Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

The 3 Musketeers by Hexa pinball - Gameplay

Hexa Pinball·video·43m 48s·analyzed·Apr 10, 2026
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Hexa Pinball demonstrates The 3 Musketeers gameplay with design insights from 4-person French team.

Summary

Hexa Pinball presents gameplay and design details of The 3 Musketeers, their second pinball machine, featuring a literary-themed design with custom mechanics including a cannon toy and swing target. Louis (game designer), Alice (salesman), and Alex (co-founder) discuss the game's accessibility-focused layout, innovative insert technology with patented LED diffusion, and the four-person team's manufacturing philosophy emphasizing community feedback and hand-crafted precision engineering.

Key Claims

  • Hexa Pinball is a 4-person company based in the southwest of France (Bordeaux area), with approximately 80% of machine production sourced locally

    high confidence · Alex states: 'Officially, in the company, we are four... we have developed a lot of products... about 80% of the machine is from Bordeaux, or the great southwest.'

  • The 3 Musketeers canon mechanism required extensive engineering effort to synchronize multiple mechanical components and took approximately one year to develop from initial VPX design to physical prototype

    high confidence · Alex: 'the amount we spent to create this mechanism, it's not a copy... to synchronize a high part and a low part... a lot, a lot, a lot of work.' Development timeline mentioned: 'We started about a year ago... about three months of VPX.'

  • Hexa Pinball uses a proprietary insert technology with epoxy and silicone/resin layers that they have patented, allowing custom shapes unlike other manufacturers' plastic molds

    high confidence · Alex: 'We have plastic molds that are inserted... we have filed a patent... We are the only ones to do that.'

  • The game features approximately 450 LEDs distributed across the playfield for lighting effects

    high confidence · Multiple speakers mention: 'I think there are 450 LEDs... 93 LEDs there are really everywhere' and confirmed in closing: 'there are 450 LEDs and LEDs.'

  • The 3 Musketeers was designed as a more accessible game than their first title Space Hunt, incorporating feedback from players of varying skill levels

    high confidence · Louis explains: 'we wanted to have a flipper, an accessible flipper... easier, more open, and we want to show that we can do that too.' Alex: 'When you play Vpx... we made people from different levels play... we had to have Christophe validate.'

  • The game's theme was chosen because The Three Musketeers is an internationally known literary work by Alexandre Dumas that provides thematic elements for game mechanics (castles, cannons, armor)

    high confidence · Louis: 'The criteria that decided our choice is a history known to the greatest number of people... The Tramposquiters is an internationally known work... the fact that it is a license on which we can hang a lot of elements of action and mechanisms.'

Notable Quotes

  • “We are not on a huge factory where there are 30,000 employees, where there are multiple engineers who think of the machine.”

    Alex (Hexa Pinball co-founder)@ 29:35 — Highlights Hexa's boutique manufacturing philosophy and emphasis on quality control despite small team size

  • “To recover these 2 degrees, you have to hit it in the metal that is in the hole to be able to adjust. So now we are in the micro-nothings, all the small details that appear.”

    Alex@ 29:04 — Demonstrates the precision-engineering mindset and attention to minute mechanical details

  • “The rule was that each shot, each place where we shoot, must give points.”

    Alex@ 34:09 — Reveals core design principle ensuring every playfield element has functional purpose

  • “If Christophe was going to do all the shots, that means that most people could do it.”

    Alex@ 38:39 — Explains accessibility validation methodology using team member representing casual skill level

  • “It's a tribute to Steve Ritchie, which I really appreciate... It's a toy that you don't see very often in the flippers.”

    Alex@ 27:42 — References design inspiration from legendary Williams designer and acknowledges rarity of cannon mechanic

  • “We are fans of the book... Our first reference, the basis of the game, is really the books.”

    Louis (game designer)@ 9:01 — Clarifies that literary source material, not film adaptations, drives the game's narrative structure

Entities

Hexa PinballcompanyLouispersonAlexpersonAlicepersonRomainpersonHervépersonDamienpersonSebpersonChristophepersonQuentin

Signals

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Hexa demonstrates commitment to micro-adjustments and hand-crafted precision, exemplified by 2-degree cannon barrel alignment requiring manual metal manipulation

    high · Alex: 'To recover these 2 degrees, you have to hit it in the metal that is in the hole to be able to adjust. So now we are in the micro-nothings'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Explicit design principle balancing shot variety with ease of play; accessibility validated through multi-level playtesting including lowest-skill team member

    high · Louis: 'we wanted to make an accessible flipper... easier, more open.' Alex: 'If Christophe was going to do all the shots, that means that most people could do it.'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Hexa developed proprietary insert technology combining epoxy and silicone/resin layers with custom shapes and advanced LED diffusion, filing patent protection

    high · Alex: 'We have filed a patent... We are the only ones to do that... epoxy with our recipe to us, which will allow us to have a diffuser'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Structural constraint (support beam) transformed into playable game element via hidden opto sensor detection, converting mechanical necessity into design feature

    high · Alex: 'we transformed a physically constrained club into a third... an opto that makes us recover the inertia that is put in the ball'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Hexa sources approximately 80% of machine components from Bordeaux region and southwest France, emphasizing local manufacturing and supply chain

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.131

0:00
Here is this wonderful model, welcome to the Flipmania France stream to present this wonderful new French machine by Hexa Pinball. We are lucky to be accompanied by Louis, Alice and Alex from Hexa, game designer, salesman and co-founder of the company. They will come on the stream and explain why the three musketeers, what is Hexa Pinball and possibly some nice and funny stories. In the preamble of that, we will have the explanations of the rules by Louis himself, who will explain a little bit the course of the flip and then a little bit what will be done on it. And then, it will be let's play and then, of course, the discussion with you. Do not hesitate to ask questions on the chat. We are here for that, we are here to answer all your questions. And above all, we wish you an excellent evening, a very good viewing. Hello everyone. So Louis who will be able to explain the rules. That's it. Game designer of the game. Exactly, I am the game designer of the three musketeers, I am also the game designer of Space Hunt. It's me, it's me. I can give some explanations while other players are playing. To explain what to do on this flipper, it's Quentin who plays. Quentin is very enthusiastic about the game. He just launched the first chapter phase 2. The inserts are here. All these inserts are used to turn on a chapter letter to qualify a mission. When you're in basic mode to turn on the chapter letters, it's the inserts I just showed you. So now he has to do three to turn on his chapter and go into the scoop to be able to launch it. So how to go into the scoop? We can go through this path, so the left orbit. We can also go through the drop target here if it is lowered. In fact, this shot is a shortcut to go into the scoop that we see here. This scoop allows us to launch our missions, it allows us to launch several things in the game. The rules of the game have been designed so that things are a little more affordable. We worked on launching different modes or important shots in different ways. Here, we can launch a mission via the left orbit but also via this edge. Quentin launched his multi-ball, the multi-ball that we can qualify on the right side with the three balls physically locked on the board. There he still has two balls in play. And what he wants to do with his super jackpot, he has to charge the cannon. So, cannon charge shot, so there he continues to accumulate his jackpots. And in fact, once he has charged his cannon, he will have a test, a cannon return, to be able to shoot on the target and validate his super jackpot. The boat that we see here, which is there, which is in the air, So, you're saying that there's a bit of Lord of the Rings in this game? There's a bit of Lord of the Rings.

  • A hidden opto sensor detects when a blocking structural support (required to hold the castle and ramps) is struck, crediting it as the 'third shot' to avoid closing trajectories

    high confidence · Alex: 'There is a metal guide behind... And on the top, we have an opto that makes us recover the inertia that is put in the ball... we transformed a physically constrained club into a third.'

  • The game went through multiple design iterations including VPX playtesting with community members before physical prototype development

    high confidence · Alex: 'We made people from different levels play... And so everyone tried... as soon as he had validated the VPX, the trajectories were acceptable.'

  • “Everything is visible. You have time to read the game.”

    Louis@ 4:16 — Core accessibility philosophy: open layout with clear sight lines and shot information

  • “We really gave ourselves on these inserts... we put on a new LED technology that allows us to have a pretty big spark.”

    Alex@ 32:09 — Demonstrates Hexa's willingness to invest in proprietary LED/insert technology for visual quality

    • person
    The 3 Musketeersgame
    Space Huntgame
    Flipmania Franceevent
    Steve Ritchieperson
    Alexandre Dumasperson
    Medieval Madnessgame
    Terminator 2game
    Voltairegame

    high · Alex: 'about 80% of the machine is from Bordeaux, or the great southwest... very happy to be able to do our own business in our local area'

  • ?

    product_concern: Canon mechanism described as extremely complex and time-intensive to engineer, requiring synchronization of motor, barrel, coil, and wire forms; team acknowledges ongoing micro-adjustments needed

    high · Alex: 'the amount we spent to create this mechanism... to synchronize a high part and a low part... a lot, a lot, a lot of work... the cannon needs to have another little adjustment'

  • ?

    community_signal: Hexa actively incorporates community input and playtester feedback into design iterations, including remarks from players suggesting improvements to control PCB simplicity

    high · Alex: 'We realized the remarks of the community... And I think that's also why it works. It's important.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Core design rule established that each objective must have at least two different shot paths available, preventing single-solution gameplay bottlenecks

    high · Alex: 'when we wrote the rules with Seb and Louis... for each thing to be done, there had to be at least two shots that allowed it to be done.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Hexa demonstrates transparency by presenting game in early alpha state (~95% complete) to public audience, acknowledging bugs and work-in-progress nature publicly

    high · Alex: 'this model that is a demo model, we will say, which is a version at 95% close to the final version' and 'we presented them as we are now, really very early in the phase with small bugs here and there'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: 4-person core team plus freelancers managing all aspects of pinball production (design, electronics, music, metalworking, manufacturing) with emphasis on vertical integration

    high · Alex: 'Officially, in the company, we are four... we have people like Louis who work full time for us, we are freelancers... Damien for everything that is metal... We have two munitions, a small dozen let's say'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Hexa references Steve Ritchie (legendary Williams designer) as design inspiration, and cites Medieval Madness and Terminator 2 as favorite/reference games, positioning themselves within established canon

    high · Alex: 'the cannon is still a little tribute to Steve Ritchie, which I really appreciate... It's a toy that you don't see very often in the flippers'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Hexa emphasizes literary source material (Dumas novel) over film adaptations as primary creative reference, aiming for thematic depth and international recognition over pop-culture currency

    high · Louis: 'The criteria that decided our choice is a history known to the greatest number of people... The Tramposquiters is an internationally known work... We are fans of the book, the third opus should be released in 2026 or 2027'

    • 3:48
    In terms of layout, or design, we wanted to have fan-layout shots. The shots are really wide, there are no traps.
    4:03
    They are high in the set, if you draw a line, if you draw the line at about half of the set, We can see that nothing will bother the ball when we play. You have time to read the game, everything is visible. You made a good little 215 million, it's a very good score. If it's duped by the MGM, that's it. If we want to go around the mechanisms a little bit. Here we have a Baj Toi that comes out when we do the same shot several times. We have the Flordelis launcher that is used to count the number of times we have done the same shot. And when we go to the end of the four shots, we will be invited to do this shot again. The Milady will be released at this time. We will have to shoot on Milady to validate this challenge. We have a physical log here, we already talked about it earlier. We have a cannon here, which is loaded via this platform. The left orbite with the left target ramp also, or the central ramp. These three shots bring us back to the cannon platform. Here, the cannon is qualified and we have a diver here who will feed the cannon, who will arm the cannon. And the cannon will make its cycle like that and it will come back like that. And at that moment, when it makes this cycle, you have to shoot on the swing target here, which will necessarily move. And that's all the subtlety of shooting, it's that we shoot on something in motion. The swing, effectively, it will swing left to right, or both to the bottom more exactly. We will sometimes have to make this shot, and we must also know that we detect when we do not do it. There will be moments in the game where it will be necessary to avoid shooting on the target rather than shooting on the back. How do we manage to choose a three-musketeer rather than anything else? Is it the French side, renowned, known or is it something you really care about? Is there a connection with the company? How do you explain this? The choice of the theme is a big question and it's very important to highlight. It's a work that has been long at our company, long discussions, long research. The criteria that decided our choice is a history known to the greatest number of people. When I say the greatest number, I mean the whole world. The Tramposquiters is an internationally known work and translated into several languages. This was part of the criteria of our choice. The fact that it is a license on which we can hang a lot of elements of action and mechanisms, it was also decisive for us because the canon, when we know the work and when we know the episode that happens at La Rochelle, He mentioned the set because we illustrate this area in this part of the set. This area is a reference to a well-known painting where we see Richelieu and we talk about the siege of La Rochelle. And precisely, the promosquetaire is a literary work that allows us to have a lot of elements to put on stage, castles, cannons, armors, the armor of Richelieu who is also here, which is an ornamental armor, it's not a combat armor, but they found it cool as an object. We have Notre Dame too, we have a lot of elements that speak to us and serve the game and that send dreams to the players. Knowing that Alexandre Duvas is a French writer and for the French Touch it is a green box that is not negligible for us. That's why the interest in cutting the film into missions, but there are chapters in a book to make reference to the work, etc. Exactly. In fact, we mark the link with the book because there have been film adaptations of the film Musquetaire. We are fans of the book, the third opus should be released in 2026 or 2027. It's a work that continues to be read and interpreted. Our first reference, the basis of the game, is really the books. It does not prevent us from being influenced by different things we have seen or something else. Space Hunt is really the work of the Iteria, no lesson, we talk about chapters. The skillshot, we will be able to manage with the launch button the power of the shot. The longer I hold, the stronger the shot will be and if I keep it on for a short time, it will be a small shot. The goal of the game is to do the mega skillshot in the scoop here or one of the two other skillshots here. I'm going to speed up because he's going to throw me the BB. You can see I'm controlling the power. And now, it's a pretty powerful shot. I still had the opportunity to do the right hand in a skillshot. But I missed it. For the standard multi-ball, it's pretty simple. So it's pretty simple, we turn on the 4 green targets, the 4 stand targets that we see on the central ramp and on the right ramp. And when we turn on the 4, it qualifies the locks, so first multi-ball qualifies the set of locks, and locks that we do on the right ramp. So, for that, what I can do is lose my life. Well, it's not necessarily easy because I'm going through several games, but whatever. I will continue to show you a little bit of things. There, I did my left skillshot. I can chain it with the skillshot, central ramp and B captive. Too bad. So when we do the right turn it a skillshot in several stages
    11:01
    The middle one, the scoop one, is a pretty basic skillshot. You just have to do it once and you get the mega skillshot. And the skillshot of the be-captive is also a special precision skillshot. I'll try to show you a little multi-ball.
    11:26
    A little thing to detail, as I explained earlier, behind the 3 targets bench, there are 3 different shots.
    11:38
    One shot that goes back into the scoop, We have a shot that goes on a stand and we have the shot that I just did exactly just before there which is a shot towards the left ramp which will bring the flipper towards the spinners. Another thing I'm doing here is the insert of Fleur Delis that I did several times in a row.
    12:05
    And when we have validated it, as I just did here, we turn on the corresponding challenge, namely that I have the Bash Toy of Mideli who comes out of his trap and we have a limited time to be able to shoot him. You can see that there I have validated the one of the central ramp, it went in green. Chapter on, I'll launch you the mission 4 which is the second mission we can do with this version of code. So this is the first stage of the game, we have the shots that are on to the left and they will shift from left to right. We are on a boat and we are in a chapter where D'Artagnan has to repair the queen's ferrets to save the queen from a... The little thing tells me I did it. Great. So, in terms of the context of this mission, the D'Artagnan goes to England and takes the boat to see the Duke of Buckingham ...to get ferrets to save the queen. Because we asked the queen to present herself with a bullet with her famous ferrets. Well, I had my timer on the top right of the screen which is at zero. I did not validate my mission. You should know that if I validated a phase, a second or... ...well, the third is the final, but anyway... I'm going to try to remember the state of the mission. And if I restart the mission, I'll resume where I was.
    14:04
    Which I will try to do right now. Great. So now I'll be able to resume my mission 2. Well, I was in phase 1, so it's not going to take us far. But anyway, I was able to make a first shot on the left, the shots moved to the right, I made my second shot.
    14:48
    Too bad. So, we're going to block the ball to try to push. We pull a part. There you go. Come on, one last shot. I would like to do well. I think I had validated the next phase. By having qualified the 8 chapters, these 2 specific multiples plus all the faces of the musketeers, Musqueteer, face that we light by filling the challenges that you will see when I will relaunch the game. It is by doing all these objectives that we will be able to access the Wizard. These are the basic rules of the game. You should know that we have the possibility to light ball saves on the outlanes. So here, left outline or right outline, by tapping on the stand targets which are visible in player's position but maybe not necessarily in the position seen from above, but these two stand targets are located under the cannon platform. So that's it, that's to turn on the ball saves left and right. The bonus multiplier, it is basically done by completing a line, The elements that make up the line are the in-lane, left and right, which we find here. I hope my fingers are correctly seen.
    16:42
    So here and here. And we have the three bonus inserts X which are also under the castle. One there, one there and one there.
    16:52
    So that's for the bonus multiplier. We also have a plate multiplier that is handled with shots on the swing target. You will have to shoot several times on the boat. It is not a code that is in place for tonight but I spoil a bit on the rest of the code. We could mount this platoon multiplier by shooting on the swing target and this platoon multiplier could be launched at the time of its choice by shooting on the captive ball which is here. So that's it for the little specificities a little more player, a little more related to scoring and I will take advantage of the opportunity that I have to be alone on the machines to talk to you a little bit about the screen. When I launch a game, I see the challenges on the screen. I talked about them earlier. The challenges are a specific number of ramps, a specific number of spinners, a specific number of targets to hit and a specific number of orbits. Having filled this challenge, once it's qualified, the start challenge will light up on the central ramp. I'm going to do a few rounds of the central ramp and by doing so, we'll be able to reach this challenge which is a small mission, a few rounds to do in a short time. And you have to qualify these four challenges to be able to reach the famous corresponding multi-ball. So, here, while talking to you, I turned on my chapter and I went there using the path of the drop on the left. I did the chapter 4 mission earlier, now I'm going to do chapter 1 to change a little bit and I'm going to try a little further with you. The objective of this mission is to make the orbits that are lit in white. These arrows are well flown. You just have to adjust a little bit. Ah, there I made a nice little left hand. I was punished.
    19:31
    So now, having not finished my mission, it will always be qualified for the scoop. I want to manage the power of my shot by keeping pressed. I will try... I'm trying to do my little right-hander skillshot. So now, since I haven't finished my mission, it's still valid in the left orbit. Great. Here are the qualified ones. I choose chapter 1 again and I would like to go a little further in this chapter to show I will show you what happens in phase 2 and phase 3. In this mission, in this chapter, we have three phases.
    20:24
    My multiball lock, of course, which continues to work. Kisses Flavio! I didn't get into the left orbit shot. Oh, that one was nice. I had my ball save, fortunately.
    20:49
    A little log 2. So here, what's interesting, but I should have done it before, was to qualify my phase 2 with a multi-ball. But it happened. I'm going to try to load my cannon with one of the shots on.
    21:09
    Subtitles by the Amara.org community I did my little challenge I even have my dedicated ticket out I have a limited time to hit it I lost everything it ugly
    21:58
    I still have time, too bad. What do we do? You see that it is playable in back-end, it's a bit tricky but it goes. I had validated this mission phase. I took back where I had stopped, namely just at the beginning of phase 2. I was able to make my cannon shot which passed and by validating this cannon shot, I go to the mission, to phase 3 of this mission which was in multi-ball. I'm still in multiball and since I'm still in multiball, I'm in victory lap. I managed to qualify for the last phase of this mission. It's cool, you could have it. I have one jackpot left to do. On the left ramp. Oh, it didn't pass.
    23:30
    I'd like to do this little shot. I had a ball save on the left outline. Great. I'm the catcher. Come on, no, I can't. No, too bad. Good. So now, end of mission. I didn't lose my BB, but I lost my multiball. It qualified this mission. You have to know that now, my chapter 1 was validated because I was at the end of the chapter doing all the phases.
    24:30
    And now I'm going to try to do my Jackpot of end of mission with my cannon. And I think it was validated. At the end of the mission, we have the possibility, if we were at the end of the mission and we validated it as it should be, We have the possibility to shoot a cannon, whether we choose to do it or not. And if we manage to do this famous shot on this target, we win a score that can be increased by choosing to accumulate. I explain myself. I did a first mission, I want to win the bonus of the end of the mission. I do my cannon shot, I shoot on the swing, it's validated, I win this bonus, which I just did. We can also choose not to do it to accumulate it by validating a second chapter. The bonus will be higher but the shot, if it is not done, can be lost and in this case we lose everything, we lose the entirety of the bonuses. So here it is, this is a little bonus of the end of the mission, a little process a little funny. I won't hide from you that this demo was made by our national Seb who loves this kind of rules subtlety.
    26:03
    And it's a lost game for me. I hope you like this little demo. Don't hesitate to ask me questions in the chat, I'll go and see them later and I'll be happy to answer them.
    26:19
    A little 100 in a million is not so bad, so you can see that I've done well, I've done well with my challenges. I have my multi-ball duel which is at 2 duels per set and I launched my one for all multi-ball earlier, so that's why I came back to 0. What made you want to create this shooter mechanism, the canon and the why of how, even if I asked Louis a question earlier and he answered me. I like to have everyone's opinion.
    27:07
    I put A A A. It's me who put A A. So it's you who... Yeah, but I know it's you who put A A. But unfortunately, on this flipper, it won't stay. Ah, well, I doubt it. It's a little bit with a special code. Yeah, but having your name on a flipper display, it's something. I want to say that you're the first to put your name, but I didn't put it. Ah, well, then it's okay. So, bravo, you can have all the goodies you want. Yeah!
    27:32
    So, on the card, I don't know what Louis said. I'm not sure if I'm saying the same thing. Exactly, that's what's interesting. So what could you have said? You're going to enjoy the replay. From my point of view, the cannon is still a little tribute to Steve Ritchie, which I really appreciate. And it's a toy that you don't see very often in the flippers. No. Which is still very marked by Steve. And it's not for nothing because it's still very complicated to do. I'm not sure if you can see it, but it's just a barrel that's spinning. It's a whole system. If you knew the energy and the amount we spent to create this mechanism, it's not a copy of what we've had on the others, to synchronize a high part and a low part, that everything goes well, that the motor, the barrel, the coil, I think that all this is just metal, that everything is going well, that everything escapes well, all the things, the wire form, it's a lot, a lot, a lot of work. There we see on this version that you have, on this model that is a demo model, we will say, which is a version at 95% close to the final version, the cannon needs to have another little adjustment. We're talking about 2 degrees. With Luis we made some points and we thought that the barrel would be better if it was 2 degrees. A little more on the left. And except that to recover these 2 degrees, you have to hit it in the metal that is in the hole to be able to adjust. So now we are in the micro-nothings, all the small details that appear. So to make this barrel, it was for us, for the company, we don't have a lot, we don't have 40 engineers, we don't have 40 years of experience like our friends. That's all that makes the attraction of this flipper and the recognition that we can have on it. We are not on a huge factory where there are 30,000 employees, where there are multiple engineers who think of the machine. How many of you are in Hexa exactly? Officially, in the company, we are four. We have people like Louis who work full time for us, we are freelancers, we have Romain our electronics guy, we have Hervé for music, we have Damien for everything that is metal, all the wireforms, all the guides, all that is done by hand at our place. We have two munitions, a small dozen let's say, to be able to produce that, knowing that about 80% of the machine is from Bordeaux, or the great southwest. We are very happy to be able to do our own business in our local area. We have developed a lot of products. I don't know if you have talked about our inserts. I was talking about it with David earlier. We were talking about the bare plate, which I would have liked to present, but on the camera it may not be ideal. We were talking about this impression, this work plate with two layers, with a layer in the middle that is made of silicone or resin. We are not like all the manufacturers, we have plastic molds that are inserted. We come to pour an epoxy with our recipe to us, which will allow us to have a diffuser as we can see on the screen, which works super well, but with the possibility of having the shapes we want. We are the only ones to do that, we have filed a patent. Yeah, that's what we were saying. So, on the Special, it was already the case, but we were left in traditional forms. And there, for Musquitair, we really could let ourselves go, do really as we wanted, because we had our technology. And there, it's a little plateau, especially when it's white, when it's white wood, what you were saying, it allows us to show that the shapes are really the case. There, for example, we can't see the screen well, but the little candles, we can see right under the book. The little candles above the book are, behind we have two LEDs and these are inserts that allow to flash the candles. Okay. Here they are. Yes, they are. Exactly. So we really gave ourselves on these inserts there and of course we had good LEDs that go with it. We changed, we put on a new LED technology that allows us to have a pretty big spark. I'm very... Here for example, we can see it. This is something I really like. First of all, it's beautiful. And in addition, in terms of technicality, I think it's great. Knowing that sometimes we see it, so here it's red, but you can have a blue, a green, a red. There are 4 LEDs here. And that's what's excellent. 1 LED per petal, absolutely. We have 400... I think there are 450 LEDs on the flip-flops. Between the Atmos Light LEDs which we called pilot lighting And the set on our main PCB there are 93 LEDs the one that manages the center of the set there are 93 LEDs there are really everywhere I missed a meeting one night where there was Luis and Seb on the lighting and they gave themselves a happy heart they gave themselves everywhere And we thank them! Yeah, me less. But frankly when I see the results I tell myself it's great. I think we upgraded our control pose. We are improving, we are still in the continuous improvement. Now we make our own mechanisms, we made the cannon, we made our swing target, our bashtoy, all our deviators. I don't know if Louis will tell you about the little ball that is hidden in the castle too. He talked about it a little bit, but precisely it is something that we necessarily have trouble seeing with the stream. We are going to explain the secret of this little secret. The genesis is that to hold the castle and all the ramps, there are three floors, the ground floor, the floor above which allows you to catch the ramp on the left, and then we have the passage on the roof. It takes a certain structure to hold, plus we have the ramp of the duke behind which comes to hang on it, plus all the royal ramps. We had to support a certain weight, so we needed several blocks. The rule was that each shot, each place where we shoot, must give points. Unfortunately, there was one block in the middle that held the structure but did not give points. We did not have the mechanical possibility to put a stand, because otherwise it would close the trajectories. In our constraints, we wanted a more accessible flipper than Space Hunt, which is a very demanding flipper. We were told to make a flipper that is easier, more open, and we want to show that we can do that too. So we said to ourselves, we absolutely have to not close our shot. But this plug was necessary. So if we removed it, we had other problems behind. There is a metal guide behind, and the metal guide could have been hit and damaged over time. Interview with Louis Léger, a famousgeois gesehen par la Dorothée deentar.
    35:31
    And on the top, we have an opto that makes us recover the inertia that is put in the ball, which is strong enough, you pass the opto, we detect that you have hit the club. So we transformed a physically constrained club into a third. Excellent. But we can't show it to you because it's absolutely hidden. We are in the same architectures that we had made for Space Hunt, that is to say, simple, PCB cards that load OLED, very easily removable switches. We made some choices that seemed relevant to us, so we kept those choices. And then those that we wanted to improve, we already had this model. We realized the remarks of the community. Super awesome. And I think that's also why it works. It's important. The cheaper is not made for us. We are not the only ones who are doing this. No, but that's exactly what is not necessarily the case in other brands or models. And that's what also marks your manufacturing and your initiative. We had already done that with Space Hunt from the beginning. We presented them as we are now, really very early in the phase with small bugs here and there, which is normal. We took the risk and we thought it was good to show the community that making a flipper is quite complicated. Very complicated. And even though we have some experience now, we realize that... I don't know if Louis talked a little bit about how to make the flipper. We started about a year ago. Okay. Yeah, it was in March. We did about three months of VPX. Okay. So this is Louis who designed it. There is no real code, it's just flow and so on. Yes, of course. I can even give you a little tip, nobody knows, I will tell you. On our first design that Louis had proposed, we already had the idea of the swing and the cannon that were associated together. We found it funny to have the cannon moving and the swing and to be able to synchronize the two types. And the castle, we didn't have this mechanism at all. We were inspired by the mechanism of the Voltaire circuit where there is the cabo. We have a small question from Pésima to which you will be able to answer. What are your inspirations for the layout? Inspirations? So that's more Louis who could answer. Louis is really the designer, I'm the one who... So he already talked about it a little bit at the beginning of the video. In fact, really what we were saying about this one is that we wanted to make an accessible flipper. And as soon as we started playing Vpx, we put a lot of people in the loop at our place. When you play Vpx, it's not like when you play on a Vflip, but it still gives you a feeling. And we made people from different levels play. And in our team, we are lucky to have different levels. I am a lambda player, we have Louis and Seb, I'm not talking about their levels. They are very good. We have Christophe, our associate, who has a level 0. So it's perfect. And we have Hervé who has a very intermediate level but... And so everyone tried and we thought we had to have Christophe validate. If Christophe was going to do all the shots, that means that most people could do it. And so as soon as he had validated the VPX, the trajectories were acceptable, we didn't understand too much about planes and so on. And for that, the VPX doesn't work too badly on trajectories, on ball returns. At 80% it works well, even 90%. And then we test it in real life and we see, we say to ourselves, it's good, it's not good. Always with the same principle in several levels of players and we validate. Our layout is more like that. We really wanted to do something with trajectories that go in all directions, but a rather accessible platform, so with shots rather far away. Because close shots make complicated returns. Yes. And here we are on something where the ball is far away, it will circulate in all directions, There are some deviators everywhere, 5 deviators on the deck that can make the ball go in all directions. No, no, the return of ramps we talked about Louis earlier, we are talking about the return of ramps which is here on the right, which is therefore made by a diverter I imagine, inside. We're just behind the two wire forms, in ramps we have an opto that detects the BB and the diverter closes and says either you go to the lock or you go to the barrel. In fact, because in the starting contract, when we wrote the rules with Seb and Louis, it was that for each thing to be done, there had to be at least two shots that allowed it to be done. So, at least two, maybe more. And so we needed to put in some fun stuff that would allow this central frame shot to either lock your BB or load your gun. The same shot allows you to do both things.
    40:21
    It's a pretty simple shot, which is not really punitive. So for novice players, they can easily lock their BB or shoot at the gun. I'm not a fan of the cannonball, it's always a bit of a game for the players. Like when there's a set, they say, here's a mini set.
    40:39
    Last question, what are your favorite players in the team? Good question. I'm not going to answer for Louis, I don't know. I know the players he has at home, currently.
    40:53
    Me, as I said at the beginning... Your Proust's Madeleine. I don't know about Madelaine Duprou, but I have a lot of flippers that I love. Like a lot of people, I like the medieval one, but I don't have it at home. I like to play it like that. I like the T2 a lot. It's my childhood flipper. It's one of the flippers we started on. It's my favorite flipper, that's why I said it's a canon. I like Steve Ritchie, I told you at the beginning. The T2 is a flipper that I like because it's hard, but it's not hard to understand. I like it a lot. I have some sterns, some jjp that I like. I like everything. If I had to keep only one, I would go with a T2. My impressions? So a flipper already with a lot of toys, that's nice because there are people who like the flipper to be really full. Very good flow, I really like the corridors, like here, it just went around completely. So that's pretty cool, a very good soundtrack. I really like the soundtrack which looks a bit like Castlevania. The light flow is magnificent, I think there are 450 LEDs and LEDs, that's just beautiful. We have a lot of time to create this thing. Here is the light flow. Bravo to Hervé in any case. Very very beautiful machine. We really see a very nice progression on Hexa 2 compared to the first where we are much more colorful. Where we had blamed, well some people had blamed this impossible. We wanted to make a dark universe and I was misperceived. The artistic direction is magnificent. The inserts are necessarily homemade with inserts that are really We are really into the theme. We players are really waiting for the code to see a little more. In a few weeks it will be good because when you see the cistern that also comes out of the products that are not finished, Thank you for watching this video.