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Episode 82 – Colin MacAlpine is bigger than Texas

Head2Head Pinball·podcast_episode·2h 12m·analyzed·Mar 4, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

TPF tournament director Colin McAlpine details multi-era tournament format and plans for expansion.

Summary

Colin McAlpine, Texas Pinball Festival tournament director, discusses the festival's main and classics tournaments with Head to Head Pinball hosts. He details the multi-era format spanning EMs (Atlantis, Cleopatra, Mars Trek, Team One), solid states (Alien Poker, F-14 Tomcat, High Speed, Meteor), and moderns (Circus Voltaire, Demolition Man, Iron Maiden, X-Men). The main tournament capped at 160 players with 130 on the waitlist; McAlpine outlines plans to expand capacity next year after testing new larger venue logistics this year.

Key Claims

  • Texas Pinball Festival main tournament capped at 160 players with approximately 130 on waitlist

    high confidence · Colin McAlpine stated directly: 'And so how many people are in the main tournament? I know it's been capped. What was the cap? 160... And how many people are on the wait list at the moment? 130, roughly.'

  • Main tournament sold out in approximately 30 minutes in October

    medium confidence · Colin: 'And I think it, I think maybe it sold out in roughly 30 minutes somewhere around that that that timeframe'

  • TPF is moving tournament from main floor to conference rooms for the first time

    high confidence · Colin: 'this year we are moving for the first time since I've been going to TPS and we've crossed maybe three different venues. We are, for the first time, we're moving the tournament from the main floor and we're having it in conference rooms that are across the hallway from the main floor.'

  • Iron Maiden has breadth rather than depth in tournament play design

    high confidence · Colin: 'the way that Keith designed those rules, it's not so much a matter of depth as it is breadth. and it's so wide because there's so many different ways that you can score the necessary points'

  • Team One is a Gottlieb machine with identical layout to Abracadabra from the late 1970s

    high confidence · Colin: 'Team One is uh it's the exact same layout as abracadabra... It's a 1977 machine? Yes, I don't have that in front of me right now... It's 70s.'

Notable Quotes

  • “I think most people will be going for multi-ball. I think that's just a natural, safe way to play it.”

    Colin McAlpine @ mid-content — Strategic insight on F-14 Tomcat tournament play preferences

  • “It's not so much a matter of depth as it is breadth... There's so many different ways that you can score the necessary points in order to defeat your opponents”

    Colin McAlpine @ mid-content — Explains why Iron Maiden works well as a tournament machine with multiple valid strategies

  • “We are somewhat doing the same thing [as Pinburgh], where this year we are moving for the first time since I've been going to TPS... into conference rooms with more square footage”

    Colin McAlpine @ late-content — Indicates TPF is adopting Pinburgh's expansion model for handling growth

  • “It's a freaking Texas pinball festival. It's one of the biggest festivals in the world”

    Colin McAlpine @ late-content — Statement of TPF's industry prominence and resource availability

  • “I'll try to play the first one naturally, if you will, and then use the ramp for the second one. That's the typical strategy”

    Colin McAlpine @ mid-content — Reveals deliberate multiball sequencing strategy on Demolition Man

Entities

Colin McAlpinepersonMartin RobbinspersonRyan C.personTexas Pinball FestivaleventKeithpersonCarl D'AngelopersonPhil GrimaldipersonRichard Rhodesperson

Signals

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Demolition Man tournament strategy emphasizes flow shooting and multiball timing over traditional trap-and-shoot; trigger vs flipper button choice affects play style

    high · Colin on Demolition Man: 'you have to play more on the fly. Typically, you have to play more on the fly. You can't trap up as much... nice flow shooter's game... strategic choice as far as when you want to mix in your multiballs'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Iron Maiden tournament dominance driven by breadth of scoring paths; multiple valid strategies create engaging competitive play

    high · Colin: 'it's not so much a matter of depth as it is breadth... so many different ways that you can score... every single mode, every single multiball... just a matter of executing'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: TPF intentionally selects multi-era games with variety within each bank to balance machine difficulty and play times; strategy-diverse machines encourage different player approaches

    high · Colin: 'we're trying to have some variety even within a bank... we intentionally have two later solid states and two earlier solid states... you're going to see a lot of people that will choose to play F-14 at high speed... balanced out by... depending upon when they're playing... maybe the queue for Alien Poker and Meteor will be attractive'

  • ?

    event_signal: TPF main tournament at 160 cap with 130-person waitlist; sold out in ~30 minutes; demand exceeds supply three years running

    high · Colin: '160... 130, roughly... I think maybe it sold out in roughly 30 minutes... three years in a row... overwhelming amount of people on the wait list'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.397

0:00
You're listening to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. Find us on Facebook. Email us at headtoheadpinball at gmail.com or go to our website, headtoheadpinball.com. See you next time.
0:30
Welcome everybody to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is episode 82 and my name's Martin and with me... ...is Ryan C.
0:40
It's never going to get old, is it? No, it's not going to get old. This is definitely not Ryan C. You are not Ryan C. Who are you? I'm not nearly as good looking as Ryan C. This is Colin McAlpine from the good old United States of America. And I think this is your third time on the podcast? Would that be right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, there was one for like what you would call like a normal episode, and then there's another time I think it was I was traveling back from a comp that Iron Maiden had just been released. Made in the comp. So Ryan was asking me my opinions of Iron Maiden when it first came out. Wow, okay. That machine just seems so long ago now.
1:23
Yeah, that was in May, April or May of last year. Wow, okay. Well, I don't know. I can't keep track myself, but this could mean that you are the most frequent on our podcast if you discount the many voices of Jeff DeGaulle.
1:42
Yeah, let's discount those. I do. Still, my favorite intro to Head to Head is the Pinside Petey singing the theme song. It's fantastic. It's really good, isn't it? It has just enhanced this podcast no end. So Colin, you are pretty much going to be a bit of a busy man in the next couple of weeks Because, you know, I don't know if anybody knows But I'm going to Texas Pinball Festival May have made it I heard that, I've heard that From a couple of different times, a couple of different people, yeah It's really freaking exciting And what's really interesting is that it's exciting for me Because I'm going to a pinball show And I'm not going to play in a tournament which is really interesting because I've got you on here because you're running the tournament at TPF, is this correct? That is, yeah. And you really should change your mind. Yeah, there's no way you're making it into the Wizards because you're so far down the wait list. But you really should... Oh, you didn't even get on. Oh, that's right. I think Ryan put his name on there. Correct. Yeah, no, I'm not even on. And that was part of it. I kind of went, you know what? There's no way I'm going in the tournament. How about I just go to a festival anyway? But there's also the Classics Tournament, right? Yes, yes. Very good Classics Tournament. You should be familiar with the style. It's a best game format. The Classics is different than the main because the Classics is unlimited while the main is limited. So the Classics is your typical put up the best game possible on four out of the eight different Classic pins. and then there's a Papa Style finals that begins on Saturday morning and finishes up early Saturday afternoon. So for the classics, when does that start? Because I know that the event doesn't really open until 5 p.m., but I think the tournament opens earlier on in the day. Is that correct? Exactly, yeah. So you show up and you play in the classics tournament and hang out with us and then you can play all your games. And then when the show finally opens at 5, I think it's not until 5 in the evening, then you can do all of that and then check back in later to see where you're in the standings and put a couple more entries in if you need to bolster your score and then hopefully you make it into the top 16. Okay, awesome. So what's the difference with the main tournament? Did you say it's like a limited number of entries but similar best game format? Correct. It's both limited entry, and it's also a multi-era format. So we designed it a few years ago, and Carl D'Angelo, because he is amazing and incredible, was willing to modify his software and do a custom version for me. And what it is, there's 12 different machines that span three eras, So one modern of four pins, one solid state bank of four pins, and one EM bank of four pins, electromechanical. And you have to, your best eight count, but you must use at least two from each bank. So it forces you to demonstrate some skill on all the different eras from whichever ones you prefer to play. Okay. And then you're saying that the finals are sort of match play again, is that right? Yeah, the finals are also a Papa style, but in that case, for the main tournament, it's also a multi-era final. So while the top seed gets choice of pin, they must choose a pin from each of the three eras. Yeah, okay. And so here's the list that I've seen, and it's obviously one of those things that's subject to change, and I know you've got some backup machines as well. But let's go through the electromechanicals. mechanicals we've got atlantis cleopatra mars trek and team one now i only know i know three of those i know atlantis i know cleopatra and the cleopatra was also made into a solid state i believe yes um mars trek i'm aware of team one what what's that yeah so team one is uh it's the exact same layout as abracadabra have you ever played abracadabra before okay and it also has some similar rules to it where it's a little bit different because when you have lit drop targets that cycle one drop target is lit on each of the five drop targets on each side, but it's lit on the plastic or underneath the plastic behind the drop target. So there's not like a playfield insert in front of it. And so similar to Abracadabra if you hit the lit drop target you earn more points. But the key element of Team 1 is it's from that era of Gottliebs where it's all about wows. And so you light wows by completing either of the two drop target banks or by completing the lanes one through six. And then what that will do is that will light wow one of two ways. You can either collect wow at the center stand up, which will also reset your drop target bank, or after you've done the one through six lanes, you will permanently light the lit drop target will now score a wow. And I'm setting it instead of normally the traditional way when those Gottliebs first came out, they were set to add a ball play. Obviously, we don't want any of that action for a tournament, and so instead you set it to novelty mode, and novelty mode awards 50,000 points per wow.
Elwinperson
Iron Maidengame
Demolition Mangame
Alien Pokergame
Circus Voltairegame
X-Mengame
F-14 Tomcatgame
High Speedgame
Meteorgame
Team Onegame
Atlantisgame
Cleopatragame
Mars Trekgame
Pinburghevent

event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival expanding tournament capacity after testing logistics; adopting Pinburgh's phased expansion model

high · Colin: 'this year we're taking the steps... it's similar kind of story to what you heard... with Pimberg... we're moving the tournament from the main floor and we're having it in conference rooms... once we kind of figure out and see how this works, my plan next year is to expand it'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: TPF moving to larger dedicated conference room venue to accommodate demand; increase in classic machine capacity and spectator amenities

    high · Colin: 'we are moving the tournament from the main floor and we're having it in conference rooms that are across the hallway from the main floor... We will have more space... accommodate more classic pins... making better options for people to sit down... watch the stream on the screens'

    • 7:13
    And so essentially the way to play that game is you have to light your wows, and you have to start picking off those lit drop targets when they're lit for wows, and you start racking up 50,000 each time you hit one. But if you've played Abracadabra, you know that it's a lot easier said than done. Right, okay. It's only that one that will be lit, and also it could be lit on a drop target that's already down. And so then the only way to get them all back up is you have to hit that center stand-up, which also, by the game's designer, tends to drain you. Okay. So, I mean, this has got a five-digit score reel on the back. So 50,000 pretty much is half of that. So it would want to not be easy. Well, it's because what you can't see unless you see one in action is that there are lights that light up in the back box behind the back glass that go from 100,000 all the way up to 1 million. And so you can actually get a maximum lit score of 1,900,999. Why wouldn't they just add another score reel? Like, come on, guys. Yeah, I know, I know. That's just that style from that era, why they did that, yeah. But it's like, yeah, come on, guys, put in one more reel, but I guess it's cheaper to put in, what, 10 lights?
    8:37
    Probably. So I'm looking at, I think it is, is it a 1977 machine? Yes, I don't have that in front of me right now. I'm looking at it. It's a late 70s. Yeah. It's 70s. So you're there on the cusp of, obviously, EM to solid state.
    8:57
    The others that you've got, Atlantis, tell me about that one. So Atlantis, first off, this is the electromechanical version, so many people might be more familiar with the Atlantis-Bally solid state game, which that's not this one. No. The Atlantis is a, it's actually a really great play field. It's just, I think it's a fantastic design EM. and it has a, on the left side you have an entire wall of drop targets. I think it's almost maybe 10 drop targets? 10 or 8? It's a lot of them. And there's a waterfall right hand side with the double lane waterfall that you can see sometimes on a game like 300 on Centigrade that same style on that side. And so the goal of that game is, like most EMs, you want to hit the lit shot or the lane. But the unique thing about Atlantis is the left side bank of drop targets is that it awards you a ridiculous 5,000 points if you hit two drop targets at the same time that are adjacent to one another. And it doesn't matter which ones. It's not like they're in pairs. You have to only hit the pairs. It's any of them along that whole thing. So you ideally... So it's an interesting game because there's obviously then a fair bit of, you know, it's either you could call it sharpshooting, you could call it luck, depending on how you're playing it, but if you do hit those two drop targets down at the same time, then you score 5,000 points instead of, I think, once again, it's about 500. Yeah, it looks like 500. I'm just looking at the inside. So, a nice sweep of those would be kind of cool.
    10:41
    Yeah, yeah, it's not like sweeping drop targets and some of the other pins, but you typically just get, you know, your maximum you're going to get is two, but But it does lend some interesting strategy in terms of recognition, depending on how a game is playing. So depending on how this particular one is playing, this physical copy, if the slings are really active, then you probably don't want to take out your lower ones and you want to do your upper ones first and hope that maybe just in the sling action of the game it'll take down some of your drop targets for you. And then conversely, if the physical copy you're playing has really active pop bumpers up top, then you go for the lower ones and then hope that some of the lucky bounces from the pop pumpers take that for you. And so I'm looking at that, the right side, which it looks almost identical to centigrade, including the interesting gap on the right-hand side where if you think that you're going to trap the ball and it goes up there, all of a sudden it drains out, which, you know, unless you're really in tune with these kinds of games, people make that mistake all the time. Oh, yeah. I've done that more times than I can count. And it also means that in that sort of that bagatelle area, it also depends on the rubbers and where everything's located. Sometimes it can give you a safe feed. Sometimes it can give you a really deadly feed. So it's really going to be up to people sort of playtesting that, I guess.
    12:07
    Yeah, they'll just have to figure out what's dangerous and what isn't, and you have to give it a slap on the right side as it's coming down, one of those lanes to make sure it doesn't, you know, those last two, I think it's like the four and the nine. So depending on which lane it's going into, if you give it the side slap at the right time, it'll usually then bounce off that rubber post and safely into the inlaid feed. Okay.
    12:35
    So then moving on to the solid states. Now, I think you've got a really good classic line up here of Alien Poker, F-14 Tomcat High Speed and Meteor. But, you know, alien poker, I think, is probably the most interesting one there, I think, because it's a bit of a fan favorite. But the rules can be a little bit confusing for people if you don't know what you're doing. That's true. Well, especially as far as knowing really how to maximize score. I think it becomes fairly obvious when you're playing a game like that to see that you've got those drop targets that are staring you right in the face. And they're right in the middle. and so it's fairly typical for people to go, okay, I need to hit those. The interesting thing about alien poker, though, is that if you don't hit them in the correct order, then you ultimately, I think, you lose value of how much they're worth and eventually if you miss them too many times, I think they almost become worthless until you reset them. I got a negative point. Not negative, but the other thing is, so the other thing that most people aren't aware of, it's not obvious at all, is that you have to, in order to really maximize your score, you have to complete the upper lanes, the king lanes, and all four of those, and then that grants a multiplier on whatever you're collecting of your royal flush value of those drop targets. And I think you can multiply it up to 2x or maybe 3x, I don't recall off the top of my head, but based on the number of completions of those lanes. And so it lends to some interesting strategic decision-making, and also depending on what type of score you need to get, to know, okay, do I want to cash in my Royal Flush now, if you maybe only have the Ace left to hit, or do you go back up top and get greedy and try to get some more King lanes to multiply it and then take down the Royal Flush value?
    14:29
    So what do you think, when you've seen people playing this, what do you think the majority of people are doing with it?
    14:36
    For people that know how to play it? Yeah, well, I think most of the time, depending on what ball you're on. so I think most of the time your first two balls you're going to be going up top trying to get as many of those king lanes down as possible and make your royal flush drops maybe take out three of them but the other and then finally on your third ball is then you're cashing in your royal flush if you can get one royal flush collect and so typically you need to make the most of it if you're Unfortunately, if you get two Royal Flush Collects, then, you know, it's fine. More power to you.
    15:15
    But, yeah, that's what I've typically found. And the other interesting thing about that game is each physical copy will be a little bit different on exactly which drop target you want to hit with which of your three flippers because there's a left-side flipper and there's two right-side flippers, similar to Paragon and other games like that, Harlem Globetrotters. And so you kind of have to figure out or maybe watch other people playing to see, okay, if I'm hitting it from the right lower flipper, is that the geometry that's going to send it to the left out lane or is that coming back safe?
    15:51
    Good. Well, I like it. I like it's a situational game and people can attack it either way. Games like, I think, F-14 Tomcat is probably a bit more linear, really, in that people are either going for multi-ball or they're going for... I can't remember the name of it. Is it the Yagov shot on the left?
    16:12
    Yeah, trying to kill Yagov on that kicker on the left. Yeah. Which, yeah, I mean, what do you think people are going to go for? And I know in particular it's how the game's set up that will determine what people go for. Yeah, correct. And I'll probably set it up somewhere between what I've seen set up for at Papa versus the factory default. So, you know, be given this limited entry and not unlimited entry. So I'll probably start it off where you begin the game with the kickback lit as opposed to I've played in pop tournaments where they started off with the kickback unlit.
    16:54
    And then, yeah, but then I think most people will be going for multi-ball. I think that's just a natural, safe way to play it. Yeah, because you get to, you know, with those targets at the top, you get to sort of keep the ball up that area. and my understanding is that, you know, obviously you've got to hit the lit stand up in the middle to light your kick back and I've seen that people have tried to do that because there is a bit of a safety.
    17:20
    However, it's a really dangerous shot, like the most dangerous shot in the game. Correct, yeah. It'll kill you more often than not. Yeah, so you're better off not doing it. And high speed and a meteor, classics in that area. Meteor obviously builds your... Knock down enough targets, but not all of them to be able to increase the spinner value and then just rip it. Well, or just about every other Stern Electronics, which is do something to light the spinner and then hit the spinner. Is that really? Yeah. We're not going to bring up that old thing.
    17:55
    But, you know, Meteor's a great game. High speed, again, very... I guess what I like about high speed is that it's not necessarily a surprising game, but you've still got to nail your shots. Correct, yeah. You've still got to nail your shots. We'll have it set up so it's not a progressive jackpot that carries between players, so none of that action that you normally see on location.
    18:22
    And, yeah, so, you know, players can take a couple different tacks there. They can either just go for the multi-ball and run the red light or to try to get jackpots. and some players also like to shat to the freeway awards and go that route. So those are the two predominant strategies there. Yeah, cool.
    18:42
    And so then your four modern games, you've got Circus Voltaire, Demolition Man, Iron Maiden, and X-Men.
    18:49
    Yeah, so it's good. We always try to do a bit of a mix, and we always make an attempt to not have just a sternament lineup for the moderns. And so we just have the two. I think having Iron Maiden is just a fantastic choice right now, and I think it will continue to be a good choice for many, many years to come. It's just there's so many great games I've seen played on Iron Maiden in a tournament setting because the way that Keith designed those rules, it's not so much a matter of depth as it is breadth. and it's so wide because there's so many different ways that you can score the necessary points in order to defeat your opponents or to come back and close the gap. And that's really what I think is one of the loveliest parts about that game, outside of just the cool layout and for those people, the theme, which the theme doesn't really, to me, that's not really what does it for me. But it's just I love that you can play it so many different ways and do a different setup, and then if you cash in and maybe do a 2x or 3x on top of it, and then just you can have a great score in almost pretty much every single mode, every single multiball, and it's just a matter of, you know, really executing. Well, I guess it's probably no surprise that a tournament player has created a great tournament machine. I mean, obviously, the good thing about that game is that it's a great machine outside of tournaments as well. And probably for precisely what you're saying in that there is so much for you to do at once as opposed to being very linear. Correct. So, okay. A Demolition Man. A Demolition Man, I often see that in tournaments. And I don't know whether that's because it makes for a good tournament game or business, you know, it's available. But what are your thoughts on Demoman? It's a very different style game than certainly either the two sterns and also a different style than Circus Voltaire.
    20:59
    Demoman, really, you have to play more. Typically, you have to play more on the fly. You can't trap up as much.
    21:06
    And it's a nice flow shooter's game. gives you some strategic choice as far as when you want to mix in your multiballs. We will have the claw disabled like most other tournaments around the world do. And so then that gives you some strategic choice on when you want to cash in the maximized lock freezes or the multiball start that you can use on the right ramp or you can save it for your second multiball. That's the typical strategy I go for is I'll try to play the first one naturally, if you will, and then use the ramp for the second one. So, yeah, it's just a really fun game.
    21:48
    It's enjoyable to play. It's a little bit more, you know, I think there's a little bit more, you know, just out-of-control play on Demo Man. Yep, agreed. And it's also kind of neat to see some players, how they will choose to play with the triggers, because maybe they're going to go and try to maximize their combo values and maybe get some bonus X and blow it up that way. I've seen so many times where people play it that way and they'll get their bonus up to levels that, you know, dwarf the scores you could have gotten during a typical multiball. So it's a nice balance. Yeah, I do see the majority of people not using the triggers.
    22:34
    And obviously it just feels completely different. You don't get that same sensory experience using the triggers. But obviously there's a risk-reward there. And if you can master them, maybe it's worth it. Yeah, how do you play it? Do you use the triggers? No, I don't. I don't use the triggers.
    22:53
    Again, I just, I don't, they feel more digital to me than analog, if that makes sense. I don't get that feel. It's more of an on-off sensation as opposed to a gradual feel of the flippers. Yeah, I agree with that. Although you cannot stage the upper flipper on that game anyway, so that's how I normally always feel the difference, is knowing that you get that sensational millisecond difference between when the lower flipper fires and the upper one does on the left button, for instance, but in that case it's not. but yeah I agree and for the longest time I never used the trigger rate but now I actually use them it's just it's so powerful for the whole game?
    23:39
    no see here's the deal I'll play it in single ball play I'll use the triggers right but then when I get to multi ball I'll switch to the regular slipper buttons do you know what do you know what's interesting I was actually going to say I would have thought the opposite would have been more logical mainly because if you've got more control and you need more control in a single ball play, get to multi-ball. Whilst you've got your ball save happening, use the triggers because you're going to get combo shots, right, whilst you're in multi-ball. Well, I don't know. I'm not too familiar. I didn't know if you still get combos during multi-ball. I don't know either.
    24:19
    Obviously. Neither of us know. Yeah. With Circus Voltaire, I just think people really Ignore most of the game And just go Wingmaster Do you reckon that's going to happen?
    24:32
    Certainly could We're going to have the We'll have the slings set up nice and sensitive So We're not going to set it up stupid hard Like what Papa did maybe three or four years ago I forget exactly which year it was When they had Circus Voltaire In the finals and it was just a war of attrition That I think Elwin won that game by simply playing a little bit longer. And I think he actually did that. I think he just went for Ringmasters and survived.
    25:03
    So this is, yeah, no, we'll have it set up so that it's a little bit more playable than that, so that way people can make some choices on which multiballs and war modes if they're really wanting to do that. But I really, the modes on that really aren't worth anything. It's pretty much just multiballs and Ringmasters. yeah so then I'll ask this one for what you think other people will choose and then what you would choose I'm assuming you're probably not going to be in the tournament anyway but what do you think of all those machines people are more likely to choose and what ones do you think people are going to go oh shit that's too hard I'm not going to play it so let's see starting with the modern since we just finished on those it's going to vary I think there are a lot of players that are probably going to pick they're probably going to choose Iron Maiden and X-Men because the feeling like they're in more control versus being out of control and with Circus Voltaire you don't have your traditional Italian bottom style with the in-lane feeds and you have that kind of interesting out-lane, in-lane area.
    26:13
    So yeah, but of course there are some people that, like for instance, talking to Richard Rhodes last week. Of course, he likes Iron Maiden a lot, but he would probably like the circus from the Demoman more than for instance the X-Men. Yeah, in particular Demoman, he absolutely loves. So yeah, it's going to vary by player.
    26:35
    That's kind of by design. When I go through and choose these along with Phil Grimaldi, who's also a tournament director, we go through and choose these games. we're trying to have some variety even within a bank itself. And you'll see that also in the solid states, that we intentionally have two later solid states and two earlier solid states. So that way there's some balance there, and obviously a solid state era kind of spans the gap, if you will.
    27:08
    So I would anticipate you're going to see a lot of people that will choose to play F-14 at high speed simply because they're more modern and because you can get a multiball.
    27:20
    But at the same time, it's balanced out somewhat by, you know, depending upon when they're playing their entries, maybe the queue for Alien Poker and Meteor will be attractive. And that's what I was going to say, because you and I had an offline conversation a while ago after Flipout when we were discussing Terminator 3, because unfortunately we didn't get a lot of time to be able to set up those machines, and unfortunately Terminator 3 was such a long player and we couldn't alter it during qualifying that it had an hour and a half wait time versus everything else that had about 40 minutes. So you've obviously got to spend a lot of time on these machines sort of balancing them so that they've got similar play times. Is that what you have to do? Yeah, I mean, it's... Yeah, you have to balance it out. But the good news is there's plenty of time to play in the qualifier because as long as you show up and you're playing on Friday, if there's somebody that's showing up and maybe if they're only trying to get all their 20 entries in on Saturday,
    28:22
    they might be forced into some of those choices. But anybody that's showing up and playing the full day Friday and Saturday and even when they're throwing in classic entries as well or spending time on the floor, I think there's plenty of time to choose whichever one is best suited for you. And also the other thing might be is when players see the types of scores that are needed, that maybe if you've got a whole bunch of players that have just gone crazy on F-14 and high speed, someone might go, hmm, they might do the math and think, well, if I can just get a hold of Meteor and get that spinner juiced up and get a few good rips, because I'm going to make sure that that spinner, if it isn't already dialed, which I know the owner of that one, I think he's used that before in a tournament maybe three years ago, three or four years ago that I played in, and so he had a pretty good dialed-in spinner, but if for some reason it's not, then I'm bringing my, you know, the bottle of scooper lube for the spinner to make it nice and juicy. But yeah, so I think each player, you know, they're also going to assess it based on what type of scores are on the games and, you know, where they think they might be able to score and then the type of ranking points that they would get. And so how many people are in the main tournament? I know it's been capped. What was the cap?
    29:42
    160. Jeez. And how many people are on the wait list at the moment? 130, roughly. Far out. So, I mean, obviously you've got to be pleased with it that it gets that much demand. Are there plans to increase it in subsequent years?
    30:05
    Yeah. Yeah, so we are, it's nothing that's official at this point. So this year we're taking the steps, you know, it's different reasons why, but it's a similar kind of story to what you heard, obviously, and know about with Pimberg, where they spent last year where they were essentially testing out the logistics as well as the personnel and resources they needed in order to be able to handle more players before they actually did it. And so we are somewhat doing the same thing. where this year we are moving for the first time since I've been going to TPS and we've crossed maybe three different venues. We are, for the first time, we're moving the tournament from the main floor and we're having it in conference rooms that are across the hallway from the main floor. And we are being, because of that, we are being allotted more square footage, or I guess for Australian listeners, you know, square meters. So we will have more space. And so we're using that to accommodate more classic pins because we had an unbelievable demand for the classic tournament last year. And we have leftover space that we're using for, you know, making better options for people to sit down and have some tables where they can, you know, congregate around, eat, snack, whatever, and watch the stream on the screens. and so once we kind of figure out and see how this works, my plan next year is to expand it. I don't know exactly what that number will be, but we definitely want to expand it because we know. I mean, the numbers don't lie. We've had three years in a row, and especially the last two years, where we just had an overwhelming amount of people on the wait list, and we'd certainly like to be able to accommodate more players. It will require, obviously, more pins in the main bank, but we can get more pins. It's a freaking Texas pinball festival.
    32:12
    It's one of the biggest festivals in the world and thankfully we have a great collector base from Texas and the neighboring states that bring in pins. so I think we can definitely expand it but like I said I don't know exactly how much and this year it will be kind of a test run to see what that new space that we're going to be in is like to see just how many more we think we can accommodate and so we heard that Pimberg sold out in seconds how quickly did the tournament at TPF sell out?
    32:51
    I don't recall off the top of my head It was back in the beginning of October. Yep. And I think it, I think maybe it sold out in roughly 30 minutes somewhere around that that that timeframe I don remember exactly But each year like we experienced with Pinberg as well there was three years ago it sold out It took, you know, days to sell out.
    33:16
    And now it's just, you know, you have a rabid pinball fan base, which is phenomenal. I love it. And so now, yeah, it too sold out in a matter of minutes. and, yeah, people are excited to play in it. They're obviously excited to go to, you know, in my opinion, the best show. Replay FX to me and then TPF are two very different types of shows. Sure.
    33:45
    Because this will be your first TPF, correct? It's my first TPF, but obviously I had Pinberg last year. where, like, you'd say that Pinberg was a... I would say it's like a giant arcade in that everything's there, it's all laid out, you can just go and play it. There were some seminars there, but it wasn't really about sort of industry talk. It was just about going there and playing machines, whereas my impression that I've got of TPF, it's the industry show for the players. What do you think? Yes. Yeah, I think that's a good description. Yeah, it's really, as people have already acknowledged and talked about, it's really in some degree become somewhat of the new Expo or trying to pick up the slack for Expo while it was in the doldrums, if you will, on some of the way it was being handled.
    34:39
    And, yeah, there's definitely now the industry is a big part of what makes TPS so special. manufacturers aren't releasing new games at TPS. I'm a bit bummed by that. Well, so am I, obviously, because I'm travelling around the outside of the world hoping that I was going to get some exclusive releases, but no, not today.
    35:06
    Yeah, but so Replay, like you said, it's like a huge, massive arcade, but it's even more than that. Replay has a... it almost has a arcade slash gaming element to it where you have that massive area of replay effects for console gaming and you have a whole huge section of it dedicated to bouncy toys and blow up castles and things like that for the kids or kids at heart to play in where TTF doesn't have that they're not allocating the precious space in that what you'll see is a huge ballroom, as I'm sure that Ryan C. has told you and others. But those are dedicated to pinball, classic arcades. We don't have bouncy houses at TPF. They do have other cool stuff, though. They do a lot more, I would say, more catered to more the collectors. So you have stuff that is not so much a cosplay at TPF, whereas there's a huge element of cosplay at ReplayFX. Sure. But TPF has cool things for collectors. They'll usually have a DeLorean mock-up car there, and they'll have a life-size statue of the Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or the T3 or whatever, things like that. They have, obviously, the VIP experience of the Munsters, so they bring in famous stars from pinball-themed machines. What they've done, they did Flash Gord in the past, They did Elvira in the past.
    36:46
    They did Lufarigno in the past. So those types of things. And so, yeah, to me it's just a different experience. I've been going to both now for a number of years, and I love them both. And there's obviously some similarities, and the one big difference is ReplayFX has Pinberg, and TPF, while it's a fantastic tournament that we're running now, it's no Pinberg. I mean, I fully agree and admit that Pinberg is my favorite tournament in the world.
    37:15
    You know, TPF has a similar type of style as a lot of other, you know, circuit-level events. It is nice, though. I really do enjoy, and it was not, I can't take credit for it. It was, I think, somebody, I forget whose idea it was, to really try to maintain this multi-era element. It was there before in the past TPS, before I was running the tournaments. they were actually held as separate sub-tournaments across different eras and in this case they're just different banks as part of the same tournament so I really do like it because there's not, I think there's only maybe I mean Pinbury obviously has multi-era in terms of each bank that you play has a machine from each era but I don't know of any other major circuit level tournament that is doing a similar style of multi-era limited entry like TPF and so It's a neat, it's a really fun format, and it lends itself also to, you know, some decision-making for players on which pins they want to pick, you know, from which era. There's also some interesting strategy then in the finals as well, as far as trying to pick which, you know, which pin from which era is going to suit them best against their opponents. So, yeah. But, yeah, going back to the show, the TPF show, you'll be amazed. It's everybody that comes there is usually, you know, for the first, of course, you'll be a little bit less amazed because you've been to some other show, you know, massive show like ReplayFX. So you have that experience under your belt already. But, yeah, TPF is marvelous. Yeah, but as I said, I think it's a different type of experience with Pinbird. With this one, what I'm sort of looking forward to more so, and I've actually printed out, you know, the schedule of seminars. and I want to go to a lot of seminars. So I've not had really that experience before. In fact, at Pimberg, because for most of the time you are actually in the tournament, the only seminar I saw was Keith Elwin's because you're either in the tournament or you're not.
    39:20
    Yeah, correct. I think Texas Pinball Festival, probably also because it's limited to 160 people in the tournament, there's going to be hundreds of other people that aren't in the tournament so you'll actually get the numbers in those seminars.
    39:33
    Correct, correct. And the other nice thing that we've done, and this was intentionally done, so this was when it was actually the original change in the format was it was something that Ed Van Der Veen, who's one of the tournament organizers, and he worked with Josh Sharp and Nate Shivers talking and trying to get through what format to use for the tournament. And they brought me on, I think, after they'd already decided on they want to do limited entry. And there's a very good reason why we want to do limited entry at a show like TPF. And it's because we want to, even those players that are playing in the Wizards tournament, we want them intentionally to have time to go enjoy the rest of the show. Whether that's the enjoyment for them, whether they're going to attend seminars, or whether the enjoyment is they're just going to go and check out the new games that are on the floor that they have never played before or the rare ones or the one-offs, the homebrew ones that will show up or if they're wanting to go play dollar games, you know, whatever the case may be. And so that was very intentional to make a limited entry tournament. So it forces players to not just play in the tournament. But also, if it was unlimited, you wouldn't be able to get 160 people having their full experience, right?
    40:54
    That's correct, yeah. Well, I mean, you probably would, but then you'd have to use your definition of full. You'd have some players with that 160 that would not because they would just put in a few, and then they'd say, ah, screw it, I'm done. And then you'd have like 60 people or whatever, the hardcore, that are going to put in 40 entries instead of 20. And the other thing that, you know, for some people, you know, we have to recognize that everybody has their different, you know, price sensitivity and cost tolerances.
    41:25
    And, you know, the other thing that limited entry does is it takes that out of the equation where everybody is paying the same amount and everybody has the exact same chance. Yep. And I like that element to it. Okay. Cool.
    41:41
    Well, and how long have you been running the tournament now? This will be my fourth year running the tournament. Right. So that would have been, and I don't know whether I'm sort of bringing up something that's a bit awkward, but I remember there was a few years ago where, you know, I think there was some teething problems with the tournament format there. It seems like you've just understood what people want and being able to deliver a great experience. Would you say that? but you would have obviously had to have learned from some of the challenges that were there before you.
    42:20
    Yeah, correct. No, there's definitely things we've learned from. You know, the people that were running, well, one of the people that ran the tournament for me with the first two years before he decided to step away from helping the tournament, Ken Kemp, he was also helping to run it in the past. And one of my good friends, Marcus, he was running the tournaments for a number of those years. and Marcus, I think he'll even admit he always comes up with a lot of great ideas and he likes to make things complex and run as many tournaments as possible so it was interesting hearing your last podcast where you were talking about your Brisbane tournaments you were talking about just in general when you have tournaments in Australia when you do have them, you try to cram in as many comps as possible Yeah, I think the Brisbane Masters that's coming up, you know, that one has actually, there's 10 days of events, but the Australian Championship. So that was, I thought I misheard. So when you said that, I thought maybe I misheard it in passing, but there's literally 10 days of comps. 10 days of competitions. Absolutely, that is true. But obviously, right? Okay, where is there in the world a competition that goes for 10 days? There are none. I think the closest to come is the IFPA world. They'll usually have a bunch of tournaments leading up to it. They'll usually go for almost a whole week, but I don't think you'll have 10 days. Well, so this is what's really cool. This is Jimmy and Atlambo that are putting on Brizza Masters. I mean, it's now part of the Stern Pro Circuit, which is freaking awesome, obviously, but this is a way for them to say, this is how we're going to try and make the best tournament in the world, right? So if... Because really what we're trying to do is attract people from overseas to come over. Now, if you've got a three-day tournament, now, some people will come over for that. Like, obviously, we had a couple of people from America come through for the Australian Championship Series. But if you've got 10 days of pinball in Australia, it's more likely that people are going to travel from overseas for that because that becomes just a massive pinball event in itself and worth the flights over.
    44:37
    True, yeah. If that's what's motivating them is just the pinball. For me, you know, this is me speaking from my own personal, you know, opinion. I would rather, if I'm going to go, I would rather just, you know, have the one weekend and then take the rest of my time in Australia going and seeing all the things that I want to see in Australia because I've never been. You know, I'd love to go, you know, I scuba dive. I would love to go diving. No, there you go. Yeah. and other great things to see, obviously, in the great cities of Melbourne and Sydney. I said Melbourne wrong. Sorry, it's Melbourne, not Melbourne. We understand what you mean. So, yeah, anyway, but, yeah, but it's interesting that you do that because I think that's the same mentality also. I know in talking to Josh Sharp regarding the IFPA, that they intentionally have that weak lead-up of comps before the actual IFPA and Epstein Cup because they want to make it worth the while for people that are traveling from around the world to come there, and then they can play for obviously more than just a couple days. So I think it's a brilliant idea. It's good. I hope it accomplishes what you're trying to do. So when is that so everybody can hear when are the Brisbane 10 days of goodness? Okay. So let me Okay let me try and Let me try and read out all these events So it is So this year's event will be held at the beautiful Brisbane showgrounds So actually because it's part of the 10 days of the Royal Brisbane show So you've got Jeez There's a tournament on Friday the 9th of August There's one on the There's a Classics on the 10th Then there's Fair Strikes on the 11th There's Pinkadia match play on Monday Then there's a double elimination And a Brisbane Pinball Club on the Tuesday Then there's Wednesday, there's Thursday There's Friday It actually is going for 10 days Starting the 9th and finishing on the 18th Wow, so you're right I think you mentioned before how that is very close to Pinburg And in fact, that's starting the same week that Pinberg finishes. Yeah, that's right. So, and you know what, even leading up until the night or the morning when I got up and got my Pinberg ticket, I was still sort of umming and ahhing. Do I, you know, because it's the same amount of time, I could go up to Brisbane for these events or I could go over to Pinberg. And the day before, I said to myself, you know what, I'm not going to go to Pinberg. I'll go to Brisbane Masters but then I just got all excited about the whole get up and get a ticket and secure the ticket so it was Mrs. Pin we were all very excited so I'm assuming you got your tickets too right?
    47:40
    I did I was fortunate that one of my friends Robert Byers was able to get them for me because I was out camping with my son on a beautiful place about two hours drive from Austin, Texas, called Enchanted Rock, with no cell phone signal. And, yeah, so he thankfully purchased those for myself and my two boys. That's awesome. Well, I will get to see you twice this year then.
    48:08
    Yeah, yeah. It's going to be great because we've only met, I think, via watching each other on stream. Well, and last year on the film. I've been there last year. I think you're forgetting that thing. Obviously, I wasn't that memorable. So, yeah, whatever. Okay. So, there we go. You didn't bring me anything, Marty. You know, Ryan brought me a ruseck, you know, but, you know. I'm just kidding. Your memory must be terrible. I know. You brought me a great shirt. What about the T-shirt? Yeah.
    48:41
    It didn't help me win, though. No, that is true. It wasn't as lucky, you know, because it was, of course, all the luck that it brought Keith when it had nothing to do with his skill. It was just the luck of the T-shirt. Correct. It still was a highlight for me, seeing him wear my shirt in the finals. Oh, of course. I can just imagine how over the moon you must have been with him wearing that. I literally took a selfie with him playing a machine up on the stage behind me. Like, this blurry mess of a photo, but I'm still like, I'm so proud he is up there. Anyway, so... So what are you bringing to TPF? Are you going to bring some Tim Tams or what? I don't know I mean god we haven't got that long we've only got three weeks yeah I don't know because obviously roost sacks have been done to death yeah Tim Chams I've heard you can buy them over there oh this is what I've heard that's probably right yeah I think Mr. Pin told us that we can get you can get Tim Chams over there I don't know I've got to find something that is I was going to say quintessentially Australian but roost sacks aren't yet all of a sudden that became the Australian thing And so, I don't know.
    49:50
    I'll think about it, and maybe I'll surprise you. Maybe I won't. Well, you should bring over more of those T-shirts. I really do like that T-shirt. Every time I've worn it, especially before I think maybe other people have seen it, people are very complimenting. Obviously, the artwork on the back is fantastic. It's really good, isn't it?
    50:08
    And, yeah, so you should, of course, obviously trying to fit stuff into your suitcase to come over. But, yeah, if you sold those, if you have more of those T-shirts and you sold them over here, you'd sell them out in a heartbeat. Yeah, we just did those for shits and giggles, really.
    50:26
    And, you know, we're hoping for a logo redesign. So we've sort of been holding off on doing that. But, yeah, we've had a lot of people wanting those T-shirts. So we may put up an online store at some stage in the future. I don't know. But we'll see how we go.
    50:42
    Do we want to get to some news, Colin? Yeah, yeah, let's get some news. Okay, well, I'm just going to throw something in that I didn't put in the show notes, just because it's quite topical. We have got, what is it, technically three weeks until TPF, that's right? One, two, three. Yeah, it's just going to be three weeks from now. Yeah. So, have you been following the progress of Haggis Pinball? I have not. So, yeah, educate me. Okay. So they have been endeavouring to do like a weekly video update of, you know, their first pinball machine that they're developing, which is called Wraith Pinball. Yep. And a few weeks ago, they sort of announced that in order to really get that in a showable format, they've sort of not going to have that at TPF. But there is another machine that they are going to be having at TPF called KELTS, C-E-L-T-S. Well, and that's what I believe. But what's really interesting is that, you know, we've got three weeks to go, and you should see. So Damien, that's the main person that's building this machine, just in recent weeks, they actually published, like, episode 10 and 11. And he is frantically getting this machine ready. And you can kind of see some progress. We will link it in the show notes. but three weeks away. I'm curious to know what's going to be shown at TPF. He will be doing a seminar and I believe, exclusive information here, I will be doing a Q&A with him as his seminar.
    52:26
    Oh, very nice. So if anyone's got some questions, send them through to head2headpinball at gmail.com and if they're good questions, I'll read them out otherwise. Okay, so what is it? I remember watching the trailer for the Wraith. When it first came out, somebody had linked it on a Facebook group or whatever, and I remember clicking over to it. It was interesting because, of course, they didn't have any pinball to show. It was just explaining the theme, and it kind of had a Ring-esque, the Ring, the horror movie feel to how it was. That was very intriguing because I think that's a fantastic movie. so I'm interested to see what they come up with but as we've talked about and I think you talked about also with Richard last week really a lot of it comes down to does the pin play well? Is it a good layout? The phrase that I think Elwin used in one of his interviews was is it kinetically pleasing? That's a good way of putting it and if I could hazard a guess I would say that a white wood would be coming to TPF. And probably an interesting sort of side conversation to have about it is, you know, also a couple of weeks ago when I was talking to Bruce about Houdini, it didn't matter what I said to him. He just absolutely hated Houdini and was saying that the shots were just not great. And you've got to remember that Houdini, they kind of bypassed the Whitewood stage. They did, yeah. But, hey, TPF is also a great example of that you can bring a white wood to TPF and have it turn into something magnificent like TNA. Well, that is true. So, again, TNA was really interesting because even before the artwork, there was something about the light show that just made that look special just as a white wood. It had literally a Sharpie marker. It was Sharpie marker drawn on the white wood. It was terrible in terms of just an art, you know, because it wasn't art. It was just sketching. But it was the way that it shot. You know, it was kinetically pleasing. And the other critical aspect, which, you know, will melt Ryan's heart, is the sound. Sound, yeah. It was great.
    55:01
    Yeah, absolutely great. And it's really interesting that with any machine, when it's about art or music or even layout, it all then comes down to personal preferences. So the challenge that you really got is a layout that's interesting, that's not too, I don't know, too kinetically unpleasing, I guess is probably. Yeah. And I don't know if you remember last week, I read out an email where somebody had said that I'm just a fan of cookie cutters and fan layouts, which is just absolutely not true. But that right now really sums up what I guess I'm trying to say. I don't care whether it's a fan layout, a cookie layout, or whether it's got these really crazy awkward shots. If it's not kinetically pleasing, it doesn't matter what your layout is. And that then comes back to the placement of these shots, not necessarily whether they are cookie-cutter family, right?
    56:06
    Yeah, yeah. We'll come back to talking about that when we talk about your... I know what you're going to talk about. Oh, yeah. I know. Is it a certain ramp that we're talking about? Yeah.
    56:19
    I knew it. We will get to that. So, then, okay. The segue then is the other piece of news that we had is some sort of preview of an upcoming machine by Riot Pinball. Now, are you aware of Riot Pinball and the machine that they had previously?
    56:42
    Yeah, the Wooly, the Wrath of Olympus machine, which I never, unfortunately, had the chance to flip. I think it was only shown at the Expo. maybe, I don't even know if it was other shows in the Midwest that it was taken to but I remember seeing some video of it and of course seeing the layout and the as it evolved over time and man the layout, I also as a kid it's ironic, I got a Christmas gift one year from one of my aunts that she gave me a book on Greek mythology and so I like to read And so as a kid, I read that book from front to cover to back numerous times. And I really enjoyed the stories of Greek mythology. And so that theme really resonated with me. But then when I saw the shots, it was a unique layout. It had some cool features and shots to it. And then, of course, from what I saw without even ever playing it, the rules look pretty good. it's just I don't know exactly why that didn't catch on like Archer did with Elwyn with Stern because it seemed like it just really I think the pin still looks good I don't know if maybe it's because of the bill of materials is too expensive I don't know I actually played that game a lot not the real one, in virtual pin so it was originally designed in virtual pin so pin man oh that's right yeah and so i played that to death and it was just one of these at the time the recreations of machines that we knew of the the williams the the bally's and and all that kind of stuff they were remarkable but when it came to you know original ip virtual pins there were really only a couple of people that were able to make these machines that looked and played as good as a recreation. And Dave Sanders that was with Highway that did Full Throttle, he was one. He was one that was able to just have these unique, original themed virtual machines that were just incredible. And then obviously Rathalimpus was another one. There was also another, I think it might have been either a Formula One or an indie type thing with David Coulthard. I can't remember, but it was incredible. So I got to play this, and you could kind of tell a machine that they had done as a virtual machine that you could look at and say, right, you need to make that into a real machine because what you've done in this virtual world isn't anything that can't be done, right? But what you've got to understand with Wrath of Olympus, it effectively had three levels.
    59:48
    Oh, wow. Yeah, it kind of had this shot that went all the way up to this tiny little sort of upper playfield as well.
    59:56
    So just coming back to what you were saying, probably Dilla Materials was pretty high, but as far as the layout goes, it was kinetically pleasing. Oh, God, I'm going to use that a lot now.
    60:09
    But yeah, because I was going to ask you, I was going to ask you the question, Why do you think it never really got up? But you sort of answered that And I just really don't know And it was this real tragedy that happened It was almost like a dead cert It's going to be done I guess probably the theme Would really be the only thing that I think just It was a good theme And I know you love the theme But, you know Is a Wrath of Olympus and Greek mythology Going to be as appealing as Iron Maiden or Beatles or Deadpool, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. No, yeah, of course not. And that's, you know, because you've seen that even in the disaster that was Highway Pinball. You know, they were trying to do, I think, something similar with mythology with Cersei's, you know, characters. I don't know exactly what the name of the pin was, but that was one of the original designs, I think, before Full Throttle, I believe. And they abandoned that. And it's probably for good reason. I fully recognize that I'm a nerd, and so I'm not necessarily going to have the same taste as the marketplace. So, yeah, but it seems like it's a pity, because even though I never played the virtual one that you're referring to of Wooly, Wrath of Olympus, the actual physical game and copy of it seemed to play pretty well. And even, I think, the video I saw also had some decent sound and audio. Now, of course, I believe some of his audio he used was stuff that he didn't, you know, because it was a homebrew one-off. He was not, you know, paying for, I think, some of the, you know, obviously what would have to be licensed music for it. I think he was using some various metal songs. But, yeah, so it's interesting. So now there's another one. So now we see this Legends of Valhalla, and they have just the drawings or the CAD layout or images of what it's going to look like. So here, again, you have just, it's essentially, it's not Greek mythology, it's Norse mythology.
    62:20
    So Scott, apparently like me, likes those mythology stories. That's nice. but you know once again it looks interesting I'm not actually I don't just from the look of it I don't like the look of this one as much as I do Wrath of Olympus I think this one is a bit more defined than Wrath of Olympus if you look at Wrath of Olympus and if it was in the same state of this where you were just saying like a render you'd be looking at going where are these shots going because there's so much going on. I think this is more of a toned down, it is more of a fan layout. It's got the right ramp like, let's say, a Doctor Who or a Tron from the upper left flipper.
    63:13
    Is that where that was going to, so that ramp that it shoots across from the upper left flipper, is that, from the look of it, is that going to loop back around to the upper left flipper again? I can't really tell where that's going to go. No, I can't see that either. So, it looks like, no, it's too hard to know. It kind of looks like it goes up to an upper mini playfield or something. Yeah, yeah, but I don't, I guess I don't view this as a, as a fan layout. Just simply, anything to me that has an upper flipper is automatically not a fan layout. As long as it has shots, as long as it has dedicated shots for that upper flipper, I don't, I just, for me, I don't personally think of it then as a fan layout. But you're right, the rest of the shots certainly do.
    63:56
    You know, and it's got a really... It's got a very... What'll be a very late on the flipper shot to get to that left scoop.
    64:08
    Yeah. That seems almost... I'm just thinking about the flip side of that in a game like Metallica or Guardians, and it seems like that one's a little even higher up. than where this scoop is at. So it seems almost lower even than where the Revive spinner's at on Maiden. Yeah.
    64:31
    But anyway, I don't know. We'll have to see what it looks like after it's got some more. Also, artwork will, of course, help on it.
    64:42
    But, yeah, no, it certainly looks interesting. I'm also curious to see what that is. I'm curious to see what the toy ship in the back is going to do. Yeah, exactly. I guess that's what I was saying before, is that it is an interesting layout in that it's slightly different, but I think the placement of the shots is appealing. I think that it's not necessarily going to be those shots where you just feel dissatisfied.
    65:18
    I don't know. I kind of looked at it and went, it reminds me a bit of Deadpool, in that Deadpool's got direct shots, but it's also a lot about some of the rebounds that you get as well.
    65:30
    Yeah, which rebound shots are you seeing? I guess I hadn't looked that far, I hadn't knew it. Well, it's more so where that upper left flipper is going to either get the ramp or the inner ramp, or it's going to rebound up into the top left section.
    65:49
    You've also got shots below the left flipper and on the right could have, I don't know whether it's going to be a dead bounce or whether there's going to be an active sling there I don know That how you could make it more interesting as opposed to it just being an up and down shot with a ramp So well because I mean look okay if you then say that there's an upper ramp, and that therefore it's not a fan layout, how would you categorize Star Wars, Star Trek, sorry,
    66:21
    with a warp ramp? Yeah, because of, well, because of that, yeah, I don't think of it as a fan layout. I guess, to me, a fan layout, I guess, is one that has just two flippers. So you're, you know, but, you know, and to me, you know, your traditional fan layout, like for instance, you know, Deadpool deviates from that because it has some uniqueness with as far as how that, you know, the winding, you know, what ends up being a side ramp, you know, shot works. But you've got your, you know, your typical fan layouts for me are your, you know, you have, you know, your Monster Bash, you know, Medieval Madness, Lord of the Rings, you know, Guardians, Metallica. So the vast majority of what Stern puts out are what I would definitely call your fan layout. So anyway, so I guess here's the deal. So this is Riot Pinball, and so I guess my biggest question is, okay, so this is cool to see this. What's, have they announced, or are you tracking, you know, what's their endgame here? What's their intent? I do not know.
    67:32
    It kind of says to me this is their second attempt at trying to get a machine off the ground, whether they're going to try and manufacture it themselves or, like they did last time, they wanted to get somebody else to manufacture it for them.
    67:49
    But, you know, then you've got to ask yourself, is it enough of an appealing machine to get a company excited about making it for them in front of machines that they probably got planned anyway.
    68:09
    Yeah, yeah. So anyway, we'll see what happens. I'm going to skip around a little bit because let's segue into Chicago Gaming. so obviously you know Monster Bash remake has come out have you played it? the remake? I have not played the remake yet no they don't have any on location in Austin in fact I don't think there's any even original Monster Bash in Austin there's a site up in DFW in Dallas Fort Worth in Texas that typically has had some of the other remakes, like they've had a Medieval Madness remake, and they had the Attack from Mars remake, but they actually have a beautiful, gorgeous original Monster Bash, and so they do not have a Monster Bash remake, so I haven't had the chance to play it yet as far as, you know, I must say, I mean, when Medieval Madness came out, I really, I don't know, I wasn't all that wild about it, I noticed it playing, to me, it played differently than the original.
    69:26
    And then when AFM first came out, also it plays differently, but it's an easy fix because all you have to do is get the flippers adjusted upward slightly so that they're in line with the inline as opposed to drooped or flopped or whatever you want to call them. And so once you fix that, oh, my gosh, the AFM, the upscale version that has the full huge display and has that topper. I love it. Yeah. I love playing it. Now, personally, I'm not going to go spend that money for that particular machine. But I'll tell you what, anytime I see it on location or if it's somebody's house or whatever, I'll play it. because it's a fun game, and they've done a remarkable job of just tweaking it just enough to really dazzle. Yep. They've modernized it without changing what the game actually is, right? Yes. And that's kind of what I thought about Medieval Madness. Yes, it's great. And I guess for me, Medieval Madness stands as we can now make more of the machine that you had originally, right? It's just, it is a copy. Obviously, you know, we talk about the flippers, whatever, but it's just meant to be a copy. So if you put them side by side, you could look at them and go, and obviously an older one that's got LEDs, and you could say, well, which is which?
    70:56
    And in fact, I did make that mistake. I called out a machine. I said it was a Medieval Madness remake, and someone said, no, it's actually an original. I went, huh? Can't tell the difference. But you can tell the difference with an Attack from Mars remake just because the way that they've added a lot of GI and lighting, it's very noticeable that it's a remake. So Monster Bash has come out. So here's what I've been led to believe. That's a way of saying I've been told, but I can't officially say anything, is that the next machine has already been made.
    71:32
    So they're finally doing a better job of not allowing their vendors and sub-vendors to post pictures to the internet, huh? They're certainly not allowing people to give out rumours. But what I've been told is Cactus Canyon is the next machine.
    71:49
    And what I've also been told is that, you know how somebody worked on the Cactus Canyon Continued Code? Yes, it's great. Right. Well, because apparently, you know, the original code wasn't finished. I don't know what was added to Cactus County Continued. However, what I've been told is the original code has been worked on and has been completed. So whomever it was that had the original vision for the code, they've completed it according to their original vision, as opposed to somebody that completed and created their vision.
    72:32
    Wow. Well, now I've got to go to IPDB, and who was the original coder for this? Because I've played the Cactus Canyon Continued, and it's remarkable. It's really good. So what does it do? What's the changes that it's made?
    72:45
    It's got an additional multiball in it. What's it called? I'm sorry. It was only maybe one time. I didn't necessarily get to explore the whole game, so there's a long line.
    73:02
    Oh, man. I'm trying to remember. I can't, sorry, I can't think of it right now. No, that's okay. That's okay. But they did that, and I think the other key elements they added, they made the either mini wizard mode or the wizard mode better.
    73:19
    But, yeah, and they also added some additional, I think, some additional sound and dots as well. So it was, yeah, really, really well done. Okay, so this is saying that the design of Cactus Canyon was Tom Coppola, Cobra, and Matt Correal. And the, I'm looking to see, where does it? It doesn't say rules. It doesn't say. It says dots and animation.
    73:47
    So a guy named Adam Ryan and Jim Raff. But then it has mechanics, it has music, it has sound. But it doesn't say who coded it. I'm sure that you're going to get messages immediately. immediately that'll know exactly who coded it. Yeah, exactly.
    74:05
    Interesting. But anyway, so the whole point, so the rumor, so the rumor's heard, which that's very intriguing to me because I certainly think there's some value in having the original design, the original elements of gameplay and rules, and having that, whoever that was, see it through to completion. obviously that would be a major coup for Chicago Gaming. Because in the past, all they've done is, like I said, they made AFM Dazzle. Yeah. But it's the exact same game. Yeah, correct.
    74:42
    And look, I streamed Cactus Canyon, I want to say probably five, six weeks ago. And I guess it's really interesting in the cycles that we go through because I really didn't like Cactus Canyon because I kind of felt the rules were a bit simple.
    75:03
    Yes. You know, they are. But when I played it, it was its simplicity that I really liked because I've got all these complicated machines that I've had. Like, I had Iron Maiden. Obviously, I've got Wizard of Oz. It was kind of, like, refreshing to have a simpler rule set. So Cactus Canyon, for me, I kind of went, I like it because I know what I'm doing. I've still got to hit the shots and I've still got to, you know, combine things, but it is a simpler rule set that... So you can put it right next to monsters. That will. Okay, we're going to get to that.
    75:36
    But here's the other rumor as well. You ready? Yeah. After Cactus Canyon, Chicago Gaming will be doing an original licensed theme machine.
    75:49
    Hmm. So, I mean, it doesn't get vaguer than that. it means that it's licensed and it means that it's a machine that hasn't been done before as opposed to a licensed remake.
    76:04
    Yeah, that's definitely going way outside their lane that they've been operating in thus far. But if you think about it... Who's left to design games for them? Well, okay, but if you think about it now, so they've now had... We'll count Cactus Canyon even because apparently it's been done. they've now had four machines go into production you know, admittedly the first one was done by Stern and then, you know, they've all had sort of people chipping in to get others out so they now know enough about producing a pinball machine even though they're using somebody else's design so if design is the only thing that's different well, there's probably a lot of people out there that are peddling some good designs and then all you've got to do is work out how to make it, right? Get a license. That's true. And they've obviously had to work with licenses. So, you know, I think they've got the means to be able to do it. Why wouldn't you? No, no, that's a great point because you've got all these pinball companies, you know, some failed ones that have demonstrated and also some boutique ones that have tried and either failed or just never got off the ground. I mean, we're just talking about with Riot Pinball and Wooly and this one, Valhalla, Okay, yeah, you can have somebody like, I think the guy's name right is Scott. I'm sorry, I don't know his last name. Is it Scott Dullox?
    77:31
    Yeah, I think so. So anyway, so you've got Scott who has done some good design, but he does not have a manufacturing company. Sure. And I work right now for a manufacturing company.
    77:45
    Granted, it's a chemical company, but you have some basic fundamentals as far as you have to have the manufacturing set up. You have to know how to set up your company. So if you're looking at your variable costs and your fixed costs, and you have to be able to develop a supply chain that can deliver the things, the materials, and the parts that you need on time and in quantity and to spec, and all those things that most designers have either no clue about or they have no clue about how to do it in volume.
    78:18
    That's right. Yep. And so you're right. So Chicago Gaming, they have obviously been able to do so in some level of volume. I don't know exactly. Did they announce how many they make? No.
    78:31
    Someone said it's a couple of thousand. Okay, wow. So yeah, but the point is there. So they're making plenty.
    78:40
    So yeah, that's actually a really excellent point. You can probably, and this is not to put to shame or to try to diminish the value or the work that a designer puts in, but you can have a lot of people out there that can design something. Correct. But then having an organization and also the capital to be able to withstand and have enough cash to continue to breathe because cash is oxygen in any business. Yeah, correct. To be able to do all of that, that's probably the bigger hurdle. Yeah. You bring up a good point. They've done it. they've actually been able to show how to be a manufacturer again now it's just try a different design so I don't know it'll be interesting to see whether that is actually true so anyway we'll see okay so moving on there's some code that's come out and even though I think Alice Cooper came out with some code that's now at 1.0.6.15 there's a lot of numbers there and that was just some bug fixes but really the big one was Deadpool is now at 0.99 and I saw you post something about this recently, Colin so what are your thoughts on what the new code does?
    79:59
    Well, essentially it allows for stacking is the biggest thing and I unfortunately haven't had a chance to play it yet so I'm hoping possibly to play it tomorrow we have a competition tomorrow at Buffalo Billiards unfortunately he blew out one of his flippers in Deadpool and he had just run out of his stern flipper rebuilds so I think he found some parts for it and so we're hoping to have it and use it tomorrow so I'll be interested to see how it changes things really what it amounts to is it opens up your options as far as how you want to play the game In the past, there was very limited stacking, or you could only stack in a certain way. And now, based on what is in the README file, which that's all I have because I haven't played it yet, you can now stack a number of different ways in different orders. And the really refreshing part about how Stern released that is I don't think I've ever, ever seen them go into the detail of the stacking sequence and the options of what, you know,
    81:19
    instead of just, they would usually use something very vague, going, oh yeah, now this can stack. But this goes into specific detail on you can now stack Katamorama time with Ninja Multiball, or you can now start Ninja Multiball and you can then stack on Katamorama time and, you know, etc., etc. so to me I really appreciated that I think maybe another reason why they went into such detail to really explain that level of detail in the stacking is for that way anybody who's playing in a certain high level tournament in next weekend will know how to play it yeah because that's right it's going to be in will it be in the Stern Pro Circuit final? I believe so yes yes so everyone knows i also think that that's a way of adding really answering the criticism that people had it was very specific what was what people were complaining about is i want to be able to stack a mode with a multi ball well there you can and you know i think it was it's interesting is because the the opposite of stacking is being locked out and that's really what would happen is let's say you you in katana armor which was just you know after a certain amount of shots you'd just be playing away and all of a sudden you can't start multi-ball or you can't start a quest and it's like, oh, that's right, it's because I'm in Katana Ramma mode, right? So this sort of now allows you to not be locked out as a, you know what I mean? It is stacking, but it was the locking out that was the negative impact that it was having. Correct. Yeah. Or too much of it, because I actually, in an instance of where locking out, I actually enjoy a lot more, especially in the competitions setting is the competition install on the walking dead because it forces you as a player to make the choice of do I get into the safety of multiball now knowing that I can't start a mode after I've entered into multiball or do I take the risk of starting a mode, getting a mode qualified before I start my prison multiball or well walker multiball so in that case I think it's brilliant So that's why I'm interested to see how it's going to play in Deadpool because I think in some cases you can actually have it be too open, if you will, of, you know, where you can just – if you just stack everything on anything, it then becomes – there becomes certain pathways that everybody's going to pick because that's the safest way to get there, the risk-reward benefit. And then once you get into it, you just start seeing – you just start piling on everything you can. You know, that's a typical rules design of, like, a Keith Johnson game, where you can stack everything on anything. Yep. And so whether that's Simpsons Pinball Party or whether that's Wizard of Oz, you know, you essentially, in those games, in fact, I'm always looking, okay, where's my next multiball? Because I know as long as I get into the multiball, then I can simply stack on, you know, whatever is needed. So in this one, yeah, it opens things up, but I wonder if it'll be too open. So the specifics, if somebody hasn't read it yet, you can read this at the Stern Readme file. So it says battles and multiballs can start when Katana Ramatime, Berserker Rage, or Little Deadpool single ball modes are running. So that's essentially, you know, so it says both battles and multiballs. So it doesn't say necessarily that you can stack a battle onto a multiball. So you still have to have a battle started before you enter a multiball, which I think is the right decision there.
    85:06
    So you still have to, just like I was describing in The Walking Dead, you still have to make that decision on Deadpool as well. So these other, to me, your Katana Ramatime, your Berserker Rage, and your little Deadpool single ball modes is appropriate that you can stack those on because, or you can stack on the battles or multi-balls on top of that because I view those as kind of the minor players. Yeah, they are. And this is what's interesting and I think that's why people are complaining because they are the minor players but they lock you in. So, you know, it's the equivalent and I'm going to give two examples where people really don't like them.
    85:47
    It's Winter is Coming on Game of Thrones and it's Boba Fett on Star Wars. Oh, yeah. You know? That's what the equivalent is. And people hate to say... Oh, Boba Fett is so worthless. I know. Whereas I really like... Well, probably not in tournament settings, but I actually really like Winter is Coming because I love Winter is Coming multiball. Yeah. But I think that's what it is. And there's two of them, right, that lock you out. Or three, if you count the mini Deadpool single ball ones. And so that's why people are just like, you're killing me here because they are not worth that much and you have to play them out and they go for too long.
    86:31
    Yeah. Well, and the nice part about this is because now you can then make some strategic decisions, especially as far as stacking a multi-ball on top of it. So, for instance, like Catanarama Time, is it exclusively just the ramps? I hardly ever focused on it because it just happened worth it. Yeah, so now you can essentially, you know, you can intentionally, it looks like you can actually do, you can go either way with Katana Ramatime. In the fourth bullet point, it says Katana Ramatime can start. Yeah, you can bring it in. Win battles, quests, little Deadpool modes, or Ninja Multiball. And it only says Ninja Multiball there, so that's interesting. But you can bring it in after. But I think that's nice, because then, because to me, unless you have the play field multiplier going, the Ninja Multiball really isn't worth that much. No. And it's a real bloody hassle to get to.
    87:24
    Yeah. But mind you, neither is the mini Deadpool Multiball. It's always really been, you know, your quests and getting to your mini wizard and then your wizard mode is really where the points are.
    87:41
    It's one of those games where Multiball really is, you know, something that progresses you. You use it to progress something else as opposed to it being the thing that you're actually going for.
    87:54
    Yeah, correct. Although on the premium, I will intentionally go for a disco multiball. Sure. Okay. And disco loops just because it's what, because it gives you that safe feed every time, you know, but this is in a competition setting, not necessarily for the, you know, when I'm just playing it for trying to advance, to the wizard modes. But yeah, so it's nice. I do like this adding because like you said, it was very frustrating. It was like some other recent games where if you get locked out of a much more lucrative, much more rewarding mode and you're stuck in this minor mode and all you're doing is trying to figure out what's the best way I can time this out. Okay. So here's what my thoughts were originally when I saw your post that was the first I'd really known about the code being, you know, what the contents were. Is there a danger that its rule set becomes just like all the others? As opposed to looking at those modes like Katana-Raman saying, well, obviously we got it wrong, so now we can make it stack, or we can make it now lucrative because that makes it a unique rule set to this machine. What do you think? I mean, I'll still be... I mean, each of those modes, I mean, you use the word unique, but I guess Katana Rama time really isn't all that unique. No, I know, but there's not that many recent sterns where they will lock you out. I mean, obviously we've got... We talked about before Boba Fett and Winter is Coming. You know, at least with Winter is Coming, it's got a multi-ball at the end of it. Nobody really gives a shit about the Boba Fett one, and it's not really worth the other points, so no one really cares. But, you know, a parallel I'll give is in Star Wars where you've got the video mode, right? Because that video mode isn't stacked. It's just a singular mode. But it could be worth a lot when you've got multipliers so people will actually go for it.
    90:04
    Yeah. That's the parallel I'm giving is it's not about stacking it and, you know, removing the lockout. it's actually making it worth shooting for so you don't need to stack it.
    90:17
    Yeah, I mean, and that's why I guess I was alluding to earlier is that if you make it too open, then it may lose some of its feel in terms of how you go about playing the game. And I guess the feel just comes about to really is it making it more or less fun? Yep.
    90:38
    So we'll find out. I mean, it looks like you can stack lots of different ways now. And so it'll be, you know, it'll just be interesting seeing how people play it. I'm looking forward to, you know, watching it a bit next Saturday in the U.S. at the Stern Pro Circuit Finals to see how people end up playing it with these changes. I don't think it's going to change, you know, things all that much. I don't know what your general strategy is, at least for competition settings. You know, mine is, you know, especially if I haven't played the actual physical copy yet, I want to get into Little Deadpool as quickly as I can, except I will shoot the battle scoop before I hit that final shot to start the Little Deadpool multiball.
    91:26
    In this, you know, I don't think any of these things that they list here change that for me. No, that's not. I'll still play it the same way.
    91:39
    The only, the biggest difference is that during, especially when I get into Ninja Multiball, which there are some games on Deadpool where I never even play Ninja Multiball. No, well, there are some of them you can't hit that shot at all, so there's no point.
    91:53
    Right? Yep, yep. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. But, yeah, it'll be interesting. It could be also just fun, not that I'm going to do it in a competition, but, you know, if you can get a multiball going with Berserker Rage and see, like, you know, is there any way to, like, maybe set up, like, double two balls at the same time, nailing the center spinner and loop passing to get back to the right flipper and doing it again, like, doing that with two balls at the same time, that would be a really fun challenge to do.
    92:25
    Cool. Well, hopefully I'll get to stream it soon. and then we'll be able to try it out. But for me, Deadpool is a game that I didn't think I was going to enjoy and I really enjoy it. I think they've actually done a great machine and it's an unconventional layout that for me works and there are people that don't like the layout and that's kind of last week's discussion about the whole cookie cutter thing. If you don't go a cookie cutter layout, then chances are less people are going to love your layout but it doesn't make it any less of a layout it's just the Venn diagram sort of gets smaller.
    93:08
    Yeah, yeah. You take that risk and sometimes it pays off like Iron Maiden and sometimes it doesn't like Avengers.
    93:19
    Okay, we've mentioned it enough. Let's get to it, right? What Colin's talking about So I streamed the Bayside Monthly Tournament on Thursday night. Here it was. So if you go to the Melbourne Silver Ball League Twitch page, we'll link it as well, you'll see it. And the four games that we were streaming, that were in the tournament, were Aerosmith, Ghostbusters, Avengers and Simpsons Pimple Party.
    93:50
    And just before we started recording, we saw the show notes because it's in this week in pinball. what did you get up to this week? Oh, well, you know, I went to the Bayside Pinball Tournament and I won it. You know, just a side note, I won it. Yeah, just a side note. But Colin said, Colin said, I watched that. Oh, and there's one thing I want to talk about. Talk about it now because it was the funniest thing that happened. Go for it, Colin. Oh, my gosh. So, yeah, so first off, they're having to play Avengers, which is already, you know, a pain in itself. You know, and like most Avengers games, It was, you know, I think, you know, someone probably could have gotten second place in the game if they would have just gotten their skill shots. But you couldn't plunge the skill shot. It wasn't strong enough to get up to the top. It's hilarious. If somebody did, I think one of the person who took first or second, they were getting up there. Maybe they were power plunging or something like that. Which is not the way you want to play that game. I mean, you want to play it and you want to short plunge it and you want to get your lane so you can get Loki multiball. But there was not a single Loki multiball played. there was not a single Hulk multiball played in the entire freaking game because as demonstrated was that Nigel playing? It was Nigel, yep poor Nigel he was playing it just like you should, he was controlling he was getting, and also the game was leaning to the right significantly so he was getting control, getting on the right flipper all the time and then post transferring it over half the time not getting control of the left flipper because of the lean and having to go back to the right flipper again. And then he must have tried at least ten times to shoot. This was after all the clunkiness of getting through all the Hulk drop targets and hitting Hulk a number of times, getting the ball stuck under Hulk's arm. And finally the Hulk scoop is lit. And that green arrow is just sitting there waiting. And he's trying and trying and trying to hit this shot, and he can't do it. and he finally hits it and it goes all the way around and that was the first surprise it actually went all the way around but then what does it do? No! You don't get it lips out of the saucer and comes back down to his flicker It was the most painful five minutes in pinball I've ever watched Do you know what? It probably was five minutes of just trying to hit this one shot which was that Black Widow ramp and I mean what was actually really good it got to demonstrate his exceptional flipper skills his being able to recover it really highlighted that because other people like myself did the same thing went for the ramp shot, missed it and it drained because I'm not as good as him when it comes to flipper skills but it was just it was funny to watch it was excruciating to watch because I should probably watch the footage again and count it, but I thought it would have been about 15, 16 shots at that Black Widow ramp, and it just kept either missing slightly, missing completely, or going halfway up the ramp and then rolling back. And you're right. This one time when it finally got up there, everyone just went, oh my God, finally. And then it just dribbled out of the scoop.
    97:15
    the saucer. It was just funny. But it highlights such a massive design flaw with that game which everybody has really complained about. Yeah, that ramp, that Black Widow ramp, I mean, it looks good, but after you look at it, as anybody knows basic geometry, the sharp corners that it has to make take so much momentum off the ball that it's just, it's never, I've played one One Avengers That It was a Friend of mine here In Austin Brad Holiday Who has an Avengers And he has his tweak Just right He also like Has done a Complete restore Of like a Xenon And a Bride of Kinbot So he really knows How to You know Physically You know Tweak the game To make it play well And his Black Widow ramp Actually Flows well Right It's the one Out of Who knows how many That played, but actually, but his even though still I think would also do the lip out thing when your Hulk multi-ball is lit and divert to that saucer and it would miss, but yeah the other thing about that game is just you see this in some cases of George Gomez games you see it some in Deadpool where he in fact almost a similar type of shot in terms of the geometry that left orbit from Avengers and then also with Deadpool, he likes to have that left orbit go all the way up around and then catch a pseudo-ramp either in the back of it or just above the shooter lane and have it come back. But it's not this nice, smooth, curving, flowing thing. It comes and hits like 45-degree angles and goes plunk, plunk, plunk.
    99:07
    And finally makes its way back to your flipper and it not enjoyable to play it not enjoyable to watch it not kinetically pleasing Well you absolutely right I mean, I probably wouldn't have played it as much as you had, because I started playing competitively, I think, after it came out. I can't remember what year it was. So I didn't really get to see it, really didn't get to play it when it was on site. So I played it in tournaments, and I hate playing it in tournaments because I just find it too clunky. But with the new rule set that was brought out a couple of years ago, people have said, and I quote, Steve Bowden said that it actually has made it an enjoyable game to play rules-wise. But I dislike it because I hate it in tournaments and I hate having to put money in it. But if it was a home game, do you think that there's enough there for it to be enjoyable if it was a home game when it didn't matter whether you were going to get booted out of a tournament and you didn't have to put your $2 or $1, whatever it is, over there. Yeah, no, I agree. Because, I mean, like I said, my friend Brad's house, he has it, you know, and it's his home collection. And so we played it the last time I was over there, maybe two times ago. And, yeah, we had a good time playing it. And it was because he also has his Black Widow ramp dialed in where it'll actually make it when you hit it. And so you can loop it if you're dialed in. that's actually probably one of the best shots in the game when it's working correctly because it actually flows well once it's tweaked correctly. But I forget how many hours he had to put in to try to tweak it correctly. As opposed to that Hawkeye left orbit, that it finally meanders its way all the way around and clunks back to your right end lane eventually,
    100:59
    which, by the way, next time you're playing it in a comp, just do that, and you'll probably win. Well, yeah, okay. Was trying, couldn't hit it, but keep going. No, you abandoned that. You started going for a Hulk. Well, yeah, in the end, in the end, I just thought, I only need a couple of million, right? Yeah, you'll get that from playing Hawkeye. Yeah, I know, but I was bricking that Hawkeye shot. Just could not find that. It's not, again, it's just not exactly where an orbit shot is I'm used to. So I was just bricking it constantly And it's also got a lean So recovery was a little bit odd as well I just thought, I'll go a safe strat Just do Hulk Just get a couple And it was like, I don't even need to get first I just want to get second, I'd already won the first game I was like, if I get second, it puts me in a safe place And I can be less anxious When it comes to the third game But again I lit Hulk As soon as I lit, ball drained And I was like, fuck this I just, I hate that. Just put it behind you and move on. But you have a different definition than I do of what's safe, because I don't view going for Hulk as safe. Whereas that Hawkeye, I mean, yeah, if you're missing it, fine. Then you just have to, you know, to me that, you know, it's an orbit shot. So like other Gomez, you know, orbit shots, it's got that nice metal rail on the outside of it. So, you know, it's got a lot of forgiveness compared to, you know, like, for instance, the Black Widow ramp. and it comes back to your right flipper every time.
    102:36
    Yeah, well, when it's leaning to the right, it goes into the sling every time. So, you know, anyway, it happened.
    102:45
    Yeah, yeah. So, fortunately, I then... So, the first game was Aerosmith I won. Second was Avengers, wasn't it? And third was Ghostbusters. So, I won that as well and that then put me into a playoff for the finals and that playoff was on Ghostbusters again. It was a random draw and I had a pretty decent game. I ended up on 1.5 billion and that was at the end of ball three and my opponent was on 25 million.
    103:19
    So people were sort of saying, oh, well, you're as good as one and I said, well, to be honest, I think I was only on a couple of hundred million when I was on my third ball. I just said, you know what, anybody can come back on this machine because as soon as you start working your way through the modes and you get a multiplier, away you go. So that's exactly what started happening. So it was against Jared Mendoza, as he said, and, you know, he started at 25 mil and because he thought to himself there's no way he was going to win,
    103:53
    he was so relaxed. He was sort of just casually flipping and, you know, all of a sudden he's on $200 million, then $300, then $400, then $500. I'm like, okay, I told you guys, someone can come back. So all of a sudden my $1.5 billion versus $25 million wasn't so safe.
    104:16
    Fortunately for me, his luck did run out and he ended up over $900 million. but $900 million was the second highest score of the night by far. It just wasn't as good as $1.5 billion.
    104:30
    Yeah, yeah. He tried to chase you down and put on an admirable showing trying to do so. But like you said, yeah, and that's actually a really good lesson for anybody who's outside of a format like Flip Frenzy because it has its own nuance. but in any other format there's times where I've been like oh I'm so far ahead I've gotten burned by it where I'll start to like well I think I'll just go start shooting for this really difficult shot just because I'm getting bored and then of course drain because it's by design why I wasn't shooting that in the first place and then sure enough the person comes back and it's like oh crap I should have just stuck to my plan I should have done what I was doing all along and just continued to pile on the points, and I didn't, and then I lost. So shame on me. So, yeah, you made the right call of keeping on going.
    105:25
    But, yeah, it's a, you know, but Ghostbusters, like any machine, but even I think almost even more so for Ghostbusters because you have that natural thing that you go further on those ladders, the points really start to explode. Correct, yeah. Yeah, especially Stay Puft. Oh, my gosh. Right, which is so... So this is where I got most of my points from. I had Stay Puft, which then got into Massisteria Multiball, and I had a two times Playfield Multiplier running. That was just all the points right there. Yeah, nice. So it was a good, slow run.
    106:03
    Very nice. What pinball did you get up to this week yourself? So, you know, coming back from Asia, and then my job is business and pretty crazy. So I haven't played really since I've been back hardly. But we have a comp coming up tomorrow. So tomorrow will be Sunday, the 3rd here, and we have a Texas Pinball League, which is we hold a multi-site, multi-city league between Houston and Dallas and Austin. And so we have the qualifying events in each of the three cities, and then the top from each of the three cities then goes and plays in the finals on a different date. And we started that maybe a little more than a year ago, and it's been really well received, and it's been a lot of fun. we borrowed that format from an actual full-fledged many, many weeks, many, many meets league like in the New England Pinball League in the U.S. where they were doing something similar. And they do that now, I think, in many other places. I think they do that in Pittsburgh. I think they do it in the Washington, D.C. area where you will have people competing against other people in their location, but other people in different locations also have their scores count. Now, you can only do this if you're playing match play style, so that way it normalizes the points. But it's a fun way of doing things. So, yeah, we've got that going on tomorrow.
    107:48
    And then, you know, for me, it's just all the prep work of TPF. You know, right now it's managing through, you know, trying to continue to line up volunteers. so if you're listening to this and you're going to the Texas Pinball Festival and you haven't volunteered already please volunteer in the tournament area, be a scorekeeper or if that's not your thing then volunteer in one of the other areas at the show and the tournament don't happen without volunteers so that's a big thing and the other thing I've been spending time on is just managing through the wait list as you have players that can't then have to reach out to the next So are people actually sort of opting out now? Is that happening quite a bit?
    108:35
    You know, as far as not necessarily, I would call quite a bit. But we, you know, as you get closer, there's some people, their plans change or something comes up with work or, you know, if they, you know, for instance, one person is moving and so they're, you know, they can't go on a show now. They're in the process of packing up all their stuff and moving. so we've had, you know, and also I sent out, I intentionally sent out you know, emails to all the registered players reminding them, hey, if your plans have changed please cancel so you give the other players in the waitlist time to make their travel plans while we're still you know, three weeks out and thankfully people respond pretty well to that you know, in addition to sending them all the different information about you know, just about the schedule and you know you know, it's like you said You learn as you go with these tournaments. And so one of the things we learned this last year is the very first hour, we had a lot of people wanting to buy their entries for the classic side turning, which is unlimited. And, you know, that was something that's open to anybody. There's no preregistration required. But because of that, we got overwhelmed with people buying entries and registering for that. And so we're doubling. We're going to have two computers for registering. But also the other thing I did this year is I invited people to, hey, registration is not required, but here, here's some in the TPS store. You can go buy your classic entries, you know, $10 worth or $20 worth up front, so that way you don't have to wait in line when you first arrive, and you can instead immediately begin playing. So hopefully that will alleviate some of that. But those are the types of things, like you mentioned earlier, as far as as you go as you evolve in running a certain event, you learn different things where, hey, what could we have done differently to make it even better? And that was one of them. So how many games do you need to put up on the Classic Tournament?
    110:32
    It's your best four scores and a total of eight pins to choose from. Okay. Because I'm not getting to TPF until Friday night. So that's just, you know, just riding with the ride. Well, because I didn't, I wasn't even thinking about the tournament. I was thinking about the show. Well, the show starts at 5 o'clock, so that's when I organized to arrive. But then someone said, and I think it might have been Jeff Teolis, was like, well, hang on, you should be going in the classics. I'm like, oh, shit, is there a classics tournament? So, anyway, it means I've got how many hours to put up four games?
    111:06
    Not many at all, because the classics qualifying ends at 1 a.m. on Friday night. To get four games in, that's easy. Yeah, it's still possible. I don't know what time in the evening you're arriving. Like 5 o'clock. Oh, yeah. No, you can do it then. Yeah. I'll just get through as many as I can. But did you say that classics isn't limited? It's unlimited herb style? That's correct. Yeah, it's unlimited herb style. I'll bring my fat stacks with me. I'll buy my way to the finals. There you go. Well, we keep that one intentionally. We keep it pretty cheap. So I think for $10 U.S., you can get four plays, or for $20 U.S., you get ten plays, I think it is. Yeah. Something along those lines. Maybe it's five plays for ten and, like, 11 plays or 12 plays for 20. So it's not intended to be some huge, you know, monetary payout. I'll give you an exclusive, though, right now. Here you go. This hasn't been announced yet. Come on. So we are excited to have another. So we have, first off, at the main tournament, it's already been published and well-known. So Deep Root is sponsoring the main tournament and has generously contributed a large sum of money that we're using for supplementing the tournament purse on top of the entries of all the players.
    112:29
    And so now we also have a sponsor that we received. We're going to put the money toward the Classics tournament. So at InBisc, did you have a chance to see the Scorbit technology? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we talked about Scorbit as well. So I know that they had their sort of almost like their press release probably about a month ago, which we talked about. Yes, I know Scorbit very well. That's Brian. Yes, the Scorbit. Yep, yep, yep. And, oh, man, I know Brian well because we play, I've played with him a lot in the different comps. Is it Jay? I can't think of the general name. You keep talking and I'll look through my messages. Yeah, so Scorbit has sponsored the Classics event. So we're putting $500 additional into the purse for the Classics tournament and with the generosity of Scorbit as the sponsor for that. So we're happy to have that. Will they be setting up any of the Scorbits there?
    113:29
    So not that I'm aware of yet. I'm hoping maybe I can change their mind. But at the same time, I don't want to set it up unless I have their full support. And it may be something where they may be tapped out in terms of the timing or maybe that weekend doesn't work well for them to be able to provide the support. Because the last thing I want to do is for both their standpoint and for the TPS standpoint, I don't want it to look bad on scorebit or to look bad on TPF if we try it and then something goes amiss, and they aren't readily available to help out with solving the problem. Yeah, fair enough. And to confirm, yeah, the founders are Jay Adelson, Brian O'Neill, and Ron Richards. So it would be good to see how that evolves. Yeah, but we're excited about it. I'm also, I'm really, you know, there's been various little startups and ideas and technologies out there for some score tracking or a thing like that. And when Scorbit first announced it, okay, well, it's just another one of those things. But now after seeing it, and really in what I would call its full glory at InDisc, I'm really impressed. Yeah, yeah. Because it's not just... I mean, obviously, they have to work on the recognition side of it, making sure that it can accurately keep up with the scores. But they've also then focused on the connectivity of it and how it can actually be used, creating almost like the sandbox. so people can go, well, because it can do all this functionality, I can now apply it in all these different ways. And I think that's kind of cool.
    115:08
    Correct, yeah. So, yeah, so there's your exclusive. Yeah, so you can show up, get there, and, you know, bring your – well, actually, so you'll have to be discreet about any gin because you'll have to – the TPF show and the conference, they have their own alcohol vendor in the show itself.
    115:31
    So please support the conference alcohol vending sales. I did it at Pimberg. There was a vendor there that was selling gin, so sure, I'm happy to support them. I don't care where the fuck I get my gin, as long as I get it. So what I thought you were going to say was... Well, and unfortunately, there's no drinking at all at the event. I'll just about cancel my ticket.
    115:59
    Oh, my gosh, no. Oh, that's, no. Yeah. No, the other thing you're going to enjoy is that the, is, you know, there's a lot of chances oftentimes to, you know, to go, you know, to really, you know, to, you know, not just at seminars to ask questions, but, you know, there's a lot of people in the industry that use TPF also as a way to, you know, quote, unquote, let their hair down. Right. And they'll enjoy themselves and, you know, hang out with everybody. And so there's some really great stories of people doing that. So hopefully you can do that as well. That's exactly what I'm hoping.
    116:37
    Awesome. Probably just a couple more things just to round out the podcast this week. Just further, last week we talked about the pinball betting. What are your thoughts quickly on that, Colin?
    116:51
    Oh, I'm torn because I guess I'm not, first off, I'm not a big, I like to, I like betting, you know, amongst my friends. So if it's, you know, filling out a tournament bracket for the NCAA, you know, men's basketball tournament, if it's playing fantasy football or, you know, playing some poker, you know, at a friend's house, and occasionally I'll go to a casino and I might play some blackjack but the element of betting on sports through organized betting houses and sports books to me it's rife with so many pitfalls and there's a connotation around it that while some people argue and say well hey yeah but every other legitimate sport has this and so this is further legitimizing pinball as a sport or a competition um i just i've never really i've met first off i don't go and bet with sports books on you know baseball football basketball whatever um that's just not my style um and you know and there's just there's so many you know obviously it's the exception and not the rule but there's you know all those elements that you hear of uh you know people abusing that and fixing things and rigging things And with team sports, it's more difficult. I think you hear some of it more recently, like in the last five years or so in the tennis circuit, where there was definitely some type of foul play going on. Because obviously when it's a 1v1, it's very easy for one of the players to fix the match. Yeah.
    118:41
    And so you can somewhat make that same argument that that possibility exists within pinball. At this point, though, I think pinball is still so niche and so small that it's not, I don't think something's going to happen. But for the people that are running the tournaments that have the sportsbook associated with them, they're going to have to be very careful with how they implement it and how they control it. But that's the thing. Like this betting site, whatever it is, I can't remember what it was from last week, it's not like anybody that's involved in pinball has organised it. Isn't that right? Like, they just did it independently. I'm not sure that, you know, Josh Sharp or Zach Sharp approached these people and said, hey, let's bet on this event coming up. I think it's independent. So, as a by-product, it thrusts us into this world of questioning the integrity of, oh, you know, will players do this? It's like, no one asked for this. and it's an offshore site that's doing this. So I don't get it. I don't understand how all of a sudden players' integrities are being questioned when nobody asked for this.
    119:53
    No, I don't think that player integrities are being questioned, first off. I think it's just that they're questioning that it's opening up the possibility for it.
    120:04
    And so it's, I guess, I don't know. I don't know exactly what all that led up to it. For me, personally, I just can't fathom that there are sports books out there just itching to find, you know. Find new avenues, yeah. Well, okay, every business out there is trying to find new avenues, so I'll give it that. But, you know, as far as them saying that, oh, wow, look at this, you know, this competition of pinball. This is just lush with, you know, huge profits that can be made.
    120:38
    We're like, no, it's tiny. The pinball community, we're tiny. So I have to figure that there's got to be somebody that helped to make some type of connection here to then get the eye of somebody that was willing to do it. And I think it could still be very successful as long as it's kept on the level of what I would call fun money level. Yeah, sure. So then to me, I think it's fantastic. Because like I said, I love that level where I get the office, you know, having a pool on the bracket tournament or, you know, with fantasy football. Or maybe I'm – I mean, all the time I'll bet my friends, you know, hey, I'll bet you a meal, I'll bet you a lunch, you know, if my team beats yours or whatever like that. You know, that's all, you know, fun levels of dollars. As long as it stays in that type of realm, given the current state of pinball competition, then I'm fine with it. If it wants to get to some type of level where people we're talking about somebody tanking intentionally because there's thousands of dollars on the line of the sportsbook on them at that point we also really need to be in the realm of that all the tournament directors and officials need to be paid officials by an external body. They can't be somebody who's also a player and you also then have all these other things and Josh Stark did a good job of laying it out right now I think of the 40 people playing in the Stern Pro Circuit final I think he was saying you can make the argument that I think roughly half of them should be disallowed from playing in it based on affiliations either with Stern or with IFPA because they're a tournament director in some shape or fashion so like I said as long as it's kept on a fun money level I think it'll be fine and nobody needs to get too upset about it. If we start hearing that there's, like, you know, four-figure bets being made, we'll be like, okay, fine. At that point, then we need to have a different discussion. Well, the reason why I brought it up again this week is that there's been a website called Betting Reporter, and they've done a bit of an article, let's call it a mini-article on this, and it's called these odds on betting favourites are flipping amazing at pinball. And really it's sort of just doing a little bit of a profile on three people that they're sort of saying are the ones to watch. And that is Raymond Davidson with 7-4 odds to win, Keith Elwin with 2-1, and Stephen Bowden with 4-1.
    123:22
    Do you reckon they got those right? Yeah, no, I'm looking at this right now. Keith is a pinball tycoon of the first order.
    123:37
    It feels like it's one of those articles where they get paid per word. He could have said, Elwynn is a good player, but ooh, no, I've got to get my 50 cents per word. I'm now going to do it over six words.
    123:49
    Yeah, and then they're also trying to allude to here, this whole notion that, you know, and why I think in the past, like decades ago, a decade plus ago, there used to be a manufacturer's division of, you know, pinball comps. And so it's trying to say that, you know, the idea of someone designing a video game for others to play against them in competition would seem to be an unfair one. And I think they're making a poor choice of comparison there as far as video game design versus pinball machine design because pinball is right in front of you. It's not like there's little, you know, necessarily hidden exploits. And you could argue, okay, there's some kind of rules. Well, people have been arguing that there is. But, yeah, I know what you mean. It's still a physicality thing that it doesn't matter whether you've coded the machine or designed the machine. You've still got to know how to flip a freaking pinball. Yeah, well, and even so, I mean, I will bring up this very specific example. This was before Keith was employed by Stern. And, you know, his very, I think, famous, at least amongst the competitive pinball community, his destruction of Game of Thrones in the circuit finals maybe two or three years ago against Zach Sharp, who also at that point was also not an employee of Stern yet either.
    125:06
    And Keith was in the booth because it was a ladder format, you know, waiting. And Keith was, I think, at the pinnacle. So he was waiting for the match to come to him. He still hadn't played yet. and he in the booth was commentating and he essentially, like Babe Ruth, called his shot. And he said, oh, hey, there's an exploit in there in Game of Thrones where it's not resetting values on Hand of the King and so you can just absolutely destroy Hand of the King. And so Keith is not the type of person from when I've been around him, not a good example there, of essentially trying to use some type of secret thing to get where he's gotten.
    125:53
    No, that's fine. Of course, he's very good with his rules knowledge, and he knows then how to apply that given the situation he finds himself in in giving game. But I think that's a great example that just goes to show that that's just not who he is. And so I think that it helps to kind of diffuse some of this notion that the Keith Elwins or Zach Sharps of this tournament have some type of leg up on these pinball machines. These pinball machines have all been out plenty of time. You know, people know them. You know, Keith has done, you know, who knows how many different tutorials out there or just, you know, even playthroughs where he's destroyed other pinball machines like The Walking Dead and other things. So, yeah, I'm not worried about it. I think it'll be a great competition. I don't think any of these concerns have much merit at this point, given how they've been handled. If they'd been handled in a poor way, in a different way, I would have a different answer. But I think how they've been handled, I think it's perfectly fine.
    127:06
    Cool. Well, there you go. One last thing. We'll just go to the mailbag. we did get some feedback last week we spoke about the Zachariah Pinball app on iOS and Android so Jared Morgan who listens, he's from the Blarcade podcast, B-L-A-H C-A-D-E, for people looking it up go and we'll link their podcast, so he said Zachariah Pinball on iOS and Android is produced by a company called Magic Pixel, they're a studio of about six Hungarian devs I said Zen Pinball so I got that completely wrong He said the game you're referring to with the circular disappearing playfield is Time Machine. Do you know that game, Colin? I've played it once before, yeah. It's just crazy how this whole circular playfield up the top just raises and lowers. I mean, I wouldn't say it's necessarily a great machine to play, but that's pretty cool. He says that mech is an engineering feat. That's true. He said frustratingly, the Android version suffered a Google takedown for apparently including nipples in the farfella table. Oh my Oh no, no nip And Magic Pixel have decided not to resolve the issue And republish the game So all the Android customers are fucked No access to the game, no access to the DLC They're currently working exclusive on a new Android version Which should bring it up to feature parity with STEM There will be no discounted pricing off it There you go That's fascinating because I think there was one time when Papa TV was doing Farfalla, and I think what they did in some of their advertising, they would always usually publish on their website or Facebook page the covers or whatever of the pinball machine they were going to be streaming that night, and I think they did some airbrushing on Farfalla. Oh, really? Yes. Yeah, and that's fine. I have complete respect for that because they're trying to, Obviously, we want to reach a broad audience, and I think it's good for my children. Also, yeah, I don't want to have something out there that's going to make women feel uncomfortable as they're watching. But it's interesting reading how things like this have evolved with the Zacharia Pimble app and how it got taken down for that. I guess I'm kind of surprised that they haven't figured out a way to, like I said, whether it's airbrushing or something to make it a little less revealing.
    129:43
    There's not much to say. That woman on the backless has nothing to do with the actual gameplay and what's on the actual artwork on the playfield. I think that game's all about butterflies, right? Yeah, something like that, yeah.
    130:00
    I hadn't actually noticed the nipples until I just started looking at the picture right now. Anyway, here you go. I'm the guy that's looking at the playfield, and all I'm seeing is butterflies. I don't care much about black glasses.
    130:16
    So there we go. So that's it. That's it for the week. So I will see you in approximately three weeks, Colin.
    130:24
    Yeah, looking forward to it, Marty. Yeah, I'm very much looking forward to it. I mean, obviously, I'm looking forward to it being a break from work. That also helps. But I don't know what to expect. Eyes are wide open. There's a lot on.
    130:40
    I think there's... I do have some podcasting duties whilst I'm there. So, as I said, I'll be doing the Q&A with Haggis Pinball. I'll be streaming with American Pinball, hopefully. we're trying to get that organized so I'll stream Oktoberfest so you have some duties so wait a minute so Ryan has sent you a note from jail threatening to have somebody break your legs correct pretty much so that's what I'm doing I was glad they let him have his one phone call last week for Richard's podcast that's what he said look guys please I just want to have my one phone call no it's not my lawyer it's Marty so I can do the head-to-head podcast. So good on him for that. So it was good to have him back. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I was laughing so hard with all the fat and stupid things from Richard's interviews in the past. Oh, my God. It was hilarious.
    131:41
    So there you go. So thank you very much, Colin, for coming on board and joining us for a very informative and can't wait to find out more about TPS in the next couple of weeks. Thanks everybody for listening Please send us an email Go to our website Go to our Facebook page Just, you know, communicate with us We may communicate back I don't know It could be bothered But, you know, we'll see what happens But thanks everybody for listening And I'll speak to you again next week Thanks Colin Cheers Murray