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The Pinball Show Ep 162: Alice Does Wonderland

The Pinball Show·podcast_episode·1h 13m·analyzed·Oct 7, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

X-Men ships strong; Alice launches amid designer controversy and cautious reception.

Summary

The Pinball Show discusses Stern's X-Men LE shipping and production updates, Keith Elwin's insights on managing design teams, and the launch of Dutch Pinball's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (500 units at $12,499). Hosts express skepticism about Alice given designer John Popaduik's controversial history and mixed track record outside classic Williams/Bally titles, while praising X-Men's design, music, and unexpected LE details.

Key Claims

  • Stern is shipping Uncanny X-Men LEs now, Pros this week, Premiums right before/during Chicago Expo, Jurassic Park Pros late October, and possibly another 'old but new' game

    high confidence · Zach Manning discussing confirmed Stern production schedule

  • X-Men LE includes metallic foil interior art blades and polished plastic action button badges not heavily advertised

    high confidence · Zach Manning's hands-on experience unboxing unit #16

  • Flippin' Out Pinball's X-Men stream reached 300-350 concurrent viewers

    high confidence · Zach Manning reporting on Joel's stream milestone

  • Keith Elwin confirmed a new mech design from an unspecified design team is 'unlike anything he has ever seen in pinball'

    high confidence · Keith Elwin interview on Flippin' Out Pinball podcast with Joel

  • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland launching October 7th, 2024 with ~500 total units (300 in U.S.), priced at $12,499

    medium confidence · Zach Manning calling it 'the rumor' with tentative framing

  • Zach Manning believes X-Men will compete with Jaws for Game of the Year

    medium confidence · Zach's personal opinion comparing the two games

  • John Popaduik designed Alice as a foam core design approximately 10 years ago

    medium confidence · Zach Manning referencing the project's long development history

  • Zach Manning has serious reservations about Alice due to Popaduik's recent track record with games like Retro Atomic Zombie Adventure Land and Magic Girl

    high confidence · Extended critical analysis of Popaduik's non-Williams/Bally designs

Notable Quotes

  • “Managing the entire team. Meaning, like, these designers are working with suppliers... coordinating all of those people all of the working parts into production without a doubt that is like a big majority of that role as lead designer”

    Keith Elwin @ N/A — Reveals that lead designer role is primarily team/logistics management rather than pure design work; reframes what makes great designers successful

  • “If I'm taking it or leaving it, I'd actually leave it. I'm okay with that, without that.”

    Zach Manning @ N/A — Zach's ambivalence about specific playfield elements (Jabberwocky sculpt) on Alice

  • “I'm a J-Pop realist... I know that there are some J-Pop games that I think, quite frankly, are just complete fucking garbage... Retro Atomic Zombie Adventure Land? Fucking garbage.”

    Zach Manning @ N/A — Direct criticism of Popaduik's recent design work; establishes Zach's skepticism about Alice

  • “I don't think he's a good designer at all. I think he's had a couple of decent layouts, probably thanks to the Bally Williams team saving him.”

    Dennis Creasel @ N/A — Strong dismissal of Popaduik's design credentials; argues credit belongs to Williams/Bally infrastructure

  • “They've extended the teaser on this game a little bit too long... the problem that I have from a marketing and sales perspective here is that when you take a known entity like this rumored J-pop from 10 years ago kind of game, we've already been kind of fed little teasers for 10 fucking years.”

    Zach Manning @ N/A — Critique of Dutch Pinball's extended marketing campaign for Alice

  • “So people love the art, and then they think they like him as a designer.”

    Dennis Creasel @ N/A — Key thesis: Popaduik's reputation built on art direction rather than design merit

  • “No, just a bad game... Looked like shit. It looked to play like shit. The design features were laughably bad.”

    Zach Manning @ N/A — Visceral dismissal of Retro Atomic Zombie Adventure Land

Entities

Dutch PinballcompanyAlice's Adventures in WonderlandgameUncanny X-MengameStern PinballcompanyJohn PopaduikpersonKeith ElwinpersonZach ManningpersonDennis CreaselpersonFlippin' Out Pinball

Signals

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Significant skepticism and reservations about Alice among hosts despite openness to new game releases; concern about Popaduik's Zidware incident and track record

    high · Zach: 'I'm a realist... I'm hesitant... I want to like it but I'm cautious'; Dennis: 'combined with his reputation because of what happened with Zidware, that's why I don't think this project should exist'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Keith Elwin's 'Elwin effect' acknowledged: sales of Elwin-designed games tick up when new non-Elwin titles disappoint players

    medium · Zach: 'upon every new game release... people waiting to see what the new game is like... you see sales of Elwin games take a tick up because they're like, okay, I want it now... pull the trigger on Jaws, Jurassic Park, Godzilla'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: John Popaduik's design credibility questioned; hosts argue recent games (Houdini, Retro Atomic Zombie, Magic Girl, Jurassic Park) demonstrate poor layout design; credit attributed to art direction and Williams/Bally team support

    high · Dennis: 'I don't think he's a good designer at all... thanks to the Bally Williams team saving him'; Zach on Retro Atomic: 'complete fucking garbage... Looked like shit... The design features were laughably bad'

  • ?

    event_signal: Flippin' Out Pinball's X-Men stream reached 300-350 concurrent viewers; successful community engagement milestone around launch window

    high · Zach: 'Flippin' Out Pinball Joel ended up streaming it... He hit a milestone... over 300 concurrent viewers... he got up to 350'

  • ?

    leak_detection: Alice topper images leaked/teased through influencer channels and Naps Arcade before official Dutch Pinball reveal; three units being shipped to Chicago Expo in borrowed boxes

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.221

0:00
Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised.
0:11
The Pinball Network is online. Launching, The Pinball Show. This week on The Pinball Show, Dennis and I give you Sturm Pinball production updates. Hands-on experience with the Uncanny X-Men L.E. Keith Outland having a chat about team management and game development. New game launch with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Hot Halloween pinball sale over at American Pinball. Predicting sales strengths between Alice, the upcoming Cuphead, and other rumored games. As well as other pinistry news. Exclusive Pinball Show Club members this week get one hell of a segment that we're calling The Pinside Top 100? A closer look at the top 10 pinball machines of all time. Look, there are a lot of mouthpieces in pinball, but not all of them speak for themselves. This is the Pinball Show.
1:15
Pinball is a game of skill. For some, it's a passion and a lifestyle. It's time for the Pinball Show. It's pinball with personality.
1:27
From the start, you would wait behind. Hey, everybody. Guess what? It's the Pinball Show. It's episode 162 alongside Dennis Creasel and myself, Zach Manning. Dennis, how are you? How in the hell are you? I'm doing good, Zach. I know we're full of energy, excitement. There's so much for us to go over. We've talked about the X-Men pals recently. We've talked about Pandora and how they continue to battle over which bread bowl they want. No, that's Panera. But nonetheless, they have their preferences, I'm sure, in terms of soups. And here we are, ready to go. Before we jump into the news, this is a weird question, but I've just got to know. Oh, my God. I already hate this question. Okay. If I were to search throughout your entirety of your home, how many bottles of baby oil do you own? I do not have any bottles of baby oil. However, I will acknowledge that I do have food-grade mineral oil. I think baby oil is mineral oil. I have food grade mineral oil for knife blades to protect them from rust. I read that's what you use. Not as creepy, but still creepy. I don't know if I own any baby oil. Because I replaced my pocket knife. I'm not a knife collector. I have a few, but I replaced one, and I read somewhere, it was like, yeah, to keep the blade from rusting. Because I had that happen on one of my other pocket knives, like just being in my pocket in the rain and whatnot. Got some rust spots, and I was like, what do you do to prevent that? Because I don't look at the knife every day. Even though the rain? Just put some food-grade mineral oil on it, and it'll be just on the little blade. And then when you close it, it doesn't smear it all in your pocket and stuff. You're like, but I currently have 17 bottles of Juergens lotion. Stern Pinball, let's jump into it. Production updates. Over the last couple of weeks, Dennis and the listener, they've been shipping the X-Men, the Uncanny X-Men LEs. They're starting to ship the Uncanny X-Men Pros come this week domestically. I think towards the end of the week, they're going to be doing that into the following. So you've seen on social media as well as the hobbyist forums a lot of pictures of unboxings of the X-Men LE. And it is simply stunning. I've opened one up myself. And a lot of – here's what I liked about Stern this time around. They gave us stuff that they didn't really advertise as much, like extra little details to the LE model. And it was a nice surprise. I did have one person who was like, you know, they did advertise that. Like, I didn't hear it, and I'm a damn dealer. I went to the matrix list, the features matrix. It wasn't on there. So things like the interior art blades, listener, they had instead of your regular, it's almost like a matte finish to the interior art blade. That is traditional, almost across the industry, traditional. They're thicker so that they can be applied easier. But it's a matte finish, so it's not as shiny or anything. With X-Men LE, they did something totally different. I've never seen them do before. they've included the metallic foil, and they're more of a glossy finish. So just really, really ties the whole world under glass color, chromium kind of thing going. And it was just a nice, it was a really nice detail that I wasn't expecting. Alongside the action button, you know how we usually get those stainless steel badges around the action button, like on ACDC and Game of Thrones, they kind of stopped doing them. But now they have, on this one anyway, on this Uncanny X-Men LE, it was like a plastic, but it was a nice polish. It just looked really, really good. So a couple of things that I've really loved about it. Have you seen a lot of pictures of the X-Men LEs that are being unboxed? No, at least if I did, I didn't notice that. It's a really, really pretty machine. I mean, I got to see some of it on a certain live stream. Oh, yeah, that is true as well. So, yeah, production-wise, this week they're going to continue shipping Uncanny X-Men Pros, and then into later October, premiums are going to be coming probably just a week and a half. Premiums will start rolling out right before Expo or during Expo. And then Jurassic Park Pros towards probably the end of the month, if not, here in a couple weeks as well. And then maybe something else old but new as well. Do you think we see anything at Chicago Expo different from Stern? If they're doing something else old but new, maybe. I think maybe. Do you have any thoughts of what this old but new thing is? I still think it may be Metallica. Really? I think maybe. You know what I think it is? What? I think it's a black and white edition for John Wick. Oh, no. With red accents all around the gunfire. Wait, all around the swords. Maybe Blood Red is back.

  • “Expression speaker lighting is now compatible with all three of those games in new code, which is great because you see an uptick in sales of those expression speaker lights.”

    Zach Manning @ N/A — Code updates driving accessory sales; ecosystem effect of staggered releases

    • company
    Chicago Expoevent
    Naps Arcadecompany
    Jawsgame
    Zombie Yetiperson
    Retro Atomic Zombie Adventure Landgame
    Magic Girlgame
    Theater of Magicgame
    World Cup Soccergame
    Circus Voltairegame
    Cheshire Cat topperproduct
    Deadpoolgame

    high · Zach: 'They've shown us the topper now this last week... They teased through influencers... Cheshire Cat topper... Naps ended up sharing... Dutch Pinball showed the actual picture'; 'shipping three over to chicago expo... they're shipping... in a big lebowski box'

  • $

    market_signal: Extended teaser campaign for Alice criticized as excessive; marketing stretched over 10 years reduces impact of official launch

    high · Zach: 'They've extended the teaser on this game a little bit too long... we've already been kind of fed little teasers for 10 fucking years... too much carrot danglage'

  • ?

    community_signal: Keith Elwin reveals lead designer role is primarily team/logistics management rather than direct design work; coordination of engineers, animators, suppliers is 'big majority of that role'

    high · Keith Elwin (via Joel interview): 'managing the entire team... coordinating all of those people all of the working parts into production... that is like a big majority of that role as lead designer'

  • ?

    announcement: Dutch Pinball officially launches Alice's Adventures in Wonderland on October 7, 2024 with 500 units (~300 US) at $12,499

    high · Zach Manning: 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland... launching October 7th, 2024... 500 units... 300 of those units being in the U.S... $12,499'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern continues Expression speaker lighting compatibility expansion across Deadpool, Jurassic Park, Star Wars; drives accessory sales through incremental code rollout strategy

    high · Zach: 'Expression speaker lighting is now compatible with all three of those games in new code... you see an uptick in sales of those expression speaker lights... they're trickling out the code so it's not all of them all at once'

  • ?

    product_concern: X-Men LE receiving praise for unexpected cosmetic upgrades (metallic art blades, polished badges) not heavily advertised in feature matrix

    high · Zach Manning: 'They gave us stuff that they didn't really advertise... interior art blades... metallic foil... glossy finish... action button... plastic, but it was a nice polish'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Stern planning mystery 'old but new' game release in October alongside Jurassic Park; hosts speculate Metallica or John Wick black/white edition

    medium · Zach: 'And then maybe something else old but new as well'; Dennis speculates Metallica; Zach counters with 'black and white edition for John Wick... with red accents'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Cheshire Cat topper features LCD eyes for interactivity; design criticized as 'pug-like' with excessive teeth; functional aesthetic mismatch with Alice in Wonderland source material

    medium · Zach: 'the Cheshire Cat... illustrated... looks a bit pug-like... squashy faced... breathing issues... way too many teeth for a cat'

    • 6:06
    So you're saying I'm black and white. That's right. And with red accents. I'm sorry. I'm turning that into Nordman. Sorry. X-Men Ellie was streamed, as Dennis talked about, on numerous channels. I know that Flippin' Out Pinball Joel ended up streaming it last week. He did with Jared. Yes, with Jared, a fan favorite, Jared. We did a lot of giveaways. He hit a milestone. He had over 300 concurrent viewers at the same time. I think he got up to 350. Wow, that's a lot. Yeah, 350 people. So we were doing all kinds of giveaways. I actually watched a chunk of that. I couldn't stay up for the whole thing. You came in with some clever comments. I appreciate that. Yeah, I try not to do too many because I kind of feel like it then starts to come across as a little rude. And I don't know. I think they're going to stream it this week. I don't know who they're going to get. I don't know if they're reaching. I think they're reaching out to Jack Danger, see if he would, well, join the stream or even waste. Has he done any podcast interviews on the game? No, not that I know of. That's why I said it's odd not seeing or hearing from Jack. But, yeah, first impressions of the Uncanny X-Men. Like I said, I found it to be beautiful. You haven't got your hands on one yet, correct? No, I haven't heard that one's arrived here yet, so I've not gone out to play it because I haven't heard that it's here. I was so happy to unbox the one. I got number 16. I unboxed number 16. Your lucky number. I only get to play my wife's lucky number. Mine's 14. Yeah, mine's 14. I only get to play, I don't know, 10 games on it or so. So not a ton, but what I can say is the layout is another one of those try to compete against this layout type of design. It's really, it's already upper echelon of design for me personally. Yeah, I'm right there with Jack Danger's design between this and Foo Fighters is right up there with L and stuff to me. It's almost like a 1-1-A kind of grouping that I just, I don't get this type of design and layout from other designers. I was going to say other manufacturers, but even with Instern, they've set themselves apart for me personally. And they make me care about a theme that I just otherwise wouldn't really care much about. It's also attributed to zombie-edgy artwork. The one thing I will say about this game is, as other people have talked about, code's got to come along. We're going to need more code. But the things you cannot change are things that are in the A category already. And did you hear the music? Everybody was crapping on this music. Yeah, music sounded good to me, the 80s-style synth music. Yeah, it's fucking awesome. So I was worried about it because I was like, oh, no, it must be really bad. No, no, absolutely opposite. It sounded – I like that. I prefer this over like – I'm tired of the whole like the fucking like hardcore heavy metal screaming. Wub, wub, wub, shoot this tank in space, wub. This was awesome. So, no, don't – please, Stern, don't change this music. Maybe you can add more variety to it, but don't touch it. And then animation, people crapping on that. It's still going to be stiff compared to movie assets, of course. But again, I'm not minding it. I mean, it's not a high priority to me, but I'm not particularly enamored with the animation. I see the evolution and the style that they're going for animation with their own – they're creating their own animations. they're progressively getting better every release so everybody can complain that they want those leaps to be larger but you can't argue that this looks so much better than avengers infinity quest i don't know to me it's not close but i mean i haven't i haven't really thought too much on that it's but i like it when maybe the methods are masked a little better like my go-to would be deadpool right where you do the kind of 16-bit look absolutely yeah so i get it i get it but Give me this type of animation over Black Knight Sword of Rage. But that was good animation, too. I don't know. Go get your hands on Uncanny X-Men. I do think it's going to compete with Jaws for Game of the Year, but we'll have to wait and see. Keith Elwin, the designer of Jaws. He was interviewed by Joel. Joel's on fire right now. I have to trend him up this week. Flipping Out Pinball interviewed him, and he talked about all kinds of things. Joel likes to wait a couple of months after a game has marinated a little bit upon its release and go more deep dive once you've seen what the code is pretty much going to bring you. So he did that with Jaws and the game development of that. It was a really good chat. Keith, that one is very enjoyable, even though he's dry sometimes, like it works for him. And it was an enjoyable discussion he talked about, which shouldn't surprise me, but it kind of did, Dennis. He was talking about like, what's the most difficult part of a designer? Because, Keith, you kind of make it look easy, especially you're not trying to boast, but you're like, yeah, I'm two designs ahead and all of this. And it looks effortless, even though we know it's not. But what's the difficult part about your job as lead designer that maybe hobbyists don't realize? And Joel barely even finished his sentence, Dennis, and Keith jumped in and said, managing the entire team. Meaning, like, these designers are working with suppliers. suppliers they're working with every single team member whether it's you know animation whether it's an engineering whether and i didn't realize that i should but he said yeah just coordinating all of that all of those people all of the working parts into production without a doubt that is that is like a big majority of that role as lead designer and i always think oh it's designing your game. It's a lot more complex than that. You'd be good at that, Dennis. Well, I mean, managing people and disparate roles and such, the logistics side would be a new thing for someone like me who doesn't come from a manufacturing background. But I will say, when you talk about managing teams and the different egos and their different strengths and getting at all the jive, it can be very time consuming just spending time on what you feel like is the stuff to get the people working in the same direction that you want them the row in the same direction sort of situation actually in my job a lot of my time is spent doing that now which is very different for me but well and we think about even george gomez when people ask him he's almost reticent when or when he responds to people saying hey you're gonna design another game it's almost like deflating he's like oh like i yeah i would love to but not only am i managing a team i'm managing all of the different design teams that's a lot of work. I couldn't imagine. Keith Elwin on the interview also talked about what, I think we termed this, I could be wrong, I'm usually not, the Elwin effect. We talk about sales of games that upon every new game release, even Stern games, that aren't an Elwin game. Typically, you've got certain people waiting to see what the new game is like, and it's not like everybody's going to buy a game or like a game. So when the Other people decide, nah, it's not a game for me. You see sales of Elwing games take a tick up because they're like, okay, now that I've seen that game and I want it, now's the time to pull the trigger on Jaws, Jurassic Park, Godzilla, et cetera. He was pretty humble with that, as expected, and said it's a team thing. And if the Elwing effect means our design team, then yeah, that's awesome. I'm proud of that. But there's no I in team, right? No, not unless you spell it in French.
    13:41
    I actually don't know how team is spelled in French, so that may not be true. So don't write in if I'm wrong. It was a joke. The punchline in and of itself was worth it. It was worth the reach. I appreciate that. I would have thought it was kind of weird if the punchline did hit and you did know the French spelling of team. Keith also teased an upcoming game that's not his own. He did say there's an upcoming game, that there's a mech that that design team has created that is unlike anything he has ever seen in pinball. And he perked up in a very excited manner when describing this to Joel. And now I'm like, wow, what team is it going to come from? Because he was like, no, it's like, this is a damn cool mech. So coming up, I don't know if he said on the next game or just an upcoming game. Well, that has piqued my curiosity, I will say. Yeah. I know I did have to go and check. In French, it's A-Keep, and it does have an I. Dennis Creasel, ladies and gentlemen. There's new code for Deadpool, Jurassic Park, Star Wars. What a trio right there. Wow. One of those things is not like the others.
    14:48
    Actually, none of them are like each other. I own all three. All three are some of the best games ever made. What am I missing?
    14:54
    Star Wars is better than Deadpool? Is that what? That's an interesting take. Definitely not widely agreed to. Yeah, definitely in the minority of that world. Though I'm sure Star Wars has sold a lot better. Okay, yeah.
    15:09
    Do you think Star Wars has sold more than Jurassic Park? Yes. I think so, too, but I don't know how. If it was a dealer, what would I know? I don't know how. I'm really relying on the long tail of its sales. You know, the long tail that doesn't exist. No. Expression speaker lighting is now... Longer than Jabba the Hutt's tail. It's... Easy dot dot flipping out again, Bob.
    15:33
    He's really mean to Leia. Man, I watched that again the other day. I'm like, shit. Who does he think he is? All right. Expression speaker lighting is now compatible with all three of those games in new code, which is great because you see an uptick in sales of those expression speaker lights. People have been consuming them a lot, those speaker light kits, but there's going to come a time where Stearns is not going to manufacture them quick enough I just know that's going to happen so right now everybody's stocked up so that's good but as they come out with more games people are like it gives them the incentive of oh I better grab a set now yeah I think part of the I agree that that's going to those will be the trigger and that's probably why it's actually good that they're kind of trickling out the code so it's not all of them all at once but you know it's going to be I think it's going to be a little rough because a lot of people have bought a number of speaker kit things already. And so they have to decide about that and getting rid of that. I mean, those are all basically devalued. So they can't exactly just sell them and get a bunch back of money out of them. So that is true. That is true. Good point. The interactive nature of the lighting and it being coded is that that's what makes people such as myself be willing to blow more money and pull out lighting that's already in there. Oh, sure. It's it's the same thing that suffocated the third-party topper market. It's like the decision I had to make with the new Godzilla version. The black and white edition. I had to make the decision like, I do really like the looks of it, but swapping the game by itself is just one thing. I've got this game modded to the brim, so do I really want to redo all those mods and repurchase all those mods? Ultimately, I said no in that situation. But the speaker lighting thing, I'm guilty of it. I'm like, shit. Yeah, I'm going to. Next in the news is something that's probably hitting, if people are listening Monday, hitting today. And that is a new pinball game release. I love these days. What? I love them. I live for them. New pinball machine releases. It doesn't matter who they're coming from. They get my juices flowing. I still remember the day when the Blues Brothers was revealed and how you just couldn't stop talking about it. Just to remember it so well. Well, there are some exceptions. Juice.
    17:52
    Baby oil. You were ready. Listener, what we were talking about is Alice in Wonderland. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alice Does Wonderland. Whatever you want to call it. That is launching October 7th. This is the rumor. October 7th, 2024. Wow, that's today. It could have been yesterday for those people not listening quick enough. Yeah, it could have been. I don't know. So we don't know a whole lot. We know some things. So we going to try to cover this in a way that doesn seem too dated We know that the rumor is 500 units being made of this game That from an old John Papaduke design a foam design
    18:33
    That's more than I thought. He whittled away some. Seems heavy. That's a lot of units for a niche little boutique game. But, you know, the whittled foam excited me. So maybe, you know, we had some Zombie Yeti artwork. that has excited me in the past. It's not really on this game as much now, but they're anticipating of those 500 units, 300 of those units being in the U.S. That doesn't surprise me. So about 300 in the U.S. We are the market. The rumored price is $12,499. So right up there with a Stern LE. LE JJP game, yeah. Yep, yep, yep, yep. So more so than like the Barrels LEs, more so than Spooky's LA. Way more so than CGC's. Yes, way, way more so than that. So I guess that makes sense if you're only making 500 units, period. But I still think pricing of 12,500 U.S. plus shipping and possibly freight overseas, which is going to be a little bit heavier than just a domestic freight charge, I still think that's going to be a determining factor with this particular product, and we'll talk about why that may be. So we know that. They've extended the teaser on this game a little bit too long.
    20:00
    I've been seeing a few images trickling out for a while now. It's been an interesting strategy. Cotton, we'll see if it paid off for them, I guess, today. We will see if it pays off. The problem that I have from a marketing and sales perspective here is that when you take a known entity like this rumored J-pop from 10 years ago kind of game, we've already been kind of fed little teasers for 10 fucking years. So we already know what it is. So for dated projects such as this, I would like to just see a boom. Here it is in real life versus we're going to make it happen. We're going to make it happen. This is the time. I know two years ago somebody else said it, but this is the top. It just feels like too much carrot danglage maybe, but what do I know? I don't own any baby oil. They've shown us the topper now this last week. They teased through influencers. They teased the Cheshire Cat topper. Have you seen the picture of this? And then NAP ended up sharing. Later, Dutch Pinball showed the actual picture of this topper, and I'm a topper nut. Have you seen this topper? Actually, I had not, so I'm actually loading it now. Pull that up now because it's hard for me not to love this topper. It's cool.
    21:21
    It's creepy. Oh, yes, it's very creepy. What I love about the topper is the sculpting looks beautiful. I love the composition of it, how it sits on the top of the head of this game. Sizing is really, really good. And the key feature is essentially they're LCD eyes. and I think Scared Step, there's somebody that did a mod, Nero? Did a mod where the eyes are LCD screen so they can blink, they can move, they can change colors and that is kind of the interactivity piece which I think is subtle and works really, really well. The topper is awesome. Only little complaint about the topper would be the Cheshire Cat, I guess is illustrated, depicted based on the illustrations of the art. Looks a bit pug-like to me. The cat kind of squashy faced um it's gonna have breathing issues yeah it's got way too many teeth for a cat yeah so that was the only i mean cheshire cat is more you know i'm looking at the nap arcade article why are they putting this game in a big lebowski box because they're shipping three over to to chicago expo but women of prayer to get them over here in time for for expo i guess that's the only boxes they have which makes me think do they not have boxes ready i mean i guess i just never really thought about that they printed a game name on the box instead of just like writing the name but i guess when you only do one game for 10 years you might as well just get the boxes saying one bingo bingo so they've shown us the topper now we've seen throughout the last months general artwork concept of this game we've seen some play field areas like spinning disc out lane sculpted light post lanterns jabberwocky sculpt from leor so we've seen some of that stuff and I've been mixed on that stuff thus far because I would like to like this game. Interesting. Why? As many know, I am one of those people that, and I'm aware of it, I think awareness is the first step, that I do like some J-pop stuff. Oh my gosh. I know. Look, I know. It is what it is. But having said that, I'm a J-pop realist. where I know that a lot of his work was given credit to him, and it shouldn't have been directly as much as it has been.
    23:44
    I don't think he's particularly probably a good business person, and I think he's made decisions in the past that have harmed people, and he knew the consequence, so I don't necessarily think he's a good person. So I'm a realist, and I know that there are some J-pop games that I think, quite frankly, are just complete fucking garbage. Like, retro atomic zombie adventure land? Fucking garbage.
    24:10
    I can't say anything worse about that game. Looked like shit. It looked to play like shit. The design features were laughably bad. No, just a bad game. And it feels to me like anything that J-Pop has touched that's outside of Bally Williams thus far has just been bad. Remember the Magic Girl thing? how many companies have tried to make that and guess what they're all bad so i'm hesitant so see i'm a realist here right i'm coming into this open i want to like it but i'm i guess cautious i i would say i mean i don't i don't come out from the same perspective so what perspective are you coming i don't care about i don't care about that all the juices are staying inside I don't care about this. To me, it's borderline wrong to do it. A lot of people agree with you there. They think this is just like, guys, collectively, can we not? This is bad. Stop. I mean, it's not. I don't think it's like a cursed project. I don't go for superstition stuff like that. But to me, there's a line between taking a project that didn't work and bringing it to fruition. if there was merit to it. But nothing about the design. Again, it was basically just foam core. Here's my stance on J-Pop. I don't think he's a good designer at all. I think he's had a couple of decent layouts, probably thanks to the Bally Williams team saving him. I'm going to point to three. World Cup Soccer, which I think is his most interesting, fun layout. There's Theater of Magic, which is just a straight-up regular fan layout, which is why it plays so well. It's a good shooter, yeah. And then Circus Voltaire, which is maybe the one that best integrates some toy work with the Ringmaster that actually is enjoyable. So I know some people who really, really like that one. But basically, I feel like he's just been given credit because he has, I think, just out of sheer luck in the Bally Williams era, and more deliberately later on, like with the Zidware stuff, he's always had really good art. World Cup soccer and Star Wars Episode I aside, he's just always had really good art. So people love the art, and then they think they like him as a designer. That's a really good argument. All of his recent, as you noted it, all of his recent layouts, like don't forget his first Houdini he tried to do for American Pinball, where the ball literally had places where it would go and then couldn't un-go. It would get balls to nowhere. It's a meme. And the Jurassic Park line of they're so busy seeing if they could, they didn't stop to ask themselves if they should. combined with his reputation because of what happened with Zidware, that's why I don't think this project should exist. If it was just he had failed or it was an idea and it never, like, the idea that, you know, what was, I don't even remember the group anymore, that promised and then broke their promise that they were going to make Pinball Circus. It's like, Pinball Circus, okay. Circus Maximus? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, they promised Python that they would do it and now they're not doing it, so they broke their promise. I'm just saying, they broke their promise. This is why you don't make promises like this. Okay. Something like a prototype. Yeah, the kingpin. Like those ideas of, hey, this is something that just, our Big Bang Bar. Stuff that it never really got its chance, but it didn't inherently burn people. Sure. Go ahead and bring that sort of stuff back. Well, didn't they still, they've been trying to make Magic Girl again. Some company over there has been selling. Oh, but I feel the same way about Magic Girl. No. And they just, it has not been successful. Well, it's a turd layout. Look at the ones that they finally got working. I don't know any of the owners that don't go, yeah, all this thing does is look good. It's not fun. Are we almost done with the whole backlog catalog of J-pop ideas and conceptual? What do you mean? Does he have any more out there that people are, because I think some of this is just like the lore. People want to get behind the lore of a magic girl or get behind retro-atomic zombie adventure. His Houdini would be the one that no one's tried to do. right but they ended up coming out with a chance out of deep root like they made some prototypes magic girls been completed quote-unquote but the ap versions and then whatever you've been hearing about other people trying to build it and then this with alice okay so we're about done then okay yeah so the only one i know of is what he came up with for american pinball for houdini someone could in theory take that and quote-unquote fix the layout issues so it's not just a diorama and then sell it for $12,499 to people who only like the art that he didn't make. So there's a lot going against it. I agree. I'm mixed on if we're talking about the specifics of this game. Like the spinning disc out lane, it's a moving part. I'm not sold. I don't know what that does. I think they tried to do that in another game. I just don't like the idea of it. It's almost like the World Cup soccer Magna save that's above the flipper. that no one uses.
    29:13
    Dumbest feature. It's a badly placed magnet. That makes no sense. So that's the kind of J-pop thing for me. Maybe they think it's going to be more like the left out lane in Woz where you could do some stuff to bring the ball back, but it's near on impossible. I don't know. I don't know what they're thinking. So the sculpting. I think that this game is going to be very sculpted. I think there's not going to be a lot of play-filled plastics that are flattened over slingshots, over ball guides or anything. I think there's going to be sculpts over everything. And what we've seen thus far, again, a mix. Like the light post lanterns, very atmospheric. Those are freaking phenomenal. Those are awesome. Love those by Lior. But like the Jabberwocky sculpt, I mean, no, I don't like that art direction. It doesn't do much for me. I don't think it looks that great. It looks stiff. I don't even think it moves or anything. If I'm taking it or leaving it, I'd actually leave it. I'm okay with that, without that. So I'm worried about that. But again, if it's all sculpted and everything like a Wizard of Oz, I think that that might be awesome. Other things that we just don't know about yet, or some of you might because it's released now, like the code. Here's my gripe. I don't want to come across as negative on this because I'm going to get accused of being negative on it because you know what I'm saying. I already know what I'm – this is a lose-lose for me. But I still want to talk about it because it's a new game and I'm still kind of interested in it. my worry is i just do not see it's the it's the hypocrisy sometimes in this hobby dennis there's a lot of listeners out there that may be even listening spitefully but a lot of them shit up and down on these forums and they cry and they whine about stern pinball and oh they take too long on code their code sucks or jjp too many multiballs they're just whining about code everywhere. How in the fuck is this going to be any different from Dutch pinball? Hopefully I'm wrong. Well, we don't know if the code's going to come out done or not, do we? I don't know. Hopefully I am wrong. But what I'm saying is, you've got a whole group of Stern pinball coders, whole teams, and they still bitch. You've got whole teams of JJP coders and they still bitch. What makes you think this is going to be any better? This is probably my biggest worry about this whole project is I remember what that Magic Girl code was and oh boy. Cosmic Carnival was pretty too. I guess it depends what your expectation is. A working game that's beautiful and is fun to play with good code. For $12,500, that's what I want. I know this is the DPX label, but Big Lebowski is a 90s level depth rule set. I've never expected Dutch to be capable of anything deeper. How long did it take them to get there? I don't remember. It was so long ago. That's what I'm saying. I didn't think it took them that long, other than maybe the final wizard mode or something. But I didn't think that it took them all that long. I don't know. That whole project was so long. It's tough. I mean, it's a decade ago. I can't. My brain, me and Pepperidge Farm only remember certain things. For me, I'm okay with the level of depth of a 90s Bally Williams, maybe a little bit more enhanced than that. But I'm fine with that. You don't have to go full blown. I mean, I just don't think without a big team, you can't expect JJP and Stern level code without a team. You have to 90s when it was still like one person sort of thing. Sure. And that's what I expect out of it. Even with the 90s, though, we have an LCD screen now. You need teams. You've got to have teams. Just show clips from the movie.
    32:44
    I worry about the code. Okay. Next thing. Production timeline. This is also another question I have because people complain about how long it takes for games to ship from other manufacturers. Like, oh, it's going to take how long? CGC, how long is it going to take for my Labyrinth? How long is it going to take for my Avatar CE? I don't want to wait. How in the fuck is this going to be any different? I don't see a scenario. Again, hopefully I'm wrong. But what scenario are they going to have 50 machines made within the first month? I don't know how fast they were building the big Lebowskis. Very slow. Yeah, but how much of that was because of the whole, we weren't getting very many sales in? I mean, when you're selling a game over 10 years. People were waiting a long time. I mean, remember the early Achiever stuff still? Yes, and that was an added complication where that, in theory, doesn't exist here, right? Still lingers. Who knows? I don't know. Again, I don't mind waiting for code. Again, I don't mind waiting for production if I know I'm signing up for that. But the hypocrisy of so many people screaming and crying, but then once a new game comes out, I'm like, oh, my God, this is going to fix all the problems. Are they the same people that are doing both for this game and those other games? I don't want to bundle them all up in a bag of dicks, but some of the names are the same. I think most of the pinball hobby does not care about this game. Yes. It's too limited. It's an unlicensed known theme that – Which is why they're only making 500. Sure. It's quintessential J-pop, right? It's quintessential J-pop. It's all style, no substance. This game – who's buying this game because they want it to play well? It's about pretty sculpts with pretty art, J-pop's entire quote-unquote pinball career for the last 20 years. What I'm saying is I'm the poster child for buying that product. But even I have standards, and code is going to be a standard, I assure you. Maybe they'll do 80s-level code with an LCD. They'll just slowly pan through JPEGs of the art on the play field. I'm not okay with that. Why? I'm not okay with that. For $12,499, what do you want? What do you expect? Yeah, what do you expect? You're not expecting them to be stern, are you? Because they're not big enough to be stern. I expect for $12,499, what I would expect is the level of code of something like that Barrels of Fun is doing, something that Chicago Gaming Company is doing. That's what I'm expecting. I'm expecting that out of the gate, though, because that's what everybody else does. That's what I'm expecting. But this is a lot more money. I don't know. I just don't think they're that big. I think even the heaviest supporters, Dennis, whenever the rumor was 500 units, even the heaviest supporters were like, ooh, I don't know if they should sell 500 of them. Well, they don't have to sell them all. I mean, I don't know how many they need to sell. That's part of why you're buying it, too, though. A lot of people – Well, they're not going to sell more than, isn't it, those that buy end up being like, I've got an even more exclusive thing. I mean, that's the whole thing with Magic Girl, right? It's not about it being fun or anything. It's not even about it looking good anymore. It's about I've got a super ultra rare paperweight. Yeah, nobody talks about playing that game. Because they're afraid they'll break it. Yeah, and there's always a subset of people. There's five, ten people out there that just want to turn it on and look at it. That's fine. But a lot of us that care about all these things that are superficial, we still want it to be a good game.
    36:14
    We still want there to be enough code or enough of the layout. What about the quality? We know that the big Lebowski, that thing was a tank. But did it have its issues? It certainly did over the years. The rug had its issues. Slipper had issues. It certainly had issues. And one could argue the more you put it into a game, the more issues it could come up. I agree with that, too. When I've played it at shows, it's been working, but it's had broken stuff on it. Remember, that was a talk of the first four years it was out. Remember podcasters, they'd be like, oh, there was a big Lebowski at that show. It was in the corner off but it was there Yeah no it took me years to get a chance to play it Yeah man I owned one twice and both times got rid of them because the flipper I just couldn get the flipper feel down It just wasn't strong enough. But I've heard they fixed that and stuff. I would still like a big Lebowski. I would. Oh, my gosh. Just let it go. That's a cool theme. Yeah, but you've owned it twice. Move on with your life. But you know me. I'm not one of those people that I don't ever own stuff I get rid of. It's like know for sure that you're done with it and move on. Another question that a lot of people have is gameplay. And I hear people complain all the time. You made it tell me Uncanny X-Men is going to be announced and there's no gameplay video. You made it tell me Avatar is going to be announced, no game. Where's all these gameplay videos? And then people are like with their torches raising. Is this going to be any different?
    37:37
    They're definitely going to have one at launch today, right? I don't care. We'll see. I don't know. Nobody cares about this. I know there's no news, so we have to talk about it. I'll say it's a new pinball product we got to talk about. We didn't talk about Blues Brothers. Well... And it has more demand than this.
    37:57
    Oh, hard take. That didn't have code, though, because you had to program it yourself. No, it comes with code. It's just you're allowed to change it. The skeleton code? Okay. It came with a... No, it's got some... I don't know how different it is from S.T.A.R.S., but at least you know the layout's good. It doesn't beat the rules of S.T.A.R.S., I guarantee that. S.T.A.R.S. I want stars from Resident Evil as a license. There are three Alice Does Wonderland games coming to Chicago Pinball Expo. That's the plan anyway, so we'll see how they are. I'm going to go to the expo. You are? Yep, that's my plan. Current plan is too. So I'll get my hands on one, see how it plays, and we'll kind of go from there. I'm still interested but hesitant to be a buyer initially. And that says a lot for me, right? I'm pretty impulsive when it comes to buying stuff. I can get behind companies that I know are going to be fine, such as Stern, right? JJP, Barrels, Chicago Gaming Company. I know these people. And if anybody's going to get burnt, it's me. Fuck, I'm the dumbass that lost over $70,000 on Haggis. So maybe I'm a little gun-shy here. I'm like, eee. So hopefully, as we're talking about this, Dennis, hopefully they launch today with a wonderful sizzle reel. Hopefully they've got some type of additional piece to explain this game. They have a gameplay video today. They're going to have all three of them at Expo. They're going to hold up well throughout the entirety with full code and all of that. I'm hoping that happens. Do you think they sell out of 500 units? No. I don't think so. It's an expensive product. It's in line with other machines that I think people are going to be just on license alone, on theme alone, would be more interested in. So saying aside all my other concerns, I just don't think Alice in Wonderland moves it. I don't think art sells enough games anymore at that price point. Good art's a dime a dozen now. And if it is, my final thing is, if it's akin to his late designs and workings and concepts, such as Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland and Magic Girl, then this thing won't sell 50 units. Do you think this makes a segue here into our next topic? Do you think this breaches the top 100 on Pinside at some point? uh no i i would say no but i mean big lebowski did so oh yeah that's right big lebowski's it's really high frankly higher than it should be but it's still it's still a damn great game so i bring up the top 100 because for our exclusive pinball show club members this week we're going to offer them a nice little segment i think people are really going to enjoy you kind of through this idea on me and i i like this idea you talked about going through the pinside top 100 and taking we'll just go for the top 10 you and i dennis are going to go through and say whether we really agree if that game is deserved of top 10 status we'll debate that so much judgment and then if it doesn't we're going to replace that game with a selection from the top 25 of pinside Yes. And who knows? Do you think we'll have to stretch? Maybe we don't even like the top 25 games. So maybe we don't think those would be worthy. Who knows? It could be rough. Maybe they're going to be surprised as to what we're going to put in the top 10. Gasp worthy indeed. Number five will amaze you. I thought it was number four. Well, no, no, no. It's going to be number five that I'm going to go after.
    41:25
    And of course you want to hear that. All you have to do to hear that exclusive content is be a club member to the pinball show. It's super simple, Dennis. All people have to do is go to patreon.com slash the pinball show. Sign up today if you haven't already. If you have, thank you for the continued support. And if you haven't, what are you waiting on? Not only do you get exclusive content, you get private-ish Discord discussions. You get other perks as well. And most importantly, you're helping support the entertainment and informational product that we are creating over here between Dennis and I. So thanks for that support. Do you think Jersey Jack Pinball supports the pinball show?
    42:02
    I don't know. They're like, what? Is that a podcast? Do you think they know who? I think they've heard the show. I don't think they know who I am. Well, Ken probably knows me. Ken probably does. I think Keith Johnson does. Shout out to Keeper. I've corresponded with Keith before on something. I think it was on Pinside. It was years ago. We'd all have lunch or something. No, you know, I've had pinball manufacturers. I've had a few people with pinball manufacturers talk to me about wanting to talk to me at shows and stuff, and then they never do. They ghost you. Well, it's not like we had, like, an appointment set. So they find their real friends, and they talk to them instead. Yeah, I guess.
    42:41
    It's the empty invite. Hey, let's grab a beer sometime. I didn't know there was an expression for that. I just made it. Just like we made the Elwynn effect.
    42:52
    Yes. When Elwynn flaps his wings in Beirut, a Candy X-Men layout turns into the lower half of gold wings. I don't know. I don't know how the Elwynn effect works. Ashton Kutcher loses his limbs. It's like, what the fuck?
    43:08
    Jersey Jack, the mole in the news this week. Avatar continues to get some gameplay videos out there in the world of media. I know that Joel from Flippin' Out Pinball Streaming, he streamed this a couple of weeks, Avatar L.E. He even had on lead designer as a guest, Mark Seiden, to the program. And that was fun to watch, fun to listen to. I have a question for you. It's probably a hard one to predict, but do you think they're going to do a gameplay video where they're dressed up in costumes? I don't. Nope. I don't. Okay. I haven't been leaning that way either. I think the tails would get in the way. A lot of people are going to be playing it at Chicago Pinball Expo as well. I know that they're going to have a number of them up there.
    43:49
    Also, if you guys are interested in getting a show special game of a Jersey Jack pinball machine, let me know, Zach, at FlippinOutPinball.com. I can probably set that up, save you some money, and you can take it home from the Chicago Pinball Expo show. Are you having a booth there? Hales, no. I'm making a professional appearance there. How about that? I'll be there. I'll be hanging out in the Jersey Jack Timbal booth. Is TPF going to send out an email with, Zach, many confirmed for T. Oh, you never go, though. You know, I've not been special enough or big enough to ever get an official announcement at a show. Not once.
    44:29
    I think, honestly, even when I had the only dealer to show, still nothing. It just never happened. That's okay, though. That's like the – remember, do you do this when you go to shows? Do you try to get the media, comp media passes and all that stuff? I've not with pinball, no. I don't either. And some of our media friends think that's kind of weird because they all get like these media passes. I don't. No, I go through the line. I pay the overcharge for what it is to go to these shows. No, it's kind of – you bring up a good point. It's actually kind of weird. I've had people, especially like more regional shows, come up and ask me if I will go to their shows. They have never proposed helping me with anything. Like comp your tickets or nothing? Yeah, ticket. Like the pass will be free or we'll take care of getting you the hotel room or we'll make sure you can be in the hotel. I'm looking at you, Expo. I've never asked for someone to pay for my room. But I'm saying I am not driving two miles in anymore for your show. But I never have anyone reach out and say, you know what, we will make sure that there is a room reserved for you if you want to come and you can be at the actual host facility. No, they don't even go that far. The only thing that I do, so I pay full price like an ex-fone, so I'll just go through it. But the only thing I do sometimes is I might have a manufacturer help me get in before the vendor hall opens. whether it's me helping them or just hanging out or something i may you know favor one of the manufacturers if i have friends there and be like hey can you get me in i'll help you set up a couple machines or something i just want to be able to get in early but that's about it so speaking of blue people there is a new rumor that jjp has the license to sonic the hedgehog this is coming from canadians pinball podcast the rumor that jjp has sonic the hedgehog and we know that that remember that rumor has been around uh ever since david fix said someone who wasn't stern took it from them took it from them it took it from us we swears it yeah the homebrew was done uh and then that designer went to american pinball so yeah it's been somebody's got this damn thing are they sitting on it. What are they going to do with it? But that's the current rumors. JGP has it. It bounced around. Somebody thought Spooky had it. Now people think JGP has it. So I've got to ask you, do you think that is a good pinball theme? Yeah, actually I do. I do too. If done properly, do you think the movies are a good pinball theme? They aren't as good, but the movie, I've seen the first two. They're decent. I don't think they're strong enough. I wouldn't do it off of the movies at all, no. I think Just doing off of the – I'd also think the license would be cheaper if it's off the game. I think if it's off the movies, it is not even as strong as Avatar as the theme, which I question that theme. I think that's fair enough. They definitely haven't made as much as Avatar. I don't even know if I'd say the movies. Honestly, give me Cuphead as a theme over the Sonic movies for a pinball theme. I just think it goes so against what the property itself is that, no, if you do Sonic, you've got to do. Now, here's the other thing. How close to the, what are you going to call it, 16-bit, 8-bit? I don't know what you want to call it. Depends which generation you're talking about. I don't know which generation you want. But nostalgic video game, Sonic the Hedgehog, does it have to be to really hit its mark? Does it have to be that? Or can it be general character of Sonic, the animation? Right. Well, I think from a homeowner perspective, I think generic is okay.
    48:17
    The reason why I say that is because Sonic is still – there are still games that are coming out. So here's the thought. There are going to be parents that collect pinball machines, and you've seen plenty of them. And they're just like – they don't – they always talk about – they'll always talk about how they buy – They're the only ones that play pinball in the house. They buy the games that they want. They long for their kids asking about a theme. They long for it. And when that happens, then they have an excuse in their mind to buy a game. They want a new game anyway. And then they think, hey, my kid might actually play with me some if I get this. So doing a not saying it's going to be a 16-bit Sonic per se might mean that the kids start saying, hey, no, I like Sonic because it's 64-bit Sonic. instead or whatever. I think the actual answer is you do the art however you want, but in the game you have modes where there's at least an old-fashioned one where you look at 16-bit Sonic and you look at the 3D ones and such.
    49:18
    So that's why I think it's okay. I still think it needs to stay true. That is true, though. Those games still sell quite well. It's like Mario. If you ever do Super Mario, does it need to be 16-bit, 8-bit, 32-bit? Mario's still getting stuff. I still think that Mario is more expansive and allows for that differentiation more so than Sonic. Like, to me, Sonic is, I see him going on the platform loop-de-loop. I see him hitting the platform spring. But a lot of the modern games still have those mechanics. Yeah, even like the remastered and stuff like that. If it's still based on the Sonic platform. That's what I need. I need platform. Even the modern ones, they still do. The graphics got better. That's the difference. Do you think they used a magnet or something to make the ball spin so it could go... Well, now we're asking too much. Well, they can hyperloop it. Sonic's going to have a hyperloop.
    50:18
    Do you think Steve Ritchie does it? Yeah, well, he is a designer over there. That's why I said his name. Or Mark Seiden. Mark Seiden's been doing the... Mark Seiden just had a game. He did the Metroid Prime, though. Yeah, but he has elements of his Metroid game here in Avatar. Does Steve Ritchie really know video games? He knows Mortal Kombat. Virtual. Yeah, he knows video games. Yeah, something tells me the speed and flow of the character Sonic might match itself up well with Steve Ritchie. Only time will tell. But this thing can be done right, and it can be a huge licensed property for pinball. Bigger than Hogwarts Legacy. No, stop.
    50:59
    Barrels of fun in the news. Are they? Yeah. It's a whole barrel of it. It's a lot of fun. Did you know they shipped 500 games as of late September? I did. I saw their announcement. That's big. Nicely done. It's huge. That's the full run of Alice the Adventures of the Creepy Cheshire Cat. The pug cat.
    51:19
    I already can hear it snorting in the heat, and it makes me sad. It needs a CPAP. Have you ever seen a pug chase a thing of ice on the floor? I wonder if it screams like the pub getting its fingernails clipped. Ah!
    51:34
    What the fuck's wrong with pugs? It's a twisted and ruinous form of life. Did you know that they were elves once?
    51:46
    But taken by the dark powers and corrupted. Twisted. Cheshiron. Oh, okay. That's how they were formed. so when a company does everything right like barrels of fun and they're hitting the threshold of 500 games shipped as of late september that's like the gold standard of what you would want to do if you're somebody like a dutch pinball so i would if i'm them i would put that up on the whiteboard and be like all right team that's what we want right there put it right next to the rising action hydra that's right and yeah but they've got a better theme though over it over at barrels So 500 shipped as of late September. They plan on, they'll probably ship the, I don't know if they'll sell out of their 1100. They're at like, what, 850, 900 now. So they might. They've got a factory tour too. I like this. Exclusive to the Houston Arcade Expo. October 12th from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. I don't know if tickets are still on sale for this or not, but they're doing a factory tour of Barrels of Fun. So people need to report back to us to let us know how that is. I was supposed to, maybe I'll go. No, I can't go there. I want to. There's new code for the Labyrinth, too. It's a lot of stuff over there in Houston happening right now. This new code continues to make this game even better, where you've got challenge modes and co-op modes now for Labyrinth. Those are fan favorites. People eat that shit up. Does it have tracked progression? Can I level up my goblin? You can battle Jareth. I want to battle the baby. Go down to the Goblin City. American Pinball in the news. Oh, I love this. These sons of bitches. I just love them. American Pinball, shout out to you over there. I love you. I'm looking forward to your next game. And until then, I'm looking forward to your new Pinnow Ween sale. That's right. We got a Halloween-themed sale over at American Pinball. We're calling Pin-O-Ween.
    53:45
    Pinnow Ween. Nothing scarier than our current prices, so we're knocking them down. Buy, buy, buy. Be a sweet ghoul this pinball season And get $1,000 off the Legends of Valhalla What's that? Sure, it came out six years ago You know, still got some $73.95 now Knocked $1,000 off, that's good It was $83.95 now, $73.95 Buy, buy, buy! That's quite a discount All those influencers love to poke at our game GTF And they really poked the Signature Edition They poked it 2,500 times So we're knocking off $2,500 for the month of Pinnoween. Now, which one is the signature one? Is that the one that turns into a tank? That's the one with the, yes. And it's the one with the lenticular back glass and with the teal powder coating and the lunchbox and the thermos. Yeah, that's right. Thermos, signature only thermos. Yeah, so they've bumped off $2,500. Now it's $12,495. That's a hefty reduction. Buy, buy, buy! Hot Wheels Classic. Hot Wheels. Berrios Barbecue Classic. Oh, they finally discounted barbecue. I've been criticizing that they haven't. All of them now $500 off. Buy, buy, buy! Berrios BBQ Classic is the cheapest game in their lineup. With that reduction in price, it's now $64.95. It's less than Houdini. That surprised me because Houdini at one point was their least expensive game Or excuse me Hot Wheels Top Wheel is the same price as Houdini to be fair it got three times the features but well that uh i found this interesting where the oktoberfest discount yeah they told us dealers that uh quote with no plans to build oktoberfest please remove it from your site unless you have stock american pinball will no longer regulate the umrp msrp on oktoberfest the model should be considered retired so how many just flipping out pinball still have Zero. No Oktoberfest. We have a used Oktoberfest in the showroom. Five, five, five! That didn't count. But of course, the stuff that were not regulated pricing-wise, I don't have anymore. Damn it. You know what, American Pinball, Dayfix, Zach here. Is there any way, like you're missing the GTF Ellies. You got the signature, you know, and you're not making the Deluxes right now. But damn, your boy's got a couple Ellies in stock. Can we know? What's that, Dave? Really? Okay. Well, you heard it. I just heard it there. Yeah, he's knocking $1,000 off the GTFL. He's only through flipping out pinball.
    56:25
    I'm excited about American Pinball's next game, and you should be excited about these discounts as well. Give the company credit over there. They are cutting prices in a market that is calling for it. So nicely done. Pinball Brothers, ABBAs are shipping. There's a new code release for ABBA that adds an additional wizard mode, a new song. overall additional animation light shows audio enhancements and and more i opened up an abba it it feels like a better shooting queen to me that's good yeah i was i wished i had liked queen more than when i played it it wasn't bad i just i wasn't into it yeah i like queen's music better is why i haven't got into the rules enough yet because i'm not a small man so it's going to take me a little while to see what's going on but it seems pretty self-explanatory um and i love the left ramp you guys will once you get your hands on an abba you'll you'll realize what i'm talking about but the left ramp is like a it goes up and it has the form to circle around and come back to the left flipper but it also has a hole in it too and a magnet can catch it on the back panel and put it through the put it through the hole feeding the left orbit upper left flipper it's It just works really well, and it's very creative. So taking away a lot of things from Abbott, that's one of the things I would take away as well as. Some drop targets are cool. They have a unique far left shot that goes like under a plastic and up a VAC. That's really cool. And the disco balls is cool as it's advertised.
    57:59
    And the helicopter is badass. So it is that cool with the blades spinning and stuff like that. It's cool. It's a cool feature. Pretty basic layout, though. Pretty basic. Nothing unique in any shape or form, but some cool features. And if you like the ABBA music, it's pretty trippy. Dennis, before we go on, I've got to ask you. We're sitting here talking. I'm still thinking about American Pinball and that Pinnoween sale. Without knowing what either look like, do you think that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Cuphead sells more units?
    58:33
    Cuphead. Really? I do. Are we about to get behind another AP game? GTKF 2.0 Well, I'm assuming Cuphead won't be limited Cuphead will be a lower price point Cuphead doesn't have J-Pop tied to it There's an identifiable IP It is Like a license I mean, obviously, even though it's not licensed Alice in Wonderland is a better known theme But, I mean, it's a five-figure game And, you know, I just – I think American Pinball – no, I think American Pinball is better positioned than a highly limited DPX product. Okay. So you think Copped sells more than 500 units? That's exciting. No, I did not say that. Oh, no. Oh, you did not say that. You said it sells more units. I said it sells more than the Alice game does. I don't think the Alice game sells 500. Gotcha. Okay. All right. Here's – I think you might be right, actually. I'm hearing some stuff about this damn Cuphead game. I'm not going to lie. I'm hearing some stuff. When do you think they'll come out with Cuphead? Oh, gosh, because with them not doing Expo.
    59:45
    I don't think they're going to wait too long. No, early December. I think it's a really good guess. I think that they're going to try to position themselves to battle against Spooky. I really do. Do you think they're thinking of it in those terms? I think they might be. Having said that, the next Spooky game will sell substantially more than Cuphead, if I were to guess. Well, what a shock. And, man. I mean, Spooky might sell the most games besides Stern at this point. Whoa. That is a strong take. Is it? I think so. CGC can barely make anything, and Jersey Jackpin Ball is at a much higher echelon of pricing. If we're talking per year? Maybe. Yes, per year. Maybe. I only talk per year. Here's another strong take as we talked about Pinball Brothers. I predict that the next Pinball Brothers game will sell not only more than Cuphead, not only more than Alice in Wonderland, but substantially more than both of them combined.
    60:54
    Oh. Interesting. Oh. Right? Write it down, people. Chicago Pinball Expo, their 40th anniversary, October 15th through the 19th. It's coming, Dennis. It's coming. It's going to be like a week long. I can hardly wait. But the event hall doesn't open until Thursday noon. No. So I guess I'll wait.
    61:17
    That's what I like the most, the event hall, I think. Like the vendor, you know, that whole thing. I like the seminars. I haven't been doing as many seminars as of late at these shows. Here's my problem with seminars. I barely have ever done any. So honestly, I probably should just do them instead of having problems with them without really diving deep into them. But when I look at it, it seems like half the seminars are basically the same topic. How to do X with your game. Okay, yeah. Now, I'm thinking more of the TPF ones in those instances. Yeah, I get that. Chicago is known for their seminars. Like that was the seminar show in the past. When I was a first new hobbyist man, I ate those things up because I was still learning and retaining all types of new information. But now, it's not enough new stuff, you know? Just not getting, like, do you want to hear about the development of this game that we just did? Well, you've already kind of done a feature and I've learned a lot about it already. You know? Everything's more open now. You don't have to wait for antiquated seminars to hear about it. I don't think so. But that being said, it doesn't mean I'm not talking up the Chicago Pinball Expo.
    62:28
    I will probably be there. I'm planning. Stern's doing something for the Steelers Wednesday night, so I think I'm going to attend that.
    62:36
    Even their worst Steelers? Yeah, I think all Steelers, even the little shit ones. I can't even think of a little shit one right now that I'm trying to think. Because all they do is sell two on the side and the back of their hardware store. That's right. They don't even know they sell pinball machines. Oh, shit. Oh, yeah, sure. WWE, I think this is a great theme. We can order one of that. You know, I recently had to take some receipts and do some research, and I went to, what was it? I think it was Jersey Check. I went to their list of dealers and went through just a competitive marketplace, He's kind of looking to see what other dealers are doing with their websites and social media and stuff. And, oh, man, it was sad. Dennis, it was really sad.
    63:26
    Like, I don't know if half of them even had the newest product on their website. Like, what the fuck? Yeah.
    63:36
    It's just odd. I say thank you to all of them. So, yeah, I'll be coming in Wednesday and then probably leaving Saturday. If you see me, say hello. we gotta thank some people especially i don't know if these people are going to expo or not but we gotta thank our screaming goat club members like rodney i'd hug rodney rodney i think i probably have hugged rodney to be honest rodney have i hugged you and if i have was it good to you the bobcat thanks so much for the continued support rodney i don't know if rodney's going to be at Expo? I don't think so. I think most of our, well, those that were in our monthly happy hour people, there were only a couple I think that said yes and everyone else was a no. What about Bumblebee? I don't think Bumblebee's going to the Chicago Pimple. He's probably got other stuff to work on.
    64:25
    Like some of the greatest compositions ever created for cinema. Yeah, you heard me, Hans Zimmer. Poor Hans.
    64:35
    Thanks for the support, Steve. Rob, thank you for the support. You're screaming, Panther. As well as Frank. Thank you, Frank. Kaka, my friend. I bet Frank will be at Expo. Maybe. Frank, you going to Expo? Dave, you going to Expo?
    64:51
    Where are my peoples at? The Shaker Motor. They're TPF loyalists. I don't think Joe's going to the Expo. Really? I don't think so. He hasn't been for a while. Thank you, Fox. Fox, he texted me this morning. he's trying to mess with Stranger Things projector anybody wants to help out Fox he's wanting to he redid his apron because you have to do the insider connected when you have to change the apron out and ever since he did that the damn projector he said is not lining up correctly on the projected screens now so we're going to look into that for him Charlie thank you for the continued support how you liking that uncanny X-Men Ellie, Charlie. He's loving it. Yay. And William, the dude in your dudeness. Thank you so much for the continued support. William, if you're not going to Expo, you've got to let us know when you're going to a show. I want to hang out. Are you employed, sir?
    65:49
    Employed? You don't go out looking for a job dressed like that, do you? On a weekday? Is this a... What day is this? I bet the dude's buying a... How many of these people are buying an Alice in Wonderland? Zero. I bet William does. No, I don't think so. Well, these are like the whales, man. These are quintessential whales of the eight. I bet one or two of them. But a DBX, an untrusted company like that, I don't think so. Yeah, that's true. Over on Discord for the official club members, we've been talking about some X-Men L.E.M. boxings as well as the upcoming Alice stuff. we're going to be scheduling that happy hour hangout for this month, probably during next episode. So stay tuned for that. And as always, everybody, I'm just here to report the facts because stories don't lie, and neither do I on the pinball show. Dennis, where can people catch you? You can always reach out at eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com if they need to get a hold of me. You can email us at thepinballshow at gmail.com as well as follow, liking, and subscribing to all the social stuff for the pinball show. I'm over on Straight Down the Middle video series and editing Purgatory still. You said that last time. It's hell. I still, I should not, man. I don't know if I talked about this last time. Every single time I take on a project, a professional production project, I always tell Greg Bone, don't allow me to do another one of these. They're too much, Dennis. But you still continue. They take all my juices. But follow, like, over there straight down the middle. Oh, and we can't end the show without discussing our favorite sponsor, right? Flippin' Out Pinball. When I buy my pinballs, and I buy from Flippin' Out. From Toppers or Playsterios, I've got it figured out. Flippin' Out. Figured out. When I make a pinball, I make Flippin' Out. Figured out. When I buy, buy, buy, I buy from Flippin' Out. Buy, buy, buy. Sure, I know it's our only sponsor. But, you know, nonetheless, product showcase for Flippin' Out Pinball this episode is the Stern Pinball Playfield promo. We still have some playfields available, those random playfields. If you buy a brand new Stern Pinball machine, not only do you get free shipping right to your door from Flippin' Out Pinball, but you get a randomized decorative playfield as well. We did see one of our patrons on Patreon. They showed off their new playfield that they got. What game did they get? They got a Jurassic Park. I think they ordered Jurassic Park. I'm sorry if I forgot. But the play field they got was a good one. It was the Munsters Black and White Premium Play Field. Did you see that, Dennis? That was nice. I did. That looked good. So they got that. So all you've got to do is buy a brand-new Stern pinball machine, minus a Nikani X-Men, and receive a random play field while supplies last. You can also head over to FlippinOutPinball.com to order yourself an Avatar LE from Jersey Jack Pinball, the Uncanny X-Men LE from Stern Pinball, or Pros. I think we've got Pros coming. We've got a couple extra for next week. Pre-order a Premium, Godzilla 70th, Pulp Fictions, John Wick's, Jaws, Jurassic Park's, the L1 effect, Venom Pros, Star Wars, Deadpool. We even have the Expression Lighting kits, so you can upgrade your Pro Premium or LE pinball machine with integrated speaker lighting from Stern Pinball. Or if you want to pre-order a game, you can pre-order Funhaus, The Labyrinth. We even have taking a list listener for the next JJP game. You're an interested list, Harry. Or the next Stern game or even another future rumored game. We're taking a list for that. Like the, I don't know, the next spooky game. I don't know, maybe. Arcade machines, Big Buck Hunters, Escalaires. Oh, Escalers are on a little bit of a delay. The Tilton truck table. Yeah, they're running into a parts problem, an actuator or something. I don't know. I'm no engineer. But they're taking longer than – they got them down to like one to two weeks turnaround. Damn it. I remember when it was once horribly long. I don't know why people – there's so many people buying that damn table right now. I think they're seeing them at shows and stuff and seeing how well they work. And, yeah, they're buying. But, of course, now when you need a lot of them, it is what it is. toppers, inside art blades, you name it. Show some love and support to the sponsors of the show, Flippin' Out Pinball, by going to FlippinOutPinball.com. Let us know that you're a listener over there, too, or you can email me at Zach, Z-A-C-H, at flip, the letter N, out to pinball.com, or text me at 812-457-9711. Flippin' Out with friends, we do more than just sell you a pinball machine. We create some entertainment, such as Joel streaming Avatar Alley and Uncanny X-Men Alley. I think he's on Uncanny again this week. And Abba's coming soon, I believe. Abba's coming soon. And in the meantime, Dennis Creasel is going to teach you something.
    70:53
    DPX, this is Nordman. I need you to listen up. Oh, no. Yes, I'm very concerned about this Alice in Wonderland and this Hopper. This Hopper, I appreciate that it seems to be made out of my favorite material. But why has the cat been crossed with a pug? It cannot breathe. Why are you showing animal cruelty? It's inappropriate. Why does it have, according to my account, approximately 96,000 teeth in its mouth? It looks like a critter. And critters are not Cheshire cats. In addition, the claws are wrong. That is not the right number of claws to have on a cat. A cat would have four claws on the front plus the dewclaw. I don't see a dewclaw, and I just see three claws. This looks like a cat that is made out of plastic from a child's toy. This is not a happy meal. This is Alice in Wonderland. I am Dordman.
    71:45
    Fix the cat. The dewclaws got me there. It doesn't have dewclaws. It's missing its fourth claw anyway.
    71:54
    Abomination. It's Catman. And why does it have a little cat goatee like it's Billy Bob Thornton? Billy Bob didn't give you approval to do this. Something called a monster. I heard a furry monster. I'll just call it Jabberwocky. That's pretty good.
    72:12
    And I always practice a pinball. I'm sorry. I'm just so burnt out. There's spinning plates over here.
    72:25
    There's no pinball markets here. I'll see you next time, people. That's good. I've been so long since I've seen Schling White.
    72:38
    I just don't know what I should do. Sounds like your fan is off as well. Yep. Turned it off. Thank you. Good. Suffer. I'm not too cold today. No. It offers me the warmth of whenever I was in the embryo, I think. I like to be overexposed to heat. with the wind blowing maybe my mother just like tanning too much and smoking cigarettes during the fan blows air so I'm just a nasty or sitting there with a hair dryer it's a tragedy for me to see the dream is over and I never will forget the day we met girl I'm gonna miss you It's a tragedy for me to see The dream is over And I never would forget the day we met Girl, I'm gonna miss you