Journalist Tool

Kineticist

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

v0.1.0

← Back to items

We Are Pinball #20 "D&D! AP! Giant WAP episode!"

We Are Pinball (WAP)·podcast_episode·1h 1m·analyzed·Jan 10, 2025
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Don shares Stern D&D factory tour hands-on experience; praises Pro tier value.

Summary

Don and Genghis celebrate We Are Pinball's 20th episode and 750 Patreon subscribers. Don recounts his factory tour at Stern Pinball where he played hands-on with Dungeons & Dragons pinball in all three tiers (Pro/Premium/LE), praising the Pro version's value—it includes the gelatinous cube magnet mechanic, dragon head bash toy, and all shots/code despite costing $7,000. The game features character progression tied to the Insider system, a rotating weekly dungeon video mode with choice mechanics, and a full 8-ball multiball on Premium/LE. Don also mentions David Fix's departure from American Pinball and upcoming Evil Dead from Spooky.

Key Claims

  • Dungeons & Dragons Pro version includes gelatinous cube with magnets, dragon bash toy, all shots, and full code for $7,000

    high confidence · Don's direct hands-on experience at Stern factory; detailed mechanical breakdown

  • D&D features character progression tied to the Insider connected system; each character levels individually

    high confidence · Don played multiple versions and discussed character system mechanics

  • Dungeon mode resets every Sunday with new maze configurations; players can learn the path during the week

    high confidence · Don confirmed by playing the dungeon twice and discovering first left turn trap

  • Tournament mode is programmed into D&D to turn off dice roll randomness for competitive play

    high confidence · Don stated Stern showed them flipper modes including tournament setting

  • Dragon multiball on Premium/LE is 8-ball; on Pro, balls auto-launch from orbit instead of dragon firing

    high confidence · Don directly observed and played the difference between versions

  • David Fix was out at American Pinball (as of episode date)

    high confidence · Genghis mentioned news dropping that David Fix was out; Don referenced storing story details for after-party

  • Stern factory was shut down for inventory during tour; no production line activity

    high confidence · Don explicitly stated tools put away, no games on line, quietest he's seen it

  • We Are Pinball reached 750 paid Patreon subscribers within ~1 month of Patreon launch

    high confidence · Genghis stated figure directly

Notable Quotes

  • “With the X-Men, we got a lot of game for $7,000 on the Pro. Absolutely. Like, I don't want to put this in their head because, you know, I want them to keep doing games like this. But honestly, like, if the Pro version, if that gelatinous cube was just a flat plastic, we'd be like, yeah, we'd probably expect it.”

    Don @ ~mid-episode — Articulates the value proposition of Pro tier; Don's core thesis that Stern is improving Pro content without inflating base price

  • “I mean, if they go this route, I would say Stern will be a $7,000 game instead of a $13,000 game because if they pimp up those pros, a lot of people will be happy.”

    Genghis @ ~mid-episode — Suggests Pro-tier improvements could normalize $7k base pricing and reduce LE premium pressure

  • “It's just obvious that it should reset, right? Either on every game it should be, you know, different. But this with every Sunday, it's so well thought and well done.”

    Genghis @ ~late-mid-episode — Praise for D&D's dungeon mode design philosophy and reset cadence

  • “I bought the LE. No, I'm kidding. I haven't made any purchases yet.”

    Don @ ~end-episode — Breaks pattern of buying LE after factory tours; cites existing collection overflow (15 games, target max 10)

  • “Right now I got 15. So if I had nine games right now, I would have bought a premium for sure. But it's just that I'm overburdened here, man. I'm losing floor space.”

    Don @ ~end-episode — Reveals home collection constraints limiting purchasing despite game quality

  • “It's not the greatest game I've ever played, but it's better than good.”

    Don @ ~end-episode — Measured assessment of D&D overall quality—positive but not top-tier

  • “The whole thing that changes every Sunday, right?... Every Sunday is when that will all reset and be a different dungeon. But then for the whole week, you can play that same one over and over.”

    Don @ ~mid-episode — Explains weekly dungeon rotation mechanic—key replayability design feature

Entities

DonpersonGenghispersonStern PinballcompanyDungeons & Dragons pinballgameDwight SullivanpersonBrian EddypersonKylepersonJack Dangerperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Don's home collection at 15 games (exceeding 10-game target) constrains future purchases despite game quality; implies market saturation at collector level

    high · Don: 'Right now I got 15. So if I had nine games right now, I would have bought a premium for sure. But it's just that I'm overburdened here, man. I'm losing floor space.'

  • ?

    community_signal: We Are Pinball Patreon growth (750 paid subscribers in ~1 month) with segmented content tiers; Patreon after-party format driving additional value proposition

    high · Genghis: 'we got like 750 paid subscribers now'; discussion of after-party as 'the real show' with 1-hour bonus content; individual supporter shout-outs

  • ?

    event_signal: Stern factory tour with media/content creators (Don, Colin, Retro Ralph, Kerry Hardy); hands-on with three versions of D&D; structured 2.5-hour play session with 16 people, 3 games (10+ plays each)

    high · Don's detailed recounting of tour timeline, attendees, and play structure; Kyle and Eddy coordination

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong positive reception of D&D design quality and Pro-tier value; both hosts agree it's 'better than good' and praise mechanical polish

    high · Don: 'It's not the greatest game I've ever played, but it's better than good'; Genghis: 'I'm loving what Stern is doing right now'; discussion of balanced gameplay and shot accessibility

  • ?

    design_philosophy: D&D dungeon mode incorporates branching narrative, party-based dice roll randomness, and weekly reset cadence—intentional replayability and skill discovery design

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.186

0:00
The Big 20! Hey, Genghis. How many chicken wings do you want with your fried rice, buddy? I'd love some free chicken with the fried rice.
0:24
Lies. Lucid fried rice official video doing the intro for episode number 20 of WAP we are pinball worldwide pinball entertainment unchained untamed the big 20 man is the big 20 unpurchasable unarrestable unstoppable unforgettable unwashed and unclean straight for your dome oh my god what's up dude episode 20 so much stuff has gone on the last 24, 48, 36 hours, man.
0:57
Forget it. It's beautiful, man. We just came out with episode 19, but we cannot wait. We need more content. We need the big 20. This is beautiful. This is awesome. Hell yeah. So what has happened, Donnie? You visited. You visited Stern. I visited Stern. I visited Interium. I visited American Pinball. I was all over the damn place. All over the damn place. Everywhere. It's so beautiful. We're going to talk about all the details today. We're going to have some fun. We're going to talk about that. Some D&D action. Dungeons and dragons. Holy shit. And Twippies are up. People can vote. We're going to thank our special, special supporters here on number 20.
1:42
Donnie, we're about to hit a month since we started the Patreon. Man, that's it? Yeah, yeah. We got like 750 paid subscribers now. What the hell?
1:55
The cool part is, Donnie, the cool part is every time we make a show, we get new supporters. Hell yeah, man. Hell yeah. Yeah, baby. Bring it. Keep coming in, man. Don and Jenga's bottle service is always open, and we always got some sips to share with everybody.
Colin
person
Retro Ralphperson
Kerry Hardyperson
American Pinballcompany
David Fixperson
Spooky Pinballcompany
Evil Dead pinballgame
Kevinperson
Mikeperson
Aubrey Kiddperson
Enzo (Enzo LaPegna)person
Velvet Steveperson
We Are Pinballpodcast/organization
Pinball at the Beachevent
Interiumcompany
John Wick topperproduct

high · Dungeon features three-arrow choice mechanic, character dice rolls for bonus hits, weekly reset on Sundays, tournament mode to disable randomness

  • ?

    leak_detection: No new John Wick leaks observed during factory tour; previous wire harness sighting (last visit) did not repeat

    medium · Don: 'I didn't see any more John Wicktopper hints or anything. I think they accidentally left that out last time. They were making wire harnesses for John Wicktopper. And so we all saw that and were like, but then there was no other details. So I looked around. I didn't see anything else.'

  • $

    market_signal: Stern production update: Pro version production sample complete; LE hitting line after inventory; Premium delayed by parts (Dragon Heads) but expected resolved by February

    high · Don: 'there was a little bit of holdup, but my dealers haven't got their full allotments of premiums because of, like, Dragon Heads or some part they were waiting on. And now it sounds like it may be less of a problem now.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Don hired by Spooky Pinball; has early Evil Dead build; indicates seamless transition between Stern factory tour and Spooky relationship

    high · Genghis: 'You're getting another spooky game any day now. Evil Dead's coming soon, man. I reached out. They got me on a super early build'; Don confirming Pinball at the Beach public debut

  • ?

    personnel_signal: David Fix departed American Pinball; news broke during Stern tour day

    high · Genghis: 'right at that same time is when the news dropped that David Fix was out at America Pinball'; Don storing details for Patreon after-party; reference to visiting David Fix's office

  • $

    market_signal: Stern's Pro tier pricing and content strategy working to address market concerns; Don and Genghis both suggest if Pro remains $7k with enhanced features, LE premium pricing pressure reduces and market normalizes

    high · Don: 'if they go this route, I would say Stern will be a $7,000 game instead of a $13,000 game'; Pro includes dual-magnet cube, full code, all shots, dragon bash

  • ?

    product_strategy: D&D maintains consistent gelatinous cube magnet mechanics, dragon sculpt, and all shots across Pro/Premium/LE; differentiates via dragon animation level (pop-up vs. side-to-side firing), dungeon pop-up toy (mechanical vs. lit plastic), and multiball scale (3-ball vs. 8-ball dragon multiball)

    high · Don confirmed Pro includes full cube, magnets, dragon head detection, all lighting and ramps; Premium/LE add moving dragon with fireball ejection and dungeon pop-up toy

  • ?

    technology_signal: Insider connected system integration with D&D enabling cross-location character progression and experience carryover across Pro/Premium/LE tiers

    high · Don: 'your character would carry on you know whether you're at home or whether you're on location yeah and that's all no matter which version'; four characters each levelable individually

    • 2:14
    And you know what? I'm getting sentimental when stuff like this happens. You big baby. A few days ago, we got Kevin in the house. Kevin, the new supporter. Thank you, Kevin. They keep coming, dude. Every time I check, my damn email is more people.
    2:33
    But, Kevin, you know what? Kevin writes. Thank you. Kevin writes, guys, I really love the WAP. my favorite pinball podcast for sure. You guys are funny, positive, and keep it real. I mean, stuff like that, I love it. He left out good looking, but that's fine. That's fine. He also writes this, Donnie. Don, you need to get some medium warp t-shirts. I want to buy some merch to rep you guys in Boston. So, Donnie, we need some t-shirts, my friend. All right, but I'll press up some mediums. The first pressing was only extra-larges, and they're gone. So, yeah, I need to get some more sizes in. And then we just deal direct, man. Me and you, hustle, back of the trunk of my Buick. I'll slide a bird out to you.
    3:22
    Let's do that. But that's enough, dude. It's not enough with Kevin. We've got Mike in the house. Welcome, Mike. Mike, welcome. Come in the door, buddy. Let your nuts hang. It's all good. Another great supporter. We are just so thankful. Thank you for being a part of the team, Mike. So beautiful to have you here. And Don and I, we were talking about this. We were having fun. And what happened? Aubrey Kidd came through the house!
    3:51
    Oh, my God. Another Patreon supporter. Every time I turn around. I mean, isn't it crazy? It's so amazing, Donnie. Every time I look around. Dude, and it's the bonus content, I'm telling you, man. Like, you know, we'll do the show. We don't radio style and everything, keep highest quality, highest broadcasting standards. And then when we go to the after show, it's like the after party, man. We're in the green room kicking back like, yo, let me tell you what really happened. Let me tell you what's really going on. People love the after parties. But Tony, last time our show was like an hour long, but the after party was almost an hour long also. The after party is the real show. This is just the preamble. This is just us getting turnt in there. We're getting learnt. We talked about like 10, 15, maximum 20 minutes when it was after party, but an hour-long show? Donnie, come on, man. I mean, yeah, this is like, you know, Poison takes the stage, but like the real show is after they leave the stage, right? It's on the back of the green room, so that's what we'd be doing. So I think I got some story details I'd like to save for the after party of what exactly occurred at American Pinball when I was over there. Oh, so all that behind-the-door stuff? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so you entered American Pinball. You were in there. Did you visit David Fix's office?
    5:13
    Well, yeah. Okay, okay, okay. Let's talk about it in the Patreon after party show. Oh, God, I can't wait. Before we start, we have to say thank you to Enzo. Enzo Ferrari in the house. My homie from Australia, Perth, makes a hell of a pizza, let me tell you. Also, a hell of a game room. I mean, he's on producer level, 50-box supporter. So we will thank Enzo Ferrari every time. Listen to this name, Enzo LaPegna. I love it. It's so sexy. I love it. Thank you for the support, Enzo. We love you, buddy. I think LaPegna is Italian for spatula, but, like, it doesn't even sound like that. It sounds fancy.
    5:53
    And he's welcome, man, anytime you want. Just like Jeremy Ford, 50-box supporter. Jeremy's awesome. That's awesome.
    6:04
    That's, yeah. Just awesome, Donnie. And who's our biggest supporter? Our executive producer level supporter? It's Velvet Steve. It's Velvet Steve, baby. All right. Amazing. I mean, Velvet Steve, I mean, I love this guy. Like, Donnie, 100 bucks, man.
    6:28
    It's, yeah, we can just say. There's a hot tear rolling down Cengiz's face right now. Yeah, it's just, we never thought this would happen this fast. So, Bill and Steve, thank you, buddy. Thank you for being on this team. It's beautiful. All right, all right. Yeah, welcome to the new supporters. This is beautiful. Yeah, so let's start this beautiful show. Donnie was invited by Stern. He was hyped. He was calling me. who was like, whoa, Jengis, this is awesome. You should be here. He was together with Colin. Colin said hi, and I was like, hi, dude. You know Jetson from there? Yeah. He was together with Retro Ralph, and it was like, dude, come over here. I felt like I was together with you guys, and it was just so beautiful. How was the whole experience? We were kicking back. We got some lunch, right? So we got some gangsta salads going on and some sandwiches and soups at Cafe Zumba by Interium. So yeah, it was me, Colin Alzheimer Retro Ralph, Vic VP Kerry Hardy was there, we're all hanging out Jenga's jumped in, so it felt like we had the boys All together at the table, man And this was the pre-show, getting ready To head over to Stern And then like, right at that same time Is when the news dropped that David Fix was out at America Pinball On any other day That would have been top news story But like, we were also about to go to Stern Pinball And go play this brand new game And get a tour and hang out and talked to Brian Eddy and Dwight Sullivan, and all that happened too. It was like this day just kept getting crazier. But go ahead. Go ahead. I'll let you narrate. You ask me anything. I got all the information. What a day, man. What a day. So you entered their factory. It's big. It's beautiful. It's bright white, and it's all clean, and it's just so sexy. It's good looking. So who did welcome you? Was it all day long with the designer, or how was it? Yeah, yeah. It was great. We hung out with Kyle. He's one of their engineer troubleshooter guys. God, what a cool guy. He's also seven feet tall. He gave us a tour through the factory. We got let in. We looked at the machines real quick. And then Dwight and Brian and Eddie were going to give us a whole rundown. So they said, go play in the factory real quick. Come back. We'll be ready for you. So we all go in there. Kyle walks us through the whole place. Now, they're all shut down for inventory right now. So there was, like, nobody working on the line. So I've never seen the factory like that. Like, all the tools were put away. There was no games on the line. It's like the only time I've ever seen Stern Pinball as quiet as American Pinball. It was wild.
    9:04
    It's inventory time. So it was fun. I didn't see any more John Wicktopper hints or anything. I think they accidentally left that out last time. They were making wire harnesses for John Wicktopper. And so we all saw that and were like, but then there was no other details. So I looked around. I didn't see anything else. Nothing else leaked out. If Stern should give the biggest F you back, they should just put a big gun on that topper. Oh, can you imagine? Yeah, just double guns there.
    9:37
    They should do that. That's the biggest flex, man. That would be awesome. So, yeah, so Kyle was leading the tour. Jack Danger was there as well. A couple of the other guys from Stern were out at CES in Las Vegas. But, man, yeah, it was all just good times, dude. It's like going back home. This is like my third or fourth time through the factory in the last couple of months. It's wild. Beautiful. Yeah, but, you know, they got the production sample of the pro there, you know, so that will be the one that's gone through the line that everything else will be kind of in reference to. LEs will be hitting the line as soon as the inventory is done. And then pros and then premiums. And initially I was told, like, you know, there was a little bit of holdup, but my dealers haven't got their full allotments of premiums because of, like, Dragon Heads or some part they were waiting on. And now it sounds like it may be less of a problem now. By the time they do get to February and do get to putting the premiums on, there should be probably a little bit more, I would surmise, based on kind of what I was hearing, some feedback that I got. Yeah. I mean, if there's one thing Stern is pro at, that's the production level, man. They will produce. No worries there. Yeah. So you had hands-on experience with the LE and the pro? Pro, premium, and LE, all three of them. Yeah. So from like 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., that's two hours, two and a half hours. It was nothing but like all hands on deck. There was about 16 of us and three games. And so we all got to have like 10-plus games on all the games all together. What level did you end up with? Oh, dude, the scoring is so not balanced right now.
    11:08
    So like we were all getting like two, three, six billion points. It was great. could you could you i mean did so did you lock on insider connected and you know played with on the illy version and got to level four and started a new game on the pro version could you just continue from level four your character yeah your character would carry on you know whether you're at home or whether you're on location yeah and that's all no matter which version yeah and there's and so there's there's four characters this time too like with venom with john wick like your code levels up but um in this game like each character you pick can individually level which is cool so it's like they took all the replay value from venom and just multiplied it no they raised it to the fourth power man it's like a cube thing it's a huge um there's so much to do in this damn game um i will say like the first thing i noticed walking up to it is how shiny and blue that gelatinous cube is it looks so good in person there's little weapons on it on each side, dude. It's awesome. There's one magnet in the bottom of the cube, and it can grab a ball from the top and the bottom.
    12:16
    And then if you shoot it in the bottom, you get a three-ball multi-ball. If you shoot it in the top, you get a four-ball multi-ball. It's awesome. There's so much in this game. Does it do the same effect with, you know, if you shoot the orbiter or something? It grabs the ball underneath and just lets it go slowly, just like in roller games, feeds it off a right flipper. Does it do that? Rock, rock, rock and roll the game. Yeah, so there's times when you shoot it and it races on through. Other times it will get caught on that magnet and give you that nice soft release. And the shots off that upper flipper are easy. The first couple times I did it, I was making shots in that ramp right across there. So the shots all feel nice and not wide open, but they're not tight at all. So everything is a nice, fair. It has got the ramp shot. It has got the loopable shot. Is the loop shot from the upright flipper, is it as good loopable as on shadow? Is it that good? I don't have a ton of experience with the one on shadow, but I do with the one on rush, and it shoots just like that. Also, there's one more shot I didn't even realize, but when the dungeon pops up, you can get in there from that upper flipper too.
    13:23
    Oh. Yeah, because looking at it, it looks like you would just hit the side of it, but they have it placed so you can actually shoot into it. I was able to pull it off. Is it in a way possible to shoot with the right flipper, you know, right flipper, and shoot that ramp that should be shot with the upper right flipper? Oh, the ramp that's all the way on the left? Yeah. Is it possible? I think I may have saw that once, but it was like a snitch shot. Like it banged off of something and then did go up there. Yeah. Because that ramp, that cross field ramp there behind the dragon, it's not very steep. So, you know, if the ball ricochets in there, it could have a good chance of going. But it felt very good from the upper flipper. If Keith Elwin made this design, he would have put a bow-legged ramp up there just like in the Avengers. So you could do it with the right flipper also. That could be awesome. But all in all, what a shiny game. I love to watch your live feed and everything you share with me. And the game looks awesome, man. It's fun to play, yeah. The $1,000 question. Uh-huh. With the X-Men, we got a lot of game for $7,000 on the Pro. Yeah. How is it here? Do we get a lot of games for the $7,000 Pro again? Absolutely. Like, I don't want to put this in their head because, you know, I want them to keep doing games like this. But honestly, like, if the Pro version, if that gelatinous cube was just a flat plastic, we'd be like, yeah, we'd probably expect it. With no magnets. Yeah, we'd probably expect it. But no, you get the full cube. You get the magnets. It's you get the dragon head that bobs up and down, doesn't do the side-to-side smooth motion, doesn't fire the balls out. Like those two things are really super fun. Does it have detection on the mouth when you hit it on the pro? Yeah, it does. Now, the other dragon has this kind of omnidirectional sensor. I don't know if that's just a fancy word for, you know, a captive ball with a couple of sensors around it or if it's like really some cool tech. You know, so I imagine, you know, it just functions as a bash toy like anything else. But head goes up and then you can hit those Stand up targets underneath Head goes down you can bash it And that kind of what you get But you get all the lighting still too And the dragon is still sculpted as well as the other one All the other shots are the same. There's no wire form that's missing. There's no ramp that's missing like we see on pros, you know, like you saw on Venom, like you saw on Rush where there was, like, a complete wire form that wasn't there. Like, all the shots are in there. All the code is in there. All the magnets are in there. It's just the gesticulating dragon and the pop-up-and-down dungeon. Yeah. I mean, if they go this route, I would say Stern will be a $7,000 game instead of $13,000 game because if they pimp up those pros, a lot of people will be happy. And you know what? Ailey buyers are Ailey buyers. They will buy no matter what unless it's a really stinky theme or something. But this theme is pretty universal. So if you don't know Dungeons & Dragons, then you know this is something with dragons. Everybody knows dragons. Dragons are cool. Yeah. You know, swords and magic or what you want to call it. Yeah, I was talking about this, you know, because people are like, well, D&D is for nerds. And I'm like, get out of here. It's pinball. Now, they could have done just a dungeon and dragon pinball machine, right, that didn't use the D&D license, you know. Like in the 80s. Yeah, there could have been a dragon in there and they could have made up their own characters. But you know what? It would have just been a knockoff of D&D. You know, they would have had to, you know, change the names of the attributes. You know, you can use dice, but it wouldn't be like the D&D official dice. You couldn't use official names and things that everybody knows. So, like, this is a case where the license made the game so much better because it's not an imitation of Dungeons & Dragons, which is what it would have been. This actually gets to use all of those assets, all that art. And then, you know, people recognize this a lot more than if it was just called dungeon castle adventure right and p plus people in the dungeon dragons gaming community if some of them you know starts to buying pinball machine and gets interested in pinball because it is the same form of should i call nerdiness or what you want to call it you know which is beautiful it's the same thing so if we could expand in this way it could be awesome why not i love it i was talking to the Stern employees too because they like they like pinball they like modding games and I'll mention like people are going to take their little pewter figurines that they play their table cup games with and they're going to put their own figures in this game and like Brian Eddie's like yeah you can line them all up right along here and he's showing me along the launch canal where there's tons of place for it did it have a ultra plunge problem something like that did it have some mechanical like on the x-men zero there's nothing nothing like that at all No, no, the plunges go just fine. The plunges, a full plunge will go right around the orbit, come to the left flipper. Yeah. And if you have the premium LE and you need to stage balls for the multi-ball event, balls will just auto-launch around and then go into a diverter and then get locked inside the dragon. So, you know, it all feeds just fine. You can short plunge and get skill shots. Like, it's awesome. I didn't notice that there was any shot where, like, if you hold the flipper and shoot, it'll go all the way around because it just does that anyway. Okay. I just want to ask you about the Pro and the Elite. So on the Elite or Premium, the Dragon gets to feed those balls in the multiple mode, and he will shoot fireballs at you. So if he doesn't do that on the Pro, where does the balls come? Do they just, you know, get shot and come from the left orbit? Yeah, they'll just auto-launch and start coming out. So they'll feed from the orbit instead of directly from the Dragon. Okay. And did you see the dragon shooting the balls left and right, or was it just standstill? Oh, no, it's constant. When you're in the dragon multi-ball battle, which is the easiest multi-ball to get, like the closest one to the start button, yeah, it starts, and he's just spitting right away. Boom, boom, boom. And then all of a sudden, the whole field is full of balls because the premium version has an eight-ball multi-ball going on. And so you can raise that shield and just let all the balls fall on the flippers, and then you hit both at once, and it's like a spread shot from Contra. It's just boom. The balls explode everywhere.
    19:49
    Awesome. I know exactly what that means. Oh, my God. Is it, you know, in the program where the head of the dragon is at its lowest position when he shoots the ball, or is it up top and it shoots and it lands on top of the slingshot plastic and outlanes? I'm trying to remember. I think he's down. But I mean, you know, a top position and just fire them out. Yeah, I think he's down. There's a huge piece of mylar on the middle of the play field, though, just because of all the balls that are going to be bouncing and hitting down there. Oh, nice. Yeah, but either way, like the ball's released just fine. There were no air ball issues at all. And then when you're playing, you know, his head will be up, and your goal is to, you know, smack his face. So you hit the target, so drop his head, and then that's when you can hit him with the ball. And the way we were playing, the way the game was set up, you have basically six hits to the dragon you have to make to get to the victory, or he has to make you drain like 15 balls. And if that happens, then it's over and he wins. So instead of a ball save, it's just like, okay, you've got 15 balls. If they all drain, forget it. Otherwise, they'll keep feeding until as long as you got them. And at that time, you will have the shield up, right? Yeah, you can bring the shield up. And the shield isn't just like an up post. I mean, you know, it's positioned and set, so it's got a nice curve to it. So it sits there between the flippers, and it'll let the balls sit there. And if you have one ball down and it rests, and then you go ahead and flip, it'll go right up one of the ramps too. So it's kind of nice how that's set up.
    21:21
    Wow, that's cool. But it stays up for a while too. Like it seemed like five or ten seconds. So it gives you time to let the balls all settle, and then you can, bam, monkey slap and throw them everywhere. Did it have some sort of metal protector around it? Because when the shield is down and the ball rolls over, it will chip off that area. Right. No, I did not see that. I mean, I did look, and it's not there, no. So I don't know if somebody needs to design a cliffy just to protect it. Yeah. Or, eh. I'd like, you know, when the shield's down, it's still kind of taking some space there, so it's not like it's a big empty cavity that balls are going to keep going in. But, yeah, they could catch an edge. Absolutely, man. I remember when we got Jurassic Park, Ellie, it was so cool that the dino could, you know, shake his head left and right and throw the ball on the play field. but like one out of 20 times it shook his head all the way to the right and it spits the ball and it land on top of the plastic of the pop bombers and we were like oh no it crashed pop bomber plastic but it never crashed but that's why i was just you know curious does it take the head all the way up and shoot or you know shoot while it is taking the head up so you can shoot up and hit the glass off the pinball machine and slam down, you know. Oh, man, yeah. Crazy effects like that. Yeah, no, nothing like that. And it was fun because as the balls are draining and fed back in, they'll feed back into him and he'll spit them at you. Like, it was awesome. So that cube, it's completely identical on the Pro, right? Yeah, exactly the same.
    22:55
    They kept the upper, lower magnet effect, everything. Yeah, yeah. You're not missing anything here. And the dragon is the same sculpted piece on all three of them, too. I'm loving what Stern is doing right now. I mean, kudos to Stern. Beautiful stuff because not everybody has got $13,000 every three months for a game. So now you are getting a lot of game for $7,000. I mean, this should just continue on. I'm loving this. Absolutely. So I want to ask you about the last thing between pro and elite. Yeah. Jumping up. The dungeon. Dungeon shot. Yeah. So it's obvious on the pro premium elite. How is it on the pro? I mean, how do they do the effect? Oh, so, yeah, I didn't play the pro a ton to notice this, but I think it just lights up underneath it. There's still the hole in the play field. They just put a plastic over it. Oh, and it's lit? Yeah, and it lights from underneath to tell you that it's active. And then what you do is you shoot through into the spinner shot, into the spinner buck, and that functions as a dungeon. So, you know, the dungeon's cool, but you're still getting a very similar, probably a little bit of an easier shot, actually, on a pro to activate the dungeon.
    24:12
    That being said, I like the dungeon. I thought the dungeon would feed into a subway, but there's not actually a subway there. It's just a blind scoop that grabs the ball, and then it goes back onto the play field. And then at the end, it'll pop back up and kick your ball out. oh okay so it keeps it up there yeah okay okay cool so when you're in the dungeon put your ball back out i forget we saw on the video that it had some sort of video mode where you know choose go left go right can you explain some of that what is that yeah so the dungeon pops up it's a first person view into a dungeon um and then uh you're back to playing the pinball machine and there'll be three inserts that are lit gold right and so you'll shoot one of those yellow inserts and that will advance one room in the dungeon and then usually what happens you have to hit two consecutive shots advance two rooms and then it gets to a decision point and when that happens the ball goes and locks somewhere so you can then look up at the screen and pick with your flippers which direction you want to go next and then it'll advance and you'll see what you get and then play continues so it's you know hit a couple shots and then it'll lock pick a direction and then play until you get to the next direction pick and and what happens when you come to this direction is it a room with gold or a room with orcs or what is it so yeah the gameplay will stop there and there'll be three different arrows turn right turn left or go straight let's say and go i went left and i got a dungeon right away and some there was some spinning spike traps and that ended the mode um if i went straight it would have just continued in the dungeon and if you go right then there might have been a treasure or something there so oh okay yeah and that the whole thing that changes every Sunday, right? Yeah, so when I went... Or is it more than that? No, so when I went back in the dungeon, I was starting over in the same dungeon, but I knew that first left turn goes to a trap, so when I got there, I picked a different direction, you know? And yeah, every Sunday is when that will all reset and be a different dungeon. But then for the whole week, you can play that same one over and over. Okay. I think that's pretty cool, man. Yeah, you know what? Even us, as we were playing, people would shout out, don't go left to the first turn, you know? Or take two right turns, you get an extra ball, you know. So then we knew that. It was fun. I mean, thinking about that, it's just obvious that it should reset, right? Either on every game it should be, you know, different. But this with every Sunday, it's so well thought and well done. And there's enemies in the dungeon too. So you may pick a turn and then a bunch of enemies pop up. Now you've got to battle them. So then there will be a couple of blue shots on the play field, and you hit a blue shot, and that damages the enemy. Now, you have your character that you selected, but you have the three other characters that are with you as well, and they can also battle. So if you hit a shot, you'll hit them, and then the other characters will roll their dice. And based on their dice rolls, they may do additional hits as well, right? And then as you're getting attacked, if you keep playing and you're not getting shots, your party members can die. and then when you do make a shot, you've got less people to roll dice to try to get extra shots on it.
    27:16
    Okay. So this with rolling with the dice, I'm thinking tournament gameplay. Rolling with the dice can give, you know. Right. So there's probably going to be a tournament setting that will turn off that randomness so everybody will get like the same dice rolls or something.
    27:32
    Okay, okay. So that's included or what? Yeah, there were a bunch of flipper modes in there. I didn't get to go through them all, but they did show them to us. And I think one of them was tournament where, like, the randomness is turned off. Oh, okay. So that's included. Okay, okay. I'm asking because one of our locations is very tournament people heavy. And, you know, that's the first, oh, it can be tournament mode. Yeah. Because if it's random, they flip out. We put out a radical out there, and they were like, there is some randomness on the back glass. You can score between 1 to 10 million points. And that was just those tournament players that were so angry. No, this doesn't do. So there is a tournament code for that game, so we should update it with that. And then everybody would get $5 million. It's just so boring. As soon as we inserted tournament mode, it was so boring as a single-player experience. But, yeah, so it's just an option, and it's programmed and thought about already. So the $1,000 question. You don't want to buy more games. Right. And people are saying every time Don visits a factory tour, he comes home with an LE. I love this. So what happened, Donnie? I bought the LE. No, I'm kidding.
    28:45
    I haven't made any purchases yet. Oh, okay. So you just broke the trend so nobody can say, including me, I cannot say anymore Don buys everything. Right.
    28:58
    Oh, and this is a great game. It's not a bad game. It's a good game, yeah. It's not the greatest game I've ever played, but it's better than good. Yeah, no. And, okay, you know, I want to have like 10 games at maximum. I think 10 games is plenty. Right now I got 15. So if I had nine games right now, I would have bought a premium for sure.
    29:23
    But it's just that I'm overburdened here, man. I'm losing floor space. I can see it in the background. And you're getting another spooky game any day now. Evil Dead's coming soon, man. I reached out. They got me on a super early build, so it might be next week. We'll see. Oh, my goodness. Can you imagine? You need to do a video with the guys. Invite them over to some pizza. Absolutely. That's going to happen. Yeah. Now, in a couple of weeks, we're going to be down in Florida for Pinball at the Beach, that convention, which will be the first public appearance of Evil Dead. I'm so excited for people to get to play that some more. But more and more people have been going by the Spooky Factory and getting their hands on the game. And, you know, they'll say even if the theme's not for them, they really like the gameplay. And if you like the theme at all, they're buying it. So that's awesome. Awesome. But it's not sold out yet, the Spooky Game. Last I checked, there was 198 left. Oh, you're still checking. They haven't changed that producer. Yeah. So if you go to Spooky and you try to order 300 games, it'll say, no, you have to order this many or less. And I guess that's kind of like a pretty crude way to see how many are left. Now, the guys told me that's not completely accurate because there's some show games in there and whatever. But, yeah, that's how I've been tracking it. Okay, so cool. And we know they have sold six games for that raffle show. Yeah, that was crazy. They did six raffles because each raffle kept selling out like in a few minutes I managed to get in on one so I tried a chance to win one But yeah they did all six and then they donating a Scooby to a children hospital
    31:04
    It's so good. And it's just a perfect game to donate also. Yeah, sure. Way to go, Spooky, man. That's so cool. We had to include that here. Yeah. About 190 games. How many was it when they came up? 888 is what they were going to make. Okay. Okay, okay. So they sold like 690 of them. I have some questions to Spooky, but let's just include them here on the show. I have some questions to them. All right, all right. So you're getting the game soon. You didn't buy Dungeons & Dragons. But if you sell, let's see, what do we have in the back? John Wick. If you sell your John Wick, what then? Yeah, if I sell John Wick, I'll probably pick one up. If I sell X-Men also, X-Men LE is still for sale. bargain basement prices come and get it shooting great um i should have the the flip the flipper fit or the shooter lane fix kit should be here in a week or so but that'll be ready to go it's got a topper i finished the powder coat on the whole thing so it's the best looking le you can get for sure you have put it out on sale on not yet um i floated the idea i got some people that are thinking about it um but i haven't listed it on pin side yet and actually i've been playing it a lot more too so i'm not in a rush i would like to see another big code update for it before i get rid of it so you know again it's not a rush to sell even if i bought dungeons and dragons i wouldn't even get it until february or march um and by then we're gonna see what barrels of fun has we're gonna see what jersey jack has next we're gonna see uh what has happening with american pinball yeah i i'm i'm actually really excited about barrels of fun because their first game what a game right yeah yeah theme integration and everything you got one over there no we have no distros of them over here yeah nothing that i know so we can't get them over here i was just playing it at interium the other night before the tournament and yeah i kind of missed my labyrinth man that game was fun yeah the topper yeah and the next rumor title dune oh my goodness i cannot wait i cannot wait that's a game for nerds i mean before we record it we talked about shots and layout of this game donnie um i would say this game it is open in the middle it looks much more accessible it's not the craziest shots on layout i mean if you compare this with x-men x-men shots on layout is much more complicated yeah dash modern you know next gen right yeah this is like if you have played bella williams games you will recognize a lot of shots i mean yeah all the shots in the back are either orbits or plastic ramps now the plastic ramps do go to wire forms which is cool i'm super into that um you know um but it's not like mandalorian where There's not really much to go after, and you have to kind of hunt and try to find things. I mean, this is like, just throw the ball up there. It's going to go somewhere. It's going to go into a ramp that goes up to a wire form or an orbit that goes up to something, or it's going to go up to down. But it's not complicated. It's not fraught with anything that's going to have any issues. There's no weird diverter problems. It was just fun, like a nest of stuff in the back, a big dragon to battle, a gelatinous cube, and code that is deeper than six anuses, man. And it's like – Yeah, man. Hey, that – when you have the upper right flipper up and you shoot the ball in there, what does it do? Does it trap and start a mode or what does it do up there? Oh, no. If you go under – Even if you go underneath it, it just – it rolls over a rollover switch and then comes right back to the flipper. There's no lock in there. There is on the left though. I didn't really realize this, but if you shoot that mimic shot on the left before you get to the orbit, that there's a big wide gate. The ball will go behind it and then fall into this little saucer that then kicks out. So that's kind of cool. Oh, okay. I couldn't see that on the pictures. Yeah, I didn't really notice either, but it's a pretty wide shot. It's easy to get in there, and then your ball will lock for a second. So if you're in a mode where you have to do a battle or something, it's one other place the ball can stage.
    35:24
    But, yeah, that was fun. That was fun. I mean, one of the biggest reasons that I am so excited about this game is, yes, we have to watch Sullivan on the Code, and I'm loving it because that guy, he just, you know, it's so deep and beautiful, advanced. Yeah. But Elizabeth is also on this coding team. She's awesome. So while I was there, I did some interviews, and I got to interview Elizabeth. Elizabeth Gieske. I think it's Gieske, not Gieske. Oh, my God, I keep messing it up. Can you imagine those two? Because she is a, don't get me wrong, She's a coding wizard, coding nerd also, really does this with love and passion, just like Dwight Sullivan. And having those two on the code. And here's the difference. Like, she's good at programming, but she's also got a mind for this, like a mind for games too. Yeah. When she talks, she talks pinball, right? I mean, I recorded with her for like 10 minutes, but we spent like a half hour after that just talking about, like, the theory about, you know, behind, you know, games and how you want lights to work. She told me that when the dragon is talking, they're going to change the code so the lights are kind of breathing when he's doing voices. Come here, tasty traveler. And then it will go back to the static light.
    36:44
    She was asking me, so what do you think about this game or this game? What do you see that we could improve? And I'm like, well, with John Wick, I want some kind of progression bar for a mode so visually I can look up and I see a reference of how much I have to go. She's like, right, right, good idea, good idea. and then she's got all the coins you're she's got a mind for call outs and things too and i didn't realize this but with dungeons and dragons they would just hand her a mode and say we need a mode during this come up with something and she would come up with the the rules for it the lighting for it the call outs for it in a way that like the player can engage with so i'm super enthusiastic about this that's what i meant man elizabeth is on the team also because she did magic on jaw Absolutely. I mean, come on. And now she's on this one.
    37:30
    Yeah, that's why I'm really, really excited. Good. That's beautiful. Good. And we don't need to say much about Brian Eddy. I mean, Brian Eddy is a legend. I mean, look at his portfolio. A lot of games. Awesome games. Yeah, I think, you know, for sure, Mandalorian Venom, a little bit lower on his overall tier list. But this is like a return to form now. It shoots better than Stranger Things, and I love Stranger Things. So, yeah, man. Brian's back. Dwight's happy. Elizabeth is on board. 17 different people doing call-outs, it seems like.
    38:07
    Yeah. So is this, you know, shots doesn't remind me of Medieval Madness, but, I mean, is it up there?
    38:16
    Would you buy this for $13,000 or a Medieval Madness for $13,000? I would buy this only because, you know, this is modern. This has modern rules. It has modern depth. And Medieval Madness is fun, but it's essentially, okay, let's just keep it in the castle, blow it up, hit the castle, blow it up. Okay, let's go to the next one. Oh, there's trolls now. Okay, hit the castle, blow it up. I want to hear Tina Fey for a little bit. All right, catapult, catapult, catapult. Okay, you know, it's like, it's super fun. It's funny. It's a great game. It's a classic. but like you know if i had it at home you know i'd play a game or two on it and then i would move on to something else this is a game that you can sit there for hours and just keep going and grinding your levels and trying to get farther in it and there's so much more to discover just in a modern game how am i not buying this i'm selling myself on it you will order this game at the end of the show yeah so yeah yeah it's the same problem with all bella williams games the rules are like 30 40 years old right there's just so much new stuff that's just you know that we have got right now and yeah as we said just a second ago dwight and elizabeth this is this is awesome yeah so i want to ask you yeah how was the not call outs but the music was it engaging was it good it was okay like it didn't get in its own way and i don't know that i really noticed it very much um you know i heard some of the calls it was low volume or what do you mean well it was pretty loud there was you know we're in a tiny brick room with three games right there cranking um you know it sounded like just fine fantasy type music you know but i didn't know it wasn't like black knight sort of rage where it starts and the guitars are coming in play better asshole like that was black knight's alternative music is very medieval oh that's right yeah yeah so it felt like yeah perfectly fine music. The fact that it didn't jump out at me probably means it's well suited for it. It wasn't jarring. I don't even know how much is even coded in there. A lot of the callouts weren't even in there yet in this early build code. So it's a little early to really weigh in on how's the music, how's the callouts, because there wasn't a ton yet. But Elizabeth was telling me there's so much that they're working on coding right now that's not there yet. I mean, listen. I'm loving stuff like that. I know this is cube i know i know this really doesn't matter but it does for some people what was the version of the code that and what were the numbers oh i think it just says production it's not even like i don't see a number yet okay because you know some game says 0.72 or 0.98 you know right so we have some kind of idea right now they have it at um ces code is what they call it so the game plays really easy, you know, because they want people that, you know, don't play pinball to come by and be able to do some things, you know. So we were all getting multiple billion points on this game. Like, this code is like, it's, I wouldn't even judge it based on this code yet. So it's too early to weigh in. It's too early to say on call outs, on music, and on scoring and things. But as far as getting in, throwing balls around a game you've never played before, make the dragon do the thing, explore the dungeon, play with the gelatinous cube. That was all we were doing. It was fun. Cool. So those three targets just underneath the dragon's head, Funches should collect gold shots there. But how dangerous were they? I mean, was it straight down the middle shot? No. How was it? No, no. We're not like Star Wars here. Okay, okay. And not even over to the, you know, straight down the right out lane, nothing like that? No, I wasn't getting a ton of drains there. It was mostly left out lane and then straight down the middle when I'd forget to hit the shield. Yeah. Okay. When you use the shield, what do you do to reactivate the shield?
    42:14
    I forget. I think you just got to hit some targets and then you can get it back. You can have up to three shields stacked.
    42:21
    And when it deploys, it's not like just an up post that comes up momentarily. I mean, it comes up and stays for like five, ten seconds or so. And I think depending on your character, it can stay up longer. So it was weird. I had to learn to, like, trust it. It wasn't just going to drop on me. and there is a little insert lit right in front of it, and it will start strobing faster and faster when it's getting ready to drop, so it gives you a visual indication of how much time you have. So if it's there just, like, glowing, just leave the balls there for a second. Let them all rest. Take a second. Take a breath, and then flip, man. So Dwight Sullivan, he's known for, you know, those flashers that will blind people. Yep. How was it on this game? Oh, it's flashy, man.
    43:02
    There's three flashers that are there. Yeah, there's no expression lights, but, yeah, honestly, the flashers are doing a lot. It has those yellow flashers at the back, you know, all the way back, and it has yellow flashers around just behind the slings. Those were the ones I was noticing the most were the ones that were downfield by the slings, yeah. Okay, okay. So, I mean, the pictures, videos, the art looks. And you've got to 3D print some dragon eggs to put over those flashers so they're like flashing eggs. You have to. Of course. There's so much stuff. I'm going to put a mimic in there. You've got to put a tavern in the back. Like, there's so much stuff. These mods are going to be amazing. I would put some sort of translucent dragons on those flashers, man, just sitting big dragons down there. Yeah, why not, man? Donnie, how was the art in the real deal, man? Because on the videos, on the pictures, it looks really nice. It looks even better in person, yeah, especially that mirrored back glass on the LE looked really good. And the art of the Ellie with the foil is just phenomenal in person.
    44:05
    But, you know, even the premium art, which I was kind of like, eh, that's the weakest one. It's good, man, in person. Like those two dragons that are fighting on the side. Fine, it works. It works. The pro art was a bit dark on the pictures. Yeah. Also the back glass on the sides. Does it work in the real deal? Yeah, yeah. Is it beautiful? It's fine when there's ambient lighting and you can see it. It doesn't have as many contrasting colors. If Christopher Franchi did this, you would see a lot of pops of color. So it doesn't have that. But this is like the art that you would see on a Magic the Gathering card. It's kind of like that soft Renaissance kind of style, I guess, where the colors are more muted and flowing into each other.
    44:48
    But I think it works for the game. The art looks cool, man. I didn't hate it. Nice. So with this early code and, you know, not trying it in your home, but, you know, like this was like location play with a lot of people. If you should give this a rating from 1 to 10, how would it be like? Okay. So, you know, if a 10 is like a Godzilla now where, like, the code is just amazing and just the shots flow from one to another. And then what's a 1? Like, are we talking Thunderbirds or Berrios Barbecue Challenge? One is Fire from Bella Williams. One is Junkyard from Bella Williams. I like Fire. Okay, okay, all right. So one is like, you know, games like that. All right, so if a game is a three, it's not like terrible. It's better than Fire. So if Stranger Things was a six, I'd say this is a seven out of ten. Okay, okay. So this early, this is a solid seven. Yeah, yeah. The shots are good, man. But it's not like I think there's something missing as far as shots that they could have put in there, right? It doesn't feel like with Venom, it's like, oh, I can think of 12 things I could put in here. With John Wick, I could think of like six things that I wish that game had in it. This one, I think it all works. There's not anything like where I thought there needs to be an extra ramp here, or why didn't they put an upper play field here, or why isn't there another Vuck shot? Why isn't there a catapult? It doesn't feel like it's missing anything. So Brian Eddy he known for actually putting a lot of stuff in his game but he is limited by the bill of material Did you ask him if you had you know five hundred dollars more would you put what what what did you plan so specifically i asked him about doing drop targets instead of stand-up targets in front of the dragon right and he said yeah like that was something i think they thought about um there were space issues underneath the the field where to place it and then budget issues is what he said is the reason they chose that instead of the stand-ups you know but i think that that gave them room in the budget to add the gelatinous cube to the pro so i'm not mad about it yeah oh yeah um yeah uh anything else i don't know i did ask about a spinner on the left orbit and i think again that was a space issue there just wasn't space there for it and i'm like yeah you can probably squeeze one in but how about expression lights because when you did i asked elizabeth is saying you know winter dragon talks can you imagine expression lights getting cold on the sides they gave me the standard response of we're kind of saving that for more of the music games and i'm like fucking john wick had it come on it should be in every game because you know when that dragon's breathing fire i want fire flames running down the side of the expression lights when i'm in the cube i want everything to turn yes so that would have made this game an eight honestly you know if it had the ability to put those lights in there because yeah can you imagine like candles flicking effects you know oh come on and when you when you when you advance when you advance in the dungeon like the the torches come down the sides oh my god yeah there's so much you could have done with it man i think they should have put them in i think you should have put them in um and just in normal play just this torch fire feeling before you start a mode. That's just real dungeon feelings, you know? Yeah, yeah. And you know what? Just route the cabinet out so if I want to put them in, I can put them in, you know? Yeah. I think that would have been awesome. All the cabinets, just... Come on. Yeah. Come on! Yeah. Come on. I mean, if that costs like $20 more, then just... Imagine if the LE came with expression lights, that's like an extra $600 of value right there. in the LE. So that would have been, that would have been awesome. Yeah. I mean, with this game, if they did that and didn't make the holes or the cutouts for the premier or pro those at least, I mean, I don't think they're sold out yet. Yeah. They would have sold out if that was the only one you could have put expression lights in. Hell yeah. Yeah.
    48:58
    I'm on that. All right, Tony. Sounds awesome. With this game. Next thing I want to talk to you about is Twippy Awards.
    49:10
    Twippies are happening in Houston in the end of February. I'm going to be on site for them, which is awesome. They're at the Wormhole. What? Yeah, the Wormhole Pinball. It's not on Texas? No, dude. February, Houston, Texas at the Wormhole is where we're doing them. And what's Wormhole? Wormhole is a giant arcade with 24 machines in it that they do a ton of streaming. They got – all right, so there's a guy in Texas, in Houston, that has like, I don't know, a million machines, tons of rare stuff. And so they rotate things through the wormhole, and they're working on building out like this huge pinball museum-ish place where they can just house like 500 games that are all rare and exclusive and stuff. Awesome. That's going to take a couple years before they're ready for that. But in the meantime, Wormhole is where they kind of put them out there. Jamie does a ton of streaming, and he does the Wormhole Pinball podcast from there too. Wait. Yeah. Jamie, is that the guy? You sent me a screenshot from a guy called Jamie. He said, love your WAP show. Oh, yeah. Is that the guy? I think that was the guy. Oh, cool, Jamie. Jamie Burchill, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, cool guy. Shout out. Shout out to Jamie Burchill. So him and Colin and Glenn and Ian from Nudge Magazine and others all got together, and they're doing the Twippies there this year. I bought myself a ticket, so I'm going to be able to go down there and be in the studio audience for the Twippies. This is not a Zach and Greg thing. No, not a Zach and Greg thing. I think they'll let you know that. If there's going to be a show like that, who's going to do the show? There's three hosts, actually.
    50:52
    I forget the woman's name that's doing it, but she does a lot of work with Wormhole. But Ian Jacoby from Nudge Magazine and this guy called Retro Ralph will be the other host.
    51:03
    So. We love Ralphie. So this should be a fun show to stream. I was thinking there was going to be a lot more industry awards in here, but when I voted, I didn't see a ton of them. I did get nominated for two categories, just to put that out there. Best Content Creator and Favorite Podcast. So go ahead and vote, you bastards. Go ahead and vote, people. I mean, I made a video. I made a promotion video because I want people to go in and vote. Not just vote for We Are Pinball, but just go in and vote because I think it's so cool that the Twippies are back. It's fun, man. I like it. I enjoy it. I got bashed for my video because people are saying, Genghis, why are you supporting this? This is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, negative people. Oh, my God. Some people want me to delete my video, stop promoting for this. I'm like, why? I think this is fun. And now, you know, Ralph is in there. Colin is doing this. This is fun. But I don't want more negativity. I made the video. I am promoting, and I'm proud of it. Guys, listen. How much money are you paying for the Twippies? Nothing. So if you don't like it, move your sorry ass along. Go be a grumpy fuck somewhere else. I mean, yeah. If you want to be negative, there are a lot of other shows out there you can listen to because then you can feed on others' negativity and you can all be in this negative hole. It just doesn't work here. Here, we love pinball. Pinball is just love and passion. We're enjoying it. It's fun. Yeah. Right? All my friends got together and they're doing an awards show. What's – huh? I don't know.
    52:56
    But I have some thoughts about this. First of all, best newcomer, we are pinball, was not included, Donnie.
    53:09
    You were together. When we talked on the phone, you were together with Colin. Why? Did you ask him why? I didn't. I don't want to be that guy. What? I know. What? You can just say, bro, why? I mean, this is a new show. in 2024 and we're celebrating 2024 i know but i it's fun i don't know i'm weird but it's fun just to get picked without asking you know then it feel like it means more you know so if i if i would have asked and then we showed up it's like you know did they really want us there it was only because i asked and but then again you don't get crap without asking so but he put is it he or the committee or i don't know who that does this i don't know but the people the people behind 2p They put us under, you know, pinball media content, something. Maybe you have to have 20 shows before those. You have to put 20 shows before you're eligible. Best newcomer.
    54:05
    I think it's a fail. We should be there. It's too late now. Go to hell, Twippies. No, man, it's too late now, so it is what it is. But as best newcomer, they have included Retro Ralph. Yeah. That's beautiful. He got my vote. Bash Pinball Podcast. Those guys are awesome.
    54:29
    Look, I don't know them, but I trust your judgment there. Yeah. The thing is, Donnie, there were so many locations. Did you see that? That's such a hard thing to do. Like, I'm pretty well-traveled, and I've only been to, like, three of them.
    54:46
    Yeah. I mean, I don't get why they have best locations in there. This is 2024. So if you want to vote, you have to visit all those locations in 2024 and then be an a-hole and judge one as the best and say to all the other location owners it's not that good. Essentially, it's like vote for the one that is near you that you've been to.
    55:14
    That's a hard thing. yeah it is i mean and i think twippy should be all about isolated 2024 pinball machines and the people that you know worked on them produced them presented them did something for the pinball you know and i like i like best art best music best call outs best theme integration um you know because then you know ninja cliffs best theme integration and then they have a Twippy, they can go put on their shelf. They can use that in marketing materials. Our game won best. That's what it's for. In roller coasters, we have the golden ticket awards, right? And there's a small committee that votes on them. Best roller coaster, best theme park, whatever, best theme park food. And then that company prints that out and puts it on their advertisement. Like we got the golden ticket for best value in the Midwest, you know? And so I think Twippy's could follow that course and be something that's, you know, good way to recognize people in the industry, but also give the companies a way to say, hey, look, our game won best of this, whatever. Or, you know, this show, Texas Pinball Festival, was voted the fan's favorite show, and they could put that on their marketing materials and things, and it works both ways. So maybe we'll get there, you know. Nobody asked for my advice, but I'll give it anyway. No, this is just positive feedback, nothing else, because, oh, my God, we read of the negativity on Facebook. I don't know why people are so angry about the trophies. I don't get it. I'm looking forward to it. I think it's fun, but I have an issue with not getting included as a newcomer because this show started back in 2024. Maybe they just forgot about us. I know Colin is a part of the WAP insanity. I mean, he's in there. Good to have you in there. Thank you, Colin. but uh yeah maybe they just it slipped or something yeah well because retro ralph is not new he made other stuff before 2024 but he made his you know flip side in 2024 so it's the same as our stuff you know we we made content for a long time but this is new so that that was a bit odd say well wear my wop shirt in the audience when i'm there and write oh wait Patreon again? oh my god that's on the next show Donny can we get another one? I don't know man I don't want to read it right now but yeah I just want to say please continue with this twippies it's cool I cannot wait to see what you have done I hope it will be good I hope the Audio quality and video quality will be good. Yes. That's very, very important. Yeah. Other than that, great welcome. I'm happy it's back. And if you want to be negative about it, then just ignore it that day. That's it. It requires literally nothing for you to do. So Colin and team, shout out. Thank you for doing this. It's awesome. That's what I want to say about that. Yeah. Absolutely. Plenty of negativity to go around right now, too, especially with that other company we haven't talked about yet.
    58:37
    The company you visited? Yes. You want to talk about it? A little 20% tour of what went on? Give us 20% and we can get the rest on the page. I love it. All right. So, yeah, I was heading down into Chicago, and then I saw it was actually Cary Hardy's Patreon that popped up first that David Fix was out. So this was reported by the Pinball News Magazine, right? And they did, like, a whole article about it. But essentially, David Fix's contract was not picked up for another season, is how they worded it. He thanked everybody for his time at the company, and he's moving on to greener pastures or whatnot. So I don't know.
    59:16
    We don't know. Was this, like, a sudden thing, or was this expected the whole time? I know Fix seemed a little bit melancholy on the Loser Kid interview, like, towards the end there a couple of times. So there may have been something going on. Did he stop or what is it? Did he stop or did he get stopped? Good question. I don't know. The press release just reads, and there was a statement from David that went out there, just pretty much say thanks, everybody, for my time here. My contract's not been renewed. Whether renewal was an option or not, who knows. And the true reason behind his departure, who knows. That's purely speculation. but this happened and we were literally sitting 10 minutes down the road from this place and so after lunch we had some time before the Stern tour and we're like guys we should just go over there are there moving trucks out front like the whole thing shut down or what's going on so everybody was like we saddled up four deep went over to Amtron we took some pictures in front of the sign just to say that we were there on that day and then I was like maybe I'll just open the door and go on in, walked right in, greeted by a member of staff there. I'm like, hey. Wait, wait, wait. Okay. That was 20%. Okay, she cut me off. All right, I was just getting going, man. All right. I want to hear what happened inside, man. Oh, this is music. Oh, we just hit one hour. We just hit one hour, man. It's time for the after party show.
    60:48
    That's beautiful, man. All right, everybody, thank you for listening. Thank you for new Patreon supporters. This is beautiful. Now it's after hours, and I'm telling you, Don's voice, Don's attitude. Get ready. Everything changes to 2.0 kit. It's just so beautiful. Come in and join us. Be a part of this team, guys. So see you on Patreon.
    61:13
    Yeah, it's number 20. Show number 20. Let's go, daddy. All right, everybody. Email us at wearepinball69 at gmail.com. Join our Patreon at patreon.com backslash wearepinball. $5 gets you in the door. $20 gets you more. $100 will get you whatever the hell you want from us, including producer credit, executive producer credit, and time on the show, man. We're more than just bottle service. We are fully serviceable.
    61:42
    More info as we get it. Thanks for joining, everybody. Flop 20 out. Let's start the after party. It's beginning right now.
    61:50
    Let's go.