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Episode 60 – Dennis Kriesel is a cheap bastard

Head2Head Pinball·podcast_episode·1h 48m·analyzed·Sep 17, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.022

TL;DR

Dennis Kriesel discusses his contrarian pinball taste, market pricing, and top 5 wild-under-glass machines.

Summary

Dennis Kriesel, co-host of This Week in Pinball and Eclectic Gamers Podcast podcast, appears on Head2Head Pinball podcast to discuss his eclectic taste in pinball machines, market pricing trends, Gottlieb street-level games, and his curated list of top five 'Wild Under Glass' pinball machines. The conversation covers game design preferences, secondary market dynamics, collector behavior, and specific machine evaluations including Deadpool, Attack from Mars remakes, and rare Gottlieb titles.

Key Claims

  • Attack from Mars is worth under $5,000 USD to Dennis; he won't pay new-in-box prices for old games

    high confidence · Dennis Kriesel stating his personal valuation threshold for classic games

  • Secondary market pinball prices in Australia have risen significantly in the last six months, with some machines overpriced at double their actual worth

    high confidence · Martin noting pricing patterns observed in Australian secondary market

  • Market prices for DMD-era and beyond games are still rising broadly, but not at the rate of two years ago; earlier games (alphanumeric) have seen modest increases

    medium confidence · Dennis characterizing U.S. market trends based on observation, noting Zach has better market tracking

  • System 11 games represent a 'weird middle ground' in pricing due to popularity from introduction of complex rules and ramps without displays

    medium confidence · Dennis explaining System 11 market positioning

  • Hoops has some of the best-balanced rules of any System 3 game ever made and is favored by tournament players

    high confidence · Dennis discussing tournament gameplay and rule quality of Hoops

  • Gottlieb Street Level games (Deadly Weapon, Title Fight) have severely broken rules with scoring exploits that make them uncompetitive

    high confidence · Dennis explaining why he avoids certain Street Level games

  • Eclectic Gamers Podcast podcast is 'probably the 10th most popular pinball podcast' and uses a pinball-plus-video-games format that is mathematically stupid for growth

    high confidence · Dennis self-describing his podcast's position and strategy

  • Deadpool plays shorter than Iron Maiden but longer than Metallica for average players, with code not yet at desired level but reasonable for location play

    high confidence · Dennis describing Deadpool gameplay and code status

Notable Quotes

  • “I am at my core fundamentally incredibly thoroughly lazy. And as a champion pinball player like Martin can tell us, when you play pinball you really need to be standing. And so I don't play it in a chair or anything, but because of that, I want to sit my ass down. So I play video games.”

    Dennis Kriesel @ ~19:30 — Reveals Dennis's self-aware, humorous explanation for maintaining interest in both pinball and video games despite the difference in physical demands

  • “Best game ever. Beautiful. It's, oh, that wild, that wild under the glass there. So shiny and chrome almost.”

    Dennis Kriesel @ ~35:00 — Dennis's initial reaction to Deadpool Pinball, characterizing its visual appeal and mechanical presentation

  • “Attack from Mars is awesome, but there's absolutely no way I'm paying that much. It's a something thousand dollar game.”

    Dennis Kriesel @ ~57:00 — Demonstrates the secondary market pricing pressure on classic remakes and collector resistance to premium pricing

  • “You can't, there's no rules against sitting down. You can sit down too long. It's a personal rule. There's a moral, it's a moral code, Ryan.”

    Dennis Kriesel @ ~21:00 — Humorous discussion about the physical demands of pinball and the community's informal expectations around machine play

  • “I just think the geometry works pretty well. Code's not quite where I would want it to be, but I think for location play, they got it far enough along that it's reasonable.”

    Dennis Kriesel @ ~34:45 — Measured assessment of Deadpool's current code state, suggesting it's serviceable for casual locations but not yet optimized

  • “System 11 is kind of that weird middle ground because there's this popularity associated with it because it's kind of like the introduction of more complex rules and ramps, but without having displays.”

    Dennis Kriesel @ ~75:00 — Analysis of why System 11 machines occupy unique pricing territory in the collector market

  • “I would argue that from a gameplay perspective, Silver Slugger has the most accommodating layout to a flow player. And that's why I like it.”

Entities

Dennis KrieselpersonMartinpersonRyan C.personJeremy PackerpersonJohn PopadiukpersonSteve RitchiepersonZach MinneypersonTonyperson

Signals

  • $

    market_signal: Australian secondary market prices rising significantly over last 6 months with some asking prices double actual value; U.S. market sees continued DMD-era price increases but slower than 2 years ago; System 11 and pre-DMD games showing modest gains

    high · Martin observing Australian market with machines advertised at $6,000 that are worth $3,000; Dennis noting U.S. DMD prices still rising but at slower rate; limited supply driving prices for entry-level collectors

  • ?

    collector_signal: Limited edition and remake pricing strategies (Attack from Mars) creating collector resistance; buyers want premium features but expect classic pricing; aftermarket parts inflation (Tron light cycles 300% markup) driven by pinball scarcity labeling

    high · Dennis unwilling to pay $7,000+ for Attack from Mars; discussion of wanting big screen and copper upgrades at classic prices; Hallmark ornament becoming $300 pinball mod due to scarcity labeling

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Dennis demonstrates clear preference for high-flow games influenced by Steve Ritchie designs; values continuous shot sequences over stop-and-shoot aiming; distinguishes between accessible (Medieval Madness style) and broken rules (mystery award imbalance)

    high · Dennis citing Walking Dead, Star Trek, Iron Maiden as favorites; praising Silver Slugger's accommodating layout for flow players; criticizing mystery holes with 20M vs 5K point swings

  • ?

    product_concern: Deadpool code described as 'not quite where I would want it to be' but acceptable for location play; suggests early code release with ongoing tuning; game plays between Iron Maiden and Metallica in tournament context

    high · Dennis's direct statement about Deadpool code status and location viability; comparison to other games for gameplay length

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.072

0:00
www.pipto-pipto.com Welcome everybody to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is episode 60. My name is Martin and with me, it's Ryan C. And Marty, we've been having a lot of guests on that have really great taste in pinball, so let's flip it around. Let's do a 180. And this guy is incisively known for having some of the worst taste in pinball machines. He is currently searching... What? Yes, worse. He is currently searching for a World Challenge Soccer. Now, World Challenge Soccer is a game you don't search for on Craigslist or Pinside Marketplace. It's one that you usually dumpster dive for or you find smashed in pieces in Todd Tucky's car park after he's thrown it off a roof. He's the better half of the This Week in Pinball podcast and the second best half of his own podcast, the Eclipses Gamers podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, Dennis Kreisel. Well, Ryan, thank you so much for that kind introduction, both of you, for having me on. This is really exciting. I have followed head-to-head pinball for so long, and here you are, 2018, golden ring within your grasp. You've had the titans of Australian pin industry on, operators and distributors alike. You've gone and gotten the best of the best from Stern, from Jersey Jack, from the other manufacturers, and now here you are letting it all slip through your fingers. It pleases me ever so much.
2:06
How are y'all doing? Yeah, we're really good. Excellent. Pretty early here. I'm assuming it's late there. It's a huge news week, guys. It's a huge news week. Simmer down on a chit-chat. I'll have you know that Todd Tucky has restored several World Challenge Soccers. So why World Challenge Soccers? I've played it, and I mean, I guess it's those, I don't know, what is it, the flippers that are really terrible on that? Why do you want that game? I just want to try it out, and I'm never going to find one on location because apparently it's too awful. So that or CarHop, they're both the same layout, but it's sort of like, it doesn't pop up, neither of them do, so yeah, I've been watching for it. And you'd think a game that awful, I wouldn't have to watch a long time, but apparently I have to. But I feel that this is the sacrifice that I make to myself and really to the hobby, so you should be thanking me. Well, let's take it back a bit, then. We'll hopefully end it, you wanting to get one of these god-awful machines.

Limited supply of used pinball machines coupled with growth in player base causes used prices to rise as new machines are too expensive for entry-level collectors

medium confidence · Dennis explaining market dynamics driving secondary market prices

  • Jeremy Packer created Easter eggs under Deadpool plastics (to-do list with crossed-off items) and John Popadiuk did similar work on Cirqus Voltaire

    high confidence · Dennis and Martin discussing underbelly artwork on machines

    • Dennis Kriesel @ ~110:00 — Explains Dennis's design preferences for high-flow games and why he values certain Gottlieb Street Level machines

  • “I wrote an article on, that was actually my first Pinball article I ever actually submitted for publication. And I just thought it was a really interesting story, but in terms of street level, I own two of them.”

    Dennis Kriesel @ ~95:00 — Dennis establishing his credibility in pinball writing and his actual collection versus his perceived obsessions

  • “The original life cycles were these little, small, crappy toys. And they don't light up. They're about a tenth of the size of the ones that people put in there, and the one that people put in there is a Hallmark keepsake that you hang on a Christmas tree and it costs about $10.”

    Ryan C. @ ~155:00 — Details the Tron Light Cycle mod history, showing how pinball culture modifies machines and inflates prices for aftermarket parts

  • “Everything comes from mystery award holes. But it's not like Deadly Weapon where you get 20 million points or you get 5,000 points out of the mystery hole. So it's not broken in that regard.”

    Dennis Kriesel @ ~107:00 — Distinguishes between broken rule design and acceptable risk/reward in game balance

    • Todd Tucky
    person
    Deadpoolgame
    Attack from Marsgame
    World Challenge Soccergame
    Iron Maidengame
    Metallicagame
    Cirqus Voltairegame
    Silver Sluggergame
    Hoopsgame
    Earthshakergame
    TRON: Legacygame
    Stargategame
    Deadly Weapongame
    Title Fightgame
    This Week in Pinballorganization
    Eclectic Gamers Podcastorganization
    Head2Head Pinballorganization
  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Gottlieb Street Level games (Deadly Weapon, Title Fight, Centigrade 37) suffer from intentionally lopsided rules designed to let inexperienced players win; pointy flippers compound playability issues; only Silver Slugger and Hoops achieve competitive balance

    high · Dennis describing 20M vs 5K mystery hole design; explaining Gottlieb design intent to let girlfriends beat experienced players; excluding Street Level games from competitive consideration

  • ?

    content_signal: Eclipses Gamers uses non-traditional 'pinball plus video games' format described as mathematically inefficient but personally satisfying; Dennis notes pinball articles get more readers than podcast listeners; YouTube (Straight Down the Middle) outperforms podcast audio in reach

    high · Dennis claiming podcast is 'probably 10th most popular pinball podcast'; noting math works against niche podcast strategy; acknowledging article readership exceeds podcast listenership

  • ?

    design_innovation: Discussion of mechanical and thematic integration defines 'wild under glass' concept; Earthshaker's earthquake shaker, Tron's light cycle toys, and integrated sound/light design all cited as creating immersive thematic experiences within playfield design constraints

    medium · Dennis's top 5 list focusing on wild-under-glass features; distinction between toys, shaker motors, and sound integration as thematic elements

  • $

    market_signal: New machine prices ($7,000-$15,000) push collectors to used/secondary market; limited supply of used machines causes used prices to rise; entry-level collectors cascade to older systems (System 11→9→6) as prices climb at each tier

    high · Dennis explaining how expensive new games force buyers to used market; describing System 11 as introductory complex rules; noting players migrate downward to affordable older systems

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Tournament format and competitive play influence game rule design preferences; games with balanced rules (Hoops, Sea Witch) are favored; broken rules with mystery awards create non-competitive casual play; Mario Kart Blue Shell analogy applied to pinball balance

    high · Dennis preferring Hoops' balanced rules for tournaments; comparing broken mystery holes to Mario Kart's Blue Shell; noting Deadly Weapon rules too exploitable

  • ?

    community_signal: Hidden messages and artwork under machine plastics (Deadpool's to-do list, Circus Voltaire's thank you note) create additional engagement layer; collectors and players actively seek and share these discoveries; reflects designer personality integration into machines

    high · Martin and Dennis discussing Jeremy Packer's crossed-off to-do list under Deadpool plastics; John Papaduke's message on Circus Voltaire; Dennis considering cracking machines open to view

  • ?

    product_strategy: Chicago Gaming's remake strategy (Attack from Mars) positioned as 'enhanced' not just 'replica'; includes modern features (big screen, copper) absent from originals; premium tier pricing creates collector friction despite enhanced gameplay and aesthetics

    high · Dennis noting Attack from Mars remake as 'more than just a remake'; comparing to Medieval Madness as 'fantastic replica'; discussion of wanting premium features without premium pricing

  • ?

    industry_signal: Top designers (Ritchie, Gomez) accessible to media; game code updates and Easter egg placement reflect designer personality and attention to detail; post-release code tuning now expected industry standard

    medium · Discussion of code updates as normal expectation; Easter egg placement by named artists; reference to designer accessibility in podcast content

    • 3:10
    So why should people care about you, Dennis? Who are you? Well, they shouldn't, and that's the first secret to understanding pinball. And for any quote-unquote personality or podcast is don't care about any of us. We are all trash. We are all meaningless.
    3:27
    So in terms of what I do in Collected Gamers podcast was, and that was Tony's idea. That was not mine. He likes to pretend it was mine. But he mentioned, hey, you know, we talk about games a lot. Maybe we should do it on a podcast. And I never listened to podcasts, so I was like, that sounds dumb. And then I started listening to him because I got tired of paying for satellite radio. And then I thought, you know what, we do talk about this stuff enough. We could probably work something out. And the original plan was we're going to talk about pinball and we're going to talk about video games and we're going to talk about tabletop gaming. And we do it biweekly. And three of those four things have stayed fairly consistent. We kind of dropped the tabletop segment because I don't play hardly any tabletop games. And so I never helped really move that one along, whereas I can always keep the content going on the pinball side. And Tony could carry the video games if he needed to alone, but I actually spend more time on video games than I do on pinball. So that's just kind of how we hammered it out. And there we are. We're probably the 10th most popular pinball podcast. So that's the secret to my success. I mean, most people that, it's not a natural progression, but there's a lot of people that are into video games and then they get the pinball bug and video games kind of get strapped off. As accessible as video games are, where you can just kind of have it in your pocket with like a DS or a PS Vita or even a Switch, or at the end of the day you sit down on your couch and you veg out and you play a video game. How is it that you and Tony are kind of still very much into video games versus just being solely into pinball machines? Well, I can't really speak on Tony's behalf and his work schedule is so rough I know it would have been hard to get him on at the same time. In terms of myself, you basically summarized it, Ryan. I am at my core fundamentally incredibly thoroughly lazy. And as a champion pinball player like Martin can tell us, when you play pinball you really need to be standing. And so I don't play it in a chair or anything, but because of that, I want to sit my ass down. So I play video games. I mean, you can't, there's no rules against sitting down. You can sit down too long. It's a personal rule. There's a moral, it's a moral code, Ryan. It's a moral code. And you're sounding like you violate the code. I was thinking about our good friends of the podcast, Jeff Teolos from Pinball Profile. There's some pictures leaking out of him playing pinball sitting down, so I just wanted to watch out for him.
    6:00
    I'm going to tell you a little secret, Ryan. He's not playing pinball, man. He's probably playing plunge ball or something. But hey, he'll give you brownie points because you didn't ask me, how'd you get into pinball?
    6:12
    Well, so as you know, Dennis, I came on your show and we talked a lot about video games. And I pretty much explain to you how much of a history I've had in video games as well. But it's weird for me at the moment because if I have a choice of sitting down and playing a video game or standing up and playing a pinball and I couldn't be bothered because I'm too lazy and I couldn't be bothered standing up and playing a pinball, I'll do nothing.
    6:36
    I'm just cool so much on video games these days. Oh, I sympathize with that. I actually most of the time will boot up my Xbox and I'll go into Amazon Prime Video and I'll watch a movie. But my podcast isn't about movies, which is probably Tony and I could do a podcast on movies. We are so into that the zeitgeist or at least the zeitgeist of yesteryear on movies that we could sustain on that alone. But, you know, we're talking about particular hobbies. So I have to pretend, as you both know, I have to pretend that my life is nothing but these particular things. And I pretend it very well. I think it was Steve Bannon that linked a podcast about, I think it was about the Bradley Williams license. I can't remember. Sorry, it was that Supreme Pinball machine. It was that Supreme Pinball machine. And it was just like some nerd podcast. And it was okay. But it had like way more listens and views than we will ever get. Because it was on YouTube and I have like this following. And it's so funny that we're all like sharing this little, tiny, really passionate user base. And there's just two random guys on YouTube talking about Supreme Mammal Machine and they'll get 50 times the views.
    7:49
    See, that's why you needed to do the whole Greg and Zach strategy and have launched a YouTube channel. You got to brand yourselves, get yourself about 20 or 30 sponsors.
    8:00
    And that's how you can start building it. And then you're not just in the little podcast. You see, the podcast is in an audience engagement way. It's great because the listeners feel really connected. As you know, you get a mailbag or submissions and you can get through them all in an episode. They're not that many. So it's really easy to have a good one on one relationship. But on the flip side, it's very difficult to consume podcasts in small bites. And so a YouTube video usually, I mean, straight down the middle tends to be very, very long, But you can jump around very easily. It's visual. You can pick them up and put them down. A lot of YouTube channels are 15 minutes or less for a particular video. Or you go another angle like my I tend to write a number of pinball articles. I get way more readers on the pinball articles than I ever get listeners on podcasts.
    8:50
    Do you think it's also with your podcast that it is hard to appeal to the hardcore pinball players and the hardcore video gamers in the one episode? Yep, yep. It's a Venn diagram sliced from both and that is an absolute terrible recipe of your goal is to grow numbers. There are over half a million podcasts and what's the whole value of having so many choices? They are very, very niche and Tony and I have chosen not to be niche and you have to get people that either can live in both worlds, which there are some and those people may really, really appreciate having a program like that. Or you go niche and you guarantee that you're going to get a draw off of a particular hobby. And we're not the only ones that do something that's pinball plus. I think we're the only ones that, well, no, there's Flippin' and Mashin's a podcast that I know does pinball video games and arcade games. And there are a couple others that are pinball and arcade games. They're kind of like game room themed concepts. But, yeah, it's not the popular way to do it. And mathematically, it's stupid to do it that way. But Tony and I have fun doing it like that, so we do it that way. So, moving on to all the news of this week. It's been a big news week.
    10:02
    Just joking, there's nothing. Dennis, do you play Deadpool, Deadpool Pinball Machine? You've got one on location near you? Oh, yeah. Yeah? What's it like? Best game ever. Beautiful.
    10:15
    It's, oh, that wild, that wild under the glass there. So shiny and chrome almost. Yeah, it's fine. I like the shots. I think the geometry works pretty well. Code's not quite where I would want it to be, but I think for location play, they got it far enough along that it's reasonable. I think it so far looks like it's a decent tournament game. I'd summarize it as it plays shorter than Iron Maiden, but it plays longer than Metallica. That's kind of my general sense for the average player. Okay. I saw a picture this week. It was, I think, I'm pretty sure it's underneath some plastics, kind of Christopher Franchi style.
    11:01
    And Jeremy Packer has put a to-do list. And it's number one, fix toilet, and it's crossed out. Number two, make pinball, it's easy, and that's crossed out. Number three, Save the World Again. So that's underneath the plastics. It's a little Easter egg on Deadpool. Very cool. I didn't know about that. I may shatter the glass at the location and just lift those plastic up. Apparently that's for me to consume. And now that you've let me know that that's my right, I'm more than happy to look. If you ever see a Circus Voltaire as well, you can shatter and have a look under the right plastics. And there's a thank you note from John Papadou saying, thanks for cleaning under the plastics. So just letting you know that as well. Thank you for your pre-order dollars.
    11:48
    He was warning us all along. He was warning us all along. Maybe if they do Circus Voltaire remake, they'll add a little addendum there to the under plastic. Give us a little bit of an update, but normally when I see Circus Voltaire, I'm just busy swearing at it.
    12:04
    I forget all about the beauty beneath the plastics. I like Circus Voltaire. A lot of people, a lot of really good players do. A lot of people feel it's the second best game. I think it's got a really creative layout, so I give it props for that, but there's just all that plastic crap that's popping up all over the fucking place and it drives me. I'm sorry, that stupid little balloon, that pisses me off. The boom balloon or the floating ball thing? Oh, the floating ball thing. The thing that looks like some child accidentally left it in there with a little dab of gum. I don't like that. I don't like plastic crap flying around everywhere. It just pisses me off, something fierce. And then the pop-up pop bumper, which I know sounds really clever to say. It's stupid, and I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. So then thinking obviously about, you know, Deadpool, we've asked you, you know, what do you think of it? What we really don't know before that your answer there is what type of machines you like. Now, obviously, Ryan gave you a fantastic introduction saying that you pretty much got terrible taste, but he says that to me a lot, so I'm kind of okay with that. So what would you say are some of your favorite games or, you know, what style of game that you like? Well, stylistically, I prefer high-flow games if I were to only get one pick. So things that move along at a really fast clip. I like Steve Ritchie designs, obviously, because he tends to be the highest level of flow. But obviously, diversity is the spice of life. So in terms of games that I really enjoy, I'm a big fan of Walking Dead, Star Trek. I like the Tron's all right. Iron Man, I really like. And Iron Maiden's good. I think Guardians actually is pretty decent. So in terms of modern Stearns, that's kind of where I've been falling lately. And then going more back into the 90s, obviously Attack from Mars. That's my favorite game of the 90s hands down. I just won't pay as much as they command to own one for myself. And they're on location here all the time. How much would you pay? That's an interesting question because I have that conversation a lot. Attack from Mars is awesome, but there's absolutely no way I'm paying that much. It's a something thousand dollar game. So how much is Attack from Mars worth to you?
    14:25
    Under $5,000 US. Okay. Anything. Anything. Oh, I will not pay new in-box prices for an old game. To me, that makes no sense. So I just won't. But you can tell, look, we've meant, particularly Attack from Mars, we've sort of said, and I consider it a remake enhanced. So I kind of see that the value is kind of there. I still think it's maybe just a little bit over what I think is the right return for that. But, you know, Attack from Mars looks better. It is more than just a remake, which Medieval Madness was. Many of them was just a fantastic replica, but Attack on Mars sort of took it in a new direction. Yeah, I agree with you. And if we're talking about the remake in particular, the price on the classic, it's not really so much out of line for me as they did a smart thing and they're like, hey, here's the classic edition, but you know you want the big screen and you know you want the copper. And you know what? They're right. I want all of it. But I want to pay the classic price and I can't. Yeah, of course. So I don't. You know what? That's how it is. It's really interesting you say that because there's parallels in other industries as well where people really do want all the bells and whistles but they don't want to pay for it. And my parallel always is cars. You know, I want to buy a new car and here's the options list. I want upgraded audio and I want navigation and I want this but I don't want to pay for it. I still just want to expect that it's going to be the bog standard price. That's just the same thing. That's our expectation. If we want more, maybe we're just a bit opportunistic. Well, the problem is that every time a new car comes out, the older model dips in value. Well, I mean, it dips in value as soon as you buy it, but even with iPhones, a new iPhone just got announced. The previous iPhone gets flooded on the second-hand market. With Pimball machines, it doesn't really work that way, right? Like Attack from Mars will probably be as expensive as it is now for a while regardless of what comes out. Yeah. I mean it's a different industry and a lot of that has to do with how small the collector market is coupled with, in my view, the growth that we're seeing is more and more people are interested in pinball. A portion of those want to acquire pinball. You've got different budgets within that range and what they're able to – I mean that's why used prices are going up is there's limited supply of the used pins. The new pins are too pricey for a lot of people who are getting into the hobby, and so they gravitate towards what they can afford that still meets as many of those options, those vehicle options as they can grab. And eventually, you know, System 11 gets too expensive, and so then people start looking at System 9, and they go down to System 6. You know, it's funny you say that, and I'm curious to know whether you're experiencing the same thing over in the States. But in recent times, I think in the last six months in particular, I've looked at the second-hand market for pinball. And I've looked at some prices, and Ryan and I have many conversations. I will send him a link. And we both just scratch our head and go, this person's dreaming. They're advertising a machine for $6,000 that's worth $3,000.
    17:43
    And the first time you see it, you go, you're ridiculous. It's not going to sell. But then a week later, you'll see another machine that's at a ridiculously high price. And I think in the last six months, the second-hand market here has actually, you know, the prices have gone up significantly. And I'm just curious to know because everyone keeps saying that, you know, we've hit the bubble, the bubble's burst and prices are going to come down. We hit that saturation market. Have we? What's the market over in the States like?
    18:12
    Well, and I wish I tracked it better, you know, market trends and all of that. That's really Zach's wheelhouse, or so he would claim. And from what little I have observed of it, my general sense is market costs are still, broadly speaking, rising on DMD era and beyond games, but not at the rate they were, say, two years ago. Anything earlier than that, so alphanumerican before, the market prices seem to have gone up a little bit over, say, the last year, but not by as much. System 11 is kind of that weird middle ground because there's this popularity associated with it because it's kind of like the introduction of more complex rules and ramps, but without having displays. So everyone used to think, oh, it's a hidden gem. And then EMs, I mean, they're almost always cheap unless they're one of the handful of highly sought collector pieces because they either play well or more often the art attracts people to them. Too many of them. Too many EMs. All right, here's the thing about electromechanical, Ryan. There are a shocking quantity of turds that people pretend they're good. It is... Give us an example. Centigrade 37. Oh. It plays so well. Yeah, it plays so great. That one-third of the play field that's dedicated to Bagatelle, you know, my favorite form of pinball. Yeah, what a winner. I can at least see some people making an argument for the nudge factor of Slick Chick, another game I also don't think plays very well, but not Centigrade 37. It's all about that backlash. That's why people want that game. It's the weird thing, it's such a push against kind of like, you know, boobs and pinball and that kind of stuff, but games like Centigrade 37, like if it didn't have that woman on the back glass, then does anyone care about it? I don't think so. I think it's a turd game. What are you, Gary, I got it. That's like no bonus and you get it in the bag, it's, oh look, I can't do it, there are no rubbers over there, I can't nudge anything, oh well, like maybe the lesbian Frankenstein thermometer moves, maybe it doesn't. But I don't think it's because the women have got boobs, Ryan. I think it's actually because it's a very stylistic throwback, kind of Barbarella type thing, and that's kind of what's cool about it.
    20:40
    And the thermometer thing is a cool gimmick. I mean, this isn't strikes and spares here. Come on. There's a little more class, Ryan. There's a little more. Ah, you're never going to play that down. Ever. So, it's literally your first story.
    21:00
    When we introduce this, I did this to this pinball machine. People are going to remember that. I did what? I played it. That's all I did. I didn't stick my thing anywhere. I just played the pinball machine. Yeah, I think it was implied.
    21:13
    Yeah, it was. That's the American interpretation. And so speaking of games, you've got a, I would call it a bit of an obsession, maybe just a fascination with the street level games from Gottlieb. Yeah, that's probably a little bit overblown by people, just because I wrote an article on, that was actually my first Pinball article I ever actually submitted for publication. And I just thought it was a really interesting story, but in terms of street level, I own two of them. And other than that, Carhop slash if I could find the World Challenge Soccer, which I'd rather try because I think the rules are probably a little bit more sophisticated on it. That's really the last of them that interest me of the six because Deadly Weapon, Title Fight, and the whatever third one I'm now currently blanking on are, all of them have a problem with the rules. And while I'm not a hardcore tournament leader, I do like competitive pinball and I expect my rules to not be completely lopsided and broken. And so there are three street level games that are just kind of ruled out because of that. The scoring exploits are too severe.
    22:23
    So what are the two that you've got? Have you got Silver Slugger? I do. I know you love that one. Ryan and I played it. We talked about it ages ago where we sort of looked at it and went, this is a great machine. And then when did this come out? Oh, okay. Yeah, it was a great machine for 1985. It came out in 89 or something. 90.
    22:47
    90. That's exactly right. And I think the other one people talk about is hoops, and I've played those as well. Well, there you go. And that is, and I did actually play that in a tournament. I think I played that at Indies a couple of years ago. And that did, that made for a great tournament machine. And, yeah, the most tournament, well, I mean, everything's polarizing. You move past the pointy flippers and all that, you know, everything that most everyone agrees on that they don't favor, myself included, obviously. And the rules on hoops are the best rules of any of the street-level games. In fact, they're some of the best rules of any System 3 ever made because it's so well-balanced. And because of that, a lot of tournament players really like hoops. And they also really like it because the pop-up facility has it, so they get to try it. Yeah. I would argue that from a gameplay perspective, Silver Slugger has the most accommodating layout to a flow player. And that's why I like it. The rules aren't as good as hoops. Everything comes from mystery award holes. But it's not like Deadly Weapon where you get 20 million points or you get 5,000 points out of the mystery hole. So it's not broken in that regard. So I still think that's where all the modes come from. That's where the multiball comes from, but nothing's lopsided in it, atrociously so. And because of that, I can really enjoy the fact that it's actually the most conventional layout of any of those street-level games. All the rest were fairly creative layouts, and maybe they'd have been great games because of that weird asymmetry that goes on with them, but the rules just make them suck.
    24:21
    So then, of those, and you talked about, and I'll talk about it again, I'm a little bit cool on some of those rules, But the thing that really does ruin those Gottlieb machines is the pointy flippers. It just ruins the gameplay. But of those machines that have got the pointy flippers, besides World's Challenge Soccer, what other machines of that sort of era from the Gottlieb premiere days would you say can kind of compensate for having such rubbish flippers? Well, the low-hanging fruit answer would be Stargate. That's just suit the pyramid, right? It's just suit the pyramid, but again, the rules aren't offensive. The layout is decent. It's got some challenging shots. It's got some decent modes going. It's actually a fairly deep mode-based pin. And so because of that, I would say that one's generally seen as the, easily I'd say, seen as the best DMD game that Gottlieb put out. Another one is, and while I'm not particularly hot on it myself, Likes, camera, action, has a lot of fans. And, I mean, first mode-based game, so it's got that going for it. And, yeah, some of the elements of it are a little easy, but there is a lot going on in that game. And it is very much a shooter's game. So if you're less of a flow player and you like that stop-and-go style and aiming your shots out, that's a good one to choose from, too. But, see, it seemed like once the DMDs really hit the System 3 stuff, that's just when the rules, I don't know if they just felt more and more rushed or what. Or if it was a strategic decision. I mean, everything was different. Tournament play wasn't a big deal. So they're going out there thinking about things like, well, this guy's playing the game and his girlfriend's playing with him. Wouldn't it be cool if we had a way that she could win if she'd never played pinball before? I actually heard this as an example. So not to say that she couldn't have been the better player or anything, but that was what was going on in their minds at the time. And they're like, well, let's put in a mystery award where it gives you 20 million points and then she can blow him away. And then he feels inferior and it's awesome. There you go. That's the premiere for you. It's like the Blue Shell in Mario Kart though. How come they get away with it? Yeah, Blue Shell. Is Mario Kart played competitively and do they disable the Blue Shell in that case? Yes to both. Okay, cool. Mario Kart with all items turned off. It's one of the most boring things you will ever watch. It's like competitive Smash Brothers. They play that at Evo. They play that at other fighting game tournaments. Sucks. Don't watch it. Boring. So you're saying they turn all items off so there's no mystery box at all? Nope. So it's just a shitty racing game? Yep. Wow. There you go. Wow. Where a Horizon fail Yeah What we call What on Under Glass Dennis Wow Wow W wow
    27:16
    We don't do top five lists very often, but we've got a guess, Dennis. So you prepared for us the top five World Under Glass Pinball machines of all time. Is that correct? Well, I prepared my list of five. I assumed you guys had a list of five. No, this is the whole thing. Oh, I just get to define that. Well, this is nice because then we know that you're wrong. That's okay. Well, no, no. I mean, I'm assuming if I make – as I've learned anything from writing any articles, it's that if I've done something and no one else did it, I basically get to define how it's interpreted. So this is excellent. I'm going to surround this. Yeah, okay. Well, there's so many possibilities. So the way I went at it is I've really focused on what you asked for, which is wild and not gameplay. And we can talk about that as we go along, but my number five then is going to be Earthshaker.
    28:10
    Okay. Because early integration of the shaker motor, so that's revolutionary, had the diverter that would simulate that fault line. And so I just think for such an early game to actually go to that much trouble to integrate a wild into it, it needs to get props. So I give it props, but just at the bottom of my list. Is the shaker, though, under the glass, or is it under the playfield, right? If it's under the playfield, it is under the glass, my ass. Okay.
    28:45
    No, I'm thinking of games like TNA or, like, we'll say whirlwinds with the, you know, blowing air on you. That's not under the glass that you couldn't really, you know. I mean, whirlwind under the glass is meant to be theme integration, right? That's right. And the shaker motor integrating into an earthquake theme is very wildly. I didn't think about whirlwind is not on my list. I did consider it, but those spinning discs, they're just too two-dimensional. They need to stick a fucking tornado in there. That's what they need. But sadly, the science just wasn't there. Okay. Out here in Kansas, we care about our tornadoes a lot, so I was disciplined. But that fan is the best topper in all of pinball, so it has that going for it. All right, my number four is Disney Tron Legacy. And I thought, yeah, this one was, I really struggled with the number four one here. And I'm not sure that this is a fair one even because so many of these games, like all of them are modded out at this point and the mods really help it along. But I just think the light cycle toys, you got the recognizer, but namely the whole light and sound integration that's going on while you're playing that game, it does a good job of making you feel like the pinball is actually in the grid from the movie. And so if that's the wild, even if it's an artificial wild, I think it can earn a place on this list. I'm not sure it should be on the list, but I decided it is on the list. So that's the list. It's your list. The life cycles on Tron, you've probably never seen one with the original life cycles, but the original life cycles were these little, small, crappy toys. And they don't light up. They're about a tenth of the size of the ones that people put in there. and the one that people put in there is a Hallmark keepsake that you hang on a Christmas tree and it costs about $10 a rejuvening and you press a button and it lights up the wheels for, I don't know, two or three seconds and then it turns off. So it's just meant to be something that you walk past on your Christmas tree, press the button and walk away. So people melt the button down so it's always on and they take the batteries out and they hook it up to the GI or it depends on how they want to control it. So yeah, that's a mod. It was a $10 mod that turned into like a $300 mod because there was a limited run of those Christmas tree ornaments. All you had to do was say it was pinball and that explains any 300% price increase on everything.
    31:06
    Let me tell you about taping LEDs to provide generalized aluminum. Never mind. I can show you a cheaper way. That's all I'm saying. But yeah, no, it's a good point. Again, it's so hard to judge Tron because they're all modded. So I feel that in a lot of ways it wasn't fair. But hey, I had 12 hours notice. So you know what? Deal with it. That's my logic. That's right. Number three.
    31:37
    Champion Pub. This game fucking blows. This is the worst game on my list. There's nothing redeeming about this game because it was entirely built for one purpose, to be a world under glass, and it shows you just why that is such a shitty idea. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. But it really is a good world under glass. You've got the punching bag, you've got the speed bag, you've got the jump rope, you've got the imposing boxer who rotates around and replaces the punching bag. It just seemed like they had, they didn't know how to make a, I mean, you look at the design team and you're like, I don't know who any of these people are because they couldn't design. But if you wanted to make an old tiny punching bar, there you go. Champion Pub is the game for you. Yeah, you got the left ramp and right ramp as well, which is meant to be left jab and right jab and the ramp goes up and down so it returns back to you. If that was a Pinball machine now, that would be an LCD screen. It would turn around and it would be a different character each time, but it wouldn't be the same as that dirty, grubby guy that looks like he's fighting you in a bar.
    32:42
    Yeah, that's a good one. I totally forgot about Champion Pub. That's a good point, but if Champion Pub was made nowadays, it would be $12,000.
    32:50
    Oh yeah, for sure. D-Broot, maybe D-Broot can make a Champion Pub remiss. Champion Pub 2, The Punch Returns, Punch Drunk, Punch Drunk Love. Get Adam Sandler to the voice call-outs. You're in chief.
    33:08
    Number two. Wizard of Oz. So that's on my list. Yeah, I figured it had to be. Now, you both own Wizard of Oz, don't you? Yeah. Yes, we do. Yeah, I never would. But that said. It's too expensive for you, didn't it? There you go. You understand me, Ryan. You know I have a peasant model Star Trek.
    33:32
    The peasant trove. That's right. I'm a plebe. I make no bones about it. But I do appreciate that Wizard of Oz is a world under glass. I say that Wizard of Oz, it probably cost Jersey Jack more to come up with all of those toys and develop all of those models for Wizard of Oz than it did for the studio to actually film that movie. You've got the castle playfield, you've got the spinning house, you've got the flying monkey, you've got the Skittles, Chase the Rainbow Light Show all over the place, like clown vomit. You have three castle doors, you have the castle molding, right? Compare that castle molding to Game of Thrones, the Game of Thrones castle. Game of Thrones Castle has a castle printed on a piece of plastic. It is disgusting compared to the molded kind of plastics on Wizard of Oz. You've got the pop bumpers, you've got the crystal ball, you're missing a whole bunch of them. The funny thing about Wizard of Oz... Look, I only write two lines in notepad and then I move the fuck on, Ryan. If you look under the playfield of Wizard of Oz, the stuff that they had to come up with to fit all that stuff in there, Like the base plate on the witch, when the witch goes up and down, because of that mech, they couldn't just put two stand-up targets there. They had to kind of put this switch plate and these hanging switches. It's so intricate, and yeah, well done with glass. If that's number two, I'm not sure what number one's going to be. Yeah, definitely.
    35:02
    Yeah, and you'll probably likely disagree, but I went ahead and put Medieval Madness in at number one. And the reason in part, and this is where I allowed my bias to creep in, it's really the only great game in the list I have. You could maybe argue Tron is great too, but Medieval Madness is classically great. It came up with a lot of concepts. You have the hidden trolls, you know, emulating the trolls under a bridge. The awesome castle which shakes when you destroy it. The catapult shot. You got the whole tower in the back for the princess to be rescued from. So, just in terms of the overall integration along with all the weird corny Monty Python-esque call-outs, I just, I don't, I really, I feel it more with that game than really with any of the others.
    35:47
    You could, again, you could say, no, the world's better in Champion Pub and the world's better in Wizard of Oz. I'm like, yeah, but I actually like to play Medieval Madness. Yeah, I get that. It's a different interaction, right? Well, it, yeah. Yeah, and I agree with absolutely everything you just said, as in the last thing you just said, in that I would argue that it's not the case. I think that Wizard of Oz and all that kind of stuff, for pure, just world under glass, seeming, like when you actually look over there and it looks like, I don't know, what do you call it, like a diorama? That's kind of what I was going to think of, where it is like a miniature world. That's Wizard of Oz, right? I don't see Medieval Madness as a miniature world. I see that as a pinball machine that's got some miniatures in it. It depends because... Yeah, I see that, Angel. Wizard of Oz, you're not... I mean, with all the toys that it has, you're not usually interacting with them. Like, the spinning house is spinning, but you're not hitting the ball into the house or anything. You're going around it, which I guess is what would happen in Tornado. That's a bad example. But in Medieval Madness, like, you're the ball knocking down the castle gate, The ball goes inside the castle to blow it up or through the sides to lock it. You're the ball, you're the person going up to rescue the damsel. Whereas in Wizard of Oz, you don't hit the witch.
    37:12
    You kind of hit the base plate underneath it. I don't know. I never feel that same connection in Wizard of Oz as I do with Medieval. I want Dennis aside here.
    37:21
    Martin has a good point, though, because it comes down to how you're defining. I mean, on its surface, World Under Glass doesn't say World Under Glass if the pinball touches. So, I mean, if it's really, if you think of it like how I'm interpreting Martin's impression of World Under Glass, that would be more like people who do, I mean, you know anyone who does like model trains and stuff and they build out those, the little landscapes and everything? That's like this. It's like a, that's Wizard of Oz, the World Under Glass. Whether or not the train runs over all the people in the town is irrelevant. Right, so if I can then add to your list, I've got four different ones and one of them, I didn't really put them in order but I sort of thought Wizard of Oz would be my number one just because you walk up to it and you know that you've got this magical world there. But the other one I've got there is Blackwater 100 which is, I don't know if you know this one, is the one that's got all the moulded green plastics. It's the Dennis Norburn one we spoke to him about. So when you walk up and you look at that machine, you know it's motocross just by looking at it because it is this world.
    38:28
    Okay. I've seen that one, but I've not played it. Yeah, it's better to look at than play. Yeah, I didn't get to play it. Yeah, it's okay. So I'll tell you the other ones I've got. F14 Tomcat.
    38:42
    Really? It's just a bunch of habit trails. But it is, but it was either a toss-up between that and Getaway in that I get what you mean, but the way that the art is drawn there, you walk over there and you know you're going to be in some fast adventure. Something fast is going to happen and as soon as you start playing, everything is firing back at you. What you see integrates with the theme incredibly well. Do you feel that F14 is too fast? No. Oh, it is, but okay. No, a lot of people do, but I love ridiculously fast games. No. So you like Mustang as well? I do love Mustang. Okay. Yeah. We're figuring each other out, or I'm figuring you out. But Marty, you don't like ridiculously fast, brutal games. You like ridiculously fast, safe games. Right? Yes.
    39:47
    That's it. Fine. Okay. I like when I nail a shot, it to come back to me very quickly. I don't like it when I miss a shot and it comes back between the flippers really quickly.
    39:58
    Right? Another one? Whitewater. Yes. Come on. Okay. Yeah, I agree with that. I can see that, yeah. Yeah, that's fair. And the last one, which is a little bit controversial for me because I don't particularly like the game, and that's Indiana Jones, Pimple Adventure. That one almost made my number four. However, I revisited some shots, photos of the playfield, and to me it was a little too much of, here, we just threw down a bunch of toys from elements of the movie, and it wasn't really sewn together in a cohesive way. Yep, and I would absolutely agree with it. But I think it is a bit of a mismatch, but when you look at it, you know that they're trying to put you in an Indiana Jones movie. Hey, you should have done that. You know what? If I was trying to win a flipper kit, that would have been the one I would have suggested needed a rebuild. Well, I'm not saying it, but I think some people may have already said it.
    40:56
    I was just saying, I don't think I've ever gotten it over to that upper left play field. Yeah, the right ramp is just a killer. And yes, it has been mentioned a number of times. Okay. Then I'm glad I didn't waste your time writing it. I mean, if you look at the pin-slide kind of like top whatever list, a lot of the games that are high up there are, you know, would be considered a good world under glass. Maybe not some of the recent ones. Hey, Deadpool's number nine. It's the ninth best pinball machine of all time. Wow. Did you guys know that? So then what would you say from Stern, as in 2000s onwards, would be where they've absolutely... I know you're talking about Tron. I would argue against Tron because I think that it looks great for a pinball machine. I'm not feeling the Tron vibe as much as I'd like. But what other Stern Machines do you think is where they've actually tried to deliberately create a world as opposed to a great playing game with great art and great lights and stuck some toys on it?
    42:03
    Interesting. I think you could make an argument for Walking Dead. Yeah. The Walker, Bicycle Girl, The Barn. So, again, much like Indiana Jones, these are from different episodes, different seasons. But it integrates into, if you know the TV show, that stuff should resonate with you, should remind you of that world. So I'd throw that one out there. Yeah, I'd agree with that. I mean, Metallica and ACDC kind of have a lot of things in them with the singing bell, but I don't know. A band can never be a world under glass. Yeah, it just doesn't, because it's so broad that you can't really say... Unless they try to emulate a band concert in the game, which they did with ACDC. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click. We're going to have to have a segment on the best and worst toys in the game. And I would argue that that toy is the worst thing in Pinball ever. It's just so bad. They're terrible toys in Pinball. Yeah, that will be... You guys need to do that. That'll be a fun segment. When I first got that Pinball machine, I just couldn't hear anything but the click. As soon as I got into Multiball, I was trying to enjoy Multiball and I just heard the click, click, click. But now I've managed to totally zone it out, so I don't even know it's in there, which I guess is a good argument for it being a horrible toy that you just forget that it's in there completely.
    43:30
    I mean, Spider-Man has a bunch of toys, but they're all kind of just, as I said, just kind of like four different, you know, the villains kind of just stuck on the playfields. Yeah, that's kind of my problem with saying like Iron Man. I mean, the Monger's a great toy, but it's really the only toy. Is that enough to make it a whole world? I mean, everything else is just... Here, look at a picture of Whiplash.
    43:51
    The Simpsons Pimball Parting. Okay, that's a good word on the glass. It has the house, the garage. It has all the locations in Springfield that they could fit on there. I think that's a good example. And I guess we were talking about before, It's kind of like when I think about my criteria for world in glass is before you even play it, when you walk up, the machine's turned on, you look at it and you instantly know, besides the fact that you can look at the theme and say, well, it's Simpsons. You can go, oh, yeah, there's the nuclear plant. There's the, what else, the couch? You can't even really tell that it's a couch. But that's kind of where I think if you can look at the world and you can almost go into the designer's mind and the designer said, first things first, I've got to make this look like the environment that you're playing. Then I'm going to worry about shots. Then I'm going to worry about rules. Then I'm going to worry about art. And that's, I think, for me, the one that really stands out on my list was Blackwater 100. You look at that and you think all Dennis did was try to create a landscape that you would be riding your bicycles around, your motorcycles around, and then it just happened to be a ball instead. I'm not sure if I told you guys I'd actually have a time machine and I just came back from the future. The greatest world on the glass thermal machine is Stern Godzilla. It's amazing. It looks great. So well done, Keith.
    45:16
    I had heard that it was a collaborative effort between Keith, Brian, Eddie and Gomez. Everyone wanted their heads on that one.
    45:27
    And Charlie and me. Yeah, but they got him to agree to not even take name credit on his contribution.
    45:36
    He was just happy to be involved. All right, talking about Godzilla, I shouldn't have pointed out. No, you shouldn't have. That was truly terrible. I thought we had finally gotten past that four weeks of constant Godzilla drama, but you just reel us back in. Yeah. Yep. Thank you, Ryan. Moving along, let's quickly touch on this topic and see where it goes. There's a pin side thread. If you are married or have a significant other, would you have more Pinball machines? It's a constant topic of conversation that I talk about with people, yes, here.
    46:16
    You know, wife won't let me do this, I have to sell one, this, this and that. So, who do we start with? I'm going to start with you because I want to know, if you were a parent, would you have more than the 15 or 16, or I don't know what time it is now, whether it's 17 right now, would you? There's one coming tomorrow, so it'll be 17 tomorrow. Oh my God. Like, I joke about it, but really? No, okay. I think initially, well, I mean, I guess it's kids as well. If I didn't have a wife and kids, I think initially I would have more. I would say, fuck it, I'm going to do this and do that and then I would sell almost all of them and go out and have fun. Because I think part of the reason why a lot of people get into pinball is that it's kind of an escape from a lot of things and it can kind of go overboard because it's an all-consuming hobby. You know, when you have kids and you're at home, I think... I don't know. I don't know what it's like to be single, okay? I haven't been single since I was like 19 years old. I feel like I would go out and have fun and travel the world with other things. I probably would do that for like, you know, six months and then get back into collecting Timmel machines, but I think it's almost more of a... It's happened because I have to stay home most of the time. That's why I like Pimball machines so much because I've got my little arcade at home. Okay. Yeah, fair enough. I guess what you're saying is because your fun needs to be located at your home, that's the cause of you wanting to have more Pimball machines at home. Yeah, that's the 15 second way of saying it instead of me blubbing on for two minutes. Yes, that's right.
    48:00
    So my answer to that would be if I didn't have a partner, I would have a different size house which would have enough room for more Pimball machines. As you know, I've only got room for four, so I would definitely have more because I would have a different size house with a room dedicated just for pinball. Okay. Dennis?
    48:21
    Well, as I'm single, I get to do what I want with my pinball machine, so I guess I've never really thought about it.
    48:28
    You know, marriage and partnerships are compromised, so I mean, it would depend. You have to respect, in my view, the issue about shared space. And that's really, for me, where I think it comes down from. It's not the money. As you've seen my collection, Ryan, you know that I don't spend any money.
    48:47
    So instead, it's really more about the fact that I have what was on the blueprint of the house, a rec room. It's a really long, really narrow room. It's like in the early 80s, Crabian families wanted to put in single lane bowling alleys in their houses or something. I don't know. It's a very weird layout. So I'm able to fit seven games in that lineup. And the issue would be if I was sharing the house with someone who had equal ownership over the house, would they also want to use that room for something? And that would be a discussion. But, I mean, if it comes along at some point and I get married at this stage, since I already have the games, it's like finders keepers, so deal with it. I win. It's so much more than shared space when you have Pimball machines because it's shared space in that you can't use this room anymore. It's the noise. It is the people coming over to play your Pimball machines and always having people that they don't know in your house. There's a whole facet of things that comes with Pinball machines, not just the shared space, I think, that people run into. Well, at least with your approach, it's apparently that way. In my world, it's simply world under roof. Oh well. World under roof.
    50:03
    When you take me, you take all of me, baby. That's how it works. Oh, jeez. Where am I? I just don't know. If I wasn't married and it's just like, oh, hey, what are you into? Pinball machines. That's just like, alright, I'll see you later. I don't know what that is, so I'll see you later. That's not very sexy. I don't know. I'm so happy that it's something that I kind of grew into and my wife had to just kind of accept it versus it being a thing that all the people out there that are trying to date people. What are the reactions of females or males when you say that you're into Pimball? I guess there's like a bar scene and stuff in like Chicago and New York that they all, you know, all the tournament players know each other and date each other. But surely, I don't know, Dennis, do you, is this going too personal? Do you, have you ever dated someone and brought up, it's like, hey, you want to check out the Pint? No, it's, I mean, my only advice, and I'm definitely, I'm single, so I'm definitely not someone who'd be giving advice. But my advice would be, don't lead with that. That might be second or third date material.
    51:14
    You know, you might ease in on the pinball, especially if you've got 17 damn pins. You need to ease in on that stuff. And have a podcast. And have a podcast and that your whole life revolves around. It's like, no, if you're doing all that stuff, you probably don't have time to be going out and impressing people with your vast selection of pins. You're too busy planning your next episode. It's just a sad fate.
    51:41
    Well, let me tell you a semi-related story in that yesterday, you know, I had a certain event and, you know, there was all these people that I hadn't seen in years, like people from where I grew up and all through my life. And, you know, the topic came up so many times yesterday, what do you do? And I mentioned Pinball and I got these very mixed reactions, none of it very positive, but most of it kind of like, huh, really? You?
    52:17
    But as soon as I said, and I do a podcast, all of a sudden it was cool. It was really bizarre. Every single conversation where I said, oh yeah, look, and I do a podcast and they're like, oh, cool. It must be a big thing then as soon as you say you do a podcast. So I would say lead with, hey, my name's Dennis, and I do a podcast. It's not important what it's about, but I do a podcast, baby. Yeah, I've got a story for you on that. It wasn't to impress a date. This was actually, this was even sadder. It was regarding my dad. He was trying, we were working on a pinball project for my brother-in-law. He wanted to surprise him with a pinball machine. and I don't think he knew I did a podcast at the time because, I mean, hey mom and dad, I do podcasts. Are you impressed with me yet? I don't think that works that way. So I just never thought about it. And anyway, he ordered some parts on this Playmatic machine and had to go to eBay to get them. And the person sent him, he called me and goes, Dennis, this guy said he was sending me the parts and he was waiving the shipping and he wanted to know if my son needed anything else to work on the machine. And he's like, how does he know I have a son? How does he know? So he's like trying to figure out who the guy is. He's doing he's cross referencing pins. He goes to Pinside. He starts cross referencing that with the location of the eBay account. And he says, I think I know who this is and and all of that. And I said, oh, OK, well, I've seen that guy's post on Pinside before. I didn't ever correspond with him personally. I said, yeah, he probably just listens to the podcast. and my dad said, but he lives in Pennsylvania. And I said, Dad, I'm kind of a big deal.
    54:02
    And then he listened to the show. So that's how I went. So if it even works on parents, you know, you get them one at a time with that podcast line. Oh, yeah. Yeah Speaking of that kind of recognition there a vote currently on the Toy Hall of Fame Yes that a thing And inside the Toy Hall of Fame there such icons as Lego Monopoly Rubik Cube And there's a selection committee that basically takes a public vote and they narrow it down and they choose which toy is iconic enough to be in the Toy Hall of Fame. Now, some of these things, I don't know what they are. So, Dennis, you're going to have to translate because we're not in the U.S. here. So, these are the options to vote for. You can vote once a day, guys. We can link it in the show notes. American Girl Dolls. I'd vote for that. What is that? I know what that is because, sorry to just jump in even though I know Dennis is American. Two years ago, when I went to, again, I'm going to mention Indisc, The very first thing I had to do when I got off the plane was drive to, I can't remember what, somewhere in LA, right? And pick up American Girl Dolls for my children because it was the only thing they ever wanted in their life. And these dolls are, I don't know, maybe half a foot long, heady-looking girl dolls. You can buy all these different mix-and-match clothing for them. It's like Bobby. $200 each. Much bigger. Yeah, Martin's described it accurately. Basically, they're full-size. They're like a baby's size, a true baby. So, yeah, they're ultra-expensive, somewhat Uncanny Valley-style, realistic-looking dolls. Yep, they're creepy. Yeah, they're like Tarkin in that Star Wars Rogue One look in Uncanny Valley. I mean, they don't look that old, but... Yeah, they look like Tarky dolls, really. Yeah, my niece was into that. She has an American Girl doll and all that. Second is Chalk, which we know what that is. As a round-riding utensil, that's not a toy, that's a bunch of crap that shouldn't be on there. The next one is Chutes and Ladders. Chutes, Chutes to Chutes. In Australia we call it, Marty am I wrong, we call it snakes and ladders, right? Well, no Ryan. No? We used to call it snakes and ladders. But snakes? I can't remember which one it is. But no, I think it has changed recently. And I think it is chutes and ladders now. Why is that? Because kids were, snakes are dangerous and they're trying to not make them feel like snakes are friendly. Yeah, you guys like have like 20 of the 21 most lethal snakes or something on that continent. It's not just snakes, it's everything. Spiders. It's everything, like literally the dangerous creatures in the world. They're all fair. Yep, that's right.
    57:12
    Hilarious. Fisher Price Corn Popper. What is that? I don't know what that is. I don't know what that is either. Is it just like a little... Ah, okay, I know what it is. A lovely popcorn. No, no, no. It's that thing that you hold, the kids hold, and it has like a dome, and they walk with it. Oh, yeah. And the, okay, yeah, I've seen a million kids use that. Yeah. And then the balls pop up. Anyway, okay, the Magic 8 Ball, you know what that is. Yeah, that's kind of cool. Masters of the Universe toys.
    57:44
    Yeah. Pinball, you know what that is, right? Pinball? Yeah, I've submitted. Once a day, Marty. Okay, the next one is a sled, I guess it's to go down. Yeah, we know what that is. Tic-Tac-Toe.
    58:01
    Isn't a Tic-Tac-Toe? I guess there was a toy version of it. Okay. I guess, I mean, doesn't everyone just use a piece of paper? It's like so much cheaper than buying it. That's what I always did, but, you know, I had what we call the peasant version of Tic-Tac-Toe, so. Okay.
    58:19
    Tickle Me Elmo. So, Tudor Electric Football. What is that, Dennis? I thought it was a portable back in the day when you'd have those little, like, black LCD games that you could... I don't know if you ever had a video game like that. Before, there was Game Boy. We would get these little, they'd be single games and you'd walk around and you'd have, like, Burger Time or whatever, but... Oh, wait, I'm looking it up because I don't remember the game. Yeah, that's not it. Oh, I'll turn it on the camera. Oh wow, this is, oh this is cool, maybe I should look at this. It looks good, doesn't it? Yeah, I like this. Oh, it's kind of like a, like a Czech hockey but with football. How's it, I don't know, anyway. Well, the little players are moved with a remote control. Ah, okay. On the field. Wow, cool. I think this is called a pinball, sorry guys, I'm voting for this. It is. Yeah, sorry pinball, this, I would have this over pinball. The last one is Uno, and I think most people know what Uno is. Uno's awesome. I think Pinball's up there as an iconic toy. It's just not one that you have at your house. And this is the thing, right? When you're thinking about what is a toy, they're toys now because we can afford them as toys, but if you're comparing it to Uno or Tickle Me Elmo or Chalk, you know, everyone's got Chalk. Yeah, but a fourth of these things aren't even really toys. No, it's not a toy. It's a card game. For Pimble, you wouldn't have considered a toy. No, I don't. That's right. You would consider that a money-making device. Now, unless you meant like a little toy versions. Yeah.
    60:00
    Ah, they're talking about Zizzle machines. Yes. Okay. I wish they had said Zizzle. I mean, if we had Tudor electronic football, we could have had Zizzle Pinball. You know, Ryan knows, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, we saw a zizzle machine on sale, like on the second hand market in Australia. I just never thought we'd ever see one here. Well, we joked about it and then it sold like within a couple of hours.
    60:27
    There's something to say, yeah. Yeah. Alright, is it, well before we go into slam the top 100 with Dennis, Dennis have you got another segment that you prepared for us, Market Trends? Oh, you mean, oh, Pinball Market Trends brought to you by NotZack.
    60:45
    Do your listeners know what Pinball Market Trends are? You can describe it for us. Go for it. Okay, well, straight down the middle, host Zach, he's the regular host on the This Week in Pinball podcast. Before you go ahead, are you going to appear on that this week? Is this going to be like a triple week for Dennis? So I'm assuming not because I haven't heard anything. However, I have had extremely short notice before. You'd think they'd be done with me now, though. I've been on there three times.
    61:17
    You're the best part of the show, Dennis, the best part of the show. For sure. Oh, Ryan, I know. There needs to be other people. Oh, wait, I'll tell you what. People, yeah, I have people write into the Eclectic Gamers podcast to talk about the whole This Week in Pinball podcast, which is kind of weird. But it's only because Zach and I disagree on everything. That's why everyone feeds off of that. So I'm like an aggressive Greg, I guess. I'm not entirely sure what he watches. But I just – because Zach and I see the hobby very, very differently. Yeah. He's very, very nice. So we get along until he starts telling me about his version of what makes a good game, and then I just go on full tilt. Well, he buys demo machines and then gets rid of them a couple of weeks later, right? Yeah, he's like a 50% you. Why don't you get the rest of the way to the Zack model and just start selling off stuff? No, I went through that stage and then I ended up liking certain machines and didn't want to get rid of them. I don't think he has the room to do that. That's right. The constraints have forced him to focus his energies. I want you to focus your energies. We don't review Pinball machines and I mean even if we did it would be months later than everyone else because we don't get them here as early and so I don't feel the need to buy every single Pinball machine. Anyway, market trends. Oh, okay. Well, I'll try and do it the way he does. Trending up Thunderbirds. They've all been shipped to Canada. So, if you aren't in Canada and you're wanting to get your hands on one, you're going to have to pony up some serious bread, pay a serious exchange rate, and cover some serious shipping. So act now before that goes all the way through the roof.
    63:03
    Trending down, total nuclear annihilation. Oh, this great game with a single level playfield has been bogged down by the constant complaints from profiting, pre-order flippers, There's misaligned parts on the playfield, wood screws where there should be machine screws installed. And all of this has had the side effect of doing a hard dive on the price. You can actually get a used one at the same price as a new in box now. So if you want to skip the ways in line, go ahead and act.
    63:32
    And then holding steady, going all the way back to the beginning of the show, it's Denagrate 37. Fans of the crazy lady artwork are holding tight to this title. But people who actually enjoy playing pinball cannot move this machine on fast enough. The result is a strange equilibrium where prices are holding at a fairly constant level. Don't act because it's not fun to play.
    63:54
    That's my version of pinball market trends. Let's see, sign the top 100. Dennis, would you like to be part of either me or my team, or do you want to verse both of us? Because you love arguing. I'll fight you. I'll fight you both. Are we going to do 100 to 200? Yeah, sure. That was fun. But I don't have half an hour. Hey, you know that was my segment originally with Ryan. I forgot to mention that originally that was stolen off when I was on your show. No one cares where the ideas came from. 20 questions is something I stole off of three other shows. We knew that we were going to head down the 100 to 200 mark at some stage. We just pulled the cord early. I'm glad you guys did because I couldn't imagine as many as you've done on the top 100, how long it was taking you to randomise the way you do it. It's taking us a very long time at the end. Alright, so the first one will be Dennis' number. Please generate a number from 100 to 200. Nice.
    65:05
    171. Is? Mata Hari. Okay. Please generate a number from 100 to 200. Okay. 156. Hornet House. Oh yeah. Love it.
    65:26
    It's a gut leaf. Cool. Oh, it's a great gottly. I'm just laughing at Dennis. Dennis is a gottly lover. Okay. I guess we have to go first because we have the lower number. So, Marty, do you want to talk about how... Yeah, you can do that first. Yep, I'll talk about Haunted House. Okay. I'm going to talk first of all about experience. I remember I went to a carnival in Australia years ago, and the first thing I saw when I was there was this Haunted House machine. And I played this machine for six hours in a row instead of seeing anything at the carnival because that's how much fun this game is. It has got three levels. It's got an upper play field. It's got a lower play field. It's got separate flipper buttons for the upper play field flippers as well. You've got the ball that can go from the top play field all the way down the bottom. You've then got objectives where you've got to get certain shots from left to right. It's got ramps. It's got, right in the middle, it's got this, what looks like a stand-up target, but oh no, you hit that, it's actually fake, and the ball goes through that target down the bottom. It's got great sounds as well. Really good haunted house. Gottlieb of the time. Just don't even talk about maintaining this machine. It's a nightmare. But to play it, it's fantastic. Love this game. Dennis? Okay, so Mata Hari. We got a 1978 game, EM version, and also the Solid State, which was their first Valley board set, the Dash 17. This is the Jim Patla design, fresh off of his training under Ted Zale, and it shows in this. The Master has thus trained the Apprentice well. It's got an interesting setup with floor bank drop targets on both sides of the middle of the playfield, and clearing both of those, which is very challenging because it's a drain central shot, actually awards you quite a bit of points. The overall way of this game's style is it's very brutal despite its seemingly kind symmetrical layout. It's highly challenging but it's very familiar and comforting layout and of course I can't go without saying about the Dave Christensen art, one of his best pieces that he ever did. They made over 16,000 of these games in the Solid State version alone and the reason is because it was in high demand. Alright, what can I say about Mata Hari? Mata Hari is the world under glass and the theme. Mata Hari was an exotic dancer, which is a kind way of saying she was a prostitute and a second rate spy. So, yep, great theme for a Pimball machine. The layout. Now, Dennis, you're going to have to try and rebut this. You have said on your show many times that symmetrical Pinball machines with the left side is exactly the same as the right side. If you draw a line in the middle, a horrible idea is for Pinball machines because there's absolutely no reason to make the left and the right side the same. You want a different experience on each flipper. So Mata Hari is a, besides a shoot-alane, is a one-for-one copy on each side. So boring film machine, there's no reason to tap past, no reason to jump from one flipper to the other.
    68:38
    Yep, Mata Hari, horrible. Okay, well, I got two points here. First, to respond to your demand that I respond to your complaint about these very beautiful symmetrical playfields. But the way they work, that's normally true, I agree, because you basically have cut yourself in half in terms of the types of shots you have. Mata Hari worked around this, however, because they required you to do things on both sides of the playfield in order to accomplish any meaningful score. You have to clear both the left drops and the right drops to get your big reward. The A lane and the B lane at the top, that dead-in-the-middle kick-out hole at the very top of the playfield, you need to get into that repeatedly. So they understood, Patla understood that if you're going to do symmetrical in this era when it was definitely falling out of favor, that's the approach you would go with. Make them play both sides and then that way you gain value in it. Now, let's talk about Haunted House, which is an asymmetrical clusterfuck. All right. This game, first off, it's wide body trash. So it's not even worth discussing. It's got eight flippers. That's five too many. And nothing about it is fun. There's no control. The shots that you need to snipe, and you need to snipe them, are spread haphazardly all over the playfield. There was no logic installed in terms of what in the world would be a fun shot or a critically annoying shot. You've got the flippers down at the bottom, which feel like you only needed two, getting back to my point that they had way too many. The only redeeming thing about this game is the fun kind of startup music when you push the start button and that it has three playfields, which are in no way fun to play, especially that lower playfield. The game sucks. Black Hole is better in all regards. I give you Haunted House.
    70:30
    Yeah, I would actually agree. I would prefer Black Hole over Haunted House, but I would prefer both over Mata Hari. It's been a long time since we've had a decent game with a lower playfield and we had ACDC with lower playfields and people kind of try and avoid that. What other game has had a lower playfield recently? I don't know. I know there's rumours of one coming up but what do you think in your opinion, Dennis? Do you think lower playfields are too hard and too kind of, is it a bit of a gimmick in Pimball machines? I would go so far as to say I'm not a fan of Upper Playfields either.
    71:10
    I guess because back when they did start coming out with Black Knight and Jungle Lord and the third one, I can't remember. I found them really fascinating at the time and I loved them. So what I don't really know is whether that is going to translate to modern tastes in Pinball. I mean, the closest we've probably got is Game of Thrones with the limited edition and the premium having that upper playfield, which sucks balls. So I don't know whether, but that's different because it's sort of bolted on as opposed to actually having the upper one third of the playfield being raised up. We'd be keen to see whether Steve Ritchie is really doing Black Knight 3000 and whether he's going to integrate another play field. Yeah, I mean the Munsters is coming up and there's rumours that it might have a lower play field but I guess there's two types of upper and lower play fields. One that, probably lower play fields, that the ball is down there kind of exclusively, like you're not playing at the same time. and other ones where you're in multiple and that's when the low playfield activates and you've got things going on at the same time.
    72:31
    Which I guess is almost the same as an upper playfield, right? Like on Wizard of Oz you're trying to spin the ball around the house at the same time as keeping the ball from low playfields. I don't know. I think that family guy did that kind of well with a little mini street playfield where you've actually got, you're trying to hit targets up there and shots up there with the intensity ball where it's all going on. But when it's exclusively there, it's kind of boring though, right? Because you can't really lose your ball, so it's just like this risk-free kind of part of the Pimball machine, which, I don't know, to me, like a risk-free Pimball where you can't lose the ball kind of like destroys a bit of what makes Pimball fun. Yeah, it's a challenge, and I do want to clarify though, it's always fun to take hard takes. I don't despise all upper playfield games. I think the challenge, I'll address lower as well, but I think the challenge, because we see upper more often, is you need to balance that. Are you going to be up there all the time? Because I think that makes it suck. But if it's going to be a short experience, you need to make sure there are enough points to be worth being up there. So, for example, I think Flash Gordon is a very good upper play field. You don't stay up there very much. You like being up there because it's safer. And you really only have that bank of drop targets that you're trying to get, and they're worth a lot of points if you can get them down. So I think that one works really, really well, whereas a game like Grand Lizard, where you basically have to be in the upper playfield to make all of your points, and the lower playfield is just all about trying to get back up to the upper playfield and there's nothing to do down there, but it's two-thirds of the overall game, sucks. So for me, that's kind of where that ends up falling. And in terms of lower playfields, I think one of two ways. One, bringing up my counterpoint to haunted house, Black Hole, that was a lower playfield relatively easy to get into and brutal if you did not accomplish your goal.
    74:28
    And I know that. Certainly on Black Hole it was. Yes, right. And in terms of, I know that Bruce from the Slam Tilt Podcast hates that, but that's my favorite part about Black Hole is you better get those drops down. Yeah, agreed. Or else you can kiss your ball goodbye and they didn't know Lazarus was going to bring you back. So I like that approach. Or another approach, and this is not a game I've played, but it's a game I've studied a bit, Electra. They had an interesting idea of the lower playfield where you always would play the, it's basically like a bonus time thing. It doesn't really suit my particular playstyle, but I could see where something like that where the lower playfield is always meaningful and it's just used in a very exclusive, specialized way. In that game's case, you have extra time that you earn when you're actually playing the real game and you get to just use that as a countdown in the lower playfield before your ball ends. That could work kind of maybe. I mean, Electra's one of the worst class of 81 ballys, so maybe that's not a good example, but it's the only one I got for you. Yeah, it's funny because, you know, people that aren't very good at Pimball or people that are new to Pimball, they can only really concentrate on one area. So when I watch my kids play any three-flipper game, they totally ignore the other flipper because it's too much for them to concentrate on. A lower playfid, I guess, that's kind of your centre of attention, kind of like ACDC, if you have the ball exclusively down there, then I guess you're not taking that away from them. You're not asking them to concentrate on two things at once. You're just saying, okay, now don't put your eyes down here. This is now your little pinball world. And I know Stern have kind of certain design criterias that, you know, Keef Johnson talks about it. Like, if you have a toy in there, you can't have a toy that kind of is never used. And Gary Stern kind of, you know, makes sure that things aren't too hard. And I guess Iron Maiden was a bit of a departure from that because you've got four flippers and a lot of action is in the upper playfield, at the upper section of the Pinball machine. Saying that, you can pretty much not use those two flippers and still get a decent way through the game, right? Yeah, I think Iron Maiden plays very generous. Actually, I hate it in tournament because I think it plays too long and I think it slows up our monthlies out here. But, I mean, much like a small child with no brainpower, I also do not like lots of flippers. Basically, I can't think of a single game with more than four flippers that I thought was great. Four is kind of my limit. Yeah, well, you have to go pretty far back to get... What recent game has more than four flippers? Probably none.
    77:08
    We got to count... Hey, let's count coils. That'll be a fun segment. Let's count coils in games. The Hobbit wins. The Hobbit wins.
    77:16
    The Hobbit has like 30-something coils. That's insane. Wow, so many coils. World under glass, under playfield, under copper.
    77:26
    Anyway, that'll slam the top 100 with a discussion after it. That'll be up on Facebook in a couple of days and you can vote for who has the best gift. Yeah.
    77:36
    Nothing to do with the superior argument. No, no, that's how Facebook always is. And there's so much you can do with Haunted House. I think I'm in a lot of trouble. You give me like a really good like Charlie Chaplin silent film clip or something. Well, I made a joke about Mata Hari being basically a prostitute. So, I mean. Yeah, that was ever so mean. It's true. So anytime you play any RPGs and you see the choice dancer, you just think prostitute.
    78:07
    Always have. Well, it's true, but I was just wondering if you thought it. She was an exotic dancer. An exotic dancer. Okay, an exotic dancer now, sure, but an exotic dancer 100 years ago whenever she was around, come on. Come on, guys. Yeah, just dancing on cock.
    78:34
    Oh, no. So, on that note, Dennis, we thank you very much for taking time out of your day and your busy podcast schedule to come on the show. Where can people find you? They can always find me with the Eclectic Gamers podcast. That would be at eclecticgamers.com. We are available on social media platforms, facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast or eclectic underscore gamers on Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram. or they can email the show at collectedgamerspodcast at gmail.com. I'm Jeff Teolis.
    79:09
    No, no, I'm not Jeff Teolis. Meniscus tear and failure, what the hell. Alright mate, thanks mate. Catch you later. See ya.
    79:22
    So there we go, thank you Dennis for coming on. Always a joy to speak to him. Yeah, Dennis is a funny guy. And talking about funny people, Jeff Teolis, he's also pretty funny. Yeah, sometimes.
    79:37
    When he's not being him. Jeff Teolis, so he does the Pinball Profile podcast and this week he's doing a live Pinball Profile with Papa, the Papa, Doug Polka. Okay, the timing. It is for Aussies Wednesday morning at 9.30am. So everyone else in the ET time zone, whatever that is, Eastern time, I'm guessing. 7.30 on Tuesday, 7.30 at night. So if you subscribe to the Puppet YouTube channel, you should see a notification come up and you can interact with Jesse Ellis live. I'm doing it. I'm trolling Jeff, basically. I can't, unfortunately. I'm going to be in a conference, but sure. I'll hear all about it, I'm sure. You put your phone on mute, Marty, and you can just, you know, have Jeff tells his face there and just type stuff to him. Okay, put it on my lap. Yeah. Close to where he belongs. Okay.
    80:41
    Dead Slip is also teasing a Williams reveal. I thought it was going to be something huge. She was kind of wiping me off. I'm like, oh my gosh, is it going to be Monster Bash? Is it going to be this? Is it going to be that? It's going to be a, he's working with the Zen Pinball crew and I think they're going to be announcing some new titles, possibly ones that have never been on the Pinball Arcade before. Okay. What do you think is going to be, Manny? What one title did you want? Because you're a big Pinball Arcade player, aren't you? Roller Games.
    81:11
    That's it? You had it. Yeah, I've actually had the real thing. Look, everyone wants Indiana Jones, don't they?
    81:20
    I guess, yeah. I guess so I don know I mean we sort of said this before that there like all the best of them without licensing issues have pretty much been done That weird I mean I mentioned before that I don like playing Pimball IK stuff after I got a real Pimball machine And I haven't played in a long time and I fired it up the other day. And I think I played Flight 2000. It's like, okay, I kind of know what that is now. I always skip past it and went into it. Man, it's just so boring playing virtual Pimball. I mean, that's probably also maybe a boring title and that isn't that good, but it's just... Well, it's boring playing virtual pinball when you can just walk into another room and play 15 real machines.
    82:07
    Yes, that is true. I'm very spoiled. It is a big difference, yes. Hey, I've been trying to mention this for the last two weeks or so, but I just forgot. But when Jack Danger was playing Deadpool, and you know how there's the Quicksilver and the Flight 2000 in there, like when you pan to the left? Yeah. Okay. They've updated the animations, like these two weeks ago. And when it pans to the right... Same machine. Yes. Which means that they're running a heads-up tournament in there or something, like Quicksilver versus Quicksilver or Flight 2000. But wouldn't they have the machines right next to each other?
    82:45
    They haven't invited everyone over yet. Right. It's a work in progress. Or they just haven't updated the pixels yet in the code. One of them.
    82:56
    Dreadpool, there was an update, right? One point, sorry, 0.84. It was a very small update, but it did introduce a bug. I think the update was for all the launch parties. There was just an insane amount of launch parties that happened on the weekend. But apparently if you hold down the left flipper or the right flipper and get into the instant info section, if you scroll through all the way to High School 3 or something, it'll just freeze the entire machine. So I'm sure there'll be another update next week and we'll say, hey, .85 is here. Yeah, here's another line of code. Yeah.
    83:33
    Apparently people have, like, finished the game. Okay. Yeah, it's not as deep yet as it should be. But, yeah, Zach and Greg from Straight Down the Middle, did you watch there? You don't have time to watch anything, do you, mate? I'm not going to bother asking you anything. The last couple of weeks I haven't had much time at all. Yeah. So, no, I haven't seen it. Yeah, I watched it. It was a really good review. Really, they went kind of deep into why they liked certain things and why they didn't like certain things. We'll link it in the show notes, I'm sure. Everyone's already seen it. But, yeah, they're cool. He's already sold it, Zach. So I'm guessing that tells you a little bit about it. But he does buy machines and sells them very quickly.
    84:15
    It's just a pity, though, right? Like, can you imagine buying Iron Maiden before the code's done and then playing it for a couple of weeks and selling it? Like, I don't know. Like, you don't get to experience it to the fullest. It's like watching a rough cut of a movie before it kind of comes out and that's it. Oh, I understand. Okay. Okay, what I was going to talk about. Eric Mignier was on the Special When Lit podcast for a quick interview. He mentioned that he has been designing game number two, or game number two for him, for a while. I think the date, I might be wrong, I only finished on this again, but I think it was April.
    84:55
    So, everyone's been saying that Willy Wonka will be before Toy Story. But here's the thing, Marty. Pat Lawler is apparently designing Willy Wonka, sorry, Toy Story. Toy Story, yeah. He finished, or he showed, dialed in, pretty much like 23 months ago. Right. So surely he's been working on another game either since then or maybe before then. I don't know.
    85:24
    Well... Eric Mignot said he just started working on it on whatever game he's working on, which we think is Willy Wonka, in April. So how can one be before the other? Well, because we don't know. Like, you're basing it on speculation. We don't actually know what's coming up next. That's what I'm saying is, I mean, Toy Story 4, the release date for that is, I think, June or July 2019. Right. So surely that would align with the Pimball machine coming out and not Willy Wonka, which is a timeless theme that has nothing to do with 2019. Yeah, but also don't forget the size of Jersey Jack. They've got to have all the Pirates of the Caribbean machines on the line and fulfilling all their orders. So it's not like they've got the capacity to do two at once. They've got to really focus on getting Pirates of the Caribbean out now. So I don't know whether they're really in a rush and maybe it will be that Toy Story, because it's next year, that's when it'll come out. Maybe, I don't know, whether they'll announce it at the time but won't ship it till a while later. You just never know with these things.
    86:34
    Okay. That should be continued. I don't know. What would you prefer, Toy Story or Willy Wonka? I mean, they're both amazing themes to me, theme-wise, and I'm not a big theme person, but Willy Wonka I feel like they could probably do a better job out of because of the job they did with Wizard of Oz. I think there's more content to work with there. Toy Story, even though it is, I think the first movie is 20 years old now, I think it's still dealing with Disney and who knows. Do you know what I mean? The music in Toy Story is so iconic, right? The Randy Newman songs, then you got a friend in me. When would that suit become a machine? Is that like Victory Laps or something? Oh, but as you put the scores in and when it gets to the final screen, I guess. You got a friend in me multiball that you have to gather all the characters. Yes, yes. So, look, if we think that both machines are going to come out, you know what, it's just a matter of time they're both going to come out. But I kind of, the way I think is that you've got this very almost iconic look of a Jersey Jack machine. I've said this before, taking Dalled In out of the picture where it is that very intricate sort of old fashioned sort of style that they've got to it.
    88:03
    And, you know, Pires of the Caribbean I think is in that same vein stylistically. And then you've got Dalled In which is very much a traditional looking art package and play field etc. So I'd kind of want to see Toy Story because I don't think that they would go back to that old style. What do you mean old style? I have no idea what you're talking about. Well, sort of intricate, sort of, you know, quills and, you know. Ah, okay, as in like the Hobbit has like the scrolls and stuff and Pirate of the Carybean has that rustic look. Okay, yeah. They are really old fashioned looking. Yeah. It's loose to the machines, they're perfect. But, you know, Dialed In doesn't. Dialed In has very much got a modern look and feel. Yeah. I think Toy Story would. Yeah, when I think of Toy Story, I kind of just, like, the picture I immediately get in my head is Sinsons Timbal Party, kind of like bright colours. Yep, that's right. Yeah, yellow trim. So I'd kind of like to do that so they can go from an old sort of looking one to a more modern one and then go back to Willy Wonka, which will be more of that, you know, very Jersey Jack. I wonder if the Willy Wonka Super Limited, what are they called, the Cletus Edition, would just come with a nice big block of chocolate or something.
    89:20
    They've given away some chocolate. Jersey Jack just grabs a jug of chocolate and just pours it down your mouth.
    89:30
    Is it time for a social media watch, Marty? Well, actually, before we do social media watch, we actually, even though we did slam the top, what is it, 100 to 200, we actually didn't recap on what happened the week before, Ryan, and I think we kind of wanted to skip over that somewhat.
    89:48
    No, I don't give a shit if I'm going to lose money. I've lost all interest in the competitive nature of this thing. I just want to laugh. You won, Rani. I won, and that's why I'm bringing it up. Okay. What were the games? I can't even remember. So, we had... Big game? We had full throttle and big game. Which one would you actually rather have, Marty? Come on.
    90:12
    You said you don't even care about all those stern old games. You said they have good sounds and that's it. That's where it stops. Ah, look. The difference is if I had a full throttle, it would break down. Okay. Hypothetically, if both games were mint and they would never break down... No, full throttle, easily. It's actually not a bad playing game. You've just got to completely change the way you play pinball to get into it. Okay. Rules are very sort of different. The way you stack things is kind of different. But the layout feels different. But after a while, yeah, it's actually quite enjoyable. But again, it just doesn't work.
    90:49
    Alrighty. Social Media Watch. Stern are doing a Keith versus Zach Sharp battle in Sternzilla or something. I saw that, yeah. If it's for charity, Marty, pick one and I pick the other one and we'll see who wins next week.
    91:08
    Alright, I think that Keith will be so distracted by the fact that he cannot and has never seen Zach Sharp's forehead. So Zach will win.
    91:20
    Zach will wipe the floor with Keith. He's going to not wear a cap for that. No, it's the fact that he wears a cap so low that you can't see his forehead that he's going to get keys in a tailspin. Okay, fair enough.
    91:35
    It's very, very scientific. Yeah, for sure. There was a, did you, okay, no you didn't see it, but there was a video of the Papa Championship that was held at Adam Becker's house. It's a really well kind of created 20 minute doco, I'll link it in the show notes, that was shared with me on social media.
    91:57
    Great story. Funny. Did you see that article about Dr. Pill? I did, mate. Do you know who Dr. Pill is? He's the guy who solves all the people's problems. He solves people's English.
    92:24
    He solves all the problems. So apparently in US magazine he shared that one of his rules for having a successful marriage is playing pinball. He said we play a lot of pinball, we have a pinball machine and we go out there at night when we should be in bed and play pinball.
    92:46
    But we don't know what machine he's got. He should be in bed having sex, come on. Probably Rolling Stone. Rolling Stones? Yep. I think medieval sadness because he solves all the sadness in the world with his doctor abilities. Do you like that one, Marty? I see what you did there and I don't like it.
    93:07
    What else? Okay. Jeff Giollis, do you know, Marty, how people go through a midlife crisis? I have heard of such a phenomenon. Okay. Jeff Giollis, I think, is going through a three-quarter life crisis at the moment because he's a bit older and he's bought himself a motorbike. What? Did you see that picture today of him with a motorbike? Come on. I did actually see that, but I don't think... Did he actually buy it or was he just... No, I got nothing. This is like a nothing episode. I just have to make shit up again.
    93:43
    Hilarious. Pinsadium are teasing a new announcement. Yeah, a new announcement. It's called the Orion's Belt. Now, it's either two things. Because you've got Pinsadium on the left and right side of the Pimball machine, Marty. Yes. So, do you think Orion's Belt is like all the way around? Like you got a strip at the back, a strip at the front. Or do you think it's like a belt that you wear on your body and you become the light source? You become the light source. Is that because you could then see all Ryan you? Oh, yes. No? Yes. That's a terrible dad joke. No, I tell you what, look.
    94:24
    I do speak to Scott from Pins Stadium quite a lot because he watches my stream. Thank you. And I guess one of the things that he spoke about a while ago was that he's constantly thinking about how he can improve his product. I can't remember which game I was playing, but I sort of noted that because of the nature of LEDs being individual lights, when they're facing above a plastic ramp, you get sort of almost like a train track appearance. And he was sort of saying, yeah, I know, that kind of stuff frustrates me, it's all keeps me up at night trying to think about how I can fix that. So maybe what he's actually been able to do is actually have, you know, the belt that goes around but doesn't actually have individual lights. It's sort of all merged into one.
    95:16
    Or it's a user over there. By the way, we have absolutely no idea, just so you know. All we know is that it's going to be announced, so check out This Week in Pinball. All right, we'll bet on it as well. You can bet for that. I'll bet on the wearable light source thing.
    95:34
    Last week we had a contest. Well, basically just email in and let us know what Dallium's game suffers from weak flippers. We have eight or nine entries. So Sue said Star Trek Next Generation. Michael Higgins said Scared Stiff. I've never played a scared stiff with flipper issues, but those ramps aren't as steep as what I, I don't know, as other ones, so it must be pretty bad to not make those ramps. Daniel L says IJ, Christy says Twilight Zone. Twilight Zone with weak flippers sucks, because if you can't hit those ramps properly, you still can't hit the ramps, you just have to hit them perfectly. Yeah.
    96:21
    Nimus says the Shadow has super steep, that right ramp is a very, very long shot, so you lose a lot of speed. Jono says IJ, Michael C says IJ, and Axel says Black Rose. So IJ was there three times. I played Indiana Jones yesterday. I can't believe how small the entrance to that ramp is. It's the first in-world machine that I ever have, and it's just that one thing that I keep on every time I play it again. I'm like, wow, like, why does he make the entrance to that ramp so freaking tight? It is just, I'm not sure, is this going to be our question for next week? What's the tightest ramp shot in that Dull Williams era?
    97:06
    Look, I certainly agree with everybody saying Indiana Jones, and you know, there's one that we sort of played that was on site. And that right ramp, if you can't hit that right ramp because the flipper isn't strong enough, it just kills the fun.
    97:20
    Yeah, it's not only that, it's just you have to hit it perfectly. Yeah. Right, because you see, if you rattle a shot, it loses momentum. I think it has a gate there for the switch, which also sparks a tiny bit of momentum. Or is it opto? I can't remember. Anyway, so how many is that? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Okay, I'm going to generate a number and see who won. Please generate a number from 0 to 8. Coming right up.
    97:49
    Seven. Seven is Michael C with IJ. Well done, Michael. Congratulations, you've got a fit of rebuild kit.
    98:00
    I have to figure out. This is just a random person that I emailed on the arcade, so I have to email this random person that I don't know and say, Hey, can you ship it to this other person? Okay, let's see if it works out. If it doesn't work out, I'm sorry, Michael.
    98:16
    This thing in advance. Oh, that's funny. Alright, this week in Pinball, Marty. I'll start by telling you.
    98:25
    I did not. Well, I streamed, obviously. Other than that, no Pinball. But see what's really interesting?
    98:31
    Iron Maiden. After now playing Iron Maiden, and I'm going to say something that is going to be very unpopular. But now after playing Ion Maiden so much, I've come to an alarming conclusion. I fucking hate their music.
    98:52
    I actually only like two songs. Runt of the Dills and Number of the Beast. Every other song drives me fucking mental. Did I? Okay, because the exact same thing happened to me. When I first started playing, I was like, oh, too many noises and stuff, and then I kept on playing, I'm like, oh, these songs are really good. And then, like, maybe a week before I gave you back the pin, Marty, I was just like, man, the guy really can't sing very well. He just drives me kind of insane. I mean, I think it's still good music, but just not when he's singing. It's just everything else. The tune's okay. No, and so the last couple of times I've streamed Iron Maiden, in fact last night when I streamed, I actually didn't, I turned the volume down completely and just played music in the room. So much better. Really? Yep, I actually enjoyed it. And even missing out on all the great call outs, I still enjoyed it more. I did just, the music is now starting to grate on me. And I mean grate on me. Why don't you... Okay. Like, do you understand what I mean by grazing on me? Yes, yes, yes. Like, do I get rid of this machine type grazing me?
    100:10
    Your inbox is going to be flooded with office money. You can sell it for, what, 15 grand now? They've got a piece and so... Then you'd have back two pins money.
    100:21
    I mean, before you do that, you could do an experiment. What's your favourite band, Marty, the one that you went to go see in Toronto? No?
    100:28
    Oh, well, that was a raise, but Kraftwerk is probably the big music band that I like, yeah. Okay, so why don't you spend some time, since you do a lot of editing, you know, download the pinball browser, pay the $20 fee, and insert Kraftwerk and make it a Kraftwerk pinball machine. Honestly, that would just be like, literally people are just turning in their graves now at the thought of me changing an Iron Maiden machine into Kraftwerk. Well, did you see that? Off the spectrum. Did you see that person who actually re-skins the Iron Maiden Pinball machine into like a, what was it? I know.
    101:03
    What was it? Was it actually Red Bull or something? Broke the internet. Ah, everyone can hear about that one. The pinheads anyway.
    101:11
    Yeah, no, I did see that. Look, maybe that's what I can do. Look, I do like some metal. I just think that the bulk of the songs that are on that I really don't like. So I wouldn't necessarily, I wouldn't put craft rock, I wouldn't put like an electronic music into it, but I would find other metal or rock songs that I like and have sort of like a best of. Surely it's more interesting to listen to than Aerosmith. The songs that are on Aerosmith in the machine are so boring. I really like the songs on Aerosmith. But all of them? Or just the ones everyone plays because they're worth more points? No, I kind of worked my way through it. I think the difference is that because, you know, they are pretty much the back catalogue of all the old Aerosmith songs, they were pretty laid back and a bit bluesy, so they're kind of there but they're kind of in the background. With Ion Maiden, it's fucking in your face. Yes. So, I tell you, here we go, Stern. Here's a suggestion for you. I'm just putting this out there. Here's a suggestion. Like most games, have a volume option for call-outs and a separate one for music. It probably has that. Have you looked through the menu? I did go through the menu. I couldn't see it.
    102:32
    Music attenuation or something. It's one of the last ones. If you go into, well, I don't know if it's there for Ion Maiden, but in, there in Metallica and stuff. But I'd love to be able to hear the call-outs and just the music down, so, or maybe off. Okay.
    102:49
    All right, this week I went to Wes, you know Wes? I do know Wes, Wes is awesome. Yeah, yeah, he just lives around the corner from me and he invited me over, he was just having a couple of people over to watch the footy and play pinball. It was the first moment to his house and yeah, it was great. Not many people, I think he invites more pinheads than 40 people because in the end it was a very interesting match that he said he only invited people that live around him. And it was a lasting thing. You're 10 minutes away. I drive fast. Okay. Anyway, it was really good. I discovered that I still hate Star Wars. I still don't like playing Ghostbusters. And for some reason I've never really enjoyed playing World Cup. I appreciate World Cup, sucker. I just for some reason don't have fun playing it ever. I like that game. Well, I like it too. I just don't have fun playing it. It's a weird thing. He's got Metallica there. Not Metallica, he's got Iron Maiden. It was really good.
    103:48
    Andy B had an exclusive meet the other day where it was basically only people that had had a meet in Melbourne and there's been one every month. I got to go. That was fun. His dialed in plays better than any dialed in that I've played since. And the reason is he pretty much has probably put about five games on it since I gave it back to him like eight months ago.
    104:14
    For someone who doesn't play that much pinball, his machines, some of his machines are set up really hard. His Star Trek money is about five times faster than our one. I've played it. It's brutal. I don't understand why it's brittle. I'm trying to figure out why it's brittle. Why is it so fast? I just don't think he's put many games in. The flippers are just super strong. It's like wax.
    104:35
    Lastly this week, Marnie, I got a new pin. Do you know what the pin is, Marnie? No, I don't. What did you get? It's on our Instagram. You don't check our Instagram, I was saying. No, I really don't. It's whirlwind. Oh, okay.
    104:49
    It's cool. It needs a couple of little things to be fixed. I've got too many people. You reckon? Yep.
    104:58
    Okay. Well, I'm playing the Pinball machine. I need to rebuild the upper flipper because you can't make the apex of that shot. It's like behind the back box, behind where the pin is. So it's pretty disheartening when you hit that shot, you think you've made it, and then it comes back.
    105:18
    The sound in that Pinball machine, Marty, is fucking amazing. Chris, Chris Grannner is how you say his name. That guy is a fucking legend. All the good Williams Pinball machines all have his music and sound in there. I must admit, I do really like the sound from that machine. You do know exactly what's happening just based on the sound alone. Okay, Chris Grannan. He's worked on a lot. Yes. Earthshaker, Police Force, Avara and the Party Monsters, Whirlwind, Diner, Dr. Dude, Funhouse, The Bride of Pimbot, Terminator 2, Addams Family, Fishtails, Whitewater, Twilight Zone, Indiana Jones, Roadshow, Indy 500, Monster Bash, Monopoly, World Coast Tycoon, Sisters Pinball Party, Terminator 3, Law of the Rings, Rookie's Believe It or Not, NASCAR, World Poker Tour, Law of the Rings, Limits Edition, Sorry I missed it twice, Wizard of Oz and a whole bunch of other ones before my time there, 14 Tomcat, Pimbot. This guy is like just every single game that he's done has good sound in it. Except, wait, you said Ripley's has shit sound, right, mate?
    106:27
    I was wondering if you were going to bring that up. Sure. I might have said that. Okay. I wonder what happened to him. He works for Wizard of Oz and then that's it? Yes, okay. I think he's done with Pimball. All right. On that note, are we done? We are done and let's hope for a big news week next week. Yeah, you guys have to throw to our episode of nothing.
    106:55
    Headtoheadpinball.com is where you can find all of our episodes. You can find all of our social media links there to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, wherever you subscribe to stuff. Google Podcasts. We're not on Spotify. We will be one day when we bother to figure it out. And we will sell T-shirts when we bother to do it and do all your stuff. What do you think? Yeah, Patreon. Next week, it's happening. Give us all your money. We will spend it wisely. We will.
    107:26
    Boos and hookers. Oh, hey, Mali. Did you see that in the Aussie Arcaic threads when we said Australia has no culture? There was a bit of a, not a blowback, but people were kind of like, hey, Australians do have culture.
    107:45
    Do we? Yeah, we do. We do. What? What's the point you're trying to make? Well, RGR made a good point about how Australians just want to have a good time and we're mates and we're accepting of other cultures and it kind of really made me feel like we are one, but we are many and from all the lands on earth we come and we share a dream. Sing with Himali and sing in one voice. I am, you are, we are Australia. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
    108:26
    Terrible. Worst episode ever. Besides Dennis. Dennis was good. Dennis was awesome. Just fucking give us a news, please. See you guys. See ya.
    108:39
    Hilarious. Oh, God.