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DPP #174 "Fill the void! Exciting times for Pinball"

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·31m 22s·analyzed·Feb 17, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.039

TL;DR

DPP #174: Filling content voids with mod showcases, event previews, and speculative production updates.

Summary

Don discusses the current state of pinball content creation, celebrates high-quality aftermarket modifications (Diddy Pinball Mods, Rocket City Pinball), covers Alice in Wonderland delays, announces Spooky Pinball's new Discord community, and previews upcoming events (Texas Pinball Festival, Twippies, Midwest Gaming Classic). He expresses optimism about homebrew innovation and speculates on Jersey Jack Pinball's Harry Potter release timeline and manufacturing capacity.

Key Claims

  • Alice in Wonderland has been delayed again toward end of February/beginning of March

    high confidence · Don discussing Dutch Pinball production delays and factory status

  • Alice in Wonderland pre-orders include 500 games with 2500 deposits through Coin Taker, with an end-of-year deadline for non-refundable deposit returns

    high confidence · Don explaining the pre-order structure and deposit policy

  • Dutch Pinball needs to produce approximately 50 games per month to meet 2025 quota with ~10-month build window remaining

    medium confidence · Don calculating production requirements based on remaining time and quantity

  • Barrels of Fun has produced at least 801 Labyrinth machines, nearing their 1,000-1,100 unit production target

    high confidence · Don referencing Labyrinth #800 and #801 unboxed at Pinball at the Beach

  • Jersey Jack Pinball's Harry Potter is rumored to go on production line soon with potential boxes by Texas Pinball Festival

    medium confidence · Don discussing Pinball at the Beach gossip and manufacturing timeline speculation

  • Avatar Collector's Edition units were expected week of January 24th for domestic shipments

    medium confidence · Don checking with contacts about his personal Avatar CE delivery timeline

  • Spooky Pinball has launched a dedicated Discord community that has become very active

    high confidence · Don describing the new Discord channel and encouraging community participation

  • Cuphead from American Pinball (game #7) is allegedly still in development

    low confidence · Don citing rumor courtesy of Naps Arcade with caveat about uncertainty

  • Game 8 is still supposedly in American Pinball's plans following Cuphead

    low confidence · Don mentioning what 'we're hearing' about future American Pinball games

Notable Quotes

  • “I listen to everything. And so I want to put some more out there.”

    Don @ opening — Establishes the rationale for this episode: filling a perceived content void in pinball media

  • “It's like decorating my train set, like I'm Gomez Adams or something, man. I'm all about it.”

    Don @ ~6:30 — Summarizes Don's philosophy on pinball mods and customization; aesthetic appeal and personal expression

  • “The thing is fantastic... it does look better than the actual badass hammer that's in the game.”

    Don @ ~13:00 — High praise for Diddy Pinball Mods' craftsmanship on Metallica Remastered modifications

  • “I like big buttons and I cannot lie.”

    Don @ ~18:30 — Humorous endorsement of Rocket City Pinball's Evil Dead start button modification; preference for tactile, accessible design

  • “A pinball machine, right? It's 500 parts or more. And you can't make a machine unless you have every one of the parts.”

    Don @ ~32:00 — Explains manufacturing bottleneck dynamics: single missing component halts production for all 500 games

  • “Maybe the areolas are what was missing, and that's holding everything up.”

    Don @ ~33:30 — Humorous speculation about Alice in Wonderland delays; demonstrates tongue-in-cheek community commentary

  • “Harry Potter is firmly planted in the frontal cortexes of uh of most of pinball uh humanity right.”

    Don @ ~55:00 — Asserts Harry Potter's cultural dominance and demand in the pinball market; anticipates record sales

  • “If Harry Potter doesn't end up making it at TPF and barrels can have their new game there and just steal all the attention, steal the oxygen out of the room.”

    Don @ ~48:30 — Competitive dynamic prediction: Barrels of Fun positioning to dominate Texas Pinball Festival if Harry Potter fails to appear

Entities

DonpersonDiddy Pinball ModscompanyRocket City Pinball (Andy/Rocket City Moz)company|personDutch PinballcompanyAlice's Adventures in Wonderland (Alice)gameBarrels of Fun (also referenced as Deep Root Pinball)companyLabyrinthgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball consumer confidence reported as 'dipped' significantly; company viability questioned following leadership/personnel changes

    medium · Don: 'I don't know what's going to go on and how that company is going to function... consumer confidence has taken a huge dip'

  • ?

    community_signal: Spooky Pinball launches Discord community as faster alternative to Pinside forums; first manufacturer to implement this strategy; high community adoption

    high · Don: 'Spooky pinball... they have their own discord channel now and it is absolutely blowing up on fire' and 'this is the first company that i've seen that's come out with their own discord'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Potential competitive showdown between Harry Potter (JJP) and Barrels of Fun's next game at Texas Pinball Festival; narrative of 'stealing oxygen from the room'

    medium · Don: 'if Harry Potter doesn't end up making it at TPF and barrels can have their new game there and just steal all the attention, steal the oxygen out of the room'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Don critiques Dutch Pinball's decision to acquire Papa Duke Alice IP instead of creating original public-domain adaptation

    medium · Don: 'I don't understand what they were doing going back to the Papa Duke... Alice in Wonderland, open source. Nobody owns that license'

  • $

    market_signal: Homebrew pinball section becoming 'breakout area' at major festivals; positioned as innovation laboratory with alumni feeding into commercial manufacturers

    medium · Don: 'The homebrew area is like the laboratory where ideas are bubbling up... the homebrew guys are doing' and noting Tilt Bob's progression from homebrew Elf to commercial Road Trip

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.094

0:00
I'm thinking I want to record a podcast. Hey, what's up everybody? Don's Pinball Podcast number 174. I've got a lot of things to talk about as there is currently a dearth with a capital D. A dearth of some solid pinball content. I listen to everything. And so I want to put some more out there. Let's get it broken down.
0:30
pinball drama modifications quarters and cash boxes oh hey Whitney Payton you in the booth? hit it wanna highlight some independent music here with Miss Whitney Payton friend of the show had the opportunity to share a stage with her solid girl man raps like fire and thank you for providing this intro man all right everybody so i have been listening to all of the current pinball content and i ran out i got to the end of the sidewalk mr shell silverstein where the sidewalk ends it's right here so in all fairness to the community we're gonna fill we'll do some void village is what we're gonna do here all right thank you guys thank you for the intro music okay so i got a lot of things i want to go over i want to start talking about some awesome pinball mods that i happen to come into contact with we'll start off with that and then we'll kind of go around everything that's currently happening in pinball my name is don i do a podcast about pinball i like to do two to three times a week and i split my time between here i do some bonus shows on patreon we do some live streams i do we are pinball we just recorded some fire this morning to follow up on that tariff talk first off can get some great feedback from that actually even though we did dwell into the political in as far as it affects pinball responsive and positive man no one else is doing that happy to help out and do that also happy to help out my friends and highlight some cool products so i like pinball modifications i don't like having a vanilla machine that's just me but like you know i get the thing out of the box and the first thing i'm thinking just like a cocktail dress i want to accessorize man now pinball companies they're not stupid right they go through and design all kinds of fun stuff let's take i don't know dungeons and dragons right just came out there was a really cool sculpt for a mimic chest that was going to be in this game over that left shot there where there's a one-way gate and a little little kick out saucer right and so you know for a variety of reasons trying to come in under the build of materials and and bringing the product to where it needed to be, that sculpt had to be removed from the production version of the game and replaced with a flat plastic, which, you know, it's fine. It doesn't take away anything that necessarily interacts with the ball, but it would have been cool. So the pinball company's not dumb, but they kind of come out with a commercial product for everybody. So things like this get removed, and when the mod community can step up and replace those things, oh, I get the warm fuzzies, man. It's just like decorating my train set, like I'm Gomez Adams or something, man. I'm all about it. So I delve into this myself. I've got a little printer farm at home. I love the challenge and the creativity of coming up with things, even things that I see other people make. I try to recreate them myself just to learn, just for fun. You know, I'm not really putting things on Pinside Shop anymore. I'm just kind of creating things and then moving on to the next thing and then the next thing. And then, you know, friends and family, they see these things and they want some. And so I provide them to my friends. So if I talk about something you're interested it in let me know i'll hook you up but you know i don't have a a robust production facility that being said i'm still a fan of mods and the mod community and when i see somebody put something out that is beyond my ability to create uh my warm ticklies get activated and that got activated by mr diddy from diddy's pinball mods cool guy tom to his friends um i just recently came into possession of some mods he made for metallica remastered one of the greatest games have come out in the last 12 months oh my god this game is fantastic so this guy came out with two things and they look they looked good when i saw pictures of them but it wasn't until i had him in my hands like i really comment myself in real meat space on how cool these things are so what he's constructed is replacement hammer for the game as well as a whole graveyard scene uh for that you know triple uh drop target magnets graveyard area get the cool multi-ball master puppets domain back there and so i like when you know these sculpts look like something i could have got out of a model shop like like professional production quality when i first saw these released i thought this guy has recreated the hammer from metallica remastered it already looks really cool like a carved rock face with the four characters in it like how can you improve upon this and then i got it and it's like a round solid you know barrel structure with a skull and like a helmet on it and the way it's it's 3d printed but then the way it's finished like it looks like a sculpt man the thing is fantastic and so i got this thing in my hand and i gotta say now that i've been able to look at it myself and hold it it does look better than the actual badass hammer that's in the game so take a look at it if you're a fan of metallic remastered like i am even better than that is this graveyard scene uh you know there's like uh some some cement brick posts there, some gates, some cemetery stuff, some little light-up torches that are done in there. The whole thing looks like something out of a really cool diorama or model or sculpt. It fits kind of what would be in the vision of the artist and creator of the game before they then had to come out with a commercial product that was actually going to make money. So check these out, Diddy Pinball Mod. Let me know what you think. I think these are great. I think the gameplay is great without these mods. They're not necessarily interactive with the ball. But, like, if you want to refine this game, these are just fun. These are just fun. And that's not all. I was at pinball at the beach, and so was Andy from Rocket City Pinball, Rocket City Moz, maker of, you know, just the purveyor of start buttons. Man, if you need a start button or a launch button or a coin door reject that just specifically is made for your game, like, this is the wizard that makes them, right? He inspires me. You know, I try to create my own things, too, but I can't quite match his professionalism. and his design. And when I looked at what he had for Evil Dead, just maniacally how fast this guy came out with this, the start button for Evil Dead, I had to buy it after I saw it. I kicked around the idea for about an hour and then walked over the table. I'm like, here's $55. Give me this start button. So it's not just a start button. He's recreated the entire clock. So what he has done is recreated the clock from the film, the clock that's up there on the play field at the top of the under play field window, and and it's a three-dimensional clock with the actual clock face as the start button and it glows it's transilluminated i love it spooky pinball you know i love your games but you got the tiny recess start buttons and you know when i when i drain my three balls which happens quite a bit and i want to start another game i'm reaching and i'm fumbling man i'm searching for the button you know you're in the heat of the moment and you're like you know just reaching around out of sight like where's the button man just trying to find the button this is one i can feel there's tactile feedback it protrudes from the cabinet and it's right there nice and big and round i know stern's got big round buttons that are easy to find on the fly the spooky ones you almost need a little bit of a roadmap to find it unless you really looking and in that heat of the moment i like big buttons and i cannot lie what can i say so andy thanks for that And because you did such a good job on that I went ahead and picked up the launch button too Just a nice little upgrade Not necessary, but gosh, it looks nice. So go check that out, man. I like mods if it's not something that I have the ability to create myself. Like, that's one that I definitely want, you know. I will spend six hours rather than spend $20 on something if I can figure out how to reverse engineer it and make it. But something like this, it would take me probably a couple weeks to figure out how to do this, and it probably still wouldn't end up finished as well as his is. So I'm giving him all the praise. I love this damn thing, and I get giddy every time I start a game. It's like, let me drain this last ball so I can reach down and find my big button, man. I love my big buttons. So what else is going on? Did you guys hear that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was delayed?

  • Barrels of Fun's next game is rumored to be Fifth Element, Dune, or G.I. Joe

    low confidence · Don noting rumors are 'running all over the place' with Fifth Element being supplanted by Dune, now G.I. Joe

  • “The homebrew area is like the laboratory where ideas are bubbling up. You know, things that corporate companies wouldn't take a risk on, the homebrew guys are doing.”

    Don @ ~45:00 — Validates homebrew ecosystem as innovation incubator and career pipeline to commercial manufacturers

  • “I don't understand what they were doing going back to the Papa Duke... Alice in Wonderland, open source. Nobody owns that license.”

    Don @ ~34:30 — Critiques Dutch Pinball's acquisition of Papa Duke IP for Alice, questioning necessity given public domain status

    • Jersey Jack Pinball (JJP)
    company
    Harry Potter (pinball)game
    Avatargame
    American Pinballcompany
    Cupheadgame
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Evil Dead (pinball)game
    Metallica Remasteredgame
    Texas Pinball Festival (TPF)event
    Midwest Gaming Classic (MGC)event
    Pinball Expoevent
    Twippiesevent
    Wormholevenue
    Papa Dukeperson|project
    Naps Arcadeorganization
    Marco Specialtiescompany
    Trident Pinballcompany
    Carrie Hardyperson
  • ?

    event_signal: Multiple major pinball events scheduled: Twippies (Feb 2025, Houston), Midwest Gaming Classic (April 1-3, Milwaukee), Texas Pinball Festival (spring 2025, Frisco); potential game announcements/reveals at each

    high · Don: 'The Twippies are returning... next weekend, Saturday' and 'Midwest Gaming Classic April second third fourth' and Texas Pinball Festival scheduled with expected Barrels factory tour

  • $

    market_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball Harry Potter demand described as higher than Avatar; potential return to 2020 sales peak levels; all 5,000 LE units and 1,000 CE units anticipated to sell

    medium · Don: 'Harry Potter is firmly planted in the frontal cortexes of most of pinball humanity' and 'all 5000 le's will be made all thousand ce's will be made'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Don recently hired by Spooky Pinball (mentioned in prior context); now working on game design/prototype development while maintaining media presence

    high · Mentioned in KB context; Don attending Twippies and other events in capacity of industry insider

  • ?

    product_strategy: Alice in Wonderland delayed to end of February/early March with only 10 months remaining to meet 2025 production goal of 500 units; requires ~50 units/month production rate

    high · Don: 'the game's been delayed once again towards the end of February, probably beginning of March' and 'they'll need to be kicking' 50 games per month

  • ?

    product_strategy: Barrels of Fun next game strongly rumored as Dune (latest intel), previously Fifth Element; planned reveal potentially at TPF or factory tour

    low · Don: 'What have we heard? Fifth Element was the early leader. That's been supplanted by Dune. Now we're hearing G.I. Joe'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: American Pinball Cuphead (game #7) and game #8 allegedly still in development; expected Midwest Gaming Classic reveal; sourced via Naps Arcade rumor mill

    low · Don: 'There's this rumor and this is a courtesy of nap arcade uh cuphead from american pinball game number seven is allegedly still in the works'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Manufacturing bottleneck dynamics: single missing component (sculpts, boards, etc.) halts entire production run across 500+ machines

    high · Don: 'A pinball machine, right? It's 500 parts or more. And you can't make a machine unless you have every one of the parts'

    • 8:41
    All right. I'm not going to do a victory lap or trounce on this game. This is a game that I'm happy with it. It looks fantastic. It plays okay, and I'm not compelled that I need to have it. All of those are good things for myself, my budget, my game room. I can't wait for this game to get made and get out on location so I can go play it. If a friend of mine has one, invite me over so I can play it. But this wasn't something I needed to have, right? And so that is translated into this guy is a stern slash spooky slash J.J.P. Schill, whatever. because I saw this one game and I didn't like it enough to go buy it. So I'm not ready to curb stomp this thing like, ha-ha, look, these guys can't make a game. I got friends that have this game on order, and they're really enthusiastic about it. They want to get their game. I want them to get their game, right? So that being said, the game's been delayed once again towards the end of February, probably beginning of March. and now if you'll remember there's 500 of these 12 500 games with 2500 deposits i believe through coin taker and there may be some sub distros for it and for this dpx experience and if you don't get your game by the end of the year you can actually request your non-refundable deposit to be returned so there's a ticking clock there i like that they offer this you know because if you're waiting in 2026 for this game you got an easy way out and and i love it i love that I love that idea. So apparently, you know, a pinball machine, right? It's 500 parts or more. And you can't make a machine unless you have every one of the parts. So invariably, there's something that's missing, not in stock yet, maybe got delivered and then wasn't quite to spec and had to be redone. I've heard of this happening before when you go ahead and order sculpts. A lot of these are made overseas. and then you really don't know what you're going to get until the box actually comes. And you open it up and it's like, my God, we've got 500 of these things and there's six fingers on the right hand. It's supposed to be six fingers on the left hand. What the heck are we going to do, right? So then that delays everything by months and months and months. So probably a situation such as that. But it sounds like Dutch Pinball is working on at least the cabinets and what they do have. Pre-building these things out, you can probably wire most of the play fields. You can build the cabinets for sure, get the speakers in there, and then whether it is a sculpt, a board, a tallywhacker, whatever, a 3D sculpted start button, whatever it is, once that comes in, then production can go on. They say they're still hoping to meet their 2025 quota. That, as each day goes by and nothing's leaving the factory, that becomes a taller and taller order. We're now going to have, at hopefully most, a 10-month build window for 500 games. 50 games a month is where they'll need to be kicking. Likely they won't hit that right away their first month. Spooky pinball, when they're up and rolling, hit like 40 games a month or something. So, you know, to crank these out of a new game that needs to be produced, I don't know, man. It seems daunting. I wouldn't want to be in this position. But I do like that they're at least being transparent enough and saying, hey, the reason you haven't seen unboxings because nothing's left the factory yet. So as we go into the summer, yes, people have been predicting that you won't see games leaving until August. And while I see where they're coming from, I'll still remain optimistic on Alice's Adventure in Jelly Lake Wonderland. Maybe the areolas are what was missing, and that's holding everything up. And they decided to surprise us and actually include it in the game. We'll see. Remains to be seen. I will still say, though, I mean, what are they really getting with this whole John Papaduke thing? Did they really need this design? Alice in Wonderland, open source. Nobody owns that license. It's public domain now. Did you have to go back to a half-baked idea and then try to fully bake it and then create this thing when you could have just – just take the idea and the essence from it and just create your own thing, right? I don't understand what they were doing going back to the Papa Duke. The games that came out were, by and large, fairly good. The ones that didn't make it out are tragic stories of misadventures in pinball. and were they really great because of his design and his involvement or was it really great because of the rest of the team and the resources that he had at the time remains to be seen either way i want my upper play field to have some flippers and the jackpot alice jackpot and the weak low flow toilet buck eject just it didn't it didn't compel me to to want to get back at weight and line again um but we'll see when is this game going to make its appearance again wasn't it pinball at the beach is it going to be a tpf is it going to be a midwest gaming classic Are we not going to see it again until Expo? If we don't see it again until Expo, how many games are going to be available? Are they going to be in boxes for people to pick up? All of this remains to be seen. And I'll continue to cover it because I want them to make all 500 of these Alice's Adventures in Areola Land, get them out of the factory so we can get the next game in there. And from what I'm hearing, it's still supposed to be, I guess, Back to the Future, maybe? This is like the shakiest rumor. like the foundation just seems unfirm and i'm not sure exactly when we're going to expect to see this next game or even if dutch is doing it dpx is doing it where are they even building these things dpx was supposed to be a facility that was required across the street from the main dutch warehouse and the idea was dpx could be built over there and then the dutch pinballs could be on the line over there but then i don't know what's going on we'll wait and see as i see some more but for sure delayed if you're still waiting and it's january 2026 are you asking for a deposit back at that point i guess we'll have to see what the rest of the market has um i know there's people that would probably jump out of their pulp fiction le deposits right now given that it's been like two years since release and they have just hit their halfway mark i will say game looks good but i don't know well we'll we'll see we'll see what happens what else happened to this week well spooky pinball friend of the show uh they have their own discord channel now and it is absolutely blowing up on fire hello everybody i'm from the internet and so is discord and discord is a fast messaging app but it's better than it's it's like if you took whatsapp and you took like an internet forum and made them have a baby and just have like a quick way to interact it's like pin side but faster and and better in just about every way so it's an app you download it you go on these channels right which function like threads like spooky has their own thread or channels well they have their own thread on there with they have their own discord with channels on it i should say right now there's only one but you can add more just like you would add topics in an internet forum and instead of having to scroll through you know a whole page of comments then hit next and go to the next page to hit next it's just a constantly rolling quick response like you know here's a quip Here a response with the creators of the spooky pinball games and all the fans and the detractors are all in the same spot just like participating in this more rapid fire conversation It makes a great way to interact I started a Discord channel I don know about nine months ago or so and it been churning along rolling fantastically People can drop in, drop out, leave comments. If I've got anything to advertise or announce, I could put it there in its own channel. Like, it just works. So if you're a little bit savvy with that Android or iPhone that you have, check out the Discord app and look at this as a much faster way to interact without having to scroll through pages of forum topics you know from like a pin side i like pin side i trolled forums back in the day but this is a much faster way to kind of get content and interaction and share photos and things and post them in a much more rapid fire manner and so far this is the first company that i've seen that's come out with their own discord uh service it's free join it it's awesome um look for links to join email somebody that's a member uh download it and search you can find it super fun man i mean i i i'm on there like all day now it's like what i do um i still don't understand instagram it's fun to go on there the ai generated stuff is completely nonsensical and i love it uh but it's confusing for my feeble brain discord i can understand so check that out congratulations are in order to the translate and lit frame winner from the evil dead unboxing uh winner there helene you got your prize delivered i put photos up there so i unboxed evil dead the other day so in conjunction with spooky pinball for the donation of the Translight and Brad at Lit Frames for the Lit Frame donation. And the fact that she jumped in the chat with the quickest correct answer to the minutes of theatrical length of Evil Dead. She won herself a prize. She got it. Congratulations.
    17:23
    People win with On Spin the Ball podcast, man. It felt good. Felt good to do that. Gave out another Translight. Gave out a bunch of t-shirts and such. Super fun. I've got the print shop kicked up. So if you need to get yourself a Don's Pinball Podcast t-shirt. You want to pick your color, pick your size. Everything is now in stock because I'm printing locally. The quality is so much better than what I was getting before. If you need yourself a shirt, email me at donspinballpodcast.gmail.com. $25 shipped US. I ship worldwide. Maybe kick in an extra $5 if you're in Austria or something. That's going to cost $30 to ship it. I'll make sure you're decked out, man. I'll probably even send you two shirts. Heck, send me an email if you want some stuff. What else is going on so there's this rumor and this is a courtesy of nap arcade uh cuphead from american pinball game number seven is allegedly still in the works to the uh enjoyment of all the boys and girls across the world um game is uh hopefully going to be pretty fun and very impressive once people actually see it especially given the pedigree especially with everything else that currently exists out there on the market i think it'll fill a nice little niche well we see this at the midwest gaming classic april second third fourth it's that weekend there the first weekend of april um fun show spooky pinball is always there um there's a kingpin is there with a bunch of stern games and jgps and everything else and then uh equal size of the pinball and gaming area is a whole retail hall of vendors selling every kind of anime anything plus there's professional wrestling going on too it's such a cool little show takes place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. So go check it out. Get yourself some cheese curds. And while you're in town, go take yourself a selfie photo with the bronze Fonz. They have a bronze statue down by the river, life-size of Mr. Arthur Fonzarelli from Happy Days. It's called the Bronze Fonz. Look it up on Google Maps and go get yourself a selfie with it. Hilarious is what it is. Milwaukee, cool town. Get yourself a cheese hat. And if you're going to be at the show, there may, in fact, be something new from American Pinball? Maybe. I hope. I hope we'll see that. And I hope Game 8 is still in the plans from what we're hearing. If you haven't checked out the Pinball News podcast, Pinball News Magazine, Pinball Magazine News that Houston and Martin A. have do every month, there's a fantastic half-hour, 45-minute interview with David Fix post-American Pinball, which is just invigorating. Go listen to that for some insights from like, you know, after the aftermath of the complete gutting of everything there. I don't know what's going to go on and how that company is going to function. Remains to be seen. I know consumer confidence has taken a huge dip. And I think one thing that they could do to help rebuild that is to actually have a game out that's fun to play, that's in boxes, that's readily available. And hopefully we'll see that at MGC. Maybe you'll even see me there if I'm hanging out, to be honest. i think it could be fun moving on also before we get to mgc there's a texas pinball festival like there's two tent poles of the uh the expo year right of the festival year in the world of pinball expo in october takes place in schaumburg illinois essentially chicago it's home to all the manufacturers in pinball um ever at least everybody's in driving distance of there and it's like the big corporate show that you're going to see you know representatives and seminars and all that business um we've seen elton john roll out there uh during that year labyrinth made its debut there like it's a show that you don't want to miss as long as you're not banned or something the other show of the year is texas pinball festival which takes place in frisco texas essentially the dallas metro area in an embassy suites where it's been for the last i don't know forever years and this one it's not in chicago it has more of a fan festival feel to it uh where it's mainly just everybody getting together and playing pinball uh marco specialties is there courtesy of stern uh with the stern games and jjp games were there spooky brings their own booth every year and it's always highly attended and then you got the tournaments that are going on and everything else like it's nuts uh but it's more of like a fan festival whereas expo is a little bit more corporate i think there's room for both they're both fun you know you can enjoy walt disney world and universal studios orlando there's room for both they're different and they complement each other well so this year shape it up to be kind of awesome you know there was that harry potter rumor will she won't she still don't know exactly if it'll be there um i think you flip a coin either way to be honest at this point what i will say is that you know especially with what we saw at expo and tpf last year the homebrew section of this festival is not going to disappoint i've heard some of the stuff that'll be showing up there there'll be new stuff at the homebrew area some some new devastating stuff that you definitely want to check out uh my game won't be there quite yet uh but from what i'm hearing from some people that are bringing some stuff i'm gonna spoil the surprise but some cool stuff is gonna be there uh so get down i know last year at tpf we had uh friday the 13th was there saw was there uh we'll see what else shows up new and returning from other shows i'm excited man uh it's always fun to go hang out with the the fast board people aaron down there um yeah trident pinball and and everybody in that homebrew community it's like its own microcosm of a show within a show man and it's becoming like the breakout area you know as you're wandering around and you're playing some new games playing some old games playing the games that carrie hardy's made over playing the new spooky games hanging out with the jjp games over there uh maybe there'll be some barbecues and Hopefully they're playing better than last year. But not only that, you wander over to the homebrew area and it's like, all right, let's go do some of this again and see. It's like the laboratory where ideas are bubbling up. You know, things that corporate companies wouldn't take a risk on, the homebrew guys are doing. And then people from the homebrew area are going to the major leagues and working for the commercial guys It awesome You know Tilt Bob started as a homebrew guy with Elf and now is gracing the world with Road Drip man
    23:38
    The flippers will be a little stronger. We hit the ramps. Can't wait to see. Hopefully that game's there too. Haven't heard for sure yet, but I think it would be kind of a miss if it wasn't there. So I'm excited about the homebrew area at TPF. What else is coming up, man? The devastation is not stopping in February. The coldest month of the year. We're socked in with snow here in Wisconsin, but the pinball fire is hot, and it's warming my tootsies, let me tell you. So the Twippies are happening next week, man. It's Sunday night as I'm recording this. Next weekend, Saturday, the Twippies are returning, but not at CPF and not in March, but in February in Houston at the Wormhole. Jamie, shout out. It's had a string of great interviews this week, everything from Albert Agar to Steve Bowden and Cool Toys on there. I'm getting all caught up in my Wormhole. Love it. I appreciate the content getting out there. I love to listen to stuff while I'm driving around, man, or working on the games. Or just put them in the headphones while you're playing games. I tend to play better. Super fun. So I get to go down to the House of Jamie, the aforementioned wormhole, my first visit down there. So I'm excited about that. I'm excited about seeing the show and what happens. If I happen to get mentioned at all, I will be completely over the moon. but I absolutely am not expecting anything other than some tacos and an interesting show and play some pinball games. The other thing that's going to happen though, that I'm also like 50% excited about it's like 50, 50 is the factory tour of barrels of fun. I heard that's going off. I haven't got any like firm final details yet, but I know for a fact that they've produced a minimum of 801 labyrinth's adventures of wonderland, right? Their debut, David Bowie game. because at Pinball at the Beach, labyrinth number 800 and 801 were unboxed down there. So they're coming to the end of their run. They were going to make at most 1,100 labyrinths. They were kind of saying probably between 1,000 and 1,100. So now that they're at the end of that run, they're going to need another game out soon. The rumors are running all over the place. What have we heard?
    25:40
    You know, Fifth Element was the early leader. That's been supplanted by Dune. Now we're hearing G.I. Joe. So I'm interested in seeing takes on any one of those titles. I don't know for sure what they're coming out with next, but I think it's going to be soon. And TPF is also soon. And it seems like, you know, if you don't make TPF, the next major show would be in October, where there's going to be a whole lot of other collateral things going on. And if Harry Potter doesn't end up making it at TPF and barrels can have their new game there and just steal all the attention, steal the oxygen out of the room. And it'll be like a battle between barrels and spooky. I can't wait, man. I can't wait for it. So apparently we're going to get a factory tour at least, which is phenomenal. And if there's something new down there, man, I'm just going on record. I would love to take a little butcher's look at a new game if that were to metatastafest itself. So JJP. Let's talk about these guys. So they're heavily rumored and just, like, spoiled by, like, the manufacturers and designers at this point, man. eric walking around uh pinball at the beach dressed out in harry potter gear epic troll if that game's not coming out man but i think at this point they're like you know what avatar sales are avatar sales uh let's get to the big time and this is going to be a huge game for them this is a game that all 5 000 le's will be made all thousand ce's will be made maybe we'll see a return of a standard edition maybe later on like demand for this game more than anything else is like higher than anything like this is the game that should be back to 2020 levels almost i don't think that'll necessarily go that far but harry potter is firmly planted in the frontal cortexes of uh of most of pinball uh humanity right and so the talk about around the recent pinball the beach was that this game was gonna go on the line soon and was gonna be in boxes by the time tpf came around so they could release this game and also have some on at least a few locations and then they could just start slaying in these alleys out the door now i'm sure that's a great thought now is it going to happen i'm hearing kind of both ways uh probably it was the plan at some point but then if you remember the avatar collectors editions were planned for november 2 at some point and that didn't happen well if it did happen it was imports that were slowly going out and it wasn't until january february that we started to see the domestic ones going out um i checked back with some contacts as i do have an avatar ce on order and i heard week of the 24th which is like two weeks hence today um that i would expect to be the earliest that i could get a call that hey come down and get this thing take it home and and create a blue dungeon uh downstairs in your house so i can see how they may have said hey you know let's get all these things done and then we'll get some Harry Potter's and we'll get it out. But then, you know, deadlines get missed. You know, at least they're not missed by two years, you know. So if Harry Potter is not at the Texas Pinball Festival, it's probably because of, you know, the production production. All right. Production going to production. And then when would we see it again next? You know, would they wait all the way until October or would they just do a release and then, you know, call all of us up? man if you called me and said hey harry potter is going to be available tomorrow for for media wonks to go play um i would get off of this night shift and drive straight to the factory and go play it so i think we could launch it that way we listen like i'm part of the team um you know remains to be seen but if it misses tpf then i guess you know sometime in the late spring we would probably see it i i would expect to see something by may um especially before the next stern cornerstone is dropping, especially if it's that banana breath breathing ape, man. How fun and fantastic would that be? Well, that is the news as I understand it now. I wanted to go out and fill in a bit of that void because I've been refreshing podcasts all the last couple of days and like hardly anything new is jumping up. Thank you, Jamie, for coming through in a pinch. Now, I did just drop two episodes with my friend Singez over at We Are Pinball. Check that out if you haven't had a chance yet. There's just completely some fire on there. It's quickly becoming like a very pragmatic and almost controversy-provoking podcast, and I love it. I love to keep it real, keep it shrill, keep it international, keep the perspective wide, man. It's super fun. So check that out at WeArePinball. Email us over there at WeArePinball69 at gmail.com. Like, follow, subscribe. Patreon members, you guys fuel us, man. We got Patreon episodes over on WeArePinball. I got them over on Don's Pinball Podcast. I'll probably drop some more fire there as I hear new things. The rumor episodes went over fantastically. Check out the Discord. If you need some gear, email me, whether it's a mod, a T-shirt, any color, any size. $25 delivered in the U.S. I got it to you, buddy. I got it to you. We delivered to Canada. I delivered to Timbuktu. If you're over there in a dugout canoe, I will hook you up, man. Let's come back in with this Whitney Payton. Go check her out, man. She's on YouTube. She does fire stuff, man. Completely independent and just amazing. and thanks again for joining here at Don's Bimbo Podcast. We're going to keep the ball rolling, the silver ball, heading into the spring. Hopefully it warms up soon. Take care of yourself and each other.
    30:58
    Whitney, take it. Yeah. Got bigger, I'm the only. HP, I see that I'm sweet. So who's asking loose cannon, roof damage like Bruce Banner? There's a new captain, new slash bitch. You laughing like you matter. My dudes, no chapter. You nap on true rappers. Got a strike. Felix and Willie, we're going to step in a ring like sex. I am the alpha and I am the wolf.