I used to hang out down at Jack's Pool Hall. You go down there and don't do nothing at all. You wanted to play some cards, there was a game in the back. You wanted a shot of some, you went down to Jack. You had a little money, you was a grade A fool. There was a guy down there who used to shoot a little pool Rack him up Rack him up Rack him up Rack him up Till the day he was dead All they ever said was Rack him up Hello and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George and today I'm joined by my co-host Dave. Hello Dave. Hello George. Dave, we're going to start today with the sheet. I've got quite a few items I've accumulated since we were last together, and I have to start with an apology to you. All right. Lay it on me. What do you got? If you recall from our last episode, I had sort of an accusatory tone when the name Suzanne Ciani came up. I accused you of butchering her name to Cianci. Well, I went back. Guilty as charged. Oh, all right, George. But I'm going to make a plea. All right. If you look at the spelling of her name, and I think we called her Susan a few times, too, so we not only butchered the first name, the last name, not unexpected from me, obviously. the Bali Bali boy I'm going to plead that in my defense I'm going to say that the two names Siani and Cianci are only off by one letter but I think it's because of Buddy Cianci who was the mayor of Providence It's Rhode Island. It is also an Ed Cianci pinball collector. Okay, it was definitely Buddy who I was thinking of. And I did a little homework on Buddy. Buddy was indicted for kidnapping and torturing a person. That's not good. And the reason why was he tortured this man because he was supposedly having relations with his wife. So Buddy kind of went away for a little while for doing some not-so-good things. Boy, the guy who was having relations there with the wife, not too bright. You mess them with a connected guy, a made man, let's say. Yeah, I think Providence has a history of, let's just say, things that aren't on the level. And I heard on the way down today to your house that the mayor of Providence is in trouble again for soliciting funds from people who wanted to own dispensaries in the city of Providence. No wonder I drive through there. I drove through Rhode Island the other day. There's billboards everywhere with dispensaries. It's like they're growing like weeds, so to speak. Yeah, 21 charges. I don't think he'll be seeing the light of day for a while. So that's number one on the sheet. Number two, you asked me in the last show saying, oh, you can get a Popeye for $2,000. Well, that's not the case. The cheapest one I found. I'm going to guess, $3,500. I did see one for $3,500, but $3,000 seems to be the average. Okay. But that's crazy. That leads me into some other pricing. I saw a post on Pinside where, and I'm going to butcher his name too, but you're getting used to it. Is it Levy or Levi? Crazy Levy or Crazy Levi? I think it's Crazy Levi. Okay, whatever it is. he posted a video he did of Allentown in 2005 and I said I think I was there I started watching and the prices on some games were so low even at the beginning of the show it was incredible to watch from 16 years ago how inexpensive machines were but more importantly I'm looking and go hey there's my buddy Jack the guy I usually go with, staring into the back of an empty box truck. I'm like, what's he staring into the back of a box truck? He thought he was funny and saying, oh, how much for the hand truck that's in the back? I'm like, oh, Jack. You were talking about Kings Island in our last episode. Well, guess what? Kings Island is not in Indiana. It's not. It's in Mason, Ohio. Oh. Hmm. Okay. That brings us to this week. I get an email message at 6 a.m. Tuesday morning with a picture of the Mandalorian from our good friend Grant in Australia. Makes sense. They're, what, 11 or 12 hours ahead of us? dave gets it and responds later on like oh mandalorian where'd that come from i'm like dave where have you been man people have been talking about this for like two weeks oh okay next and probably everybody's wondering but we're not going to do it in this show we could talk about it just briefly is there was something else in between our last recording and today which is fathom uh haggis or haggis again you know everybody's got a a different way of pronouncing it but they're coming out with a reproduction game any initial thoughts dave on whether it's going to be well-received, good game, bad game? I think for people who really jolted for a fathom and can't find one, they're going to probably punt and get this. I'd still, from what I see, I'd still rather have my original, you know, that I have versus getting this thing. But it's nice because years ago on Rec Games Pinball and even Pinside, whenever people would bring up, well, they should remake some of the old great titles. And a lot of people would pony up and say, yeah, they should do that. And you get some haters out there saying, no, those will never sell. No, people need ramps and lights and more toys and stuff in the play field. And so they've been proven wrong because now they're selling these things and they're popular and they're going to make money at it. $250 they're going to sell of their LE, which is going to be both the original code and new code. Somewhere around $9,000, give or take a couple bucks here or there. Tommy Skinner, who we had on for our Fathom episode a while ago, chimed in about how much he spent on one. And I thought this was wild. He said that he bought his Fathom three years ago for $2,000. Thought it was a great price to begin with. With a, I think he said a playfield, and I don't remember what playfield. It wasn't a Fathom. But he traded that playfield for a remake Fathom playfield. And then poured another $7,000 to $8,000 into the restoration of his game. so he came in pretty close to what yeah a brand new one would be which i thought i could i know you can say it doesn't take long to get that number up not at all you know especially if you're putting a new cab you know new cabinet paint on it you know any of the electronics you know obviously doing the swap he chromed a lot of stuff i mean yeah hey all that costs money in time. Especially chroming things these days. That costs some dough. Hey, I want to circle back for a second about Mandalorian. Okay. You saw the picture. Do you know the name of that critter that's on the play field? Is it a baby Yoda? Yeah, but do you know the real name of that thing? I guess it's got a name. Mini Jar Jar? I have no idea. I thought it was something like Gorky or Gorbachev. Oh, yeah, something like Gorbachev. Yeah, some kind of Gorby thing. Not Gronk, right? No. That's Gronkowski. He's a football player. What about Groot? Groot. No, that looks like a tree guy played by The Rock. Oh, no, no. I know what it is. It's Groggy. Okay. Right? right g-r-o-g-u how would you say that well someone pissed me off i'd say grogu oh no that's not it's not it no i know its name it's grogu whatever again is it grog you grog you whatever you f you enough mandalorian uh let's let's get into uh today's program we're going to talk about eight ball champ you want to start with uh some of the stats or any musings you want to talk about this game and its heritage what you've done to it yeah we'll do a little heritage uh made in 1985 it's uh designed by george christian and uh he's did the the trifecta of eight balls he did the fonzie eight ball did eight ball deluxe eight ball ducks limited edition and even the eight ball deluxe uh 84 version with the swing out head and then and then also of course the eight ball champ in 85. They made 1500 of these, 1500, and it's a nice game. It's a different take on 8-Ball Deluxe. Some people actually prefer this game over 8-Ball Deluxe as it's a little more, a little tougher. You have to really, it's almost like playing a pool game for real because you have to aim your shots and you've got to get the shots in order, two ball, one ball, whatever, when it keeps saying you need to get your water for getting the shot that's calling out. Versus on the regular eight ball deluxe you can just kind of whack the whole side of drop targets there and get them where you want to. I think we have Mouse among us. Ah, she's making some ice. That's okay. Sorry. Don't mean to laugh. Sorry, hop along. Artwork by Tony Ramunni I have to say Tony you missed the beat on this one man I love Embryon I think it's a great looking game I cannot say the same for this game and I think I told Dave before we started recording that I can't recall ever playing this game and I think part of the reason is I could never get over just the old timey artwork comparing it to the Fonzie game and to 8-Ball Deluxe. Just that green play field that I'm used to seeing just doesn't come out on this one. Well, you know, he really didn't do a lot of... There were a couple of stinkeroos in his portfolio. I mean, nothing really stands out. I mean, you know, Alien Poker, Electra, Motor Dome, which I don't know. So basically when it came time to go to a crap game, they gave Tony a call. Hey, Tony. Hey, Tony, come draw this one up. This one's for you. Really? You're really going to let me? Yeah, yeah, Tony. So he drew the short straw quite a bit. He did. He did. scorpion uh spy hunter special special force oh and how about uh special force girls ever popular heavy metal meltdown look this is the this is the first time we've done uh bally or bally i gotta catch myself yeah you got it hey george you got it gronk bally bolly Anyway, Bally Midway. I own one. I own a Fireball Classic, and I like that game playability. But I have to say, all the others are kind of pale in comparison to all the other 81 and before games done by them. Well, that 84, 85 generation of game, the Midway bought Bally, that's when they changed the cabinets. Instead of being a real wood cabinet, they went to that MDF video game stuff, which makes it heavier, makes it susceptible to decals, no painting. Decals, no painting, could be water damage. You've got a humid basement or whatever. It just wasn't really... They were kind of trying to cut corners or whatever. And some of the mechs, the flipper mechs, are unobtainium, so you have to convert them back to the bally style, which is pretty easy to do. They used the newer style on this. I'm guessing that you changed it out on this game. No, not the linear type. They didn't use that. They used their own link style with a plastic link, sort of like a hybrid between bally and stern at the time, a plastic link and a rod, but the rod was actually shorter than the bally one. And so if you put a bally, if you try to do a straight, you know, swap over to bally stuff, your arcing swing of the flipper, you can't really, it's hard to either hold the ball or hard to get a nice low shot. You know, it's hard to get it adjusted right. So what I did is I had to take apart, when I did this one, I took apart a bally flipper link, flipper rod link, and I took that piece out and I married it to the original rod inside the 8-ball champ. and did a little finagling, and now I have a nice, solid flip that feels like the 8-ball champ is supposed to be, and it feels like a nice new flipper now. But I had to do a lot of custom work on it. Really? I'm going to have to go under the hood in my game. I can't tell you the last time I had to do it because the game plays nice. And it's not on your 5-ball classic. You have the actual real stuff. Really? You have the ballet stuff. It's this 8-ball champ that did this. I didn't realize that okay so that's a difference that's something new what else with this game hmm well it has like a 1900's pool hall theme I know what I wanted to say in doing some research people claim that this is a shooter's game would you agree with that statement definitely a shooter's game yes so sell me you know what i like you know that i only own one game from this generation and it's probably the only game that you want to own why is this game so much fun because i feel like you're really playing a game of pool you have the six well actually well you have five out of six pockets to go for okay and when you hit that target down there's a there's a single drop target down in front of a stand-up on those five shots and you have to get the target down then they'll be lit behind that target the stand-up would be to be say for the two ball or some other ball and you get that then you have to get the target down they have to get the target down again so you have to hit that shot multiple times to get each so what you're getting at is those five drop targets make this truly a shooter's game above and beyond all the other lanes and things that are going on on the top part of the play field. Yes, and accuracy is key. The other thing that's cool about this game, it incorporates a fathom feature that 8-Ball Deluxe does not have, but you can get two times and three times play field value, but it's only a one-ball game. And you do that by spelling out CHAMP. And that's the top three rollovers and the left two inlanes. and you can use your flipper to move that around, lane change. Right so when the game starts all the lanes are lit You pass through one of the upper three lanes That becomes unlit Now you can use the right flipper to move the lit ones around the play field in case that one that is not lit is one you're going to go down. Yes, you want to get the lit ones. Correct. So it's a little bit inverse of a lot of games. a lot of games you want to light them up agreed so so here comes the big question is the upper flipper necessary on this game i not really it's it's you you can make that shot around the around the horn very top with it but uh it's kind of like an also ran it's really uh not absolutely necessary it was one of the first things when i watched a video online I kept saying to myself, what's the purpose of this? It looks like you can hit all the upper lanes by the two bottom flippers. It doesn't appear that hard. It doesn't appear that there's any one shot for that upper flipper that that's the only way to make it. Agreed? Agreed, yeah. Okay. One other thing about this game is it was the first ballet production game to use a 6803 control board. So this was kind of a precursor to the Williams all-in-one MPU driver board that they used in their late 80s games. This game was kind of going on that thing. So they changed the architecture of this game. They did. Instead of going an MPU, a driver, and a lamp driver, this did the computer, the lamp driver, and the sauna driver all on one board. And also this game. See, I had no idea. I'm thinking that the cabinet is the same, that the guts are the same because of the game I own. I just made the assumption that it had all the same internals, and it's not the case. So you got an 84, an 85 when this came out. This is when the big change was. They changed over to 85 to this stuff. So did they make quite a few games with this architecture? They did. They made a couple of games, a 68-03, I think for just maybe a year or two. you know and then you started getting into i think uh didn't williams buy bally that i think late 80s maybe you know better than something like that so then they started going more but it was going that way you know um so is this like the dog period dog period yes yes it kind of went from flourish to basement to back rising again kind of that dip yeah this is this is right in dip when this is like this is one shining jewel in a bunch of uh horse horse doo-doo um you know around that time and then they start then when high speed came out uh right around the same time right after this game then that's when it started the renaissance started happening again with williams and the high speed and that was that again at all in one board but a little bit different architecture but the good thing about this game it um it was programmed to either go with a cheap squeak sound board or the or the old reliable bally squawk and talk which is a great board and they actually want the squawk and talk but you actually can turn it off and on whatever board you want to put in there so this has this sound oh really oh really yeah is this sounds just like um eight ball deluxe why did they do that for operators say you've got spare parts we want to make it so that you could put one or the other board in yeah i think that's kind of weird right i think well squawk and talk is an expensive board it was like a nice it's like an mpu it's own little computer on that board. The Cheap Squeak is not. It's a cheap board. So I think they wanted maybe for the bean counters. If the bean counters weren't going to pass the Squawk and Talk, maybe it was the last section. They said, well, we have to go to the Cheap Squeak because we don't have the money for it. They hit, you know, just in software, hit a little toggle there and they can do Cheap Squeak. Now, can you go out on the open market and buy a replacement board in either one of those, Cheap Squeak or Squawk and Talk? you I think the Cheap Squeak might be available but Squawk and Talk is not although I will say there is a guy that reverse engineered it and has a Squawk and Talk but it only is available it's like one of those all-in-ones so you hit some dip switches on it for different whatever different games and I think it's only a handful I think it's 8-Ball Deluxe all the big heavy hitters 8-Ball Deluxe maybe Fathom maybe a couple others but 8-Ball Champ is not one of them so for 8-Ball Champ you're stuck with either original Squawk and Talk you get a rebuild and I had a problem with this one too. This one, this didn't want to talk. This didn't want to run with the squawking talk so I had to really do a lot of board repair on the squawking talk to get him to be happy. And then I started messing with, you actually can tune the pitch of the guy's voice in there too by changing this, I think it's R9 resistor value. I think it has to be around 130k. I started putting 100k resistor. I put a potentiometer. I kind of hardwired it. There's no potentiometer. You had to do it with an actual... Yeah. Well, because a lot of times it sounded like the guy got kicked in the balls. You know, he sounds a little bit like the loafers. So a little soprano? A little soprano and a little too flowery. He's not like the nice deep voice 8-ball deluxe. I'm going to interject. So I changed him. I gave him some balls. I'm going to shift for a second because of soprano. In that video from Crazy Levi or Levy, whatever his name is, they had a brand new in-box Sopranos game. Guess how much? 2005. This is going to make people's hair stand up. $2,800. A little higher. $3,650. Think about that. Wow. I have no idea. Where does that go for these days? I have no idea what a Sopranos is. It doesn't matter. It's got to be more than $3,650. So you could own the game for 16 years. it's not the real time of money obviously but you're getting your money back out of it right compared to today what is it six thousand sixty two hundred dollars for a model right right that's we call that inflation oh yeah we talked about that last time anything else you want to add before we uh beverage up and uh and play a couple games and uh As I said to Dave, I don't think I've ever played this before, so it'll be a first. We'll see if we can have a little competition here. I have to say, I'm getting sick of playing alone. And we've talked about this before. We haven't recorded together in like two months. Yeah, it's been a while. We were on a mission back in February when there was snow on the ground. Now that it's gotten nicer, Dave has gotten busier, and so have I. But we'll continue to crank these out every couple of weeks. You'll be surprised. Sometimes we'll back them up, but we're going into the summer months. I think if we can get one out, maybe two out a month, we'll be lucky. Yeah, yeah. I'm still, you know, plenty busy. I'm still out there hitting different machines all the time and coming into different stuff. So there's always something to talk about. my travails out on the road. It's always something different out there. I have one last thing before we cut here and move to the basement. I heard somewhere that you can exploit this game. Do you know what I'm talking about? Maybe maxing out the upper shot and that hole at the top there, getting 100,000 points over and over again? What I'm told is that that rollover in the left lane going up top, like you said, to the hole or the saucer, that if you just keep hitting that shot, you can amass gigantic points by not doing anything else in the game. Pretty much when you have three times playfield value hitting that, that's 300,000 points of whack, plus the value of that rollover, you have a lot of points. So the suggestion is disable the rollover and make the game more competitive. I'm guessing if after you had it for a while, it's probably not a bad idea. Or you could change the value of that rollover. You can kind of splice some wires over and have it be the spinner value or something else. You could do that too. Are you prepared to talk about the spinner and how you activate the point values on that? it's one thing I couldn't figure out in watching other people play this game oh how to make the spinner worth more yes I forget that seems to be the million dollar question and it's not just you I went to other sources and I'm like this must be like a non-event in the game because nobody really cares about it and everybody likes a really good juiced spinner so if you do know you can contact Dave and you'll get all that information at the end of the show. So if you know how to get that spinner increased in value, write Dave and tell him. That's good, but we'll probably play it soon. We'll probably figure out what it is. Oh, maybe. I bet you it's going to be spelling champ or spelling eight. Maybe when you spell eight you might get it. No? I don't think so. We'll find out. I don't know. Look, I'm not baiting you. I just don't know. We'll find out. So let's cut it there, and we'll be back in a couple minutes. All right. Down in the basement. Yeah. So here we are in Dave's basement, and I'm staring into the open backbox of this 85 8-ball champ. The first thing that sticks out is they mounted the transformer to the backbox. And the reason they did that is because they don't have enough depth in the cabinet to put it where it normally would be in one of the corners of the backbox. God, they got cheap. I mean, the extra little wire to mount it into the bottom of the cabinet would have been negligible. I know what happened. The bean counters said, you know what? if you want to squawk and talk and you don't want sheep squeak we're going to have to save some wire money and put that transformer up there instead alright we'll do that it's really strange owning one of these games from this era and totally different boards in the backbox very very different one thing I will say Dave this game is absolutely gorgeous I was looking at it before you came down and colors are nice. Lights are nice and bright. I like the, the bumper caps on this. I don't recall them ever putting that kind of scroll work or filigree. Right. I mean, I have it on my Centaur, but it was done by, and I don't even remember the guy's name anymore. We've talked about it before. it really does make a difference if those were just red it wouldn't stick out as much so that looks really nice um one thing i did notice on the game was a different coin door definitely not the nice chrome coin doors of past what other differences did i see in looking at this how about the plastic apron oh that's well I can't tell, but you were saying that, yeah, that's, is it a decal or is it actually painted? No, it's one, it's a painted plastic apron. And the problem is that. Paint doesn't adhere to the plastic. Well, no, that's not the real problem. The problem is where the out-hole switch is mounted to the apron itself. Usually they're mounted to the play field. But in this one, to the apron, it's on two plastic standoffs that, if you're not careful, you'll break them. And that's what I did. And, you know, main item of unumtanium, so you had to kind of repair what you did. And that can easily be done by taking the plate out a little bit and pulling it out of the game and setting it down. And it's not supposed to be setting down on top of that because it's not strong enough to hold it, you know. So, some of the design they did on the game, you know, kind of questionable. But, you know, that being said, I kind of, you know, had some wear in the game. Maureen touched that all up. I put a playful protector down on it. I put LEDs all throughout the GI. I left the other lighting regular, you know, general illumination light. I bring regular out. Incandescent, I'm sorry. and I put red LED inside the pop-up bars and red LEDs under the lane guys at the top. And another thing that this game, for some reason, they didn't choose to light up the lady at the top there, top right. That's dark. So I drilled a hole there and put a nice light underneath her. It looks nice. Yeah, it looks nice. It's supposed to be. New drop targets? Yeah, brand new drop targets, Pimmo Resource. brand new stand up white stand up target those two yeah but you cannot find the lettering so my buddy Mike Sandler he actually had some kind of source where he could make those up for me so he made those up as vinyl decals I put them on it it looks looks stock they look great they look great and then I put the plastic set in this was fantastic just needed some some flattening but usually that g1 in the center that's always broken on this one it was not broken it was amazing um i touched up the spinner was kind of um banged up i touched that up and put uh mylar on that touch up and completed the whole thing with um silicone rubber all the way around so it played i'd say this rivals my own eight ball champ right now that reminded me we talked about it in our last episode if anybody had if you had used clear rubbers on any of the games and i think you said no i don't remember where i heard it but someone did and i saw the picture and it looked okay they did the whole game in clear or translucent rubbers it looked pretty decent yeah i i have been doing on this one i decided not to it all depends i'll try it like right now i'm doing a superman that decided to go with clear on it so let's see and i was kind of torn because i was doing superman and this eight ball champ at the same time and i'm looking at eight ball champ and it's like oh the white looks nice in here maybe that white pops it really looks nice it does pop but sometimes the led lighting on the game will shine through that that clear pretty well too so it's uh you know it depends on my mood you made you made the right choice i have one question before we get started on this game sure does it play as if you're playing eight ball in other words if I hit a solid first is that the balls I'm going for and then you become by default the one shooting for the stripes no I don't think so I think it's just like eight ball deluxe where player one is the you know solid player twos the stripes I'm pretty sure okay one other question and again we're not in front of your game upstairs on eight ball deluxe did it have a kicker does eight ball deluxe have a kicker eight ball deluxe has a kicker yeah well it has a top as a saucer no i mean at the bottom if it goes down the out lane you can get a you know a kickback a kickback no kickback no so this is what i was thinking about pool games wouldn't that be something you would want to have on a pool game so it would replicate as if you were shooting or queuing up and shooting the cue ball well funny you mentioned that george because the original eight ball does have that ask me the last time i played that over here probably years ago and had a beautiful one i i had a beautiful eight i actually still can make one because i have a nice new little stock play field for it but at one point i had all the trifecta eight ball eight balled lux and eight ball champ but i never had them up at all at the same time it would have been a nice picture to have them all at the same time okay i think we should stop talking no see and that's what everybody gets wrong you know how much that that pisses me off online when people say oh i know eight balled lux it's that stop chalking and and uh start or stop talking and quit chalking or whatever the frick is that no it's wrong supposed to be quit talking and start chalking You know I'm close to you right now, right? Right. Are you being nice or are you being mean? No, I'm being nice. Okay. Okay. Let's close the backbox up. I think we've pontificated a little longer than normal. Okay. Okay, I'm going to do the honors. Chalk up. Rack him up. You've got the solid. Oh, you're right. So I've got the solids. You want me to go first? Since I've never played? Yeah, you want to hit a line? Go ahead, or you watch me, what I do, and then play. No, I think I might be able to figure this out. Okay, up to the top. Down one of the lanes. You've got one letter in the lane there. You've got the G. He didn't get the G yet. He has to get the stand up first. The G is exposed. Oh, no, no, no, no! You're right. See, that G's kinda... those... those stamps are tough to get. I'm going for the exploit. As much as I love shooting targets... Okay. There you go you got a G Oh man come on Oh Too bad you suck Too bad you suck. He doesn't say that. That's the only thing he's going to say. Too bad you suck. Oh, nine ball. It's a good game to play. Oh, you suck. Yeah, I did suck. Yeah, I did suck on that one. That's true. Okay, so I was saying earlier I was looking forward to playing pinball with Dave because it's been a long time since I've played pinball with anybody other than myself. Yeah, that upper right flipper really... Come on. It's like tits on a bull. It's like not helping. Yeah, that... It doesn't do anything. No, it's not even a... It doesn't even hit that upper... Oh, I thought it was going to say something else. Like, get the F out. Get the F out of here. Okay, so let's go for the X-Blade. No, that doesn't work, but... Nice shot. Shoot for six ball. Where's the six ball? Left-hand side. The E. And just spend a shot. Yeah, but we've got to figure out how that works. So I want to hit that left lane like that. Well, that's good. Now you have two X's as well. Oh, not fast enough. Get the F out of here. You got lane two. Oh, there you go, another one. There you go. Three. Oh, I forgot I still had that champ target to hit. Not bad. Fourteen. Better than me right now. What do you have? A million? A million five is the first threshold? Yeah. Wow. Oh, I'm really bad. Oh, come on. Oh, there you go. Jump over the flipper. Oh, I had a flipper hop. We'll jump over the flipper and George is Gonna put Dave down for the count now. I think so Now this is right now in play test I've only played one or two games in this so I'm seeing some things that I have to tweak and adjust as a man If you don't hit that Those lanes right up there that Oh, there we go. Finally. Okay, so you can backhand that one. That's okay. Oh, no. Oh, he almost backhanded the E. That was kind of cool. Yeah, that thing is worthless. That flipper is worthless. Oh, okay, so now if I make the eighth... Now you get a whole rack. You get the rack. You get the 120. So you got robbed of that rollover. You just got robbed. It's not a sure thing, because sometimes it doesn't go right over center. Okay. Oh, maybe I'm taking too long. Jeez. He's very, you know, very particular. He's kind of like Centaur that way. I know I gotta get the eight ball, but I can't get it over on that flipper. He's pretty spicy. I needed that. Yeah, that worked. Oh, nice. You just felt eight, I think. Oh, the extra ball was lit, too. Too bad. All that for that? All that for that. 737. I got 40,000 points, so... Right, but you can catch up. Don't feel too bad. So you haven't played this? No, not too much. I have only a handful of games just to kind of play test, so it's still a little bit in play test mode. I was going to get ready to deliver this. So you don't get the letter until you knock the drop target down and hit the standoff. Correct. That is right. Okay. Now, will that carry over, or am I done? I'm starting over again. Well, you're all done. You got to play your three. I mean, ball three. Oh, that's right. I thought those two shots on the upper left would be easier. They're not. No, it's a pretty challenging game. I like this game. In fact, I should... It makes me want to redo my game like this now, because I've learned so much over the years, and this game actually plays better than mine right now. So I need to up my game. You're not going to try to spell champ? I only reminded you because I don't want to kill you too bad. Oh, I do want to spell champ. Good idea. There we go. Now you're probably going to win. Let's see what we can do here. Shoot for 12. Here, a little. Oh, just missed it. Oh, good. Yeah, good. This is good. Alright. That's good, I think. That's two times play field value. Nice. Oh, there you go. So that's a big piece of this game. Oh, yeah, big piece. Spelling champ. Exactly. By getting all those lanes. So if you do that again, you get five times? No, three and then five. Well, no, double right now. Oh, double and triple. I'm sorry. I'm thinking the bonus. Sorry. If only we could aim. Come on, aim. You suck. You suck. I got half your score. I'll give you a chance to... All right, that feels like another one. I'll give you a chance to tie it up. One more game, perhaps? There, thank you. So are we missing anything in this game? So we know that the first player gets assigned the solids. The second player gets assigned the stripes. I'm guessing if it's a four-player game. Oh, here we go. Completing champ increases spinner value. There we go. Well... Get Champ and increase spinner value. I did it once. It's right there. Well, why does no one know that? It's right in the instruction card, right in the game. Because, like most people... They don't look at the instruction card. Correct. Okay. They play the game. I'll learn by playing. You know, it's RFM, man. RFM. You know what that is? Is it something dirty? No. It's read the freaking manual. Oh. Chalk up. Rack him up. You've got the solids. All right. I got the solids. Come on, solids. I'm solid. Okay, now I'm going to cheer for you, Dave, because I want to see us make this game... Make it sing a little bit. Well, let's see if we can put some score on it. That post right there between those two lanes is deadly. That sucks. It is deadly. There we go. See, I didn't get that. I have to adjust that right there. I got robbed a little bit of some points. What didn't work? That rollover didn't give me what I needed, so I'm going to adjust that a little bit. There's a little playtest situation going on here. Well, that's why we do it. Exactly. And you know what? If we didn't tell you folks, you wouldn't know anyway. Exactly. Because you can't see us. No. It's all this fine-tuning thing. You've got to fine-tune. It's the funnest part of my job. You get to playtest, playtest, and adjust. And I get to play all the games that I don't own, which is a lot of fun. Okay. Oh, wow. 11 ball. Sink that 9 ball. Sink that 9 ball. Shut up. He's a little chatty cat, isn't he? 12 ball. Sink that 9 ball. Oh, how about muff the flipper shot? Muff the flipper shot. Wow, I'm doing even worse than Dave. Yeah, you are. Yes, you are. That's pretty bad. I like the play of this game. Alright, George, he's a believer. No, I do. I think it's a good game. I think it could look a lot nicer than it does. I mean, it's a classy looking game. No? It's like, it has that brick red, green thing going on. It's not as pretty as the other ones. The other, which other ones? The eight ball and eight ball blocks. I don't know, 8 Ball always had a soft spot, never owned it, but put a lot of quarters in it back in the day. Oh, sure. Yeah, I did too in the bowling alley. Yeah, me at Barnacleville's. That game, the person who owned that arcade made a boatload of money. That game always had quarters on it. Come on, no! No! Dave left the door open. I did. And this game is... What level is this game? This game is stingy. It is stingy. Actually, once you get going, it really rewards you. Right, well, you gotta get... You gotta build it up, though. Right. You gotta get... This ain't no pushover. Oh. Okay. That... That one's easier to hit. Okay, can I get... No. Yeah, that's not what I wanted to do. That's what I wanted to do, but... Oh, you're going to flip the blipper for the P. You've got to get the P. There we go. No, I want... You've got the P right there. Well, I got the... So I got it. Now you get two times playfield value. Right, this is where you can make some heads. Make some serious dough here. So how do you... So the exploit on this game right now is getting it up in that... Upper... upper left lane. Yep, around the horn. And hit the post. Hit the post for the umpteenth billionth time. When you find this game out in the wild, that post rubber's destroyed, typically. You've hit it so many times. It's the post on the left of the spinner. Oh, no, no, no! Almost. Oh, you didn't tilt it either. Amazing. Okay, Dave, left the door open here. You did. Well, we're pretty close. So we're 289 to 353. I get 289. Ball three. Ding, ding. You shouldn't be bragging about those scores. They're pretty bad. They're pretty bad. That's true. Or one ball. Oh, good. That worked. Neither one of us has gotten... You need that double and triple play field value. We need more beer and more practice, or both. Five balls. I think that one ball. No. I'm going to have some more of it. That's a good sound. Oh, what did you think of that beer? I liked it. Very tasty. So you would call that a West Coaster, right? A West Coaster. Yeah, totally. Yeah, that came in a 12 assortment pack. Okay. I had it at my son's house for my granddaughter's birthday. Nice. and when I drank it I said, you know, this one is one Dave will like. Okay, Dave. Oh, I like that. Came back. Yeah, look at you. Oh, come on. Oh, I just missed it. All right. So what are you trying to hit now? I think I want to get the one ball. I want to backhand that or go up here and get the M. I'm going to go up the little lane there. So you'll shoot the one ball. There. Now I get three times. Three times play field. Yeah, this is where I'm watching the score go up. Exactly. It starts really cranking. No, this is definitely a shooter's game. Yeah, it is. The accuracy counts. Yeah, this is not a bad game. I'm glad you're changing your mind a little bit. Although I don't think a lot of people... Well, we'll see. We'll see how this episode does. I don't think a lot of people, A, have played this game, and they're going to poo-poo it because of the reasons I did. You know, it's a Bali midway. Oh, that's some big points there. Now you're thrashing. So you're going to get a knock at 1.5, what's going to happen right now? Well, I'll shut up. Easy. Oh, you suck. Alright, now I'm going to get a knock. Let's hear it. Thank you. Oh, man. We got 1.7 to 353 right now. I got to make a big comeback here. I got to spell champ or I'm done. You got to spell champ or you're a chump. Well, that didn't help. So far, not so good. No, no, no, no. Okay, rubber match. Too bad. Oh, I didn't get the high score. It should go pop, pop, pop. Go pop, pop, pop. What is the high score in this thing, then? I must have got it during the last playtest. One, nine, eight is the high. Okay, so that's doable. It's doable. okay you want another beer or are you good I'm good right now if you need one go get one I'm gonna go grab a beer if anybody in the audience wants a beer I'll get you one too and while Dave's doing that he just had a Hot Valley Cryo Stash an Imperial IPA with Cryo Hops made where in Oregon I'm guessing yep Eugene, Oregon. HotValleyBrewing.com And while he's getting his beer, I'm having what remains of something called a Citrus Days from Kettlehead Brewing Company in Tilton, New Hampshire. Kind of an IPA-like. Not bad. Not one of my favorites, but not bad. So while he's... Chalk up. Rack him up. So while he's doing what he's doing, I'm going to play. Get a little practice in to see if I can bring this around, and that doesn't help. Boy, that's a lot of ball. Wow. Okay, we'll be cutting this out of the episode. Oh, that's two. Wow, I'm giving up. We're done. Shouldn't have played at all. That's... Wow. I don't think I could have done that if I wanted to. No. Well, you just missed the... I have returned. Two house balls and a bad ball for a total of 16,000 points. Wow. Wow. A new low. Okay. Okay, I'm going to let you go first. Because you won. Fair enough, sir. Let's see if we can beat the high score. Yes, it's doable. I can't believe I got that shot. I can't believe either. That was a nice save. Thank you. He's running into all kinds of trouble. There's another nice save. There you go. Look at the game with the saves. There's three saves right there. Okay. Oh, post. Yeah, that post is nasty. Oh, right down the middle. Are you going to do a video for your website? Yes. Yep. Okay. I might have you sub in, or I'll put Maureen on her crutches or something. Poor Maureen is having a little back issue these days. So while we're... While I'm playing... She's healing up, though. Anything that's happened in recent weeks that you want to talk about, we'll talk about some more when we go outside. But to fill a little time here. Oh, yeah, I got some nice. Oh, did you see that? I saw it. It was out the left-hand lane and it came right back into the in lane. Can we get it up? Dang it. There's an I. That's good. You get an I and E. Oh, nice, George. I did it again. I can adjust the tilt in this because George is pushing this puppy around a little bit. Nice, George. Oh, almost. He almost got the lane. And that flipper... Oh, nice. Another good save by George. Get the little one-two punch on the flippers there. I could hit the H, but I'm not going to. He got the G. He needs the E and the T and 8 right now. And you already have that. You need a 13 ball. God, it doesn't want to go up in there. All you need is a 13 ball, and then you shoot the 8 ball. Oh, nice. Nice. Now you have an 8 ball for you. And you need the E and the T A lot of things to shoot for here Yeah no there definitely a lot to shoot for It's hard to choose where you want to go. No, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, there you go. You got it. You saved that. Oh, nice choice there. Nice. All you need is the E now. Yeah, I know. Oh, you were doing well there. Ball one. Yeah, but I got nothing. The score is crap, but you were stacked up already. Oh, actually, 250. I didn't know this. That's nothing. It could be better. You definitely have to get double and triple play field score, or you don't make any headshots. Yeah, you do. Nice shot. Make the third shot again. no i wouldn't grow old with this game this is uh pretty challenging it's it's a shooter's game you know i was i was thinking though you know they're they're not spending money like they did in the heyday but they put five individual drop targets in this game they did that's not exactly inexpensive. No, it's not. Stop it. So that's a good question for you. How many other games have single drop targets in them? This many? It's pretty unique. That's why that makes this game kind of nice. Well, I mean, if they made 10,000 of them, they probably would have done pretty well on buying out five drop targets per game, but at 1,500, they really didn't get the economies of scale. I can't hit that. You just hit the E. I don't want to. I want to hit the A. You want to hit the out lane. I can't hit that out lane. Too bad. You out lane. So much for exploiting the out lane. Let's see here. We got... We even threw a 346. Or the outer lane. There we go. Nice. You've got a little bit liberal tilt on this. A little bit. The only thing liberal about me is my tilts. I always said that. Alright, there we go. Boom shakalaka. Come on. Okay, Dave's not throttling me like he did in the last game, but... But I backhand you. Nope. Okay. Not. Ugh. Come on. We're on the horn. There we go. Sweet. 8-ball. Oh, man. That's good. Rack him up. Yeah. 2X. And that. That's good. Make the 1-ball. All right. I think you need to go around the horn again. So how do you get that $120,000 on the play field? By getting the rack. The rack. Like 8-ball. Like 8-ball blocks. You know, you get the rack down. Right. So I'm going my second rack right now. Oh, okay. So, okay, you've got to, there's a lot of shooting to be done in this game. This game is so close. No, this is not a doggy game. It's a great little game. This is not a doggy game. Not at all. I'm starting to warm up to it. It's a good, what's it called, second try at eight ball deluxe. You know what I mean? I think it's better than eight ball. Clumsy eight ball, I think. No, I would agree with that. It's not much of a game. Nostalgia factor is big. Yeah, nostalgia factor is big, sure. Oh, that post. I keep wanting to call that post Malone. Post Malone. It's hard to get like a line on something here. There's a lot of action going on. There we go. I mean, it doesn't matter if you have good ball time on this. If you don't have things set up... If you're not accurate... Well, that's kind of another nice save, Dave. Thank you. Yeah, we have not exploited this game. Not yet. But... I need the E. The E shot is tough. Right in the edge there. Nope, still didn't get it. Sounds a decent endgame. Backhand. There you go. Nice backhand. From the left to the bottom left target. Nice job. Thank you. That flipper is absolutely... It was. I know it is. Just sitting there. It doesn't do anything. Oh, three times. God, you could have saved yourself a couple bucks, guys, and put it into something else. What does that mean? Modern Ramping, you mean? Well, just, I mean, put the money into something else. I'm sure a flipper is not an inexpensive thing to put in a game. I would much rather have a kick out or, you know, something to simulate an actual somebody shooting a pool ball. What's the game that pool-themed game Kelly Packard? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was Shockey Shoot-Up. Oh, that's what that game is? Yeah, Shockey Shoot-Up, but Kelly Packard first. Now, is there an alternative backlash or something to that game? Probably is. Or is that a game people like because of the backlash? I don't know, again, if I've ever played that game. I played that game back. It was okay. It was one of the Stern's first games, pretty much. Nice shot. Make the eighth ball. I'm going to try. Oh, you suck. No, I got my work done. Oh, Dave got above the threshold again. Get there, baby. Yes, it's going to be high score. Sweet. Oh. I'm going to hear pop, pop, pop in a minute. Yeah. Let's see if Georgie can. make a rally oh oh no so much that post wait for it there you go thank you okay dave wins and a match you've got short george matched yeah great you get that going for you okay anything else we need to talk about this game i think we've got enough and stewie would say you're doing good you're you're doing good stewie from family guy didn't do too well it's a fun little game No, your customer is going to enjoy this game. So if you haven't played this game, folks, seek it out in your local arcade, pinball show, tournament. Probably would be a pretty decent tournament game. It would be a tournament. Yeah, it's a nice tournament game. I mean, you've got to be accurate. I thought that left-hand shot would be easier, but the more I look at it, they kept that thing pretty closed over there. Well, also, take a look at the back legs, Joe. Take a look at my leg levelers. they're all the way up well so i had to say i didn't feel it was overly no but it's i don't have an overly steep no but i haven't enough but i'm saying look right look right here yeah that could be opened up just a little bit it's tight right oh they kept that thing really tight yeah there's a lot of tight shots up top the spinner is a tight shot the upper orbit the type shot right the spinner shot doesn't seem as bad as the one to the left of it and i can see why people if you get that shot you could definitely exploit this game but it's not that easy a shot so how do you like the uh the warm leds warm white here i like the warm red i think you did a very nice job like i said i think your customer is going to be very happy playing this game and they're not going to bitch about the cosmetics, that's for sure. It all looks real nice. You did it as always. All the metal's nice and polished. Everything's in order. So round three, ding ding. I was going to ask what I was going to ask you. We dig out a game at some point in time. Dig out a game? Dig out a game for what, George? well one game that we never played we talked about and i'm guessing it's buried behind that myriad of heads and bodies and don't forget don't forget the parts too a lot of part boxes but go ahead we never played uh kiss we never played kiss never played it but right when we did that uh show we never played it didn't play it right we talked about it kind of but we didn't do we have to play kiss we gotta do that's a good more importantly some of the old stern games we did some when we first got started right and there's some that i would like to play okay as for instance like uh what's the one the pool themed game oh nine ball that one yeah yeah what's the rocket game flight 2000 that one that's a great game we didn't do those two you have both of those i have both of those do you have what's the kung fu game i'll get rid of that game that's Dragon Fist. I had two of them. Really beautiful ones. But you know what? It's a poor man's Stargazer. I'm just wondering if you had it. That's all. You're not missing too much. Okay. But I'm in the minority because some people say, what are you saying that for? I love that game. I know you love that game. Oh, right. But it's our opinion. You listen to us for our opinions. You don't listen to us for our woody repartee. That's true. So show me what you want to show me. Alright, so the other day I get a I get a call yeah I got a call from a lady down south shore down like Fairhaven Rhode Island? Mass? I don't know where it was. New Bedford? I guess it's Mass but it might as well be Rhode Island South Coast might be in the shore it's like an hour and a half away and she says I don't know what this game is worth I just picked it up it's home use only I got it from this guy he bought it for his wife 40 or 50 years ago maybe probably 50 years ago and she went to a nursing home and blah blah blah but anyway she wound up with this game and she likes it but it doesn't really work all the way but a flipper doesn't work on it so basically she's asking me what is this worth I'm looking for somebody to tell me what it's worth so I can sell it and it's like okay well what is this game you know it's like I might be your huckleberry here well it's a Gottlieb Foursquare Foursquare well let me see it's like now now this is what typically happens these days for me i'm not actively pursuing games but i always have games on my list i'm always if they ever graced my path i'd go for them this is one of those games i played an acquaintances game years ago one of these games it's like you know i like this game it's a 1971 i believe got lead a lot of fun wedgehead and i said i was sort of looking for one at one time it was like you know there was one for like 800 bucks and not that good of shape out in Ohio somewhere. It's like, I don't know, I can get it shipped and delivered. It's like, you know what, I don't think so. I'm just going to wait until someone comes across my pass someday. I'm in no rush. I don't care. You know, whatever. I have plenty of games. Who cares? That's an understatement. Yeah, exactly. So then, all of a sudden, this lady calls me up and has one, and it's like an hour and a half drive. Now, mind you, this is the same day. So I said, well, it's worth this if it's restored, and I said, you know, I said, I'd offer you you know i offer you so much for this i was trying to give her a fair price but again i need to you know i'm not going to you know throw money away you're not going to overpay overpay you know but i'm going to give her a fair price for it oh let me think about it so then i said listen you want me to i can up since she didn't she went quiet after about i don't know 12 hours and it's like well i got somebody else who i in texas who wants to buy it but i really don't i want to sell it locally and he's offering good money and it's like all right so i went up i went up again i went up another another couple hundred bucks i said you know i can offer you this you know so she said oh fair enough okay it's like can you come by today it's like all right well hold on now my wife maureen is having a back issue i have a doctor a back doctor appointment to go to with her i have to bring her to it and that's at like uh at like one o'clock i have to be there i have to be there like quarter or one right now it's like nine o'clock in the morning this thing is an hour and a half away i'm doing the math it's like okay if i get down there i can get it loaded up, half hour, I get back here at 12.30, I'll just make it in time for the back appointment. I said, honey, do you mind if I kind of make a little trip ahead of your back? Are you sleeping down here in the basement with the game? No, no, she was cool. God bless her. She was very cool. She said, no, no, get it done, just be back in time. I said, okay. And don't speed. It's like, well, I don't know if I can promise don't speed, but I'll, you know, I got a Volvo 300 horsepower V6, so it can go. So I used all six ponies and six little cylinders that we went, and I went down there. This thing is gorgeous. So where is it? It's right here, George. So we'll go over here. Oh, I know this game. So it's a four square. Now, the back glass in these games is typically blown out, flaking, crappy. Those are usually trash. This back glass looks like new old stock, no flaking, no nothing. Brand new. Okay, that's rare. Cabinet paint, pretty minty. Couple scrapes, couple little whatever, but nothing bad. The play field, usually all blown out. That's really nice, too. Check this out, George. Let's see. That's this game right here? This game right here. You're in one of the boxes of parts. Box of parts. Folks, you have no idea. You have no idea. It looks like a warehouse right down here. It really is. So check this out. This game. Oh, look at that. Oh, that's a nice game. It's got that nice Gottlieb blue, that baby blue. Gottlieb blue. This is Ed Krasinski, or Ed Krinsky, Krinsky, I think, and Gordon Morison. So what makes this game so A, collectible, B, Dave wantable? This game is just because it's like four levels deep of getting one through four down. Okay? And every time you do, there's more stuff going on. Mini flippers, so it makes it tougher. And I don't know. When I played over at Equine's house, I just said, you know, there's something special about this game. I need to own this game someday. And then Joel, you know, Joel and John, Joel scored one. His was really blown out, but Joel's really talented with the paint, so he actually touched his up. It came out really nice. He's going to put a protector on it, and it came out really beautiful. But this one here is gorgeous as it sits. I'm just going to magic eraser it a little bit and do my thing with it. But on top of this, so I arrived at the lady's house. You know, she comes up with a cigarette in hand, and, you know, she's definitely rough and tumble, you know, kind of Rhode Island-ish kind of lady. And, hey, how you doing, honey? You know, that kind of thing. She was a sweetheart. You got the money, honey? Yeah, she was a sweetheart. So I'm looking at the game, and I'm ready to pack it up and go, oh, yeah, here, here's some dough. And I throw the money at her. And she says, oh, you need a hand? No, I got it, no problem. And she tells me the history of it. She tells me where she got it from. She gives me all the paperwork. And I don't know. Just really, it became a really nice game. So, I don't know, loaded up and got out of there. And actually, so I got back on the road within about 20 minutes. I made it home in time to have a little breakfast and then put her in the car and get her to her doctor's appointment. And we got there early. Wow, that's amazing for you. Yep, I made it happen. You know, when pinball's on the line and my wife's health on the line, I'll make them both happen if I can. So there you go. Nice game. Yeah, that's going to be fun to play. This one and the... We should have a Wedgehead series, a little Wedgehead thing at some point. You're not doing anything for a while. You need to sell a few games. Well, this one here, there's a... What's this right here? That's a Williams World Cup. I just took that in for a little mini restoration, and that's actually one of the first solid-state Williams games. That's a fun little game. We used to have room down here. Well, a game just came in all of a sudden. I was actually making room. I was actually getting ready games, but they keep coming in. I just carried a Black Knight I restored and then all of a sudden two more games came in. What's in the box? That's glass. That's special glass. That's that Invisiglass. Okay, let's go upstairs. I need a beer. Alright. Going upstairs. Dave! Who? Dave! D-A-V-E! Yeah, Dave! So anyone out there that wants to explore Getting their games worked on Getting their games restored Or buying a restored game from me You can check out my website at Pinballdoctor.com That's pinballdoctor all spelled out Or you can reach me at Dave at pinballdoctor.com Or you can reach me at Dr. Dave's pinball at gmail And that's D-R-D-A-V-E-S Pinball at gmail guitar solo She screams again Roars at the door My, oh my, can't take much more I could never They wanna get my Thank you.