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Stern Pinball's Transformers | Reveal Podcast

LoserKid YouTube·video·46m 20s·analyzed·May 20, 2026
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Stern's Transformers pinball revealed with mechanical toys, Frank Welker voice acting, and deep G1-themed rules.

Summary

Stern Pinball new Transformers G1 pinball machine, designed by Elliott Eisman and Elizabeth Gerum, was officially revealed on the LoserKid Podcast. The game features large mechanical toys (Megatron's articulating cannon, Soundwave ball launcher), original voice acting from Frank Welker (Optimus Prime and Megatron), and deep rule design centered on five main missions, tech spec card collection, and a planned split-flipper head-to-head challenge mode. The game draws inspiration from classic Transformers G1 cartoon (seasons 1-2 and the movie) and includes collectible tech specs, Dinobot missions, and multi-tiered wizard modes.

Key Claims

  • The game features five main missions, each highlighting different playfield areas (drop targets, spinner, ramps, stand-up targets)

    high confidence · Elliott explaining the mission structure directly on the podcast

  • Original voice actors Frank Welker (Optimus Prime, Megatron, Soundwave) recorded dialogue for the game early in development

    high confidence · Elizabeth and Elliott discussing script writing and voice recording process

  • Challenge modes including 'Optimus vs Megatron' split-flipper mode will not be available at launch but will be added via software update a few months after release

    high confidence · Elliott explicitly stating: 'However, it's still under development. So at game launch although the game is extremely finished it won have any of the challenge modes until a few months after'

  • Megatron's cannon articulates both horizontally and vertically (two-axis motion) and can load via backbox

    high confidence · Elliott describing the cannon mechanics in detail during gameplay discussion

  • Optimus Prime was considered for movement/articulation but was cut due to reliability testing concerns; focus remained on Megatron's cannon feature instead

    high confidence · Elliott: 'We tried to go into making him do something, but it became a little bit too much of a reliability issue when we were running through the testing'

Notable Quotes

  • “I wanted big toys. Just it felt more correct... if you want to have a pinball shooting out of Megatron's cannon, well, it is an inch and a 16th. So everything else kind of drives the scale from there.”

    Elliott Eisman@ 4:38 — Explains the design philosophy behind the large mechanical toys and how pinball size constraints drove the physical scale of the game

  • “Free play is the right of all sentient beings.”

    Elliott Eisman (quoting game dialogue)@ 30:47 — Favorite in-game line that shows how the Transformers theme is integrated into rules presentation and voice acting

  • “One Shall Fall felt like its own thing when I was designing it... The rules change based off of which missions you play beforehand. So if you play all of them are awesome. They're like, all of them are game breaking.”

    Elliott Eisman@ 21:28 — Highlights the design depth of the wizard mode and how prior mission completion affects difficulty and strategy

  • “We didn't have enough Bumblebee in the game... We mimicked what happened with the 2011 Transformers on the captive ball. So the captive ball is the Bumblebee spell out.”

    Elizabeth Gerum@ 13:43 — Shows how the designers pulled from prior Stern Transformers game (2011) for inspiration and addressed content gaps

  • “If you play just two missions, which is the requirement, then the game opens up. So it's like the drop targets suddenly matter... draining no longer hurts you. Yeah, huge game changers.”

    Elliott Eisman@ 21:44 — Demonstrates how mission progression unlocks gameplay mechanics and changes difficulty scaling in the wizard mode

Entities

Elliott EismanpersonElizabeth GerumpersonJosh RooppersonScott LarsonpersonFrank WelkerpersonMike KizilatpersonBrendon SmallpersonZombie Yeti

Signals

  • ?

    announcement: Official reveal of Stern Pinball's Transformers game on LoserKid Podcast with full designer discussion of mechanics, art, voice acting, and rule design

    high · Elliott Eisman and Elizabeth Gerum present on podcast discussing finished game design with Pro/Premium/LE tiers announced

  • ?

    design_innovation: Large-scale articulating mechanical toys (Megatron's two-axis cannon, Soundwave ball launcher) integrated into playfield design to emphasize toy franchise aesthetic

    high · Elliott: 'going into it, you know, I knew this is a big toy game, right? Transformers is a big toy franchise. So I wanted to kind of lean into that and kind of copy a lot of that style to the game. So, of course, it's going to have big toys. It's going to have big motion.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Mechanical toy scale in the game is directly driven by pinball diameter (1 1/16 inch), with everything else sized proportionally from this constraint

    high · Elliott explaining how pinball size determined Megatron and Soundwave scale: 'if you want to have a pinball shooting out of Megatron's cannon, well, it is an inch and a 16th. So everything else kind of drives the scale from there.'

  • ?

    code_update: Challenge modes including Optimus vs Megatron split-flipper mode planned as post-launch software updates arriving a few months after game release

    high · Elliott: 'However, it's still under development. So at game launch although the game is extremely finished it won have any of the challenge modes until a few months after'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Stern secured original voice actors Frank Welker for Optimus Prime, Megatron, and Soundwave from classic G1 Transformers series for new dialogue recording

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.139

0:00
Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. I am Josh Roop. With me, my co-captain. Scott Larson. And it's reveal day, Scott. And this game looks amazing. If you want Transformers, Scott, where are you getting it from? Call Zach in a cold minute, flipping out pinball. Also, if you want all the accessories, which are going to be amazing, go ahead and reach out to them. New, used games, whatever. They can hook you up. Sperry B. G. G. Geese Key. Okay. Yeah. Like M-1-E-K-E. I think I have to remember that. Okay. So today we have Elliot and Elizabeth here today to talk about Transformers. So welcome to the show. Oh, hello. Thanks. Yeah. I got to say first before we kick this off, Elizabeth, my wife wants you to know, she thinks it's kick A that you're a lead co-designer in this male-dominated industry. And she's like, that is so cool. So just a little kudos before we get going. I'll take that. It is pretty cool.
1:21
Okay. This game looks amazing. Elliot, your background is mechanical engineering. You've been doing that for Stern for a while. You did John Wick. You're now onto Transformers. This game looks amazing mechanically. It just, like between the Megatron shooting the ball out of the cannon, you've got Soundwave launching the balls out of his chest. I mean, this game looks like it leans into your expertise. Is that what you used to lead into this game? Yeah, I mean, going into it, you know, I knew this is a big toy game, right? Transformers is a big toy franchise. So I wanted to kind of lean into that and kind of copy a lot of that style to the game. So, of course, it's going to have big toys. It's going to have big motion. It's going to have all of that sort of stuff. And so just to highlight the cool Transformers, we had to put that in there. And so like I definitely leveraged my expertise to be like, okay, I know exactly what to do with that. Let's go. We can run down that path a little bit quicker versus like having to research it or like figure out how it works or whatever. So yeah, it was a big, it was a big help on this game for sure. What was your opinion on getting exposed to this? Because it's probably a lot different for you getting exposed to a retro, a retro theme as an adult, as opposed to me as a kid buying the toys. Right. Yeah. So I'm a little it was a little past my prime. So I was I was like in that lull after it all after all kind of happened and before the next the next big wave and like the 2000s for the Transformers. So I missed that. So it was actually a lot of fun going back, watching all the episodes, going to like TF Wiki and like learning on all of the like the fun stuff that the fans love. And that was just a really cool experience just to kind of relearn it, how everyone else grew up with it. I got to relearn it and find it for the first time, which was really fun. Yeah, same. I'm now I can honestly say I'm a huge fan of Transformers where before I didn't I knew about them, but I didn't really have a lot of input on it. But over this last weekend, I watched Bumblebee, which I did before because I knew Haley Seinfeld. And I'm like, yeah, she's great. So I watched it for her. But now I watched it for Transformers. And like, I'm like, well, they played the touch. You got the touch.
person
Brett Z Rubinperson
Zach Sharpeperson
Stern Pinballcompany
Transformersgame
John Wickgame
Hasbrocompany
Deadpoolgame
D&Dgame
Jawsgame
Metallicagame
Attack from Marsgame
The Knights of Unicronorganization
LoserKid Pinball Podcastevent
Transformers G1 TV Seriesproduct
Flipping out Pinballcompany

high · Elizabeth: 'I was really hoping early on that we'd actually get them because it was a question of like, are they available? Can we get recordings from them? Are they still willing to do stuff? And we got that answered pretty quickly.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Game design follows a 'rule of fives': five main missions, five tech spec colors, five combiners, five parts per combiner, creating internal rule coherence and interactivity

    high · Elliott explaining the design principle: 'I have this like rule of fives when it comes to the game. There's five missions, five tech specs, five combiners, five parts to collect a combiner. So it's kind of fun to be able to like mix and match how I wanted the game to kind of work with itself.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Wizard mode 'One Shall Fall' features escalating difficulty and scoring based on prior mission completion, with all planned inserts (Tech Spec Mania, Combiner Multiwall, Rescue Optimus) included in final game

    high · Elliott: 'Every mode that I had intended to be in the game is in the game except for the final wizard mode. So all of the inserts, Tech Spec Mania, Combiner Multiwall, Rescue Optimus, all of those kind of deeper modes are in the game and they're really fun.'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Prime Training mode designed as objective-based challenge (e.g., shoot right ramp repeatedly in 60 seconds) to create shorter, more social gaming experiences for groups vs. long single-player games

    high · Elliott explaining Prime Training: 'It's an objective style, you know, shoot the right ramp as many times as you can in a minute... I have this like rule of fives when it comes to the game... So it's kind of fun to be able to like mix and match how I wanted the game to kind of work with itself.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Optimus Prime articulation/movement feature was cut from final design due to reliability concerns identified during testing, with focus shifted entirely to Megatron's cannon feature

    high · Elliott: 'We tried to go into making him do something, but it became a little bit too much of a reliability issue when we were running through the testing and the early testing. So we decided to focus more on Megatron because that was a really cool feature that we had.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Transformers pinball reveal on LoserKid Podcast with direct designer participation and detailed discussion represents major content event for pinball community

    high · Official reveal with Elliott Eisman and Elizabeth Gerum discussing all major game features, mechanics, and development philosophy on long-form podcast

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Game covers G1 cartoon seasons 1-2 and original 1986 movie, avoiding post-movie continuity to stay with recognizable classic characters; some movie-themed challenge modes added mid-project

    high · Elizabeth explaining scope: 'the main game covers season one and two of the Transformers TV show. So we were going basically up to the movie because that's kind of when the show changed tones, the characters all changed. So we wanted to stick with the original, like what people know.'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Tech spec cards function as collectibles that interact with multiple game systems: shot multipliers, combiner part acceleration, color-matching missions, and tech spec mania mode unlock

    high · Elliott explaining tech spec functionality: 'The tech specs lead directly to tech spec mania... if you collect three of every color, which there are five colors of tech specs, then you start tech spec mania... The other thing that tech specs do is it helps you collect combiner parts faster.'

    • 3:40
    That's so cool. And, you know, I'm like, whoa, was that Braun? Did he just get destroyed? Like, whoa. So, I mean, I think now I'm like, I know the inside jokes. I get excited with everybody else. Sperry B. G. Was that intentional as opposed to shrinking them down and having like 10 of them, like Lord of the Rings style? Right. No, like I said before, going into it, I know I wanted big toys. Just it felt more correct. This is more of a feeling than anything. And then also just the natural size of a pinball. You know, if you want to have a pinball shooting out of Megatron's cannon, well, it is an inch and a 16th. So everything else kind of drives the scale from there. So I knew Megatron would be big and then Soundwave, same idea. If you want to shoot balls out of his cassette deck, it has to be big. So they all kind of the scale kind of led from there. And I mean, we know it was a big cast of characters. It was just like, you know, interviewing people, being like, hey, which characters do you like? And, you know, one of our subject matter experts, Mike Kizavad, you know, he's a huge Transformers fan. And, you know, if it passed his sniff test, we're like, OK, we're on the right track here. Speaking of Megatron's cannon, this thing is insanely cool. It's cool that it articulates over, shoots onto a ramp. Does it come back towards you and shoot straight directly at you, or is it just towards the ramp? It has a couple functions. It can shoot across the playfield into the ramp to your left flipper, but it can technically shoot in any position it's at. Once the ball is loaded, it can go anywhere. We try to do it so it's more player friendly, like shoot at the left flipper. So return your left flipper or the upper flipper so it can actually rotate around. And as he moves, his cannon moves down and kind of shoots at the upper flipper. That'd be brutal in tournament, like just shoot directly at your flipper. We did practice it. We had a person software so that he was just like going back and forth with the flippers. You could control them and then the action button fired it. So we were kind of deciding of like, OK, yeah, this is pretty cool. But it was also like, oh, that's straight down the middle. That's not cool.
    6:19
    We don't want to be too brutal, you know. Got Jack Danger in the back corner with his beer can controller controlling the flippers on you and shooting ball at you. I get you.
    6:29
    Okay, so does the Begatron cannon, it goes side to side. Does it also go up and down? Yeah, so in the same motion, there's a little piece that articulates his cannon up and down as well as he rotates. So he's got a two-axis function to him. And it looks like it loads in through the back box, and it comes in, so when it loads, then it can just move around, right? Yeah, exactly. So there's a couple moments in the game where you're intended to load the cannon, then you play through the mode or play through the feature, and then he'll fire the ball either across the playfield or at your upper flipper. So I think one other question that kind of comes from the video and whatnot. Does Optimus Prime, is he just standing there or does he articulate or move at all? So he just stands there. We tried to go into making him do something, but it became a little bit too much of a reliability issue when we were running through the testing and the early testing. So we decided to focus more on Megatron because that was a really cool feature that we had. So yeah, it was a thing that we made a decision on. So I walk up to the game. Am I an Autobot? Am I a Decepticon? Am I trying to balance both sides? Tell me how that works because I think it'd be kind of cool if I could be a Decepticon trying to take down the Autobots. Yeah, I mean, that was actually an early conversation that we had on do we want to allow players to play as a Decepticon? And pretty early on, you know, in order to like craft like the most perfect game, it felt like the right answer was to go with play as an Autobot and stay as an Autobot. There are like Decepticon features for sure, like Starscream is obviously like a big character, so there's a Starscream mode and Soundwave is awesome, so he has a Soundwave thing. Thank you for watching. Decepticons.
    9:29
    Thank you for watching. I noticed it's the Dinobots, right? Okay, that actually surprised me a little bit because maybe I know about, aren't they the ones that like assemble like Voltron and make like a super dinosaur or is that a different thing? Different franchise. Okay, all right. There are four of them and they are awesome. And it was when we were watching the show and we're trying to gain footage and and have like cool Autobot moments. It felt like the Dinobots were always like doing a lot. And there's like the most footage was coming from the Dinobot side. So like pretty early on, it was like it made sense to have a Dinobot feature just because we knew we're going to have a lot of assets to work with.
    10:45
    So it was like, yeah, I'm going to have this like little side motion side mission area. And this is going to be the area. And then Elliot took it. Sperry B Like do you have the physical ones Because I played with those Like everyone wanted Megatron because you could actually transform it into a gun that you could use in your hand which I still understand But then they, like, in the later iterations, they changed them into, like, a spaceship or something. I never really understood any of that. Yeah, he turned into a tank. And it's funny because like when we first started, like I said, our subject matter expert, Mike Kizilat, brought in his giant Transformers collection and his Unicron. He's got a Unicron that he has. Oh, I didn't think you'd see that. Oh, yeah, it's nuts. And then also the Robleson toys. So like he has it all. So we got to play with all the early stuff like really early on. And then I just got kind of been going to Walmart or Target or whatever and just getting whatever Transformers ties I have. So I have like several Megatrons and Optimus is just floating about, you know, now. Yeah, I have a Soundwave. My friend gifted it to me. Shout out. Thank you. It's the best. It's my fidget toy at my desk. It's like my only toy and I love it. I think that the artwork looks very good as well. Who did the artwork? And the LE kind of looks like it takes inspiration from Gomez's Transformers. Is that what kind of led some of that as well? I mean, so who did the artwork? It was kind of a team collaboration.
    12:48
    There's a lot of people that touched the artwork. So I can't really name one artist per se, but it was definitely under the direction of Zombie Yeti. So he had a big hand in it. But yeah, it was a whole host of artists that did it. And to kind of answer your question there, there was some nods to Gomez's Transformers for sure. That was one of the early things we looked at. Well, one for inspiration, like two, like what should we not do as well? So there's like the split armor is definitely a nod to like, okay, they did that before. Let's do that again because it worked out pretty well.
    13:25
    And then the Bumblebee rule too that you came up with later. Yeah, we didn't have enough Bumblebee in the game. Because if you remember, the G1 show didn't, it doesn't have the same Bumblebee as everyone knows. Like, I only knew Bumblebee and Optimus. And I watched the show and I was like, what the, who is this character? You didn't know he was a Volkswagen bug? Yeah, he also was in trouble all the time. He had to be saved a lot. But he did make it into the game as a feature. And we mimicked what happened with the 2011 Transformers on the captive ball. So the captive ball is the Bumblebee spell out. And he has a great animation. Okay, but Soundwave, did Soundwave actually talk? I don't think he did. Yeah, he did talk. He had a distorted, like, robotic voice. Yeah, he was called by Frank Welker, who also did Megatron. Now, you design a game and you have the Pro, Premium, and LE. So, walk me through, like, what do you get if you upgrade to the, you know, what do you get on the Pro? What do you get when you upgrade to the Premium? And what are you getting with the LE? Okay, so the Pro, I mean, it has all of the same shots. I'll just say all the same shots for both games. So, you have a very left ramp that feeds an upper flipper. Spooky Pinball Inc. Thank you. I say the light shows. Brett Rubin was the one who did most of the light shows for the game, and he knocked it out of park. He actually started with the expression and speaker lights before doing the play field games. Yes, it looks fantastic. I think it's one of our best-looking games. Yeah. There's no limitations, right? You could put the upgraded lighting system.
    15:58
    Can you put it on the Pro? Can you put it on the Premium? Yeah, so we don't have the accessories launched yet, but it's the same cabinet for Pro, Premium, and LE. So yes, you can put the accessory armor lighting on the Pro and the Premium. The LE obviously will come with it. So if you wanted to, you could swap out your LE armor for accessory armor, but I would keep the LEs because it's much cooler. It's cool. With the Cybertronian text on the side too. Yeah. There's a hidden message on the Autobot side and the Decepticon side. I won't share. Oh, just kidding. If you know Cybertronian, you can read it. I do not. So one of the features I noticed that was going on in this game is called Energon cubes, if I say that correctly. Can you kind of explain that? It looks like it's tied to the spinner. How does that work? Yeah, Energon in the show was most of the time Decepticons were trying to gain energy from the earth somehow and they like made these cubes to like do their dastardly plans or whatever. But often in Transformers media, like in video games, Energon is something that's like the collectible item that like does good things for you. So we, you know, ported that over here. But yeah, so you right off the bat, the spinner is lit. It's got this like fun little strobing light show. So it's like it really wants you to shoot it and it feels really good when you do. So you fill up an Energon cube and the cubes are then enable you to be able to play the easy version of modes. So once you start, you know, you go into Megatron Scoop and if you don't have an Energon, you just start the mode. It's, you know, off to the races. But if you do have an Energon cube, it asks you, do you want to energize this mode? And if you energize it, you'll get an easier but less valuable version of the mode, or you can keep it. And keeping Energon will affect scoring in one of the many wizard modes. So there's some strategy there. But yeah, if the spinner's lit, you want to shoot it.
    18:02
    Walk me through how many modes, how many planned modes. And you're going to usually, you know, there's six or eight modes and then you go into the mid-tier modes and then you go into the advanced deep mode. Man, how did you know? I'm stealing my secrets over here. Oh, sorry. Yeah, so there are five main missions, which are like the main modes in the game. And each one of them feature or heavily feature a different part of the play field. So you have like the drop target mode and the spinner mode and the ramps and stand up targets. So those are the five. And then once you play two modes, just play them. You just have to start them. And modes start lit. All you have to do is knock down a drop target, get the ball to Megatron however you can, and you start your mission. So there's no chopping woods there. Once you play two, you have one shall fall lit, and that's your first little mini wizard taste. I love that mode so rocks. It's great. Elliot's idea with, hey, Elizabeth, I want Optimus and Megatron to fight each other. And I was like, you got it. So that's that featurette mode. You can keep playing more missions and that will affect the scoring by a lot. Oh, my gosh. You're going to be like 200 million points if you play all the modes. So that's kind of like one track over here. But there's the dino missions. The Dinobot stuff also has untimed missions. So you just start one and it lasts the rest of your ball. You'll be having these little fun objectives on the side.
    19:34
    There's also in-lane modes that are Autobot and Decepticon themes. So it's like a frenzy and a hurry up. And then there's some multiballs scattered around the playfield and such. So cool enough. Every mode that I had intended to be in the game is in the game except for the final wizard mode. So all of the inserts, Tech Spec Mania, Combiner Multiwall, Rescue Optimus, all of those kind of deeper modes are in the game and they're really fun.
    20:07
    With, you know, Megatron fighting Optimus, okay. It seems like it's leaning a little bit on Deadpool and Deadpool is one of my favorites where it's like you can go ahead and start one of the fights. But if you work a little harder and you get, you know, Wolverine, if you get Domino, if you get all that kind of stuff, then you can really blow up the game. And were you borrowing a little bit on that inspiration or was this a different approach? I don't think of that specifically. I feel like a lot of people want to connect this to like some other game. Like someone played it and they're like, oh, it's like Dragon Multiball because it's like a very – Dragon Multiball from D&D because it's like a – the ball saver is always lit. So you're going until one of you dies and the flippers kill. So it's similar. I think it's more similar to that, I suppose. But yeah, going into it and the strategy of like, do I want to play this now or like, you know, get more to go into it? I don't know. I don't think I, One Shall Fall felt like its own thing when I was designing it. There's other parts of the game that do feel like, oh yeah, that kind of is like two fighters over here and over here feels like Godzilla.
    21:20
    But One Shall Fall is a little bit more of its own thing. It has a little bit of one hand of the king, actually. Yeah. The rules change based off of which missions you play beforehand. So if you play, all of them are awesome. They're like, all of them are game breaking. I played the game once without, well, I can. I play the game all the time without any missions beforehand, and the mode is impossible. But if you get just two missions, which is the requirement, then the game opens up. So it's like the drop targets suddenly matter if you play MicroBots or if you play Prime Target, draining no longer hurts you.
    21:58
    Yeah, huge game changers. But all of them feel very powerful. So if you play all of them, though, you're going to be in the mode and out of the mode in no time. The One Shall Fall is separate, though, from you guys have come up with this split flipper head-to-head Optimus Prime versus Megatron mode as well. Can you explain that a little more? Yeah, so this was actually where the naming got confusing because Optimus versus Megatron used to be the mode in the game and Autobots versus Decepticon was outside. I was talking with my artist and he created like a super sick like intro and it said Optimus versus Megatron. I'm like, oh man, I guess we got to call it that now.
    22:37
    But yeah, okay, so the split flipper mode and there's a few other challenge modes or what I call challenge modes that are completely separate from the main game. So you're not going to find a way to happen into it and then be like, why is this, what's going on? It's like a whole different 16-bit mode feel. So it's accessible in the gameplay menu. However, it's still under development. So at game launch although the game is extremely finished it won have any of the challenge modes until a few months after It in development right now We have art We have music Thank you for watching It requires two people to play. The one person as a Decepticon will play on the right side as the right flipper, and the Autobot Optimus side is on the left side. And different shots will be red and purple. And no matter who hits them, so you might end up hitting yourself if you're not careful, you'll hit the shot and it knocks off health on your other guy. And the action button will control the side flipper.
    23:58
    Which is fun. Which is hilarious. So you kind of have to fight each other physically on the game as well as on the play field to get control and beat each other up in a street fighter feel.
    24:10
    So yeah, I'm excited to get that in the game and start sharing it with everybody. I think it's going to be a real winner.
    24:18
    Sounds like it. It's a novel idea. It's hard to get it across. Yeah. I just imagine two people at the bar fist fighting over the center button.
    24:27
    Taking right back. So, and then these challenge modes that you're talking about, I noticed this is similar because I assume it's tied to the cyber coin wallet, which I associated with like the Jaws teeth. Is that true? Is that like where you're going with that? Yes and no. I'm definitely stealing the code from Jaws Teeth in the game. But it is the same idea where in the main game you'll earn the cyber coins, but the challenge modes themselves won't be locked behind them. You can play them if you're not connected, or if you are connected you'll be able to play it. But the idea is that once you collect 10 coins, if you're out on site somewhere, you'll be able to have the option to play one of the challenge modes for free. So it's like your reward for playing, you know, like you can't do it all in one game. You'll have to play a few games. And it's like, hey, do you want to play more pinball? Do you want to play pinballs that are a little different? Here's some options. Do you want to, if you're on a two-player game, play Optimus versus Megatron. If you're on a single player, play Prime Training. Or if you have the topper mode, you know, the topper mode will be available. Or the 40th anniversary mode, right? So that those will all be kind of separate from the main game. But accessible all the time. But like if you have the challenge coins, you'll be able to be directed to the gameplay menu. Well, not it will just like jump you and it will bypass the gameplay menu. So I feel like a lot of people don't know how to navigate it. But once I feel like once that, you know, they play it once, they'll want to play it again. How do I get there? Oh, I can access it through the gameplay menu. I don't have to collect 10 more coins, but it's still a fun reason to be able to, you know, earn coins and play more pinball. We love that. So if I'm understanding correctly, because like out on location with like Jaws, if I wanted to play those challenges, then you have to pay extra money to play those. But with this, if you have the cyber coins, you just automatically, if you're out on location, you sign in with your insider connected, you could play those modes free of charge as long as you have those coins. Yeah, and I'll put it on an adjustment. So if an operator doesn't want to have that ability on their game, then you can switch it off. Thank you for watching. All these little things that just kind of the fun. I'm fast forwarding to the end to a part and I can just have this mini game with my friends. In some ways, that's a little more fun for me as a social game than it is for me trying to get the most points because it seems to be it's played for laughs, right? It's kind of like, you know, the shark is broken mode or, you know, whatever like that. It's just, no, it's hilarious. Sperry G. G. I'm like, wouldn't it be awesome if the game created this for you? So that's the idea for prime training is an objective style, you know, shoot the right ramp as many times as you can in a minute. And we have free balls, right? Or like, and it'll give you tips along the way too. So it's like helping you get better at pinball because that's how you get better at pinball is playing more and being more intentional of like, okay, catch the ball and hold it for 10 seconds as quickly as possible. Go. You know, whoever does that the best wins. And so instead of playing a 40 minute game, and that's the thing, once you get good enough, you don't want to play with other people, because I'm like, well, you're just gonna be standing there. But how about we play prime training instead? And it'll be like, I'll have 30 seconds, you have 30 seconds to do some objective, and we'll see who did it better. And then, for me, that's the type of pinball that I really, really love and enjoy playing. And yeah, I wanted to create an opportunity to like, share that with everybody. And I'm like, yeah, do it. We have a, we, there are three friends of us that have a big collection and what we've started doing is saying, okay, what we are doing, we are learning this game. So today we're going to go in, it's whoever can start that mode first or who can do this because it does make it a little different as opposed to someone playing Metallica and getting like a billion points because you're just kind of waiting around watching them. I'm impressed, but I'm not really having much fun. Yeah, no, but go into Metallica and get Fuel, or like go and attack from Mars and start Martian multiball. You know, like who does that? Yeah. It's fun. Great. I've got to say, this game looks like pure 80s nostalgia.
    29:46
    You guys really did hit on all cylinders with this game. How was it working with the original Optimus Prime and Megatron voice actors? How do you even make a script for something like this? Well, first of all, it was a lot of fun. I was really hoping early on that we'd actually get them because it was a question of like, are they available? Can we get recordings from them? Are they still willing to do stuff? And we got that answered pretty quickly. I think it was like within the first half of the project. Yeah, we recorded them early. Yes. The script was kind of finished before the game was remotely finished. It was pretty stressful, actually, to be like, okay, do we have anything? Does he say lock is lit? Yeah, all that stuff. But yeah, Mike Kisvet was the one. Well, we had two main script writers, I would say, is Brendan Small, who has done some of our games, and Mike Kisvet. And Mike definitely got them to record all of their iconic lines. I think my favorite line in the game is, free play is the right of all sentient beings. Which I'm like, that's pretty good. Yeah. And because Mike also worked on the 2011 Transformers, so he was able to pull all of the previous work he did for that game too. So that kind of helped influence a lot of our script now. And then on top of his vast knowledge of stuff, it just, it was, it, we, we got the script. Right. We put the burden on him.
    31:19
    What does this whole game cover? Is it, is it just the TV series? I know you talked earlier about like the touch, Which is pure 80s cheese, like salad and rock. What all does Transformers cover? Yeah, so the main game covers season one and two of the Transformers TV show. So we were going basically up to the movie because that's kind of when the show changed tones, the characters all changed. So we wanted to stick with the original, like what people know. Like if we came up with a game and it was like Galvatron and Rodimus Prime, everyone would be like, what? I don't really remember. So we kind of stuck with that vein and then we got access a little bit midway through the project to do some of the movie stuff. So then we kind of also have a special mode with the touch probably. We're still kind of figuring that out. Yeah, we have plans of the 400 challenge modes that I have planned in time. That is one of them. So yeah, it will be using the movie assets and the movie, the touch. And we have some custom music from a band called the Knights of Unicron. Thank you for watching. Optimus dies at the end and he really dies. He dies like 10 minutes in. I know.
    33:00
    Yeah. Who is like smoke coming out of his mouth each time? Oh, yeah. They're all brutal. All brutal deaths.
    33:08
    Did you ever see the Goldbergs episode on that? No. Where he was like super excited to go and watch it and then he's just like shell shocked. He's just like, wait, what? They killed him? Yeah. This is why Hasbro is doing an apology tour this year. Yeah.
    33:24
    Okay, if you were to be an Autobot or a Decepticon, which one would you be? And which one would you be? I'd have to be Soundwave. I would choose Soundwave too, it was the coolest. It's cool. Yeah, it's the cassette tape that I grew up with, yeah. I think for me, I relate to the character more of Wheeljack as an Autobot, so that's definitely me. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, unfortunately the Decepticons are cooler. They can fly. I mean, come on. They can fly. They can turn into planes, which Superion, they do.
    34:07
    Can I be a Stunticon? Those are awesome. Decepticon again. They get all the cool toys, okay? Yeah, I want to be one of the Stunticons. Okay, but it's the same thing. I want a double-sided lightsaber. How come a good guy can't have a double-sided lightsaber? I mean, you can do it in Knights of the Old Republic, but you can't do it in like the canon stuff. I mean, come on.
    34:30
    Some of the bad guys always have the cool stuff. They do. Because they're allowed to think outside the box. They play by their own rules. Mirage would be cool Yeah Mirage would be cool So one feature in this game too is tech spec cards Can you explain those a little bit more Yeah those are the main collectible items in the game I knew I wanted something that you can collect a lot of because I wanted to fill out the game So I asked Mike I was like what do you think And he like yeah there these tech specs that were on the back of toy packaging It be cool if we can work that into the game So yeah, that's like kind of like, so this game doesn't just cover the show. It also covers like kind of the toy feel and how you're like, you know, putting things together. So the tech specs lead directly to tech spec mania, which is kind of recursive. But if you collect three of every color, which there are five colors of tech specs, then you start tech spec mania, which like the whole play field lights and you can kind of go crazy. The other thing that tech specs do is it helps you collect combiner parts faster. So collecting three tech specs gives you two combiner parts, and you need five combiner parts to form a combiner. So there's that. And then the tech specs also work as shot multipliers if you beat a mission that is the same color. So this whole game kind of interacts with itself in this way. I have this like rule of fives when it comes to the game. There's five missions, five tech specs, five combiners, five parts to collect a combiner. So it's kind of fun to be able to like mix and match how I wanted the game to kind of work with itself. So yeah, there's like three main purposes for tech specs. And that way it's the shot multiplier, helps combiner part collection, and starts tech spec mania, which is a multiple. So like the shot multiplier is kind of like similar to Foo Fighters or something like that? I'm trying not to make Foo Fighters, but it just works so well, because hear me out. If I were to say the difference, the difference would be Foo Fighters likes the left ramp every time you play LA or something. The tech specs are random. They're randomized on the play field when you start up a game. It's the same for every player, but the center orbit is blue. So if you're a strategic player and you're like, oh, I want to light my center orbit 2x because I have this plan, you might have to do a different mission because blue, it might be red this game, which is prime target, might be yellow, which is gold lagoon. So you kind of have to be on your feet and kind of analyze the play field. And it will allow you to have a more variable game even in tournament.
    37:19
    Unless you're on competition mode and then I'll write the same text back every time, which is lame. Fairness and all that.
    37:29
    So how many multiballs? There's one main one, which is Transformers Multiball, which is the scoop right next to Optimus. You just handle a bunch and then it gets harder past that. Then there's Dinobot Island Multiball, which is a two-ball multiball. It's basically Mummy Multiball, where it's like switches and you can do add-balls from Iron Maiden. Except the jackpot multiplier is an exponential. So it's two to the n power, where n is equal to the number of balls in play. So if you have four, it's two to the four.
    38:03
    That's not the question that you asked. That is an interesting math problem that you gave us, though. Yeah, just like wrap your... You can get a billion points on a shot if you're really crazy.
    38:16
    There's Combiner Multiwell and TextFact Mania. And then Rescue Optimus ends in a multiwell, I think. And then...
    38:24
    I think that's it. It might be one on... Oh, and One Shot Falls a multiwell. Yeah. Sounds like there's a lot going on in this game. How do you balance all that? Because you don't want it all going at the same time.
    38:40
    A lot of times, you know, you kind of have to force like once you start something, you're locked out another one. So you can't stop. You can't stack multi balls together. But there was a lot of iterations of this game and I had enough time to do so. Thank you for watching. How's the development of the accessories coming?
    39:56
    Well, they're actually pretty far along. I don't know exactly when they're going to release, but they are pretty far along and they look pretty badass. Yeah, really good. We got software in for topper stuff. We got lights going and I don't know how much we can talk about it.
    40:18
    Well, we know there's going to be accessories. Sperry B. Let me guess, you have Megatron and Optimus Prime up there and you unlock a mode where they transform into a pinball machine. How did you know? That's so crazy.
    41:02
    Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, it's really good. It's so good. I wish I could talk about it. Let's just say that. Yeah, I don't know. We have, I don't know. It's really, it's really good. I'll say there's some custom art and it is fantastic. Phil Golit was the guy who did the custom art for it and it looks really good. And he's already done with it. And I'm like, whoa, too fast, too fast. I'm not ready.
    41:25
    Well, you know the question that everyone wants to ask with every release since Jaws now, why don't the Transformers eat the ball?
    41:33
    Yeah, well. They shoot the ball. Well, I got to say, this game looks fantastic. I wish we were there with you because I am jealous of everyone playing this game today. It just looks so good. Like, I'm happy for you guys. It looks fantastic. You guys did such a great job of making such a cohesive game that looks and feels fun. Oh, no. It is. It's hard to work on the game because I just want to play it all the time.
    42:02
    So what's one aspect of the game that we are not smart enough to ask about that you're like, why didn't they ask about this?
    42:09
    Yeah, you covered a lot of it, man. I mean, the text effects was some deep cuts here. You did your homework. Yeah. Did you have anything? Not really. I mean, you guys covered pretty much all of it. Yeah, we covered the four challenge modes, most of the main gameplay.
    42:29
    Combiner Multi-Mall is super fun. It's so much fun. It's so silly. I had a lot of fun on this game, guys.
    42:36
    You're going to have a great time. Yeah, it's cool. Does Megatron mock you a lot? Because I think you need more Megatron mocking. It's really funny. Yes, it's really good. It's pretty good at knowing exactly how to mock you at the right time.
    42:51
    Oh, I can't wait. Once we get that in, I think it'll be an appropriate amount of mocking. That's what I love about Funhaus. It knows when to mock you and just the perfect one-liner. So I'm all about that. I'm all about games mocking. I want more mocking on games. It's true. I think the inspiration from Funhaus in particular. I think one of the speech calls might be pretty close. Thank you for watching. Cool. Well, if you want anyone bugging you, what's the best way to get a hold of you, Elliot or Elizabeth?
    43:52
    Probably just call Stern Pinball. They can forward the number if they want to get in touch with me that way. Otherwise, email me, Elliot Eisman, at sternpinball.com. That's probably the easiest way to find me. If you find anything wrong with the game, go to emailbugs.report at sternpinball.com. I would appreciate that. Otherwise, Elizabeth Dukieski at sternpinball.com.
    44:20
    If you love the game, my name is Elizabeth Dukieski. If you do not like the game, my name is Raymond Davidson. Suck it up. If not, I guess I'll just have to put it back here behind me. Maybe Iron Maiden needs to take a break for a minute. It's time to get your LE of Transformers, Scott. That's true.
    45:08
    If you want to get a hold of us, we are Loser Kid Pinball Podcast at gmail.com. You can get a hold of us on all the socials at Loser Kid Pinball. I won't lie, though. I only respond mostly to Facebook.
    45:20
    If you want some Silver Ball swag, SilverBallSwag.com slash Loser Kid. Our shoes are finally back, Scott. Yes. So excited. And apparently the Pope is wearing them. So, uh, thanks for calling for that. I'm hoping, I really wish that weren't, that weren't Photoshopped. It looks so great. You know, don't say that. Like this week in pinball got the, the scoop, man. So, uh, but other than that, Scott, give us our last words. You know what? I think, um, what is it? Autobots. What, what, what is their catchphrase? Autobots, transform and roll out. It's roll out. Yo, that's right. Roll out.