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PNP 601- Stern's Newest Pin D & D: 5 Rad & 1 Bad+ TWIPYS Are Open Right MEOW!

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 5m·analyzed·Jan 4, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Orby ranks D&D's dragon mech, call-outs, Sunday game changers, flow design, and artwork as Stern's best.

Summary

Orby from Pinball Nerds Podcast celebrates Stern's new Dungeons & Dragons pinball machine, highlighting five standout features: the dragon mech (the coolest he's seen since Pirates of the Caribbean), inspired call-outs featuring Michael Dorn and possibly Kevin Smith, weekly game changers that alter storyline paths on Sundays, excellent playfield flow with upper flipper design, and stunning artwork packages across all tiers. He also announces the return of the Twippies awards with an open ballot.

Key Claims

  • The dragon mech is the coolest automated interactive mech in pinball since Pirates of the Caribbean's boat

    medium confidence · Orby's personal first impression after watching the reveal video three times; subjective aesthetic judgment

  • Michael Dorn is the voice of the dragon; a third voice actor may be Kevin Smith

    medium confidence · Orby heard this in the official Stern reveal but expressed uncertainty about the Kevin Smith confirmation, saying he didn't want to Google to avoid spoilers

  • The game changes its storyline and path every Sunday automatically via code update

    medium confidence · Orby's interpretation of the feature described in the Stern reveal video; he notes uncertainty about tournament implications and whether it affects scoring or just story

  • D&D has more playfield flow than most of John Borg's recent designs

    low confidence · Orby's subjective comparison based on visual inspection of the reveal video, not hands-on play

  • Prominent YouTuber Rudy (Alpha Investments) recently revealed his large pinball collection publicly for the first time

    high confidence · Orby states this as recent news from the Alpha Investments channel; describes Rudy as having gotten into pinball during COVID

  • Twippies awards are returning with Colin (Kineticist/This Week in Pinball), Jamie (Wormhole Pinball), Retro Ralph, Erin, and Ian Jacobi (Nudge/Doc Monday) organizing

    high confidence · Orby explicitly names the organizers and states the ballot opened today

Notable Quotes

  • “This is the coolest mech I've ever seen interact with the ball in pinball probably since the boat at Jersey Jack's Pirates of the Caribbean. I'm serious.”

    Orby (Orbital Albert) @ ~6:30 — Establishes the dragon as the standout feature; anchors it to a legendary mechanic for comparison

  • “Every single solitary Sunday, somehow, someway, the game changes and the storyline of the path that you take changes... that is so interesting that's so unique that's so different.”

    Orby (Orbital Albert) @ ~20:00 — Highlights a unique dynamic game-state feature; indicates bewilderment about tournament implications

  • “If this is an Elwin pin would we say it's Elwin's best flow? Absolutely not... but I would say it's got more flow than most anything by John Borg.”

    Orby (Orbital Albert) @ ~35:00 — Positions D&D as exceptionally well-designed for flow compared to legendary designer John Borg's recent work

  • “The largest YouTuber, Rudy of Alpha Investments... just came out of the dungeon, if you will... He came out as a massive pinball nerd.”

    Orby (Orbital Albert) @ ~25:00 — Reports cultural moment: major financial/collectibles influencer publicly reveals pinball passion; signals potential new audience segment

  • “Can we just say that for a second? The pausing of the game is incredible.”

    Orby (Orbital Albert) @ ~50:00 — Notes pause feature as novel accessibility/convenience element worthy of emphasis

Entities

Stern PinballcompanyDungeons & DragonsgameOrbital AlbertpersonGeorge GomezpersonDwight SullivanpersonBrian EddypersonMichael DornpersonKevin Smithperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Orby planning Patreon launch post-New Year and emphasizing transparency/ethics around monetization vs. existing coffee company commission model

    medium · Orby dedicates segment to announcing Patreon plans, expressing concern about disclosure and fiduciary ethics; ties to broader content creator sustainability conversation

  • ?

    community_signal: Stern marketing proactively reaching out to content creators (Orby); positive response from Zach Sharp offering future facility visits for major releases

    high · Orby reports receiving quick, kind response from Stern marketing; thanks Zach Sharp by name; expresses desire to visit Stern for future release events

  • ?

    design_philosophy: New D&D artist's color palette potentially not as strong as incumbent Stern artists Zombie Yeti or Christopher Franchi; Orby expresses minor aesthetic concern

    low · Orby states 'color palette maybe is not as good as maybe you would see with Zombie Yeti or Franchi' but immediately qualifies as personal preference/familiarity bias

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Brian Eddy incorporating upper flipper with multiple shot options and dynamic flow improvements, possibly influenced by Jack Danger's design approach

    medium · Orby notes D&D has third flipper (uncommon for Eddy) with multiple shots, better flow than recent Borg/Eddy designs, speculates on design cross-pollination

  • ?

    event_signal: Twippies awards officially returning with ballot open; organizing committee includes Colin (Kineticist), Jamie (Wormhole Pinball), Retro Ralph, Erin, Ian Jacobi (Nudge)

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.197

0:00
All get around, he's on the rebound, hear the sound of our buddy, oh lordy, it's Orby, pinball now to rejoice, he's tugging pinball, craft beer and coffee, mixed with syrup and honey, he hopes to laugh with his family in a random tangent, stories of his boys, he's on the poor man's pod network, we're gonna get more listeners, for the Pinball Nerds Podcast.
0:32
Coming to you from beautiful River Hibbert's, Nova Scotia. Welcome back, Pinball Nerds, to episode 601 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast, the Pinball Nerds Podcast, hosted by the one and only Mr. Orbital Albert. That's me, Orby. Alright guys, new pinball day is always a good pinball day. I'm excited, I'm stoked, we're going to get right into it. Let's just talk about everything rad about Stern's newest pin, Dungeons and Dragons. Okay, so before we do the top five rad and that one, one, there's always one bad, isn't there? That one bad thing. Before we get into that, I am going to at the very end talk a little bit about the Twippies. because the Twippy ballots did open today. I'm going to try my very hardest. I have it right here, so I'm going to try my best to drop a link here. Most of you all know where to go. If you're already listening to me, you're into pinball enough to know what the Twippies is, but basically it's an awards show.
1:43
It's had some really good years. It's had some years that weren't as good. It's had now a year or two that it's been gone, so we're all just happy that it's coming back. Jamie from Wormhole Pinball over there is helping out Colin from the Kineticist in this week in pinball of course to get it all set up and then we have Retro Ralph and Erin the Science Communicator I forget her last name currently I'm sorry Erin but there you go maybe we sent someone over to her Facebook page or some of her social media for her science communications and then of course we have Ian of Nudge also known as Doc Monday he's going to be like their I don't know, the man on the street or something like that, kind of doing some of the, maybe the color commentary, we'll say, like a Jeff Teolis type for the show. That's why I'm guessing. I don't really know. I am not part of the committee. I'm not sure. But that would be my best guess. Now, we're going to get into that in a minute. But let's start by celebrating New Pinball Day. because I'll be honest, if Home Pin or Pinball Adventures,
Rudy
person
Zombie Yetiperson
Christopher Franchiperson
Zach Sharpperson
Colinperson
Jamieperson
Retro Ralphperson
Ian Jacobiperson
This Week in Pinballorganization
Twippiesevent
Poor Man's Pinball Networkorganization
Wormhole Pinballorganization
Jack Dangerperson
John Borgperson
Keith Elwinperson
Pirates of the Caribbeangame
Medieval Madnessgame

high · Orby announces ballot opened today; names all organizers explicitly; states awards had year(s) hiatus prior to return

  • $

    market_signal: D&D positioning as major release given content creator access (CES event attendance planned for Jan 7); competing with other CES announcements for attention

    medium · Orby mentions content creators visiting Stern on Jan 7; expresses FOMO about not attending CES or Stern facility visit; treats D&D as flagship release

  • ?

    community_signal: Rudy (Alpha Investments, major YouTube financial/collectibles influencer) publicly revealed pinball collection for first time, positioning pinball as emerging collectible asset class to wealthy investment audience

    high · Orby reports Rudy recently launched show revealing pinball collection; describes Rudy as largest YouTube investor/collectibles figure; notes Rudy owns rare Magic cards (15-20 Black Lotuses) and major collections

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Brian Eddy confirmed as D&D designer with signature on LE backglass; Dwight Sullivan on code/game changers; new artist (name not visible in transcript) joining Stern design team with comic/fantasy art background

    high · Orby explicitly credits Brian Eddy signature on LE art; references Dwight Sullivan for game changers; notes new artist debut and quality level

  • ?

    announcement: Stern officially revealed Dungeons & Dragons pinball with full 6-7 minute showcase video demonstrating dragon mech, game changers, call-outs, and three-tier artwork packages

    high · Orby watched official Stern reveal video multiple times; details match official reveal format and content structure

  • ?

    product_strategy: D&D three-tier structure with exclusive LE/Premium dragon mech features (ball ejection) and potential code-differentiated modes to justify LE premium pricing

    medium · Orby proposes idea of LE-exclusive dragon modes as value differentiation; suggests coding dragon differently for LE justifies pricing premium

  • ?

    product_concern: Orby notes lack of clear visual documentation of dragon ball trajectory/exit path in Stern reveal video; speculates this indicates technical complexity or unresolved programming issues

    low · Orby: 'We didn't get a clear vision of where the balls go. I thought that was weird that Stern didn't show that. I wonder if there's a reason for that.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Stern implementing weekly dynamic game-state changes via code (Sunday ruleset rotation affecting story/path progression); Dwight Sullivan programming automation

    medium · Orby interprets Stern reveal as showing automatic Sunday game changes; notes this is unique differentiation; expresses uncertainty about implementation details

    • 2:48
    and I don't even want to name names, but like ABBA Pinball, when certain smaller boutique pinball companies release a pin, I don't get that excited. I really don't have a problem going to bed at night. But last night, all I could think about when I was laying in bed, normally I'd be getting ready to, you know, going into my lucid dreaming and practicing playing pinball, but instead I was just thinking, what is this dragon going to look like? What is the dragon going to do?
    3:15
    Is there going to be lasers? Will there be lasers instead of fire? Will the dragon breathe lasers? Probably not. I was taking that too far. And I was like, well, obviously there's not going to be a little, like, poof of smoke. But I thought, what if they kind of made it look like it breathed fire, sort of like the Godzilla topper, you know, when it looks like it's puffing the magic dragon up there, you know what I mean? so I wondered like how are they going to do this how's it going to work maybe they're going to show like a puff on a little LCD screen beside it and I thought nah that's kind of tacky they're not going to do that and here's how they're doing it they're throwing pinballs at you so instead of fire maybe it's not a I mean wouldn't it be cool if like one of the one of the pinballs was dressed up like dressed up like fire painted like fire okay that I've taken it too far let's just get right into it. All right, so number one on my list, as you might guess, after watching this video three times in a row, mind you, not taking notes to the third time, I really wanted to let it sink in. These are my first impressions, okay? I have not shot the pin. I have not done a deep dive. I have not gone into pin side. I have not gone into, well, I have gone onto Facebook because I had to get the link for the Twippies, but I have not heard any other content creators input on this. I want to say straight up, there's no question when I was doing this list, number one, the coolest thing on this thing is the dragon, which I think we all wanted it to be. Obviously, we have dungeons and dragons, you know. Now, that little door to go down to the dungeon, that's kind of cool. That's kind of cool. but I'll say this the whole rest of my list has no other toys on it because that dragon I think that George Gomez said something to the extent of it being like the coolest like automated dragon in all pinball no no no this is the coolest mech I've ever seen interact with the ball in pinball probably since probably since the boat and Jersey Jacks Pirates of the Caribbean. I'm serious. Like, I, think of another thing. Is it as cool as the T-Rex from Jurassic Park? Hells yes, because balls fire out of it quickly, and at the same time, it blocks shots. He's like a hockey goalie over there, a soccer goalie, like, just freaking, you know, like, he's, oh my god. So he goes up, he goes down, he goes left, he goes right, he can be programmed, he can interact with different modes. They have an incredible call-in artist, and we'll get to that later, but they have an incredible call-out artist like yelling and screaming at you, kind of like the Black Knight. He's kind of like, he's trying to get you into a fit of rage. And then at the same time, not only can he block shots, he can shoot the frickin' ball at you on the LE and the Premium. So it's like, wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. I will say this.
    6:03
    I haven't shot it yet, so I don't know for sure. We didn't get a clear vision of where the balls go. I thought that was weird that Stern didn't show that. I wonder if there's a reason for that. Maybe that's the reason why maybe that's that dragon mech is so complex i wouldn't be surprised if that specifically programming it dealing with tech issues or something of the sort is why we saw jack danger's x-men uh ahead of it but wow that dragon is some cool and i really think on the le this would be a major major not it's not going to be super easy but i think from a cost perspective if you already used your in-house people which why wouldn't you to code it and to program it and to implement it for the le owners if they took that dragon and they implemented some type of code or some type of mode that the dragon would only do when say even if they left it that it was only on wizard mode that you saw that for the le owners or only on a certain multi ball that you could only get on the le or something like that even me as a tournament player yes even me as a tournament player, I would be okay with doing that because I, like many other players, even though I don't buy new in-box pinball machines and never have and probably never will, I know myself that my dog is getting very upset. You can't come over here right now, Luna. I'm recording. Sorry. I'll come see you in a minute, okay? I know that without a doubt when I'm listening and hearing, you know, I've got my head to the ground with all a lot of other pinball players and especially even content creators who buy new unbox what you hear a lot of the time is they would buy new inbox more often if only the pinball machines held their money better and i think this le for multiple reasons but especially this one particular reason that you could code it differently for that one mech so now you've got a mech that interacts differently with the ball on the le and you have its own mode with its own code so i just I think that's really cool. It wouldn't have to be a huge scoring mode so people would be taking advantage of that for insider connected badges on LE, but who cares if it was a bit easier with an LE? That's another cool advantage. Who cares if it was a bit easier for someone on an LE to get a badge? It should be. They paid a lot more. Their bottom line that went towards the company and keeping it afloat and keeping the line moving and keeping us pinball nerds with new three, four, five new pinball machines per year. Stern is on fire. We want to support what they're doing. And even though I'm not financially able to do it, I want others who are financially able to do it to continue to do it more often. Because I think we could all agree, if you knew that you could come close to breaking, even like you could for about 10 years there, if you could come close to breaking, even on an LE or even a premium, three, six, nine months, even a year later, not having to hold it two, three, four years, I think that a lot more new inbox sales would happen. So let's just get into number two here. Let's get into number two, the call-outs. Now, I kind of mentioned this earlier, but Stern, are you listening? As our friend Drew here on the Poor Men's Pinball Network often said, okay, shout out to Drew, shout out to Ian. Hello, poor men. Happy New Year. Shout out to all the tribesmen, tribeswomen, everybody in the tribe. Shout out to all of you. Happy New Year. And to all the listeners, Happy New Year. Hopefully you guys are doing well. I'm doing okay myself I might mention that closer to the end of the show but I'm trying to keep it I'm trying to stay pinball related here I will say that I did get a very nice response from Zach Sharp over there at Stern Pinball Marketing and he did recognize and thank me for getting back to him letting him know that I couldn't come right now this time but I did let him know that of course one day I do want to visit the mecca of all pinball Stern and I'm so excited to do so and he wrote me back actually very quickly and very kindly as well. Again, another response. So thank you so much for that, Zach. I do appreciate that. And someday I will get to go visit Stern. And you know what? If I do get to go there for like a huge release, like, I don't know, say Back to the Future. I don't even know if they have that or like Pokemon or something like that. Sure, it would be a bit more special, but I am still going to be jelly of all the content creators that are getting to go on the 7th and especially all the content creators in this freaking weather, especially all the content creators that are going to go to CES. I would love to go to CES. I'm sorry, Stern, and I'm sorry all the other pinball companies that are going to be at CES, but pinball would be the back of my list. I mean, now seeing Dungeons & Dragons would be a little bit higher, but there's so much cool stuff at CES. If I was going to go and spend my own money, I 100% would be going to Vegas. I am also an amateur poker player, so I would go there to play a little bit. In fact, the last tournament that I played, the dude that I took out to shut up his big mouth from being a jerk was the guy who took out Jesus Ferguson at the World Series a week before that. This is neither here nor there. But I went on to split. I won a poker tournament at Barry's Berries at Bally's Paris. It was so fun. It was only about $640. We chopped with four players left, I believe. $640, you know, probably closer to, almost back then, especially closer to $1,000 US. So that was incredible. But I've gone off topic. Let's go back to these call-outs. Wow. the Michael Dorn I believe is the dragon's voice they mentioned and um wow and then they did say the third person they said that they didn't show those first two gentlemen that they showed they their voices were just incredible sounded just like the movie or you know something that you would imagine that would sound like in that whole realm of Dungeons and Dragons well the third person they said was Kevin Smith and this is the one moment I rewound multiple times other than the dragon. And it does kind of sound like the Kevin Smith, but I don't know if it is the Kevin Smith. I mean, I don't... I'm sure he has done voice work. I'm sure he does voice work. But would he do voice work in a pinball machine? And, I mean, he seems very nerdy, so could he be into Dungeons & Dragons? Certainly. I don't know. I'm excited to find that out. Again, I didn't want to Google too much about the project because I didn't want to find out too much of it. I am going to, while I am talking about the art, going to be taking a look at Stern Pinball's website so I can kind of talk about it relevantly. But here we go. Let's get into number three. Stern, were you listening? There we go. That's how I came up with that. That's how I went on that big circle of saying Happy New Year to everybody.
    12:36
    Stern, are you listening? We said we didn't love the callouts in X-Men. They were okay, but they seemed kind of uninspired. These were inspired. These seemed custom. These seemed inspired. These seemed like they put their heart and their soul into it. I'm going to straight up here say the best callouts. I think, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Jaws. I think they're probably the best callouts since Godzilla. The Godzilla callouts are funny. They're kind of poking and prodding at you a little bit. They're making fun of you a little bit. They're also very relevant. They sound very game thematrical. How they would have been. The Godzilla commentator, I guess it would be. Anyways, let's move on to number three. So, game changers. That's right. So, this part I am going to have to hear about more and research more, but Dwight, wow, if you were going to make your games even more confusing, you've gone and done it, Dwight.
    13:33
    Blinded by Dwight, revved up like a doucher in the dungeon of the night. With the dragon in my shmiggle Okay, no singing. It is a new year, a new Orby. Let's go. Less singing, less going off topic. Game changer is that every single solitary Sunday, somehow, someway, the game changes and the storyline of the path that you take changes. I think I was watching this with Owen this morning on his final day of his Christmas break, and he was saying, well, like, how is that going to change for tournament players? And then we were also talking about, like, how you can pause the game and like he was saying like but could you pause the game and then when you're in a tournament use your insider connectedness and I said that's a great question I will mention that on there I am not sure we're going to find out about all these things it's the same thing with the game changers like I don't know most tournaments start on a Thursday or Friday and end on a Saturday or Sunday so this usually wouldn't be a problem because you'd have all week to kind of figure out that storyline and maybe it is not changing the points as much as I'm thinking maybe it's just sort of changing the story mode but every single sunday the direction or the the the path for which you get through the game to do the stories or the modes unless i'm under misunderstanding something which i could be i'm slightly distracted right now i'm not gonna lie but it sounds to me like the game changes at least a little bit in some way shape or form every sunday and that is so interesting that's so unique that's so different i was trying to think of how a game like that kind of changes. I get with Venom the game state changed and I also get with Venom you had characters that you could add on to so it kind of changed but it's just totally unique. It's totally different. It does remind me I wonder if Wizards of the Coast, they're the people of course who have Magic of the Gathering so if you, man, if you bring out a Magic of the Gathering pin it's going to sell probably ten times this I would guess. At least five times this because now you're getting into the collector's realm. And I will say this, the largest YouTuber, the largest YouTuber, Rudy,
    15:46
    of Alpha Investments is the show, Alpha Investments is the YouTube channel, I couldn't remember that for a second. He actually just came out of the dungeon, if you will, out of the closet, I guess. He came out as a massive pinball nerd. And he showed his entire pinball collection. And He is an alley man, as you might suggest. I mean, the guy owns like 15 to 20 Black Lotuses, which can go for between, I don't know, 15K US up to like 200,000 if they grade a 10, magically somehow, or there's certain additions. I don't fully understand it, but he's the biggest visit. He has the largest Magic of the Gathering channel bar none He has one of the largest investment channels because he also talks about tons of other investments including but not limited to like well once in a while like super nerdy stuff like Yu-Gi-Oh!, but he also talks about fine art, he also talks about statures, he also talks about toys, he also dabbles in Pokemon, I mean, he spends a million dollars every time, like multiple times a year when a new collection comes out, holds them for years and years and years, slowly sells them back, But he is a massive pinball nerd, which nobody knew about. He just started a show and went, Folks, I never show you what I do in my spare time. And he really loves pinball because he's done it for years, but he's never shown anyone. And it's something I think he got into over COVID. And there is a lot of these little pocket collectors who don't necessarily listen to pinball podcasts. They'll never get to hear Orby talk about the most five rad things in this, including the fact that the game doesn't just change physical states it actually changes the story modes and I believe and that's why I put this at number three because that gelatinous cube that holds a ball sure that would have been low-hanging fruit that was a toy it wasn't as good as the toy that was the dragon the gelatinous cube if it just magnetized the ball for a second and held it not that cool but the fact that the gelatinous cube just holds the ball until another ball catches up to it and if you don't make a ball catch up to it and hit that little sneaky wraparound shot that's so gorgeous at the back and get the ball up onto there if you don't get that ball out of there in time then like the dragon eats the ball or something like that it's so cool like that is a cool toy normally that would be on the top five but in this particular case Dwight and or possibly Brian Eddy I'm not sure uh have changed this up so that wow this particular machine will change every Sunday and for not even just for home use because for home use that's big like this would actually make me second or third think owning this but like I'll be honest even my favorite pinball machine of all time probably Jurassic Park I get sick of playing after I play it three four or five times even in a day like you know and I know there is a different routes to take getting to the visitor center and such and yeah that that does change it up a little bit but imagine being forced imagine being forced once a week to play a pinball machine and a completely different route or method and I really think that's what could make this particular pin stand out. Alright, number four. Number four on the top five most rad is this has the most flow of any Brian Eddy. The most flow! And I'm sorry, Brian, if you're listening to this. I highly doubt you are, but I'm sorry if you are. I love Medieval Madness, but it is not a flow monster, said nobody ever. Both of those left and right ramps are pretty freaking tight and hard to hit, so you end up hitting the sides of the ramps and deflecting or getting a three-quarter up ball more times than not unless it's set up perfectly. And then you're actually told, because you get so many points, I remember like my second or third time actually ever playing that Evil Madness in person, I ended up getting like 50 mil from just breaking the castle. It was a very safe castle shot. And by safe, I mean if you're good at nudging, and you can watch it when it's going to hit the slings and that sort of thing. This was actually in the London Pinball Show, I believe. Or London Pinball Show. London, Ontario Pinball League, LOPL, at Ray's House. And I think only our buddy Mark, who's no longer a pinball, beat me. I think I got second out of 40 or 50 of some of the top players in southwestern Ontario. And I had only ever played this thing maybe twice, like a couple of warm-up balls, before I played it. And what I'm getting at is that, although I'm not that good of a player, the rules are very simple for medieval madness. And part of what makes it great is the fact that there is not really any safe shots when you're trying to just knock down that castle. because it's a very dangerous shot. You never know how it's going to come back until the castle actually eats the ball. This particular pin, yes, of course, the balls are going to come back at you pretty hard and pretty fast when you're shooting for that dragon, which is low, and that is a dangerous shot, but there's only three of those shots there. It doesn't seem like you're going to be hitting it nearly as often as you'd be hitting the castle, putting the ball out of control. In fact, it looks like that upper flipper even has three or four different things to hit up there. so this is a flow monster a flow beast listen is this like if this is an elowin pin would we say it's elwyn's best flow absolutely not even if it was jack dangers would you say it's better flow than say foo fighters or even x-men i don't think so by looking at it especially with that dragon shot and the three stand-ups however i would say it's it's really good it's got a lot of flow i would say it's i would say it's got more flow than most of uh than honestly mostly anything by john board like for the most part I'm trying to think but yeah it looks very good it looks like it's got a lot of flow it's got a third flipper which is one of the my biggest complaints about a lot of Brian Eddy uh you know Brian's machines in the past are a lot of two flippers and there's not a lot of side to side back and forth shots but that that cool upper flipper up there has three different shots attached to it um I don't know I don't know I'm not going to say like uh he's taking notes from Elowen or even Jack Danger, of course, because Jack Danger is much newer to actually designing pinball machine than he is. But he's rubbing off on them. He's rubbing off on them. Maybe they sit beside each other on lunch and they're physically rubbing off, which is mentally rubbing off when it comes to designing his pinball machines. I'm not sure, but wow. Great flow. Congratulations to you and the whole team over there at Stern. It looks incredible, and I can't wait to shoot it. Now, here's kind of the funny part. Before I say the top one, I'm going to give a couple like, a couple asterisks, a couple things that could have been on this list while I look up Stern here.
    22:08
    A couple new things for me this year. I do think I am going to go ahead and start a Patreon. I wanted to wait till the new year. I know once I have a Patreon, obviously that's something that you're going to have to be open and honest about. To me personally, when I'm just selling coffee through the show, it's kind of like an advertisement for my coffee company. And I'm kind of, I guess, paying myself that way with some of the commissions, or I could be. But if I'm going to be taking Patreon, I want to make sure I'm totally above board. And I want to make sure I'm doing the best I can at it.
    22:43
    I'm here on the front page of Stern. How was the first thing I saw not... Dungeons & Dragons, there it is. Okay, click on Dungeons & Dragons. view game. Let's see. I already watched the trailer. That was a banger trailer. And I do like that they didn't drip feed us. I feel like normally they drip fed us before. Like they'd show us like a couple shots or a one minute video. Nah, nah, nah, nah. I love that Stern does this now. They give you six or seven minutes. They show you what the difference is. Okay. So the number five thing. And by far my favorite.
    23:14
    No. The dragon's the best. But this is really cool. These artwork packages are fire. Excuse the pun. I'm a dad, okay? I'm a dad. Do you know I'm a dad of not even two teenagers anymore? I have a 20-year-old son now. Is that weird? That's kind of weird. And he still lives at home. And last night while I had been fasting for like 60 hours, he didn't just make steak, but he made ribs. As if making steak wasn't bad enough. Ribs are like, I don't know, like either ribs or like, if I haven't had ribs for like three months, ribs are my favorite food. if I haven't had a burger for like three days. Like if I go three days without a burger, it's like, whoa, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm that character. What's that, Wimpy? Yeah, I'm the character from Popeye. Hey, did you guys hear Popeye hit the free common right now? It's Popeye and Rin Tin Tin. Well, who cares about Rin Tin Tin on my roof? Like Popeye, come on, that's cool. I mean, that's Zach Menny's favorite pinball machine, Popeye. So like now really you could make like a Popeye pinball team. Well, maybe not. Maybe that artwork. See, this is where it gets weird. You have to use the old artwork. But hypothetically, if you were a pinball company and you wanted to make a newer Popeye, as long as you use the old artwork, from what I understand in Minecraft, don't sue me, anybody, please. Can we stop suing people in pinball? It's so weird. Let's stop doing that. wow the LE artwork is stunning it is it is very stunning let's just take a look here let's start with the play field I do like the map in the middle I do like the color scheme I will say that maybe like okay when you get I like that they have a brand new artist as well and he comes from this realm I do feel like the color palette maybe is not as good as maybe you would see with a Zombie Yeti or a Franchi. That's probably just me being used to these two dudes or the main dudes making some of my favorite pinball machine art of all time. But, I will tell you this.
    25:20
    This, I think that we're going to see this dude again in pinball. This, and I forget your name. It's probably in here somewhere.
    25:28
    Don't worry, it'll be on Nap Arcade. It'll also be on sternpinball.com. Go over to either of those places. I'm sure even the Kineticist is going to do some type of deep dive or something like that. Okay, 740. There is a little plaque with the number 740.
    25:44
    The pausing of the game. Can we just say that for a second? The pausing of the game is incredible. Why isn't there like a zoomed in... I want a zoomed in picture. Okay, so it's got like the seeing eye dude. I don't know. Is that the Tyrant? The Eye of the Tyrant or something like that or whatever it's called. the big like I don't know he's not Slimer from Ghostbusters he's got like a big smile and a big eye he's like this ghosty ghoul-y guy fighting a knight in armor and it just looks incredible and it's like it looks hollow-foiled to me I'll have to see the inner art blades are cool the lights around the speaker lights look cool they didn't mention if it's going to have the tyrant's eye Arr, that must be the Tyrant's Eye. I don't know why I'm going to pirate, because he's in a dungeon. It should be like Old English, right? But, wow, it does look stunning. And it's got like the fire and the flames for the custom armor. It's got all the cherry red, which, you know, you kind of got to go this way when you're talking about breathing fire. It's got kind of the cherry candy apple red.
    26:52
    Everything's armor plated, so it looks great. It's signed here by Brian Eddy, which is great. I like that they're doing that. It's also signed. Thank you for doing this. As a comic book guy, I always make sure when I'm going to go see my comic book artist and get comic books signed, the color of the pen matters. He used a thick gray Sharpie here, which really makes it pop and stand out. So I think they've done a good job making the Ellie. I wouldn't say it's in my top five, but I think they've done a good job making the Ellie stand out. Of course, if they had only done 500 or even like 444 or 420, my favorite number, If they had done some cheeky number like that, I think they would have even done better with it. But I will say this, the premium art is no slouch either. The premium art is obviously a clear second to me. I wasn't offended by the pro art either. You don't want to be offended. They walk like a... It's a very thin line between... You don't want to make any of their packages ugly, per se. but you also don't want to make you want to make sure that the le stands out more and just pops and just gives it that little oomph yeah this red armor the red armor the the the circular speakers well that i guess all the speakers are circular but the the circular speaker lights the back glass the back i like the back glass on the premium maybe almost as good but damn i don't know the dragon on the premium got me thinking my artistically i and and from like a hollow foil objective, I think that the LE is by far the best, but the Dragon has got me on the cabinet, just thinking like, hmm, so yeah, I do think, wow, on the premium, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, but then they did bring back the eye, it doesn't look as cool, but they do have the eye on the side of the pro, so like, that's also cool, the pro back glass is fine, but I think, I think the LA Backglass is the best. Premium's still really cool. They did well. The three art packages are all incredible. The Playfield art isn't my favorite Playfield art because they have the whole map taking up so much space, which I guess they kind of need to do, which they sort of did do as well with... They sort of did this as well with Jurassic Park, of course. So let me take a look at my notes here. I did want to say congratulations to the artist and the whole team over there who probably helped the new artist implement it. You have to remember it's not just the artist, especially with a large company like Stern. I'm sure that they are taking, you know, they have great, wait, did Greg Frares retire? But they have a whole art department. I think someone new took over for the head of the art department. So cheers to all of them. They did a great job. I like the play field. I just, I think that the cabs on all three are incredible. The back classes are very good. It's a new pinball artist. and I just, I think it's important that you do get new pinball artists from time to time. I think there's, I think you don't want to fall into like too many of your, like, it is cool to be able to have like five zombie yetis side by side, like to have the whole zombie yeti collection, especially because you're now pairing it with Elowen. At the same time, I also like, you know, my mom and my best friend always said variety is the spice of life, and I believe that is true as well here. The same thing with that new artist that did kind of a watercolor rendition, the new artist for Avatar, how incredible Avatar looked, right? And still does look. That is a chef's kiss. Again, artistically, which one would be nicer? It would be hard to say. These are a lot more, this is more like a, well, this is more true to itself, more like a comic book-y type of hard edges, and hers is a lot more watercolor-y. but they're both aesthetically very very beautiful I would say by far the best toy though between the two of them I think we can all admit it would easily easily easily be that dragon that dragon got me ah it got me lit up there's my second pun I'm out of puns for the day I'm not allowed to sing anymore so let's just talk about what other notes I have here so the I this really could have been a top 10 rad it really really really could have been a top 10 rad uh it's got the progressive um it's got the progressive thing with all the side characters similar to venom it's got the pause thing where like i don't know how when or where i don't it doesn't sound like it's between each ball but like you can pause it and come back to it i really don't know how that will work with inside connected is it like stall ball like at any given point you can just press and hold like you have to use your chin and then both like if you press all three buttons at once will it give you the option to pause or 30 seconds to say yes or no through insider connected i'm not sure i'm not sure how that will work but that sounds really cool another thing i didn't even have room for in my original top five was that the upper flipper pauses the ball much like evil dead does over there at spooky much like jaws does and that just adds a host of other options that you can implement with uh you know with when you're doing a multi ball or staging the start of a mode or telling a story so that would slow down the flow just slightly but wow I think it's worth it I think it's worth that value for what you're getting out of that momentary pause especially for a flow monster like this where you may not get another second to breathe for a long time until it pauses right up above that right because it doesn't look like it the ball doesn't go doesn't get paused like it does in Jurassic Park on the dragon so the balls shoot out of it but how do the balls get in there I'm assuming from that let's be honest they're calling it like a they're calling it like a little elevator or whatever to get down to the dungeon, but it's really just a scoop that goes up and down, and hopefully it's a scoop that goes up and down and works better than the one on Led Zeppelin, because I know Jeff Teolis there. Shout out to Jeff Teolis. Hey, Jeff, I thought you were on my show, or I mean when I listened to your show with Santa Orby, you told Santa that we would get a new final round soon I haven heard it Very excited to hear I very excited to hear who may or may not be on it even though I may have heard rumors of who may be on it but certainly haven't confirmed anything. So I'm very excited to see if the person whom I heard was hosting is actually the one that's hosting, but I've probably too vague booked a little bit there, but let's just say I'm very excited. So the next thing is that guard. Did you see this guard that comes up between the flippers? That is completely unique. I've seen like a pop pumper and like Spanish eyes that's between them. We've seen a post that comes up that can stop the ball, but like this is totally unique, totally neat, totally different. I wonder if that's one of the things, if that's also on the pro, this is going to be one hell of a loaded pro because other than the dragon not moving left and right and shooting the balls out. I think the Dragon only moves up and down from what I could tell in the Pro. They didn't show it for long. Maybe it does move left and right, or maybe there's modes it moves left and right, but the Dragon's still hella cool. It just doesn't shoot balls. I mean, probably the coolest thing about the Dragon is that it shoots balls, or is the coolest thing about it that it actually interacts with the ball? I'm not sure. They're both hella cool. So either way, the Pro doesn't look like it's missing too much, but if it's missing that guard between the flippers, it seems like you're missing out because depending on how that's implemented that is a really fun kind of unique thing i think especially in an early multi-ball if they implemented that in early multi-ball that's as they say close to the to the start button so it's easy to get into if they implemented that for newer players just on the very first you know maybe maybe the very first time they implement it's for two or three minutes not two or three minutes sorry 20 or 30 seconds then the next time like when you get that multi if you if you manage if you're good enough to get that multi-ball again. Maybe it's only the first 15 seconds after your ball save's gone. Then maybe it's only, you know, progressive like that. I don't know. It just, it seems really cool. I hope they implement it correctly. The coding of it's going to be very, very, very important. I think this will be Brian's best game back at her. I do. I do. And I know some people love Mandalorian. I did find you got to shoot up the middle there a lot, which kind of makes it a flow monster but also like it's a there's not as many shots that can flow back to the flippers here there was what three ramps plus another where a place where it can pause for that flipper so four and then you've got two at least one that returns it to that flipper so you're talking about like seven different shots that can return to a flipper including the uh two of the three shots that you can actually hit with the upper flipper so so much flow now it's not going to have as much flow as Niagara Falls, but maybe as much flow as Niagara Falls right now, because it's like, it's half frozen. So it's a, it's a, it's a three-quarter flow beast. Let's call it that. Three-quarter sender. All right. So this is my final little asterisk of what could have just, I guess, been the top 10 most rad, but it's brand new. It's brand spanking new as far as like a super nerdy format goes. We have not seen anything as nerdy as this since probably Game of Thrones. And Game of Thrones was probably the best implementation. They did like House of Stock, House of Greyjoy, House of Lannister, House of Tyrion, I forget. I got three out of four. That's not bad. But when Dwight did, I'm pretty sure he's the coder of that one, with Steve Ritchie being the designer, some people hate that Game of Thrones game. I don't love the artwork, but I do like the rule set and I do enjoy how different team members make you play it differently. Very similar to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, turtles and a half shell, nerd power. All right, so what I think is if you're walking through a bar, you're walking through a bar arcade, you're walking through a Busters and whatever it is, any type of family arcade, any type of, it doesn't matter where you are. I want to put pinball everywhere, a laundromat, a billiards or a pool, primarily a pool place, whatever, you know, no matter where you are, if you see pinball there and you are into Dungeons and Dragons, Magic the Gathering, any type of role playing, playing Munchkin, hell, Exploding Kittens, like if you're any type of board game nerd, even if you don't actively play Dungeons and Dragons anymore, there is a large percentage of people who play board games. There's also a large percentage of people who play board games that are also into pinball. In fact, the Mana Lounge, shout out there in London, Ontario, my old stomping ground, my old hometown, L. as we called it, or the Forest City, they have a place called the Mana Lounge, which was all about like board games, Dungeons of Dragons, Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, you know, they had like almost like a board game cafe. We could go in and buy board games and stuff in downtown London. They eventually got one pinball machine, then he became a Stern distributor, and now he has a giant, like 30 or 40 pinball machines. Mike Dimas, shout out of Pinball Shenanigans, just did a tour of the Manor Lounge, so make sure to go check that out. And if you're in southwestern Ontario, go check it out from what I've heard from my buddy Matt, who bought from Manor Lounge. They did a great job, doing a great job being a distro in London, Ontario, and really growing pinball there. And you can go pay, like, I think $10 or $15, and you can go play Unlimited, some of the best pins in southwestern Ontario, indoors there. So what I'm getting at is the apple does not fall far from the tree. I know even Ian Haywer of Gamma Goat, of course, of Haywer Games, of course, can be found on P3.
    38:38
    He's a huge board gamer, and he loves pinball. and I know that he even has board games. One time, I was supposed to go play a pinball tournament at Ian's house, and because of, I think, a really bad snowstorm or weather, the power went out, and we all played a game that was like a power outage. Frick, I can't remember the name of it, but it was about... So what I'm getting at is a whole bunch of us pinball nerds chose to just play, like, board games instead out of all the things we could possibly do. Okay, let's be honest. If there was video gaming, we might have done that. But like video games, board games, pinball games, they're all in the same realm. There's a lot of overlay. So I think that there's a big hunger built up of pinball nerds who love stuff like that. Who, yes, maybe they don't go play actively anymore Dungeons and Dragons, but they did in college, university, high school for a little bit. And there's enough overlap into this nerd community that they love fantasy and they love Dungeons and Dragons. and yes, maybe even like Harry Potter, because, well, up to now you can't get a Harry Potter pin, so teased good old Jersey Jack. If only they were as nice to the pinball operators who operate their pins as they were to Stern on the day of their release by trolling that Jersey Jack may or may not have Harry Potter coming up in the future, so don't buy it. Listen, I love Harry Potter. I would like Harry Potter substantially more than that, but if I was also into Dungeons & Dragons, would I wait a couple years until we maybe or maybe don't see Jersey Jacks Harry Potter? Of course not. If they were straight up and said, no, we plan on coming out with it early spring, then maybe, maybe, maybe I'd hold my cash back. But when you're just trolling and putting a picture, eh. Anyways, I get it. It was a smart marketing move, a smart marketing move. Not all of Jersey Jacks' marketing moves are smart. So got to give them hand claps, single hand claps when they nail it, right? So anyways, what I'm saying is that new pinball people, probably people akin to like getting into like playing Avatar, but the type of people who want toys in their toys, will be playing Dungeons and Dragons. And I think they will love it. And I think that that big giant, just walking by it, seeing that big giant dragon, you go, I got to see this big giant dragon if he moves around, what happens if he shoots fire, if balls come out of his mouth. I really think this will be the gateway. I think there would be, I think there would be like pinball docks 5, 10, 15 years from now, and people will say, yeah, my very first pinball machine I ever bought was Dungeons and Dragons, and that led me to buy, you don't think there's overlap with people who love Godzilla? Of course there is. You don't think there's overlap with people who love, like, so many people who are super nerdy love Ghostbusters. Of course there's overlap with that, right? Now is there even, I guess if you really, really, really loved fantasy stuff and knights and whatever, you could go get Black Knight. But that's not like a theme that people are nostalgic for because they didn't grow up with it. So I've gone off topic too much. I got to tell you the one bad and it does relate to the one good. The one good is that there's a huge portion of nerds who have never, ever got into pinball because there's never been a theme that really spoke to them like this one. and those are the type of people that maybe they did play a little bit of pinball in the 80s or the 90s when they were playing Dungeons and Dragons but they didn't ever really think to get back into pinball because there was never a Dungeons and Dragons pin and now there is so they're going to seek one out they're going to go on pinball maps or go on pin side and they're going to find one or it's just one day they're going to walk by one in a barcade uh what is it something in busters dave and busters there we go takes me a little while sometimes could be the lack of nutrition or calories. Caloric intake this year has been very low, my friends. So the brain is either firing it on all cylinders or none. However, the biggest issue, the biggest problem with this will be that so many people who already buy pinball machines of that market are just not hugely into. I do think it's about five to ten years younger than the average demographic. It's probably kind of in that wheelhouse. I would guess people between 30 and 50 or 30 and, you know, like maybe 28 to like 48. I don't know. I'm guessing somewhere in that range are the people who are the most nostalgic for it. I'm sure there's people who are older and younger.
    43:02
    I think financially they're okay like that. It's just of all the people listening to this, you know, I would say a higher percentage of people listening to this might want, say, something more mainstream like a Ghostbusters or a King Kong or a Godzilla or even to be honest a Metallica whereas this is more of a niche it is a little bit more of a niche thing but much like how I talked about the main good thing about getting Jurassic Park Home Edition into Costco was that you're going to get brand new pinball buyers who are going to end up with a whole room full of pins that is similar to this machine even though it might not sell as good as say something like um you know godzilla or something like that it might not sell that well it certainly won't sell that well i don't think this will ever be number one on the list do i think this would be brian eddy's best like ever yeah i think it could be i really do think it could be i think it might be his highest ranked ever outside of medieval madness i do um so maybe this will be his like best truest back to form you know and it's fair enough it could have taken him a couple games to kind of just figure out what direction he wants to go and you know he's definitely inspired like we all are by Keith Elwin and everything he does and even like a newcomer I'm sure he's at least a little bit inspired by look going hey Jack Danger is brand new to this and look what Jack Danger is doing how much flow are in his games and how many unique things are in his games so this is really really really cool congratulations to the whole team over there the one bad thing is I think that we're going to hear a lot of other content creators be a little bit of negative Nancy's or Debbie Downers because they're going to say the theme's just too nerdy for them. And maybe it is. And that's okay. Not every pin has to be for everybody. But let's be open and honest and realize that when this game is advertised through one of the larger tech YouTube channels,
    44:55
    especially when this is hyped at CES, oh my god. You're going to see lineups at CES for something like Dungeons & Dragons way bigger than you'd see for something like Elvira. Whereas Elvira is really well known in the pinball field, overall in society, not known nearly as well. So cheers to Stern. Thank you for the invite. I'm sorry I'm not going to make it there. I would have loved to have gone. It's freezing cold. We're in the middle of snowstorms here. I could barely see out to my road that was snowing so hard earlier. So I mean, it's possible the weather clears, what is it, four days from now? I'm very excited to bring you guys content. I'll try to keep it more clear and concise. I've been dealing with a little bit of brain fog and they call it the old keto flu. I am now approaching 72 hours without food. It is what 2 p.m. So yeah, I'm five hours. I'm at like 67 hours, 68 hours without food. I don't know, but don't worry. I'm feeling healthy. I'm feeling healthy and happy, but I'm a little bit groggy. I'm a little bit foggy. I'm a little bit slow on the uptake. I apologize. But also, I'm doing good things for my body. And please, if you're listening to this, don't just go jump into doing something like this. I've been fasting on and off, intermittent and extended, for over 10 years now. I've really researched the hell out of this. I've talked to many, many health care professionals about it. You should too if you're going to do something like this. But no, I've really been enjoying it. And honestly, it would be so hard for me to travel. If I'm still not eating like I don't plan to be eating on the 7th, I might start refeeding on the 8th or possibly the 11th. Once you've gone five to seven days, you really have to be careful for a couple days. You can't have any high amounts of saturated fats. You usually have to avoid any red meat. You have to avoid any spicy foods.
    46:44
    You know, I'll end up having, I'll end up probably having like a salad or like maybe a soup, that kind of thing, something really gentle. like toast and butter maybe like high fiber toast and butter rice sorry I had to have a little sip there of my water yummy no I'm actually having I'm having some other low calorie no calorie drink so so but that's not the point you came here to listen to me talk about pinball I've done that congratulations let's just talk about the twippies for a millisecond and if you are another content creator it's okay if it's not personally your theme it doesn't have to be but can we all be open and honest and say it's refreshing and i this is coming from a comic nerd it's refreshing that it's not another avengers or x-men or aiq or uncanny x-men or we we've seen we've seen a lot of marvel like i hope that stern if you're listening maybe just uh yeah put it in the vault put all the marvel ones in the vault for like two years let's put marvel in the vault to make it a little more special. We've seen a lot of it. Okay, so I've got the Twippies ballot up here, and I am not going to do the whole ballot live, not only because I need to end this, but also because I'm tired, also because I'm a little bit grumpy, also because I'm losing my voice. But shout out. It looks great. It sounds great. I love that they have ranked balloting. Thanks for doing that. I would prefer a top five, only because that way I would maybe get some more votes. Now, let's be honest. I'm going to go through these really quickly. I'm not going to tell you who I'm going to vote for. I want to be measured. I want to be calm. I want to take my time and really think about who I want to vote for. There is seven pages of awards to go through. So I will go over all my votes with you and I will submit my ballot live so that like I'm doing it with you, but I want to go over it myself. Like there's times when I've tried to do this live before and I've ran into like the best home brewer, the best what have you, and I haven't had time to think about it. So here I'm going to go all the way up to the last page without submitting and think about it, and then I'm going to go through it page by page with y'all. Probably not tomorrow, but maybe the next day, possibly Sunday morning, if not Monday. Don't worry, we've got a couple days to vote still, but get out there and vote. Vote often, vote early. I don't know if you can vote more than once. I'm assuming you can only vote once. There, there's a guideline. There's a handy guideline. So read the guideline before you vote. Oh, right here, voting through midnight Eastern Standard Time on January the 20th. So that's Eastern time is Chicago time, or at least Ontario time I believe it Chicago You have to put in your email here which is good Of course that going to be pinballnerds at gmail But let just take a couple If I were going to ask for your vote it probably I only want you to vote for me if it true If I not in your top three don't vote for me. I don't want any like, oh, I feel sorry for Orby. No, no, don't feel sorry for me. I've sold probably close to $10,000 in coffee from this show in the past three or four years. I've had upwards of like $2,000 in donos just in the last probably year and a half. most of that coming from, I haven't asked for any donations since my birthday, since July of last year. So thankfully, you know, most of those were from July of last year, going back a year. And I appreciate all the donations, but I don't do this for the donations. I don't do this for the Twippy Votes. I do this so I can stake out my little tiny claim to my pinball vlog. You're my pinball buddies. I mean, mainly I kept doing this for a way to kind of stay in touch with my old pinball friends in Ontario. And also just because it's freaking fun. If you don't think having a shower and doing a pinball podcast isn't fun, you're wrong. Someone else mentioned that, I believe, on the Santa show and said it was hilarious and they enjoyed it. So thank you for that. Oh my gosh, I was supposed to read Ryan Barry's comment about my 600th show. Let me bring that up very quickly while we go through the twippies here. Okay, so content creator of the year. Okay, I'm gonna have to really look through this. I am included in, of course, that list. I think very few people would include me to be their top three content creators of the year. And that's okay. When you've got the likes of Retro Ralph out there, Erica of Erica's Pinball Journey doing what she does.
    50:53
    When you have, of course, even like straight down the middle doing what they do. Flippin' Out. The Flippin' Out and Friends stream with Joel. Come on.
    51:02
    Like, oh my God. Those guys are killing it over there. Like, you know, you've got so many great podcasts. You've got so many great YouTube channels. You've got so many great Twitch channels. Fox Cities. Like, I think I would have to put Fox Cities in here. IE Pinball. Carl D'Angelo, give me a break. That would have to be, like, I don't see as much content from Carl as I used to. But, of course, I live an extra hour even further. So we're on the exact opposite coast. So sorry, Carl. I used to love coming in your live streams and chatting it up with you. But, yeah, there's so many great content creators doing so much good stuff. I honestly know for 99% of you listening, I'm just not going to be in your top three and I'm totally okay with that. So if you are going to vote for me, that's probably not the category you do it. Breakout content creator of the year. Hey, for the first time ever, I got a thousand listens. I have got a thousand listens on multiple shows before. I know, you know, speaking with Craig Bobby, definitely. Where's Craig Bobby been? I missed you, Craig. I thought Craig Bobby was like mucking about doing a podcast maybe or thinking about it or said we'd hear from the future. I hope you had a happy new year, a merry Christmas, Craig Bobby, and I hope you didn't get lost in the Canadian wilderness, and we do hear from you in the future. Can't wait to hear what you do next. See, maybe I should have Craig Bobby back on the show. David Dennis, of course, I got well over 1,000.
    52:24
    I think I got to 1,000. It took a little while with one of the times I had Franchion. And then, of course, the only one from last year that would have had a thousand, but I closed it off real quick, was my Stern Freecoat. I like to call it the Upper Decker Incident, but, or this, I could call it the Scrooge Incident because I wanted to talk about, I think I talked about swimming in a pool of gold. Wouldn't we all like a pool of gold? I would. I'll tell you that. I could buy this LE no problem if I had one. Maybe not an above ground pool of gold, but let's not make fun of above ground pools because at this point I would even take an above ground pool of gold. That's how hard my coffee company was hit this Christmas. We usually sell between 20 to 30 every single year. Like our worst year ever, I think we sold a dozen, but that's like it was during COVID or something. But we usually sell 20 to 30 gift baskets that sell for between minimum $75 up to $120 with a whole bunch of our hummingbird homestead and angry alpaca products, teas, coffees, honey. Even some years we had candles when we used to make candles, that sort of thing. So this year, because it can't post, we just couldn't afford to do it through UPS. Like the shipping was going to be like more than any of the boxes would be on every single box. So there was no way to do it. And we lost out on that income. Several other, a couple other not great things happened. I'm not asking for finances. What I'm suggesting is in lieu of giving me any type of donation, if you could just keep me in mind when you're doing your Twippy voting, that would be super rad because that gets me fired up. It makes me want to do another show for you, right? So breakout creator of the year. Was I the breakout creator of the year? I would say no. You know why? Because I didn't just break out this year. We've got Bash Pinball. They've been killing it over there. Dude, Where's My Code with Joe Cervino. Oh my gosh. I just like, I just like woke up in the corner from too much eggnog. I owe him a $2. That's it, Joe. Just two bucks. Go over there. Listen to Dude, Where's My Code with Joe Cervino. In Before the Lock, I have to go listen to them. Kongs at Rust. I've watched a few of them. I don't, I don't mind the content. I think it's pretty good. I mean, for me, like it's more, it's not really my type of content from me for someone at my level of pinball play being the new brunswick pinball champion wait i'm not the new brunswick pinball champion anymore am i do i hand it over to my son who got second against me hayden no what do i or maybe i'm the champion until the 18th two weeks today guys two weeks tomorrow i gotta go in there and uh try to withhold my championship will i hold it Probably not. Would I like to? Yes. Alright, so Kongs are us. Night Little Pinball.
    55:02
    Night Little. Nigh Little? Night Little Pinball. I've never heard of that, but I should check them out. Phantom Tilt Pinball Podcast. We were just about to hear from Ryan Barry. Guys, I would vote for Phantom Tilt myself. And I think that would get Ryan Barry and Kimba charged up to record again. So, yeah, I would vote for them.
    55:20
    Vic VP. liked some of his stuff. He did a pretty good job. He's getting more and more into pinball. I know I've seen him in the Canada's chat there from time to time.
    55:31
    Looks like he's made, again, he started with VP content so again, not the type of content I would typically consume but he's doing really well and bringing it to a whole new class so good for him. Good for him. To me personally, like I would have almost added Retro Ralph there because, well was he doing pinball content more than a year ago but just barely? I don't think so. like I think literally just six seven eight months ago retro elf got into it but he's not a breakout content creator so should you include him should you not yeah I get it it's I guess it's just got to be phantom tilt I would vote for uh best pinball podcast I'm not going to touch that with a 10 foot knife right now I will announce my decisions my legitimate decisions personally I'm not going to be voting like I did when I was invited to and thank you for inviting me to be part of the pinball industry awards the PIAs when I was part of that I was you know a known uh whatever like validated voter, what have you. This, I'll just be voting as myself, as just Orby, who he likes best. If I'm in your top three, that's probably the category that I would deserve the vote the most. I get I'm going to get a lot of thirds. I might get one first. If I'm your first, throw me in there, okay? I'm not going to say, I'm neither going to say vote for me or don't vote for me this year. I'm going to say it would be rad if you did, but don't lie. Like, you know what I mean? like if Slam Tilt is straight up your favorite pinball podcast, which it is for tons of other pinball nerds, don't be like, no, I feel bad for Orby. Oh no. Vote for fricking Slam Tilt. They deserve your vote. Vote. Just vote for every, your favorite vote. Like don't vote with your heart. Don't vote with your brain. Vote with your listens. Like who you would listen to the most. You know what I mean? Anyways. And who's giving you the most content this last year. If someone only did like four or five shows, come on. I gave you like what? 40, 50 episodes in this last year. a lot. Give me a couple votes. Let me have a drink of my sip.
    57:23
    God, losing my voice. Okay, let's go read from Ryan Barry here. I'll do the end of the first page much, much later.
    57:31
    Ryan Barry, thank you for the kind words, my dude. And I had no clue that Ryan would be included on that list. That just literally just came out, right? So there would be no way that I would know that this was possible. Ryan, we chat too much. I've been scrolling up for a little while.
    57:54
    Jeepers, creepers, Ryan. Boy, you're... Ryan talks more on Messenger than I talk in a podcast. No, I'm just kidding. It's been a while. I should have read this before. Okay. He says here, wow, 600 episodes. That's just an unfathomable milestone to me. A mammoth achievement, mate, and one you should be immensely proud of.
    58:20
    Also, I just finished off my Bag of the Force, which was effing amazing. I've been rationing it for months. Ryan, you don't have to ration it. You can buy some more and I'll frickin' ship it off to you and I'll throw in some cool Pinball Nerds collectible, sorry, Teen View Ninja Turtles stuff or something like that, right? Anyways, Ryan and anyone over there in Australia and yes anyone in Canada the United States if you'd like some coffee feel free to buy some I'm not going to be dropping links I don't want to ask for whatever but because Ryan brought it up Ryan brought it up not me yes we do sell coffee and it would be good to get rid of some of this coffee that we had ordered in November and plan to sell in November because it didn't end up happening however that being said uh it's not ground so it still will be super fresh when you grind it and um it is angry alpaca coffee and tea you can just hit the shop now button from our Facebook. You know how to get there. I'm sure you can find it. Today, though, I'm saving my one link that I put per show for the Twippy Awards show, and I'm going to be putting it on there. I can't wait. I'm excited to watch the Twippies. I'm excited for Glenn the Skateboarder, my boy, who did the song you would have heard at the start here. Had a really awesome chat with Glenn yesterday, too. Thanks, Glenn, for the nice chat. Honestly, I don't reach out and talk to as many pinball people as often as I should. I should do that more often, and if there's someone out there as my cell phone number. I disconnected that cell phone. I'm going to be getting a new SIM card and a new plan that costs a little bit less. Now that we've got some more options out here in Nova Scotia, thankfully I paid off that phone. I'm going to go eat some food. No, I'm not. Not just kidding. Probably three to four days I'll probably start eating again. But if I feel sick at all, I will contact someone in the medical area or arena. And if not, I will just start eating again. Don't worry. I don't want anyone to worry about me. I am a fasting professional. You're not. Don't try this at home. Go do your own research. More importantly, go watch that video. Stern, not only did you do a great job, and oh, the last thing I will say is the animations are getting better. I would like to see more movement. Like the actual, when you look at the actual animations of the characters, like the colors they used, and they're creating their whole own world. Did it come out really well? Yes. The movement we're seeing on the live screen, leave something to be, you know, I don't know. Maybe we didn't see a lot right now. I'm excited to see more of it. I can't wait to see the gameplay. I'm sorry, Stern, I'm not going, but thank you for inviting me. And thank you, thank you, thank you, Mr. Zach Sharp, for letting me know that you would be including me in future invites. Because I said, can I please parlay? Stern, can I parlay? I can't make it right now. I don't have a lot of extra free spending money. you know I don't want to ask any of my listeners for money to go on this trip I'd much rather go to Chicago when the weather's nicer when it's not minus 20 degrees when there's not a high chance of and there was just another accident at the Halifax airport it's like what there was like fire coming out the landing gear didn't come out on time they skidded on the ice I don't know what happened no one died thankfully there's been like a lot of airplane crashes recently that's kind of like got me like I do suffer from a little bit of anxiety and uh you know like worrying about stuff like that a tiny bit usually on the airplane i'm fine but when i hear and see stuff like that happening so often especially close to home it worries me a little but i don't have anything to worry about because i am not traveling anywhere for a while i will be right here at least 20 feet excuse me 20 feet underground in Orbeez Dungeon recording for you. When they do a live stream, I will be here telling you my thoughts about the live stream. When we get more information and more things happen and we see it, I'll be your man on the ground reporting live from River Hibbert's, Nova Scotia in the basement.
    62:06
    It looks like Santa has passed out there in the corner. I'll go wake him up and see if he wants to play with the dragon in the dungeon. Do you guys remember the Rick and Morty with the dragon? That dragon was that, if that, I mean, that was a pretty cool dragon, but anyways, this is, this is Stern's day, not Spooky's day, so let's just, cheers to Stern, I don't want to, I'll probably be called a Stern fanboy after this one, that's okay, uh, I kind of am, I just, I kind of am, it's, it's, they've worn me down, guys, they've worn me down after years and years and years of making the best pinball machines with the best flippers, with the best flow, uh, with some of the best animations with some of the best art uh you know and yeah the pricing is uh stabilizing so this is all good but i'll tell you right now if i was any barcade any arcade i would be getting this because this is going to get you new pinball nerds playing your pinball machines going in your leagues and playing all of your other pinball machines so if you own a barcade with a lot of adults there especially who are going to be nostalgic for dungeons and dragons i would it's almost it's almost a no-brainer to get yourself a pro. Not only because they hold their pricing so well, but because it looks like the main thing that could and would break in this would be the Dragon and the Premium and the LE. So, wow. Knocked it out of the park. Sorry, Franchi. I'm using more baseball quotes. But thanks again to Franchi for calling in and giving that beautiful... He talked about how much I really loved it. And the next time I do have a Bluetooth speaker with me, we'll analyze that backhanded compliment one more time. But, wow. Thank you so much, Franchi, for that. Thank you so much, Ryan Barry, for that. Thank you to Colin and the entire committee over there at the Twippies. I'm excited to be able to just even stand on the sidelines and cheer them on. Because you know what? Maybe it's not 2026 or 2027, but maybe in 2028, when Orby has no kids living at home, no college or university payments left, maybe, just maybe, he'll be able to get down to the wormhole or wherever they end up having that Twippies that year. And maybe I'll get to be part of it. I've always said I'd love to be on the red carpet, maybe questioning people kind of like um Rebecca did and Lauren Gray did a couple years ago I thought that was kind of funny um I would love to go do it I think I could be almost as funny if not funnier maybe who knows they did a great job I could maybe do a greater job maybe not maybe I'd totally ruin it who knows but I'd love to try and I'd love to be part of it in my own way some way somehow other content creators out there be kind when you're talking about the twippies and try to be kind when you're talking about the type of person that's going to be purchasing a Dungeon Drag the Pinball Machine because it's easier to be rude and negative and a Debbie Downer than it is to give constructive criticism in a kind way. And I'll constructively say if these prices were even 10% lower, I do think that even though the margins, especially on the LE, would be smaller, they would sell significantly more and they would sell out of the 740. Even if they had mentioned that they were going to drop it by as little as I think $399 or $499 for this LE, the 740 would sell out quick. But I don't see prices going backwards for Stern anytime soon. I just hope they don't raise them too soon because to the best of my knowledge, I do think they'll sell out the 740. I wouldn't be shocked if it takes till next Christmas or longer. I'd be shocked if they sold out even by summer. I'd definitely be shocked if they sold out today. But who knows? I've been wrong before. I could be wrong again. I don't mind admitting it when I am and that's maybe the best part of the show. All right, Pinball Nerds, until next time, say it with me. Eat, sleep, and breathe. Dungeons and Dragons.