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If It Walks Like A Duck, It's Pinball

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·42m 35s·analyzed·Oct 28, 2015
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Analysis

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TL;DR

Blockade Podcast covers Halloween tournaments, Zen table physics, and leaked Pinball Arcade season 5 roster.

Summary

Chris Frebus and Jared Morgan discuss Halloween pinball tournaments, Zen Studios digital tables, and leaked Pinball Arcade season 5 lineup. They debate whether Zen tables qualify as pinball, preview the new Pinball Arcade UI featuring 'Pinball Wizard' by The Who, and speculate on upcoming Farsight releases including No Fear, Judge Dredd, Ghostbusters, Playboy, and TX Sector.

Key Claims

  • Farsight Studios has a leaked list of upcoming Pinball Arcade tables including No Fear, Judge Dredd, Ghostbusters, Eldorado EM, Playboy, TX Sector, Rescue 911, and Alvin G Soccer.

    medium confidence · Jared reports list found in game files; acknowledged as leak with potential for changes due to licensing and internal decisions

  • New Pinball Arcade UI now features 'Pinball Wizard' by The Who instead of a royalty-free knockoff version.

    high confidence · Jared observed in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Twitch stream preview at 18-minute mark; confirmed shift in Farsight's licensing approach

  • New Pinball Arcade UI includes four main buttons: Recently Played, Latest Release, Table of the Month, and Play Random.

    high confidence · Jared observed in Twitch stream preview and confirmed upcoming PC beta release

  • Alvin G Soccer inclusion suggests Farsight may have developed real-time head-to-head multiplayer functionality.

    low confidence · Jared speculates that including a two-player game would only make sense if real-time multiplayer were viable

  • Farsight intentionally includes leaked file lists in game builds, likely to generate community speculation.

    medium confidence · Chris questions why leaks happen consistently across three seasons; both hosts suggest it may be intentional marketing

Notable Quotes

  • “If it walks like a duck, it talks like a duck, it's a duck. It's a duck. Quack, quack. Just because this particular duck can't fly, well, you know, too bad.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~39:00 — Core argument defending Zen digital tables as legitimate pinball despite physics differences; becomes episode title

  • “Zen is really a video game with flippers... it's still flipper and still pinball, but it's a different type of feel when you play it. It's amazing what that ball weight does to how you perceive pinball, you know, digitally.”

    Chris Frebus / Jared Morgan @ ~36:00 — Debate about definition of pinball; acknowledges Zen's deliberate physics differentiation as product strategy

  • “No one's gonna... no one's heads will roll. And it's the exact same leak that people have exploited for all this time. So it's like, you know, again, the amount of people that actually will dig and look is so infinitesimal.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~58:30 — Suggests Farsight deliberately permits leaks because exposure reaches only tiny fraction of player base

  • “They try to stay flexible. I don't think that they plan ahead for 12 months or 10 months. I think they put it into a wish list and kind of... this season is obviously the season of Richie.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~51:00 — Reveals Farsight's development approach is reactive to community temperature rather than planned roadmap

  • “It could actually mean that no one buys the season as well, which would be bad for them. I wonder if they also don't want to announce a season because all of a sudden certain tables will become really like their prices would skyrocket for them to purchase.”

    Chris Frebus @ ~49:30 — Suggests secondary market economics influence Farsight's announcement strategy

  • “I think it's certainly – there's a couple on there that I know are virtually for sure.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~44:00 — Suggests Jared has insider knowledge about leaked list accuracy but declines to specify which titles

  • “So basically everyone knows halfway through the season what the rest of the season is going to be anyway.”

Entities

Chris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonBlockade PodcastorganizationFarsight StudioscompanyZen StudioscompanyWizard AmusementcompanyPinball ArcadeproductZen Pinball / Zen StudioscompanyThe Who

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Farsight uses reactive, community-temperature-driven approach to seasonal planning rather than 12-month roadmap; seasons themed around designer focus (e.g., 'season of Richie').

    medium · Jared describes development as 'wish list' approach with flexibility based on community sentiment and licensing availability; contrasts with traditional pre-planned game development

  • ?

    business_signal: Farsight appears to intentionally permit annual leaks of season rosters, likely for marketing effect and community engagement rather than accidental security lapses.

    medium · Chris questions why leaks happen consistently across three seasons despite targeting same file locations; Jared suggests intentionality because leak reaches only infinitesimal portion of playerbase; hosts note platform lag (iOS 3 months behind) means leaks don't significantly impact sales

  • ?

    community_signal: Blockade Podcast leveraging live Blab.me broadcast format to enable real-time comment reading and fact-checking from audience; incorporating caller participation.

    high · Live broadcast on Blab.me Sundays; hosts encourage Twitter follows for notifications; accepting live callers (Kai Fipsner called in during episode); hosts reference checking comments and facts from audience

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Blockade Podcast Halloween tournament focuses on classic/vintage tables (Black Rose, Phantom of the Opera, Haunted House, Scared Stiff) with emphasis on wizard mode completion challenges.

    high · Tournament hosted on October 31st; hosts discuss difficulty completing wizard modes on selected tables; Jared notes frustration with Scared Stiff spider mode and Phantom ramp goal difficulty

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.128

0:00
you're listening to the kate podcast wizard amusement.com the site to visit for custom pinball shooter rods easy to install totally unique mention blockade podcast for 10 off your order wizard amusement.com sales restoration customization you are listening to the blockade podcast i am your host chris rebus aka shut your trap with me is my co-host jared morgan good morning or evening everybody Yeah, I'll call E afternoon for me. And who knows when anybody's listening to this. So, yeah.
1:08
Hey, once again, we are broadcasting live on Blab. You can join us on Sundays and listen to the podcast, get recorded live. Not that you get any extra info or anything, but you can comment while we're podcasting. podcasting and sometimes we'll read those comments or you can fact check us whatever you uh whatever floats your boat but that's right anyway and then as usual uh why don't you go ahead and follow us myself at shut your traps on twitter at jared morgues for jared and at blockade for the podcast in general in which case then you'll get notifications such as when this is starting and all that good jazz. And other things like tournaments and all sorts of good fun things you can participate with us with. Tournaments?
2:02
Hey, I think there's one going on right now. Oh, yes. Fireside's not running their tournament the same weekend that we're running our tournament of the month. Theirs actually started two days ago. They're calling it the Halloween tournament. I'm sure it'll end by Friday. and of course they're doing all the usual typical halloweeny tables of which go figure that's what's going to be in our tournament boy like mine's right i did notice that um one of the tables not there which i'm really not that disappointed about is class of 1812 right yeah it's like yes finally they have enough halloween tables that i have to put that piece of drawers in there unfortunately we still haven't had that as a table of the week so it will haunt us Unfortunately, I'm crying about that.

Chris Frebus @ ~49:00 — Notes platform lag (iOS 3 months behind) means leaks reach console players before official announcements

entity
Mary Shelley's Frankensteingame
No Feargame
Judge Dreddgame
Ghostbustersgame
Playboygame
TX Sectorgame
Alvin G Soccergame
Scared Stiffgame
Gorgargame
Haunted Housegame
Infinity Gauntletgame
Fantastic Fourgame
Super League Footballgame
Cactus Canyon Continuedgame

design_philosophy: Zen Studios deliberately uses heavier ball physics and different feel as product differentiator from Pinball Arcade, despite both being digital pinball; hosts debate whether this disqualifies Zen as 'pinball' vs video game.

high · Extended discussion of flipper-based games defining pinball regardless of physics simulation accuracy; Jared's 'if it walks like a duck' metaphor encapsulates community debate

  • ?

    leak_detection: Farsight Studios' Pinball Arcade season 5 roster allegedly leaked from game files including No Fear, Judge Dredd, Ghostbusters, Eldorado EM, Playboy, TX Sector, Rescue 911, and Alvin G Soccer.

    medium · Jared Morgan acknowledges finding leak in game files; notes this is third consecutive year of similar leaks; warns list is not gospel and subject to change due to licensing/internal decisions

  • $

    market_signal: Farsight may strategically withhold season roster announcements to prevent secondary market price spikes on upcoming table titles, suggesting active concern about speculation economy.

    low · Chris speculates that early season announcement could cause 'prices to skyrocket' for titles being added; hosts note Farsight has 'tried to stay flexible' and mentioned maintaining pricing strategy in past

  • ?

    announcement: Playboy inclusion on Farsight leak raises licensing questions; hosts debate which version (1970s Bally, Data East, Stern DMD) might be added; magazine recently announced shift away from nudes.

    low · Jared speculates on version uncertainty; Chris notes magazine's recent policy shift toward articles-focused content; limited confidence due to speculation nature

  • ?

    product_strategy: Zen Studios' Family Guy table uses mini-playfield with smaller ball (BB-sized) creating toy-like feel while still qualifying as pinball; hosts discuss whether ball size affects pinball definition.

    high · Direct discussion of Family Guy table mechanics; comparison to standard pinball physics; hosts debate whether different ball weight fundamentally changes game classification

  • ?

    product_concern: Scared Stiff and other Pinball Arcade tables exhibit goal registration bugs where completed objectives fail to register, requiring re-completion in different gameplay contexts.

    medium · Jared experienced spell-goal not activating despite multiple completions in standard mode, then suddenly registering during multiball; secret passage goal failed to register during multiball despite hearing callout

  • ?

    technology_signal: Uncertain whether emulation of Stern Spike and SAM ROM systems will be technically feasible in new Stern digital app; may require engine rework versus current Pinball Arcade framework.

    medium · Jared responds to technical question about Spike/SAM emulation capability; notes current Pinball Arcade engine may not support newer ROM systems; suggests device support will depend on emulation engine optimization

  • ?

    technology_signal: Pinball Arcade rolling out new UI with licensing upgrades: 'Pinball Wizard' by The Who now featured instead of royalty-free knockoff; new navigation with Recently Played, Latest Release, Table of the Month, and Play Random buttons.

    high · Jared observed in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Twitch stream preview; confirmed PC beta rolling out this week; four-button layout clearly visible in stream

    • 2:55
    When I was going through the Halloween tables and deciding which to pick and stuff like that, I was like, damn, it's a lot of these Gottliebs.
    3:04
    Yeah. Oh, well. She's just the flavor of the week. We're frankly done with them. I will say that not part of the tournament of the month that takes place on Saturday, October 31st. But for this week's Table of the Week, we're going to be playing Gorgar. I know Gorgar could technically be a Halloween table, but it's not part of our tournament of the month, which I guess we should go ahead and talk about, huh? Yeah, let's talk about that. Okay, so this month we are going to be playing... I'll see if I can remember them off the top of my head because I didn't write them down.
    3:49
    We're going to be playing Black Rose. And we're going to be playing... Phantom of the Opera, Haunted House, and Scared Stove. I love that table. See, I purposely blocked Haunted House out of my mind because I didn't play it that entire week. It's a class of 1812 of early god leaps.
    4:11
    Maybe I should have thrown that in instead. God dang. I do gotta say that Scared Stiff, for as much as I thought that it was a simple, fairly easy table or whatever, the stupid wizard goals I once again did not complete. This batch, this last four tables, I didn't complete... Wait, did I complete all Black Rose? I might have completed all the Black Rose, but I did not complete Phantom because of that stupid ramp goal and the rollover goal, which is next to impossible. And then Haunted House, like I said, I barely even played it. And Scared Stiff, I wasn't able to finish all the wizards on that either.
    4:55
    Yeah, is one of those wizards completing the spider mode, like I was talking about last week? Yeah. I think it is. Yeah, well, that's pretty much never going to be completed for me. Yeah, but you know what? I was also having a problem with goals registering. Oh. Oh, no, big time. I was in standard goals. There was the one where you get the spell, which is an outlaying drain, but then it gives you the ball. I must have gotten that three or four times and it never activated. And then finally during.
    5:28
    Was it during multiball? I'm not sure. All of a sudden it activated for some reason. I'm like, what the heck? You know, it was just completely random when it when it registered. and then I was doing a multi-ball mode. I think I had defeated the crate or gotten into scared stiff. Anyway, there was balls flying everywhere and I did get the secret passage. I heard the call out where it said secret passage or whatever and it didn't register. I was like, oh, you son of a bitch. You're going to make me actually have to get it singular when nothing else is going on. Yeah, that's going to be pretty much impossible. Right? Yeah. I mean, because there's no way of doing a soft shot up there. Not really. I don't even know if you can backhand it off the left to get it up there, but I don't really – I think it's really only something you can fluke and multiple and just keep the goal open, which is why it's really frustrating when you get such a passage and you're only on the standard goals. Right. You don't actually have the wizard tier unlocked yet. You go, oh, I could have had it. Yeah, you know, I've had times where as soon as I've gotten all five standard goals, I just let the ball drain. And, you know, so I can start a new game just in case. Because, yeah, you're totally right. It's like how often while doing standard goals do you wind up doing three of the wizard goals? And then when you finally are able to do the wizard goals, you can't get those three back.
    6:52
    Yeah, it's the lawman's lament. They should have a pinball table just called Murphy's Law. and everything is basically twirled on it flippers just start to die on you Murphy's Law I can't get that shot that'd be great wouldn't it I imagine it'd be kind of like what is it Frog Frenzy on Ripley's where the whole thing starts futzing out right Yeah, it'd be like that, but all the time. That's how it would play. All of a sudden your right flipper no longer works. You're like, what?
    7:36
    Well, they started doing that type of thing in Wizard of Oz. I think there's a couple of modes in there which completely screw up your flippers and reverse everything digitally rather than electronically, which is really cool. Well, they do that in Cactus Canyon Continued. Oh, do they? They actually do drunk multiball. Drunk multiball. Yeah, where the flippers get reversed. That's awesome. Yeah, it is awesome. more of that mind-fracking going on in pinballs. I think it's great.
    8:03
    Well, Zen did that... They've done that on a couple of tables, actually. They did that on Spider-Man, where the flippers get reversed. And then in... Oh, was it... Infinity Gauntlet? Yes.
    8:18
    Yep, it was Infinity. Which is weird. That one's bizarre to play in that mode. Hello, Blebbers. Confirm it was, indeed, Infinity gauntlet. So, yes.
    8:28
    It's very strange. I think, doesn't even one of the Zen tables sort of flip itself around completely? That is Infinity Gauntlet. That's Infinity, yeah, where it goes upside down. Yeah, that's right. I've got to play that game more. I reckon it's got some pretty cool modes in it.
    8:47
    It is cool modes, but I don't... I'm sure it's the one particular designer. that's the classic oh look it's not pinball it's a video game kind of layout that Zen does where there's like no visible ramps and things just kind of shift around and change and it makes it hard for me to get into at least. It's a little bit like that Civil War table as well. Like all these random ball paths that just sort of appear out of nowhere. Oh yeah I always forget about the top flipper on that game too. It's got like a No Fear style jump ramp at the top and I always forget about it. It's one of those ones, if it comes up in Zen Book Club, I'll need to dial myself into. A little bit like Ghost Rider. They used to put flipper, you know, upper flippers in really odd, weird angles that you just never expected.
    9:42
    Half the time you'd forget, yeah, a flipper was even existed. Yeah, that's right. It's very bizarre. Did you get a chance to try out the new tables? The Family Guy, Archer,
    9:55
    Love's Burger. No, I haven't actually downloaded them yet. Because on Android there's no demo player. I don't know if that's the case in Steam. Steam is automatically there for demo. It would be nice if they could do that on Android too. A lot of the tables in that pack I have no affinity with. I have not seeing the episodes down here in Australia and perhaps because I'm not looking for them as such. But yeah, until I saw that pinball table, I'd never heard of Archer before. You got to watch yourself some Archer Yeah Archer is hilarious For those who don would you just it looks a little bit like archer is like a secret agent is that yeah archer is archer is a secret agent you might say he's somebody who has modeled his life on james bond but only the cool things that bond does right so he's all about the women and the drinks and exactly exactly and he's constantly saying just the inappropriate thing. That's a radical thing. Exactly. There are a ton of in-jokes that just build episode to episode.
    11:15
    The whole agency that they work for is run by his mother, who is just the consummate alcoholic. It's one of these workplaces where everybody's kind of failing upwards So even though they're screwing up, they're still completing their missions and stuff. No, it's very, very crisp, funny writing. I didn't watch it for a long time because I didn't like the animation style. It was too stiff and cardboard-looking. It's very much a cel-shaded style, pretty much like the pinball games. I really like that animation style that they're using, that Xen are using in these latest table packs. It really does make it look like a cartoon. Like you're actually playing with a cartoon. I love it. So, yeah. So, yeah, I didn't watch it for a while, and then a friend of mine was just like, you need to watch this show. And I was like, okay, fine, I'll watch it. And then I watched it and laughed my butt off. Yeah, exactly.
    12:12
    I should check it out and see what it's like. But, yeah, no, I haven't played the Pimple Tables yet. I've heard it around with them a little, you know, just as long as the table limits go. And once again, I'm impressed with how they've really dialed back the fantasy elements, other than having some characters wander around on a table, the shots and what you're actually shooting for on all four of them, it seemed, were, again, anything that could have been on a real pinball table. So that appealed to me. I like that approach. I think we all know that Xen is actually, like we said last week, Xen is really a video game with flippers.
    12:56
    See, I don't agree with that, though. To me, pinball is... No, pinball is anytime you have a flipper and a ball and you're aiming at targets. It's not... A video game is if I had complete control of the ball and could make it go anywhere I wanted, or if I was in a first-person shooter but I'm only shooting pinballs, that would be a video game to me. It's still a static board with flippers, and you're shooting a ball and taking aim. It is pinball. I don't think it's... Yes, it's pinball, but I think from the physics side, We can't really say it's accurate simulation, but I think that people say that it's more of a video game style because of the physics and arguably the way they differ from something like Pimble Arcade. I think that's where people get their stabbies out for the title. But I approach it like... Well, because there isn't as much bounce. There is a much heavier feel. yeah i think that's the only thing that's different about zen and it's it's a i guess you could actually say it's a product differentiator you know it's what makes their title different from other pinball games out there it's still like you say it's still flipper and still pinball but it's a different type of of feel when you play it it's it's amazing what that ball weight does to how you perceive pinball um digitally so yeah it's an interesting point I think. I mean, because if you think about it, what if you play Twilight Zone with nothing but the ceramic ball? Would that still be pinball? Because it would have a completely different feel, right? Yeah, true. You know, or even if you look at the Family Guy table, the real Family Guy, not the Zen Family Guy, with the little mini playfield, you're flipping BBs. I mean, BBs. It feels like, you know, on that upper little mini playfield, you know, it feels like a toy, but it's still technically pinball. You know, I mean, so that's why I say it's, you know, it looks like a duck. It talks like a duck. It's a duck. Quack, quack. Just because this particular duck can't fly. Well, you know, too bad. Yeah, all right. Okay.
    15:22
    I don't think so. Did you start, you know, switching up what you're going to play for Zen Book Club? Yeah, I've dropped Ghost Rider for now. I think I'm going to start back on... It's a tough choice between Fantastic Four.
    15:45
    Sorry, it is Fantastic Four, isn't it? Yeah. Fantastic Four and football I'm just going to call it football the football league Super League that's right because we have a code here we used to have a code called Super League Football here in Australia but it wasn't soccer it was you know with little I'll say gridiron style ball but it's like you know the oval shaped one the football um so yeah whenever i hear super league i think of these guys just running around like just in a big line smashing into other dudes who are also running in a big line um and going yeah yeah you tell i really love sports right i'm sports sports my favorite thing yeah no yeah i sampled Ghost Rider and Fantastic Four, and I realized that I don't think I've played Fantastic Four.
    16:47
    So that was kind of... It was like, hey, this is kind of brand new to me. I don't know. I think I was getting mixed up with one of the other tables for what was in my mind. So I think I'm probably going to play that more than Ghost Rider, because Ghost Rider just kind of... I don't know. something lies flat for me with that yeah i think um i think i'm gonna go and concentrate more on i played a fair bit of super league football um so i think it might behoove me to go and play a little bit of fantastic four i think and get into that because when i played it um just before like for a little bit, I just went, eh, I can't get this game. And I felt the same way about Ghost Rider as well until I really started playing it. So I reckon when I start looking at the table rules, working out how to play the game the best, it's going to start to become more fun for me. So yeah, Fantastic Four is my pick.
    17:49
    Well, we're probably going to be playing the same thing then. It really sucks that there's not cross-platform leaderboards because... Yeah, that would be really cool if we could do that. it would be nice. So something just got brought up in the comment section here and I've been debating on whether we should talk about it or not, but you know what? What the hell?
    18:11
    So... Black Aid News. Not live and mostly current. There is a list of tables that got leaked. Farsight potentially is going to be having in the game. Alright. Right. And it's one of those things where I wouldn't take it for gospel. No, because it's a link. Right. Exactly. And there's plenty of time, plenty of time for things to change, obviously, because of what I mean, just, you know, availability of the, you know, of the tables themselves. or if the mood at the office changes for what they want to do.
    18:58
    I think it's certainly – there's a couple on there that I know are virtually for sure. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think we're privy to some. I haven't actually seen the list, so I don't know what there is or is not on there.
    19:15
    Should I go over some? Yeah, let's go over the speculated list, this list you speak of. This list I speak of. Okay, so No Fear, which is what everybody essentially is guessing is our next table. I think it's a pretty obvious choice. It's a car jumping a thing going jumping the canyon, which is pretty much like what they have in No Fear anyhow. Yeah. Then Judge Dredd is one of those in the text files. There is also, though, this is Ghostbusters. which I imagine would be their rethemed being thrown in. There is also Eldorado EM and Playboy. Now, what I'm wondering is, could that possibly be like a three-pack?
    20:07
    Farsight or Bobby actually had told us that they were going to try and work some EMs in, but it wasn't going to be part of the table count. So I'm kind of like wondering what that might be. Yeah, that's interesting. I do remember And then it's a question of which Playboy Is it the Ballet Playboy? Is it the Data East Playboy? Or are we talking about the 1932? Which I highly doubt would be that one I really don't think they're going to go there Would be easy to emulate But yeah The interesting thing with the Playboy table is if they time it right, I don't know if you've heard but they're going to cease doing nudes in the magazine They really are going to be about the articles now, right? It's going to really be about the articles. Hold on one second. We have a late caller.
    20:55
    Hello, Kai Fipsner. Hi. Oh, he's still connecting. Hey, Kai. Hello. Guten Tag. Hello. He's still working this whole thing out. That's okay. This blab stuff is just miles over my head, I think.
    21:12
    The blab stuff Yeah I sitting here and looking at blab slash blarcade for a while now and nothing changed and I refreshed and nothing happened And then I tried Steam chat again to tell Chris that I'm waiting for you guys, and obviously you already were on. You should subscribe. I did, I think. Oh, it didn't show you as being a subscriber. Interesting.
    21:45
    Maybe you need to really, for really real, subscribe. For really, really real. How? Yeah. Hey, we're just, we're discussing the leaked list of potential games that are going to be in Pinball Arcade. Did you see that leaked list? No, I didn't. Oh, well.
    22:02
    Welcome to the leaked list, then. Spoiler alert! Yeah, so I'll just recap real quick. bring up speech. So on that list was No Fear, Judge Dredd, Ghostbusters, Eldorado EM,
    22:21
    Playboy, and then also they had TX Sector, there was Rescue 911, I'm trying to think if I missed... That would meet the Godly Quota for the year.
    22:38
    That would... You know, I don't think I've played TX Sector, but I looked at the Playfield layout, and I'm wondering, is it almost the exact same as Gladiator, which was then their D&D? The layout looked very similar from what I recall playing. Is it the one with the great sound effects, or am I mixing it up? Well, that's what everybody talks about with TX Sector is, oh, the sound is awesome. And I don't know if there was anything else. I don't have the list in front of me. I just came across it yesterday, actually.
    23:11
    No Fear is great. Oh, I know. There was AG Soccer. So Alvin G Soccer. Now that's that head-to-head two-player.
    23:26
    Yes. Which, if that is an actual thing, that leads me to believe that Farsight would have, by that point, worked out actual real-time head-to-head play. because otherwise, what would be the point of even having it?
    23:40
    Yeah, that's interesting. Well, that one does actually allow you to sit. It has AI that will actually play the flippers for you. Yeah, but who cares? It's got little... It's actually quite fun. Yeah, but it's not exactly like some much-requested pinball. If you're going to go there, I'd rather have Joust, at least then I'm back into Williams world. but uh hey why not both why not both or why not just have world cup soccer instead yeah we could do that that's right oh uh thank you switch uh yeah uh hurricane was another one that was listed so that would completely no because we don't have comet we don't want comet let's let's not uh get the triplicate there they're... Okay, yeah, they'll be in a frog house. At least gives you, even if they're placeholders or whatever, it gives you an idea of where Farsight's head is.
    24:40
    Yeah, that's good. Look, I think from what the list suggests, there's still some very interesting tables that they're pursuing if this list is to be believed.
    24:50
    So, yeah. I mean, no fear, we can always guarantee. But some of those other tables there do sound interesting for season five so i have to ask myself why they actually put these lists anywhere in inside a game anywhere they know people sniff around they totally sniff around like i don't know every season by this right don't know why they they don't exclude these from that maybe i think you can only assume because it's three times in a row now they actually want people to find out um well who is it really hurting you know it's not like ios you can't pre-buy a season the the consoles are three months behind so nothing is necessarily surprising you know so by the time they're actually able to purchase the season they already know half of it you know more or less so the only people that it's you know it's a mystery for is android users and steam users yeah you know and i don't think it does i mean other than kind of eliminating some of the fun of speculating what the tables are going to be.
    25:58
    At this point, with so few tables left that people want to actually play, or that are clamoring for, I should say, I don't see the harm anymore.
    26:09
    It could even be, if they actually announced the roster for the year at the beginning of the season, it could actually help people make an informed buying decision as well. Or it could actually mean that no one buys the season as well, which would be bad. for them. I wonder if they also don't want to announce a season because all of a sudden certain tables will become really like their prices would skyrocket for them to purchase. That's probably a good point because they have sort of said that in the past, haven't they?
    26:39
    Yeah. They try to stay flexible. I don't think that they plan ahead for 12 months or 10 months. I think they put it into a wish list and kind of you know, like you might say like last season became the season of Lawler this season is obviously the season of Richie. I think it's more just a, hey, here's something we can shoot for. We can guarantee X, Y, and Z table and everything else is kind of like, let's check the temperature of the community and see what people actually want.
    27:08
    Yeah, that's right. Interesting to hear what they may be planning to do. Here's a curious question. In regards to the Playboy, which would you rather have, the Data East or the Bally or even step forward and go with the DMD Stern I haven't I've only played the 70s Bally I haven't played the Data East version I don't think so yeah I can't comment I'm only basing my feedback on the 70s version and I wouldn't have that one it's not that exciting I played a modified version of that the... Oh, yeah? Yeah, the guys, they changed it, repainted it and everything, called it Sexy Chick, I think. And they put basically a tablet in the center of the playfield. And then as you completed the centerfolds, all of a sudden it would unlock pictures and then pictures would start showing up. It's a bit distracting.
    28:17
    So what? I wonder why that is. The centerfold opens up and all the balls drain. Literally. Yeah. That was somewhat interesting, very much so. Yeah.
    28:34
    Just making a note of all these topics that we're talking about. So, so far we've talked about Table of the Month, Zen New Tables, Zen Book Club, League Tables, all in the space of, well, about 20, no, 15 minutes. so we're jumping around like pros today yeah i don't think we're getting to tech talk today jared no it's all right i didn't really have much to cover except um oh why won't we go into tech talk very very quickly now we can get it done okay speed round of tech talk music is appropriate all right jared tech talk jared tech talk jared talk tech talk jared tech talk Okay, so Tech Talk. The only thing tech talky I have this month, I'm trying to work out where we are. It's actually a month that we're doing now. So this month is the new UI. So if you haven't watched the Twitch stream for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, there was a very, very quick preview of the new UI actually running at around 18 minutes into the broadcast. So the first thing I noticed was there's no more cheesy Pinball Wizard tune. So that's the one that sort of sounded a little bit like Pinball Wizard, but just enough not to be Pinball Wizard. So there was probably some sort of... Just enough to make your ears bleed. And also probably because I know that Farsight owned the rights to the particular tune that they were playing in the app, but probably at the time they launched, so they didn't quite have the capital to get the licenses for Pinball Wizard proper. But now you actually have Pinball Wizard by The Who playing in there. So you can get sick of that track every time you leave the table.
    30:26
    Sorry, I had to go there. So the only other thing that we saw was just the front screen. There was four buttons on there.
    30:35
    So there wasn't really a lot to see. They sort of just launched into the table, and that was it pretty much. But there's four buttons there. It looks pretty... I'm just replaying the Twitch videos I'm speaking here. So there was a recently played button, a latest release button, the table of the month button, and play random. So I think some people did actually request the play random feature in the table. So there you go. You can go and spin the wheel figuratively, because there's no wheel to spin. but press that button and you get a random table to play and just pray it's not going nuts.
    31:16
    No, I'll pray for going nuts as long as it's not haunted house. I reckon they should just troll it and every random table should be going nuts.
    31:27
    That'd be great. Yeah, play a random table. Yeah, going nuts. I'm supposed to, those of us that are in the PC beta, we should be getting our hands on the new UI in this coming week. so maybe next week I'll be able to give you a really detailed hands-on how much fun is this new UI to fucks around with. Really interested to hear your feedback as a beta test run. There three little buttons in the top left corner as I squint at them because they grayed out It looks like the buttons from the top left look like an exit button There's an icon with a flipper and a ball, and then a controller icon. So I can only assume the controller icon is like settings.
    32:11
    The flipper bat icon could be, might even be game settings. I don't know. It could be anything. Could be anything. So who knows what they are, but we'll find out, I guess, after beta testing happens on PC and we see what comes of it. So yeah, all the PC beta tests. It's public beta for PC users. There you go. So anyone can go and install it. I could probably even install it on Mac and try it out if I had the entitlements, but I don't think I do, because Steam's on Mac. I don't know. I don't really play much stuff on PC at all, because I generally don't game on PC. so um somebody asked um in chat what kosh asked will someone get five for that leak probably not it's happened every year so they won't no one's gonna no one's heads will roll and it's the exact same leak that people have exploited for all this time so it's like it's you know again the amount of people that actually will dig and look is so infinitesimal. I mean, even those listening to our podcast, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the vast amount of users.
    33:24
    You know, and I bet if anybody went onto Facebook and posted the list, they'd get lambasted by everybody going, oh, you're full of crap. No, that's real. Yeah, so...
    33:36
    A Switch 3 TV or Switch Flippers is known on the forum, asks whether he wants my esteemed opinion on what he reckons what devices would be able to handle Spike ROM emulation and maybe SAM ROM for the new Stern app. I can only say it all depends on how they write the emulation code for it.
    34:00
    I think the only way they're going to be able to do it like we were talking about when we were speculating on the new SAM app is to rework the engine. I think. And if they're going to include Spike in there as well, they will have to rework the engine because it's not currently emulated framework as far as I'm aware.
    34:20
    So, yeah, to answer your question, I think it's going to have to be down to the emulation engine and then from there they'll be able to work out what devices are supported. But you would expect that anything released, if they're going to be developing it this year,
    34:34
    which Reason would suggest that they're already starting development on it if it's being announced by Stern,
    34:40
    then you could probably expect that they draw the line in the sand for all of the latest devices on mobile that are being released this year. So whatever the latest iOS devices are and whatever the latest Android major manufacturer devices are.
    34:56
    And then that would probably be the line in the sand. I'd say that it would give them the opportunity to say, right, at the very least it would be, where are we now? not K L key line, not, I was going to say key line pie, but that's like the old version of, um, what they were going to call marshmallow or something. Yeah. It's marshmallow now. So I'd say that for, for those devices, it'll either be, um, lollipop or marshmallow would be the, the minimum API, um, spec for Android. And then from there, they'd probably go and spec it out. So any of the latest consoles around now that will probably be the, the set that they'd be using and PC. it's probably a bit harder to lock down. They probably have to think about a minimum processor spec, so minimum DX11 capability and GPUs that can handle that, basically. Honestly, I would just cap it at, hey, if you can run Windows 10, you're fine. Yeah, I think they probably can really only cap it at operating system.
    35:59
    So, yeah. Obviously, it's not going to run on Windows XP, and why should it? Because when Microsoft's not even supporting it, don't bother. nobody liked Windows Vista.
    36:10
    So it's like Windows 8 and above would be, I think, very feasible. I think if they stick with Windows 10, they could use DirectX 12, which isn't that much upgrade to 11 if I'm right, but it's faster. So that might be a plus. Yeah. Yeah, good point. I've made some mods to the Android user's guide based on the last tech talk that I did, so they're actually live now on my github.io site. So if you go to my Twitter profile, you should see the link to my GitHub details and all that sort of stuff. So if you want to go and check that out, you can.
    36:51
    And the other news is that I've been approached by a local guy here who has a rather large fleet of pinball machines to actually do servicing for them.
    37:02
    So I'll be getting, dusting off my tech skills again and doing some pinball servicing. So that's pretty exciting. I'm looking forward to doing that, getting my hands covered in chrome dirt again. So, yeah.
    37:18
    Yeah. So that'll be good. I've just got to get quotes at the moment. So I'm going to all the US suppliers and trying to get the best price. It'll be a pretty big order because the guy's got something like 20 machines or something. So I just want to try and beat the Aussie dollar disparity down a bit and get a huge bulk order and get them shipped and won a lot and not have to do little piecemeal orders here and there, you know, the usual thing. Yeah. I think the problem with going with spare parts over here in Australia is there's like, you know, they have to get them from the US or from China anyhow. So there's markup and then, you know, we have to pay markup again on them. So we want to try and cut out the middleman as much as possible. I'll probably use it as fodder for the podcast. So if you want to watch my Twitter stream, you can. And I'll post pics once I have them. But I think it's a little while off yet. I've got to actually just do the quotes first and get that information to him. Speaking of keeping costs down,
    38:09
    you had mentioned to me about the ever elusive T-shirt. Oh, yes. Yes. So for ages now, I've been threatening to do T-shirts for Blockade. And I've got a couple of guys in my local pinball league who have access to printing facilities.
    38:26
    So, yes, it may be a little bit closer than we think about pinballs. And the good thing is because I'd be producing them down here, and this would be the distribution area, it would be good for the U.S. folks who would essentially get around a little bit of money off. Not saying how much that would be.
    38:45
    Nor what it would be with – because we don't know what shipping costs would wind up balancing out. But we are curious because I would imagine we'd have to do a bulk order to keep the cost down. but we're curious to know how many of you out there would actually be willing to purchase a blockade t-shirt and wear it proudly um hit us up on twitter or hit us up in our email account at blah blah blockade at gmail.com um just let us know if you have an interest and you know what kind of sizes we'd be even looking at because i mean in my mind it'd be just one of those you large, extra large, and double X kind of... Pretty much, yeah. That's usually the general thing. And I think at this stage, we're looking at whether we just go for white shirt or black shirt. There are some cost savings if I'm doing like a white shirt with a black blockade logo because they can use digital printing for that. Whereas if I go black shirt with white blockade logo, that's a screen print, so they'll have to actually do up a screen for it. I'm leaning towards screen printing because I think it will actually look better than a digital print and it will probably last longer as well on the t-shirts but yeah so I think paying the extra little bit of money and just getting a decent screen print will be worth it and according to the guy the initial discussions we had is it would only add a couple of bucks to the cost of the shirt anyhow so I think for just a couple of extra bucks it would be totally worth it so yeah as Chris said email blah blah blah gmail.com and let us know if you might be interested. What I might do is if there's a decent enough interest, I might actually open up a survey and put some sizes up and all that sort of stuff and get people to fill it in. And I'll put that up on the forum and on Twitter and in all the other places to see if people are interested. Come on, Jared. List them all. List them all. Yeah.
    40:53
    I can't list them all. It's too many. there's the twitters there's a google plus which i have severely neglected of late i haven't really been posting very much up there um so yeah yeah but we'll we'll see we'll see um if people are interested so yeah if you are get in touch all right well that is all the time we have for uh this blockade number 28 uh stay tuned though we will be uh we might even have a bonus blockade for you this week. We'll see.
    41:24
    Otherwise, stay tuned for next week. Same bad channel, same bad time. For Jared Morgan and the late showing up Kai Fitzner, I am Chris Frebus, aka ShutYourTrap. We will talk to you again all soon. See you later, guys.
    41:43
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    42:14
    Remember to leave a review on iTunes or any podcasting channel Blockade is distributed through. we can't improve and they should tell us how until next time remember