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DPP #103 "Weekend round up! Princess Bride soon!"

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·31m 54s·analyzed·Feb 18, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

DPP weekend roundup: Haggis production delays, Princess Bride P3 module mystery, Spooky TCM public launch, Labyrinth ownership impressions.

Summary

Don discusses weekend pinball news including upcoming events (ZapCon, Golden State Pinball Festival), the D-Jenny Awards ceremony, Haggis Pinball's production slowdown due to just-in-time manufacturing constraints, the mysterious Princess Bride P3 Multimorphic module reveal, Spooky Pinball's Texas Chainsaw Massacre location launch, his new Labyrinth machine with code updates, Black Knight Sword of Rage acquisition, and Jaws LE deliveries with expression speaker lights.

Key Claims

  • Haggis Pinball is slowing production due to just-in-time manufacturing and supply chain issues, speculating this may indicate financial constraints

    high confidence · Don directly analyzed Haggis press release and interpreted their language as indicating possible cash flow problems

  • Princess Bride is confirmed as a P3 Multimorphic module being revealed Monday, photographed with silhouettes and sword imagery

    high confidence · Don discusses the announced silhouetted teaser image and community photo-unmasking confirming P3 module hardware

  • Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3CM from Spooky Pinball is now playable on public location at IO in Madison, Wisconsin

    high confidence · Don reports first-hand experience playing the game at location and confirms public availability

  • Labyrinth received a code update with 80% more topper callouts and adjustable frequency settings

    high confidence · Don loaded new code update and describes the new topper features in detail

  • There are approximately 100-300 P3 Multimorphic machines in existence across the country (speculative estimate)

    low confidence · Don speculates on installed user base size while discussing module economics

  • Jaws LE expression speaker lights include a dedicated node board with mode-based color choreography (green for sonar, red for bloody, etc.)

    medium confidence · Don references Sterling's unboxing review and describes the technical features observed

Notable Quotes

  • “Saying things like, we need to slow down and recapitalize our endeavors, which I take to mean we're out of money, is what that reads like to me.”

    Don @ ~08:00 — Direct interpretation of Haggis Pinball's opaque press release language as indicating potential financial distress

  • “It would be much better, you know, due to economies of scale, if you had the capital where it needs to be, the money up front to go ahead and purchase, say, 50 machines worth of parts to have on hand and then churn through those”

    Don @ ~10:30 — Analysis of just-in-time manufacturing limitations and implications for small manufacturers

  • “If you want to build this pinball experience for the masses, if you had a standalone machine, then everybody would have equal footing on going in to get it.”

    Don @ ~24:00 — Critique of P3 exclusivity model versus traditional pinball accessibility

  • “The hidden little diverter in the back corner that lifts out of the way as you shoot in there, like you're Batman going into the frickin' Batcave.”

    Don @ ~37:00 — Enthusiastic description of Texas Chainsaw Massacre playfield design and shot flow

  • “And if you get your score on the leaderboard, your score will maintain those stink lines of that green throughout eternity because it's the bog of eternal stench, and the topper will yell at you.”

    Don @ ~51:00 — Humorous description of Labyrinth's penalty mechanic with topper integration

  • “I hope all the customers end up getting their machines because if not it's just tragic and it just sucks you know it sucks”

    Don @ ~20:00 — Expression of concern about Haggis customer fulfillment risk

Entities

Don GarrisonpersonHaggis PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyMultimorphiccompanyJoe CherovinopersonOrbital AlbertpersonTexas Chainsaw Massacregame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Haggis Pinball announces production slowdown citing just-in-time manufacturing and supply chain issues; Don interprets corporate language as potential cash flow crisis

    medium · Press release stating need to 'slow down and recapitalize endeavors' and reliance on just-in-time manufacturing model, plus customer deposits potentially funding subsequent product lines

  • ?

    product_concern: Haggis Pinball customers face potential fulfillment risk with Fathom and Centaur machines due to production capacity constraints and supply chain delays

    medium · Don warns pre-order customers of risk and speculates on whether deposits are being used to fund subsequent products

  • ?

    announcement: Princess Bride P3 Multimorphic module to be officially revealed Monday from mystery third-party manufacturer

    high · Silhouetted teaser image posted with sword imagery; community member photo analysis confirms P3 hardware (three-button side configuration)

  • ?

    product_launch: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3CM from Spooky Pinball now available on public location at IO arcade in Madison, Wisconsin

    high · Don reports first-hand gameplay experience and confirms public access; Bug/Luke deploying game to location

  • ?

    code_update: Labyrinth receives code update with 80% increase in topper callouts and adjustable frequency settings

    high · Don loaded update and describes new features including percentage-based triggering (20%-100%) and cool-off period configuration

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.096

0:00
Well, coming to you with a special 1 a.m. weekend edition of Don's Pinball Podcast, episode number 103. For those of you keeping track at home, I've got a whole slew of things to get to, and so I figured, hey, why wait till the morning, man? Let's get ready and let's drop this right now.
0:30
So just to recapitalize on the theme from last episode, the year in preview went out pretty good. I liked how that turned out. If you hear some goblins in the background, that's the labyrinth topper. But I was remiss a bit that I did have a couple of people reach out to me for some pinball events that I had glossed over. So before I get too far into this, I just want to point out that not only is ZapCon coming up in March, from 9th to 10th at the Mesa, Arizona Events Center. Be sure to check that out if you're in the brown region of the country where it's all deserty, no trees down there outside of Flagstaff. But go check out ZapCon pinball event in Mesa. I would be remiss if I did not mention that. But also we have the Golden State Pinball Festival out in Lodi, California, taking place in May from the 17th to the 19th. Now, for those of you not familiar with California, this may sound completely glamorous. For those of you from California, it's in Lodi. But there is a bright, shining star to that dusty northern of Bakersfield plane of existence. And that is basically camping festival free for all of these guys have. Quonset Hut out there with a lot of pinball machines to play. But once the show ends, the party continues out there in the camp lot. people set up their campers, their trailers, their what have yous, drum circles, and they bring pinball machines outdoors, and they rage into the late of the evening, into the early morning hours from what I understand. Sounds like an absolute blast, and if you're out in Lodi, there's probably nothing else going on that weekend, so be sure to check that out. That's in May. Zabcon is coming up in March. So there we go. You don't have to at me anymore, guys. I got you. It is still awards season somehow, even with whatever happened with the Twippies.
2:32
Princess Bride
game
Labyrinthgame
Black Knight Sword of Ragegame
Jawsgame
Fathomgame
Centaurgame
Texas Pinball Festivalevent
ZapConevent
Golden State Pinball Festivalevent
David Van Nessperson
Sterlingperson
Dennis Krieselperson
?

design_innovation: Labyrinth and Black Knight Sword of Rage feature advanced interactive toppers with choreographed audio and lighting responding to game state

high · Don describes Labyrinth topper with mode-specific callouts and character interactions; anticipates Black Knight topper functionality

  • ?

    product_concern: P3 Multimorphic modules create accessibility barrier; $13,000 entry cost and 6-12 month delays limit addressable market versus traditional standalone games

    high · Don compares P3 exclusivity to console exclusivity model; notes secondary market Multimorphic machines struggle to retain value; questions module licensing economics for developers

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Haggis Pinball operating under just-in-time manufacturing model with minimal inventory buffer, making company vulnerable to supply disruptions

    high · Don analyzes production constraints and speculates just-in-time approach indicates either capital limitation or operational preference

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Customer confidence in Haggis Pinball declining due to repeated missed deadlines and opaque communication about production status

    medium · Don criticates lack of transparency and suggests weekly livestream updates would improve customer confidence; notes pattern of promised dates being missed

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival next month positioned as first major public playtest for new Spooky games, Elton John, and Princess Bride module

    high · Don identifies TPF as key event for gathering competitive player feedback and meta assessment of new releases

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern expression speaker light accessories and toppers facing extended availability delays (6+ weeks minimum)

    medium · Don notes pattern of delayed accessory availability for Foo Fighters, Venom, and Jaws; jokes timeline extends to 2026

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Labyrinth topper callouts integrated into gameplay mechanics with Bog of Eternal Stench penalty visualization; toppers becoming meaningful design element not just cosmetic

    high · Don describes topper reacting to stink penalty and yelling at player; callouts trigger during multiball and mode progression

    • I will speak, thanks for everybody that did vote in the Twippies. I know there was a lot of protesting, abstentions. However, I did come in sixth for content creator, so that was awesome. I'll give myself two air horns for that. But the D-Jenny Awards are happening. They're happening technically today. It's 1 a.m. Sunday here in Central Standard Time. But at 11 a.m., some kind of eastern Toronto or some such Canadian time, in maple time, on Facebook Live, the festivities will kick off. It sounds like noon is when the show is going to kick out. And what I initially thought was just some Facebook awards are actually becoming a real ceremony. Joe Cherovino, he's got himself a forum. He's doing this thing live at either Pin Place, Pin Bar, some sort of thing. He got himself some sponsors, including freaking G Fuel. Dude, way to go. How long is it until everybody in pinball is sponsored by G Fuel, and we're not sucking down Mountain Dew and beers anymore, but we're sucking down that sweet, sweet G Fuel. Come at me with that sponsorship money. Anyway, the G Jennings are coming up. This is a, from what I understand, it's an award, a series of awards, which with categories that it's like whose line is it anyway? I don't know that the categories even matter, but they're all voted on by one person. It's run dictatorial ship, authoritarian, American-style politics here by Mr. Joe, a friend to you and me. So check that out on Facebook Live sometime noon, sometime on Sunday, sometime somewhere in the world, Maple Syrup Time. So check that out. That is coming up. Okay. I think that's all the announcements on the agenda. We approved the minutes from the last meeting, so let's go forward with some new content. Pinball Nerds podcast just dropped. I just finished listening to it. Actually, I had two episodes. Go two episodes back and listen to Orbital Albert wax prophetic for about two hours with chickens in the background. He has a coughing fit. His kid comes in. He gets a phone call. It's everything you want from the Pinball Nerds podcast. It's everything Orbital Albert. He covered all the bases in this one, including some allusions to some legal troubles that are precipitating through the throughout the diaspora of pinball of late from an unmentioned pinball manufacturer. So go listen to that for some other side of the story. It started on the Pinball Show, goes out to Orville Albert. I'm trying to give myself a nice legal protection of plausible deniability away from all of this, but what the heck is going on in the industry for one. For two, does threatening podcasters really help you sell pinball machines? And there you go. Go check out Orville Albert. I'm going to plug the heck out of him because I had an amazing two hours listening to him. But down here in the arcade, adding mods in, you know, you buy things for your machines. They stack up a bit, and then you're looking at them like, I spent hundreds of dollars on these things. I really need to get them in the machines. I love to put on a podcast and just get to work, and that took me until 1 a.m. in the morning here. You know, but go check that out. All right, let's transition over to pinball news. What happened this week? Well, we did hear from the people that we don't typically hear from. Haggis Pinball all the way there on the other side of the world our friends in the southern hemisphere purveyors of fathom and Celts I guess and that's it so far so they actually made an announcement which is a bit rare for them now last time we heard from them they were absolutely assuring us for real this time you guys we mean it all the fathoms will be done by calendar year 2023's end which has come and went and we're a month and a half into the new year and still the fathoms aren't done yet and they're not going to be done here for some time because they've announced they're actually having a, if you can believe it, a slowdown in their production.
    6:17
    Now, they didn't really cite, they had a whole press release, which was written in the first person for a bit, and then jumped down to some corporate speak that really is a lot of ways of phrasing words without really saying anything concrete. Saying things like, we need to slow down and recapitalize our endeavors, which I take to mean we're out of money, is what that reads like to me. They talk about some supply chain issues, which has been everybody's excuse du jour. But even to this day, Stern Pinball is still facing some of those delays. But what they do is they pivot from their LEs to their premiums, which they've done now. Premium exports are being made right now out of the factory. We have to speculate that there's some part specific to the LE that will slow down production. Now, I don't know that it's HD glass. I don't know that it's a shaker rod or shaker motor. I don't think it's the shooter rod. But the other thing that is unique to the LE that's not on the premium, besides art and a back glass, which I don't see those delaying, expression lights and particularly that special node board that they use for those. So now the LEs have been going out on, I'm going to do a little side. Well, let me get the jobs a little bit later. I got, I got, I don't want to get into that. But it can affect anybody. Okay. So supply chain, fine, fine. But Haggis is saying that their delay is due to their just-in-time manufacturing process. Now, this is a term that's been around the industry for a while. Manufacturing has gone from, you know, storage space being expensive. They've gone from having stockpiles of raw materials to be processed into final product to trying to dwindle that on storage space So they do this just model where things arrive just about when they needed they manufactured and then the product is put out And so if you have any kind of shutdown or disruption in your supply chain, you can be without production for periods of time. And apparently that's how they've been operating. I take that to mean we're only ordering enough washers and screws and bolts and play fields and plywood to build the next one or two games. Once those are sold, we can use those funds to then go and pay for more. It seems to be an expensive way to do business. It would be much better, you know, due to economies of scale, if you had the capital where it needs to be, the money up front to go ahead and purchase, say, 50 machines worth of parts to have on hand and then churn through those, get those out in a month and then get another shipment in and keep it rolling that way. When you're doing this, you know, building one to two games per week, my goblins, man.
    8:47
    I'm going to get to the top. We're going to talk about that later. These guys are freaking hilarious.
    8:55
    You know, so you end up spending, you know, more money buying lower quantities, and then you're susceptible to these supply chain issues. The only reason I could think that you would want to do that is if you didn't have the money to begin with. He talks about how he started in a garage, and it still seems like maybe it's operating similar to that. So what can we take this to mean? Again, it's a lot of words without really a lot of detail about what's going on. Now, it could be that I'm reading this as if they're going to slow down their production and spend their money and their efforts building up supply so they can then really hit it in a more cost-productive way. Assembly line this thing. Let's get everything we need, raw materials, make sure they're all in sight. All of our reagents are lined up so that you can churn through this chemical process of putting up pinball machines. Or they're just out of money, out of parts, out of credit maybe. Now they have to look for investors, look for money, go bug your rich uncle, try to get some capital in there, sell the house, mortgage of the car, put in that title loan or something and keep it going. And I hope that's not the case. What I will say, and I did put this out there, if you've pre-ordered a Centaur at this point with the production delays that Fathom has been having, I'm not saying you deserve what you get, but you should know that there is some risk here involved. So you shouldn't be surprised is what I should say. Now, so far, they haven't gone belly up and said, hey, you know what, everybody that's order to fathom. If you haven't got it by now, you're not going to get it. They could be sticking to the Dutch pinball trend of going ahead and finding a way to produce every single game so every customer will be made whole. We hope that that's the case, but it's really up in the air here, and it's hard to read through to know exactly which way it's going. I hope this means that they have some funding secured. They're building up their supplies so they'll have more of a buffer for the supply chain issue, and it's not that they're completely out of money and they use the Centaur deposits to fund the Fathoms and now they're out of money again. That would be absolutely terrible and possibly criminal. So I hope that's not the case. Now, we are left here to speculate because outside of this little press release is kind of all we get as far as, you know, the pinball buying public, what's going on in the inner workings of Haggis. This is a company that would really be served by doing a weekly live stream. You know, get somebody that likes to play pinball in there to play around with your factory, kind of give everybody production updates. Here's what's going on. uh you know we did have to shut down the factory's assembly line for a week but this is why you know we're waiting for these washers these flat washers they didn't come in the boat sank something just so we kind of know so we're like we're in on the team you know we're in on the joke we're in on the story of what's going on because keeping us in the dark and then having you know something like this come out every six months that is just saying hey there's even going to be even more delays and remember those deadlines that we gave you that were going to be hard deadlines like no way this the drop dead date, we're not going to have to blow by that while we blow by it again it just doesn't instill a lot of confidence the games look good when I've seen them I've seen some that have some little playfield lifting issues I don't know how widespread that is but I've only heard that reported once but I did see the footage and it was a little alarming but notwithstanding the games look fun Centaur is an absolutely beautiful game and if they can recapture that especially with that colorized playfield those cool toppers they've come up with bless them but if they don't get to make them at the end of the day does it even matter so I'm just going to still wait and see maybe in another four to six months we'll have another update from them about what's going on I hope all the customers end up getting their machines because if not it's just tragic and it just sucks you know it sucks alright what else do we got that's not such a downer Princess Bride Monday tomorrow whatever this new mystery company that's producing this P3 module for the Multimorphic Machine, it'll be revealed at some point on the Facebook page, online, on Nap Arcade. I have no idea. No one's announced that this is going to be coming out. You know, where? But the when is Monday. So at some point on Monday, we're going to see something. Now, this company, which is still a mystery, has put out this silhouetted image of their pinball machine with a nice sword leaning up against it. Love it. Hope a sword comes with the game. That would be amazing. But some people have gone in there with their Photoshops, and they've edited the photos, you know, turning down the masking that was put on this silhouette of this machine. And it looks like they actually took a photo of the production machine and then put like a black mask effect over it, which you can then undo and see that, yes, this has the shape, size, and layout of a multimorphic machine. You can even see the three buttons on the side there. So this is almost assuredly a P3 Multimorphic game module coming from a third party, not from Multimorphic itself, which is great for everybody that owns one of these things. But for everybody else, we're kind of left out.
    13:46
    This movie, Near and Dear, I love it. I love the theme. I would love to have this pinball machine. So if it is what it appears to be, is a Multimorphic module, I don't have the Multimorphic unit. So I'm going to be completely left out of this, which sucks for me, which sucks for me. This is very much like back in the day if you had a Super Nintendo and you didn't have a Sega Genesis and Vector Man was coming out for the Genesis, and you're like, great, this game looks awesome, but it doesn't matter because I don't have the console, can't play it, whatever.
    14:15
    So if you want to build this pinball experience for the masses, if you had a standalone machine, then everybody would have equal footing on going in to get it. Now, Don, you could say, well, everybody still has equal footing. You could go and get a multi-morphic machine. We do know that there is 6 to 12-month delays to get these machines. It waxes and wanes. It seems to be getting better. But the price for entry when it comes to a P3 Multimorphic, if you're looking at just getting Princess Bride, just getting Weird Al, you know, those are the big ones for me, you know, you're looking at $13,000 to bring in this machine. That's the price of a Stern LE. That's the price of Elton John. You know, that's the price of a Spooky Pinball plus one of their add-on toppers plus Butter Cabinet.
    14:58
    You know, so you're going to tell me that this game, which is one-third of a play field, two-thirds of a television screen, is going to be the same price as one of those other options. I think I'm going to take the other options, honestly, at this point. Now, you've got the idea that once you go in on this system, that it's only $3,000 to $3,500 to add Heist, to add Lexi Lightspeed. You can go download Birdwatcher, and I get it, but I don't see myself taking full advantage of those. Lexi Lightspeed isn't the game that's really drawing me over there. I get Heist is fun to play. It's got some cool mechanisms in it. But, you know, again, when it comes to, you know, Elvira House of Horrors, when it comes to Labyrinth, when it comes to Looney Tunes, I'm not looking at Lexi Lightspeed. I'm not looking at Heist. I'm just not. You know, and then, you know, when you play these things on location, the flippers are on different buttons. Like, forget it. I just, I lose all interest. But I you know I very happy for the folks that are in on this system that are fans of it that do have that installed user base I think definitely this is a game game to buy based on the theme alone i mean you know this thing plays like heist and it princess bride with assets forget it man you should absolutely get this if you got a p3 module how many p3 modules are there in existence 100 150 200 i really don't know what the installed user base is uh so i gotta kind of wonder when you look at what it's going to cost to go and license a theme, put it all together, how many units can you really sell? Are you going to be able to make back your money? I get it that you're not building an entire machine, you're just building a module, but still, you're selling that game, and when it comes to a licensor, you're still going to have that licensor fee, especially if you're getting assets of Fred Savage, Cary Yules, Andre the Giant's estate.
    16:41
    There's a lot of good memes. Goblins are going off again this topper is nuts it's loud and i love it um you know so i'm curious i'm waiting to hear more you know monday when we find out i would love if a company would go ahead and release p3 multimorphic versions of their games but also make standalone games as well you know in the traditional format um you know otherwise when i look at you know if i was to produce a module i think something like a final resistance makes a lot of sense something with a licensed theme and those licensing fees to just make a third of a play field that you can only sell for $3,000. You know, you have to have margins in there for the licensor, you know, and then what's the installed user base? 100, 150, you know, let's say there's 300 multimodal machines across the country, you know, and then not everybody's going to buy your module, you know, so like, where's that kind of come in? I think it makes sense for dungeon door defender. I don't know if I can make a big case for, you know, kicking off licenses for this machine, but if it comes out, I think it's fantastic. I'm looking forward to seeing it. I really want to flip it. I hope they're at Texas. I'm going to get in line over and over again to play it because I want to play through this thing because I do love that theme so much. But those are my feelings on the P3 Multimorphic. Now, I mentioned $13,000. There are a few Multimorphic machines that are on the secondary market right now. One is in the $5,000 to $6,000 range with no modules included, which is a complete steal for that. And even at that low price, I'm still not terribly motivated to go ahead and get it. So what that tells me is if I do go in at $13,000 for one of these machines and the modules, maybe they don't do it for me. I look to sell it. I'm really not going to have a lot of value in that machine. It's going to be very difficult to move it on, and that's another barrier for me. I was able to bring in Iron Maiden. I was able to bring in Venom, Foo Fighters, and I was able to get them back out even with the price slump and still get 80%, 85% of the money that I put out for it, which is the cost of doing business. That's fair. But for a multi-morphic, I'd be really hard-pressed to sell one of those machines if I needed to. So that's, you know, just, again, the thing I have against it. But I love the technology that's in it. I've always said that. You know, I was very impressed with what they've been able to come up with, and I wish everybody the best. And I want to play it. I really want to play this game. I'm just not looking at owning one. What else do we have? I've got a lot of little things here. Bug Scream and Stream. I was on it this week. was invited Thursday down to IO in Madison, Wisconsin, which is the first public location for Texas Chainsaw Massacre. 3CM from Spooky Pinball, from Bug and Luke. It's on location now. It's in Madison. Go play it. It's open to the public. We played it for about an hour and a half between shots of Jägermeister, of all things. And the game layout, it plays so fun. I love how the shots flow from one into another. I love all the vuxen where they shoot things. I like the under flipper shots, the hidden shots. The hidden little diverter in the back corner that lifts out of the way as you shoot in there, like you're Batman going into the frickin' Batcave. And then it jumps up to that little upper playfield storage area in the back. Balls on meat, Hux. You know, cats eating dogs. It's nuts, man. It's nuts. You know, the code is still developing, but the shots and the layout, they feel so solid. I love it. And I'm so glad that other people get to play it now, so I can start hearing what other people's opinions of this game are. You know me. I'm already in on both of these. I waited until I played them, and then I said, I got to get them. I love them both. I can't wait for them both. I still stand by that decision. So I'm super excited, and I can't wait for that. So the big news is that the games are out on public location now. Looney Tunes will be the next one out. Bug is doing a live stream on Thursday of Looney Tunes. So I think that's right around the corner. Now that they have the sculpts, they're going into the games, they're going out. So go get you some spookiness.
    20:33
    We do know that next month is the Texas Pinball Festival, and that'll be the first public festival with the new Spooky Games. Elton John will be there too. Hopefully Princess Bride is there as well. Ninja Clips is going to be there. It's going to be great. It's going to be a great time. New games from a ton of people and other ones that have been in limited release will be there too. So I'm very much looking forward to that. I think after TPF we'll get a much better sense on where TCM and Looney Tunes are settling in now that people have played them. people with more pinball experience than me will get their hands on it and we'll get to see what the pros think of it um but i'm still super hyped i can't wait to play both of those themes here in the basement um really really looking forward to that we're moving through all the topics here man there's just a laundry list of things to get to let's talk about labyrinth the goblins have been jabbering away in the background here um so i got my game uh earlier this week unboxed it uh had a fun time doing that unboxing thanks for all the knuckleheads that were in chat um so go check that But myself and Bradley, we live streamed that last night on the YouTube channel just for fun. I did get the topper with the machine. And if you are taking a labyrinth into your home and you've got about 24 inches between the top of the back box and your ceiling, you would be well serviced to put this freaking topper on top of your machine because, holy garbage, it is amazing. The new code update just came out yesterday. We got it loaded in there, and there's about 80% more callouts from the topper throughout the game. You can go into the settings and adjust how often they're triggered. When you get an extra ball, do you want 20% of the time, do you want them to make a comment? Or do you want to change it to 100% of the time? So these guys are jabbering nonstop. Attract mode, how much do you want them jabbering and jabbering? What do you want their cool-off period to be? I think I've got it set about five minutes and they just go off again. A lot of funny things that are in there. I've already found an Easter egg with the topper that's fun, so go check it out. It's just a fun time. I just put up my best score ever, 40 million points, and I happened to avoid the Bog of Eternal Stench sticking to my high score. So that was fantastic. For those uninitiated, the Bog of Eternal Stench mode in Labyrinth gives you a bunch of orange shots that you're supposed to follow your path through the bog, right? So as you shoot an orange shot, another one will light up. And so you have to kind of find your way across the play field shooting these lanes but avoiding basically everything else that's green. If you hit the green shots too many times, you are permanently stunk, and your score will reflect that by having green stink lines coming off of it for the rest of the game. And if you get your score on the leaderboard, your score will maintain those stink lines of that green throughout eternity because it's the bog of eternal stench, and the topper will yell at you. So it's super fun, man. I totally dig this thing. I've been having a lot of fun trying to learn the modes, learning the shots. I'm getting better as we go on. I got the alternate back glass in there. Not that the Bowie one is bad. That's a full back glass as well. I got the shooter rod. I actually kind of dig it now that I got it. I took the gold, the chrome lines from Godfather, and I stuck them on there too because that joke just will not die for me. I freaking love it. So I'm having a lot of fun with Labyrinth. Really haven't had any issues. We had a little bug issue in the new code where the game just kind of reset itself but other than that it been going pretty good A couple of audio ducking issues which I sure will get sorted out in further code updates For the most part, though, the game is playing great. It's just a great game to have in the house. Love it. No shaker motor, but there is an option in the menu to add a coil for, you know, coil knocker. And when I talked to David Van Ness, he said that they were working on a first-party peripheral for that. So we'll wait and see. I hope they do bring out some shaker motor interactivity. But as it is, the inside of that cabinet, although the plywood is fantastic, like great condition, like this isn't no, you know, CDX plywood, no flooring. I mean, it's like high-grade birch stuff, or at least ACX, you know, like cabinet quality. But I don't see any holes that are made for a shaker motor. So I think if one would need to come after market, it would have to be drilled and then installed, which is one additional barrier. We'll see what happens. here they go again I don't know if you can hear them so they're referencing the girl the protagonist from Labyrinth that is completely missing from the code the one froggy I think will bark up like you know have you seen the girl and then the guy in the middle is like what girl you know the girl and then they say something like well she's already been through the Labyrinth once there's no way she would come back and do it again super fun and all the call outs like that I've been digging There's so many in there and so many more to get to. I've gone through the Brick Keeper multiball, which is the pretty easy one to get to, but also doing the Friend multiball, too. I'm getting farther in the modes. It's just a fun game. I dig it. The ramps are cool.
    25:32
    So I'm having a good time with the Labyrinth. Oh, what else do we have in here? Black Knight Sword of Rage. Speaking of toppers, I can't wait to get this topper on top of a Black Knight. I can't wait to get a Black Knight Sword of Rage Pro in my game room, and I'm happy to report that the scavenger hunt has ended. The purchase has been made. I do have a Black Knight Sword of Rage, and it is en route to District on Arcade. So thanks, everybody, who was kind of scouring Pinside for me. Every time there was a wisp of a Black Knight coming up for sale, I was getting inundated with messages. I love it. Thank you so much. Y'all are my boosters, man. So we made it happen. One of them came through, and game's purchased. I can't wait for it. I'm going to get that topper on top of there and then let Big Daddy Steve Ritchie just yell me stupid while I drain over and over again. So Black Knight Sword of Rage. Even if you have a game with like 2,000 plays, each play is like 90 seconds or less. So it's not like it's had a ton of gameplay. But that's coming in. I can't wait for that. Jaws LEs are being delivered. My boy down there with Balls of Steel Pinball Sterling, he just unboxed his today. He's got an unboxing up on his YouTube channel. It does great work, great quality stuff. Go check that out if you want to see a Jaws unboxing. He dug in there and the expression speaker lights, right? We all initially thought that was okay. Well, speaker lights are nothing new. It's cool. Stern's doing them, but, you know, so what? So they actually do have a little node board in there that runs the program for these, and they do have some choreographed different colors based on modes of the game. So I don't know if that's worth an extra $3,000 technically, but it is a step above the normal aftermarket speaker lights that you could get, given that when you're in the sonar mode, they turn green. When you're in a bloody mode, they're red. When you're in night mode, there's something else. So I think that's cool. When are those going to be available? Probably six weeks after the Foo Fighters expression lights are available, which so far has been never, which will be right after the Venom topper and right after the Foo topper and right after the Jaws topper, and by then it's going to be 2026. But we'll see. We'll see what happens. Hopefully the supply chain issues that are tied to that expression light, Hopefully they are not doing just-in-time shipping. I hope Stern goes ahead and puts in a bulk order so we can get some expression lights moving. I wonder if it's the light bars themselves or if it is the boards that run them that are holding it up. But if ever there was a thing to look at making locally, I think that would be it, especially with the margins they have to have on those. But notwithstanding, JAWS Premium and LE look awesome. The premiums will be going out export this week. Hopefully there's enough of a run of premiums that I can maybe get in on mine before the rest of the LEs run. But either way, I think we're only a month or two away from that. So I've got plenty of games to play in the meantime. What else is going on?
    28:17
    Let's go over to mod news. So I was up late playing with Scooby-Doo. I got my Phantom Lights from Stumbler Pinball in here. These things, he's got his lolly board, he calls it. He puts in all these really cool sparkly LED effects. You see them on Godzilla with the UFO, with the Godzilla sculpt there, with the noodle building, with the subway building that's coming or whatever. So I got the 4 system for Scooby-Doo. I would say on a grade of 1 to 10 as far as difficult installation. This is running about a 7, but I managed to get them in there, and, man, it does sparkle pretty cool, man. What a cool little upgrade there. So thanks, Tumblr, for doing that. The last item I have up is from Hooked on Pinball. he reached out to me offering some light up panels for Spooky Pinball's hinges, right, where you have Lemmy T. Ghost there, laser cut in the side, so those are available now I've got them in the box, they just came in thanks buddy, I'm going to dig into those it's two in the morning, I don't have the energy left in me to go ahead and try to tackle something else in Scooby-Doo right now, but those are available, check that out, I also was able to get some mods for Black Knight Sword to Rage. In addition to the cool flipper toppers, which are actually little steel swords that go on there, it looks super boss. I got those, but he's got these pop bumper caps for Black Knight Sword to Rage. There's a nest of three pop bumpers back there. It is like a stack of metal gold coins. It looks like a dragon's horde on top of each pop bumper with chrome skulls. It looks completely boss. When I saw the pictures, I was like, you know what? I've got to get that. I don't care if it's a 3D print that he painted. It just looks cool. I really want to have them. But now that I got them, these things are solid cast metal. They're heavy, and they shine. It's the best pop bumper cap I have seen, and that's including Gary Stern floating in an inner tube for Jaws. So check those out, Hooked on Pinball. I was very impressed with everything I've got from him so far. Mainly I got the EL light-up panels for the side armor. They look boss on Star Wars with that LE armor once you can get it to light up. And light-up armor is like the next step. You know, pass the cab custom laser cut and gray stuff. You know, put some, you know, go to Michael's and get some foam, foil paper background light up stuff or these EL panels and just go with it. Can you tell it's one in the morning? All right, I'm going to sign off here because it's been one half hour. This was episode 103.0 of Don's Pinball Podcast. I love doing these. And, you know, the news just stacks up and then I got to come out and comment about it. I'm having such a great time in pinball, and it's only going to get better this year. TPF is coming up soon. The D-Jennies are later today. Princess Bride, we're going to find out all about it on Monday. And then who knows what's going to go on after that. Over the next month, we're going to get Jaws machines delivered. The spring expos are going to start. And then pretty soon there will be another Stern Cornerstone here. And we have no idea yet what it's going to be. There's also rumblings of Matrix coming from Jersey Jack next. Is that a follow-up to Elton John with his new flipper system? man the 2024 is gonna be even better than 2023 you just watch be sure to email me don's pinball podcast at gmail.com come on the facebook page do we're very active on there we're up to 1100 uh followers there thank you everybody doing more and more youtube content as time goes on also more things are coming to the mod dungeon i'm currently focused on stranger things i got some cool stuff coming up there thanks to the people that reached out and are testing some of the mods for me. Really appreciate it. Have yourselves a great rest of the weekend.