Hello and welcome to another episode of the pinball studio podcast episode 14 that is I'm your host Sterling Martin and today I'm joined by Jason Knapp of Knapp Arcade. So today we're going to learn his story and how he found this crazy hobby we call pinball. But first off, let's mention the sponsors. Old Town Pinball. Are you on the market for a new or used pinball machine? Check out oldtownpinball.com. Also, the Electric Playground. Looking to level up your game room with a new topper? You can find them at teppinball.com. And last but not least, Spooky Pinball. Order your Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Looney Tunes, or Scooby-Doo today. Just visit spookypinball.com to learn more. Anyway, welcome to the show, Jason. It's great to have you here, man. How are you doing, sir? Good. I'm happy I made it on time, so that's always a good starting point. Well, I'm happy to have you, man. This is going to be a lot of fun. I'm interested to hear your story and how you got into all of this. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for having me. It should be fun. I always like to talk about pinball, so this will be a welcome break from the hecticness of the day. Heck yeah. Awesome. Yeah, I guess we'll just start off with, do you remember like the first pinball machine you ever played or arcade machine? Did you play as a kid? Where did this whole journey start for you? Yeah, I mean, I'm 50 years old. Well, 51, I guess. So I kind of grew up in the heyday of the Chuck E. Cheese and Showbiz pizza places when everyone had their birthday parties either there or at the Roller Rink. There was a place called The Rink in Bergenfield, New Jersey that everyone had their birthday parties at. And, you know, I have distinct memories of seeing or getting my butt kicked at Dragon's Lair and like being so confused that other people could actually do well at it. And playing Burger Time and Spy Hunter and all those games. A lot more on the vid side when I was little than the pinball side, for sure. For sure. Yeah, I was more of an arcade kid myself. The pinball was in the background, but I feel like I didn't ever play pinball very much. I was very much into the arcade machines. Did you play, like, through your whole childhood, or did you finally take a break? Have you been into arcade and pinball your whole life? Yeah, you know, I definitely, you know, I did. I'm trying to think. You know, I went away to college, obviously. But even during college, like there was like a street fighter in the student lounge that my friends and I would hammer on. I always used Blanca. So I would I don't think Blanca is considered one of the strongest characters, but I always liked him. So I would do my best with Blanca. And, you know, I always enjoyed, you know, gaming and arcade games and things like that. But I really didn't for a while after college. I didn't really go to too many physical arcades, really. And then I'm trying to think how long ago it was. I picked up my first arcade game when I figured out that multi-cades existed. I think that's probably a pretty common entry drug or gateway drug for a lot of people into the hobby. That's kind of how I got into it as well. Yeah, I would say that was probably around 2010, maybe, something along those lines. Okay. Yeah. Something along those lines. I bought, I started looking into it and trying to figure out how it worked. And I figured out, you know, you could get a machine that had like 20,000 games on it with the hyper spin interface, hyper spin interface. So I went like all in on a maim machine and I got a four player game in my basement before our basement was even finished. And my kids were really little. Right. And we used to play Gauntlet and NBA Jam and Open Ice. And, you know, a lot of the sports games, a lot of the fighting games. You know, we were definitely really into the multi cave for a long time. And I think like anybody, it starts to evolve from there. And I started, you know, getting into the actual physical arcade games themselves. So I got an Asteroids Deluxe and I picked up, I was really into the Mega Touches. I was like addicted to the bar top games and the stand up versions of those and picked up a Foosball, lots of arcade stuff. I picked up a commercial dart machine, the Arachnid Darts. I know you've seen those probably in bars. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then at some point I figured out, you know, that, I mean, I obviously knew that pinball existed, but I hadn't played it a whole lot. And I started going to arcades with, well, I actually made really good friends with one of the guys that I was buying. I became really good friends with one of the guys that I started buying the games from off of Craigslist. And he introduced me to a whole group of New Jersey arcade collectors. I guess it's just called the New Jersey Arcade Collectors Group. Cool. And there's a whole really cool group of guys, and they're definitely, for the most part, more into vids than pinball machines. So that's kind of how I got in. I made a lot of friends, and we started going to, you know, arcades, like more grown-up versions of arcades at that point. And that's when I started really playing pinball. And once I started playing pinball, that was it. I kind of hooked me in and, you know, I didn't really look back. And I picked up my first, trying to think, my first pinball machine was Baby Pac-Man, if you count that. That's awesome. There's actually one of those for sale locally right now. I keep looking at it. I'm like, shit, I try to grab it or not. It's all, I mean, I personally really like it. Some people don't like the pinball aspect of it. But it fit the space profile that I had because I didn't have a lot of space at the time. I hadn't finished my basement yet. So I picked up a Baby Pac-Man, and that was a nightmare. I mean, anyone who's ever worked on a Baby Pac-Man. But the guy I bought it from really worked with me, and my son and I, you know, the guy really helped us out. And my son and I worked on it, and we were finally able to get the – Because a lot of times it has issues with the arcade portion, if you're not familiar with it. No, I've seen it one time in my life at arcade. It's like a Pac-Man video game up top and then pinball down below, all in the same cabinet. So it has trouble sometimes getting the video portion to communicate with the pinball portion. So that was a whole rigmarole. But we finally got that up and working, and then I was pretty hooked on it after that. I guess my first real pinball machine was World Cup Soccer. Oh, nice. Okay. That's a good one to have. Yeah, and I didn't really know as much about it at the time, but it ended up being a really good game, so I enjoyed that. Do you remember roughly about what year this was when you were buying these pinball machines? Yeah, I'm trying to think. I would say probably about 2014 or so. Oh, nice. So you got into it before everything got crazy with the prices. Yeah, I used to do really well on Craigslist for a long time. I mean, then all of a sudden, all the flippers started figuring it out, and it was done. Oh, yeah, and then Facebook marketplace. You can't get a thing on there now. You can't get a thing on Craigslist now. I mean, you can if you're really on top of it, but they almost all get gobbled up by people who flip games in like five minutes now. It's sad. Well, how many pinball machines do you currently have in your collection? I don't know. You're going to make me count. Oh, Lord. I'll just I'll just it's not as big. It's not the biggest number, as you think. I'll just go down the list. And that way we can count them. Yeah. My first new unboxed game was Stern Star Trek Pro. Oh, perfect. Yeah. Yeah. One of my favorites. Yeah, I love it. I still have it to this day. So I have Star Trek Pro, Guardians of the Galaxy Pro, Game of Thrones Pro, Deadpool Pro, Mandalorian Pro, Jurassic Park Premium, and Dungeons and Dragons Premium right now. Awesome. That's a great little collection to have at the house for sure. Yeah. I'm out of space in the basement, and it's too cold to keep stuff in the garage. You got more rooms in the house. I'm sure you could fit one somewhere. Well, I'm going to get a pinball barn someday. I'm determined. It's already been approved with my other half. So I just have to we just have to move out of New Jersey at some point. OK, that's awesome. So when did you start this whole Napa arcade thing? And was it always pinball or did it start off as arcade machines? Uh, yeah, you know, I actually have an exact date for when I started the Facebook page. That was the first thing. And it was because I mentioned before I picked up that arachnid commercial dartboard. And my kids were really little. They were like, hmm. um i don't know they were my oldest son was probably who's graduating from college now was probably in like fifth grade or something at the time you know like grade school like young and um i thought it would be cool to uh do a charity dart tournament so what it was was we invited all of his friends and all these people from town and uh we had entry fees that were to raise money for saint jude's children's hospital and uh we create we essentially did a whole charity dart tournament on the commercial arachnid game and that was i made the facebook page the nap arcade facebook page to kind of promote the dart tournament you know with friends and family so So they could RSVP yes or no, and they could see the date and stuff like that. And that was on September 12, 2015. Awesome. Yeah, because it's actually an Easter egg in the NAP Arcade logo. Oh, is it? The score on the pinball machine says 91,215, so it's 9-12-15. Okay. Yeah, so that's how I remember it. Otherwise, I'd have no idea. So that page started as just a placemark or an invitation for the tournament. but then you know i had a regular facebook page and i really liked talking about pinball and arcade stuff and then this actually dovetails into the craigslist stuff because i hung out in a new jersey arcade collectors forum that we had that's kind of where i could talk about a lot of the arcade and pinball stuff yeah and i was getting so many good deals on craigslist at the time it was before it was ruined. So I started sharing like the deal of the day or like deals like on games locally. Don't do that now. Well, yeah, I, so I started sharing it with people cause I, you know, I liked the people there. I was like, here, go get this. It's a good deal. And then a lot of the people that were hogging all the games started getting bent out of shape that I was doing it So I was like okay fine I just do it on my own page So I changed the Dart Tournament page to just it said like it was called like NAP Arcade Charity Dart Tournament or something. I just changed it to say NAP Arcade, and I just started sharing deals on the NAP Arcade page. And then it just evolved into me, you know, I started, all my friends were there, so that was a place where I could talk about pinball and arcade news. because I always like to follow along. I'm kind of in competitive intelligence in, like, my real career. So I always like to follow along on what's happening, the newest and latest stuff. And, you know, no one from town or my relatives that were on my regular Facebook page gave two hoots about it. So I just started sharing that on the NAP Arcade page, and that's kind of how it all began pretty much. No, that's awesome. Yeah, I always tune into your Facebook page or your website to check up on all the newest news for pinball. You do a great job with all of it, man. I appreciate that, yeah. Do you ever go to any of the pinball shows or anything like that? I do, yeah. I just booked my hotel for Pintastic New Robert Englunds, which is up in Massachusetts. That's in April, I believe. I flew out a couple years ago to the Midwest Gaming Classic in Wisconsin. That was really fun. and then there's Allentown Pin Fest which is another local show that's held in obviously Allentown, Pennsylvania but I just actually talked of all the shows I've been writing about for all these years that I haven't been to somehow I'd never been to Pinball Expo in Chicago and I've been to Chicago a couple times so I went out once for the launch of Avatar with Jersey Jack and I went out once for the launch of uh John Wick at Stern Pinball but I haven't been to Expo itself so I actually was talking to Rob Burke today he's the the individual who you know created and runs Expo now and uh because I'm going to visit his arcade uh in Ohio next week so that'd be super cool yeah yeah I was setting it up so I could get lots of uh get in a little early and get lots of pictures and videos for everybody and for articles and for to share on facebook and instagram and he's a very persuasive man i definitely think you could sell ice to the eskimos so he convinced me to have a presentation at uh this year's expo and go out so i'm not quite sure what i'm what i'm going to actually say that people would want to hear but uh i'll come up with something and i booked the hotel room for expo in chicago in october today so very cool yeah i've never made to expo myself either i always go to tpf every year that's kind of my uh i really enjoy that show so uh you're eastern time so you're you're in georgia this area oh okay you're in georgia well you probably go to uh southern fried game room or the southern fine game expo yeah i try to i haven't went the last two years actually um i had so much going on it was just hard to make it so uh this year i'm planning on going though i got my hotel booked so i should be there As my kids get older, I plan on going to everything. My one son, they both play sports, and I don't like to miss that ever. My wife and I both work. I'm always especially busy with work at the beginning of the month. It's been tough for me to fit in a lot of shows that were far away, I guess. But now my older son is at Virginia Tech and he's about to graduate. And my younger son's a high school junior. He'll be, it's kind of sad to think about, he'll be gone before I know it. So once I'm an empty nester, I'm going to have to fill in the hole in my heart by going to absolutely everything. I mean, that's the plan at this point. Because I work remotely. My wife works pretty remotely. So, you know, I have a lot of flexibility in terms of, you know, shows I can go to and things like that. So hopefully I'll make it out to TPF and Southern Pride and a lot of different shows once, you know, once next couple of years pass. But, you know, as of right now, my son in the spring plays lacrosse. So I end up I don't like missing a lot of his games. So that that whole season is kind of yeah, that season that whole season is kind of blocked off in terms of getting to go to too many things. Well, hopefully I cross paths with you at one of these shows in the future, man. I'll go to Expo. I need to go, man. I really do. Yeah, go this year. We'll have to see. Does anybody in your family enjoy pinball, or is it just you? My kids used to go to arcades with me a lot. I used to take them to Rock Fantasy in Middletown, New York, and I used to take them to the Morristown Game Vault in Morristown, New Jersey. So, you know, I would get them to go with me on the weekends occasionally and things like that. And they'll play the games with me at home when they want to humor me. But, you know, when they have friends over, you know, we set up the basement. And one of my excuses for setting it up was, you know, if they're hanging out here, we'll always know where they are. And, you know, we'll be able to keep an eye on them. And I'd rather have them hanging out here than who knows where. So they have their friends over, and they and their friends play a lot. I mean, I have the World Series of Poker Heads Up Challenge. It's a head-to-head poker game, and they and their friends play that all the time. And they like playing on the big multi-cade a lot, and they'll even play pinball. I mean, when my friend has his friends over, my friend, when my oldest son has his friends over from college, he had them all over over Christmas break, and they're all like, what? you know no no one expects you to have a whole huge huge arcade no i mean and you don't really see arcades like you used to so i mean not yeah not all these kids have experienced you know an arcade type setup i guess yeah i think it's kind of retro chic now with a lot of the kids in college you know they they can go to especially once they're 21 they can go to barcades and Most college towns have something along those lines. Yeah. So they see it on social media and things like that too. Right. They're kind of always impressed with it. Yeah. I don't even remember what the original question you asked was. Oh, I don't either. Oh, you said, does anyone else in my family like it? Yeah, yeah. So my sons will play. They used to play with me when they were little a lot. We would go out, and then they'll play it at home. And then my wife, she always has a good time going out and we'll get a drink and we'll play whenever we go visit another city. Like we went out to visit my parents in Memphis for Christmas this year and we hit Nashville on the way home. So I'm always good for one or two arcades at any family location. And back in the day, I used to say, I know a good restaurant around here and kind of trick them into going. But now it's become kind of an inside joke that I'm like, oh, I know a good restaurant. And they're like, you're looking on pinball maps like this is a good spot to eat. Exactly. There's like not like a bunch of soggy nachos or something, but 50 games. So, yeah. So, you know, it's become a running joke in my family. But my wife is always a really good sport. She has fun once she's there, but she doesn't play at home and things like that. Right, right. Yeah, Nashville probably has some good locations. I've never actually been to Nashville, crazy enough, but I assume they have some decent spots. You've got to go. I haven't been, and it's funny because my parents have lived in Memphis for like two decades, and I always went there, but Nashville has really taken over for Beale Street. Beale Street's pretty dead now. That's the main strip in Memphis. And Nashville has just exploded. I mean, you walk down the street and there's just bar after bar after bar. And if you're into country music, you know, every famous country music singer or star has their own bar. And you walk into it and it's not like they have a band. You know, like it would be pretty weird to go to a bar around any hometown and see a band playing in the middle of the day. But like these places have bands playing in the middle of the day. And then there's a band on the first floor. and a different band on the second floor and a different band on the third floor. And you're just like, what? That's crazy. It's unbelievable. Yeah, so it's a great place to visit on its own. But then in terms of the arcade scene, in Nashville itself, there's a place called the Game Terminal that I just went to and I've been sharing pictures of recently. That's absolutely fantastic. And there's another place not far from there called the Game Galaxy that's huge. It's got even more games than the game Terminal, but it's like 20-minute drive or something like that out of Nashville. You know, my wife and I were actually thinking about, we had so much fun over Christmas, we're thinking about going back for our anniversary. So if I do go back, I'll definitely hit the game Galaxy next time, try a different place. So that'll be a cool one to check out. Yeah. I used to always see all these pictures of, like, machines, and, you know, you would talk about machines a little bit on the post, And I'm like, yeah, is this Jason's collection? I was like, holy cow. I wish. He's got everything. Yeah. Well, that's part of whenever I go to it. A good friend of mine and I, Rob Miller, and I started going on arcade road trips, usually about twice a year. We flew out to the Ann Arbor Pinball Museum in Brighton, Michigan last time. That was our, I guess that was our fall arcade road trip. And, I mean, that place has just hundreds and hundreds of games. I think they have, I'm going to say it wrong, so I don't know, but well over 500 pinball machines on the floor. Wow. That's crazy. And when I go, I've started trying to take pictures of every game from multiple angles, as well as like a video tour of the place. So I've started cataloging all those. I think I'm probably at some point going to have the largest collection of arcade pictures in the world for whatever that's worth. I don't know. I would not doubt it. But it's entertaining. You know, it's almost like collecting baseball cards or collecting Pokemon cards at this point, you know, like to use a topical or a current reference because Stern's likely coming out with Pokemon. So, yeah, it's almost like collecting baseball cards at this point. So I try to get pictures of games that I didn't have before and then, you know, I file them away. ultimately i'd like to have them all up on the nap arcade website but it's obviously to have tens of thousands of pictures kind of time consuming to do if you ever come down to georgia or south georgia i should say have you ever heard of the pinball palace oh sure yeah yeah no that's on the list of places i need to go yeah they're like how far outside of atlanta is that oh it's the other side it's near florida yeah that's the that's the that's the problem like I've wanted to go there for a while and I've been talking to them but it's just not really driving distance from New Jersey and not really near anything that I've been to it's more like if you're in Florida for some reason you just bump right up in Georgia they're really close to the state line but man they have an awesome collection Kelly who runs it and his son but i think they it hard to say they probably like 250 machines roughly but they have like a secret stash that isn't open to the public but of course he'd let you go back there oh and there's just like wow there's another hundred machines back here yeah he probably rotates them in yeah cool yeah it's kind of like where he works on them and stuff and uh it's just hard to keep you know You've got to get tax stamps and everything for every single machine. No, I remember he went through a whole ordeal with the Georgia tax people not that long ago. It's crazy here. The rules are just so archaic. I mean, there's certain states, like Hawaii was one recently, where pinball was still considered illegal for minors to play because these rules were made when it was like a mafia gambling device back decades and decades and decades ago. Yeah, it's crazy. All the rules that are on or all the laws that are on the books, even in terms of like revenue and things like that, you know, they're just archaic. It all varies by state, too. It's so complicated. Yeah. In Georgia, the lottery commission is over pinball. I'm like, what does this have to do with gambling at all? Yeah, because it's just like goes back to the days when it was considered a gambling device. That's crazy. Crazy. And the laws haven't even kept up with the fact that a lot of the businesses run the free play model where they charge per hour. So, I mean, it doesn't even make a lot of sense for a place like the Pinball Palace to have to pay for each machine to have a sticker. You know, they pay sales tax already on their revenue, and then they have to pay again on each machine. It's just nonsense. Is it really strict where you live, or do you even know? No, you know, I have a number of friends that have arcades, and they don't complain about it. So that probably means it's not too bad. Yeah, I've never looked into the specific logistics of New Jersey's laws on per game and things like that. But a number of people in the group, the New Jersey Arcade Collectors group that I mentioned at the beginning, have public arcades. And, you know, they run it on an hourly basis mostly for the most part. So, you know, it doesn't seem to be too much of a problem. Have you ever tried to play in a pinball tournament or attended one? You know, I did once or twice, you know, years ago. My problem basically tied in with time. You know, I work a full-time job. I had two kids and a wife, and I do all this nap arcade stuff on the side. So I never really have enough time to just set aside to, you know, four or five hours or whatever. how long if i actually play well a tournament a pinball tournament takes i run tournaments and i do horrible in them but the thing i enjoy is just you meet so many people in the hobby and you get to chat pinball with pinball people for a few hours so that's always social aspect of it is really cool absolutely so i probably will once i'm an empty nester again i probably start doing more tournaments yeah i tell everyone i was like you don't have to win just go have fun like there's gonna be people that are like damn good that you know i'm not under any illusion that i'm gonna beat jason zahler or something like that he was a guy i actually went up against in the one tournament oh that's crazy game vault that i i was at and he just like blew up ghostbusters like unbelievably and i was like standing there watching for a half hour you know man i you do you think we'll ever see ghostbusters again from stern uh your thoughts no you know i mean it's not the low-hanging fruit for them i mean i definitely think kiss is the next remaster that that's my i wrote an article about it maybe two weeks ago yep i have it on pretty pretty good authority that that's going to be the next remaster i assume i think that would make a lot of people happy it'll make some people mad of course but uh i think yeah you know people do get irritated the people who own le's and things like that but for the most part when i wrote that article the the response i was actually pretty surprised their response was overwhelmingly positive a lot of people really liked kiss and they would like to see a new one that had concert footage and yeah you know a couple of different mechs tweaked a little bit to you know like they do when they do a remaster to work a little better yeah i don't really see i mean the pinball palace near me has one but i don't see that game very often on on location so it's probably good that they do another yeah the resale values are pretty strong on it i think that's the ultimate determinant for stern so you know if you don't see a lot of them generally the resale values are pretty strong and i'd rather have kiss over acdc just personally uh i'm not a huge fan of the acdc game i know i know a lot of people are i do i like i think i like acdc more than i like kiss okay but i think wrong with yeah the problem with remastering acdc would be the designers no longer there yeah while you know you know that was Steve Ritchie so he's gone meanwhile with kiss it's a john borg game and borg has already remastered metallica and walking dead so it's just from a trend standpoint it makes a ton of sense for them to do kiss are they only gonna do board games for remaster i mean i don't i don't know about that but i mean when they when they have the previous designer in-house and he can work on it oh it makes sense it's clearly the lowest hanging fruit That's kind of why I think Ghostbusters might not happen either. I wish Stern would just... Well, there's a whole lot of baggage with that. Yeah, exactly. I wish they just would just do a totally new game of Ghostbusters. It's such a big theme. Just give it to Keith Elwin or somebody. Make a new design. I mean, if there can be five Star Wars pinball machines or however many there are, there could certainly... The world could handle two Ghostbusters. I'm even telling the people at Spooky. I'm like, you know you can revisit Halloween. I won't be mad. I got some rapid fire questions for you. Sure. Yeah, go ahead. All right. One pinball machine you'll stop and play every time you see it on location. Oh, all of them? If I see any pinball machine anywhere, I'm like, oh, and I just go up to it. You know, that's funny. It's, you know, I don't know that I have a reputation as being a shill or anything like that, but I'm definitely considered to be fairly positive. and I honestly yeah I mean I honestly love almost every pinball machine there's not too many pinball machines I'm like you know like I'm not a big fan of Rob Zombie and things a couple of games I just don't really like that much but for the most part I'll plunk money into anything I just like playing so if I ever run into a random game someplace I'm really thrilled but you know on location you know I'll play anything i would say at this point i've been so many places and i've taken pictures of so many things and played so many things i'm looking for rare stuff at this point you know yep that's why when i'm going to pastimes arcade rob burke's place in ohio you'll see things that no one has anywhere and i'm just going there and i'm like oh yeah so for me you know i i want anything that i haven't played before because i've already seen so much stuff but then i also like to chase achievements in Insider Connected with Stern. You know, those things are addictive, man. Anytime I see a Stern. Oh, it is. It's like new badges. I'm like, oh, I got to get them. Or new achievements or whatever. Yeah, not even the badges as much as the achievements. Like, I want to try. It's like the Steam achievements. I'm always trying to hit the Steam achievements in games. It's the same concept. It's like Pavlov's dog. You hear the little boom when you get the achievement and you're all excited. did you get a leaderboard for your uh for your arcade at the house now that they haven't no i haven't done the home edition yet i i should of course it may be kind of boring unless you got a bunch of people playing well you know that's the funny thing is like the one reason why i might not is just because like it'd just be like me me me me me i just feel like looking at my top 10 lead scores of all well that's the thing it will only allow it will only put your high score on there I won't put all of them lined up. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. So it would just be you. It would just be me by myself. Yep. It would just be me by myself. Well, I guess there are. You could make a few different accounts and make it, you know, interesting. So how does it work? So if it only shows one score for each person, does it show no other scores if you're the entire top 10? Or would it show the next highest non-you? It would show. Yeah, so it doesn't really go off of the high scores like your game would. So you could hold grand champion, high score one, two, and three. On a leaderboard, it's just your highest score to date that you've got on that game will show up on there. Oh, okay. And then it would be someone else's highest score to date? Yep. Even though if you went over to the machine, the scores would obviously be different. Say your machine that you play every day is going to have all just pure high scores. It would actually be okay then because then I have other people over sometimes for parties and whatnot that would have connected accounts and they would show. So it wouldn't just show. I haven't seen the home leaderboards in person yet, so I didn't know if it would just show 10 of me. That would be too much for me. No, I mean if someone only scored 1,000 points and it was the second score to go up, they'd be in second place. Okay, that would be entertaining. So it is kind of cool for some people that aren't as good, and especially if it's not filled up yet, like, yeah, I'm second place, you know, or whatever. Yeah. You've got a few people on there. That would be entertaining. Maybe I should do that then. I have to figure out a place. I have so much stuff hanging on the walls, like banners and flyers and things like that and playfields. I have to find a spot. Be a real tiny TV. Another TV, yeah. Maybe over by the bar I could put one in. All right, next question. A theme you can't believe hasn't been made yet. hmm i i know what theme i would make if i was going to make a homebrew how does that does that is that qualified sure i i definitely can believe this hasn't been made before but there's a tv show on the discovery channel and i don't know if it's considered obscure or not i've watched every episode but i don't know how many other people know what it is it's called expedition unknown and yeah i know exactly what you're talking about yeah expedition unknown there's a guy named josh Gates and he's basically a modern day Indiana Jones and um you know Josh Gates goes around and basically starts tries to solve all these mysteries so it's like he looks for Bigfoot he tries to find the Holy Grail he looks for the Ark of the Covenant he goes to the Great Pyramids in ancient Egypt he goes and looks for um the Loch Ness Monster so my thought for a pinball machine would be you could use all of those things they're all basically free ip or open source or you know yeah open intellectual property like the yet bigfoot yeti loch ness monster holy grail all those things and you know you could license with josh gates or discovery channel for expedition unknown and it would be a game that had vibes of indiana jones it would have vibes of like Ripley's Believe It or Not. And I don't think the licensing would be that expensive because, on a side note, Josh Gates is actually a fan of retro arcades. I know because I follow him on social media. He goes to play pinball and arcade stuff with his kids. So I sure he be all in on having a pinball machine with him in it So you could get all these different adventures You could go on like Ripley Believe It or Not or Indiana Jones and you could do the Loch Ness Monster And, I mean, you could have infinite levels. There's so many different mysteries that are just out there. Aliens, like Area 51, whatever, you know. So that would be, if I was going to do a homebrew, which I don't have the time or probably talent to do. I'm working on one right now, actually. Oh, are you? That's awesome. I hope to bring it to TPF 2027. We just got started on it, and I'm starting. I got all the boards wired in and stuff, and the play field's getting the first white woods. Have you announced what the theme is? No, I'm going to wait until I get a little further in, and then I'm going to go all out. I'm going to do a teaser video, an actual launch video. I'm doing the whole nine yards. Oh, you got to send me all that. I'll definitely write about it for sure. Absolutely. I'm surprised no one's done like Bigfoot or any of those things you were mentioning is there a Bigfoot pinball machine? I don't think so sort of there was a Bigfoot pinball machine that they made like three units of back like it was basically as big or bigger than the Atari Hercules machine have you ever seen Hercules? yeah they played with like a billiard ball almost yeah it was like this gigantic machine and it was i think it was called bigfoot it kind of makes sense i think maybe it was a bally game and they only made like three prototype units of it so it was never made okay and there was a loch ness monster machine too i should google it that will also never made it past let's see that'd be kind of cool pinball it never made it past the prototype oh it was a game plan game Oh, okay. Game Plan was like a short-lived 1980s manufacturer. So Game Plan had one unit. They made one Loch Ness Monster machine in 1985. Okay. That kind of seems like a cool theme to me. Like, I just got a Grand Lizard recently, and I don't even know what the hell a Grand Lizard is, but it's cool. It's probably supposed to be like a knockoff Godzilla or something. Yeah, it's actually cool. That is a cool game. Oh, yeah. It's a prototype too, the one I got. It's got a different back glass and all the plastics are different and stuff. Stamped on the side of it, it says display number three. Oh, wow. That's cool. I picked it up for $1,000. I'm like, hell yeah. Oh, wow. That's awesome. I had a prototype Bally Atlantis one time. Awesome. Very cool. Here it is. Bigfoot was a Bally machine in 1976. Two were produced. Oh, man. That could have been cool by Bally. Yeah, dude. It's humongous. Oh, yeah. I forgot it's huge. No, well, yeah. I don't know what it would have been like because Hercules is so floaty and slow. It probably would have played like garbage, but it would have been cool to see. Chris Turner, if you're listening, make a Bigfoot machine. Yeah, that would be a good one. It would be unlicensed, too, so it would be totally – Yeah, that's what I was thinking. You know what? Bigfoot is in another game. It's in Whitewater. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if I don't, I don't think they call, I think they call it Yukon Yeti in there or something. I'm not sure what they call it in Whitewater. I don't think there's anything like copyrighted about the name Bigfoot or. Because the sequel to Whitewater, Whitewater 2, that Dennis Nordman was working on at Deep Root when he was there was called Yukon Yeti. So I don't know if that's the actual name of the Bigfoot in the first Whitewater or he just like kind of called it that. Right. So that, that one's out there too. that kind of Bigfoot. And then the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant are in Indiana Jones, you know, the adventure. Yeah. But there's not a whole lot of, like, mysteries and cryptids, and that's what they call, like, the creatures. Yeah, someone should look into that. That could be a cool original theme, you know? I think Ripley's Believe It or Not has some stuff in it, but I don't remember the exact modes in that game. so uh what's a theme that's been made in the past that you would like a another pinball manufacturer to make today not the same layout you know totally new game that you'd like another company to revisit i think i'll uh take the easy road and go with our ghostbusters answer because that game i mean besides the tainted nature of everything associated with it right Like that game, the flipper gap kills me. I know everyone who's listening is going to say play better. Well, I can't play better, and the flipper gap kills me. So I would like a game that has a slightly smaller flipper gap based on Ghostbusters. That would be cool. Plus you could do it now with the LCD assets, which, you know, weren't in the original. Oh, it could be so cool. I was really hoping Jersey Jack had it, but I guess that whole rumor is dead now. um yeah i don't you know i heard that that was just made up by the the pinball magazine pinball news guys it'll definitely get you some clicks yeah yeah um do you have a favorite pinball moment like a memory from a show or you know a meetup or something uh favorite pinball moment You know, actually, one of the ones I really enjoyed was I did go to another show when we were talking about shows before, but the show doesn't exist anymore. It was called Replay FX. It was a big pinball show and arcade show in Pittsburgh. And it was at, I guess it's called the Pittsburgh Convention Center. I forget what it's called, but there's a big convention center right in the middle of Pittsburgh. And if you're familiar with Papa, the Professional Amateur Pinball Association, they used to run the pinball side of replay effects. And they would bring all these rare Papa games and just awesome games on one side. And then on the other side, it was just the whole arcade community from Pittsburgh would bring all their games either. And the show was humongous. And I went, I would have to Google it or look it up because I wrote an article about it. But I went with my kids when they were young and my wife. And we just did a road trip to Pittsburgh. We used to do lots of family road trips. And all four of us went. And that was the first pinball show that I ever went to was the Replay FX show. And we just had an outstanding time, such a good time. And I have such good memories of when my kids were little. And then we just went and did all of Pittsburgh. And I've really grown to love Pittsburgh. It's a fantastic pinball town. I've never been there. I know they have a big tournament scene there I've looked up a few years ago. There's so many good locations. I mean, that's the arcade road trip next week that Rob and I are doing. We're doing Pittsburgh and Ohio. And I've been to Pittsburgh on arcade trips like four times already probably. There's just so many good locations there. Well, you do a wonderful job, man. That's all I got here. Do you have anything else you would like to touch on? Uh, that would require planning. Tell us your secrets. Yeah, it's been a quiet week. I wrote an article today asking where Pokemon was, and I had heard that it might not be out until February at this point. But, you know, it's been after we had the KISS news when I wrote that KISS was the next remaster. And then we had all the huge news about American Pinball being sold last week. And then since then, it's been pretty quiet. So I don't have a whole lot of juicy rumors for you right now, unfortunately. Well, yeah. If I did, I would have written about them. Oh, I'm sure. I think a lot of people were hoping it was going to be a pinball at the beach, but I guess we're probably not going to see it there, it sounds like. Or maybe it will. Who knows? Someone told me that they were going to have – that it was going to be there, but I think it was delayed more than they had expected. I think it was supposed to be at the Consumer Electronics Show initially, and then for whatever reason it was delayed. And then, you know, they're probably not going to make it to pinball at the beach. But, you know, it's kind of vague at this point. That would be my guess is that it's not going to be there, but I don't know that for sure. I mean, it does make a lot of sense at this point. if they can't you know if if it was delayed i think that february is the anniversary month of pokemon i i forget what what year like the 35th or something like that i'm not sure what year it was i should probably google it you know but uh let's see pokemon anniversary yeah i feel like if they're not ready they're just don't release it you know wait until everything's ready it'll have a better it'll have a better uh response from the crowd i think okay pokemon's 30th anniversary is a year-long celebration kicking off on february 27th 2026 so if february is the 30th anniversary it makes a lot of sense for starting to just wait until that maybe get a teaser that day or something yeah i i guess you know i'm not a huge pokemon me either i don't I don't know anything about it, honestly. My knowledge of it is when my kids used to play the Pokemon Go app on their phones a lot. Yeah. But apparently someone was telling me they have, like, you know how, like, the Nintendo has the Nintendo Directs all the time? They have, like, it's basically just, like, what's new and what's coming at Nintendo, like a broadcast. Apparently there's a Pokemon one in February for what's new and what's coming. So that would make a lot of sense if Stern could get them to promote the new pinball machine and that, you know, that would make a lot of sense. Absolutely. My Pokemon knowledge is kind of limited. I think it's a cool idea to be able to collect all of the different characters in the game and things like that. I think it lends itself well to pinball, but I just don't have a lot of personal knowledge on it. I thought it would have been cool. Someone mentioned doing different art packages and not knowing what you get until you open it, kind of like when you open a pack of cards. I don't know if people would want to drop $10,000 on something and not know which one you're getting. Exactly. I didn't want that one. I wanted any of them but that one. What? Purple? People would be ordering replacement decals and ripping them off. It would be out of control. Yeah, so, I mean, that would be my guess is that it's the first week of February. But nothing would surprise me at this point. I haven't heard anything really concrete about when it's coming. Cool. Well, if that's it, tell them how to find all of your awesome material and how to contact you, man. Oh, thanks. Yeah, the website is naparcade.com. I finally got that back. Someone had hijacked that for many years. Yeah, someone hijacked it. And I think they forgot to renew it or let it slip, and I was able to swoop in and get it back. So naparcade.com. You can also use .org if you want. That was the one I was using when I didn't have the .com. Okay. Or naparcade on Facebook, Instagram, and Blue Sky. That's where I share a lot of pictures of games and things like that. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was a lot of fun. And I got to learn a lot about you, man. Absolutely. All right. Until next time. I'll see you later, buddy. Thanks. Bye bye.