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Last Gasp 2016

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·59m 47s·analyzed·Dec 29, 2016
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Holiday gaming haul + Android table releases and Arcada/Stern Pinball Arcade platform updates

Summary

Chris and Jared discuss Christmas gifts and post-holiday pinball/gaming releases, including the Android launch of Colour Monkey/Nina Innovations tables, Arcada cabinet integration with Pinball Arcade, and the early-stage Stern Pinball Arcade app across multiple platforms. They express cautious optimism about these releases while noting technical issues.

Key Claims

  • Colour Monkey/Nina Innovations finally released Revenge of the Robot 2 and Masks of Glory combo pack on Android after being on iOS for an extended period

    high confidence · Jared confirms the Android release and discusses audio/scaling issues already being addressed by developers

  • Arcada cabinet will have official licensing with Pinball Arcade and integrated tables with full immersive display (backglass, DMD floor-to-ceiling, correct perspective)

    high confidence · Jared describes YouTube demo at IAPA Expo showing integrated Arcada tables menu option and technical specifications

  • Arcada is offering dollar-for-dollar matching of previous Pinball Arcade purchases through March for pre-orders/downloads across Steam, iOS, and Android

    medium confidence · Jared mentions seeing this on Twitter and Instagram but notes uncertainty about exact implementation mechanism

  • Stern Pinball Arcade app launched on Android, iOS, and Steam but is in very early build status with significant UI/controller integration issues

    high confidence · Chris played Steam version and reports clunky interface, controller incompatibility requiring mouse use; notes downloadable content became available after initial release

  • Revenge of the Robot 2 includes substantial rule updates and new features (mode identification, multiball, secret lock, enhanced audio) not present in original

    high confidence · Jared provides detailed enumeration of improvements to justify $3 re-purchase despite being 'same game' complaint from users

  • Arcada cabinet is compatible with all arcade emulators and can switch between pinball mode and arcade cabinet mode via control panel

    high confidence · Jared describes custom arcade bus, dual-screen configuration (42-inch portrait/32-inch landscape backglass), and portrait-to-landscape mode switching

  • Arcada appears to be shipping from Australia with potential for international distribution networks similar to Stern's model

    medium confidence · Jared notes $500 shipping cost per TNT Amusements reference and speculates container/distributor model

Notable Quotes

  • “The thing that the Masks of Glory table is just plain fun. It reminds me of a System 11 table with the ruleset, and it's just a fun table to play.”

    Jared @ ~28:45 — Direct gameplay assessment of Nina Innovations/Colour Monkey table quality and design philosophy

  • “So if you buy Arcada and you enjoy Pinball Arcade, you're actually going to find the experience is totally immersive, which is pretty amazing.”

    Jared @ ~40:15 — Highlights value proposition of Arcada's integrated Pinball Arcade implementation vs. standard Steam version

  • “It's essentially like an arcade machine and the Steam platform. So you have access to all the different Steam titles as well. It seems like a pretty good buy, really.”

    Jared @ ~44:00 — Assessment of Arcada's market positioning as hybrid pinball/arcade platform

  • “I think that they've been clamouring for it, and I think, to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure if this is the case, but you could pretty much expect that because Stern is the main driver of this app, I think there might have been some serious encouragement from them to get this app released earlier than probably it should have been.”

    Chris @ ~47:30 — Speculation about publisher pressure on FarSight affecting release quality timing

  • “Much like the Gear VR build wasn't exactly ready for primetime, my initial playing with the Steam version is still not ready for primetime.”

    Chris @ ~46:45 — Direct quality assessment of Stern Pinball Arcade app with historical reference to previous FarSight launch issues

Entities

Blockade Pinball PodcastorganizationChris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonColour MonkeycompanyNina InnovationscompanyArcadacompanyFarSight StudioscompanyStern PinballcompanyRevenge of the Robot 2gameMasks of Glorygame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Arcada integrating official Pinball Arcade licensing with custom cabinet implementation for immersive display

    high · Jared describes YouTube demo showing integrated menu options, backglass art display, floor-to-ceiling DMD integration

  • ?

    community_signal: Colour Monkey/Nina Innovations developers actively responding to user feedback and committing to rapid bug fixes for Android release

    high · Chris notes honest Google Play review prompted immediate developer response regarding audio looping and menu scaling issues

  • $

    market_signal: Arcada offering dollar-for-dollar purchase credit matching for existing Pinball Arcade buyers across platforms through March

    medium · Jared mentions seeing announcement on Twitter/Instagram; indicates credit would apply to Steam, iOS, Android purchases

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Chris speculates Stern may have pressured FarSight to release Stern Pinball Arcade prematurely, citing pattern from Gear VR release and Stern's role as main driver

    low · Chris presents as 'gut feel' based on observed quality issues and Stern's commercial incentives; notes Gear VR was similarly not 'ready for primetime'

  • ?

    announcement: Stern Pinball Arcade app officially launched across Android, iOS, and Steam platforms

    high · Chris notes receiving downloadable content notification during recording; both hosts confirm release occurred

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.179

0:00
This is the Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jared. Surprise! You are listening to the Blockade Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Frevis, aka Shet Your Trap. Joining me as always, halfway across the world, Jared Morgan. Hello. How are you going, Chris? Good. So we didn't expect to have a session before the new year started, but things aligned and there you go. Yeah, we've got stuff to talk about, so we figured let's do it. And I'm at work this week anyhow, so... Sucker. It's very quiet. That's great. There's probably going to be about a maximum of 10 people here that don't have enough leave to take the holidays off. So, yeah, I'm here. So I figured I'll squeeze one of these in between the other stuff that I'm doing this week, and we'll knock one up for the books. Well, let's talk about the important things. What did you get for Christmas? Well, I got a $50 Google Play gift voucher, which I have subsequently redeemed. I haven't spent it on anything yet. But I've activated it, which is quite nice. I'll be able to buy some albums and probably some games that I've been having my eye on for a bit over the last year. That's pretty cool.
1:36
And it'll also play in quite nicely to all the movie discounts that are on Google Play at the moment. I've got a deal where I can hire free 99-cent movies. Okay. So that's like any new release, basically, I can get for 99 cents. So very happy about that. Awesome. But, mm, that's pretty cool. And because we have Ikea open down the road from us now, I also got a big packet of Dime chocolates. I don't know if you guys are aware of those, but they're like a hazelnut and toffee sort of inside covered with this really nice milk chocolate, and they're just delicious, delicious little morsels. And if you go to the cafe at Ikea, At Ikea, you can actually get dime cake, which is made from the same stuff, all crushed up, and it's just so good.
2:30
So, yeah, I've been munching my way through those. So, unfortunately, I got her some presents. I kind of already bought her a pretty big present for her birthday, which was some jewellery from Tiffany's.

  • Chris suspects Stern may have pressured FarSight to release Stern Pinball Arcade earlier than ready, contributing to early-build quality issues

    low confidence · Chris states 'gut feel' based on pattern from Gear VR release and assumption of Stern as main driver

    • Pinball Arcade
    game
    Stern Pinball Arcadegame
    Arcada Cabinetproduct
    Andrea Frebusperson
    TNT Amusementscompany
    IAPA Expoevent

    product_strategy: Revenge of the Robot 2 includes substantial rule updates and new features justifying $3 re-purchase for existing players

    high · Jared enumerates: mode identification improvements, new multiball, secret lock, enhanced audio, redone voice calls, rule changes

  • ?

    product_concern: Stern Pinball Arcade exhibits significant UI/UX issues including clunky interface, controller incompatibility, and incomplete feature implementation at launch

    high · Chris reports inability to perform all functions with controller, requiring mouse; menu scaling issues; downloadable content missing at initial release

  • ?

    technology_signal: Arcada positioning as hybrid pinball/arcade platform with dual-display setup (42-inch portrait pinball + 32-inch landscape arcade) compatible with Steam emulators

    high · Jared provides detailed technical specifications of custom arcade bus, dual-screen orientation switching, control panel options

    • 2:41
    But I wanted to give her something to open on Christmas Day, and I got her just some, you know, some platter. I got her, like, a platter with, like, a Paris theme on it, because, you know, we've been to Paris recently. I thought that'd be nice and some, you know, just some placemats and stuff. And I sort of made one from the kids and one from me, you know, to do the whole thing that you have to do as a father.
    3:04
    And unfortunately, she didn't really like any of them. So I'll be taking them all back and getting my money. And she suggested that maybe in the future I just get her a wine voucher. So fair enough, I guess. Fair enough. Yep. Yeah, wouldn't doubt, wine voucher. So there you go. that's easy I'll just go to every time so yeah how about you did you score oh yeah yeah so well for starters got the Sopranos box set been looking forward to watching that show all over again since it first aired that's how long it's been since I watched it couple of movies Little Adventure Brothers season 5 and I got the The Last Guardian on PS4, which is if you've ever played Ego or Shadow of the Colossus, it's by the same makers. This is a game that was supposed to have been released on the PS3.
    4:02
    Literally, we've been waiting for it for about 12 years. That's how long ago it was announced. It was absolutely worth the wait. I'm so loving it. It's just like those other games. The mood, atmosphere, the puzzles falls right in line. If you've ever played any of those and you liked them you're going to absolutely love this game. I don't even know how far into it I am but it's incredible. Love it.
    4:34
    And then you know what the Perplexus balls are? No. I don't. Perplexus is a clear sphere and inside of it is basically an MC Escher maze with the ball that you move around the ball, right? I've seen those, but they're not called that here. Oh, okay. I've seen maybe the knockoffs of it, but I've seen those, and I've had a go of them, and they're really hard to put down. Yes. We've had the original Perplexus for a couple of years now, and then I just got the Epic Perplexus and the Star Wars Perplexus, and they are kicking my butt. They're good times. It's nothing like a tactile puzzle like that, eh? Exactly. You just get your hands on and just while away the hours, because hours disappear when you play them. Yes.
    5:27
    More importantly is the Toys of the Sun got that I get to play with also. So he got a whole slew of Lego Dimensions packs, so we're going through those. We got the Ghostbusters, Sonic, which he just was playing that today and I was laughing because it's totally Sonic from the 90s. It's awesome. Awesome. and the Gremlins pack, all sorts of little various packs. And then he also got a Penn & Teller magic kit. Oh, yeah. Which he's very excited about because it's not a Fisher-Price magic kit.
    6:02
    What's the difference between the two? Penn & Teller is a bit more adult. Yes, exactly. And the toy, basically it's designed with, they know they've got a quality name and they don't want to put out cheap material and stuff like that. But what's funny is the first trick they have you learn is cup and balls. It's the oldest magic trick in the world, right? Yeah, totally. And it's Ben Akeller famous for it. So he basically learns the basics and is all like, okay, here we go, let me show you. It's like, no, no, no, you've got to practice it, man, because your sleight of hand is not working at all. Your sleight of hand does not say sleight. Right, but that's okay. He's having fun going through it. For my friends at work, I got them this little doohickey, which is, for those of you not watching because nobody is, it's called a stress cube. That's actually their website, stresscube.com. No, they're not paying me. But anyway, what it is, it's a one-inch by one-inch die with little tactile things on all sides. So you've got like the spinning combination wheels and then a smooth ball that pushes in and makes little tactile button noises. You've got little buttons that you can push that make clicky noises. You've got a wheel that spins, a light switch that goes on and off, like a keyboard button.
    7:26
    Like a joystick. And then a smooth, like a smooth stone for rubbing. And so it's just one of those things, just tactile. you can keep it in your pocket and it just kind of gives your fingers something to do. Now, I'll give you a little secret here for those listening to the podcast.
    7:41
    One of the hardest things in the world to do when doing any kind of broadcasting is not saying, um. Yeah, that's right. In your natural state when you're talking to somebody, I shouldn't say you never, but you rarely say, um. But for some reason when you're doing any kind of broadcasting, your mind is working and trying to give forth content that people would be interested. you got other things on your mind and so when you go to pause you say um yeah you're giving your voice you're giving your brain a chance to catch up so a trick that i've been using for some time has been because i read keep your fingers busy so i usually use a ballpoint pen and i just kind of mindlessly click it and by giving your finger something to do that's occupying your brain and that gives you the moment of when you can pause and stall.
    8:31
    So Stress Cube is doing the exact same thing. So this entire podcast, I'm going to be sitting here just fiddling with this thing.
    8:38
    That's cool. Yeah. I want one now. Like, that looks pretty cool. Because what I find I'm doing sometimes is, like, we've got these, like, essentially they're like hacky sack balls that have marketing stuff and lab ropes on them. And I'm finding that, for me, when I'm reading something or trying to understand something, I actually get two of them. and I'll just spin them in my hand like Kinect balls. I think it's like you can get metal ones that do the same thing, but I'm finding it's really improving my concentration, me doing that. And I think something like that would be pretty cool, that little cube, because it looks really cool. Yeah, it is. It's very cool, and it comes in various colors.
    9:17
    I think there were six different colors that you could choose from. There's various makers of it. If you look up Fidget Cube, you can come across these, but this one specifically is from stresscube.com. So hey, Stress Cube, if you order from them, mention Blockade and we'll get absolutely nothing out of them.
    9:34
    As you do that, I'll just put a note in the group chat on the Hangout just to remind me to put links to that. Yeah. Because I think I may accidentally purchase one of those because they look really cool.
    9:48
    That's pretty good haul, mate. I'm jealous. You got more stuff than I did. Yeah, something else. And then the thing I got the wife.
    9:57
    So she's a scrapbooker and she needs to photograph her layouts in order to post them to online galleries. The problem with that is how do you photograph it properly? Because you've got to be directly overhead. You don't want to get shadowed. You've got to have it properly lit. So usually she goes outside at a certain time of day, puts it on the ground, kind of squares up as best you can, photographs it, Then it has to go into Photoshop, correct the angle, all that jazz. It's a pain. It's a pain in the butt. So there's this thing that was kind of specifically designed for scrapbookers, but it's also really good for people that do eBay, anything that you would sell small items. And that's a thing called a shot box. Oh, okay. What it is is it's a – think of it like a milk crate almost. It's collapsible, but you pull it up. It pops open. The thing flies down the back. It's all white. It's got LED lights built into it. You turn those things on, it gives perfect bounce into a 14x14 cube, basically. It's got holes on the top, so you can put your camera up on top, have it aim straight down, and it'll perfectly capture the 12x12 of the paper that she normally needs to photograph. That's really cool. It should take a lot of time off of, make it much easier for her to photograph. And then she doesn't have to have a, oh, she just, she just, hold up. If you want to look at any of her stuff, she's on Instagram and it's Andrea underscore Freebus. And you can see what her scrapbooking stuff looks like. She's been published, published over 50 times, won many contests. She gets posted on various websites. So it's good stuff. That'd be with an I-E, though, Jared. Thank you. I always get those two.
    11:53
    You're not the only one that misspells my last name. It happens virtually all the time. Yeah. So anyway, it's super easy to set up. The thing is, it's kind of costly compared to a lot of photo studios that you look at on Amazon.
    12:13
    But none of them allow you to shoot straight down. And they have additional lights that you have to light from the outside because it's usually a soft white that shines and glows. This thing, completely self-contained, throws into a tote. It's pretty awesome. That's so good. That's a smart gift for a person who needs to take shots of actual things. Yeah, and then it comes with backdrops. So like I said, if you're doing it from the side shooting, say you've got figurines or whatever, it gives you all sorts of backdrops, It's both green screen, blue screen, white, black.
    12:46
    It's got a little thing that hangs down the side so you can put your phone on that. And it's got lights on it so it shines forward lighting. So it's just really good for doing a lot of side light. That's cool. Yeah, actually, I'm thinking now of all the – now you mentioned all the presents that you got for Mason.
    13:04
    I'm thinking of the presents we got for the kids as well. And there's some pretty cool stuff they got. But, like, I've been enjoying helping the kids put together their Lego.
    13:15
    Yes. Isn't that the best? Oh, it's so good. It's like the present for both. Like, yes, boys and girls, you can have this present, and I will guide you through the instructions. Because some of the kits are pitched at, like, age seven, and Zachary's not quite there yet, so he just needs a bit of help getting some of the pieces on. And also understanding the isometric view and how to actually parse that from a, you know, putting the pieces on the right orientation. Yeah, but you know what? I got no sympathy for them because if you've ever looked at the instructions for the Lego when I was growing up, it was terrible. Oh my gosh, it was a puzzle trying to figure out what the heck they mean. They didn't give you a little box saying, here's all the pieces we're going to use in this particular setup. It was just, scan the picture and find out what's different. Yeah, it's basically a big exercise in those Lego instructions of the past where really that went back. They were like a spot the differences. And I'll tell you what, I had a Coast Guard kit. Probably came out in 1979,
    14:18
    80, somewhere around that vicinity. It was the first kit that I got that wasn't just a general builder kit. And the entire thing assembles in, I think, 12 steps. 12 steps? That is huge. We're talking about a 300-piece Lego set. In 12 steps? 12 steps. Yeah, that sounds about right. Welcome to the 80s. As an adult, I assembled this thing, and I had the exact same problems that I had as a kid, figuring out wait where do they want me to do that You counting dots and it was one of those things where I having flashbacks going wait wait this is the part that always messed you up And then you get about four steps later and go oh it all wrong and offset You'd have to change everything. And so it was like trying to remember all this. But, yeah, I got no sympathy for the Lego instructions now. Which is so much better. Like the fact that they actually give you the sub-assemblies as a box out when you're actually making them, and then they show you where to add them exactly with arrows. The fact that they divide the bags, you know, here's bag one. Why don't you assemble all of bag one first, whereas I just had a big, giant pile? Yeah, and now they actually give you tips. In the instructions now, they say, first of all, sort the pieces into colors. And that's a really obvious thing to do, and I never used to do that when I was young. But it's like, of course you want to sort them into colors. That makes total sense. so we did that and it was much easier for the kids to find the pieces and actually do it themselves so it's been very interesting from a Lego fan perspective to actually do some building of modern Lego kits we're talking about mixels and stuff like that we're not talking about big kits the mixels are only 60 pieces something like that and they're fun, they're good for Zachary we built two of the three of the Fire version of the Mixels. Yeah. But once we do three, I'm going to have to go to Lego and download the instructions for the combined one. Yes. It's the Max. Yeah, the Max. I think it's a bit weird that they ask you to go down and sort of get the instructions sort of separately, although I guess it's hard because they're sold as individual little packets. Right. So we're going to – I think that's going to look really cool when we build that. Which, when you think about it, if you were hardcore, you would have bought an additional three LEGO sets, so you could always have the max built, and then also have the individual mixers. Oh, that's pretty nuts, yeah. It's pretty nuts because of how expensive that would get. As it is, because they came in waves, and each wave came with nine packs, so three different groupings of three. well each pack cost 5 bucks so you're talking about 45 bucks just for each wave and there was a total of 9 waves wow okay that's crazy so what I'm doing is I'm taking photographs with my shiny new pixel phone that I've got so I'm taking photographs of all the models close up and I'll be publishing those as public albums on Twitter through Google Photos so So I'm having fun both making them and then photographing them in such a way that I want to actually share them. So, yeah, it's been fun doing that. And we've also got this game that we've been getting quite a bit of mileage out of, which is essentially like Bingo, but it's called Zingo. And it's got this little dispenser. It's basically used as tiles.
    18:05
    Instead of, like, marking them off on a sheet, you've got these little tiles that you insert into a dispenser, and then you'd love this. It actually works like an old credit card machine. You go, and it actually spits out two tokens, and then the first one to actually call out what the token is gets to keep the token and put it on their card. And I can just see you going, yeah, let's do this,
    18:26
    with your love of old machines like that. I remember you talking about it in a previous episode. So you get a kick out of that. Yes, when I wanted to be a gas station attendant. That's exactly right. You can relive your fantasies of that. So, yeah. Wow, gee, that's a lot of talk about Christmas. But, hey, look, it is the season, right? Exactly. So, what, you're saying we should maybe talk about something else? Yeah, since we've just pretty much spent a half an hour talking about it. Well, okay, then. You tell me that something got released on Android that has been out on iOS for some time. Oh, yeah, for ages. finally we get to enjoy the next installment of pinball from color monkey and nina innovations which is um the combo pack of revenge of the robo bot version 2 um and um masks of glory um which is a library table that's right yeah so finally they've decided you know what it's been out on ios for long enough now let's let's port it over to android and go through that palaver the thing that's the Master of Glory table is just plain fun, it reminds me of a System 11 table with the ruleset and it's just a fun table to play, plenty of humour in there the gameplay itself is fast which is pretty consistent with all Nina Innovation and Colour Monkey tables they've really, when it starts rocketing back down towards the flippers it's fast as So that adds to the challenge of the table. But the theme in the Mask of Glory tables is fantastic. Like the whole feeling of one of those matches, the Mexican wrestling matches, is just spot on. So they've done a really great job there. Having some strange audio looping issues on the Shield tablet, which is a Tegra-based device, versus the Pixel, which doesn't have the audio looping issues. But the good thing is that the developers have already responded to my review. I've given them an honest review on Google Play, and I said, look, both tables play great and all that, but there's some issues with the sound on Android, on Shield. And I said, look, yeah, sorry about that. We'll be fixing that really soon. So I'm looking forward to the improvements on that. And some weird menu scaling issues as well on tablets where the text overflows the buttons, which is a bit bizarre, but again, they're fixing that as well pretty quickly, so that's great to see.
    21:01
    Clarify something for me, just because you just popped up in my head. I was like, oh, is the Google Pixel not Android-based? Yes, it is. Oh, okay. It seems to be that the problems that we're seeing here are just because I think they've designed it for phones, and they haven't really thought about tablets for the initial release only, because this is the initial release on Android, and there's always going to be some minor issues with an initial release. Right. Which I was totally anticipating. But actually, there's been some interesting feedback on the reviews for the app because, of course, with Robobot 2, when it was released on Android originally, the Anders from ColourMonkey suggested that there would be a cross-buy initiative for people who already own Robobot so they could get Robobot 2 for free. but because so much time has passed and because color monkey essentially sold the rights to the game to nina innovations um that's no longer applicable but and people are going oh why do i have to buy rubber guard again you know it's the same game actually it's not the same game um there are there's a whole lot a whole swathe of improvements done to the game so there's better mode identification in the centre of the table. So before, when you started a mode, you just started the mode, you had no idea what other modes you completed.
    22:26
    There's also now a multi-ball mode as well, which is new. You've got like a secret lock for the multi-ball now, which wasn't there before.
    22:38
    You've got like more sound effects in there now, so like more environmental sound effects and also voice calls because they've redone all the voice calls.
    22:50
    There are, yeah, a whole stack of rule changes. And the game really, it's a little bit like saying, I don't want to repurchase Brighter Pinbot 2.0 because it's, you know, the same game. You know what I mean? Ray is not. It's not. It's, like, different enough that it's actually new. And, you know, we're talking, like, even in Australia with the terrible exchange rate, we're talking $3 per table, you know. So that's not even a cup of coffee. And this is a, you know, you're getting $3 for Robobot and $3 for Luget. Sorry, Master of Glory. That's not that bad. To have to rebuy those two tables again, I'm actually okay with that, you know. So I really don't understand the angst. Anyhow, it's a great release. It's a nice addition. It's a nice take on digital pinball. It's very different to the other offerings on Google Play, you know, from Farsight and Zen. It's really quite good. I'm really enjoying it as an offering. Well, cool. Yeah, so thank you to Nina and to Colour Monkey for finally getting it on Android for Christmas. Hey, I want to bring up something that I don't think we talked about it last time. We briefly mentioned in our top five pinball things, Arcuda, the Arcuda cabinet, and that it's going to have officially a licensing pinball arcade for it. One of the things that came out is that if you pre-order or you download the software, I'm not sure exactly what it is, but basically through March, if you plan on purchasing it, they will match dollar for dollar the cost of Pinball Arcade. So if you previously purchased it on Steam, you'll get it built into the Arcuda for free, essentially. I guess they'll refund the money. I'm not sure how it's going to work. I don't know if that information has come out. I'm just kind of assuming that that's what's going to happen. But that amounts to $1,000 over Twitter and stuff. Yeah, I saw that too. and I've got a feeling that that's not just for Steam either. So if you bought the things on iOS or Android and you want to get into the digital cabinet market, they're actually going to honour those purchases as well.
    25:16
    All they'll need is basically proof of purchase. So if you can show them through, and you can do this easily through either the iOS store or Android where you can go back through your purchase history for a particular developer or product and see all the different purchases you made, yeah, they will honour it. And then I think they said in most cases, and you pretty much won't have to pay anything for the software in most cases. The other thing that I found very interesting, which was released while we were in hiatus, was the way that Arcuda is integrating their product into Pinball Arcade. And we talked last time a bit about the cabinet mode that Arcuda was working on. It turns out that it goes a little bit deeper than that. So with Arcuda, I watched a YouTube video when they were at the IAPA Expo, I think it is, and they were demoing their tabletop cabinets and their pinball cabinets and all the offerings they've got, basically. and the the pinball cabinet i think it was their tabletop version um had a screenshot on it with um the pinball arcade mobile interface but it had an extra menu option which was arkuda tables so it seems that arkuda have paired up with farsight to actually make fully integrated tables that will be totally immersive for the platform. That means that it'll actually display the back glass art. It'll integrate the DMD floor to sleep. Ah, okay. And it will actually show the table in correct perspective orientation when it's displayed on the cabinet. Because at the moment, if you just run Pimble Arcade through Steam, it will actually sort of have the table tilted down and the DMD displayed on screen. Right. But they're actually slowly working through the tables, I think, and integrating them directly with the platform. So if you buy Arcuda and you enjoy Pinball Arcade, you're actually going to find the experience is totally immersive, which is pretty amazing. Yeah, no, that's very good. So that's a pretty cool development from them. And I actually had a deep dive into the pinball offering that they've got, And it is kind of very cool for the, I guess, the home enthusiasts of both MAME and PinMAME and Pinball in general because the way they've designed the cabinet is that it's not only compatible with Pinball. It's actually compatible with all arcade emulators. Okay. So what happens is they've got a lockdown bar on the screen because, of course, the screen size, 42-inch, will always leave a bit of a gap at the bottom of the play field. So what they've done is they've got your standard lockdown bar to sort of get the feel of a pinball machine. But what you can do is that you can actually go and get this additional control panel that turns your pinball machine into a full-blown arcade machine. So it's a trackball, six buttons, all that kind of shit. The whole lot. It's basically a huge panel that just plugs directly into the existing bus. They've got a custom arcade bus underneath.
    28:46
    And you can choose one of two options. This is a cool thing. You can actually have it display in portrait mode. You can play any game on Steam in portrait mode on the screen, but if you want, you can press a cabinet button on the side, and it switches to the black glass. So you've got basically this, I think it's like a 32-inch screen in the back, something like that, and it instantly switches to standard 16x9 orientation, and you just play the game like you would on almost like a big sort of Megaview arcade machine that you would see in the arcades. And it's kind of really cool the way they've done that. They've really thought about the way that they're integrating the software and the overall package to make it not just a pinball machine, but something that you can use for a variety of different applications. Very cool idea. Have you been able to determine where it's going to be shipping from?
    29:42
    From Australia, it seems. And I think at this stage I not aware of any distribution plans for them But yeah it could be very interesting to see what happens Because I just thinking I like boy that automatically adds that huge shipping charge that you guys suffer from all the time. But obviously, the majority of people buying this, I would think, are not going to be in Australia.
    30:08
    I wouldn't think so. But you think about, I've seen a lot of, what would I say, clips from TNT Amusements. and they say that for them to ship a pinball machine anywhere in the world costs $500. Yeah. That's it. So they create it up, they put it on an international pallet, they do it up in plastic, and off it goes for $500. So, you know, it's not a lot more to actually ship it out. And it might be that they have a distribution network over in the U.S. I'm not sure. It would make sense if there's enough demand, if people want them, that they actually just do a container and then have a distributor over there to farm them out. Right.
    30:50
    That will be how they do it. I mean, that's how they do all the other pinball machines. Like Stern ships them over in a container and we get them here with a distributor. So I don't imagine that they would do it any other way.
    31:03
    But, yeah, it's like if I had the money, I would seriously consider this because it's essentially like an arcade machine and the Steam platform. so you have access to all the different Steam titles as well.
    31:16
    It seems like a pretty good buy, really. Could be really cool. Could be. Something else to touch upon that happened since our last podcast was that Stern Pinball Arcade dropped on Android, iOS, and Steam. Yeah.
    31:36
    We're going to be kind here. Yeah. my caveat is this is a very early build folks much like the gear VR build wasn't exactly ready for primetime my initial playing with the Steam version is still not ready for primetime but I also don't think it's necessarily time to jump down Farsight's throat and you know hang them out to dry over it it's one of these things where it's like you know I get a gut feeling for it. I think that they've been clamouring for it, and I think, to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure if this is the case, but you could pretty much expect that because Stern is the main driver of this app, I think there might have been some serious encouragement from them to get this app released earlier than probably it should have been. That probably Farsight may have been comfortable releasing it. So I think if anyone is to blame, it might actually be Stern in this particular case. That's my gut feel anyhow. And if you're wondering when we say what's to blame, me just plunking around with the Steam version, I couldn't do everything 100% with the controller. I had to use my mouse for some things. The general interface is clunky. Yeah. It's just not very intuitive.
    32:58
    Once you get into a table, once you get into playing Mustang or Frankenstein, those are the two tables that were available for free. And as we're recording this podcast, I got a notification popping up that says downloadable content is now available for steam. Whereas it wasn't a couple of days ago and everybody was like, Oh, stupid to release a table that, you know, an advertised, but you can't even purchase anything. But on the same hand, I would say, Hey, at least you knew ahead of time that the UI was clunky before you put down money. Now, if you go ahead and put down money and still complain, that's on you. Cause you have a warning. Um, I think that the, yeah, look, I'll agree with you that there are interface elements that just aren't probably right for Steam. Sorry, I haven't actually seen the Steam version, but I can imagine that it's pretty much the same as the mobile version. Yeah. And I know that it's stuff in the mobile version at the moment that's a known issue. For example, you can't adjust the position of the launch or special buttons in the game. That's a big confusing factor for people at the moment. The other thing is that at the time of recording, the volume isn't actually linked to the hardware volume buttons on Android. So to work around that problem, you need to actually adjust the volume outside of the app and then go back in, and then it will actually honor the volume settings. But that must be really confusing to people who perhaps are more technical.
    34:25
    And they go, well, why isn't there any volume? that would be quite frustrating, I would imagine, for those folks that aren't perhaps as technical. And I've gone through to try and help the guys out for the Android app. I've gone through and in my Google Play review, I've documented the known issues in my review, which Farsight have actually responded to and said, look, thanks for the detailed feedback, and we're working on all these issues to try and get them patched as soon as we can. so hopefully that will actually help people that are coming to the app going wow why isn't this working yeah i think what firesite could probably do to work around that issue is in the what's new section of the ios android and steam apps they should actually document what is a known issue at the moment and make that publicly known that that we're working on resolving these issues please stand by that would be a much better message to send um well you know what's easy what's interesting too with this app we beta testers haven't even so much as gotten a whiff of this we were invited into beta as far as I know nobody was doing beta on it other than in house so this is well and truly being isolated from the regular beta testing channels because it is again it's not really Fastlight's primary drive They are hired gun. Because whenever we, even when we go ahead and ask, when we talk to anybody from Fireside, we ask them any question about Stern Pinball Arcade, it's crickets. We hear they don't.
    36:02
    Lips shut. They don't tell us nothing. So it doesn't surprise me, I guess, that that carried over to the beta program, that they weren't running it through beta.
    36:12
    They really should, though. They really should. It was better. I think they, my gut feeling is they probably knew the quality of this before they were forced to actually release it. And I'd imagine that, you know, some people may question Farsight's quality control, but I think even they will be going, oh, this is not a good idea to put this out. And that being said, I think we can pretty much guarantee that this isn't the final version of what we're seeing. Not a chance. Absolutely not. this is too valuable to them a contract for them to just you know let it hang there like that um i'm sure it's going to get addressed this is going to be a matter of time so be patient with them soon as soon as the holidays are over they've got stuff back in there they're going to be smashing these issues out like the treat i think what you should like i think we pretty much may set the expectation this is really like a public alpha really of the app it's not even really beta like it works there's no one issues quite in some case severe no one issues and for example on Android I can play the game on Pixel but I can't play it on Shield because there's big black boxes all over the screens so obviously they haven't been able to test on Tegra devices which again if they were contractually able to expose this early to a set of trusted beta testers they probably would have seen this I really hope that perhaps we can work with as beta testers we can actually work with Farsight more closely on it in the future because I think it would be beneficial for them if at least two weeks out from release or maybe after announcement from Stern that they were going to release this particular table that we could then start testing it and helping out the guys to work out device compatibility issues with it. Now let's make something else very clear about this because I'm already seeing posts on the forum that goes something like this. This is the PC Steam forum. I went to go play Stern Pinball Arcade and the tables are playing in slow motion, they're having a really hard time running on my computer, I have no problems with TPA running in DX11 so it's really bad that it's happening with Stern Pinball Arcade folks, different engine, well I'm not sure if it's quite a different engine, but it's top to bottom been designed differently it needs a more robust machine, you're not going to be able to get away with running DX11 without a dedicated video card and a somewhat decent dedicated video card. It's just not going to function that way. Same thing goes with the mobile. They've already said that on iOS, it needs to be running on something that's running iOS 10. Now, you may have your iPhone 5, which can run iOS 10, but it may not be able to handle it as well as the brand new 6 or 7. Yes, right. So you've got to understand, it may be capable of running on a slightly older device, but it's really being designed for what is out brand new today going forward. So don't keep comparing it to TPA. It's a different program. There's a reason why none of the Stern tables, these modern Sterns, were coming to TPA because they weren't going to be able to run them. That's right. Think about when games were released like Doom and stuff like that, back in the 90s, they say, oh, minimum specifications, this, this, and this. That's essentially what this is now. Like on Steam, it's like, yep, it'll run, but it'll be a terrible experience, and you really need to have this, this, and this to run it better. It's welcome to the world of PC. You need to upgrade this thing constantly. It's just how it is on PC. And Android is the same. Like, at the moment, I believe that there was talk, I think, at one stage of, like, only allowing certain devices to actually run this game. At the moment, I'm not seeing any evidence of that. It looks like a lot of different devices that questionably may not be a really good fit for Stan Pimple Arcade to run. But as the release has gone forward, I've seen reports from users saying, oh, this device used to support it, but now it doesn't anymore. So I think that's an interesting way of sort of offering the app initially. what I would probably do is have a really, really small subset of devices, say, like maybe only five or six known devices that they've actually got in the software house that they've tested the app on directly to say, yep, these eight or nine Android devices are capable of running this game, and we know that they are, so these are the ones that we'll allow you to install. Like, for example, if they know that on the Pixel it will run, then whitelist that device but if they know that shield k1 and the shield tablet has issues at the moment blacklist them so it will not actually run because you're going to cut down your support cases if you do that you're going to cut down the really poor ratings that the app unfortunately is getting on android at the moment um it's just a unusual tactic to actually go let's just open Slather and then filter down. I think the other problem that that may cause, and I really hope it doesn't, is that the people will install the app on their device. It may be running a little bit slowly, but they go, well, this is cool. I get to play ACDC and Star Trek and Mustang. I'm going to buy these tables. And then as they try and work out what devices are right and wrong for the actual release, they start to restrict these devices.
    42:13
    And then suddenly the people who've actually downloaded and purchased titles are no longer actually able to play it on their tablet or perhaps their only Android device, which may be now blacklisted. This is a risky game to play. Here's the good news, at least with mobile. People typically are buying a new device every two to four years. Typically, yes. Typically. And no matter what purchase you made, it'll carry it with you. It's not locked to the device you purchased it on. It'll carry over to the next device. That's quite correct. That's at least a positive on that front. And I'll say, you said you had a different experience, but just when I threw in the Stern Pinball on my PC, all the tables that I already owned, so your Frankenstein, Starship Troopers, High Roller Casino, all those that are in TPA, they were popping up for me as, yes, I own them now also in Stern Mimolab. Yeah, that's not the case on Android. It's really not. And it's really frustrating some Android users and the fact that they can see that happening on Steam and they've heard reports of it as a cross-buy or like we already own these tables on Android, which unfortunately at the moment look identical to the ones that are in the TPA.
    43:38
    That's like there's actually on Android at the moment zero graphical difference between TPA and SPA. And that's a really hard sell for people to go, well, why do I want to actually buy the season pass for this when there's absolutely zero visual difference between SPA and TPA. And it's the same for all the CERN tables. Arguably, there's nothing special about them as far as software enhancements or lighting improvements. We're not seeing any environmental lighting that was touted. And you can probably say that it's fair to say that the reason why we're not is because they're still trying to work out performance. like the essentially what they're doing is they're downscaling everything back to a baseline and then as they work out how to tune the game for all the different hardware on android and ios to a certain extent they'll start to introduce the features as they start to perfect how the game runs but a lot of consumers don understand that they go oh it doesn look any different therefore it crap Well that a short side of view and that not how mobile works these days Like in a perfect world you have 50 Android devices that you could test on But, you know, that's impossible to actually test. And I'd also say this, folks. If you're one of these people that does feel the need that you're going to, you know, groan and moan about what it is and everything like that, don't purchase it yet. Wait. You know, now is the time. If you want to vote with your wallet, vote with your wallet. Let them develop it more. you've already waited this long wait a little longer you know it's going to get fixed in the meantime you can still play the free version as you're playing the free version if you don't see any improvements then hey don't pay you can wait until you see in a forum that somebody finally says ah these improvements have happened or whatever and then you can jump in and be like okay cool but if you go ahead and purchase and then complain then you're an idiot yeah you're an idiot it's been pretty much made obvious what it is at this state and what state the game is in, don't sit there and go, well, I bought because you promised. Quit buying on promises. Buy what is there at the moment. Yep. Be a smart consumer. Vote with your wallet. And Farsight will, of course, they'll take that into account when they start to see people actually taking up the platform. And I actually think that there's one piece of positive feedback in the Android thread for SPA. There's a lot of bug and a lot of, like, negative Nancy talk happening in the Android thread, which you really have to filter out based on the known quality of it. But somebody has actually gone and downloaded the Star Trek and ACDC tables, and they are actually really positive about their experience with the thing. They said, look, I've never been a fan of Star Trek when it was released, but they said, look, playing it now on mobile with the latest code, it's reawakened my love for the table. Sure. And this is what we're talking about, right? This is actually, in part, a marketing tool for CERN because this person's now realized that, hey, wow, the rules on this table are really good now. I might actually go back into the arcade and I might actually go and play this table for real. Yeah. You know? So it's working already. Like, the plan is working already. And yes, there are some rough edges at the moment, which are known, but I think as time goes on, this is going to be a very, very cool thing for Stern and for Farsight as well. You know, it's funny, there's a thread where the person was questioning their attitude towards Farsight. They hadn't purchased any tables in a very, very long time or whatever. And so it kind of started a little bit of discussion, and I went in there, and I've said what I've said all along. I became much more at peace with Pinball Arcade when I remembered I loved it as soon as I got it with those first four initial tables. I loved everything about it. I loved playing it. It hit exactly what I wanted. There was a ton of things promised. There was a ton of potential in it. But my immediate reaction was, yes, love it. As time went by, we started realizing what the potential of it was, and then everybody started getting angry that they weren't matching that potential. Meanwhile, the game itself stayed the very same that you loved right off the bat. Yeah, it's true. Once I realized that, I was like, well, you know what? I can't be playing the woulda, coulda, shoulda game. Would it have been better if a different developer did it? Could it have been better if they immediately had a better UI or whatever? Should they have stuck to this monthly release, or should they have taken on Zensmo? Hey, none of that matters. This is the game that we have. The way it looks is the way it's always going to look. They're not going to change the look suddenly and make it 100% photo real with bright-shining chrome or anything. The tuning, yeah, that's changeable, and we've seen some changes in that. and so there's something that was kind of a surprise of hey, you know what, they're still actively developing this stuff but you have to look at it at the time of purchase and if you loved it then you cannot be sitting there complaining about what it could potentially become. You have to enjoy it for what it is and then anytime anything good happens in the game you go, bonus, awesome! I'm so happy that got put in. It's a valid point, you know, because we had the that the curse of those long-term adopters of the platform that we've seen it evolve and we've seen it sort of have that essentially a race condition of what we expect versus what's delivered but say you were a new person that comes to the platform today and you go cool hey this is cool it's digital pinball on android oh yes steam even it's like wow so i get access to like 70 tables and I can, you know, play all these tables now. This is cool. And you see it from essentially today is your day zero with the game. Like you'd be going, this is fine, right? Yeah. This is perfectly fine. Hey, look, some of these earlier, like season one tables, they may look a bit different to some of the later ones, but hey, whatever. They seem to play all right. Hey, this is all right, you know? And then you go onto the forum and you read everything. and you go, oh, my gosh, that's what's going on. I hate this game now. Exactly.
    50:23
    In some ways, Pimble Arcade fans is a bad advertisement for the platform because forums themselves actually only highlight the negatives of a platform. It's very rare that you'll go into a forum and see positive things about anything. It's always people with issues or problems or observations to the negative. it's very rare that you'll go you know positive things like hey wow this is really good yeah this is working really well so yeah forums in a lot of ways including pimple arcade fans and and all that uh in fact probably a negative um for um software houses because they highlight all the bad things yeah and they're very easily indexed by google unfortunately so if you're doing a search for something like, oh, Twilight Zone on Pinball Arcade, probably the first thing that will come up will be the forum rather than Farsight's website. Again, with regards to Stern Pinball Arcade, this is day zero for you.
    51:28
    If you are comparing it to Pinball Arcade, that's a valid comparison. If you don't like what you see right now in comparison to Pinball Arcade, don't purchase anything. You have the free app with the free game.
    51:44
    Good enough to make a call based on what you already know about Pimble Arcade. If you've never played Pimble Arcade and you picked up the Stern Pimble Arcade app, who knows what your opinion of it might be. But if you like it, then know this. You're going to like it even more eventually. It's going to get better. So, again, quit playing the, well, they promised and this is what we... Because half the promises that have been made have not actually been made. It's speculation that everybody has passed along to the point that now it's become fact. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
    52:17
    I think hindsight is always a wonderful thing, but I think probably the launch table they should have gone with probably would have been something like ACDC or Star Trek rather than Mustang. I think if they gave people a chance to play Star Trek as the free table on launch, that would have been a much better advertisement for the app. I think Mustang is probably not the greatest one to actually show off as your demo or debut. This might be because when you look at the downloadable content page, they are charging for Mustang. So I have a feeling this is just basically your free table of the month, if you will. That's what I'm talking about. Right, so you're saying they should have had a free table different than Mustang. But a month from now, who cares? Because it will be a different table. That's right. Yeah, I think we can look forward to a different one next month, hopefully.
    53:15
    And by that stage, I think it might have actually been a good decision because with the initial release, would you have wanted to pair something as good as Star Trek up with no one release issues? Right. Probably not, right? So after they've had a chance to address those issues, They come firing with all cylinders with a product that's actually probably ready for release more so than it was now. And with the ability to really give it a good test out with something as good as Star Trek, well, that would be a really smart decision, really. We'll eventually come out with our own 100% solid review of the app. I just feel like it's not the time to do a review. No. We haven't been asked or given review copy either. so it's not, you know, I'm waiting until I feel that the app is ready to be reviewed, and then we'll give our true opinion of it here.
    54:11
    So hopefully, you know, maybe in a month, maybe two, we'll be able to give something more accurate. Yeah. You know, yes, I honestly do wish they were Zen and would kick out a completely polished product, but they're Farsight, and we know how. This is par for the course for Farsight, so it's not really surprising to any of us. Speaking of Zen, I actually found out something a little interesting about Zen. What's that? The fact that somebody in the Zen forum has come into the Android thread and going, so when are you guys going to be introducing PC tuning for Android? Because apparently they've come in to Android just as a baseline first adopter perspective, and they've tried out Sorcerer's Lair on Android, and it plays completely differently to how it plays on PC. Oh. Very, very differently. So there's like the ball weight and everything is completely different. Like on PC, you can do bounce passes off the footballs, and nope, not on Android. It's like a dead weight.
    55:18
    So like they said, look, you know, I'd actually really be quite keen to go and purchase tables on Android so I could play them on the go, but I'm not willing to purchase them based on the current tuning that they've got in on the Android app. it's rubbish. So I have a feeling that what they've done on PC is they've gone through all the older tables and bumped them with a physics tuning, which is interesting because when I was talking to Bobby, she suggested that that would not be possible because it would require like basically Canon tuning on all the different parts of the playfield to make sure that balls didn't pass through the play field again. So it looks like they've done it on PC, but they haven't yet done it on mobile, which is interesting. You should go back and play some of those older games and see what they play. I haven't touched Sorcerer's Rare in, God, I don't even know how long. It's a good game, actually. I played it recently on Android, and it's surprising how much fun it is to play, especially when you get deep into it. It's pretty captivating as a game. Yeah. So give it a go and install it on iOS and then play it on Steam and see what you think about the tuning. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. Yeah, I'll check that out. Maybe we'll have that for next time. Good idea.
    56:33
    Speaking of next time. It's been a rather jam-packed episode. I'm glad we actually did it because we talked about a lot of stuff. We certainly have. Hey, why don't you check out our website? It is blockadepinball.com. if you want to fire off an email to us we are blahblahblockade at gmail.com check us out on twitter at blockade and you can see me and Jared I am at shutyourtraps on twitter and he is at jaredmorgs good ways of communicating with us and seeing what's what also make sure check out the various links that we have on our website for this particular show like I said if you want to go check out stresstube.com if you wanted to check out shopbox.me or if you want to check out my wife's Instagram at Andrea underscore Freebus for Instagram.
    57:29
    Yep. That's right. And also check out shirts and just as a reminder we actually now have a PayPal Me service available as well if you want to kick us a couple of bucks. So yeah. We appreciate it if you like what we do. So yeah. Absolutely. Alrighty. So we'll be back next time with more info. I believe I next time will have my annual What I Liked Best and What I Liked Least movie list. I'm actively trying to have seen a hundred movies this year. I am very, very close. I'm going to go check out Rogue One today and I've got a couple more that I'm renting to get done before January 1st, which is my cutoff. I'm thinking that I've not seen Rogue One either yet, which is terrible and I think it might be something that I'm going to have to do as a long lunch this week. in 3D because apparently it's excellent in 3D. Yeah, I think I might make it that way. If I can actually get a session in 3D still, I'm not sure. Hopefully yes.
    58:31
    Because yeah, I've heard it's definitely worth 3D. Alrighty, gang. Well, thank you once again for listening and like we said, surprise! We didn't expect to redo this, but Jared was like there's nobody at work. Why don't you hop on in?
    58:45
    Let's do this, you know? Yeah. alright so we will talk to you again in a week folks thanks for listening see you later guys wizardamusement.com the site to visit for custom pinball shooter rungs easy to install, totally unique mention blockade podcast for 10% off your order wizardamusement.com sales, restoration, customization don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that blockade is delivered to you can't improve unless you tell us how. Now stop listening, play some pinball.
    59:26
    So, hey, why don't you all go ahead and check out our website, blah, blah, blockade, pinball. Wait, that's not our website. That's our email address. Damn it, I did it again. Blah, blah, blah, pinball.
    59:39
    Oh, my God. Edit the hell out of this, please. No. Okay.