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DPP #140 "News and Rumor catch-up!"

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·41m 24s·analyzed·Aug 17, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Don's catch-up covers 2 months of pinball news, code updates, and speculation on upcoming releases.

Summary

Don covers two months of accumulated pinball news and rumors in a catch-up episode after time on the road. Major topics include Stern's expression lighting backbox kits ($200), John Wick code quality concerns, Spooky Pinball's robust updates, Dutch Pinball's Alice in Wonderland pricing (~$11,000-11,500), Haggis Pinball's closure, and speculation about Stern's next cornerstone release (X-Men vs Uncanny X-Men). Jersey Jack is rumored to be pivoting from Avatar to a Margaritaville-themed machine.

Key Claims

  • Stern expression backbox lights cost $200 and are designed to work with standard speakers but require washers for LE-spec Kenwood speakers

    high confidence · Don discusses aftermarket kits people have installed and compatibility workarounds

  • John Wick code is incomplete: modes exist but lack audio cues and visual guidance; no wizard mode detected after completing all main modes

    high confidence · Don removed glass, tested all modes, achieved 770M points with full mode completion but found modes confusing and unrewarding in normal play

  • Dutch Pinball's Alice in Wonderland will produce ~500 units at ~$11,000-11,500 (cheaper than Stern LE, around Stern Premium price)

    medium confidence · Don states these are rumors but based on market pricing logic; figures are being circulated in industry

  • Spooky Pinball ships with more robust code updates than Stern, with occasional bugs requiring resets or hard restarts but improved content delivery

    high confidence · Don compares update quality across machines he owns; praises Spooky's update frequency and scope

  • Texas Chainsaw Massacre had a known issue with ball lane guide too wide; early production units needed grinding or replacement

    high confidence · Don experienced issue on one of first 50 units, describes fix process

  • Haggis Pinball has 'imploded officially' in the last 60 days; Kerry Hardy producing video documentary series about the collapse

    high confidence · Don lists as confirmed news item; references Kerry Hardy's Patreon video series

  • X-Men is the next Stern cornerstone, likely comic book version (Uncanny X-Men) rather than X-Men 97 cartoon to avoid licensing costs

    medium confidence · Don discusses rumor consensus and licensing logic; expects announcement within weeks in August

  • Jersey Jack was internally believed to be working on Avatar with water illumination effects, but is now rumored to be pivoting to Margaritaville/Jimmy Buffett theme

Notable Quotes

  • “What happened to the quiet summer, man? Fire up that coffee. Hit the K-Cup. Let's do this.”

    Don @ Opening — Sets tone for episode; establishes the unexpected volume of news during 'slow season'

  • “There wasn't any wizard that showed up or anything. I got to think that these things aren't completed code yet.”

    Don @ John Wick discussion — Identifies John Wick code incompleteness as major issue affecting gameplay clarity and progression

  • “I think with Spooky, I think unless it's just completely off-the-wall absurd theme that just doesn't speak to me at all, I'm probably going to get the next Spooky game because I dig what they're doing.”

    Don @ Spooky Pinball section — Reveals shift in purchasing strategy; indicates strong confidence in Spooky's product quality and support

  • “I think trying to release a $15,000 game when you don't know when you're going to get it would be a little tough in this market.”

    Don @ Alice in Wonderland pricing discussion — Market analysis on pricing ceiling; reflects shift away from premium pricing for boutique releases

  • “Haggis Pinball has imploded officially, and that is just in the last 60 days.”

    Don @ News roundup — Confirms major manufacturer failure; signals market consolidation

  • “I wouldn't really expect Stern to deviate too much from the comic route... you don't have to go with the people from the films or the cartoon show.”

    Don @ X-Men rumor discussion — Explains licensing strategy logic for Marvel properties; suggests cost-cutting expectations

  • “I wasn't expecting this from Jersey Jack. Out of nowhere, there's now a rumor floating around that there's a Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville-themed machine coming.”

    Don @ JJP rumor section (truncated) — Signals unexpected pivot from presumed Avatar project; indicates potential licensing deal or strategic shift

Entities

DonpersonStern PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyDutch PinballcompanyJohn WickgameJawsgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Haggis Pinball has officially ceased operations within last 60 days; documented by Kerry Hardy video series

    high · Listed as confirmed news item from last 60 days; Kerry Hardy producing documentary series 'Unboxing the Truth with Haggis Pinball'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Don's purchasing strategy shifting: will wait-and-see for Jersey Jack and Stern new releases, but pre-commit to Spooky games based on confidence in support

    high · Explicit statement of changed buying behavior after 'four-game experiment'; cites Spooky's code update quality as differentiator

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Spooky Pinball delivering significantly more robust post-release code updates than Stern, including new modes, characters, music, and interactive features per update

    high · Don explicitly compares Spooky update enthusiasm at '11 on a 10 scale' vs Stern; multiple games receiving substantial new content monthly

  • $

    market_signal: Multimorphic platform gaining traction: Don reconsidered after location play experience; Princess Bride shipping imminent with downloadable game ecosystem

    medium · Don played Intergalactic Final Resistance on location at multiple venues; acknowledges platform interest after skepticism

  • $

    market_signal: Dutch Pinball pricing Alice in Wonderland at $11,000-11,500 (below Stern LE, around Stern Premium) to avoid unsustainable $15,000 release price

    medium · Don states 'they're gauging the market just about right' at this price point; believes higher pricing would reduce sales significantly

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.124

0:00
Oh, and that sound and rumble means we're back, baby. Everybody's been waiting, anticipating the return. Well, here we are, episode 140. You want to hear about some news? You want to hear about some rumors? I've got so much to get into. What happened to the quiet summer, man? Fire up that coffee. Hit the K-Cup. Let's do this.
0:30
The Return. The Don. He's back. I'm back, baby. I've been on the road for 10 days. I want to tell you all about it. But first, we're going to get into this, man. What happened to summer? It's supposed to be slow, man. No news things going on. Listen to other people in the greater diaspora of pinball. talking about, well, it's a slow news day. I compiled a slow list here of all just the news things that have happened in just the last two months. Let's run down these. We've got new Jaws expression lights for the back box coming. We've got code updates for Jaws. Added in the 4th of July fun time frenzy, more achievements and things to go after. John Wick was released. We're getting code updates for John Wick. We're getting more things coming out for there. Princess Bride is being made. Princess Bride is shipping. Comic-Con has come and gone. Keanu Reeves was seen playing John Wick himself. Spooky Pinball's been updating their two new releases. I got another update for Looney Tunes I haven't even had a chance to get to yet. It's downloaded. Got to go put that in there. Labyrinth has crossed 400 games built and shipped. Alice in Wonderland is dropping pictures of the play field. Not only that little screen on the clock, but also the Jabberwock. A couple of those have been released, the little pictures and things. More information is coming soon. ABBA is now shipping. We heard from Lior from the Art of Pinball. He's alive, doing well. And not only that, all the Alien Toppers have shipped, and those are done. Barbecue has gotten some code updates. Haggis Pinball has imploded officially, and that is just in the last 60 days. Can we get some action moving out there? Come on, guys. Slow news? Where's the slow news, man? I have not had a time or a chance to slow down yet. And here we are, Spirit Pinball, Spirit Halloween is open all over the place now. We are in fall. We've bridged the gap. Back to school is happening at every Walmart and Target around the country, man. There was no slow summer. Where was the slow down summer? And that is only the news items. That's not even counting all of the rumors. Let's get to that. I'll give you my input, my reaction to these, my speculation as I do, plus what I've been hearing. And let's get into all this. So let's cover these news things, items. I've seen the expression back box lights that have come out from Stern Pinball at $200. That matches right in the range that I thought these things were going to come in at. I figured a fully dressed game with the expression lights in the cabinet and the back box was going to run around $700, given that the cabinet ones are $499, $550 now.

low confidence · Don heard Avatar rumors from people who saw art, but notes new Margaritaville rumor came 'out of nowhere' with lower confidence

Texas Chainsaw Massacre
game
Alice in Wonderland / Alice's Adventures in Wonderlandgame
Haggis Pinballcompany
Kerry Hardyperson
Looney Tunesgame
Barbecuegame
Labyrinthgame
Lior / Lee Orrperson
Multimorphic / Princess Bridegame|company
Pinball Expoevent
X-Men / Uncanny X-Mengame
Margaritaville / Jimmy Buffettgame
Avatargame
  • ?

    product_concern: Texas Chainsaw Massacre had manufacturing issue in early production: ball lane guide too wide, requiring grinding or replacement

    high · Don experienced issue on unit from first 50 builds; fixed by grinding millimeter off or requesting replacement piece

  • ?

    product_concern: John Wick code significantly incomplete: modes present but lack audio cues, visual guidance, and wizard mode; modes not fun to play without direction

    high · Don tested all modes with glass off, achieved 770M points total but found average gameplay nets 30-60M; no audio call-outs or screen guidance

  • ?

    product_strategy: Dutch Pinball expecting full Alice in Wonderland reveal at Pinball Expo (6-7 weeks away); holding Back to the Future release to avoid cannibalizing Alice sales

    medium · Don speculates Dutch will focus resources on Alice launch, delay BTTF to allow Alice to 'breathe' and build momentum

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Jersey Jack rumored to be pivoting from Avatar to Margaritaville/Jimmy Buffett theme; Avatar project status unclear

    low · Don heard Avatar rumors with art confirmations, but Margaritaville rumor surfaced 'out of nowhere' with no sourcing details provided

  • ?

    rumor_hype: X-Men likely next Stern cornerstone release, with Comic book version (Uncanny X-Men) preferred over X-Men 97 to control licensing costs

    medium · Don reports consistent rumor; speculates comic route avoids film/cartoon voice actor licensing expenses while capitalizing on character popularity

  • ?

    technology_signal: Stern expression lighting backbox kits ($200) adding interactive audio-visual effects layer; requires speaker upgrades and creates mod compatibility needs

    high · Don verifies kit pricing, compatibility issues with LE speakers, mod community workarounds; discusses integration success on John Wick and Jaws

    • 3:15
    So $200, $250 for the back box. So that all tracks. That all tracks. So people have now received these things and are showing photos of their install. Now, when you buy this kit, it is set for the standard, I don't know, whether they're four-and-a-half-inch speakers that Stern comes out with. They've got to be the cheapest speakers you can possibly find. These things are tinny. They weigh like six ounces. They're not even as much as a newborn baby girl. However, most people want to do the Kenwood LE speaker upgrades that come with the LE, and that would need like a bigger mounting plate or something. But fret not, because I've seen some people put these in already with the upgraded Kenwood speakers, and you need about five to ten washers in order to give enough space for the exercise speaker, and it seems to work just fine. Stern has told us that they want to come out with a kit for bigger speakers. They haven't yet. Also, the speaker upgrade doesn't come with the cool little light-up inserts that we've seen with Jaws, that we've seen with John Wick, that we're probably going to see going forward, but the mod community has stepped up. Those are easy enough to make. You find a little profile of a shark. You size it for the size of the speaker ring. print it out in some PETG that's translucent. Boom, there you go. Add your inserts in there. If you need any, ask around. They're easy enough to make. So I don't think that's a barrier to entry for these things. The barrier is going to be the money that you're going to need because if you've got 10 Stern machines downstairs, that's $2,000 of speaker upgrades that you've got to have. I mean, the best thing about these things, right, you can get speaker light kits with upgraded speakers for like $99, $110 or so online, and they'll run through the different programs of lights and everything, but they're not going to be interactive, and that's going to be the point of difference for this product that you get with Stern because the code interacts with the light and the game. It worked great on John Wick. It's amazing on Jaws with the whole sonar effect and everything in concert with the topper. The whole thing all goes together, man. It's awesome. Top of the line light interaction. Love what they're doing. When it comes to Godzilla, though, I think we're still waiting for some code updates. And we did show that, yes, there is some interaction there, but not onto the level that you would see with Jaws, not onto the level that you see with John Wick. We're so integrated with the Shaker Motor Man. I love it. So we'll have to wait and see. Surely they're working on some code updates to make it a little bit more robust. I haven't seen what it does yet with Bond, but I've got to say with the Bond topper and its lighting show, if that's in concert with the speaker lights, that's going to be great. So hopefully we'll see this more going forward. Hopefully they'll come out with Foo Fighters as well, so there'll be some interactivity there. I've seen some other aftermarket kits that do interact with the expression lights on the cab, so we'll see kind of, you know, how this all shakes out. What a wonderful time to be involved in the very exciting hobby of pinball illumination. All right, that was just the first thing, man. There's so much to go through, so much to go through. John Wick playing it, so I got this to say about it. I got the LE, and I still don't really understand the modes and what we're supposed to do. each mode is played with a different faction and that faction can be layered onto what that mode is whether it's an assassination, whether it's a VIP guided tour or whatever the heck it is but basically there's a task to complete and then a faction that you're working for for that task and those can be interchangeable essentially what I've seen is the music kind of stays the same and the inserts change color and it's essentially shoot the shots until you drain a ball that's how I've been playing at least so I did what is something you can do when you have a game at home I took the glass off and I'm like I want to understand these modes what in the heck am I supposed to be doing um so I went ahead and just threw the ball around up the ramps you know started a mode bash the crate crate pops open go in there start the mode and then I'm in the purple mode or whatever it is kill the enemies or defend the shots or find the random shot that lights up to uncover the enemies whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing and essentially what I did was I threw the ball up the lit ramps about 30 times and then I noticed that the scoop was lit and I was able to throw it in there and then all of a sudden here's where the points are in the game. Here's your mode completion bonus of 50 something million points which is way more than the average game I have in total and that's just completing one mode. So I played through all of the modes, the main modes in the game got all the inserts lit. Nothing happened after that. There wasn't any wizard that showed up or anything. But each shot or each mode seemed to take me about 30 ramp throws of this ball to get to the point where the scoop would light up. I got to think that these things aren't completed code yet. I think they maybe just copied and pasted the rules or something. I could tell that each one has something different going on, but what is absent is any kind of audio call-out or audio cue. And I'm looking at the screen, and it's not helping me at all. So there's a lot to go for this game. At first I was thinking maybe the code wasn't there. There's going to be more modes or more multiballs. I think all the multiballs are in there. I think the modes are in there, but the modes aren't completed, and there's no audio cues or visual cues to tell you at all what to do. So fellow John Wickers, don't be too frustrated in the fact that you don't know what's going on with the modes, because I don't either, and I cheated. I took the glass off. I sat there with my ball and threw it around. I completed all of the modes eventually, and when I did that, my score was 770 million points, and my average game on John Wick is around 30. if I have a good game maybe I get in the 50 or 60 range hit that replay value but yeah I haven't broken 100 million on like an actual game with the glass on yet and I think this is why I think the modes are yes they're there but they don't make any sense at all and they're not really fun to play and I need something telling me what to do like the enemies at the left ramp Jonathan go ahead and hit them and I'm hoping that that is what's coming as well as some more music because like the same song throughout the whole game is a little bit grating now. Like, I want some more. I do appreciate the fact that there's more John Wick call-outs in the game. Occasionally, when you start a game, you get that line, yeah, I guess I am back, or whatever it is. So, love that, man. If this game can get to that point, I think we'll have something that's definitely better than Venom. I'm trying to see how I rank it in the last four Stern releases. Jaws absolutely would be number one. Venom, probably going to put that at number four. Foo Fighters and John Wick are going to fight for that 2-3 position I think The layout of Foo Fighters with all the Branching pathways and how one shot flows Into the next and there's the dead post The upper play field I think that's a solid number 2 But John Wick, where's it going to fall? Is it going to be like a deep 3 or is it going to be a high 3? Or will it flip flop with Venom For those last 4 releases? We'll have to see what the next Stern Cornerstone releases Should be upon us That will be in the rumors section So much more to talk about. Princess Bride is being made, being shipped. I've actually come around a little bit on the Multimorphic now that I've played it some more. You know what it was? It was spending some time on it playing Intergalactic Final Resistance at the Pinball Lounge in Ovioto, Florida, where they've got one of these things on location. I think some location play would really help these things Not only that but location play with a machine that working well I ran into some issues with some weird owls I found out in the wild There was one at a mall arcade in Madison Wisconsin. There was one at one of the Ace Goge locations. I think it was the Van Nuys location that had one, and it was giving me a little bit of trouble. One of my coins, something was going on with the coin door, and then the game just froze or something midway. Maybe that's something that's totally fixed now, but I just happened to catch it at a bad time. But I will say I was able to play some Final Resistance, a couple games on it at like a free-to-play arcade. You could buy yourself a timed game card there. So I put some games on it, and it was really freaking fun, man. I really did enjoy it to the point that I'm thinking, you know, if I do see one of these in the future and I've got a little space for it in the floor and a little space in the budget, I might kind of go on it. I do like the fact that there's downloadable games you can play as well, like some Dungeon Door Defender. I was able to play that in Texas. It carries a very loud game floor. It's hard to get the full feel of it. But I like the bones of what was there. So I'm kind of intrigued a little bit. I'm kind of intrigued. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. Princess Bride would be a pickup for sure if I had one of these modules, which I don't. But we'll see what happens. The platform, it's interesting. It's interesting. I haven't jumped on it yet, but I haven't completely ruled it out now. So that is exciting. And for those of you that have ordered a Princess Bride, it should be coming soon. So how can you not celebrate that? Next up on the list, the spooky pinball updates. There was another update for Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Bug just streamed it on Thursday. I got to go in there and find that code update and throw that in there and start chasing after whatever I have there. I'm ironing out some of the issues that I've had with the game, mainly with TCM. It's been a ball lane guide that I had to take to the angle grinder, take about a millimeter off of it to really ensure that the ball wasn't getting hung up and that led that bottom right under flipper shot path. This was a known issue that they've caught. Some of the games had shipped with one that was just a little bit too wide, and so the ball would tend to get hung up in there. The fix for it was either to grind off a millimeter of it or ask for the replacement piece, but it was caught pretty early on. My build was one of the first 50 that were made. So, again, not a game-breaking issue at all. It's been remedied, and it's working totally fine now. And I really haven't had any other issues. A couple of loose screws that I had to tighten up, which is, I mean, that's any game new out of the box. You've got to go through and make sure that nothing rattled loose with shipping. But, yeah, it's been playing great, man, and I love it, and I keep going back and forth. Just like the meme, I don't know which one of these games I like more. I figured by now I would have had a clear favorite, and I would have listed the other one for sale to make some room for their next game that's coming. But, no, man, man, they're staying. They're staying. As much as I love Scooby-Doo, I think I would keep these other two first. and if I had to let anything go, it would be Scooby, but I don't think I could pry that out of the family's hands. New update for Looney Tunes. I've got it downloaded to the stick. I've got to go put it in the machine and fire it up. There's supposed to be some new theme music that starts at startup. I'm really enthusiastic about seeing that. And this is what I love about Spooky Pinball. So just as an aside right now, I think as far as next game's coming out, if it's Jersey Jack, I'm going to wait, see, play it, decide. For Stern Pinball now at this point that I finished my four-game experiment, I'm going to wait, see, play, and see if that's something I have to have. But with Spooky, I think unless it's just completely off-the-wall absurd theme that just doesn't speak to me at all, I'm probably going to get the next Spooky game because I dig what they're doing. I wish Stern would have code updates as robust as what Spooky's given us. You know, the enthusiasm for what they put into the code updates is like at 11 on a 10 scale. So, you know, I love that. But because of that, some of the code updates do come with a few bugs. Sometimes your game will just kind of go into a loop or something and need to be reset. I've had that happen a couple of times, but then it's fixed with the next code update. And then, you know, maybe if you do something special like stack three multi-balls and then start like a certain mode and then have a ball locked or something, the game can occasionally lose track of that and you need to do a little hard reset. But those are the only issues I've seen code-wise that have come up. Definitely not anything long-term game-breaking. Occasionally if the game's been on for five hours, maybe it just needs to be switched off, switched on. But we're still early in the code. But, man, they're delivering us tons of stuff. Every update comes with more modes to play in the games.
    14:48
    I love Looney Tunes, man. You start a mode and you just sit there and watch the cartoon for a little bit and then forget you're playing pinball. Man, I love it. Everybody comes over, loves them some Looney Tunes, and I can't wait to get this new code update going. That's my honest review of where I'm at. No major headaches or anything I've had with it. No PCB boards that have been smoking need to be replaced.
    15:07
    No game-breaking moments. No ramps rattling loose. No chipping on the powder coat. And I've put a ton of games through this. So, yeah, I don't know, man. I'm happy with where they're at, and I can't wait to see what they have coming. I'll discuss more of that in the rumors section. Lee Orr is back, man. He made a Facebook post the other day. Hey, guys, I'm here. a mixture of personal stuff plus the war-torn Middle East situation in Israel have been weighing heavily on this guy but it looks like he's been soldiering through all that and at least getting the alien toppers completed plus I'm sure he's been up to his eyeballs making sculpts and things for the new Alice in Wonderland, we got those pictures that have been released for TPX of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland I think we're going to see some pretty soon here I know Cary Hardy and it looks like Kaneda are also under NDA So I'm sure they've been able to review the whole game and everything and are poised to go ahead and launch this thing when it drops. Sounds like we're getting about 500 games or so, and it's going to be priced cheaper than a Stern LE. And maybe even right around the price of a Stern Premium, maybe Premium plus a topper price, around $11,000. Those are kind of rumors, but they've been put out there. So I think that makes sense. I think trying to release a $15,000 game when you don't know when you're going to get it would be a little tough in this market. But coming in at around $11,400, $11,500, that would make sense. I think that's kind of the tipping point. I think if it's cheaper than that, it's going to sell pretty well. If it's more than that, it will sell a little less well. So that's probably – I think they're gauging the market just about right. I can't wait to see what all is in this game. Although it is this kind of older design, we'll see what they change up and what they put in. What I've seen so far of the photos, these are available on NAP Arcade and elsewhere, are a lot of really cool little sculpted features, kind of like what we saw with Labyrinth. What made Labyrinth so cool was just that world that they made there. The sculpts of the villages, of the houses, the little shacks there, the brick pathways, the doors and things. That was all very interesting. That really helped convey this world that they're trying to create there and the fun playground that you can go knock the ball around in. So it looks like they're taking a similar approach from what we've seen so far. A little LED screen on a sculpted clock or watch mechanism that'll be somewhere in the play field. A jabberwock that locks balls, moves his arms, and lights up. That's appreciated, rather than the flat plastic. And then these cool little lantern-type light things. I like what they're doing, man. They designed, like, a cool little miniature world. And I want to go see more of this. So I'm sure when the game comes out, it'll be themed better than what we've seen from a lot of the major manufacturers, for sure. will it be enough to generate a ton of interest to lead to an instant sellout that remains to be seen I don't think we'll see 500 of these things sell out quickly for sure I think we'll see more of this game at Pinball Expo coming up in just a few weeks once we get through September into October I think we're about 6 weeks away or so 6 or 7 weeks so that'll be fun and we'll probably see something released between now and then at least as far as a full reveal finally will we see Back to the Future though? I'll get to that in the rumor section, but probably not. I think they're going to put all their focus into getting Alice positioned as best it can with this limited kind of competition, at least coming from the Dutch pinball company. I mean, why wouldn't you do that? You're launching this new boutique line off a sub, it's like a sub-boutique off a boutique. Why would you try to cannibalize by releasing both of these bangers at the same time? Let Alice get there and breathe. Give yourself some time to work on Back to the Future. And if Back to the Future is done, go ahead and build some, man. Build, you know, 75 of these games so at launch you can start getting them out there on locations, you know, to professional players, to live streamers, you know, and really kind of build that out. Why not do that since you have the resources? So we'll wait and see what we see from that. But, yeah, Atlas looks cool, man. Atlas looks cool. What else we got? Barbecue. Got some good updates. Now, one of the only locations around me that has a barbecue is Interium in Chicago, which is kind of like the testing grounds, the proving grounds for American Pinball. It's the one location I've seen that has every one of their games. And every time I go out there and play barbecue, something's new, something's different about it. If they're trying out a new PCB board or something, it tends to go in that machine. If they're trying out some new code, tweaking some rules, tweaking some scoring, they'll go ahead and do it on that unit and then kind of follow and see how it does, how many plays is it getting, how long people are playing and all that and feedback. So I can't really comment on where the public code is because I don't have one of these machines just local to me on a local route, and I don't have one of these in the basement. Though the game is fun enough. I do like the lights on the paw bumpers. That's to say something nice about it. But we'll see. It doesn't have that kind of high-level interesting gameplay or interesting layout. It's kind of a symmetrical layout. You know, barbecue, come on. It's got the little gobble holes. Not the gobble holes. What do they call them? The bash lock saucers. Okay, so it's fun. There's some spinners on the ramps, which the game's got to be set up right for those to really rip. otherwise it could be a little disappointing we need a barbecue at this point so the one that I play in Interium tends to have like this early beta code probably even like theta code on it so I don't know it's interesting the animations I haven't seen a whole lot change with those I've seen more of the characters come in there with more of the character voices I'm still not sure exactly what I doing am I playing as a character am I playing against the character am I playing as one character against the rest of the characters I don know Maybe it was explained in a stream and I just don have the stomach to sit there and watch hours and hours of streamed gameplay to try to pick out these nuances and watch people way better at pinball than I ever be do it But, you know, tis what it is. How's barbecue selling? I'm not sure. I haven't been around the house of American pinball in a few months here. But I'm sure we'll get an update around the time of, what is it called, Pinball Expo. Six weeks. A lot can change in six weeks. A lot can change in six weeks, especially as we've heard from American Pinball. It is election season in the U.S., so apparently that affects pinball development and whatnot. Just ribbing you guys a little bit there. All right, one other thing that's happened in these last two months is Haggis is done. It's been done to death. Kerry Hardy doing a great web series about this. Just saw the second episode that was up on his Patreon. So hopefully that will be released to the public soon. A great listen. I've got to say, on my 10-day drive across the U.S. and the desert southwest, I've got to give a shout-out to my boys at Slam Tilt for giving me something to listen to. Because it seems like as soon as I set off on this trip, everybody else went on vacation too. And it was a dearth of content there until the end. Monday of this week got us a bunch of releases. So it made the back-end trip a lot more fun. But thanks, Slam Tilt, for giving me something to listen to. Um, the other thing I got to listen to was the Kerry Hardy videos, both of them, episode one, episode two, uh, unboxing the truth with Haggis pinball was great to put in for, you know, long hours, long drives. Uh, so thanks for that homie for helping me out. Thanks for everybody for coming through eventually give me something new to listen to. Uh, but yeah, that is just everything in the last 60 days or so. Holy crap. Uh, now onto the rumor section, uh, we've had this rumor that the stern cornerstone was dropping in August, and I'm like, well, where is it, right? Well, we're still in the middle of August here. It's the 16th, 17th, 18th or so as I record this, 17th. So still a couple weeks left in August, and I had heard, people were really speculating that last Friday, which was yesterday as of this recording, we were going to get a teaser or something for a full reveal on Monday or Tuesday. This is crazy. So what I have heard most consistently is the X-Men rumor, and seems like more and more frequently I'm not hearing that 97 at the end. I'm hearing Uncanny X-Men, which I think I've explained this before either here or on the Patreon bonus episode, that I wouldn't really expect Stern to deviate too much from the comic route that they've been going to with these characters and such. In terms of licensing, in terms of call-outs, if you're using the comic book, you can kind of go with any voice actor. You don't have to go with the people from the films or the cartoon show. which, you know, given the success of X-Men 97, would probably command more of the budget to go ahead and do that. So I don't know for sure. But it wouldn't surprise me if this was comic book X-Men with a lot of the characters that are kind of, you know, important right now, Wolverine, Gambit, you know, the folks from the Deadpool movie and the X-Men 97 cartoon, and put them in there and just kind of capitalize on the fact that X-Men's hot again right now, especially Wolverine and Deadpool, man. The game we want is Wolverine and Deadpool as a game I like what Stern's been doing With the code updates for Deadpool For even Venom For highlighting what's out there right now I like how they're quick to pivot like that I like that the Insider Connected Seems to allow them to do that Be able to put in some achievements and things Or some badges Quickly to kind of follow what's going on In the public sphere So that's cool, so I dig that I would have liked to have seen this game at Comic Con But, you know, maybe it wasn't ready. So, yeah, would it surprise me if in the next week or so or even the next few days we saw a release? I don't think I'd be totally surprised. And I'm interested to see kind of what this game would have to go for it, especially since my experiment has ended and I'm not really feeling compelled to purchase this game as soon as it's released. So I could just kind of grab the popcorn, let's see what they got, and then head out to, you know, Interium at some point when these are ready to roll out so I can go play one of the first ones off the line. It'll be a pro, and we'll see how it plays and how the code's going and all that. And you get all those first achievements. Like the first time you play an Eastern game, you log in with Insider Connected. That first game, you get like 10 of the little bloopy bloops. Love it, man. Only happens the first few times you play it, but super fun when it does. So I think we'll see that. All right, let's get into the rest of the rumor roundup because it's been fierce. I wasn't expecting this. I was definitely not expecting this from Jersey Jack. pinball. You know, everything that I've heard, even some little whispers and rumors of people that had seen art for the new game that they're developing. Maybe it's just a little false flag operation they're pulling. But it was supposed to be Avatar, whether it's Way of Water, whether it's Avatar 1, whether it's just the whole Avatar series. I know Disney has just announced that they're building on more attractions using the Avatar license theme. Sounds like for Disney California Adventure this time. They're copying the cool new layout for the Pirates of the Caribbean technology from the Shanghai Park and bringing that with an Avatar layover somewhere in California Adventure focused on Way of Water plus that new third movie they're coming out which is like, I don't know, Toasty Fire Marshmallows or something. They did the Avatar movie, they did the water theme, now they're doing a fire movie and then they'll probably go through the rest of the elements apparently.
    26:07
    Don't ride the coattails of the other Avatar too closely there, guys. But yeah, what I had heard was that this was going to be an Avatar machine with some cool water illumination effects. And people had seen either the play field or seen the art or something. And so that kind of confirmed that Avatar was coming, which maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But out of nowhere, this is what I wasn't expecting, there's now a rumor floating around that there's a Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville-themed machine coming from the house that Jack built. This kind of hit me like a brick in the side of my head. because I think that that theme is perfect for pinball, so much so that if I ever get around to completing a homebrew project and I'm looking for something else, I think that would be a great theme to do.
    26:56
    You know, Volcano Multiball, I think as far as that license, that brand, yeah, okay. Dad rock band, right, for sure. Who's the target demographic? A 62-year-old guy in either one of those Big Dicks t-shirts or a Margaritaville with a big Marlin on the back t-shirt, right? That's the dude. Now, Margaritaville, which is probably next to Cheeseburger in Paradise, probably the most popular well-known song that Mr. Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band has completed, has turned into its own themeable license with resort hotels and chain restaurants, and it's in all the big touristy spots. Anywhere you would find a hard rock cafe, you'll find yourself a Margaritaville. He's branched out into – his Venn diagram has always been a little bit of rock, a little bit of reggae, a little bit of country, right? Got a Caribbean soul I can barely control. Some Texas hitting here in my heart, right? So, yes, a cross-cultural appeal for sure. Middle America loves this guy. I love this guy. My dad really loved this guy.
    27:58
    And it's a license that's made for branding. It exists on T-shirts, gift shops, hotels, resorts, golf courses, you name it, it's there. Big water park down in Kissimmee, Florida at the Margaritaville Resort area with a bunch of condos that you can purchase as part of vacation ownership even. So all around like a simulated lake that's full of real gators. So, yeah, interesting. I think it would work. I think it would have some brass, brass, broad, brass, mass appeal. Broad mass appeal is where I was going with that, you know, for a game. and who would illuminate this game and make the Caribbean sunset look better than Jersey Jack pinball right now with all the, put all the hot reels in there, put a glowing volcano in there. And if they make this thing shoot like Elton John, um, with music that connects more to me personally and a brand that is just unstoppable. I mean, who doesn't like it's five o'clock somewhere, right? Um, you know, go soak your feet in the ocean, uh, put your feet in the sand. Um, tide's going to make your beach chair go away or whatever the heck the lyrics are. I think that would work. It was just crazy that a thought that had occurred to me also occurred to these folks to the point that they even have a game that's maybe ready. So we'll see what happens. What I have uncovered is that we're going to know for sure at Expo what this game is. I think they're going to reveal either at Expo or just prior to it, which would totally make sense. That's one year hence Elton John was revealed, was at Pinball's Expo in October, Chicago, Schaumburg, Illinois. But I've also uncovered the Brisbane Arcade Expo. It's happening in Australia, November 29th to December 1st. Their special guest, one of the two special guests, will be Jersey Jack himself. And the synopsis even says that he'll be premiering his new game as well there. So if for some reason we don't see it at Expo, these guys are already pretty much saying that the new game will be available for the public viewing in Australia November 29th. So that's amazing. 29th or 30th? How many days are in November? Whatever the last day of November is and the first day of December, that's the weekend that this thing's going off. So I'm checking my work schedule to see if I have that time off. Wouldn't it be fun to fly out there and play not only the New Jersey Jack pinball game, if we don't happen to catch it at Expo, but also the game from the second special guest that we'll have down there in Brisbane, which is Mike from Home Pin. What up, dude? He's going to have his new Stars rethemed. No, I mean it's Blues Brothers, apparently. but don't expect any Blues Brothers music unless you add it yourself which you're supposed to do through some convoluted invite only verified forum situation oh my goodness I can't wait I get the popcorn ready to just watch how this goes I'm on a new quest now I've played all the Haggis pinball machines I've played all the Jersey Jacks all the Spookies I think I've hit all the sterns but I'm now on a quest to do all the home pin machines and so to that end I've played Thunderbirds now in two locations, and I just missed out on playing a Spinal Tap at the Pinball Hall of Fame I did manage to get down there on my trip i got a full uh trip report let say of all my impressions uh for not only the huge trip that i did across the u.s but also my impressions of the pinball hall of fame i'm going to drop that on patreon as a bonus episode for everybody because i just don't have the the space constraints um such that they need to be for this modality to put that out there but i will say pinball hall of fame it was okay it was okay uh i'll get my full thoughts on the patreon there if you want to go through all that or if you got yourself a little drive and commute and want to check it out it'll be dropping after this episode five dollars we'll get you in the door uh patreon.com backslash don's pinball podcast go check that out thank you for listening to my commercial um apparently a week or so before i was there spinal tap just decided to take a smoke break i saw a photo of a bunch of smoke under the glass and then the game was just sitting there you know you do this thing where you call yourself a pinball museum and not an arcade and then if a game goes down it becomes an exhibit I'll talk all about my thoughts and everything there on the other side of the paywall fence, we'll go play in that playground for a while but dang it I missed out on playing it I will say Thunderbirds, better than I was led to believe so there's that, would I own one? No sir but it is fun to watch the little plastic palm tree shake back and forth This one seemed to be set up at more of a pitch than the one that I played at next level So that was interesting But I still have to track down a functioning Spinal Tap I still don't think there's very much in existence And then I was hoping to get out to Brisbane So I can go play Blues Brothers Just cross that off so I don't have to go and try to hunt for that Because I can't see In any way shape form or otherwise Or spectral astral projection Of this game selling To anybody at all Especially when their marketing tagline is We make games for people that don't like our games.
    32:54
    Okay, yeah, let's go with that. So that's JJP. That's Home Pin. Melbourne special guest. That'll be fun. Stir Next Cornerstone, Uncanny X-Men. Is that what we're going to go with? I think it's what I heard from one of the podcasts, Pinball Party, I believe. Yay! So glad to see that he's back. Yeah, I think it would totally make sense for an Uncanny X-Men game from the comic book using those assets. hire some voice actors that you can get on a budget because they're trying to make a name for themselves and as long as it's not AI driven everybody wins, so I could see that happening, I would love to be pleasantly surprised and see either a movie game or something from the X-Men 97 license, but we'll see what happens, who's designing it? who knows, Jack Danger, are you up next? maybe, Borg's up, would he do it? I don't know I've heard it each way that Jack Danger's on this and Borg's on something else Maybe Borg's tied up doing his Metallica re-theme Or redress or boost for Spike 3 Or whatever it is that that rumor is I also heard Jack is supposed to be on Pokemon Is Pokemon really happening? Is Pokemon the code name for this X-Men game? I really don't know Is this Roundup? Is that what's going on? All that to be found out Also in the rumor list There's so much going on So much going on I can't believe we're supposed to have a slow summer And there's so much to cover here American Pinball has pushed back its rumored Cuphead release past Expo now. Now, I had heard that they had their game designed, right? You know, shots and layout are there. As far as assets and code, they wanted to get it to a point where it would be good to show it. I think that's a great business choice to make. Don't show a game too early. You know, if the code's broken, you know, that's not a good look for your game to reveal. But what I'm hearing is that they were planning on trying to get this game to release by the time Expo came. Now there's been a release that they're worried about another public deluge of games, similar to what we saw, what was it, March 2023?
    34:52
    Down in Texas where, like, seven games all released at the same time, including Galactic Tank Force. So they want to space out a bit is what they're saying. I'm taking that to mean they probably need more time for the code to develop, which, you know, if that's the case, yeah, don't show your game too early if there's nothing really to show. You've got to capture that excitement, you know, in your first release, your first impression, you want it to be good, so people can buy this game, put it in their arcades, put it in their home. And to give yourself the best shot of that, put your best foot forward when you reveal it. I don't know that you need to go to the extreme that Dutch Pinball X is going through, where they're kind of drip-feeding us, you know, here's six months ago, here's what the bottom of our play field looks like. Great, does nothing for me. I get there's a lot of wires. Fantastic. I want to see what the game is. You know, and then here's like a little shot of the back glass. Here's us confirming what the game is. Here's a picture. Here's another picture. You know, if you're doing this over a week to build some interest, okay, maybe. But, like, show the game already, man. Show the game. So we'll see whatever they're bringing. Is this going to be Masters of the Universe? Is it going to be Cuphead? It remains to be seen. But sounds like the likelihood is that we won't see it at Chicago's Pinball Expo in November or October. So maybe November, December they'll go up against Spooky's next title. Maybe they'll save it for after the new year. I don't know. We'll wait and see what the House of American has in store for us, besides more Houdini's and more barbecue code. Spooky Pinball, keeping pretty tight-lipped on what they have coming next. I've heard all the same rumors I have been hearing. Beetlejuice, Evil Dead, something else. Who knows what it is. I've been having some premonitions, though, which has been a little weird. For some reason, a couple days ago, I had a few dreams in the night, kind of in series, about Spooky Pinball. one of which I was having a great sit-down pitch with the Insane Clown Posse about why they need to pick Spooky Pinball to do their theme, talking about how they did Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie, and it's kind of like in their wheelhouse and everything. And it seemed like I was making some headway before I was awoken and had to jump back on the road. I'm blaming the road miles for causing my brain to fry to that point, though I would love to see that. I may be one of only five people that would purchase that game, which is sad because I'd really love to see it happen. the other day though I had a little premonition that I had walked into the spooky offices they were unveiling their next game and it was The Office man probably the best sitcom to come out the last 10 years nobody is out there that doesn't like this movie or TV show and if there is we don't need to hear about it because it's fantastic man it went on for 10 seasons or so it kind of evolved as it went everybody has their favorite era of The Office I think you could just put the whole, what was the town? Not Stratford. I'm totally blanking on the Pennsylvania town. Scranton. The whole Scranton office, you could just put down on the play field and let me play through it. Everything from the break room and bathrooms to the offices to just the layout of the office there. Let me hit on all the desks and everything. Let me answer the phone. Let me make Angela freak out. Let me make her cat a bash toy. Like all this stuff, man. And just put it in there. I think there's a way for it to be done. And I've mentioned this to them. Quite a few times to the point that they're probably sick of me hearing about it. And my response that I got from them was, you know, how could you really make a game about The Office of Me? What would that even look like? Of course, my brain's going a mile a minute. I'm like, are you kidding me? Which I'm hoping is a smokescreen, and this game is coming out at some point. I don't know for sure. I'd hate to spoil the surprise, but if I can do anything to manifest an Office pinball machine into reality, who better to do it than Spooky? They'd get all ten seasons. They'd get all the voice actors. God, it would just be great. And I think it would appeal not only to pinball people, but it would also appeal to locations because it's such a recognizable theme that even non-pinball people would want to play this thing. And even just office fans would want to have this thing. Man, somebody would get the office as a license. God, that would be fun. The Dwight multiball stapler shooter rod. Man, the thing just writes itself. There's so much you could do. So much you could do. I would love an office pin. All right, but we don't know. We don't know what's coming from Spooky, but we will find out before the end of the year because I think December is their release window. I think that's what they're targeting. Can't wait to see what else they're going to have. And then they're going to have the remaining Scooby-Doos on the lines, the TCMs, the remaining Looney Tunes they have, plus the new game will go into the new year, 2025. It'll be fantastic. And they won't have to worry about any interference because the political election will hopefully be over unless the subsequent coup riot goes on for another few months. But either way, we should be ready for some new spooky pinball times around then. last thing I want to get to is just again a plug on the pinball hall of fame I finally went to Vegas it was alright it wasn't bad it wasn't bad this has been a long freaking episode man sorry to make everybody wait so long you know it's kind of hard to record from the road did drop an episode there drop the patreon episode but otherwise I am back baby and as more news drops you'll hear about it here thanks once again for joining be sure to check out we are pinball we'll be recording again soon this week if you need to get yourself a game get on a list with jeff and mad pinball.com he's the homie we got his jingle we could always play i'll bring it back here a little bit for the outro but man i love all the messages i've been getting from people don we want to hear you back we love what you're doing thanks to all the new patreon members out there they're still trickling in man there's tons of content on there goes back a year now that you can go check out even my mock interview with canada's pinball podcast it goes fantastic it's buried down in there if you keep scrolling you can get to it everybody else, we'll be back again later in the week, hopefully we'll get some news as we get into Monday and Tuesday did we get the robot voices yet? almost, I love this commercial here it comes
    40:56
    such a jam you can email me at don's pinball podcast at gmail.com let me know what you think what you want to hear what you want me to do if you want to shout out go ahead and send it in man i'll read it off on the air no problem email jeff at madpimble.com if you want to get yourself on the list for one of these new games coming out the deluge is going to be upon us soon where are venom accessories man drop that on me maybe they're waiting to go against another major release talk to you later