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Steve Bowden - Fun With Bonus - Episode 55

JBS Show·podcast_episode·1h 16m·analyzed·Feb 14, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Steve Bowden on competitive pinball, Fun with Bonus, and designing Barry's Barbecue Challenge

Summary

Steve Bowden discusses his 20+ year history in competitive pinball, his Fun with Bonus website and New Pinball Dictionary project, recent tournament experiences, and his work as co-designer on Barry's Barbecue Challenge for American Pinball. He reflects on competitive play strategy, game design complexity, and the challenges of working in the pinball industry while maintaining passion for the hobby.

Key Claims

  • Steve Bowden has IFPA tournament records dating back to 2004, with his first trophy being a second place finish at a Pennsylvania tournament

    high confidence · Direct interview statement: 'you have stats in IFPA all the way back to 2004?' 'I still have my first trophy.' He confirms this is 20-21 years ago.

  • Fun with Bonus started as a general video games and pinball website using Dreamweaver, later dedicated to daily pinball content beginning July 1, 2012

    high confidence · Direct statement: 'I think the day was January, no, it was July 1, 2012. I have to go look back into it. And that's when I started what I affectionately called The Streak'

  • Steve Bowden maintained a daily posting streak of 3,005 consecutive days on Fun with Bonus before stopping the daily requirement

    high confidence · Direct statement: 'The Streak, which ended up ending at 3,005 days in a row, doing something about pinball on the site'

  • The New Pinball Dictionary was created around 2012 to help new players learn pinball jargon and terminology used in the community

    high confidence · Describes the origin: 'I saw a post on, I think it was either Rec Games Pinball...people were discussing jargon...Maybe there's a way that I could like start something to organize these terms so that people who don't know about pinball can help get into pinball'

  • Steve Bowden won the Best Card Championship, requiring him to return for the next championship event

    high confidence · Direct statement: 'Because I won the best card championship, the last one. So I have champion's obligation to return.'

  • Barry's Barbecue Challenge represents a 40-year personal loop for Bowden from playing Space Shuttle at age 6-7 to co-designing a game with Barry

    high confidence · Direct reflection: 'It's like a 40-year loop of when I played Space Shuttle...now to design a game with Barry...And now to design a game with Barry that kind of takes some shape from Space Shuttle...That's like a 40-year loop of my life there.'

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm a pinball fan, so I want to tell people about pinball stuff.”

    Steve Bowden @ mid-episode — Core philosophy behind Fun with Bonus and his approach to content creation over algorithm optimization

  • “The dealer dealt me a king and a jack. I have 20. Okay, I'll take it. Okay. The dealer has 21. Okay, whatever. Fine. Okay. But, hey, at least I'm glad to start. I started hearing people say that the game is fun and they like to play it and it's really cool.”

    Steve Bowden @ late episode — Philosophical reflection on Barry's Barbecue Challenge being incomplete but satisfied with community reception

  • “You've got to lock in. Okay, I've got to last that round. I can't do that anymore. I've got to get better the next round.”

    Steve Bowden @ mid-episode — Reveals competitive mindset and the psychological demands of match-play tournaments

  • “I had a group of people who I trusted and cared about knew what they were doing...I'm gonna miss people's names you know jack hager who created the characters”

    Steve Bowden @ late episode — Recognition of American Pinball team collaboration on Barry's Barbecue Challenge

  • “Rush tell me to hit a red thing to change a non-red thing into a non-red thing. And that loss of color sense that messes with my brain”

    Steve Bowden @ mid-episode — Example of newer game rule complexity outpacing his traditional rules knowledge

Entities

Steve BowdenpersonFun with BonusproductNew Pinball DictionaryproductBarry's Barbecue ChallengegameAmerican PinballcompanyBarrypersonDonovan WadepersonJamie BurchillpersonDistrict 82

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Steve Bowden's Fun with Bonus website served as major community information hub for 15+ years, establishing him as trusted news aggregator and community voice

    high · 3,005 day daily posting streak (2012-2017), continued operation, referenced as foundational pinball content source

  • ?

    community_signal: District 82 venue experiencing tournament activity changes with live streaming rig removal but continuing tournament offerings including upcoming Summer Classic

    medium · Bowden noting fewer people expected but confirming attendance; venue still hosting 'big one' Summer Classic championship

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Best Card Championship format using varied equipment (precision flippers, halo flippers, gap flippers) creates variable difficulty across tournament games

    medium · Bowden discussing encounter with Godzilla (precision flippers) and Iron Man (gap flippers) requiring different skill adaptations in single tournament

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Bowden expresses concern about newer game rule designs (Godzilla, Rush) becoming overly restrictive and formula-driven, causing him to gravitate toward older titles

    high · Godzilla 'paint by number' characterization; Rush criticism of color-logic systems incompatible with traditional knowledge; preference for X-Men over modern equivalents

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Barry's Barbecue Challenge represents personal legacy project connecting Bowden's childhood discovery of hobby to game design contribution

    high · 'It's like a 40-year loop of when I played Space Shuttle...now to design a game with Barry that kind of takes some shape from Space Shuttle'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.228

0:00
Hello, my name is Jamie Burchill, and you are listening to and or watching our podcast called Wormhole Pinball Presents.
0:10
Today, I'm very, very excited to be joined by two great individuals. Today, I'm really excited to be joined by a very special guest. And today, I'm very excited to be joined by two awesome guests all the way from Arizona. Hello and welcome to another edition of our podcast called Wormhole Pinball Presents. I'm your host, Jamie Birchall, and today is episode 55, to be exact. And I welcome next to me my friend Donovan Wade. When I get nervous for a podcast, I bring in support.
0:43
So, Donovan, thank you for co-hosting with me today. Exciting guest today, sir. All right, someone I've shared the commentator booth with on multiple times, both at TPF and at the Houston Arcade Expo, Mr. Steve Bowden. Welcome to the Wormhole Vulturally, Steve. Hello, hello. Thank you for having me. This is going to be good. You're nervous. What is this nervous stuff? It's only me.
1:08
It's little old me. He could have done it without me, but like I said, when we have a guest on that I want to be a part of, I kind of… He slides his way in. Do you need some help this week? Yeah, that's how he does it, Steve. He goes, you need help writing? You need help with your script? And I'm like, no, I got this one. Are you sure? And he's like, yeah, you need to do this and that. So I pulled your stats today, Steve, right? Okay. Do you know that you have stats in IFPA all the way back to 2004? That, yes. I still have my first trophy. So, yeah, my first tournament was 20 years, 21 years ago. That's unbelievable. I got a second place at, I think it was a Pennsylvania tournament.
organization
Luke the Horniacperson
Space Shuttlegame
Dennis Nordmanperson
Ryan McQuadeperson
Godzillagame
Rushgame
  • ?

    personnel_signal: American Pinball team members explicitly credited on Barry's Barbecue Challenge, demonstrating collaborative design approach with named contributors

    high · Dennis Nordman, Ryan McQuade, Joe Sober, Casey Butler, Jessica Derballa, Jack Hager all mentioned as core team

  • ?

    product_concern: Barry's Barbecue Challenge experienced flipper durability issues during InDisc event, requiring post-event technical refinement before general circulation

    high · 'at InDisc, we figured out how to get the thing to last. InDisc, the Galactic Tank Force lasted the whole index...we figured it out. Oh, but we don't work here anymore'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Bowden acknowledges incomplete feature implementation on Barry's Barbecue Challenge with unfunctional lighting elements still in development

    high · 'there's still lights that don't do what I want them to do. But...I'll take what I can get.'

    • 1:56
    Yeah, I forgot the name of it, but, yeah, it was my – I still have that trophy somewhere. So, yeah, that's how long I've been playing. Time does pass, doesn't it? I guess that's how long I've been competitively playing. I should say that. Of course, I've been playing since whatever, but, yeah, that's wild that it's, A, that it's still up there, but I guess this is a database. It's just going to keep them up there forever. Yeah, sure. Because why not? But yeah, I still do remember that. I still remember that day. Yes. What do you mean? Whatever. How long how long have you been playing? Oh, well, it's my first my. Well, I guess this will be this could be relevant later. But why not bring it up now? It's like my first game played was Spatial. So that was my I think I believe I was six or seven when I went to the Union Flea Market in Vauxhall, New Jersey, which is now a home depot but that's that was my first game i went up and i saw the arcade games and i'm like okay cool i know about i think gallagher was out there i believe in some basketball game where you had to manually dribble the ball um and then i saw this pinball game which i hadn't i mean i didn't know what was going on until i saw somebody playing it and then my little six and a half year old self was trying to figure out what's going on and then finally i got to get up there and play it and figure out what to do and everything so yeah so that was my that was my first game was space shuttle six and a half so i believe it's that i believe it was then right i mean that makes sense okay well tell him how young your uh your your grandson is and well he's started playing 16 months he can't even speak he can't but he just grabs the he's got that's right machine oh he's got the training just get the training going now you know it's never too early you know he has a little tykes it's called a little tykes and all he wants is a ball so that's good that he's that's good that's good that's goals he knows he has a plan so he already has a plan he knows what to do this is good all right so you get starting off on the good foot this is nice watch out young guns oh here comes lucas all right let's get started uh these interviews are very informal steve uh we're just trying to get to know you a bit more for those at home, Donovan, start us off. Sure. So I talked a little bit about Fun with Bonus when we were chatting earlier. So tell me a little bit of how it got started. You know, what were you originally trying to accomplish with it? You know, how has it kind of changed over time? Because I know it's been ongoing and it's ever evolving. Tell me a little bit about it. My goodness, it has been going for a very long time. I remember when I first started, like, posting things on a website you know using you know a wizzy wig editor like wow what was it like dream weaver is that even still a thing i think i think they got bought by adobe or whatever but yeah that's that's when it was about video games video games and pinball so i'm like well what what name am i gonna use you know and when that could cover both and then when i heard about the concept of what fumble bonus was and who coined it with cameron silver and williams and all that and i was like okay i think i could do that and still cover both sort of things not not realizing that years later i sort of put my website seo recognition in hard mode by not having the word pinball in the title um it's really tough to get that concept out because it's not it's not really pinball like when you have when you have when you're advertising something usually have the thing you're doing next to it like xerox copiers it's copiers right or whatever the name is and then the thing well I didn't have that so I'm like okay well well it's in hard mode but I'm gonna go with it anyway and so I just it just sort of it's just sort of materialized over years and years of me constantly posting and I think I did just the skipping ahead a little bit but after I got into competitive play and doing it for a few years, I think I just decided, okay, well, what if I just tried to do it every day? Could I is there enough pinball news and happenings and whatever at the time? This is 2012, okay? Could I do it every day like with barring my schedule and putting in some cron jobs and scheduling and whatever to cover things where I couldn't do it? Could I do it every day? And that's when I dedicated, I think the day was January, no, it was July 1, 2012. I have to go look back into it. And that's when I started what I affectionately called The Streak, which ended up ending at 3,005 days in a row, doing something about pinball on the site just to get the thing out there and get some. get some and it was fun because i got to i got to be a fan and i got to publicize other people and see what everybody's doing listen to podcasts you know give a little bit of my opinion you know and by no means was i a journalist at all okay they're real journalists like pinball news you know whatever like i know by no means was what i think i was a journalist but uh let's see i I was and still am a very enthusiastic pinball fan. And so it just continues today. I just don't do it every day. But somewhere in that point, I think somewhere around the 2012, around that date is when the new pinball dictionary unofficially started.
    7:36
    So I believe I saw a post on, I think it was either Rec Games Pinball, something like that. People were discussing, I think people were discussing jargon or something. That's what's in my mind. Like I saw someone discussing general terms, and I'm thinking, well, wait a minute. Maybe there's a way that I could like start something to organize these terms so that people who don't know about pinball can help get into pinball. I was related to say poker, right? The only reason why I know what a big slick is is because of watching poker podcasts and them saying what a big slick is. Because I wouldn't know that that's ace king. I wouldn't know what that was if I didn't know anything about poker. So I'm like, okay, maybe that's another way to bring people into pinball is to explain some of these terms that are used in pinball. And then it became a little more informal as I started going around the country and seeing what other people used and what was common, right? And so, wait a minute, I was in Seattle and they said it, and then I was in Florida and they said it. That's the thing. But it's not a standard term. You know, it's like something like the one I just posted today about round zero, right? Round zero is something that I guess I had coined myself. I'm not sure, but it doesn't matter. That's what memes are. Like, it doesn't matter who did it originally. It's a meme, right? But then other people started using it. So I'm like, okay, no, I have to, that has to pass the nomination. It has to graduate to the main page. But the thing with the new pinball dictionary is that I'm not supposed, the goal is not for me to control it by fiat. it's supposed to be for the community that's why the reddit's there so if you if you have an idea post it on the reddit you know i kind of want to give it to the community and then use like the main page it's like the hall of fame sort of thing but but anyway i've been i'm off on a few changes but yeah i mean i'm continuing to do it today and you know i mean given recent events i have a bit more time to work on it uh and uh i do have a backlog of of new pinball dictionary definitions that i've not posted that i've gotten for people i just haven't done it yet like i literally can read you a couple of them if you want uh they're just yeah i got one for you a virtual which means you're choking religiously and never getting to the final let me yeah let Let me go to the notes. Oh, that's another good point. And that's a good point I want to raise is that, again, this is for the community. So you post that in the Reddit as a thing. But I've been trying to stay away from proper names. I've made that mistake.
    10:18
    No, no, no, no, no, no. That's saying there is it. Because, again, I don't want to rule this by fiat, you know.
    10:26
    So that's what I'm saying posted on the Reddit. But, like, think about it this way. Let's say you have someone who gets named for something, right, because they did a thing. And then they get famous for doing something else.
    10:38
    That's different. Now you're stuck, right? Like Tommy John. He was a hell of a pitcher, but nobody knows that Tommy John was a good pitcher because they only think of the damn injury. The Tommy John, right. But he was a hell of a pitcher, by the way. Right. So that's the reason why I, like, cringe at proper names, even though I had some proper names in the dictionary because they were on that original post. Or they're, like, super obvious, like the Elwynn, but the Elwynn's a problem because, like, Elwynn's also the greatest of all time. So there's the Elwynn, the position of the flipper holding. Right. Well, that one, yeah, the zero point. I really hope Muri wins a championship so we can just I really hope he wins a major he's gonna win a major and he's gonna do it in a specific way and then we'll give that to him okay but I'm just going to my notes like the MPD backlog right and I'm just gonna mention some words I have some definitions but words okay bunny hop bybreaker conveyor belt clueless crook train dead money donator dummy outlane flipper hop ghosting remember when that was the thing when ghostbusters came out with the lights and things so ghosting um yeah hammering homesick playing a game that you own and then at a tournament and doing harvel at it oh that's great um we have the john plunge joe plunge jane plunge like the plunge family which is basically like when you're playing when you're playing ping golf or something then you have to plunge an odd player and that player somehow gets more than you like in a game on paragon you know so oh john oh john plunged got this joe plunge so is that uh uh see uh juggling the Kirk pass, right? A little nine ball action, like you use the Kirk post to do a Kirk pass, which is the ball, you just let the ball go and bounce off the center post and go on the other side. That's Kirk pass. Name for the designer. Steve Kirk.
    12:56
    First you have to trust that it will happen. You have to trust it'll work. But usually it does the way the games were designed. the kinetic satisfaction liquid skill let's see magna drain let's see rando calrissian a random person starting a tournament let's get these random person starting a tournament pinball game especially someone who's not in the tournament
    13:32
    rando calrissian that's a good one um good one shatsing yourself you can imagine what that is could be shats the in like shatsing yourself uh skills with a z but that's kind of probably lost parlance past the early 2000s and everything ended in a z but maybe uh spray and play uh let's see turtling the usher type of drain then the big one one of the big ones is going to be hard for me to do is validation um you know when you haven't validated the play field. Like, I know how to describe it, but not quite. Like, I'm 80% there because I want to do it in a technical way. Like, if you read the way I did round zero, like, you'll read what I mean. Like, round zero is the first post on the site. If you read it, I'm trying to get it as perfectly as possible so that someone who doesn't know can kind of understand.
    14:26
    Validation is going to be hard. It's going to be hard to do. And finally, the walk of shame. so that's that's part of the backlog that's part of the backlog that i haven't posted yet that is most that has most likely graduated with all the fame but what i'll probably do is put it on the reddit first just so that it's on the record and then people can mess with it and comment and whatever and do everything and it's cool um so yeah so that's it and uh yeah so the new pinball dictionary continues when i think of it when i have time and when i you know sit down and want to think about something because especially for again for definitions like round zero like i really thought i got to think about that okay like how do i tell someone what round zero is can i like describe to them the pressure of trying to register for pinberg um like how do i describe that in a way that they know that yeah this is an elimination round like there were 240 something tickets right and there are probably a thousand people who wanted to register for that yeah maybe 500 conservatively right so at least half the field was eliminated on february 5th
    15:41
    right round one is until what july so right so half the field was i was lucky enough to get one again awesome uh but again i don't expect to it's not guaranteed so that's that's what i mean like I want someone to be able to see something like Round Zero or Simodranius or something like that and be able to kind of understand it without necessarily being in them all.
    16:05
    But, you know, but again, I don't want to treat this as if I am the Vince McMahon of this Hall of Fame thing.
    16:13
    Like, that's what the Reddit is for. That's what the Reddit is for. Please use the Reddit. if I see somebody who's mentioned something to me I'll put it in the reddit you know so that it's on there so that people can see you know I've done that too I haven't heard of that or whatever so yeah so that that's that but yeah it's it's continuing and I'm definitely gonna now that I'm on the record I'm kind of holding myself accountable for this backlog that's part of the reason why I brought this up so that it's on the record so I'm going to do this backlog And you know what I like that you said is, you know, you did this every day. And we think about our friend Coe at Quarter Drop. Yeah, he does one every day. He said, I have to drop a video every day in order to keep people engaged. And that's what he does. Even if he has a hard day, he's still dropping something, you know, and he's, I mean, his followers are crazy just because. Yeah, he does a great job and so do you, Steve. It's awesome. That's how you build. That's algorithm. Yeah, that's how you build. It is how you build. It's what we've been doing. And not every day we post, but every two to three days we're posting a video. That's good. As long as it's regular. If you're using the algorithm like – even if it was once a week, the algorithm likes once a week. That's what it seems like.
    17:32
    And again, sure, the algorithm is there, but the algorithm is sort of a second thought to I'm a pinball fan, so I want to tell people about pinball stuff. That's exactly right. So this site, Fun With Bonus is basically a collection of my bookmarks over the years. Hey, look at this. This is pretty cool. Hey, check this out. I like this. Hey, I heard this podcast. This is pretty cool. Hey, this was interesting. That's all it really is. It's just that for a certain time period, I decided to do it every day and not slack. And now I don't do it as often, but I still do it. But yeah, that's really what it is. It's just staying a pinball fan because I am. and it's not like uh let's switch to competitive pinball really quick what are your thoughts on the recent changes at d82 because i know that's a place that you went a lot well well uh as far as like the live streaming rig is not there anymore i guess are they not doing live streaming as many big tournaments as well yeah we right you play the states up there and right yeah but counterpoint they are doing one this weekend and yes i will be there all right there there is a triple this weekend there's a valentine's day triple so that that that is happening and i will hey i'm like cool i i got some time so i'm going up there is there going to be as many people as before probably not but i mean i'm sure the locals will represent and i like to be there because one of my favorite places to go so yeah i i definitely want to go and they going to have their summer classic because that on the circuit It just not announced yet But they going to have the summer classic and that going to be the big one So that's going to be the one. But once the Sundance was open, I was like, come on, let's go. I'm going to check out D82. I haven't been there in a while. So that's going to be fun. So three tournaments this weekend at District 82. If you haven't, you know, I don't know if the podcast is going to come out by then. It's going to come out Friday. Oh, really? perfect okay so it's friday so some of us are already at district 82 right now so go there and play friday morning real early so you got time to get over there you can go there let's go we're you know let's go play well i want to talk about competitive steve bad now you were one of the first podcasts i ever listened i used to listen to uh pinball players podcast it was uh jeff from uh up in portland maine and you were one of the first uh podcasts i ever listened to back in 2020. And, you know, every time I hear people talk about Steve Bonds, like friendliest guy in pinball, nicest guy in pinball. But I've seen you down here at the Space City Open, and you have a game face.
    20:08
    Because I have to try to concentrate. You are competitive. It's my constant, I have to like, okay, I got to lock in. It's like, okay, what's not going right? Okay, fix this. I got to lock in, got to qualify. So definitely, I mean, there's definitely a time to turn it on. but I mean at the end of the day it is a game so you know at the end of the day we are having fun but it's a sport so it's like a mixture of get in there lock in and also don't forget to have fun at the event you know you're at the Space City Open where there's other things to do so don't forget especially when you're in match playing you're kind of zoned in that area and you can't get out because you're in match play versus like a Herbstyle or a set-based like Indus where you can play a set and then leave and go eat lunch and then chill and then come back and play a set. But match play is different. You've got to lock in. Okay, I've got to last that round. I can't do that anymore. I've got to get better the next round. I've only got time to go to the bathroom and have water. Let's go.
    21:15
    Maybe that's why some people don't like those types of tournaments. They go to the Herbstyle where you just go in and plug away on a game for a half hour and then go have a beer and then come back and play some more games but yeah um it's yeah sometimes you gotta lock in but yeah i got my tournament i was getting my tournament scheduled together you know just making sure i get my accommodations done get it all done uh advanced gotta make sure i get my gotta make sure i get my flight back to yagpin uh Because I won the best card championship, the last one. So I have champion's obligation to return. So I'm like, okay, I got to go try. I mean, Luke the Horniac was about to sweep the whole thing. And he was in the final. Like, if I didn't win that game of, what was it, alien poker, he was ready to just take all three events. It would have been like maybe the greatest whopperization for one person ever. And I just happened to be in the way. Oh, OK, thanks. I got in there. I heard those games are hard.
    22:29
    Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's like games aren't blocks. Yep. Touch tills. Yep. Inconsistent tills. Yep. and then let's get to the thing I learned about which I mean which deserves I don't know if it's an official flipper like what is a halo flippers the ones with the gap it does the precision flippers which are a little bit shorter right and it is that what are they what are those flippers called with the gap in them I think it's called the halo like halo flippers it's like they're flippers but it's not a solid flipper there's a hole in there and it changes the yeah I would go find a picture because that was in the best card like people were playing Godzilla with the precision flippers and I think the Iron Man was in there had the gap flippers in there standard flipper size but it had the I'm like or was it just a surprise no you could look up I mean you knew it was there it's just like you know just whether you're going to play it as part of your card because it was best card so it's like okay you're going to play it and I'm like huh so yeah And so not only are they set difficult, you might run into a couple of those too. So, yeah, it was rough. That's ridiculous. That's why I'm so glad I suck sometimes. One thing that makes you such a great competitive player is really this encyclopedic knowledge that you have for these games and these strategies. How do you retain this information, Steve? How do you retain all this knowledge? The answer is I don't really. The answer is I try to branch off a few things that I know and then see if I can remember other things. Because there are, like, some of the recent games have run away from me. Like, I am no longer the master of rules that I used to be because I run into games like Rush, which tell me to hit a red thing to change a non-red thing into a non-red thing. and that loss of color sense that messes with my brain i'm like wait a minute no um i don't understand why i just want to play working man because i like the working man song because the animations are working man everybody the animations with working man are great and i love that just because of the way the animations are and the score is pretty good too i want to play working man i know working man is this color because the color is on the thing on the screen and i shoot the record of that color and it doesn't say working man and i'm like what happened and then i have somebody explain it to me and then i'm like okay i'm out i'm sorry like i got the x i got the explanation and i'm like okay i'm out i can't i'm just gonna play rush like i play x-men because they don't have fun like old x-men not new isn't like if i play rush like i play x-men uh old x-men oh man it's fun i'm like cyclops storm combo uh b scambit combo let's go back to professor x rogue nice you know i may not be doing anything because i'm not doing anything right but i'm let the balls going around and i'm doing cool things but uh that that's one that's one that got away from me but as far as like rules to most games yeah i have them most down and if there's like a thing to do i can remember a thing to do but um and the rest are just sort of hopefully i can come with which while i'm standing up there there'll be some classic games while i'm looking at the card and i'm like how do you like the spinner okay good all right we're ready to go all right we're just liking the spinner good whatever but but yeah especially like some of the some of the new ones have have run away from me a little bit i definitely need some practice on those but um but like for example like godzilla makes a whole lot of sense so that just stays with that helps stay with me part of godzilla because godzilla has a plan and if you don't follow the plan you're done i mean you know it's that that's that's what that's like one thing like that's like one thing maybe i don't like about godzilla i like everything else like not like 95 of it i think that other 5 percent is like if you don't follow the plan if you don't stay on the path you are dead you know it can be a little paint by number yeah i can oh it's like oh you played ball one and you didn't beat geigen oh i'm sorry your game's over sir your game's over i you only you only halfway beat geigen oh man no you you mean you can't take that into your titanosaurus 2x multi-ball next time oh i'm sorry you're you're off the plan you can't yeah oh man you didn't get the super on your first multiball so you could get monster zero on level four oh man i'm sorry your your person you played with did so you lost just don't even play you better grind because your scoring curve just went your scoring curve just went way down buddy so you gotta you you better hope you can get mega godzilla super and get you know and get terror okay you're back if you can get terror you're back uh but if not i'm sorry man stay on the path stay on the path let's switch to the pinball industry itself i i wanted to say a moment i'm sorry for such bad luck you've had with these with pinball companies as i said i'm still a fan i'm still a pinball fan i know i know you are and that's what's so awesome right and i'm sure you're under ndas and i'm not going to ask you anything that's going to come close to violating any of these agreements my my first question is how difficult is it to work in this industry how difficult is this industry itself i mean yes it is hard to make pinball games um i mean but if you have a team i'm like you know with barry's game i had no i had a team i say i had a team like it's my team it's american pinball's team but you know i had a group of people who i trusted and cared about knew what they were doing and you know just look at the look at the names on the thing and it's i mean first of all i got to have my name next to barry right and then next to dennis norman i mean come on right and then right and then and name ryan mcquade you know he he does the bash locks and opens the game back up for you i'm like oh thank goodness i got my saucers back oh man this works i can put rules on the thing that i want um so i mean so yeah and and joe joe sober casey butler jessica derballa i'm gonna miss people's names you know jack hager who created the characters uh you know i mean you know i'm gonna miss names so i shouldn't have started naming people but i just care about these people too much and i and a couple of them are still working at ap so i really rich them up because i want them to be good um but yeah and and so with that team that we were able to bring out barry's game and really like complete his legacy and and um even though the game's not finished and this game still have there's still many ideas in the in the thing that are not finished yet in I mean, there's still lights that don't do what I want them to do. But, you know, it's one of those where I'll take what I can get. You know, we got it this far. We'll see if it can go farther in the future. I don't know. But I was like, I'll take it. Like, the dealer dealt me a king and a jack. I have 20. Okay, I'll take it. Okay.
    30:00
    The dealer has 21. Okay, whatever. Fine. Okay. But, hey, at least I'm glad to start. I started hearing people say that the game is fun and they like to play it and it's really cool. And, and, um, you know, so, um, nice balance from the negativity. Of course, you know, you put something out there, you should get, you should expect to get some negativity because that is the world that is the internet that is people. Um, so to take the good with the bad, but, um, I just hope that you get to play it and you get to first, I hope you get to play it on some good flippers. that keeps surviving after a few hours. Now that, you know, at InDisc, we figured out how to get the thing to last. InDisc, the Galactic Tank Force lasted the whole index. Not a problem. So like, oh, okay, so this is all we got to do. Oh, but we don't work here anymore. And we figured it out. Oh, okay. So when you play Barry's game, hopefully it's strong flippers so you can get the flow I want you to have and the combos I want you to have and get the fireworks and get all this stuff that's running in the background that you see in this video. This video is the rules video. This right here is the rules video describing some tips and tricks on how to play and stuff. So I'm grateful to American Pinball and the American Pinball team and the people that I mentioned there that helped bring this game to reality because it's like the loop. It's like a 40-year loop of when I played Space Shuttle, one of Barry's games that got me into the hobby, essentially at six or seven or however old I was. And now to design a game with Barry that kind of takes some shape from Space Shuttle because it's kind of like what I hope we could do. And that's like a 40-year loop of my life there. So that's why this game is so special to me because of that. And why I always call myself co-designer because Barry, just make sure, Barry is co-designer as well. Do not forget, it's Barry O's Barbecue Challenge. it's just that when things happened I had to take some responsibilities and be like oh crap I'm de facto designer aren't I alright let's see what we can do here and let's get this thing going you know time to be a pinball designer time to make those calls time to take responsibility time to do all the you know take full responsibility for every call make sure the ramps work right make sure you know things work the way I want them to work or as close as I can get them to, I mean, one of those things is pretty cool. I mean, I go back to a couple of moments where like, I would have an idea in my head, and then the team would do it. And it would be like, wow, this is exactly what I was thinking. How did you do that? Like, I had a couple of those moments. I was like, wow, that's pretty good. Like either I described it really well, or they're okay they're really good at what they're doing so i'm like okay um but yeah like i said i'm thankful that the the game was released it is out there and they are out there and um thank you to those who bought them and and and played it and those who saw the live streams and saw us play it and having fun with it and um i hope i hope there will be further curled updates there's supposed to be one with Lyman's skill shot in it you know like the one we showed on the Pinberg live stream it wasn't officially in there at that time it's supposed to be in there so I'm just I'm hoping for something in that can't promise because I don't work there right but uh you know yeah that's uh that's it for that but yeah this really kind of leads into the big question that when I was talking to Jamie like I really wanted to to get out there is you'd mentioned kind of You know, sometimes in pinball, there can be kind of like a pile-on mentality. Like when a game comes out, if a big content creator or a podcaster has like a negative opinion on something, even if people haven't played the game, it kind of cements itself as fact. You know, I think a lot of that happened with John Wick. I mean, when that came out, there was maybe some negative press on that game, and then, you know, people had negative feelings. I really like John Wick. You know, I listened to Nick Lane the other day. He said it's his favorite Stern game that's come out this year. Cal and Rachel were talking about how it's only been out for half a year, and it's one of their biggest earners.
    34:27
    And I think the same thing happened with the last two American Pinball releases with GTF and Berrio's Barbecue Challenge. And we have a GTF. I love that game. It's absolutely beautiful when we unboxed it. I think it shoots well. I think your rule set is deep and interesting. If people are willing to take the time to dig into it. But it just, for some reason, oh, and the tank. I love the tank. It's such a risk-reward. Just part of clarification. It's very important. Not my rules. Joe Schober, Josh Kugler. Oh, okay. Okay. Not mine. I may be assisted in a maybe low-level way. I have assisted in code on that game. Okay. But, again, very important to clarify. Schober, Kugler, rules on that. You know, it was the same thing with Barry O. I mean, I haven't played it, but I know a lot of people that went to TPF, and when they came back and I asked them, you know, how was this game, they loved it. I mean, they had great things to say about it. But for some reason, things got out of this game, you know. I don't know why. I think there's a pile-on mentality. I do. And, you know, I wanted Steve Bowden to have this opportunity to kind of talk a little bit about some of these games. Put some positivity out there. What are things that you really like about these games? Because, I mean, like I said, I've always enjoyed American pinball games. You know my favorite game of all time is? Oktoberfest. I love that game. Nice. I'm not going to get into it, but I enjoy these games. So tell me, what about GTF do you love? Oh, man. Well, I love, well, first of all, the art, the franchise art. Okay. Let's even, you know, let's lock it in. It's beautiful. Lock it in. And then, of course, Jack Hager, the genius with what he did with the story. I mean, you know, with what he did with Princess Adoya and the ice cream. It was like, this is crazy. What is this? And it's just fun. It's just goofy.
    36:39
    Oh, I'm going to save the ice cream. And the cows are there. And you can start. It is just goofy fun there. I mean, I know I'm heavily biased because my name is signed on the signature editions because of the code. We had number four.
    36:55
    Nice. I mean, yeah, and it is fun to play. And I'm hoping the people at the end disc of the Open Championship had fun with it. I hope it didn't break up any of your sets, you know. Although, Belcio had it on very hard mode. He had it on very hard. So, like, that's why I didn't even play it as part of my sets. I'm like, man, I play this game to have fun. If I play it in a tournament way, I'm going to lose. The game is made for you to just have fun like a normal person. Like just step up like a normal person and just, oh, it's lit? Shoot the thing. Oh, okay, it's lit there? Oh, a mode started? Do what the mode says to do. Okay, hit the tent a couple times. Oh, you got ball safe? Hit the tent a couple times. All right, cool. Start up. Oh, lock is lit? Shoot the lock. Like don't think too hard. if you think too hard you're going to die yeah that game is brutal i but i liked it i liked it a lot you know we had it uh the only issue and i'm not crapping on you your former organization was like if if you played four player it for some reason the ml it just couldn handle it that was well obviously that was uh a fix in the latest latest beta which is not released yet but again no promises it supposed to be released but the the in-disc beta like that's what we were working on for in-disc tournament is to get that new version up so that it can survive a four-day thing and it did so So that test, passing that test is a good enough a test to pass there. Because you got. I hope they release it. Because if they don't, we can't bring it back until they release that, you know, because we can't have, we have tournaments here, you know. Right. So obviously, so the proof is in the pudding. In those four days, it was played, right? It was played constantly.
    38:45
    So there you go. So I'm just waiting to see whether that comes out. I think I believe it will it's my opinion I don't know because again we worked on it so and so we being myself Dave Fix Casey Butler programmer who still works there and Ryan McQuade Bree Reynolds you know we were over at Fix's house playing his Galactic and then working on it check it check for bugs okay why are two balls coming out what is this go back Go back. Okay, change this. Okay, how does this work? Is this too forgiving? This is a game breaker. Can we tone down this mode? Okay, before it gets dendisk. All right, one thing we need to do is that we need to put mode timeout prevention, we learned, because people were timing out the modes. Yeah. But if you do that, you get to the end with no points. So then people started not timing out the modes again, right? Because if you can do that, but you get to the end with nothing. Like, you're doing nothing. Like you're supposed to play the mode so that your mode totals go into the final, right? So like if you take a big mode and get like several hundred million, that several hundred million goes into the final, which you can then recollect. But people will bring in like 10 million into the final and then grinding the final for no points. And so, oh, okay, whatever. But if you needed a safe score, you would do that to get 150 million just so you didn't get zero, right? Yeah. And that's the thing you got to do in a tournament. Yeah. Right? You got to get a safe score. Okay, I can get 150 and do it versus someone who needs 500 million. Oh, okay, I got to play the ramp mode and I got to play meltdown. Okay, I can't be timeless. All right, cool. But we do need – it does need more time on prevention for tournaments.
    40:35
    But, yeah, again, I hope it comes out. I think it will. I think that it will. Fingers crossed over here. Yeah, so if I can get an update for GTF, if I get an update for Barry's game, With Lyman's update and the display improvements that are on it, some of which are back here in this video.
    40:53
    That was your baby. Give people a second opinion about why give Barry O's Barbecue Challenge a second chance if you haven't tried, or a first chance if you haven't even tried it. It's probably a first chance because hatred gets clicks. That is a general rule of the internet. Hatred gets clicks. and so then what happens is that that gives you a first impression and then you're done um but you know i'm it's not even like begging and pleading or whatever just to give him a chance no just play the game and just let me know what you like what you don't like um you know i i tried to you know once what happened happened like i started transitioning the game over into a barrier tribute game trying to fix fit as much of Barry's career in it as I could which are the 11 Barry games that are in the game um the uh oh the just recently uh I think was it Pentastic just came out with their seminars one of which is the Barry O's seminar where you will where I reveal the 11 games that are in Barry's game uh the references like Doctor Who and Cyclone and Dracula and whatever um so they're not like it doesn't say dracula it's like this mode is because of dracula this thing is this this this aspect is because of the of doctor who you know things like that so um all i can say is yes it was it was it's meant to be a simple game that's easy to understand until you start discovering certain things and then you figure oh wait a minute but still to be approachable for everyone um and i hope you just try it there yes there are some things that are not finished on it but i hope for the future that maybe they will be um but you know i i really hope you give it a chance and uh just you know get get some fireworks bash the locks and start you try and get try to make the number bigger that's the key is like take some risks as well. The game is based on taking risks. If you find your winning challenges at one star, it's because you're not taking enough risks. Try to get those other four stars for the five star. Try to get the playful legs up so you can cash in, instead of $10 million, $300 million for a win. I've seen wins as high as $400 million for pork cart. If someone gets a 4x at five stars, that's 20x. So if you got the number big enough and you do everything right, there's just ways for you to cash in because I want you to be able to, like, come back from any deficit. It's when it gets a billionaire, you can come back from it as long as you take risks and you can.
    43:46
    You know, I love them with the multiball and the progressive jackpot that builds on itself because of jackpot. That's jackpots multiball. multiball at least the scoring system is but you know in jackpot it's 50 million than 75 than 100 million right and so it's like that but in barry's game it's your number and then your number times 1.5 then your number times two then your number so you want your number to be bigger so that you're building if it's a million okay it's a million 1.5 2 million 2.53 if it's 10 million or you know that it's 10 million 15 million 20 million 25 million for each jackpot and then the play field x so you can come back if you take a risk that's that's what it is so and i've always found that you know if there's a game that for some reason i don't like 90 of the time is because i don't understand it or haven't put enough time into the game like i'll play it once just like oh I don't like this game. But then if I dig into the rules, I play it some more, I find, oh, this is – there's some stuff going on here. Do you think it was tough, though?
    44:58
    I'm not trying to pile on, all right, but do you think it was tough because Barry O, like outside of pinball, nobody knows who Barry is, right?
    45:06
    It's tough because it's not a license. It's not a license. Okay. People say they want unlicensed games. No, they don't. They want licenses, period. I will no longer believe anyone who says that ever. You need a license. I don't care. We want unlicensed games, but not like that. Right. I'm not a buyer, though, so that's it. Sorry. I used to be like, people like unlicensed games until they say they don't. And people like licensed games until they say they don't. I think I've lost that other position. I think it has to be licensed or no. I think we're dead, right? because, I mean, why does John Wick earn? Does it matter that John Wick's good? It's a good game now. I mean, you know, I like the flow of the ramps. I mean, sometimes I don't appreciate that little bumper in the thing, the way it drops out of the bumper.
    46:01
    But still, on the thing, it says John Wick. So when you go up and you look at the game, it says John Wick. I know that name. What is this thing? I will play it. Done. There's the first dollar. Now, it's up to the game to get the second dollar in there. You know, hopefully the game is fun enough to get the second dollar. But John Wick gets the first dollar in there.
    46:30
    Barry O's Barbecue Challenge does not. Yeah. And that's the difference. It has to be a license. Godzilla gets the first dollar in there.
    46:43
    Done. I mean, you know who got us a perennial name? It does matter. You know, it has to be a license because you have to get past that. You have to get that mind share of the casual person who doesn't know pinball at all, who is going past the redemption games, right? And you see all the redemption games with their license names, right? And you go and see, oh, there's another thing. I know what this is from my childhood or from last week or from, oh there's a movie coming out of this thing or a movie came out from this last year or this was on Netflix Stranger Things you know it's yeah it's the license is that powerful because pinball is such a niche thing anyway you need as much help as you can get so a game can be good like I love Legends of Valhalla the way it freaking plays and yeah you know I love the looping I love backhanding the left ramp comboing you know get comboing the orbit into the ship you know and doing all that but again it's it doesn't say it doesn't say um marvel thor or something it says legends of a hollow like galactic just doesn't say galaxy quest with a picture of tim allen on the front or something you know even that maybe that could be so i'm just trying to think of something that could match with collective tank force that's not star trek or star wars because those are taken and they cost too much so and or the one with uh uh mcfarland uh todd mcfarland what was the what was the show he did that was star trek but better than star trek i forgot the name of it oh my goodness oh oh yeah this was it one season wasn't it yeah right but it was like a galaxy quest that even that like even that's a name ish right that's like a three that's like a half license yeah that's like a that's a half license right like that's that's kind of there you know that that gets you a little bit there that maybe gets 50 cents of the dollar in there it doesn't get the whole dollar in right you get you to look you get you to look at it right uh but yeah you need you need licenses that's kind of where we are right now in the world do you think american pinball will survive in three four years not as it is i don't know like as it is now with i mean i i wish them well i wish them luck of course you know game seven has my rules on it i put my heart and soul in those things you a lot of questions on game seven but you have an nda so I've heard it's very fun to shoot I've heard I thank you for respecting that but I understand but you know I said let's navigate this together yes it's fun I really hope that this gets released I really hope it doesn't end up like a kingpin you know I really hope it doesn't end up like that because you know I guess it's public that it is Ryan's game like it's like ryan has said that he was on decks and i can say that and yeah believe me this was this was i enjoyed writing the rules for that a lot i hope it comes out i hope it's a hit and uh tell me about other games that might uh yeah do you think all right so now we're off the hot seat here but do you know i i heard hey whatever hot hey whatever hot seat or not i mean i did I did homework for Deep Root. So, you know, I did homework for Voldemort. I didn't even ask you any Deep Root questions. But here's my Deep Root question. Yeah, go ahead. Here's my Deep Root question. I think DPX owns the rights to Raza. I might be speaking on that. So my question is, do you want someone to build Raza?
    50:41
    Oh, yeah. Please. I'm interested if they would use my rules, though. I don't know. I mean I mean now I guess that's that's what I was just saying I was like yes I want to see it built I mean probably not because like the Deep Root Raza had the pin bar which I used as part of it like the pin bar where you right I like that so that was part of it so yeah I'm interested to see I really hope it comes out I'm just interested to see what it would be whether it be a completely different thing is it still going to have Ned in it the alien overlord Ned is it still going to have the princess in it is it going to be the same story I mean how much of it is going to be congruent with what the rules were when I worked on it which by the way if you want to see if you want to go down a little rabbit hole you can go on my website funwithbonus.com and search Raza it's still there what was publicly released so those are things that can be talked about because they are public. Just go to funwithbonus.com forward slash category forward slash Raza. And you'll see a bunch of posts on what was in the game. Like everything that I, because I wasn't a big hit of saying this is what's going to happen. I didn't like that. I don't want to talk about, I didn't want to talk about what's going to happen when we talk about Raza. I said, I'm only putting things on this website that are in the game. So that way when the game comes out, people can look at it and see all the stuff and then i have no one i'm unfair advantage if someone plays the game against me in a tournament or something so so there's rules on it there's narrative like this story there's part of uh there's storyboards quinn johnson who works for turner pinball he did storyboards for it so there's like storyboards on that um so um which one somebody makes it because i got to play in the arcade expo and i i really dug it man yeah and And at the Houston show, that one didn't have the pin bar in it because it was not in there at the last minute. Yeah, it was going to have it in there, but it wasn't for the Houston show. But for the Fliptronic live stream at What's Brewing, it was on there. And so those people got to do the pin bar and everything and doing that. So that was there. Yeah, I did. I love those. Yeah. I mean, I wish I don't. Maybe they still have that video. I don't know. was not on twitch anymore because i mean i did homework i wanted to be like okay well i don't want to be negative and be like this is what i can't talk about so i did some homework and i was like well what can i talk about like let's look at it from a positive direction yeah oh okay here's this post that this week in pinball did and they did the thing and they showed the games that were advertised to come out on the website so those are things that are beyond the nda hooray you know At least the fact that those games were projected to come out. So, you know, I did do that homework just to see what I could talk about. But, yeah, there are some times when, yes, I do miss the pin bar. I think that was a great idea. I do, too. I think there would have been an issue with the whole don't put your drinks on the game thing, even though there was a shield around it to protect against the drink on the game thing. But that might have been an issue with the drink on the game thing. There were tests about that, testing drinks on the game. Did it harm it? Seemed to be fine from what I remember. I don't know. But that could have been an issue. But it's just that pin bar opened up a lot of functionality, and it was right there. And I could look at it, and you could play the status report and just play along with it if you wanted to. You could just have the status report up on all times and the shot log, which listed every single shot you made and the point value as you were making it. and you could go back and see what you did and Magnesave with the button hit the touch screen and it works all the time and yes I do miss it I hope it does come out I don't know in what capacity will the pin bar transfer over I have no idea did they get the pin bar we'll have to wait and see I got my popcorn ready I'm just interested to know if they're going to use the same rules that we had on the Deep Root Raza. But like I said, if you're interested, the rabbit hole is there. It's a little bit of a rabbit hole. You can find it. If you're interested to see, there are some gaps in it because I literally was about to write another section when I stopped writing in it because I figured, I don't know what's going to happen. Am I supposed to keep writing about it? Does this mean I just stopped writing? So like I said, yeah, it will stay there as long as I keep paying for the web hosting. It will stay there forever. It's pinball history. I keep it there.
    55:50
    Do you want to stay in the industry? Yes. I know it's like strike two as far as I'm concerned. I'm not saying strike two for me. It's like strike two against the industry. For me, toward the industry. This is twice now. but yes I do I would like to stay in the industry so if there are people in the industry who would like my services such as they are varied and such as many that I did for American Pinball which turned out to be a lot as I started to inhale I mean you know sometimes you get that imposter syndrome and you don't think you do a lot until you work on your resume and you realize, man, I did a lot. So, and I'm pretty proud of what I did. I don't get to talk about myself a lot. I usually talk about other people. That's what the site's for. Yeah, I did a lot.
    56:55
    You know honestly I enjoyed this interview very very much and I wish you nothing but the best Man that was an hour already I could have gone for another whole hour We not done We got five minutes left Okay We have a rapid-fire question and answer game called... I'm going to try not to think too hard of it. I'm going to try. The first thing that comes to mind. Donovan's going to start us off. We're working on the hurry-up because it's not hurried. Some people don't hurry. I'm going to try. Dave, what is your best or most memorable tournament victory?
    57:37
    Tournament victory as far as just first place or just any win at all? Give me a first place. I want a first place.
    57:46
    Oh, oh, oh, oh, my goodness. I had to see. I'm panicking, Donovan. He's got so many. Oh, my goodness. I'm trying to think of my most memorable one because, yeah, because, sure, the most memorable one would be the last one, which is Addition 82. but it's like no that's not it I mean the most memorable one would be District 82 because that's the most recent one or the no it's the Yankton best card because it's the most recent semi major one 190 offers that I mean as far as individual wins I definitely can tell you some individual wins like the mathematical victory year old or keith elwin on jackpot at northwest many years ago when i was literally like adding up how much i needed in casino run to beat him or the or or the or the 600 million on master bash against daniele atari at the circuit final back when it was at the latter format um that i mean but those are individual wins on the way to a thing you know okay but as far as like most memorable okay the most recent one is the uh is the best card at yagpin so i'm looking forward to going back there and now that i know the reputation of yagpin i'm kind of ready i hope i'm not over ready for it i hope i can just be like you know be good and just qualify but i'm more ready now that i know that games can be on blocks and things you can release a bear in there probably. Better food, Chicago or Texas?
    59:20
    Texas. Barbecue. Yeah. I'm sorry. Sorry. Hey, classic machines, give me Attack from Mars or Medieval Madness? Attack from Mars. No. No, no, no.
    59:35
    Attack from Mars. Here's the reason. This is a fantastic question. Attack from Mars to me is very Medieval Madness. Okay, thank you for this question Thank you Attack from Mars is very medieval madness to me Because of the shield on Attack from Mars The shield isn't always down On Medieval Madness The shield is always ready for you to hit I'm done Jamie just said he loves Medieval Madness He said that for me I like Medieval Madness wins on the humor by a hair But because of that shield Guarding the spaceship which stops you from just cheesing the center all day and how dangerous it is because half the shot or medieval madness fall into the moat instead of coming back at you the danger doesn't start until the drawbridge comes down attack from Mars you hit the shield you're in danger you hit the back of the ship you're in danger so that right there makes it a better game there's more risk in there you want to start multiple you better have that shield down oh you chose to start the multiple without the shield okay without the shield up okay that's on you all right fine so i understand those people who like medieval is always rated higher than attack from mars i've seen like i've seen it always rated higher yeah i i am i am a reverse guy i am an afm over medieval does steve bowden have a pinball rival um i don't know i don't know if i have a pinball right like there's yankees Red Sox, there's Ohio State Michigan, there's Steve Bowden There's Steve Bowden and I'm sure there's been people who used to be my rival who have passed me. I mean I'm sure at one point maybe Jason Zala was a rival for about five minutes until he destroyed me and now he's the number one player in the world.
    61:33
    I don't know if maybe that's the closest thing, but I don't know. A real rival rival yeah I mean I have a I don't know if like most favorite game and least favorite game are questions coming out are those questions in this we can hear no we didn't go with that we don't want the negative because I can tell you my rival that's a game okay give it to us alright give me rival your least favorite game to play volley period end volley my least favorite game of all time District 82, there you go I hate volley, it hates me you know you got some Texans that like volley yeah they do oh man, the Colin McAlpine legendary one ball volley is the greatest video ever in the history I hate that game it always finds a way to screw me it's like, oh man, you had a good game you got all three top lanes, guess what now you're going to tilt because you flipped too rapidly once oh end of game really okay let's talk a little classic pinball machine what is a better classic pinball machine theme playing cards or pool i'm gonna give it to cards by hair i think it's just my personal preference i think no other reason other than preference all right just me liking joker poker a lot yeah i figured you love joker you know i think that's it yeah i really don't have another good reason for it i mean i don't have another reason for the rock and fire and this one's personal to me and jane all right better representation of new york upstate or the city better representation of new york as a state as upstate or the city upstate because there's more of it i mean i don't know if that's what you said there's more of it it's so ridiculous thank you there's more there's more area of state so by average i'm okay okay sure people average it's it's the city area area it's upstate i know i'm like a third on that list anyway because i'm from long island which is like even worse than that so i'm from upstate but he's from upstate i realize we're more new england Yeah, you're New England. You're Canada. Poor cow farm.
    64:03
    Go ahead, Donovan. Gobble holes, yay or nay? Oh, God, please, no. Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. I know they put the big points in there too, but no.
    64:18
    Don't let it go. Your favorite pinball commentator to sit next to. Because, yeah, I can work with most anybody. I have to think about this. I tried to be quick about it. You're doing great. You don't have to say me. We've only done it twice.
    64:34
    We've only done it twice. There's so many good ones. There are. I mean, I go through Column of Calvary, Bowen, Kerr. Dalton really is awesome on the mic. Dalton. Dude, Dalton's great. Dalton is good. Kaylee George. You see the Kaylee George commentary on Johnny Mnemonic on the index final is legendary. Make sure you check that out. That just happened. I can't do it. It's too, it's too much. Well, I mean, I could bail. Okay. I could bail out and say T.O. List. Okay.
    65:07
    There you go. Yeah. It's T.O. List. You know what? I mean, this is pretty damn good. If you're talking about, if you're talking about a non-professional, like, cause T.O. List could, could go into a major league baseball commentary booth and do it. Like, it'd just be like, Hey, this person's sick. And T.O. List who has a press pass happens to be there. going there in the booth and he would do it so I guess the correct answer probably is Teola good commentator good interviewer good on the fly good voice you know great great commentator voice so it's yeah I thought that was going to be a pinball rival I thought you were going to say but he is a good rival though he is after all the best pinball player in Australia right Isn't that what he says? I think he says, like, he's the best football player. He's perfect in Australia. I think he says. That's what you do. You show up once, you win, and you walk away. Retired. Done. Yep. Mike. So tell me, music pins, they're kind of dominated by the rock genre. What is an unrepresented music genre that you think needs to be explored? I was going to say techno, but technically Tron's got it. I believe you say techno.
    66:23
    It's techno. it's techno edm but like tron's tron's sort of halfway there right but i'd like to see a pure dead mouse thing or like a pure what if armin van buren was like you know what flying colors you wrote these he wrote these for you like guess what i want to do i want to do a pinball game and every time you hit a certain target it does things like lumines does and And then you can create your own mix, luminous style, with the targets. And then, depending on the target or you hit, is the mix you make. And then, you know, if you can sort of do it that way, like do lighting on it, try to do it in a way that's sort of DDR-ish, but with pinball. I don't know how you would work it with a pinball because the ball is live, but, you know, somehow maybe you can make a mix. You're going to have to have double spinners on it, like a turn table. Yeah, that has to be. Those two either have to be like upper flipper shots that you can keep spinning or they're on the play field messing with you Beatles style. Maybe that's a little bit of a bailout. You're on to something here.
    67:33
    He's on to something. Because, again, I'm thinking of rules on how you can make a mix and the quality of mix and then how many times you repeat it, when does the beat drop.
    67:45
    The sound design would be challenging. You'd have to have David Thiel on the phone. He's David Thiel. He'd have to be like, please, David. Please.
    68:00
    All right, here's our final question, Steve. Final question. You have a $1,000 chip. You're in Vegas. You got to make a bet. Escher versus Zoller, right? Yeah. Okay.
    68:14
    Escher versus Zoller. Who are you taking? Escher versus Zoller. it's any game like this is any random game but i'm giving you again this is a game you gotta put it random random game okay okay so this is so i'm matching this is this is perfectly perfectly calm and good zahler and escher with no help from his encyclopedia of friends that he has with him to you know do that so this is pure escher zahler in isolation boosts, right? Right themselves. And they come up, and the winner, and this is for the million dollars. This is the end of the million dollar tournament that I've always dreamed about running. And I've always dreamed about running. This is the end of the million dollar tournament. The winner of this game gets the million dollars. You get the thousand dollars. Hey, okay.
    69:13
    Like, I want to go Zoller, Jersey boy. Because I'm a Jersey boy. There you go. Jersey What if he can't wear a hoodie Nah they're good It's good Jersey let's go Let's go Jersey I lived in Jersey for the hop skip Alright thanks for coming on this podcast Steve I really appreciate it Good luck at D82 Are you going to TPF I am going to TPF I will have my popcorn ready I will have my popcorn I'm going ready at CPF. That's going to be great. I love CPF. And, of course, we're going to be streaming at CPF. Are we streaming it? Oh, yeah. So I'll be there sitting next to me. But I don't want you to sit next to me because I want you to win it. I want you to play it. That's it. You know what? I have my seat in the finals and commentary in this, but I always don't want to be sitting there because that means I'm in the final. But if I'm not in the final, it's the best seat in the house. It's the best seat in the house. Right? Thank y'all for having me on. I really appreciate it. This was super fun. And I can't believe an hour already passed. This is fantastic. Thank you so much. Good luck. And where can people get in touch with you, sir? Oh, Fun With Bonus. I am Fun With Bonus in most places. Instagram, Facebook, funwithbonus.com. Funwithbonus at gmail.com is my email. So yeah. Awesome. Thanks, Steve, so much. Thank you.
    70:51
    That was fun. Yeah, Steve's a great guy. Yeah, what a good dude, man. I had a lot of fun there. And thank you. He was right. Everything was true. He's a nice, friendly guy. He's a good dude. But when he plays tournaments, watch out. Watch out. Thank you for all your help lately. You're killing it. I can't wait for the Twippies to let people see the art that you've put out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's going to be top notch. I think it's going to be good. Alright we just have to stay the hell off social media For a week or two weeks Like Orbital Hubbard said He's right He's exactly right Gotta stay away from there There's a lot of negative stuff out there I think it'll be 90% amazing 10% trolls Yeah the trolls will get you Remember our troll Oh Don't you So ladies and gentlemen we have one troll well we probably have more we have more now but when we first started and no one knew who we were we had one troll from canada and if you're listening okay yeah we were private at the time but we're not a private club anymore okay come on down come on down pinballologist come to the twippies good job i'll tell you what come to the twippies pinballologist is that his name yeah i think so he blocked us he did yeah that's cool anyway visit twippies.com for all the information on the twippies multicasting on youtube twitch facebook live uh it's really been incredible it's gonna be fun great people here tell them who's coming well don from don's pinball podcast and jacoby aaron winnick anthony uh retro ralph colin alshimer yeah just to name a few and Me. And you. And Mark Seiden and Aaron and his wife and a bunch of others. It's going to be great. Cool deal. I think there's a few left. So come and gobble them before I sell them here to people in Houston. Are you going to TPL? Because there's a lot of other things going on that weekend, too. I guess I should talk about it.
    72:59
    Thursday, vault tour. So we're going to our top secret location. That's Secret Pinball. You want to see some rare games? Yeah, you want to see some of the rarities. We just got a Taito Mr. Black. Check that out. Taito Mr. Black. Oh, Taito, like the video game company? No, Taito, their Brazilian pinball manufacturer. Oh. You guys go on the pin side and look up Mr. Black Taito. Okay. And it's beautiful, dude. They found a beautiful one. I can't wait to play that. Okay. Brazilian Are you going to TPF? That was my question for you You're not going I'm going to have to stream again all myself I still haven't been He doesn't go to these big shows My brother doesn't live in Dallas anymore But I need to come up I need to press some palms and kiss some babies And what is it? I don't know, kiss some ass Come over here I don't do that Okay, so then there was a vault tour real quick, and then D&D launch party is going to be at Eureka Heights on that Friday night. Then Saturday is a Barrels of Fun launch tour – a Barrels of Fun tour, excuse me. Yeah, you want to go to the Barrels of Fun?
    74:18
    I've already been, but if you come to the Twippies, you get a Barrels of Fun tour on Saturday, then come back to the Twippies here live. Then Sunday will be a 3X here at the Wormhole. Early. Yeah, 10 a.m. Because, you know, people that are out of town, we want to get them back out. Got to go, yeah. All right, Donovan. Anything you want to plug?
    74:42
    No, just, boy, just make sure you, you know, check in on us on the Twippies. And, you know, we've had some things come out here recently. We're going to be putting Dracula out, and we did Swords of Fury a couple weeks ago. Yeah.
    74:56
    What are we doing? Plug it away here. Are we streaming the day after the Twippies? Oh, wow. On that Monday? We're supposed to be doing a game stream.
    75:05
    I would really love to cancel that. I think we might have to. I'm going to need a break. I'm going right in from Twippies to TPF. And then when we come back from TPF, I can announce, Greg, that our Pinbar Golden Ticket Tournament is going to be the weekend after TPF. We're going to do another Golden Ticket? Yeah. Is Barrels going to sponsor? Yeah, Barrels is going to sponsor. Okay, cool. So that's going to be fun. All right. But just nonstop pinball for me. So you're going to have to do something nice this weekend for Valentine's Day for Janine. I always try to do something nice for Janine. I don't want to put you on the spot. I do. I don't want to. She's just going to be like, dude, pinball boy. I'm done. All right. Remember our outro. Be good to your fellow pinballers. That's it, Donovan. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you. Have a good night. All right.
    76:02
    you