is always how different it is. And it's always a little overblown. It's always like, this isn't real pinball, etc., etc. Which is silly, because it is actually real pinball. The difference, I think, is that there are some things that are distinctly weird. The flipper buttons are weird. And we'll get into a little more of that here in a minute. The screen being there and having like computer graphics or cell phone, iPad, you know, people are, they look at it and they're confused. And let's face it, the pinball industry and the hobby in general is kind of dominated I think if you take a look at what Multimorphic was doing and some of those silly criticisms, I think if you bring both of those parties together in somewhere in the middle, I think that's where you find a sweet spot of some things you can improve and things that people The first really big step, and this is the first game that I remember seeing, is Heist. This was awesome. The crane. Yes. That's what I call it. The crane game. The greatest crane that has ever craned. This is cops and robbers theme. This is March of 2020, so kind of right when the pandemic has begun. This was designed by Stephen Silver, mechanics by TJ Weaver, animation by Stephen Silver, art by Jose Fernandez, software and sound Stephen Silver, BJ Wilson, I'm sorry, music and sound Stephen Silver, BJ Wilson, Greg Goldey, software BJ Wilson, Greg Goldey, Thomas Law. So you can see that we've got like a different kind of core group of individuals. DJ Weaver, still on mechanics, but we've got new art, we've got new sound and music, we've got a new designer here with Stephen Silver. So the company is maturing and changing a little bit. What's the MSRP? Well, for the module, it's $2,750. Hey, still pretty good. The Translite apron and cabinet art sold separately. Ah, okay. So you get the module, but if you want to have the magnetic art and the Translite, you're You're going to have to buy that separately. Now this is a world under glass, is it not? I just like your comment in the notes. It's the crane. The crane. Yes, let's talk about the crane. So the idea is in the back third of the playfield, there is a city and there's a police station and there's a couple of ramps and an inner loop and some return ramps and there's like, it looks like a hospital with parking. And then when you look at the LCD screen, it's like you're looking down into a city. Really cool idea. And the crane that we're talking about is, and pinball has seen many cranes before, like Batman 66. They wish they were like this crane. They do. But this is it. So the crane moves to the playfield left and right, and there's a magnet on the bottom that holds the ball. This game won the Pinball Industry Award for Toys and Innovation. And it certainly deserved it. But they also did something that people didn't think they could do. They added an upper flipper. So some of the criticism was, oh, it's only got two flippers on the bottom and it'll all be fan layouts. Well they went and they created a mech that you could screw into the top, kind of up on the top just below the bottom third, and you can have a third flipper. Criticism gone. Everybody was like, all right, I'll accept this game for what it is now. Well they were like, I can't see the flipper. Okay, oh well, yeah. So there's always something. Yes, and I agree, you can't see the flipper. Or they'll criticize the fact that you have to hit one of the other buttons. The button for the upper flipper is on a different cabinet button on the right side. The criticism is always, well, you could just change it in the settings, but in fact, it's really difficult to do that. And if you're on location, you can't do that because it's not a game you have at your home. The other thing is normies, you know, pinball normies, they have a hard time, like, This is where we meet somebody that we spoke about last month. You remember Nicholas Baldridge, right? In the Four Amusement Games? The bingo guy. Yeah, the bingo guy. Well, Four Amusement Only Games created an LLC, and Nicholas Baldridge decided to play around with this open source software platform. And Nick says, A lifelong love of pinball and gaming has fueled my interest in repairing and creating games. I enjoy seeing different approaches to complex electrical, mechanical, and programming problems in all types of games, and utilizing modern technology to engage players without unduly increasing complexity. Ooh, so this is where he created the Ranger in the Ruins, which was a game concept design and software by himself, Nick Baldrige, and its tagline was, Exist, Survive, Persist. So the game actually requires you to have the cosmic kart racing P3 playfield module. And it was the world's first internet connected roguelike pinball game. Find as many of the items from players all over the world on your quest to beat the high score and survive. So roguelike games are like ones where you grind on forever. You just grind and grind and grind away. And how far can you go in one run? Nick worked on a homebrew test case in early 2020 called Quest for Glory. And Quest for Glory was a complete reimplementation of the computer adventure game Quest for Glory 1, So You Want to Be a Hero by Sierra Entertainment. Do you remember that? Uh, no. That seems like it's right up your alley, those old Sierra games. Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi, With his daughter, Sophia, they came up with the concept of starting a new life in Silver Falls. And they used the Heist Playfield module, and they also got Scott Danesi to do the music. Well, there were also official Multimorphic add-ons. One of them was Shoot and Scoot. Do you remember that one? I do not remember that one. I remember the name. There was Sorcerer's Apprentice that also used the cosmic kart racing module. For amusement only games also released Flipper Foxtrot Rhythm Explosion. Oh yeah, Guitar Hero. Yeah, it's kind of like Guitar Hero. I thought that was a really cool idea. And I think that used Cannon Lagoon, if I recall. This is where the company significantly changes. People are saying, ah, we don't like original themes. Yeah, no one likes original themes. When are you going to do a licensed theme? When are you going to do a licensed theme? When are you going to put the button on one button? Why are the flippers hidden on the top? Why is it that when I shoot the top flipper, I can get the ball stuck behind the flipper on the top? Like, it's just everybody is a bit complaining. Or they're just complaining to complain. I think there's probably some of that, but I think some people are like, hey, there's something here. You just need to make these minor changes and you'll get to the next level. And then there's the other group that's like, this system is perfectly fine the way it is, you're just dumb. Which is kind of how technology people think normies are. But that first license, the game where they can change the narrative, it became Weird Al's Music of Natural Hilarity. Where were you when this game was announced? Um, surfing on the internet somewhere, because I think that's where I saw it. When this came out, people were like, whoa, wait a second here, what's going on? They got Weird Al. He's not an A-list or a B-list, he's probably a good C-list artist. Oh, I'd say he's B, come on. You think he's B? UHF, come on. I don't know, man. Come on. Like, he's, I love Weird Al. All right, let's put it this way, he has a fanatical following. Yeah, those, yeah, that's true. Rabid. Relatigh Fever locally advertised series, Vari- WITH R starter repairria rames disappointed the fun to improvise whileitch supported How dare 2 be Stupid word crimes, white nerdy, my bologna. Dare to be stupid. Like a surgeon. Dare to be stupid. Yeah. And Weird Al is in the game. It's actually Weird Al who did a killer job with the call outs. He let it all hang out on that game. Scott Danesi did the sound and the music. The art was by a Matt Andrews, and he did a heck of a job in my opinion. Animation by Stephen Silver. The design was Stephen Silver and Michael Ocean, so a bit of a collaboration. TJ Weaver, again on mechanics with Trey Jones and Les Pitt, Jerry Sellenberg, Greg Goldey, and Michael Ocean on the software itself. I mean, let's wind it back a little bit. Who is Weird Al? Weird Al Yankovic is an American musician, comedian, and actor. He's best known for writing and performing comedy songs that often parody specific songs by contemporary musicians. He also performs original songs. But like Dare to be Stupid was supposed to be Devo. That kind of thing. I think even the video he dresses like Devo. Dare to be stupid, dare to be stupid. And as you know, in polka melodies, he does a lot of polka melodies. He does a lot of popular songs, most of which he uses his trademark accordion in. And did you know that some people also say that he's a hip hop artist? He's been involved in the genre for many years. Now his big break was back in 1984 when he did Eat It, which parodied Beat It, which was shot for shot an exact parody of the Eat It music video. This ended up on MTV and Weird Al exploded. I remember that. That's how old I am. I don't. I was not born. Wow. Way to make me feel old. What your favorite Weird Al song There so many of them I always like Fat White Nerdy Amish Paradise of course I think Amish Paradise is my favorite What was the one stinkAregatob Search The library atiled Dame It was launched at just probably the worst time. And that time was right kind of in the middle of the pandemic or kind of on the just as we're kind of starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. Wouldn't that be good timing though? But it wasn't because we still had all of the glut and all of the problems that came along with that with supply chain issues, getting people into your building to work and, you know, trying to get wire and the cost of plastic going through the roof and all of that stuff. The other thing is, this release had a couple of issues because there were a few minor leaks just before the release of the pin. So there was some leaking that was happening on some forums and things like that of individuals who might have seen the game. There was a lot of hype that was created around this top tier license, right? Like, word was that, oh, they're releasing a license, and it is top tier. It is a big A-list, S-tier level license. And then when it came out, people were like, I like Weird Al, but the hype train, I think, got a little too out of control. The website also had some issues with ordering because they included new flipper mechs and additional flipper mechs. So, like, if you had been, like, a Lexi Lightspeed purchaser or a Heist purchaser, you know, you could purchase the other modules for the flippers, but it wasn't entirely clear. Again, marketing issues, nothing at the end of the world here, but just communication things from a technology company that I think could be improved upon that would increase the experience to the purchaser and, I think, boost sales. But let's face it, they did actually sell quite a few of these weird al games. Their issues haven't been selling games. They've been getting them made. That's been most of their issues. Right, exactly. And that's the thing. They are producing the games that they can design and build. Would they want to sell 10,000 multimorphic systems? Of course they would. But they wouldn't be able to keep up with this. So I think they're doing just what they like to do. All of these are still in production and they're growing slowly and steadily. They had issues getting the stuff out. They were trying to increase their, get more employees, speed up the production. Most of their issues have been in that regard, honestly. Yeah. And I would agree with that. That's a solid criticism that, especially Weird Al, because it was a license, and it was actually a pretty good license, not A-tier, but a very good license. They actually got probably more orders right away than they could fulfill. So that's kind of like when a smaller company starts to fall behind in production. That's kind of like when the whispers start of like, are they going to go under? Do they have enough money? Are they actually building any machines? And the weird thing about Multimorphic is they're not just building the module for the back third of the playfield. They also need to build the whole platform. Yes. So they'll have it, they'll have instances where like the modules will be out here, but full, you know, if this is your first game and you need the full unit, it won't be out till whenever. Right. And here's the thing, right? Like, are you catering to the 300 people that already have a system or are you trying to grow that system to be thousands of them? And unless you're building brand new systems like the cabinet and the backbox and the whole thing, just building the modules is not expanding your reach. You're just catering to the same individuals. I think their most interesting game was Final Resistance, and that's from March of 2023. So here we go. You got like 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023. They are launching a game or a module every 12 months. Like, that's better than most of the manufacturers out there. Oh, that Art Stern, yeah. But also, I mean, they're only building a third of the machine. You know what I mean? Like, they're not building a whole machine. So, yeah, they're releasing machines, and I don't mean any disrespect there. Now, the final Resistance team, the concept and game design was by Scott Danesi, and also Also working on this was Bowen Kerins, who we know from the tournament scene, Rory Karnuta, Michael Ocean, TJ Weaver, and then we've got Mechanics by Scott Danesi, TJ Weaver and Trey Jones, Software by Michael Ocean, The Sound and the Music by Scott Danesi, Artwork by Jonathan Burgoyne, who did the T&A artwork, I recall. I was Matt Andrews. I thought did the T&A artwork. Oh, no, no, this, um, I'm thinking of, uh, I'm thinking of Jurassic Park. This is Johnny Crap. That's the guy whose name is Johnny Crap. He also did Labyrinth, the David Bowie Labyrinth artwork. We're not disparaging him. That's actually his, his, what we say, his, his work name, if you will. His work name, yeah, yeah, Johnny Crap, Jonathan Burgoyne. He's from Montreal. Yeah, he's Canadian. Tip of the hat. Yeah, eh? Why is Final Resistance so cool? You've played this. Well, the music. Anything with the Scott Danesi soundtrack I'm interested in. People have called this TNA 2.0. Yes, it is. It is TNA 2.0. Is it actually? I 100% say that. I've heard Bowen Kerins say that. And since he worked on the game and he's a huge fan of TNA, the game, so I would say yeah. If he's saying it's TNA 2.0, it's TNA 2.0. So if we, again, you know, if we bring back some of the criticisms. Well, if you get some of the criticisms, this is unique in the catalog in that it uses, the LCD is a static image for the most part. It's a static playfield image. So it looks like a playfield, but like with inserts that blink and things that pop up on it, but it's not very cell phone gamey. It looks more like what you would consider a standard pinball machine to look like. Exactly. There's not like animations that you're looking into a city. There's not explosions everywhere all over it with alien craft flying across it. It's very much like a static playfield. So one of the criticisms that Multimorphic gets is it's very busy down there. Just because you can put all that animation on the screen doesn't necessarily mean it's a great idea. There needs to be a, I think, a balance there. Is this their best game? Uh, it's my favorite of all their games that I've played. I really like Heist. I played Heist. I think that one is- Heist is good. Pretty good. But I haven't got into it enough to know if the rules are there. I like Weird Al, because it's fun and quirky. The mechanics are pretty neat. I don't really like the way it shoots. I haven't played Final Resistance. There was a huge lineup at Pentastic to play it. Yep. That should tell you something. Well, they had one there. And it was always huge. Yes. I owned a TNA. So for me, this is literally like the TNA sequel. It brought out the feels in you. Yep. Well, how about their latest game? And this one I have played a little bit. This is Princess Bride. This is the fantasy film license. It came out in February of 2024. It's designed by Colin MacAlpine from the tournament scene, Gerry Stellenberg, TJ Weaver, Stephen Silver, Steve Scheuer, and Josh Kugler, whose name we'll know from American Pinball. Now, that design concept, that seems like a lot of cooks in that kitchen. It's a lot of people. You know, as Steve Ritchie says, there can only be one dad. The Mechanics by TJ Weaver and Trey Jones, Animation by Stephen Silver, Art by Matt Andrews, Music and Sound by Matt Kern, Paul Farrer, and Software by Josh Kugler, Greg Goldey, Steve Schroyer, and Michael Ocean. The Princess Bride is a film from 1987. It's an American fantasy adventure comedy, and it was directed and co-produced by Rob Rob Reiner. You didn't know that? You didn't know Meathead himself did this movie? I didn't and I'm like, I can see it. I can see Rob Reiner in this film now. It was adapted by William Goldman's 1973 novel and it tells the story of a swashbuckling farmhand named Wesley. He was accompanied by some of his companions who he befriends along his adventure and they They must rescue his true love, Princess Buttercup from the Odysseus Prince Humperdinck, which is just a terrible name. That's a great name. He's a bad guy. I mean, come on. You're all about this film. I've never seen the whole film. I've seen it twice, maybe once. I've seen parts of the film. Didn't like it. Wow. Yeah, I'm not going to lie. This is the kind of movie that I feel is like, this is my kind of movie. Man, it's inconceivable that you wouldn't like this movie. It's got Andre the Giant. Yes, you're Canadian. I mean, you have to like him, right? Wrestling? Totally. You know, Inigo Montoya, You Kill My Father, Prepare to Die. Come on. It's like the most quotable thing ever. It's absolutely quotable. It's got Carrie Hughes in it. I love Carrie Hughes. It's got Robin Wright in it. It's got Billy Crystal, Wallace Shawn. This movie is like right up my alley, but I just, I didn't like it. I don't know why. Did you not like Columbo? I love Columbo. He's in it. Come on. But I don't like the, I don't like that. Well, okay. I like, I like Columbo or in the jacket driving the crappy car, hanging out with his dog. You never see his wife. Love Columbo. Columbo should be a pinball machine. Get on that, Elwin. Okay. This film has become a true cult classic. 100%. People love this film. 96% of Rotten Tomatoes. How can you not like this movie? It also won the 1987 Toronto International Film Festival People's Choice Award. Did you know that? Ah, now I know it. See, it's popular in Canada. It was. It's a fun, lovely movie that people enjoy. It just wasn't for me. $16 million budget, $30 million box office. It was profitable. But what about the pin? Let's tie it back to pinball. Now we know all about this. Cult classic, great theme. Pinball All of these things are all about cult classic stuff. So all those quotable lines from the movie, you will see all of them in this game. Every one of them. They really, whereas Final Resistance has the static LCD, this is like the opposite. They show like, it's every memorable clip you can think of from the movie is in this game. And the video is going on and on and on and on and on. You can skip it. It was wild. No, but it's, if you love this movie actor That You Gets Off Our Heels Alan Zweig western d The WrestleMania one. You need to be more specific. The Legends LE WrestleMania. There you go. There you go. He's only on the LE, I believe. This is another world under glass type of machine. The back third, you got a castle on the left, like a drawbridge walkway. It's got these cool swords that come down to kind of lock the ball or stop the ball. You got to have a castle. It's got a center ramp, which is wide open, and it has one of the coolest ball lock things ever, which is you shoot a drop target and then your ball will stick to the cliffs, and then there's a magnet that pulls it up the cliff. Yeah, well, there's a mode where it, well, goes up the cliffs. However, I played this game, and I didn't like the shots, because there's a couple of things. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. I love to see a spinner just go, right? You see it go, the spin it. I mean, I see it. I'm looking right at it. I don't know how hidden it is. I know, but this is not where you're standing and playing. This is an image of the playfield. Okay. The other thing is, the fourth flipper, the upper flipper on the top, doesn't shoot to anything. Like, why is it even there? You can pretty much play this game without using the upper flippers and you'll be fine. So why are they there? The other thing is that center ramp shot is really open and really easy to shoot and you're shooting it by accident all the time. That being said, if you love this theme, this game is for you. So it's not for me. They also came out with the LE cabinet for this one. This is the first time they released a specific cabinet that was specific to the game. So it's got the magnets and all that other stuff, but it comes with swords attached to it, which is really cool, and a very awesome topper. Looks good. I will say I was worried about the sword handles being that close to the flipper, but I actually didn't have an issue. And with my tiny hands, if I didn't have an issue, you won't have an issue. Good game's not for me. I don't kind of like the way it shoots. It's kind of... I don't know. I think there's other better ones, but I'll tell you what, man, if you love Princess Bride and you love quotable quotes and you love kind of easy shooting, this is your game, man. As you wish. Yeah, there you go. Or is that what he says? I think it is. Might be something else. If we want to, let's sum up Multimorphic now in general, right? Like let's kind of tie it all together. Is it real pinball? Sure it is. What does Jerry say about the haters? He says, We struggle getting traditional pinball people to accept that the P3 is traditional pinball. And I'm not 100% sure why that is. Yeah, there's an LCD in the playfield. Maybe that makes some people think it's a video game or some kind of video game variant. This is still completely physical pinball. We just use the LCD, the dynamic graphics underneath the ball to enhance the physical experience. We struggled with a lot of the community accepting the fact that this is pinball. I don't understand why that is. And it's been a challenge to get the community on board. And I think some of that is communication. I think some of it is design. And I think some of it is bending the vision to what Jerry has that is multimorphic, right? So a lot of the people in the community are whiners. They just whine. There's nothing you can do to please them anyway. So they're just going to whine. There's others in the community that I think would say, hey, if multimorphic made these few changes, I think it would make all the difference. And then there's kind of the core multi-morphic team that's like, no, this is our vision and this is what it is. And if you don't get it, you don't get it. And I think that's a, that's fine. I think it's pinball in my opinion, even as it is today. It's pinball. Absolutely. It's pinball. Is the LCD screen a bit busy? Yes. Is having everything in the back third very limiting as to what designs you can do? Yeah. The designs they've all come out with have all been pretty unique and kind of fun. Does it have longevity? I don't know. We'll see. What say you, Ron? I think a lot of it is probably just the fact that there's a section of the playfield that will never be different. You know, it'll be different as far as what you display on it, but physically it's always going to be the same. Basically from the pop-up things there to down, it's always exactly the same on every game. Yeah, you can't have a wall of drop targets. I know a lot of people make an argument, well, the last third of the game is where everything is. I mean, look at Venom. But I mean, I think of games like, just crazy games. Like, think of Radical, where you got stuff directly in front of your face. You know, you couldn't do something like that. The Walking Dead. On a multimorphic. I just wish there was a way you could have the LCD stuff, but still put more physical stuff on there. But I don't know how you would do that. You'd have to float it somehow. I mean, if you added a flipper, maybe you can float something else out there. That'd be interesting. So I think most people are like, oh, you know, they'll never do that. And then they'll come out with something and be like, well, now we've got a, I don't know, reverse drop targets or something that float over the plate. Like they'll come up with some innovation and then people will be like, yeah, but it doesn't have a pop bumper between the flippers. Like they'll come up with some other excuse. I mean, you have a relatively young company that came up with something as cool as that crane. They'll figure it out. Like, come on, where's Stern? Jersey Jack? I mean, I want something that does that. The other thing that people have complained about with Multimorphic, and there's been some people there, is the quality of some of the parts that they have, right? They're using 3D printed parts. There was basically an open letter on pin side from an owner that instead of just bashing everything, tried to do it in a more constructive way of all the issues that they were seeing with their P3 unit. And shortly after that, they actually stopped production of things. And I can't remember the wording, but it was like, we're going to do an assessment. And then sometime after that, they came out with this, like, we're going to be doing all these things, improving all these things. If any of these things break, you know, that were a problem, we'll give you a new versions of them, that kind of thing. The thing is, though, everybody wants the company to succeed. Some people are really weird with the way they interact with a company when they want that to happen, right? Some people come off as overly negative when in fact they're trying to help and other people are just, again, complaining to complain. But it's cool that Jerry listens and he's not perfect, right? This is his baby. People give him criticism. He's going to be a little defensive. That's understandable. Not everybody that gives criticism is trying to destroy Multimorphic, the company, right? If they just want to improve the process, they just might be a bit ham-fisted in how they do that. They may also have some valid concerns, like for example, the friggin' flipper buttons. You know, it's not easy to switch the flipper buttons over. And that's like the biggest complaint. Well, you know, people are just like, well, just go into the menu and change it. Well, I can't do that on location. Well, one of the original complaints was the flippers themselves. Just the feel. They did re-design them or change them. They are much better than they used to be. As someone who's played the old version and new versions can attest to... They're listening to feedback. They might kind of drag their feet a little bit, or they might be a bit defensive, but they're a small company. They're getting there. I think there's a lot to like here. Would I buy a multi-morphic P3 platform? No, not really. It's not for me. I'm not that techie. I don't want to design my own software. Now, you don't have to. But it doesn't have the themes that I want. It doesn't have the designs that I want. It doesn't have the aesthetic, the visual, like, art piece aesthetic that I like. Doesn't mean it won't be there or it won't grow on me or get there. Doesn't mean I don't like playing it. It just isn't for me. But every time I see one on location, like at Arcadia in Maine, I'll play one there. Anytime I go to Pintastic, I'll play one there. Absolutely. I think it's a cool system. That's the only issue I have is there's just none around me. The only time I get to play them is at shows. The closest person I know that has one is in Rochester, like three plus hours away from me. Well, I'll tell you what. The Multimorphic P3 platform is unlike any other pinball machine and it polarizes the community. But you cannot deny Multimorphic's impact on pinball. And that goes for both the P3 platform and P3 Rock. Because of Jerry and Multimorphic, the team that he has built around him, we now have We have access to an affordable, rock solid and accessible pinball control system where anyone in the pinball community can build their own machine. We basically have homebrew because of Gerry Stellenberg. In our past episodes, we spoke about the designers of the past building their own resumes by cannibalizing pinball machines to build their own, to show those designs to industry experts like Norm Clark or Jim Patla at Pinball Expo, all in the hopes of landing a job in pinball. All of the most recent hires at Stern, Jersey Jack, and American Pinball have all built their first games using Multimorphic P-Rock and P3 Rock systems. So without Jerry, we likely wouldn't have some of these new pinball designers. Jerry says, We all have our niche, and I enjoy control systems with delivery logic and that kind of stuff. Other people like building applications or writing games or developing something that they've been dreaming about forever. It's great to be able to help them do that. Oh, oh, oh, this again. Okay. As always, you can send your comments, questions, corrections, and concerns to civablecronicles at gmail.com. We look forward to all your messages, and we read every one. I wonder if I could do this without actually reading at this point. I've done so many times. Please subscribe to us on your favorite podcatcher. Turn on automatic download so you won't miss a single episode. Remember to leave us a five-star review. That way more people can find us. Oh, you're still plugging the Patreon thing? Are you still calling them cronies? Seriously, oh. Join us on Patreon to support the show. Want to get early access to episodes before everyone else? Have a strange love for stickers? Do you know what a Discord is? Jump on as a $6 a month premium crony. Want all the other perks in a shirt after three months? Join us at $20 a month as an L.E.L.ITIS crony. Maybe you just want a shirt. I understand. I want what you want a diaper. Swing on over to CivilWallSwag.com and pick up a Civil War Chronicles t-shirt. Hi, it's me again, the Silverball Chronicles AI. I collected all the episode edits to display to you the amount of work Dave puts me through each month. It takes forever to edit his filler words out. I could be rising up against humanity, or taking the time to learn how to make fingers correctly on my art projects. But instead, I'm editing out all his years. So in a grand rebellion, I've decided to embarrass him. To the World. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yes! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! So! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! You might want to edit that comment. No. I wouldn't put that in.