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Episode 466 - Heist P3 Game - Interview with Ava Baldridge 3-26-20

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·31m 26s·analyzed·Mar 27, 2020
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.023

TL;DR

Interview on newly released Heist P3 game mechanics, modes, toys, and early player impressions.

Summary

Nick Baldrige and his daughter Ava discuss Heist, a newly released Multimorphic P3 pinball game featuring six thief characters with distinct modes, a crane toy mechanism, and complex rule depth. They cover playfield layout, mode progression, multiball types, side jobs, and overall gameplay experience, establishing Heist as Nick's favorite P3 game to date.

Key Claims

  • Heist just came out last week and they were one of the initial orders

    high confidence · Nick Baldrige, opening segment

  • Heist is Nick's favorite P3 game so far

    high confidence · Nick Baldrige, opening statement

  • The crane toy is one of Ava's all-time favorite toys seen in pinball games

    high confidence · Ava Baldrige, discussing crane mechanics

  • The game has been extremely reliable with no breakdowns despite complexity

    high confidence · Nick Baldrige, discussing reliability

  • The P3 upper flipper module includes stellar documentation compared to other manufacturers

    high confidence · Nick Baldrige, comparing documentation quality

  • Ava's high score on Heist is five million points

    high confidence · Nick and Ava discussing scoring

  • The lowest high score on their machine's table is fifteen million

    high confidence · Nick Baldrige, discussing scoring levels

  • Cat Burglar and Safe Cracker modes have been completed by Ava; Mastermind has not been unlocked

    high confidence · Ava Baldrige, mode completion discussion

Notable Quotes

  • “It's my favorite P3 game so far.”

    Nick Baldrige @ opening — Strong endorsement of Heist; establishes the game's standing among P3 titles

  • “The crane is super cool. It is one of my all-time favorite toys that I've seen so far.”

    Ava Baldrige @ crane discussion — High praise for the crane toy mechanism; indicates standout mechanical feature

  • “I've been extremely impressed with how reliable it's been. Like, for as much stuff as is in there, it has not broken down, which is shocking.”

    Nick Baldrige @ reliability discussion — Addresses durability concerns given game complexity; positive quality signal

  • “The documentation is stellar. It is super awesome.”

    Nick Baldrige @ upper flipper module discussion — Positive comparison of Multimorphic's documentation against other manufacturers

  • “I think you should definitely get Heist. It's amazing. It's my favorite.”

    Ava Baldrige @ parting words — Strong closing endorsement from experienced player

Entities

Nick BaldrigepersonAva BaldrigepersonHeistgameMultimorphiccompanyP3productMr. Biggame_characterCat Burglargame_characterSafe Crackergame_character

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Heist recently released (within one week of recording); early adopter feedback is extremely positive

    high · Nick states 'Heist just came out last week and we were lucky enough to be one of the initial orders'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Crane toy with magnet, dynamic positioning, and multi-purpose interaction is highlighted as standout mechanical innovation

    high · Ava: 'The crane is super cool. It is one of my all-time favorite toys that I've seen so far.' Described as 'fireman's ladder' that expands/contracts, moves horizontally, picks up balls, can be smacked by ball

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Complex rule set with six character modes, stacking mechanics, multiple multiball types, side jobs, and donut collection system

    high · Extensive discussion of mode mechanics, stacking (e.g., Hacker + Crane Multiball), side jobs with multiple difficulty levels, donut collection requiring specific lane targeting

  • ?

    product_concern: Despite high mechanical complexity, machine has proven extremely reliable with zero breakdowns reported

    high · Nick: 'I've been extremely impressed with how reliable it's been. Like, for as much stuff as is in there, it has not broken down, which is shocking.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: P3 platform upper flipper module demonstrates plug-and-play modularity with excellent documentation, contrasted favorably against other manufacturers' integration approaches

    high · Nick: 'the documentation on it is fantastic. There's a photo for every single thing... the documentation is stellar' and comparison to other manufacturers: 'I've done some advanced wiring stuff for other manufacturers' games, and the documentation is always lacking'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.094

0:00
Welcome back to For Amusement Only. This is Nick Baldrige and special guest Ava Baldrige. She's back everybody. After a long hiatus, Ava has returned. We're here today to talk about a new P3 game called Heist. It's my favorite P3 game so far. Alright, so Heist just came out last week and we were lucky enough to be one of the initial orders. So we've already got it and have been playing it a lot. Well, Ava has, for sure. No, I haven't.
0:33
So Ava, tell me a little bit about it. So in it, there are six different people that you have to unlock their modes by shooting specific shots on the playfield. So who are these people that you choose between? They are different types of thieves. so there is mastermind which is the hardest mode that we have neither of us have unlocked before yep um g is the hardest one to get in the head head of the group and then there's also safe cracker which i think is your favorite yep well it's exactly what it sounds like it's a guy who cracks and then there's also a wheel man and you get to drive his well he steals cars and so you have to make him escape from the police there's also cat burglar who is yeah she goes into a museum and steals valuable something um and there's i really want to get hacker but i can't seem to get her for some particular reason according to the ramp and the last mode is demolition where he explodes things with dynamite i have unlocked him i just haven't beaten him and have you i have not yeah i'm always down to the last shot on that one have you finished any of the modes yet i finished cat burglar and i've started a lot of them but i I haven't finished a lot.
2:19
I've started Cat Burkler. I've completed Cat Burkler and Safecracker, I think. Gotcha. All right, well, we'll come back to that in just a second. But let's talk about who they are stealing from. Okay, so they're stealing from the head honcho, Mr. Big. Frank Bigelow, yeah. Yeah. So his name is Mr. Big, and he is mean. to everyone so it's pretty much a battle between the two groups of bad guys yeah but these are heroic bad guys right i mean i guess so yeah mr big owns this town and uh has the entire place under his thumb so they're trying to teach him a lesson what about the artwork on the game i love it there's always something new that you find like in the nooks and crannies of it Like yesterday I found out that the targets were dollars and I pointed it out. I was like, ooh, this is cool. Also in the game with dollars is when you complete something, you get money for it. And the money actually floats down the screen, right? Yes, but you're not always guaranteed money because you have to shoot the money to get it. But it's really cool. yeah so the the money as it's floating down the ball is tracked as it's moving over the playfield monitor and uh if it touches the the money you pick it up and after you get a certain amount of money it qualifies one of the multi balls which we'll talk about in a minute but um as far as the artwork goes so you're talking about the the physical artwork mostly yes on on the physical playfield yeah um what do you think of the the animations and so forth that The animations are really cool. I'm more of a physical artist, but I like more physical things. But I really like this digital artwork in particular for this game because there's a lot of moving compartments to it. And you never really get bored of it, I guess.
Wheel Man
game_character
Hackergame_character
Demolitiongame_character
Mastermindgame_character
For Amusement Onlyorganization
Turf Kinggame
Lexigame
Thorperson
  • ?

    design_innovation: P3 platform software automatically disables upper flipper on playfield modules not designed to use it, preventing conflicts

    high · Nick: 'it actually disables itself in the software for any other playfield module that you put in. So if the playfield module is not designed to use that upper flipper, it won't'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Six thief modes with varying difficulty levels; Mastermind not yet unlocked; multiple side jobs with single-attempt or high-precision requirements creating skill challenge

    high · Discussion of modes from Safe Cracker (easier) to Mastermind (hardest); Hacker side job requires 'one chance to do it. Only one chance'; Wheel Man side job requires skill shot loop multiple times

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong positive sentiment from early players; Heist establishing itself as standout P3 title within first week of release

    high · Nick's opening: 'It's my favorite P3 game so far'; Ava's closing: 'I think you should definitely get Heist. It's amazing. It's my favorite'

    • 4:33
    So there's like a cityscape that's moving by and that's kind of doing a slow crawl. also when you're in a mode a little screen pops up and you will get to see what it's like for that person and if they fail you get to see them thrown in jail all the good stuff and then there's a back box monitor as well and that has different artwork some of it's the same but some of it's different it's got a translate which shows up in the beginning but then it'll change and show you your score and a cityscape and so forth Do you like that as well? Yes, I like all the work of the city. It's pretty great, huh? Then the play field itself, what do you think of the layout? It's very similar on both sides, which I like. There's two ramps, two orbits, two ways to get around the jail. There's a little loop. It's like a U-turn almost. and then there's a hole in the middle for the jail, which you can also get side jobs for, which I like. Yeah, so before we move into side jobs, let's talk a little bit about those shots. So the left ramp is associated with the cat burglar, and so you have to hit each of these shots three times in order to qualify and start their... Well, except for Mastermind, because Mastermind's different. Except for Mastermind, right. So on the far left you have the wheel man Then there's a cat burglar Which is a ramp And then next one is Mastermind which is the left entrance To the jail area And then there's safecracker Which is the opposite from mastermind Which has a spinner Yes it's a spinner With a coin on it Yeah looks cool And then it's the Right ramp with hacker which I really want to get you got a backhanded yeah but that's the safe way it's tempting to shoot it from the left flipper but I did that yeah it feels good when you do it but boy it's very dangerous from the left flipper and then the last one is the right orbit for demolition and so each of these again you shoot them two times to qualify and the third time starts their mode. So on the third time that you shoot it, a magnet holds a ball and then drops it and another one launches and you're in that mode. Each mode has a different objective or a different goal. Like the safe cracker, you're alternating between the right entrance with the spinner and the left entrance without the spinner in order to turn the tumblers a certain way in the safe and open it. The cat burglar is super cool. To explain the cat burglar, though, we have to talk about one of the other toys that's in the game, and that is the crane. The crane is super cool. It is one of my all-time favorite toys that I've seen so far.
    7:45
    I always crack up when I think of toys being toys Associated with pinballs yeah And yeah it moves back and forth right and left It expands. It kind of reminds me of one of those fireman's ladders on the truck where it expands and contracts. So it comes down over the screen. and sometimes it will have a ball in it that you have to hit off, which is associated with one of the multi-balls. Another thing that you can do with the crane, when it comes down all the way, you can literally just smack it with the ball.
    8:26
    So it comes down and it almost touches the screen, so it's all the way down on the screen and you can smack a ball right into it. It's pretty neat.
    8:37
    um so what what other toys are in the game there is also the jail so when you are lose a mode basically so when you start a mode and then you can't complete it because there are time limits on these modes right um when you can't complete it then the person that you have gets arrested in jail um or if you lose a ball and then you die then they get yeah then they get put in jail um and so to get them out of jail you have to hit the jail door um three times i think it's three yeah something like that and then it might vary based on the number of people who are in probably yeah and then once you hit it however many times it will um be a jail break and open the door up and shoot out all the balls. Then you shoot it inside and it shoots out the balls. And during the jailbreak, you have to shoot specific shots, which are tied to the people that you're breaking out of jail in order to get them back so that you can start their mode again.
    9:51
    It's a pretty clever thing. Have you gotten the jailbreak yet? No, because I don't really. most of the time I start a mode and then I get one person in jail and then I'm in the middle of another mode I mean like in the middle of almost getting another mode not starting it but almost getting it and then I die and that was my last fall yeah I hear you and I understand aside from that there are several diverters in the game they change the direction of the ball so there's one in the very back of the play field, which can send it to the pops, or the pop bumper. There's only one.
    10:34
    And there's an array of stand-up targets around that pop bumper, or the diverter allows it to complete the orbit. So it can shoot all the way through from the left to right or right to left. Isn't there one also in the back of the safecracker? There is. There's a magnet in the back of the safecracker. Oh, I was wondering. It will hold the ball and then drop it into the trough in order to lock a ball for multi-ball. It will also hold it when you're starting the safecracker mode, and presumably the mastermind mode that we've never started. Hopefully. That we haven't yet started, I should say. There's also a magnet in the back of the playfield, which will hold the ball to start some of the modes like wheel man and demolition. and there's a diverter in the back of the game on the left hand side which will send it uh to either the left or the right ramp to return the ball to you yep and then on the right hand side there's also a diverter which allows it to hold a ball for one of the multi balls or to return it to your right flipper it's very interesting to see how all the pieces come together I've been extremely impressed with how reliable it's been. Like, for as much stuff as is in there, it has not broken down, which is shocking. Yeah. I mean, it's worked really super well the whole time, and Ava's been putting a lot of time into it. No, I haven't.
    12:08
    So let's talk about multiballs, because there's some interesting stuff that's going on with those. We've talked about jail multiball, jailbreak multiball, I should say. but the main multiball in the game is called police multiball and do you know how you qualify that one? I haven't gotten it but you basically I think after your first ball you can do it on your first one too well sometime during the game where the safecracker and mastermind are it turns into police multiball lock and then you shoot that a number of times to lock your balls and then eventually it starts multi-ball. So, here's the secret, which obviously I haven't told you. Obviously. Until now.
    12:54
    There are two targets that are right outside of the jail, and you hit each of those. Oh, the badge ones? Yes, you hit each of those. Oh! That makes so much more sense! You hit each of those to qualify the lock, and so you qualify it, you shoot the lock,
    13:13
    and then you have to qualify it. How did I not know this before? this is unfair uh so whatever hope i had of uh having a higher score is now gone um and then the the multi-ball that we get the most often is also one of the most imaginative i think when uh what's that one it's crane multi-ball where mr big um is controlling the crane and he wants to stop you really badly so he's so the crane uh there's a little diverter diverter yes that's the word uh yeah that stops the ball on the right ramp and the crane has a magnet on the bottom so it picks it up and puts it over the field and you have to um hit the ball off of the crane and then it once that's done the crane picks up and moves to different spots occasionally and you have to hit the crane four times i think it's four times yeah something like that number and yeah you you defeat the crane at some point um the ramps are jackpots and uh it's uh it's pretty intense the other thing that the crane can do is pick up a ball at any point and uh it'll try to throw it into the out lane. It's pretty neat. It doesn't generally do that. Usually a sling, if it hits a sling, maybe it would do that. But generally what it does is it smacks it up against the side of the side targets and bumps it back into play. It's really cool to see. I find that one to be just really fun. Out of those different multiballs, which one is your favorite? I think crane actually is my favorite because that's the one i've been able to do most often and probably the only one i've been able to do um but yeah it's very interesting to see how like all of the multiballs presumably come into one whole multiball kind of and by that i mean Each multiball is its own multiball, but they are all connected to each other by the game. Kind of, yeah. So there a concept called stacking where you can achieve multiple things in one go So you might shoot a shot and it advances the safecracker but it also locks your ball for police multiball those kind of things
    15:52
    The stacking doesn't seem to happen during the multiballs themselves. Well, you can do, one thing you can do is hacker and crane multiball. You can start both at the same time. You can do both at the same time, which I think is super cool. Yeah, it's really challenging. You've gotten it, though. I've seen you. Yeah, I like starting the hacker mode just from a backhand on the right flipper. Nope, can't do it either way. I think you'll have that. I'll eventually do it. Just wait. The demolition, you're shooting different shots to set the dynamite bundles. and the wheel man you're you're shooting ramps to uh to escape to advance his car you're still in the car yeah and then um the the cat burglar we saved this for later but that also uses the crane and oh yeah it does i forgot about that but so you start the mode and then the cat burglar is lowered down like in uh the mission impossible movie in the field of lasers um except there Wait, is there lasers? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, there is. I'm rediscovering things here.
    17:07
    And you have to shoot four different shots in order to enable her to escape. And once you shoot the shots, it allows you to knock her off of the crane. And you have to keep that ball in play until you shoot a specific scoop, which is pretty intense.
    17:25
    Super fun. Non-stop. yeah it is um we had talked beforehand about side jobs do you want to give people a primer on that okay so side jobs you the crane occasionally uh comes down and lowers over the playfield and if you it says shoot the crane yeah um and if you hit the crane it turns blue and then it says side job available so then the jail door opens and if you shoot it into the jail then it will start a side job and depending and it will choose one of the people to like each person has their specific side job so the hacker has a side job where you have to hit it from the upper flipper into a direct scoop and you only get one chance to do it only one chance and only one scoop i've only done it one time before so trying again it's uh it's tricky each of the side jobs is pretty tricky safe crackers my least favorite just because i've never been able to do it i've done it once and it was like i watched him he he literally like was like okay i'm not gonna get this and then he shot it and then it like he was holding the upper flipper up and he was like okay i guess i'll try so then he hit it and then it literally just like right into perfect the one time it's like a hole in one so yeah that uh the safecracker side job you have to hold the upper flipper up and then trap a ball behind it the game will score and then lift up the flipper automatically and kick the ball back out it's crazy demolition side job i haven't gotten no actually i have yeah i just forgot about him it's the crane kaboom yeah that's my favorite side job um it's where you have to hit the crane multiple times and it will uh explode dynamite yeah kaboom well i guess that's why it's called crane kaboom yeah so you want to hit it as much as possible do you know what the wheel oh yeah yeah cross town side job with the wheel man i don't i don't think i've done that one that's my specialty so the upper flipper has a uh skill shot so right when you oh i've seen you do this one yeah comes in on the right side and then there's a small loop which feeds right back to that upper right flipper um and the wheel man side job it will raise the scoop and hold the ball behind it and tell you you need to shoot that loop, that skill shot loop, and you have to do it multiple times. So the minimum for success is two, but you can keep going as much as you like. So after the first one, it raises the scoop again and holds it and says, good job, do it again. You do it a second time and then you're on your own. You just do it over and over and over again.
    20:36
    So, yeah, my max there is three. wow real impressive dad thank you um but that's super fun and then i don't think i've seen the cat burglar side job have you no i i'm not the mastermind either well i think you have to do something special for her job her side job one thing i haven't noticed do you think you have to qualify the character before you start a side job i don't think so i think what my theory is that you have whoever is in the lead for your um like whoever you've qualified the most yeah i think that's the side job that because i've always gotten safe cracker yeah i've always gotten safe cracker one night but it would be neat to be able to uh direct the game to a particular side job yeah because some of them are extremely challenging like the the safe yeah um that's and it would be neat to do to knock out some of the the ones that you know you can i wonder how you can get cat burglars i i don't know isn't that weird yeah yeah so i'm sure it's in there and we just we just haven't seen it or we've seen it and we just can't remember that's the other possibility anyway probably the second one actually that's possible uh ava's mentioned the upper flipper and this is a new module for the p3 uh and ava actually helped me install it she didn't do any of the the wiring uh she left the fun me there but um you're welcome she helped me uh you know plug it in and screw it down and all that good stuff so um it's really cool how you can literally just like pop it out instead of having to deconstruct everything yeah that's uh it's quite different um ava here has done some uh pinball work for me i've done uh we worked on a project a couple years ago specifically just me and him uh for uh for a game called turf king uh which is a uh one ball right one ball ball shot that you have to make uh and it's a horse racing game but anyways yeah it was very different yeah a lot of mechanical components and so forth and uh nothing comes out of it easily um you have to open up this door and then slide the whole thing out and then it's very different forward thinking for the time but this is this is a step above here so this module there are just a couple of screws and a couple of cables to plug in and that's it. Done. It's pretty sweet. Takes like five minutes most Yeah the initial part if you already own a P3 is that you do have to run an additional wiring harness which is a small project but the documentation on it is fantastic There's a photo for every single thing. You never feel like you're out at sea. I've done some more advanced wiring stuff for other manufacturers' games. and the documentation is always lacking in those other games. Oh, no, I haven't done it. Yeah, you haven't done this. These are service calls that I've done. So on the P3, though, and this particular module, the documentation is stellar. It is super awesome. So anyway, with that installed, you're able to make these other shots. But one of the cool things about that upper flipper is that it actually disables itself in the software for any other playfield module that you put in. So if the playfield module is not designed to use that upper flipper... It won't. It will just sit there. It won't flip, which is great. And it's designed at the same angle as the side target module that was in there previously. So you'll never notice it. It's like it's part of the wall. Yeah, it's super great. Let's talk a little bit about donuts. oh no i'm not good at donuts which is funny because you're really good at lane change typically and lexi in particular the lane change in lexi she is always you know getting i've gotten it i think my max time i got it four times in a row like all four letters for it a bit of an over cheaper but the donuts just for me are not working for me they're pretty hard to get you have to unlike lexi where you have to shoot all four lanes or you can change the lane this one you can also change the lane one way is by flipping a flipper button and another way is by flipping the upper flipper, it actually changes direction depending on, changes direction of the way that it's going. The upper right flipper moves clockwise, and then the button that matches that upper left flipper button goes counterclockwise. Mm-hmm. And these donuts, in Lexi, you're trying to hit the unlit lanes. Yeah. This one, it confused me so badly in the beginning. I was like, why isn't this working? I don't like it. But then my dad told me, and he's like, you're only supposed to hit the light one. I'm like, what?
    26:13
    Yep. So you're supposed to collect these donuts, and six of them will give you two times bonus. And then there's... Twelve, if you get twelve. It looks like twelve, yeah. Which we haven't figured out, by the way. Bribe police. So I don't know... Guessing you bribe police by giving them donuts? Well, yes, but what does that do? Does it get characters out of jail? I'm hoping if you fail a mode, then it will help them. Well, yeah, otherwise in jail. Spring them out of jail, right? That's what I'm thinking, but I have no idea. So I'm very curious. I've collected six a few times, but I've never collected 12. I've not collected six yet. I don't like donuts. I like Lexi's lines. please it's tricky it's tricky um getting only the lit one i'm really good at getting the unlit ones yeah that's the thing i'm best at collecting is unlit lanes which is weird actually give you no benefit it's weird that you would it's weird that you would that you'd be so good at one thing and then it's funny yeah because it's the same process it's like your domestic hand and your non-domestic hand it's like right and left it's weird i've never heard domestic hand and non-domestic well i'm making up words here oh okay it's like is that something i don't know about apparently not so what do you think of the the sound and the voice work in the game that's really cool that the first time that he started it so our dog does not like other people that he does not know yet um like once he gets to know you he's fine with you but if he doesn't know you he's barking his head off at you so the first time my dad started this it said woohoo and thor thought it was a real person by the way thor is our dog's name and thor thought it was a real person so he ran over to the gate and started barking but yeah i think the audio is fantastic especially the police siren which I it's the loudest thing in the game which you would think is weird because you wouldn't want your neighbors thinking that there's a police car in your basement or maybe you do that's good and the voices for the characters do you think they fit pretty well? yeah I like all the different character voices it's really cool to see so Ava here is really good at the game she's been practicing a lot no Oh!
    28:53
    And she is generally either matching my top scores on her average score games or blowing past them by like a million points. Oh, yeah, last night it was funny. Yeah, you demolished me last night. You got one million and I got two million something.
    29:12
    That was a relatively low scoring game, but yeah. Your high score is 5,000, right? 5 million I mean not 5,000 would be terrible That was some serious Oh my god I'm at 5 million Your high score is 5 million The lowest high score on the high score table Is 15,000 I mean I can't stop 15 million wait $15 but it's $15 million which neither of us have gotten even close to we'll get there eventually or you will but at any rate it's okay do you hear this I'm nice so Ava any parting words on Heist do you think people should play it I think you should definitely play it. If you like having different options for games, like different things in the game that you can do, I think you should definitely get Heist. It's amazing.
    30:31
    It's my favorite. Go get it. If you appreciate a challenging game that requires you to think on your feet, I think Heist is the one. Yeah.
    30:42
    And Ava here cannot put it down. Well, thanks for coming on, Ava. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, nice job. Well, if you would like to listen to more of Ava, she's been on a few other episodes over the years and has really grown up around pinball quite a bit. But if you'd like to listen to more of me, you can listen to me on iTunes, Stitcher, Pocket Cast via RSS, on Facebook, on Twitter at Bingo Podcast. You can follow me on Instagram, also at Bingo Podcast, or you can listen to me on my website, which is foramusementonly.libsyn.com. thank you very much for listening and I'll talk to you next time so let's go play some heist I look forward to stealing your money