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BDYETP 77: We played the new games and saw Punny Factory

Bro, Do you Even Talk Pinball·podcast_episode·2h 8m·analyzed·Apr 25, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

BDYETP reviews new games; Godfather praised, Punny Factory/Spinal Tap criticized, Tilt Bob startup announced.

Summary

Nick Lane and Kevin Manning discuss first impressions of recent pinball releases including Godfather (Jersey Jack), Punny Factory, and This Is Spinal Tap (HomePin), plus news of a new startup company Tilt Bob Pinball. They express enthusiasm for Godfather's design while remaining skeptical of other new releases and the viability of emerging pinball manufacturers.

Key Claims

  • Punny Factory has been in development since April 2019, over four years

    high confidence · Host directly references show notes: 'I went back and I looked through our show notes. And the first mention of this game in our show notes was April of 2019.'

  • Punny Factory pricing: Standard edition $6,500, Engraved edition $7,000

    high confidence · Directly stated during discussion of game specs

  • Punny Factory has sold 24 units allegedly

    medium confidence · 'battykicks said 24 sold wow yeah allegedly' - presented as rumor

  • Galactic Tank Force sold 2,000 units (rumor)

    low confidence · Host explicitly labels as unverified: 'Somebody was saying that there was a claim That Galactic Tank Force sold 2,000 units, which I think that's just a rumor, I don't think anybody made that Statement'

  • Godfather has 26 different shot paths created by diverters

    medium confidence · Nick states: 'I think there's, like, 26 different shot paths or something crazy like that'

  • Tilt Bob Pinball planning three or four prototype machines for Texas Pinball Festival in March 2024

    high confidence · Direct statement: 'They're planning to have three or four prototype pinball machines ready for next year's Texas Pinball Festival in March'

  • Bob Knees won award for favorite homebrew pinball machine at Twivies for 'Elf' game

    high confidence · Stated: 'the guy who won the award for favorite Homer pinball machine during the Twivies at Texas Pinball Festival, creator of the outstanding Homer game Elf, Bob Knees'

Notable Quotes

  • “All pinball is good pinball. All those people need to buy this game, right? We're going to go to their collections and you're going to see that they buy all these games. It's funny how they say that.”

    Kevin Manning @ early in Punny Factory discussion — Critique of community hypocrisy about quality standards and purchasing behavior

  • “I think this game is, at best, a masterpiece. At worst, just short of or shy of a masterpiece.”

    Nick Lane @ Godfather segment — Strongest praise in episode; indicates high regard for Godfather design

  • “This is the most excited I've been for a pinball machine in a long time.”

    Nick Lane @ Godfather discussion — Expresses strong emotional connection to Godfather; first JJP purchase since Pirates 2018

  • “I would love a new pinball company to come out and be like, here's our first game. It's in a box. You can buy it now. You know what I mean? Without all the rigmarole, get everything up and running, have 10, 15 of them in a box ready to go, sell them.”

    Kevin Manning @ Tilt Bob Pinball discussion — Critique of startup manufacturing model and desire for immediate product availability

  • “We've seen more failures than successes, and even the ones that quote-unquote, again, do launch, they're usually like a lower tier than a Stern or a JJP.”

    Nick Lane @ Tilt Bob Pinball evaluation — Expresses institutional skepticism about boutique manufacturer viability

  • “The flippers feel perfect. They feel really good. This game is really fast, and I appreciate the speed in it.”

    Nick Lane @ Godfather praise segment — Addresses previous JJP criticism about flipper response; notes improvement on Godfather

  • “Everything all at once. Like in this game, in the Keith Johnson game, in Godfather, you're never locked out of something. If you're in one multiball, you can start another multiball.”

    Nick Lane @ Godfather rules analysis — Explains design philosophy difference between JJP and Stern multiball approaches

Entities

Nick LanepersonKevin ManningpersonGodfathergamePunny FactorygameThis Is Spinal TapgameGalactic Tank ForcegameTilt Bob PinballcompanyBob KneespersonDave Sanders

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: New pinball startup model appears fundamentally challenging; even well-intentioned entrepreneurs with investor backing and in-house production plans face significant viability hurdles

    medium · Nick's institutional skepticism: 'We've seen more failures than successes...if I had to put money on it, this is not going to work out' regarding Tilt Bob Pinball despite acknowledging 'god bless the guy'

  • ?

    business_signal: Punny Factory long development cycle (4+ years) with very limited sales (24 units alleged) raises viability and market acceptance questions

    medium · Initial mention April 2019, still in pre-release with minimal units sold; hosts express deep skepticism about business model sustainability

  • ?

    community_signal: Hosts actively promoting sponsor products and community standards; emphasizing importance of voting with wallet vs performative appreciation

    medium · Extended sponsor acknowledgments and recurring theme that 'talk is cheap' regarding community claims of supporting diverse manufacturers

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong positive sentiment shift toward Godfather; Nick Lane expresses highest excitement level since Pirates 2018 purchase, indicating successful product resonance with target enthusiast demographic

    high · Nick: 'This is the most excited I've been for a pinball machine in a long time' and decision to purchase despite initially not expecting to buy another JJP game

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Godfather positioned as collector-quality premium purchase justified by design depth, rule complexity, and mechanical innovation; appeals to experienced players willing to invest in learning curve

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.387

0:00
All right, coming up on this episode of Bro, Do You Even? Talk pinball. We've got a deep dive into Galactic Tank Force and then a quick shallow dive into Punny Factory. We've also got more stuff, but who gives a shit about that? All of that and more coming right up. Double Super Jackpot!
0:30
I need a rim. I need a roof. I want a target socket. I need a suit. I need a double. I need a job. I need my wife.
0:45
That's right. And now, the Hall and Oates of pinball podcasting, Nick Lane and Kevin Manning of Buffalo Pinball. Woo-boom-shakalaka. What's going on everybody? It's Brody, you even talk pinball for April 2023. I'm Kevin, that's Nick. All guy, skinny guy, nice guy, mean guy, boring guy, interesting guy. I think that's how it goes. I'm Smug Nick Lane, that's America's next door boy, all American Kevin Manning. The sweet boy next door. Never done no wrong in his life. Except for, I don't know, there's one guy that didn't like me. It's rare. Was I talking over the intro? Yeah, you were. Well, the audience couldn't hear you. Oh, okay. Well, for the audience, I think the YouTube algorithm dings you if you curse early on or something. I don't understand it, but I already cursed during the intro. I think they switched that back, so I think we're good. Oh, okay. You can swear on YouTube again. It's good. We'll see. America, baby. We do what we want. All right.
1:53
Man, we've got a lot to get into. There's not a ton of news, but we've got a lot of content to cover. So let's jump right into the news. Here's the tip. It's the latest pinball news. Show hunt. It's on fire. All right. We're starting now with everybody's favorite pinball machine that's been in the works since. So I went back and I looked through our show notes. And the first mention of this game in our show notes was April of 2019. So over four years ago, we started talking about this game. And it's finally sort of here. It's funny factory. We're going to do the shallow dive. We finally saw this in stream form, sort of, however much we were able to see through the blurriness and the choppiness. Eventually they got it figured out. Did you watch much of the stream, Nick? No, I was actually delivering Foo Fighters over to Masuda Chow's. Oh, you missed it. Yeah. I can give you a little preview here.

  • “I don't want my choices just to be, am I going to get a Stern or a JJP? I'd love another option, but so far there really hasn't been a good other option based on my standards.”

    Nick Lane @ Market analysis — Articulates market constraint and desire for third competitive manufacturer

    • person
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Stern Pinballcompany
    HomePincompany
    American Pinballcompany
    Bolloramacompany
    Penn Stadium Lightingcompany
    Flippin' Out Pinballcompany
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
    Twiviesevent
    Steve Ritchieperson
    Keith Johnsonperson
    Carlperson
    Paulperson
    Naps Arcadecompany

    high · Nick's extensive positive review emphasizing multipliers, risk/reward mechanics, diverter complexity (26 shot paths), and skill shot variety as justification for premium pricing

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Keith Johnson multiball design approach (everything simultaneously unlocked) contrasts with Stern's mode-locking strategy; creates both complexity and engagement trade-offs affecting player experience and tournament viability

    high · Detailed analysis of Godfather's ability to run multiball + mode + another multiball simultaneously vs Stern's sequential locking; Nick notes this is less overwhelming than initially perceived after learning curve

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jersey Jack Pinball addressed previous criticism about flipper response quality; Godfather represents notable improvement indicating design/engineering correction at manufacturer level

    high · Nick: 'The flippers feel perfect. They feel really good' and explicit contrast to previous soggy flipper complaints; recommendation to check pitch/bubble settings for optimal performance

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Punny Factory uses unlicensed Don Knotts character callouts without apparent licensing agreement, raising legal/IP concerns

    medium · Nick: 'all the fake Don Knotts that I'm sure he didn't license and all that stuff. Such a weird thing, Don Knotts.'

  • $

    market_signal: Boutique/startup pinball manufacturers struggling to achieve Stern/JJP quality parity; community expressing desire for third competitive option but skeptical of execution capability

    high · Nick: 'The companies that are doing something different just aren't up to snuff. They're not doing something different, but at the same caliber of like JJP and Stern. That's the problem.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Steve Ritchie transition from Stern to Jersey Jack noted as successful designer placement; Godfather success validates decision and addresses concerns about JJP equipment limitations

    high · Nick: 'I know when Steve Ritchie went over to JJP, people were like, oh, you know, how is he going to make the games that he likes to make...I don't think there's any concern anymore.'

  • ?

    announcement: Tilt Bob Pinball officially announced with founder wearing branded shirt at Texas Pinball Festival; planning original + licensed themes with family-friendly comedic focus; whitewood stage with teaser images coming in couple months

    high · Bob Knees wearing 'Tilt Bob Pinball' shirt at Twivies event; planned prototypes for March 2024 Texas Pinball Festival; current whitewood prototype in development with 'cool mechs that have never been done before'

  • ?

    product_concern: Punny Factory exhibits manufacturing/quality control issues in promotional materials (misaligned flippers in official photos)

    medium · Kevin: 'those flippers are also misaligned in that picture. That's the attention to detail they put in their promo photos'

    • 2:50
    They had the Robert Gagno here, and he looked thrilled to play it. I saw like 30 seconds or whatever, and he just kept on shooting the right orbit. Yeah, it seemed like you got basically two shots on it that you want to shoot, the left and the right orbit. Because if you don't, and you hit something else, it's going to rocket into the outlay, and then you're going to be done. So that's what he did. Yeah, that's what a good player would do. I think I made a joke, and it should be called Kazoo Factory, which I don't think the sound effect is a kazoo. I forget what that is. It's like that little whistle, the spinning whistle thing. Yeah. It's just constantly. Yeah. So grating, dude.
    3:33
    Yeah. So that was Pony Factory. Yep. I have to say, it's pretty much exactly what I would have expected from that game. After, you know, seeing the play field for five or four years. And hearing all the call-outs that he put on his website. And, you know, all the fake Don Knotts that I'm sure he didn't license and all that stuff. Such a weird thing, Don Knotts. Such an out of touch. I love it. Who is this game for?
    4:01
    It's for him. Who's the audience? Andrew. Which is fine. You know, you can make a game for yourself. But if you're trying to sell it to the public, like, I don't know. They're up for sale now.
    4:15
    You can, I think they got the price listed here. Oh, yeah, here we go. So standard edition, $6,500. Engraved edition, $7,000.
    4:25
    Can we just pause for a second and look at how huge that apron is? Does that look massive to me? Do you? Let's see. Oh, I have to swap it over. Okay, there you go.
    4:35
    Yeah, it does. I mean, those flippers are also misaligned in that picture. That's the attention to detail they put in their promo photos. They didn't even line up the flippers. Hey, listen, I'd love to play it. You know, it's, I don't know. I mean, it's kind of legendary for us at this point. We have to play this at some point. Who's buying a funny factory so we can come out and stream it? Nobody. That's the problem. Apparently, they were showing this later in the stream, and the apron is 3D lenticular printed, so the wrecking ball actually, like, moves when you move your head and stuff. And, of course, the inside of the cabinet is printed on and stuff. I don't know if they have pictures of that in here, but no, they don't. Because, of course, it is. Yeah, Punny Factory.
    5:25
    Is James buying it? No, I'm going to go ahead and say no, he's not buying it. Yeah. If you're just, you know, you've got to put, like, a trigger warning or something. I didn't realize we had to do this, but, like, people lose their minds when we talk bad about pinball machines, Kevin. You're supposed to, according to Pinside, there's no bad games. Yeah, if you're an all pinball is good pinball kind of person, I ask you, is every movie good? Is all music good? You know what I mean? Is every TV show good? No, there's varying levels of quality in all of these things, right? Well, good doesn't exist without its opposite of bad. How could something be good if you can't compare it to something else? You know what I mean? It makes no sense. I know it's like talking logic with that, but, yeah. So, what can I say? I wish we were doing this on – there's a good and bad about doing this late after a day of work. I'm a little more tired and stuff, so I'm maybe a little emotionally subdued. Yeah. I'm like a Saturday morning when I just had coffee, but I'll probably get myself in less trouble this way, so. Yeah, but I feel like you'll ease into it a little bit. Yeah. You'll get fired up later on, I feel like. Oh, great, great.
    6:43
    That's good. So, yeah. Hang on. Let's go through the who's who a little bit more here. So it's a game designed by Dave Sanders, everybody's favorite pinball machine designer, Dave Sanders. It has two flippers, a very target, three pop-up numbers, three drop targets, 17 stand-up targets, one vertical up kicker, and a kickback. Oh, and the interactive smoke stack system that emulates factory smoke. Yeah. Yeah, it does. What about elements, though? Did you look at this one at all? because not only does he have one game he's got a second game coming you can be a Valkyrie or a knight or something else you can battle the deadly elements wood the deadly element of wood it's very scary and intimidating metal and water you can battle the things and there's going to be fire pitbull elements so yeah, Plenty Factory is not even out there He's already got their nice game. It's interesting. Of course he does. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But, you know, don't forget Sushi Mania and Ninja whatever. Remember all those games he had? Of course. Who could forget those?
    7:56
    All right. Well, if you're not hype enough for Pony Factory and you got your wallet out for that, you can also order their pin board.
    8:03
    Apparently, they have a... I'm still hung up on something. All pinball is good pinball. All those people need to buy this game, right? We're going to go to their collections and you're going to see that they buy all these games. It's funny how they say that. Are you going to buy this game? Oh, no, no, no.
    8:23
    All the original theme people, here you go. Here you go. Not that way. Not that theme. I love it. It's so hilarious. I'm on original theme, but not that theme.
    8:36
    That's why nobody makes original themes. Yeah, exactly. You got into that on Pinside, I saw. about why people don't buy original things or why there aren't modern original things. I've never been so active on Pinside. You know, you get five game releases. There's a lot going on, right? So I was, for better or for worse, I was more active on that site in the last month.
    8:55
    All right. You want to talk pinboard? Pinboard's pretty exciting. Pinball Adventures presents a robust and sophisticated hardware platform for modern pinball news, and we call it the pinboard. Rather than being geared towards resurrecting beloved games of the past, the pin board is focused on current technology and requirements.
    9:14
    Coming soon. Yeah. So, if you need, you know, there aren't enough different pinball board sets out there. They had to make their own, I guess. So, Hul says that Dave Sanders made Full Throttle and had a hand in Alien. So, I guess, you know, he's got some pinball. Okay. All right. Full Throttle was fine. I mean, those guys are fine. I don't particularly love them, but, you know. What happened with Funny Factory, though?
    9:43
    It just looks like, I don't know. It's a speed level game. Well, I guess it's not because it's got that little upticker.
    9:49
    Yeah. I mean, call me skeptical, right? Everything related to this game, call me skeptical. That's all. How many are they making of this? They sell out?
    9:59
    Hopefully not very many. 110 of the standard editions and 10 of the engraved editions battykicks said 24 sold wow yeah allegedly you know they also had that list on their website where they had like the progress of the games being made where there was some guy Bob who was number one and he had 100% build for like 3 years now or something I don't believe anything coming out of this company I got a question in chat. Nick, what's up? We need some streaming from your house. Well, thank you. That's what we're doing right now. I appreciate that. I probably like pinball. So I don't do the solo thing. I got too much going on.
    10:43
    Calvin's much better at the solo stream than I am. I love, like, I love bro. Like, I love the podcast and I love bro. I think that's where I shine. So I kind of stick to my lane, no pun intended. Hey-oh. But thank you. Thank you. We did a lot of streams from my house. on Bro earlier in the year. We did a lot of my collections. Yep.
    11:05
    All right, let's go on to the next topic. We're going to shoot over to another amazing looking pinball machine.
    11:12
    Oh, man, did you watch the trailer for This Is Spinal Tap? I did, yeah. We're going to just kind of run it here while we do this. You know what I've been talking about. Did Home Pin produce this, or this was the distributor produce this? So apparently Home Pin is not marketing this game at all, So they're leaving the marketing to their distributors. Okay. So this is what their distributor came up with. And they have a model playing the game, I think, mostly looking at the game, bending over the game, quick shots of the game. You can see the backlash. She's rolling her eyes a lot for some reason. I don't understand why. Because she's playing Spinal Tap. Because she's playing Spinal Tap, probably.
    11:55
    Yeah, she looks very surprised in some of the shots. yeah, this game looks terrible. So, again, for the all pinball is good pinball, go ahead and buy yourself a spinal tap, all right? Yep.
    12:10
    Yeah, the all pinball is good pinball. We got to keep a list of these folks and I want to see the, I want to see a spinal tap, I want to see a GTF, I want to see a Pony Factory. You know, you vote with your wallets. Talk is cheap.
    12:25
    This game. Yeah, somewhat This is, you know I had a joke in the GTF thread about like Somebody was saying that there was a claim That Galactic Tank Force sold 2,000 units, which I think that's just a rumor, I don't think anybody made that Statement, but you know, my joke was If that was true then, the Fed's gonna Raise basis points by 75 bips Alright, there's too much fucking money floating out there If all these games are getting made This is insane The rumor I heard was that Dave Fick said that they made $2,000. Somebody said that. I mean, I want to see receipts, right? Like, let's see some proof that he said that. That's fair. Let's be fair to Dave. How could you not say yes to that? I mean, that game looks amazing.
    13:13
    All right. So that's the final thought. That's all we got on that. We had to show the trailer a little bit because it was so terrible. And if that's not enough, Nick Lane, are you ready for another new pinball company?
    13:26
    No. Am I ever ready? Are we ready? This prompted me to check in on our recent favorite, Bollorama. And Bollorama update, I checked in. They have a grandkid, and they haven't updated their Instagram in, like, seven weeks. So congratulations on the grandchild, but absolutely no progress on the pinball machines from what we can tell.
    13:48
    But with that, let's jump into the next new mystery pinball company. This is a company. So the guy who won the award for favorite Homer pinball machine during the Twivies at Texas Pinball Festival, creator of the outstanding Homer game Elf, Bob Knees, was wearing a shirt that said Tilt Bob Pinball.
    14:09
    So Bob is setting up a pinball company called Tilt Bob Pinball in Florida. He currently has a small team of people, including Paul, working with him and an investor. So that's good. He's got an investor. Okay. Hopefully the investor has lots of money and likes to lose a lot of money. because that's what you do in pinball. He plans to do all the work on his upcoming games in-house, including cabinetry, mechanical software, playfield production, and printing. He's particularly focused on producing his own playfields because this is probably the biggest area of complaints in the industry right now. God bless him. Dude, I mean, that's a lot. Go ahead, Kev. I mean, the Tillbotton Pinball is currently working on building a pinball machine with an original theme. It has a potential license for a theme as well. No, it's not Elf. Their initial focus will be family-friendly comedic themes. They're planning to have three or four prototype pinball machines ready for next year's Texas Pinball Festival in March.
    15:04
    They currently have our working whitewood of the game, but it's a little early for them to share pictures with us. The game supposedly has a lot of cool mechs. It has some cool mechs, TM, that have never been done before. They hope to start showing some teaser images of the game and their shop, quote, in a couple months. so thank you to that comes to us from Nap Arcade here we've got I think there's some pictures there's the elf machine, I've not played that one I got to play Nightmare Before Christmas at Pinbury, that was cool I've not played Elf yet but I've heard a lot of people dig this game so there you go, that's Elf and Tilt-Bot Pinball Nick Lane, what say you about yet another pinball company? I mean we get accused of being all sorts of bad things or being negative and stuff and it's like you know you and I combined have a couple decades worth of experience heavily into pinball right like we've seen a lot of shit we've played like we've played almost every pinball machine out there right like got a lot of experience so yeah we're a little jaded and skeptical of this we know how difficult it is to launch a pinball company and even the ones that are a newer launch, a lot of times they're not great games. They have a lot of issues, right?
    16:22
    We've seen more failures than successes, and even the ones that quote-unquote, again, do launch, they're usually like a lower tier than a Stern or a JJP. So, super skeptical. It's hard. God bless the guy. He's got some balls doing that and launching it with everything he's got. He's going to do his own play fields and stuff. This stuff is not easy. He's already built a game that's great more than you and I can do. I remain skeptical until I see an amazing product. I will continue to be skeptical and if I had to put money on it, this is not going to work out. I would love to be proved wrong. I want more pinball. I was thinking, saying this earlier, maybe it was on Pinside.
    17:03
    I don't want my choices just to be, am I going to get a Stern or a JJP? I'd love another option, but so far there really hasn't been a good other option based on my standards. Although, I will say I do want to get, and we'll talk about this game more, Pulp Fiction. So I'm really, I'm stoked that there's another option now that I can get to diversify my collection a little bit. Love Stern games, love JJP games, great. But, you know, sometimes you want something a little bit different. The companies that are doing something different just aren't up to snuff. They're not doing something different, but at the same caliber of like JJP and Stern. That's the problem. and I doubt that this company will. You know what I would love? I would love a new pinball company to come out and be like, here's our first game. It's in a box. You can buy it now. You know what I mean? Without all the rigmarole, get everything up and running, have 10, 15 of them in a box ready to go, sell them.
    18:02
    That's kind of what Nick Baldrige did with his drain game, but that's on a much smaller scale, right? That's a lot more manageable when you're just building a module. But, you know, scaling up an entire pinball company, having the manufacturing facility, having the staff, doing all the coding and the sound and the animations and all that stuff, man, just have it ready to go. And let people buy it. Let people play it without all the shenanigans. You know what I mean? So much shenanigans. But you know what? Hey, this is why we get together once a month and just shoot this shit between two friends and put a mic in front of our mouths and ship it off into the internets and say, you know, if anybody else wants to hear these ramblings, enjoy.
    18:51
    Can I just say thanks? Our, like, downloads and listens and views have been great on the podcast lately, so thanks, everybody, for tuning in. Yeah, thank you, guys.
    19:02
    So glad you're enjoying. All right, that's the end of the news. You ready to talk about some of the new games we played?
    19:09
    Yeah, let's do it. All right. Let's do it. Let's start out with a good one. All right. On a high note. All right. They're all good. Sorry.
    19:17
    Also, everybody pay attention. These are impressions. We're not reviewing games. We're giving first impressions. We played some games. Played a few games. We played a lot of Godfather because we own it. So we could review it, but we're not going to yet. But we're going to talk about it. So we can't review. So here's the deal. We're their sponsors, so we're not going to. We never thanked our sponsors, did we? Oh, no, we didn't. Let's do that before we get into our impressions. All right. Go ahead. All right. Premier Partner, Penn Stadium Lighting, lighting kits for your pinball machines. Use coupon code BUFFALOSAFE10%. They got the new Penn Stadium Neo Adams lower profile. I think they look fantastic, right?
    19:57
    Super bright, super easy to set up. For whatever reason, there's been a number of, even with all the LEDs out in games, there's a number of dark games that are still being released. These games typically have a lot of good art. I'm looking at U-Stern, and Pinsidiums really help to make them pop and look good. So I highly recommend Pinsidiums. Shout-out to other sponsors, Comet Pinball for LED lights. Flippin' Out Pinball, that is the go-to distributor. Best service in the industry, bar none. We've got Pinball.edu. Go to pinballraffle.org, buy a raffle ticket for a chance to win a pinball machine. Titan Pinball for silicone rings. There's tools. There's mats. There's pinballs to replace, you know, pitted or rusted pinballs. Multimorphic.
    20:42
    Kevin's a big Multimorphic fan. They got the new Final Resistance coming out. I look forward to playing that. Jersey Jack Pinball Maker, one of the most beautiful pinball machines on the planet. And finally, Pinside.com. Ah, Pinside. Makes me love it. Pinside.
    20:57
    Yes. I didn't know this, but you can send tape mail. You can DM. You can slip into somebody's DM with some hateful messaging. That's pinside.com. You can do that on pinside. All right. Let's talk about Godfather. We both really like Godfather to the point where we both bought this game. So let's check out some Godfather and talk about it. What do you love so much about the Godfather? I know you love it. You've been all over this game. Yeah.
    21:28
    Happy to talk about this game. I think this game is, at best, a masterpiece. At worst, just short of or shy of a masterpiece. You know, only time will tell. Why do I love this game? Where do I begin, Kevin Manning? First of all, this is my – even though, you know, Jersey Jack's a sponsor and I got all those guys shilled Jersey Jack, it's like, well, I mentioned them as a sponsor on a podcast, right? But I vote with my wallet, and this is my first Jersey Jack since Pirates in 2018. You know, the other titles just didn't appeal to me for, you know, reasons, right? Like, but this game, when I saw Carl's stream, it really resonated with me. And, you know, sometimes I think I've spent enough time in this hobby to get a good sense of watching a game when I think I know I'm going to like it. I got to play at your house and then ordered it immediately. And I think that Jersey Jack really has turned a corner in this game.
    22:31
    Number one, the flippers feel great. They feel perfect. I'm aware of the complaints that they feel like previous titles they felt a little soggy. They're not that crispness of a stern, and I get that.
    22:45
    That never prevented me from buying a Jersey Jack, but I understand. I always kind of gave the nod to stern for having the best-feeling flippers. I think with this game, again, they turned a corner. The flippers feel perfect. They feel really good.
    22:58
    This game is really fast, and I appreciate the speed in it. Not only in, like, the ball movement, but in just, like, the pacing of it. Like, when it holds on to the ball, the scenes and clips are not long. The ball just seems to always be moving along. Even, like, the bonus screens kind of move along really quick. for whatever reason, I like that. But ultimately, the two main things that really draw me into this game are, I guess I am a fan of multipliers. I think multipliers, if done right in a game, really appeal to me. It really makes the scoring dynamic and interesting, and it helps break up kind of like the monotony of playing a pinball machine because when you've got multipliers, you can really affect the scoring, no matter where you are necessarily, like in modes or in the game. It doesn't feel samey to me. And then it has another rule feature, which I really love, and that's kind of like the press your luck feature risk reward of deciding to either keep on going in a mode or cashing out. And those two things are what I love in terms of rules. It's, you know, the multiplier I loved in Led Zeppelin, but it didn't have, like, the cash out thing. This game has great multipliers, and it has the cash-out risk-reward. Absolutely love that. Those two things alone are important to me. I tend to like open play fields where the shots are way back. It's got that. But the shots are – they seem tight but very findable, but then they also have some really satisfying, a little more challenging shots. Like the compound shot, it's like you think you know where it is, but then you miss it and it's a little risky because it's by a pop bumper. So it's a really good location on it. It's kind of like right there, right? But, like, I'm scared to go for it unless I'm in multi-ball.
    24:56
    The diverters in this game keep you on your toes. I forget how many. I think there's, like, 26 different shot paths or something crazy like that. So the diverters keep things fresh in terms of the way the ball is moving around in the play field. And I think that also contributes to the speed. It keeps you on your toes. It's a little unexpected. I like that, right? It's fresh. I can't think of another game that does it to that level, does it to that extent. So there's a lot going on in this game, even though there doesn't seem to be a lot of things on top of this game and on the surface of it.
    25:28
    I think the art's beautiful all over. And I don't even like mob themes in general. Like when I heard The Godfather was announced, I did not think I'd be getting this game until I actually saw it and played it. Deep rules, plenty of different strategies and ways to approach it, which make the game really good in the home. And I think also really interesting in tournaments, you know, you can get locked out of picking a family. If you pick it, your opponent can't pick it. Like 10 different super skill shots that you can choose. So, like, when you use those, when you don't.
    26:03
    I don't know, man. It's got like – for me as a player, it ticks all those boxes. is trying to think, you know, I think, like, how would somebody criticize it or what are some criticisms that I see that maybe don't really bother me but are worth bringing up? I think the first one is going to be, oh, it's, you know, it's a Keith Johnson, so it's heavy multiball. And that's true. I think it's not like – it's not just that it's heavy multiball. Like, you know, I was playing Rush the other day, and I was like, I'm, like, always in multiball on Rush, right? Or, like, that led to that, but I'm always in multiball. I think the difference in terms of what's happening on games like that and why this feels different is this game, like Pirates does this, it's like everything, all the time, all at once. Like in this game, in the Keith Johnson game, in Godfather, you're never locked out of something. If you're in one multiball, you can start another multiball. And you can also start a mode. You're never, like in a Stern game, typically, if you're in a multiball, you probably can't start a mode. or if you're in multi-ball, you can't start this other multi-ball. So things are kind of staggered out in terms of happening. I think, you know, if I would say what's the good about that approach? Well, the good about that approach is it's easier to focus on what's happening in the moment in that mode or in that multi-ball. When you play a game like Godfather, especially when you're first playing it and you're just starting a multi-ball and you just start another multi-ball and then you start a mode, it can kind of get chaotic and you kind of don't really understand maybe what's going on in the game and where these points are coming from until you've played it more and spent more time with it. And I've had it for like two weeks now, maybe two and a half weeks, and I'm really starting to understand. It's starting to click. It's starting to make sense. But I can see why that's overwhelming.
    27:51
    It's hard for me to say like personally do I prefer one approach over the other. To me, I like the diversification in my collection. I don't want every game to be locked out of a mode. Like, I think Deadpool really frustrated me because I'd be like, oh, I'm in this multiball. Jesus, I just want to move on with the game. So I'm almost looking forward to draining if I'm just trying to get through it. You know, the good thing in Godfather is, like, you don't feel that way. I just want to drain out of this multiball because you can still progress through the game.
    28:21
    But I think the downside of, like, everything all at once is it doesn't create, like, moments. you know, like Mandalorian after you drain out a multi-ball there's like, you know, in some of the multi-balls there's like a super skill shot lid and like there's all, you know, like so many points on the table and you gotta hit that shot. So, it's good and bad. I like both.
    28:42
    But, dude, I'm super pumped to have this game. If you can't tell I'm excited. I think I told you, Kev, like when I got that game it was delivered and Kevin helped make that delivery possible. I was like, this is the first time in so many years that I've really been excited to get a game. You know, since Pirates, I've gotten a bunch of Stern games. I got Black Knight Sword of Rage, great, you know, Mandalorian, Godzilla,
    29:12
    Zeppelin was in there, Rush, Riot, like, Zeppelin, like, fun. And those games, it's like, oh, I'm getting Pinball Machine, and they're fun, and I've given them good reviews and liked it. this is the most excited I've been for a pinball machine in a long time. So call me a shill if you want, but at the end of the day, I vote with my wallet, right? And, again, I didn't buy the other Juicy Jack game, so I'm happy to go on record just encouraging people to spend some time with it, check it out. Maybe it's not your cup of tea for all the reasons I mentioned, and I understand. I think another downside that somebody might say about the game is that, like, the toys might seem lacking. Like, I'm fine with it. It's the gangster moves. She's a zombie gun. You go on the top, and you use the flipper buttons to kind of spin it and do damage to him. It's okay. You know, like, this is the best toys in the world. I think Pyroson's toy is better. There's other games with better toys. But totally fine with it. I love everything about this game. Super good. I know I went on really long, Kevin, but I want to go on record because this – I want to see more games. But last thing. Yeah. Last thing I want to say before I forget. Yeah, so I know when Steve Ritchie went over to JJP, people were like, oh, you know, how is he going to make the games that he likes to make with, you know, kind of the flippers there, a little soggy. I don't know what you want to call it, right? Right. I don't think there's any concern anymore. No, it would be a great plan. Yeah, totally rips, totally different ball game. I'm actually now, like, I'm excited to see what Steve Ritchie is going to put out.
    30:47
    Again, it's a game changer. My other recommendation, because I was over at Kevin's house, and Kevin, your game felt really slow after playing mine.
    30:56
    Look at the instructions that come up, but it recommends setting the bubble to the second line on there. Do that. Make sure that you have it at least by the flippers a seven-degree pitch. It makes a world of difference. I love the speed on mine. And if you want a slower game, fine, but that's what they recommend on it. It made a huge difference. I couldn't believe it, just that a few degrees in pitch. Yeah.
    31:20
    Yeah, so getting back to, like, the toys, I'll just hit on a few of the things because I echo a lot of the sentiment that you've given.
    31:28
    The gangster toy, like, he's really cool. I like him. Turn around and people always comment on how they like the fact that his machine gun, the end of his machine gun lights up. So that's cool. I do like that it's an interactive toy. So the first couple times you shoot it in there, it just kind of goes in and does some damage and comes back out. But eventually it's going to stay in there. and then you've got to flip the flippers and there's some skill to how you have to flip the flippers to do damage. So you can just flail around, but if you're better at it, then you can do more damage. So I like that it's interactive. It's not super satisfying, I would say, to do that always, but it cooler than just some passive thing that does something Between that and then all the diverters like you mentioned all the divers all the shot paths And I just love the the area behind the the or above the right flipper where there's the pop bumper, there's the lane, the three targets. And then there's the compound. That's such a cool, like interesting area and different configuration than you usually see on a pinball machine. And I love, I love interesting, unique play out, play field layouts like that, that are fun. It's still fun to play, right?
    32:41
    Yeah, so a pro tip on the spinning bad guy. I asked Eric how that kind of works. So the flipper buttons control it. You don't want to push them both at the same time or just mindlessly bang them. The left will spin it like it's either counterclockwise or clockwise, and the right will do the opposite. And you only do damage when – so if you get the ball just spinning around, hugging the side, it's not going to do much. You only do damage when it hits the tilt bob, like the mechanism in the middle of the bad guy. So you want to kind of play around with it. He was saying that he got so good at it, like he could kill the bad guy in one go-around up there, that he made it so after you do so much damage, it will stop that. I'm pretty much at that point. Again, it's not the most super – I'm middle of the road on that thing. I think it looks cool. I think if you're watching it, I like how the sculpt looks. As a gameplay function, it's cool to have there. It's not the greatest thing in the world, but it's certainly not bad. I'm glad it's there. I'm not a huge like oh I need an amazing toy I'm glad it doesn't really slow the game down either like I don't like the building is cool on Godzilla falling but I like now I'm like it's just slowing the game down I think again I said my favorite toy on Godzilla is the bridge actually I think that's cool anyways hoping that helps I like saw Hudson said a nice comment he's like I like hearing Nick's thoughts because I just run the opposite way which is great like it's like oh like I kind of like games opposite of Nick, so it's helpful to know that this is not a game for me. Providing some help there. It's weird. He should come in here and tell you how dumb you are for not liking the same things he does. He's not doing this right. My favorite people are people who can disagree with me and kind of show why or maybe if I'm missing something about a game. That's awesome.
    34:25
    That's how it should be. We've said it before. You're allowed to like different things, and so are we. It's all good. Cool.
    34:33
    All right. So, yeah, definitely get some time in on The Godfather. We love it. Definitely check it out. Let's move on to Final Resistance. This is a game I got to play before anybody.
    34:45
    So since the last podcast, I got to go down to Texas with my friends down at Multimorphic and do the reveal stream of Final Resistance with Scott Dinesi and crew.
    34:56
    Man, what a fun game. So this is Scott's – he kind of described it as his take on Attack from Mars. And you can kind of see it when you're playing it. But it's got – he's taken a different approach to a P3 game from what we've seen before. He's taken it back to more of a traditional pinball feel. So there are persistent inserts on the play field. You turn on the game, there's inserts on there. They stay there the whole time, even during a track mode. so it kind of simulates a traditional wooden play field a little bit more but there's also like kick-ass animations and particle effects and stuff that happen around those inserts so it's kind of the best of both worlds in my opinion it gets it's approachable from a hey i know pinball and pinball has inserts and the answers tell me what to do sort of approach uh but it also kind of integrates some of the things that only the p3 can do um it also brings in other elements of his games, like the countdown timer between the flippers. It puts the scores down at the apron, like is standard on multimorphic games. But then it's also, like, in the module itself, it's got these really cool toys, like, well, the massive cannon that fires the ball back at you at an insane pace. I'm trying to remember. So we did a slow motion video test of the cannon, and it shoots three balls in less than half a second is what it was. It was crazy. So it moves real fast.
    36:33
    That's the ship there in the back right. What's also cool is so the far right shot, it can go two ways. It can just be an orbit shot, or there's a diverter back there that can switch it over, and it becomes a kickback, and it fires back at you like the I.O.B. or the war machine on Iron Man or whatever. And that thing, man, I feel like that thing's even crazier than the cannon. It's crazy. But what's cool is during multi-ball, you can build up that kickback shot and then cash it out. You're talking about risk-reward and Godfather. This was a great feature of this too. And I think my high score was around 25 million, if I'm remembering right. And that was because I crushed this multi-ball. You can stack the two multi-balls. So there's like behind the drop target, you can stow a ball for, so you can kind of see it here, the drop target. You can stash a ball back there, and then during a mode, you can bring it in a second ball as quote-unquote reinforcements.
    37:34
    But you can also stack that with the three-ball multi-ball, which is cool. so you can make it a four-ball multiball that multiplies your jackpots, and you can also build up value towards that kickback cash out too. So there's cool scoring in the multiballs, but there's also really fun modes. I was able to complete the mode where you launch the rocket and take out the ship. That one's really cool. There's like the fuse. I'm trying to remember. It's been a little while since I played it, but really fun modes. It's got a countdown LED readout by the spinner that counts down to super spinners. It's got two orbits, or two ramps, the left ramp, which is pretty obvious, and then the right ramp, which is less obvious. It's kind of hiding behind the ship. But there's a visor that comes down in front of the ship, and once you raise that up, it opens up the last shot and also the right ramp, which is cool. Both shots feel really good. Both ramp shots were really nice.
    38:36
    This was a great, fun layout. As you would expect with a Scott and Denise game, it's got amazing sound and music. If you haven't checked out the reveal stream, it's up on YouTube.
    38:45
    It's still the only video of this game on YouTube, so check it out. There's timestamps on the video, and you can jump to the last game that I played, and you can actually just listen to the game music and audio itself. It's so good. You guys are going to dig this. If you like TNA and the music in that game and the sound package, This is even better, in my opinion. I'm planning on hooking up some. Actually, I did hook up a subwoofer to my P3 finally, especially for this game. It's going to be a great sounding game, and I'm looking forward to finally having a Scott Dinesy game in my collection. Nick, did you get to play this at Pinbrew at all or no?
    39:22
    Regrettably, I only played it once. Okay. What was your first impression? Did you get anything going? Did you get the multi-ball going or anything?
    39:30
    No. Okay. So I figured I'd play it when you get it So I didn't spend too much time on it Yeah it'll be better in a home environment Anyways where you can hear it and everything How much is it?
    39:42
    What is the price? I think it's out of this article Hold please Nope it's not there I forget I think it's around $3,000 I'll just go to the store here And look Game kits Multimorphy game kits so it's a $500 pre-order $3,400 for the full game cool alright so that is Final Resistance definitely check that out and I'm stoked to get mine they're going to start shipping in May yeah that's what Jerry said so the pre-order is open if you want to get in on that alright let's talk Pulp Fiction I know this one is one to make a side for We got to play this one at Pembroke, too.
    40:33
    What do you think about this game? So I was definitely interested in this game. It's been so long since we did our last podcast. I think at best we had a blurry photo. And a couple days later they did the reveals trailer of it, and I was like, oh, this looks great. And then followed by that they had an hour-long, you know, straight down the middle, did a really good job of, like, an hour-long production interviewing and talking about the game, and I absolutely fell in love with it. I liked everything that the design team was saying. I liked how Josh Sharp was talking about how games have gotten away from kind of, I think the way he phrased it was like creating moments in a game, you know, something like bringing a smile to your face, that kind of deal. And, you know, he's definitely right to an extent. I like the way the games are today, but I also miss some of the stuff, and And it was great playing it at Pinbury. I'm really glad they had two of them there. Mark Ritchie was there and some of the other design team.
    41:37
    Some of their folks from playing mechanics. And Bushfield was there. We were hanging out with him. He was showing us how to play. Just, you know, really, really brought a smile to my face playing this game. Really just fell in love with it. Really kept on wanting to go back and playing it more. I just need to have this in my collection I actually just watched Pulp Fiction again this past weekend it's been since probably 94 since I saw it so I got to watch it on the big screen that I have in my home theater it got me hyped even more especially good movie dude yeah and you know David Thiel doing the audio so you know the voice lines are hilarious and the timing and the kind of teasing, like the audio clips, you know, when you lock a ball for briefcase multi-ball. And it's just so good. It brings back some of that magic of pinball that they were really good at, I think, in the 90s, even though this is modeled after a game in the 70s. It's kind of got like a game that looks like from the 70s but has the sensibilities of some of the stuff from the 90s and then also like, you know, the lighting of today, right, and maybe some of the rules from today. So, man, what a great way to launch a game, right? You pick a great theme. You have a solid trailer. Then you have a well-produced hour-long special on it.
    43:07
    Then you bring it to shows and the thing works and everybody has a blast on it. The only knock I'm going to say is that we've got to wait until the fall for this to start getting produced. That's the only knock, right? Like, going back to JGP turning a corner, they announced the game, they showed it, and then the games were ready to buy, like, the next day. Like, I wish that was going on with this. That's hardly a knock. It's just a wish because, actually, I don't have money for this game now, so it doesn't matter. It's for the best, actually, yeah. Let people buy all the stuff right now and then, you know, save money in the fall for the team. Definitely worth getting hyped for this. I almost rolled a thing, too. I know. At the end of the night, I was getting through almost all the game, for better or for worse. Is that scary at all as a player? I guess you can make it harder when it's in your house, right? I asked Josh Sharp, and he said I think in three years that he's had it, that they've been testing it. He's only done it like three times, like two or three years. He's only done it three times. So sometimes you just catch a wind.
    44:13
    I was definitely in the flow state, and I couldn't lose a ball. You're in that post-tournament, like, nothing matters, I'm just going to play this. Yeah, exactly.
    44:21
    So not really. I know that this game is obviously going to be more limited than a game of ramps that can just do more and extend the game time and stuff. But I don't know, man. This game brings joy to my life, and I want it. That's awesome. I kind of want one too, but I'm glad you and Patrick are both getting it so I can play yours. You know what I mean? Yeah, totally. There's no reason for three of us to buy this game.
    44:48
    I'll get something else. Even though it's really cool. I love the theme. I had a blast playing it. I love the mix of retro and modern. It's kind of like they snuck in a lot of modern stuff. So it feels like a street-level game, but it's really not because it's got the wire form that kicks it up into the back box and stuff. And there's a bunch of subways and stuff. So they could kind of get away with, you know, the story is Tarantino wanted an old-style game. but you know it's got a lot of stuff from more modern games in there especially rules wise and lighting wise and stuff like that so um yeah it's it's a really fun game i thought their explanation you know and not that maybe this was intentional maybe it was a happy accident but yeah tarantino wanted a game that looked like it was from the 70s and then they talk about how it's got you know some modern sensibilities which is kind of like the movie right the movie looks like Like, there's a lot of things that looks like it's in the 70s, but it's really in what was present day in 94, right? You look at everything that's going on, the cars and stuff, and that's kind of like how it is. It's got that 70s vibe to it, but it's got the modern sensibilities. Yeah. The lighting was great, by the way. Lighting looked great in all the modes. Yeah. So good. It was really cool. Like, when you lock a ball in, I would do, like, the green wash over it for the block and stuff like that. And they also did really neat stuff with those displays. So they would do little animations and stuff on the alphanumeric displays and things like that. So it was good. It was good. Martha, she saw Pulp Fiction for the first time on Friday. And she's like, is the gimp in the game? I was like, you're goddamn right. He gets a multi-ball. He's front and center, baby. He's right on those drop targets.
    46:34
    He's right there. See those drop targets? That's him. That's right. No Bruce Willis, though, man. He's kind of on the back box. Like, he's like right just to the right. Oh, yeah, he is. It's weird that Mr. Wolf and Jimmy, who are less in the movie, are featured but not Bruce Willis as much. I listened to an interview with Butch Peel on the way to Pin Brew, and I can't remember the reason why. There was something with the royalties or the licensing.
    47:02
    Well, I mean, the tradeoff is you get Jimmy in the game, and I know that really makes you happy. Yeah, I'm happy to have little Jimmy. Good old Jimmy. So good job, CGC.
    47:12
    You've got to start cranking these babies out. People are ready to get their wallets out. They sold a – how many of the LEs did they sell? Like 1,000 of them?
    47:23
    Yeah. That's crazy. Fuck, man. For $10K at this stage in the game, I wish I got one of those. I just wish I got it. You're getting the standard? You're never a top or anyways. Well, that's the other thing I noticed. Maybe I do. Probably not. It looks like an old game, but it's like the height of a modern game. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. So I was surprised. I was expecting it to be like TNA height, but it's not. It's like a Stern height. That makes me feel better, Kevin. Yeah. You would just throw him in the topper in the trash. Yeah.
    47:52
    All right. Let's talk Bond 60th. We played that a couple times. I like this game. It was surprisingly fun. I shouldn't be surprised because it's a Keith Allen game, and he has a great track record for fun pinball designs. The problem is it's not $20,000 worth of fun. You know what I mean?
    48:15
    I actually quite enjoyed it. I wanted to play it more after I got done playing it, but, man, I could not pull the trigger on a $20,000 version of this. No, it's funny, Kev, because, you know, they had Pulp Fiction, played that first, and then I went to play the Bond 60th, but like the day before you got there. And it's like if all else were equal, let's say they were both $8,000,
    48:37
    Pulp Fiction all day. Pulp Fiction was, to me, the better game. Like I had just better art, better moments. It's got actual better toys in it, better sound, better sound effects. Like the layout's cool, and Don, don't get me wrong. I mean, Keith did a good job in school and all, but, I mean, the thing's ugly as sin.
    49:02
    It's just got the sounds that it's sharing between the other Bond. It looks like, when it was sitting next to even just the Bond Pro, it looks like the lesser version. Yeah, it looks like a home game. Yeah, I said to you, and I said to Matt and everybody, like, in a normal world, this would have been called, like, a Stern Classic, and it would have been, you know, you got the Pro at $6,900. You would have had, this game would have been $5,900, right? But, and to Stern's credit, they're like, you know, fuck that. Here's what we're going to do. All right? Watch this. This is going to be hilarious. I'm going to say this is going to be limited. We're going to charge $20K, and then Richie Rich's are going to go out, and they're going to buy it. And that's what happened, man. I mean, like, this is a lesser game to the pro, and certainly the premium.
    49:53
    The premium doesn't have a lot of good selling points over the pro anyways. But, like, I really – I do like how Bond Pro shoots. Like, I'd rather play that game than this, even though this is fun and all. But it is – to me, it's a lesser version.
    50:08
    Yeah, it's crazy time. And, yeah, the thing – like you said, it's ugly. The sound is not good. The game itself I thought was fun. I liked it when you started multi-ball, like locking the balls back in the lock shots and then getting the jackpots and stuff like that. I thought that was fun. The little loopy shot on the far left is really cool.
    50:31
    But, yeah, man. I saw one on Pinside was selling for like $15,000 already. Dude, the art is just hideous. It just looks hideous, man. And they're passing it in chat. It said, you don't like the Oz era clip art. Yeah, it looks like an early 2000s era stern, like CSI or, you know, all those. Poker World Tour, Sopranos. I mean, it's that level of ugliness with the yellow outline around it. Like, it's fucking terrible. Yeah. My baby's first art project. You know what I mean?
    51:05
    Goddamn. I mean, sometimes you just get, like, sometimes the trick is you make this game beautiful, right? And then you charge that price, and then you're like, oh, it's beautiful. It's stunning. Like, it's fun classic layout. And you're like, oh, all right, all right, all right. But no, like, there's nothing that look aesthetically pleasing about having that in a lineup. That's the spooky pinball sales business plan. You make it beautiful. People buy it. And then it's like, eh, it sort of works, I guess. Like, okay. Yeah. God bless. I mean, Stern, dude, keep subsidizing. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for all the pages down. God bless you. Thank you. All right. So that was fun.
    51:44
    So a couple people asked, do you guys think Stern will pull this again off another theme, charging 20K? I mean, why not? I think, yeah. I haven't done it with Beatles, though. Everybody was speculating that they were going to do Sea Witch, and they never did. No, no. He says, do you think they're going to do another theme at 20? Like, do you think they're going to do the same? Oh, yeah. Yeah. If they can get a high-dollar license like that. Yeah. If they can get back to the people they're doing it with. They only sell it at $300, or they sell it at $500, and they go lower. Like, whatever. Yeah. Dude, the build of material has to be less than the Stern Pro or around it. Yeah. They're selling a home game for $20,000, basically. I would if I was them. I'd fucking be laughing to the bank and high-fiving everybody. Are you kidding me? You guys were going to charge $5,900 and call it Stern Classic because it doesn't have ramps and stuff? Look at this. This is genius. I'd charge $20,000 and people are going to buy it. Yeah, I'd do that all day, Kevin. Yep. Yeah, like Chrome Candy says, the Beatles did get a classic mode with Sea Witch rules, but they didn't re-release the game at a lower price as Sea Witch. That's what everyone was like. well, if they release a Fizz Fee widget for five grand, I would buy it. And they never did. They're never going to do it.
    52:54
    Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Anything else on Bond? I don't know. I like how Bond shoots. I'm glad to see the code starting to get there. You're talking about the regular Bond, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, let's move on from Bond 6. Yeah, that didn't beat. Apparently the new rules are very Lonnie Robb-esque where they added new stuff, But to get there, you have to shoot the same thing a thousand times.
    53:21
    Who could have possibly seen that coming? Really weird. All right, let's talk about Foo Fighters. How much of this did you play?
    53:31
    I played it because they had it in the tournament. I think I played it a couple times. They had some on display or whatever. I played it a few times, played the premium, played the pro. You just got one in Masuda, right? Yeah, so I didn't, like, I was kind of, like, lukewarm towards it when I was at Pimbrew, and then I played it a couple times at Masuda and enjoyed it more there. I think maybe I just had it set up better.
    54:00
    It certainly, like, the shots definitely feel really good. I like some of the inventive things that are in it, like, it has kind of, like, that, like, almost like a kicker. What is it, like, the thing that got me? Oh, yeah, I like that. That was surprising when that went off. Yeah, that was nice. I really do appreciate bringing back things that were kind of cool, you know, 30 years ago or 40 years ago or whatever and putting them in games. It's just a nice surprise, and it worked well in the game.
    54:28
    Yeah, the way the ramps move and the movement of the ball, everything felt really good and cool. The art didn't seem as busy in person. It was easier on the eyes on person as compared to how it looks in pictures. So that was certainly nice. I still think it's busier than it needs to be. It's like at 11. It probably can be down to 8. But it wasn't that bad in person. Shot great. The rules, I don't really know what's going on. So hard for me to judge it. I haven't played this enough yet. Definitely disappointed that they didn't include that death save mechanic. It's kind of like an up post, right? in the left alley. I was really shocked that they pulled that from the pro. It was like, fuck, dude. I mean, how much does that cost them money? They even have, like, on the pro play fields, they even have a piece of metal over it. So it was already cut for that. That seemed really chancy, Stern. You don't have a toy on this to speak of. You could have put that because the premium got the sculpted overlord and it's got the upper play field. Like, the premium definitely stands on its own with additional stuff. They didn't have to jip everybody on that. But, yeah, I mean, I can see why people like this game. I'm not – right now I'm not like, oh, I need to own it or anything. I guess, you know, the next step is how are the rules, are the rules like super engaging and want me to come back? It just seemed like you pick a mode, you play the mode, and things happen. I noticed that my score when I was playing it was who's cap. It would be like 30 or 40, and then like in a blink of eye, it would jump to like 200, and I have no idea why.
    56:05
    Probably like Galactic Tank Force. Yeah. I mean, like, Stern's going to do well with this. I like music pins. We've got a bunch of friends getting it.
    56:14
    You know, my thing is, like, if I had to rank the games, I think Godfather, my ranking right now of new games, and obviously things change over time, but it's like Godfather, Pulp Fiction, Foo Fighters, probably GTF, Queen, and we haven't played Spooky yet. So Spooky automatically goes to the bottom because we haven't played it. So don't, you know, take that with a grain of salt. I'll rank mine, too. I really like when you rank things. Godfather, Pulp Fiction, and Foo. Well, you only played Final Resistance once, so you can't really put that in there yet. Yeah, I can't put that in there. For me, it would be Godfather, Final Resistance, Pulp Fiction, probably Bond 60, if we're counting that one. Pretty much in the order I put them in the rundown. Wow, Bond 60 over Foo Fighters? Yeah. Get the fuck out of here. I mean, I only played the worst ones. Get the fuck out of here. Wrong opinion. I had fun playing it.
    57:13
    Queen and then GTF, probably. Well, no, I put GTF above Queen. GTF was so broken. All right, let's not jump the gun here. We have a lot to talk about. It was the Galactic Sings Force.
    57:25
    Yeah, so I have one good story about Foo Fighters. I played it twice, once in the tournament and then once casually.
    57:34
    So literally the first game I step up to play it in the tournament, I plunged the ball. I was player two. Ball one. Plunged the ball. It did like a weird like jump thing. It felt kind of like Godzilla when you don't plunge quite right, and it kind of rattles around. I was like, oh, that's weird, whatever. It must just be like Godzilla.
    57:53
    The player three steps up, pulls the ball, pulls the plunger back, and the ball falls in the cabinet. The auto plunger fell out. I was like, oh, man. So we had to retrieve the ball from the bottom of the cabinet, Scooby-Doo style. What game were we playing? Oh, Rick and Morty were playing when it fell through the cabinet.
    58:14
    Thankfully, they got the auto-plunger remounted, and we were able to get the game going, but that was just funny. And then we played again. I heard the spinner has been falling out of them, so just keep an eye on that. So I guess our spinner fell out, the one that's going on location. And then the plastic ramp covers are breaking. So, thankfully, Ulex Store was at Pimber's, so I picked up, you know, the replacement ramp covers, which have, like, more flex to them so they can take some punishment. We got those. So just word to the wise, you might want to look into getting those. Yep, if you're getting one. There you go. All right. Do we have to talk about Queen? I guess we can. We finally played it for whatever's there. Talk about a box of lights Dude this game's ugly as hell too You talk about ugly This game beats Bond in my opinion Yeah Dude the side art Do they have the side art here? It's a different kind of ugly It's a real like Sophie's choice in terms of what's The ugliest I mean the cabinet art on Bond 60 is really lazy But this is They don't have the full cabinet Look where it's the side of the pro or whatever the standard edition they call it. It's just got like a silhouette of the art that they have this shitty gradient on. It looks really, really bad. And then it's like the top of Wembley Stadium just in like line art form. It's so bad. Dude, it's so bad. It's so much better. So let's start. Okay, you plunge the ball. It kind of goes into a drop target post thing. So that's a great way to start the game. and then you're supposed to be hitting the piano targets but you don't know that oh is that the idea I think so that's not apparent at all I don't have anything it was almost $12,000 too yeah the center ramp shot was super easy and repeatable but it would like sometimes the ball lock wouldn't work on the left ramp the Wembley lock It would just, like, skip over it. The way it's designed, it's not seem good, because it's still, if you shoot it too fast, it just goes around it, instead of falling into the little hole here. And then the ball fell off the ramp at one point. I was just doing all sorts of weird mechanical things that made it feel like a prototype that wasn't quite ready for production. Oh, totally. Yeah, it's like, it's like, you could tell this game is just kind of unfinished, and they're just like, well, get it out there, someone's going to buy it. You know, it's like playing the Queen DVD in the background, and there's text overlaid on it, and the upper play field is not fun and way too big. There's a shot next to the right orbit that the ball would go up there and inexplicably always just come back down, and we couldn't really figure out why because it's covered up. It was really weird. It was under the guitar, yeah. Yeah, it was really weird. Like, things are lit, and there was, like, no feedback to the player in terms of when you hit a lit shot of if you did anything special or anything happened. And it's just, it's like a shell of a game. Maybe there's something here, but it's clearly a shell.
    61:32
    And, you know, they had two games there. Cointaker brought them. One, the, like, I think it was the right flipper was weak as all hell. And just you delay in it. It wasn't working well. But the audio actually sounded really pretty good, like an audio system. It was really kind of thumping. The other game, the audio was, like, broken on it, but the flippers shot well. It's just, I don't know, man. This is, I cannot believe that this game is $12,000, and then you look at, like, Godfather. Oh, my God, dude. Dude, at that point, it's a fucking joke. Yeah. And this game is for people who don't, they just, like, want a queen pinball machine, and they don't care about anything. They want a game, you hit start, there's flippers, the ball goes around, and it plays Queen music. And, like, if you're like, and that's fine. Listen, if that's all you care about and you don't care about, you know, me and Kevin are super fucking nerds in pinball. I get it. Like, this has been doing this for more than ten years, both of us, all right? Like, super nerds. So if you just want a Queen pinball machine, this is who that's for. and that's anybody else who knows what's going on and knows what makes a you know like what to look for in a pinball machine or comparing it to like other games this game's a joke absolute joke I think that's it we'll leave that as the final word alright let's move on to I think the one everybody's been waiting for us to talk about here's a real debate about the art in the chat what are we talking about You got some people saying you're crazy for saying the art on Bond 60 years is better, and then there's people saying the opposite. It's almost like you're saying subjective. It is. That's right. Love it. Yep. All right. Weird. They still sold Bolt at the show? It's nuts. Yeah, dude. Look.
    63:31
    This is it, though. This is what we want. I want my gravestone to say this. It's fucking theme. Like, if you're making a pinball machine, just do a theme. People will buy it. You're just going to sell that alone. Like, you say, I'm making Tom Petty pinball.
    63:52
    Automatically, people are just going to buy it. That's it. They don't even have to look at it. They're like, I'm getting it. That's it. I love Tom Petty. I'm going to get Tom Petty. You say, I'm making Glaxo Tank Force. It's fucking crickets. Okay? They're going to say, I'll just see how the game plays. else. Why would you start behind the eight ball? If you're a business and your goal is to make money, why would you fucking do that to yourself? Yeah, if those were two $12,000 punny factories sitting there at the show, they would not have gotten sold. They would have just gone home with the many factories. Hall and Oates Please Please Please Jersey Jack give us Hall and Notes Best spelling pop duo of all time You need the picture of them with the Fiero for the back glance right How many number ones do they need?
    64:42
    The Bee Gees. So many options. Bee Gees fans would buy it. All right. You ready for GCS? You want to get into this?
    64:52
    Let's do it. All right. We've got to begin from the beginning We've got to talk about where we left off So in the last episode of Brody Even Talk Pinball We had just seen The tank revealed No, we just We revealed the first playfield pictures Oh yeah, and they had shown the tank version They just showed the tank and we showed a blurry Playfield picture Alright So that was, they did, before they They didn't release the trailer yet They kept on hyping that the trailer would come out and prior to that they did how many teaser trailers? Two? Four?
    65:27
    I think it was four trailers all together. So they had done three. Okay, so three teasers. Three teasers. Yeah, too many teasers. Okay, so I want everybody to note this.
    65:38
    Here's the standard operating procedure for like Stern, Jersey Jack, Pulp Fiction did this. Maybe one teaser, okay, then the real trailer, and then a stream. That's it. Or you just do a trailer and then a stream. That's kind of the standard operating procedure, yeah. So GTS says, no, no, no, no. We got this figured out. We're going to do three teasers. All right. And the first teaser is going to mention, like, hype up. They're not going to show the game. That's child's play. We're going to hype up that there's actors in this that we paid money for, okay? We're going to flash a bunch of names that most people don't know. I mean, realistically, they're not well-known actors by any stretch of the imagination. All right. So they do that. Then the next teaser is the tank guy. His eyes are moving back and forth. Okay. Again, we're not seeing the game. Then the third teaser is what? I don't even know if the third teaser is forgettable. Then we finally get to the movie. Oh, the third teaser was the one with all the full motion video.
    66:38
    No, that's the trailer. That's the real trailer. That's this one. Okay. I can't keep track of them. I can't keep track. So, all right. These guys are American Pinball is like shouting, look at me. They were like, everybody stop what you're doing. Look at me. And we're like, all right, if you fucking insist, let's look what's going on.
    66:59
    Patrick Pimbal presents. Preach a good cabinet. It looks like a tank. This is the boss alarm. Lock and load. Ready to engage.
    67:13
    You're seeing the ball pop around the power. You think you can defeat me? Here, hold my stopper. There's a tank.
    67:24
    Where did that thing come from? The electric tank pool. Get ready for the dust test. Classic cabinet options. Signature and limited version. Artwork by Chris Frangie.
    67:39
    Wow, wow, wow. Wireform ramp. Signature and wireform ramp. Fun to control the bird. Multiple ball magnets.
    67:46
    Custom pop-over LED lighting. Automatic shield ball save. That never works. Sorry. I am loser intolerant.
    68:00
    This guy. That guy. Jeff Hoover. Everybody's favorite Jeff Hoover. And Clementine. A Clementine warfoot.
    68:14
    There's cows. They be like cows in your game. Yeah, remember cows are funny. Nordman 3000 as the robot 3D printed thing lock it up hope you guys like this part because you're going to hear it a lot there's a lot of locking in happening boss locked in you are no match for my spy bot party time twitch party the ball walk that ever worse Oh, we're getting to my favorite part of this video. All right. How much time do we have?
    68:55
    Oh, yeah. When the ball, like, jumps over the flippers at the end. Don't they do, like, a slow-motion version of it, too? Yeah, here we go. Coming up.
    69:08
    Talk to your doctor about sprinkles. Side effects may include unexpected giggles. Oh, my God, it's so bad. Yeah. So let's pick up the story. So this is like a month old at this point. So this finally drops after the teaser. And, like, I would highly encourage, if you've not been to the GTF hype thread on Pinside, I would highly encourage you to go there. And if you can find the precise moment that that trailer dropped, just enjoy it from there on. Like, that thread will just be there for posterity. It was one of the greatest threads of all time. And I definitely was participating in that because they kept on screaming, attention, attention, look at me. And I was like, oh, shit, all right, I'm going to look at it. And then I thought I would hop in the hype that and give my thoughts. And some people didn't like it. I mean, like, you know, some people private messaged me and were calling me an asshole and stuff. But if that doesn't make you want to go check out that thread, I don't know what will. So you can kind of see the real-time thoughts of that. And also then they went to TPF. And in TPF, let me just let you guys know. So the trailer comes out. They show that. People are just like, what the fuck? This is cringe. This is stupid, blah, blah, blah. They just missed the mark. Then they go to TPF, and they still aren't showing the game. They're driving the game around as a tank, so they're confusing people because it doesn't really drive around. They just hooked it up for, again, somebody would be like, oh, it's fun, it's fun. It's like, well, no, it's a marking gimmick. They're saying, look at me. But what they're not doing is showing the game. Like, they didn't have any game stream reveal until, like, a couple weeks after TPF. Yeah, and the person was, like, in some random bar. Yeah. Some streamers were nice enough to go down and try to show people the game. Yeah, it was at a brewery. Like, it was not a planned or constructed stream at all. And good for them for finally doing that. But that's all people wanted. And I can listen to the point. It's like, what are they trying to hide? Like, why are they doing all this other stuff, all this bullshit, not showing the game? That's what people want to see.
    71:23
    Jesus, Kevin. I mean, I could probably go on and on. Again, some of my best work is in that thread if you want to see the thoughts and feelings on it. But this has not been going well for them in the slightest. By the time they did have an organized stream, Jack Danger streamed it, and I would, I turned in to watch it and the game would always be broken. They would go into multi-ball, the multi-ball wouldn't work properly. It was the industry first single ball multi-ball. They always had the glass off. It just seemed super disjointed. You know, the tank is so far up front in the middle that everybody who, they're good players, they're all avoiding it and shooting all the other shots, right? So, yeah, I think even the, I think it's the one iPod, one pinball podcast streamers. Their stream was actually better, and when I finally saw the game, I was like, okay, it's not a game I'm going to buy, but looks like it might be fun for a few flips, right? After all that, it was like, okay, but then the official stream was a disaster. It got that annoying dubstep music. I even heard Kerry Hardy's like, yeah, I'm a fan of dubstep, but this is terrible dubstep. Personally, I can't tell the difference, but I trust that somebody who can. Right? So somebody who even likes dubstep is just like, this is trash. Yeah. It's like they went on Fiverr and bought some dubstep music. And it's like, Nick, oh, Nick, you're a JGP shill. Like, dude, I want more pinball machines to choose from. This is not the right approach. And it's like, here's our reasons. Here's me and Kevin talking as friends. We're laughing as friends. Like, are you kidding me? This is the approach to this game? How are they going to sell? How are they going to compete with Pulp Fiction or Foo Fighters or Godfather? Like, what are they thinking? This is like, to me, this is an exercise that nobody is there as a leader saying, no, we're not going to do that. There's like zero direction. Nobody said no to anything. There's no cohesion. It's just throw everything at the wall, see what sticks. Hey, should we hire comedy writers? No, we're funny. We can do it ourselves, right? Like, no. You know, when Williams put out Medieval Madness, they hired, I think it was Second City in Chicago, that's what it was called. You know, Tina Fey was actually a voice in Medieval Madness because she was in Second City at the time. Right? Like, they hired comedy writers. When they did Deadpool a couple years ago, Stern hired comedy writers. And the game's, like, nominally funny, but that's, like, at least they tried to get comedy writers. Imagine Stern trying to make jokes themselves. Guys, like, get help. Like, you're not, like, you don't know what you're doing. You don't know what you're doing. It's a skill, just like everything in life. You got to be, there's skill in comedy, there's skill in art, there's skill in music. Get the people who know how to do this stuff and have them do it. Yeah. Call me an asshole. Okay, I'm one guy, Kevin's one guy, but, like, people vote with their wallets. No one's going to buy this game.
    74:19
    Yeah. Like, it's going to be very little sales. And it's not because Nick and Kevin don't like it. It's not because pinball, you know, like, it's because you guys are just dropping the ball on this. And that's too bad because you're spending, you've got talent there, right? You're able to produce and manufacture pinball machines, which is saying so much more than anybody else who tries to do this. Like, you're there. You're making it.
    74:43
    Do an original, drop the original themes, get some guidance, get some other talent in there to provide some direction, some project management, something. I don't know, Kev. it's like I don't want to see this game be bad right like I want games I wish every pinball machine was good but there's just so many questionable misguided steps along with it we haven't gotten to the fact that there's you know they make a joke about fudge packing and as Rob Messer says like I'm not offended by the joke I'm offended as a fan of comedy it's just not funny right like it's just like low bar humor that's like boomer humor that I don't know Well, now they took it out of the game, so they can pretend like it never existed. Yeah, they took it out of the game, so they're like, I don't know what you're talking about. Well, we've got receipts. There's screenshots. Yeah, you guys put out a promo video with it in there, so sorry. Somebody who is no longer with the company who's trying to explain what's going on in the game, which is very nice of that person. They're doing better work than American Pinball is, ironically, you know. But they're like, it's not fudge packing, it's pumping and drilling. Oh, you're pumping and drilling for fudge. Yeah, totally different. You silly goose. Yeah, they fixed it. How dare you? The thing is, like, you're trying to assemble ice cream ingredients, like, and there's tanks, and it's like, what the fuck? Seriously. How are you going to compete with Foo Fighters? Like, I get, like, oh, Nick's an asshole. Nick's smug. He's like, you know, he doesn't get this humor. It's wacky. It's silly. Fine. Where's your audience for it? Let's see. We're going to check the sales. We're going to check it six months from now. We're going to go to Pinside. We're going to look at the owners and the wish listers. We're going to compare all the other games that came out this time. And then who are the people that are going to agree with it? Are they going to agree with you who's saying that we're wrong, or are they going to agree with Nick and Kevin? I'm going to say it's going to be the Hall and Oates of Pinball, Nick and Kevin.
    76:35
    So, yeah, we left this last month. I was like, oh, you know, maybe this is like a new Attack from Mars or something like that. Maybe it's something I'd be interested in for my gamer. Because like you talked about earlier, it gets, you know, if you have all the same manufacturers in your lineup, it gets boring. It's fun to mix it up. It's fun to get different rules, designers, play field layouts, things like that. Original themes are cool. I have a number of original themes in my game room.
    77:02
    But it's like, can we get to the part where we actually played this game? Are we ready to go there yet? Yeah, one more thing about original themes. So I have original themes too. But fuck, dude, I have a bad girls. Yeah. Okay. I can get down with some crazy things, right? Right. But, like, you put yourself again behind the eight ball, not only in just not having a built-in audience, but now you've got to create a universe. You've got to create the scenes. You can't just pull from things and add on to them. You don't have a license or approval, which can be good or bad, but also license or approval can keep you on track from doing something monumentally stupid. So, yeah. It also gives you all these assets that you can use that you don't have to create. Yeah. So they had two of these at Pin Brew Fest, and Kevin and I were pumping. And Kevin made me promise to wait a full day to play until he got there. And as a good friend, I waited. So we finally played it. But I was sending Kevin pictures on Thursday. Every time I looked over there, they had, on both of them, they had the glass off and the play field up in the air. It was just issues after issues. Now, I would go over and watch people play. Like, so many problems. I actually documented it. Kevin, why don't you take over for a second? I wrote down these issues to report on Pinside. Okay. You can start talking while I look for that. Yeah, so we, that was always one of the selling points, right? It was like, oh, American Pinball, they make great games, built like a tank, amazing build quality, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, whatever.
    78:24
    So I was like, Nick, you got to wait for me to go get there. I went down like midday Friday. So we're like, all right, it's Galactic Tank Force time. Let's go. So we walk over there, and we step up to play it. The first one, we got through a full game of our first game, right? I feel like we did. And things worked okay.
    78:45
    and it was like, oh, this game's all right. And then we walked away and then came back. Every time we walked back past it, it was broken down. And then walked past it again, one of the two was broken down.
    79:00
    And then, you know, I think my first impression of seeing it in person, all right, let's talk about some positives. Beautiful game.
    79:09
    Everybody kind of, like, that's the universal, like, praise you can give to this game. Looks great. Chris Franchi did a great job on the art package. He really did. Despite saying that we all have ugly wives, he did a great job on the art package. And, Kevin, if you don't know what that is, Chris Franchi took it upon himself. I'm sorry. Look, like, you've got to talk about this for a second. This is just, again, everything is just crazy with this game. This pin-side thread is amazing. It's been deleted. But people were talking about how they were disappointed that the parts in the game were 3D printed for $9,000. so the artist comes in there and says like you know you guys have no right to complain about three different parts you guys all settled for ugly wives so shut the fuck up pretty much that's essentially the gist of that I believe it's screenshotted in there you can probably find it what is going on why do you have the artist in there people like it dude Franchi you crushed the art looks great that's the one thing that everybody agrees He's like, why? You won. I like your art on Godfather. Why did you do that?
    80:16
    Jesus, dude. What a weird hill to die on. Telling somebody that they have no right to complain about 3D printed stuff on a $9,000 game. That's a whatever.
    80:26
    Yeah, so to his credit, the game looks great. One detail that I really like is the back rocks is a little different. It looks more like a standard pinball back rocks if you've seen other American pinball games. they have that weird like curvy back box that really just kind of stands out but not in a good way now it's more traditional but what I like is the speaker panel is set back and it has some green LEDs above the speaker panel it shines out and it creates this really cool effect on the back box so visually really cool the other thing I really like is the mirror in the back that looks really cool you know the planet kind of looks like it continues in the back and it gives it this cool like effect in the back of the game so presentation wise looks great. Yeah, I want to say also I don't I take issue with 3D printed parts in the $9,000 game, but in person they don't look bad. I agree. In person, the game looks good.
    81:22
    The little robot that comes out looks like shit as a 3D printed part and disappointed. They could have painted him or something, but... Usually when it comes out, you're too busy playing to really notice it anyways.
    81:34
    It's like, oh, the alien or the robot guy popped out. Okay, cool. Like, we were waiting for him to come out, and then he came out and was like, oh, okay. And if it happened while I was playing, I barely noticed it.
    81:44
    But yeah, the 3D printed parts are... They're okay. I mean, would I prefer nice-looking sculpts? Absolutely, of course. And you should expect that on a $9,000 game. Would you rather have Booty Ray, like Stern Booty Ray or 3D printed American Pinball stuff? I don't know. I want to say 3D printed thing, but also the Booty Ray, at least they are on those is usually good. I don't know. It's kind of a toss-up. You can think about it.
    82:12
    The little spaceship things look way worse than the tank in the middle. Those things look really janky and goofy. You know, the mod community will just make you something you can buy for $300 to put on your $9,000 game to make it look better, right? Do you want me to get to the issues? Yeah, let's go. I think I even missed some of my initial go-around. Okay, the balls, this is all on Penn's side, balls would get hung up on an orbit switch happening on each machine different orbit. So this was consistent. It's nice that they had two games there so you can't just say, oh, that was one bad game, right? Balls would get stuck jammed in the right VUC. Magnet would sometimes not catch the ball when it should. Ball got stuck under the upper right spinner gate. UFO wasn't moving on one of the machines. The plunger was wobbling up and down on one of the machines. I asked his tech to turn the sound up because I had trouble hearing it. He did, and then it was, like, super loud. Like, you know, it went from, like, zero to 100. Yeah, there was something wrong with the volume control where it could only go all the way up or, like, all the way almost down. Yeah, I asked him to find the middle ground. He said there was none. He was, like, getting annoyed at me because I couldn't understand that. And then I saw him do it. So instead of going, like, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, you, like, click it. It goes like 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Like, that was it. So that was messed up. You know, speaking of sound, I don't know if it was up with the speaker system, but it seemed like some sounds were high-pitched. Some of the call-outs you can hear fine. The other ones just got buried in the mix.
    83:49
    And, like, voices were drowned out. Some characters would pop up and you would see them talking, but no sound would come out.
    83:55
    I guess that's a code issue. There's also, like, at the end of the ball, it would just be totally silent. It's really weird. Yeah. The Cowabunga mode had like stupid high scoring. Oh, my God, dude. You would like get to like 100 million, but then when you start it, it would say like the super jackpot was like 138 million, and I saw a score jump by like basically a billion points. It was just broken, right?
    84:21
    Frequent air balls from the tank. The glass rattled horribly. Auto launcher was intermittent on one of the games, so I had to manually punch the ball during multi balls. The flippers started getting weaker over time. The balls weren't releasing from the locks and had to be fixed. Other than that, things were good. I can add one. Because of the weird plunger on the one, I plunged the ball. The ball, like, didn't go anywhere. It jumped to the left into the outland, drained, and my ball was over. Yeah. Dude, this is not an opinion. These are straight-up facts that anybody else who played it can concur and noted these things. I did not see Pulp Fiction, Glass. They have two games where I didn't see the Glass off once. I didn't see the play field up in the air once. I saw longer lines consistently for those games. I didn't see Bond 60th any issues. I didn't see any issues with the other. Even, I mean, I mentioned the Green. I didn't see the Glass off on that. This was a terrible, terrible look. And that game, those games were somebody bought them, and they're taking them to a brewery. So it was purchased, and it was going on location after that. Yep. And there were times when the games were working and people just weren't playing them. For a brand new game, I think that says a lot. Yeah. So you almost did it. So let's talk about, like, gameplay. So when we were able to play, so at the end of the night, what was that, Saturday night, we got together and we just played a bunch of those. And it was working okay to the point where we could have played a couple four-player games. and I guess the strategy is you don't want to shoot the tank the tank's going to kill you the up post in the middle between the flippers is going to kill you it's not going to work so what you do is you start a multi-ball and then when you're in a multi-ball that's when you battle the tanks right it's kind of like Attack from Mars in that sense where it's the sucker shot right up the middle yeah I can shoot this thing and make something cool happen but I'm probably going to die. So I'm going to have to play it when it's more safe. Or like Ironmonger, you've got to shoot them on the sides. You know, with the dangerous straight-up-the-middle shots, you have to kind of pick and choose how you're going to play them, right? So that's how I ended up playing the game.
    86:39
    Yeah, it was pretty boring. I mean, it was just like there's two shots on the left. There's, like, two shots on the right, not counting the UFO. You shoot down. They're safe. It's slow. Ball comes back. You do it again. And if you're a good player, you can consistently find and grind. Like, I got a grand champ on it, right? Like, it was easy for me. And I would get into multi-ball, then I'd weigh on the tank, then I'd do it again. And it's just like, all right, at least. And if you want to compare it to attack from Mars, those targets are back further. So you can go for them, and you can have more recovery time. So, you know, do you go for them? Usually not. but the other shots that you're shooting along the way are more satisfying and fun. They just feel better on Attack from Mars. Oh, yeah, totally. The thing is, like, there's so many games that are longer player these days that they're making. I do like a game that might be more brutal, maybe a little more luck-oriented, right? So that, like, on the surface, that appeals to me. And I think this game can be fun for a few flips. I mean, no way do I want to buy the game. I think that there is fun to be had It's hard to say Because the game never worked right when we played it The rules didn't seem Anything amazing Certainly wouldn't want to buy it But it's probably fun for some flips I don't think this game Is going to be successful though By the way I would gauge success in terms of units sold But I hope they get their act together I thought the lighting was excellent Art's great I don't know man what else can I say about this thing the overall presentation was really good I actually liked the full motion video stuff as it's integrated into the game it reminded me of like 90's full motion video games in a cheesy kind of campy way the whole presentation aside from the dubstep music I really liked it's just everything else fell apart literally oh I wanted to show this to you.
    88:49
    After this was April 1st, so this would have been after TPF, working on a permanent solution for quote-unquote minor issue and this is when they announced their official stream. So it was such a minor issue they had to issue a full statement about it.
    89:06
    This morning, American Pinball's David Fix sent out an email addressing a quote-unquote minor issue that some people experienced while playing the company's new game, Galactic Tank Force, at the most recent Texas Pinball Festival. The center tank stand-up targets on the games at the show were getting bent up slightly during the repeated gameplay, causing some players to get air balls that traveled straight down the middle when hitting them. American Pinball has implemented a temporary solution to strengthen the targets on the games that it is bringing to this weekend's Midwest Gaming Classic, and a more permanent solution will be implemented on production of Galactic Tank Force games, quote-unquote, shortly.
    89:39
    So there you go. Although that didn't seem to be in place for the ones we played at Pin Brew. The stand-up targets were all bent and crappy and sending air balls all over the place. So there you go. I think that's all we have to say about Galactic Tank Force at this point.
    89:56
    Yeah, that's all that needs to be said. We'll compare. We'll look six months from now. We'll look at numbers. You got to go the numbers.
    90:05
    Yeah, let's run the numbers. And sadly, we cannot give a Scooby-Doo report because they didn't have any at Pembroke. So it was the one new game that didn't have one there. Yeah, so scribble any good brews at Pin Brew. Yeah, for sure. I can't remember the names for the life of me. There was one that was like 9% proof, which was delicious.
    90:30
    And there was some good sours. There was like a sweet tart sour that I had the first day. That was great.
    90:37
    A Dunkle I think I had on Saturday night. I was pounding those. It was good. It was a great time. Speaking of, we're going to talk about that, right? Yeah, it's Pimber recap time. That's a good transition. Well, James got a spooky, so we got to stream it, right? Yeah, we got to play Scooby if he lets us.
    90:59
    He didn't want us to stream Halloween because it was so bad, so we'll see. Allegedly, he's enjoying Scooby so far, so we'll see. I don't believe it.
    91:09
    All right, you want to talk Pimber? I got some pictures and stuff. Yeah. So this is our first year going there, right?
    91:16
    Yes, it was because our schedule is finally aligned. And we took a nice crew out from Buffalo. I don't know, man, I had a blast. It's the first pinball show I've been to since the pandemic.
    91:28
    Really, really good show. Good use of the space. It felt open. A good number of games there. I played a lot in the tournament, which I liked the format that they had. It was kind of like this match play style tournament where you can do qualifying sessions, and I did most of them. They had all the new games there except for Spooky Scooby-Doo for some reason. Oh, there's me. Hey, it's you. It's me playing Pulp Fiction. Big surprise. The game's amazing. We were there. We played it. If you thought we were lying to you, there you go. Beers were great. Like food trucks were solid. They had a good variety.
    92:07
    I don't know, man. It was really good. So shout out to Keith and his team for just putting on a show for us adult children to just go and get away and have fun with friends, which is so important.
    92:23
    And, you know, I had folks from who listen to our podcast or watch our stream come up to me, and I'm sure they did to you as well, Kevin. Yeah, like the most ever, I feel like. Let's hear some nice things, you know. And, you know, we do our streams in our home and sit here in my home and shout out to the Internet. And, you know, I see the names appear in chat. But, you know, meet people in person and hear that they like something that you spend your time doing and find value in it is nice. It means a lot to me. So a quick shout out to Bill who gave me some drink tickets. He said stay negative. I don't want to But I know there's more Pinball companies trying to make Pinball machines And as long as American Pinball makes more games It's probably going to be pretty easy It's not that I want to It's just that the games present themselves Blake and his son playing Paul Fiction Kurt from Williamsville Luke who won a set of Penn City AMs Nick from Neo Pinball who was doing a stream During the finals so shout out to Nick I guess he was saying that he liked our competitive streams on the Internet. And I believe Tate, who did the back glass on the Hollywood Heat. Oh, yeah. So I probably forgot some people or I didn't get your name. So, anyways, it's appreciated. So thanks for introducing yourself. You're way better than me getting names. I'm terrible with names. I just say, hi, what's up, thanks for watching. We hang out a little bit. And I forget. Sorry. Thank you to everybody who said hello. and I totally respect all of you but I don't remember your names because it's just not something I'm good at.
    94:04
    Shout out there. Can I share one fun story from the tournament? Yeah. So I was playing in a group and we were playing Led Zeppelin.
    94:16
    So it had been so long since I played actual hard tournament games. I was like, oh shit, I gotta adjust to this again. These games are set up tough. and they changed, so physically they were set up tough and also they made rule changes. So on this Led Zeppelin, usually you can shoot the left scoop,
    94:35
    get those going, start getting progress towards your multiball on those, and then shoot the left rim, get that multiball going. No, you had to spell out rock on the right side to get multiball going. And because the game was set up so hard and just got a short ball save, that was really hard to do. So this was my, I think the third time I had gotten put on Led Zeppelin in the tournament. And I finally kind of figured it out, like how to play it, how to, you know, score on it. And on the first two balls, I was able to lock two balls. So I spelled rock, lock two balls. Going into ball three, I had multi-ball set up to go. One shot to the left ramp would have done it. So I stepped back. It was pretty busy back there. It was in a small space for the tournament. So when I wasn't playing, I would step out and kind of get out of the chaos for a little bit. And one of the other guys in my group steps up and he's like, man, I think there's somebody up there playing your ball so I'm like what the hell so I walk up, dude had started my multi-ball and he was still playing it and I was just like dude we're playing a tournament game here, he just kind of looks up and he's like what? what are you talking about? he's like oblivious to the fact that we're in a tournament so I'll set the theme for you there's two big rows of tables on either side, there's a little aisle you have to walk in to get to the tournament games. There's also signs on the table it's a tournament.
    95:57
    He walked right past those into where everybody was playing the tournament games just snaps right up, ball three, plunges my ball gets the multi-ball going and I was able to trap up two of the balls so I had to call over and get a ruling. They ruled it like I knew what my score was. They saw what the score was at and they just said subtract that from your score and you could play on from the multi-ball. I was able to get to add a ball. So I got to play multi-ball a little bit. I got over 30 million that game, which was, for that, Zeppelin was a pretty good score. It didn end up changing the outcome of the game at all because I was it was ball three I was already in the lead And player four didn catch me Even at the score before dude had played my game
    96:50
    Yeah. And then the rest of the show, everybody was like, what the hell happened? What was the outcome of that? It was a good tournament story.
    97:00
    Huge shout out to the tournament directors. I have nothing but respect for TDs these days. You know, we've done years of tournament directing and making rulings is never fun or easy. But thanks for all the effort that goes into running those. You know, they're in it for the grind. They're in there taking entries and making rulings and setting up rounds and everything like that. So thanks to all the folks out there who did the tournament, for sure.
    97:30
    All right, anything else from Pinbrew? Food trucks were good. I like the overall, like, layout of it. Um, isn't it like a really cool, like it's, it's pretty nice for a venue where they have, you'd been to the old Ohio show, right?
    97:48
    Um, God. The one that was in like an old, like, like, yeah, I don't know. I don't remember. I might have blocked out my memory. It was really bad. Like, it was really bad. So this was nice. The facilities are all really nice It's a little bit like It would have been really nice in the 70s But it was well maintained I think in the 80s because they had the bad girls Mirror glass on the doors It was a nice touch I really like the theme integration of the building Yeah I like the overall aesthetic of the building It was retro It was still well maintained The bathrooms were not gross so I appreciate that It felt like you were playing pinball in a ballroom In the one area it was really well done. GameSense faced out nice and the three big rooms and it was great because there's all these new games that just came out. Everybody just went to TPF and Middle East Gaming Classic and waiting in line for hours to play this game and we were able to step up and play them pretty much whenever we wanted. There's usually one person or a group playing the game and then you can get in Ryan behind them and be on the next game. It was really cool. So for us, a three hour drive is kind of a no brainer for us and I'm definitely going to go back. Yeah, again, highly recommend it. Shout out to Keith. I think sometimes it's a thankless job, and sometimes when you try to do a good show and a good job, you sort of remember the criticisms more than the praise. So try to keep that in mind. And also hopefully, Keith's not thinking this already, get more people involved so that maybe you can rotate having them run it some years, like your friends or a team, and then you get to enjoy it some years. and, you know, you don't get burned out from it because I think you've got some traction going, and I hope this event continues for years to come, and I hope you get to enjoy it from the other perspective as well. Yeah, 100%. Awesome. So Pinbrew, highly recommended. Go check it out. We can't talk about it too much, though, because then all sorts of people will start coming, and then we'll have to wait in line, and that would suck. That's true.
    99:50
    Don't come, but come because it's cool. All right, you want to do some Q&A? Sure. Go for it. I asked some of the folks in Discord for questions for the podcast. Most of them were trolly, but I figured I'd throw them out here. Slappy White, question one regarding Punny Factory. He just asks why.
    100:09
    And to that I say, I have no idea. Nick also has no idea. All right, Digital Jedi, how many puns have you ordered and is one for every room of your house enough? I've ordered zero. Nick, how many have you ordered? Zero. So, yes, that is more than enough for any house.
    100:29
    Zero punting factories for every house. Find somebody else who owns one and play theirs. But you're probably not going to do that because they're not going to sell many of these. Sergeant Ski wants to know, is Dave Fix going to last at American Pinball? Also, is American Pinball going to make it out of 2023? That sounds like a question for Nick. I mean, look, I don't like this question, and it's the downside of talking about American Pinball is, like, you know, we've had Dave Fix on the show. I've known Dave Fix since he's, like, the first person I met in pinball in 2011. He came over and fixed my Ironman and really helped me out. So it's tough, you know, with Dave Fix over there and Steve over there and, like, the people side of it, but at the same time, it's like, look, I feel like hopefully they're listening, and this stuff is hard to hear, and I believe that not pulling any punches and being truthful and honest and giving feedback that you might not want to hear but I think that you need to hear.
    101:31
    Hopefully that team, Dave and anybody else over there, if anybody is paying attention to us, I don't think Kevin and I are off on the mark on our criticism, and I think that we say these things because we want to see better games out there, and there's maybe a big bit of an echo chamber going on and being a bit in your own world, and I think you need to think about those criticisms and come out strong for the next title. So it would be great if Dave gets another crack at it and continue, and that team learns their lessons and comes back better. I'd love to see the next game not be an original theme, do a licensed theme, come out strong, get a strong theme, and crush it. Do a better release. Learn from all these mistakes. It's okay to make mistakes. But if you're not learning from it, then you're just going to be spooky pinball. I got it. You almost had it, Dick. You almost had it. Is AP going to make it out of 2023? So here's the other thing. I said on the podcast a couple months ago, like, I don't see how they're going to make it, you know, two years from now with the trajectory they're on. But what I don't know in that equation is, like, is this the tax write-off for the parent company? It makes no sense on paper how this company is able to make these decisions, not sell many games, and yet still get another crack next year making more games. So they can go on for decades. I have no idea. They shouldn't, right? But there's information I don't have, right? And I don't know what I don't know. I know things don't make sense. I know they're not selling a lot of games. But I don't know how long this can go on. And I don't know what kind of financial situation that they're in. Yeah. So two things. One was, you know, compare the rollout of this versus Legends of Valhalla. I thought they did a really cool thing with Valhalla where the day they announced that they had games all over, locations all over the U.S. You know, there was one at Jack Bar and I saw some ones out west and things like that. So you're able to go out and play it right away, especially with an original theme. that's critical because like you said earlier original theme comes out it's like well i gotta play it see if i like it blah blah get my hands on it and if you got a great game and you want to show it off that's a great way to do it um this game they just kind of like here's five of them that are going to go to texas then we're going to ship them to midwest gaming classic and then we're going to sell them they're going to go out on location somewhere and they haven't really as far as i know talked about how they're going to roll these out when can they expect rollout. At least CDC has said it's going to be fall by the time we start cranking out the Pulp Fictions. And, you know,
    104:12
    J.J.P. crushed it and they had the games ready to go. They were going out the door to customers right away. They even beat Stern to the punch. That's kind of like Stern's MO. They ship games out right away. You don't have to wait for your games, but J.J.P. even beat them to the punch on this one. So, yeah, it's like, so there's that. And then it's also, like you said, with the parent company, I feel like you see it in pinball where investors get into pinball because they love pinball, they have money, and they're happy to just break even if they can. You know what I mean? Because they have some other funding source that is, you know, they made all their money somewhere else. They're just happy. Like they want cool pinball machines out there in the world. Maybe that's what's happening with American Pinball. And Amtron, I think, is the parent company. As far as I know, they're like a PCV manufacturer. I don't know what the deal is there, but it's a weird situation. So they'll probably keep on going on, but, man, they need some license themes if they really want to make a go of this.
    105:17
    All right, so BorgDog says, Could the bros comment on today's Jerry Nugget in the Weird Al thread of, quote, a few hundred people were minute one orders, please? So I looked this up, and I was like, let me see what's going on there. So here's what Jerry posted. He said, so 2084 said I had a day one order, and I haven't heard anything in the 14 months since I paid my deposit. And so Jerry was replying to that. We commonly send out email blasts with the current state of things, and you should have received an initial email with your estimated ship date right after paying the deposit. If you're not receiving the email blast, you can email me with your email address, and we'll make sure you're on the list. we'll have a new email out soon which is not a surprise considering they talk about shipping the shipping Final Resistance starting in May he continues we'll have a new email out soon you're welcome to message us and ask for personal status too hard to guess by order day a few hundred people were minute one orders which I don't think is really a surprise because they sold out of 227 limited edition Weird Al's on the first day. So the fact that he's saying they sold a few hundred P3s or at least a few hundred Weird Al's on day one, I guess that all checks out because they made 227 LEs. They sold out day one. So in addition to the LEs, they also sold some standards, sold some other cabinets, things like that. So, yeah, I mean, I'm not surprised at all by that. um all right and then ns pinball i left this one in here for day because i knew he'd like this one on the topic of supporting the bros what is the most impactful bits on switch buying merch drive to your house with a dump truck full of money or other uh what do you think uh so were you saying that we keep 100 of the bits that were given yes so they pay up front um so say i buy $20 worth of bits, it costs me like $22 or something like that, and Twitch takes their cut at the front.
    107:24
    If you spend those 100 bits, we get a whole dollar out of that. When you do a subscription, that's nice and all, but we only get half of that. The bits is probably if you're doing the bits through Twitch, we get a bigger cut, although you're paying a price for the bits. Honestly, if you PayPal us at buffalopinball.gmail.com, you're not going to get a fee and we get 100% if you send it as a friend. So that's probably the most economical, straightforward way. Do what's comfortable for you. Anything is, of course, appreciated.
    107:55
    Buying merch is nice because you get some sweet merch. And I don't even know what cut we get from the merch, but it's sort of like, you know, you just get something from that. And I keep on threatening Kevin. I'm going to go in and take a look at our merch and try to look at kind of the different like shirt options in terms of brands and stuff available. Kevin was nice enough to get something started through Steam Labs. So if anybody has any feedback, if you've purchased our merch, please email me or reach out to us somehow through Discord or ping me on Discord or send an email to talkpinball at gmail.com. I want to know if you're happy with the quality on it because it comes from Steam Labs.
    108:37
    We used to do our own merch where we had somebody local do the screen printing. Kevin and I would go to the post office and mail it out. It was just a pain in the ass. Like, it's not practical, so it's easier to have, like, a third party do it. But I know that they do one-offs, so if I sell something, I want to make sure it's good. You know, I can't complain about manufacturers and then put out shit myself, and it pissed me off. If it's bad, I'd rather just not sell merch at all. So please let me know. Give us feedback. So BorgDog in chat says he likes the Streamlabs BP shirt. It's black. Of course it is because that's all you're ever going to get from us.
    109:15
    Also, Christy at Pinbrew had a Buffalo Pinball shirt on, and I was like, oh, is that one of the Streamlabs ones? And she said, yeah, I like it. The print quality looked really good. She said she liked it. So I've heard good things about it. All right. So I want to bring back the Play Angry one, so we'll start doing some of our other designs. We have a special one for, like, Easter. Maybe we'll save it for next year. I was already in hot water over GTF. I didn't want to be around that. But we've got a real special, like, limited edition shirt maybe we'll bring to market sometime. We have that cool Pirate's Skull design that we never made, too, that we had the guy that did the play-angry design. We were going to get it done for the summer open, but then we ended up going with Tonegosa, so that'd be cool, too. Yeah. Like, look, I'd love to get back into, especially if it's working out through Steam Labs, I'd love to get back into having some awesome merch. Kevin and I were having fun with getting designs and making cool things. We've got mugs on there. I think those are solid. I need to get myself a mug.
    110:16
    Maybe we'll get one to Jay's face. We'll sell a couple of those or get that milk or something. Surprise face, Jay, mug or something. Bobby Buffalo.
    110:26
    Kevin wants you Bobby Buffalo. The legend of Bobby Buffalo. Nobody would know what it is. I know. It's a stupid joke, so I find it funny.
    110:35
    All right. Game Room Update. Thanks for asking the question. NS was definitely generous during the Godfather stream, as well as many other people. So, listen, I love any and all support. Thank you. Yeah, the hats are – I've gotten Streamlabs hats, and they are not good, so we're not going to use them for hats. There you go. See, Kevin and I won't sell shit. If we sell something that's shit, let us know. The logo looks so jank. So, if we can find a good vendor for hats, we'll do it. But Streamlabs is not it. a couple quick game room updates I got a godfather, Nick got a godfather one other thing I wanted to show real quick is so at ap3shop.com I was going to show my picture but I forgot they put my picture up that I shared he said can I put this on our website so they make these cool little display boxes for P3 modules so if you want and they have wheels on them so they make it easy to kind of wheel in and out from underneath the P3. So if you don't feel like making a cart, like I made another cart, and I didn't feel like making another one, and these guys were kind enough to send me two,
    111:44
    and I assembled and put them together. It took like 10 minutes to put them together. The second one was a little faster because I knew how to do it, but it's just like three screws per corner, and then you put the wheels on the bottom and you're good to go. They flat pack them. It's $125 for one, but if you buy two, they are $200, so you could save 20%. yeah, and they're available to order now. They also have, let me see if they have a picture of it. Oh, here it is. So you can store them underneath your games, but they also make this cool, like, rack where you can stick them on this rack, and it has cool lighting and stuff in it too. So it all depends on how your game room is set up. I personally wouldn't want a rack when I have all this unused space underneath my pinball machines I can stash these games in. You know, if I were to get a rack, I would have to put it in the place where I have a game. So for me personally, I prefer using the space underneath my pins to store my P3 modules. But you might have a – and my garage side of the game room, garage side of the garage, is not temperature controlled, so I wouldn't want to store them over there. But if you have a temperature controlled space with storage, you can probably just throw them on the shelf and go to town. One piece of feedback I offered was, you know, if they could make it shorter so you could squeeze it between the legs of a standard body pinball machine, that would allow me to kind of use the rest of my space easier. So they were taking some of that feedback into account.
    113:09
    Yeah, so for my needs, and I know there's other folks with collections like that who would appreciate that. So hopefully they're going to make some more options in the future. But in the meantime, these are really cool, nice and sturdy. The front's magnetic, so you can stick the vapor magnet on it, too, which is cool. And then there's space. Because these are a little bit bigger in the back, you'll be able to store your, like for Weird Al's, you have the crossing water form that fits in there. You can put your plastics and side plastics and stuff in there, too. So that is the AP3 shop. Did you want to give any game room updates, Nick? What do I got, Kevin? Well, I mean, I got a Godfather, which is, again, I'm pretty stoked I had that game. Pretty fucking stoked. What else did I do? Nothing? Is that true? I did nothing else? No other updates? That's a pretty big update. That's pretty good.
    114:05
    I mean, yeah. Getting it to your house was a, you want to tell the story of getting it into your house?
    114:10
    Like the process to get a game to Nick Lane's basement? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so, yeah, it's just tough because that game is a little wider than Stearns. It's more, I think it's like by the size of Williams, and it just doesn't fit in nicely through the multiple doors. So Kevin was nice enough. He took delivery. He took the head off.
    114:30
    Matt Taylor helped us out as well. We loaded it in the car, took it, disconnected it. Well, we disconnected all the wires, took it down the basement, reconnected everything. It went pretty smooth. We had help from Dave Sousa. So it went from one engineer to the other engineer. They, like, passed the baton. It's great. It was easier definitely getting in the basement because, you know, those games are heavy, and having taken apart was nice.
    114:53
    I don't know. I was also just talking to chat, to Saul Hudson in chat. He was asking me. Sorry, we kind of got – I guess we'll tackle this really quick because it's a fair question. Back to Pony Factory. I don't know if you saw the chat, Kev. But he was just – Saul, I'm not going to do a great job of representing your thing. He was, I wish I could find it, like, what makes Pony Factory, why so much hate on Pony Factory? What is it that deserves so much hate? Like, I think it's, like, not hate, but skepticism. And what I was trying to answer in the chat is that, look, this guy's been saying, I've got a game coming since 2019, right? And this game still hasn't materialized. We saw a stream, but you can't, no one has in their collection yet. And, you know, in the last 10 years, we've seen so many people saying they're going to bring a game to market, it. They're going to have a game. It never happens, so there's that skepticism. I mentioned that he screwed over Todd Tucky, which, you know, we've read about on Pinside. Now, that doesn't, I mean, look, I don't care about that. If you have a great game,
    116:00
    we'll say your game's great. I can say in the same breath your game's great. I'm not going to look at an amazing game and say I hate it because I don't like the person who made it. Never. I would lose my credibility. I'm not going to sacrifice my credibility because I don't like somebody. But I think that, again, the skepticism comes from we've seen so many games talked about and not come to fruition. This game still doesn't – no one has in their home. All right? So then we've got to play it. Any upstart manufacturer is going to inevitably have issues, right? And especially if you're a smaller manufacturer making your first game, there's going to be issues with the game. So I don't want to buy a game with issues, so I'm skeptical. I'm steering clear of it. the theme does nothing for me. The theme is silly. I don't like fucking puns. I don't like a punny factory. So it's not for me. I mean, these are my reasons. So do I hate this game? I kind of laugh at it, right? I kind of laugh at this guy talking about making a game since 2019, and everything seems like a misstep, and he goes with his Don Knotts impersonator. Like, there's just really bizarre decisions that appeal to a very small population. So, yes, skeptical. Do I hate it? I don't hate it. I got to play it, right? Like, maybe one day I'll play it. What are the odds of me playing this anytime soon? Nobody's going to buy this game when there's a million other games to play. I don't know, man. I think those are pretty good reasons, like, for being super skeptical about it. Like, it's a bizarre theme. Like, there's just a lot of bizarre choices. Yeah, I said to you guys in our group chat today, I was like, man, the Pony Factory thread's on fire. Let me go check it out and see what's going on. And you go in there, and it's Andrew from Pinball Adventures just flaming all of the people in the thread. You know, it's like Chris Franchi-level tactics. You know, why would you go in there and start fighting with people because they're not interested in your game or they're critiquing your game? And, you know, he's saying in this one post, he's like, we have no interest in you owning this machine, but we can't deny you exist. Why do you even bother to keep posting negativity? We get it. You do not like us. Point taken. So just move on, dude. So, like, well, just let it move on. You know what I mean? Like, you don't have to go in there and stoke the flames even further. Saul, I don't think you're understanding me. You asked me why the hate for Plenty Factory. I was just saying the hate in general. I'm not saying my personal hate. I'm trying to answer why people quote-unquote hate this. I think they're skeptical of it, right? And you say, yeah, you mentioned the dude screwed over Todd four years ago. Seems more personal than product. I don't think that's the driving reason. I think that people are not going to drop money on a guy who did something shady. That is like a red flag, right? There's a lot of red flags we've seen with upstart pinball teams. People have learned to be cautious when somebody is creating a new pinball machine and creating an original theme. You're competing for dollars and space against Pulp Fiction, Foo Fighters, Godfather, right? Like, Scooby-Doo theme perspective. Not to mention all the games that came out, you know, in the past years before that, all the games from the 90s that are great, right? Like, I just, I don't see it, man. I don't know how to explain it to you any more than I did. I gave you those reasons. I don't have anything personal against the guy, but I gave you my reasons for saying, like, yeah, you know what? I'm skeptical of this. I'm going to laugh at the missteps. He also came out with some questionable products or side products that he was allegedly selling. We went through his show, and I don't expect you to watch every bro show, but, you know, people ask me these questions, and they think I'm coming out of left field. It's like we've talked about this fucking thing since 2019. We went through where this guy is like he didn't even make one pinball machine. He's already talking about his fifth pinball machine. That seems a little Looney Tunes to me. All right? Yeah. That seems like I'm skeptical. Yeah. There's like O Canada, and there's one about air travel. All right. And there's the, yeah. You remember all this. So I'll see if he gets me. All right. So for the record, I think you had good questions. and I just want to make myself clear because I think you ask some questions that people probably have, and I want to make sure I'm very clear. Like, we had somebody in, and I know we can't address all the Internet's questions. This is a fool's errand. But, like, last podcast, we talked about all the new games. We didn't spend much time about Spooky, and they're like, you guys didn't even talk about Spooky, and that's a new game. It's like, dude, did you listen to the last podcast before that? All we did was talk about Spooky. I don't know what to tell you. You know, it's like I go to the Spooky thread, and they're like, oh, these guys just hate Spooky. They trash Spooky. And it's like I didn't wake up one day and decide to trash Spooky games. I've played their games since their first game, America's Most Haunted, and I was like, ah, it's okay. You know, for years we didn't really talk much about Spooky games because we kind of gave them the benefit of the doubt. We didn't have access to it. But then we started focusing on it more. We saw all these people buying preorders. We talked about this two years ago, all right? So anybody who's followed along in the podcast gets it. But the guy who just decides to tune in to Buffalo Pimmel for the first time, oh, they're talking about Spooky or Scooby-Doo, I like this game. This is the first time they're hearing Nick and Kevin. It's just like fucking going into John Wick 4 halfway through the movie and being, dude, why is Keanu Reeves shooting everybody? What an asshole. That's what you're acting like. Not you, Saul, but, like, the people like that. Like, look, we've given reasons through the years. We've had experience. We've backed it up. But if you just walk into a certain moment, then you're like, yeah, these guys are biased or whatever. But we always back it up with reason. We back it up with examples. We back it up with evidence. And we have different opinions sometimes. And we try to help and guide, and we do that in an entertaining way, right? Like, that's the key. This isn't a show about it's informative, but it's also entertaining. And most people get that. But once in a while, I try to explain myself, just in case. And sometimes, you know, people tune in and all they want to hear is, oh, I spent $10,000 on this pinball machine. I want somebody to reinforce the fact that I made a good decision. And I don't like what they're saying, so I'm going to threaten to flick his ears and call him an idiot and jump into his pin side DMs and threaten him. Yeah, fine. Kevin's got me going. So, yeah, I get called. Let's go to the GTF thing. I'm just expressing opinion about the game. first of all, my thumbs up are through the roof right, like but this one guy somebody said I'm an asshole and I'm smug and everything, blah blah blah like okay, listen, I'm very blunt I give my opinion, like you never have to know, like what is Nick thinking that's reassuring to people alright, then that guy was like, actually you know what, I'm sorry I went too far, I messaged him I was like, all good he's like, thank you, you know The other guy jumps in And he's like I wasn't going to say anything But yeah I think he is an asshole And blah blah blah And all that Okay a day later Like a couple posts later Somebody else who knows me a little bit Is like I actually met Nick he's a nice guy blah blah blah So some people were nice enough Like first of all Dude we're in a hype thread I say I don't like a game some people say they like a game We talk about why Why do I like an asshole because I don't like your fucking adult toy. Dude, it's a toy.
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    This is a toy. How do you handle life? This guy, like, he's got to be in his 60s or 70s who said this. Like, I don't like your toy. I'm sorry. I don't exist to validate your toys. This is not the show for that. There are podcasters who, I swear to God, will just say nothing but good things about games, and that's fine. Go listen to that. That's fine. There's a million podcasts. Listen to that. Anyways, this is when we get to Looney Tunes territory.
    124:15
    He wrote to the guy who said I'm a nice guy and tried to convince him I'm an asshole. Then he wrote to me, a DM, saying I'm an asshole and saying in 10 years in Pinside, he's never used profanity. So that meant a lot to me because I brought a man who's a couple decades older than me to use profanity on Pinside in 10 years. It's quite remarkable because I don't like GTF. Achievement of all. You're welcome. Also, I see Eric Meniers in chat. He owes us our check for showing Godfather. Let's go. Yeah, rewind to the beginning of it. Well, I think that was probably about a half hour into the stream. Get all the Godfather talk back in there. We should get out of it, Eric. Oh, yeah.
    124:58
    Mine's right over there. Just out of frame. We also get, people don't know this, we get a bonus cut, though, if we shit on Spooky and American Pinball. Yeah, totally. Can I just say I love the people in, like, the Scooby thread. We're just chatting now. The people in the Scooby thread who are like, oh, well, they're partnered with J.J.P. and Multimorphic, so, you know, that's why they don't like our games. That's why. There's a lot of cope. If you can bottle the cope that's going on in there and just sell it, you'd make a mint.
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    I've got, at one point I had more ballys in my collection than anything else, but, you know, I'm only allowed to like those two games I own a big buck hunter From Stern Pinball from 2010 That's like 290 If there's something on pin side I own a bad girls Gottlieb I don't know what to say I will buy almost anything But I won't buy a spooky I won't do that I think that's a great way to end it Kevin knows what he's doing Kevin gets me I was so good until the end This is Kevin I know my role in this equation. All right. So if you haven't yet, we got merchants back. Exclamation point, merchant chatter. Visit buffalopinball.com. Click the merch button. You can get shirts, mugs, stickers, all sorts of cool stuff with the bro logo or the Buffalo Pinball skull. You're only going to get it in black or almost black, okay? I caved and I gave you, like, heather black. So if you don't want pure black, you can do that, too. because that's how we roll. Follow us on all our social media channels. You got something to say?
    126:41
    No, you're doing a good job. You're chilling. You're chilling for Buffalo Pinball. Follow us on the social media channels, Buffalo Pinball everywhere. Email us, talkpinball at gmail.com. If you want to flick Nick's ears or tell him he's an asshole, you can do it there. Or slide news, pin side DMs. Or you can also say nice things. By the way, I do see, like, comments on our YouTube channel where, like, Somebody will say, hey, you know, I got a spook. I've had no problems with that. That's great. Like, I love hearing the anecdotal good stuff or, like, here's why I like the game. Like, dude, I fucking love that. That's great. Or people say, actually, I like to go on a podcast and hear a different opinion than my own. I don't always agree with Nick or Kevin, but it's interesting to hear. Like, me too. I listen to people, and if I'm listening to somebody and I'm always agreeing with them, do I have my own opinion? Like, how is that even possible, right? You should have a difference of opinion once in a while, and most people are mature to handle that. And listen, I love it that I'm sure plenty of people buy games that I don't like, and I buy games that they don't like, and it's all right. It's all good. Have fun. These are toys. We're lucky to own them and have them and play them. You play the games you like, we'll play the games you like, and we'll talk about the ones that we like and the ones we don't. If you want to do the same thing, start your own podcast. That's right. It's the beautiful part of it. All right, don't forget you can follow us on Twitch. If you want to support the channel, you can subscribe to us there. If you have Amazon Prime, you get a free sub. You can take money from Jeff Bezos and give it to us at no extra charge to you. You can drop us a donation on PayPal, buffalopinball.gmail.com over there. Or if you want to support the channel, tell a friend. Tell them to listen to the podcast. Tell them to check out the streams. We give away tons of stuff on our Brody and Pinball streams. and yeah or you can give us a review on iTunes that'd be cool too no Topper Talk today I'm sorry because I gave Goran like an hour's notice and he's in Universal Studios so stay tuned next month for Topper Talk I know that's why you're all here but thanks for tuning in thanks for hanging out and we will see you next month alright guys