Thanks for tuning into the Loser Kick the Ball podcast. We're on episode, who knows, we're on the expo episode. Expo. Yes. So I've got, I got my notes. I got my, yep. Got my co-host. Scott Larson. And man, this show has been insane so far. We tried to record in the Flip N Out Pinball booth. Yeah, it was too much. It's too busy. There's too many people in there. Greg and Ken are here. Greg Bone, Ken Cromwell. They're holding down the fort. Amazing. Amazing product in there. They're one of the only people that have a Winchester here, which has been insane. But if you, I guess if you wanted Winchester, you should have done it about three days ago, right? Yeah. We'll get into Winchester. But wow, what a surprise thing. Yes. I did not expect an October surprise for Expo. Yeah. And for them to come up and just say, hey, by the way, we got a new game. And it's been a big hit for them. Oh, huge. And so, if you want any Dune, the new Star Wars, I mean, any of these games you're seeing at Expo, I guess except for Winchester. Yeah. Hit up Zach and Nicole many. They're a wonderful customer service and great product. So, seriously. Yeah, it's great. They've always helped us out. And even fun things like banners, if you want banners. So, check them out and accessories. so i keep to i'm like we got to do this quick we stole the banner yeah we we borrowed the banners because we uh so we'll have to uh we'll have to ask for uh David Van Es's uh blessing after so yeah what is it it's easier to ask for forgiveness or beg for forgiveness that ask for permission yeah but let's talk about i got first on my notes let's talk barrels of fun yep holy crap like okay i hadn't played dune before this yep uh obviously we didn't play with chester before this what are your thoughts so far okay um dune really surprised me same here because now the one thing that we're used to in pinball is we're used to having pinball sounds so it's it's very arcade feel so you hit you hit the target a little whiz goes off you start something you you get some sound you get you get the call outs you get all that so dune took a different approach and this is the one thing it took me a while to figure out what the difference was but they have like a cinematic score going the entire time yep so okay i know that we talked about like guns and roses like captured the whole concert experience this captured the entire movie experience where you're getting there and you're feeling the game and they they must have some big subwoofer in there something because the game is like slightly vibrating kind of like you're in a you're in a movie theater and you get that that deep subwoofer sound that's like bringing you into it yep it is so good the lighting was great because they have the they have a screen in the back that's constantly updating and they you know they have i don't know if they're radcals or what whatever their version of the radcals are but inside on the art blade so you really are immersed in this sea of sand world yes uh the now the shots i thought felt great what did you think of the shots i think they felt really good um i played two different versions of dune while i've been here so far um there's a shot that goes through the worm and it ramps up around him and i found on one of them it was a little clunky but the other one was perfectly smooth so i'm like i don't know if this is me i don't know if it's the game which two did you play because i'll tell you which two i played i played in the booth yeah okay i actually thought they both played pretty good so okay okay um yeah but everything else it did really really well i think there was one shot that i was hitting that was kind of rejecting but it's it's a it's a it's a little bit of a tweak right we're not talking you see i for for me i had really long ball times see i thought it was playing better than me right now and i am sucking it up so don't let dunes quality be a reflection of my terrible gameplay or maybe yeah so okay but but legit the ball paths were fun yes they were interesting they're very unique they had diverters in there and so there were definitely different and that is the key to a lot of to making a game more interesting is making sure a ball path doesn't do the same thing every time well not only that did you get to the mode where you have to hold down the center button because like your hands in the pain is it called the pain box the pain box and you're playing just one-handed without trying to dive. So, by the way, so, you know, you can't cheat on this mode. No. So I tried to cheat on the mode where they were there, and I reached over and I held it, and they busted us, and I didn't know how they busted us. But then, so, friend Tony Murphy, by the way, first time he was playing the game, and he was like, you got to play this. And he's like, I'm not really sure. And so he put his tummy on there, And so he's tummying down and trying to flip it. And then it said, are you using three hands? Question mark. And then one of the fun, fun employees came over and they laughed. And they're just like, just so you know, there's a camera there. Oh, you can see what you're doing. That is awesome. That is amazing. So you get totally busted for cheating on that mode. Yeah. But yeah. So the whole point of the, the pain box mode is you have to have your hand, one hand, whichever one on the, on the action button. Yeah. And you're supposed to alternate. Yep. and what it's that's that's a cool thing and also the fact that they busted you for cheating was hilarious absolutely hilarious well and honestly none of us were expecting it with winchester though right no no dude's been fantastic we've known this we've known this since march when they revealed may sorry may is when they revealed uh it got a little bit of bad press between pemberg and some of the people that got early everything i'm seeing right dune has been fantastic they've had these games up and running from sun up to sundown when when actual hours are allowing it i don't think i've seen a single one turned off no that they obviously reliability is an issue with any sort of newer company so this is their second game but wow reliability that that the line for that booth is a weight and especially with winchester because that was the surprise we're going to talk about winchester in a second yeah but there was a big weight for all these things and so these things have been played all the time yep no and then they're holding up so well speaking we've talked about winchester we've alluded to it a couple times i'm blown away carl d'Python Anghelo okay so give a background give us a summary on what winchester is and so people know like context so that's what made me laugh with all this i knew about it growing up because we talked about history class my mom saw it when she was a kid the winchester mystery house uh Back at the turn of the century, there was a man by the last name of Winchester who made the Winchester rifle that arguably won the West. If you had a Winchester, you were winning. And so the husband died at a young age. They lost their son at a young age, and it was just the wife. And she had all this fortune from selling these guns, right? Well, she went to kind of a – Wasn't it medium or something? Medium, yeah. And pretty much her husband came from the afterlife and told her, you need to buy. You've got to build. You've got to keep building. These spirits are going to haunt you. They're going to get you if you don't stop building the house. So she built maze after maze into this house, right? Like stairways going to nowhere or doors that open to nothing. Yes, yes. And so that's the background of it because a lot of people – our friend Craig Bobby is from Canada. He's like, I don't know. This was a thing. And so it is a very unique kind of niche thing. It's basically – so I did talk a little bit to David. They wanted to do a haunted house type thing because there hasn't been a really great haunted house theme that's been done in pinball. And even haunted house, it breaks down all the time. You owned one, right? No, but my friend owns one, and I have to fix it all the time. All the time. Yeah, so they wanted that. And so for them, they – do you mind if I take over a little bit? I talked a little bit to David. They knew that Carl was working on a Whitewood. Yeah. And they also knew that the last really elite player who was building games has done a really good job. A little bit of a good job. Well, yeah, Keith Elwin. And so they were really curious about if Carl was interested in collaborating. Yeah. so they talked to them and they they got the theme so they got carl and they said you know what this is a risk because one it's carl's first design yeah so you don't know to the theme yes it is a licensed thing but you don't know if that's going to connect with people not everything is going to be a seller yeah and and then just the you know the layout everything so they were trying to say look, this is a concept. This is a small batch. We're going to see if this will be successful. Yeah. And so they announced it and people started playing it. And Josh, would you call it a success? It's a little bit of a success. Yeah. I would say unanticipated too, really. Well, this is a surprise success. Yeah. And this is, this is the thing that I keep hearing is, oh, but it's only 525. Okay. But do you know why it's 525? Why is that? So, and I talked to David to NS about this. He's like, if you have a limited number, you should have a meaning to the number, which is totally reasonable. Right? So that's the address of the house. Oh, I didn't know that. Nice. But what's funny to me is that people keep bringing this up. Oh, it's sold out because it's only $525. Okay. Only? I'm like, only $525? Let's be realistic here. Like, not to crap on Turner Pinball. There are companies that have come in. Struggled to sell $100. Or even $200. Right. So the fact that they sold out 525 in 24 hours yeah i mean i think people should be giving more credit to this yeah i think i think it's proven i think it's broken the mold here because what have we been hearing for the last year is there's no money in pinball no one wants to spend money on pinball pinball's too expensive um and i think everything that has been said in pinball has been disproven with this game and i even think yes it's a license thing yes it really is a license it's a license it's a we always talk about tiers of license right yes a b c this is i would say a boutique tier yeah i don't even know if you can letter it like you said but really to take a theme like this and to do 525 and 24 hours at 11 6 that is more than a premium where people are right like throwing fit about pro price right now right it that is amazing i i would argue though if you want to do and this is maybe taking a tangent if you want to revitalize the le market that's your price point kids yep because people are willing to spend more from a premium to an le if there is a perceivable difference what is a true le product it's a true le and there's a big difference if you're spending 3500 more people are going to question well that's two-thirds of a price of a pro yeah is that worth throwing the money at it but 11.6 and you're looking at that it is a it's exclusive it's elite it is expensive but it's still i know more accessible yeah than than what the 13 000 price has been asking for well you know i said i said turner and whatnot but even think about dutch pinball they just released predator and they're cutting that run short where they're doing like 200 of that and they're still waiting to sell the 100 and and that's a big list we'll get to predator but yeah it's uh i mean it's it is a more discernible license and so and so it just talks about there are so many aspects in pinball when you start circling the venn diagram of making a successful pinball you at least need two circles to overlap yeah i think they got four on this one yeah something like that yeah man yeah they've done really well. What did you think gameplay-wise? What did you think? Okay, gameplay-wise, now, it is, it still feels boutique-y. Yes. Because it doesn't feel like kind of the over-the-top theatrical presentation that you get with Dune, that you'll get with King Kong, that you'll get with Harry Potter. And so this felt like, hey, this is a small project game that doesn't have the over-the-top, in-your-face assets and the immersion. However, the shots are great. The theme is great. And if you look at it, they have like a Pepper's Ghost thing in the back, which took me a second to figure out what was going on because there's a ball lock in the back. And it's like a spider web that goes down to the ball. And it looks kind of cool. And for a second, I was like, oh, that's really cool. And I'm like, oh, it's a Pepper's Ghost thing. That's a really brilliant thing to put in pinball. Which is on par for the theme, too. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I had a lot of fun. Now, there's a lot of stuff that I still haven't figured out. I only play one game because the lines are long. They're insane. But it's an amazing accomplishment, and they should be given an A-plus on this. I wholeheartedly agree. And after seeing this, it's funny because, like, reliability. Reliability, too. Reliability. It's been going. They've had one, two, three, four games, I guess. Four games. Four games. I think Flip Announce was down for about an hour this morning. Okay. But for the most part, I have seen them all running. Yeah, same. Same. And just, after this, I'm going to believe in barrels now. Yes. Don't get me wrong. Labyrinth is a good team. It's not a team for me. Okay. Labyrinth was a first off. Correct. We didn't know what to make. We said, that's a great effort. Yep. And it looks great. Yep. And it's the wait and see, right? Yep. because we have seen this with other companies. There was an Australian company that came up big and then didn't make good on the product. But this is three games. And three solid games. And so I think we can say Barrels has arrived. So I think, David David Van Es, I know you're watching. You're doing it right. I think we had a good talk last night for about an hour and a half. Man, thank you. First off, thank you for allowing us into your world and talking about this stuff. I think you guys are going in the right direction. I make a prediction right now. Barrels of Fun is going to be the contender in the top three moving into the next three years. When we're talking top pinball machines making pinball, Barrels of Fun is going to be in that list. Yeah, so you're right. I'm the same way. So you have Stern. You have JJP. You can't Barrels of Fun there now. Yeah. And what a great success story because the bottom line is more pinball is always good. Yep. Yep. Because competition, you know, the steel sharpens steel. Yep. So this is great for pinball and great for them and we have seen in the past where other people have over-promised and under-delivered. Yep. And they flip that and so they have been very subtle about their marketing and they have given you so much I totally agree One last thing on barrels before we move on. Something that Brian's told me, David's told me, they want to remind us. This is just phase one. Yeah. All these licenses we're seeing, Winchester, Dune, and Labyrinth, all before Labyrinth was revealed. And now the license that are coming to them after seeing the product, they're promising quite a big stuff in the store. And so I'm excited to see what's coming down the pipeline. If this is what they did pre-show, holy crap. I think other companies, if you're looking to compete, you might be a little worried. Well, okay, I will argue that they have shown a proof of concept that you can do something without flashy stuff and just quietly put out an elite product. And it's – what a great success. Let's talk Portal. You and I played this two nights ago. Yeah. Holy crap. I think it's taken Multimorphic to the next level. I think it makes them now in the conversation because that's the things like I feel bad for P3 because it's always been like, well, it's a P3. It's pinball, but it's all in the back third. And also. Yeah. And also. And you're like, there shouldn't be a but here, but there always is. You know what I'm saying? Portal feels fantastic. My concern here was with the extended kit, plugging it into the play field. Right. You see all this extra stuff that goes on top. and I asked our friend Wise Trailers. He's in Lombrov. I'm here. I said, how long did it take you to put this extended kit in? He said, 30 seconds more. It just sits right on top. It's a couple screws. He's like, it's a piece of cake. And the extended thing, it makes it feel like it could be a standalone pinball machine. Yeah, it really does. Because that's been the other complaint too is people are like, well, it feels pinball-esque. Pinball adjacent. It always felt pinball adjacent. This feels like a machine. It could be a standalone manufactured machine. And I will point out, my son's favorite game so far. So I bought my 14-year-old. He has played Portal. He played Portal 1 and 2. And it was awesome because we were talking with Mark Sill, who is the voice of Reggie. And he was super excited. He's like, we should get one of these, Dad. How many times do you get your kid who goes up and plays the game and is like, hey, we should get this? Yeah. And it is a fantastic game. That aerial faceplate, when you shoot it right at them, it also, like, you'll get a shot. But, yeah, just launching it and it catching it. It did reject a couple of times, but you know what? Every machine does that. It does. And it was just – but when it connects, it's amazing. The little upper play field, it's a little challenging. It feels good. Man, it just – I want one of these portals. I'm going to be – after this, Jerry and I, we need to talk. Yes. man, the game is so good. I cannot wait to see what they have in store moving forward. And I really think Portal moves the needle for them. And I hope, I don't know why they're more in the conversation. They really should be. The team over there is doing amazing. So this is obviously, and this is a jump. This is the next phase in what they're doing. Yep. And which is, I think it's better for pinball for them because they've always felt like the, you know, it almost felt like a mobile game with like a ticker redemption because it kind of had elements of both, right? Kind of, yeah, I'll give you that. And now that we actually bring the play field on and surrounding you, it does make it a lot more competitive with a standard pinball machine. Yep, I agree. Let's move on to Star Wars is the big one right now, Fall of the Empire from Stern. I got to play this with Travis Murray last night. And, you know, it's funny because I enjoyed it because I had a really good first ball. I dropped about $260 million on it. And I was very pleased as punch with myself. I think, you know, people kept saying this is a fan layout. It's going to be easy, blah, blah, blah. It's fast. It's really fast. I didn't have any issues with the Death Star. I know that's the biggest problem right now, people learning and playing about the reliability on it. I didn't have any issues. I thought it was great. I think if you're looking for like an Iron Man, I think if you're looking for one of those faster games, Star Wars fits that mold. Yes, it does. Well, it's a Borg. It's a Borg. And so he's known for having fast designs. I mean, really, the easiest, well, the most accessible design has always been monsters, right, for him. But almost everything else has been challenging. So just go back for like he had. Okay. So sorry. Going back. Guardians of the Galaxy is challenging. You go back to Walking Dead. Yeah. Challenging. A little bit. Yeah. Metallica. It's a fan layout. But guess what? Metallica is challenging. Yes, it definitely is. Yeah. And so you have all these. So he's known for Rush. Yeah. Rush is. you can make it a little easier, but it's still a challenging game. And so, like, where, you know you were going to get this with Jumble. Yeah. I think with pinball where it's at currently in the hobby, I think a lot of it's long players, right? I think it has to be because this is one of those things where, and we talk about this, like tournament players versus casual players. And I'm a casual player. I play at home. But what makes a good selling pinball machine? It's not the short ball time. No, no, it's not. So even Elwin, who's an elite player, knows that in order to sell more games, you have to give them a little bit more of an experience. Yep. So if the average game is three minutes, being able to push that a little bit more, that's going to make a big difference for sales, especially in a home environment. Like, you want, I want my kids to walk up and say, hey, let's play this game. I don't want my 10-year-old getting up and just getting three ball rejects and say, okay, we're done. Yeah, yeah. Well, and my point being is all my collections, mostly L1s, which are longer players. Right. I think if you're looking for a short player, I love the theme. I love the Star Wars theme. The theme is good. And it's integrated well. Raymond Davidson on code. Holy crap. it just i don't know why we don't talk about him more okay that's because he's he's he's always been uh a collaboration with code yeah and so and ray raymond's great raymond's by by the way the the nicest most underspoken guy out there yeah he's a he's a great player i was actually in line with him to play winchester you know and stephanie was there too and so we were talking a little bit and he just has a pinball mind yeah that will translate very well he has a bright a bright future he's he's still one of the young guys around i mean he's driving innovation yeah and so he's able to take things and by the way he was the one who did the extended code on metallica yeah and if you're trusted to do an extended code on the lime and sheets code that that says how the industry views you i have a percent of grief so i i think that this is now this goes into the Star Wars pantheon, or I guess selection of games. So if you're looking for a modern Star Wars game, you have the Home Pin option. You have this option. You also have the Richie option. You have the Mandalorian option. So there's a lot of options that can bring you into that world, and you can choose which one's best for you. My only criticism on the game is I would probably put something to slow down the Sarlacc pit. Because that does take... Maybe put a little bumper up there that slows the spin down. I don't know. If you have a drink, you hit that Sarlacc pit. You can take a good sip. It does... It tended to be a little longer to circle around and go down. I think the Pro is the best option on this one as well. Playing the Premium, playing the Pro. I need to spend a little more time on the Premium. Yeah. I did enjoy the preview, though. Let's move on to Evil Dead. Have you got to play Evil Dead yet? You know what? I keep getting in line, and I keep getting sidetracked. So I'm going to send it to you on this one. So once again, Travis and I, we played it. It's a really cool game. I think that if you want good theme immersion, this is the game. The topper is great. Topper's amazing. They had like eight toppers on the game. I think they finally have figured out to, you don't need the best shooting game, right? but the geometry should feel good yeah and it does that with this i wasn't a fan of the flipper inside the sling thing i never used it you know there's a flashing light right there saying this is the flip or this is the one um but no like seriously it just felt like i was in the universe with bruce campbell trying to stop the deadites from killing uh i loved it i think i think if you're looking for a game like this it should definitely be on your list so uh which it's hard to get now because they all sold out back in March at TPL. Well, you can always get a game if you're willing to spend money for it. Very, very true. And now, what did you think of the double barrel shotgun? Double barrel shotgun is really cool. I like that concept. Even though I couldn't tell there was a ball in the lane a couple times. So other than that, yeah, it's just really cool. Travis being an elite player is like, watch this. There's like an infinite bug glitch if you want multi balls. it was awesome but seriously that game i think pinball goes into a couple different categories one's like straight up player you're playing this because you want whether tournament you know the fast the brutal i think there's also immersion right like there's you want to experience the game we did the twilight zone and adam's family was great at this back in the day just that whole like hitting the jackpot and it celebrates you or you feel like you're in that universe i think if you're one of those people that are looking for immersion and an experience this is definitely one for the collection spooky has always done great with art yep they've always i think they've always been a plus on art yes and a plus on immersion yep and i would say they're getting better yeah with being able to make you know a great shooter i was playing uh so i played texas chainsaw massacre yesterday yeah and i was talking to them and it was funny i was talking with her friend Lee and his wife Sherry and was like, yeah, this is the same as Looney Tunes, just it's the same layout. She thought that was kind of funny. I was like, yeah, because the theme is a little rough for my house, but for other people's houses, it's perfect and if that's your thing, then great. You can't go wrong with the experience, honestly. I agree. Speaking of artists, Franchi's been running around. It's been wonderful to see him. Spooky was so brilliant locking him down. He's good. Way good. Brad Brad Albright. It warms, like it makes my heart happy to see him on Mystery Winchester House, on Portal. This dude has been at it hard since we started. We've been doing this almost seven years now. Well, so he did our shoes. Yeah, he did our shoes. Yeah, so Josh and I are still, oh, sorry. Josh and I are still rocking the shoes. And I've run into a few people who are wearing the shoes, and it does make me smile. Yep. So if you want awesome shoes, go and check it out. Brad Brad Albright did it, and he did the art for, you said, Portal and Winchester. Yeah, both. Amazing. Harry Potter. Yeah. Holy crap. I was not expecting. Yes, it is great. It is great. And Eric. Eric. Yeah. Eric. Good job. Get me one. Yeah. I know you can't get them until, like, we're out to April. We're out pretty far, yeah. It's a good problem to have, but holy crap. Okay. So I actually did – so Eric, after the JJP seminar, so he talked about all the different mechanisms they put in there. And that was really smart to talk about how challenging some of these mechanisms were. And the staircase mechanism is really cool that they're able to have – he had a crazy amount of paths on there. And I even told him last night because after the seminar, he went to dinner. I swung by with him, and I talked to him, and I said, this is great. now that Josh and I have had time to play it, we want you to circle back and come back on so we can have a better conversation about what's going on. Because when we did our first one, we had just seen pictures and we'd seen the reveal. And we had him explain it, but now we can have a better conversation. And that's going to be really good. Harry Potter is going to be something that if you want to have something for your family, this is a great experience and talk about theme immersion okay well let's give props to harry potter for how thematically immersive he is i was nervous though because it's a fast shooter so i was like i'm afraid that i'm not gonna be where you have a game that you want to explore like harry potter is having a borg style layout which is it's not borg but you get what i'm saying right like yeah so when you're having that kind of layout it's hard it's hard to do that and so playing this game absolutely amazing yeah holy crap just so good i i would argue it is a lot easier okay less brutal than i thought it was going to be and the quidditch that that upper that upper play field with the upper shot on the play field yep man that is a great shot that's great and you can repeat it a lot it's so good yeah um i love i don't know if you've gotten this yet but it's funny to come to these because we obviously have to give a first impressions video when they come sure right and so David Van Es did it to me and eric to me they're like so do you still feel the same way you did when you did the first impression it's like no this is entirely shabby my impressions no and so harry potter absolutely fantastic i think and i liked all versions i loved all the versions so you can actually have options yeah depending on your budget now it is it's a little bit of like eye candy bells and whistles but the play is the same so good on them yeah i think i think if you're looking for a more modern game with the bells and whistles and lights and stuff like that the arcade version at 9k is an amazing price for this right like they did a fantastic job is it nine or it ten is it ten It 999 999 What are you talking about That dollar makes it only 9 All right All right Okay I am just making sure everybody knows, but Kate, solid effort though. Or it's in that, and I know we tend to refer to Stern's pricing because that's the most commonly associated one, but Kate, you're in the premium range. Yeah. Now, is there anything that you would feel like you missed out on at the arcade level compared to a stern premium i would say no no i i think this it probably feels a little closer to like a stern premium plus when you're talking about uh value so i i would totally get that or i would even go up and do if you want to spend a little bit more and get a few more of the the toys under glass yeah but i i you would be solid with any option I totally agree. Let's move on to Merlin's Arcade. Okay. Did you play this one yet? I have played it. It's good. Okay. Remember when we talked about each company has to know their audience? Okay. Turner has kind of locked in that audience. It feels a little bit more of a, okay, this is, we are going for family friendly. We are going for, you know, the kind of the entry level. It's a pinball, but all we're focusing on is having fun. And I think it's pretty good. It feels like Medieval Times or something like that where it's, hey, this is something for your whole family to play. Yeah. No, I totally agree, I think. And also Turner. So Chris Turner is down there. Chris is. He's a super nice guy. Super nice guy. He attached the app to one of the games. I didn't realize you can mess with people while they're playing, too. so like you can you can make stuff happen if you got guests over and whatnot and yeah you can actually control some of the coils and stuff like that it's it's very unique i know that like one of the selling points uh of deeper it was the pin bar and everyone's like bring back the pin bar you know it's cool that he's integrated the phone right so everyone owns a phone right so you just link it to the pinball machine you stick it in between your flippers on the glass and now you can see score in in real time you could mess with people it's just such a cheaper way of doing it too such a cheaper way instead of investing all that money and stuff into that um merlin's arcade did shock me i was not expecting to enjoy as much as i did okay i think it's fun i think it's fun i think it's a really fun game i still don't feel like it's for me but i think at the price point and what they have Jon Norris did a fantastic job of a layout i think it's looks great yeah It'll look pretty in your family area, family game area. Yep, I totally agree. Let's see what else we got on here. Quetzal Pinball brought Tokyo Drift and also Super Hoops. This is a group from France. Yep. They have done a couple of different games now, and I was not a fan of Tokyo Drift. Okay. They had it for $4,000. That's really not a bad price for a pinball machine at all. No. It may not be a show price. Maybe I shouldn't be saying that. It was one of those ones. It feels more old school, more of a 70s, 60s EM kind of feel with more modern take. There's a shot you shoot to the orbit on the left, and it just comes straight down the middle. It's hard to save. I was impressed with Super Hoops, though. This one was $4,500 down there. It's cool because it's got a basketball backboard in the back of the hoop. And you shoot the shot right up the middle. and it's kind of it's like a little enclosed area and if you miss it's got little hands you can control the coils kind of similar to tna okay um maybe you can't control the time anyhow but you control the coils and it's more of like slings up there and so you're bouncing the ball into the hole trying to get it in it's got these little hands trying to slap it in like it's trying to get rebound right and so it's funny because like you shoot it in there and then it launches it up and the backboard grabs it and drops it in for a shot. So it was fun to play. It's mode-based. The modes aren't super fleshed out, but it still feels like more of a 90s game to me. It seems kind of like those Pitching Back games where it's almost a different focused version of what pinball can do. yeah it's not trying to do like this big old this big immersive code experience this is like hey it's you know it's the same thing as like a double shot you know that you buy and you put in your basement people are just you have the one thing yeah that's kind of what you're doing and it's fine it still can be fun think hexapinball sorry quetzal's doing really good yeah especially if you're gonna be at these price points yes uh it's something for for the home yeah um i don't know If you like it, I don't know. We don't know quality. We don't really know customer service. It is not from America. It's over from France. But other than that, that's kind of my two cents on that. Yeah. And we're trying to get you stuff that is available out there. And given that we don't have as extensive experience on it, it's like, hey, if you're interested, go look it up. Yep. So, sorry. Now let's move to Hexapentus. Space Hunt is here again. They brought a couple more. Yeah. I enjoy it. It's a nice little game. Yeah. It's the same type of thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very focused game. If that's what you're looking for, then great. It will probably fill that need. But you need to realize it is in a class by itself in that, hey, focused, fun. It's not going to compete on the level of like a Sturm Pro or something like that. But it has the shots, has just the fun experience, and it still has that little – The big shot is you shoot it up and it goes around and it ends up sliding down like that hole that has the pole in it. Yeah. All right, Scott. We've talked about kind of the main games here. Okay. There's one more company we have not talked about yet. Okay. Well, let's not beat around the bush on this. It's American Pinball slash Orbit Games. They brought Whirl of All. Have you played it? Yeah. and okay i got some i mean we're showing footage as we talk about this and whatnot and uh so the point of this game is imagine skeeball but you don't have a target you don't know exactly you don't see the target they've got i want to say it's seven lights up on top yeah and you're trying to knock those lights out by hoping that when you put your ball in that area of that light it knocks it out uh if you get all seven of the nine and then it gives you an extra nine balls okay so you keep playing and playing and playing so you can't knock all the lights out yeah so cuz I asked him I said hey like it's 400 the top score you can top out on this he said no no you knock out all the lights it gives you nine more balls someone got to like 2500 yesterday so I thought I okay here's the here's the real question yeah why is it here because I think or maybe wanted something to show this is the best thing they had okay so it this is a pinball expo right this would actually fit all an arcade but well I guess it is pinball expo it is pinball expo and so if you're going to show this it would fit a lot better as an arcade expo that is focused more on ticket redemption games where you know it's basically a variation on skee-ball yeah um but here's the here's the question too when you get a new iteration of something you have to you have to answer two questions one is this needed two is it better now skeeball has been around since what the 70s something maybe even before that maybe even before that it's it's the it's as basic of a mechanical game as you can and i okay i i just don't understand where the market it is for this because it's about the same footprint as a skee ball maybe even bigger it's bigger it's it's definitely bigger than it's bigger than a skee ball and so would you choose this over a skee ball i would say no no i wouldn't the whole point of skee ball is it's kind of fun to see the target and when you shoot it up and hit the hole then you're like oh that was cool and if you don't hit the hole you see how it was rejected yeah and okay so I I just don't understand what they are doing as a company and so this is product they can build they said they built this in less than two months yeah they can bill it in a house most of the parts are here in town yeah I I get it from a it's not I guess that they're having a hard time like getting fucked at this point and And they're having a hard time getting parts at this point. So you have to make a product that you can control the parts supply and stuff, right? Yeah, but this is literally like plywood, carpet, balls, and sensors. It's about as basic as you could get. Hitball is moving more into the home market. It really is. And so you're coming up with a product that focuses on locations, arcades, which is fine. Again, fine. But are you... Okay, how much is a Raw Thrills game? It depends on the Roth-Rills game. Okay, what's it? What, 7,000 or something like that? Okay, it depends. It's like, now, depending on even going to the sit-down. Yeah. So let's just say a Roth-Rills, which, by the way, is dominating the market in arcades right now. Yeah. Like, you go into an arcade and it's all Roth-Rills, okay? so if you go in there and you're like well there's something that you can that you can buy for eight thousand dollars that's a very old school game or you can buy a modern game for eight to twelve thousand dollars which one do you think will make money rothwell's is going yeah and and and so like i'm i really wish they figure out what they want to do as a market but they it seems like this company is still trying to figure out a... I don't even think they have the demand right. So they're building something for a manufactured demand. And I'm just confused. I get you. I don't know. I just... I know it's not pinball, so it's hard to be like, this is... Even in our arcade expo, I don't think it would get much attention. Yeah, I think this is hands down the worst thing to show up to pinball. I... yeah it really looks like you went back in time 40 years yeah and even like the felt stuff has fallen apart on the track and i just i'm sorry guys like orbit whatever you're calling yourself you're gonna have to figure something out you are right now it's not it's not working yeah so um one amazingly bright spot okay i want to talk about homebrew holy crap kate glenn Glenn Waechter your team with Austin and all of them out there, Jake Danzig, amazing. Monster Hockey League. Yeah. This game is insane. Brad. Brad Brad Albright. Brad Brad Albright. The art on this one as well. Okay. Another good one. So the concept, it's like if you've ever heard about Joust or thought about it, it's a fun game, but it's a two-player game. So you're basically playing pinball on a shortened play field, but you're also trying to shoot the ball across and make the other person drain too yep so it's it's a new version of that it's it's like you gave uh joust a red bull and and said let's go yep so it great it looks great it plays great and i think they were taking interested parties if you're interested in making one yeah and and jake's not super optimistic about that but seriously i think the more interest they get on this because there's a lot of people that want this game this is something you would Okay, if I were in an arcade, I would put this in. Yep. 100%. Because this is smaller than an air hockey table. Yep. And it's fast. Yep. And it gives people that satisfaction. So if you're looking at... That competitive vibe. Yeah, if you're looking at something that would go into an arcade, this is it. Anyone want cheese sticks? No. Okay. All right. But yeah, no, seriously. Monster Hockey League, like, absolutely. I agree with you on all that. I really hope if there's some pinball, I know it's a very unique machine, so it will have its own challenges. Okay, but again, you're finding the market. There is a demand. There is a demand. For competitive pinball, like competing against someone. Because one of the big downsides of pinball is you're taking turns at a solo game. Yep. Like you don't think that if I had this in my basement that I would have like five guys over and do a tournament? You don't think that that would get some competition going? I agree. It's so good. Another one that I really want to point out. So yes, baby, these two gentlemen, they want to say they love our show. They're always listening to us when they're working on their homebrew. ricardo and fitzroy man okay you two i gotta share your guys's story right now ricardo and fitzroy this is amazing this is what i feel like the ball is about um so they got sucked into the hobby right friend took him to a local bar they're playing this they're like what is this it's kind of in their alley of what they're looking for or like because of their their coolers uh if i remember correctly say he was a software engineer or whatnot but he just uh he's like he gets into this hobby and he's looking to buy games and stuff like that he's like i just don't feel like there's any themes for me there's nothing for me they haven't been in this hobby two years yet you ready for this so he goes forget it i'm building one let's do it let's do it so they built coming to america you remember eddie murphy's coming to america looks amazing they hired randy martinez the randy martinez to do artwork this game looks fantastic it looks like it should be in a stern lineup dude yeah and it's so great so great and you guys are killing it and i love even the integration they're using gold pinballs in this because you know yeah yeah oh he's like you want to buy a toothbrush he has like all the gold stuff oh i love it this game you guys you're killing it and it just goes to show i've got to give a shout out to aaron davis with fast pinball he is always praising the homebrew community for how amazing it is to bring people in to help them succeed to help it's just a community of people that have this idea that have this vision that want to work together this this is amazing And Homebrew Town is huge And it doesn matter if you just white wood in a cabinet or if you going all out like Ricardo billing coming to America or Monster Hockey League Monster Hockey League. Or – Demo Willie. Also, Greatest Showman. Greatest Showman is here. And I told them we're going to have him on. Okay. And I – okay, they messaged me. I'm sorry. I don't know your – I don't have your names in front of me. Yes, yes. They are – they did such a great job of doing that. Yes. And being able to, like, you know, it's a re-theme, but man, it looks so good in theme integration. And all these, like, homebrew things. Yes. They're so great. And I appreciate the passion that people are willing. Because in a homebrew, you are working way more than you are playing. And so the passion that they're bringing to the project are so good. Yep. I agree. I want to talk about the pinball scientist really quick. He is right next to the homebrew. If you don't know Ryan Tanner Walters, he is the teacher. From K to 5, he's a STEM teacher. He made – it's almost like a pop-up book. It's one of those STEM books where you slide the slider in it and everything. If you haven't bought his book, go support him. $10, $20, I can't remember exactly. It's a wonderful way to get your kids into this, and my kids love the book. He's here. He's helping support that part of the hobby, right? If you want to get more into the hobby, the kids are where it's at, right? and so check out Ryan Tanner walters uh i'm going to attach i did do a little a little chat with him so i'm going to attach that here later of this episode um let's talk about thing that's had a smile on my face yes whole expo okay the guitars the guitars the guitars yeah uh safari guitars came out of canada they're from toronto canada casey and daniel came down yep something that They had an idea for one day, and now it's turned into actual business model for Danny. Passion project. I saw this. My face lit up. I had been gloating about this to all my friends. Everyone that will listen, I'm like, go check out the guitars. If you haven't checked out these guitars, best place to check them out is Sothara Guitars on Instagram. These are fantastic. I also posted something on Facebook. I tagged us. I tagged you. I tagged Sothara. I tagged them all and it's so mine's the Silver Ball Mania and they did the illumination so you can see the lights are scrolling in the guitar while it's on it looks so good. Whether you play guitar or you want a showpiece the nice part about, I mean Ed Ed Robertson of Banger Naked he's played with these guitars so they are quality. They're good guitars. I own some super quality guitars everyone knows Fender, Gibson stuff like that. The guitar I'm like the brand that you might not know is Duesenberg. That is like the Cadillac. I own a Duesenberg. I would say this is up there on that quality level. It's, it may not be that we're talking, we're talking, it's custom. It's a custom guitar. Yeah. We're talking three grand Canadian on the base level. And then it's three to 3,500 or something, obviously depending on what, what you're going to do with the guitar. We're like Duesenberg's like five, six grand. Yeah. So you've really got, it's custom guitar. Yeah. All custom. And you can do whatever. Like we got pinball playfields in there. Yep. So that was great. And they have some options. So that's awesome. Go check it out and look at how – I'm so excited. They were able to put our logo in the prep board. Yep. And so that looks so good. It looks so good. So just wanted to shout them out because, guys, you're doing it right. It's so cool. And we're going to have them on. Yep. We're definitely going to have them on. We're bringing them on. We're going to talk about the whole process. Yep. Last thing on my list, one of my favorite spots when you come to the expo, the 1930s no-flip section. This is just some of the coolest parts of history that has kind of been forgotten. Well, okay. Pinball is from this, where you flip it. Everybody's had that cheesy 30-cent thing that they got in their Halloween thing, or the giveaway things. So you pull it up and it goes up and it bounces and it hits pegs or pins, which is why it's called pinball. And it definitely was gambling back then. So it's hilarious. But they look so cool. Made in the, you know, the 30s and 40s. They come up, they put in a quarter or sorry, a nickel. Yeah. And you just play it. And man, there's some really hard games. Yeah. Like you were playing the puzzle game. So you hit it in the right thing and the puzzles go down and the award is – okay, if you get them all down, you get an award. I think the award is still there. Yeah. I think they said they've had four people get the award the whole weekend. Yeah, fantastic. One that I don't have on my notes here that I just thought of before we wrap this up. Predator. What did you think of Predator? Predator. Okay. Predator, if you are a fan of Alien, like their Alien game, it's very similar. Like it feels very similar. it's i mean it's it's it's it's a dark environment it's thematically it would be it would work well next to alien if you like the alien presentation or everything now it there are limitations with arnold or what they can do um it's it's a wide body so it feels like a wide body now it's not going to be super fast the i mean the shots are there yeah shots are there the shots are there and you're going to if that is your passion theme i think it's solid i would definitely play it before you buy it, but it is definitely on par with what they did with Alien. So if you like what they did with Alien, then you'll like this. Yeah, and I feel like it is a little bit of a miss, but I feel like part of it's not their fault. Just hearing the story about the licensure. Yeah, and we can't really talk much about publicly just because they don't want to upset the licensure. But the layout is, it is whirlwind. It's a wide-volume whirlwind. it just I feel overall like I feel bad because like I can see that they tried I just don't feel like it has met the standard of what we expect out of pinball nowadays but overall I think if you have a predator you're going to be happy with it it does fit the vibe of what the movie is but overall yeah so they have the chopper they have the chopper and it does the blades do spin yeah it's true alright I want to just do really quickly we got a couple minutes left what's been your highlight I just made one or two highlights and what's the one or two letdowns highlight is Dune Dune is actually a game Winchester for me I thought Winchester was fun Dune it just feels like you are playing a movie and that's really hard to do the shots are great and the build quality feels so good so I'd say Barrels of Fun took the show Yep, I 100%. If you're looking at that, things that I thought were more of a miss, or, you know, I'm just going to let World of All go. It just feels like I don't understand what they're trying to accomplish. Things that I thought were average, okay? Star Wars is exactly what you expect a Star Wars game to be. And so it feels very good. It's fan. it's a good layout it's familiar but I thought the art was good and the rules are solid I need more time on that but if you're looking at Harry Potter I'm sorry if I'm going to rank the top three games that really impressed me once I got my hands on them I would say Dune, Harry Potter Winchester in that order I think my bright spots in this expo winchester winchester and dude i'm packaging them okay because i'm going to sneak in uh winchester and doom definitely up there harry potter definitely up there uh portal okay i actually forgot about portal okay you you have the same the same three yeah yeah if you're gonna rank them portal it it was great and again it's the game that my son said hey dad we should get this yeah i think i think portal is people are sleeping on it and they need to get their hands all right it's so good and then yeah i agree with you 100 world of all is a world of is yeah so definitely if you're interested in the portal yeah um okay pretty sure that they still have a loser kid hookup yeah so if you're interested in ordering contact them say say loser kid sent you and they'll they'll give you a deal yep um so yeah i'd say yeah those are the one and now stern is always solid stern is always solid you kind of know what you're getting if you're saying that people way hit above their weight class uh what the expected weight class would be barrels of fun harry potter was better than i thought it was going to be yep it really did and and for all right so yeah i mean that that pretty much does it for pinball expo this is the last day we're here yeah um it's been fantastic the the hotel is always beautiful uh they've done a great job if you haven't been to an expo here in chicago it's it's time to put it on your schedule for it's definitely worth it one thing I wanted to point out if you've stayed this long we appreciate you you can hit us up on Patreon all that jazz but I hope I heard a new term this weekend and I've loved it and I hope that you guys use this term I hope we are evangelical pinballists we are spreading the gospel of pinball we're preaching the word I don't care so there's different denominations there's barrels of fun there's stern there's uh harry potter there's jjp but yeah seriously i think that's what all it's about this community is amazing we love pinball so we go out and share right that's why we started this yeah as we felt like there's wonderful bright spots in pinball that we need to talk about yeah and i hope us going over these notes and everything does that so uh if you want to hit us up we are losing kid pinball podcast at gmail.com that's up on all the socials at loser kid pinball whether it's facebook youtube all that jazz we really do recommend if you want to talk to us whatever facebook is the place to go as that's where i'm going to see the easiest stuff we see it fastest yeah that's where we see it fastest but even tiktok we're on there as well um what else simple swag.com loser kid yep uh we've like you said we have shoes we have shirts we have uh okay i i'm i'm gonna wrap up a little bit right here okay go for it there's a couple things i want to talk about that i forgot that we had the so stern we didn't even talk about this you didn't get okay i'm gonna i'm gonna pull a mulligan here okay so stern insider connected okay they are actually starting it's like going to be early adopters are like 79 but 99 you can finally do home arcades so that's good and there's also we talked to them there are ways of doing bug fixes and also like insider issues and so the uh it's like bug fix astern.com or something like that and um sorry insider connected yeah and so then you got head clears coming we've been too long my gosh yeah so so we're gonna have an episode where we're gonna talk about the new inside of things yeah so uh you know thanks a lot for Ben Gomez on as Stern who does a lot of that stuff and Taylor does a lot of stuff like that. And we definitely if if you want more stuff on like give us suggestions how we can make the patreon were worth your money. We appreciate the money because it does help us supplement some of the things that were like this camera we bought the patreon. Thank you for that. So definitely if there's what things do you want us to do to help you out with a patron so we appreciate uh what you guys do and certainly uh have a great time with pinball we had a great time and really if you want dune you shorter it yep all right so it's the first day of expo we're kind of just going through the floor right now i ran to Ryan Tanner we met back in 2022 right yep you were right next to us when we did flipping the script on autism you're like dude i wanna i wanna help out because you love the kids Absolutely. And that's what the whole event was about. And speaking of the kids, you got this book. You want to hold that up? Yeah. You tell me about this book. Sure. Do you want me to hold this? Yeah, go for it, man. All right. So I'm going to hold that up like that. There we go. I know we're so professional around here. I'm Ryan Tanner Walters. I'm a STEM teacher, kindergarten through fifth grade STEM teacher in Minnesota. We made this book to get kids involved all the way from, you know, one years old all the way to 99. It's a fun, interactive book that gets kids understanding how pinball works, flipping a flipper, hitting drop targets, just carrying it with them wherever they go. And we think pinball, I am a huge advocate. I have it in my classroom. students get to use pinball and make pinball machines uh in our classroom and they get to paint it make uh any sort of play field that they want and just have fun learning uh through stem yeah which is awesome man like that's that's really cool that you're doing this and i don't know if many people know this but you made like a fully see-through pinball machine right yeah yeah you what was the concept like why well there's so much to a see-through pinball machine like inside of it the students are like how does this work what's inside and that you can't safely show them without, you know, like having them get shocked or something. You can't lift up the play field. So I made it see-through so they could see, like, everything working as it's working and show the circuitry, the complex engineering, the amazing engineering that goes into it. It's amazing that they still work. You know, today you just clean the contacts and they start right up. So I did that. And it's at Can Can Wonderland in Minnesota, if people want to see it. we moved it there to have the whole community be able to engage with it and benefit from it that's awesome man I love always seeing you at these shows you always put on a great booth also one more thing before I shut this off you have a topper out too right? I do, we're pretty proud of that massive dragon topper, it's so cool for Dungeons and Dragons I was just over there playing it one of the concepts is you kill the dragon and it dies, everything on the thing just shuts down yeah it's interactive It allows everybody around you to see, like, whoa, you killed a dragon. I mean, it's a simple little thing, but it speaks volumes when you're actually playing it. You're standing next to it, the flames next to this huge dragon, the silhouettes of the warriors. It's very symbolic of the game and the adventure. Yeah, it's been really fun to work on. Yeah, it's awesome, man. Thank you. Thanks for coming. It's always great to see you, man. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you.