It's time for Bonus X. It's time for Bonus X. It's time for Bonus X. Do you like Bonus X? Listen to that Bonus X. Just take a bunch of Bonus X. I'm brought to you by Bonus X. Since you could want a Bonus X, it's time for Bonus X. It's happening in 3, 2, 1. Happy Thanksgiving to folks in the U.S. And if you're not in the U.S., maybe this weekend, consider hanging out with your family and carb loading together all day, possibly for multiple days. It's fun. Try it. Anyway, this episode is a new segment with its own intro music, so get ready. Oh, and we just posted a few new videos to YouTube, the Brad Brad Albright interview, an Expo vendor video, and a video about Don's first pinball tournament at the new Triangle Pinball Collective. Okay, new segment starts now. imagining the game that might never be made any game you dream of deserves to be played your pinball dreams are coming true tonight high dream themer there'll never be a bomb cause that's too high so the listener has just heard a new segment song theme song a beautiful original yeah totally original I mean, sure I've been I've been looking forward to This segment for quite some time You have been talking about it It's one of my favorite things to do Besides playing pinball, you know It's the dream Where was the first time you remember hearing the song Dreamweaver? I believe it was A late night compilation album Commercial You know, back in like the late 90s With the video clips and the titles of the songs scrolling up slowly. Like infomercials for CD compilations? Yeah, yeah. Soothing Sounds 5. Yeah, and there's a guy standing there convincing you why you need to buy this compilation. Every four songs or so, little clips from about four songs, somebody with a very smooth voice would be like, this song in yellow is the one that you're currently listening to. And they usually had some D-list actor, some random 80s actor. Yeah. those were great i miss those that's i know it was simpler time it was a simpler time yeah i never felt the urge to buy any of those but um the first time i remember hearing that song is in wayne's world oh do you remember that dude i so i never i i hope you're not about to say what i think i am i am i'm literally gonna say that i've never seen wayne's world what i know dude it's one of those don it's one of those panama things man it just happened to be at the right time like i missed a lot of stuff in the 90s i didn't get here until 1999 wait what year did wayne's were you alive when wayne's world came out it was like early 90s i mean i i want to say like 93 i popped out 88 92 so yeah i was four i was 11 i was in that target audience age range I'm pretty sure when he first sees Cassandra, the girl that he likes, the Tia Carrere character, she's playing bass on stage. The soundtrack is Dreamweaver because he loves this girl that he sees for the first time. That's funny. But yeah, that's when I first remember hearing that song. And I think it's one of those things where when I was 11 years old, I didn't even know that was a real song as far as I knew that song was created for that movie. Sure, sure. In that moment. I mean, the scene you're describing makes perfect sense. I could totally see it. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah, anyway, it's forever linked to Wayne's World for me. That's funny. Dreamweaver. Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Dream themes, like everybody is always talking about dream themes. I almost didn't want to do this. I know. Because so many people. I know. It's such a. But hang on. And the listener, right? You might be thinking this too. However, in my mind, it's not that at all. Let's have fun. I want this to be fun. Really kind of like maybe abstract. No bomb cost is too high. Right, right, right. You know, let's just make anything a pinball machine. I mean, that's where I'm coming from. Yeah. And also maybe we can change the pinball world because it getting kind of grim with the reused licensed themes it like how many more superhero games do we need right it's getting old monster giant thing you know i do miss the creativity of 80s and 90s games yeah and earlier but just that like we could do anything. Yeah. We're going to do it right now. Yeah. Some of these topics will be the first time that we're hearing the idea from each other, so it's not like we've necessarily discussed what the theme is. Right, right. So, yeah, this is going to be like you're going to come up with some, I'm going to come up with some. There's going to be an element of surprise, hopefully, and we can make a game, call out some shots, think of the types of multiball, what the jackpots might be like what the sound what the colors what the artwork might be like that's kind of how i i envision it we're gonna do it man i mean this is a game that i would want to play yeah okay you ready go ahead drum roll waffle house yeah black and yellow of course okay everywhere all right black and yellow cabinets you know big old waffle house on the side right with checkerboard patterns simple right simple simple let's see the first thing that comes to my mind yeah there needs to be well before you go on if you're not from from around around here sorry waffle house is a house of waffles does that clear it up it's it's a um okay so if you're international if you're not in america i don't know what their worldwide footprint is maybe that would affect the marketability of this theme Well, if you're international, think of the House of Pancakes. Yeah, right. It's like that, but in Southern America. So a little bit, actually a lot of it, less fancy. Are they all over America? I think they're national. I think it's a national chain. I would say they're like the kind of go-to for truckers, road trips, long distance people. Often open late or 24 hours. 24 hours, first come, first serve. You walk in. they're literally cooking right there it's like a tiny little shack yeah it's basically like a chain diner which for the price i would say it's pretty good right like yeah yeah it'll you know your body might require some sacrificing but i mean they they're cooking with like probably more real ingredients than most fast food places you know yeah it's basic truckers go there waitresses are surly or waiters yeah they're literally cooking and yelling and calling out orders and stuff out loud like right yeah in front of you like right beside you which real quick when i was a kid we went to disney world from panama so it was like the first time that i ever came to the u.s somehow we went to awful house and evander holyfield was there dude i'm not even kidding and he he gave me autograph and it was him and he was missing a piece of his ear because mike tyson bit it and it was pretty recent i would say it was probably within a couple of years that it happened so it was kind of at the height of him being kind of like a celebrity and it was crazy i saw him in a freaking waffle house heavyweight champion of the world defeated mike tyson twice right i was just this little kid my mom was like you should go say hi to him and she went with me and like you know he like shook my hand and gave me a little autograph and it was really cool and he is missing part of his ear do you still have it i wish dude i don't know i mean what was he doing i have no idea man i guess just you know goes show waffle house appeals to a wide variety maybe that's why i love waffle house you know because it's just got nothing but positive memories like yeah save money evander holyfield meet famous boxers all right so that's that's enough waffle house backstory like we got it we got it first thing we need in this game somewhere in there is a freaking waffle maker. Okay. A toy, right? I'm picturing the ball matrix in Giant and Mine, but more of a waffle. And it obviously has to open and close. Somehow we have to put the ball in there. It has to like clamp over the ball. And the ball has to then come out flat. In the shape of a waffle. Okay. Which could be like an illusion, like a magic trick, right? Like the ball goes in and something else comes out. to look like a ball, like a fun little quirk. I gotcha. You got me. Do we want to keep the waffle maker or no? I like the waffle maker. I think having some kind of moving, flipping waffle maker, like ball lock is cool. Maybe because it's like a quadrant. Yeah. Maybe it's four balls that you lock in there. Okay. You could lock four in there One two three four And then it flips over and releases them and that the Waffle House Like the train slash whatever subway in King Kong kind of thing You lock the balls in there, and then you knock it down, and they all come out. Yep. Flips over. Waffle's ready. Balls come out. Ding. Food's ready. Got to have a little ding. And some steam rising off of it, some sound effects. Yeah. Right. That's the first thing I think of. Okay. I'm down. What about you? um do you have any ideas i mean the thing that comes to my mind waffles gets in the news a lot and it's always because of some fights breaking out fights at waffle house oh man i love it like people are getting angry at waffle house and starting some stuff and maybe waffle house wouldn't sign off on this if this is a licensed team they're probably not gonna go for this i don't even know where you're gonna go this is for the homebrew version where you going with this i I mean, like some sort of like fight element. Like you're getting in a fight with somebody. Like there's a bash toy. Pop bumpers. A fight is breaking out. Pop bumpers are like punches thrown. Yeah. So like, dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun. It could be pop bumpers. It could be some kind of bash toy. But yes, something to bring the fight element to Waffle House. Okay. What if there's a table that you have to flip? but the fighting i like that i like that so it could be like a fight mode i mean what's more american than waffle house and like a fight breaking out yeah at a diner because usually it's like drunk people go there sometimes and they're rude yeah so you know in a lot of pinball games you're playing as someone if you think about like the game diner that's the closest right it's kind of analog of course waffle house of course and in that game you're the server you're serving these customers right so maybe that's an aspect of it is like you are the server like a mode and one of the modes is you're having to break up a fight love it that's easy so it's like yeah like a like the mode could be called food fight dude food fight and you're the server and you have to stop the food fight because you have because you have to serve the food yeah so i mean that softens a little bit from a licensing perspective just like like anybody can like They can get down with that. What if you put an extra quarter in the game and you could pick the song from a jukebox? I don't know if people would be willing to pay for that, but I think just like... Hey, it's a dream. It's a dream. Being able to pick the song is cool. Yeah. For sure. It would have to be the real songs that are on the Waffle House jukebox. Yeah. Because there's a mix. A lot of country, older kind of R&B. I mean, it seems like they could take after the Fishtails and Harley Davidson games and just put Waffle House pinball machines in Waffle Houses. In Waffle Houses, yeah. Yeah. That's an easy one, dude. There's like thousands and thousands of them. That's an easy one. And then all the weight, like the weighting area. Yeah. Give people something to do. Yeah, you just get like syrup. They'd have to be cleaning the buttons a lot. Dicky waffle fingers. What a nightmare. All right. So we have food fight mode. Yeah. Okay. What other modes? If it's from the perspective of the staff, then you would be also making the food. Right, right. Hit shots to like lay down two strips of bacon. Every time you hit a loop, you crack an egg or something. Sure. It's ridiculous. What other kind of toys? I mean, what if you had just like a coffee cup that was constantly depleting and you had to hit something to fill it back up and just constantly keep hitting that thing because that's part of the job, man. You have to keep the coffee flowing. Okay, so like your refills. Coffee refills. Talking about refills. Yeah. Maybe you can have the regular and the decaf. The decaf is like a special shot or something because it's rare. It's more rare. And then you don't want to accidentally hit the decaf when it's supposed to be regular. Right. Could be stand-up targets, like coffee stand-up targets. Just keep hitting them throughout the game regardless. Yeah. You have to keep an eye. it's like an added element of oh how am i doing on coffee which it could be like a coffee cup or a mug yeah with like a little meter on it that could like leds or something like yeah some brown leds no i mean i'm thinking like green and then as it's getting lower it's like orange and then red i'm picturing like a styrofoam cup toy in the back and there's like ill dude you can see like the level like vending machine coffee like brown leds oh that's hilarious that's disgusting love it i love it i like that and ultimately you're going for like tips so that's like a bonus maybe yeah the tips are a bonus yeah so another mode would be cleaning the bathroom yes that's a brilliant one man you've got to keep that's a brilliant one which is actually easy because those waffle house bathrooms all have drains in the middle like with like a hose i not even kidding dude like a hose hook up it all tile you can literally spray the walls so is the play field that like brown tile yes they have it every waffle house yes like four inch brown tile with like black caulk yep or exactly exactly yeah and it may be like as the play field goes up maybe the kitchen's in the back just like the layout of the actual waffle house yeah link i mean people weren't really happy about how brown dune was so we're gonna have to spruce it up a little bit this will make sense though you know i mean it'll be a world under a waffle house on your glass yeah i mean really like you could do the whole really under there just grab a waffle house layout and turn it sideways that's the play field yeah you can spruce it up a little bit because waffle houses are not known for their aesthetics. You know what else would be cool? A mini Waffle House inside of the game. Like those architectural little mini models? Yeah. Even smaller, like for ants. And then inside the playfield, under the glass, just to have it in there. Lower playfield, maybe? Lower playfield? Oh my God! Yes! Mini balls or normal size? Mini balls, for sure. That would fit the scale. I mean, I think we've got kind of an idea of the play field. It looks pretty good to me. The music, the cabinet artwork, back class. You're talking about probably this store sign and comic art. Correct. And I'm personally going to go for a DMD. DMD, yeah. I just want to keep it old school. Maybe even like Big Lebowski style, where it's like a modernized DMD or something. I think old school suits Waffle House. That restaurant has not really evolved or changed in the last 20, 30, 40 years. I just don't think LCD screen would vibe with the theme. So we've got our waffle maker multiball. We've got our coffee topping off bonus elements. We've got our clean the bathroom mode. Clean the bathroom mode. We've got our mini play field with the waffle house. The miniature waffle house. And parking lot. So the jukebox could be like a physical toy too, like something you're hitting and really integrate the musical element into it. So obviously, if we're talking about an old school game, you've got to spell waffle, right? I mean, you've probably got to spell waffle and house. The sign literally looks like letters on a play field. It does. It just squares with letters. You can pretty much break up the Waffle House sign into individual inserts. They're lit up yellow on the play field. They literally look just like that. Yeah. I think this is good. We didn't necessarily finish the game, but I also don't think that's our job. Right. This is a dream theme. We're not going to make the game. Our job is to dream the game. I'm not going to lie to you, man. I can close my eyes right now and I can see this game. I can smell this game. I can hear this game. Yeah. I mean, I think they would sell a few of them for sure. It can't be made by one of those shoddy pinball companies. This has got to be legit. Let's see what sounds right. Waffle House by Stern. I mean, honestly, this seems like a spooky game to me. Spooky. I feel like most of Don's dream themes are going to be spooky games. Well, okay, so I hate to say it, but just like creatively, like visually, aesthetically, I see Spooky making the Waffle House game. Yeah. You know? Yeah, and there could even be, you know, they could lean into the horror element and have a different mode that's just like horror-themed Waffle House. That'd be awesome. Yeah. You know, the bathroom gets real dirty in that situation. Oh, man. Waffle House by... Jersey Jack. Jersey Jack. Oh, my God. That's like too trashy for that brand, dude. Jersey Jack would never. That's hilarious. It's funny to think about it that way because it kind of like contextualizes the pinball brands and the kinds of brands they associate with or licenses they hold. It does seem like the makers of the Big Lebowski would probably be on brand to make Waffle House. Dutch Pinball, right? I think so. Yeah. They're just not American. That's true. They're probably not going to vibe with the brand. You would have to find like someone who really loves breakfast, you know? Yeah.