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Ep 154: Evil Dead Pinball with Bug

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 17m·analyzed·Dec 3, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Bug discusses Evil Dead pinball design, Franchi exclusivity deal, and mechanical innovations.

Summary

Bug (Corwin L. Emery) from Spooky Pinball discusses Evil Dead, their latest horror-themed pinball release, detailing its design philosophy, theme integration, mechanical innovations (including the novel sling flipper), and the signing of exclusive artist Christopher Franchi. The game represents a culmination of Spooky's design experience and is positioned as their most ambitious and personal project to date.

Key Claims

  • Evil Dead pinball was signed late into Halloween production, approximately summer timeframe, with formal announcement at Expo in fall

    high confidence · Bug stating he signed the license during Halloween production 'late into' it, specifically 'summertime,' then attended Expo in the fall where Franchi approached him about the project

  • Halloween pinball sold over 1,200 units in less than a day

    high confidence · Bug: 'we just had the hit of Halloween pinball, which sold over 1,200 units in less than a day'

  • Christopher Franchi was signed to an exclusive artist contract with Spooky Pinball

    high confidence · Bug confirming exclusivity arrangement: 'he become exclusive to Spooky Pinball as our exclusive artist' and discussing the decision-making process

  • The sling flipper was an accidental/spontaneous invention that occurred when Luke drilled a hole and installed a flipper at the sling position

    high confidence · Bug recounting: 'I literally stepped out of the office for a minute...when I came back in, Luke had the right sling plastic off, and he drilled the hole, and he'd put a flipper there, and he looked at me and he was like, "Sling flipper."'

  • Spooky Pinball is moving away from dual-theme games going forward

    high confidence · Bug: 'Dual themes are hard, and I didn't want to do them anymore' and 'we are stepping away from the dual themes'

  • Christopher Franchi maintains a day job outside of pinball in addition to his exclusive pinball work with Spooky

    high confidence · Bug: 'He still has... he still does more artwork outside of pinball. I don't know if most people know this, that he has a day job outside of pinball that he does artwork for as well'

  • Evil Dead pinball is a wide-body design but plays mechanically like a standard-body game due to design philosophy

    high confidence · Bug: 'we still design it with a standard set of shots. We just use that extra space on the sides to fit those extra features...So it keeps the game moving very fast. It keeps it shooting like a standard'

Notable Quotes

  • “Evil Dead pinball specifically spoke to us and our company even more. Because, I mean, especially if you're familiar with the second film, that encompasses a lot of what our brand is about, where there's creepy things in there, there's horror, but there's so much comedy and slapstick humor and interesting camera work and memorable sound design and one-liners.”

    Bug @ early in interview — Articulates Spooky's design philosophy and why Evil Dead was a natural fit for the company

  • “If you don't hire me, I'll leak it to everybody.”

    Christopher Franchi @ at Pinball Expo — Origin story of Franchi joining Evil Dead project; shows industry network and insider knowledge

  • “Sling flipper, baby.”

    Bug @ describing the innovation — Moment when the sling flipper innovation was first introduced as a playful solution that became a core design feature

  • “This game is Spooky Pinball. This is us in this game. This is what we have. And it was making the whole process of building it and releasing it really intense for us. We were very nervous going into this one because we really did pour our all into this and knew that this is us.”

    Bug @ mid-interview — Emphasizes emotional investment and risk in Evil Dead as the company's most personal project

  • “If people don't like this one, they don't like us. They don't like our best, and we don't know what to do.”

    Bug @ discussing pre-release anxiety — Demonstrates how much the company's identity and reputation was tied to Evil Dead's reception

  • “And what he sent was so good. I remember, like, opening... I was on my way out to work, and I was in my laundry room, like, putting my boots on, and I was like, 'Oh, man, that looks really good. Yeah, we're gonna have to hire him.'”

    Bug @ recounting Franchi's initial artwork submission — Illustrates how impressed Bug was with Franchi's unsolicited Evil Dead artwork submission

  • “Dual themes are hard, and I didn't want to do them anymore.”

    Bug — Clear strategic shift in game design direction for Spooky Pinball

Entities

BugpersonChristopher FranchipersonLukepersonCharlie EmerypersonBen HeckpersonEvil Dead PinballproductSpooky Pinball

Signals

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Evil Dead received overwhelmingly positive reception from pinball community; Bug describes it as 'the most positive we have ever, ever, ever seen'

    high · Bug: 'It really, really took a huge weight off of our shoulders because we felt just so relieved knowing that people were accepting of us'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Spooky moving away from dual-theme games despite previous success; positioning single-theme focus as strategic direction

    high · Bug: 'Dual themes are hard, and I didn't want to do them anymore' and 'we are stepping away from the dual themes'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Spooky Pinball's approach emphasizes theme passion and personal connection over risk mitigation; 'F the BOM' philosophy rejects feature culling

    high · Bug: 'We have a saying: "F the BOM," where we just couldn't stomach taking anything out. Every idea we had, we felt like the game needed it.'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Evil Dead licensing involved complex navigation of 'two completely separate licenses' according to Bug, suggesting complex IP approval process

    medium · Bug: 'it's two completely separate licenses that I had to work through and navigate and get to merge together for the project'

  • $

    market_signal: Halloween Pinball's rapid commercial success (1,200+ units in <24 hours) validated Evil Dead licensing decision and demonstrated strong horror game demand

    high · Bug: 'we just had the hit of Halloween pinball, which sold over 1,200 units in less than a day' as justification for Evil Dead greenlight

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.231

0:00
i am whoa hold on whoa wow that that was half cocked that was half cocked thanks for tuning in to the loser kid pinball podcast i'm just blah blah blah dragon oh what time is it joe huh you said you're joe i said it's it's too late or whatever i i don't know thanks for tuning in to the loser kid pinball podcast i am your captain josh rup here with my co-captain scott larson where are you off the rails this is episode 154 for some odd reason last episode we didn't catch it but i said 158 again and we just kept going with it right through it yeah so apparently i'm ready to be on 158 we have i've got two three times now okay all right we're good we're on 154 though and a new game has come out a freaking amazing game if you've not seen the trailer. Okay, first off the trailer, Zach Minney, hats off to you. Holy crap. Evil Dead. I don't think this could have been presented a better way. He sold the game just off of this trailer. Like, I wanted an Evil Dead after this, and I don't know how I'd have this in my house with my kids.
1:16
You could. It's fine. It's all good. True, true. Scott, if you're getting an Evil Dead, where are you getting yours from? You know, I'll contact Zach and Nicole Minney at Flippin' Out Pinball. You know, they've always been great, and And really, I just ordered a – if you want machines, they can find them for you. I actually just put in a big order for a lot of accessories. So as you guys know, I haven't set it up.
1:40
My Metallica LE is actually in my garage right now, and I will be unboxing it this week. But I wanted to get the topper. So if you're a topper guy, if you're a speaker-like guy or girl, and you want to just bling out your machines, or if you want to get something either new, used, etc. Go ahead and reach out to Zach and Nicole. They're always really good. Message them. They get back to you really quickly. Yes. Before we get to our amazing guest, I wanted to give first my heartfelt condolences. We just received the message a couple hours ago. Todd Tuckey's wife passed away, and our heart goes out to them, their family.

  • Evil Dead was the culmination of Spooky's design experience across Halloween, Ultraman, Scooby-Doo, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Looney Tunes

    high confidence · Bug: 'This is the culmination of all of our experience from Halloween and Ultraman, from Scooby-Doo, and from Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes'

    • @ responding to question about single-theme focus

  • “We have a saying: 'F the BOM,' where we just couldn't stomach taking anything out. Every idea we had, we felt like the game needed it.”

    Bug @ discussing design philosophy — Reveals Spooky's approach to feature-rich design without cost-cutting compromises

    • company
    Halloween Pinballproduct
    Flippin' Out Pinballcompany
    Josh Roopperson
    Scott Larsonperson
    Todd Tuckyperson
    Zach Minneyperson
    Paul Ferrisperson
    Benton, Wisconsinlocation
    Pinball Expoevent
  • ?

    personnel_signal: Christopher Franchi transitioned from working with multiple manufacturers to exclusive deal with Spooky Pinball, representing talent consolidation at boutique manufacturer

    high · Bug: 'he become exclusive to Spooky Pinball as our exclusive artist' and discussion of exclusivity contract after Evil Dead and subsequent project collaboration

  • ?

    announcement: Evil Dead Pinball officially released by Spooky Pinball with wide-body configuration; positioned as company's most personal and ambitious project

    high · Entire episode dedicated to Evil Dead reveal and detailed design discussion; Bug stating 'This game is Spooky Pinball. This is us in this game.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Sling flipper represents novel mechanical innovation in pinball design; repurposing traditional sling area as playable flipper shot

    high · Bug describing accidental discovery by Luke: flipper installed at sling position enabling defensive play and tournament strategies

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Christopher Franchi possesses relationships with Evil Dead franchise actors, potentially aiding in licensing discussions and approvals

    medium · Bug speculating on how Franchi knew about Evil Dead license: 'It could have been from that or something' referring to Franchi's connections to movie actors

    • 2:22
    I personally have never lost the love of a spouse, And so it's hard for me to comprehend at this point. But even with my 20 years of marriage, I just I couldn't fathom losing my wife. And so, Todd, we're thinking of you this time. And if you're listening and you haven't went, you can give your condolences on Todd's Facebook or whatnot. He posted about it today that she passed away last night. So what what's your favorite moment from from TNT amusement, Scott? You know, so actually we ended up on one of his little episode things where he slapped us all like Three Stooges style.
    3:00
    But my favorite episode, because when you get into pinball, you start consuming a lot of content and you start Googling stuff and everybody finds the TNT, you know, the Todd Huckey videos. And I do remember one where Todd was being his typical Todd self and his wife shrunk him down in her hand and then blew on him and he disappeared. So I legitimately I don't know of anybody who doesn't have fond feelings for Todd. And he's always been a very positive influence on arcade, pinball, anything. And so certainly we want to make sure that he is feeling the support of the community. And the one thing that I hear over and over again is the community is quite supportive of everybody. And I think that's super nice.
    3:53
    Just our thoughts and prayers are with the Ducky family. Yep. well it's hard it's hard to transition from that but uh we are going to transition now to our guest and uh sorry to bring you down okay we're i will say we all need to laugh in life okay yes yep we all need to laugh in life we all need a pressure release valve and the one thing that we can all appreciate is what the spooky pinball company does because they actually don't take their games too seriously. They found their market. They are all about fun. They have lanes for anyone you need. If you like the horror stuff, they've got it. If you like the horror funny stuff, they've got it. If you like the kids stuff, they got Scooby-Doo. They have Looney Tunes, which they all look fantastic. But we are here to talk about their latest release. which is the evil dip so with us right now i'm going to make him sound very because he goes by bug but like he has to have more like a regal name right he only goes by bug because you know it's fun but sir l corwin l alpha he's like the biggest bug i've ever seen though he's like a six foot six bug corwin emery joins us yeah i slaughtered that whatever it's that day man it's the most appropriate intro that I could have.
    5:24
    Tripping over myself sounds great. Gracefully falling down the stairs is how I would describe it. Thank you guys for having me.
    5:33
    Definitely. This game, I've got to tell you, man, I saw this. It's insane. Holy crap. I wish I should have convinced you while we were up there at Expo just to let me sneak in and play this. This is insane. I'm jealous that Don's got to play it and Zach's got to play it. I'm like, what the heck? Man, we need to get up there. I have family in Wisconsin. In Appleton, I need to get up there. If anyone can make it to Benton, if you can get over to Benton, Wisconsin, your chances are higher because we understand that it's not exactly the easiest town to just wind up in. Yes.
    6:12
    Okay, so where in Wisconsin is Benton? We're right in the tri-state area of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa. The more well-known areas around us are like Dubuque, Iowa is a pretty big town. Galena, Illinois is a really popular town with a lot of people who live in Chicago. A lot of people like to visit Galena. And then, yeah, I mean, that's really about it. Platteville, Wisconsin is like a big college town. But, I mean, Benton, less than 1,000 people. You pretty much have to be lost to find it. But it turns out you can make some kick-ass pinball machines in a really small town. That's right. Yes. Okay. No, go ahead, Josh. I was just going to say, speaking of which, I mean, Evil Dead, I mean, obviously a spooky title. You guys are famous for horror and stuff like that. Yeah. But how long has this been in the making? Because really, this is perfectly up your alley. Yeah, and I'm going to tether onto that. Like, why the Evil Dead? Like what is – this is up your alley, but what makes this one stand out? Right. So to answer the first part of the question, when – I signed it late into the Halloween production I want to say. The thing with pinball is it's been like four years now, and everything becomes such a blur. It's getting harder every single day to remember when things happened. Like time is so messed up. But I know I signed this late into the Halloween production, kind of like during the summertime. And it made all the sense in the world, especially back then, because we just had the hit of Halloween pinball, which sold over 1,200 units in less than a day. And Evil Dead pinball specifically spoke to us and our company even more. Because, I mean, especially if you're familiar with the second film, that encompasses a lot of what our brand is about, where there's creepy things in there, there's horror, but there's so much comedy and slapstick humor and interesting camera work and memorable sound design and one-liners. And all the things that specifically make for a good pinball machine are in the Evil Dead franchise. And that's why I think a lot of people out there who aren't even necessarily fans of Evil Dead will really enjoy this game because it has all the things from a 90s classic Bally Williams game in the – it brought to the modern era that I think people will love who are fans of Evil Dead or not fans of Evil Dead. Yeah. Okay. So which classic Bally Williams game has a severed head and a severed hand?
    8:50
    Okay. Well, maybe you got me there. I can point to the one with the troll mechs though yeah well that's you know and Adam's family does have the hand with it right you know so yes very good point you just added a severed head because you know they were they were severely lacking in severed heads well the thing hand is like one of my favorite mechs that I really really want to rip off someday and this game was I got close I got close to being able to rip it off but instead we had it running back and forth so you could hit it because I mean that was cooler yeah because you're shooting with the shotgun and that's perfect. Okay. This, that right there is why you guys do theme integration very, very well with your games. You, you've taken the perfect scene where, you know, Ash, if you guys haven't seen this movie, what have you done with your life? First, second off, there's a scene in the second one where Ash is forced to cut off his hand and it's scurrying away and it flips him off and he shoots it with the shotgun. You've got the double barrel shotgun as you're in lane going across like, like ash across the side of the cabin and you're shooting this ball at that hand. It's just, it's perfect. And that's just one of the things you guys have integrated in this. I mean, why, how I just, I have so many questions.
    10:05
    I mean, we've always been known for good theme integration and a very large part of that. And this is actually something we sometimes take a little bit of criticism for even is we pretty much always just choose things we love. We almost exclusively choose themes that we're very into because we know that if our heart lies with those things, we're going to be able to bring out the things and those that we love to the customers. I mean, growing up, I'm very fortunate I ended up with this career because growing up, I was so obsessed and passionate about everything horror and music and comedy.
    10:43
    And fortunately for me, I needed all of those traits to get good at this job. And but I knew how strongly I felt for all of those things and I always just wanted other people To feel the love that I was feeling for those things And a lot of times growing up. I I didn't know how to do that A lot of people just thought the stuff I liked was kind of weird or they didn't quite get it They didn't quite get why it was so cool. Like this is just the old cheesy cheap movie from the 80s Why are you so into it? and when we Get to make a game like evil dead pinball where we get to shoot at a roaming hand with a shotgun and we have call-outs where he's like, oh, you little sucker, and he's cursing at the hand and whatnot. It's showing people what I love and what I'm so passionate about in a way that I could never express with words. It puts it in a physical way for people to enjoy and experience, and I hope that's what people get when they play that. They get the same excitement that I had growing up with these licenses that we get to work on.
    11:44
    100%. This is the first time in a while that you've done something strictly like horror. And so you've tried to split that balance because there are some people who are like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Maybe not so much. Maybe I'll go for the Looney Tunes option. So you didn't do the double-barreled approach for this one. So what was the thought process into that?
    12:06
    Dual themes are hard, and I didn't want to do them anymore. Okay. No. I mean that is actually a big reason. We are stepping away from the dual themes. I love the dual themes. I think it works. I think it has a great place, but it is very difficult. And this one, in a sense, still was a dual theme for me because it's two completely separate licenses that I had to work through and navigate and get to merge together for the project. but uh i we felt very very confident in this property to stand on its own two legs because this is a license that people have been asking for for so long as long as there has been spooky pinball especially spooky pinball with ben heck around it people have been begging for us to do evil dead i mean you can literally go back 10 years ago and pin side threads and find people asking questions like, is Spooky Pinball going to do Evil Dead? And you can even find pin side comments from Ben from like eight years ago being like, if we did Evil Dead, I'd love to do stuff like this in it. So it's just, it feels like it's been a long time coming. And I mean, that's how a lot of, that's how Scooby-Doo felt, especially. It felt like the theme that we were supposed to do for a long time. And Evil Dead also felt like a theme we were really supposed to do for a long time. So it feels great to finally get to it. And we have more themes that feel like we are supposed to do them that we are getting to. So. Well, and speaking of getting these themes and Ben Heck wanting to do them and you guys being, you know, you guys need to be doing it. My understanding is, Franchi, you heard that you guys were on this title and called you and was like, so you need an artist. Tell me about that. Yeah, it's my blackmail story that started one of my all time favorite friendships I've ever had. So I knew Chris, obviously, through the industry because I absolutely adored his work on the monsters. It was my favorite pinball art package of all time. And I'd been on his show a couple times and I talked with him at shows a couple times, but I really didn't know Franchi personally at all. And it was at Expo not long after I signed the license because I signed it in late summer and then I was at Expo in the fall.
    14:19
    And Franchi comes up to me. and he was like, you need me on your next game. And I was like, oh, yeah, why do we need you? And he's like, because I know what your next theme is. And I was like, oh, you know what my next theme is, Chris, huh? What is it? And he goes, oh, well, it rhymes with evil dead.
    14:39
    And I kind of turned white as a ghost, big gulp moment, because I was like at Expo looking around like, oh, man. And I was just really flabbergasted that he just somehow knew it. And what's funny about that is he doesn't remember how he knew. Like I asked, how did you know that we had it? And he's like, I'm old. My memory is crap. I don't remember. So I don't know how he knew. I mean, he's friends with like a couple of the actors from the movie. It could have been from that or something. But yeah, he essentially was like, if you don't hire me. And he was like laughing while he said it. He was clearly joking. He was like, if you don't hire me, I'll leak it to everybody.
    15:16
    And I was like, geez, first impressions, huh? And so we traded phone numbers and I got back from the show and I was on, it was Monday and I was like recovering, trying to get my thoughts in order and get ready to get back to work. And I got a text from him and it was some artwork of the Cheryl popping up from beneath the trap door. Yes. And he was like, I'm already getting started. And I was like, well, I think he has the job done. I can't tell him no at this point. Like he's already started. And what he sent was so good. I remember like opening, I was on my way out. to work and uh i was on my my in my laundry room like putting my boots on and was like oh man that looks really good yeah we're gonna have to hire him and um i couldn't be happier that we did because it ended up spawning this really amazing friendship that we have and what ultimately led to a few years later uh having him become exclusive to to spooky pinball as our exclusive artist and I couldn't be happier about it. I love Chris to death and we talk just about every single day. He called me today. He was upset because we hadn't talked since Saturday and I felt so guilty because we were busy on the production line training people and building new games. I felt so bad. It feels weird not talking to him right now.
    16:33
    So can you expand on that with signing an exclusivity contract and what all that? I know you can't go super in-depth But like, what's the thought process behind doing that and how many games and whatnot? Right. So what it came down to was I, he, we started working together on evil dead and I really liked it. And then we started working together on one of the next games and I liked it even more. But more importantly, I liked working with Chris because he, not just because of our friendship, which is a big part of it, but because he also is an amazing artist. He's an amazing. I don't want to say employee, but he understands what needs to be done to get it approved through licensors too. He understands pinball through and through when it comes to art. And I didn't want to lose that. I really loved working with him. And through talking with him, I knew he was going to be working on quite a number of projects with other companies. and I was getting worried because I was like, well, I can't have my games look exactly the same as everybody else's games. Our artwork has always been good. We've always had great artwork. It's one of the defining features of our games. And to keep our artwork being one of the defining features of our games so that it stands out in your lineup, I need our artwork to look different than other companies. And if Chris's artwork is on every company's game, then I'm kind of SOL. well. Like we'll take that away. And, uh, it made me, I was like pretty bummed out for a while. Like, Oh crap. Like, am I not going to be able to work with Chris in the future here? That would really suck because we have more things I want him to do. But yeah, if, if four games come out in a year and they're all Frenchie, like that's kind of a problem for me. So, uh, I started proposing the idea to him and, uh, he was kind of back and forth on it. I invited him to come stay with us for a few days in Benton. And it wasn't too long after that, that we kind of got it worked out for him to be exclusive to us in pinball. He still has, he still does more artwork outside of pinball. I don't know if most people know this, that he has a day job outside of pinball that he does artwork for as well. But yeah, it just kind of, that's kind of how all that shook out. And like I said, I couldn't be more thankful for it. It's been a heck of a ride and he's, he's so great with also a lot of like the marketing collaborations. He has so many ideas and yeah, it just overall great collaboration. I got more than an artist when we, when we brought him on and the thing about his artwork and this is i looking at evil dead as we speak right now first off this gives me greg ferreras evil or elvira horse a house of horror vibes it's very much like that old school 90s like you're saying that bally williams where it's you're not just looking at art but it's telling a story and it's very descriptive as well you're not solely uh basing your rules off of rgb leds right like just the like seller open and boomstick like there is there is text in places that that should be text so that way you can you can kind of understand the play field as you're playing instead of half like don't get me wrong i enjoy the lcd is that okay under sanity is that the red red skull or not red skull what was it the Misfits logo. I know it's not original. Red Skeleton? What is that above?
    20:11
    Underwear? I'm sorry. I don't have the artwork pulled up in front of me. Under what part? On the ball saves. On the left and the right side, it almost looks like the Red Skeleton. You know the Misfits logo that they sold from... Oh, no. That's the Movie 2 poster. Oh, okay. Yeah, if you look up the Evil Dead 2 poster, it has that skeleton that's kind of looking off to the side a little bit. And yeah, we just thought that that would look really cool in the inserts. We wanted to, I just realized like that's a super iconic poster that we weren't incorporating in the artwork. And I think that's something I asked for to be in there. Gotcha. But to, to my point earlier about theme integration, where I was kind of gushing over like what I love and what I'm passionate about and how I want to show that to people and put it in the game. Chris has that times 10 in his artwork. And you can tell clear as day that this is a project that he loves and that evil dead is something that he absolutely adores and he understands how to get that to come out of his his brain and his heart and onto a cabinet and a play field and everywhere else that his art is in the game yep when you're approaching these games what makes you choose to do like a standard body wide body like what goes into your mind on that design this is i i have such a horrible answer for this when people ask like how do you decide standard body and wide body honestly i don't know what it is some games out there just say standard and some games just say wide body i don't know okay we'll do it right now we'll try it right now name three licenses you would like to see and i'll say if i feel like they would be standard body or wide body okay rocky horror picture show standard body back to the future standard body um you know what i i want a nightmare on elm street wide body nice and that's when you thought you were dead you're just like wide body like it was wide body immediately it just was immediately i think i mean some of that is just because certain games call for larger spectacle mechs like in this one a large cabin we know once we put a large cabin in there well if it's going to be a standard body game that's going to dominate too much real estate so let's try and get some more things on the side okay now i can't with you guys hang on all right so okay all right all right go ahead let me let me think of some random titles okay uh uh, Jimmy Buffett pinball.
    22:45
    You know, I would say wide body and mainly because Jimmy Buffett, such a chill guy, white bodies tend to be more like kind of, kind of relax. They can be a little floaty. You lower them down. There you go. Okay. Uh, fallout.
    23:03
    Ooh, I would have to say wide body because it's an expansive universe that you're really trying to portray. it could be a lot of mechs like evil dead there's a lot that entails in fallout that you could just yeah i don't know but the problem is too far can be very brutal too so it's like when you want i would have said narrow body i would have said standard body on that one all right one more one more doom oh that's gonna be standard body that's standard body because exactly that's got to be brutal it's got to be mean it's i mean how many to you know when you drain the ball you have to hear like a call out that says headshot yeah but you see what i mean like i i throw that you throw it out there and you have that gut feeling and it just feels right and that's honestly the answer most of the time we decide uh if it's going to be standard or wide body it's just this gut feeling that does or doesn't make sense okay so lead me through you have uh now i'm i'm looking at this i see three flippers is there wait is there one hidden there's one the sling yeah that's the one i can't see very well yeah sling flipper baby you'll get used to it just wait just wait till you play with that thing now i hear that that one now that one's you're not stage flipping right is are you is this is a secondary button on that yeah yeah the sling flipper is a secondary button um we are going to get a setting in the menu where it can be staged because we know some people just really don't like a second button for stuff like that um it's better to have the second button it plays better you'll use it smarter if you have the second button yes but uh we like to leave options like that for people because you know it's it's your game you're spending a lot of money buying these games you should be able to change settings to make it more your style so you can just enjoy it the way you want to enjoy it in your own home you know how do you how did you choose to do a sorry go ahead josh oh i was just gonna say can it go behind the groovy flipper? Yeah, it actually can. Uh, we were at one point considering making that a shot because you can shoot behind the groovy flipper and it'll kick it over into that right in lane. But we didn't really want to encourage people to shoot the backside of that flipper. Hence why in the first place we didn't stage it because if it was staged and you backhand, you're going to hit the backside of that flipper and we don't really want to encourage people to hit that cause it could wear on it over time. So we ended up not doing it, but yes, it can and does happen sometimes during gameplay and it'll kick it over there. And it's kind of a funny little moment, but no, it is not technically a shot.
    25:39
    What, unless you want it to be, anything can be a shot if you're motivated, right? Yeah. Um, what, uh, what made you think, Hey, I want to use a flipper for, you know, where the typical kickers are.
    25:53
    Uh, it was kind of, um, a bit of a joke at first, almost an accident we had the hand over on the left side running back and forth and we liked it but it was it just felt a little too awkward to hit off the lower part of that flipper you don't usually put major mechs off a very end of the flipper shot in a game and we were like this is really great but it's just not quite where we want it to be and we weren't sure how we were going to move it elsewhere because we already had all this other stuff in the game. And I literally stepped out of the office for a minute just to like hit the bathroom. And when I came back in, Luke had the right sling plastic off and he drilled the hole and he'd put a flipper there and he looked at me and he was like, sling flipper. And I was like, all right, sure. Why not? It was just a joke at first, but we, we popped a coil in there. We wired it up and we started flipping with it. We were like, holy crap, this is actually like it's really easy to get control over the ball and hit the hand over there with it. And we also found you could hit other shots off the play field with it as well. So we were like, this actually like people are going to think this is really dumb, but it's actually really cool and it's pretty fun. And then later, like as I was testing code and things like that, I started finding myself using it defensively and to trap up and to change where the ball was going to feed to. And I was like, this thing's actually super dynamic. and I think people are going to really enjoy using it. There's going to be some fun tournament strategies too that we were finding recently that some of the try-hards will definitely be able to use and have fun with. So I'm looking at this picture and I know it's a wide body, but you almost have it set up because of the groovy drops and the double shotgun ball guide and whatnot. It almost looks like a narrow body inside of a wide body. Does it play like a narrow body because of this? Exactly. Yes. And this is something I was hoping people would notice and pick up on because people get worried when they hear wide body because they think it's going to be like floaty, slow, kind of like older wide bodies are. But we do not design our wide bodies that way. We still design it with a standard set of shots. We just use that extra space on the sides to fit those extra features or to expand the shots out. But you're still hitting them from narrow body entry points on these shots. So it keeps the game moving very fast. It keeps it shooting like a standard, but just allows you to fit more content in the game. Like if it was a standard body, the fan-type layout shots up that center would remain pretty much the same, but you would lose the hand on the far left side. So it still shoots and plays like a standard body game. There's just a little bit more space out on the sides. And I think it balances out very well. And a lot of people who played Scooby-Doo, I mean, there's a lot of people out there. who play a scooby and they don't even realize it's a wide body until later until they they notice it next to another game and they're like that's a little bit bigger and i think that's going to happen here too i mean mechanically this game has a lot going on was this just something you were inspired from the beginning or is it you guys started designing and it was just like and we're putting this in and we're putting this in yeah we just kind of decided at some point we have a saying going of F the BOM, where we just couldn't stomach taking anything out. Every idea we had, we felt like the game needed it. And we just wanted to serve the theme well. And this theme in particular was just really pulling a lot from us that we just really wanted to give everything we had on this game. We really wanted to show like, this is the cultivation of all of our experience from Halloween and Ultraman, from Scooby-Doo, and from Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes, and then from all the games before that that we, our team, didn't design but had built because we'd all been a part of those processes. It was just this culmination of all that experience. And the theme was right for us. It felt like something, it felt like a game, a layout, and a theme that we could put our truest, this is getting so snobby, our truest like essence of our company and who we are into it. Like really put in there absolutely everything we have. Like I've, I've said it a lot in the featurette and other marketing forms and everything like this game is spooky pinball. This is us in this game. This is what we have. And it was making the whole process of building it and releasing it really intense for us. we were very nervous going into this one because we really did pour our all into this and knew that this this is us this is us in pinball form if people don't like this one they don't like us they don't like our best and we don't know what to do so to see everybody react not just like happy but overwhelmingly positive i mean the most positive we have ever ever ever seen It really, really took a huge weight off of our shoulders because we felt just so relieved knowing that people were accepting of us and into what we have to offer in this industry.
    31:19
    Yeah. Lead me through. You have a double barrel shotgun on the right that basically has two shooter lanes. So lead me through that. What's the thought process on that? I'm certain it's going to be like theme integration on some level, but there's an interesting design element that you actually have. Part of the entry into the game is the shot path, and so you have two of those to take into account. So tell me about that.
    31:51
    Yeah, we just always knew we wanted to shoot a double barrel shotgun in the game. and a dual shooter lane is something that hasn't been done in a really long time. I'm pretty sure Twilight Zone is the last time it's been done and even that isn't really the same as what we're doing here with this one. We just always knew we wanted to load a double barrel shotgun and shoot it and we were able to do that in two ways, excuse me, in the game with bashing those shotgun shell targets in up above and then that leads to the sequence of vents that, you know, loads the two balls into the shooter lane so you can actually shoot it. And then we went a step further with it and added the muzzle flash. When we did our flasher pass in the game, we added a flasher underneath that apron spot so whenever you fire the ball, it goes off and it actually has the gun muzzle flash of when you fire it as well. And, I mean, yeah, I hope it's a decent enough answer to your question, but just general knowing from the beginning we wanted to shoot a double barrel shotgun and the shooter lane being a very good opportunity especially because it is wide body and we expand it out on those sides where like i said before it's not the shots that are getting expanded out there it's the features and this is one of those features where we were able to take it out there we're unlike scooby-doo that space was used for the bravery meter well we didn't have a bravery meter in evil dead we have a sanity meter but not a bravery meter and uh it just kind of all put itself right in place for us it seemed to make a lot of sense and you speak of these shotgun shells holy crap this is like one of the coolest features on this game like it's the it's the thing that caught my eye when i first saw the trailer you've got to tell me how you came up with this idea and i don't know if anything's been done like this before i know zach manning with flipping out had mentioned on the rate on the pinball show with dennis creasel that they were they're attributing this almost to like a drop target But sidewards, instead of going up and down on the play field, it's in and out. Yeah, yeah. That's kind of what the inner workings of the mech are like. This one's all spooky Luke for sure. When we – back in the day, we really wanted to do – this is kind of funny. We really wanted to do a John Wick game because we all love John Wick. We're huge John Wick fans. And we're doing our first layout. We kind of had that in mind and we really wanted to load a shotgun in John Wick, thinking that that would be like a cool way to go through different levels in the game and whatnot. So putting a gun in Wick makes sense, right?
    34:25
    No comment. Pinball's hard, man. That's all I'll say. Yeah, we wanted to do that in Wick. Obviously, we ended up not doing John Wick and went a different route with everything. But when we got to this game, Double Barrel Shotgun is a pretty big old feature in the Evil Dead franchise. And Luke had been sitting on this idea for years and years. And finally, a game presented itself that it made sense to start to put that in. Because, yeah, no, Scooby-Doo or Looney Tunes. Well, technically, Looney Tunes would have. But Scooby-Doo didn't make a whole lot of sense to do a feature like this. So, yeah, Spooky Luke had that design for a long time. He kind of knew how he wanted to do it. We got this license. we started doing this layout, he knew pretty early on that he wanted to get this mech worked into there. And yeah, it is very similar. It's kind of like a drop target mech, but on its side. But all that stuff's internal. You're never going to see it, I hope. So from the top side, it's just actually some double barrels on the playfield with shotgun shells that you're hitting in with spooky pinball 12 gauge shells. I love that we got that detail onto those and I'm happy the the licensor was cool with it that is amazing and that's that's one thing i love about franchi is he sneaks in little details like this and i for those that don't know zach many was actually supposed to be in monsters we talked about monsters earlier he was in the outline on the left side but he got caught and franchi had to take him out but uh just it's funny because like beatles i know that he put uh his daughter uh presley in there she's she's one of the girls that have fangirling over the Beatles. So I just, I always love the little Easter eggs that he puts in here, and that's perfect. To have spooky on the 12-gay shotgun shelves. Here's a challenge for Franchi. He needs to put a Loser Kid logo in a spooky game now.
    36:18
    Figure out how to hide it in. Maybe we could find a napkin we can draw it on in the work shed or something like that.
    36:28
    It's a busy table. We could fit a lot more details in there. We can put a lot in there. Yeah. Put it on the toilet paper in the bathroom in the cabin. Yeah.
    36:40
    Franch, you make it happen. Yeah. I know you're listening. I have faith in you, Chris. You're good. All right. So there – one thing I do want to bring up is you guys – your quality is getting better and better and better.
    36:54
    There is a lot mechanically going on with this game. what are you guys doing to ensure that the the quality gets better with this game and also um one other question i had too that goes with the quality and whatnot i know that other companies have a machine that essentially tests the mech so many times it's like 24 7 365 do you guys do that as well with your mechs to ensure that these are going to last over the the life of the unit Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for the most part, a lot of the mechanism features we are using are, you know, quite a few of them are from decades of pinball use and experience. I mean, like drop targets, auto launchers, pop bumpers, things like that. I mean, those have been used for so long and they've gone through so much stress testing that you can very confidently rely on those. But yeah, once you get a feature like a double barrel shotgun mech, yeah, you need to fire that thing about 10 to 20 to 2 billion times to make sure it's not going to fall apart out in the field. And then somehow, some way, it will still find a way to do it. But it will fire that 20 billion times in your office first before it gets out into the field. Yeah, we do stress testing like that all the time. We used to have this compressor room that was always super loud that we would put things like that in to do the testing on because then you wouldn't at least have to listen to it all day. And you just check on it throughout the day to make sure it's still firing and working. But quality, dude, we've got so many new things we're doing that has already been seeing such drastic improvements. And as we been entering this Evil Dead build I feeling very I feeling so confident in it So we moved into the new factory which I talked about this quite a bit We moved into the new factory which was completely designed around workflow and quality improvement to improve on those things from our previous factory. We spent like 11 or 12 months designing that, making custom rigs, figuring out what the workflow is going to be, kind of restructuring our build process overall to get more of a true assembly line feel to it. And on top of that, a lot of our employees that we have now have been with us for years, years and years. They've built thousands of games. They have such a deeper understanding of pinball now than they did before. We've also hit what I feel is a really great spot in game sale, like unit count in what we produce every year. because um i mean you gotta remember when we were in the halloween days we were trying to do 40 games a week which was just so many when we had previously been doing rick and morty which was 750 games in a year we got to halloween ultraman it was 1700 games in a year so we had to do that also amidst all the the covid craziness when we'd gotten back so i mean where we're sitting right now we have so much more experience. We have so much refined and redesigned mechanisms and build quality improvements that we've learned since our first design on Halloween. We have employees with 10 times the amount of experience now that they had before and such a much deeper understanding. And then even still on top of all that, I'm still adding new things all the time to our production process to improve the checks and everything. My joke lately that I want to do. You know, when you go to the hardware store and you're buying paint and they put it in one of those machines that shakes it up really violently. Yeah. I want to, I want to put my cleared sticker on the game. I want JR boxing guy to wrap it up and I want him to put it in one of those and just shake the hell out of it. And then I'm going to put it back up on a stand and just go through it again. Whatever I can do to keep improving the process I'm going to do. But, um, I think the culmination of all those things is really going to show on evil dead when it gets out there and uh spooky luke has really done a fantastic job of just going through this this particular design and refining it over the last year to make sure it's as ready as possible because another thing i'm sorry if i'm ranting about this for too long you're fine another thing that's helped us improve with quality as well is how much further ahead we're getting built to because so many times quite transparently we were scrambling to get up to our game launches for so many years trying to make sure the game was finished and ready to go hit the production line. But now we're working on four or five games in the future, some of which, like three or four of those, are being coded on right now.
    41:25
    That's so much more time to go back through the build and look at it again on how you can go and redesign certain elements of it to make sure it's more robust and easy to build for production. Because when we first started Evil Dead, we were very aware, like, this is so many items. We have to make sure we can build this. And Luke did so many pass-throughs making sure that it is going to be so robust. I mean, just built so strong. And I think that's going to show. I'm feeling really good about it. I mean, at the end of the day, it's always pinball. Pinball is a wear and tear machine. It's going to take a lot of abuse, especially on locations. It's going to take so much abuse, and there's maintenance with that. But I think we're really coming into our own here, not just on the quality control fronts at Spooky Pinball, but everything. We've got our layouts tuned in to where we want them. We've got the licensing tuned in where we want it, the quality tuned in where we want it, the code tuned in where we want it, the art tuned in where we want it. I can keep going. We've really hit our stride, and we all are feeling it. We all are feeling so much better and more relieved right now than we did a few years ago where it was just overwhelming, everything that was going on all the time. So, yeah, we're feeling good. well i'll say too like we went scott and i were at expo and it's a testament like while we were there i mean we went through the spooky booth a handful of times and i swear every time i was in that booth there were people on the machines and all the machines were working i never saw hood go up on one of them and if it did it was quick so i just i i'm seeing an improvement as well so what would you have to say scott well getting back to what you were talking about um so what is a this is a question that you may or may not want to share but i'll ask it anyway what is a successful uh a successful goal for you like per week how many games you want you want to do or what is a successful run on a on a title because you did contract the number a little bit which i think is actually beneficial for a game like evil dead because you're probably gonna to cater to the hardcore Evil Dead fans and the pinball fans. I don't know how many new people you're going to get with such a very specific theme. And so it makes sense to give a very targeted, focused number and to be able to get those out to the super fan people.
    43:52
    Yeah, there's a handful of answers to that question. Right now, we're cruising at about 16 to 20 games per week. I'd like to still be floating around that 16 mark throughout the production of Evil Dead, which I think that's about where we're going to be. The game's still selling very strong.
    44:11
    I think we probably are going to sell this game out this year. Hoping so. That would be pretty cool.
    44:17
    And what number is that? Like, so everybody knows. 888. Evil Dead is limited to 888 collector's edition units. The collector's edition. It's kind of fun. It's the only edition. We just didn't change the name because we don't like shaking up too many things before a game launch and confusing people. But it's 888 units of the top-level model that we have offered for the last four years.
    44:42
    But, yeah, the 16 to 20 games a week is right about where we want to be. And, yeah, we have limited Evil Dead lower than some of our previous titles. I mean, Looney Tunes and TCM were both limited to $888, but they came out at the same time. So it was over $1,500. Yeah, it's still a ton of units. And Scooby-Doo limited to $1,900.
    45:02
    Yeah, there's a handful of reasons why we lowered it. One of the biggest being protecting the value of the game for the customers. That's a very important thing to people in this industry is the resale value of their game. And I think back when we did Rick and Morty and it was that 750 units and it sold very strong and had a great fan base, it also protected the value of the game for a lot of those people. And that really helps that when people can, any extra reason people can feel good when they buy your game, you should take that very seriously. And we do. So protecting the customer's value, not trying to shoot for the stars and produce 3000 games a year because it will kill all of us sooner than later another very that does kill your resale too like just exactly what you're saying exactly if you have you know any game that that produces like five to ten thousand games you know eventually there's going to be a lot on the market i i bet just throwing it out there i bet you can buy a get a good deal on an old school metallica pro right now sure yeah yeah yeah because They made like 10,000 of them. Yeah. Well, protecting that resale value is super important. Well, it's funny that you say that because like I went through, I was actually going through your guys' games on Pinside and they're keeping track of sales and whatnot. And to your point, yeah, you look at Rick and Morty, the resale value right now is anywhere from, I mean, there's one at 8,500, but it's typically about 9,500 to 11. and you look at Halloween where you guys made a ton of them and you're looking around like $5,000, $6,000. But the other interesting part too, to your point, because people are like, why are they only going one model? It's funny because I went through – That's what people want. Well, that's what's funny. It's the only one they bought. I went through the sales. Yeah. There's no sales. Like if you go to Halloween where there's a collector's and a bloodsucker's and all that stuff, literally the ones they're selling are the collector's edition. So it either means people bought the standard and the bloodsucker's and aren't selling them, which I highly doubt, or it's literally they're only buying collector's editions. So why are we making these other games? Why are we going through that headache? You know what I'm saying? Well, it does remind me when we did talk. We visited Jersey Jack, and they threw out there, they basically stopped making the standard Guns N' Roses because it wasn't selling. People didn't want that. They wanted the full version. And my attitude is when I see a spooky game, I see the same thing. if you're going to spend the money for this, why would you want anything less than the top level?
    47:46
    Well, in our top level just has so much bang for the buck. I mean, evil dead, I'm not going to go into the whole list. We've talked this to death, but I mean, the features that you get in evil dead at that $9,999 price tag, it would cost you so many thousands of dollars to get those features into any other game in the market that is priced similar to ours. and yeah so when you offer the standard and the bloodsuckers editions that were just a couple grand cheaper i mean over 90 of our sales were collectors editions it just was no longer worth the headache of doing different sculpts plastics art packages that's a whole new set of approvals and this and that you have to do and it i just would rather have one version of the product and It's the best version of the product out there, especially when that's the only one people were buying anyway. Yeah. When you look at it, though, other manufacturers have relied on add-ons. They've relied on, oh, you want extra lights? Oh, you want something on – you want the fancy armor? You want the shooter? All that kind of stuff. And you guys have really gone away from that. You're just like, that's the game. um the the one add-on that you guys do have we haven't even talked about oh my goodness let's talk about the topper holy crap that is okay i i have i'm a topper guy as you can see i most of my games get toppers but i always cringe a little bit because sometimes the toppers don't like like actually meet expectations on what i think a topper should be okay anybody who looks this game and does not want the topper needs to needs to go to get their head examined because you have to have this topper if you're going to get this game well the game right behind you doesn't have a topper so i think you need to buy an evil dead topper for that one right behind you i can't tell which game that is behind you but it's iron maiden but that'd be hilarious to put an evil dead topper on there yeah put evil dead on there i'll help you out we'll get it hooked up yeah yeah you know it'd be great it'd be perfect that would be hilarious by the way i would love to do that because i don't like the topper that is available for it yeah well there's people out there buying the topper who didn't even buy the game so i guess um you know what's funny we didn't put a limit on the top like we just never even thought that that was a possibility like we never said like toppers limited to 500 units or toppers limited to 888 units or anything like that because we never considered that i'm gonna say that we're gonna buy it without the game. And then people were buying the topper without the game. And yeah, I mean, that topper has just been a complete smash hit. I'm very, very thankful for it. Um, because it was, uh, it was quite the investment and it was, it was a very, uh, cool experience getting it together and everything, but it's always scary when you don't know if something's going to work or not. And I'm not joking. I think we're sitting right now at 80 to 85% of our game sales have the topper included right now it's it's an insane number it did better than we ever would have expected a topper to do so thank you to everybody out there toppers 1400 okay okay so look at what they're selling other toppers for yeah that's a three thousand dollars topper oh yeah oh yeah you know there's kind of a moment at expo i probably shouldn't tell that story because it kind of calls out other people but there's a moment at expo where i was looking at other companies toppers and I walked by, I didn't realize this sounds kind of crappy. I didn't realize how small they were. Some of them. And a lot of the promo material, it always seemed like they were these really big, cool things. And yes, very expensive, but I always thought like, Oh, some of them are pretty darn cool and whatnot. And I was at expo and I was looking at them and I was, and I was thinking back in ours and we're, we're trying to price it at the time we were thinking 1400, we weren't sure how people were going to take that or not. And then I saw what the other toppers that were 1,400 or more were, and I was like, oh, we're going to be okay. This is going to do just fine. And then it did. So that was great. What is the height on this topper too? Max height is 13 inches if my memory serves me well. Other toppers are – they're not top in 10. We're talking like 7 to 9. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Max height, if my memory serves me well, the full open cellar should be about 13 inches.
    52:22
    Nice. This has definitely cut a hole in your ceiling worthy. Yeah. A lot of people are talking about putting it beneath the game because they can't fit it in their rooms. That would be funny.
    52:32
    This is one of those things where people are like, can you make an extension? And Spooky Luke commented online, yeah, we can make an extension. And then about an hour later, he was like, oh, crap. Hey, AJ, can we make an extension? and it was like yeah i hope so like i think so and then we got to figure it out we got to figure it out we could totally do an extension but it's one of those times where we're like we will make sure that that happens because a lot of people want to put it uh in front of their game at the very bottom so it's actually a what do you call it not a topper a bottomer a bottom a bottomer a bottomer yeah that sounds kind of weird but but uh yeah i just hope nobody is like surprised by it and they like put their foot through its head when it starts moving and they didn't know it was down there or something so they might need some signage thing like watch your feet put chicken wire chicken wire in front yeah hey 13 inches if you can if you can get 13 inches in anything you should always pay for it just do it i'm gonna move on from that okay the question that a lot of people have asked and and i'm curious as well and i i'm sorry i didn't watch the carry hardy video we love you carry you're awesome we haven't had time like this has come out so fast i know there's been so much content that is one thing you guys have done excellently is the amount of content to consume on this has been impressive but the question i have we'll call out other people like seriously go and look at the stuff that zach that zach did for you guys i mean that stuff is great go look at the carry hardy stuff like you have been such a a marketer of this that even you guys do gameplay Yeah, absolutely. It's great. Go ahead, Josh. So the question is, this covers only the first two movies. Why not Army of Darkness? And I can kind of guess maybe why Ash vs. Evil Dead, but tell us that as well. Mm-hmm. So the biggest reason Army of Darkness isn't present in the game is when we were doing movie one and two, we were focusing on the entire cabin in the woods setting. As soon as you throw Army of Darkness in that mix, how are you going to fit all the different features from that movie and the first two movies and make it make sense? Like where on that layout- A double wide body. Yeah, exactly. Like where on that layout are you going to put the castle? and also do people want the seventh castle from spooky pinball i mean we do a lot of castles but alice cooper's on top yeah yeah right no but uh it it just wouldn't make sense to fit all the features because we could do an entire game of army of darkness by itself like that movie you could easily do an entire layout just based around all the features from that but i mean there was a conversation that was had where we kind of looked into it whatnot and for what we typically require to be available for us to do a license as far as content goes. It wasn't really there for us.
    55:21
    That's really all I can say about that, quite honestly, is there just wasn't quite what we wanted there. And it just felt like none of it was adding up in a way to make sense that said, yes, do this. So we didn't. And I think it was the right decision. And anyone who plays the game, I think they will agree after they are done playing the game, that this is the exact right experience that you would be looking for from an evil dead pinball.
    55:49
    You definitely want to... The first two have such a huge fan base. You don't want to pick five minutes out of one movie and just put it in and move on. You're right. You want the complete experience. And so I totally agree with you. If you're going to go all in, have an immersive experience in a well-defined box. you know you want to make sure that that stuff is taken care of so what um you know and i'm going to steal josh's question because josh josh was brainstorming with us a little earlier so what was the biggest learning experience or take home that you got from this game oh no one's asked that yet what was the biggest learning experience or take home from this game or biggest challenge you know that's another option like what's the biggest challenge that you uh that you encountered when you were designing this yeah how much editing do you guys do so i can take time to think about the answer well you can think about it we could we could ask another i mean we can edit the crap out of this yeah yeah josh does all the editing so i'm fine with it ah perfect aha man what's the biggest take you don't want the editing experience from this uh with how the response to the game has been it shows that everything we decided to make sure to go the extra mile on is 100 worth it and we will continue to do that going forward because there is a lot of things we could have not put in this if we wanted to save money or just make the build process a little simpler or anything like that. And we decided to say, screw all that. You know, like I said, F the BOM, let's throw everything we have in us at this. And we're going to continue to do that going forward because the response to it alone has made it worth it Even if we sold one of these and everybody reacted that way it would be worth it to do it again because the love that the community showed for it and that we got to feel from that was just worth it. So we know it is worth always going the extra mile and to not take any shortcuts and to do everything we possibly can in these games. Because there's so many features in the game. And it's like, we could have pulled the tape recorder out of the apron at any time, any time. We could have just pulled that out. Nobody would have ever known it was there and the game would still be great, but we wanted to make sure it was there and to have a character who voices on it and to do that neat little effect because it was just another thing that brings the game to life, that brings our love for it to life. And it was a hundred percent worth it. And we know it was a hundred percent worth it. So I'd say that was probably the biggest takeaway was always putting in everything you have is you should always do that for sure. When I love that you guys do so much unique stuff with your games, like thinking back to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, like the blood draining mode. Yeah. On this one, I have to point out, I love the girlfriend messing with you in the game. Oh, dude, it's so much better now. You haven't even seen the best of it. I was just playing it earlier today. We've been adding so much code because that gameplay video I put out, we've been doing a lot of work since that gameplay video. I mean, I recorded that quite a while ago. And the Linda trickery stuff that I was playing today was so cool, where after the set amount of pop hits that I went and got, she rotated all my flippers, including the sling flipper. So it was between those three and they were all inverted and everything for, for like a period of 10 to 15 seconds. And she's making fun of you while you do it. It's, it's, it's getting so much better every single day. And I can't wait for everybody to see it. Sorry to interrupt you. I just got, I just, it reminded me of advice. Does she ever tell you what to do? Or she's always telling you the wrong thing.
    59:59
    That's a good point. We should make sure she also says some truthful things to make sure it's even trickier. Right. Always bury a truth in a lie. That's a really good point. You're right. Yeah, we need to make sure that's like that. All right, Ben's getting a text after this interview. Because, yeah. Okay, if that's true. If she gives good advice, too, that makes it harder. Very good point. We get a flipper code in the game. You have to put a Loser Kid logo in the game on the flipper code. That's a very good point. We've got to make sure to do that. Yeah, because if it actually does ball save, then you might actually trust her next time. I know. It totally screws me. Absolutely.
    60:35
    I got to say, between that and then the code where you guys have the cabin going nuts because you're trying to take on all the deadites.
    60:43
    Isn't that like one of the final modes as well? I'm trying to think. I was trying to think. Yeah, because Zach was telling me about this. He was talking about how like there when Bruce Campbell, Ash is losing it and the cabin is actually attacking him and stuff. Oh, you're talking about sanity mode. Yeah, sanity mode. Yes. Tell me about this. And the whole game goes nuts. Yes. So sanity mode. So in the game, the captive ball is the Necronomicon shot. Every time you interact with the Necronomicon, much like the movie, as Ash is interacting with everything in the cabin, you're going progressively more insane. And at a certain point, you're going to break. And when you break, that's when we enter you into the sanity mode, which is where in the second movie, that iconic scene where he falls through the chair and then the deer head looks at him and starts laughing. and then everything in the cabin comes alive and starts laughing at him. And he kind of joins in on it and then it all gets stopped. From the very beginning of this game, I knew I wanted the game to come alive and laugh at you. I wanted to use every single mech we possibly could to laugh at you in the game. And that's exactly what we do. And we've been testing and playing the daylights out of it lately, just trying to add as much to it as we can. And I want to keep adding more to it. And, but that's what happens. You enter it, the game starts popping things up, laughs at you, pops another thing up, laughs at you until eventually the whole game has come alive. The trap door is flat for the people who are watching, can't see or are listening. I'm waving my hand up and down, but the trap door is literally like doing laughing motions at you while you're shooting the targets beneath it. And the deadites are popping up in very infrequent patterns while they're, it's just, it's so great. the lift ramp is going up and down laughing at you. The pop bumpers are laughing at you. The hand's going crazy. Linda's head's spinning around. The tape recorder's playing backwards. The porch swing is going back and forth. The game absolutely loses its mind. And your goal is to silence it by hitting all of those different features and getting them to stop laughing so that you can be sane again, so that you can get through the rest of the game.
    62:54
    But it's a really great mode. and I think it's going to be one of the defining moments of the game for people when they get to play it.
    63:02
    Love it. I'm sorry. I want this game and yet I don't know how I'm going to bring it home. This is family mode.
    63:12
    Yeah. It's the family of darkness, Josh. Come on. I get that. I don't know about your family, but my family, when they see something like this, all of a sudden they're like 110% in. My five-year-old is like, what's Jaws? Like I brought home a Jaws pinball machine and here I'm trying to commit like, do I really show my five-year-old Jaws? It was something we had to do. He was obsessed all of a sudden. Don't show your five-year-old evil dad. Don't do that. Exactly. I was playing Iron Maiden the other day and my daughter came down and I was a little nervous a little bit because she hadn't really looked much at the animations. She's like, why is he doing that? And I said, oh, he's like one of those funny zombies like Plants vs. Zombies. She's like, oh, okay. Yeah. It's Plants vs. Zombies. It's like Ash – yeah, it's Plants vs. Zombies. Ash vs. Zombies. Ash, and actually the plants are super evil in Evil Dead. Yeah, exactly. And they swear at you. It's actually Zombies vs. Plants, really. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. You can try that. Where's the code at? Where is it going to be at when it starts shipping, and when do you guys start shipping? We're going to start shipping early January is when you'll really start seeing some. I think we're going to get a few of these out before the end of December, actually, just pending on how production keeps going. You know, we're getting it built right now. We were just hitting the wiring stage tomorrow. We're going to start doing some mechs and things like that.
    64:36
    So I think it'll start really moving out early January. Code is currently rock freaking solid. We've been doing hours upon hours of continuous gameplay across multiple multiplayer games and having no resets. super happy with where Ben has gotten as far as that goes. We did prioritize stability over a sheer massive amount of content to be there at the very start. But that being said, the content that is there at the very start is great. And I still think more than plentiful to get people rolling. And we're already moving on to the next modes that are going to be coming in the game as well. And we're writing new modes that we actually didn't plan already too. Like we've already come up with new modes that we were like, oh, we could work that in between these features as well just because we think it needs it. So there's still lots to come, but there's a lot that is already there. And it's going to be, I think, like I said, on everything I've mentioned that we've hit our stride on, code's one of them too. Like I'm very happy with where it's going to be. I think when it gets out there, like I said, rock solid. going to be plenty of content. People are going to have a lot to consume, and we're going to make sure we keep hitting them with more and more as the year goes on. Because I love doing the code updates throughout the year too, and I think a lot of people enjoy getting code updates throughout the year. I think there's a lot of people out there who don't realize they don't actually want 100% code complete day one because it's really exciting getting a new mode in your game. And also because we actually give a darn and listen to the community, a lot of times what people request to see more of or less of, we listen to that and include that in our future updates as well. So I'm excited for that because every single time you put a game out, there's always something from the movie or the TV show or whatever that people really latch on to that they want to see, that your team was like, huh, I didn't expect them to grab onto that so much. Time to start making an animation or mode out of that to make sure it's more prevalent in the game. so it's cool to get the customer feedback finally because uh when it's a small group of people and you're all working on it and you can't talk to anybody about it for so long it's it's nice when you can let people in and they can give you some more feedback and present ideas to you that you had never thought of and you know get what they want in the game as well
    67:02
    well we if you need a play test part of it yeah yeah they're both stumbling over each other like We'll do it. Go ahead. Just ship one out. I swear we'll take care of it. We'll fly out. You know, we don't have – we're not picky. We're not. I say we do tours. We take visitors.
    67:18
    Okay. I've got to ask. Bruce Campbell did the voice outs – or voice – the call outs, the voice call outs.
    67:25
    Did he come to Benton? Do you guys fly out to like Los Angeles to do this? Were you fangirling? Tell me about the Bruce Campbell stuff. Yeah. So most how most of the recording sessions go for a script on these games is they will go to a studio that is nearby to them, or sometimes they have their own studio at home. In this case, Bruce went to a nearby studio and I zoom in essentially to oversee the recording session and answer any questions they may have provide direction that may be needed on certain things with the game. But no, We had an absolutely gargantuan script that Bruce got. We had a couple sessions that were booked to be many, many, many months apart because we knew as game development went on, we would find more things that we want in the game and would come up with more funny call-outs. I mean, while we were shooting the trailer with Zach and Greg, we were coming up with new call-outs that we wanted Bruce to say, which on your family-friendly podcast, I cannot share what those ones were. but uh it was really great that we got to separate that into the two sessions but uh yeah i zoom in and uh yeah bruce is on the other end uh cameras are typically always off when the other person's recording because you don't it would be very awkward if you two were watching me right now as i recorded over a hundred pages of something and was like making funny faces and act like acting for it it would be pretty uncomfortable so usually cameras off for that. But yeah, they go through multiple takes of every line of different styles. They ask questions on certain things, how you want it pronounced, this or that. But with Bruce, he's pretty darn familiar with how to play the character Ash, and his ad-libbing is better than anyone's writing could be. So the lines we would give him, we had a lot of lines that I'm very proud of. I think the script was very good and i mean the script had to be approved by sam ramey so that's worth something if he thought it was good too but um the ad-libbing that bruce would do on top of like some of the more generic lines we would give him was just so above and beyond what you could ever ask for out of an actor i mean usually when you ask somebody to ad-lib you get like a few a few little things here and there and they throw some taglines he would just go on tangents of his own insanity when he was doing those lines and uh yeah super happy with it and uh that second session that we did was uh not that long ago it's about a month ago now i want to say so you know all the way up really close to game launch we made sure we got a lot of good stuff in there that people are going to want to see and uh yeah there's some really great things in there that i'm excited for everybody to get to when we get to the the live streaming and the people get their hands on it at locations and shows and whatnot.
    70:16
    So did you guys send him the video? Like obviously if you did the recording session about a month ago, has he seen the product? Has he given any feedback on it? Bruce is directly a part of the approvals on the product. He is involved with the licensing aspect of it. So yes, he was always aware of it kind of head to toe. And I mean, anything with him involved in it, he has to have approval on. So head to toe, this thing gets a lot of different people's, it goes through a lot of channels of approvals, but yeah, two of those people being Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi, if they approve it, I think it's worth something. Yeah.
    70:55
    Got any other questions, Scott? No, I think we're good. So is there one thing that you really wanted to put in the game that you haven't yet?
    71:05
    Ooh, one thing I want to put in the game that I haven't yet. I mean, there's a lot of cool modes that are coming. I don't want to spoil what any of them are because it's fun. I mean, you'll see in the inserts, like, Henrietta multiball becoming Cheryl multiball becoming some wizard modes, things like that. I'm very excited for those to get into the game. I've been mostly jazzed for the Linda trickery stuff in the sanity mode, and those are the two things that we've been putting all of our efforts into right now, as well as making sure there's more sounds from the actual films. synced up movie clips, just general call outs from the film to play at cool moments during the game making sure we're really using those full assets for everybody so when they first get it they're being hit with the right amount of new funny lines from Bruce as well as the nostalgia so the Linda trickery and the sanity stuff right now is by far my favorite aspects of the game and those are a couple things that not everybody has gotten to see everything from yet so I'm excited for everybody to get to see those for the first time nice me too this honestly guys you knocked it out of the park i know i know it's a cliche but each release is getting better and better and better and it's showing in the product that you guys are putting forth i mean really congrats to spooky and what you guys are doing it because you're doing it right like seriously you guys moving forward are just i'm astounded every time a new release comes out because you are hitting the nail on the head you're doing great it seems like spooky is comfortable in the lane that they have chosen. And that's really important because you need to find what works for you and what market you're catering to. And it totally makes sense that you guys are making stuff that you care about. That is also marketable. It's not like you're doing something totally random. You have figured out there is a market for this in pinball that is not being captured by, I would say, bigger manufacturers. So that works really well. Yeah, fortunately we have decent taste with what we like. Some of the things we like happen to be marketable, so that's good. That's convenient. Well, that's also being self-gating to make sure that you are able to select something that you're like, this would be great and I can sell it. Yeah.
    73:24
    Trust me, there's times where we're careful. We're like, is that one not actually sellable or are we just all really into that? Yeah. And that's when Golden Pond was made. Yeah.
    73:37
    It's breaking to electric boogaloo. Exactly. Okay. Well, we want to send you guys out a bunch of hats so you guys can pass them around the office, make sure people get – and we're making some more beanies because I'm a beanie guy. And I know if you guys are caught up there. He didn't get with me on that. He didn't – no. What are you talking about? I told you to order them. Yeah. We'll talk about that. All the other kid hats are some of the top hats in all of pinball, for sure. Without a doubt, one of the best hats in pinball. I wish we could streamline them a little better, but you know what? I oversee the quality on them. It's the love. It's always been one of those once-a-year things.
    74:17
    But, no, we want to thank you for coming on, Bug, taking your time. I know it's almost 11, almost there. I appreciate all you do, man. And honestly, you're one of the most professional pinball people we deal with. I mean, it's insane at your age to see how well you carry and hold yourself when it comes to stuff like this. It helps that he has a podcasting background. Most professional has never been something anyone has called me before. So thank you.
    74:47
    I don't know about most professional. If you want people getting a hold of you, how do you want them to get a hold of you, Bug? uh yeah order a topper and i will send you a pigeon with a letter attached to it no um spooky pinball we're available on everything uh i'm on bug scream and stream on facebook and instagram you can shoot me messages there otherwise my email is bug at spooky pinball.com otherwise spooky pinball uh we have the phone number you can always call our main office you can email morgan is on quite honestly much better at answering the general questions because I'm usually wrapped up in a lot of other stuff. So if you have some pretty general questions, email morgan at spookypinball.com. And yeah, we're pretty available. You can find us pretty much anywhere, Spooky Luke's on all the social medias. I'm live every single week, Thursdays at 7 p.m. Central on Twitch for the Bug Scream and Stream channel there.
    75:46
    Yeah, we're around. We're on Pinside. We're on Patreons. We're in the deepest, darkest holes of the internet. to make sure that we're talking to the pinball people all day, every day. So you'll be able to find us somewhere. Awesome. Except Reddit. I don't go to Reddit. Yeah, I don't either. That's no man's land. Yeah, it's a wasteland, yeah.
    76:07
    If you want to get a hold of us, we are Loser Kid Pinball Podcast at gmail.com. We are on YouTube. If you haven't liked and subscribed, why haven't you done it? Why aren't you going to YouTube? Because I know it's a whole different audience. So, anywho, do that. We're on X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Twitch.
    76:26
    Twitter is X. That's throwing me off. I apologize. But also, if you want some swag, hit us up at silverballswag.com slash loserkid. We just dropped some new high-top shoes because it was a demand for it. This is our first time announcing them. We've already sold like 10, 15 of them or something like that. It's crazy. So if you want that, do that. Scott, give us our final words. And this is my broomstick. What?