Doing my best to get back to you, ain't nothing I'd rather do But for me, Sunday ain't gonna be, now honey, with something special just for you Yeah honey, something special just for you Welcome to the Great British Bimbo Podcast. And here I will place Scott Lundell on the ring of thrash. Thank you! Scott. Neil. I'm in front of a screen. Okay. I'm using podcast software. That must mean... It's another podcast. It is. Believe it or not. Another podcast. the Press Association and Ofcom haven't banned us yet the fort police have not arrested us have not busted down the doors and arrested us in any manners it's another episode 24 I think maybe I can never remember I'll leave that to you you're the numbers guy I think it's 24 if it's not it's 25 if it's not maybe 23 it's somewhere in the 20s and you know when you get to your when you get to the 20s when you're yeah when you're older you pretend you're younger in your 20s yeah and when you're younger in your 20s you pretend you're older right that's the that's the general rule of thumb indeed indeed um so scott what's been going on in your world um making a lot of progress on my homebrew if i'm honest i think like like my time has been like rushing it if i'm honest with you not rushing it but putting every waking spare minute into it even just prior to this podcast was like don't bother me i'm drilling i just i have to i was literally that i have an oscillating tool make a new hole go it's like yeah it's the coding elements i'm really on at the moment and i have made a lot of progress on that um the difficulty i've been finding with it really is is the video sequences and getting it tying up with the code. I've actually got working modes. I was pretty happy with that. You shared with me a preview and I was quite impressed by it. Actually, a little bit of insight. I remember talking to Lyman Sheets when he was making Batman 66 and he said the video sequences were just so difficult. It's what took all the time. If you remember, it took him a year to get that code out. In fact, I think longer. Mate, I have a whole new appreciation of just homebrew people in general. When I see a game and it's got working code now, you've spent a lot of time. You've spent a lot of time doing that. Because it's spent, for me, it's been a head-banger, if I'm honest with you. I'm having to learn Python. I'm having to learn Godot, which if you don't know what that is, it's like a game engine. but you can use it to work with the media controller. It's like a middleware. Yeah, basically you can use it to run your attract modes and I've still got to start lighting and all the other stuff but I will get there. I'm hoping to be more or less, I would say another 20-30% progress this weekend. I'll hammer it again because I did last weekend. So it's very good. Good, ahead of the important delivery sometime in September. It's nothing to do with any pin fest show, I tell you that much. It's like, no, it's just like... I think on that day I'm going to get an empty box, an empty pinball box delivered to your house for a joke. Yeah, do it. And record your wife's reaction. Tell you what, though, it makes my eyes roll every time. Because people will get this, I think, in the pinball hobby if you've got a lot of games. But your relatives never, ever get it. They're just like... Like my mum's, for instance, she's like, now you've got a baby on the way, you're going to have to sell all your games. I'm like all of them my guy she's like oh yeah all of them they all have to go my mum comes into this room looks around rolls her eyes and goes that's it the eye rolls I love it are we doing a meme for that where the eyes just go to the back of the head yeah I get it as family friends so what I started to do is just make up the appreciation of value I just thought well you know this one here John Wick I bought it a month ago and it's trebled it's price and they just look at you like really I'm like I just can't be asked with it anymore do you know what I mean they would have field days with most people's views on the I think in any part of whether it's America or the UK they keep saying oh you know I said the bubbles burst pinball is like worth nothing you're going to buy a game and you're going to lose your house. That's what I might do that next time when they come round and say, oh, I'm in real trouble. I might have to sell the house because all my pinballs are worth nothing. You should have done an April Fool's. That's what you should have done. Yeah, all my games up for sale, all 162 of them. That would have – and price them like half what I think they're worth as opposed to half what the forum thinks they're worth, which is probably a lot less than they would. I don't know, actually. I can't find the barometer on anything anymore. I'm just glad I'm not actually selling anything at the moment, is all I can think of. A hundred percent. I think that is definitely, if you're a seller right now, it's pretty ugly. I don't know if you saw Loser Kids podcast on prices. That's probably the most accurate they've been in terms of what I'm seeing. so I'm picking up a few games from Europe right now and I bought a couple of games not new ones, older ones but it's a buyer's market again, it's great I kind of call it three games for three grand I'm seeing like there's a guy I think he put up a Stranger Things with the UV kit and I was like that's a good price, I would like that I'm just like, I'm out of position now it's like well I can't, one I've got no space and two i don't really want to sell anything i've got so i'm just a bit like well just someone else can buy it the um there's a ghost but the guy with a ghostbusters and a stranger things on facebook oh yeah and all these fuckers are trying to excuse my language but i think it's appropriate they're all trying to talk them down oh your ghost bus is only worth five grand i'm like what and i'm normally getting a kick in you're normally the one that like says you get the laughing emojis with the oh look at neil he thinks it's still pre-covid prices and stuff like that yeah Yeah, no. So, I mean, look, I look at this two ways. One, it's not good for the industry for people to get ripped off paying more than they should. It's just not good, right? True. And we've all, all of us have paid more for a game than we should have done, right? At one point or another, I imagine. Some because we were dumb, some because we wanted a game that was a grail one, right? Sure. but seeing people getting ripped off I'm sorry if you come on Facebook any forum I'm on and you put in a price that is having a laugh I'm going to say it's having a laugh then there's a flip side there's some people who are trying to sell their game not because they want to but because they have to and they need the money but they can go one of two ways they can go crazy expensive you're never going to sell it or list out a million mods that are all worth frankly zero if your mods are worth something, take them out and sell them separately it's like cars you buy a car with, oh I've got this exhaust on it I don't give a shit the exhaust is valueless in the used car market unless you get the buyer who would have bought one anyway, then it might be worth a bit more I think my wife had a similar thing actually, she put her car up and she didn't even bother to mention it had the front and rear dash cam fitted you know there was an aftermarket add-on that you can get from the yeah bmw i think it was and it's got like the um you know what do they call it accident sensor it starts recording all that sort of stuff so it's pretty good but again i don't know if people perceive that as any value so she didn't bother listing it it was just it's just i mean some people will or not but look when it becomes valuable is if you've got two games for sale yeah you know roughly the same price once my game's got yeah an amp on it so you know you should buy this one or it's got less plays on it um yeah if you see what you're saying if the if the playing field was equal they're about the same price if one had those other bits you're going to choose those exactly but you're not you're not going to make any money and you know there'll be people saying ah but neil i've had this that now okay well done clap um but but the start reality is is that's rare and bollocks frankly yeah there's a couple of things i think will always add value like color dmd that's an expensive item right and it does yeah i mean 400 quid you know you can add 400 quid to the price of a game that's got color dmd yeah um assuming that you haven't already overpriced that game true yeah it's going to be priced at non-color dmd and then on top yeah yeah um and uh yeah i look we're not we're not trying to be honestly not trying to be a dick or be evil about it i'm actually trying to help people sell the game because they need the money and they're you know i think people have got no money though that's it's a bad time to sell i know they've got no money and and and also if you go in with a price that's too high um you know you're not gonna sell but this is all a guy who was trying to shift two games on he wasn't a rush to sell them yeah and all these bozos start telling them that his games were a lot less than it is and i'm like nah well i mean i i don't know how people wake up in the morning and look themselves in the mirror i think they just they just want a deal that's all it is isn't it i i i i am you know we're supposed to be a community and i i guess my goal look and if someone wants to sell something cheap you know deliberately yeah yeah you know i'll buy it or you know that's fine but if someone you know it's like this guy was you know you know what's what are these games worth and both of them are worth six grand in my view everyone's saying ah well ghostbusters is worth five and stranger things is six and a half i'm like no the ghostbusters is not five grand for that game it's so rare and it's in demand i was gonna say when i i remember when i first started the hobby that was one of the games i got it was straight after black knight i think and it was so sought after I was lucky to get it and I didn't realise it and then I sold it and I regretted it because it never came back up yeah I mean this is the thing I mean I had Ghostbusters Premium it was the first new in box game I bought and I waited and waited until I finished the code and I just didn't enjoy playing it and I was like this is going I mean probably if we'd had the club then when I had Ghostbusters I probably would have put it in the club but at the time I didn't so I just shifted on it's actually with Paul Silver who's on the forum anyway let's move on so basically I've bought a couple of I'm keeping it a surprise I've bought a couple of games on the continent and my army of darkness is out there collecting them for me but Europe is a great place to buy games again just before Covid and the early parts of Covid so even with the import duty even with the import duty because the games are so cheap, the pound's a bit stronger pound is actually doing really well at the moment to be fair yeah so I think all good anything else we'll come on to an in and out later on that will interest us But the reason we're doing this a bit earlier than normal is because we wanted to kind of do our rundown of TPF. Now, you probably heard from people that pretended they were at TPF. I actually was. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, it was TPF week and two weeks ago. And as per usual, phenomenal show. Big shout out to all the organizers at Texas Pinball Festival. the thing that's great about it is Paul and Rob Harris who are kind of the lead the lead kind of superheroes they are just super passionate players and super passionate about running TPF and they listen to they've listened there's a few things in TPF in the past that I thought you could maybe change this or you could maybe do that or do this and they they didn't listen as much since Paul and Rob took over no disrespect to Ed and the guys that ran it before, they ran a great show as well but I do feel that if you suggest something that makes sense to Paul and Robert, they listen to. And actually, I have to have a big shout out. Jerry Liu. So when I was picking up my tickets, this lady's coming down and she's shouting my name and I'm like, I'm looking. I've had this a few times where if someone comes to me, I've got no idea who they are. And she said, oh, you were just on the podcast. I was listening to you. I was like, oh, okay. and we're talking about TPF obviously and she had these two little dogs like if you like I'm not a dog fan but I'm sure everyone was fawning over these dogs when we were chatting away and it actually turned out to be Paul's wife which was great so she looked after me, we got a goodie bag from her so thank you for looking after us Jerry Lou and look forward to seeing you next year the show was great though you know they had a special entrance for the the people working on the show they had you know it was kind of one way in and just just the simple things that make it easier to float through the show yeah they you know they'd obviously been paying attention to paul every day every day i love this every day paul sent out a feedback form all right and and they would basically see what was going on in the feedback form and I saw them moving some stuff and I was like why are you moving it? It came up in the feedback form last night and I'm like what? That is a customer focused approach right? And these guys, they're not they don't get paid to run this. They do it out of the love of it and phenomenal. My hat's off to them. I was also in the tournament so shout out to Elizabeth Kevstone and Louis Marks who ran the tournament, did a good job except for Pulp Fiction guys, I'm sorry I'm not letting you away with that they made Pulp Fiction not just brutal but literally a lethal weapon they took the posts off, the outlines off and I'm looking at this game thinking you know what, if there's a game that you need to make harder, it's probably not Pulp Fiction, apart from that, it was great the game was pretty brilliant, the organisation was fantastic, they had an amazing sea witch that I would have bought on the spot if it was up for sale and I did alright in the tournament I was literally last round if I'd won, I started to win the game and not come last, I won the first game and typically I came last so I just missed out on qualifying, which I'll be honest with you in some respects was a good thing because it just meant I had more time in the show. Did you drain straight away on a couple of balls? Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction. This isn't a criticism. We've all done it. We've all gone over the top on a game and made it so hard it's unplayable. I've done it as a TD. It's one of those things you learn. To be fair, they were like, I think they might have changed it back for the finals. I can't remember. And actually, congratulations to Preston Moncler who won local guy, really good guys from the they do a stream every Sunday, I forget, it'll come back to me good guys, Preston's a great player, he won it no, the Pulp Fiction was literally a competition to see how many people could hit a pop bumper before they lost the ball and the player one actually managed to get ball on flipper and got 100k I came second but I said to the other two players I'm sorry I came second because I just genuinely don't think I deserved it because literally plunge, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce outline three times and I just happened to hit more pop bumpers than them I think a lesson learned but definitely it was a good gig, fun gig and I really enjoyed it and then we kind of got into the meat and potatoes of TPF so I'm going to suggest we just run through some of the games that were there yeah sure first of all Dungeons and Dragons so three months on and there was a seminar with Stern there that Brian Eddy and Dwight Sullivan did and actually I had a really had breakfast with Dwight, a really good chat with him about stuff and he was telling me about, he wasn't telling me any secrets but he was just telling me some of the thought process and it was a good conversation but he was saying how big the code base is on D&D I must be insane, I would not want to be involved in that I kind of wonder if they might have thought that they've bitten off more than they can chew, but the game's great. I'm hearing from a couple of folks that run arcades that it's doing really well on locations. I can understand why they've done it, because as you say, it probably has that great operator's appeal to it. You're going to be at an arcade, you'll be able to log in, progress your character in a more evolved sense than Venom was. I absolutely get what they're trying to do. They're trying to keep engagement. Scott, ask me the question, Neil. Has your D&D arrived? I don't need to because that would trigger you, but I know it hasn't. It's getting delivered on Monday. Is it? You know what? Okay. The minute that you hear that Stern are launching a new game, the old one gets delivered. It's glorious. I had a bit of a rant at Stern about that. Actually, I've kind of upset John, who runs Electric Coin. Sorry, John, didn't mean it. And Doug, because I'm the person. I just emailed the CEO. That's just who I am. Okay. And I don't have the patience to do anything else. And said, you know, look, Seth, how can it be that I paid for a game in January? And if I paid for it now, I'd probably save a thousand bucks. And it still hasn't been delivered. Anyway, it's getting delivered on Monday. So I'm actually taking it straight to the club. Okay. And I'll come back to what's happening in the club later on. but the game's fantastic the guys are with us it was kind of split someone liked it, someone didn't we got some prima donnas where theme is everything I would not know what you're on about there that's because they're bad at gameplay so theme is all that counts for them you know who you are but I think a few people were kind of warming up to it. I mean, one of the big challenges of TPF was it was busy. And it was tough to get on there. We got in there early. I was going to ask you, was it one of the feedbacks this year that they were going to put less games out to allow for more football around the area? Because I noticed that there were a lot less games about. I didn't think there was less games. No? No, I mean, I don't know if that's true, but it didn't feel like that. I think certainly the Stern booth the JGP booth Barrels of Fun and actually Spooky, they pretty much had the same that they had last year and actually P3 Multimorphic there seemed to be just as many kind of punter block games as well I nearly bought a couple but resisted because I was focused on attaining another championship prize. So, yeah, D&D, I think they've made great progress on it. I can't wait to get it and spend some time with it. I is going to the club for two reasons. One, I've got no space here right now. And two, we've got this big gig coming up, which I'll mention later. And then actually, surprise of the show for me. Go on. Merlin's Arcade. Okay. What a fun game. So, again, the theme guys are like oh the theme sucks but actually i was playing with uh tom joel travis a few others were playing um actually after we um i got another i managed to get kind of a press band so i could go into the after thing yeah when it was a bit quieter you actually hear things it's the that's important yeah because yeah i was gonna say everyone always says it right? When you're at an event, you can't hear the call-outs, you can't hear the music, so you can't get the feel for the game, what it would be like in the setting at home. You can only get, really, a feel for the shots. 100%. And actually, the one thing I'll say is Dungeons & Dragons, here's the one thing they got wrong. They got that bozo Michael Dorn from Star Trek to do the voice-overs, right? Stern, you've got my number. When you need, like, a Scotsman to do the dragon sounds, the alternate dragon sound, you've got my number. When you say, isn't that the guy that played Worf? Yeah. Yeah. So. I mean, he doesn't, he's just not a good dragon. I mean, the thing is. I think he would play a good dragon if he played a golden dragon. If you know your kind of lore around D&D, he's more like a. Right. Golden dragons are typically kind of like the good dragon. Yeah. So I think if he's going to play like that, he should have played one of those. But an evil dragon should have been. I don't know. There's something about his voice. Just a bit flat for me. they're not terrible call outs don't get me wrong but I know you've got the best dragon in the world with Sean Connery right I could lay on I taught Sean all that he knows is that right I could lay on some of that great Scottish dragon stuff Stern 1800 McRae and I'll be there for you I did suggest that to Dwight whilst having breakfast any... Can I have an Easter egg code? You press a certain number of flippers and then your voice comes out and says I eat the ball Yes I eat the ball So you can have that free stone The call-out is something I think is not as good as it could have been. Because I'm thinking of, you know, what was that movie where Sean Connery is a dragon? I know what the show you're on about. Kid's Evil, but it was a great movie. I really liked it. Kevin Costner was in it. Maryland's Arcade, brilliant game finally out and you're literally playing different games in Arcade they've got foosball, they've got other stuff I was going to say that foosball spinner the foosball spinner is awesome it's brilliant, I loved it I'll be honest, when I saw it I was thinking that's going to suck it is they've freaking nailed it, fair play to them they absolutely nailed it it's fun getting the music that's maybe the bit that let it down for me but I really enjoyed playing it. It felt like a... Like a Bally Williams game? The LE version, yeah. Maybe not quite as sophisticated as BW, but not far off. I wanted to know... And it codes early. I was going to say, is it mode-based code? How does it work? Yeah, I mean, so I don't know how you started the modes. I just kind of was hitting shots. But what I was able to start, what you could figure out was, is whatever started the modes i don't know what it was but then they lit up and then you kind of shot the one that you wanted to get go get into and then you and then on the screen you had a couple of things that you had to do um it was it was look it was really easy to to get into the game i thought it shot really well if the flippers felt good shots felt really satisfying that spinner shot in particular I thought it was excellent one challenge the price so they got two versions they got the arcade version which I think is $6,000 what's the price for pro in America the pro in America I want to say is $7 something $7.99 maybe so carry on with the rest of the pricing they got a I don't know premium version they called it i think um nine grand i'm like i'm not sure people are buying lovely yellow powder coat um again couldn't really hear the sound of it but any differentiators on the mechs an evening edition there they didn't have an arcade version there it was just the le so i couldn't i don't know the answer to that unfortunately but i think i'm pretty sure the guy Turner, what's his first name? I always forget it. Is it Andrew, isn't it? Andrew, yeah, that's right. I'm pretty sure he said the game was exactly the same. But his booth was rammed. If I was him, I'd be happy. He sold out the first hundred, didn't he, on Ninja? They obviously had one there. I played that again. It's definitely a good game. I think the thing, right, the problem we've got is there's so many pinball companies out there vying for your attention to get your money and yet there's only so much space you've got even to host it all it's for a lot of people so much money now i mean i think yeah you know you i think space was the barrier before yeah and i think money is the barrier now and and for two reasons one you can't sell anything at the price you feel that things should be worth yeah i mean that's the market yeah um so that mean you know and then and then that money you'd use to buy the next game yeah so we're not in a... I think this is what people, they're all focusing on, in our community at least, on how premiums should be 4K less instantly as soon as you buy it, and pros should be 2K less instantly once you buy it. And I'm like, if you keep going that way, no one will buy any games because they don't want to basically lose their arse. I mean, I get that games need to lose value, but you buy a game for that much. exactly but one man's Godzilla is another man's John Wick you can't I've said this to Starim you charge the same for all your games when there's clearly a difference in value that's a bit of material is different from game to game so a Deadpool is worth more than an Elvira for many people but actually Elvira was more expensive funnily enough it would be more expensive to make an Elvira than it would do a Deadpool absolutely Yeah. So, in my mind, I kind of feel that, you know, hey, Godzilla, the number one selling game of all time now, for sure, and the number one performing game in arcades, for sure. I was listening to Electric Bat. They're at Godzilla. I couldn't believe this. 70,000 plays. Jesus. At a dollar a play. That's good money. I know. I'm like, holy shit. People say that's no money in pinball. God. I know, I'm thinking, my god the playfield must be worn down there are some horrific pictures of playfields that look black as hell to be honest yeah, those guys are great I've met I've met both of them at Expo, really nice their ex-Marcle spec and but for me you know, I mean 70,000 plays, I mean that's $70,000 that's paid for the game and paid for four other games as well you know i mean that that sort of returns unbelievable but that's what you reported and what's the what's been out three years godzilla um yeah that is you know that to me is is uh pretty good going and i mean they're if you haven't listened to i really recommend electric bat podcast um they talk more about the business of running an arcade it's insightful though isn't it it is very insightful 2021 by the way for Godzilla September it was yeah so I mean you know you kind of you kind of get a sense of you know if you're you know arcade business if you're in the right place you know if you're in the right place the right location the right games you look after them you know it can pinball can be a good you know a decent business I mean, I don't think you're going to retire and buy a yacht. No, but it's nice to know that your big ticket item actually will actually make you some big ticket earnings, potentially. A hundred percent. And Rachel does a tremendous job on the numbers, which, again, if you're in business, I mean, this is this is why they're doing well is because she's on top of the numbers. And one of the interesting things, they had an Addams family and they were expecting that to print money. It didn't. It's had its life cycle, hasn't it? Yeah, they just, you know, if anything you hear about that is, oh, yeah, it's going to print money. No, it doesn't. It used to. Not anymore. We see the same in the club. Don't get me wrong. There's people that come in, oh, you know, Adams, I haven't seen that since I was five years old. Yeah. And they play it, but it's not where it once was. Well, it's early Cody kind of game, isn't it? It's one of those first games that had modes. I just think comparatively to games of today it's not deep it's flat it's just not let's not knock on it, it's just old yeah absolutely I've never been a fan I thought it was ok but I don't think it was great it's like Medieval Madness for me, I don't think that would be a big owner I just love it so not true in the last year that was number 10 out of all their games oh I take it back now Medieval Madness, big earner for them the other big earner for them the last two months was Dungeons and Dragons because of the continuation part of it that is definitely working John Wick in January Stern put out some more missions they pushed these from the finally get the contracts out didn't they they got the contracts out, boom people were putting money in it so hopefully I definitely think they cottoned on to something with their insider connect with the whole achievement thing it feels very reminiscent of the early days when you used to have xbox live and everybody would chase the well playstation would chase the trophies and obviously it's the points with xbox but yeah 100 um let's move on portal yes multi-morphic indeed yeah jerry and ian have just smashed it with that game you enjoyed it yeah i really enjoyed it i mean i actually Let me caveat that a little bit. I was only able to get about 15 plays on it. Okay. And I didn't, just as I was figuring out what to do, you know, they were rammed. The queue to play, they had three games. The queue to play was out the door. Three games, yeah, it's pretty tight in that number of people. Yeah, and it's such a complex game. But I have to say, I think this could be their Godzilla. I think it probably is but I mean I'm gonna play like devil's advocate here or the opposite side of the coin if you want to say it that way um the views I got were negative yeah so the people I spoke to who went to the show said to me didn't like it um they said if you're gonna buy it the only one that was of value was the one that had the lower third extension on it so to speak so that you could actually get some variance between it but they said it just didn't feel like a pinball machine to them um that was their their view yeah i mean so i i tend to agree with that i mean i i've always said so i like p3 i think it's fun but for me it's it doesn't feel like pinball you know that's a common statement if you hit the kind of the snick shot on deadpool it's like yes and and the p3 system just lacks that kinetic connection i tell you what it feels like to me at least from what I was getting descriptions because they said I couldn't hear the ball it felt like it was gliding on ice and I was like I know what that's like because if you put a playfield protector on a pinball machine it feels weird right you know the difference between a ball rolling on the wood compared to rolling on plastic I just think that's what was probably jarring for them in saying that I haven't looked at the numbers on this but I could see me getting a P3 to play Portal So a significant investment though isn't it To buy just Portal Yeah I don't know I think you're looking at 12 grand or something Yeah I was going to say I know Retro's now a dealer David has managed to fuel that Yeah good on him for getting that done Because in the UK we just had nobody willing to Distribute it basically Yeah and I mean This other thing is it's quite The license is weird right because I got, as I say, to me it's a game license that a lot of people in the PC world will know it, but maybe a little bit on the console, not so much I'd say. I feel like what they've done with it is good. I do genuinely think it's impressive, as you say, the way they've actually managed to get beyond that back-third kind of mentality that I always used to know their games were full. The way that they added the kind of ramps above the screens and stuff like that, I thought that it definitely was a step forward. Their engineering skills are so good. I hate to say it but I think their talent is wasted if they put that kind of talent into a wood based play field they would have sold so much more yeah I mean I kind of part of me agrees with you on that if they just took that portal they must have the license for it right just make a non-standard non-modular version of portal and I guarantee you're going to get more sales than you would with the Mighty Morphin you'd lose a lot of the the way the game plays on with the screen and the different you lose a lot of that game i see what you're saying yeah the animation i just i just um you know it's the first time you know i played other games on you know every tpf they've got a new game there's weird al there was heist there was um princess bride yeah and those games that They were all good, but I'd never... Once I played them a couple of times, I was like, okay. Didn't have that one more play. But Portal, I kept going back there only to find the queue was halfway around the building. So I just didn't get to play as much as I would have liked, which is frustrating. But I was impressed. I'm glad that they finally made a game that is going to make people think twice about going, do I put money here or with them? I think so. The other thing I'd say to them is, I think people will have left TPF with still some questions in their mind not because the game, they don't want to buy that game or they wouldn't buy that game but because they just didn't get to play it enough and I said this to Jerry I said mate you've got to bring more games free is too low it's just not enough for TPF and I feel that that maybe you didn't really anticipate the demand maybe but well I mean I think also I mean I'm not this isn't trying to not be critical here but I kind of feel that I know for myself is if I played it maybe another if I were able to play maybe another 10 or 20 times I'd know much more clearer whether I wanted it or not right now it's a bit of an unknown in my head I was like yeah I enjoyed it. I kept going back. The positive note is that it's not a no, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and, you know, with the other games, I mean, I did like Princess Bride. I thought, especially the rules on that. That's the part I did find interesting. The people I was speaking to, they said they preferred Princess Bride to Portal. Yeah, and I can see that. Because this is the thing about Portal, right? I mean, this is kind of weird. And I was talking to Ian and Jerry about this, and I said this to them, I was like, he said, you know what's really good about this game? the score's unimportant now you're not trying to get so look of course there's a score and you want to get a high score but i didn't give two hoots about the score i wanted to finish the puzzles and it was timing and it was it was all these other things it's more mode based isn't it it's completely the game yeah so i found that much more exciting and i thought actually this is a nice pivot on you know i think could be interesting in the future but i i think um good result for them and it was good to see them there um so we're gonna go from hero to zero which one are you gonna slam on go on okay uh i was i was tempted to try and figure out how i might bring in bring in some blues brothers music to calm our nerves ahead of what is depressingly the most... Honestly, Scott, it breaks my heart. So, there's a Blues Brothers game there and I'm looking at it. Was there anyone ever playing it? Oh, yeah. Let me tell the story. Come on. He's building the picture. So, we all see it there and we're all chuckling. It wasn't on, so we couldn't play it. And everyone... because basically everyone knows I hate it but why do you hate it? so let me start I am a massive Blues Brothers fan I've got albums that I've signed I went to see the band years ago I unfortunately missed the last get together actually Kirk from Tilt, shout out to him he went to it and I didn't even know it was on I was annoyed I didn't go but in my car I've got a playlist of the Blues Brothers that when I'm driving it's on and it's blaring I love the Blues Brothers, the movie's great, it's funny it's awesome, but I love the music and if you doubt me on that go to YouTube and search for B-Movie Blues Brothers and there's a video of him live that is just out of this world greatness it's just amazing they've got such a great band I want to hear it now shot in 1978 so that's how old it is so you've got this great musical band they put you know it came out of saturday night live uh dan akroyd freaking genius at writing stuff um uh john belushi hilarious actor funny guy can sing the guy can sing right um and you got this amazing band with people like i mean there's people in the band that play with michael jackson i mean they're just just fucking superheroes man all of them right the proper musicians so I'd shouted at Stern a few times Blues Brothers, Blues Brothers which by the way, where is Blues Brothers set? Chicago the home of pinball is the home of the Blues Brothers and I literally cried when I heard that Home Pin somehow I'll be honest with you it's got zero for me I don't care about the theme I don't care about the pin nobody's perfect it's going to be an age thing, no offence Neil I barely knew about the film have you seen the film? no, I don't want to what? that's bollocks, you've got to go see the movie you've got to watch the movie it's fucking hilarious I think it's going to be as bad as what was the other one? Spinal Tap, I can't I know, Spinal Tap's pants compared to this. I mean, honestly, it's... This is... Look, John Belushi... I mean, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, man, he's a Ghostbusters guy. Yeah, I know he is. Robert Zemeckis, you know, he was involved in... But I've seen a lot of Daniel Aykroyd stuff, and that's just... no. Okay, well, look, you know... Sorry, Mr. Lee. I can take the horse to the water, but I can't make you drink. I think the end of music is going to be something Blues Brothers on this podcast so look this is amazing I mean you know it's an amazing theme it's an amazing music it's got the movie's got car chases it's got Illinois Nazis it's got a nun with a stick the movie's just rammed with content it's got Aretha Franklin dancing on a cafe worktop it's got Ray Charles playing a piano like you've never seen anyone I mean there's just so much good fucking content in this movie with the music and the video and I'm like Homepin and Homepin the reason this is a bit of a narc for me, Homepin ruined one of my other big themes Thunderbirds, I'm not even going to mention it but it's fucking awful Tony it's awful mate doesn't it have like some really bad geometry issue where the balls can fall into the bottom of the cabinet yeah and not only that it's got one ramp where the flippers, the ramp wasn't made strong enough so it broke on the original game they sent out new ramps and then the flippers it's just honestly why Mike stop fucking making pinball machines please the funny part is he's really good at doing electronics right well you say that there's more of this story there's more to the story anyway the show arm is the game's on I get to play it Jonathan Joosten from Pinball Magazine who was the original guy that released the news of it I think he was I think the expose he kind of and I basically trashed the post saying I can't believe these freaking goons have got this the Illinois Nazis anyway he's there I think he was waiting for me to go play it so I go play it honest to god man so the other thing that they took so they've taken one great IP they've taken this other great thing called Stars Steve Kirk one of my favourite pinball designers Quicksilver Meteor Flight Tooth has made so many great classics there in games, including Stars, which is a tournament favourite and almost Pulp Fiction is almost as brutal, but it's a glorious game. We've got one in the club if you want to play it. It's drop targets and spinners, the glory days of classic pinball, right? They've taken that as the base layout and they hired a blind guy off the street to hack it to death and do stupid shit so the thing about stars is you light the stars and you hit the spinner and the spinner delivers you with glorious points what does home pin do it just makes me cry they make that one of the most fantastic shots in pinball when you hit it and that spinner spins it's like it's like it's attached to your body and your whole blood pressure rolls with it right yeah they widen the shot so literally you know a kind of a bowling ball could go down there yeah i mean any balloon could hit it right and in doing that they have to move the spinner halfway around the shot where you're engaged where where the shitty flippers can't even hit it hard enough and i'm like what have they done to this and then they've got this bad geometry testing that is they've got this bizarre ball lock that honestly talk about flimsy i mean jesus and and again the balls just seem to fall into this by luck and i'm like this is a joke man and also it's got this most irritating so they got i forget does this game have a video screen and display just alpha numerics no video screen. It's got it runs off Arduno and it runs as kind of some guy who's done the code for this he's probably in hiding now is he should be in hiding. In fact he should be in jail, penitentially somewhere Juliet, Jake whatever his name is. Anyway it's Arduno based and but it's like so it's got three songs yeah? whatever it is that junk that people use to blow their houses up yeah go on anyway the music he's licensed three songs from the movie they are not they are Blues Brothers movie songs they are not Blues Brothers songs right there's a big debate about this on Pinside right so it's not actually a Blues Brothers So there's no Blues Brothers music in the fucking game. What shit is that, right? But the game's open source, so if you've ripped off the tune, you can do it yourself so that Mike doesn't have to pay for it, right? Absolute not. And apparently some guy in Australia couldn't even make it work. So, you know, Mike's target audience for this game, remember, ladies and gentlemen, remember, it's casual players who want to work on open source in their games room where they've got a pool table. i shouldn't laugh this sounds so terrible honest to god i mean jesus jesus jesus christ no you're right you remind me if anybody's ever watched like the the sort of like video game kind of industry there's a guy called angry the angry joe i think he called oh yeah and and and you are literally you get wound up It so funny I haven even started on how shit this is The sounds aren equalised. So literally, you're trying to hear the music and you've got this horrible noise. Just constant. And the guys on the booth that had the game, they were ready to blow the thing up. But they didn't have to because it blew up itself. It broke down three times with these glorious electronics. made by Mike and his left hand soldering iron. Honest to God. It surprises me because I always found that there's stuff for like he did the long range opto fix for Bram Stoker's Dracula and it was actually genuinely good. That's good news. It's good that he's good at something. I don't want the guy to starve. It's just stuff like, as you say, it's weird that his skills don't seem to making pinball machines and then I heard pinball but I need to come back to this because pinball brothers have not listened to me and they keep making games so I'm very nervous about that but anyway Mike I want to love you mate I want to like you I want to talk about the great things Scott just mentioned on stuff that you fixed in pinball people were raving about your apparently you've made a transformer that's a replacement for Bally Williams ones that's all glorious stuff and we love that stuff but for the love of god mate you've wrecked two themes that I love and I kind of like Spinal Tap and that's another turd mate, it's just so bad I mean you can't even make the shots they added a flipper to some version that no one's got Mike claims he's got customers you know good luck to them there's a couple people on Pinside that like it and and you know i've got like you mean yeah i've got the yellow van um picking them up for for psychiatric evaluation i can only imagine they're the same people that just like theme and theme alone funnily enough they're all from australia as well i don't know home pride maybe um but money laundering i mean the artwork is just abysmal yeah that was terrible artwork I mean, I'm looking at artwork here, like a black and white picture of the Blues Brothers. It would have been amazing to have it on that. Or, you know, you've got the shopping. I mean, it's another mode, driving through a mall where they're pointing out the shops. Just hilarious. Can you imagine Christopher Franke on that? He would have done really good on it. Yeah, and actually, Chris, I won't say what he said, but along the lines of… I'm sure Chris said it. Yeah, I was going to say, Chris is not… Actually, Chris is a watcher of the show. He came up to me and said hello. Oh, nice. He was talking about the show. He was taking the piss out of my jet fighter play, which I thought was a valid piss take. But shout out to Christopher Franchi. Epic job on Walking Dead. Walking Dead, Evil Dead. Evil Dead, yeah. Actually, you should do the Walking Dead remake, Chris. Go phone Stern. Unfortunately, I know you can't do it anymore because you're contracted. But epic job on Evil Dead. He's exclusive to Spooky, isn't he? that was a very good call by Spooky to be honest I think it's a great call by Spooky Evil Dead, the artwork on it I've got it set in the air it's not for kids actually let's get into Evil Dead yeah why not I'm going to go from fuck off you twats for building Blues Brothers to Spooky you absolutely completely and utterly in every single way possible have nailed Evil Dead it's that simple right and look the code isn't finished yet so there's things they've still got to do but I'm looking at the game now first of all it's a wide body Scott that doesn't feel like a wide body and you hate wide bodies as well I hate modern era wide bodies because the ball always feels floaty they've used the space you've got stuff to hit I was going to say every time I watch someone play Evil Dead that thing is flowing it's so good it's so great you know there's some little touches like the to start the multiball you hit the you lock the barrel you lock the shots in the gun the shotgun is so good to hit a jackpot you load the gun you hit the button to fire it it's just hilarious someone needs to make a mod by the way that becomes like a trigger do you know what I mean actually it's funny you should mention that Hilton and Ben Heck who are the coders of this game are working on that as a non-official mod and if you go on to Pinside I would 100% be buying I'm in on that right away and you know I mean the game's beautifully powder coated including ladies and gentlemen including the coin door um they're good for that spooky i love their attention to detail and stuff yeah i have to say i mean the artwork's glorious on it right those just words that don't i just it's hard to explain it i mean for anyone that doesn't i mean it depends on like when you've joined and known neil but neil has always been known as the stern fanboy right regardless of whether or not to have him pray those for those listening that was me flipping the bird to Scott but like to be fair right this is I think for you the biggest praise I've ever heard you give a non-stern game nah I've given CGC big praise so people think I'm a fan but I think genuinely I've never heard you that excited for a game so you didn't know me when my attack from Mars arrived me I didn't go out I just think it speaks volumes personally when you say that this game is that good it look look let me um i mean let me cover the fanboy thing look for me stern do what they should do what they say on the tin and and you pay for it and it's good and they listen and they do stuff right i know that's not everyone's experience but it's my experience um and you know it's great to see the stern guys at um tpf and actually you got topper out in fact i might i might do an unboxing live on the podcast um but this game you've got this hand that moves up and down you've got a drop target, you've got a ramp you've got this big habit rail you've got the shotgun thing, you've got a captive ball you've got a house that locks the ball you've got two paths to it you've got a drop target, you've got a ramp that goes up and down like Elvira you've got lower playfield The lower playfield, the thing opens and either opens to get to the lower playfield or you get three shots to hit. You've got a shot on the hand to hit. You've got this scoop that flips. Is it mural? I can't remember the name of the woman. I can't remember. It turns out into evil or happy, which adjusts the points. You've got a tape deck. So one of the best moments of the game. They've totally nailed it. Totally nailed it. I was laughing my ass off and my wife was looking at me like, why are you laughing? because they totally nailed it, she doesn't get Evil Dead and this bit, and actually if you go on if you're watching this on YouTube you'll see me do a stream of it where I'm laughing my ass off because the tape there's a little tape on the on the apron and it starts spinning and it starts playing the enchantment and it's just Kanda, that's it, Kanda that's it, and it just made me laugh my ass off and in the multiball starts and then when you start the shotgun it fires both barrels, you've got this, it goes get ready, get ready and then the zombie or the deadite appears and you hit start and it times you how quickly you are and that sets the baseline for the jackpots, it's such a great little thing, it's never been done before, at least I don't remember it being. It feels fresh doesn't it it really does. It does, it's really fresh, they've got two games in it, there's Evil Dead which has one set of modes and Evil Dead 2 which is a different set of modes right actually i haven't figured out which one i like the best yet i haven't played it enough but um it's actually it's also quite tough um the ball moves fast on it um and yeah no offense mate i saw you draining so much i was like god you you come on you're bad no i was i was to be honest yeah i was a bit nervous but i was knackered i've been up since 6am i was just tired i just couldn't play i'm gonna i'll do a proper stream over the weekend yeah i'll um I'll show it. Actually, shout out to Joel from Flip N Out Pinball. He's done a tutorial of the code as it is now on Flippin' Flip N Out Pinball podcast. He does the streaming. It's Flip N Out Pinball's website for Zach and Nicole's dealer in the US and good people. He does a lot of streaming for them. He's got the game currently. although he said to me it's covered up with blankets because he's got young children he says you just can't have that game in the house with young children which I mean a man covered in blood with a chainsaw the scary looking zombie woman at the top on the topper I imagine is a bit I mean the topper is insane it weighs a ton the topper I was going to ask you that just from a practical standpoint if you ever had to take the backbox down do you think you have to take the topper off then a hundred percent right i think so i mean well put it this way when so look um fast forward neil you're talking about it and you're playing it how have you got a game well there was one for sale um yeah and you know i'm like when i see something i like i buy it um so i bought it um i've still got one in order from phil so this one's going to go into the club that's how generous and loving person I am I'm going to put us in a club and it's nice to see it early doors right? I don't know when it will arrive in the UK either sometime in the year 2074 just after my Dungeons and Dragons arrives so yeah I just can't wait I'm a stickler for important stuff I remember Xbox, I flew to America to literally stand in the queue to buy three Xboxes and bring them home. You'll be buying a Switch 2 then, no doubt. I've already got that, sorry. But to be honest with you, I should bring this handheld out thing I've got. It's amazing. Well done to the spooky guys. And actually, let me just I've given the spooky guys a really hard time about quality. And I think fairly so. and I didn't do it because I hate the guys or I want to be a dick although they probably think I was a dick which is fair enough it's because it's important to have good quality and stuff because you miss out I mean I remember playing Looney Tunes last year or the year before and I mean it couldn't even eject a ball without crashing I was like come on guy and Looney Tunes is a theme that I would have been into and it just turned me off because you can fix these things, yeah you can I don't have time to fix them when I want to play pinball Scott, I want to play pinball I don't want to be dicking about with a screwdriver or a chainsaw so at the show I kept hovering around the spooky stand they probably thought I'd gone a bit nuts one to play the game but two yeah, one to play the game but two to actually get a view as to how reliable it was and I was waiting for the well and also I wanted to see the underside of the playfield I was waiting for that to happen the whole weekend I didn't see a playfield up that speaks volumes doesn't it if it can survive a show it's going to survive a home location easily so I am I didn't pay for the game until the Saturday night, the last possible moment. See, I was worried, because wasn't there like that guy that was the distributor, he bought the last 25 games or something while he was at the show? Yeah, so yeah, I mean, this was a game that was actually at the show. What happened then? Did they have a certain number of those games that were able to sell out? Yeah, all the games at the show, apart from one, was sold before they even arrived. Wow. So people collected them from the show and took them home. So you were quite lucky to get it then? I was very lucky, no question about it and actually a shout out to Tommy from Nitro Pinball who also did me the deal on Pulp Fiction I'm his biggest customer in the UK having bought a couple of games off him I saw him and I pinged him, I said hey Tommy is that Evil Dead Soul? He's like no not yet and I said to him I'll take it and to be honest it's a bit of aggro for him because he's got to do paperwork and stuff. Yeah, he's got exports. Yeah, but if I was in Canada, Nigel Pimble would be who I was buying from, and they're dealing with tariffs and a whole bunch of other stuff, which we'll talk about in a minute. Yeah. But Fair Play to Spooky nailed it. If you've bought one of these games, so I've got my UK one order from Phil. If you've bought one of these games, you're genuinely in for a pinball treat speaking to Joel, he's dreading when it goes he said I'd buy one except I just can't have that game in the house he thinks it's awesome, I think they've nailed it and there's a ton more content to go in from Bruce Campbell etc and just little things that I noticed because I've seen the movies about 100 times so I can kind of narrate them but they've totally smashed it the topper's amazing it literally looks like the woman popping out I mean I watched the movie on the flight back and it's just and I hadn't seen the movie for a while actually admittedly and I'm watching it and I'm thinking holy shit man these guys it was even more compelling as to how well they've taken the theme I'm really glad they do the horror theme because then I don't think we'll ever do a horror theme I just I mean Walking Dead but I mean they kind of had to tone that down a little bit I don't think they're not going to do that kind of like really scary cabinet artwork right well Walking Dead Remastered is definitely coming so we'll come to that more so shout out I mean I talked to Spooky Bug and Spooky Luke and Chris and a few in Hilton all weekend really lovely people and I'm really glad to be able to say I bought this game and it's playing great yeah they've still got code to put out for sure and you know there's things that there's a couple of bugs in it that they know about that they're working through but I'm really happy to be on this journey and look from Tuesday, so this is Friday the 4th of April we're shooting this and from Tuesday if you're bored next Tuesday the club's open all day, Evil Dead will be there, taking it over there so people can play it and then it'll be in the British Masters along with D&D, probably if you want to play it come in the afternoon because I'll be getting there in the morning and I'll have to set it up so don't come first thing banging the door to play it but if you want to come play it please do and Luke if you haven't got a topper get a topper because it's great I think they sold more toppers than they did games didn't they which was quite funny yeah someone told me that as well and I think if you're an Evil Dead fan I'd absolutely understand why you'd want that topper it actually comes with a topper oh it's got that plastic yeah the sort of like a credit cut version I'll show this so if you're on YouTube you'll see this it looks like a topper so you've got this thing oops it looks like this still looks alright to be fair and it flashes and it's cool as a simple topper it's great right Stern would charge two grand for that yeah I mean Stern would charge two grand for that that's the only reason why I like Stern it's great at making money which is important in this day and age But the thing, you know, the other topper is heavy, it's big. Sure. But when it goes, it's fantastic. It scared the hell out of my wife when it first moved, which is kind of funny. Funny. That is funny. But actually, this is just a chalk and cheese on Blues Brothers again. The Blues Brothers has a similar top-up, except the morons have put something in front of something so you can't see what it says properly. That's included. Anyway, well done, Spooky. If you've got this game coming, you're going to be very happy. If you haven't, you're going to be looking for it on the second-hand market because it's outstanding, I have to say. moving on I think my Blues Brothers rant went on longer than we planned for you definitely got triggered on that one so John Wick actually I've got I managed, I remember we were talking about it I didn't think we'd be able to pick up Venom or John Wick toppers when we were out there when the Venom topper came out I was able to get one and it's pretty good is it worth what we paid for? Of course not but I kind of like it I haven't actually played the game since I started on that you would buy it no matter what Neil because you love your toppers I do, I am a topper fan as you can see from the back I have a Metallica but I just I'll pass on the topper fan I'll tell you what I would like to do when your son named Neil is born I'll tell you what I would like you to do I've heard about this if you put the topper on a game and then log into Insider Connect and then take the topper off, you can unlock the song. Ah, okay, you want me to bring it round? I would like your topper so I can have my song. I'll bring the node board round. If you're listening, don't change that. I like that. Yeah, we can see Scott's credit card appearing on Scott's screen. Please enter your details. So, actually, John Wick, and I kind of have a bit of a shout-out to a mate of mine, Tim Sexton, who's left Stern, gone to work for Play Mechanics, in their pinball division that's the guys that did pulp fiction oh okay sorry i was going to ask you directly but indirectly um you could have pinged me uh so congrats on your move tim hope it goes well and um we hate you for not finishing john wick so next time i see you i'm gonna punch you just just kidding me um but um you know the game that they're alleged to have we mentioned on the the last podcast, Halo. I mean... Yeah, I forgot about that. That's the sort of title that, for me, could either get the love I just showed Spooky or the hatred that I just showed Blues Brothers. Yeah, that's true. You get it wrong. That's the pendulum you're on, Scott. As long as they copy, like I would say, the game rather than the TV series, we'll be fine. Yeah, I mean, I like the TV series. It wasn't Halo. It was like a Halo thing, but it wasn't Halo. I agree with you on that. diminish yourself by saying something the music, the thing that's key for me in Halo is the music and the ambience where Cortana's speaking zooming out you want the E-Dorian music, you want Cortana's voice, you want the original voice actor for Halo not the TV actor yeah I agree you'll be fine, there's plenty there as you say, but I fear it's a bit like Portal, it's like are people going to know what it is maybe so yeah so anyway Tim good luck mate and it's going to be nice if you finish the John Wick code that's a good question though if he was the lead code developer for that does he then just hand over to I don't know what they'll do about that probably I mean we mentioned code Rayday mate you are a superstar Metallica my wife was she hasn't been playing that game for a while I've been playing it loads and she gets really annoyed because I keep playing certain songs over and over again and she's just like can you just pick another song and I was like no I love these songs and then she played the code update and she just wouldn't get off the game she was like what has he done he's increased the expression lighting's gone through the roof he's added on extra animations there obviously the new song got added for free please please then, for the love of God, don't copy CGC. I don't want to see bloody code updates being charged for. What you're doing right now, that is phenomenal. It took, for me, what was already an awesome game and added on another 10%. That code update was incredible. It was such a good update. They were finishing the game. Let's finish Metallica and come back to it. I think people have got the wrong end of the stick on what CGC are doing. Maybe. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. So, look, yeah, great job, Ray. I mean, Metallica has taken everyone by surprise, including Stern. And, you know, they've sold boatloads of them. It's such a good game. It's my favorite game. It is literally my number one game now. After Jaws, it's probably their second bestseller this year, by a mile. Yeah. Moving on. So, we then were treated to Jack announcing Harry Potter. um it was a glorious moment you know the there was trumpets there was dancing girls in hot pants we aren't going to go into the health thing i don't think it's probably not right but i feel like it just it obviously wasn't planned you could tell by um i forget sorry the guy's name who made avatar that was seen next to him um see the seagull or something if you zoom in on his face during that moment he pulls a face that goes it's like oh it's like you could tell it was not something he should have done there and then and i think that's it so yeah i genuinely feel like during that announcement everyone in the crowd is just dumbstruck that's what it was it wasn't they were being rude it was more like did he just genuinely give out confirmation of harry potter in a nonchalant way to like 30 people in the room it was a bozzle move i mean look jack runs a company yeah you can do it just wait once right yeah but i was his marketing director resigned jjp in my book right i have to say this because i feel very strongly about it their uh advertising is phenomenal like when they did their promo for guns and roses it was by far this is how you do a video guys everyone else learned from us that's what it felt like to me and i felt they probably have something already cooked up for harry potter that's been taking a while to make and he's just gone and announced it in a couple of sentences so i mean interestingly so whilst going to my room jack and Steve Ritchie getting the lift with me sure and uh i said hello steve how you doing and i said hey jack and i shook his hand um and he and i was like well i don't know he's gonna he's gonna play this but he shook my hand and then he had a bit of a kind of pop at me on facebook saying oh no you're awfully quiet in the lift tomorrow which my reply was, yeah, Jack, there's no point in me telling you what you've already ignored again. But I said, anytime you want to have a chat, you know where I am. And I hear you coming to Phil gig So we have a chat then So he did a thumbs up and we catch up at Phil gig and see what happens but that was I mean I can tell you there a few people in JJP pretty upset about that he then went on to talk about dates and other stuff just handing the money to the competition well I think the thing he said was if you've got money I wouldn't be spending any of it right now you said that before though and it doesn't work. But think about it just logically for a moment. You are literally telling your audience don't buy Avatar. Don't buy Toy Story. Don't buy Godfather. It's not worth your money. Goodbye Harry Potter. That's worth your money. Yeah, it was stupid at all levels. And you know, I spoke to a few people and some of them wonder if it was because of his health. I don't know. I can't comment on it. No, me either. and look, I might not be the most biggest JGP fan, but Jack's done a lot for pinball. You can't ignore the guy. Man, I'd say they are the number two still. I genuinely think they still are the number two in the industry. I just feel that maybe it's... You could be catching them though. Yeah, well, with people dead, absolutely. But I just feel like it's just a misstep on their part. It really is. I feel like Harry Potter is obviously going to be a big and it should have just had a better fan announcement that's all I know that the guy that was marketing was pretty hacked off about it man I would be I can only imagine the effort that they've probably gone to to make a video the thing is what's stupid about it is you're not supposed to announce stuff like that without the licensor being in on it oh yeah of course because the first thing I would do phone Warner Bros hey I hear you've got a pinball machine coming some guy announced it and I'm like what the fuck oh yeah you didn't think about that on so many levels that's why Stern why don't they announce it on a machine because they'd have to get alignment you'd have to announce it properly that's what they did with Tokyo what's the name of the company that did Godzilla the original company, the Japanese company Toho because they got them to do the announcement didn't they I remember that now didn't think about that on so many levels it was a stupid thing to do we'll see how it pays out I'm hearing on the game 20 grand for a CE you told me this before and we obviously haven't heard anything about this yet everyone's challenging me on it but I'm still convinced that's what it is I've heard that a few times and that's what I think it's going to be if it isn't you've saved money it might be when the tariffs kick in well maybe more than that and actually pinball I don't know if you've seen it but pinball is actually listed on the things that they are going to tariff. If the UK decides to do it, I don't think they have done yet. I kind of hope they don't because it just means Donald will add more back. It's true. But it is on the list that the code the FT100 suffers biggest daily falls since the start of the pandemic. Glorious. Well done, Trump. We'll move on from that. No more political speak, please. But if you're about to retire, you'll be very happy. so anyway I mean Avatar I don't know what to say I felt for Mark on the stage because he got up you know he was upstaged by something that doesn't even exist yet well that's what I mean if it was my game and I put all that love and effort into it I'd be miffed about that put it this way I'm never getting on stage with Jack again that's for freaking sure and then you know lackluster I mean Jeremy Jack's booth I would say wasn't as rammed as Stern's or any other booth it was you can get on games pretty quickly. Right. I don't think it will be that way with Harry Potter, though. I genuinely think that's going to be I hope so. I mean, they need a good game because they've had some real, I mean, Elton John's great, but the theme, it didn't sell. It's not a universal theme, right? No. And, you know, in some parts of the world, you know, the religious nuts aren't a big fan of Elton John, so especially in the dark deep south of America so yeah Luke I hope it's great Barrels of Fun didn't have a new game there I spoke to a couple of people there it's not quite ready do you know what I did like and I will say this other companies need to learn from how they're handling their loyal buyers for me because they offer a system where if you show you own their current game which is Labyrinth you are automatically then entered into a raffle and you have a chance to win their next game for free so those of you who haven't done this I think your timeline is up to the 14th Scott what's your serial number? No you're not having it until I think maybe the end of this month maybe a little bit earlier but I would do it as soon as possible personally and you've got nothing to pay and nothing to lose Nothing to lose. Yeah. Nothing to lose. I mean, it was a great move. I think Stern need to do this with their LE owners, as an example. Like, you bought 10 LEs. You're a massive, like, you know, fan of them. Well, if you bought 20. Yeah, exactly. But I'm just saying, you should be entered into a raffle, too, or something like that. I mean, it's a great idea to show, like, your loyal consumers you care. I should get a kiss on the cheek from Gary. That's what I should get. Maybe. Maybe. But this is, I think it genuinely is a good idea. and other pinball manufacturers should follow suit in some fashion. Yeah, they should do something that rewards the loyalty. I mean, I've said that before with Stan. Yeah. And, you know, I think they've heard that a little bit. I think that, you know. It's a great idea, personally. Yeah, I think, especially if a new company to generate brand loyalty, it's a great move. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm hearing that their game will be at. Well, it's going to be announced, I think, media expose somewhere around the 15th of April. Yeah, which is the same, interestingly, the same week as Kong's going to be announced. Yes. So we're going to basically have barrels of fun versus face-off, really. Versus Harry Potter a week later, no doubt. Yeah, well, this is what Kaneda said, right? It'll be a busy few weeks. Kaneda said it. Nah, it can't be true then. He just talks bollocks. By the way, the best giveaway at the show was a Donada sticker. Have you seen Donada? No. So it's Don's... You've not seen this, mate. So Don from Don's Pimple Podcast is a bit of a head case, if I'm honest with you. A lovely bloke, but a total nutjob. Right. On the far end of the crazy spectrum, no doubt. He dresses up as Kaneda and does his reaction to not winning the Twippy. It's freaking hilarious. That sounds amazing. Totally nailed it. But then he got little stickers. There's one on my suitcase. It was the best freebie at the show. Actually, I got loads of people come up to me saying, to be banned from Canada's pinball podcast puts me in a special club of elites because that seemed to go down with everyone that I met being banned from it, which made me laugh. But, yeah, so I've heard the game's going to be at MGC. which is the Midwest Gaming Classic which is a big arcade show, it's got a lot of pinball there What date is that? It's next month I think, end of April beginning of May So Kong I know is going to be By the way, I was just going to put it in there I think it's Tremors, not June, but we'll see Okay, Tremors, not June No one's holding out for Fifth Element anymore I think more or less people have confirmed that they've seen the play field a few people have said it's June but I'm just wondering if they got confused I still think it might be Tremors but we'll see I think Tremors might be a better seller than June I like Tremors I would prefer June personally but I just think the hints that they've been dropping are from Tremors June is very much in the same direction as Labyrinth it's kind of a similar type of film, although the acting's slightly better in Dune, I would suggest. Are you referring to the 80s Dune or the more modern release? Both of them. For me, I think the modern release is probably that generation. I haven't seen it, actually. I haven't seen it. A movie where you need to go and see two halves of it is on the edge of reality. This comes from the guy that likes Blues Brothers. I'm sorry, but you need to watch Dune. if I have to watch Flues Brothers you need to watch June ok I will watch June by the next podcast in fact I might watch it and record my reaction to it as an amusing YouTube video just try not to snore I just hope it's not got ninjas in it it's got laser wielding ninjas every movie needs that so Kong, we're pretty sure Kong is going to get announced in a few weeks time and others have stated it. I tried to keep my mouth shut, but I've invited the media and the dealers to a day. Unfortunately, I can't make it because it's Easter. I did try and negotiate with them to move it earlier. I don't think they're going to move it for you, mate. No, I know. Even for me, they're the best customer. I did try and move... The biggest fanboy is what you needed to say. Yeah, no, the biggest customer. So, so the... So, I did try and encourage them to move it, but that fell on deaf ears. Because I could have flown out on the Monday and flown back on the Tuesday, which I would have done. More for Keith, because Keith is a great guy. I think it will sell well. I think it's already... I think the LEs are sold out. No doubt. It's a Keith Elwin game, isn't it? It's going to just go down the tree. It's going to be glorious. And we shall see. Anyway, that's good news that that's coming out. I think it's turning into a banger, although Metallica is banging pretty loudly. Even their makers, you know, Jaws is still selling like a hot cake. I think Jaws needs its code finished though, right? That's the key. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we were talking about code earlier on. Jaws, I mean X-Men. Wason was last seen at the border of North Korea being scuttled away into some sort of weird code. X-Men's been a disappointment in code, I think. It's massive. Look, I pinged Wayson and said, mate, tell them, even if the code's not ready, tell them when it's going to be ready a day for a day. And it's like, we're working on it. I think that's the problem though, right? They've got so many titles to work on. It's stretching their developers. Tim's left, so that's probably put them under the cosh a little bit. Yeah. I say it's not easy coding, really, is it? I'm such an amateur at it so the stuff they're pulling out on D&D that's got to be I would never be able to finish that it's so complicated which leads us into the final topic a shout out to the guys that were there from the UK let me just remember who it was because if I forget someone I'll get shot so we had not gun toting Dave he wasn't there Dave had his gun license revoked so he couldn't make it but so Collie Wobbles was there actually taking Dave's place, I think we all voted on this and we decided that hold on let me just find it we decided that Rob Cutler who was there, Psycho Kid on the forum or Psycho Kid as I like to call him now he was there Scott W, Ian Waring was there, Davey Stumbler I was videoed by him I was winding up the guy who did the Pulp Fiction topper which actually is pretty decent I have to say apart from the fact that you can't see the characters which I've offered them money if they print me proper ones. I think that's got to be a licensing issue right it is 100 yeah uh paul silverpile was there uh and his shorts um did he have sandals on he did i don't get sandals sandals and shorts that'd be very short on a coat um christian who we wound up all weekend about harry potter uh poor christian um he was he was literally like um on the champagne when when he's a big harry potter not he was on the champagne when when it was announced. Mark F, we had a good few games together. Mr Chapman, Collie Wobbles, and Ant. And then also there was Will and Tony from the club. Martin Abe was there. There was another guy from the forum there, but we never, we didn't know he was there, we didn't see him, so we ignored him. It's quite a lot then. Yeah, it must have been about 10, I guess 10, 11, 12 people. We had barbecue, we had beer we had chip i mean we went to this place where they brought out a side of chips the side of chips would have fucking fed walking it was just um i looked at it and thought you know what it's like later on i thought i wish i'd eaten more of those i found that though when i went to like america and you get like it's nuts like portions of food are just well over scale compared to us like a large for us is a medium for them sort of thing it's like well you literally um they bring out a large diet coke yeah and you could bathe in it yeah it's like it's like a tub like a it doesn't fit in a cup holder i was gonna say you need the world's biggest cup holder to put it in it's like i'm not gonna complain too much it's really nice the way you get value for money instead of speaking with the food it's just like you're never going to be able to finish what's provided to you that's all exactly and then and then we had a so coming back we had a last minute panic yes so we're all checking in so I checked in two toppers I checked in a thing for I've got Stace I could check in four bags so two toppers my own bag and something for Mark right and in my case was full of parts from Marco and from Pinball Life and a few other places where I bought stuff bought the stuff from a Metallica that you can see on Facebook from Back Alley Creations, lovely stuff we were all, I mean the amount of gear that we brought back was just huge, playfields, backglasses parts, I brought a pinball machine but that didn't go on the plane, I went on a cargo ship a cargo plane rather, I'll come back to that in a minute but it was so we checked all this stuff on we get off at Heathrow and we were all waiting so half of us were on the flight out on a Sunday night half of us were on the flight out on a Monday night I was on the Sunday night one so about four of us Rob and Christian had some ramps and a topper as well for Jurassic Park I mean just it was like Aladdin's cave in the bottom of that plane none of it came out of the luggage bit and I had one of the guys had a tracker in his luggage that showed it still as Dallas so we were all like OMG are we going to get it so we hung around you do all this left luggage bollocks we have to fill in a form BA utterly useless I did get one of my cases and I got a case for Paul two of the four things came out so at least I had my parts and stuff so I was just waiting for the toppers anyway they finally the next day Paul we started getting pings that they'd arrived I forget who it was but the tracker was now shown in London and then later that day, annoyingly because I wasn't there, because I had to go into London my two toppers got delivered to my wife which went down like a lead balloon you fucking toppers so that was a painful whipping when I arrived and then I told her about the pinball machine punched in the mouth, I'm just kidding no so yeah a shout out to Qatar our airlines who helped me out, get my game back. They did a great job and they delivered it. I mean, literally a week after I got back from TPF, which was pretty good and the game was not a mark on it, so thank you to them. If I get more organised, I'm going to bring more games back next time for sure. And I think that's it, mate. I had a big shout out to Ant, by the way. He picked up a colour DMD for me, so thanks, Ant. Ah, okay, yes. Good stuff. I actually meant to buy one for my World Cup soccer win. I forgot, but I bought those other parts for it. So I need to go and I need to get one. I'm back in the US in a few weeks, so I'll pick it up then. Yeah, get in. We're full of tariffs here, mate. Yeah, Ant and Paul were there. It was a really good gig. We were just taking the piss out of each other and saw a lot of friends there. It was great. really good gig. And the whole, like I said, a really good weekend. Folks, if you haven't been to a pinball show before, save your money, go to TPF. Yeah, I mean, it generally looks like one of the best shows. Yeah, I've had a lot of people saying, oh, man, we're coming next year for sure. I know this sounds as dull as dishwater to some, I watched the Barrels of Fun seminar on their manual creation I forget the guy's name but honestly the work and effort he did into creating that manual, I was like that's how they should all do it really it seems like it's a lost art I forget his name but he's just joined from CGC so wherever he's been so Jersey Jack had a manual like that yeah then it's cgc they're a manual like that no barrels of fun's got it he's so good keep it up the part the both my my dialed in and the manuals for um cactus canyon and uh pulp fiction are just out of this world because i i only bring it up because it got me thinking when i was watching him and i was like oh yeah you know he's he's going through every part that's it but yeah yeah and and and he said and i thought yeah when you mentioned um i think you were on stern pimples enthusiast group and you said oh i need the part for my jurassic park which was like a a pin for the um newton ball but it doesn't appear in the manual and everyone's like well it's in the manual and it's it's not it's just genuinely isn't there it's i actually think they might have added that after the game because i think they found out the bulbs got stuck there because it's drilled into the playfield it's not t9 which is a mine snapped the one in the club yeah so i'm we're drilling i got another thing we're going to drill through t9 because there's space to Tina and it gets a lot of abuse so anyway I got all those, that was some of the parts I got in when I was in the US from Marco Speck and Pinball Life shout out to both of them because actually the Marco guys actually brought it you don't have to pay any shipping, they brought it to the event just picked it up from them and Pinball Life got it shipped so it arrived there, also a big band of rubbers pink rubbers of doom for the UK open from I forget who it is in the US so with that a few interesting weeks coming up pinball wise I'll mention the club we're open next Tuesday sorry next Wednesday for anyone who wants to come and play Evil Dead it's Wednesday actually I might have put this date out wrong just thinking about it basically we're opening up for a charity that's basically bringing some teenagers who care for family members. So they're having a day off. They're doing a variety of things. They're coming to the club for a couple of hours, so we're opening up. But I've kind of taken the day off, opened the club for the whole Wednesday. It's Wednesday. Let me just get the date right before I screw it up. It's Wednesday the 9th. We'll be open. Not the 8th, the 9th. I'm pretty sure I've said the 8th, but it's the 9th. The 9th, the 9th of April. Come along, you can play D&D and you can play Evil Dead at the club. What a great treat. Yeah, and then the following week we've got the British Masters. Tickets almost sold out. UKopen.net if you want to buy them. We've got some big players coming in from Europe. And it's going to be a great weekend of pinball. It's Thursday, Friday, Saturday. You can do Thursday if you just want to come for a day, the Classics tournament. Or you could do Friday, Saturday, which is the main tournament. And it should be good. We're going to record it. We probably won't live stream it because we still haven't sorted out the bandwidth in the club. But we'll record it. It should be a lot of fun. A couple of other games that we're bringing in for that will give us some good competition. So with that, Scott, we're at the 1 hour 36. So we're six minutes over our target. which is my wife's already hassling me to get off yeah me too I've got to go and order my curry for Friday night thanks to everyone that was at TPF everyone that come and told us it was great to have people come and talk to us about the podcast Christopher Franchi as well when he mentioned I was like crikey so it's great to be recognised by that but again we just do it for a bit of fun we're not trying to make money out of it or be serious or we're just a couple of guys yacking on about pinball because we love it yeah and remember we're the podcast that buys pinball machines for better or for worse it's quite important um we definitely yeah you more than anyone else buys them but yeah i mean i yeah no you buy a few i bought two this year and you build them and you refurb them you know we're yeah we're doers we're we're we we walk despite our family telling us we need to stop we keep doing it anyway we keep doing it anyway that's it mate we'll we'll be our epitaph. They told us to stop and we said no. With that, look, folks, pinball. Enjoy it. A reminder to use venues, especially the world's about to get a crazier place with the rollercoaster ride that we're all on. In my view, make sure you use those venues because if you don't, they won't be here. and thanks to everyone who listens and if you've got any comments you want to hear from us go to our YouTube channel, comment on the video and we will endeavour to kind of take your feedback and respond to your queries we usually respond on the YouTube channel but if you've got any queries feel free to post them there or in our Facebook group we're not on Instagram or we're too lazy to do it. We don't have enough socials, as they call it. We don't want to do TikTok. No. And I get enough junk mail in my own email box to set up a special email box for us. But folks know how to contact us. Feel free to do so. And on that bombshell, Scott, we will wish everybody a groovy pinball experience. Yes, have a good weekend and get some fun out there and play some pinball. Hell yes. Bye-bye, folks. Bye-bye.