welcome everybody we are back with another wizards and warriors episode again a little bit of our flagship series now master class the this is our podcast the ultimate at Competitive Pinball Podcast. Today we're driving into the dark arts of competitive pinball, a territory that separates the lucky from the legendary. That's right. We're talking in-disc high stakes, the Gottlieb Bank. It's the one bank that can make or break this side tournament fund that we're going to have. It's more of a detour for a lot of the open and classics players, purely because these machines demand a completely different level of respect and technical precision. In the world of competitive pinball, there's no equalizer quite like a Gottlieb bank. I'm sure Chuck Work can attest to that. This year's bank has the following pins. We've got Bad Girls, Excalibur, Deadly Weapons, Surfing Safari, Diamond Lady, and Vegas. And as always, I've got my co-host here, J-Land Joe. What's up? Hey, what's going on? While others rely on the familiar flow of Williams or the kinetic chaos of modern sterns, The true masters know that Indus High Skates is often won or lost on the quirky physics and unique logic of Gottlieb's late 80s and early 90s gems. To navigate these machines, you need more than just fast reflexes. You need a tactician's mind. Enter Colin MacAlpine. Welcome, Colin. Thanks, Brian. Yeah, of course. Fresh off his 2025 Texas State Championship victory, Colin has built a very awesome reputation for dissecting complex rule sets, and mastering the unconventional geometry that defines multiple pinball eras. From the billiard-themed chaos of Bad Girls to the high-spinning gambling of Vegas, Colin's going to show us that Texas touch required to tame these beasts. This is Master Class Got Leapstakes. That's our intro. Awesome. Nice. That was lovely, man. You like that? That was next level right there. Well, welcome, Colin. We're so happy to have you here. Thank you for joining us. And tell us a little bit about yourself, your sort of foray into pinball, maybe the competitive pinball. And yeah, just give us a little background on who you are and what your pinball life is. Yeah, so I've been playing pinball for most of my life. I started as a young kid just in local arcades and pizza joints. And, you know, I like playing video games. I still like playing video games. But I liked the, you know, a guy that was playing and I saw that he was able to keep pressing the start button. And, you know, I didn't have a lot of money as a kid. And so I was out there, you know, fishing for quarters in the coin slots and stuff like that. and I noticed he kept asking me, Mr. Ma, how do you do that? How do you keep playing for free? He's like, well, if you play well enough, you can get a replay and keep playing. Can you hear my dogs in the background? I'm sorry about that. We hear you. Okay. All right. And so, yeah, when he showed me that and I started playing pinball and I enjoyed it and now I actually much more appreciate playing pinball than video games because I work a desk job and, you know, travel and negotiate contracts and stuff like that. So I'm looking at a computer screen all day long. So I don't have a desire anymore to play video games that much anymore. I much prefer the physical, you know, kinetic aspect of pinball and also the physicality of it. Just something that is just, you know, able to kind of, you know, take, not take your aggression out on it. That's not saying it the right way. But just to be able to influence things physically is more engaging than just, you know, holding the controller and your thumbs and your fingers and manipulating stuff that way. So, yeah. So I've enjoyed pinball for a really long time. But I didn't know competitive pinball existed until 2012, I think it was. So it was a Tron launch party. So my very first tournament was a Tron launch party. And they said, you're going to earn world ranking points. I said, oh, that's cool. And I won it. So that set the hook deep right off the bat. And it felt good to do that. And then I got involved in my local pinball community here in Austin. and I started, you know, I drove up by 35 to go to, you know, Hottie's Neck of the Woods to attend the Texas Pinball Festival. And then just the hook kept getting set deeper and deeper. And so, yeah, I've been playing. I really, you know, got headlong into all the, you know, older games and games I'd never played before after my first Pinberg. so after going to pinberg and going and playing all these crazy classic games i'd never seen before never heard of before it then you know i've always liked board games and i like you know understanding the rules of the board game and figuring out a strategy and a path to try to do certain things or try to win the game and so that just kind of then fostered a love and a fun you know, finding enjoyment in, you know, learning the rules of pinball machines, figuring out, you know, optimal paths, and then discussing those optimal paths like we're doing here tonight. And also, I do that with my local community, and I do that online on, you know, Discord and other places. Because, you know, at this point, I mean, I realize I'm on like on the downside of my competitive pinball journey. And so I get probably even more enjoyment from getting to show others and teach others these days. I mean, I still compete at a high level, of course, but it's, yeah, I just, it's, you know, there's more enjoyment there because it's always, you're always winning when you're teaching somebody else. and you're getting to see that light bulb go on or getting to see them realize and make that connection for the first time about not just trying to keep the ball alive or not just trying to control the ball, but having an intentional plan and then being able to adapt on the fly as the game changes or the match changes. So really cool stuff, and it's really fun to do. Anybody who's listening, if you haven't, if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably already involved in some competitive pinball. But just in case you aren't, find your competitive pinball scene and go play with people and just enjoy each other's company and talk about the game and cheer each other on, have a drink together. Yeah, competitive pinball is great. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. When you were starting out, what were the – was there someone specific you learned from as far as tips and tricks? you know rule sets again you didn't start pre-2000 you started well into the internet era so ideas were ideas and and guides almost like faqs for video games were probably available or at least talking to people so did you have anybody that you sort of learned from or did you just pick up things on your own as far as pinball skills and uh flipper tricks yeah so some of the flipper tricks and stuff you learn you know even just playing locally you know so at the local arcade or when i was in when i was in college at the student union that had the the arcade with the pinball machines in it and if there happened to be one of the other player good players in there that i knew because i've seen them playing before and saw them putting their initials up too you know just watching them and just you know learning learning stuff back then just in person of the first time i saw somebody do a drop catch i'm like oh i should start doing that that was really effective and then but i didn't know half of all i didn't i was not good at all at nudging when i first because i thought it was illegal um so that's another thing you really have to learn in person that's one of the things that you know you can learn flipper skills and you can learn rules and scoring you know levels and methodologies and stuff from watching the the overhead you know video cameras, screens, you really don't learn nudging unless you see it in person. It's just, you know, it's very difficult. You can see a little bit more now with how screens have evolved and if they're showing, if they have a player cam that isn't just their torso up. If the player cam actually goes down and shows their hands on the lockdown bar, then you can start to get a little bit of appreciation for it. But that's one thing you definitely, you know, I think you have to learn in person. But then as far as most of the flipper tricks and stuff I learned is because in the original, you know, Papa videos that were out there. And they would show that. So, yeah, it was mind-blowing the first time I saw somebody do a post pass. And then, of course, just like somebody doing a magic trick when I saw a tap pass for the first time. So, yeah, that was just, I think the video stuff was really just starting to take off when I got into competitive pinball. So that was a big help. But even back then, the video quality was not good. And it was pretty hit or miss. It wasn't a lot out there. So you had the Papa videos and that was about it. You had like the, you know, if you wanted to learn some weird games, you could also like go to TNT Amusements, the Todd Tuckey videos and learn some stuff that way. And then, you know, Keith Elwin and his brother had some stuff that they were publishing and putting out there just a few things here and there. So, but yeah, that's how, and then it's cool because, you know, if you have a local community then you can talk to them, oh, did you see, have you ever seen this before? Or you show somebody in person and just show them the very first time and then they see a post-pass the first time and they're like, oh my gosh, I've got to try that. Yeah, you see their eyes get wider and they're like, wait a minute, there's a whole new world. You know, it's not just trapping up and hoping you get lucky with precision shots. You've been as high as fifth in the world. Do you have a favorite moment, tournament, victory that you are very proud of, or is there a moment that you just, this was the most fun you've ever had? You know, is there a competitive moment that really you always go back to and say, Yeah, that's a good dopamine hit right there to remember. Well, it shouldn't come as any shock that the answer to that question is when I won Pinburgh. So, yeah, the trophy that's up there in that cubby of the office built in. So, yeah, getting to win Pinburgh because I love that tournament. I love that format. and so having the chance to do that and to you know win a win a major and also it was cool because my wife and my two sons were there you know at replay effects that year as well along with a bunch of obviously friends that I've made from around the world that were there but also had a lot of my crew from Texas that was there so I distinctly remember when I won and then you know jumping off the stage, which you weren't allowed to do during the competition. But once the competition was over, I was like, whatever. They can yellow card me all they want. So I jumped off the stage and then go and hug my wife and sons and then just start, like, you know, jumping for joy. Like, you know, like we just saw, like, the, you know, people at the Olympics, you know, when they win stuff, the hockey team, they go and win, and they're just, like, they're acting like little kids. And so you just act like that. You act like a little kid when something like that happens. And so, yeah, that was definitely the biggest moment, the biggest tournament. And then the other thing I think that's as far as one of the most enjoyment I get is actually the in-between times at tournaments. So when you have a chance to go out and have a meal or have a drink together with all of your friends that you've made in the pinball community and talk about your great balls you had or bad beats or just life in general. To me, that's the most important part about competitive pinball. Yeah, I 100% agree. My wife is very surprised because I generally hone in on a hobby other than video games and do it for a few years, get tunnel vision, and then move on to the next. But pinball has stuck with me because I cannot say enough good things about the community and going to these tournaments and talking with people. Everybody's more than welcoming. They're willing to share tips, tricks, kind of, hey, this is who I am. This is what I do. It's how I met Joe and you at various, various tournaments. It's been great to meet people all over the world in our little corner of the hobby space with pinball. Yeah, those are some great thoughts. Do you have any, in your years of competing, do you have any affinity towards a particular pin, a favorite, a least favorite? When I asked Ray Day what his least favorite was, he said Algar. So I'm assuming Algar is everybody's least favorite. but do you have a favorite pin that you generally gravitate towards other than the Gottliebs that we're about to talk about? No, I mean I pretty much all gravitate towards anything I'm just in the mood to play and it used to be that I was all mostly wanting to play moderns and so it's only been more recently but I also gravitate towards classics, sometimes more so, just because it doesn't require as big of a time commitment if you're going to have a good game. So, yeah. As far as a favorite game, the first game that I ever bought was The Lord of the Rings. Because I love the books and the movie and the theme and the gameplay. and it was also a big challenge for me so I bought that and got really good at it and finally got to Balinor and then made it harder and got to Balinor again so that's probably that's not what I would gravitate towards now just because the games take so long but I share that just because that's something I would definitely if I found one I'd certainly always play it. I also really am a huge fan of Simpsons Pinball Party. There's actually, in my opinion, there's more little side quests and stuff to do in Simpsons Pinball Party and I'm a huge Simpsons fan and so I love the call-outs that they have in there and the gameplay is super fun. I know it's not for everybody. Some people don't like that game, but I think it's great. Yeah, that's one. If they remastered either of those two, I think licensing fees aside and difficulty that'd be a monster hit I think it's funny you said those two because they both have very challenging wizard modes it's a slog sort of knowing that but I do think I agree with you on Simpsons over Lord of the Rings because I do like the journey to try and get to the end it kind of reminds me when I look at Godzilla in the back I'm like I know I'm going to be in for the long haul because there's so much to do versus a quick hitter like Stranger Things or Venom or The Walking Dead. So do you have a... Well, it's been fun for me. The stuff that I'm doing for Multimorphic, if you ever get to the wizard mode in Princess Bride, there are elements in... It's a multi-stage wizard mode, but you'll recognize or you might recognize some nuances of that wizard mode they're pulling from some other pins that are favorites of mine. Nice. How'd you get involved with the P3 and Multimorphic? It's because Multimorphic is local here in Austin, in the Austin area. So because of my involvement in the community, I got to know Jerry at TPF and then he didn't live very far at all from me when we both lived in South Austin. So it was really close by. So I could And I could go over to his house and garage and living room. He had like every single room in his house. And then just, you know, seeing that platform evolve from the very early phases to what it's become now, which is phenomenal. And, yeah, it's because of just the locality, you know, being local and, you know, hitting it off with Jerry. He's a good guy. And he and I would, you know, geek out on pinball and rules and stuff. I'm not mechanically oriented, you know, he is, and he has other people on his team that are, they're also into that. So thankfully I don't have to, I don't have to contribute in that way because I would, I would probably, you know, everything I touch would probably crop up three more problems with mechanical stuff. That's not my jam, but, but yeah, so it's been, it's been super fun, you know, then channeling, you know, the creativity and stuff into, into those games at Multimorphic on the P3 platform. So it's been, yeah, it's cool. Nice, yeah. Do you have, before we get into our master class, do you have a question about Princess Bride? Do you have, I guess, if you can do it without spoiling anything, do you have a favorite rule or mode that you've put in there, aside from maybe something that's in the wizard mode that you want people to see on their own. Yeah, I think there's a couple, you know, I think really neat. So the first thing that's in there that I don't think it's been done, it actually is done in some way, shape, or form on one of the other P3 games, but the way I implemented it was very different. It's a survivor-style multiball that I used for the ball resurrection mode. So if you've qualified it and drained, then you have a chance to resurrect your ball, similar to some other modern machines that have that. But in this case, you start out with one ball. It's the pit of despair. So if you're familiar with the movie, you know, you have this rushing water coming from the machine. So it's, you know, seemingly, okay, you start out with one ball and you have to hit a shot. But if you successfully hit one shot, then it adds another ball to the fray. And you have to keep all the balls alive. so if you drain even one of the balls then your flippers go dead and now you're all dead so you have to keep them all alive and so after you hit your second shot with two balls in play it adds one more so now you have three and then you have to hit one more shot and that will then successfully end the mode and then your flippers go dead and the other two drain but you get to keep playing then and then there's also a harder version of it if you tilt, if you have that qualified, you can actually still resurrect your ball even after a tilt. So it's kind of a, I don't think anybody's ever tried to do that before. But if you tilt and have to play that mode, you have to do the level 50 version of it, which makes you have to do four instead of just three. Oof. Oof. That's fun. I know, right? Well, thank you for that awesome rundown of your competitive pinball career and foray into rule design with P3. If you haven't tried out the Princess Bride, Colin's genius is well imprinted in the rule set and a lot of the logic. So I implore you to check it out. TPF is coming up. They should have a couple of them there, hopefully. I'm pretty sure they will. Oh, yeah. There will be a full contingent of P3s there, the newest with Portal and Princess Pride. I don't know exactly how many cabinets they're taking up, but in the past, you know, it's kind of TPF is Multimorphics home show being in Texas. So there's always a great showing there, and you can go and check those out and hopefully decide that it makes sense for you and your home or your location to try it out because it's a good value proposition once you get the cabinet and you start buying the additional modules for, you know, anywhere in the mid-$3,000 to whatever. I think with the portal add-ons, it's more than that for the portal. But still, when you compare that to buying a $7,000 Pro or a $10,000 premium and on up for LEs and a space-wise, that's the other thing. For me, I couldn't have that many pins in my house. So anyway, but yeah, we're not here to, I don't want to go too long on that, but, but that's, but the part of the reason is like, it's cool just as far as how my journey has evolved, you know, into now contributing in that way. And I think that's, it's, it's been a lot of fun to, to see, to see that take place and to see something that you then get to create and, you know, get to see other places. And so, yeah, it made a huge positive impact on me at the Texas championships that took place here, the IFPA SES championships for both the Open and the women's. There were a number of people that were picking Princess Bride to play in their matches. And so they're not that common to see a P3 out there. So it was really cool for me to see other people, you know, playing the pin that I helped create and enjoying it. That's awesome. And they're a great, great value proposition, like you said. Trust me. Your wallet will thank you when all you have to do is buy a module and you get a whole new experience. You know, look at Portal and Princess Bride and Weird Al. It's just a different beast in all three of them. Well, we are now to the part where we talk about Masterclass. Well, we're here. And so we're going to use Colin's expertise to talk about the Gottlieb Gambit. The high-stakes bank is full of Gottlieb pins for this year's InDisc. So Colin has graciously agreed to talk about these pins with us, and I am going to share the screen real quick so we can go ahead and look at our first pin, and this is a Bad Girls. So Bad Girls, according to the data that I have, and I really hope I'm right on these, is a 1988 Gottlieb from Jon Norris, a billiards-themed pin with lots of stand-ups, it looks like, and sort of a very simple but interesting layout. So, Colin, I'm going to let you sort of kind of give us the rundown of what you see, what you normally go for, and then if you want to get into any Ball 1 strategies, Ball 3 comeback strats, you lead the way. We'll ask questions as you are speaking, and then I will also highlight areas on the screen. So if you are listening to this podcast, I strongly recommend you watch the video version so you can follow along with us as we mark this up. Yeah, so it's, you know, as you point out, you can think of it as an eight-ball deluxe reversed and, you know, kind of a multiball version of eight-ball deluxe with, you know, a little bit of stuff on steroids. And so you can see that instead of the bank being on the right, The bank is there over on the left, and it's very similar to 8-Ball Deluxe. It's a set of drops, and then there are stand-ups behind it. And so unlike 8-Ball Deluxe, they become very important to do those and score with them, as opposed to where in 8-Ball Deluxe you're knocking them down, and then you want to hit the 8-Ball. You want to do the reverse on Bad Girls. And so the eight ball shot is your first priority. If you want to go with the multiball strap, and that's that little buck that's just above the drop targets. And it's got one single, like an inline style drop target there, very similar to eight ball deluxe. And you have to knock that down. And then now you've opened up the access to the hole above it. and you shoot into that hole, and that will then lock the ball, and you plunge a new served second ball, and you're immediately in multiball. This is going to be your highest scoring potential strategy. So I highly recommend it, but it can also be quite dangerous if you're not good with playing multiball and managing the multiple balls and trapping up, and you do have to do a little bit of sharpshooting. So once you get into the multiball, it's very important that you don't do the drop targets before you play the multiball. And this is, most people I don't think are aware of this, but it's called a re-rack. So when you drop all the drop targets down, it allows you to do this thing called a re-rack. The re-rack is typically only worth a million points. It's a hurry-up. that you start. But if you're the first re-rack of every ball, if it started during multiball, will begin at 3 million instead of 1 million. Oh, okay. So you want to make sure that your first re-rack is done during multiball. And how do you make the re-rack again? So the re-rack is, I think it's just as simple as you knock down the drops you complete the left drops the order doesn't matter and that begins the re-rack hurry up and then you have to shoot all six there's only six stand-ups behind it so even though there's seven drop targets there's only six stand-ups so you then have to shoot all six of the flashing re-rack you know it spelled there six letters in the phrase re Yep right there And then correct And each stand will also add a little bit of value back into the hurry So it not like the hurry just continues to decrement the whole time You'll get a little bit of value added back on for each stand-up you hit. Okay. So basically, even ball one through ball three, you're going for get to your multiball, then light your re-rack so you get to that three million? Yep. And then you use the safety of multiball to bash away at the drops and at the re-rack targets because that side-to-side motion is generally going to kill you. So if you can do that during multiball and you still have another ball in play, then you're not losing your ball. And the main thing is also you get the starting value of the hurry up at $3 million instead of $1 million doing it in multiball. Now, so that is your biggest scoring potential. You got any questions on that, or you want me to move to the grindy? The grindy, because I feel like we focused on the left side of the play field, so I'm assuming there's got to be something. Maybe there's not, but there's got to be something else. How do you grind on 8-Ball Deluxe? You hit the left orbit. Yeah, is it just an orbit game? It is. In this case, the orbit's on the right-hand side because the targets are over on the left. So you see that right orbit that's above the upper flipper, just like on 8-ball deluxe, just reversed. And you can just grind the crap out of that shot. Now, there's an added benefit of doing the right orbit all day is that there's also lanes up top. you want to nudge the ball into the blue lit top lane for additional points. There's no lane change. So you can't, and that's also very similar to 8-Ball Deluxe. There's no lane change in the 8-Ball Deluxe either, and you also want to go through the lit, well, after you've got the arrow lit for 25K. But those top lights there, I don't recall the values, but they get pretty beefy. I think it's maybe up to even like 100,000 points. Wow. It's a progressive thing. So once you claim it once, I think it just keeps adding in value, and then you just keep doing that every time. So you get progressive points on the right. You can see there the inserts there over on the right-hand side. Those grow, and they go up to a special, and the special is points. So it's $500,000 both for the extra ball and the special. And, you know, you're having to survive the feed out of the pops, just like you do on 8-Ball Deluxe. but if you're not feeling comfortable with the multiball strategy I distinctly remember doing pretty well on my games of bad girls at Nationals and Pinmasters last year just by grinding right orbit. Is bonus big in this? Is there a... There, there's, yeah, there's not a lot. It can, it's each, each rack is worth 50,000 base. So if you, if you get all the pool balls taken care of, I think it's, it's only 50K. So we've, we've talked about some of these other points in the game, you know, a 3 million hurry up and you can build and get these 500,000, you know, extra ball and special values. So even at 50K base for completing all the pool balls, you can, you get bonus X up to 10x, but you have to do it by hitting that pretty dangerous very target just to the left of the right orbit. And so I don't recommend it, but if you want to play for bonus, be my guest, but you're probably not going to win. What are if you remember, what are some I guess benchmarks for points if you're looking to clear card, I guess. It doesn't have to be card, but I guess in competition, what are the scores you're seeing? Well, the first benchmark for points is 0-0. Love you, Travis. I will say, I looked up on NeverDrains or on leftcoff.com. The last time this was used in the open, the top score was 16.6 million, which I feel like is a lot of points. But over, I don't know, 7 to 8 was like 180 points. So it's a pretty solid score, I think. Okay. But then once you get into the double digits of millions, like 10 million plus, I think that's a really solid top 5, top 10 score. Is anything backhandable or is it all forehand shots? So you have to forehand the right orbit. Yeah. I suppose you could do a sexy backhand. And if you're not familiar with that, that's what I call when you flip the flipper to get the ball to go up the in lane and then roll up the flipper towards the tip, and then you do a more angled backhand. I call those a sexy backhand. And you can do a sexy backhand actually probably on the eight ball shot as well. So, you know, your mileage may vary on the physical copy and the flipper setup and the rubber's add-on Yeah, so what he's talking about is, you know, flip it here, it comes up a little, comes back, and then you can try going in there Well, you have your flipper raised when you let it roll up Yeah So that's a good, good, good approach to it If this is going on your card, you know, let's say this was a card format. Is this the first game you're playing? Is it in the middle or is it in the end? How comfortable are you with bad girls? So you're saying like if the Scott Lee Bank were a card format? Yeah. Let's say you have to play these. Where does this stand? Where does this go for you? Do you start off with this? Is this your strongest out of the Gottlieb Gambit? That's a good question. No, I don't think it's the strongest out of these, but it's one where you definitely may want to have it not be your first one. It depends on how you want to play it. You could have it be your first one, and you could go for the glory and see what happens and then decide, okay, do I want to continue, so I just want to burn this and spend void and re-queue after only one game on the card which gets to be an expensive endeavor but there's definitely two very different scoring strategies and the right orbit strat is probably not going to unless you survive a lot coming out of the pops you're probably not going to get to the 16 million level but on a card you're not necessarily looking to get the high score So, I don't, you know, it varies, but it'll be interesting to see how people play because the Gottlieb Stakes Tournament in this is not a card. Yeah. It is just a best game format, and you're just trying to put up your best score possible. So, I got a feeling most people are going to be going for the re-reqs. Okay. So, multiball all day, basically, which is what my next question was going to be is, If you are looking to make an impact, you're just going for that multiball re-rec strap then, correct? Yeah, correct. If I were doing it in a card, I would consider, depending on the situation, I would consider doing right orbits all day. Okay. Joe, any questions about bad girls? Yeah, just another thing to note is I feel like most copies I've watched streams of, on that multiball start, that ball just shoots down that left kind of wire form, and most people usually hold that left flipper up because it's just rocketing down. Like I've seen so many people lose the ball because they don't expect it, almost like a mouse in a round, you know. If you don't hold that flipper up, it's going straight down into the drain. Yes, that is a great point, and thank you for bringing that up because you can even see how it comes down there, and it drops the ball really close to the flipper, and it just, whatever, that buck power coming out of that scoop up at the top there, typically very strong. So you're right, you generally, it'll be a very quick multiball if you don't know to hold your flipper up. That is bad girls. Anything left on it, Colin, before we move on to pin number two? Don't do invalid play field for more than three plunges if you're in a multiplayer game. All right. So we are going to now. Well, thank you. First of all, thank you for that tutorial on bad girls. So now we have Deadly Weapon is pin number two in this Gottlieb collection that you'll see at Indisc. A 1990 Gottlieb. Designer John Trudeau. A street level cop drama. Typical of the time Fast, flat, and aggressive So Colin, take us through Deadly Weapon Okay, yeah, this was in this open last year And it was also in the IFPA 19 World Championship At Jim Belsito's awesome house and venue So yeah, there's a couple one of the things that's very common about most of these got leads is it has a couple different ways to play it and they're all okay there's not one oh you have to do this thing there are multiple paths you can take similar to bad girls you can do better your point potential is higher on that re-rack thing but in this thing you also have good potential value in a number of different ways So from the plunge, from the very get-go, you've got to time a full plunge. So at the very top of the play field, there are these inserts that are going to flash from right to left and then cycling back. And so you can see the little circles, and they grow to a bigger circle with pick five, P-I-K-5. and you want to time your plunge so that the ball arrives into that upper left saucer at the moment that the pick five is lit. And it's not a consistent, like an equal time flashing cycle. It is like it goes faster and faster as it goes to the pick five. So it's something you definitely have to kind of learn. Okay, how is this full plunge? What light do I need to release on of my full plunge to get it to land in that hole when the pick five is lit? Because when pick five gets lit, it's going to scroll through one by one different awards that you can pick, but you can't go back. So in other words, if it shows you 500,000 points and you don't pick it and you say, no, I want to wait for the next one to show up, you can't go back and go, okay, now I changed my mind. I want that 500K. You can't do that. So what you're looking for here is you're looking for instant multiball. So you can literally start the game in multiball if you're successful in your skill shot and the timing of the release of the full plunge, get to pick five, and hope that the game gives you instant multiball as one of your pick fives. Gotcha. How many awards generally do you get to cycles here? Is it like five or? Well, yes. How would you have gotten that from a pick five? All right, nice. So what happens... Yeah, so once you get to the fifth, then you're locked in. You get whatever the fifth one is. And sometimes you won't get multiball, which is really sad. If your opponent gets instant multiball and on your pick five, you don't get it. But that's just, that's life in the big city. So what happens if you don't get the pick five lit and it lands on something else? Okay, so now you're in the rest of the game. So you want to talk about that or you want to talk about what to do during multiball? Let's do multiball strap first, and then we'll come back to the rest of the game. So we'll assume that we're in multiball. So the multiball, in the case where you start it from that top left saucer, will be a two-ball multiball. Okay. And it's going to give you, similar to many other Gottliebs in this era, you'll see this in hoops and other things that will give you choices, not just in the pick five. The pick five is like you press both flippers to select one award that's shown. But in this case, after you start the multiball, it's going to say, do you want to play for points or do you want to play for insert whatever it is here? I don't even remember what it is. Cars or something. Badges. I don't remember. The point is you want to play for points, okay? Don't ever, ever pick anything else. On a hoop. When you slam dunk, it's going to give you a million points or 20 baskets. Pick the points. So you're going to take the points in the cop drama as well. Nice. And you're going to play for points. And then you're going to then start to shoot the various flashing shots around it. Each of the police cars are going to light up. And so you can see there's, yeah, there's police cars there, police cars there, police cars there. There's two. There's one that's actually kind of hard. I think, yeah, there's two in that little right candy cane shot. So they're all going to be lit up. You don't have to complete them in order during the multiball. So just start picking them off. But you want to play in control. This is not a flail, spray and pray game. You want to be in control, which is why I love these games, because I tend to play, you know, cradle control anytime I can. And after you complete a full set, you then get awarded points, and it gets progressively bigger. So the first time around during multiball, the first set, you get a million points. The next set, you get five million points. And then the third set, you get nine million points. And then just keep getting nine million, nine million, nine million. Is that immediately awarded upon completion, or do you have to hit something else to earn it? No, it's immediate. So your last flashing car will give you the jackpot, if you will. Although I shouldn't say jackpot. There's a different element called jackpot, so we won't call it jackpot. It'll give you the multiball reward of the complete set. So 1 million and 5. So the thing about this is if you don't make it that far in multiball, let's say you just make it through one set, you only got a million points. So you really don't get into the upper echelon of scores unless you're playing multiball really well, and you're getting to your second and third set and beyond when you play multiball. How do you light multiball if you've already played it? How do you relight it? Okay, so this is where you're once again kind of hoping that things go well for you. So you see the mystery light that's in front of the upper right saucer. So whenever that's lit, I recommend shooting that saucer for mystery because mystery tends to give pretty good awards. and one of them can be instant multiball. It can also give you special, which is worth $1 million just right off the bat. You don't have to do anything, which isn't bad either. But you'd rather have the instant multiball. So you don't know what you're going to get. It is truly a mystery. It's not a deterministic sequence of awards. But the moral of the story is if you see that mystery is lit, go ahead and shoot it. All right. And it moves. It moves, by the way. Sorry. It cycles between, you can see the two, like, kind of hot dog inserts. So there's one that you have the cursor over there now, and then there's another, like, angled hot dog in front of the upper left. It's in front of the upper left saucer. So it'll toggle where mystery's lit. Gotcha. Joe, have you ever seen this in a competition? No, just from Indus last year, like Colin mentioned. I remember the sirens going off pretty distinctly while we were in commentary. So that's something to listen for when you guys are over there. Okay, so then there's another way to get back to multiball. And when you're in single ball play, the cars around the play field, the little cop cars, they're going to be lit up one at a time in order. So there's a number one car, a number two car, a number three. So you can't just pick them off in any order. You must do them in order. After you get car number five collected, it will light pick five solidly up top again. That same light that you see cycling lit on the plunge, that will be lit solidly, and you can shoot that right spinner orbity type shot. It's got the big old orange circle light in front of it. So it's car six, I think. Yep, right here. Yeah. So if you see pick five lit up top, it's a little bit tricky because, you know, it's not in front of the shot that you're shooting. Yeah. The light is way above where the shot is, where the ball goes when you hit it. So as long as you hit that clean, it will then go all the way to that top left saucer, and then you'll have another pick five opportunity. Yeah, it's got to come around through this to make a clean entry into the all-star to start it. Okay. So you've got to hit these in order. It looks like one's down here on the left, and then you've got number... Well, that's the wild card one. Okay. Because that has a one in... Okay, where's number one then? I saw two. I see seven here. There's three here. There's five. Four. One. Six. One's off the plunge. You can short plunge instead of going for pick five, which you don't want to do. But it's the. Oh, I see it. I see it. Yeah, right there. It's just above the shooter lane gate. Okay. Gotcha. So there's one, two. And what is the wild card? Just gives you one that hasn't been. Oh, it spots your next one in sequence. Okay. Correct. Got it. Okay. Then that's the rollover, kind of like where the rollovers are on Stargazer or the, you know, where the, like, Uncanny X-Men, you know, that type of scenario. Little alcove, if you will. Yep. Okay, so what's the rest of the game? It's not a multiball. So, yeah, so that's multiball. And like you said, that is not the only option. That is, once again, similar to the Rerack bonus on Bad Girls. The multiball option is the more powerful option. There's also a grind it out option. So the grind it out option is jackpot. And with the jackpot, it's also, and I don't think that they had a way of dealing with this at in-disc. It's progressive between players and across games. Oh. So if you are playing this in a pump and dump, you may want to, like, you know, before you queue up, like, you know, take a look at what the jackpot value is. See how big the queue is. Make sure Jason Zoller or somebody isn't in line in front of you. And then maybe join the queue and hopefully cash in on other people building up that jackpot and not cashing it out. So the jackpot is actually really easy to collect in this game. so what you have to do you see the um there's the west side and east side on the in front of the left orbit there's a west side of horizontalish insert yep right there and then the candy cane shot on the right there's a vertical orangey thing that says east side yep so you have to complete both of those solidly lit. So they will be unlit and you shoot it once and it solidly lights it. And then you have to shoot the other, it'll light the opposite sides orange, sorry, it'll be solid. Then you shoot the other side and get them both solid. Once you do both of them, the second one that you hit it will then light the opposite one flashing for jackpot. Now, no, does it say jackpot anywhere on the play field. Well, it says increase jackpot on the inserts, but that's near the spinner. Yeah, so that increase of jackpots, that'll get lit and the spinners will then increase the jackpot, which is a very good thing to do. But I think I wouldn't focus on that. I would just let that happen if you want. But the main thing is just collect it. Because I think the base value is a million points. My memory it leaves me right now but the point is it's generally you cannot i i've never found a copy where you can backhand the either of those so they're both forehand shots yeah but as is the case with many many got leaves they have what i call you know insta cradle flippers now i think godly actually had a name for them that they call it catch all catch all yes so depending upon the physical copy and how it's set up, you can shoot that right candy cane and then catch it on the right flipper without doing anything. Just hold up your flipper and watch it come to a stop and enjoy life. Now your west side is ready to be collected. You shoot that. As long as you shot that clean enough, it's going to orbit all the way around and over to where the shooter lane gate is and then come out back towards the center of the play field and hopefully come back towards your flippers and not be like something that's too strong going to the pop or, God forbid, going to the left out lane. But you then have a time. It's on a timer, and you need to shoot the opposite side, which will now be the east side again or the candy cane shot. And so you'll need to shoot that and collect your jackpot. And like I said, it's progressive. So I've seen people collect that. That was like maybe up in the $4 million, $5 million range. You know, and so I think that's why I also had people play it. They had people play it as a one-player game during the finals because of this. So is it you've hit west or you've hit east, you've hit west, then east is lit for the jackpot? That's correct. And what happens after you light that? Does it go back to you have to start over again? Well, so, yeah, then you can reclaim it immediately by doing that same sequence again. But the value will reset back down to the base, which I think is a million points. So you can work your butt off to get to multiball. Or maybe not because you have to plunge. But you can also have to go all the way to car five to get pick five again and hope that it gives you one of the options as multiball. And you can play multiball, and it's only a two-ball multiball. What the ball say, guys? So you could have the quickest multiball and not be a Jack Diddley and not even get this first complete set and not even get a million in it. Or you can shoot three shots during single ball play and collect at least a million points, if not more, for the jackpot. And if you get a feel of where the shot is on those flippers, man, you could be in for a great time, a great long time. Yeah. especially because, like you said, like you and Joe said with those catch-all flippers where it just comes nicely to a cradle, which is really nice sometimes, even though sometimes I feel like it'll come fast enough for me. I'm like, wait a minute, it was supposed to stop and it goes up, but for the most part, 95% of the time it's stopping for you. Yeah. So now let me tell you one other thing about multiball. You can, if you get the multiball from the mystery, only in the upper right saucer. So let's say you have mystery lid on the upper right, you shoot it, and the game is nice enough to give you a multiball. This is where you can get a three-ball multiball. Oh. So you make sure only when that happens you want to then full plunge. It's not going to give you a skill shot or anything because you're in multiball. But if you full plunge and the ball makes it, as it should, to that upper left saucer, it then holds that ball as a lock and feeds a third ball to your shooter lane. And then when you plunge that ball, that begins a three-ball multiball. Is the three ball Preferred to the two ball Because I feel like it's more chaotic when you're trying to collect cars With three No not when you trap up Yeah It's giving you It eliminates a huge Much higher percentage chance You're actually going to get to play the multiball Because there's a bunch of times When I've played Deadly weapon multiball or two ball multiball You've got that upper That upper saucer It's going to kick out of there And it's going to go into the pops And you may never see that ball That ball may Decide to go straight down the middle It may decide to go left out lane But That's why Three ball multiball is good just because you have the safety Of three balls More than likely you're going to get two balls down Cradled maybe even all three I love You don't have to do the cars in order So you can whatever flipper you got that has the single ball on it, pick off as many cards as you can using just that flipper. I love a street-level pin, man. I kind of want to play a deadly weapon now. Just like whenever I see hoops, I really want to play it. I know how simplistic it can be with just the strategies. Man, it looks like a lot of fun. I wish I would have played it a little more during last year's Open. Joe, you got any thoughts or questions on deadly weapon before we move on? Yeah, I think a lot of people use this as their kind of anchor game last year with card format because if you notice, there's no right out lane in this game. It's just kind of smaller chances to – or less chances to drain, I should say. I did pull up the scores from last year's Open. I know card format's a little hard to kind of compare directly to Unlimited, but top score was 71 million with a pretty steep fall off after that to like 50. but like in the 30 million range looked like you were in good shape so we'll see how that kind of adjusts yeah so don't go for a million you really got to put in some work on this yeah and there's just like you said Hottie there's just cool shot paths in this team and so you know like to get to the mystery to get to that upper right saucer you know if you're on the right flipper you know there's no way to Hit it directly But if you shoot that Like center lane That does that sharp Turn to the right and you hit it clean nope that too far That the wrong one This one. No, center. Oh, sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I think it's got kick save in front of it. Yeah, it has a kick save, big old yellow. There we go, this one. That goes, nope, not there. It doesn't make that turn. It goes over to the mystery sauce. Oh, there you go. There we go. this is this is like the king kong ball paths that could go anywhere yeah yeah so it's a it's really cool that you know there's just some different kind of cool little curvy uh ball paths that go all over the place and um and there's there's other nuance this game but we've got other games we want to talk about but there's there's other things you can do this game you get to the decent medium points but but what we just talked about is enough for you for people to play Okay. Is bonus big in this? Do you remember? I don't think so. No, no, this game is crappy. This is an always be tilting game. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, the bonus is junk. After Deadly Weapon, we've got the next pin in the bank for the Gottlieb Gambit, And that is Diamond Lady, a classic, classic pin, another Chuck Wirtz special, 1988. We got designer Jon Norris. We got Casino Glamour featuring a unique Vitrograph Playfield. So take it away, Colin, on Diamond Lady. Yeah, this is an amazing, cool, quirky pin. And it's all about not the ridiculous red dress lady that's photoshopped, you know, all over the play field. It's all about the diamond stand-ups. It's not stand-ups, sorry. It's all about the diamond drop targets. So you can see here that there's three prominent drop banks on the side, five banks, and in the center is a four bank. and you need to get the diamond drop targets. And that's what starts this very, very powerful thing called the diamond, what I call the diamond hurry up. And so that's really where all the big points are scored. There is also some grinding options on this one as well, but you want to get those diamonds and that starts the diamond bonus. So it's kind of similar. There's some similarities in the re-rack bonus that we talked about in Bad Girls. In this case, though, it's a 5 million hurry up. Nope. And I would say it's even more dangerous than the Bad Girls re-rack. So once again, I highly recommend trying to do the diamond hurry up in the safety of multiball. Okay. Now, there isn't any benefit that I'm aware of as far as, like, what we talked about in Bad Girls of starting, you know, the hurry up in multiball as far as being a higher value. It's just because this game is so drainy. Yeah. You just, you're going to die a lot in this game. Yeah. My first Indus, this was in the high stakes bank, and I was like, oh, high stakes, this will be fun. $200 later, this just stopped eating. I could not. And then I think I got it in, I think it was in last year's Classics. I can't remember. But it just ate my lunch. And it's just so, I couldn't understand how I watched so many people get a handle on it, how the feeds were nice, you know, from wherever they were returning. And I was just, it was like one shot, outlayed. One shot, outlayed. Hottie, I pulled up your score from that game. Yeah, it was pretty bad, right? It's pretty bad, right? 356,000. Yeah, I'm telling you. Good for zero points. Yeah, it was a nightmare. Like, I sat there and watched somebody play it. I was like, okay, I've got a basic strat. And when I stepped up, it just did not want to let me play. And, you know, I could have obviously nudged here and there, but I think I was in shock at how fast ball one went. I was like, all right, well, here we go. Wow. Yeah. And also, just to correct one last thing, I misspoke there as far as it's not the diamond drops that starts the hurry up, it's the diamond drops that collects it. Gotcha. So you start the hurry up by completing all the drops. And then once that, it'll then pop all your drops back up and you have to hit just the diamond ones. The spades ones will not collect it. The spade ones actually are, you know, you're going to hit some of them. There is like an ultimate god tier thing that you can do is if you can complete all six of those diamond drop targets without hitting a single spade, it doubles your score. Wow. But I've never seen anybody do it before. It's like alien poker where you get penalized for not going in order of... Yeah, but you just look at the geometry of this and how you have to shoot these things and it's going to bounce off. It's like volley. You know, whenever you shoot those side drops on volley, you're always going to bank up into the center yellow targets. And it's the same thing. It's just the natural geometry of things. So I don't even know how you could even pull it off. But that would be like an ultimate sweet thing to see somebody ever pull off. Yeah, no, you're exactly right. Volley is a perfect example. Just the angle of where the ball is going to go. If you could do it with the glass on, more props to you. so but anyways as you as you found out many many many many times yeah uh when you were trying to do this in uh in the the high stakes tournament and the card so you you have to complete all the drops to start it but you don't want to start it um until i find the best thing to do is i try to get you know maybe a few drops away from completing all the drops and then then lock a ball you see the green lit, you know, insert over on the right spinner and that will lock a ball. And then you start your multiball and then, you know, start your diamond hurry up and then, you know, hope that you can survive, you know, during the multiball and get all six of those red diamonds. And you have to get them quickly because this hurry up is like, it is, it means business. It counts down fast. How do you light the lock for multiball? Is that automatic or is it? The multiball, oh, no. So, yeah, completing the diamond drops lights the green lead capture at the right spinner. So, once again, that's where I messed up some of the sequencing. So, the ideal strat, you know, the ideal sequence is you complete all the diamond drops to light the lock for the multiball. you still have like a couple or maybe one or two spade drops, especially maybe with your adjacent. Go ahead, lock the ball, get your multiball going, and then start your diamond hurry up by completing those last drops. It pops all the drops back up, and then you just go ham and hope that you are accurate and also get good bounces into those diamond drops as quickly as possible. and that's typically how you're going to see high scores in this game. Is your spinner worth a lot on the right? Does it ever get juicy to build your score? It can. So there's actually a spinner on the right and there's also a spinner on the left. It's a base value of just $1,000 per spin. Okay. And lit, you can see it says add bonus. So when lit It will add 1,000 per spin To your bonus value Which is a max of I think 500,000 In bonus And the interesting thing though Is I seem to recall I don't think those X's The 1X, 2X, 4X, 8X I don't think those apply to the bonus Okay Yeah. So those X's are those club, you know, that club card. That's your multiball play field X. Oh, wow. How do you build those again? I'm sorry. So each time you go through a lit top lane, it increases your club's value. Once again, there's no lane change. Yeah, right there. And the inserts are additive. So if you have a 2x and a 4x lid That means you have 6x But I think based upon settings I don't know if it's adjustable or not But that multiball club's playfield X Does not carry between balls Okay That would make sense So if you do have a high value And you're in multiball I would straw And the spinners are juicy I would consider ripping spinners 8x 1000 times 8 a rip yeah or up to 15 if you somehow spammed those top lanes and nudged into the lit one enough oh they're all additive so 8 plus 4 plus 2 plus 1 wow hey you hit my score in one rip laughing damn you diamond lady that's crazy the one thing about the spinner you know it's not going to be big points if for some reason you have just a really small you know incremental score to catch that left spinner it's kind of difficult to see because there's the glare on these pictures of the the playfield glass they're kind of showing up here but that left spinner when you shoot it it has a very quick uh you know like a u-turn turnaround that kind of follows the same path as the plastic habit trail above it. Yep. And it feeds down into that lane behind the left drop bank. Yep, right there. And that goes down safely to your flipper. So if that is designed to go down quickly, and you can also see that the in-lane guides are curvy. They're not the angled elbow style. So if that has enough speed that you can ski jump it from left to right safely, then technically you could just rip spinners until the cows come home. So basically go for that spinner up top. And if I can get this all in one shot. So I see that little lane come here, ski jump, and then trap up. Yep. Okay. Do it again. Yeah. Another thing to note, that left lane switch also relights your kickback on the left out lane. Oh, okay. Yeah, based on your scores, you apparently didn't do that. I did not do anything on this. I didn't even realize there was a kickback. Kickback? Never met her. The kickback is a timed kickback. Okay. so I don't know if that's adjustable in settings as well so it's just one of the things if you see that your kickback light is off because you either used it or because the timer ran out then the nice part is all you have to do is shoot one left spinner and that's going to feed that lane behind the drops you can also fall into it but that spinner feeds it nicely the ramp feeds it as well I think that it does drop the ball onto that switch So you'll get that from the left ramp as well. Yeah, right here and then boom. Bang. Cool. But the left ramp is pretty much ignore it. Yeah. It says jackpot on it. Yeah. But. Add to the value. Yeah. It always says add. So it's very deceptive because I think even in how it's lit up in the display or how it's, you know, communicating the display, it's one of those things where you see it and you're like, oh, I just scored that. No, no, you didn't. You just got another letter. And then you've got the jackpot lights letters on the back of the play field as well. Yep. Okay. The one thing, I'm unclear on this. I've never ever tried this strategy before because I've also never, when I've played this game, I've never gotten that clubbing value up very high. but I've got a note that if this is true this could be really valuable. It's saying that the jackpot value is multiplied by that multiball playfield X if you collect it during multiball. Interesting. So it could be 15X your jackpot value if it's... Yeah. So that could be very, very nice if that's indeed true. What's special usually? 500? I'm seeing 500, yeah. 500? I think so, yeah. Okay. Diamond Lady. Joe, do you have any thoughts on this one? Have you played it a bunch? We have one locally, but it's in a location that I don't get to play. It's pretty far. It's up in Baltimore. Oh, yeah, that's far. Something that I'm not sure if we talked about yet was the skill shot. I know it's very difficult to time because the copy that I played, at least, very fast. I've never played the copy it in disc, but I'm suspecting it's going to be very similar to where it's almost random. But if you can plunge it, so there's three strobing lights. If you can time it to light the top skill shot, I believe that spots all of your spades. And instantly starts the hurry up. so I think that's kind of the ideal skill shot but I'm really not sure how easy that's going to be to get if at all possible correct but here's the deal if you do that, that's fantastic except you're trying to then complete all those diamond stand-ups in single ball play sure, yeah so yes you can and it's still not a bad thing but it's just more than likely you're probably going to die. Now, you can protect, this has a unique little feature though, it does have a, it has a drop target that's in between your flippers. Yes, I forgot about that. That's right. So, you can protect against drains. That, I believe that is timed as well, I think. But it's Well, cool, because it's not like the old school classic games have those up posts, those center up posts that completely block that gap between your flippers. In this case, it is a natural tendency because of the physical nature of a drop target that once you use it once, it's gone. And so now you have to use it again as opposed to those bagel hockey puck style up posts that will just continue to stay up until the timer goes away. So you get that by getting the lowest drops on both side banks. So it's the two lowest diamond drop targets will light, or not light, will raise that center drop target. Okay. That is Diamond Lady. Do you have any final thoughts on this jewel of Indus, Colin? just that it's um i mean you're in ride the lightning you know yeah i do like that uh that strat of the um this uh left spinner returning ski jump and then try to get it again that is a fantastic fantastic idea i uh i wish i had had a chance at that But, you know, no hard feelings, Diamond Lady. Thank you for your insight on another Gottlieb gem. From Diamond Lady, we go into Excalibur, 1988. John Trudeau with Rules by Jon Norris. Medieval questing with a notoriously tight center ramp. so Colin Sir Colin please take us through this nightly adventure and tell us how we survive this godly beast alright well the first thing not surviving but it's an interesting trade off that you get when you do your skill shot so it's a cool little feature that most of the time it's very similar to what Joe was talking about on the last game that we covered There is a quick flashing or cycling skill shot there. And it's the four different colors of the drop target banks that are around the play field of blue, green, yellow, and red. And each of them correspond to an amount of points that you can see in those inserts in the shooter lane. So depending upon when you plunge, it will then lock in that color. and that color will then be your flashing color which represents the drop target bank or you know twosomes you know the four drops you have to complete in order to light your set yourself up for the next multiball start now the the reason why it's a trade-off is because there's different point values and going from bottom to top it goes an increasing value so So if you are able to time your plunge to get the red, you will get 250,000 points off every plunge. That can win you many games of Excalibur in match play. Now, it's probably not going to get you high scores, but if you're playing in a match play setting, that 250K per plunge is gold. So the problem with that Is if you look at the play field You can't even see it There are no red drop targets In this play field No there they are They're there you just can't see them very well They're the very tippy top Of the play field in the far back Above that center pop There's four red drop targets So by their nature Those are more difficult to get to So that's why it's a trade off Gotcha Do you know if that value locks in from that right or sorry, from the shooter lane switch? I believe so, yes. I think it's the shooter lane switch that's below the four lights. Cool. So anyway, so now we've done that. So now your ball is in play. If you full plunge it and set it up properly, the ball actually goes around from left to right across the back of the play field and then goes up a ramp kind of like where Avengers and Vinny Quest has a ramp going up and to the left and then it curves back around to the right and then will go all the way back around and then come down it's a very cool plunge but a lot of copies I've played won't actually make it all the way around. It's just depending on what the copy is going to do. But once you're in play, now you want to complete your flashing color drops. The other drops are there, and you can do and complete those for some piddly points, but really you want to focus on your flashing drop target bank. And the reason why is because it will then light that top insert in front of the center ramp, the oval one that says lock. Okay. I'm assuming that's going to be your start to locking for multiball. Correct. So you complete the flashing drops. You light lock at the center ramp. You then shoot, and each subsequent multiball during the same ball will require plus one additional flashing banks to light lock. So after you play your first multiball during that same ball, you will now, you won't get a plunge tradeoff because you're still in play. Yeah. You will then have two of the colors flashing, and that tells you that you have to complete both of those banks in order to light your next lock. Is this only a two-ball multiball? It is. Just two balls for Sir Lance a lot. And what is your goal during the multiball? Just hit anything and everything? What are you advancing towards here? So, yeah, this has an interesting aspect to it. So the main priority of multiball is don't double drain. because your after multiball is actually one of the most important parts. And the after multiball has nothing to do with what you do during the multiball. So during the multiball, what I like to do is just play in control and shoot the center ramp all day. You're going to get some decent points, you know, just like middling points from it, and you're also going to stay in control for the most part. Now, you do notice it has that kind of that white arrow shape kind of tri-leg diverter in the upper right. And so it's going to alternate which wire form it puts it into every other time just by the nature of how the ball comes in contact with it. It's going to automatically switch it every time it uses it once. So you're not always going to feed the left or always going to feed the right. It's going to switch every other time. So, but just shoot the ramp And, you know, really there's nothing else to do during multiball In my humble opinion, it's worth it But the main thing, once again, don't double drain Because after multiball, now is when your jackpot actually is lit And you collect the jackpot from the roving lit drop target So your drops are going to cycle and, you know, scan across all the drops in the playfield very quickly, starting at the left, the green, going up the greens, going across the two yellows on the left, going across the reds in the back, the two yellows on the right, and then coming down the blues and going back and doing laps of that. And so if you can hit the drop target when it's lit and when it's panning very quickly around the play field, that will score the jackpot. Wow. So it's moving pretty quickly then, pretty fast? Yeah, and it's not unreasonably fast. It's not so fast like, oh, this is impossible. So it can be skillfully done, but it's one of those things where you're going to see it and need to kind of ideally get in control, plan ahead, and go. I mean, if you're on the right, typically it's like you're waiting for it to go past the blues, so you're going to take a shot, a forehand shot to the greens on the left. and then vice versa. If you're on the left, you're going to wait for it to go, and as it's coming down from the red to those upper yellows, now you're going to release your flippers so you can take a swing and try to forehand it into the blues when it's going past there. Is it as fast as your – you've done two successful skill shots on T2, and the arrows are moving fast on ball three. Is it that fast or a little slower? No, I'd say it's more like the second skill shot speed. Okay. It's not as fast as the, maybe in between like second skill shot speed and third skill shot speed of T2. Okay. And I don't know if that's adjustable or not, but the copies I've played, you know, it's fast where it's quite difficult to get it to just luckily bounce in. But it's definitely something, especially like I said, If you can trap up, it's not that difficult to get it from the green or the blue, depending on which slipper you're trapped up on. Gotcha. Joe, you've played this before? I think it was in the Classic Target Match Play Bank for Indus maybe two years ago and possibly in the free play area afterwards. So I vaguely remember it, but really not too fondly. What are these shield inserts? Are they just the banks that you've completed? Well, so which, you're talking about the... Ones in the center right here. Yeah, so that will show you, you know, they'll be flashing to demonstrate to you that, hey, you need to complete these to get your locks. Gotcha. And yeah, I think they go solid once you complete them. And then down the sword You have similar to the other Gottlieb games we've been from this era Those are additive multipliers And If I'm not mistaken So if during multiball You know you want to try to increase your Jackpot value you can Go ahead and take pot shots at all the various Drop targets around the playfield once again Only using one ball keep that other ball Safe the entire time but Every drop target that you hit down will multiply, I think it's just like a thousand times whatever your multiplier value is, gets added to your jackpot. Gotcha. It doesn't look like there's a lot on this, you know, as far as shot paths and selection. Obviously, there's a bank in the back, and you've got this tight ramp in the middle. You can see the, like at District 82, they're not as big as the mouse and around rubbers that Eric would put on, but, you know, got to make that ramp hard to hit. Well, and sometimes depending on the copy and how long it's been between flipper rebuilds, I find that that is a very early shot for each of the lower flippers, and it's a fairly steep ramp. And so there's a lot of times where at copies of Excalibur, you can see there's a gap there. If it's not making and cresting all the way around, it'll just fall off the ramp. so a lot of times it'll fall off the ramp and go to your upper right flipper yeah that is something I definitely see are you using these upper flippers for just pot shots at the banks up top basically Yeah I mean you can go ahead and use those I mean the best use of those if you not getting the bounces all the way around to get those red drop targets you can easily get the red drop targets from those upper mini flippers. Gotcha. Yeah, that looks like a better angle up there. Okay. Went a little, we went quicker on this one. Is there any other strategy on this other than the don't drain after the multiball so you can get that jackpot? I'm kind of wondering what the scores are for this one, like what you would normally see on this pin. Yeah, I looked this one up again, and historically, the score, so it was last used in Indus, Maine in 2019. Okay. So the top score for that year was $10 million, and then there was a drop-off after that top score to $7 million. Do you know what the jackpot is, $1 million? Colin? Yeah, I don't remember what the jackpot value starts at, but it grows. And I think unless they have some type of ROM, special ROM on it, I think it's also one of those carryover jackpots, where I think it does carry between players and maybe games as well. So that's another thing. If you're playing in a match play game, check the, before you choose order, check the jackpot value. You may want to go first. Exactly. All right. We have made it through. One last thing. Oh, yeah, go ahead. Joe made a great point on bad girls, and there's a very similar feature on this one. When the ball is kicking out, whether it's single ball play or it's going to surprise you for multiball play, make sure you're holding up the flipper of the ball getting kicked out of those saucers that are above your inlanes it gets kicked out directly into the in lane very similar to bad girls and you will see so many players have their multiball come to a very quick end because they weren't ready for that they didn't hold up the flipper yeah it's uh it's definitely a surprise what it happens to you i remember the first time i'm mousing around i was like wait a minute Where'd it go? I didn't expect it to come around so fast. But, yeah, that's our travel through the kingdom. We have hit pin number four in the Gottlieb Gambit. That is Excalibur. From Excalibur, we move on to pin number five, Surfing Safari. Good old Surfing Safari, a Jon Norris 1991 production. This is a System 3 Tropical Chaos pin with Rodney the Crocodile. So, Colin, take us on this party. It looks like a party in a pin. And let us know your thoughts on, wow, look at that crocodile. The toy crocodile, whatever you want to call it. It's a big old water park. We're going to be in the rapids. We're going to be in the whirlpool. Much more fun, whitewater, I guess. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, this is a very interesting It pans super fun to play Once again, depending on the copy You check and see if you watch other people playing it Are the Gottlieb catch-all flippers working Because there's a lot of feeds that go to the flipper on this And so if that catch-all is working Then don't waste the opportunity To simply hold up your flipper And let the ball come to a complete cradle But what you're playing for in this game for high scores Is you're going to want to get into multiball And you're going to want to collect the jackpot And get the super jackpot if you can The good news is if for some reason you fail at that Which is very common on this game, no ball saves There are other means by which to get some pretty substantial points um yeah yeah some decent grinding and also a really fun high risk high reward uh three million stand-up target round so let's uh let's get to it um the very first thing you're going to do is you're going to try to plunge measure your plunge so that it falls into a hidden saucer that's underneath that red whirlpool area um you know there's a there's like a little saucer there that then feed that buck wire form that you can see that goes above the red plastics. If you can plunge into that, you have a chance of getting 500,000 points. You can also get absolutely nothing. But the most important part of learning that plunge is for when you start your multiball. Because if you know what that plunge is and can plunge into that saucer, like many other games in this era that don't have an auto-plunger on it, If you can find a way to lock a ball into a saucer on your plunge at the beginning of the multiball, you will turn your multiball from a two-ball affair into a three-ball party. So that's why you want to learn the plunge. Yeah, and the most important thing about the skill shot plunge that you want to measure and find is because you can turn your multiball from a two-ball affair into a three-ball party by successfully plunging into that hidden saucer. It will lock that plunge ball and then give another ball to the shooter lane, which you can then plunge, and you'll have a three-ball multiball, which is very important with no ball save. And then once you get into the multiball, which we're not in the multiball yet. That was why the plunge was important. So the other reason why that plunge is important, because that wire form feeds to the yellow plastic, and the yellow plastic feeds safely to your right flipper, which is exactly where you want to be because the first thing you want to do in every game is shoot the left ramp and just it loops it. So that left ramp feeds back around. All that yellow plastic goes back around to your right flipper again and it builds the green column of that matrix that's in the middle. And once you have built that column up to the top with the five shots, it will light lock on the left saucer that's just to the left of the left ramp. Okay, right there. Yeah. That'll be on a hurry up, which is good points there. It's millions of points for that hurry up, and that locks the ball, and then it serves the ball to your plunger lane. Hopefully you have that skill shot dialed in, so you can lock that ball, and then it serves a third ball, and then you're in a three ball multiball. During multiball, it's more of the same you want you want to shoot the you want to shoot the left ramp but in this case it's not just the left ramp it's going to have it's going to light up randomly I think two or three of the major shots around the play field so the major shots are that left saucer, the left ramp the left orbity thing called the boomerang That's just to the right of the left ramp. You have the Whirlpool red ramp, the right ramp on the right that's the red plastic. And you also have the kicker target that is over on the right-hand side that can also be lit up. So once you complete all those flashing, and you can't miss these. They do a great job of communicating, hit me, hit me, because it's got every single one of those inserts on that shot flashing. so you know that you have to hit those. Once you've done that, then you're going to, hold on, I have to, I lost that sheet. You have to then, it's eventually going to light your left ramp again for another shot. In this case, you'll be hitting that to be able to get the jackpot shot. Gotcha. So when you light the lock initially from the left ramp spelling out the green part, do you have to do it again to light the second lock? No, it's just locking one ball will begin your multiball. And then it's just a matter of are you going to have a two ball or are you going to have a three ball multiball? There's no difference in the multiball how it performs other than the fact of just having three balls in play so you have a little bit more safety of not draining out of the multiball so quickly. Gotcha. I did just look up also that hurry up starts at 5 million points it looks like. Yeah, the hurry up is no joke. Yeah. And because your jackpot, your first jackpot is also only 5 million. But then once you collect that jackpot at the left ramp, which, by the way, is super wide. This picture doesn't do it justice. that left ramp is so wide and friendly and lovely um once you shoot that jackpot it's then going to light all five of those major shots that we were talking about and you need to collect all five of those that will then light the left ramp again but this time for a super jackpot worth 30 million 30 million oh boy i wonder what these scores were yeah Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's big-time scoring. Now, this is another game, though, that, you know, so that's all there is to multiball. It's a very kind of traditional multiball style, you know, as far as hit a certain number of shots, like jackpot, do the jackpot, now hit even more shots, hit all those, and now the super jackpot's lit. The super jackpot is very valuable. And then after multiball, once again, similar to Excalibur, do not play out of control because once you're into single ball play you now have the post multiball very very high scoring opportunity you want to be on your right flipper and you are going to see the million whirlpool there's a light there's little marquee lights kind of pie-shaped uh marquee lights above the left ramp and you're going to see million whirlpool lit and one of those lights. It's the second one from the right. Yep. So you hit that just one time. It's on a timer. So you have to hit it before it times out. Once you hit that shot, now your right ramp, the whirlpool, is lit for millions. And you hit that, you get one crack at it. So make sure it's a good, clean shot. And you get one crack at it. So every switch hit that you get from doing spins, cup spins, in the Whirlpool will give you a million per switch. Wow. Holy cow. Whee! That's awesome. Does this have modes, so to speak, traditional modes that you time out? Kind of. I mean, it has, so every column has a different mode to it. So the green one is the most important because that's your multiball. You can see it says lock. But that's just the prelude to the good stuff, which is the multiball. But the lock is still a five million hurry up. And it doesn't count down that slow. It's not like the diamond lady hurry up. So going from left to right, you have the million on the left. And so it's all just left to right a major shot. So it's that left saucer. It's called the pipeline. you shoot that five times and it will immediately start a timed round called the million round and that's where the stand-up target that's just to the right of the left ramp so it's the the stand-up that's guarding and it says that that's that'll be lit and flashing and the big old three million there it will literally give you three million every time you hit that stand which is huge and also very dangerous because you can look at the geometry of that and see that when you hit that target, it will oftentimes rocket straight down the middle. So, you know, your mileage may vary, but if you just need a few points, maybe you go for it. If you're going for big points, I'd say time it out. Reminds me of Super Life Ring on Jaws. Yeah, exactly. It's the Super Life Ring, but more dangerous. so the next one from left to right we already talked about the green because we already talked about multiball the next one is the yellow and so this is that boomerang kind of left orbity shot so it's just to the right of the left ramp and it says boomerang so you hit that and that one honestly I would time out I mean yeah maybe if you need some really really small points to catch somebody play it Otherwise, time that puppy out. And the timer is displayed in that matrix of lights in the middle of the play field. So it'll actually represent digits to show you how much time is left. Nice. Next one over is the red, and that says Safari. And that's just shooting the red right ramp. And that will be an extra ball round, which you want to time out. Okay. the other thing you can do with that right ramp is during single ball play, you can shoot it, and every time you shoot it, it will do that same concept of every switch hit will give you points, but it will start out, I think, at like 50,000 a switch, but then during the same ball, it will increment higher and higher every time you do a spin or a shot, you know, one, you know, So not incrementing every time it spins in the cup, but every time you make another shot to the ramp, it will increment that value to a maximum, I think, of maybe 100,000. It's been a while, but it's a nice, it's a chopping wood strat, but it's not a safe chopping wood strat because every time you do that, it's going to drop the ball into the pops. And you, yeah. Oh, it's 50,000 plus 50,000 per shot. it maxes out at $350,000 per switch. So it's not bad, but you've got to survive a lot of shots. So that's the red. And then the next one, the last column on the right is, oh, that's the extra ball round. Okay, sorry. Oh, I lied. The Safari is the red three bank up the middle. Gotcha. Okay. So the extra ball, the purpley one is the purple insert in front of the red right ramp. that's the extra ball round time that out the safari round absolutely time it out don't ever ever play that don't ever shoot for those those those those are death targets now the only time you want to shoot for them is if you've already played your first multiball and done the green column you can play one additional multiball before you have to reset everything which if you've done that far you're probably having a banger in the game anyway but if you need to play another multiball, you can get a second multiball lit without a hurry up at the beginning by getting to the level 3 of all 5 columns. Wow. Yeah, I see it says light lock on the third level of the insert. I'm trying to remember, is bonus big in this one? No. This is another always be tilting game. Your bonus is going to be like maybe 100 to 200,000 points. Okay. So, always be. Now, unless, if you've been playing a great-ass game, you've completed the whole grid. If you've completed the whole grid, you will have $5 million in bonus. Okay. That's nothing to sneeze at, especially. I remember seeing this at Pits and Addy two years ago, and it was very tilty, very tight. were flip tilting which was not fun and then they fixed it after we played it so that's a good time um anything else on surf and safari i really uh really appreciate the advice on this one i do like i do like every time that i've seen it yeah it's a fun game i think it's pretty common to see this in a fair number of tournaments uh because it's a once people figured out a way to fix the random award via ROM, and there's a physical solution. Some people, if they don't have the ROM, you can physically block that plunge saucer so that you can't get these stupidly overpowered awards, in which case you're never, ever going to get a three-ball multiball, but you may see that setting as well. I'm guessing Jim will have it using the ROM. Yeah. I love the aesthetic of it. Joe, what do you think about Surf and Safari? Yeah, it looks like a fun game. I did also, again, look up the scores. Last time I was in a disc, it was used in the Open in 2023. Top score was 83 million, and then it kind of tapers down. I think in the 50s it looked like a pretty solid score. But, again, this was also in card format, so your mileage may vary. Would you start – if this was in the Open, Colin, would this be an anchor or a finishing pin? if you had to choose it on your card, where does it go? This one actually might be an anchor. Yeah, I think so. Because of the nature, if you can find that plunge and that left ramp is so friendly, you're going to, you're probably, unless you really, really mess things up, you're going to play a multiball. And the multiball is very valuable. So, yeah, it's a, now the only thing is that we, I may also, So you may want to do an anchor for this last one we're going to cover next. All right. Well, that is going down the rapids, getting wet and wild with Surf and Safari. Another Gottlieb legend. Next up, our final pin in the Gottlieb gambit, V-E-G-A-S. That's my favorite city to get practice debauchery and some gambling. Vegas. Got Leaves Vegas This one Is a Pardon me This one is a 1990 Jon Norris pin The ultimate gambling sim In a street level cabinet Colin Take us on a tour through Sid City As it's never been seen before Man That was My description is not going to be as long As your intro do you see the left orbit yeah it says it has a million point insert on it so that's all you're going to do in this game you're going to shoot that left orbit until you get bored or you die and you have to hit it consecutively so hopefully you can catch all insta-cradle that orbit will see you all the way down the right and it'll go up and around all the way down the right and feed down the right end lane. Now, Jim may have it set up more difficult where maybe he's changed the flippers so they're not a catch-all flipper and it won't just, you know, come to an instant cradle on that right flipper and then, you know, require some type of additional skill. But if you can get control on that right flipper again, then you just shoot the left orbit again. And it builds up those insert values until it gets to 1 million. which holds, it doesn't reset, and so you can just keep spamming it for a million, million, million, million, million. Now, you can get even more than that if you want to take some chances. So if you want to complete, there's three targets up in the upper right-hand side. and so those will let's see, yeah, the upper right drop bank, target bank enough times to light both the 2x and the 3x lights. So when you complete that right target bank it can give you the 2x and the 3x light in the left orbit. and those are additive, my friend. So, you can now get $5 billion per orbit. And, wait, there's more. So, if you're in multiball, there's double scoring during multiball. So, if you have the 2x and the 3x and the double scoring during multiball, you can get $10 million per orbit. So the ultimate S-tier level play on this is if you can get into multiball, then you're trapped up on one each flipper, and the left flipper is dead to you other than cradling and controlling that ball, and you use the other one to spam the left orbit and spam 10 million orbits. And how do you get into multiball for those that want to take that journey? so very some similarities there to uh to deadly weapon at least that i'm aware of there may be more or really every time i've ever played this i just i just spanned the left orbit but if you're wanting to take that risk and get into multiball i i believe you can only get there by from mystery awards okay so you light you you get the uh uh mystery awards in for uh select the features so there's a select the feature right above it so mystery can sometimes be a multiball, the select the feature, which is very similar to I think it's one of those things where you have a left and a right choice. So always choose instant multiball if it presents you that. You light select the feature by collecting the three jokers via the upper left lane. You can shoot it through the pops from the right flipper. I see one there. Yep, that's it. Okay. and you can see how you can really tight shot through the pumps kind of like a chaos you know smart missile shot you know so once again I don't recommend doing this but I'm just letting you know that's available to you if you really want to go hard in the paint it looks pretty big Oh, it's so big. Yes. Yes. It's kind of like that left ramp on Surfing Safari. So, yeah, the way to play this game is just left orbit all day. If for some reason you want to go for the glory, then, which, hey, in this format, given it's going to be, you know, it's not card, it's just best score. So there may be people that go for the glory and go for the 10 million orbits on Vegas, which I hope happens. I want to see it. Joe, have you ever played Vegas? I've never seen this one. I've never seen this game before, no. It looks fine. It's definitely a pinball game. I'm just thinking of 8-Ball Deluxe's Left Orbit, or the one, what was it, the one Bad Girls, I think it was, in the beginning that we talked about. I'm just like, wow. Yeah, but those at least force you to survive a pop star. Yeah, right. This seems like it was someone's last day at the job And they had to finish a project And they said, you know what? Just give it to the players Let them have this left orbit I was going to try to find other things to say about it But do you have any final thoughts on Vegas? I can't wait to see this in a high-level tournament Have you seen it before at a big, big tournament like this? No, and for good reason Yeah, I was going to say, we will report back on what the cues are for Vegas. That is the Gottlieb Gambit, the Gottlieb Gauntlet, as some would call it. And all I can say is thank you so much, Colin, for joining us on this episode of Wizards and Warriors Masterclass, the Gottlieb Six. thank you for pulling back the curtain on these pins as tons of competitors travel to Southern California Marietta especially for this year's Indisc I think a lot of players are going to walk up to that high stakes bank at Indisc feeling a lot less like victims and more like contenders and yeah it's one thing to know the rules It's going to be another thing to have our own Colin, the Texas State champ. You have his roadmap now on for when the pressure's on, the ball's moving at light speed. So if you're heading to Indisc, keep this episode queued up in your headphones on your travels this week. Colin, again, thank you so much. Is there anything you want to leave our listeners and viewers with or anything you want to promote, talk about? no we already talked about it we'll say one thing this bank is not the only place you're going to find sweet sweet got leaves there are got leaves in the open bank as well yes and if you travel up north to the northwest for NWPC NWPAS you'll find some got leaves there as well all over the country thank you again make sure you check out the Princess Bride as well. Go see some of Colin's handiwork with P3 and Multimorphic, the fine folks down there in Southern Texas. Joe, anything to leave us with? If I was going to Indisc, I'd feel very prepared to play this bank, but alas, I'm not. So good luck to both of you guys and hope to see you soon. Thank you. Thank you for joining us on Wizards and Warriors for J-Land, Colin. I am Prisco Pinball. Peace, love, and pinball, folks. See you later. The lights are flashing, the bells are ringing, I step up to the table, my heart is ringing, the crowd is watching, the tension is high, I'm ready to play, it's time to fight, And the pinball warriors were ready to fight But off that ball, that Mrs. Star delighted And the other day, she was waiting in control Pinball warriors, we got the soul And the pinball bullets were chasing the light And the people pretended to be our king's allies But the police were under my every command And in this pinball kingdom, I make my stand And the pinball warriors were ready to fight But off that ball, that Mrs. Star delighted And the other day, she was waiting in control We got the.