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The Pinball Show Ep 96: Return Of The Zach

The Pinball Network·video·2h 30m·analyzed·Apr 11, 2022
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TL;DR

Zach returns to deliver honest pinball commentary, covering TPF, Stern news, and industry rumors.

Summary

Zach Minney returns to The Pinball Show after a six-week hiatus, reflecting on the importance of honest, critical content in pinball media rather than 'toxic positivity.' The episode covers Texas Pinball Festival developments, Stern's Godzilla Twippy Awards dominance, ongoing Rush Scoop issues, rumors of a Jack Danger Cornerstone title at Stern, trademark filings suggesting a potential Jaws pinball machine, and updates from American Pinball, Multimorphic, and Jersey Jack. Zach emphasizes his commitment to unfiltered analysis regardless of industry relationships.

Key Claims

  • Stern's Godzilla won essentially all major Twippy Awards at Texas Pinball Festival

    high confidence · Craig Bobby, Stern News Update segment, describing Godzilla wins across 13+ categories including Game of the Year

  • Universal Studios filed a trademark update for Jaws in March that includes pinball machines, suggesting a Jaws pinball machine is in development

    medium confidence · Craig Bobby citing Jason Knapp's KnappArcade.org article about USPTO 1B trademark filing indicating intent to use Jaws on pinball machines

  • Jack Danger is set to helm a Cornerstone game at Stern Pinball

    medium confidence · Craig Bobby citing 'one-eyed pirate of TPS' source from Texas Pinball Festival

  • Stern is releasing Scoop Mod 4.0 for Rush to address ongoing scoop protection issues

    high confidence · Craig Bobby citing Raymond Davidson on Flametail podcast, noting new mod kits going out and being installed on latest factory production

  • Ken Rudberg has retired from his role as Jersey Jack Pinball correspondent for The Pinball Show after 2.5 years

    high confidence · Zach Minney's opening remarks about Ken stepping down from the reporter role

  • American Pinball has six games in development, including a Dennis Nordman design and possibly a wide-body Wrath of Olympus title

    medium confidence · Kaz's American Pinball update segment citing Stephen Bowden and Josh Coogler comments about factory capacity for wide-body games

  • Multimorphic has significant parts inventory and new cabinet production with upgraded Fiddle Upper mechs underway

    high confidence · Robert Byers describing factory visit post-TPF, noting pallets of parts and LE pre-orders based on new flipper improvements

  • Toxic positivity in pinball media has contributed to failed startups that collected investor money based on hype

    medium confidence · Zach Minney's extended commentary on media integrity and industry culture

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm only here to report the facts. Numbers don't lie, right? I can do one or two. And I thought to myself, you know what? Why am I going to do it otherwise if I'm not being honest and I'm not being real with myself?”

    Zach Minney@ 13:05 — Core statement of editorial philosophy after hiatus; establishes commitment to critical honesty over crowd-pleasing

  • “A lot of fluff pieces out there. Fluff is safe. Fluff is comfy for people. It's like a warm cloud that hugs you. But at times, man, it's a waste of everybody's bandwidth.”

    Zach Minney@ 7:14 — Critique of industry media practices and content quality standards

  • “I came into podcasting in this hobby with the express intent of deliberately not trying to make friends with anyone who worked at a manufacturer... I knew that if everyone's your friends, it's hard to criticize your friends publicly.”

    Zach Minney@ 11:20 — Explains approach to avoiding conflicts of interest in small community; reflects broader industry dynamic

  • “Honestly, it's been an absolute mess, and like I said previously, I'm still extremely confused as to why this design has been such a nuisance to Stern, versus even the recent Mandalorian and Godzilla, both of which had scoop openings with no issues.”

    Craig Bobby@ 17:22 — Ongoing quality control concern; establishes context for Scoop Mod 4.0 announcement

  • “With more games to come, the idea of future titles only costing half of the market gaming prices of today is very exciting.”

    Robert Byers@ 23:47 — Market positioning insight; suggests competitive pricing strategy for modular platform

Entities

Zach MinneypersonDennis CreaselpersonKen RudbergpersonCraig BobbypersonJack DangerpersonRaymond DavidsonpersonRobert ByerspersonKeith Elwinperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Extended discussion of toxic positivity in pinball media, failure of startups due to credulous hype, and tension between honest criticism and perceived shiilling. Zach commits to critical honesty regardless of blowback.

    high · Zach's 20+ minute monologue on media disingenuousness, references to failed startups, and personal philosophy of maintaining editorial independence from manufacturers

  • ?

    product_concern: Stern Rush scoop design defect ongoing despite multiple iterations. Community members applying Mylar protections, refusing to play, and purchasing aftermarket Ninja Camp Mods solutions. Scoop Mod 4.0 promised.

    high · Craig Bobby's detailed breakdown of Rush scoop issues, comparison to Godzilla/Mandalorian designs with no issues, mentions of Ninja Camp Mods filling gap, Raymond Davidson confirmation of upcoming mod

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Multimorphic P3 platform perception improving. Robert Byers describes prior hesitation due to gameplay feel; upgraded flipper mechanics and solid theme (Weird Al) converted skeptic to purchaser. LE pre-order placed.

    high · Robert Byers describing flipper mix improvements, willingness to purchase after prior hesitation, comparison to prior skepticism about platform feel

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Jack Danger rumored to be developing Cornerstone game for Stern. Source is anonymous 'one-eyed pirate of TPS.' Likely to see Danger bumped up in production rotation following Jurassic Park success.

    medium · Craig Bobby citing unnamed source, Danger's home Jurassic Park success as precedent for factory title

  • ?

Transcript

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0:00
Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised.
0:11
The Pinball Network is online. Launching the Pinball Show. It has been a while, but we're back and we've got a big ol' show to make up for our absence. In episode 96, I first reflect upon my time away and how it will affect my content moving forward. Dennis and I chat about TPF, the Twippies, media fluff, the new rumored Jaws pinball title, updates to Stern Pinball's production schedule. You love that. The upcoming Cornerstone release by Stern Pinball. Keith Elwin's comments in a recent interview. Making it rain golden nugs. My first impressions of Weird Al's Museum of Natural Hilarity. My continued impressions of the P3 system as a whole. Feeling like I'm taking crazy pills. American pinball updates. Jersey Jack pinball updates. Chicago Gaming Company lack of updates. The upcoming MGC show. And of course, pinball market trends. Now if you find this episode a little bit too long, we've got a solution for you. It's called a pause button.
1:16
Let's go! Pinball is a game of skill. For some, it's a passion and a lifestyle. It's time for the Pinball Show. It's pinball with personality.
1:45
Where am I? Who are you? I think this is the Pinball Show. I believe it's episode 96. Is that right, Dennis? Is it 96? I think it's 96. It's the 96 there, Pilgrim. It's been 96. Welcome back. It's been 96 years. And welcome back to the saddle and the ranch. Oh, I'm bunking low. We're going to giddy up this episode. We're your hosts, Zach Minney and Dennis Creasel, of the Twippy Finalist Pinball Podcast. Oh. Congratulations, Dennis. Well, congratulations to you. It was your successful editing. We did. That, once again, made people think, eh, there's nothing else to click on. I'll give them my third place vote. It's been a while, and I'm pretty fired up. Well, you should be. I thought you were only going to be away four weeks, but it feels more like six. Sometimes things happen in pinball and in life that you just kind of want to let time pass by a bit before you comment on them. So I think it's in our best interest. Is it one of those time heals all wounds, Zach? Are your wounds healed? they're scabbed over. Ah, it's mostly scar tissue now. But I don't have a cone around my neck like my dog currently, so... Oh, your poor dog. Sounds like an allergy problem. At any moment, I could scratch it wide open, baby, puss and all. Mmm.

  • “As someone that saw the value of the platform-based game early in Multimorphic's existence, but was hesitant to buy because of the feel of the gameplay in the past... The new flipper mix along with the solid theme was enough for me to rip the band-aid off.”

    Robert Byers@ 23:19 — Signals gameplay improvement addressing prior skepticism about P3 platform; conversion of hesitant player

  • “Could this latest copyright filing be an indication that Jaws may be coming from Stern Pinball soon?”

    Craig Bobby@ 20:42 — Culmination of years-long Jaws rumor; trademark filing provides legal/documentary evidence

  • “So I've tried to not like go out of my way to befriend everyone who works at a manufacturer but the hobby is so small, it is next to impossible to not make friends with the manufacturers because they're so ingrained in the hobby, too.”

    Zach Minney@ 12:15 — Acknowledges fundamental structural challenge to editorial independence in small community

    • Dennis Nordman
    person
    Stephen Bowdenperson
    Josh Cooglerperson
    The Pinball Showpodcast
    Texas Pinball Festival (TPF)event
    Stern Pinballcompany
    American Pinballcompany
    Multimorphiccompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Godzillagame
    Weird Al's Museum of Natural Hilaritygame
    Rushgame
    Jurassic Parkgame
    Chicago Gaming Companycompany
    Twippy Awardsevent
    Universal Studioscompany

    licensing_signal: Universal Studios filed trademark update for Jaws including pinball machines (1B classification). Years-long Stern Jaws rumor may materialize. Stern previously used Jaws as internal codename for Jurassic Park.

    medium · Craig Bobby citing Jason Knapp's KnappArcade.org article about March trademark filing, explanation of 1B classification requiring intent to use, comparison to other licensed properties

  • ?

    product_launch: Stern TMNT V1.51 code update released for Pro/Premium/LE models. Cornerstone game by Jack Danger in Stern production pipeline. American Pinball six games in development.

    high · Craig Bobby's Stern News Update confirming code release; Kaz's American Pinball update describing six titles; Robert Byers noting manufacturing capacity expansion

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Godzilla's sweep of Twippy Awards (13+ categories including Game of the Year) sparks meta-commentary about award meaningfulness and monopolistic dominance. Craig Bobby questions whether community over-fixates on next shiny object.

    high · Craig Bobby's sarcastic framing of Stern's 'raking' and rhetorical question about community hype cycles and design excellence

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Ken Rudberg stepping down from Jersey Jack Pinball correspondent role after 2.5 years at The Pinball Show. Described as proficient and growth-oriented; praised by hosts.

    high · Zach Minney's opening remarks thanking Rudberg for service, noting tenure length and retirement of 'Press' hat

  • $

    market_signal: Multimorphic positioning modular platform as cost-effective alternative: future game modules expected to cost approximately half of standard pinball machine pricing. Appeals to space-constrained collectors.

    medium · Robert Byers noting future modules at 'half of the market gaming prices of today' with limited space appeal

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Multimorphic facility stocked with pallets of parts for both Weird Al modules and new cabinet production with upgraded Fiddle Upper mechanics. American Pinball expanding to handle both standard and wide-body titles.

    high · Robert Byers' post-TPF factory tour description; Kaz citing Josh Coogler's Pinside comment about American Pinball factory design flexibility

  • ?

    design_innovation: Multimorphic implementing upgraded flipper mechanics ('flipper mix') in new cabinet production, credited with improving Weird Al gameplay reception and converting skeptics to buyers.

    high · Robert Byers describing 'new flipper mix' as sufficient motivation to purchase LE; prior hesitation attributed to gameplay feel

  • ?

    content_signal: Zach Minney returns to The Pinball Show after six-week hiatus with renewed commitment to critical honesty and unfiltered analysis. Expressed frustration with 'fluff' media and toxic positivity. Plans 'full force' approach toward episode 100.

    high · Extended opening monologue about media integrity, commitment to 'real' commentary, acknowledgment of need for honesty with audience and co-hosts

    • 3:09
    So they want to hear the real deal? Well, I've been sitting back for, I looked, it was like six weeks. It wasn't even four weeks. Six weeks without being on the microphone here with you beautiful people. Yeah, you were at Texas Pinball Festival being super nice to everyone. I was. Kissing hands and shaking babies.
    3:27
    I'm not shaking babies. I'm certainly not kissing any hands. I had a little cold from that show. Yeah, I did too. Uh-huh. Yeah, everybody had that. What did you call it? You called it something. Oh, that's a Tony from a Collected Gamers podcast expression, con crud. Con crud, yeah. That's what it was. A common thing out of conventions. I used to get that a lot from work conventions, too. One of the good things about Con Crud is that it does bring out some bass vocals. I like that. Like my Sam Elliott. Oh, I just use my equalizing settings.
    4:03
    I actually sound like this normally. That's my real voice. Alvin Jones. Man, I've heard you everywhere. I've seen streams with you on there, Dennis. I've heard podcasts. You're everywhere. We call it oversaturation, Zach. It's not a good thing. You're a pinball celebrity. I think I just had time was what it was. A Nordman skit on the last several Chronicles? Oh, that was a weird one. You saw the message from David Dennis about that. I did. To peek behind the curtains. No one cares. But here we are. We're back. So that's what's going to happen. So David sends this message. Zach's in on it as well. And he goes, hey, Dennis, I'd really like, we're doing a Dennis Nordman episode. And we'd really like something about ramps from Nordman. Can you do two or three minutes? Yeah. And Zach actually answered first, and he's like, oh, you don't know what sort of ask that was. Well, yeah. Sometimes I'm like your handler, your producer, your manager, and I'm like, don't ask the creasel for this. You come to me first, and we'll negotiate that. Well, and one of the things, and this is, again, in the podcasting circles, this is, I guess it's probably at this point relatively well-known. I don't like to record segments for people. You do not. I just generally don't do it anymore because it's felt like that became a thing, and then it became the thing, and everyone was doing it. And I just – I really don't like doing it, so I just don't. I usually say no, thank you. I'm just not interested. So plus there was no script. David didn't give me a script or anything. He said, like, can you vamp about ramps for two to three minutes? Can you be the genius and the entertainment god that you are in Pitbull? Can you come up with something? If you need to hear the episode ahead of time, like, I don't think I need that much background. I love David. I am familiar with Dennis Nordman's work. I think I've got a little bit here. I'm aware of where he places his stuff in terms of the positioning on the play field. Well, because of that.
    5:52
    Yeah, I'm just saying, Zach. I'm just saying. I'm familiar with his work. Probably not to the degree you are. I've actually never owned a Nordman game. Really? No. Wow. I've never owned him. I've never owned John Norris. I've never owned Pat Lawler. Oh. And I've owned a lot of games. I mean, not a lot compared to some of our listeners, but I've owned a lot. And I'm the non-competitive plebe. Nobody's perfect. So I'm back. Hopefully I'm better than ever. I've missed everybody here. You know what also I've missed?
    6:23
    Hopefully I'm not too strong this episode. Sometimes right before I leave for a break or when I come back from a break, I'm wily. I'm a little bit edgy. Feisty, we said. Feisty, yeah. Feisty comes out of me. So hopefully, I want to be real because I did sit back, Dennis, and I've got to be honest with you. Listen to a lot of podcasts. Watch a lot of pinball videos. I think having the pinball show back in its normal fashion is a good thing for pinball. Hmm. I don't know. I don't see things like that in terms of good or bad. It merely is what is. Does that make sense? All right, Descartes. I've been listening to podcasts. I've got to say, some of you out there are creating some great content. Here's where I talk it up, and then I cut you down a couple. Man, a lot of fluff pieces out there. It's been weighing on me. A lot of fluff. Fluff is safe. Fluff is comfy for people. It's like a warm cloud that hugs you. Yeah, but at times, man, it's a waste of everybody's bandwidth. I had a discussion, and this was months ago.
    7:24
    I think it was on one of the Discords. Not a TPN one. It was on another podcast group. I think it was a video game podcast, actually. But it kind of came up because there was some... We had... Not actually you and I, but my other podcast, The Collected Gamers Podcast. We'd gotten some feedback because we were a little harsh on some video game product in the views of one of the listeners. So they thought, why were you so hard on this? Poor Blizzard. And it was a fair enough point because we were not kind in terms of what we were talking about. And I thought was, I tried to think about it because, you know, I really don't like it when people just run things down for the sport of it. That bothers me. It's that toxic negativity. But there's such a thing as toxic positivity, too. Yes. And that's kind of where it's been. So one of the things I try and do when I talk about pinball is that's why I often will emphasize what I like and don't like about games or about manufacturers. But it's not about – I try not to at least make it about the individuals, the designers, the coders, the owners, the operators. I want it to be about – I'm critiquing the product. But if I'm too kind to it, if I'm too positive when that positivity isn't really there, it not only is artificial and a deception. We've seen the side effects in pinball of toxic positivity in terms of all those failed startups that people kept their money in because people were saying, you've got to believe, you've got to believe. And believe that this is not Peter Pan.
    8:56
    You can't fly. Don't try jumping. Yeah, that's not pixie dust that she just sprinkled on you. Don't go outside in your nightgown in the snow. Are you crazy? Poor Nana. So anyway, but, you know, you do get blowback. I mean, look at poor Joel. We got poor Joel who, you know, had just a couple first impressions about his experience on Halloween. On Triple Drain Pinball Podcast. Yeah, on Triple Drain Pinball Podcast. And someone went into the TPN thread on Pennside and was really, really aggressive about it. And by aggressive, I mean, actually, it went so far as to tell him to go back and censor it. Yeah, I laughed, too, when I saw it. Because I'm like, oh, my sweet listeners. Yeah, sometimes.
    9:43
    It certainly does happen. And, again, behind the scenes here in my own fucked up mind is I struggle in life in general. and it expands to pinball, Dennis and listener, that it feels like we reinforce, not to soapbox you, but it feels like we reinforce disingenuous interactions and communications within one another. And over the last month, it bugs me when I hear media content, whether it's pinball or outside of pinball, where I know, because I've had private conversations with these people, how they really feel about something, and then they go report on it. It's totally different. that kind of stuff, it just bugs me. I'm known for being a shill and biased and all this stuff. I want to say, you know, if that's the case, then you guys aren't listening. You guys aren't looking. You aren't seeing what's really going on. It was troublesome for the last month or so. So I'm glad I'm back. And for better or worse, I'm going to bring it. Well, welcome back. Do you think some of that's because of how small pinball is? Possibly.
    10:47
    Because I see less of it like in video games. Okay. And because I podcast on that as well, it comes up in my mind. And the reason that I bring it up is in the case of video games, it's such a large – I mean, it's bigger than Hollywood. It's such a large hobby at this stage that there's professional journalists who work in it. And they've had their issues too. And there's been controversy too. And there's been issues about pay-to-play and overly positive stuff, of course, as well. But in pinball, so many people know each other on a personal level. Like, it's practically impossible. I came into podcasting in this hobby with the express intent of deliberately not trying to make friends with anyone who worked at a manufacturer. I know this could be true. Yeah, you're right. And I didn't try and push them away, but I was like, I knew people who got into this stuff, who got into podcasting or other content creation, and it seemed to me, and maybe I was wrong, but it seemed to me their goal was to rub shoulders with people in the industry. I had no interest in that. I have no interest. I still have no interest in that. I probably had an interest in that five years ago. now I just I don't well everyone has their own motivations I'm not saying that mine was more right or more wrong than anyone else's I'm just saying that's that was part of it was because I knew I wanted to commentate I felt the only way I could do it fairly is if you know everyone you're friends with everyone it's hard to criticize your friends publicly really is so I've tried to not like go out of my way to befriend everyone who works at a manufacturer but the hobby is so small, it is next to impossible to not make friends with the manufacturers because they're so ingrained in the hobby, too. Sure. Like, they love the hobby, too. It's not just for them a job. In summary here, we're going to go through the correspondence, our friends, our buddies, our reporters there. But basically it's this. I've had a lot of time to reflect, Dennis. It was healthy. It was good for me. And at the end of all of this, I was coming on to episode 96 with two ideas. Either I can give what a lot of people want in this world And I can put on a smile And it can be rainbows and puppy dogs And farts that don't stink I can do that Or I can just keep bringing it And I can keep being real Whether or not people want to believe me or not I'm only here to report the facts Numbers don't lie, right? I can do one or two And I thought to myself, you know what? Why am I going to do it otherwise if I'm not being honest And I'm not being real with myself With you, Dennis, as my co-host Or any of the other co-hosts I have and with the audience. So, damn it, as we're rolling closer to episode 100, you thought last year was big. You thought last year was real and entertaining. You see nothing yet. I am full force. I'm 100% in, and I might ruffle some feathers, and I might piss you off at times, but I'm always telling you how I really think and how I really analyze the situation for better or for worse. And, you know, I think that's what you all deserve. With that being said, let's kick it over to the correspondence. We do have late breaking news here this last week. Ken Rudberg, who was wonderfully covering Jersey Jack Pinball for the Pinball Show here, he said, you know what? I've been doing it two and a half years. I think I'm good. He's hung up the reporter hat. The one that says Press in it and the little brim? Yep. He had one of those. He retired it and we hoisted it up to the rafters of our eight-foot studio ceiling here at the Pinball Show headquarters. And we want to wish Ken Rudberg the very best. he was proficient. He was great at what he did. He grew immensely over the last couple years of doing this and I think I speak for you Dennis when I say that we can't thank him enough and he was just wonderful at what he did and we cannot, can't wait to see if he continues to do anything of this nature in the future or anything in the industry but regardless he'll always be a friend. Thank you for everything you have done and continue to do for Pinball Ken Redberg. Love you buddy.
    14:41
    Hello and welcome to the Pinball Show's Stern News Update. I'm Craig Bobby. Well, good to be back after a two-week hiatus. Who knew that we could be so distracted from a possible World War III by one celebrity slapping another during an awards show. Oh, what a wacky, wacky world we are living in. But forget all that nonsense for a moment. and sit back now and relax as we get you caught up on the world of Stern Pinball. Speaking of award shows, we of course had the annual Twippy Awards, hosted at the Texas Pinball Festival by Jack Danger and the lovely Emoto Harney. And in case you didn't hear, Stern's Godzilla wins, well, pretty much everything. A quick rundown of all the awards Stern raked in, and it was an absolute raking, as chosen by you, the pinball-playing public. The Godzilla-based awards included Best Playfield Gameplay and Layout, Best Toys and Gimmicks, Best Animations and Display, Best Light Show, Best Theme, Best Theme Integration, Best Artwork, Lime and Sheets Award for Best Rules, Best Callouts, Best Music and Sound Effects, and last, but certainly not least, Game of the Year. Oh yeah, and Insider Connector won for Favorite Accessory. Seems like a lot of trouble to go through all this to hand out basically everything to one company. Or is it? I mean, are we so jaded now in pinball that we're too fixated in waiting for the next shiny toy to come out that we simply can't appreciate pinball greatness when it comes at us straight down the middle? Could anything else have beaten Godzilla this year, or frankly any year in the last five, as this Elwynn design masterpiece still sits proudly at the pinnacle of the Pinside Top 100 and probably will for some time. That is, until the next Elwynn title comes along. Talk about getting slapped. How about Stern's Rush Scoopgate debacle that is still ongoing? Just look at what's going on in the Rush community right now. We have confused Rush buyers laying down strips of Mylar like Band-Aid on your kid's great knee as their friends stand by and shake their heads thinking, you paid how much for this thing? We have people refusing to play their Rush games until they have it fixed. Now that does take some willpower. We have people searching their hearts out online, going to the mod community to look for answers and finding some success, but for an additional price. And still others that are simply damning the torpedoes to it all, and playing their Rush games anyway, only to absolutely destroy their Scoop openings by using no protection. Oh no!
    17:14
    Frankly, I haven't seen Scoops this bad since the summer of 86, when I worked at the local Baskin and Robbins ice cream shop. Honestly, it's been an absolute mess, and like I said previously, I'm still extremely confused as to why this design has been such a nuisance to Stern, versus even the recent Mandalorian and Godzilla, both of which had scoop openings with no issues. One scoop hole. Two scoop holes.
    17:41
    Apparently, never has it been so hard to protect two holes located so close together. Meanwhile, here comes a little startup company called Ninja Camp Mods on Pinside with nothing but a 3D printer and a dream to protect all the helpless forgotten scoops scattered across the galaxy. and you know what? Their flexible rubber urethane protectors actually seem to be working. Ho ho! So bravo to them as they rake in the dollars trying to clean up this stern-created design mess. I can just see Steve Ritchie shaking his head and laughing surrounded by Jersey Jack White Whiz going, see? Stern wouldn't give me an engineer either. John Borg is like, seriously guys, I gave you a decent design and you can't even protect a couple holes? Come on! And I can tell you, Rush fans around the world are hanging their heads in shame and saying, we were so close, so close. But fear not, fear not, before the pitchforks get too sharp, and for those that think chaos has erupted in the Stern Castle, we have what I'm calling Scoop Mod 4.0 coming soon from Stern. Courtesy of Stern's own Raymond Davidson, who was recently heard on the latest Flametail podcast, shout out to Bruce Nightingale and Ron Hallett, love these guys, who commented during the show that yes, in fact, a new Scoop mod kit is now going out to eager Rush owners, yet again, and that this new protector was also being installed on the latest batch of Premiums and Pros leaving the factory this month. Will this new mod actually protect our beloved Rush Scoops, and can we put all this behind us like a bad Will Smith apology? Well, we will have to wait and see. And now over to Rumor Corner, we have news coming hot on the heels of the Texas Pinball Festival from a source that will only be referred to as the one-eyed pirate of TPS, that Jack Danger is all set to helm his own cornerstone game at Stern Pinball. Now, what the theme is for his first cornerstone and where this cornerstone will fit on the Stern production schedule, well, that remains to be seen. but I certainly wouldn't be surprised to see Jack bumped up in the rotation, coming off his critically acclaimed rookie effort with a home-pinned version of Jurassic Park. And courtesy of Jason Knapp, as I plagiarized the shit out of his recent article on KnappArcade.org, love you Jason, Jason came across an interesting discussion on Pinside from a user who noticed that this past March 1st, Universal Studios updated its trademark for Jaws to include pinball machines. Say what? Now, as it turns out, Universal is filing trademark for Jaws under what they call, quote, 1B, which requires that they have an actual intent to use the trademark on the goods listed. It's a pretty strong indication there's a Jaws machine in the works, end quote. Much like Back to the Future, James Bond, Goonies, and Harry Potter, there's been rumors for years that Stern is going to make a Jaws pinball machine, to the point that Stern even trolled people by using Jaws as its internal codename for its Keith Elwin-designed Jurassic Park pinball machine. Could this latest copyright filing be an indication that Jaws may be coming from Stern Pinball soon? Once again, we shall have to wait and see. And one quick code update. In the last couple weeks, Stern Pinball has posted new code for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles V1.51 for the Pro, Premium, and Limited Edition models. Well, as you can see, always lots going on in the Stern world. Glad we caught up. Thanks so much for hanging in there. For the Pinball Show, I'm Craig Bobby. Catch you on the flip side.
    21:16
    Hey, this is Kaz with an update on American Pinball. I reached out to Stephen Bowden. He was at the District 82 this past weekend for a few pinball tournaments. Now, there's no major news to report on, but everyone can go back and watch the American Pinball Seminar from TPF. Now, there is some post-TPF news and rumors. Christopher Franchi has been working on art for an upcoming game. That game should be out later this year. And also, owners of the Legends of Valhalla Deluxe Edition can now get these side art blades for free. Just need to go online and register that with American Pinball so they can ship them out to you. And there are possibly six games being developed right now, both unlicensed and licensed themes. Now, we've got games coming from Dennis Nordman, a Barry Ousler design, and possibly a second title from Riot Pinball, such as the wide-body title Wrath of Olympus. Now, Josh Coogler mentioned on Pinside this past week that the American Pinball Factory is designed and set up to handle both standard and wide-body games. So, could one of the next titles be a wide-body? As Craig Bobby says, I guess we'll have to just wait and see. So, I hope everybody has a great week and has fun playing pinball. For the Pinball Show, this is Brian Kosner. Can you smell what the rock is cooking?
    22:42
    Finally, the Rob has come to the Pinball Show podcast as the Multimorphic Correspondent. This is Robert Byers from Top Rope Pinball to give you the latest news regarding Multimorphic. Weird Al had a huge showing at TPF with non-stop lines and smiling people leaving the game. Dr. John and I were lucky enough to visit the Multimorphic Manufacturing location on Monday evening after TPF for a tour with Jerry. Walking in the door, the first thing you noticed was pallets and pallets of parts to gear up to produce not only weird-out modules, but brand new cabinets which will include the upgraded Fiddle Upper Mechs. As someone that saw the value of the platform-based game early in Multimorphic's existence, but was hesitant to buy because of the feel of the gameplay in the past. Yours truly has a LE on order. The new flipper mix along with the solid theme was enough for me to rip the band-aid off and purchase a complete system. As someone that has limited space for games, the idea of having three to five machines to play, taking up only a single cabinet space, is highly appealing. With more games to come, the idea of future titles only costing half of the market gaming prices of today is very exciting. Well, that's enough from me for my first recording. Since I live 15 minutes from the shop, I plan to gather information from all the employees at Multimorphic about their excitement, challenges, and favorite parts about Weird Al. Until next time, IF YOU SMELL WHAT THE ROB IS CORRESPONDING!
    24:18
    Well, it was great, Zach, to hear from those correspondents. Absolutely. I've been gone for six weeks. What did I miss? There has been a lot. There's been a lot going down, and we're about to go over it all again. And we're going to rehash it all again, even though I did a... How did you describe my last episode, 95, of the Pinball Show? It was decent, but dry. I said it was very... I think that's what you told me. I think it was very good, but it was a bit dry because your wit cannot come out on a solo show as easy, I would argue. That's all. We got a lot of great feedback about that show. I thought you were going to give 100% honesty. That was 100%. Dennis, this was, it was like.
    25:05
    Yeah, see, you're one of my great friends, and I told you I thought it was great. Well, fair enough. I had someone else post on the Pinside thread that I was totally wrong about my Halloween views, and I think you would probably agree with that person. You did a really, really good analysis of Halloween, you and Tony. There were some things that I thought were a bit silly that you guys discussed, but that's for a different episode. Yeah, we got way more. This ain't no Halloween episode. I would say, Zach, that you should start at the beginning, the beginning for you, And that would be really Louisville Arcade and Pinball Show. It's been six weeks ago. Oh, that's nice that you tried to do Rose. I know. Yours is more like Daisy.
    25:51
    All right, I'll leave that one to you. Louisville Arcade and Pinball Show was a success. Dan there killed Nicole and I, but I want to thank all of those who helped set up the booth, all of those who helped break down. Got to hang out with Stern Pinball's Dwight Sullivan, beat him in Turtles, Let's put up a $45 million on that. It was nice. How did you beat him? He should know the rules. He was in all. I'm going to say, our friend Dwight was like, Zach, you, so, okay, so you know how to play pinball. Which I like here, Dwight Sullivan impressed me with William Satner. Well, Dwight is very. Zach, how could you ever, could you know to get this many points in Turtles? You leveled up on your turtle. Yeah, that's Dwight Sullivan.
    26:36
    But he said, you're actually good at pinball. Well, not bad. Not bad. Stern Pinball's Mike Vinicore. Got to hang out with him, as well as marketing manager Michael Grant. And we got to spend some time with J.J. Peace Keith Johnson. Kiefer, man. Love that guy. Then we went to, what, TPF? That was a blast. Did you have fun at TPF? You didn't have to work a booth. Didn't have to work a booth. Well, not really. Kind of. I had to find games for the TPN booth. And find you did. I've heard the Cactus Canyon remake went over very well. I actually played that one in the booth at one point. Oh, yeah. Special thank you to Chicago Gaming Company for letting us, in the middle of the show, drag Cactus Canyon over to the TPM booth to stream it. Yes, thank you, CGC. That was a lot of fun. That's about how fast they're shipping these things.
    27:22
    Oh, uh-oh. Through a busy convention. See, I'm keeping it real, people. TPF was a blast, though, from what I can remember of it. No booth. I wasn't fully intoxicated, but I was having fun. I mean, George Fisher worked his butt off for that booth. And Tommy. Tommy, yeah. Jedi McMuffin. And Hottie, too. Hottie, yeah. Frisco Pinball. And a lot of others to make that whole thing a success. So thank you, team, for the TPN booth coverage. That was awesome. I think you guys said it on Collected Gamers podcast. Dennis, the game of the show was Multimorphics Weird Al, Museum of Fantasy. I said it on both. Yeah. Tony did agree with me on EGP. Yep. And probably rightfully so, because it's pretty dynamic in a lot of ways. Didn't have much of any competition to make it not the game of the show, but that was the new thing. Everybody wanted to play it. There was lines backed up. It's a fair point about that there weren't a lot of other new things outside of some 2.0 kits and getting a chance to experience the LV version of Alien. But just even with the two games they had, the line length, that's really what I use as the measure. It was in demand the whole time. People were getting back in line for it. I talked to a lot of people, hung out with a lot of people, a bunch of game creators in the industry. Always liked getting them lubed up at the end of the night and getting them drinking a little bit. They get a little, you know, they like to talk. I didn't late night party with you at all, Dennis. Well, we stayed up till 1.30 outside talking after the Twippies. I get that doesn't count. I guess it doesn't count. That was like Amanda Hamilton of Free Play Pinball Podcast that sent Tony and I a message because they had evacuated our hotel, the Drury, because some kid had pulled the fire alarm. Oh, that's right. Are you guys out? The fire alarm's going off, and we're like, we're still outside talking. What are you? It's only like 11. We were like, we're not back at the hotel. You actually drank a beer with me, too. Yeah. I don't remember what it was. It was way too bitter for me. But, you know, once I open it, I'm going to finish it. Man, once you're finished with it, Nordman came out. Yeah, that's something Matt Morrison gave me, as I recall. Yeah, actually, I don't usually drink a lot. I did at TPF a lot by my standards, which is like two drinks every single day, except the last day when I had to drive back.
    29:50
    But, yeah, I don't know. It was a big can of something. That was after Saturday Night After the Twippies, yeah. Yep, because we had talked outside of the Twippies when the after party was going on for over an hour. Well, you might not have been at all of that. There was more people hanging out in the hallway than there was the after party. Well, because you couldn't be in the after party room and talk. It was too loud. Sure, sure. You had to be out in the hall. I didn't go to any seminars. I went to a couple seminars. I only went to the Twippies. I did not attend a single quote-unquote seminar. I heard the Merco one was a shit show. He attempted to showcase his Totan 2.0. I watched part of the Twitch stream after that happened. I watched part of the recording. It was too hard for me to really hear a lot of the questions well. But, yeah, I mean, he's trying to talk about Totan 2.0. People are bringing up the play field thing. I did have someone comment on our Pinsight thread that they thought I was too – and they didn't use the word soft, but they felt like I was giving Mirko a pass. So allow me to elaborate a little bit. You made a good argument. Go ahead. Well, let me, just to clarify, because I can see how someone might get that impression. What I'm trying to do is distinguish how I view your role as a consumer and where rage or correction needs to be directed is with whoever you have a contract with. That's all my emphasis was. I don't know if Marco is or isn't responsible for their playfield, for the playfield issues of Jersey Jack Pinball. I would assume they are since they supply the playfield. But that being said, your complaint should be with JJP. they sold you the game. Or the dealer, you said. Or the distributor. And I mentioned that too. Or the distributor. It's whoever you go through, whoever you bought the game from. So unless your complaint is with a Merco repo playfield you bought from Merco, you really should be complaining to the vendor. And they are to complain to Merco. That was my only point. So I get that, again, this is a small hobby. Everyone knows that Merco is supplying the playfield. So there's this desire to go to the source and show the rage. But that's not the proper protocol. He knew better than to show up and not have any discussion points. And I said that. The problem is, Mirko, in his own thread on Pinside about Totan 2.0, had people, because he was posting in that thread, he had people bringing up the play field. So you would have to be incredibly obtuse to show up to TPF and not have some talking points to say, yeah, we're in discussions with JJP. we're trying to understand if this is an issue involving like how they're torquing down the parts or just something and he had nothing and the part of the problem was I did hear and one of his responses was he said there is no problem no no no no no no he should have just pled the Bobby Mueller I plead the fifth that's what he should have done I am now covered in pop because I just put it out all over with your impression your Bobby impression Oh, my God.
    32:45
    You'll be sticky. So, no, he should have handled it better. But people who are, if it's an issue with your JJP game, it really needs to be funneled through JJP. That's the process. I don't, when I have bad coil stops from Stern, I blame Stern. I don't blame whoever built the coil stop. You see what I mean? And you go to Stern or you go to the dealer. Yeah. Yes. So that was all I was trying to convey. Not that Mirko is doing a good job. Yeah. Yeah, I get that. And speaking of Merco and Playfields, JJP had a seminar. I wanted to support Ken Cromwell, so I went to that. Nothing really new there with Jack Guarneri and Steve Ritchie speaking. Nothing new. Did I tell you what I proposed to Ken just before he went in there? I probably didn't. I don't think I told anyone. All right. So I was talking to Ken about 15 minutes before that seminar was going to start. He's like, oh, Dennis, I got to go. I got to go into the seminar. Everyone is going to want us to have a reveal, and we don't have one. So it's going to be organized. We're going to talk about company. POTC runs. Yeah. And Ken told me he had a thought about just wheeling in a covered-up game and just leaving it covered the whole time.
    33:55
    And I said, I like it, but what I would do is, and I pointed, there is a high speed right there. Cover it, wheel it in, original high speed. when you're done, pull the cover off of it, and then everyone just leave the room.
    34:12
    So cruel. I thought it was fun, but he didn't do it. That's so mean. Ken, I weaved you gold. Well, the one thing I did, I don't know if many people caught it, but the play field issues were brought up, and Jack Winery did kind of suggest that it was a problem, and it was an issue, finally. It's not the customer's fault anymore? That was the last thing that I vaguely remember hearing. He still snuck that in there, too. And I was like, I was sitting there as a dealer. I'm like, Jack, don't do it. Why? Don't. If you guys would just not take the glass off. Oh, don't do it. It wouldn't be a problem.
    34:55
    But poor Ken was probably on edge the whole time. Like, oh, boy. Don't say anything, Steve. Don't say anything, Jack. Oh, no. He's probably thinking, I should have brought that high speed in. That's right. A diversion. I didn't play Elf. It looked cool. I didn't play that. I still love Billy Madison, that three theme. I had lunch with you and Loser Kid friends and Tony, and we had a lot of fun at lunch. Had a late night. At one point, I got to the hotel at 4 a.m. Oh, wow. After having pizza at 3 in the morning with Ken Cromwell, Joe Fox, and Drew Boivere from the Poor Man's Spinball Podcast. That was a night.
    35:37
    I only got, I didn't get any pizza. There was some pizza that the Loser Kids ordered, but then some guy came and stole half of a pie. Josh Rupp was really upset about that, too. He was. Well, I mean, those pizzas ain't cheap, so I sympathized with the pizza. So I did that. The Twippies went to the Twippies. You went to the Twippies as well. I did. I went, Greg, Bone, and I from Straight Down the Middle presented. Yeah, that was, I think, surprised a lot of people. Yeah, they thought, oh, yeah, there's no way you guys are going to be allowed up on that stage. Yeah, that's right. So we had to disguise ourselves as Mandalorian and Godzilla. There was a whole story behind the scenes getting that all together. Your Mando outfit was really cool. Thank you. But given that Godzilla was going to win everything, I would have rather have been the Godzilla so that I could have done a Godzilla roar. Oh. I think Greg pulled it off pretty well. I did give him an alternative mask that really represented the Toho theming. Yes. He said the skin tones didn't match well enough. No, the color, you got to be the proper green. Yeah. I bought the cosplay outfit for Mandalorian. I just selfishly wanted to own the Black Series Mandalorian helmet. There's a good picture of Dr. John floating around where he's in his orange suit with that Mando helmet doing the splits. Oh, I did see that. And for all of you who messaged me during, after the Twippies with congratulatory messages or comments or just, you know, wanting myself or Greg to be a part of that, again, thank you guys for all of those messages and all the support. I went back and watched. I experienced the Twippies. I wanted a little time to pass here before I discuss too much about this, but nobody else seems to be covering it, so might as well. I talked about it on the episode 9 to 5 You did You did You covered how you wrote I tried I tried to be fair as I often are I had people message This is really weird I had people messaging me about you and Greg and the Twippies And I was like, I don't. What the hell does that have to do with me? You guys know I don't plan those, right? You do know I have no pull with anything like that.
    37:46
    But it was, because I enjoy experiencing the Twippies. I normally do. But that one was pretty rough. Yeah. So I watched the Twippies and then went back and watched the comic. You watched the online version. Yeah.
    38:01
    I've never gone and looked at it. One of the highlights for me of the entire year is the Twippies. Even if I'm removed from it, it's still part of me. Well, it celebrates the industry. That's the idea. That's right. Well, that's the goal. That's the goal anyway. So a lot of people are like, well, what did you think about it? What did you think about it? Won't go into, won't deep dive this thing. Pun intended from this week's pinball, I guess. So I won't do that I will say Like I said at the top of the show I'm going to be real about things This isn't a negative thing This isn't trying to harm any people This is just being honest with what the Twippies were Overall It was borderline appalling It was a mess It was embarrassing To sit in an audience at times There were some good things that came out of it And the celebration of the winners was awesome I like the acceptance speeches the piece with Doctor Who coming out with the prop albeit a lot of people couldn't see or hear it whether they were in person or on the VOD or stream it worked really really well, that was a really smart idea I did love seeing Todd Tuckey finally getting that trophy oh yes, standing ovation for Todd there was a lot of fun, good things but other than that, it was a mess It was a total mess. And there are some things, unfortunately, that I'm attached to so many different things. Dennis and listener, you know that I can't, I can, I will talk about certain things. But there are certain things that our listeners just are going to roll their eyes or not believe me on. And Twivy's is one of them, right? Multimorphic is one of them as well because I don't sell Multimorphic. So how can I talk about them? That argument has no logic, of course. But that's just what the feelings tell everybody. So for whatever it's worth Who am I to say anything about the Twippies But it was a mess They know it was a mess All around it was a mess It wasn't just the I keep hearing the tiptoeing of other podcasters Or other media saying The sound was an issue Why didn't they rehearse No, from tops down And Jeff and I are good We talk now So this isn't a Jeff thing per se This is just a It was a mess It failed in almost every area and it, I think, set back that brand and it set back the award shows in general moving forward. Oh, so you think it has an impact on any other shows that happen? Because obviously I've been working on the Pinball Industry Awards the last couple of years. I think it has the... I don't like you telling me that this hurt me or my interest. It has the capacity to. Yeah. I think we've seen a line of hundreds of people for this Twippies. And at the end of the ceremony, Dennis, half of the people were gone. I think this goes back to TPF next year, and you're not going to see that line. I think it killed some of that. And that's what hurts so bad. That really, really hurts. And it wasn't just the audio. It was the audio. But it was the video. The video was all messed up, and the editing was messed up on it. I love her to death as a person. I respect the hell out of her as a content creator and as a profession, because she does this for a profession. I don't think she had time to do it. It was a mess. The hosting was a mess. There was no organization. There was no segues. There was no rapport between the two hosts. It was a mess all the way around.
    41:28
    That's all I've got to say about that. Well, that mirrors a lot of what I've already discussed, so I won't rehash it because people who heard the last episode already know. And if you're listening to this episode, you probably subscribed, so you probably heard the last one too. Yeah, and I know a lot of people didn't want to comment on it. They knew it was coming. Well, again, it gets to where it's like when you know all these people in the hobby, it's hard to criticize them. Yeah. Especially, as you noted, when there are those that you respect quite a bit. Yeah. Like, I feel, I don't want to say that about a moto, you know, performance and stuff like that, but it's the truth. I'm trying to build a relationship again with Jeff Patterson. I'm being real here. So this, you know, on a service level doesn't seem to help, but it's not for that. It's for my dedication to what we helped create and what we continue to create in the PIAs. It just didn't work. Significant changes need to happen. And I can tell you this, when I keep hearing, well, a production company is going to fix it. What happened the first couple of years when it went over fine? It's not a production company thing. It's called dedication and preparation. That's all. Sure, a production company would be nice. You want to spend $10,000 to $20,000 on that? Sure, absolutely. Why not? But let's not blame it on a microphone.
    42:48
    Come on. So, T.P., that was great. That was good. Stern Pinball was there in a big way. Did you see all those Mandalorians and guys? Or at least through Marco, they rushed us. Yeah. That was a big... Yeah, I played one of the rushes with the new airbag scoop protector. Oh, my gosh. It works. Yeah. Someone needs to make a mod to make those not ugly. Not the prettiest, but it works.
    43:19
    Yeah, Stern Pinball in the news this week. Right now, the big rumor listener is... Bump. I'm trying to do the music, Dennis. You hear it now. Yeah, I can tell, but at first I thought you were doing like a... Garsh. Garsh there, Mickey. No, Jaws is the big rumored game that's coming out soon for Stern Pinball. Do you believe it?
    43:46
    Given the information I saw about the update on the trademark, yes, I do. Now a strong possibility, Jaws Pinball. Pinside user Bandit78 posted proof on Pinside that Universal Studios recently updated their trademarks to their Jaws franchise and property to include, quote, pinball machines.
    44:07
    That's a pretty big sign. I mean, it could in theory be another company, but the rumors have often circulated around Stern.
    44:15
    I'm going to give the listener a little tidbit that I don't think Craig Bobby said yet. Oh, they love bits of tid. I've heard for a while that not only did Stern have Jaws, but that it's been done for a while. Oh, wow. Not shelved because... They're just sitting on it. Yeah, it's been completed. I don't know whether it's a timing thing or finding the right one. So it makes me feel like, yeah, we may see Jaws. I think we're going to see a generic Jaws like we did the World of Jurassic Park by Keith Elwin. I don't think we're going to see film assets or anything because we know that property is difficult. Or maybe film assets of the shark. I don't think we're going to get actors. It's the shark's people writing off on that. Yeah. Get his agent. What was the shark's name in that? Shark! Like, I don't know. What was his name? They didn't name it. They didn't name it? I don't think they ever named. I don't think they. Well, maybe in three. Were they like the baby one? Maybe they named the baby shark.
    45:13
    Oh, speaking of baby shark. Bessie, maybe. Maybe Bessie. I thought I had a name. I think that's the name of a cow from Twister.
    45:26
    I think we're going to see a. I don't know if it's going to be the next one. It's going to be the August Cornerstone or not. What about Venom? Everyone's talking about Venom. Mm-hmm. Could be Venom. James Bond, people are still talking about. Yeah. Back to the Future. People still, like you, want it for some reason. Among thousands upon thousands of other people that would buy it. But behind our TPN booth at TPF was Randy Martinez. Now, Randy Martinez has worked with Stern. He's a Lucasfilms kind of Star Wars approved artist. But he's worked on Mandalorian. He's worked on the comic edition of Star Wars. and he did have a print there that he was showing off proudly with a big smile on his face of Jaws.
    46:06
    But Chris Franchi was there. Did he have a Jaws one? Yeah, but that's what Franchi does. I'm just saying, there might have been Jaws art all over the place. But we know Franchi's not doing work with Stern, so I don't see that happening. But I can see, I mean... But remember, we don't know for sure that it was Stern until your super secret, you know, I've heard it's been done for a while. Yeah, but... What if that was Steve Ritchie's game at Jersey Jack? No, that was supposed to be James Bond. That's what I thought.
    46:31
    Oh. Who knows the truth? These are all just rumors and speculation, so I don't know. But Randy Martinez, I mean, he's pretty much sci-fi Star Wars kind of guy. All of a sudden we see Jules. I don't know.
    46:46
    Yeah, he's not allowed to branch out. It's Jedi and Sith only for him. Well, if that's his wheelhouse. Sitting there drawing a shark. Do you think Jules is a good theme for Pimbalton? I don't know how to answer that which is not what you wanted I like it like that why is it difficult to answer because it depends on what you want out of the game I guess the idea of a shark themed pinball is a good idea Sure. Okay. I think there's a lot you can do. In fact, we know that Zen Studios has a virtual one that, personally, I didn't like. I didn't think it was very fun. That was kind of based on Jaws. But there's so many things, like, especially with the notion that has been bantied about on all sorts of pinball forums for years now, and that is you play as the shark, as the ball. The ball's the shark. Now, I see a lot of potential with that where you could have some fun. We've seen, like, what's one of the most popular toys in pinball? It's the classic Stern Pirates of the Caribbean ship that sinks. And you can do something akin to that with a theme like this. But in terms of tying it to the movie Jaws, if you don't have the assets, the first movie Jaws is about three characters. It's not about the shark.
    48:09
    And since I don't think you have, if you don't have those, I don't think we want the Stern Jurassic Park experience with knockoff, not even close to soundalikes, soundalikes, pretending to be these people.
    48:22
    I initially thought that, but I'm going to push back a little bit. I've kind of changed my... Push back hard. I don't care. Push me over. Yeah. Put me in a cone of shame. No one puts Denton in the corner. I've kind of... Yeah, where's our dirty dancing pinball? I have the time of my life.
    48:39
    Multiball. Until you let me hoist you above my body and spin you around. No. I'm going to push back a little bit and say, I don't think the Jaws movie is that great. It's fine. Ooh. Yeah, I know. Right in. The pinball network at gmail.com. It's fine. It's good. But I don't think it necessarily holds its own with that IP for a pinball machine. And so I can actually see a more generic world of we're trying to capture this killer shark and here are the certain things we're going to do to try to trap it. Here's the things that they're going to do to try to destroy you. I, you know, fire, explosions, water, harpoons. I can actually see it. Docks, I can see a dock. If you don't have a shark coming out of the play field somehow, that's going to be like a Hot Wheels without a loop to loop. I don't know. It's the low-hanging fruit there. I don't know. I think it can work about as well as Jurassic Park works without any IP. Now, having said that, Dennis, of course, if you can get the classic, that is the Jaws IP property like that, it's always going to do better. Always going to do better. We see Mandalorians like that. It's always going to do better. But because I'm not as attached to that intellectual property, I don't think it's as – it's kind of like Godzilla. Godzilla has convinced me, because I didn't really care about the Godzilla thing, it's convinced me that if you have a good enough layout, good enough rules and toys, anything kind of is possible. I mean, I'm not saying it wouldn't be a good game and I'm not saying it wouldn't sell well I just why do I don't know why do Jaws per se I can see the issue about you want a license and not wanting to stick with a generic original theme you have to have the attached song and the name of the music will take it a long way There are a lot of different... It'll come down to gameplay a lot. And that's where I think... I mean, that's the thing with Jurassic Park, Stern Jurassic Park, is it's got the gameplay. So people look past a lot of stuff. But I say look past because there has been plenty of criticism of a lot of the voice work in it. There are a lot of people that didn't like the animations. Isn't there someone who developed a really impressive video package drop-in? Because that supposedly is way better than... I've never seen it. It is great. So that's my point. And the thing with Jaws, why Jaws has always been weird to me is, yeah, it pioneered the summer blockbuster, but Jaws is not an action movie. No. I really like Jaws, but what are the standout things about Jaws? It's not seeing the shark. It's the kid on the yellow raft and you just see the blood. Yeah, it's horror. It's the girl holding on to the buoy at the start. It's Quinn's haunting story about being in the water after the Indianapolis sunk. It's watching Richard Dreyfuss get in the shark cage and the cage getting smashed and the boat sinking and the gunshots trying to see everything. It's that beautiful zoom shot of him with a cigarette in his mouth. Yeah, yeah. But most of it is about dialogue. It's not like Quentin Tarantino about dialogue, but it's a very dialogue movie.
    52:00
    It's not like Deep Blue Sea, which is an action movie with sharks. Steve Blusey. What a pull there. Get Samuel L. Jackson to actually voice it. LL Cool J. That's right, with his bird. He's going to tell you how to make the perfect omelet. Was he the chef? Yeah. Yeah, he was. He was the chef. I think it depends on, and we're going to see this in the future, listener, it depends on that intellectual property. For example, using the rumors that we're hearing about certain games like Venom, right? You don't need that film. That is a comic book where you can do a Deadpool treatment on that. Conversely, James Bond, that is an IP that requires, in my opinion, the use of those films or audio dialogue, that kind of stuff. It just depends on the IP. And Jaws, while for me, would prefer the IP and the true IP, I think you can do it without. Yeah, I think they will do it without. So we're going to see. Because I don't think they're going to get those. I don't think they're going to get those actors' likenesses in. So they'll have to focus on the shark. And over the last six weeks, you guys have been void and desperate for production updates from Stern. And no one does better, like the pinball show. So we're going to go through some production updates for you guys. Some of you podcasters out there, I'm looking at you, Kaneda, really struggling to find this information, confusing people here. So here's the skinny. This last week, this dropped and pissed a lot of people off, made a lot of people happy. Jurassic Park Pro and Premium, they were scheduled, listener, to be built at the end of this month. They were supposed to go online at the end of this month. People have been waiting pretty long for Jurassic Park to run. I don't believe it's run this year at all. It was supposed to be on the line at the end of the month. That has since been bumped back to a July build. It's actually taking the place of Deadpool. Deadpool Pro and Premium. originally it was August then they bumped it up to July intended it to be July now they're swapping that with the runs of Jurassic Park I wonder if they just got such a backlog of Deadpools they're like we gotta do something people are getting mad I don't know if that were the case then they would run Godzilla Premium for the rest of the year if that were the case without numeric specifics and if you don't want to say just say you don't want to say But do you have more pending orders for Jurassic Park or for Deadpool? Oh, that's a good question. I think it's probably about even right now. Okay. Probably a nudge to Deadpool since it's been longer. But Jurassic Park still people are wanting it. And they've produced a crap load of Jurassic Park. I would argue that they've produced Jurassic Park with a hit from day one, where Deadpool took a little bit of time to warm up a little bit. So they've produced a lot of Jurassic Parks, I would say. So I think for the delay here, it's probably a parts issue for the Jurassic Park. Oh, okay. Well, I mean, that often could be the case for a lot of these shift-ups, I've wondered, because it almost seems like no rhyme. Or like when we constantly heard about the Elvira pushbacks. Yes, yes. And I've also heard that they don't like building Elvira. Yes. More difficult than most of the games. Not their favorite. Probably a higher bomb, too. So when it comes to Jurassic Parks, we've got those now going back to July. Most of your dealers are going to not have open spots for that. So I've been telling people 2023 for a number of certain titles. I'm telling people 2023 for Jurassic Park Pro Premium. I'm telling people that for Godzilla, for Deadpool, for Elvira, for, I mean, if you name it. So the first part of May, we're going to start seeing Deadpool Pro and Premium runs. Woo-hoo. That makes a lot of people happy, Dennis. Oh, yes. I know a lot of people have been talking about Deadpool. In fact, that's all I ever hear about other than people waiting for Godzilla. Where's my Deadpool? Nap, RK, just know that your Deadpool Pro is coming, buddy. Mandalorian Pro and Premiums were online about a week, two weeks ago. They've been shipping out Mando Pro and Premiums. And remember, we haven't had a run of those for a little bit, so that was good to see some of those running in. Dealers are now having inventory of those. They've produced enough with, I mean, to be frank, ordered a lot of Mandalorian premiums because we had a lot of people pre-order them. Since then, we've had a crap load of people back out and then a lot of people jumping back in.
    56:28
    Those are going to be one of those titles that are probably going to be in stock because we're going to see another run of those here soon. Avengers Premium was on the line this last week, everybody. If you had your order in for Avengers Premium, they have begun shipping. We just got some of those. And then Avengers Pro are going to continue on the line this week if you're listening at the mid-April here, and they should ship this week as well. This month also we should see Rush Pro and Premium running towards the end of the month, and that is good because if you guys remember, it was Rush Pro that they were supposed to run again for that second run of Rush Pros in February. They bumped that back, so we're going to see those now. And the plan is for there to be another Godzilla Pro and Premium run in May. So another run in May alongside a possible Mandalorian Pro run toward the end of May. Beginning of June, you're going to see Mandalorian Premiums and then more Rush Pro and Premiums in the month of June. And then, you guessed it, in July back to Godzilla's again alongside those bumped Jurassic Park pins. Now, what I get a lot of, Dennis and listener, is, hey, I heard that Godzilla was getting an extra run or two. Does that mean when you originally told me into 2022, into 2023, does that mean now I'm bumped to May? No.
    57:50
    Does that mean I'm being moved up to July? Sadly, no. And why is that the case? Because these runs are the same size, if not smaller, than what we're used to. So while there are a couple more runs, the backlog, I don't think people know the backlog of Godzilla. Well, how could they know? You're like the only source of backlog details. Well, they should know because, well, that's true, but they should know because of everybody on the forums who have ordered and waiting on one of them. Right now, remember like a year ago when we were like, holy cow, Stern is 5,000 backordered machines. What are they going to do? Remember that? Yeah. Keep that story, but instead of machines, insert Godzilla premium. That's what it feels like. I don't know the numbers at all. The game's really good. It's so good. Like, I don't go around telling people, you should probably get something else. I'm like, no. Godzilla Premium, so much fun. This feels silly and sounds silly. Take it for what it is. But what most people are doing is they're still ordering. I'm still getting more orders of Godzilla Premium as a dealer than any other game, even though I'm telling them well into 2023 is the projected date. So what they're doing is they're putting in an order for it. They're waiting because they know they're going to own one and want one. And they're buying another game in the meantime that they'll probably get rid of whenever Godzilla comes up. So that's why you're seeing a lot of Guns N' Roses sell. That's why you're seeing a lot of Mandalorians leave, Avengers. Because people are like, eh, I'll play something else until that comes. But that's not stopping people. This delay is not stopping people. My recommendation for Stern Pinball, like I know anything, would be if there are enough parts to fulfill Godzilla Premium, I would like to see them continue to run and take spots of even popular games like Rush or like Avengers or Star Wars or any of this stuff. Go ahead and just continue making those things because, well, but then again, the argument could be, why? People are definitely going to buy this game, so they'll wait. Well, up to a set period of time, people will break eventually. You know what I think breaks the back of Godzilla? The next Keith Elwin. Oh, next Keith Elwin, yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. I mean, that's the most likely thing, unless they catch up, of course, would be, what would probably sap interest in Godzilla would be another Keith Elwin that maybe plays even better. Ooh, man. Hard to say. Yeah, well, I'm not saying I expect, in fact, I'll tell you I don't expect. At this point, Zach, and this may sound silly, so take it for what, I've not put mine up for sale, so I'm not trying to sell mine. But to me, Godzilla is Stern's greatest game they've ever made. Wow. I'll go ahead and say it now.
    60:45
    Holy crap. Yeah. And it's not at 1.0, and I'm saying that. I know. It's really that good. I feel the same. I don't know if it's the best. But, man. I'm saying the best. No argument from me.
    61:04
    It's not Star Wars? I just bring that up because we're going to see a small run of Star Wars pros and premiums, as well as the home editions, the original and comic editions, in August and September, respectively. Yeah, I'm always used to the home edition stuff coming out before the holiday season to try and get some of those sales. Yeah, we're non-typical pin buyers. Yeah, so those are coming out. We'll still see some stuff. Everybody's like, are they still running Star Wars? Yeah, they are. Pros and Prebys is the original. Are they going to run more of the Jurassic Park home pin? Yep, that's in November. Okay. So we're going to see the Star Wars, all the Star Wars models running in August and September. However, the majority of those months, August and September, are going to be used for producing that next Cornerstone title. Yeah, Cornerstone number two, formerly known as Cornerstone number three. That's right. So pending any issues or parts delays, you're going to see that next Cornerstone take up most of the production schedule for August and September for Stern Pinball. Also shipping this month is Godzilla Armor Isn't that where you're supposed to insert your People complain So I do it sometimes And sometimes I don't You limit your roars I base it off my mood Godzilla Armor now shipping We at Flippin' Out got all of our stuff So we shipped it all out You guys should be receiving it if you haven't already No updates on the topper reveals I know I get this question every damn day Where's the Godzilla topper? Where's the Mandalorian topper? Where's the Rush topper? Where's all these toppers? Are they redoing the Ghostbusters topper? If so, I want one. No, I don't know. Don't know. No clue. Production updates on Stern Insider Connected kits. I thought about just stop selling these things. It's been the bane of my existence. It's taking up so much time to break people's hearts and be like, no, we're still waiting for some more. We're still waiting for some more. They're coming. I was told this is good news. I was told by a Stern rep that they plan on having the majority of all the back quarters fulfilled by the end of this month for those insider kits. Oh, wow. So that's great. They're cranking this out. If they can do that. Dennis, I have a question. Do we see, I know we've been told we get an August cornerstone. We've already had our January cornerstone in rush. Do we see two games shipping from Stern Pinball by year's end, including the August cornerstone? Do we see anything after that? Shipping. Not announced, but shipping before year's end. No. I have a funny feeling there's going to be a yes.
    63:30
    Well, I'm often wrong, so that's fine. You can write a lot, too, when it comes to this stuff. But I don't know. Something tells me that we're still going to see something November-ish and shipping before the end of the year. The last two years, I think it's been, their third cornerstone has always been a November announcement, hasn't it? Or, excuse me, December announcement. September announcement, January shipping. Right, and so that's why I'm going with that. I don't think it's going to be a cornerstone. I think they're going to squeeze out maybe a Capow or something. A Capow? Or something. Yeah, I don't know why, and I have nothing to base that on. There's no part behind. They should just squeeze out some more Godzillas. They should just continue making that damn thing. Keith Elwin's game is going to happen at some point in the future. We're going to see another game from him, and he's already, that guy's got to have a big head. I don't want to make it any bigger, but he puts my kids through college, so thank you, Keith. Whenever I left, took my break for podcasting, Joel Engelberth, with just another pinball podcast, did a deep dive on Godzilla with Keith Elwin. And I think it was likely the best interview, and it will be, of the entire year. It was great. It didn't get a lot of coverage, which was sad. So I want to cover some of the things here with the listeners, if you're okay with that, Dennis. Yeah, sure. I did listen to it, though I would describe it as approximately 80% Godzilla, 20% Deadpool. I think that's fair. I sent him probably 20 or 30 gold nugget questions he could ask, and he used like one or two of them. Yeah, you know how Joel is. He wants to be his own free spirit. Don't ask us, Joel. George Gomez, do you know he was going to do Godzilla? Nobody's talking about that. Found that interesting. Yeah, he was going to do Godzilla, and then kind of passed on it. So Elwin jumped at the chance of doing that theme, even though he knew it was going to be like two and a half years out from being able to do it. Jumped on it. Spread all of his territory all over that he wanted Godzilla. I found it interesting also, listener, that Keith Elwin said that he typically, when he's designing a game, he'll design a core layout before the toys, which is just crazy to me. Why? Looking at Godzilla thinking... Why does that surprise you? Because his games play so well. Because the central feature of Godzilla is a building that is a changed state building, and it comes down, and it delivers balls, and it redistributes balls on wire forms. How could there be a design layout prior to that? That's hard to believe for me.
    65:58
    Well, you do exhibit two-dimensional thinking, Zach. He went on to say that he'll make a layout and then just like have plugs or spaces just for the toys that he's like, I'll probably put something cool in there. Yeah, he could have just stuck a bash toy where that building is. What the interview alarming to me, what they were talking about was that so much of this stuff is developed like at the 11th hour. It's just wild to think that looks like it was thought of and overthought of and over-engineered. And no, like a last day. He said the only day one toy was that Magna Grab. And that's only because, we know how great that is, that's only because he conceptualized that for Avengers Infinity Quest, but it created a design flaw, so he kind of had to scrap that for a future title, which ended up being for Godzilla. And when I was talking about, like, 11th hour things, weeks before the production started on Godzilla Dennis, they didn't know that that wallop shot, that weird shot that I love, left of the building. They didn't even think that was possible as a shot. So they had to really quickly go back and slightly redesign the building to make it doable.
    67:04
    That just seems crazy, doesn't it? Am I taking crazy pills? It's interesting that it was so quick before production was ready. I'm assuming the adjustment was minor then. I mean, you could say slight redesign. Yeah. That's nuts. He still thinks that Avengers, even though it went through, they only spent 10 weeks designing Avengers. He talked about they used a lot of existing mechs and parks. It was kind of like a rat rod. We've got to throw something together here. He really downplayed like, eh, it's ten weeks. You know, it is what it is. He still thinks, Keith Elwin thinks, that it's his best shooting game. I think it's his hardest layout. So maybe that's why he thinks that. Hmm. Hardest layout. Like, do you, in terms of ball time, I think my ball time on Avengers is shorter than any of his other games. But that's how I would loosely define, determining if a layout is easy or hard. Do you find another game harder? I think Jurassic Park is tougher for me, anyway. And Iron Maiden's not easy either. I'd say Godzilla is his friendliest shooter. I don't think any of them are over, like, I think all of them are easier to shoot than, say, Rush. Oh, they're all very approachable. Yeah. And part of the thing, though, with Avengers also is I also find it to be the most obtuse set of rules. Like, it's the one I really feel like I don't know what I'm doing. Well, and he talked about that on the podcast. Steve Elwin said he really never intended for the gyms. That's like a focus that everybody focuses on. Oh, yeah, because that's how you min-max. That's how you min-max. Where do I place it? Whose character? When do I do it? In what order? He said he never really intended for those gyms to be the focus for the majority of players. He just thought that was for the upper echelon of players, and it gives them something to want to strategize on. But we all want to be the best. We try and emulate them. Mm-hmm. That's the problem. That's why you see Avengers out of the four Keith Elwin games. That's why you see that probably at the fourth position for most people. Yeah, but I know hardcore competitive players love Avengers. I do like Avengers a lot. We had one of our top area players. He really liked Jurassic Park, but when Avengers came out, the complexity of the rules won him over, and that's what he bought. Yeah, see, it's probably my least favorite rule set from Nagel and them, But I still find it very challenging And very fun Joel did ask about my fat spinners question I said why are there fat spinners we haven't seen those forever Keith Owens said he included Fat spinners to And what I'm referring to listeners They're wider than Stern has been using For a long time And they're more akin to like The old Bally Williams like that wide Or that wide spinner So he said he slows the ball down using those So the ball needs to be slowed down design wise So you put in a fat spinner in there, it slows it down a little bit. Found that interesting. And for the record, he does love opto spinners. Everybody likes opto spinners because they keep spinning. But I didn't know this. Nobody's talking about it. I didn't know that the BOM or the bill of materials for three regular spinners equals one opto spinner. So, of course, people aren't using opto spinners as much. Yeah, unless you still have leftover money. And maybe that's why they kind of just like showed up on Star Wars the pen. and be like, oh, well, we only want one spinner, and we've saved enough elsewhere. Let's go ahead and make it an opto. But you know what I want to see now? I want to see the fat opto spinner. Oh, fopto. A fopto. Elwin, Borgi, Brian Eddy. Who's going to be the first to have the fopto spinner? Man, and put it in a position like they did on Ballard's certain electronics games. One of those Orbit seniors really freaking rip it. Yeah. He said the engineer's job is to get the cost down on some of these bill of materials. Harrison Drake, who he often works with, that is Keith Elwin, is really good like that. It does seem, pushing the layout over, it's like Harrison, fix this. Yeah, basically it's what it sounded like. He walks away to draw jaws. And I've said it before, this isn't a negative thing towards Keith Elwin. Oftentimes, we put Keith Elwin on this throne, and I'm telling you, his team is phenomenal. Harrison Drake is not talked about enough. Rick Nagel is not talked about enough. Harrison Drake basically designed that entire damn building. The entire damn thing. So, I need to get Harrison Drake. Do you think he'd come on the podcast? No. I bet not. Nobody ever wants to talk to me. Maybe I'll talk to Joel. Keith Elwin had a mystery castle reference. Thanks a lot. And I found it interesting. Then we'll move on. that Godzilla's original concept had two pop bumpers instead of one down at the lower there. That scoop, actually, was a pop bumper. So you have two right there. No scoop. Because we know Keith Owen doesn't like scoops. But he said it just wasn't enough action and it just lacked excitement. So he took out one of the pops and put in a scoop. I was hoping he'd talk about Back to the Future because I know he loves that scene. But he said he's not sure he ever wants to do a dream scene. It's just too much pressure. It's bullshit, Keith. That's complete. Why did he jump at the chance to do Godzilla then? I don't know. I guess he just thought it would be a good thing. I think he said he hadn't seen him. He had to watch him once he took it. Maybe he just liked the idea of doing kaijus. I don't know if he's just trying to throw us off his scent, but... It was a good argument. No, but I don't... No. No, that's not what pinball people want. He's the greatest designer. It's not about what they want. Look, they want whatever he makes. So he's not in the same boat as, like, anyone else. I'm sure that must frost all these veterans to no end. Keith Elwin comes in, this newbie, and his games are gold. He has not delivered a single miss. He's only got one game not in the top 10, and it's in the top 15.
    72:48
    But that's what I'm saying. That's why we need, if he's the best at all this, give him one of the best themes. But he doesn't, look, when you're the master and commander, perhaps you say, I don't want to feel this sort of pressure. I want to see him singing Russell Crowe's rendition of Les Mis.
    73:10
    Yeah, I get that, but damn it. It seems sad that we don't see just a big dynamite, full assets IP from Keith Elwin. Maybe it would be too big for everybody. He might get one, but not a theme that he has as a dream theme. You know, I know one of his is Back to the Future, so that hurts me. And he also reminded us that comedy is a must-end pinball. Maybe that's a hint. I guess. Was Iron Maiden really very funny?
    73:35
    Yes. Okay. It's been a while since I played it. Yeah, the call-outs. The comedy came from the beast call-outs. Speaking of a beast, the Multimorphic P3 machine is a beast. That thing weighs in as like... Yeah, that's the one thing I know everyone says about it is, like, do not move that by yourself. That's right. Do you want a hernia? But then once you have it, you don't have to move it, and you can take the modules out. So this isn't anything offensive towards multimorphic.
    74:03
    Multimorphic. I played Weird Al. Oh, yeah, TPF. You know how awkward it was going up to TPF and having people kind of peer over me as I'm playing for the first time, waiting, anticipating what I'm going to say. Judging you. Yeah, the facial expressions I'm going to give. Oh, man. I felt the tension on the back of my neck. A lot of people have been reaching out and asking what my take was. they heard your take on the Eclectic Gamers podcast as well as the pinball show last week. My take is this. There's a really cool module. I love the magnet on the ramp. That thing is freaking sweet. How like the Vuck shoots it up onto midway on the ramp and then the magnet kind of swoops it over like on Cosmic Cart Racing. Freaking love that. There's a bunch of neat little things that are coming on that weird owl module. The game itself looks really cool. Really awesome. So I would have loved if the lines weren't as long. I would have kept playing but I only put one game on it So this is my one game review for all of you guys to get angry about So it not a review It a first impression It a first impression a one first impression at that Things that I didn like the LCD is super busy There's shit everywhere. Oh, you mean the main play field part? Yeah, like there's stuff everywhere. I don't know. So that was a little busy. The animation you guys talked about, the animations are, they're okay. I think they're just good. They're not great. They felt cell phone gamey kind of in a lot of ways. I don't even think you need anything down there. I still argue that point. It's just too much shit to look at, so it gets a little cluttered. So when it comes to the flippers, okay, these upgraded flippers, I've been told, wait until you feel them, right? Wait until you feel them.
    75:40
    No. Sorry. No. This is me as a disclaimer. A lot of people in pinball believe that since, as a dealer, I don't sell multimorphic P3 machines, then I'm going to be overly negative about them and I'm going to hate them just for the sense of hating them and trying to destroy a company. That's what the disclaimer is. That's what people think. The realness is I don't give a shit. I'm just going to tell you whether I like the game or not. And I do not like the feeling of the flippers on the P3 system. Why nobody's saying anything about this just bewilders me. It bewilders me. Well, it depends on the person. Now, I heard people at the show, at TPF, who told me that they did not like how the flippers felt. Apparently, none of them are podcasters. I didn't. I've never had an issue with the P3. The thing is, I couldn't tell the difference between the upgrade kit and the non-upgrade kit. They've always felt fine to me. Yeah, I couldn't either. Did you notice a difference between the old version and the new? I did not. Nope. Okay, so your reaction was like mine, except you don't like the flippers, and I thought the flippers are okay. I just don't like them. And for other people, it feels like other people are protecting at times because they want to like everything. And that's fine. But, damn it, you cannot objectively tell me these flippers feel good. Like, they have problems making the ramps. Hence why they put a magnet on the ramp. I mean, come on, people. No, they don't feel good. And if you watch streams, this is my argument. And I get a little animated when it comes to this because if it was other people saying, no, I totally get that. No, I totally see what you're saying there. Then I probably wouldn't be as animated. But it feels like I'm in crazy town here that I'm the only one that thinks that these feel off. Watch the streams of this. Not so much the Kevin Buffalo one because he's used to it. And over time, you're going to get used to the feel of a flipper. And once you do get used to the feel of a P3 flipper, I agree. It is fine at that point until you shift to another game, and then it feels like you're learning all over again. But watch streams of it. What you'll see is these premature flips. Like it's at the top of the, because we're so used to there being some sensitivity in a flipper, right? Whether it's a Bally Williams, whether it's a Jersey Jack, whether it's a Stern, you still have some sensitivity feeling there. And it sounds sexual now, talking about flippers and feelings and sensitivity. But you'll see people prematurely, not even better, prematurely flip. And the ball will just kind of roll mid-playfield and come back down. That's because of the feeling of these flippers. There's no gray area in these flippers. It feels like legit they are snap on or they are snap off. And there's no in between. There's no little like where you barely press and actuate a flipper where you'll get like a tap pass or something like that. Now, they don't use leaf switches, though, do they? I don't think so. So I'm not scientific enough to know what it is. Damn it, I just know it ain't right. And I think they disguise it by saying, oh, that's the P3 flip. No, that's a mess up. The ball's not supposed to do that. And many of you listening know exactly what I'm talking about, but you can't put your finger on it either. It's like a premature flip where I saw Dr. John playing it on flip tronics. He's doing the same thing. Like, it was almost like, oh, shit, I wasn't, it didn't feel like it was supposed to do that, but it just kind of goes up prematurely and comes back down and you try to get control of it. Something is going on there. The other issue is like the upper flippers being on different buttons. Don't get me on my soapbox on that again. They know that's wrong, so they coded the damn thing in. Still don't make it default, which is still an issue. But you can be hard-headed about it and still make it a setting change. But they're hidden. That's the big recent talk right now, Dennis. The flippers are hidden under plastics so they're not out. And people are having a hard time seeing those upper flippers to when to actuate that flipper for the ball. That's what people are talking about. Yes, and I did discuss that because I struggled quite a bit with it because I was having – the way I tried to adjust for it is I tilted my head to the side in order to try and see what was going on. I saw a lot of people doing that. And actually, in the Eclectic Gamers podcast Discord, I had a P3 owner come in and say – address my comment about not being able to see the upper flipper on the P3. They made an interesting point. They said, this is a quote, I wanted to point out that without the optional art, the flipper is reasonably visible.
    80:12
    That's why I'm speaking up to this stuff, because when I get excuses and I hear excuses like, well, I have no problem leaning over when I'm playing and looking at the, oh, bullshit, bullshit, people, come on, call it for what it is. You can say I love the P3 and everything and I worship everything, but they need to fix that. Like, that is a bothersome thing. Or the flipper buttons. Like, yeah, I'm not playing a fucking keyboard down here with all these buttons. Like, if you don't want to be compared to virtual pinball or fake pinball, then stop doing shit that makes you seem like you're, like, you have multiple flipper buttons, you've got an LCD screen. Like, stop doing that kind of stuff then if you don't want to be compared to it. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, the flipper feels just off for me. You can't stage a ball on the P3 system? Fine. I guess people are fine with that now. Yeah, it's fine. We don't need to stage flippers. I think Jerry and team would really benefit from figuring out a way to use leaf switches in their machines. They really do. But, I mean, at this point, because that's the thing that I wondered about, because for me it's I get the option to turn it to just using one button for each side to flip. But with the two buttons, you're able to decide, like, do you want to try and trap up down below and then still shoot up above? and if you can't do that on Wendt and Button because they never did stacked leaf switches for the allowance for stage flipping, then you would lose your stage flipping ability. But at this point, they've made so many. I mean, at some point... Another upgrade kit? Well, that's the thing. I guess you could do it as an upgrade kit, because otherwise it's like... Hasn't that ship kind of sailed, though? I mean, maybe that's not a big deal to... I mean, they did another flipper upgrade kit stuff, I suppose. It's always an option, But especially as long as you could always still do the multi-button flipping because you want backwards compatibility. It's like the hidden – back on the hidden flipper thing. To me, it's a – and this has been with some of the fans where I've gotten a little confused, I should say. Maybe frustrated is more accurate. And that is that it's – everything – every decision is a series of compromises. Yeah. And that's fine. All I want is people to acknowledge that we made a compromise instead of acting like, well, this is the best way to do something. The hidden flippers were a case in point. I get it. It's a compromise so that you're not making those owners have to take those things out all the time. They keep them out of the way of the geometry. The price you paid was they are harder to see. And maybe the suggestion about just don't use the optional art so you can see them better. Okay. I mean, that would be my, I would agree with that, and I would do that choice. I would say, all right, I'll give up the optional art. But people who want something to look more like the game, I guess, would maybe not like that. But again, it's a compromise. So that's the sort of. That's all I wanted. My thing on it is, yeah, these are a series of compromises. For whatever reason, they decided not to, probably because they had those multiple buttons, didn't think that there was the need to include layered leaf switches that would allow you to stage flip. Sure, sure. So if we want to start adding straight stripping now, it's like, to me, the ship kind of sailed. But it's an interesting thing because P3 is a platform. If they were just selling individual games, you'd just be like, okay, this is a big demand thing. We found that out as of heist. Let's start adding on our next game. We're going to do stacked leaf switches. You know, asking, especially now that there are all these weird owl orders. I mean, that's a lot of kicks, is my point. Like before this, when you didn't have a whole lot of P3s out in the wild, it wasn't a big deal necessarily. There's a lot of kits now. Yeah, yeah, you're right. If you were to do it that way. And I don't know if it's worth doing it. You hit the nail on the head. I just want some transparency and some honesty. I hate that hard-headed defensiveness where, no, that's exactly what we're supposed to. Oh, stop. Stop. There's no way. There's no way you would want flippers to be unseen and for players to have to shift left or right to see it. I mean, let's not joke ourselves. That spiral ramp, while badass, is not the most consistent ramp in general. So to not have a good-feeling flipper, to not have a flipper you can see, hitting that type of difficulty of ramp, you can't tell me that that's exactly how they would love it to be. That's all. Whenever I got up to the game and played it, they seemed to be holding up like champs throughout the entire show. I think people have been talking about that. They've seen a shitload of plays. They held up, which is great. There have been issues in the past with some of the earlier Multimorphic P3 games, so I think seeing them hold up to this level is nothing but greatness for Multimorphic. The one that I played had, overall, shot well. It had some wild airball stuff going on, hitting the glass a couple times. One of the scoops wasn't going down all the way, but that's an adjustment thing. That's not the end of the world for a game that had been playing for two days straight whenever I was playing it. So they seem built like a tank We know that engineering is just a marvel In these P3 games I still think there needs to be front cabinet art Without it, again, you don't want to be compared to virtual pinball But you know what kind of game Has no front cabinet art? Virtual pinball Get some art up there The topper looked cool, everybody was like Oh, what did you think about the topper? It didn't wow me It was kind of flapping around like a Spooky pinball free topper, but still cool Still looked good, I like animated toppers I think it's just at the end of the day The theme doesn't do much for me So it's hard for me to If the theme doesn't do anything for me I gotta love the way this feels I love the code on this thing And only one game in and with the knowledge And research I've done on this I don't know the damn rules or anything I know enough about it It's a game that looks cool It was fun to shoot that one game Nothing that I would have to buy right now And I probably would have a hard time buying Unless they fix this flipper feel This is the When we list the manufacturer out Dennis The Multimorphic P3 Flipper feel is the worst of the bunch in the entire industry for me. Oh. For me, it wasn't. But again, we were at a show also, so I'm judging.
    86:20
    Their show power flippers felt better to me than I've often experienced on, say, JJP, for example. Yep. I can see the argument. At least for JJP, I get the feel. I get a good feel. Yeah. Well, and it depends on the situation. Now, while we were here, I've been trying to do some research because I found an article. I tried to find some photos to see whether or not they were using leaf switches for the flippers. Because I'm not, like, my understanding, people can write in to the pinball network at gmail.com and correct us if we're mistaken. My understanding is they're not stacked leaf switches on any particular button. But from what I found, Jerry noted, and this was five years ago, but when they were discussing the early P3s, he did say that the button boxes support any kind of button configuration, but that they were using leaf switches for their setup for the flippers. Okay. So if, like, pushing the button on, off, maybe that can be adjusted, like if a leaf switch gap issue was the issue or something. It could be that. I guess if they all play like that. I'm just saying, now, again, five years ago, I don't know if any changes ever were made or not, but I was trying to find, like, a spec sheet, but a lot of times they don't go into the details of exactly what the button uses for the connection. So I'm not too surprised that I struggled. They have design limitations. You know that the module in the back third is where you can change, right? You can change the design on this game. So you're going to have to have strong flippers. I think there's still always going to be kind of issues on high ramps in the back there. That's going to be for any manufacturer. Any manufacturer is going to be like that. Because if you just boost up the damn power of those things to make back ramps like that and tall ramps, then you're going to have problem areas closer on your scoops and closer on targets and stuff with air balls. That's the compromise you are making. I get that. And I remember, what was it, like a month ago, they went on Flippin' the Mash, and Jerry and TJ, they were talking about design elements of this game. And, again, something that I don't hear anybody talking about, but Jerry was talking about Dennis Nordman. Remember, Dennis Nordman came in, listener, and helped design Lexi Lightspeed. Oh, yeah, that's right. He was initially struggling with the space provided on these P3 games because you only get that back third to design. and Jerry said that he talked Dennis Nordman into that's just a psychological thing. It's just a... Oh, like a mental block? Like a mental block because he said, he told the listener on this podcast, he said almost every Dennis Nordman game design, all of his lowest mechs that he ever uses is right there at the scoop wall of what would be the P3. I thought, holy shit, if Jerry's right here, that is phenomenal because my mind doesn't think that either. My mind thinks that a lot of pinball designs utilize all the play field, if not at least the top half, not the top third. So I went back and I was like, I think Jerry just fucking blew my mind. So I went back and because I'm a nerd and this kind of shit matters to me, I did my research. I went back and pulled all of Dennis Nordman's games. I made some transparency on the files and overlaid them onto the multimorphic setup where that scoop wall is. I'm here to tell you Not only is that not true but it's entirely untrue Almost every Dennis Norman game Has a major macro function That is well below that wall scoop So I don't know what Jerry was talking about here For the life of me I have no idea Some of them were closed But no No no no That is simply not the case And visually it doesn't look to be the case either I just wanted to make sure That that wasn't unsubstantiated So no Yeah, so it's been a while since I listened to the Flip and a Mash and that podcast featuring these guys. But I also found it quite noteworthy, listener, that we talk about, you know, Bo and Cairns and Colin McAlpine coming on as rules designers for Multimorphic, which is, whew, that's great gains there. If I'm wanting to know great rules in a game, Bo and Cairns and Colin McAlpine are going to be probably somewhere at the top of the list on, hey, are these rules good, are they balanced, et cetera. I found it interesting, though, that Jerry did say that 80 to 90 percent of the rules on Weird Al were already well done and finished before Bowen Cairns and Colin McAlpine were even hired on to the Multimorphic team. 80 to 90 percent of the rules.
    90:34
    Okay, and I have not heard this interview. I did have someone, I can't remember who, who told me at Texas Pinball Festival that Colin was, I guess, had told them that, yeah, he came in so late that he didn't really get a whole lot of influence on the rules for Weird Al. and it'll be the next game that really will allow him to have a lot more input. So based off of when they announced Bowen and Colin, unless they had sat on it a while, I had thought, there didn't seem to be a lot of a window for them to really work on because I just assumed Weird Al would have had to have been so far into development.
    91:06
    That's interesting that it's that high of a percentage. Yeah, it struck me as well because, I mean, I think when most people that know about Weird Al, I think they're comforted by the fact, well, Bowen Cairns and Colin McAlpine are on code, you know, because their arguments probably were, well, Lexi Lightspeed code or, you know, Cosmic Cart Racing code or hot, you know. They're banking on Bowen Cairns and Colin McAlpine got that. Well, they're probably going to balance out that 10% to 20%, but 80% to 90% are already done. Now, the modes I experienced at the show, I did think that they tied in at least with the songs really well. Absolutely. In terms of balance and stuff, I obviously, I only got a couple of games, and I'm not remotely far enough in to be able to get a good feel of my own. And I'd want to trust a better player than me anyway to know whether or not, like, is it. When I hear Bowen and Colin, I actually think of it much more purely as, is it competitively balanced? That's what I think they mostly bring to the table. I think creative rule design can be done by a lot of people, but it's about, is the scoring fair and stuff. That's where I think high-level players, that's just my take. And I don't know how well the various multi-morphic games have fared up until this point regarding how fair it is on balancing. Yeah, and I wouldn't know either. But since the games have been – well, because the games are so – the platform is so homeowner-oriented to me, it's always been like – I've never seen one in a tournament, a P3 platform, much less any particular game. So from that perspective, to me, it's sort of moot. It's like when I'm on location and we're talking about Stern games, Mandalorian is a game where some of the high-level competitive players, they don't like it because they feel like there's only one way to play it. But if I had the game at home and you wanted to be – this is where we get to the point chaser moment maker thing you like to talk about. With the moments and stuff, if you're playing for modes and trying to progress just in the game in general, you'd probably be totally fine with – and not care at all about how balanced the scoring is on Mandalorian. You're absolutely right, yeah. So, to me, that was our P3 thing. Like, I didn't know they needed to focus on that a lot or not. But that being said, while it's not talked about in a competitive sense all that much in my view, the spooky games, that was one of the big things, as people have pointed out, regarding Ultraman and Halloween and Bowen not being on that game. And that bothers people. And, in fact, that seems to be some of the stuff people blame that do not like those two games. You're right. Because Bowen was very transparent. He has nothing to do with those games. Mm-hmm. You are right. Yeah. And when it comes to the, like, you're right. Multimorphics P3, whenever I owned it, I have a lot of time on Lexi Lightspeed, and I always liked that code. I thought it was really novel in a lot of ways, but I'm with you. I don't know enough about competitive balancing, whether or not it had that, but I liked the Lexi Lightspeed code. I liked the tasks you were trying to get parts to rebuild the ship to get back to the plant. I thought those were always good, and I assumed the heist was probably even better than that, and Weird Al as well. I don't have enough time on them, but the structure of itself for me as a home player and a moment maker, I always like those. And to piggyback off what you said about the modes in Weird Al, theme integration is off the chart. It is a wonderfully, it's going to be hard for there to be competition in next year's awards with theme integration in this game, in my opinion. It's not a theme that I love, love, but it's integrated very, very, very nicely. But some of them, some of the modes are a little gimmicky. they back off of that a little bit. Like when that wall scoop goes up and the virus Oh, yeah, the germ one. Jerry, I don't want to be stuck on the LCD play field.
    94:45
    I'm going to defend that one. It's one mode and it lets them exploit something the other companies don't have and that's that big screen with the ability to do the ball detection wherever it is. Yeah, but is it fun?
    94:55
    If it's not too long, I think it's okay. I mean, I didn't get to play that one. I only got to watch other people I was playing with on that mode. So I can't confirm for you that it's fun. I thought it looked all right in an Asteroid-style way. I wouldn't want to do it for more than like 30 or 45 seconds. Yeah, whenever the option comes up on which mode you want to play, I was thinking which one is not that one. Because it's essentially stand-up targets. Like, how fun. I don't want to know. Yeah, but they're moving stand-up targets. No, I'm talking about the wall. Yeah, those little germs are floating around. Oh, the wall. Yeah, but you're not shooting for the wall. You're shooting for the germs on the screen. I love the technology there, but if I could hit a ramp, I'd rather hit a ramp. I understand where you're coming from. There are plenty of other modes that let you shoot the ramps. Yes. I think having that one screen mode was fine. Yeah. I think that's my experience with Multimorphic, with the P3 platform, and with Weird Al. I think they got themselves a hit on their hands, and it sounds like from the general consensus that nobody cares about the feel of the flippers. So, yeah, I think it's a dynamite home run for him.
    95:59
    But if you do feel like there is something off, at least so I don't feel crazy, email me at thepinballnetwork at gmail.com. Am I really the only one? I don't know who you talked to at the show. Everyone I heard had positive things to say about Weird Al. I did meet show people who said they would not be buying one because they did not like how the P3 felt. Okay. That they liked the game. All right. I didn't talk to any of those people. But they weren't content creators. So, I mean, they're not going to have podcasts and articles out. They were just regular show people that were like, what do you think? I love this. I love the songs. I love the integration. I don't really care how it flips. Yeah. You know, there's stuff like that. I think it'd be fair. Oh, what else did I miss in the podcast world? I listened to Pinball Profile when I was gone, and Jeff Teolas had a wonderful interview with the late Barry Ousler, interviewed days before his passing. I found it really, really nice to hear Barry one last time speaking about his history and the future that he was planning. He spoke about designing the Goonies and the Who pinball machines while at Deep Root. And unfortunately, as we know, Deep Root went to kind of deep shit with those games. So not going to ever see the light of day. Or will they?
    97:05
    In a world. In a world of, hey, you guys, and one-eyed pirates. One-eyed willies. And junk. It's Barry Osler's hit game, Throw Mama from the Train. Didn't have the same mom? Mom. Wasn't it the same woman? I don't know. I forgot her name. Sylvester Stallone? Oh, my God. Not Stop Her, My Momma's Shoot.
    97:31
    Was that the same chick? No, Throw Mama from the Chain with Billy Crystal. I don't know that reference. No, and it wasn't the same mom in Stop Her, My Momma's Shoot. Okay, I didn't know if it was. No. Oh, my gosh. People know that the Goonies is their dream theme for me, so they asked, oh, aren't you sad that now we see this layout? What could have been? And I've got to tell you, I'm glad that DeFoot went under, and don't want to disrespect the late Barry Osler because I love Popeye Barry. You're up there. You heard me, buddy.
    98:02
    This was not a good layout. Thank God the Goonies did not get this layout. Is that too strong? Wow. That was a shit layout. It's fine that you don't like the layout. Now, that said, it was just a whitewood. It may have had significant modifications. I sure hope so. That was bad. I didn't care for the layout either. I was actually bidding on some of the deep root auctions because I thought. Of course you were. That's all we need is you selling off already sold shaker motors. I think pinball life got those. Yeah, I know. That's part of my job. Don't hate me, guys. I like to buy your parts. But I thought it would have been a cool idea to get some of those and just pedal around with them and maybe even a tribute to Barry and what he was doing there to kind of revitalize those. But then once I saw the Goonies one, I was like, oh, no. I'd go back to the drawing board for that one. The truck looked okay. That did look pretty cool. I thought the, what was it, the Gladiator one looked pretty cool. Gladiators.
    99:01
    Rising action. Start basic rising action equal Hydra. And everybody was talking about that luchador. I don't think that was a luchador. I think it was a Rey Mysterio pin. If you guys look at the pictures, I think it was Rey Mysterio-themed pinball machine, which makes it horrible. But that looked like a fun little layout. The hood looked okay. It actually looked pretty cool, like some cool stuff. It looked pretty cool. But the Goonies one, thank God, because that one looked like poopy. But the lower playfield and the upper playfield, ugh, two things that I usually don't like. Oh, you don't? I didn't know you were anti-lower and upper playfield. I'm not sure that there's a lower play field in pinball that I like. Well, and most, I found, antidotally, most people greatly prefer upper play fields to lower ones. I think because it's been done more and visually you can see it better. I think there's more you can do with an upper. Yeah. This part. Because you're confined by your ceiling when you're doing the lower. And the uppers, you have a lot more free room, a lot more space. I mean, because where can you not put the lower play field? Well, you can't put it under a sling. You won't see it. You can't put it under the flippers. You won't see it. You can't put it under all the stuff up top. You won't see it. So you're kind of stuck with it being where a giant Angus face would go. I'm going to give Jerry credit on this Goonies. He can compare those Goonies because everything's in the back third. He can have this one. Yep, everything's in the back third. Maybe that's why I don't like it. Maybe Multimorphic will do Goonies. Oh, please. Isn't the next game licensed? Have they already said that? If not, I'm putting the rumor out there. Supposedly, P3 is going to have another licensed game after Weird Al. You know what? My ass would be as blind as half of these people showing this P3 if they did Goonies because I don't care about Flip or Feel anymore or any of the aesthetics that I come to for pinball. I do come to pinball for the feel anymore. I'm growing into that veteran that just likes the feel of certain games. But, yeah, let's hope it's not P3. It's fun to like theme, too, but there's so many great themes that I won't own the game version of for whatever reason. Yeah, I get that. So, no, I didn't win any Deep Root auctions. I actually, I thought it was Saturday it ended, but it ended on Friday, so I was a little bummed out because it was all ended and I didn't. I had like 25 different items I was bidding on. Oh, well, I didn't win anything. You're like trying to buy Deep Root. Well, there was a lot of stuff. People were like, oh, you're part of the problem. I'm like, no, there was shit that we're building a facility, and there was some stuff like tools and different things like that really could have helped if I went. Did you put a bid on the casting couch? No. I did not. The phone number. No. But you know what, Dennis? And listen. That's it. That's UI Corinthian vinyl. I'll have you know. I did bid on the Jesus painting, damn it. And I did a fucking bid on that thing. I was the highest bidder for like an entire day. And then all of a sudden, just like on Easter Sunday, boom, he was going out of the cave. And that item was no longer available. And I'm like, wait, wait. Yeah. So he was gone. I heard a lot of people were following the Jesus painting and they were upset that it just disappeared. Yes. I have argued with zero evidence that Robert put in a request through the trustee saying that that's his picture and he should get to keep it. Yeah, that's my early adulthood Jesus painting. Thank you. That's my grandma, my mom's. Yeah, I did not bid on that painting. I only like to think of the baby Jesus. That's Golden Flea Stabber. No, that painting was going to go up in my new flipping out headquarters. Shed. Damn it. Oh, wait. Headquarters. Oh, it's not a barn. It's not a shed. It's a barn. You built a pen barn like everyone else. I wasn't overestimated by a contractor and spent three times the amount that they initially told me to call it a shed. You should have built a pen bunker. And this is how I would do it. Total evil lair style. You got too much money selling all these Godzilla's. Your kids can go to community college. So here's how I do it. All right. It's underground, so bunker. The way you get in, you push a button. Your above-ground pool rises. It's like the hat to the entrance. Think Circus Voltaire style. Yeah, that's amazing. And then you go down like a spiral staircase. You'd have an alternative elevator to get your games there. Sure. And people just go down the spiral staircase, and then they open the bunker. There's heavy metal doors like, and then there you go. And the Jesus painting will be in there, too. Yeah. That'll be what you see at the far end of the hall with track lighting on it. If anybody knows what happened to that Jesus painting, I feel like I, you know, are there not rules? I bet on that damn thing. Speaking of rules, it sounds like people who won the auctions didn't get their stuff. Yeah. Some of the people paid for the damn things, and the grounds just weren't secured or organized. Yeah. People just went in there and I think it was Terri at Pinball Life on the forum said, oh, yeah, nothing was regulated. Like, you could just walk in there and take whatever. Like, during pickup day, nobody was checking for anything. So somebody was missing an entire play field, a whitewood.
    104:05
    And, yeah, no consequences for theft there. Just what a continued shit show that is. American Pinball has their stuff together a lot more. A lot more. Legends of all the world. Yeah, I talked with Steve Bowden at TPF. Did you, Steve Bowden? I did. Yep, he was the first person I think I spoke to on the day of the show when I walked in. He was monitoring the Legends of Valhalla because they had been making some rules adjustments. Oh. And he was monitoring them because this was their first, like, aggressive beta playtest. I figured you were just taking notes on how to be the most well-liked and respected pinball, you know, personality. I don't even know how to be the most well-liked person in pinball. The nicest, actually. It's not well-liked. The nicest. I'm not the second most well-liked. The way I would become the nicest is for Steve Bowden to leave the hobby. That's the solution. I can't out-nice it. He just needs to go away. Okay. Steve, have you thought about ping pong? I thought there for a minute, though, he was going to be going away from creation because he was doing more of a sales marketing thing. But now we've heard at the recent TPF seminar and from Cosner that he's going to be on some rules to an upcoming game. So how about that? It makes sense. Definitely. Again, veteran, high-level player. I'm not saying that he shouldn't do sales as well. I don't know his sales background, but I know his gameplay background. He understands a good rule set. We also heard from Cause this week saying that those who did order the Legends of Valhalla Deluxe can submit for their free Art Blades by registering your game on American Pinball's website, requesting those Art Blades there. Also talked about having six games in development. Jesus, deep-rooted all over again. That's a lot of games. Well, you know they're supposed to put out like three games a year, according to David Fix. Yeah, I know. At least they don't have the same Deep Root designers. Oh. Well, they do have business norman. An original non-licensed theme. Namp Arcade was talking about a rumored Whitewater 2, and I've got to tell you, that layout looked really fun and good. Hopefully they do that. I like that. You can't get it. I'll take it. They talked about redoing a Barry Osler design. So it was a tribute, kind of making sure one of his late designs get into production. So that's two of Deep Root. possibly a second title from Riot Pinball. Maybe the wide-body Wrath of Olympus.
    106:19
    Yeah, I've heard good things. I don't know. No one will buy it. Well, that was the same thing with Valhalla, right? Originally they offered, maybe it was just Wrath of Olympus. I think they were trying to sell up to 100, and they didn't. AP indicated that they could actually handle production of standard and wide-body games. Why not? We're going to do three games a year. Hell, in David's Picks we trust. and they're giving free art blades. Free art blades. Some people call it an art blade. I call it a sling blade. A sling blade. Some people call it art blades. I call it a sling art. I like that damn thing. Oh, that's much better than mine. That thing tears. Smile at his taters. That's his taters. What a weird movie that was. It was. We need a sling blade pinball machine. Academy Award winning. No slaps required. Some people call it a swing thing. So wide-body games. Boy, as if doing non-licensed themes was smart. Let's go with the feel of a wide-body. Some people love them because you can stick in so many toys. I'm okay with them. I'm learning more about myself that I don't prefer them. I have, as much as I have, I won't necessarily say railed, but as much as I have talked down upon wide-bodies for years and years and years, You know, as much as I've tried to get people to understand that they are inferior, the biggest thing that ever did it wasn't a single lick of words I said, but it was when Pat Lawler came out and said, you know, yeah, I had to do wide bodies, but they're bad. They're bad. They make you a lazy designer. They're sloppy. They result in sloppy products. We were just filling crap in to try and make it look not barren. And it's like, thank you, Pat. Because people respected Pat for his wide body gains. And he's like, nah, Twilight Zone would have been way better if it won White Body. And you've said it. You're right. You have said it since day one. I have actually changed my tune a little bit because I had no problem with them. I actually liked them for a lot of games. So I'm kind of changing my feel over the years where I'm not as – I just tend to not like the feel of them, not even close to a single one. So you think it's more that your taste has just sort of evolved over time versus that after I kicked your ass in that Hobbit debate on Twip Podcast.
    108:43
    You're not talking it up to that. No, that's a loaded question. I handedly beat you on that. I heard Costco was out of Neosporin in all of Indiana after I burned you that bad. No, I took the losing argument and won. I'm a champion.
    108:59
    I'm a champion. But no, you're right. You wear the cone of shame after you lost that. Like your dog. Like my poor dog, poor Millie girl. No, but you want to know another little nugget? A little listening nugget? Sure, I love nuggies. If you guys are listening this late into the episode, you're going to hear something special here. Speaking of wide-body games, not counting American Pinball, during TPF I was speaking one-to-one with someone from a major manufacturer, and they hinted at coming out in the future soon enough with a wide-body game. I was going to say. Well, now I have separate from this because I do not know about this conversation until you just mentioned it with this anonymous person. There were rumors before TPF going around that maybe JJP was going to reveal a re-release of Pirates, which is lied. But then it didn't happen at the show. So to double nugget down, it wasn't a JJP remake vault.
    109:59
    A new title. Wide body. Okay. Wow. I told them personally right then and there, even though I'm friends with them, I said, eh, that's a risk. That is a big, big risk. And I said, if you're going to do it, you sure as hell better figure out a way to do it to where it feels good. Best of luck to you. But in today's market, Zach, is it really a risk? Not if you have toys in theme. Nope. As long as you can build them and sell them, I think any game will succeed at this point. Unless you go ridiculous. I mean, I don't know today if you had Team Mafia come out and do a $10,000-plus EM that it's still going to, I think it still doesn't sell. I don't know if it's Grand Prix.
    110:45
    Speaking of Jersey Jack Pinball, Ken Cromwell, the communications director, visited the gang over at the Flippin' Out Pinball streaming channel last week. Did you see that one? I did not see that one. Oh, you missed out. You were probably watching Overwatch 2 or something. What were you doing? I don't, it was Monday. I was probably sleeping. Oh, okay. Doing a watch video. Yeah, but Ken Cromwell came over and gave away one of their legendary Creatures tees with artwork by Dane Henry Jr. They've released these new series of legendary Creatures artistry t-shirts. You can pick one up for yourself at pinballwizard.com. That was a show message. He also gave away a team-signed G&R Playfield. Holy shit. Thanks, JJP. A Playfield. G&R Playfield. Everybody signed it. That's awesome. But we and many people asked there. All right, Ken, that's cute. But when's Toy Story coming out? Yeah, where's Toy Story, Ken? Where's Toy Story at? When do you think we're going to see that? I'm going to say before July. I'm still saying that's assuming that's what it is, but by all means, I think that's what it is. Yeah. I don't know. I think it is, and I think before July, but I don't know. I'm thinking June would be nice. Yeah, I mean, that's why I'm saying before July. I could even see like a May reveal, and then a June, shipping them out in June, but probably knowing JGP August, September, October. Okay, so we have a rumored Toy Story game coming out soon. Chicago Gaming Company is still trying to get games out. Trickle, trickle. Yeah, the SD models of Cactus Canyon Remake, they are trickling. You're right. We do no widespread reported issues either, which is, thank God. Then why are they trickling? I don't, parts, I guess. I don't know. Oh gosh these dreaded parts delay They killing us I don know They just struggling to get games and leave the factory When are you going to have an unboxing video Zach Well Cary Hardy already beat me to the punch Oh.
    112:37
    Cary, hey, he won Game of the Show at TPF. He did. The getaway was pretty. I'll give him credit there. And I have to give him credit for this unboxing video he did. Man, like seeing a little baby bird fly from his nest. Did he do it blindfolded drunk while slapping people? No, but he made it a shtick. He made a gimmick of fame in a segment. I have to see it. Oh, this is so well done. Cary Hardy, you make me proud. Go check out Cary Hardy's unboxing video of Chicago Gaming Company's Cactus Canyon remake. Not that he got it from flipping out and did an advertisement for us or anything, but go check that out. So good. No production updates, unfortunately, from CGC, from your host here. I tell people I don't know when they're coming out, and I have no clue. When's their new super secret game coming out? The one with Franchi on art. I can say from what I'm hearing, Franchi is not on the artwork of the next game. Maybe we could. I was probably thinking of the American Pinball game then. I wouldn't be surprised if you see a Mark Ritchie game before a Steve Ritchie game either. Just saying.
    113:42
    So I think. Yeah, that was a big one there. That was huge. Sorry. That was all the scoops. I told you I'm coming back. Fire it up, baby. Kellogg Raisin brand of podcasting's back. That's right. Fuck two scoops, baby. We'll give them all to you. Oops, all raisins.
    114:01
    No production updates, though, regarding Cactus Canyon remake. I know SEs are coming out. They're coming out very slowly. People are like, where are my SE pluses? Well, I hate to tell you, but LEs come out next, and then SE pluses. I would guess LEs are going to be June to start, and then SEs probably late summer if I had to guess. I hope it's sooner, but I doubt it will be. But is not SE Plus just SE with a topper thrown in? Correct. In a little box? Correct. Epsilon, yes. That's right. But if you can't make toppers, you can't make SE Plus Zorio. Yeah, I mean, I guess the problem is they don't have the stuff to make the toppers. I think we're going to see that expanded code coming out very, very soon. We were told at, I think, the TPF seminar that it is a kit. It is a kit rather than just a downloadable code, which I think is smart. It's probably like what they did with Medieval Madness, I'm guessing. Absolutely. The color patch kit for Medieval Madness, you had to actually have like a ROM thing to put in there. They don't want no pirates. Damn. By pirates, I mean piracy. Yeah. Look, it's been six weeks since I've podcasted that we've talked about scoops and stuff. Maybe this kit that you get is not just a physical ROM. Maybe it's a physical piece you're adding to the game as well.
    115:16
    A new hat for the cowboy. That's okay. Think what was once in there and never made it to the production of the original.
    115:26
    Okay, we've got to keep moving. I'm giving away too much stuff. Haggis Pinball in the news, or are they? Well, we did receive an update a couple of weeks ago, Damien, describing the continued delays they are having, but confidence that the first Fathom Revisited Mermaid Edition is going to end up shipping in April. That's this month. Time's ticking. Time is ticking. And I think Dr. John has the number, I'm sorry, Dr. John has number one. So Dr. John is probably over there itching. Did you see the video update showing gameplay and rules explanation by rules designer Martin Robbins? Yes. Yes, I did. What did you think? It looks pretty good. It does look good. I mean, I was like, wow, that Mermaid Edition really kicks it up quite a few notches. It really did. I was loving what I was seeing And I watched a lot of that video So I'm still excited I know that people want to say He's taking people's money That is Damien and the Haggis company And not following through on when they're And there's no argument there from me But I still want this game Really bad You know it's going to feel good It looks good I'm excited still So sue me Speaking of being sued Pinball Brothers No Alien Oh, the bros were in full effect at TPF, Coin Taker Booth. They went there. They had two alien. It wasn't Weird Al Long, but there was quite a line for those aliens. I heard that they did need some work throughout the weekend, these games. They did bring two alien SVs, which is standard version, and two LV games, a limited version. And I thought the LV was beautiful. I didn't know if the blue powder coat would work. I thought it would. But in person, that is a gorgeous game. And you start to think, I could have an alien again. Hmm. That game's got a lot going for it. It really does. But no guesses at the production schedule of LV Games or even additional SV game runs. We are a dealer for Pinball Brothers. We kind of, like there's a master dealer, coin taker, and then there's a couple dealers under coin taker. The Sith are always, too, a master and an apprentice. Master. I've been watching those. I've really been, I went back. I see you going to CoinTaker. It's like, so should I sell these LV orders early? And they just go, do it.
    117:47
    Execute order 66. Whenever I saw Melissa at TPF, she whispered really close to my ear, I am the sender.
    117:57
    I am the distributor. I was like, shit, watch out. So no, she didn't have anything to tell me. I am your pinball brother. And whether it's Pinball Brothers or Cointaker, tell them. Like, I've been told stuff before, but at this point, I'm not going to relay that stuff because it's never true. So I'm just going to say I don't know. You don't want to relay us. You're supposed to keep us informed. Then I'd tell you two weeks. I'm tired of being told that myself, so I'm not going to rehash that. It just doesn't happen. I'm not going to tell you it's in a boat. I'm not going to tell you it's in a box. It's in a boat. I'm not going to tell it. It's on a cot. I'm not going to tell you it's going to rot. I'm not going to tell you. All right. I do not like explanations that are canned. I do not like delays. Same, I am. That works. Who knows? I don't know when they're coming. All I know is we have some on order. I think we have some spots available. Cointaker did tell me at TPF. She looked around. She was like, hey, Zach. I said, when are we going to get the next Pinball Brothers game? And she said, oh, actually, we're going to do a reveal late summer, early fall. Oh, so this should be their queen game, right? That pop-up store. She confirmed it. Yeah, this queen, just like we all thought.
    119:05
    We'll see it. Hopefully they make major adjustments to it, but we will see it. I'm not sure we're going to see much, though, at the Midwest Gaming Classic coming up April 29th through May 1st in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Are you going to be there? I'm not. I'm not either. Why aren't you going to the Golden State Show? Why aren't you going to the Reno Open?
    119:25
    Because it's expensive. I'll go. You all pay me. You make money on all these LV aliens Yeah, but I make money on selling games Not being in a show, not being able to sell games I lose money, so no You want me in a show? Pay me I'll get to a show I would have loved to have gone It's always a fun show, I went once, I liked it But it's coming up And a lot of people were rumoring Maybe we're going to get a reveal by American Pinballer I don't see it happening I do not see it happening You don't? I'm worried about that. You don't think we could do a Toy Story there? Nope. Don't see it. Could be wrong. I don't see it. One of the things I wanted to bring to everybody's attention is a call for entries for Homebrew Pinball. One of our friends, Jobber, is running that, took the helm over there doing the Homebrew section. And if you have a Homebrew Pinball machine or even an arcade game that you want to show off there, make sure to submit it, right? Submit it before deadlines April 16th. So this week, holy crap. Go to homebrewpinballgames at gmail.com, email them, and submit your game. You can go to the website in general for general information on MGC at midwestgamingclassic.com. Come on, do it, people. Get your homebrew in there. I think, is there any more news that we want to give? Any more trinkets that we want to, I think that's it. Nothing really recent. I think that's all. What do you guys want to know? The next turn game? You guys, I don't know. We'll save that for another episode. We got to build up our numbers here. Man, they probably want more details on this Mark Ritchie thing. Oh, stop. It's supposed to be just something that someone casually heard. Damn it.
    121:05
    They probably want to know something about these Chris Fanchi art packages, because I keep getting confused, and it sounds like there are like 20 of them coming.
    121:13
    Maybe he's on the next American Pinball. I don't know. He's not on the next JJP, but maybe he is on a future JJP. All right, I'm stopping. I'm going into the next segment. Next segment. This is like a ten piece now. Oh, honey. With barbecue sauce.
    121:30
    It's been six weeks. I don't know if I have it in me. My voice is already giving. I can hear it. I can feel it. It's because we've gone on forever. Maybe we shouldn't do. It's been 84 years.
    121:43
    Rose turned into a hag. Why don't you treat me like one of your French friends? Oh, John. Ladies and gentlemen, you know what time it is. It's time for the one, the only, you missed it, six weeks. I will give Dennis some credit. He did have a good pinball market trends a couple weeks ago. The bullshit that he did with Nap Arcade? No.
    122:12
    That was not it. That didn't sour me as much as the Twippies, but it's like drinking milk at night. It made me feel a little unbalanced when I woke up, if you know what I mean. Blagoonk. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for pinball! Market Trends! It felt foreign to me. It felt like I don't even know it. I don't know who it is anymore. It doesn't know what it is. Trending up this week, question mark, is always Godzilla Premium. It's gotta be. Huh? I don't know what else to do. Like, this segment doesn't work if it's the same damn thing trending up and down every week. But that's what the market is. I know. Numbers don't lie. You only report the facts. That's what they say. That's what the t-shirt says. Buy it now at www.pimple.com. Godzilla Premium is up in a big way. They're still selling for higher than MSRP by a substantial amount. I think they're going right for a secondary used premium is $11 to $12 right now. I saw someone online, I know this won't shock you, listed a Godzilla Pro for premiums MSRP. Sure, $89.99, I could see it. If I had a Pro right now, I think I sold a used Pro for, it was like right above MSRP. people probably still got their pitchforks down. Yeah, how dare you as a big dealer. Oh, what a shit show that's been. Man, people are turning their back on us dealers. Godzilla Premium is up. It's going to be up. I could probably name it in pinball market trends for the next year, more than likely. It's a special game, and you know it's good when Dennis decides to buy a game, and he also decides to do the following. Turning up this week is apparently mods. Adding mods to your game. because, damn it, you know you get a good game on your hands whenever Dennis Creasel is modding the hell out of it. Woo! Look at you, Denton, adding some easel mods.
    123:59
    That's one of the things I usually do out of shows is pick up a few mods and throw them in a game. And it usually has to be my newer games because that's the ones that all the mods are out for. Shaker Motor? Didn't a real feel of God's love? Well, that was sent to me by Nicole. Well, still, but you installed it? I did. You didn't give it away like you did my gift I got you for Christmas. I only gave away some of those. And, see, I got the, yeah, I did get the Toho Theater mod with lighted locks sign for Godzilla, for Measel mods. I got a few of the Walking Dead signs, a couple of the static ones and one of the ones that light.
    124:34
    And I finally, I couldn't find it anywhere at TPF that had them. Apparently, Powerballs are like $40 to $50 now. Yeah, they are high. But I went online and I ordered, I think it was from the, I don't remember where it was from anymore, but those Those glow balls. Oh, okay. But they weren't actual glow balls. They were Tagus fluorescent balls. Because you can get, like, four of them for, like, 48 bucks or something. That's not bad. So, like, the price of one Powerball is four of these. They still have the metal core, so you can't use them as Powerballs. But they're the same weight as a Powerball. And I put that in my Buck Rogers because it's playing way too gentle. So that, you know, those lightweight balls fly. And, yeah, I put a few games in on it, and I was like, okay, yeah, this has got some aggression to it. That's pretty cool. Yeah, look at you. That was a mod, too. Man. Before long, you're going to be ordering a Godzilla topper for flipping out pinball. They aren't even out. I don't think they'll ever be a topper for Godzilla. I think Keith Elwin probably told Amanda and Bill on the Free Play Pinball Podcast that he hates toppers. Didn't he say that? Did he say that? No, I don't think he said that. I don't know. I don't have to report the facts. This is not my market trend. Geez, don't do that to me. No. It's coming soon. I hope it's just like a flat plastic of Milla. God, I'm biting my tongue right now because I'm like, I've given them too many nuggets this episode. But maybe I'll give them... We don't have enough time to do a 20-piece, and you're already at a 10, so just hold it back. Fine, fine, fine. Turning up this week is the Pinball Show, coming in second place for podcasting. Woo-hoo! We did it, Dennis, in correspondence. Congratulations. Pinball Show is also turning up because we keep giving away all these nugs. You want another nug? Godzilla Topper itself is not just going to be a regular shell of a plastic kind of like we've seen in Avengers and Jurassic. No, no, no. It's got a little bit more coming to it and coming very soon. Wow, Doc. I'm on fire, baby. All's turning up this week. You're slapping the shit out of somebody live on a stage in a war show just to boost some ratings.
    126:27
    Maybe that's what we need to do to win next year. When that happened, did you feel that she had seen that video where you slapped Greg and stole your thing? Oh, she stole my thunder. What would have happened at the 20s if someone would have redeemed that show? Oh, you mean like if it had been like a Will Smith, Chris Rock? Yeah, somebody. Yeah. Oh, because when you were talking about the slapping, I thought you meant Reba Hardy's bit where she wrestling slams someone. Oh, no, no, no. That's where I was coming from. So now I realize, oh, we were talking about a different award show. No. Oh, okay. So if someone had slapped like what happened with the Oscar, you know, it's almost unbelievable. It really is. I bet there's security that actually came in. I think people would be confused, just like they were at the Oscars, if was it real or was it a bit? And I am reminded, and I would have been reminded anyway because it was brought back at the Twippies, but that first time where Chris Franchi stomped the trophy. Oh, yeah. And, like, no one understood what was going on except a few people in the in-person crowd. And so there were a lot of people that thought, why was he so mean? he destroyed a trophy, but then in reality, it was all a bit, and people didn't know. And he did it again this year, and I actually was sitting towards the back, and someone said, why did he just destroy that trophy? I thought, oh, no. Oh, no. People don't know. They still don't know. They don't know. No. So that's what would have happened with slaps. They'd have been like, you know, maybe Jack wanted to be slapped. Maybe this was a thing. It would have been good. I just pictured Multimorphics Jerry in the back of the audience whenever I went up to present and just screaming, Keep my game out your fucking mouth. Oh, man. Love you, Jerry. That was a good one. I liked that one. All right, we better end this show out before we start trending down. Also trending down this week is Ultraman. Oh, no. Just Ultraman? Ultraman. Yes, just Ultraman. Don't you dare say Halloween. But Ultraman has better art. You're all wrong when it comes to the Halloween hate. It's got better scene integration. Yeah, you don't think I prompted that person to throw hate towards Joel?
    128:45
    Oh, poor Joel. He was like, I've never had this happen before. He didn't see it coming, that poor sweetheart. He's like, welcome to the club. That's right. Yep, welcome to the club. No, Ultraman, there is one selling 2,000 below retail right now on Pennside, and it's still sitting. Oh, fuck. No. Nah. Oh, my gosh. What are we going to do? That's what happens when you have an ultra niche theme that nobody really knows. It was cute at first, but it's no Halloween. So many people rolling their eyes right now. Oh, yeah, because Halloween's doing fucking spectacular. Let me tell you, Zach. No, I know it's not doing well, and I've trended it down before. A lot of you are wrong about it. Listen to EGP if you want to hear some wrong stuff. Last week, I'm talking about, I'm going to get away 45,000 foot to come out and park in the subway. Oh, bullshit. Good Lord, no, you do not. I almost wanted to do, have you ever seen the meme of that guy that makes fun of memes? They're trying to explain something that shouldn't be hard at all, but they're really difficult. And he gives the hands up like, there, see? You just untie the knot. It's not a big deal. I almost did that to EGP with a stopwatch right by that subway lift. It had been like three seconds. There. Whoa. Three seconds. There you go. Three seconds. It is two. It's not long. Y'all are wrong. So, so wrong. Also trending down this week is those of you, this is a pet feed, those of you who don't cancel an order if you found that same game elsewhere. Oh, my God. Maybe they want more than one. They don't, though. Well, here's my rant when I finally come to you. No, not a rant. This has been killing me. I have to say something. Eat all the nugs you just gave them. Yeah, it's fine. These nugs are going to be the french fries that have been sitting in the fryer too long. If you order a game from us, we don't take a deposit, right? We're being kind people. And then I approach you and I'll be, you know, maybe it's taken eight months for Stern to finally give this game out. But when I come to you and say, hey, your JP's ready or, hey, your Deadpool's ready, and you say, no, I already got it from JJ a month ago.
    130:52
    Maybe the courtesy of calling to tell me that you've canceled. That's all. And the reason that's important, because I don't care if you cancel, the reason it's important is because when 14 to 15 people email me every day, hey, where am I at in the position for Godzilla? Where am I at in the position of Avengers? I am taking your spot, and that's counting as a spot. So I'm giving them inaccurate information if you've already got the game. That's all I'm asking. Oh, so you get, they ask you for where they are in the spot? Jesus Christ, it happens 20 fucking times a day. I just waited, and then I got stuff, and then I paid. It is, honestly, it takes up several hours of every working day. Oh, wow. Yes, to answer that many. And I'm not complaining because I'm blessed to have the order. So I don't want to. You are kind of complaining. I'm not coming across as, you know what? If you want to know where you're at in the queue, you rightfully should be able to know. So if you want to know, yes. Yes. Sarah, let me, that's my sense. Just guess. Just guess where you are. You have that right to know. But it does take a shitload of time because I don't have a great system, so I have to go through and count the entire order to see where you fall. Maybe you're being too precise with it. No, because it's the truth. I want to be true with people. Well, no, I'm not. I understand that. Well, and the other problem is, like, they'll get, I'll know that, like, if somebody's 35th in line, right, then I go look at my production schedule on the allotments, I'm going to get the next two runs. But then the run in the summer and fall, they haven't given us numbers yet. So I have to go like, well, based on what they gave us previously, if I take an average here, they've probably fallen. But it's imprecise, so I don't know. Well, I'm just wondering, maybe it'd be easier if all you did was say you are 35th in line and this is when the next run of the game is. But I can't confirm whether or not they'll actually send me 35 or not. If I know they're not going to send 35, I wouldn't be able to tell people that because I don't want to get people's hopes up. Right, right. So I wondered if maybe it would make sense for you on the Flippin' Out website to list when the next productions are currently estimated. Yes, I thought about that. Deadpool, May, Jurassic Park, July. Yeah, I've thought about it. That's work too.
    133:04
    Because all dealers are dealing with this. And it is, I mean, I talked to Melissa at TPF, and she said that it takes away so much time trying to figure out when these runs are coming. The poor Jurassic Park people, I got ahead of it. This is inside baseball here, but I got ahead of it, and I was like, hey, you guys, oh, it's supposed to be made next week, so heads up. Go ahead and submit your payments, right? Finally doing something ahead of time. Damned if that next day I didn't get a message, hey, those are all bumped. I'm like, fuck. So message those people back. Oh, I told you it was being made next week. It's actually July. And that probably made them extra upset because they got their hopes up. It did because they were like, well, I paid. Now what are you going to do? And I'm like, well. You're like, well, I'm going to put it in an interest-bearing account. That's right. Like, I can give you your money back, but I don't want to eat 3% for the credit card. So, well.
    133:54
    Day in the life of a pinball dealer. Sorry, guys. That is it. Also trending down this week is pinball enthusiasts. Not you people in general. The Facebook page, Pinball Enthusiasts. Oh, I left that group months ago. Wow. What a dumpster fire over there. I've heard. I've heard it's been drama city. I'm still a part of it. I made a pledge over a year ago because maybe one or more of the moderators are, how do I say this in a PC way?
    134:21
    So I don't post there anymore, and I haven't posted there for over a year because there is one or more of the administrators in that group, and it's the largest pinball group on the Facebooks. So I would like to advertise and to post things there, but I don't. I refrain because they are complete dickholes. But, yeah, big shit show going on. They apparently don't like Robin from Pinsides. They said you can't say Robin's name or can't mention Pinside on Pinball and Doozies.
    134:52
    It reinforced everything that I perceived before and currently about them. So, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. They are training down. It comes across like power tripping when you start making weird rules, like don't say their name. No joke. Keep your name out of my forum's mouth.
    135:09
    Also trending down this week is Tennessee Law. How about that, Dennis? I don't know what you're talking about. You think that was going to make an appearance here? No, this is a surprise. What a tweet. Sure, this has nothing to do with pinball, but damn it, it still bothers me all the same. I was on a recent spring break trip with my wonderful and beautiful family, my wife and kids, and Tennessee. Who, who, who, who do you think you are? I don't know who Tennessee thinks they are, but they're like this place where they take no liability for anything. And they think just putting a sign on there deems them not liable for anything wrong that can happen. You ever seen those places? We're not responsible for. Yeah, maybe. You know what I mostly associate with is those quarry trucks hauling rock. And they say, you have to be, say, 300 feet back. We're not liable if your windshield's damaged. I'm like, that's not how liability works. You don't just get to say you're not liable. That's exactly what I'm talking about. I don't think you can. Doesn't mean, and if I'm throwing your feedback, I probably can't read the damn sign. Hence the conundrum here. Tennessee state law. We go on a trip to Tennessee, the beautiful Tennessee mountains, and I have a near panic attack moment because the older I get, the more afraid of heights I am. And my family thought it was a great idea to put me on some fucking ski lift to take me up to the top of a mountain. And I thought it was sketchy when I got on this ski lift and there was no security measures. you just simply pull a bar down over your head and can lift said bar at any point in time up the mountainside and plunder to your death. It's shaking. This thing, I was the only one worried. Everybody else, all these other blind sheep out there, these Americans are just riding this thing willy-nilly. Hey, let's lean on it. Let's take selfies on it. Nobody, where's everybody at? They need to wake up. None of this shit is safe. And you all should be afraid for your lives. Nobody's afraid. I'm the only one afraid of every little thing in life right now. So I had a panic attack going up. And once I read a sign at the very top, I realized why I should have been worried. It says as follows. Really big sign up there by all of the shit that your kids climb on that could die from. It says the following. Under Tennessee law, an adventure tourism professional is not liable for any injury to or the death of a participant in adventure tourism activities resulting from the inherent risks of such activities, pursuant to Tennessee's code annotated, Title 11, Chapter 11.
    137:34
    Okay. We have something like that in Kansas for farms. Yeah. Agritourism. Farmers were like, well, what if they cut their heads and necks off and stuff in the combine? They're like, well, just pass the laws of that. If you do agritourism, you're not liable if they hurt themselves on farm equipment. They just blanketed this whole thing and said, We're going to build things for you and your kids to want to be lured in to climb on, on a mountaintop. Like a fish. But just know that we're not going to have any supervision. And if you do impale yourself, we're just simply not liable because hashtag we've got a sign.
    138:12
    Yes, but they probably do actually have a law in their case, which does give them that forgiveness. Can I make a law like that? Like, if I slap the shit out of somebody, I'm not liable in the state of Indiana. I don't know. What do you need? Do you, like, want someone tips a pinball machine on themselves if they can't come back and get out for you? Yeah, you can always ask your state legislator. Wow. I thought, this is pretty unbelievable. Unbelievable. Do you ever get scared about heights or anything, Dennis?
    138:39
    You know, I'm not, yeah, I'm not a huge heights fan. There's not anything I can think of that I explicitly avoided, per se. I've never been on, like, a ski lift. Oh, it's so scary to take a show to the mountaintops. And you know that, like, if you fall, you're going to die. Yeah. In fact, I was going to. Well, I wasn't going to. Now I am. I did just the day or two ago. I guess someone on one of those trails in Hawaii slipped and fell 250 feet.
    139:07
    Because there are no, like, major notable railings or anything. The ski lift, people were, like, holding babies and stuff. And I'm like, oh, dear God. Hold on. I guess the baby should be harnessed with a bungee cord or something. It was terrifying. And the most terrifying thing wasn't my possible death. It was the smiles on these fuckers' faces with no worries in the world. And they thought that since this was a business that had them in this harness, that it was completely fine. People are blind. I don't know what's wrong with people. They trust anyone. It's ridiculous. Tennessee, lol. Can lick my chode. Till the week this week is a Beatles gold. Find a Beatles gold on Penn Cyber right outside of Arizona, Phoenix, Arizona. Wizard 64 is his name, and the Beatles is his game. He's got for sale. $7,500 firm. Only got 249 plays. That's a good buy. Buy, buy, buy! There's none left, so that's really, really a good buy there. Go pick up the Beatles. Pinball Bounty is still open for the radical. Find me the nicest radical or one that is super clean, that has a play field that I can strip down and get repro'd, and I'll give you a bunch of money. Sell, sell, sell. And as always, I'm just here to report facts. Dennis told you that because I'm a man of honor, and numbers will never lie to you on Pinball Market Trips.
    140:30
    Ooh, Dennis, let's close it down. Episode 96, we're getting closer to 100. Very close. Are we going to celebrate? What are we going to do? Anything special? I don't know. We might have to make some significant revamps to the show. How's that for a nugget? I was going to say, now you're giving nuggets away. I got four piece pack here alright where can people catch you? they can always email me eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com or go to facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast those are the most convenient ways to direct message me wonderful and you can send all of your pretty pictures from TPF to Tony I'm sure he wants to receive all those messages he loves photos send all kinds of pictures to Tony if you're at the DMV send them to Tony if you just have a fresh shave he still doesn't listen to the show So he won't hear any of these. Again, this hard-headed shit. He should work at Multimorphic. Good Lord. At this point, it's just hard-headedness. He's just refusing. I don't think he's listening to any pinball podcast, though. It's not, like, personal. Is he not? No.
    141:33
    You're like all the rest. You're just the same. You're one of them. Come on, Tony. I need you. No. If you need to get a hold of me, you can do so by emailing the pinball network at gmail.com. You can also reach me straight down the middle of video series, sdtmpinball at gmail.com. I think Greg and I, we've lost the password, so we're trying to find it, but I still have access to it because it's built in on my phone, so I don't know what to do there. But we have some SDTM videos that just came out, one talking about some retro gaming, another a new mod by Hurry Up Pinball for Deadpool. That was fun. And if you want to spit the drink out of your mouth, tune in and see what my specific custom mod says about Greg Bones' mom. So good. I'm halfway through that video. Oh, so good. This show is proudly sponsored by Flippin' Out Pinball. The product showcased this week is the Mandalorian Premium. We do have, I think, two still in stock. And those have been selling really well. Those ain't Guns N' Roses. People are like, shit, I want something. Those are good games, so I'll get them. We also have Guns N' Roses, as I alluded to Ready to go, ready to ship We also have in stock the Art Blades, the Toppers And the Banners for Guns N' Roses If you want an Avengers Pro They're going to make them this week I believe I have an extra spot left Somebody backed out last minute Not to reference the point that I had in the murder team But, uh, late opening Avengers Infinity Quest Pro Still waiting for more Insider Connected kits We have them on pre-order on the website Alien pre-orders, still taking those as well I think I have a mermaid spot for Fathom still left. Batman 66 LE, we still have it. Rush Pro pre-owned, we just added to the inventory, so we have one of those, as well as Jurassic Park Premium pre-owned. Cactus Canyon spots for SE and SE Pluses. We still have an Elvira 40th anniversary, as well as Star Wars Premium comic. So one of them, still have one left. And we just included into our inventory a used LE. Those don't pop up too often, so Star Wars LE. We did sell one of our Star Wars LE toppers. It went for $3,000. How about that for a training up? Yikes. Mm-hmm. And we still have one more left. I have to recalculate my topper to dollar conversion for when I do comparisons on things. Yeah, people thought I was crazy. You're never going to get that out. Yeah, you will. We got one more left. We have a TMNT LE and a premium pre-owned. We just added to the inventory that premium, as well as the Led Zeppelin premium plus mods we add to the inventory. See, I'm buying up a lot of stuff, getting trade-ins. And even if I have to pay more in MSRP Deadpool LE Got one in my own personal collection Eh, it could go Got that with the topper if you guys are interested in that A Munsters Pro that we just got in stock It's a pre-owned one Game of Thrones LE Out of my own personal collection Eh, it can go Stranger Things Premium Still new in the box Have that for market price Corvette and Maverick We just got into inventory pre-owned You're not going to get a new in box Maverick And Iron Maiden Premium Very lightly pre-owned Godzilla I talked about it earlier. We have armor now in stock, as well as the shooter rod and art blades. All accessories for that minus topper in stock. Rush orders. We're still taking orders for those. And TMNT, Stranger Things, Deadpool, all have toppers we've got in stock. Armor. Everybody likes this armor. We've got Mandalorian armor, Godzilla, Led Zeppelin, Deadpool, Avengers, Turtles, more. We have a lot of armor. Shooter rods, we have Avengers, Jurassic Park, Mandalorian, Godzilla. We've got all the shooter rods, Shaker Motors, Elite Pinball, IJ Deluxe Topper. I think people know that the new revealed topper for Elite Pinballs of Bowser come out, so people are buying those up. I have three left, I believe, and then that's it. Wasn't that second place topper finisher at the Twins? I think you did finish second to Halloween. That was another one of those Rick and Morty won best topper thing. I love you, Halloween, but you don't have the best topper. Why didn't Stranger Things win that? I don't know. That's why there are other award shows that do a more objective thing, but knowing the committee and lack of topper expertise, they would have fucked that up too.
    145:33
    Sorry. Be on the lookout for Elite Pinball's next reveal of their deluxe topper. It's incredible. We'll help reveal that it's straight down the middle. Escalera turnaround time, still three to four months, as well as merch. It doesn't take that long. If you guys want to buy a coveted Pinball Show t-shirt, or my homie Gomi, or any other Hulk Jiu-Jitsu. Maybe not. I don't know. Nordman? Oh, maybe not. I don't know. We'll figure it out. TPN last week. It was a hoot. The pinball tapes. New show.
    146:06
    I have heard good feedback. It was a good show. I really liked what Zach from Australia was bringing to this new concept. So go listen to the off-the-record pilot of that episode and stay tuned. Maybe you'll hear more pinball tapes in the future.
    146:22
    We also had District 82 do the big tournament weekend here. Go check out the VOD of that. We love you over there, Tom, in Fox Cities. And coming up in May, on the 14th, 2022, Battle in the Bunker. There's two tournaments. They only last one day. Go check out Battle in the Bunker. It's not your bunker because you did the barn instead. Battle in the Barnker. Check out all the streams. You tune in today and TPN's probably doing it. Doing it right. Man, I've got to give a lot of credit before we close down the show, Dennis, to the TPN streamers. I tuned in, was it to Wednesday? Wednesday or Thursday. And damned if TPN, the actual TPN dedicated channel, they had two streams. It was George's stream and it was Joel's stream prior to. Damned if we didn't have 60 to 80 viewers the entirety of the whole night. From like 6 p.m. to 12, 1 o'clock in the morning. That was really impressive. And numbers continue to rise on TPN-promoted stuff. So TPN is growing really, really rapidly, and us people in charge of it are trying to keep up the best that we can. But we did announce two new leaders of TPN, didn't we? Yeah, at least internally we did. Yeah, internally, the Governance Committee, I guess we can report it here. We can be transparent here. Joel Engelberth joined, and Amanda Hamilton joined our committee for TPN decision-making and workload and stuff like that. Yeah, they've been helping a lot behind the scenes already. Yeah, so we thought it was a good fit, and they were happy to do it. So welcome to the shit show. TPN this week, just follow, like, subscribe. YouTube, Facebook, Twitch is all the TPN stuff, and you'll find some fun stuff. Shit, I think that's it, Dennis. I'm tired. Maybe another six weeks. Yeah, I figured after as long as this is gone, maybe. I'm already burning out again. For Dennis Creasel, I'm Zach Benny. And to all of those of you who have new in-box orders pending, with games coming in at a trickle, your order is not in a pickle. Just stay the course and don't be fickle.
    148:26
    That's so good. And always practice safe pinball and life in general by telling Tennessee, keep my wife out your fucking gondola.
    148:38
    See you next week with a first-time special guest. You're not going to want to miss that one. My dogs are barking. That wasn't his. Dogs? Fuck. Who let them out? Woof. My poor little girl dog, Millie. She has a cone. The cone of shame. Oh. The Carl D'Angelo cone of shame right now. She looks so depressed. I'm sure she is. It would be defeating. Yeah, she's got allergies. Oh, that's why she needs a cone. Why can't dogs be normal and just have no health issues? Yeah, well, you know, if you cross-breed them enough, you get like an abomination-looking dog, but they're supposed to be pretty hardy. Yeah, well, they always have bad hips and shit. There's ointments and shit. Antibiotics. God. Stupid dogs.
    149:35
    I can't help it sometimes. I was raised on cruelty. keep your free topper out of my fucking world that's what I'm saying