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Episode 183 – Classless Tangents

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 22m·analyzed·Apr 6, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.039

TL;DR

Slam Tilt critiques 2021 Twippies voting; Godzilla dominates; Rush launch event discussed.

Summary

Slam Tilt Podcast Episode 183 features hosts Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale with guests Zachary Fry, Raymond Davidson, and Seth discussing the 2021 Twippy Awards (held at Texas Pinball Festival) and a Rush pinball launch party at Rochester Pinball Collective. The episode extensively critiques Twippy voting patterns, noting Godzilla's dominant sweep across categories and questioning whether voting reflects actual game quality or simply popular IP and social media amplification. Hosts discuss homebrew machines, tournament results, and Rush's scoop mod improvements.

Key Claims

  • Godzilla won Best Music and Sound Effects with 37%, followed by Led Zeppelin at 29%

    high confidence · Direct Twippy award results discussed by hosts

  • Ferris Bueller's Day Off homebrew (a re-theme of Mustang) won Favorite Homebrew Pinball Machine with 42%

    high confidence · Hosts discuss Reby Hardy's winning entry and note the re-theme nature

  • Reby Hardy's Ferris Bueller was the first woman to win the homebrew category

    medium confidence · Host mentions seeing this mentioned in acceptance speech; not independently verified in episode

  • Godzilla won Best Rules with 65% of votes, with Mandalorian second

    high confidence · Direct Twippy results

  • X-Men Charity Tournament at Next Level won Favorite Tournament despite not being widely known

    high confidence · Hosts surprised by result; attribute to Next Level social media campaign

  • Slam Tilt Podcast received 6.96% in Favorite Pinball Podcast category, behind Chris the Podcaster (30%)

    high confidence · Specific voting percentages listed

  • Zach's homebrew 'Poker' (unnamed entry) placed fifth in Favorite Homebrew with 8% and is better-ranked than Slam Tilt's podcast performance

    high confidence · Zach states he's targeting 2023 release for next homebrew; took 1.5 years to complete first build

  • Godzilla won Game of the Year with 68%

    high confidence · Direct Twippy result

  • Pinball Map won Favorite Mobile App by landslide

    high confidence · Direct Twippy result

  • Ferris Bueller re-theme was done using Pinball Browser software with art/sound/displays redone but rules unchanged from original Mustang

    high confidence · Host explains homebrew modification process

Notable Quotes

  • “if it's pretty, it wins. No, it has to be a license that people know. If it's pretty, if it wins. That's all it is.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~35:00 — Core critique of Twippy voting methodology—aesthetic and IP recognition drive awards more than gameplay/design quality

  • “Godzilla, Godzilla, Godzilla. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But I think best theme would, like Ron said, either Mandalorian or even Led Zeppelin just because it's such a huge, like, it's probably the biggest, one of the biggest rock bands.”

    Zach Fry and hosts @ ~22:00 — Hosts express surprise at Godzilla's best theme win; question whether voters understand what they're voting for

  • “This is all just a voting frenzy. Exactly. It's a People's Choice Award, Bruce.”

    Hosts @ ~52:00 — Core thesis of episode: Twippies are driven by hype cycles, not expert evaluation

  • “I said that Chris the Podcaster would be either first or second in this. Yes, you did. And, yep, dead flip first. Not close, 37%. And Chris the Podcaster was second. But he doesn't play pinball.”

    Ron Hallett / Bruce Nightingale @ ~71:00 — Hosts note voting absurdity: Chris the Podcaster ranked high in Favorite Pinball Streamer despite not playing pinball himself

  • “Well, as Zach said, he had like 8% for his homebrew, and Slam Tilt only had 6.96... so his homebrew is better than both [Silver Ball Chronicles and Backbox].”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~78:00 — Self-deprecating humor about Slam Tilt's low podcast ranking relative to guest's homebrew

  • “I'm targeting a 2023 release. See? So you'll be reffered to 2024. So next year you will have nothing in.”

    Zach Fry @ ~79:00 — Zach's homebrew project timeline; took 1.5 years on first build

  • “Do you even talk pinball?... It's third. I guess we need to go, like, once every month, like we're doing now. We are. We'll just go to market.”

    Bruce / Ron @ ~75:00 — Slam Tilt justifying lower podcast ranking by noting increased episode frequency

Entities

GodzillagameSlam Tilt PodcastorganizationRon HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonZachary FrypersonRaymond DavidsonpersonReby Hardyperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Podcast episode frequency increase strategy: Slam Tilt justifying lower Twippy ranking by noting transition to monthly release schedule to improve visibility and voter engagement

    medium · Bruce: 'I guess we need to go, like, once every month, like we're doing now. We are. We'll just go to market'

  • ?

    community_signal: Rush launch party held at Rochester Pinball Collective featuring both Pro and Standard versions plus modded versions for community play-testing

    high · Event details: Pro version with scoop mod, Standard version, attended by hosts and guests

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Critical perspective on voting outcomes for pinball podcasts and streamers—concern that social media presence/download numbers don't correlate with content quality or actual pinball knowledge

    high · Chris the Podcaster: 'But he doesn't play pinball... He's a streamer. He streams himself on Facebook Live... watching TV? Is that a pinball stream?'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Hosts express cynicism about Twippy Awards voting process, characterizing results as driven by hype cycles, social media amplification, and IP popularity rather than game quality or gameplay merit

    high · Multiple instances: 'if it's pretty, it wins,' 'this is all just a voting frenzy,' 'People's Morons Awards,' hosts attributing X-Men Charity Tournament win to Next Level social media coordination

  • ?

    community_signal: Identified 'Halloween Defense Force' voting bloc—coordinated or habitual voters who consistently vote for Halloween across multiple categories despite mixed critical reception

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.426

0:00
Now, self-esteem and motivation, people, are keys to success in life. Okay? Does anyone know what those terms mean?
0:11
People, is anyone paying attention out there? Beavis, do you know what self-esteem means? Eh. Um, no. Beavis is stupid.
0:25
Yeah, I'm sorry. Coming to you from beautiful offstate New York, this is the Slam Tilt Podcast, a show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. Whistle.
0:51
What? Yeah? Whistle. What does that mean? Woo-hoo! Ready for a fun-filled show? Okay, that's all that meant. All right, so this is episode 183. I love something. And we're back. We're back in a month. Everyone. Yes, we're back in a month. Well, three weeks. I still think it's three weeks. A month. It was three, six we recorded last. All right, whatever, whatever. And, yeah. And we're not alone. We're not? Who do we have, Ron? Who do we have, Bruce? They are out there. Oh, they are out there. It's our third host, Mr. Zachary Fry. How are you doing, Mr. Zach? Average. Average? Well, that's actually better after the week you've had. Yeah, that is much better than the previous week, which has been far below average. We have another guest. Speak, guest two. Is that me? That would be you, Mr. Raymond Davidson. Hello. Good to see you, sir.
1:49
And we have a third guest. Who would that be? Hi, Seth. Me? Yeah, that would be you. The pinball princess stepped this year, yes. Someone else we don't know here, too. I know.

  • “The Scoop mod that I did has been holding up just great, as far as I can tell. Which was foam. Foam in the Scoop, so the Scoops are no longer an issue because you can't hit it in the Scoop.”

    Zach Fry @ ~95:00 — Technical mod solution to Rush pinball scoop issue: foam dampening prevents unintended scoop hits

  • “They're stupid but consistent. Yes.”

    Bruce / Hosts @ ~89:00 — Characterization of voting block behavior (Halloween Defense Force) as predictable but poor quality

  • “People had heard about Ferris Bueller because... Oh, yeah. Ferris Bueller, much like Sonic, actually had marketing to it.”

    Hosts @ ~30:00 — Attribution of Ferris Bueller's win to social media marketing and TPN (Trident Pinball Network) exposure

    • Texas Pinball Festival (TPF)
    event
    Next Levelorganization
    Chris the Podcasterperson
    LED Zeppelingame
    Halloweengame
    Mandaloriangame
    Rochester Pinball Collective (RPC)organization
    Rushgame
    Ferris Bueller's Day Offgame
    Pinsideorganization
    This Week in Pinball (TWIP)organization
    TNT Amusementsorganization
    Cupheadgame
    District 82organization
    Pinball Expoevent
    Jurassic Park The Pingame
    Ultramangame
    Legends of Valhallagame
    Keltsgame

    medium · Bruce notes: 'the Halloween Defense Force that for some reason exists at all is definitely out in the force' and 'They're stupid but consistent'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Homebrew builders utilizing existing playfields (Ferris Bueller as Mustang re-theme, PinCraft as Kings of Steel modification) alongside completely original builds; differentiation in homebrew categories blurred

    high · Discussion of Ferris Bueller using Pinball Browser for art/sound/display but keeping original Mustang rules; PinCraft heavily modified Kings of Steel playfield

  • ?

    event_signal: 2021 Twippy Awards held at Texas Pinball Festival with technical audio and presentation issues; award categories announced separately from corresponding video packages, confusing viewers

    high · Host describes friend's stream perspective: 'they would introduce what a particular award was going to be and then announce a completely different category'

  • $

    market_signal: Homebrew pinball development timelines significant: Zach's first build took 1.5 years; targeting 2023 release for next machine indicates slow production cycle and limited supply of homebrew entries

    high · Zach: 'I've been to his house. It took him at least a year and a half... I'm targeting a 2023 release'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Reby Hardy established as significant content creator in pinball community with marketing reach; presence at major events drives exposure and voting outcomes

    high · Ron predicts Ferris Bueller win upon learning Reby Hardy is attending: 'as soon as I saw she was there, I was like, oh, well, she's winning. There's just, you know'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Rush pinball scoop issue addressed via foam dampening mod by Zach Fry to prevent unintended scoop hits during normal play

    high · Zach states: 'The Scoop mod that I did has been holding up just great... Foam in the Scoop, so the Scoops are no longer an issue'

  • ?

    product_concern: Halloween pinball criticized for weak playfield layout and two-frame animations despite strong cabinet art appeal; playfield flow issues noted including difficult upper playfield access

    medium · Hosts note Halloween's poor playfield quality contradicts high rankings; 'you have to hit the ramp like 8 times before you know it' to reach upper playfield; 'two-frame animations'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Shift in community regard for pinball arcade venues—Next Level (Oregon) and Brazilian location receiving strong votes despite geographic distance and limited travel accessibility for US-based voters

    medium · Hosts surprised at Next Level winning; note 'if you don't even hear about the tournament that was run and it wins, it tells you that it's just a voting frenzy'

    • 2:01
    Possibly the worst intro sequence ever right there. That was great. Yeah. It's okay. I went to get a drink of water and came back to a live podcast. Podcast editing. No, with editing, it'll all sound – yeah, no, it won't. It'll still sound bad. It won't. It'll sound like a crash and burn like it always did. That's okay. Hey, that's – we got fifth. Oh, we got – Oh, God. Yeah, the Twippy. Yeah, that's on here. That's on here. Good. Oh, is it? It is. Yes, Zach will explain to us why his placement in the homebrew was better than our placement. Does it need explaining? I thought it was pretty obvious. It was pretty obvious? Okay.
    2:42
    Well, no, no, no. It's not obvious. Okay, let's start. Let's start on the Twippy. I'm ready to go right into it. Let's go right into the Twippy. So, the Twippies were at the Texas Pinball Festival live.
    2:56
    On location. They were? I was in a tournament. The Texas Week in Pinball Awards. Yeah, I didn't see any Twippies. Yeah, I saw the aftermath. I sat down with Lauren Gray. We finally got to meet, like, right after the Twippies, but it was somewhere in the non-tournament area. Ah, that would be why I didn't see them. Okay. I did see some of it live. Because I did leave the tournament room at times, believe it or not. What? Who knew that was possible? I was in the back of the room, and I really couldn't understand what people were saying. Great. It was tough to speak. From what I've heard, I don't think you were alone on that. Yeah, a lot of people did say that. Yeah, and I had a friend of mine, the person who was coming with me to Texas because my father couldn't make it, but then this person couldn't get the day off from his boss. Fuck the boss, but whatever.
    3:54
    Oh, my. He actually watched the stream, so he gave me the stream perspective, which was, he said, yeah, the sound wasn't that great. And he said the weird thing is, I guess they would introduce what a particular award was going to be and then announce a completely different category. Which confused him. What? What the F? He's not really a pinhead, per se, so he was looking at it more from just the award show. And he was confused. You know, it would be like the video package would be for, you know, best this, but then they would give the award, and it was for something completely different. So he was very confused.
    4:30
    So, yeah, what do you want to talk about the Twippies there, Bruce? Do you want to talk about how we did? Well, we can talk about how everyone did first. All right. And how you took away votes again. I took a look. Go, go, Godzilla. Yes, Godzilla crushed it. Yes. Yeah, to an insane degree. So, okay, very quickly. Best music and sound effects. Godzilla.
    4:53
    37%. Oh, no. Led Zeppelin at 29%. That's actually one of the closer ones to Godzilla. Woo! Oh, yes, Led Zeppelin. Let's say hooray. Hooray, Led Zeppelin. Hooray! All right. Favorite homebrew pinball machine. So, Zach, next time you do a homebrew, you need a licensed homebrew. Yeah, you need to just copy something else. Yeah, I knew that by like halfway through making the last one. Because the first three, I think, are all, I mean, Cuphead is a thing, right? That's like a game. And then Billy Madison, and then Ferris Bueller's Day Off. What is Billy Madison? It's a movie. It is the Adam Sandler movie. That was also a re-theme, though. Same with Ferris Bueller. Yeah, that's the problem with these homebrews. They're rethemed. They're not homebrews. Well, it was an interesting subject on Pinside. They kind of went off on that. I mean, Ferris Bueller's Day Off was a Mustang that was rethemed. All the art was redone. And the sound and the displays and the call-outs. Were you all done in Pinball Browser? Did they change the rules? Or if I knew how to play Mustang, could I play Ferris Bueller? I think it played exactly the same. But you can't really change the rules of a Stern. Okay, so they used Pinball Browser and redid the art. And that won, and it wasn't even close. They got 42%. Yeah, somehow Ron knew ahead of time that it was going to win. Yeah, because they said Reby Hardy was there, and he's the one who did the game. And it's like, okay, if she's here, the conversation wasn't going to go like, hey, Reby, we're having this pinball award show we'd like you to attend. Your homebrew is one of the nominated games. Oh, okay. No, I'm not really interested. But there's a good chance you're going to win. Oh, okay. Wink, wink.
    6:46
    Yeah, as soon as I saw she was there, I was like, oh, well, she's winning. There's just, you know. Yeah. Second was Cuphead. Third was Billy Madison. Let's see. What is poker? Zach's game. That's fifth. Wow. Fifth. You're in the middle of the pack. That's pretty darn good, considering it was only at Fantastic, right? Yes. Yeah. And Zach doesn't like attention or anyone knowing who he is. So it's amazing it got that much. Yeah, I like how everyone's homebrew had, you know, first and last name. And I'm pretty sure poker was just Zach. By Zach. Just Zach. Yeah, but that's the company, right? Yes. Definitely. It's probably some recursive acronym in typical Zach fashion. So what, Ferris Bueller was a re-theme. Was Cuphead all original? I don't know what. I didn't even know that was a thing. I'll throw it to you. I didn't know that was either. Yeah, Billy Madison, I don't know. Billy Madison is a party animal re-theme. Party animal, yeah. Boys Night Out was original, wasn't it? I think I remember playing that. Boys Night Out. I think that was at Expo. Yeah, I think Boys Night Out is original. Yeah. Poker by Zach was original. Original. Greek Gods was also original. I'm actually surprised that you beat that. Let's see. Rock Lives was Rock. Yeah, Rock. Redone with different software. Yeah. And a different cabinet. Was that Minecraft one in there that used the Kings of Steel but then made the layout actually fun? That was Pincraft. I got that somehow. What? Because that had some pretty cool stuff in it. Yeah. They took a – I was thinking about this, like the different levels of homebrew. You have, like, your completely original game, and you built from scratch. You have those. Then you have ones where you use an existing play field, but maybe you modify it, and there's all new software. That's what PinGraph was. PinCraft. Because it was a Kings of Steel, but they made modifications on that thing. Yeah, they added lots of mechs and, like, cut new holes. Like, I was kind of like, someone had to tell me it was Kings of Steel, and then I'm like, oh, yeah. Yeah, like, it starts from a donor play field, right? and then you kind of go to town on it. Yeah, they really went to town. I'm surprised, like, at that point that you don't just get a new piece of plywood, but... There's, like, a Felina, I think that's what it's called, by Phil Grimaldi. And that was at TPF, I think. Okay. I didn't see that one. Wasn't it, like, right up front in that first wheel, maybe? Like, we were probably all turning around and staring at Weird Al, and that's why no one noticed it. Well, we'll get to TPF. All right, and so Cuphead is, I think, like, originally some old 70s game, but then modified even more extensively than Pincraft was, and again, involved in electronics and some stuff. What we learned by this, at least as far as Twippies are concerned, it doesn't matter if it's just a re-theme. If it's pretty, it wins. No, it has to be a license that people know. If it's pretty, if it wins. That's all it is. Because, you know, that's what it really is. It's sparkly and bright, and it looks like a pinball machine. Hee hee! I'll vote for it! I mean, it's also about exposure, right? People had heard about Ferris Bueller because... Oh, yeah. Ferris Bueller, much like Sonic, actually had marketing to it. Yeah, I think Reby Hardy was on Pinball Profile, and I think there was Twip articles. And she is a member of the Pinball Network. The TPN being in the votes once again. Mm-hmm. Just like in the podcasting session. Oh, well, no. So how did... And wasn't she the first woman to win this award? I think she mentioned that in her acceptance speech. I saw that somewhere.
    10:33
    If she mentioned it, I would assume it's true. I saw a part... They did, like, a wrestling angle thing. Because Rebby is the wife of Matt Hardy, noted professional wrestler. So they did, like, a wrestling angle. It's funny because I think of Matt Hardy as, oh, that's Rebby Hardy's husband. As opposed to... The other way around. Yeah. Well, Matt Hardy would probably be dead if it wasn't for Reby Hardy. She's the one who got him off his ass because he was fucked up. Yeah. Let's see. Next one. Best theme. I'm surprised at this. Godzilla.
    11:07
    I really thought Mandalorian would get for best theme. This is such a vague category. I don't think people understood the category. That's the problem with half of these categories. I would say... It's like, it's like, it's best theme integration, you know, and, like, I feel like, again, most people are just like, oh, I like this game. It looks pretty. Or they just go down the line. They're like, Godzilla, Godzilla, Godzilla. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But I think best theme would, like Ron said, either Mandalorian or even Led Zeppelin just because it's such a huge, like, it's probably the biggest, one of the biggest rock bands. It feels like it's really just like a, if your theme is licensed, how popular is your license? That's great. That's for, yeah. And it's not like how good is whatever you made up. I didn't think Godzilla, like, that doesn't scream. No, good license, no. Yeah. Well, for me it does. Yeah, it's not Star Wars. No, not like Star Wars, not like Led Zeppelin. That's the one I was surprised. I can picture Godzilla being over Led Zeppelin, but, like, I don't even know what numbers you'd use to compare that on.
    12:12
    So, all right, so we've got Godzilla, Mandalorian, and Halloween, and Led Zeppelin. There are the four. So let's see. This one got me. Favorite pinball location. Which looks like the worst possible subject for an online vote. Yeah, it's just terrible. It's just like... Was it Next Level? Next Level, which I had to look up. They're a place in Oregon that has a ton of games. Yeah, it's basically like Museum of Pinball, but yeah, it's huge. I've never been there, but I've heard that it's just insane. Right, where is this? Oregon. All right, let's go. That's Oregon. Say it properly, Bruce. Oregon. We have a Northwesterner on this call. Correct him, Raymond. Tell him it's Oregon. Yes, I believe it is in Hillsborough, Oregon. There you go. Oregon.
    13:03
    We'll be Oregon in a minute. Oregon. I know. Yes. Second was the old school pinball experience in Brazil. Wow. Logan Arcade, third. This year. They won last time. Yeah, I think they won last time. Where the heck is District 82? Jack Barber. I know. We still haven't got to that yet. The Pinball Lounge, fifth. District 82, sixth. They're in the middle. That's always like, that's the tournament bubble thing, though. Yeah, that is totally the tournament bubble thing. Tournament people love District 82, but I don't think many people besides tournament players are, like, making a trip out there to go see anything. Correct. That's true. Yeah, there isn't much. Yeah, you see me lining up for Brazil right for my flight right now for Brazil. All right. Well, they had an entire country of Brazil.
    13:56
    Yeah, the U.S. split their votes between like ten places. That was a major misjudgment on our part. All right, let's see. Favorite accessories. Not close. 30%. We have insider-connected kits. Yep. Woo-hoo. Well, over the expression lights. Expression lights for Led Zeppelin was second. All right. Third was the spooky pinball Halloween shooter rod. Because you're really scraping the bucket then. What is the shooter rod? That is a pretty cool custom shooter rod. Okay, what does it look like? Is it a knife? It's the handle of a knife. Oh, okay. Is it kind of like the Ultraman shooter rod then? Because that's like a phaser or something. Or like the Deadpool katana, right? Or the Ninja Turtles. Maybe. I've never seen that one. All right, let's see. best toys and gimmicks, and this was a complete, wow, slaughter. 68% for Godzilla. 1% too low. Second was Halloween.
    14:55
    Okay. What's the toy and gimmick on... The gimmick is how many scoops and playfields there are. It's servos.
    15:04
    Having three playfields is a good gimmick. I guess that is a gimmick. We'll give that. And the topper. The knife going into the back box is cool. Wouldn't that be the best topper category, right? Well, yeah, we'll get to that. Well, you totally can, though. There's no rule against it. Yeah. Favorite pinball convention winning by over 18%? This surprised me. Actually, because Texas wasn't a show, so I guess it's not as much of a surprise. Pinball Expo. With Free Play Florida second and Allentown third. Where's Pintastic? Pintastic was in the middle. It was sixth. especially after going to Expo I'm still surprised how well people seem to regard it probably just because it's central and it has a legacy and plus you get to see the factory tour it's fantastic it kicks its ass as far as I'm concerned I think it's the people right you get to see everybody that's true it's the center of the pinball world you get to see everybody and watch all the seminars that you have to pay for unlike every other show
    16:10
    So let's see. I did notice Rob Burke was at TPF. Maybe he was taking some notes, things he can use to improve Expo. Let's see. Best theme integration. Again, not close. 56% of the vote. Godzilla.
    16:27
    Halloween was second. So did Godzilla just win everything? Mostly. Except Topper, I think. Yeah. Well, it didn't have a Topper, so. Exactly. Everything it was not made for did it win. I guarantee some people still voted for Godzilla, even though it didn't have a topper. They still voted for a topper. That would be funny. Favorite website.
    16:47
    Not close. 57% to Pinside. Yay. This week in pinball second, internet pinball database third. Yeah, I'd rather have that one.
    16:58
    I use that more than the other two. Well, here's the one that totally threw me. Favorite tournament. It's got to be Indus, right? No. Wait, I just didn't happen. No, it just didn't happen. X-Men Charity Tournament at next level. What? Second was District 82 Super Series. What the fuck? Expo Flipout was third.
    17:22
    Well, I mean, there weren't that many tournaments in 2021. I know, but... We're in our tournament bubble, and we still don't know what this thing is. Yes, even within this... Yeah, this Silver Ball Rumble, which is fantastic, was sixth.
    17:36
    Yeah, that's pretty bad. Pin class was eighth. I mean, none of the tournaments are up there that we don't directly have. You know, there are a ton of good tournaments out there. Yes, there's a ton of good tournaments, but if you don't even hear about the tournament that was run and it wins, it tells you that it's just a voting frenzy. This is all just a voting frenzy. Exactly. It's a People's Choice Award, Bruce. Next Level won the best in all occasion, and their tournament won best tournament. So someone on the next level social media or something did a really good job of just like getting people to sign. Exactly. That's why it's. Or a lot of people really like next level. Here's your sign.
    18:19
    Okay. Best rules. Another just ridiculous landslide. Sixty-six percent. No, sixty-five percent. Godzilla. Not Led Zeppelin? Mandalorian second. Actually, according to this list, Halloween has better rules than Led Zeppelin. Oh, God. I feel like nobody got to learn the Led Zeppelin rules because it came out right during COVID, and there were no tournaments going on, so nobody had a reason to learn the rules.
    18:49
    Why would they learn them? Still, my condolences. My condolences. Best animations and display. Again, not close. 53% goes to Godzilla.
    19:00
    Wait a minute. Okay, second is Mandalorian. Third is Halloween? Animations and display? It is terrible. I mean, say what you want about the play field and everything else, but I played Halloween, and it just kind of shows, like, doesn't have animations? And it doesn't want to move. Two-frame animations. Yeah. I'm just very surprised with that. I'm guessing that's another case of spooky, you know, voting down the line for whatnot. Just Halloween, Halloween. The Halloween Defense Force that for some reason exists at all is definitely out in the force. Did you say the Halloween Defense Force?
    19:37
    The HDF? Let's see. Favorite pinball YouTube channel? TNT Amusements. Top up you win. Wow, you know, Kerry Hardy? Actually, straight down the middle a second, and then Kerry Hardy. Yep. By 30%. Beat him out by over 12%. Let's see. Best call outs. This is absolutely incredible. I don't believe what I'm seeing. Godzilla has won again. 51%. Not close. Mandalorian second. Halloween is third. There's your sign again. Hey, I actually like the, what's his face? The Donald Pleasance impersonator. I actually got a kick out of him. I must say. Okay. Okay, Bruce. Best pinball mod of 2021.
    20:29
    Godzilla. Just buy a Godzilla from me. Buy a Godzilla, you bought it, and you're good. Wow, I don't believe. Okay, Mandalorian pinball animated interactive Grogu, 32%. Then the Godzilla Tesla Strike mod. The Indiana Jones Disneyland Edition cabinet.
    20:49
    The Star Wars Mandalorian Pro Wireforms. I thought that would have been. I thought that's the best one. Here's the problem. The pro. Yeah, it makes the pro look like the premium. On the Mandalorian? The Wirecord, yes. You don't know what little plastic ramps. Oh, habit rails instead of plastic. Yes. Fifth is the sculpted T-Rex head for Jurassic Park. I can't believe that's not higher. I don't think they're – are they actually being made? I was supposed to get one for Pin Clash two years ago, and I never got my prize.
    21:22
    I got one. It's fine. There's one in my game. Let's see. Oh, this one. I predicted this. You can go back to a previous episode.
    21:34
    Favorite pinball streamer. I said that Chris the Podcaster would be either first or second in this. Yes, you did. I did. And, yep, dead flip first. Not close, 37%. And Chris the Podcaster was second. But he doesn't play pinball. Exactly. But he's a pinball streamer. People are stupid with this fucking thing. He's a streamer. He streams himself on Facebook Live. I think he streams himself watching other things. Yeah, that's how stupid this fucking thing is. Flippin' Out was third. Like, watching TV? Is that a pinball stream? I'm very confused. Flippin' Out was third. IE Pinball, fourth. Fox Sports Pinball, fifth. I'm surprised RB Flipped France, which I thought was second the last time. They were second from last in this list. I mean, I think that's a case, again, of like one year they pumped up the social media and stuff and did good. And then this year they didn't. Well, of course, don't forget, Chris, the podcaster, was free on his.
    22:35
    Oh, yeah, yeah. It's not behind the table. But as we see, that doesn't matter either. Best white show. They're so stupid. Best white show.
    22:42
    Godzilla. 34%. But right behind it was Led Zeppelin. Yeah, I kind of disagree with that one. So you think Led Zeppelin should have been first? I think Led Zeppelin should have been first with the... Express and Lighting? Yeah, Express and Lighting first time. I thought that actually made it. Yeah, but that wasn't in all the editions, though. But still, you can add it to all the editions. It's still there. So that'd be this mod, then. Well, but it was in the, quote, full game edition. Yes, it was. Does that make Pro's Eric the Half a Game instead of Eric the Half a Bee?
    23:20
    Am I the only one that knows that part of Monty Python? I'm sorry, Dad. That is by the Dead Silence. I know Monty. What is that from? I know.
    23:30
    I'm saying the same thing. Where is that from? Yeah, we all know Monty Python. It's a record. It's part of a Monty Python record. Am I going to have to get my parents to tell me what record it is? Hold on. All right. So it's not like something like no one expects the Spanish Inquisition. No, it's not like from Flying Circus. It's from an audio record of Monty Python. Hang on. I have to bother my parents about this. It's not like Biggest Dickest or anything? Okay. Frickets. Another minute passed. Then another minute. I don't... If you recognize this reference, email the Slam Tilt Podcast at gmail.com. Yes, at slamtiltpodcast at gmail.com. Next one. The Larch. Let's see. Next one. The Larch. See, that one I know. Favorite pinball topper. This one was close. Halloween. Godzilla. Gets first. No, it doesn't happen. Indiana Jones, the one that actually had smoke and shit in it. The, like, 24-karat gold. Yeah. Stranger Things.
    24:35
    Guns N' Roses, the one by Jersey Jack. Then another one by Pin Graphics, Guns N' Roses. Led Zeppelin and an Ultraman. So there you go. I love how, like, Ultraman is, like, isn't it, like, nearly the same thing as Halloween 1? I don't even know if I've looked at the Ultraman. It's the same mechanism and stuff, isn't it?
    24:55
    Let's see. Favorite pinball podcast. Again, not close. 30%. Chris the Podcaster wins with the pinball show second. Bro, do you even talk pinball? It's third. I guess we need to go, like, once every month, like we're doing now. We are. We'll just go to market. Slamp? Do you even tilt pinball? The super awesome pinball show. Which did three or four shows. Come on, guys. Yeah, they might have done like five episodes. That's enough to do a lot. If you had to head to like more than once a year, maybe we're supposed to live still. I would. Yeah, I probably would. That's just bad.
    25:29
    Loser Kid and Backbox and Silver Ball Chronicles and right below them, Slam Tilt Podcast. Woo! Yeah, it's 6.9%, 6, 9, 69, of course. and Pinball Mag, Z-E Pinball Podcast. I don't know what that is. And then Pinball Profile.
    25:50
    So as Zach said, he had like 8% for his homebrew, and Slam Tilt only had 6.96, and Silver Ball had 7.05. So his homebrew is better than both. But guess what? Ask him where he is next year. What do you mean ask him where he is next year? He can't come up next year. We still can. So we keep on going. What would it be to assume that he's not going to just whip out an entire new homebrew again? I've been to his house.
    26:18
    It took him at least a year and a half. Right, Zach? The first time it did. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. He already has a cabinet. I know he has a cabinet, but, I mean, it's still a lot of work. And he's been sick a lot lately, this guy.
    26:33
    I'm targeting a 2023 release. See? So you'll be reffered to 2024. So next year you will have nothing in. Well, wait a minute. Wait, wait. Before or after Steve Ritchie's next game? When is your game coming up?
    26:47
    Do you know the date for Steve Ritchie's next game? I'm going for Zach. I'm going for just one day beforehand. Well, according to the seminar, the Jersey Tech seminar at TPF, they said he had just cut the first whitewood for his new game. so how's the Toy Story Whitewood coming? how's Toy Story, how's all the other games we'll get to that, that's TPM so yeah I guess even a paywall does not stop the steamroller so he says he has like 300 or 400 people but probably 30% of the votes went for that so that tells you that people are do we know the numbers, like how many people voted? no we don't the thing is you just gotta go by what podcasts have the most that there are very few podcasts that have over 3,000 per episode. That's kind of like the, if you're over 3,000, that's like, you know, Chris and the Pinball Show does that. We here at Slant Tilt, we're lucky we get 1,000 on a good day. On a good day. On certain shows we have gotten over three. Yes, whenever I'm on. Yeah, whenever Zach is on. Yes, of course. I've always wondered, how does that work? Do people decide to download it based on the title? Do they look at the show notes? Do they hear from other people? It seems like you'd either download everything or you wouldn't listen at all. Yeah, it is bizarre how they will just fluctuate. But obviously if you had something like, you know, on the next episode, we will have, you know, Gary Stern will be on or something. You'll probably get more. That kind of thing. Or Raymond, you know, or, you know. Or Raymond Davidson. I'm sure, like, the numbers are going to go through the roof. David Robinson and stuff. David Robinson. Let's see. Best artwork. Not close again. 43% Godzilla.
    28:27
    That's in Halloween. I mean, I love the cabinet, but the play field is not as good as the cabinet. No, the cabinet definitely is not good. I think Mandalorian is better overall, in my opinion.
    28:40
    I think Mandalorian is more like the old, like, paste and put down. No, stop. It was drawn. I understand that, but, I mean, it's still seat light. Yeah, but you hate it, so you're just going to think everything about it sucks. Pretty good art for a Star Wars game. Mandalorian or Halloween artwork? Overall, I'd say Mandalorian. Exactly. I would say the same thing. Okay, favorite mobile app. Pinball Map wins by a landslide, followed by Pinball Arcade, followed by Scorebit. Wait, the IFA app didn't make it in there? I know. I have the IFA app. Oh, it's there. It's just way down. Yeah, it's like seventh. By the way, the Eric Vahafa B-Bit, I did not hallucinate this. It is from Monty Python's previous record, which was an audio Monty Python record. The song is also on YouTube. I will send it to you. Okay. Oh. Best Playfield Gameplay and Layout. We're getting even further into the... Another very weird category. Yeah. Into the landslide. 71% Godzilla by Stern. According to the 2FB voters, the second best playfield layout is Halloween. Oh, they're stupid. They really are stupid. They're stupid but consistent. Yes. Third is Jurassic Park the Pin. What? That's a sweet layout. Actually, I thought it played good. Mandalorian is fourth. It's not bad. Legends of Valhalla fifth. Led Zeppelin sixth. And Kelp last. other than the Halloween bit I could agree with those rankings Halloween wasn't too terrible I actually got to flip Ultraman because there were two Ultramen and one Halloween and it does have a decent flow but you have to remember about the in the room thing and you also I may have forgotten that the upper playfields existed that's because it's hard to get them up there you have to hit the ramp like 8 times before you know it. I don't know. Where's the flow, though? Describe the flow. What's that flow?
    30:48
    The ramp. The center ramp. The center ramp and the left orbit which turns to the right orbit. It's kind of AT&T-ish in that respect. The center ramp I hit, there was like a delay before it would come back to me. It was like four to five seconds for the ball. Yeah, one of those ramps acts like the Batmobile on the original Batman. Oh, yeah. Yep, yep. Well, actually, the center ramp is actually almost like, it actually is a loop. It goes up, and then it drops down, and then it goes along the left-hand side. I saw it all, so trust me. We'll be talking about that later. Game of the year has 68%. It's Kelts. Congratulations, Kelts. Godzilla.
    31:32
    Second, Halloween. Oh, geez. Third, Mandalorian. Fourth, Jurassic Park The Pin. Fifth, Led Zeppelin. I made it up a little higher. Legends of Valhalla, sixth. Ultraman, seventh. And Kelts, last. And that's the Twippies.
    31:51
    That's the stupid to this. It's the People's Choice Awards. It is the People's Morons Awards, and I totally... You don't think the people should have a vote, Bruce? No, I do think they should have a vote, but I wish they would vote with common sense, instead of the sheep. And there's your problem. We're assuming that people have common sense. As a person, I can tell you we don't.
    32:16
    Okay. So, Twippies, there we go. I'll cross that off. Bruce, that was one subject in our list, so hopefully the other ones go faster. Rushed launch party. There was a launch party, Bruce, at the RPC, the Rochester Pinball Collective. Where is that again? It is in beautiful East Rochester, New York. 349 West Commercial Street Suite number 2965 Yes And we got to play Rush In other games In an interesting format We had two versions We got to play Rush and also Rush We got to play Rush Pro With the cool Zack Scoop mod And then we got to play an Ellie How goes the Scoop mods?
    33:03
    Ricketts I don't think you can comment on that. I'm not watching him. I'm asking Zach. The Scoop mod that I did has been holding up just great, as far as I can tell.
    33:15
    Which was foam. Foam in the Scoop, so the Scoops are no longer an issue because you can't hit it in the Scoop. Just block them off. That's fine. So wait a minute. So Far Cry multiball just doesn't happen now? Nope. Okay. So we get some compensation to code for a Scoop that doesn't work? Yeah. crickets.
    33:38
    Framings dropped off the cult. What happened? That means you can't beat Tom Sawyer either. Nope. Or... Scoop compensation.
    33:50
    Sorry, Ray. No, but... So, it was nice. We had a good time. We had a good showing of 33 players. some guy who's a third host on this podcast actually won again. Again. And some gal who's also on this took second. Yep, took second. She keeps getting closer and closer. I wanted to take him out. Maybe someday we'll do a tournament outside of Rochester too. Maybe.
    34:22
    Foreshadowing. What tournament would that be? We'll get to that. Anything else about that? That was good to have him had by all. the baseball was okay. Oh, you did? Yeah, baseball format. I thought that was fine. Oh, it's fine until you have to deal with ISPA. It was fine for everyone but Bruce. Yeah, what was the result on that?
    34:45
    So they wanted to consider it pin golf, which I disagree with. Why do you disagree with it being pin golf if it's basically multi-tier pin golf? Thank you. Because you're playing usually two or three balls. You're not just doing one and done or two and done. Yeah, like, the scoring doesn't work at all the same way. And it's also, it's unlimited qualifying, which I don't think, I've never heard of a pin golf that does that. Yeah. Probably ours like that, but, uh, it's one of the weird things with Ipbo where they're like, oh, if you run an unlimited qualifying high score-based tournament, you score the TGP like this. If you pin golf, you do it like this. And I'm like, okay, but what if you do both of those things? Yeah. Were you able to wheel and deal Oh we got it We got 100 All right Because the long playoffs did help a lot We figured if you didn get the top score that you needed that you got four strikes, you know, four strokes, because you didn't get the golf score. So I am asking Zach for the information, and Zach's like, and then a day later he gives it to me. You know? That's why it's important to always keep your spreadsheets. Yes, we do. Zach is very good with that. Yes, spreadsheets.
    36:00
    Yeah, I'm pretty sure Zach has not met a spreadsheet that he hasn't kept. All right. So in Albany, I had a local tournament at the Excelsior Pub, three-strikes tournament, which probably should have been a two-strikes tournament. No. Because when we started, we had like, what do we have, 20 people show up? It was way more than the tournament director thought was going to show up. So, yeah, we started at 5, and I got out of there like 9.30. Which is way past Ron's birthday. That seems like a very quick tournament. No, that's not a quick tournament. Most of our tournaments are like two hours ago, like 5 to 7 to get out. So, yeah, no one wants to stay that long. When you said it was a long tournament, I thought it was like 6 to 1 a.m. No, no, no, no. No, for normal people, Raymond, this is long. For the people in my league, this is a long tournament. You got a whopping 6.1 points for that, Ron. Yeah, and I won. Woo! Yay! Got to play, what is it, Guardians of the Galaxy, Twilight Zone, ACDC, and Maiden.
    37:11
    Also, locally, in my area, I might have mentioned this in the last episode, We have a location called The Local. So what's the name of the location? You said it was local. What is it? It's The Local. Yeah, it's local to you, but where is the location? What's it called? I don't know. Third base. There we go. But what's the local? You knew where I was going with it. That's good. Yeah.
    37:34
    And originally they had six games, which was a... And they went on steroids. Legends of Valhalla, Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man, Rush, Turtles. Turtles, that was it, yeah. Turtles, and what's the sixth one? There's another one. Shit. I said Legends of Ahmaud. Go ahead. They have six games. Star Wars? No. They have that now, though. They have a Star Wars Premium and, like, ten other games that they brought in two weeks ago. Whoa. They doubled or tripled their pinball. Yeah. They had to move everything to a different location. But here's the kicker. All the new games they brought in, they put the card readers on them. The card swipers. None of the card swipers work on any of the new games they brought in. So they've been unplayable for two weeks.
    38:20
    They literally say, cannot connect to Wi-Fi on all of them. They're all red. Why would someone not bother to hook them up? I don't know. I went there Thursday. I was like, okay, I'm going to play some of these. And, like, literally the six games that were there originally were the only ones I could play. It's like Ron's dream. Like, if somebody's dangling a pinball machine, you almost got it. You almost got that dollar. That is so typical. I can't explain it. I don't know. I can't believe it would be that hard to get them on the Wi-Fi or what's involved. And it doesn't have an alternative method of paying? No, because it has a swipe card. That's it. They're all mounted on the front of them. Yep. So, yeah. So sad thing.
    39:02
    Ron's like, we'll get even, though. Look, I'm going to go play a game. I did. I played a lot of Rush. I have all the high scores on Rush and almost all the song high scores on Rush. Nice.
    39:15
    Raymond. Bruce. Speaking of Rush, I was giving you a lot of crap on the stream for the RPC thing. Oh, is this going to be an apology? No, no, no. I'm going to take a little bit of the back. A little bit. Just a little. A little bit. Hey, that's a lot in Bruce. It is a lot. You know, how many times do you actually hear me say and retract some things? Very rarely. I like it a little better now with the newer code. You got the 0.91 in there? Yes, we do, sir. Nice. Yeah, I think, I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier to light up the time machine as you're hitting it on the premium. I guess because the Pro doesn't have those lights. Yeah, those lights, yeah. Yeah. But, no, it's a little better. It's getting there.
    39:58
    Thumbs up. All right. Well, we've still got 0.8 or 0.9 more to go, at least. You'll go past that. You'll go to 1.4. You'll be working out everything and making it super duper. Is this a good segue to say to go to 2.0? Oh, very good.
    40:16
    Steph, do you like it yet? Like what, Rush? Rush. I get mad at it sometimes, but I like it. Sometimes? Sometimes I get very mad at it. Metallica. Well, yeah, Metallica I get mad at, too, but eventually I love it. Rush is going to be very much the same for me, I think. I just want to see how many Rush lovers we have on the call. Which has a better layout? That's the real question. But between what? Metallica and Rush. It's the same freaking thing.
    40:47
    What? No, it's not. It's not the same thing. What is the problem? One has two slippers, one has three. I'm trying to imitate a trippy voter right now. Yes, what the hell? I'm doing a great job at it. It's both the same. No, it's not. It's not the same. No, the LE is way better. What does that have to do? We were talking between Metallica and Rush, and then you make it an LE. The LE is way better on Rush. Okay.
    41:16
    Okay, so Rush LE versus Metallica. Any of them. Rush Pro versus Metallica LE. Why are we even, like, deciding or discussing it? I lost the plot completely, as usual.
    41:31
    All right. 2.0, yes. There's a bunch of 2.0 games coming out or out currently. This seems to be the new thing. We're going to take a classic Williams game. Or Atari. Oh, God, no one cares about that one. Or give it a new rule set. There's no appreciation for the real first classic Williams 2.0 game. Hot tip.
    41:53
    Oh, was that the one you did? Yeah. Okay. I've played that hot tip. It's got ball saves. It's got the captive ball. actually meaning something. It's got a different progression of the drop targets. It's got combos. It only locks up occasionally.
    42:11
    Very occasionally. At least it's consistent with occasionally. Very occasionally? Yes, that was a first for me. How very occasionally is very occasionally? All I know is when it locked up on me, Zach's there like, yeah, it does that. Like, well, fix it. It shouldn't do that. It did to me once or twice. I'm like, okay, finally. So we got a Whirlwind 2.0, kind of. It's the one the guy was making on his own, and then he got served a cease and desist letter from Planetary Pinball. How dare you make this game that's called Whirlwind yourself? Mm-hmm. So he changed it. Now it's called something else. What's it called now?
    42:53
    Spinwind. I have no idea. Yeah, I don't remember what it's called. But, yeah, what was the Whirlwind one? It had, like, an LCD display. Yeah, they put a color DMD in it and do boards, you know, drive it and stuff. New code. Hopefully it'll be on a show so he can play it. That would be awesome. Or a launcher for Ball Save. He was selling the kits to lots of people. Oh, he was selling the kits? I don't know if he was, like, selling them, selling them, or, like, you know, at cost. This is how you do it. But, like, there were multiple people that were doing it, the upgrade. That might be why the thesis is this letter. The thesis is this letter, yeah. Yeah. Can't call it. I know you want to do it again. Then we got Funhaus 2.0, which I think we talked about. Rudy's Nightmare. Yeah, talk about a nightmare. It's being made by Pedretti, Bruce's favorite Italian company. That's making millions. Hey, what's going on? We make everything good. Yes, and they're going to be making other 2.0s, Pedretti. Yeah, we got the licensing. Do they do anything else currently? I thought they made jukeboxes originally, so I assume they still make those. But nothing pinball. I don't know. I still don't think so, no. Well, you had fun. Didn't Pinball Brothers send you some parts, Zach, recently? Oh, they tried to. Yeah, but they ended up in another area of the country. Yeah, in a county with the same name in California.
    44:16
    I didn't know you moved, Zach. When did I move? So you got a call. Then DHL called me on my phone to ask about my address. And I was like, and you answered? Well, they left a message. I'm just amazed the shipping company called someone. Yeah, they did sometimes. It's so weird. And they're like, hey, this is blah, blah, blah. We have DHL. Like, we're trying to find your place, you know, in blah, blah, blah. Please give us a call back at this number. Then I call them back. I'm just like, hi, is this DHL? Yep.
    44:48
    So weird. I can't, like, just try to picture, like, UPS, like, calling you, like, hey, do not answer your door. We need to deliver this package, and you need to sign for it. Was there another house with the same, like, street name? Or they couldn't find the street name? Maybe that's why it doesn't exist there at all. Right. Okay.
    45:05
    Then we also had the Mirko, the playfield manufacturer. Mirko Totan, Tales of the Arabian Nights. And where did he show that off at? He had a very interesting seminar at TPM.
    45:19
    Why would you say interesting? because people did question him about his play fields and why they have issues. Finally. And he must have went in-depth detail about it all. No, he didn't answer any of the questions. Was it as bad as Mueller pleading the fifth?
    45:35
    I don't know. It wasn't that bad. But, I mean, again, if you have a Jersey Jack game, you don't complain to him. You've got to complain to Jersey Jack. But if you got, like, say, our Quicksilver play fields we got from him, if we had an issue, then, yeah, that would be his fault. How'd those come in, anyway? They're down in my basement. Have you looked at them? Yeah. Do they look good, Bruce? Yeah, they look pretty good. Now you've taken off all of Mirko's clear coat and added your own clear coat. Yes, yes, that was the key. So hopefully when I'm waiting for Bruce to do a plate field swap so he can tell me if all the stuff's in the right spot before I do mine. I've got to find where the boxes are, though. I've got to find where the boxes are. Wait, is Ron's Quicksilver going to shoot even faster and have the spins, like, even more quick? Yep. Yes. Potentially. Oh. I will attest that I had a game clear-coded. I feel like games that were clear-coded by the clear-coder that we used have played slower than they should. What? They used, like, slow code or something. Slow code? Yeah. Sticky code. We're doing bad sentences, but to be fair, one of the games was in a flood.
    46:45
    Wait, before or after the coat? So, does the game play floaty? I swear to God. Come on. Judging by the mud in the back box, it definitely sunk.
    46:57
    What? All right, the next subject. You can mute now, Raymond. Now, the Mantis and Cliffy Rush Scoop Protectors, I believe, are now available. Well, at least for Mantis, the front one is available, not the side one. For Cliffy, they don't seem to actually be good yet. Yeah. Oh, so they're not holding up? Well, as of 316, front scoop not holding up as I would like. Better than factory, but still needs improvements. Yep. Okay.
    47:28
    And Mantis, they basically redesigned the whole plate that goes underneath the scoop and made a part of it. There's a giant metal plate all over the area, so you can't just add a little Mantis loop and then screw it into the wood because there's no wood. Mm-hmm. so there's that so just keep waiting folks or of course Stern has their own solution which is the Blue Nubs of Death which I did play all the games at TPF which we'll be getting into soon they all had the Blue Nubs of Death fix and how was it played fine I mean I swear to God though when you hit some of the like when I was hitting the dead end shot sometimes it would just nicked that, yeah, clipped the blue nub of death. Yeah, I did see that. That shot was pretty wide to begin with, so at least it, you know. I liked the width of that, though. I did like the width of it a little bit. It was actually nice when you can go all the way around the left orbit and go right for the shot, you know, with the right flipper. Oh, that is such a sweet shot. It is a sweet shot. I don't want to take away from that shot. I sort of wish that he hadn't done that, though, because then the scoop could be narrow and it wouldn't just fall in so often. Because it falls in a lot. It does. Yeah, look forward for the Stern kits that should be coming out soon. Very, very soon. If you need a tester, we know somebody.
    48:50
    I do find it interesting, though, that even, because originally people were like, oh, yeah, Stern cheaped out and used the wrong thickness of metal or something, but then, like, no, Clippy's also having issues. Yeah, exactly. I just wish the blue nubs were, like, brown or something that fit the color scheme more. Yeah. Well, there's also the new guy making 3D-printed rubber protectors. Ninja? Yeah, Ninja. Yeah, they're like the material they use for, like, a smartphone protector. Yep, yep. Super abrasion-resistant, stretchy. And you can get different colors, though. Should have just made it out of whatever they make Nokia phones out of. They never die.
    49:31
    Until the service dies in here. But it's good news for you, Ron, who might be getting a rush that you're getting a later run because you'll have it all nice and pre-built for you. You'll get it before Zach.
    49:47
    I'll get the protector before Zach. Wow, you are mean. Why aren't you laughing, Zach? I'm just looking at the inevitability on my calendar and just like, I told you, what we need is free toppers for the people who have waited to not play their game.
    50:08
    Yeah, let them just rush those out when they can. Yeah, rush those rush them out. Oh, rush them out. Oh, gosh.
    50:15
    Yes, as Raymond alluded to, yes, I put an order in for a rush. Oh, wow. Congratulations. Of course. Of course, it'll probably be until next year. Wait, at least you're keeping ahead of the Joneses, because now you'll get your Rush, what, 2023, you're thinking? And then you'll get your Godzilla this year, so you're good. It's one of yours still. You just have to plan, like, a few years in advance. Exactly. You just keep on planning. I hope I get my Godzilla soon. I know they just did a run of them, but I haven't gotten any emails or anything, so I must not be in that list. Do you have any pros besides Star Wars?
    50:56
    No. I do not. Well, out of my earlier sterns, they didn't exist yet, pros. Yeah. Like when I had my T3, there was no pro. You just got a T3. And my Iron Man, it was just Iron Man. Spider-Man was just Spider-Man. Actually, that's not true. I got an LB for that. Yeah. But the play feels exactly the same. It was literally just bling, and it wasn't like $2,000 more. It wasn't at all. It was nice. No.
    51:23
    What do I got here? Oh, Fathom 2.0 gameplay. We got a video from Haggis. They showed Marty. Yes, Marty and another guy. Poor other guy. He doesn't have a name. Good job. No problem. I'm good at this. I guess I feel, too.
    51:44
    Yeah, they released a YouTube video with actual gameplay. Who has seen the video? Me. What do you think? I like it. I was worried at first because it was doing this blue strobing effect, and I was there like, okay, it's supposed to look like water. But it was doing it with the ball in the shooter lane. I'm like, I hope when he shoots the ball it actually goes to a regular – and it did. Like, oh, okay, thank God. I think they used the Marty's voice in it. Hmm? I think they used the Marty's voice being in it a little bit. Yeah, he's going to have to de-accent him. Yeah. His little D accent, I love him. He's in the game? I don't remember hearing that. Maybe I wasn't paying attention enough. But I do like the shots. I do like, you know, everything about, you know, Fathom. Well, the shots are exactly the same. No, but they're actually, well, no, what they're actually doing is they're taking away the drop targets, meaning nothing in the beginning, and then later on in stages they actually mean something. So they are. That's how normal Fathom works.
    52:48
    You can still hit the drop targets. They burn down. Yes. And you get in the block, and then after a kickoff, it pops up. Yes. But no, he's saying that they're actually not going to be used to, like, stage two or three and four. Which Zach is arguing is already how it used to sort of work. Yeah, not really. I don't know. They're not at the start, which is what you said. What did you guys think about having to do everything in one ball? That was interesting. Kind of gave me Iron Man vibes. I like that. Yeah, I like that, too. I like that. Of course, if everyone likes it, Zach won't. Zach hears the chorus and goes, wait, it is my time. I find the shine.
    53:33
    The more stuff that you lose when you lose your ball, it's good as far as getting your blood pumping during the ball, but then it feels so much worse when you drain the ball. And I'm like, I don't want to feel bad when I'm playing pinball. I feel like a good game mixes both, where you have permanent progression and temporary progression. Yes, I agree. I shouldn't be looking at everything I just did and shouldn't be looking at the majority of things I just lost from my progression. You've got to lose some to keep it interesting.
    54:02
    How about if you started, like if you got two, like say you got two out of four things and it went back to one instead of zero, would you feel happy with that? Yeah. That would make Iron Man interesting because then it would matter what order you do things in somewhat too. Exactly, yes. I like the, I wish Iron Man worked the way we all thought it did, which is if you get a super or do the thing that makes it flashing, that it will actually hold your next ball. But it doesn't actually work like that. That's a good point, too. Like, if there's a way to hold each thing over separately, like, yeah, that's your fault that you lost it in some ways. I think, does Avatar work that way? It's been a long time since I've played Avatar. Well, the one person we know who is truly getting one of the first ones, he has told Damien that he wants his game air-shipped. So we might be seeing one soon. In Rochester? Yes. Wow. Yeah. He wants it now. Because guess what? He's one of the guys that bought the five.
    55:07
    Oh, the package deal. Yes. You're in on a fathom, right? I am. Yes, I am. So one will eventually probably show up at RPC. Well, his will show up at RPC. He's already said this. Oh, all right. Even better. Yep. And so Kelts, since nobody, you know, it seems like everyone can't believe that, you know, this company actually made stuff, and we know somebody that actually has a Kelts in their house, and now it actually should be at the RPC about now. Yeah, I saw the RPC just posted a thing that said that there was a Haggis game on the floor, which means that a Celt has made it to RPC, to a public location. Go play it now, people. Yeah. But, no, they're not making any Celts. That's what everyone keeps on their... It's funny. We were... When we were working at RPC yesterday and, like, some, like, pinball, you know, who's in... Knows stuff about pinball and everything came in, and then, like, we're like, oh, yeah, blah, blah, blah. We're getting a Celt next week, and he's, like, just staring at us like... What's a Celt? Like... Like, is Haggis pinball, or, like, what's Haggis? Are they in Scotland?
    56:15
    It has a mode in it called Bruce. I know. I... Well, speaking of Australian pinball companies, we have Ballarama. Yeah. I've never heard about them other than on Pinside. Maybe it's a ball gag.
    56:33
    What was that? It's a new mod. That will surprise you. Oh! It's going to win top of the year at Twippy. It will win! Yes! It slowly gets closer to it. It will. You know what Ball-O-Rama reminds me of is the Pinball Adventures. I was just thinking of Balls-A-Pop, and I don't know how this went, the way it went. Oh, no, you went that way. Is that the first game with multiball that wasn't a bingo machine? I think so, yes. There was probably ones before that, but, I mean, it definitely had to be the first one with, like, six, seven-ball multiball.
    57:08
    Zach, why don't you have one yet? You can't buy Ryan. You can't buy one. Try harder. I want to play it. Was that first one beat the clock first?
    57:20
    I don't know. You have to look at that BDB. This ball's top was 56. So who wants to bet what year beat the clock was?
    57:28
    57. Yeah, I'm going to go with 57 too. 56. Ray? Raymond? What? Are you going to gamble? What was the... What year was the beat the clock?
    57:40
    I don't know. 55. Yes. 55. Okay, there we go. 63. 53. Okay. 63. Yeah, Raymond was busy doing Rush Code. He wasn't paying attention. Yeah, he was actually saying, screw this show. I'm already out. Tapping out. Bye.
    58:00
    He was going to the default. I was going to say, slam tilt, slam tilt, slam tilt on each line. Just hitting all the defaults. Yeah, that would be cool. Let's see. What else do I got here? All right.
    58:12
    Deep Root Auction picks. Oh, yes. Now we know somebody who bought some of this stuff. In the Deep Root Auction, which we talked about in the last episode, but there was more picks now. You can see more of the Whitewoods, more of the games that didn't get made, including the Whitewater sequel.
    58:29
    Yeah, that game looks cool. That play field. Actually, that looked better than the Whitewater one last week. Yes. I liked it. I'm a little nervous about that whole stair escalator thing. That would have been cool, though. I think that would have been neat. I still don't understand what that was even at all. I'm guessing it's a scoop at the bottom, or, like, you shoot it in, and then it sends your ball up to the top. Or maybe it stages. Like, there's always five balls on it, so you only have to wait one little ch. But then if you get multi-ball, maybe all of them release. I don't know.
    59:00
    So, Bruce, did you say someone bought one? I know somebody who bought some of the stuff. Really? Yep. Some of the cooler stuff, like the actual Whitewoods? Well, she got, here's the person who bought it. Well, I could say, because she posted on Facebook. She didn't get one of her playfields that she was in. Oh, I read about that in the Deep Root thread. Yes. Jessica. Jessica DiNardo? Yes, DiNardo. Of the Pinball Podcast, right? Yes, yes. She bought some of the playfields. Someone mentioned that the foam core version of the same playfield also went missing, by the way. I'm looking at the comments now, which, sus. Good job, Auction House. I want my money back. Yeah, so she was asking if somebody else grabbed it, you know, can you please contact her because it was supposed to be hers. Hey, where's my playfield, Brian? Where is it? I want my playfield, Brian. I want my phone call, bitch. Wow. We're so mean, Stewie. But, yeah, so people bought this stuff. How much did some of the games go for, I heard? They were, like, up to, like, $12,000, $14,000. with no computer in it or no nothing. For the Razzas? Yes.
    60:13
    Like three days left, it was up to $14,000. Hmm. With no computer, no nothing. It was just a, truly a box of lights. Not even a box of lights. Magic Girl. Worse, because at least Magic Girl will boot. It'll boot, it's just you can't play it. Well, there's those guys making the Magic Girl 2.0 kit. Hey, because that's all that's on. There was a European dude who, like, redid the game so you can actually play it. That's pretty good. So 1.0 kit. Talk about, like, a built-in, you know, market for whatever you're working on. And probably no one to cease and desist you. No. Yeah, it's like a homebrew starter kit. It's only $14,000.
    60:59
    Good luck. Did you spend $14,000 on your homebrew starting? I already have a homebrew starter kit. But did you spend $14,000 making it? I hope not. No. Are we factoring in all the parts that you've been casually courted over the years? Your 3D printers?
    61:19
    I'm going to, on the next one, I've started a spreadsheet where I'm going to keep track of what I paid for every single part I put into it, hopefully. Ooh. Also track what it would have been market value if I got it, like, used or, like, special or something. How are you going to track cost of 3D prices? I mean, 3D printed things.
    61:37
    By the pound? Fair enough. So basically you're going to track how much you spent and how much you saved compared to buying everything new. Yeah, that's the goal at least. I don't know how that's going to go when there's a whole pinball machine involved. because a lot of people did ask me about poker, like, oh, you know, like, how long did it take? Like, man, what was the bomb on this thing? It's got so many drop targets. Yeah, and how much do you think you spent on this? And I'd be like, between $500 and $5,000?
    62:07
    Very specific. So I think I have a better number for that. I'd be like, I did all the calls for it, so I wanted a cost.
    62:16
    Yeah, I'll be happy to send you the blueprints, and you can just start making yours. Start making mine, yes. All right, next subject I got here. It's a biggie.
    62:25
    The Texas Pinball Festival. Something we were all at except Bruce. Sorry, Bruce. I had to work. You had to work. I had to work. Bruce was saving his day off for next weekend. You got it, baby. So let's see. TPF, what do we want to talk about here? Yeah, I'll mute after that. I got a bunch of money. See you.
    62:49
    Weird Al. So what do we think of Weird Al? I got to play Weird Al. I know you guys got to play Weird Al. I didn't. What the hell was that? Yeah, he played Heist instead. Oh, that's right. What did you think of him? And I played Constant Cart Racing. That's right, you did play Constant Cart Racing. I played, like, all the other games in the row that were, like, working, except Weird Al. Because you don't like lines, or what was the reason? I don't like lines, and I'm not that interested in the game, to be honest. But you're a Weird Al fan. I'm confused. It doesn't, it's like almost all original songs, so I don't like most of those. Okay. I mean, even as me being a Weird Al fan, I will say, like, because he has so many songs that I like, it's way easier to point out songs that aren't on there than be, like, happy for the songs that did make it. That's just, like, the nature of... Like, I'm not even thinking about, like, what songs, like, I wanted to see or anything. Like, I didn't really think that far. But, like, when I watched, like, the reveal video, I'm like, and almost every moment that started, I'm like, I have no idea what this song is. It is cool. They got Amish Paradise and White and Nerdy, and those are the two easiest modes to activate, too. You just have to do the left ramp once. So that was smart on them. I think that belies a bit of the issue, though, at the same time. Well, what do you want in there? All the Michael Jackson ones he doesn't do anymore? I mean, what do you want? Word Crimes is in there. This is also another cover.
    64:13
    Two thousand is key. Can we use Weird Al? Yeah, actually, 2000-inch TV I would have loved. I would have loved seeing that, yeah. But also, to me, I would have loved just any of his, like, goofy, twisted love songs. Like, none of them were in there. What's the one where he's the stalker?
    64:33
    Any of the stalker ones, yeah. Yeah, exactly. I love them. Wait, there are multiple stalker ones? Yes, there is. Kind of, yeah. I don't know. Is the Jackson Park Express one of them? I guess you could count those ones. I can do that one, yes. Okay, for those of us who played the game, what did we think?
    64:52
    I didn't do very good on it, so I only got like a couple flips and started a mode. But Steph killed it. She got the hardware store multiball and Harvey going a couple times. So what did you think, Steph? I'm really glad that the way that the game is designed means that you don't need to use the upper flippers to not die, and it just comes down off the orbit of the lower flippers. because the upper... The ones that you have to reach really far to get. Yeah, that was so mean. Like, everyone had been warning me about it. You know, I've heard the reviews of, like, yeah, it's so weird with the extra button. I'm like, oh, come on, you'll get used to it. It is hard to get used to. It's like Starship Troopers level weird, except on both sides. No, Starship Troopers, that button's right next to the other button. These are not right next to each other. I played Heist, which also has... It was the first one, the upper flipper from them, and, like, I literally played the entire game on it, got through more than half the modes. I forgot the flipper was there. I never used it. Well, yeah, you can't see it either. Yeah, like, I was very well hidden. There weren't really that many shots for it. Like, I never, like, felt like I was, like, missing out because I don't think that's ever even lit. So, like, I didn't know to shoot for them. Yeah, I think Heist just has the one Elvis Inner Orbit shot, right? Elvis Inner Orbit. I played Weird Al and Heist. and as someone who's played their games at previous shows, like before their flipper upgrade, I can say I noticed the flipper upgrade. When I played some of their previous shows, before they had their new improved flippers, especially near the end of the flipper, I would shoot stuff and it just would not go where I thought it was supposed to go. I was having that issue on Weird Al trying to hit the rightmost ramp because it's so far on the right side. Yeah, I'll tell you though, their old flippers, the new flippers felt way better. It just felt like at least the ball seemed to go where I thought it should go. Yeah, you could adjust to them. You could dial it in eventually. Yeah, they were about as good flippers as dialed in.
    66:56
    Ron is conflicted. He doesn't know whether that is what to say about that. That is the most backhanded compliment sort of statement I've ever heard. If you can jack up the flipper power and make them really good, then yes.
    67:07
    Going back to the multiple flipper buttons, that was a big deal for me. Because for me, I have Donald Trump hands, you know, really small. And I have my palm is like right in the corner of the game. And my finger just reaches the regular flipper buttons. So for me to hit the second button, which is a good inch and a half away, not down either. It's not like Munsters where it's like below. And it's not even where I would say the magnus a position is. It's a little further than that. I have to take my whole hand off the actual lockdown bar and reach back to hit the button.
    67:43
    That is not acceptable. Now, I've heard multiple stories. I've heard, number one, there's a setting where you can make it so just the one flipper button does both flippers. And then I've heard that that's not true. So I don't know what to believe on that one. Yeah, I've heard both sides as well. Please, please.
    68:00
    But I will tell you, I saw a really cool feature that I thought I'd share. The ball ended up behind the drop target. I weirded out. And it was just sitting there. And it would not ball search for whatever reason. It just sat there. As the mode timed out, of course. So they came over. And they opened the coin door, take the glass down. The guy hits the left flipper button and releases the button. And the flipper stays up. And he puts the ball on the left flipper.
    68:27
    And then he puts the glass back on, lock down bar. And he's, wow. So you don't have to do the awkward shuffle. He closes the coin door, and it's like, as soon as you push the flipper button in again, you'll have control of it, and it'll be back to normal. That's pretty damn cool.
    68:43
    Wow. That is really neat. Get on that, CERN. Make that happen. That is pretty cool. That is a cool... That would probably be more for the systems crew at CERN, because that would be, I would think, across all games, kind of system code. Then we need to release an update to the firmware for every single game. For every single game, yeah. Of course, no problem. System stuff in.
    69:06
    I believe it says, like, updatable separately or something. Weirdo was, I definitely felt a dialed-in vibe just because you start a mode, and the mode is the song, and it's got specific shots. And that way I felt very dialed-in-y. That's like every game ever, Ron. Well, yeah, but I like the way dialed-in does it, and it felt similar to this game. I like the MyPolona. My ball. Making the sandwich? Yeah, using the upper play field to make the sandwich was fun. The graphics and everything were, like, I feel like my first impression coming off of it was I would rather watch someone play the game well because, like, great that I had a decent game. I didn't remember half of what was there because even with the animations on the lower screen, I'm concentrating on keeping the ball alive. I don't get to sit back, breathe, and enjoy the ambiance of Al. Do you think you'd get more of the ambiance if it wasn't at a really loud show floor, though?
    70:13
    Maybe. You'd probably get to hear the munching and the weird sound effects as the sandwich is being devoured. Oh, yeah, I need to hear the munching when I play pinball.
    70:23
    A misophonia person's nightmare. So the only other thing I noticed, when I was starting a mode, Al pops up and he starts, you know, telling you, he starts talking. Sometimes he would, like, his mouth would stop moving, but he would keep talking. That kind of confused me. It had a turtle's vibe there. It was confusing. I don't know if it's supposed to do that or not.
    70:47
    Let's see. Also, Heist. I liked Heist. I thought the crane was, like, super cool. I was amazed how far down the crane went I so sad that I didn play heist that was an oversight it not pretty good too Yeah I agree And half of the heist people are women or female characters which is always a cool thing to notice on a game. It had some of the worst callouts I've ever heard. And it was cranked up so loud that, like, you didn't need to have, like, the off-floor experience to get the vibe because it was just super loud. Yeah, I heard the... It was, like, cringing every time I, like, said one of its awful callouts. So I was just like, stop calling people, please. Yeah, the slingshot sounds really got to me. The, like, glass break, like, literal glass shattering every time I hit a slingshot.
    71:36
    A lot. We need to make a new, I'll do that at a frenzy mode to poker, where it's just, like, chalkboard, fingernails screeching, everything.
    71:44
    No. That'd be great. No. But, yeah, the heights, I love the look of that, like, left, the ramps look nice and wide and combo-y. They were almost too wide, to be honest. Yeah. If I just think of one of our new flippers that you can actually hit the shots from and buggles, so we expect they were really easy to hit. That's right. Beyond medieval madness, even levels of easy. All right, so other than those two games, did you guys do anything in the regular show area? I played a Tron with a Powerball that was the easiest gem shot of all time. It was super sweet. Yeah, it was Tron, oops, all Powerballs. Did Fliptronic bring that? Yeah. Yeah, that was brought by Jordan and Becca from Fliptronic.
    72:30
    But that was it. That was right next to Jurassic Park, the pin, which I... Yeah, and I didn't even play a whole game of that. I played, like, a total of, like, ten flips. Yeah, I played, like, two balls while you guys were waiting for me to go get food. I accidentally, the loser kids, and they were playing, and they were like, Hey, we accidentally a fourth player. And that's the story of how I played two balls on Jurassic Park for Home Pin. Was that the first time playing it? Yep. What'd you think of it? I liked it. It feels really good to shoot. Yeah, it's got some nice lane guides that really help, like, every flip turn into a shot. I think it's always underappreciated in game design.
    73:11
    I also, I think I mentioned I played Ultraman, which, again, it was flowier than I thought it would be. Maybe it's not that it's flowy, but flowier than I thought it would be. Like, the orbits, while it did take a while, like, it had that pit creature, where'd the ball go, where'd the ball go feeling, which I guess is what you want during pit creature and house scooper. Despite that, it was like, oh, the ball is actually coming really fast down that orbit. Okay, cool. and like if I just focus on that lower play field and didn't think about hitting the three scoops on the left, which I did, and didn't think about the upper play fields, which happened occasionally, it was actually pretty fun. Considering all the people that were giving incredibly negative reviews, it was not as bad as people were making it out to be.
    74:04
    At least that's how I felt from my one game. I played a killer game of Tri-Zone. Why? I like Tri-Zone.
    74:15
    Well, here's your sign again. I got to play Fun Park. It was kind of fun. I would like to play it again. Thank you. Oh, yeah, I played Sweethearts next to it, and that game sucks. I played Title Fight. Oh, Title Fight? I played some flipper-less games, I think. Title Fight didn't work, though. It worked fine when I played it. So you were actually able to defeat boxers because I would hit all the drop targets down, and it wouldn't reset, and it wouldn't give me that I beat anyone. Oh, it was supposed to reset? Yes. You see the pictures of the fighters and stuff? You're supposed to be able to beat fighters and advance. That's the point. Yeah, I would get all the targets down, and it would just sit there. And it's very, like, what's it? Is it timeline? Timeline-y? It's even in the upper left. It's like the same thing, and it has a similar, like, countdown, and you're supposed to get all the targets down. I would get the targets down, and then just nothing would happen. Like, oh, that sucked. Oh, well. All right, so we'll have to put off our opinions of that then until we find a working one. It was hard to get on games at TPF. They had so many games. They had so many people. Yep, that's how it is. That's a good thing. That means the show was successful. I played Party Animals, and there was, there's like this kicker in the top left corner with an anthropomorphized cat and like a hippo or something.
    75:40
    And it turns out that that is the cat call kicker, and the ball kept getting stuck in there, so I had to hear it two or three times every time I got up there. Was that the one that Ray was hitting all day, that tournament? No, I think that was the right scoop I was hitting. But it's like, how you doing? Get up, creep! And having to do that 20 times in a ball, I almost walked away. I did not need that in my pinball experience.
    76:08
    Forever. How you doing? It was the inspiration for the kiss shot on Creature. Oh, God. I hate that. You've never seen me play Creature and curse that guy out as he's flirting with her and trying to curse her into a kiss, have you? It's really handy on Creature.io to get a skill shot and skip that entire sequence. Yeah, skip that. That is a great feature. Yeah. You can skip the entire other feature. It's great. Okay. Anyone attend any seminars?
    76:38
    There were seminars? I looked at lists. It wasn't a single one that looked interesting to me. Okay. I have a few seminar notes. There was a JJP seminar, Jersey Jack, and they didn't mention, you know, they didn't say anything about Toy Story. Jack was there with Steve Ritchie.
    76:58
    Most of it was, you know, Ritchie bashed Stern a lot. Jack said they were looking to have a new game every nine months.
    77:06
    And, yeah, Steve Ritchie said they just cut his first white wood. That was about it. That's all I really got from that. A new game every nine months? Yeah, a new game every nine months. He was bashing Stern? Yeah, he was bashing Stern. Well, wait a minute. Zach, you were standing next to him. Steve Ritchie was announcing. He announced during the tournament. That was really weird. I looked over and just Steve Ritchie was in the booth. I was like, what? Yeah, but you heard him say something. Yeah, I heard him say, not verbatim, no stairway, no Steve. No stairway, no Steve. No comment. Very good.
    77:43
    So now we know part of why he left there, I gather, was that he was annoyed that they were causing him his mechs. when he gave him a cool toy.
    77:52
    That's what I assume that means. Oh, that's right, because there was a Stairway to Heaven mech, not because of the song Stairway to Heaven. Stay muted, Ray. Stay muted. We'll move on. Let's see. We got Chicago Gaming Seminar. They had a big update on Cactus Canyon.
    78:11
    The Lyman code, or should I say the Lyman Josh Sharp code, will require additional hardware, which doesn't surprise me. It sounded like it was something like, if anyone here remembers when Medieval Madness originally had the upgrade for the video, the enhanced video, where there was a hardware component so you couldn't just copy it and, like, put it on any game.
    78:34
    It sounded like it was going to be something similar. It's going to be a hardware component so you can't just copy the software and put it on any Cactus Canyon. But it's not like any new actual thing on the play field. It's just like... Was there any more info on a timeline or price? That I do not know. I didn't see that part. Let's see. American Pinball. What do I know? It's here. Christopher Franchi's doing the art on their next game. And they're going to have a Barry Ousler's last design. They're going to release that with Steve Bowden on the game rules.
    79:08
    Woo, Steve. Hey, Steve. Let's check that off. I'm saving the tournament for last, so everyone can turn off.
    79:18
    So tournaments. Turn offments, according to you. Well, yeah. It depends on our listeners. Some are into it, some aren't. So we're getting into the tournament section. Warning, warning.
    79:30
    Well, it should be easy. They had the Classics Tournament and the Wizards Tournament. But they also had a kids tournament.
    79:39
    And then they had a women's tournament on Sunday. Yeah, the Texas takedown match play with Final Four going to a Papa Sala final. Yeah, that was really weird.
    79:51
    So the first one, we got the classics. And the way they did it is you have eight total entries you get to play. It's limited. And it's your four best games.
    80:03
    And you all killed it, and I sucked. You just need to work on your consistency, Ron. I had one good game, and that was on Andromeda. And that was pretty much it. That was the one game I could not do anything on. I played it like three times.
    80:17
    Andromeda was pretty mean. At one point in the tournament, Zach was first and Steph was second. And then we played. And then Raymond, yeah, he determined he was going to be first. Raymond, quote-unquote, not going to play the classics until like a machine gunner at the end. Yeah, that was kind of my strategy. I was putting off classics as long as possible because I was terrified of them. but then, you know, then like the lines were gone and I had played my main entry. So I was like, well, here we go. Dive into the pool. And then Xenon broke and they brought Sinbad in. You were like, oh, I definitely got to play this now. Yeah, dude, that was a huge morale booster. I was like, finally, a game I want to play because that was the thing. I didn't like any of those classic games, but that was just me except Sinbad. So how'd you all do in the finals? I can't speak to that because I didn't make it.
    81:07
    That well, huh? Yeah. Oh, Ron, you got 88th out of 213. Yes, 88th out of 200. That's above par.
    81:18
    So, Steph, was it a first-round exit? I mean, technically, yes. In Classics, my rank shows it as a second-round exit because I managed to get a buy.
    81:33
    That was a first-round for you exit. Yeah, first-round for me exit. Classics, I... Classics was at least close at the end. It was like Jermaine had eight points, so he was obviously through, and the rest of us had two. Looking at each other like, uh... There's only room for one of us.
    81:52
    Yeah, and let's see. I was the drunk driver. I think, what was the right of Moulin Rouge? Frontier. Oh, God damn it. Yeah, you couldn't, anyone want to explain how game choice was? Because it was a little different than your classic, you know, picking whatever you want every game. You pick a game, you're basically picking a bank. So you pick a game, and you're playing that game and the games to the right of it. Wrapping around if necessary. It felt a bit like, usually when I see tournaments do that format where, like, you pick a game and you get the other two, there seems to be more strategy of how they laid out the ordering of the games. Yeah, and there wasn't in this one. That's not true.
    82:37
    I talked to Colin, and there was strategy, but it got blown out of the water when the Toro, what's it called? Grand Tour. Grand Tour game went out, because the idea was to surround Andromeda with the two two-inch flipper games, so that if you wanted to play Andromeda, you had to play a two-inch flipper game. But when Grand Tour went out... I would prefer two Andromeda, personally.
    83:00
    What? Either of which I would have preferred to Andromeda personally. I did not do well with her. Yeah, which bank did you end up picking then? Well, I really, really wanted to play Moulin Rouge! Mm-hmm. But I really, really did not want to play Solar Ride, so I picked Andromeda.
    83:17
    Ooh. I don't know, I would have probably rolled the dice on Solar Ride over playing Andromeda. I figured that I could do something on Andromeda. As it turns out, I was very wrong. well good job and then Frontier happened yeah you had to go against Walt Wood though dude he was awesome yeah he made himself famous at InDisc with his Doctor Who looping bonanza yeah he really got in sync with Frontier if I recall yeah he was going yeah it just said QFU to me so aww but you So you were in it until the very end there. It looks like you took home 24.99 Whopper points. Which is about as much as I earn in a year or two. And I keep playing like this. It's not happening again. Are you kidding me? This is a fluke. This is from the woman who has been, like, what, RPC second the last how many tournaments? I know. Fluke, I'm telling you. The last year, just a fluke. Yeah, it's just a fluke. You suck. Okay, we'll move on. Let's see. How'd you do, Zach? I almost got out in the first round also, but luckily Moulin Rouge saved me. The EM out there to help me out, as always. So I just played Moulin Rouge every time I could, and I got through every round, and then Ray was high seed. He didn't pick Moulin Rouge. I couldn't play it, and I lost. Womp womp. Dang it, Zach. I mean, Ray. Yeah, dang it, Ray. Why couldn't you pick Moulin Rouge? I don't think there was an EM in my bank, yeah. Yeah, why? Yeah, you're right. If you've had an EM in your bank. That's true. They could have added or spliced in another EM so that no matter what bank you picked, you had a playing EM. That's what they should have done, yes. That's what they should have done. So it sounds like you won, Raymond.
    85:12
    Yeah, yeah. I spoiled it right there. No, Raymond won. I didn't spoil anything. I just said what games I picked. No, no, no. Zach spoiled it. Just because he didn't win? Well, no. I thought he said he won. If you chose an EM, then I could have at least gotten second. Oh, I missed that. Okay. Spoiler alert. To the surprise of no one, Raymond won classics. Mm-hmm. Congratulations. Thank you. And Zach finished third, which was pretty cool because I have a picture. It's like Zach is standing behind Raymond, and Raymond's got his RPC shirt on. Yeah, and Zach has nothing. And Zach, one of the owners of the RPC, is standing right there. yeah that was an epic uh it came down to me and sebastian on well it was only game two but it was essentially the deciding game on whether i won the tournament or not because i won the first game and we played ali and like i go up and put up a huge 600 000 ball one then sebastian goes up puts up a 700 000 ball one and i'm like oh okay i put up like another 400 000 500 000 and Sebastian puts up another $500,000. And then I go up and I put up like $300,000, and Sebastian only gets like $100,000, and I end up winning like $1.3 million to $1.1 million or something ridiculous. Which was probably the highest score on that game. Yeah, I think both of us, we each got a high score, yeah. All right, so we move on to the main tournament, the Texas Wizards, I think that's what they call it, something like that. Wizards Tournament. Yeah, Wizards Tournament. So on this one, they have three eras of games. They have, what do they call it? They had EM, Solid State, and Modern. And basically, Modern was anything with a DMD or later in it. Yep. Unless it's TNA or Beatles. And Solid State was, it was actually mostly late Solid State. You didn't really see the, like you'd see in classics, like the Ollie's of the world over in Maine. Yeah, it seems like they chose to, like, they had a certain amount of solid states, and they put all the older solid states and classics, all the newer ones, in main. Right, and I think that was probably done on purpose just so that, since you're already guaranteed to play an EM every round, like, throw people a bone who like playing more modern games, I guess. I don't know. And like Zach said, TNA and Beatles were considered solid state in this format. Yeah, that might have been overdoing it. Yeah. I mean, compared to putting Beatles in the classic tournament, I think it was a better choice. True. You had to play 12 games, but you had to have three in each era, minimum, and you got 25 chances. So you got 25 entries. I could see people messing that up and, like, not playing the right ratio of games or something. Someone did that. Oh, no. They accidentally played a set of games where they only had 11 games that counted and they ran out of entries.
    88:15
    But they still qualified? But they still qualified. Wow. Impressive. Yeah, I almost miscalculated at some point, too. Luckily, I realized my mistake. Does that mean you did qualify?
    88:30
    Yes, I did. We all qualified. I'll parse that. Actually, I think of who you're talking to that I realize that everyone counts, so.
    88:37
    Steph had, what, Fast Raw? Was that the game that got you in, that last one? Yeah, I think I, yeah, it was awesome, and I'm really glad that the person after me was watching, because I rolled it, didn't realize I rolled it exactly, or, well, actually, I realized I rolled it. I thought there was 100,000-point line on Fast Draw. There is not, my friends. Oh. That's something that I feel like tournaments should, like, put a sign up. They did. You know what I'm saying? Like, I was playing Buccaneer. I was like, I don't know, like, whether I'm going to be watching for this or, like, telling someone. They did after I noticed there was one. It might have been on Buccaneer. It wasn't on Buccaneer. It's like, oh, you have all the lights out and have 32,000. Hmm.
    89:18
    So, yeah, so Steph got in on a huge, I think it was the number one score on Fast Draw. I'm pretty sure it was. It was. It was like 134 or something like that. In our last game. I'm really glad that the person who was going after me was, like, there watching and was able to validate it. Because I was like, ah, just so you know, I rolled it. Yeah, let's see. I bet I could go to neverdreams.com slash tpf2022.
    89:45
    Yep, there it is. What a wild guess. I also bet I can say that Raymond was either in first or near first with lots of entries left and just kind of waited to see what he wanted to play. Meanwhile, I was below the cut line going into the last day. I had like six entries left.
    90:05
    And for whatever reason, they had, what was it called? Bounty Hunter. Gottlieb Bounty Hunter. And for whatever reason, I thought like this is the game I think I can blow up. I don't know why, but I see these scores. People are getting 200, 300K, but then I'm seeing the high score is like 2 million. It's like, so I'm missing something here. There's something here, and there's big gaps, so I can jump up a lot if I can have a big game in this.
    90:34
    I'd like to thank CJ from New York City. He's the guy that heckled Chris at the Twippies the last time. Yeah. I asked him, like, are you going to be at the Twippy's jokingly? He's like, oh, no, I'm banned from that. I'm like, okay. But he played Bounty Hunter right before me, and he's telling me, the key on this game, you've got to spell Bounty Hunter, and then you've got to go through the center lane because you get 500K, like one shot. Like, oh. Holy shit, what? Yeah, so I played the first game on it, and it lasted a minute. And immediately, like, re-queue. It's like, oh, guess you're on it again. There's no one in queue. Okay. So I played it a second time, and the first ball went on forever. I got the 500K. My third ball, I almost got 500K again. I actually had it lit. I got it up in the lanes. Oh, that would have been the number one score if we got that. It would have been. So I got, like, 2 million, and I went from, like, below the cut line to, whoop, now I'm, like, in the middle. But I know I'm still going to drop out probably because it was too early. You and Steph were basically right next to each other, you know, in that vicinity of, oh, goodness, I've got to hold on. Yeah, I didn't know what made me want to throw up more, the fact that I was above the cut line or the fact that I was so close to bleeding out. Steph could be in the number one position, and she'll think she's going to bleed out. It's like insane.
    91:58
    It's possible. Yeah, yeah. With, like, five minutes left, she'll be like, no, it's not going to hold. It's not going to hold. It's a fair worry for someone who isn't used to this style of tournament. Like, when I was top seed early on at Pentactic, I was like, is that going to hold up? I don't know. Should I play another one? Like, it did sort of hold up. I didn't know that. I usually have a pretty good feel for that. It's just where I was and the amount of time left, it's like, ah, that's probably, I need one more. And I ended up with, oh, I have one entry left. And I was going to play Beatles.
    92:31
    And Zach talked me out of it. We had a conversation. He said, you know, you really think you can get – because I had like $3 million something on Beatles. He said, you really think you can get over $3 million again? Like, I think so. No.
    92:45
    And he looked like, you know, you should play Twilight Zone. So if you get like $100 million, which wasn't even one of the higher scores, if you get $100 million, that would probably be enough. What did you get, Ron? So with an hour left or whatever it was, okay, I'm playing Twilight Zone. First ball, I drain myself. I love that. Total flip or flop, drain myself. Second ball drains instantly. Like, oh, this is not good. Do, do, do, do, do, do. Yeah, so the third ball, yeah, I get Powerball, Mania. I get the multi-ball. I get a jackpot. I do some things. I drain out, and I have like a, well, I have the right orbit lit for Powerball, for the load the gumball again, and I shoot it a little too early, miss it to the left, and it insto-drains. I look up, and I got $110 million.
    93:33
    And Zach is standing right behind me. I turn around and say, I better get in now. I did what you said. I'll blame you if I don't get in. It'll be your fault. Wow. But, yeah, that's what I needed, and that got me in. So Zach didn't lie. No, he didn't lie, because I know Zach is always right, so I just did what he said.
    93:53
    Excellent. So we all made it. The final. What did you do, Zach? Where did you end up? Uh, well, I was qualified, like, 15th with half my entries used, and then I made the bad decision to try to qualify higher. So I, like, burned, like, five entries on Twilight Zone and some entries on Fast Draw and stuff, and got up to, I think, fifth place, which gave me a high. You played Twilight Zone six times. The outlanes were, like, super open, so, like, as soon as you messed up at all, you died instantly. But other than that, it was totally playable. You could literally plunge to a trap on your flipper every time. Yep. Every shot you needed to make to get the points you needed was all a safe speed and everything. I know that I can get like 200 million or whatever I need to make this worth it. It's obviously doable. I seem to not screw up like five shots. So I just ground it to a bench and I didn't screw up those five shots. And I think Raymond pretty much did the same thing. Got near the top with a ton of entries left. And eventually, what did you have? Like 1,000 points? was so far ahead. It was ridiculous.
    95:01
    Yeah, one person finished above 1,000, and he's on his call. Yeah, when you see Raymond play, I just feel like I'm playing a different, he's playing a different game than I am. It's just, it's different. He's Neo. It's a game with no outlings. Let me just have Machine Gun Classics and get in and B-Date. Like, what is my life? So, in the playoffs, in these kind of tournaments, I just like to get past the first round. and I feel that's like a victory with my talent level. It also loosens you up. Well, yeah, but I feel like if I get past the first round, number one, it's more money.
    95:37
    But, yeah, the first round, I think, what did I do? I think I won the first game. Maybe not. It was one of those deals where we're in a group where you had one player who was far ahead and the other three were bunched up. So I had a shot, and the last game was Twilight Zone, and a situation where I'm ball three, well, I ran out on ball two with the lock is lit and the right orbit is lit. So I'm thinking the whole time before my third ball, okay, do I go for the lock? Because if I hit the lock and I just hard plunge, it's a perfectly safe feed to the right flipper. I start multi-ball. Or do I go for the right orbit because it's like 15, 20 million, whatever it is, and the game is really close. were really bunched up in this game. So I made the faithful decision to go for the right orbit. And I missed it the exact same way I did in my qualifying score. Missed it a little to the left, a little to the left, and drain instantly. And I was so fucking pissed. So I think I made the wrong decision. You have chosen poorly. Yeah, you followed up two second places with getting lost in the zone. Yeah, lost in the zone. I would say always shoot that right orbit air on the late side because it's way less deadly if you miss it late. Oh, really? Oh, thanks. Thanks.
    97:08
    Well, the other funny thing is after all this is done, when the finals are going on, I think it was the finals were going on. you two, Raymond and Steph, were talking to each other. Raymond's like, did you get your money yet or whatever? And I'm overhearing this, and I'm like, money? What? Because I'm so used to my local tournaments where if you don't get top four, you don't get any money. Most of the stuff I play in. So the whole concept that you lose in the first round and actually still get money, it still doesn't compute with me. So I was like, oh. So I go up to the desk, and I'm there like, I've been told I may have money. And he's there like, oh, you must be Ron Hallett. So I figured, like, oh, I'm the only idiot who hasn't come up here to get his money yet. And then the guy's there. I recognize your voice. Like, oh, a podcast listener. All right. Hey. Which one? I think it's number three. I didn't actually ask.
    98:00
    So that's enough for me. What about you guys? They keep finding new people to do the commentary. When it was people who are known, like Jeff Teolas and that kind of stuff, but the guys who, it was their thing to do. Oh, my God, did they suck. Their thing to do. I have no idea what you just said. Well, it was sponsored by, I forget what they called their place even. It was sponsored by, like, I can't remember. It was that bad of a name. They were, like, the guys who were manning the booth. They were the guys manning the booth in the beginning, and then they brought Bob Matthews in, and Bob knew what he was talking about. These guys didn't know anything. So they start just talking on a tangent about something else. That sounds like the Flantilt podcast. We go on tangents all the time. A podcast. That's what they're talking about. We do?
    98:51
    Yes, exactly. As far as podcasters go. Yes. But when they're talking about, you know, oh, look at all the people in this place. And they're talking, oh, look at our, this is why we have our name of our place. ten times in an hour, stop self-promoting yourself and talk about the tournament that you're watching right in front of you.
    99:13
    Apparently it didn't work if you can't remember what the name of the place is. Exactly. They were that bad, I zoned them right out. Then Teal has gone on with Bob and it was like, oh, thank you. Thank you. And the guy would just come in like, yeah, I did this. He was like Ringo Starr. Hey, look at me, I made a song. I will say, though, The stream itself was very high quality, though. Oh, yeah. The cameras used and the layout and everything. It was very, very good. It was fill stuff. They had an umbrella over the rig. Yes. The only issue with that is when, in my group, Todd McCulloch was playing in my group. Todd McCulloch is 7'1". He was hitting the umbrella with his head. He went to get up, and it literally hit him in the head. Like, oh. And he's such a nice guy. He didn't even, like, ask them to move it. Yeah. So he played like that for a good few balls before, like, someone realized, hey, wait a minute. Hey, we got a problem. I can empathize with that from that being the exact opposite of the problem I would have, but being a height that ends up causing an unforeseen issue, I feel for him. Well, let's see. Well, I think for me, Steph, and Zach, it was pretty easy. I think we all lost in the first round. Yep, the first round you played. I think for Zach it really sucked because you were mathematically out of it by the second game, but you had to sit there and wait an hour to play Whirlwind. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I played Creature, and by my second ball in Creature, two players had 400 million points. Yes. That was me in the Whirlwind game where I put up 9 million and got third. Third. And the person I didn't want to win won, and the person, you know, it, like, all fell against me, Even though I played a decent game, I was going into game three, that first round that I was in, basically eliminated with one out. Yeah, and funny story, I had left the tournament room by this point, so I'm probably in the show area, and I'm checking the scores, and I see Raymond. What did you have, like one point? Two points. Okay, so you have two points, and I'm looking, and I'm saying to myself, well, the math says there's only one way for this to happen. A bunch of stuff's got to happen, and he has to win this game. And even then, he's only going to be tied. So the chances of that happening are low. Then when I saw you actually were in the playoff, I said to myself, if he wins this, he's going all the way. There's just no way he doesn't win the tournament. This is like, that's how it happens. Like, you almost get eliminated. He does that a lot. And when you do that, that player almost always goes all the way to win. It's true. I think I've heard of, like, Keith Elwin doing that at one of the early papas It was back where all the groups compared to each other, and he, like, moved on with a tiebreaker with four points or something crazy.
    102:07
    In your case, what is it? Donovan Steph just needed to not get last. Yeah. And he got last. So you ended up in a playoff with him on, is it Flash Gordon? Yeah. I picked Flash Gordon, which was a little insane, but I don't know. I liked how that one played, and it worked out. Yeah, it was like $1.8 million to like $80,000 or something. Yeah, I think it was so friendly. It played so friendly, and then he had a bad game. Like, I just like, of all the times to have like the one bad game of Flash Quarter the entire weekend, like right then. And then it just kept going, and then we had a rowdy crowd by the end. Yeah, it was awesome. It was like midnight, and everyone was still there at full strength, just like, whoo! And some alcohol was flowing, and, yeah, whenever anything happened. And getting a great killer wow whenever the ball went into that right kicker leaning on Aztec. Oh, yeah. Yep. Just wow.
    103:10
    And then the last game was on Dialed In, the incredibly awesome Jersey Jack game. And I knew, like, I think the one guy in your group literally sat in front of the monitor watching, and he was like, I need to learn how to play this game. So already he was at a disadvantage, because he had no idea how to play the game. So he was hurting. Just shoot combos.
    103:34
    No. So it ended up being I think it was you first, Steve Bowden second. Yep. That was nice seeing Steve again. Yes, it was. Yeah, Steve avoided, there was, I think, the tiebreaker between third and fourth, which they played on Twilight Zone. Twilight Zone and you got your trophy through baggage check without any issue yeah just a comment from the guy or girl behind the x-ray who asked me is that a Gandalf what kind of wizard shape thing is that so you know I went through there and they just see this like weird outline of a wizard and they're just like what it was almost Yeah, they didn't take it out of the bag, which was crazy. And I was really happy because I had it smushed in with all my clothes, like, perfectly compacted. So when are we getting a Twilight Zone? A Twilight Zone. Oh, and if our listeners remember from my Indus trip, I had fun getting home from Indus. Let's just say I also had fun getting home from Texas. Oh, my goodness. More fun or less fun? Well, this was even less fun because at least getting home from Indy, I still got back at the same time I was originally supposed to get back. It was just fun getting there. This time, I mean, it was very simple. Dallas to Newark, New Jersey, and then Newark to Albany. Oh, those are two very popular routes. And I should be back by 11 p.m. on Sunday. Yeah. Right? Get to the airport. There's no one in line at security. I'm just, boom, I'm through. As soon as I'm putting my shoes back on, my phone goes off. Text, your flight to Newark is delayed by two hours. So now I can't make my connecting flight. So I go to the desk, and United has no way they can get me to Albany on that day.
    105:31
    So I end up going to Dulles and sleeping overnight at the Dulles Airport. And then a flu, well, it got even better. So the best they could do is get me on the 5 o'clock, 5 p.m. flight and Dulles to Albany. That would have been the one time I would have praised the 5 a.m. flight over a 5 p.m. flight if I had to spend the night in the airport. Well, there's only three flights, unfortunately, from Dulles to Albany, one at 12, one at 5, one at 10. So I was on the one at 5. I put myself in the standby list for 12. And I was first on the standby list. Then that plane was delayed by two hours So I got another two hour delay to figure out Whether I was going to get on or not Then they loaded the plane up Woman goes in, seeing if there's any seats available She comes out and gives the thumbs down No So then at five o'clock I find out The five o plane is delayed Jesus Christ And then at at 5 we told yep it going to be delayed until at least 6 At which point I go into the bathroom come out and they loading the plane Wait a minute. Two minutes ago, they just said that we're delayed until 6. So we're not delayed until 6? Like, nope, they're loading up. We fixed it with bubble gum. Yeah, that's the scary thing. It's so broken that it's going to be until 6 before it's fixed. But now, oh, no, it's okay. We kicked it. It turned on.
    107:00
    So, yes, another wonderful experience. I know the best places to sleep at Dulles now. That's good. I know that the airport turns the heat off at night, so Zach would love it. That's good. You know, 60 degrees. I had my coat on, and I literally could not sleep. I never slept. I was up from, like, 9 a.m. Sunday until I went to bed at, like, 10.30 p.m. on Monday. At least you were behind, so he...
    107:28
    I was never that tired, to be honest. Wow. Yeah, wow. So that was the Texas Pinball Festival. I'd say overall, they definitely had a good crowd there. I would say it was a rousing success. They already have the dates for next year's ready to go. They just announced... So you guys already reserved your rooms or anything? You're going back, right? I'll probably go back, because I like the show. Don't they, like, announce the rooms and stuff? Yeah, they announced the rooms and stuff, Bruce. So they haven't announced the rooms yet. It's, like, really hard to actually get one at the embassy. Yeah, the only reason I got one at the embassy is because Zach saw that they were available and sent me a message that they were available. So please do the same thing again, Zach. It's also hard to get into the tournament. So whether you think you'll be going or not, if you like tournaments. Yeah, I didn't think I was going to be in the main tournament because I was, like, 40th on the wait list or whatever. and I'm like, oh, yeah, because I was in the Classics, but I wasn't in the main. And then I couldn't believe when I got the email, like, yeah, you're in. Like, what? Okay. It was kind of weird, too, because the Classics technically could have taken 240, but only 213 ended up playing. But they had no way of moving the wait list because, you know, people have to tell them that they're not coming in order to move the wait list. You're not there out of, like, 1 o'clock maybe, you know, or, you know, whatever. Yeah, really, because there's really some, like, you have to check in by this time. Yeah, a check-in for the walk-ins who are on the wait list. And then if there's no one on the wait list, then any walk-in could play. You know, it seems silly to have spots be open. Yeah, and then not being used. I agree.
    109:05
    All right. So. Whoppers for everyone. Yes, Whoppers for everyone except for us. Sorry, Bruce. Well, he'll get Whoppers this weekend, hopefully. Yeah, 1.2. District 82? Yeah, this upcoming weekend we'll all be at District 82. So come up and hug Bruce. Be sure to say hi to him. Hug Bruce and get a group picture of all of us. No. And I want a behind-the-scenes tour of the repair area. Oh, yeah, you want to see all the parts and everything, yeah. I do. Are they, like, off-pram or something? I don't know if they are or not. I feel like he showed a video once and he was like, here's all the parts in my garage at home and then I drop them. Yeah, I feel like I've seen that too. I mean, it's obviously self-panned there, but I think the main thing is in a separate location. Hug Bruce, take lots of pictures of Zach. He loves that. Take Ron's jacket off. He loves that.
    110:04
    Show him the real Wisconsin winter. What was the temperature like last time we were there? I don't remember. I mean, it was also the middle of the summer. It was? It was like August. Oh, really? Yeah, this is going to be... Look, if Wisconsin is anything like New York is right now, it's going to be cold. Bring an extra jacket. You're going to die of freeze. So I should pack at least half long pants. You should probably have backup long pants, Zach, yes. Unless Wisconsin is very nice and warm. I don't know, Ray. How's Chicago? That's closer. It's 35 degrees here, so it's probably going to be pretty chilly in the mornings. I'm guessing by the, you know, afternoons, you could probably step out and get some nice sunshine. Or what I like to do is go to my car, and because of the, like, it's like a little greenhouse in there, and it's nice and warm, so you can, like, warm up in your car. Okay, so we have to find a lot of ways in the... Yes, yes. Well, in Texas, it was 80 degrees outside, but I was hardly ever outside. It was beautiful outside. And, of course, in the main hall, it was like 62 degrees. It was freezing my ass off. It was way too cold. I knew it was going to be like that, too. They always crank up the AC big time. Yeah, I'm looking forward to this weekend. You can catch the stream on Fox City's pinball. And also you can look at the Texas was streamed at Wormhole Pinball on YouTube. Yay. That was the group. That was the wormhole. I felt like I went down the wormhole. Well, that's where you can find all the replays. Warm hope is all. So if you want to watch the finals, which... Listen to the great commentary before the... You can watch Raymond because I don't know how many of us were on stream. I think I might have one game on stream. Yeah, I think they followed our group. I don't know. Yeah, maybe while we were waiting for Whirlwind, they kept it on Whirlwind because someone picked Whirlwind all three rounds, and it was just nonstop Whirlwind for like an hour and a half. That whirlwind I think might have played a little too long.
    112:11
    The takedown. The women's Texas takedown. Did anybody watch any of that? I had my worst showing in a women's tournament probably ever, so we're not going to talk about me, but... Finals were fun to watch. Yeah, finals were really fun to watch. And the person who won, I think it was Jessica who won? Yes. Oh, why does it not show? What was the final game on? Dial in. Yeah, it was dial in. But, yeah, like, Sunshine was dominant throughout most of the tournament. She was first seed going into standings. Louise Wagenzahner was there. She got in. And Lori Bender and Jessica Thaxton rounded it out. And I believe, oh, and Rebecca Salem got fifth place. Yep. That's awesome. She was. I'm like, finally, like I said, I did really crappy. I couldn't believe that Steph Guida wasn't in the top four. I don't know what happened there. Use all your energy. I was beating myself up about my crappy play and more about feeling crappy about my crappy play during a women's tournament the whole time. It's really hard to not stay in your own head when you're at a women's tournament and you should be celebrating everyone who's there. It's really hard to not stay in your own head. True. I haven't had an out-of-body experience. Well, if you stay in your own – you have to get out of your head, or else you're just going to be a lump of grump and not enjoy the vibe. And I wanted to enjoy the vibe, so I would be – I think it started at, like, 8 in the morning, so, I mean, who can blame you for being a grump lump at 8 in the morning? Please say. After you got up how late the last day watching the finals? Yeah. I went to bed at midnight. So you got at least, like, five hours of sleep? Yeah. The winner was? I believe it was Jessica Thaxton, was it not?
    114:07
    Were there two Jessicas in the final? No. Then it must have been, yeah. And it was really cool. I think it was just starting her own Bells chapter. I want to say it was Mississippi. I think that's the shape that I remember. I almost wanted to say Mississippi. It could be Alabama.
    114:28
    I can see. Is it left or right? Yeah. I have to go find the sticker now. Mississippi Bells sounds like a group, like a country group or something. It was something like the Dirty Down Mississippi or Dirty Down South Bells or something. But it was just so cool. That's awesome. Yeah, they had a whole room. That's the get myself out of my head thing is if I go and sulk about having a crappy showing, I won't get to meet the people and I won't get to celebrate their wins like that. So that's what that bruises them. All right. I'm in the ball bag, Bruce. Oh, yeah. We're done with Texas here. I'm in the ball bag. I can talk about my ball bag that I didn't send. Oh, my.
    115:22
    This one's from Jim. It says, hi, guys. Ron, you don't need to buy new glass. Just use some Windex and a brand new razor blade. It's just like removing bird shit from windows. Oh, that's about the Deadpool Translite that sticks to the glass. I mean, yeah, I could do that, but then I can never use that Translite again because, like, all the black came off it and is now in the glass that I've just now taken off of the razor blade. So I got big patches on my Translite. Yeah, it'll be just like an EM, you know, the flaking paint. Yeah, it's almost like a back glass at that point. Let's see. Next one. This is from Greg. Hi, Greg. Hi, fellas. I haven't taken a look at the so-called Weebly boards since you have been talking about them lately. I want to get some of the improved code into my STER9 ball. It has an Altec MPU. Apparently, the Weebly can take new code. It must be programmed into a 27512 and installed in U1. Is this something that I can do with the code you are running? I have zero experience with burning ROMs. Might need to pay someone to do it for me.
    116:30
    Let's see. Later, I might work with someone to fine-tune Cosmic Princess code. It is pretty nicely balanced with a couple of bugs and could do with a little improvement. Okay, Greg. I know, at least with Scott's newer code, he usually has a 512 image he puts in there, specifically so you can burn it for one of the Weebly boards. Also, Andrew, the guy who does the Weebly boards, Scott, I believe, is one of his testers, or at least they work together in some capacity in that if you look at some of the Weebly boards, there's a list of custom code that comes with it, and a lot of it is Scott's versions of games. So you may, if you just get a Weebly board, it might already have the version you're looking for on it. You'd have to go to his site, and he's got like a PDF that has all the different versions. But it might say like Nineball stock, and it'll say Nineball like home edition or custom. You just have to find out what that means. I think that answers the question It does So, thank you Greg Thank you Greg EM converted to run Arduino Mmm Pinball Restoration's Aussie Guide and a link Actually, you should look at this, Zach I've already done that I've made one of those before You've made one of those before, of course you have Okay, well, we'll look at this Thank you Greg Okay, so that is the ball bag.
    117:59
    Oh my. May I make my addendum? Oh no. No, no, no, no. Guess what? You don't have to read it, Ron. You don't have to read it, and the fact that I'm just making it verbally means that I'm going to make it short, because I write longer than I talk. Okay. So, about two episodes ago, the last episode that you had Zach on, at the very end, you You were starting to close up the show, and Bruce immediately remembered something about a connector taking a shit on him, and you complained that he was going off topic, and you said that you've never been told, quote-unquote, I love when you go off on crazy tangents that go on forever. Well, as part of the Slantil community, I would like to formally say that we love when you go off on crazy tangents that go on forever. I do apologize for the editing, but we love it. I feel like that's the point of the Slantil podcast, isn't it? Is just to give them opportunity to go off on random tangents? Yeah, they're full of knowledge, but they're not full of class or order. They're classless tangents. And like school on Sunday. Coming soon. No class. Classless Tangents.
    119:19
    Classless Tangents, yes. Oh, I think I have a title. Have we had enough Classless Tangents to validate that? Not yet. All right, Bruce. Your time to shine has come.
    119:33
    I love Spooky. This is going to be my editorial. Okay. First, I had a call from Christopher Franchi. We all know Christopher Franchi. He's like, hey, you still doing repairs in the area? I'm like, yeah, why? He goes, I got a buddy. He has a Halloween. And he's a friend of mine. Can you go check out the machine? He's doing a couple weird things. Okay, not a problem. So I go to this gentleman's house. He's right in Rochester. He's a big Halloween guy. Very nice guy. He's got everything. He's got masks in his house and all based off of Halloween. Great. And he's got right in the corner, he's got a Halloween, whatever their special edition is. It's their limited blood sucker edition, whatever you want to call it. It's the best one. It's got the topper and all that. Topper, and he's got the butter cabinet. So he spent a ton of money. I get there, and first the flippers group down completely, so it loosened up. And he's like, and the ball gets stuck in the right-hand target. Okay, so first thing I do, I open it up. it's given me a hard time trying to get this play field, even the slide, out. I'm like, this is really weird. And when I went to go unlatch his latch bars, he's like, oh, you only have to unlatch one side. The second side doesn't latch. I'm like, okay, well, we'll get back to that later on. I'm like, okay, we get the glass off. I finally get the play field out, and I flip it up. And, okay, so we tighten the flipper down, really crank on it. I don't know why Spooky doesn't have the newer style William mix. He's still using the Allen on one side and the wrench on the other side. That's the original William mix, though. Exactly. I don't know why he's not using the new style. I like the old style. I thought they was helping better. Okay. I like the new style. Zach? New style for a win. Thank you.
    121:34
    And that he didn't argue with. He didn't just read it right for it. I can't tighten either style. I feel like my Allen key is going to break. That's what I feel also. You don't need an Allen key with the new style. That's the best thing about it. And you can tighten it with the flippers in the same position, so you don't need to, like, take out the Allen key and then check the alignment. Speaking of tangents.
    121:58
    So I lift this up, and I'm like, okay, let me go see with the switch. And switch test. You boot the machine up. It takes like a minute to boot the machine up, almost two minutes now. I had the Rick and Morty. The Rick and Morty took like maybe a minute. This is now two minutes.
    122:13
    And while I'm in there, I'm looking at the servos for now for the ball kickouts right by the flippers. And they're okay. I'm like, that's kind of cool looking. The elevator? Yeah, the elevators. They call them servos, yes. So I get into test mode. Switch behind the drop target is not working. So I get my multimeter out, test the switch, touch it, closes. It's showing continuity when you tap it. Perfect.
    122:40
    Okay, let's start tracing this back. I go, I start going up to the back box, you know, and saying, there's no boards in the back box anymore.
    122:49
    Nothing. So is it just like a light strip? No, it's a light strip. And a display. No, light strip, display, and a little controller to control the settings on the display. That's it. Well, they went to the new system, right? Was it the Tenatar board or whatever it's called? That's what they call it. That's all underneath the play field now.
    123:11
    Getting where I'm going. Remember in the past I've talked about how Spooky loves to use glue guns. Well, now we got rid of the glue guns. Hooray. They finally listened to somebody. But they still don't know cable management too well. I'm tracing this back to this board. If you look at the play field, it's on the lower rear. Left-hand side lower of the play field. So all the way in the back corner. And there's a bunch of connectors there, so I'm physically tracing wires because there's no manual at all.
    123:45
    Not like an online PDF? Nothing. You go to the Spooky's website, you know what they have? They give you the list of rings you can have for your machine. Is it actually just a list? Just a list. Same as Alice Cooper. Yes. Alcubor has a manual that they released like three years late as a PBS. Yes. And it has a rubber ring list, but not a chart of where they go. And wait, wait, it gets better. And that's the last manual they've released.
    124:12
    Rick and Morty still doesn't have a manual. But I digress. Let's go back into the thing. The cable management, they are so tight, they barely give you any excess wire. So I'm pulling out, and I finally pull out this wire. One wire breaks right in my hand because it's so tight. So now I've got to cut, snip, reconnected it, check continuity from the switch to the plug. Yep, now I have it. Plug it back in. Switch works. Great. There's an opto behind the drop target.
    124:44
    Switch 82 on the right-hand side drop target. If you go into test mode, it says extra ball target. Nowhere on the play field does it say extra ball. So I would go then to a manual and say, hey, where are the Switches located? Oh, I can't tell you because I can't tell you where any of the Switches are supposed to be. Why the fuck not?
    125:08
    Why? Why don't you have Switch locations for your past two new games? Does anybody have an answer or a hypothesis?
    125:19
    It's not like, you know, do you have an answer? Yes. I don't understand it. Why the fuck are they not releasing this stuff?
    125:29
    Is there anybody not in Benton, Wisconsin that can actually type a manual? Since it seems like they only hire people from Benton, Wisconsin. So is this a no manuals rant? It's a how am I supposed to fix the machine without any knowledge, any information?
    125:48
    This is why they're not UL approved either, because they have to actually have manuals to be UL approved. this is 2022 yes you have an LCD display show the playfield diagram on your LCD display thank you and this version of Halloween Code does not have a ball search well it does have a ball search it ball searches everything except for the drop targets you want a tangent? here's a tangent for you on my big game I probably got the spinner working good on it But I had something happen on big game. I've never had this happen on any game, actually, other than getaway. But it was a different situation. You know on the sterns how the out-of-all kicker is way too strong on most of the old sterns? It'll fire it, and it'll just go back into the, you know, and it takes a couple times. Well, big game, I start a game. It kicks the ball out so fast, and I don't even see it. And all of a sudden, I just hear a thud in the bottom of the cabinet.
    126:52
    It fell out? The ball fell out through the shooter lane. I have no idea how this happened because, I mean, there's a space between where the shooter lane ends and where the metal housing is, but it's not enough to fit a ball. So I have no idea how this happened. This is only the second time in like 17, 18 years I've ever had that happen. The other time was getaway. It flew off of the supercharger and fell through the back of the game. But I've never had it happen in the shooter lane. That is weird. I have no idea how that happened. I'm physically trying to fit it through there, figuring out, you know, how did this, how did it fall through? I can't figure it out.
    127:31
    But it's not even on their website. It's nothing. Okay, no manuals is bad. Make some manuals, Kookie, please. There. Yeah, what the fuck? Okay. All right.
    127:44
    Okay. Rant over. Do you remember the Great Stern Game 2? I think we talked about it before. only fixed in existence. Is that going to be the next remake after Beatles? No. Of course it is. I think it is. There was one at the Sanctum. It is there no more. It is gone.
    128:04
    Jim sold a lot of them up. Jim sold his Dragon Fist, his Nineball, and a couple others right off the bat. What he should do is pair them up. One Bizarre, but one not. Yeah, like Star... If you want to buy the Dragon's Nest, you have to buy the Trident. I'm sorry. Or Stingray. Yeah.
    128:30
    Pretty sure there's a Stingray at District 82. In the air-conditioned room. Oh, good. So they can't use it because you can't stream in there. Beautiful. Yes. Yes, but if you stay, you're on stream. Oh, it's right next to the Star Trek Next Generation, isn't it? Or is that in the other air-conditioned room? No, it's in there, I think. I've got the memo. So as long as you stay in group number one, you won't have to play Star Trek Next Gen or Stingray. When I think of every tournament, they'll be like, yeah, I want to thank you, like, Steph for pointing out that Next Gen is in the non-streaming room. And so is Stingray.
    129:04
    So what game, what's the best game I could be buying and going to get in Atlanta? Okay, so you're going to Atlanta to get a game. To pick up a game. 30-odd. I'd pay for it. For no other reason. Like, you're literally driving all the way down to Atlanta to pick up a game. Pick up three games. Three games. Three? Three games. I knew about one. I see. That's why you have to listen to the show. Okay. So are we doing the guessing game again? Yes, of course. How many questions do we each get? Yeah, that's the thing. How many questions do we get? All together, you guys get 20. Oh, Jesus Christ. Come on. We'll be here for two hours. Was it made before 1990? I already know one of... Sorry. Yeah, you already know one of them. Everyone knows one.
    129:47
    Okay. Well, guess what? you guys can give Ron some hints. How's that? Ron, give me the guesser. Give me hints. Go ahead. Please hint me. So for the game that I know, we brought it up earlier in the podcast.
    130:01
    I have a terrible short term memory, so that's a fail for me. We did? We did. I thought it was a pretty warm tip. At least one of them is a game that you also want, Ron. Yes, it is a game you want. Oh. Sinbad? No. Countdown? I want a Sid Bad. Countdown? Yes, yes. One is that. Oh, okay. Countdown. We might have done that one. Okay, so the other two. Mm-hmm.
    130:27
    Yeah, is it an EM? Yes. Probably not. Oh, it is. Wait, if it's an EM, you actually want... Wait, did we do this? Hot tip. Yes. Yeah, we did this already. That's number two. We guessed this already. Okay, so now number three. Okay, so basically, listeners, those are two we already did in the previous episode. So now we have a third one. See, that's how bad Rob's short-term memory is. It's yours, too. I knew. You knew? So you had us do the exact same thing on the show? Yep, just to make you look bad. See how it works? All right. Is it an EM? No. Okay.
    131:02
    Is it Williams? No. Valley? No. Stern? Yes. So I'm guessing an old Stern, probably. Well, is it a Stern Electronics? Yes. Okay. It's not Godzilla. No.
    131:22
    Does it have two flippers? I don't even know. God. I think it is. That's a stupid one. Every Stern game has a spinner, so that would be dumb. I'm going to prove that now.
    131:33
    Hold on. Hang on. I think I know which one this was. I think you told me at some point. Mm-hmm. This is a hint, I guess. I've only played it like once, so I have to look it up on IPDB.
    131:46
    Have I ever played it, Bruce? Yes. Of course I have. John, is there a game that you haven't played? Yes. There's lots of EMs I haven't played. Probably 400 games I haven't played. There's lots of games I haven't played. Okay, go ahead.
    132:00
    You know what I would ask, Ron? What? I would ask about how many balls it has. How many balls does it have? I can't even tell you.
    132:09
    I meant like, does it have multi-ball? Yeah, does it have multiball? Yes, it does. Did he get the balls of Poppin's? No, no, no, no. Oh, does it have speech?
    132:19
    Wow, you don't even know. You know, these games, you need to actually know the answer when you ask a question. It's very important. Can you message me what game it is so I can answer the questions? What? Can you message me what game it is so I can answer the questions so I can forget what game it is? You forgot? Really? I mean, I'm hoping that I haven't forgotten. I don't know if I knew or not. You did. Okay. I can't keep track of them anymore. Is it free fall? Yes. There you go. Is it a multi-ball? Yes. Can you activate it? No. Me? No. Well, but there's a new ROM, though. I played it. I played a free fall at Texas with the new ROM, and an extra third flipper added. Ooh. What? Is it a flipper that went straight down to the top to go to the line? You had to tap it down? No.
    133:09
    No. It's on the right, upper right, not upper. It's above the right slingshot. There's another flipper. And it totally, no, a little bit further. There's a rubber there on the regular version. It's got a rubber there with an arrow pointing to it. Like you hit the rubber and it does something. It's like a switch. That was pulled out and that was an actual flipper installed. That threw me because when I'm playing it, I'm like, I played this before. I don't remember the flipper being there. But I figured it had to be because they wouldn't add a flipper. Who adds a flipper? They added a flipper. I didn't find it any easier to get multi-ball. I didn't lock a single ball the entire two games I played on it.
    133:51
    And that's the same issue where the lock is not directly hittable. So we need the injector from Airborne. There you go.
    134:00
    So did you see the picture I showed a couple days ago from Naps Arcade on the podcast? Clone. Oh, Orbiter 2? Yes, Orbiter 2. And 2.5. Well, explain the story. A renowned pinball arcade collector, John Exidy, recently shared an amazing find in a pinball-enthusiast Facebook group. A friend of his recently purchased a prototype of the 1982 Electronic Orbiter 1, which itself is super rare. Inside the game, though, he found polarites of a never-seen-game prototype called Clone. I think it's wild. And there's actually like two versions of this. Yeah, there's definitely two different games in those. Yes. And there's nothing on this thing, and they show four pictures of this and two different back glasses because of two different clone pictures. Two different play fields. Two different play fields and two different cabinets.
    134:54
    Because one is the blue and white stern, and then one is just a blue cabinet. So their cloning did not go very well. No, it did not. And that's from Nap Arcade. Thank you, Jason Knapp. But, yeah, see, that's a game Ron never played. So something for you to ask Gary about when you interview him any day now, right? Any year. Yeah, any year. Any year. I've already been sending vodka to Gary. I don't know if he's been getting it. Gary, we love you. Just drink my vodka and call us up one of these times. By the way, circling back to Freefall, ITDB has a really cool factlet. Factoid, I guess. On this game, Harry Williams reused the same upper playfield wireform design from another game that he designed, Williams' 1954 Skyway. End factoid. He also reused the stepper mech, or the ball walker mech, from his previous game, Flight 2000. I'm seeing also because that same stepper mech is in Bally's Mad World from the 60s, with the same multi-ball lock back to the shooting lane thing. No matter how neat it is, it's already existed. No matter how cool it looks, it was already in a previous game. That's one thing I learned about pinball.
    136:09
    Except for the outlane saver on poker. Well, no, actually, John Papaduke beat you on that one. It just never came out. No, the other outlane saver. Oh, the other one.
    136:18
    So I think that ought to be a long enough episode for those going to District 82 tournament to listen to on the way there, which means I have to get it out even earlier. Yes, you'll have to listen to this all driving up, guys. You have to listen to yourselves. No. Are you kidding? We're obviously going to do a slam tilt in the car episode. Not without me, man. Well, once we pick you up. Yes, once we pick you up in the five-minute drive to the event from the hotel. We'll just go all the way to there. And once you get in the car, we'll say, like, say goodbye, Bruce, as you get in the car. this way we'll technically do it with you and then you get to listen to whatever shenanigans we got up to in the car and comment while we're at this ditty-doo or something, I don't know this episode is so long, Raymond has fixed at least five Rush Bugs during the course of this episode, he's programming away right now he has found five Bugs playing and fixed them while this podcast is being recorded, it's amazing yeah that's the thing do you say they're one of us? yeah this has been episode 183 where can they find us Ron? they can find us we are the Slamtail Podcast Bruce did you know I'm in another podcast called Silverball Chronicles? never heard of it yes it's featured on the Pinball Network which Raymond is also on the Pinball Network shut up So Raymond, what's your channel?
    137:57
    Ray Day Pinball. Ray, what's your podcast? I don't have one on TPN. But you have a podcast, right, that's going to have a new episode out any day now? Is that where our three-hour drive is going to be, the three of us, forcing you to record do or die? I'd really like to hear Raymond's perspective on his tournament performance at the Texas Pinball Festival. If there only was a podcast that existed. Well, yes, maybe he could just wait. Then he'd have all that material for a good two-hour podcast. If only he had a nice car ride with the other people who played in the tournament to add information into it.
    138:34
    Maybe he could just hit record on his phone and just then not edit it, and boom, it'd be easy. Yeah, or if I'm going to edit it, I'm bad at editing. No, I'm not editing shit. But we are the Slam Tilt Podcast. You can check us out at www.slamtiltpodcast.com. We're also on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. All those links are on the upper right-hand corner of our Slam Tilt page. What was the last time we tweeted?
    139:01
    We can be reached at slamtiltpodcast at gmail.com. I'm an asshole. If you want to reach this asshole, that is Bruce. and tell him how great Halloween is and how he's a spooky hater. I am a spooky hater now. I'm glad I got rid of my spooky. Which one was that? Rick and Morty is sold. Rick and Morty is one of the games at the local that you currently can't play because the bill acceptor doesn't work. Do they put it right next to Guns N' Roses just to be a leaf on your boat? You can take it forever.
    139:34
    Okay. Thanks to everybody out there, although a bunch of them are on the podcast. this time, so thanks, folks. Mr. Steve. Hi, Steve. Hi, Steve. Thanks, everybody.
    139:48
    I think that's it. This is the long one, folks. This is the part that never ends. And it goes on and on, my friend.
    140:01
    Say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Kevin Rizzo. Goodbye, Bruce. Can you fool me? Can you fly? Oh my, my You can fool me If you try Oh my, my There are keys to keep you alive Oh my
    140:40
    Oh, my. Exactly. What just happened? It has happened. Zero redundancy. Love it. Single point of success. It's called Redo It Again.
    141:22
    Redo It Again. Oh, that is a briefism. Yes, it is. So let's check this. Everyone, hi, I'm Ron. Hi, I'm Billy Joe Bob Smith. Hi, Billy Joe Bob Smith. Hi, I'm Raymond Davidson. Hey, I'm Zachary Fry.
    141:40
    Well, Zach's mic's gotten way better than last time. It has. Hi, I'm quieter now, I hope. You're louder, actually, somehow. What the fuck? Well, that's good, because we can hear you. She's over at the podcast. I don't know what my volume's at. I just adjusted it to four. It needs to go to 11. To 11, yeah.