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Episode 51 – Alex Jones

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Jul 13, 2017
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Slam Tilt hosts review Straight Down the Middle show, critique Star Wars, discuss Dutch/Heighway news, and promote Stomp Tournament.

Summary

Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale discuss their experience at Straight Down the Middle pinball show in Massachusetts, including tournament results, venue layout critiques, and detailed impressions of the new Stern Star Wars game. They also cover Heighway's production restart announcement, Dutch Pinball's legal and manufacturing challenges, Coast to Coast Pinball's return, and promote the upcoming Stomp Tournament in upstate New York.

Key Claims

  • Star Wars Pro is so stripped down it's not worth playing; the game is overly complicated with confusing multiplier mechanics similar to Game of Thrones

    high confidence · Ron Hallett, episode discussion of Star Wars Pro gameplay

  • Josh Sharpe has stated games are getting too complicated, indicating the industry is pushing complexity too far

    medium confidence · Ron Hallett citing Josh Sharpe's appearance on Coast to Coast Pinball

  • Dutch Pinball will likely never ship Alien machines due to ARA-designed components that cannot be legally replicated without risking cease-and-desist lawsuits

    medium confidence · Bruce Nightingale's analysis of Dutch Pinball's manufacturing and IP constraints

  • ARA manufactured the bowling alley mechanics and board sets for Dutch Pinball's Alien, not Dutch Pinball itself

    high confidence · Bruce Nightingale stating this was confirmed in Dutch Pinball expo materials

  • Heighway released a statement Friday saying they're building games again and contacting refund requestors to encourage them to stay

    high confidence · Ron Hallett reporting Heighway's Friday announcement

  • The Stomp Tournament has 28 players already signed up including top 100 ranked players, with $400K cash challenges on Stars and Big Game

    high confidence · Ron and Bruce promoting the tournament scheduled for Saturday

  • Straight Down the Middle show had vendor placement issues with vendors split between the free play area walls and vendor hall, making the layout feel disjointed

    high confidence · Bruce Nightingale's detailed critique of venue layout

  • Star Wars games at Straight Down the Middle didn't ship with data cards until the day of the show, preventing play until noon

    high confidence · Bruce Nightingale describing Stern's data card shipment delay

Notable Quotes

  • “I have no interest. None. Zero. And the funny thing, I'm not alone. I think Josh Sharpe. Because Josh Sharpe was on Coast to Coast Pinball. He came around and said he thinks they're getting a little too complicated. Yeah. This is Josh Sharpe saying that. If he's thinking they're getting a little too complicated, they're getting too complicated.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~mid-episode — Validates Ron's concerns about Star Wars complexity by citing respected designer Josh Sharpe as agreeing

  • “Cease and desist. You're using a thing that's been designed by us. Okay, that's reason number one. Number two, the time. The time is not going to happen. Are you going to wait another two years for them to actually design stuff and then give you your pinball machine?”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~late-episode — Blunt prediction that Dutch Pinball faces insurmountable legal and timeline obstacles preventing Alien production

  • “I'll say it flows great, but I don't understand any of the rules, and I don't want to. I don't want to take time to learn them. And if it's in a tournament, I guess I'm losing.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~mid-episode — Expresses resignation that Star Wars complexity is a barrier even for serious players

  • “You watch, in six months, they're going to say, boy, this didn't work out either, and sorry, our dream can't be made. Guess what, I'm not financing your dream.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~late-episode — Cynical prediction of Dutch Pinball's ultimate failure

  • “The artwork was Papa Duke cheesy... When I saw the artwork, I'm just thinking, Sega. And then when John Youssi the side art, it was really not as well as the other ones have been in the past.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~mid-episode — Criticism of Star Wars artwork quality and Steve Ritchie's track record on licensed games

  • “I don't see Dutch making anything. You heard it here first. It's the truth.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~late-episode — Definitive skepticism about Dutch Pinball's manufacturing viability

Entities

Ron HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonJosh SharpepersonSteven BowdenpersonEric StonepersonTim BallpersonPhil Birnbaumperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Star Wars Pro criticized as overly complicated with confusing multiplier mechanics; Ron Hallett and guest expert Josh Sharpe both believe modern games are getting too complex for casual/tournament players

    high · Ron: 'I just, it just loses me. I have no interest. None. Zero.' and 'Josh Sharpe was on Coast to Coast Pinball. He came around and said he thinks they're getting a little too complicated.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Star Wars artwork criticized as 'Papa Duke cheesy' and reminiscent of Sega; side art noted as inferior to previous Stern releases; broader pattern of poor artwork on recent Steve Ritchie Stern licensed games

    high · Ron: 'The artwork was Papa Duke cheesy... When I saw the artwork, I'm just thinking, Sega.' Discussion of Ritchie's last 10+ games all having mediocre-to-poor artwork

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Star Wars games at Straight Down the Middle didn't ship with data cards until show day, preventing play until noon kickoff

    high · Bruce: 'there was no line for Star Wars... because they didn't ship the data card until that day'

  • ?

    business_signal: Dutch Pinball faces insurmountable legal and manufacturing obstacles: ARA-designed components cannot be replicated without cease-and-desist risk, timeline for redesign is 2+ years, and 40 games stuck at ARA create inventory liability

    high · Bruce detailed three-point analysis: (1) Cannot copy ARA designs without legal risk, (2) Timeline is impossible, (3) 40 machines trapped at ARA with unclear ownership/sales prospects

  • ?

    business_signal: Heighway Pinball announced production restart, contacting refund requestors to retain customers; Bruce skeptical this represents meaningful change without visible shipping

Topics

Straight Down the Middle show venue and logisticsprimaryStar Wars game design, complexity, and artwork criticismprimaryDutch Pinball manufacturing crisis and ARA IP conflictprimaryHeighway Pinball production restart and messagingsecondaryTournament results from Straight Down the MiddlesecondaryStomp Tournament promotion and detailsprimarySteve Ritchie artwork quality across Stern licensed gamessecondaryGame complexity in modern pinball designsecondary

Sentiment

mixed(-0.25)— Positive energy around Stomp Tournament and Coast to Coast Pinball's return, but significant frustration with Star Wars complexity, Dutch Pinball mismanagement, and venue logistics at Straight Down the Middle. Bruce is particularly cynical about Dutch's prospects.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.185

Hey, are you fart knockers trying to steal our oil? No, but we fixed your sewage leak. Uh, sewage? That doesn't come out of the ground, dumbass. It comes from, like, toilets and stuff. No, it doesn't. It comes out of your ass, dumbass. Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Tilt Podcast, a show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. Ron's in the money. Ron's in the money. And welcome to episode 51, High Anxiety. Yes, Mel Brooks' take on all the Hitchcock movies. Not bad. Not great, but not bad. Never seen it. Fail. Total fail. Who was in it? Oh, everyone. Dom DeLuise. All the regulars. All the regulars you usually see from all of his movies. All right. Very good cast. But, Ron. Yes. How are you doing today? I'm doing just peachy. So, are we going to go over Pintastic? Pintastic? What's that? That was a tournament slash pinball get-together gathering in Massachusetts this past weekend. I think it was more of a show with a tournament part of it, but yeah. Not for us. Not for us. Not for us. Yeah, I didn't really spend that much time in the free play area, I must admit. Yeah, I did a little bit, but that was about it. Well, we did have to defend against a challenger. Yeah, we had a challenger, the Slam Tilt Challenge, which we were 3-0. Now we are. 4-0. Yeah, who challenged us? Our own Zach. Our own Zach. We are undefeated. We are undefeated. Ron took him in four games. I had to go to the rubber match in game five, but I handily defeated him in the final game. What was it, like 3 million to 200,000? Yeah, something like that. On high speed. Yeah, and someone had like a billion in Congo. I don't know who that could be. I don't know who that was. Maybe you? Maybe me, yeah. That could have been me. That could have been me. So what did you think of the show? Good and bad. Oh, boy. Typical Bruce. Okay. Well, I bring the good and the bad. Because we've opened to many shows. I see the good. I take the bad. I take them both in there. You have the facts of life. I only went Friday. I left Friday, Saturday morning early. The good part about when I was there Friday, well, the funny part was when we first got there, we got the – there was no line for Star Wars. there was no line for Star Wars. They had two of them. There was two of them, and they had no lines for either of them. Because they didn't ship the data card until that day. Whoops. Well, the reason I think they reasoned why they did it is because they wanted to make sure that no one could play the game. And maybe they gave them the newer code. Who knows? I wasn't involved with that. But about 12 o'clock, the game's powered up, and we got to play them. but what I didn't like about the show was, you know, this year they put games in the vendor hall, which made it really loud with the tournament games or anything else in there. Plus, all the good games, which I guess were games, were in that hall. And when you went to the other free play area, there was vendors in there that were kind of like stuck in there. Just, I don't know. I just didn't have a... Wait, you're confusing me. So they have vendors in the free playroom? Yes. Where? Along the walls, on the outer walls. Like last year where Lights, Camera, Action was, there was three vendors there. Oh, all right. And it just didn't feel cohesive. It didn't feel like it was all together. You're like, oh, yes, there's vendors in this hall. Oh, I forgot about these vendors, but they all were just forgotten, I think, themselves. and it just didn't feel like an altogether thing. Other than that, the outside door area, I did get some parts. I picked up a U-Stern playfield. I picked up my transformer, and I picked up a U-Stern coin door for the Quicksilver. About the Star Wars thing, it wasn't just that fantastic either. I was reading, I guess, some other arrivals. It was the same deal. It didn't have the card. I bless you, David. That was their way of blocking it. But blocking what? Like when did they send the games out? Well, a week ago probably. All right. Okay. I guess that makes sense. So the selection of games were good. Most of the games played good. They do have a power issue in that free play room. They have a power issue in the free play room. Because you would play like you had like a gorgeous Star Trek, a Bally Star Trek. Yep. And is it Strikes and Spares or Spares and Strikes? I never say it right. Strikes and Spares. strikes and spares, the Caballi strikes and spares, just gorgeous. And the flippers were a little on the weak side. And you know just as good as that game looked, there's no way they were like that. No. So, yeah, it was a little bit of a power issue. I mean, it is like an older hotel. Yeah, it is. It is. But the games played well. The tournament went really well. I didn't see, you know, did you buy anything from anybody at the vendors or anything? I did not. Okay, so, but you did buy a shirt from Gabe. You bought the... I bought the shirt. I bought the Zombie Eddie shirt. Yep. And a poster. I'm trying to think what else about the shirt. I know they had issues with the... They did the VIP thing. Well, they had two VIP things. They have the VIP thing that if you're staying at the hotel... Yes, you get the dinner and lunch or whatever. You get the dinner. Yeah, it's supposed to be at like 10 o'clock, and they bring all this food in, and you get that. And they've been doing that all three years. Since the beginning, yeah. Yeah, since the beginning. Then they had the Uber VIP area where it had a bunch of high-end games that you could go in, and it was open 24 hours type deal. I know they had an issue with the VIP area, the food thing, where people, even though it opened at 10, people were in line at 9.30, and they would come in there, and they would get three slices of pizza and 20 ribs and just put it all on one plate for one person. just you know so they were they ran out of food like before the line was even out so i think gabe ended up ordering like 50 pizzas and having them brought in yikes that's not good but yeah it's one of those deals it's like you try to do a nice thing and people abuse it people abuse it so friday for me was good i left friday saturday morning early i got back home around 12 and i did my yard work and everything i had to do because i next week i'm going to be busy with something else hint hint wink wink so how was saturday for you ron you peer pressured me into one play i didn't peer pressure you at all you told me you peer pressured me into paying for you to play viper yes but i did good in viper not great but not bad actually if you go to tim balls's twitch feed twitch.tv slash tim balls he has the entire They filmed all the qualifying and the finals. And you can even see the Slam Tilt crew together doing commentary on Friday. Yes, we did. Yes, we did. It was fun. Part of me wished I did stay Saturday because I would have commentated more. Watched my two friends make it into the top 24. Yeah, somehow I ended up doing the commentary on the finals. That was weird. That's good, though. You did a good job. So they were doing the, I guess you can't really call it Papa style anymore, but the old Papa style format where it's entry-based. So you play five games, and you've got to have five good games. And it's the same way. I think they did that way. It's been the same way for three years. Yes, it's the same format. And a lot of the same games they bring because it's the Sanctum runs it. Yes. And I'm always happy when they bring the Medusa. Yes, he did really well in the Medusa. Me and the Medusa get along. We always have. Me too. I only played, it was like $10 an entry. I only did like four entries. I did two on Friday and two on Saturday. The two I did on Friday, my second entry, I was in, I don't know, 15th place, something like that, and I knew that wouldn't hold. So Saturday I played one entry of like totally different games trying to knock other people down, and that went nowhere. And I kept bleeding. I got down to like 21st place, 22nd place. and I definitely was not going to make it. So I played the one more entry, and I got to a point where my final game was on Dirty Harry, and I calculated I needed like $400 million to get in, because there's only like an hour left, I think, in qualifying. And I got like $1.2 billion. I had over $400 million after the first multiball. So it was all gravy after that. And you qualified? 12th or 13th, something like that. Yep. And our own Eric Russell was right behind you. Yes, he was. We both made it. And, of course, Tim. Tim, you know he's going to make it. He's playing more for the bye. Yep. And Steven Bowden made it. Of course he did. Eric Stone and a couple other, Alberto and Zen and Levy and a lot of our local players, who are going to, most of them are going to be at Stomp. In the first round, I won 3-0 against Lucas, Lucas Nelson. Okay. So then I got to play Levy. Yeah, I played Levy last year. Yeah. So I don't think I ever beat him before, but I won. I beat him 3-1. Nice. You play three out of five. Yes. So beat him on, I'm trying to remember what we played. I know we played, I beat him on Medusa and Bow and Arrow. and Demoman. He beat me on Dialed In. Okay. So then I faced Eric Stone. Well, you almost faced Eric Russell. If Eric Russell was able to beat Eric Stone, which he unfortunately didn't, he lost to him 3-1, and Eric actually posted right afterwards saying, the better Eric won. Yeah, Eric Stone had 3 million on Scorpion. Yeah. Which was ridiculous. Yeah, wow. It was ridiculous. And I played decent, but that dude was on another level. I mean, he had like a million on Scorpion. He had – we finished on Dirty Harry. Now, on my first round, when I played Lucas, I had two billion on Dirty Harry. Okay. Which is a grand champion score. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. So Eric Stone against me had $2.2 billion. Oh, boy. So not only beating me, which I had $700 million, not that bad, but he took away my grand champion score. So just double pain. Bum, bum, ba-dum. Bum. Then Eric went on to face Tim A. Yep. And they had a controversial game on Harley Davidson where basically the game malfunctioned. Malfunctioned. Malfunctioned. Malfunctioned. Harley Davidson is one of those System 11 games you can steal locks on. Yes. And Eric Stone locked a ball. And when Tim was up, there's two saucers to lock balls on. There's one on the left where you lock the first one, and then the one on the right will lock or light up, and then you lock it, and it starts a two-ball multiball. Okay. Or a three-ball, whatever the hell it is. What's supposed to happen is Eric locked a ball and then he drained. So there's a ball there. So when Tim's up, the right saucer should be lit for multiball, for a steal. Instead, the left saucer was lit, even though there was already a ball in it. There was no way to get a ball in there because there was a ball in there. So they had him play out. He drained, and then they spent the next five minutes trying to replicate what happened, and they could not, so they gave him a consolation ball, Tim. And he still couldn't come back, so Eric won. And then ended up in a fairly exciting matchup between him and Phil Birnbaum from Canada. Eh? Eh. And they had a situation also on Harley-Davidson where Phil could have won. He was player two, and they had extra balls on, but they were doing a thing. Like in qualifying, you played the extra balls, but in the finals, you plunged them. So he finished behind Eric after his third ball, but he had an extra ball. And if he had plunged it hard into the pop bumpers, he would have won. Instead, he soft plunged, and he lost. And by win, I mean he would have won the tournament. So, again, you can go to Tim Ball's channel and watch that. You can hear Steven Bowden's insightful commentary. Hi, Steve. Hi, Steve, on people's poor math skills. What do you mean? Well, when they were counting up the bonus, everyone said, he's going to catch him, he's going to catch him, Steve. No, he's not. It's like, it looks like we have issues with math here. But then, yeah, if he had just hard plunged, I guess if he hit one pop bumper, it would have been like, we're 50,000 and that would have been enough. like with the rest of the bonus and stuff he had. So that was unfortunate. So congratulations to Eric Stone. Congratulations to Eric. And it shows even on a game like Harley-Davidson, it really pays to know the rules, I guess. It blows me away that people would know how much a pop-up is worth. I have a long ways to go in that category. Well, not really. I just don't want to know. Okay. I just can't be that into it. I'm sorry. So for you, how was the show for you? Besides that. I didn't play in anything else, do anything else. Boom! Spying on me. Okay. Good show as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, I got like $160. Yay! Always be careful. I'm in the money. I'm in the money. And I'll probably get enough points to actually have this count. You might even be in the Massachusetts running. Ooh, no. That's doubtful. Not with all the leagues they have. Yeah. Well I felt good because Timmy finished third like I did last year So that was kind of cool I was hoping you guys were going to be up on the high side which is a good time Trust me I missed playing in it but it actually was kind of nice sitting there watching you guys all go Oh, I did crappy on this game. Oh, I did crappy on this game. And I'm sitting there going, I actually enjoyed myself. Yes, you did. But we got to play something else that same, the first night. And what was that? Star Wars. Yeah, Star Wars. So, I guess, going by that sound, Ron did not like it too much. Here's the deal. Number one, I don't even care about the Pro. It's so stripped down, I don't care. I want to play the Premium. Okay. I have no interest. But didn't you get a tease from it? Okay. It's fast as fuck. Yes, it is. As you would anticipate, Flow City. So you know Bruce is going to like it. Smooth shots. It's like no fear. It's basically, it is no fear. They put pop-uppers in it, but they're in the back and they hardly ever get hit. It's just, the whole software, you choose your character, choose this, choose that, do this, all this crazy multiplier. Very confusing. All this multiplier bullshit and all this crap. I just, I just, it just loses me. I have no interest. None. Zero. And the funny thing, I'm not alone. I think Josh Sharpe. Because Josh Sharpe was on Coast to Coast Pinball. He came around and said he thinks they're getting a little too complicated. Yeah. This is Josh Sharpe saying that. If he's thinking they're getting a little too complicated, they're getting too complicated. I mean, I felt like this was another just Game of Thrones crap and all the houses and all this other stuff. So I know, like, Tim will love it. I'm sure, like, probably Steven Bowden will love it. To me, it's just, like, it's so over my head. It's just like, I don't want to have to think that much. I'm playing a damn pinball machine. Now, I liked it. It was fast. I didn't mind the scoring. The scoring is way screwed up. The scoring is ridiculous. The bonus is like five times your actual score. It was. I agree. But did you notice, like, on the display, when you're looking at the cockpit, the pop bumpers were your upper part of the display. So when your ball was in the pop bumpers, you know how it usually used to be in the old, like, the Ghost Buster would pop up the three squares to match? It was actually on the display, the top part of the cockpit line, and you could see them bouncing there. And whenever the pop bumper got hit, you'd try to match the three again there. You just want to say cockpit. Cockpit. So what you're saying is the whole whodunit pop bumper thing is really getting a workout. Yeah, it is. Dwight really likes to use that. He does. He loves it. But at least it was integrated nice in the thing. I liked it. I liked it a lot. Okay. But as you also said, I want to see the premium. I want to see the getaway. Yeah. I want to see the supercharger. Yes. But I did like when you drained. Yoda says, you know, do or do not. Do not. The sounds get you. Oh, yeah. It's got the stuff it's supposed to have in it. It has the actual music, all the calls. It has some really bad custom call-outs. And spelling? Spelling. What was wrong with the spelling? Tatooine? Is it spelled wrong on the play field or on the display? No, in display. So they'll fix that. But it was just funny to see that. I felt like when I was hearing the jackpot calls, it sounded like the guy was impersonating Sean Connery from IJ4. Fruark Poir. I was like, what? Who is he even supposed to be? I don't get it. I didn't understand that. I mean, they couldn't get Mark Dick Hamill. He does everything else. Why would he not do that? Money, money, money. He can't be that expensive. He does too many things. Come on. Money, money. He could have a nice Joker voice. It would have been great. I agree, but they didn't. So guess what? We've got to deal with it. And the artwork. I mean. The artwork was pretty cheesy. Yeah. I mean, they're stuck with, you know, it's, I blame Lucasfilm more than. I mean, they have to use what they give them. I'm sure they weren't going to let them do a nice custom art package. But when I saw the artwork, I'm just thinking, Sega. And then when you see the side art, it was really not as well as the other ones have been in the past. No, it wasn't. Poor Steve. He just gets saddled with these worst art packages. I know. I mean, what's the last Steve Ritchie game that had good art? There's a good question. I mean, let's go over them. This is a fun exercise. You got Star Wars, crap. You got Game of Thrones, crap. Star Trek I like, but nobody, I like the LE. Okay. The LE, it's passable, but again, nothing to write home about. 24. Well, he did something before Star Trek, didn't he? ACDC. ACDC. Which is just Photoshop crap. Yeah. 24, terrible. Yeah. Elvis. Elvis? Okay. I actually, World Poker Tour. Oh, yeah. World Poker Tour, terrible. Elvis? Okay. It's okay. He's got a lot of pink. I mean, it's got the Photoshopped Elvis on it, but. Terminator 3. Crap. Crap. No Fear, crap. No, No Fear is good. There you go. No Fear is the last Steve Ritchie game with Gar work. I don't buy that one. Oh, yeah. The artwork is awesome. It totally fits the theme. Very colorful. I don't like it. So for our listeners, write us in at slam till podcast at gmail.com and tell us what you think the last Steve Ritchie game that had decent artwork was. Oh, my. Oh, my. I'm going with No Fear. I'm going home. I'm actually going back. I'm going to IPDB right now. Hold on. I'm going there. You don't need to go there. I can tell you all his games. Before that would have been Star Trek Next Gen. Which I think is great. Which is good. Yep. That's a good art package. Again, it's the faces, but it is all hand-drawn. It looks good. That was good. And the play field's good, too. Everything's good on the play field, too. Before that is Getaway. Mm-hmm. Eh, Getaway. I like Getaway. Getaway is inconsistent. They had, like, the play field is done by one guy. and in there the guy, the main dude in the car is like blonde and then on the back glass it's done by another artist and it's Steve Ritchie in the car and then in the DMD it's like some guy with a crew cut in the car. Kind of inconsistent with the graphics package. Oh, we forgot one. Spider-Man. Yeah, that wasn't, eh. I actually don't mind Spider-Man. Too much Photoshop. Let's see, Terminator 2. Terraria 2 is okay, especially the Translight is excellent. Even though it's the big face, everyone knows that Translight. Roller Games? Yeah, Black Knight 1000? That's good. It's okay. The Backglass is the best part. The Playfield? Nah. So I have to say Next Generation for me. Okay. Or Star Trek the LE. So what else do we got here? So yeah, that was my opinion on Star Trek. I mean, Star Trek Star Wars. So we're both going to wait for the premium. I want to play the premium. I want to see the supercharger in action. Yes. And if it's good, what would you do then? Would you say, ooh, maybe? Or would you say, nah? I'll say it flows great, but I don't understand any of the rules, and I don't want to. I don't want to take time to learn them. And if it's in a tournament, I guess I'm losing. Wow. Sorry. I guess that's why I'll never be a top-notch tournament player. Oh, my. Yeah. so uh we go with some news now news news a piece of news piece of news highway uh released a picture on friday stating that they're building games again not a big quantity like that and uh they stated that if you have requested a refund hopefully you've heard back for them and that you know hopefully you're staying with the game and look we're going to try to make these games and keep going through it and produce you your alien. And what do you think? Whatever I see these posts from either them or Dutch, I think of the Peanuts character, the teacher. It's all BS. I don't give a crap. Until you actually ship a lot of games, it's just... It really is. Like, I understand they're trying to change their appearance with, hey, look, we're trying to be more open and more talkative about this. At least Highway is one up on Dutch. Highway can produce the game. Yeah, they actually – yeah, they can actually produce the game. They're not having another company doing it for them. Well, people don't realize how much Dutch is in the hole. Dutch is going to be totally screwed because everyone's saying, oh, look, they're going to get a new manufacturer. and look, it'll take them time, but they'll be able to make the parts. Bull. Three reasons why. One, they cannot copy one thing that ARA has designed and made. Because as soon as they do, ARA is going to say, wait, I'm going to sue you. Cease and desist. So that means they've got to make the whole, all the mechs, the bowling alley thing all done, all the board sets, everything has to be done differently. and nothing copying the old ones because if ara designed them as everyone's been saying they designed them and dutch pinball can't you know you know they're saying oh yeah it's our design no it's not ara designed them that means they have the rights to it so that game is never gonna get produced sorry guys you heard it here you're gonna hear it from me all the time As soon as they try to use one piece of the old design, if I was the company IRA, I'd say, guess what, guys? Cease and desist. You're using a thing that's been designed by us. Okay, that's reason number one. Number two, the time. The time is not going to happen. Are you going to wait another two years for them to actually design stuff and then give you your pinball machine and waste and bleed more of your money? uh um no not my money and not your money either but people who still listen get on a lawyer sorry i would be doing that so fast and people saying oh that's not right you know we all want to get our game you're not going to get your game you watch in six months they're going to say boy this didn't work out either and sorry our dream can't be made guess what i'm not financing your dream you need to finance your dream number three you still have the problem with the 40 games at ara now supposedly ara can't sell them but neither can dutch because they don't own them you watch eventually these machines will somehow get out and when they do it's easy to be one of two things. Holy crap, they're going to be a lot of money. Or if Dutch by chance makes machines, they're going to maybe be worth nothing to ARA. But I think they'll be worth a lot of money. Because I don't see Dutch making anything. You heard it here first. It's the truth. What do you feel about that? I was in manufacturing and it sucks. I can't see them making anything. I mean, at least Highway has the facilities and they actually have games like that are theirs. And designed by them. Yeah, and designed by them and the licenses through them and all that. So at least it's just a matter of having enough money to put the things together. With Dutch, I mean, they have this bizarre situation where another company is actually building them and has them. And designed them. And designed them, which I don't think anyone knew that. they they just ara manufactured the bowling alley they even said that in one of their uh one of the expo things and the board sets so right then and there you're sol now you have the williams mex in there and everything like that they can't you know you can use that stuff but all the tooling and all the other stuff oh my god they're going to bleed money so needless to say I think you have a better chance of getting an alien so hopefully Ed Zeldman gets his alien hi Ed hi Ed but yeah just BS every time you see these weekly updates I just get so frustrated like really stop it stop your crap do we have any positive news coast to coast pinball is back you talked about it before with our buddy Josh And Josh was on there. So he's already like two episodes. Like boom, boom. Boom, boom. So it's nice to see Nate back. Congratulations, Nate. Welcome back. Again, we said it last episode. We're going to say it again. Something's going on this weekend. Yeah, that's what I've heard. Yeah. Yeah. George Takei may be there. It will be the Stomp Tournament. The Slam Tilt Oh My Pinball Tournament. That will be occurring this Saturday. 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24. You're counting how much money we're giving out? 28 players already signed up. Yep. Including some top 100. We have a lot of top 100 players there. So don't be discouraged by that. Because guess what? You want to play the best. Plus, it's not all Sterns, man, and it's all random game selection. They're not going to get to pick games. Nope. And some of those sterns are set up pretty dang hard. Yes, they are. So I put another video out there. Yes, it's on our final lineup. See all the beautiful games ready to go, ready to kick ass. Yep. I'm going to post a picture right now on there. Ooh. Of my star score today. Oh, and what did you have today, Bruce? Hold on. I'm going to post it right now. Okay. So Ron can see it live. I can actually see it live. Actually. Actually. I'm going to put it on the stomp, actually. The stomp, actually. All right. I'm on the stomp, actually. Okay. And... Hold on. Where is it? I don't see it. God. Are we there yet? Wall buster. Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Where is it? I'm reloading. Reloading. Got my 400K. There you go. With the same settings You know me So you had the glass off Nope You said I know you Look at that I had the two scores up and I got the 400K Oh, that's lame. No, but I did get 343, or 342. Come on, Bruce. That's bad. That's bad. But I did get the high score on my machine. Yes. So that's going to be this week, Saturday. Yep, that's the $100 challenge. Anybody who gets $400K on stars gets a fresh, crisp $100 bill. And anyone who gets a million on big game gets a crisp $20 bill. Yep. And the tournament starts at 2. I'm probably going to open up the doors. I'm figuring at 12. Yeah. So if people want to get hours of practice, go for it. Yes. I feel like I should be more of a hype machine. Come on! Come on, come on! It's the exciting Stomp Tournament! Get ready to get stomped! You're going to play some kick-ass games. Me, Zach, and Ron all tested them. And Quicksilver is now 100%, according to Ron today. You have your displays now in, now too. Ron's got a nice little thing to test people out with, too. Oh, what's that? With the extra display I gave you. The extra display you gave me. What happened when I gave you that fourth display? Oh, yeah, that was funny. Yeah, Bruce gave me some displays, well, two that worked and two that are broken. And one of the ones that's broken does a cool thing. If you put it in your game, it won't boot. Yes. It's awesome. I was thinking that would be great for some kind of troubleshooting thing, you know, if you had like a class. It's like, okay, students, this game will not boot. You need to find out why. and see how hard that would be for them to figure that out. And I did get – you told me that the metal bracket was broken on the Quicksilver. I got one coming off of that also. Oh, wait a minute. You got one of those? Yep. Where did you get that from? On eBay. Oh. $9.99. Really? Yep, all the brackets for the whole ball lane, including the lane guide and everything. Of course you realize that's on your Galaxy playfield. No, it's not. Broken. Oh, it's broken on the Galaxy playfield, too? Yep. How does that get broken? I don't know. That was a crappy design, I guess. Yeah. So, Stomp is this weekend. We hope to see a lot of you guys out there in New York City. We even have Chuck Webster coming. Let's have New Robert Englunds representation. Yes, hopefully we get a little bit more. I'd like to get a little more West New York also. but it just looks like it's going to be – we've got four people coming from Western New York. Myself, Eric Russell. I don't know which one yet. I've got to look at that one. Probably CNY. I think CNY. He's the best. Yeah. Jason Plourd and Dave Cohen. Maybe – was Ryan in there? Let's see. Does Zach not count? Oh, Zach. Well, Zach's Albany. No, he's not. Yes, he is. No. He doesn't live in Albany anyway. He lives in – it's – He's half and half. Half and half. Oh, my. But, yeah, we have a lot of good players coming up. Oh, Andy's coming out, too. I forgot Andy's coming out. So we have five from Central New York. Nice. Nice. Oh, six. Ryan's coming out, too. So we do have six. So we got a lot. We actually are going to be representing. You got to reverse yourself now. I do. I'm a dumb idiot. Sorry, how's that? You can always use that in the thing. Yep. So repairs. Repairs. How did you make the spinners work? By carefully bending them to be exactly the same as one of the spinners that worked. Okay, and now they work. Yeah, I put about 20 games on them, and they did not go out of adjustment. So I'm confident they will be spinning just fine. Anything else? Let's see. Anything else? I finished going through all the games. Yeah. No. Hopefully everything holds up and there will be no repairs for Stomp. Me, I actually worked on Stars. This week I replaced four light sockets. Do you believe GE bulbs actually go bad? Yeah, they do. I mean, they do get kind of old. The gold base 44s. I had like six of them that were out. And then I had one just go out today, too. So I replaced the four sockets on that. Then I went over to, oh, I went to Hot Doggin'. And I replaced four sockets on my Hot Doggin'. They were flaky, and they've been giving me a fit for a little while. And I only have one socket that's not working. My bayonet socket in my pop bumper, my lower pop bumper, is not working. Continuity's all good there. The driver's good. I tested it out. Swap the board, still good. Will not flash that, so I might have to desolder and replace the whole socket there, that whole bulb for the bayonet for the 4744 style. So you're replacing your butt plug socket? Yes. All right. And then I went to Harlem, and I replaced a couple sockets on that, and I reseated, reflowed the connectors on the back of the light driver board and got a couple more lights back on. So that's all good. The next thing is going to be Paragon tomorrow. Paragon tomorrow with the, we're going to try to heat to take the insert out. The insert thing you said you were going to fix a couple weeks ago. Yes, we're going to finally do it tomorrow. All right. And then I'm going to try your detox it. We never talked about that, did we? Oh, yeah, you got that. That's right. Yes. But it's called Detox-It, and it's like a contact cleaner. Now, what did you use to clean with it? You used, like, fine sandpaper? No, index paper. Index paper, okay. Yeah, I wouldn't use sandpaper with a low voltage contact, no. Ah, you're no fun. Yeah, I just file them down. Yep. Yeah. High voltage. And when you're doing your repairs, you're going to add some ground prongs, right? Nope. nope not at all i touched my i actually touched today the uh yesterday i touched the uh hot dog next to the centaur and i sat there for like a half a minute thinking ron jingle jingle jingle as you were all tingly and you thought of me yes it's kind of weird oh my i'm just saying i took the displays out to give to you for uh for your nine ball yeah and the weird thing is one of my malfunctioning displays on 9-ball just decided to start working for no apparent reason. I don't get it. So I only put one of the new ones in there or the replacement ones. So we'll see how it goes. Yep, got extras. I'm trying to find a receiver. I don't know how people don't understand what receivers are. I had a guy today email me saying, yeah, I got a receiver for you. I'm like, great. You know, got any pictures of it? He goes, you want it with the latches or without the latches? I was like, no, I don't need a newer stern. I needed old solid state stern. Yeah, yeah, there's two different styles. I said, but not the new sterns. I need it from 78 to 82, 83. Oh, I thought you meant the newer sterns. No. So he used to say, I've not found my receiver yet. So if anyone has a stern receiver later than like late 78 and up, I'll take it. What else do we got? I'm looking right now. Oh, my dehumidifier issues. What does that have to do with pinball? Keeps the basement dry. Okay. My dehumidifier froze up. Now, if you look at my dehumidifier, my dehumidifier is about three feet tall by about two feet wide by two feet deep by one foot wide. It's supposed to be able to take 80 quarts of water out a day. Well, it froze up and now it's not been doing as much. So I had the coil sensor replaced and it can only get down to like 60%. 50% humidity. Can't get any lower. Some days it goes down to 56 if it's dry out, but it just cannot keep up like it used to. It's only four years old. Not even four years old. Three years old. Yeah, so kind of annoying. Grr. Grr. I guess those things don't really last as long as they used to. Nothing lasts as long as they used to. Sounds like you need a new dehumidifier, Bruce. Not for $1,500 again. $1,500? That's how much it's really heavy duty. Yeah, okay. It's beefy like me. Yeah, mine's not nearly that expensive, and it does okay. It does okay. So what else you got? Responses from episode 50, our last episode, our grand finale for our first 50 episodes. If you can't tell, it tired us out. It did tire us out a lot. It did tire us out. that was like the super duper episode 50 when in reality this is actually the year end of the you know the first year episodes this one should be the super exciting one but 50 sounds better it does sound better sounds more impressive and you got to hear from Lonnie Ropp that was awesome that was awesome he does not like you he does not like you I don't know why I don't know why you're just you're what have I said what have I said to him I don't know what you said you love his games. I love his games. They're the best. Bruce especially loves Nibbler. You can look that up. That's another Lonnie Ropp game. Oh, God. So, Tim Peters said, you know, hopefully he's going to come to Stomp. He's at Pintastic if he wanted to pay us that day. And he says, thanks for the mentions on the last podcast. I listened on the way over to Pintastic. So, thank you very much. We had a lot of people come up to me and came up to you, liked the podcast, listened to it actually on the way over. So it's really nice to hear always, and we thank you. You got the same responses, didn't you, Ron? I got the same responses? Yeah, I did. From people coming up to you and saying, hey, we love the podcast. Yeah, I had at least one guy. You had two, I know that, because I was with you with two. Oh, okay. You were? Yes, I was. Yes, there was two. Okay. My mind is foggy. I'm sorry. Yikes. I was too wasted. Sorry. And I was actually, yeah, too wasted. I was going around the room more than Ron was. Ron was hovering around the tournament area or in the free play area that one time when we were playing Zach. Yep. Yeah, that might have been the only time I was in there for a prolonged period. Wow. Yeah, I think it was. I went in the free play room when we first got there. But as soon as the vendor hall opened, that's where I went, and it's pretty much where I stayed most of the time. So would you like to go over to Mail Ball Bag today? The Mail Ball Bag. Sure, we can go over to the Mail Ball Bag. Oh, I do want to say thank you again to Jeff Teolas. That was really cool. Yeah, thanks. That was awesome. That was. If you don't know Jeff, he's from Pinball Profile. Check out his podcast. It's really informative and really a lot of fun to listen to. And my father liked it. what yeah he liked that little clip he liked the little the little clip there that jeff did yeah and he likes jeff's voice like don't go he's got a great voice he does he's on radio hi i'm george to kai i'm george to k not to kai come on say my name right i can't oh so you can do the mail ball bag today you can you can let out all the goodness in the mail ball bag Oh, man. Yeah, Ryan from Wisconsin. Not Ryan C., but Ryan from Wisconsin. He just got his dialed in number 346. One. Born on date was 6-21-2017. Setup was a breeze and not one issue out of the box. Very happy on how it went. It's my first new in-box machine. When I decided to put a deposit down on the machine, my wife needed a lot of convincing. I had played it at Expo and Level 257 and loved it the moment I played it. I ended up contacting the Jersey Jack Engineering Office in Illinois. They have a Jersey Jack? Oh, okay, yeah. You have to take my wife there to play it and talk to the kind people who helped make the game. After we went there and she played it, she warmed up to the idea of purchasing it. Well, now it's home and she's playing it nonstop, which is a testament to just seeing a game is not the same as actually playing it. Hear that, Pinside? Mm-hmm. Thanks for all the time and effort put into the show, and I look forward to every Thursday. Ryan from Wisconsin. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you, Ryan. Next is the Pinwall Princess and another short one. Hey. Hey. Dear Slam Tilt Podcast. Listening to you guys each week is truly a treat. Your 50th episode was phenomenal. Dun, dun, dun. An epic worthy of that milestone. It was touching to hear how many people the Slam Tilt Podcast has reached, as evidenced by the numerous congratulatory messages and by the equally numerous list of thank yous. Thank you, by the way, for mentioning me. You are welcome. You even got the attention of Alex Jones. Amazing. Yes, that was actually the most impressive one besides some Ropp guy. I got to mention, I got to look that up again to figure out who the hell he is. Alex Jones. The mayumentousness, is that a word? Maybe. The mayumentousness of the occasion brings to mind quite the poetic image. One could imagine a dimly lit room, the golden light of ambient scores just barely outdone by the shining spotlight, Soft orchestral music singing in time with the sway of rose petals falling onto the stage as the crowd claps softly but sincerely. The guests of honor make their way to the floor. They step onto the stage and through staccato giggles eloquently conveying their emotion. Beavis and Butthead wonder aloud whether these accolades will get them to score A wonderful wonderful scenario Divine Yeah we never going to score Never Never My purple crayon is now spent I will write a little more frankly from now on or at least I will try to I am glad you guys finally got to interview Ryan C. It was great to hear the voice of someone we heard a great deal of textually on the podcast. Or outside of his correction on how to pronounce... Oh, God. Didgeridoo. Thank you. Good day, lads. You totally butchered that one. Yes, we did. Ryan had a great presence on the show and offered a lot of insight and opinion. I appreciate his efforts to convert the two of you to LEDs. Not due to my own opinion of LEDs, but simply because of his lack of fucks to give about how solidified your opinions were. So what do you think about LEDs, Bruce? They suck. Also, I liked Ryan's evolution of Ghostbusters, especially as someone for whom this theme was a dream. I would be curious to know his opinion on the Screaming Lady, if only because we all know my opinion on the Screaming Lady, and that is a disproportionately large component to my opinion on Ghostbusters as a whole. And we heard a lot of that. Actually, fantastic. We heard that screaming a lot. As for the listener email asked about drills, I too would like to know whether this is as effective as the frequency. Oh, drills as in the pinball drills. I was thinking of an actual drill. That was confusing me. Would love to know whether this is as effective as the frequency of hearing this piece of advice would intimate. I would surmise that if you want to learn to play pinball, play a more controlled ball rather than on the fly, doing such a thing would be helpful. On the authority of I listened to a podcast on this once, repetitive deliberate practice on a specific component of something you want to improve on is in fact an effective way to improve your skills. I wish I could speak on the authority of having a machine and doing this myself, but alas, I cannot. My inability to test this further solidifies that I need my own machine. Or two. Or twenty. That will work too. I look forward to seeing you at Stump. Which Ron has apparently already won. I have? Yes, you did. Unless this was a very realistic dream and someone else actually won. No, you won it. Remember, I told you. When putting in results from the future, one never knows. I visualize the coming of Stomp as a series of stomping noises and a Godzilla roar. Just as fans of the Kaiju come to anticipate the roar, so I come to anticipate the tournament. This is going to be awesome. channeling LesVirginiaWolfPlayer31915. P.S. Sorry if I missed the recording. Nope, you didn't. You did not. We're now on Mondays re-recording, guys. We're recording on Mondays, which the original plan was to mention that in every episode leading up to this one, which, of course, after the first one, I completely forgot to do. So we failed once again. I think we mentioned it once, like three or four weeks ago. I don't think so. I think we did. I think we mentioned it the one time and that was it. I think that's it for now. No. Oh, no? There's more. There's more? Oh. What's your favorite bit? Oh, are we going to eBay? We're going to eBay. Oh, yes. This is really, honestly, my favorite part of the show. It is actually mine. I've got to try to find them. That's my problem. We'd buy that. We'd buy that. Or would we? Okay, are you ready? I am ready. 302. 877-378-008-293. By the way, these are eBay auctions. Someone is listing this for the first time. Going, what the hell? What are these numbers? This guy again? But it's cheaper now. He's getting down. It's the Bally Hot Dog, and with all the hand-drawn artwork on it, as in hand-drawn touch-ups. Yep. Now it's down to $1,234.56. Very cute. Yes, they do. One, two, three, four, five, six. Great. Yep. Good luck, sir. Let's move on. Next. Ticket number 292-175-604-542. Hmm. Stern Dracula pinball machine. He took my pick last week to heart. Let's see. Let's see what it looks like. It has pictures. The back glass isn't that bad. It's got a little peeling in the bottom. Yeah, but it's tough to find a good rack of the back glass. There's one on eBay for $250. The back glass is so much shittier than the play field, in my opinion. The play field is awesome. Yes, the play field has a little peeling up on the upper part. oh yeah in the um yeah where the drop targets are right a big pump bumper on the top and also lower left pump bumper yeah oh but even by the dead bumper yes no but a dead bumper and also on the lower left one yeah by the loop really nice artwork i love the freaking skull right over For $600, the best offer. Yeah. And it's working. Yep. And, Ron, it's in Pittsburgh. And we're going to be in a couple weeks. Oh, so I can just pick that up while I'm there. Genius. See? Who looks after you, brother? Anything else? Oh, yeah. You know me. Here we go. I'm just trying to get to it. Give me two seconds. I'm going backwards, backwards, because I was in something else. I was in my porn mode. sorry get off the porn hub come on okay uh ticket number 302 368 818 158 let's see 500 pc pinball light lamp sockets so 500 light sockets that fits the 47 and 44s $225. Normally, these go from, the cheapest I've ever found was Pinball Resource, and they're 95 cents a piece. All right, these are the taller ones. The taller ones with most of the ballys. Yeah, with the single. Yep. These actually have the single. He's like NOS or something. Maybe, but he has a 500, 250. He even sells them 100. but that's really cheap. So Bruce would buy that. I would buy that in a second if I didn't have $100 already. Yeah, it's the one and a quarters. Yep. Okay, Ron, another one for you. Ticket number 272-755-455-791. Another Bobby Orr's power play. Okay, this one is a project machine. It is. It has a wear. Not a working game. Cabinet and play field are flaking. Only boards present are lamp driver and transformer. Back glass is good except a small spot at the bottom. Needs a good deal of work. $700 for that? Yeah. That seems kind of expensive. That's why I wanted to bring it up. Yeah. I mean, that's... It's crack. Yeah. Oh, Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. That's why I wanted to bring this. Oh, man. You keep going more into it and what happens. Yeah, you don't want this. Although the back glass looks all right. Except for the bottom. Oh, yeah, it's just missing all the boards. I mean, come on. Really? I know. All right. It makes that Dracula look like a dream, doesn't it? Yes, it does. Let's see. And that is all. That's all I have. so we would not we definitely would not buy the bobby horse power play we might buy the dracula i think ron might buy the dracula yeah sure god i wish that board had i was telling ron about another auction i'll i'll let you look at it right now auction number two five three zero three seven six eight five four seven six let's see power supply for bally and stern pinball it's the transformer and the rectum board a rectifier board with the original board from a stern the original transformer from a stern yeah and the board because if you look right next to it where's the little what's the thing that's missing on this board the knocker oh okay if it had the knocker i would have bought it already oh at the bottom yeah it's the the whole board yep yeah you're right the knocker's missing yep if the knocker was there it'd be oh boy but still a good deal if you're missing it like you did on that you said on this the sea witch some douchebag sold you a bad sea witch yeah without a knocker yeah then he gave me a knocker but had me put it in his game instead our game oh yeah our game another thing i want to bring up did you notice the hot dog and picture video i put up on my on my page the um brie theme yes yeah what was it a theme of again smoky and the bandit oh smoky and the bandit yeah they used the hot dog yes but did you actually look at the video no i did not look at the video i'm going to post the video to the slam tilt page he actually redesigned the game He actually put a trailer in the back, on the back right-hand corner. He put a captive ball in it. He changed the behind, like on the hot dog and on the upper left-hand side, you have the three drop targets for the multipliers, the 3X, 4X, and 5X. And then the ball loops back into the kick-out saucer. He changed it so it actually loops back up to the top after you go through all the multipliers, which is kind of cool, so you get back up top both ways. he took out the four drop target bank on the left-hand side and made it a three drop target bank and then the ball could actually go through that and hold in the switch area back there he's got sound effects in it and everything and uh adam becker says it was one of his friends up in canada that made this definitely i'm gonna post a video check that out yeah it's actually pretty cool it's seven minutes but well worth it does he like does he use sound clips from the movie yes and all As long as Jackie Gleason's in it, it's okay. That's all that matters. That's all that matters. Oh, did you see the picture I posted on my thing where I beat you at Creature last year? Yeah, bite me. You have to bring that up again. Because it was so good. It was a friendly thing between you and me. Yes, friendly. That's why I'm giving you the finger. Yes, you love me. Yeah. Ron lost by $4 million. so um trying to pay some bills yeah so don't forget to go to pinballlifter.com yes for all your pinball lifter needs perfect like that yes see what i did there so now you gotta do you gotta do like one of the ones i do and don't forget to bring your comments to slamtiltpodcast at gmail.com. And don't forget to check us out on our Facebook page at Slam Tilt Podcast. And don't forget Stomp is this weekend at Ron's house. Doors open at 12. It goes from 2 to 6 for the match play. Then we'll have a little break. And then the finals. It's going to be an exciting, awesome time. It is. guaranteed for all woohoo yay really really name the band I couldn't tell you to save my life exactly but at least I can sing it woohoo I think it's I think it's Blur okay I think that was their name woohoo dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun woohoo oh and I'd like to thank a couple people who put up their comments likes on our Facebook page and also likes on iTunes. We got another positive review on iTunes. We did? I got to check that out. I've been listening to another pinball podcast lately. There are other pinball podcasts? Yes. We all know about Coast to Coast Pinball. We all know about that flipping podcast and of course the Bro Show. Bro, do you even know how to podcast? You never get their name right. Bro, do you even talk pinball? I like podcasts better. I was listening to the Canadian pinball podcast. They only broadcast and podcast when they're going to buy a game. So you actually hear the road antics of them in the truck or car. Okay. You get a game. All right. That sounds cool. So it is actually pretty cool. Yeah. We got to rip that off. No, no. I mean, no, no. But it's really cool. I've been listening to them and give a shout out. How are you doing, guys? so do they do they do like do they pick up games from the u.s too and they get the whole trying to get across the border with it no no no only canada okay only canada but he was he was crazy enough to buy uh he's actually getting a game from uh spooky and he's having a shift to the u.s and then he's had to deal with the border so that should be fun for him i can't wait to hear that one so again we can be found just google us slam tilt podcast we're on it and on youtube and on facebook all you gotta do is search for slam tilt podcast and there will be and as bruce said earlier we can be reached at slam tilt podcast at gmail.com this has been episode 51 high anxiety oh by the way we have a couple of guests coming on in the next couple weeks we do i spotted them out i grabbed a couple of them yes yes he did some are returning and some are new and some are new but you'll have to tune in to see yeah good day mate good day say goodbye bruce goodbye daniel spoler Oh my. Oh my. Oh my. Oh my.
Zach Sharpe
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Steve Ritchieperson
Stern Pinballcompany
Heighway Pinballcompany
Dutch Pinballcompany
ARAcompany
Coast to Coast Pinballorganization
Straight Down the Middle: a pinball showevent
Stomp Tournamentevent
Slam Tilt Podcastorganization
Star Warsgame
Aliengame
Quicksilvergame
Galaxygame
Dirty Harrygame
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high · Ron: 'Heighway released a picture on Friday stating that they're building games again.' Bruce: 'Whatever these posts from either them or Dutch... it's all BS. I don't give a crap. Until you actually ship a lot of games, it's just...'

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    venue_signal: Straight Down the Middle show had structural layout problems: vendors split between outer walls of free play area and separate vendor hall, games dispersed between halls, reducing cohesion

    high · Bruce: 'they put games in the vendor hall, which made it really loud... all the good games, which I guess were games, were in that hall... it just didn't feel cohesive'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Straight Down the Middle Rain City Free Play area had power issues causing weak flipper performance on games like Strikes and Spares

    high · Bruce: 'They have a power issue in that Rain City Free Play room... the Flippers Arcade were a little on the weak side'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Eric Stone won Straight Down the Middle finals with dominant performances (3M on Scorpion, 2.2B on Dirty Harry), defeating multiple competitors including Phil Birnbaum in close final match

    high · Ron detailed match progression with scores; Eric Stone beat Phil Birnbaum in finals after Phil soft-plunged extra ball and lost by small margin

  • ?

    event_signal: Stomp Tournament scheduled for this Saturday with 28 registered players, mix of top 100 and local players, random game selection, $400K challenges, Stern machines set Papa Duke difficulty

    high · Ron: '28 players already signed up... including some top 100... $400K on Stars gets a fresh, crisp $100 bill... tournament starts at 2'

  • ?

    content_signal: Coast to Coast Pinball podcast has returned with Josh Sharpe as guest; Nate is back hosting; community welcoming the return

    high · Ron: 'Coast to Coast Pinball is back. You talked about it before with our buddy Josh. And Josh was on there. So he's already like two episodes. It's nice to see Nate back. Congratulations, Nate. Welcome back.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Emerging debate in community about whether modern pinball rules have become too complex; even expert designers like Josh Sharpe expressing concern about complexity overload

    medium · Ron citing Josh Sharpe on Coast to Coast: 'If he's thinking they're getting a little too complicated, they're getting too complicated.' This signals broader industry concern not just from casual players

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    product_concern: Star Wars artwork and callouts constrained by Lucasfilm approval; Stern couldn't secure Mark Hamill voice work despite his involvement with other Star Wars licensing; poor custom callout quality resulted

    medium · Ron: 'I mean, they couldn't get Mark Hamill. He does everything else. Why would he not do that?... They couldn't get Mark Hamill.' Bruce blamed Lucasfilm licensing constraints on artwork