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Skype is Shyte

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·51m 33s·analyzed·Jul 3, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Blockade podcast discusses Zen UI, digital physics, Scorebit operator tech, and Williams app Volume 4 grind mechanics.

Summary

Chris Frebus and Jared Morgan discuss technical streaming issues with Skype, review the Zen Pinball UI overhaul, explore digital physics simulation in pinball games via Spacey's Arcade marble experiment, introduce Scorebit's remote machine management device for operators, and dive deep into Williams Pinball App Volume 4 mechanics and challenge cycling changes.

Key Claims

  • Scorebit device costs $25 and will integrate with pinball machines from 1970s solid-state to modern DMD/LCD displays

    high confidence · Chris cites Scorebit website specifications; device currently in active beta testing with pre-orders available

  • Zen Pinball's physics engine may not implement true gravity simulation but rather scripted ball behavior on ramps

    medium confidence · Jared and Chris speculate based on comparison to Pinball Arcade's known scripting approach; suggests computational complexity of true gravity would be prohibitive

  • Williams Pinball App Volume 4 challenge system changed so cycles only begin after completing Hard difficulty, reducing daily earning cycles

    high confidence · Jared provides specific mechanics: previously cycled at fixed time (12:15pm), now cycles only after Hard completion; describes impact on play time

  • Scorebit can remotely manage operator settings on pinball machines including jackpot scores and free ball frequency

    high confidence · Chris reads directly from Scorebit website description of remote management capabilities

  • Zen Pinball is installing cabinets in locations with internet connectivity

    medium confidence · Chris mentions in context of potential convergence with Scorebit technology; limited detail provided

  • Volume 4 Williams tables require 20 parts to reach 2-star level and unlock all three challenges

    high confidence · Jared confirms from personal experience: 'It only takes 20 parts to get a table to two stars'

  • To unlock all premium features on Williams App (visual enhancements, Pro difficulty, Pro physics) costs 325 coins total

    high confidence · Jared provides breakdown: visual enhancements (75), Pro difficulty (100), Pro physics (150) = 325 coins

  • Spacey's Arcade tested using oversized marble on physical pinball machine and found its behavior closely matched Zen digital physics

    high confidence · Chris describes finding Spacey's YouTube video demonstrating the experiment; presents as factual evidence of physics difference

Notable Quotes

  • “Skype is rubbish... Your audio is coming through the webcam and not your studio mic.”

    Jared Morgan / Chris Frebus @ Opening segment — Establishes persistent technical issues with remote podcast infrastructure; meta-commentary on production challenges

  • “Look, if you're out there and you know any other video technology that uses NDI that isn't Skype, please let us know.”

    Chris Frebus @ Early segment — Direct call for technical solutions from community; indicates dependency on NDI/OBS integration

  • “If there is no actual gravity being rendered... then of course the ball is always going to have this kind of behavior and move faster than what it is.”

    Chris Frebus @ Physics discussion segment — Core hypothesis about Zen physics engine limitations; frames discussion of simulation vs. scripting

  • “Remote management—that is worth the money. And it's only like twenty-five bucks a device too, which is just cheap compared to what it actually offers.”

    Chris Frebus @ Scorebit section — Assessment of Scorebit's value proposition and pricing competitiveness

  • “Zen is trying to make you play the app. This is their modus operandi... stagnation is what ruins it in the end.”

    Jared Morgan @ Williams App discussion — Explicit statement of Zen's engagement strategy vs. TPA's failure; frames design philosophy

  • “That was a big mistake. Uh, because basically what it was was saying, 'No, this whole event is going away in that amount of time.'”

    Jared Morgan @ Volume 4 event mechanics — Identifies UX confusion in limited-time event messaging that misled players about challenge persistence

  • “I really loathe Hurricane. Hurricane, I hate it... I can't hit the ramp shot while in transition consistently. And it's such a huge, major shot that you need to be able to do.”

    Jared Morgan @ Williams App challenges — Identifies specific mobile control issue affecting gameplay on particular table; personal frustration with platform-specific difficulty

Entities

Chris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonBlockade Pinball PodcastorganizationZen PinballcompanyScorebitcompanySpacey's Arcadeperson/content_creatorWilliams Pinball App Volume 4productPascalpersonMagic PixelcompanyPinball FX 3product

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Zen Studios committed to location-based cabinet deployment with internet connectivity; potential partnership or integration opportunity with Scorebit identified by hosts

    medium · Chris speculates on convergence: 'if these two things can come and kind of start converge, that would be awesome'; no official partnership announcement

  • ?

    community_signal: Jared Morgan producing video guide content on Williams App Volume 4 challenges to help players overcome difficulty and grind barriers

    high · Jared states: 'I'm enjoying it heaps and then am producing videos of basically how to beat challenges' posted to Blockade channel

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Zen Pinball intentionally implementing engagement loop through limited-time events, cycling challenges, and parts collection to maintain player retention; acknowledged contrast to TPA's stagnation failure

    high · Jared: 'Zen is trying to make you play the app. This is their modus operandi... TPA failed in that they didn't keep you engaged'

  • $

    market_signal: Scorebit targeting operator pain points (remote diagnostics, earning alerts, settings management) at aggressive $25 price point; positioning as universal retrofit vs. manufacturer-locked solutions

    high · Chris emphasizes advantage of 'anybody' solution vs. Stern's platform-locked approach; API accessibility enables third-party integration

  • ?

    announcement: Scorebit device officially announced for market entry with remote operator management capabilities; currently in active beta testing with pre-orders accepted

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.155

0:00
Hey! This is the Blockade Pinball Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Freepus, aka ShutYourTrap. Hopefully joining me as always, it's Jared Morgan, halfway across the world. How's it going, Jared? uh hi i've looked looks like i've locked up again because skype is rubbish and yes but i'm here if you can hear me i hope you can see me i have no idea because it's all locked up for me yay yeah this is one of those things where we uh did our best to try and make everything work we ran a test yesterday everything worked and suddenly he's not so happy no more don't know why but also your audio is coming through the webcam and not your studio mic yeah i just turned that off yeah so anyway hey folks we're here we're here welcome um yeah hi i mean we had catastrophic failure two weeks ago. Yes, mega derp. Mega derp. And then last week I was busy the whole weekend, so I wasn't able to do anything then.
1:23
But you actually had a job, right? Yeah. You actually had a gig. Yes. It was a last minute Friday evening, hey, can you come in and work this weekend? And I was like, yeah, sure, I can do that. Yeah, my schedule is open. that is how it kind of uh tends to work yeah where you just kind of go so um it is kind of funny just staring at jared in a uh frozen frozen status but that's okay it's not like he's juggling or anything no how do you know that's the thing what are you on my head doing this podcast and you would never know jared's like i'm naked right now Well, you know, it's all about what was it, Newscasterland? They always have the suit on top and then pants on, like shorts underneath, board shorts underneath. Yes, exactly, exactly.
2:20
So, again, we're trying to make do. We're trying to make it work, folks. But, you know. Look, if you're out there and you know any other video technology that uses NDI that isn't Skype, please let us know. because the whole reason why we're using Skype is that it was recommended that it works best with OBS, and that's what we're using here to do these new look things. I mean, hey, we were able to have a video at the front there, right? A title card. That's new. If you look down there, hey, look, there's the Twitter handle that's currently mine, and look, Jared's got a Twitter handle going, and watch this. I can do interesting things if I do this properly. Let's see if this works.

  • “If you don't like the table that's on display right at that moment, it's five tickets, and you can change what the table is.”

    Jared Morgan @ Challenge mechanics — Highlights cost-effective workaround for avoiding undesired challenge tables; indicates design affordance for player preference

    • Stern Pinball
    company
    The Pinball Arcadeproduct
    Deepperson
    Digital Pinball Fans forumorganization
    Whitewatergame

    high · Chris and Jared review official Scorebit website specifications; device supporting 1970s-modern machines; USB-C integration with DMD displays

  • ?

    product_strategy: Williams Pinball App Volume 4 challenge system redesigned with cycle-on-completion mechanics, reduced earning frequency, but improved cost-effective table rotation options

    high · Jared provides detailed mechanics: cycles now begin after Hard completion rather than fixed time; table rotation costs 5 tickets; daily earning potential reduced by ~1 hour

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community concern over Williams App grind mechanics and limited-time event UX confusion; Jared's guide videos indicate demand for accessibility support

    medium · Jared notes: 'first number-one thing I keep on hearing about grind is people complain that they just can't get past certain challenges'; describes confusion over event persistence messaging

  • ?

    technology_signal: Digital pinball engines may not implement true gravity simulation; instead rely on scripted object behavior and railroad mechanics for ramp traversal

    medium · Jared and Chris speculate on computational complexity of true gravity; Spacey's Arcade marble experiment demonstrates physics discrepancy between digital and physical machines

  • ?

    technology_signal: Zen Pinball implements major UI overhaul with improved navigation, tile-based menu structure, and visual system diagnostics (GPU/processor info display)

    high · Chris describes new logo, Magic Pixel branding, tiled interface improvements, and processor/graphics card detection feature

    • 3:09
    Nope, that wasn't what I wanted to do. I just did something terrible. Okay, no, we're good. Okay. I hit a button that I thought was going to work, and then it didn't do what I was planning on doing. You were expecting. No, not what I was expecting. Okay, here's what I was like. Okay, so, like, right now it says, shut your traps and watch. Oh, now it says blockade. Ooh, how did Chris do that? That was fantastic, right? Just like a studio. Right. Like an open broadcasting studio.
    3:47
    Except for with no video on, Jared. No. But that's not OBS's fault. No, that would be Skype's fault. Thank you, Skype. Your wonderfully free program is proving worth every penny. every single thing yes every sense i even you know what i thought maybe it actually doesn't like being on the second monitor and that's the problem so i dragged it back onto the first monitor no no difference no difference oh well uh tell you what we're going to we're going to plug along anyways we'll push ahead we'll push ahead this particular podcast um hey at least it's getting out and i said jared will just be a still image at least he's not making a goofy face well he's kind of looks like he's kissing something but it's not a terribly goofy face.
    4:32
    Maybe it should be my new avatar if it's really bad. My new global avatar. I'll just put it everywhere. You know?
    4:40
    So, we've got all sorts of stuff to talk about this week. Let's start with the fact that Zachary at Pinball has a new look.
    4:51
    Shiny. They went ahead and revamped their UI, and while it's not terribly different in terms of layout or whatever. They cleaned it up so there's now space between each of the table frames so it doesn't look like it's just one long ribbon of who knows what. And they kind of cleaned up the navigation a little bit. I mean, it basically just makes it easier on the eyes to know what you're focusing on.
    5:25
    The only thing that I don't like still is that when you try and back out of the game so uh it'll ask you the question are you sure you want to do this and it's default setting is no oh yeah see that's that's no no i mean because then you have to do an extra you have to do an extra button push and i know oh tragic But if you don't have your controller set up correctly, then you have to lean down and actually use your mouse, and that's very no bueno.
    6:01
    It is. Oh, yes, I see the... I'm just firing up now as we speak. Nice new logo, by the way, for Magic Pixel. Very nice. I like that. Yeah, it's good. It's got, like, basic tabs to it. Like, I'm just clicking through the tabs. Eh, it actually is... Like, I actually think the background colors, it's good because it actually adds that separation between the frames. It looks good. Yeah, no, like I said, it's definitely pleasing to the eye. I don't know if they did anything else to the game itself. I popped on a table or two just to see, and I could swear the physics were somewhat altered slightly. Oh, right. I don't know. That might just be a pure placebo effect. You see one new thing, and you start imagining all sorts of new things. It seems like the... I don't know. Maybe it looks like each of the tiles is a little bit sharper like the the way they've rendered the tiles is a little bit more higher resolution too right yeah no it's like i said it's it's just cleaned up it's easier on the eyes so it is it's it is looking really good actually yeah um oh yeah and the new in-game menu looks a lot better as well like it's just it's it's amazing what a bit more of a linear menu structure makes to a game um when you're actually using it like that when you go into the table menu everything is on the left hand side now and you can see everything really easily and i'm using it with a mouse at the moment but i don't actually have my controller plugged in and it looks it's good because everything again carries forward that whole design approach with tiled interfaces and everything it's not like a everything's not sort of exposed up front when you're in the menu, which it was before. Like, it looked very... It wasn't really a menu system. It was just like a dump of information on the screen that you had to then navigate through. Right, and it was almost... You had a hard time identifying even where your cursor or the highlighted block was. Yeah. It was just like, wait, let me start around the screen and go, oh, yeah, there it is, you know, so... You're exactly right. It was really hard to see. But this is really good. They've done a good job here. I'm very pleased. This is excellent. So way to go, Magic Pixel. you've uh you've done well on that uh keep on plugging along all two or four or however many there are of you yeah keep on trucking because yeah this is good what the yeah that's even i think for some reason the nice thing too is when you boot up the game it tells you what processor you're using and what um graphics cards you're using and it was good because i noticed that mine had reverted back to the onboard graphics on my laptop, not the NVIDIA. So that's a really nice little visual check because you start playing the game and go, why is everything running like rubbish? And, you know, you'll then be able to diagnose exactly why it's running like rubbish. That's interesting. I didn't, not surprising that I didn't notice that, but I'll have to keep my eyes. I never, I don't know. I just don't pay attention to those kind of things where I know other people are like, wait, what's the frame rate that I'm running at right now? And, you know, all this other jazz. No, it's really good. It's very nice. But it just reminds me I'm going to have to go through the NVIDIA control panel and make sure all my games are running on the correct processor.
    9:19
    So, yes. Yes. But, yeah, nice. Other things that happened while we were away, for sure, go to YouTube, look up Spacey's Arcade. he's got a video up currently that is he used a very large marble uh on his actual physical pinball machines because he he got the idea that i wonder if this would play more similarly to the zen physics than an actual pinball because what he was feeling was was that at high speeds the ball was moving way faster than an actual pinball was and so sure enough he puts this marble on his machine and when it starts rocketing you know back and forth in slingshots and stuff its behavior is very much like what you see in zen now what we're talking about is i mean these are tweaks right it's not like these are major issues or anything it's it's the tweaks that we're looking at to get the thing even more perfect um and it's just fascinating to see that he kind of hit upon what everybody's always been trying to describe, what goes on in digital pinball in general. Yeah, yeah.
    10:34
    We'll have to check that out. We'll put that in the show notes for sure. Yeah, absolutely. The one thing it made me think about is, and this applies to all digital pinball games,
    10:46
    are they simulating gravity, or is it merely an object is on top of this object and we're telling you what its drag is across that object, but there's actually no weight crushing down on said object. Because if there is no actual gravity being rendered, if you will... Upslide.
    11:10
    Yeah, good word. Then, of course, the ball is always going to have this kind of behavior and move faster than what it is. And the other point that Greg winds up bringing up is, and this is also related to gravity is having the ball move on the z axis up and down right yeah because without gravity how is it really supposed to do that other than by you might call it a railroad saying if it hits this point at this speed the ball's gonna go but that's not gravity that's just being told what to do that's that's a little bit of scripting to tell the to tell the ball to go look like it's going up a ramp and you know that's classic that's exactly how it was in pimble arcade right so that leads me to suggest that certainly in pimble arcade's case it was definitely no effect of gravity on the ball because if they've had to do that and they haven't been able to mesh the ball going up the ramps correctly then that's clearly just Yeah, there is no gravity. The gravity rules do not apply in that simulation. But, yeah, it's interesting, though, in Zen, because their engine is far advanced.
    12:24
    Yeah, because they were able to have things like ball roll and friction on the surface. But I'm thinking, if you have gravity running,
    12:35
    then is that kind of like having particle effects? I mean, is that using all sorts of processor power? It probably would be. For something that you can't even necessarily see.
    12:45
    Yeah, it would be. It would be another set of calculations that would have to be applied to every position of the ball everywhere on the play field I don think they could actually do it on a Really if you think about it gravity would change if the ball hit something like a pop bumper because as a pop bumper pushed the ball down, it would actually push into the playfield slightly, which would increase its virtual gravity by the fact that it interacts with that object. It would actually increase its weight, essentially. So then you'd also have the same effect when it was on the slingshots because there is probably a slight little bit of push down when the ball is actually being pushed either way between the slings. So you could suggest to me, I'm certainly no scientist, I don't ever purport to be one, but you would expect that the ball would change mass slightly or change, I guess, where it is in space, I guess. more when it's interacting with elements rather than just running around on the playfield?
    13:53
    Yeah. I mean, that would make sense. I kind of would just want to see them do, you know, take the pinball and have it hover five inches above the playfield and then take a feather and have it hover five inches at the playfield and drop them both at the same time and see if they both hit at the same time. Because in a vacuum that would work, but in real life that wouldn't work.
    14:13
    That's right. You know, and that would prove to me is there actual gravity going on or is it all just simulated well they could be because i've got air balls before in zen and they do return back to the playfield yes i have gotten air balls on occasion also i mean that's what like i said it's kind of a big mystery it's one of those questions that uh deep could probably answer for us deep could answer but whether that's giving away the secret sauce? I don't know. I wouldn't think so. I wouldn't think it would be. I mean, it's just like, yes, we have gravity. We're not going to tell you how to do it, but we've got it. Right. Anyway, the point being, go watch Greg's video. It's pretty eye-opening and one of the better ideas that I've seen put forth in terms of what the heck is going on. Offering a different perspective on things, which is always good.
    15:08
    Moving on to other things that have just happened. I came across an article that, again, Jared will certainly post, and I actually posted it in the Digital Pinball Fans forum.
    15:22
    But it's basically there's this company called Scorbit, and they have created a device that will be coming to market soon that will attach to your pinball machine and connect it to the Internet. At the same time, apparently, Stern is also looking at finally connecting their machines to the Internet. The crux of the article is all about Scorbit and what they were talking about, but their idea is mainly that it helps operators.
    15:56
    If you're an operator, you've got a machine out en route, you collect the coins, you leave, you go to collect the coins two weeks later only to find that there's an out-of-order sign on your machine, and you're like, well, when the heck did this happen? Well, if you have this attached to your machine, the second anything bad goes down or somebody turns it off, you're going to be alerted. And then you're going to know, hey, I need to go fix this.
    16:19
    The really neat thing about it, from a tech perspective, is that it will integrate into any machine's display technology, and that's how it does it. That's how it does its magic. and it has a thing inside it which they affectionately call the scorebatron that is essentially the software that detects and what it looks for is frames on your dot matrix display and other events like that and then it works out the high scores based on that and it can probably also look for credit dots and things like that as well so does it also allow them to change the operator settings? I think it does. Well I'm not sure I'd have to go and actually have a look but um i'll have a look at their website now which is scorebit.io if you'd like to have a bit of a look looks very nice i just thought in the article itself that it basically allows you to make any settings changes that you want so again you'd have all this information basically pumping into a spreadsheet and you could do those small tweaks in the operator's menu to adjust what the score you know what the jackpot score is how often free balls are given and matches are given and stuff like that and kind of monitor track the actual data of the use of your machine to get the most out of it so it says for the operators pinball machine operators will be able to manage their machine entries in the score but location database within the score but app make sure players can find and play their machines often remote management of machine means the operators will be able to open the score bit app and check status of their pinball machine. See earnings data and be able to make real-time adjustments without having to physically present in front of the machine.
    17:58
    So that sounds like, yes, you'll be able to access the settings. Sounds like, yes, which is pretty, that's pretty awesome. Yeah, it is. Remote management, that is worth the money. And it's only like 25 bucks a device too, which is just cheap compared to what it actually offers. Yeah, that is pretty cheap. It's a really, really discreet little device too. I've got the picture of it installed next to what looks like a, oh, yeah, it's got like a little interface board that sits on top of the display ribbon for the display driver in this particular game, which looks like probably a WPC95 by the looks of the board in there. And it just basically jacks into it and just jacks the pins. And the ribbon cable still connects into this board, but the board connects into the actual physical PCB. and then it sends via USB, which seems to be the case here. Yeah, it's got a little USB-C plug. It's got four USB-C plugs actually on it. So you can actually connect up a number of different parts of the machine into this particular Scorpotron box. And yeah, it basically will support everything from solid-state pinball machines released in the 1970s to modern DMD and LCD display machines. So even your latest Jersey Jackson stuff, it will actually work with. which is pretty incredible. That's a very, very wide supported range of machines. And I think it took them about six years to get to that point. Yeah, and one of the names that I think in the article is mentioned is the Frenchman that you were talking to me about who does boards. Oh, Pascal, yeah. Yeah. So I thought that was kind of interesting that they were talking to him too about, I think, helping integrate how to get it into these machines and stuff. what Stern is working on is not obviously the same thing but they're hoping that hey wouldn't it be nice if we could just kind of team up and you know why have competing items except for the fact that the Stern thing would only work for Stern and theirs would work for anybody's that's right so I'd rather go with the anybody solution thanks yeah for sure but it made me think about okay how awesome would it be if you were also then so you're playing pinball effects 3 right you're playing the williams tables and you've got your local high scores but how cool would it be if you were like hey no you know what i want the local high scores off of this arcade that i know that has the physical machine i want to compete against those and then with the push of a button you apparently that dad dumps into yours and affects your scores i mean obviously i would have to get on board with this but um i mean wouldn't that be cool that now suddenly or you're watching the latest Papa event and the tournament, and you want to see how you would do under those conditions and against those players. And so with the push of a button, all of a sudden all the data of how those machines are set up funnels into the Williams app and changes that machine's settings to match as best as it can. And then you can go ahead and play and compare your scores. I mean, obviously your scores wouldn't be entered, but you can compare your scores and just see how you would do against that kind of a situation.
    21:14
    It would be very interesting. So for the record, the score bit is actually not a product that's physically available yet. You're taking pre-orders for it. So, yeah. So not available actually yet. You can't actually give you $25 and you'll get one. But it's in active beta testing at the moment.
    21:31
    And apparently, and not surprisingly, it's already had a lot of interest. so yeah it looks like they've got these things connected into Piml machines now so they've obviously produced a short run of them and they're in testing so you would suggest that it's probably not that far away the other neat thing too for software developers is that it's actually all driven by an API so if you want to integrate with it and actually do things with it you can actually integrate with the programming interface for score bit and pull all sorts of stuff out of it and actually do things with it. So that's a very smart move on their, their part, actually making it API accessible. And I keep on coming back to, you know, we talked about Zen producing their cabinets. They're going to be putting into locations and how that's going to be all connected via the internet and be able to have, look, if, if these two things can come and kind of start converge, that would be awesome. I mean, And it's a benefit to both digital and physical pinball. Absolutely. So definitely something to keep the eyes open for. Look, I really wish them luck with it. I know it's going to be successful once they get it into production because putting machines online, like retrofitting internet access to these old machines, and also, too, it's great for people who like to stream as well because it actually integrates directly into the display and you can just read the display data right into your Twitch stream. so it means you don't have to have that third camera set up looking at the DMD. It's a really crisp, good-looking image of your DMD that's being fed through the SchoolBit app, so that's going to be really nice as well for streamers, for Twitchers.
    23:14
    All that stuff that people like to do these days. That's right. Speaking of streaming, I've been busy. You've been busy. I've been busy. Yeah, you have been busy. So last time we did our podcast, I had not yet played the Williams app volume four tables on iOS. And I was like, okay, I'm going to get my hands on this. We'd done a podcast about what I was hearing through Android, and it was scary what I was hearing. And so I wanted to experience it for myself.
    23:51
    And obviously I've had an extra week to experience. and in the meantime I'm enjoying it heaps and then am producing videos of basically how to beat challenges. So I'll just put it out there right now folks.
    24:07
    Subscribe to the channel or just go look at Blockade and you're going to see a whole bunch of videos that are posted about beating the daily challenges and all those. It's basically for people that are having issues getting past these things because that's kind of the number one thing that I keep on hearing about grinding is people complain that they just can't get past certain challenges and therefore they're not earning and sure enough there were changes made to the app in terms of how often you can cycle a given table right right so I mean for instance it typically for me it was 12 15 every afternoon uh no matter if you'd completed a challenge or not all four challenges cycled and were brand new for the next 24 hours right what happens now is it won't cycle until you beat the challenge and as soon as you beat the challenge on hard so they're and so they broke it down down into easy uh normal and hard until you beat hard that challenge stays there the second you be hard now the 24-hour cycle starts oh so it resets at the point which you are successful right interesting right so now the bad thing about that is that effectively you getting fewer games in right because you figure it cycles 24 hours now it going to take you assuming that you got there the second it turned right
    25:53
    You now play the table. Let's say it takes you a half an hour, 45 minutes to do all three challenges. You've effectively lost an hour of being able to earn and then do the cycle. So that's kind of the sneaky way of doing things, you might say.
    26:13
    The good news is cycling the challenges is cheap. Oh, is it? How much? Okay, so it's 20 tickets for the basic challenge, 30 tickets for the advanced challenge. So once you beat it, boom, you attack that, next challenge comes up. If you don't like the table that's on display right at that moment, it's five tickets, and you can change what the table is. Cool. that's right, five tickets, you don't mind blowing that no, no, now for the pro and premium challenges and I'll just note, they don't even call them those anymore it's just I still call them that because it's the 1, 2, 3, 4 down so basic advanced pro premium, but the pro and premium challenges, those cost five coins to advance the 24 hour cycle right, but there's still only five tickets to change the table which again is key because god forbid i see champion pub or safecracker pop up in a pro or premium challenge because i'm not playing them yeah yeah sure no no no no no nope and nope um actually i have a new one that i'm noping i really loathe hurricane hurricane i hate it what's um what is wrong with hurricane well ever done to you well from for starters on mobile I can't hit the ramp shot, the hurricane coaster shot. I cannot hit it while in transition consistently. And it's such a huge major shot that you need to be able to do.
    27:49
    And it's only on mobile. I can do it on console or on PC. Can't do it on mobile. Yeah, right. So, I mean, that's kind of... And there are certain tables that are similar, like Getaway. I have a major roadblock on mobile, whereas I can do just fine on it on PC.
    28:08
    So I don't know exactly what the issue is. Is it my thumbs? Is it the reaction time? I don't know what it is. But, you know, that's one of the things. But I'll go, believe me, just watch one of my videos about Hurricane when I post them, and I'll go into graphic detail of why I hate the table.
    28:29
    Right. So that's a new one that I'm hating. But here's what they did. So as soon as you downloaded the update for the first time and opened up the app, it gave you, I think, seven or ten days, I can't remember which, to where they had what they called a limited timed event. And there's a little icon at the bottom of the screen that's a stopwatch. You click on that, and it is different from the daily challenges. it was this limited time of event and basically they took the volume four tables and boom shoved them right there right and allowed you to therefore immediately play them for a week right now if you didn't play them they didn't cycle or anything and this is where it got confusing for people it had this you know like there's six days left on this challenge and so people were like well i was able to beat the beat it once but i couldn't beat the next level beyond that and so i'm just letting it sit there that was a big mistake uh because basically what it was was saying no this whole event is going away in that amount of time yeah so it's like oops um whoops and the way they had it set up immediately was that there was uh two challenges that you could do the third challenge didn't unlock because you needed parts for Whitewater. And it was not giving you parts for Whitewater. And so the only way that if you had the parts to upgrade Whitewater to two stars, I think, then that challenge would have popped up. And then you would have had three challenges. I know. It gets confusing.
    30:09
    Yeah. It sort of is a bit, isn't it, really? But here's the good news. Whether you unlocked that extra challenge or not, I was able to get all my tables up to two stars with all three challenges. Somebody else confirmed that they didn't do the third challenge and was able to still upgrade all their tables to two stars. Obviously, you get your tables to two stars, then you can just play them whenever you want using Zen physics and stuff. That's nice. Yeah, I mean, it only takes 20 parts to get a table to two stars. So the fact that Zen isolated these out for a while, and they were giving parts only for those tables. It wasn't giving parts for all the other random tables that you might have not unlocked yet.
    30:59
    And so because of that, you'd be able to get those three tables in a week's time up to two stars and be able to play them.
    31:09
    So here's where, to all those people that are like, but I want to play the new physics. I understand. and those same people are the ones that are like, and I just want to buy the tables outright. Don't make me jump through all these hoops. Look, this is where the deal is.
    31:26
    Spend $10 to buy 350 coins. Then use those 350 coins to pay for the visual enhancements. Those are 75 coins. The pro difficulty, that's 100 coins. And the pro physics, which are 150 coins. so 325 coins needed that will allow any table to be played with all those features whether you own the table right now or going to own the table in the future so when volume 5 comes those tables you'll be able to play in that same thing with volume 6 all you have to do is get your table to star level 2 so if zen continues doing this limited timed event when volume 5 drops and they isolate those tables in there, you absolutely will be able to get them up to two stars and be able to play them. You're just going to have to put in a little bit of work. And to me, it's... Zen is trying to make you play the app. This is their modus operandi. You know, they don't... It's where TPA failed in that they didn't keep you engaged in having to come back to the app.
    32:36
    And that... That's right. You know, that stagnation is what ruins it in the end because suddenly it feels like there's nobody else playing the game with you. But if you know that other people are constantly in there...
    32:50
    Then all good. Then all good, exactly. Yeah. So then at the end of the week, that time challenge went away. The Volume 4 tables started populating into the daily challenges. It took two or three days before we started earning parts for those. but I've now gotten all of them so in a week's time I've gotten all of them to 3 stars now so now I'm on the final push of collecting the 300 parts necessary but with the cycling again it's cheap to cycle the beginning and advanced challenge and those are the easiest to win and you earn for easy you earn one part for normal you earn two parts, and for hard, you earn three parts. So on any given day, if you are just beating those two challenges one time, there's 12 new table parts. Cycle them twice, there's 24 table parts. Why not do it a third time, right?
    33:56
    You'll have all the table parts that you need for all your other tables in no time, just playing the easiest challenges.
    34:04
    Yeah, that's where the money is right there. Right, you just have to, like I said, some people are just like, I just want to play pinball. Well, you are playing pinball. They're not asking you to play Barbie's Funtime Unicorn Adventure or something.
    34:18
    I mean. There's probably a game called that, so don't. If there isn't, I'm trademarking it now. Yeah, that's right. And we all know a rainbow is coming out of the unicorn horn. Just, you know, saying.
    34:33
    Unicorn horn, what did you say? I thought it would be coming out of somewhere else. No, it's a Barbie game. Oh, that's true, yes.
    34:41
    And it's not that kind of Barbie game. So the point being, you can get away with playing pinball just as you want with a minimal amount of effort.
    34:59
    Get off this whole, but I just want to buy it. You know what? Fine. You want to buy it? spend all the money. Because this $10 you spend now on these particular upgrades, well, when Volume 5 comes out, now you've effectively spent $5. When Volume 6 comes out, now you've spent effectively $3.33. And it's going to keep on getting lower and lower and lower every time they release a new pack. At the moment. And that is the caveat, because so far Zen has changed it every single time. Every single time. Exactly right. So, yeah, that is kind of the main issue there.
    35:39
    But seeing the timed event... So now, right now, the timed event is dormant. There's nothing going on. And I really hope that they don't just leave it dormant until Volume 5 comes out.
    35:53
    That's a long time to wait, number one. And it's a wasted opportunity. Yeah, you can do so much other cool stuff in there, right? Like?
    36:03
    why not do a timed event that shows off the pro physics? Exactly. Like, this is a prime opportunity to basically give props to this really quite awesome part of the game that probably nobody has really played yet in mobile because it's so hard to get to it. Yeah, so show off the pro physics. Show off the visual enhancements. You know, let people play with it for, you know, a couple of days, for a week. I don't care what. but let it happen yeah absolutely um and you can guarantee they're going to see an uptick in something i don't know the thing is that if they showed it off then how would that convert into sales for them because it's it's you just have to buy tokens and upgrade it right or would it actually drive you more to play the game and unlock things if you're free to play i don't know what the motivation um i i there's a lot of people that i've heard from that have gone well i don't see what the big deal is between this and Pinball Arcade.
    37:05
    And those people, that's when you go, have you tried the Pro Physics? And they go, no, I'm only on mobile. And you go, ah, there's the problem.
    37:15
    So anybody that has tried the Pro Physics knows that there's a huge difference between the two. And those people that are still like, oh, XANA's too wonky. I don't like the physics as much. or, again, that they're just saying I don't see them as being all that different, you've got to let them try it. That's all there is to it. Yeah, sure.
    37:40
    Try it for themselves. Okay, idea number two. How about an event where the table starts at basic easy?
    37:53
    You beat that, you get one part. then it goes on and moves to basic uh you know basic normal i guess some of the scores kind of flip-flop based you know if as soon as you go to advanced then suddenly the the uh normal score is easier than the pro score or you know i don't know it kind of gets a little muddled but anyway basically there's a whole chain of events so you start at basic and you finish it premium hard.
    38:28
    And if you complete premium hard, then the whole thing will cycle into a new one. But that entire time you earning parts So premium hard if you beat that you get 10 table parts let say or if you already maxed out your table parts you get you know a buttload of coins i don know something as a big reward for spending all that time chaining through and going through that um again it's an idea of how to give users a way of earning bonus parts yeah right and and i think that that timed event.
    39:05
    That's what they want. It's essentially the most valuable part of currency in the game. It's the parts. You need them for getting your tables upgraded, so why not make it as you say, different methods to actually get some more of these and entice you back to the app and make you want to play it more. That's what it will do. Again, it's a timed event. You run it once a month.
    39:31
    It's just one of those things let's say it runs for three days, and you're guaranteed to, if you beat it over the course of those three days, you're guaranteed to walk away with a grand total of, say, 30 table parts. Well, that'd be huge.
    39:46
    Oh, yeah. Yeah, that would really, I think that might actually turn the tide of some of the folks that were disgruntled with the app. And on top of that, it would drive people to play the app during that weekend. And what does Zen want? They want players playing the app. And why do they want that? because they're going to have to add revenue. That's where the money is, seriously. They must be making a considerable amount of money, even off the people who have completely unlocked and paid for the tables.
    40:13
    It's continual. You always have to watch an ad here and there. Thankfully, they've removed having to watch the ad every time you play an advanced table. The only time I watch an ad anymore is on the card flip.
    40:29
    Oh, yeah, right. So watching the ads now, boy, I feel like I practically haven't watched them anymore. I've only gotten a few of the adult game for adult entertainment.
    40:43
    Oh, really? That's a shame. Because it was comedy hour whenever you saw those ones. It was actually really funny. I do still get the, my favorites now, though, are the, I don't normally do this. but if you play this game, you're like, this is what you don't normally do. Talk about playing the game. You know, okay, whatever. Sure.
    41:08
    Okay. And then there's my third idea for what to do with, and I'm going to keep on pushing the scientific until actually makes it into digital pinball, but limited time to vent pin golf.
    41:18
    Oh, I pink off for sure. Yeah. And all you would have to do is pick 69 tables. Tell us, you know, what the goal is, What the goal, what the par is, you know, how many balls should it take you to reach the very end of those. And if you score under par, you earn more parts. If you score par, you get just the basic amount of parts. If you go over par, then what's wrong with you? And you'll get... And you might get some tickets, some consolation tickets. Exactly. You get the participation award. Hi, Brandon Rice. but if you manage to run the gauntlet with only one ball huge reward all the parts i can i can end points maybe two or three coins well yeah i mean it doesn't have again it doesn't have to be all parts it could be a mixture of you know it's a treasure box if you will I can just imagine though the screaming disappointment of if you had done 8 tables all on one ball and you get to that 9th table and you just do some really wonky move oh man there would probably be an uptick of phone sales because of how many would be thrown against the wall yes make sure that you are playing William's pinball on mobile with the phone case attached it's something of that nature so anyway i just hope they don't they don't leave it dormant um yeah it's too good of an idea to just let sit there and i i honestly believe that zen is making strides forward in the app to make it so that it's not such a daunting experience for for the newbie i think so they've i mean they've got the data now that they always had the data but they're getting more data about usage now and the changes that they're making surely are driven by what they're observing um and yeah it's just keep playing it like you would normally play it i think it's important to realize that you shouldn't start trying to alter your game style or anything like that to try and i don't know exploit the bits and pieces they have in the app just play it like you normally would because if you play it like you normally would that data will be reflected accurately in their stats like you know if they're looking at my data they'll see that i haven't logged in for ages because that's true i haven't logged in for ages and you know if you're going in there and you're resetting the the the challenges because you think you need to then that's going to give them a skewed view of what is important to you as a player so man i wonder what they think of my data then well the thing is that it's you're playing it the way you want to play it like it's not so much that you're playing it because you know you want to you know you've been told that you need to do it like that you're playing it for a specific reason so you can unlock as much stuff in the game as you think you need to well no not not not currently how i'm playing currently how i'm playing is i'm filling up this little chart of all the tables that i've made videos of and if i haven't made a video of it then i want to play that game if i've already made a video of it then i'm like cycle oh so oh yeah of course oh yeah that's totally true that's a bit skewed at the moment but oh yeah a bit skewed slightly but you know it's it's one of those things uh you're doing it for a particular reason and the thing is that you're probably the only person doing that at the moment or one of the very few people somebody has told me i am the only person because they looked for videos and mine are the only videos that have popped up so again if you're interested in playing the mobile version of this game watch my videos and then give me the little thumbs up shoot right now those of you that are watching YouTube go down there and go push the little thumbs up because apparently that helps and it's free yeah exactly so you can help I'm healthy I did it that's right so I'm trying to think if there was anything else that I had that I wanted to go into on this I don't know there was kind of a lot to go through there true but I think we kind of have yeah I think that's probably it those three things school bit, the Williams app and was there something else? Or have we just covered it? Zacharia. Oh, Zacharia, yes, yeah. Yeah, that was it. Yeah. And Spacey's Arcade doing the marble physics. The cool marble physics, yeah. I wonder how long that marble's going to hold up in the game as it smashes into pop bumpers. Well, the bigger issue for him was that it would get stuck in the trough in the ball eject.
    46:26
    Oh, yeah, true. Oh! Yes. What? Oh, well, I have the pop-up window, and James there that's sitting in our chat room just pointed out, and I meant to mention this.
    46:39
    TPA, bye-bye, ACDC. Bye. Yeah. Sayonara. It was nice knowing you. I hope you bought it. Yeah. See ya.
    46:49
    I don't remember if we talked about it the last time or not. We did. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we did. We talked that they were actually their license that ended for that particular title. good see I'm glad I asked rather than just jumped into it yeah but basically tomorrow as of this recording tomorrow so the 30th of June last day to purchase it so if you're listening to the podcast right now and you haven't bought ACDC yet now is your last chance yeah so yeah do it if you like music games one of the very first real top selling music games produced by Stern.
    47:30
    And many more followed on after that, so yeah. Okay, well, with that being said, I think we can wrap this whole shindig up.
    47:41
    And maybe next week, we'll have live video for Jared. Maybe, yeah. Although, I'm not promising anything because Skype.
    47:51
    Like I said, yesterday, we tested it, we did it for 40 minutes, it worked and today almost from the get-go it didn't no it's it's one of those baffling things that seems to not work when it's supposed to work so maybe i need to do the classic turn off the computer and turn it back on again trick um every before i do a recording just to make sure everything's fresh or maybe i need to actually do some research and see if there's any other alternatives to recording. Alternatives, yes. We'll figure it out eventually.
    48:30
    At some point. But, you know, for now, look, you can hear me. You just can't see me. And you all know what I look like anyhow. So, you know, it's not that much of a big deal. Like I said, it's not like if Jared had gotten his face frozen, he was just like... Yeah, look like I've been frozen by some sort of horror movie ghost, you know. and I say that because as I've been making all these let's play videos I get presented with thumbnail choices to upload some of the thumbnails I'm like what was going on no we're not using that thumbnail sorry thank you I think YouTube and any online video service has an algorithm in it to give you the most unflattering thumbnail pics you can possibly want it's just a feature of the platforms yeah so alright like I said we're going to wrap it up here folks as always we appreciate you the listener if you've been watching you've been seeing our Twitter handles going by but you the audio listener I gotta give them out that would be if you want to follow Jared he's at Jared Morgz I am at shut your traps the show is at blockade on Twitter it's a great way to communicate with us by the way I will tell you if you're communicating on the official Blockade Twitter handle, you're probably communicating with me.
    49:55
    Yeah, I don't really... I don't log into it. Jared pops in time to time to, like, drop... Show posts. Exactly. Pertinent, real information. I pop in to mouth off.
    50:08
    So that's one of the many services we offer here at Blockade, you know? Oh, I just see a question here. Any news on the Flipper physics?
    50:18
    No. I have not heard anything nor has Volume 5 gone into beta and if it was in beta I probably wouldn't be allowed to say anything. So since it's not in beta yet I can definitively say no there's no news on the Flipper physics update. No. So there you go. See it's kind of nice sometimes when you can, you may have an NDA but if you don't have the information then you're free to talk about it. Absolutely yes. That's the best part. it's the curse of the show where sometimes we're like oh cool we finally found some really sweet information out oh crap we can't speculate it or even fake speculate it because then people think that we know it and the people that gave us the information know we know it and therefore is it a guess anymore and then now we're in trouble yeah pretty much it's very very complex sometimes so anyway okay well for really real now we're gonna call it a day um but absolutely uh tune in next week we'll have more stuff on the blockade pinball podcast bye bye