All right, welcome back, guys, to another episode of A Pinball Podcast. I believe it is episode 31. I'm pretty sure November 23rd, 2020. It is Monday, the week of Thanksgiving. I appreciate you guys being here. So let's just get straight into it. The only thing we're going to talk about today is Deep Root Pinball, and we're going to talk about their little debut or game reveal or non-game reveal that they had this past weekend. and some of the things associated with it. Now, there is a lot to unpack here. There is actually so much to unpack here. And I think the way that I'm going to take this podcast is we're going to just discuss the gameplay and the pen itself. I'm not going to talk about manufacturing. I'm not going to talk about any of that, any of the history behind it, because it's just, to me, this changes so much from day to day or even week to week or even month to month or apparently even year to year, guys. It's such a moving goalpost that I think the only thing that I can readily comment on right now is what I see right in front of me. And what I've seen right in front of me is the gameplay in which we all saw. Now, it has came out just a few hours ago on Pennside, of all places, that I guess somebody apparently has somehow gotten into the files that were part of the website and they made it public and it wasn't supposed to be public. I don't know. I have no idea. I've looked at them. It basically shows what the prices are. It gives ideas of what the DLC, like how much that's going to be, yearly membership costs. And I'm not going to dig into all those details just yet because personally, I don't know if it's supposed to be out there. I don't know if it's supposed to be out there. And the last thing I feel like doing is getting this podcast requested to be taken down. So that stuff is available on Pennside. If that's the information you're looking for, that's where to find it. It's up as of the recording of this podcast. Now, again, what we can discuss, the public knowledge of everything, is the gameplay itself. All right. So, again, a lot to unpack here. and I'm basically stuck trying to judge this game against all the white noise that's coming from every which direction. All right, so let's just get this out there. Obviously, most of the things that I mentioned on yesterday's podcast, or maybe it was two days ago. It was two days ago I put out this podcast. Now I keep thinking today's Sunday. Today's Monday. It's been two days. So the last podcast I put out, I was discussing my thoughts on what potentially could happen. by showing this game on a stream. And pretty much nearly every single thing that I predicted would happen ended up happening, and there's a lot of reasons for that. And it's not because I am some hyper-intelligent person that can just see into the future. No, no, no, no. This is something that anybody that's been paying attention to this would know was going to happen. This is just part of it. And so what we saw, and I dig through this all, And to what my understanding is of the situation, and again, I haven't contacted anybody directly. I haven't even asked questions. All I'm doing is sitting back and making observations with this. And my observation is that DeepRoot was wanting to put this game on location just for a few days, for a couple days, in order to get back feedback on how people are approaching the game. I mean, that could be the pin bar itself. That could be just the overall gameplay, because obviously they can get a lot of data from that, and they can kind of see what is intuitive, what's not intuitive. That's the way that I took for their reasons of putting this out. That's my assumption, and that's just the way that I'm taking this based on what I know. Now, that being said, it's obvious that they were not planning on having any type of stream added onto this. So the stream got added on very late in the game. I'd say probably about a day before all this was going to happen. And, you know, as a result, what's going to happen because of that, expectations are going to come because of that. This is the first time that the majority of people that have either heard of this game or seen this game, this is going to be the first time that they've actually seen it from a normal streaming pinball view, which is the overhead view. This is the first time. Every other time that they've seen this has not been like this. It's been via cell phone video. That's all it's been. And so there's going to be a lot of people that are highly interested in this. There's going to be a section of people that are interested. And, you know, what we ended up getting because of this, naturally, we're going to have two competing ideals of showing this game. We're going to have a company that's wanting to get real-world feedback on this game, player feedback. And then we're going to get, you know, obviously streamers that are streaming this, not only just to show the game to everybody, but let's be honest, they're doing it to get their name out. And they said that much on Pennside. And, you know, I've got nothing wrong with that at all. But that's just the reality of the situation. And so naturally, I was running under the assumption that this could get a little chaotic simply because there was two competing ideas that weren't really bridged together in a way that was planned out. And when you do stuff like this that's not planned out, it's always going to feel like you're just flying in the dark. I mean, that's what it's going to seem like. And at times, that's what happened. But again, that's neither here nor there. you know there's going to be a lot of people that are going to judge this game based on how the stream went and what i'm trying to do right now with this podcast is i'm not going to judge the stream overall i'm just i'm just not to me this is different than say a dead flip situation and the reason for that is is naturally you know dead flip of course is part of stern pretty much he advertised by stern he you know he shows lots of Stern games He associated with Stern merchandise And I could go on and on which is great But that's why I'm saying I'm not going to judge this stream in that way, because they are not associated with Deep Root. Deep Root did not come to them and say, hey, we need you guys to stream. They went to Deep Root and they offered. And, you know, what happened happened. All right, so digging through all the fluff, like digging through the sound, the chat, which the chat was just, yeah, the chat was what we thought it was going to be. It was what we thought it was going to be. So digging through that, digging through the alerts, digging through all the randomness of everything, I'm going to just judge this game straight out for what it is. and to me this game it's from what i saw it's okay and that's that's all it is it's simply okay you know the art looks cool backbox interesting you know side art cabinet it's i mean it's pretty cool what they got going but i'm not big on that simply because like you see behind me all my games are together so that doesn't really mean much to me but there's certain things on this that obviously they're going for a certain cool factor and a certain aesthetic that they want the buyer the consumer or the player to see now that being said just judging the gameplay itself you know it's it pretty much played exactly the way that i thought it was going to play because i did have a chance to play this about a year ago now the differences were obviously the right ramp makeable like we thought it would be, which is great. They fixed that. In turn, they also brought the ramp return to the left end lane, which makes it a lot better because obviously that allows you to get into a little bit better flow, a little bit better control. Now, the main thing that I was really concerned about watching this is this game. I mean, it's proof it's we can put this to bed right now this game is going to absolutely destroy average players it just is we we spent nearly an hour and a half on there and it took till the end of the stream to to see a multiball i believe and just i mean you can't play this game on the fly and expect good things to happen you have to play under control you have to and the video speaks for itself that when you get average to below average players on a game like this, it's not going to be pretty. It's just not going to be. And as a result, you know, the viewer was left confused. And there was a lot of people that were very confused on what was going on. They were confused about the rules. They were confused about what this game was supposed to be. And that's the gist of a lot of the messages that I got during it and after it, you know, and obviously watching back on this, there's lots of reasons why people didn't understand what was going on. And a big reason for that is, is that the players simply were not getting into the game. And, you know, you could tell post passes, they, they were difficult to achieve. You could tell that because the overall geometry isn't open for any type of flow, there was a lot of brick shots. And so players were constantly playing defense when they weren't really equipped for it because you didn't see really highly skillful nudges going on, you know, and that's just, that's part of it. And I don't want to, I don't want to take digs too much. It's just, this is just the result of what happens when you do have average players playing a tough designed game. This is what happens every time. And so the scary part is too, is that this game was built or was designed or was set up, let me say that. This game was set up for location play in mind. And again, we didn't, nobody was, I don't know if anybody was even playing, like even putting up an average game. You know, there was probably people that were watching this walking away that they're not even sure what the rule set is supposed to be. And the idea that I've got from just watching it, because some of it for me felt a little bit intuitive. I know for other people, I can't speak for them. I don't know if it's intuitive for them. But, you know, if you're looking at the pin bar itself, the pin bar was actually telling you what to do a lot. And we'll get back into the pin bar here in just a few and why I think it might be a mistake, why it might be a mistake. I'm still intrigued, but I think it might be a mistake, though. So talking about the rule set and everything, the gist is, if you don't understand what it is, and I might get a few things wrong, but the gist is, is basically if you hit the Ned target in the back for that spells out zombie, that will spot you another shot somewhere on the play field in which it becomes a zombie. Your goal is hit that shot, kill the zombie that gives you points and that gives you tickets. And I think you get tickets to doing various other things in there. And there, there was a lot of other stuff like hitting the spinner shot, hitting the ducks or not. Well, I guess spinner to hitting the disc. I mean, so there was points coming in from every which direction when you look at it that way. But your idea was, is you wanted to get tickets. From there, you wanted to hit that atomic shop, which was behind the target, little standup target that you can knock down and then hit in. Or maybe it might even been down. I'm just going off the top of my head right now. But anyways, atomic shop, it's kind of like the orb on Guardians of the Galaxy. If you've seen that. You just go behind there. And from there, that's where the pin bar comes into play. You can basically take your tickets. And if you have enough, you can decide to either pick a mode, which there was four modes that I'm aware of, or you can choose, I believe it's, I guess it's an extra feature. I don't know what you would call it off the top of my head. I think it's called, let me look it up real quick Items called items So you could basically choose to either get like an increase of a bonus X You could recharge your Magna save You could I believe I seen a ball save for like 20 or 30 seconds It might be 30 seconds There's one other thing. I think you can do something called a power surge, which gives you a 2X play field. So these are things that you can buy and that you can combine up with the modes themselves. Unfortunately, a lot of people really didn't get to see that. I mean, there was still some modes being bought, but it wasn't really told to us as the viewer, and so it left a lot of people kind of confused. And that confusion is natural just because we haven't seen a game and such that has touchscreen to where we have to make these decisions. And that's where I'm going to kind of come back to the pin bar here in just a few, because that's the big deal here. also multiball we did not see it that much I think there was one towards the end of the stream but obviously not too many people were getting a multiball so at the end of the day guys when we talk about just the gameplay itself we can't it's tough we can't judge the code hardly at all right now simply because the players did not really get into it that much it just didn't happen so it's hard to really judge it because we really didn't get a good sense of it, which is both good and bad. And this is why if you're ever going to show a game, you have to make sure that you have players on there that are going to be capable of showing you what's in the game, especially when you have people that are seeing it for the first time and you have people that are genuinely interested in the game or interested in buying the game, because this was turning people off and it was turning people off quickly. I've already heard from at least four different people that were thinking about going in on a game. And after seeing that, they are not sure at all. There was a couple, obviously in the stream, that were just like, I'm out. And I know there's a few people on message boards saying that they're out. Now, that could be hyperbole. I mean, it might just be people just to talk, just to talk. But I know it doesn't do a game any favors when it looks difficult to shoot, when it looks like people are having a hard time playing it. And the flippers, obviously, it seemed like that the rubbers were extra bouncy. And then also, too, the flippers are misaligned. And I'm just like, guys, we can't do that. That is such an oversight that I don't, me personally, I don't understand how that happens. Because even a couple of months ago, when they were going to have their initial reveal, the pictures that came out, the flippers are misaligned then. And so I don't know how that happens. But, you know, when you're seeing a pin for the first time and the flippers are missing a line and they just they don't even seem like they have that snap either. Like you notice on dead bounces, you'll see that left flipper really having a lot of give in it. And I didn't know if it was already, you know, something was already shot in it before it even started. But it just it gave me flashbacks to similar things that were happening to us down at the Houston Expo. And that's kind of worrisome. That is really worrisome because the number one thing that you want to see out of a pinball machine more than anything is that the flippers are simply aligned and that they work the way that you expect them to work. Because if the flippers don't work properly and they're shot, they have give, they're misaligned, I mean, it's a lot of headache. It's a lot of headache, and basically, obviously, a certain geometry is set by the designer to fit aligned flippers. And I don't know why that's happening. I really don't. But moving forward to the pin bar, my concern about this, and I get what they're getting at, that this day and age, we're all about touchscreens. And that makes sense to an extent. Obviously, all of us with smartphones, we do deal with touchscreens on a daily basis. What I realized watching this, and I was kind of thinking and talking about it, you know, off podcast to pinball friends that I was really worried about how this would go with the general public. And what it seemed like watching, it didn't seem like anybody was really seeing things intuitively. It didn't feel like it. It felt like people were, it was almost like it was just weird. People were just trying to figure it out. And that could be for a lot of reasons, maybe off stream, For the rest of the weekend, it was great. People figured it out. People loved it. I don't know. I'm sure we'll hear about it. But watching it, you know, there's one big thing that I think is severely missing out of this. There's a huge thing missing. And here's the fact, guys. The fact is, is when players are playing a pinball machine, and I'm sure a lot of you will realize this right off the bat, there is a large amount of people like the majority of pinball players do not actually look at the lcd to figure out what they're trying to do they don't do it they just don't the majority of players don't and i know for those that do you're probably hearing this and you're like there's no way but i'm telling you the majority of players don't pay attention to the screen i cannot tell you guys how many times I've either been on location at a tournament or watching on stream, somebody not paying attention to the LCD screen to where it tells you exactly what to shoot for, or gives you an idea of what to hit next. And people are still not doing that. People are still aiming at the, at the incorrect shots. And that's an area that is natural for everybody to look at. That's in an area to where everybody expects it to be because historically speaking, every single pinball machine up to this point has pretty much had something eye level to where you look straight ahead and you can find your score and you can find your information. There's just a lot of people that outside of the score and outside of, you know, what ball are we on or what players up? They don't look, they don't pay attention, you know, and you have to naturally trap up in order to do those things And so when I look at the pin bar the other big deal to me is is that it in an area that not natural to look at Like I don care how much people say because it by the flippers you going to look that way I mean, today, right now, after you get done listening to this, go play a game of pinball, trap up, and then look down and just stare at the lock bar. Like, it's not natural. And it's not because it feels uncomfortable or anything like that. It's just because all of us as pinball players, we have not been doing that for thousands and thousands and thousands of games. We have not been doing that at all. It's very rare right now I look at that for the action button just because I know the action button's there. I'm not necessarily looking down for it. So for me, that would not be a natural occurrence, and I've tested it out. I've been the test dummy. I've walked up to a pin, and I've done exactly what I've asked you guys to do, and it just didn't feel natural. It feels natural to me anytime I trap up to look up. Now, that being said, it doesn't mean it won't work. It doesn't mean it's not a decent idea. I'm just concerned about how much can that be applied to the very, very, very casual pinball player. When we live in a world in which people literally struggle to find the start button in arcades. It happens. It happens. I'll even go to tournaments and on old school machines, I'll sometimes have a brain fart and not be able to find the start button for a few. But on these modern pens, guys, legit, this is why Stern has to put a tutorial on the screen that shows where the start button's at. And so, I don't know how intuitive this is going to be for people. And I don't know how many people are readily thinking about a touchscreen while they play pinball. Now, that being said, maybe in the future, if somehow there's multiple deep root pins out there in the wild, we're looking at five, ten years from now, maybe it's a normal thing. But again, we have to work to get there. And I don't know if it'll ever be normal. Now, there are things about the pin bar that I do like. And this is just coming from somebody that does trap up a lot in games. and does actually look at the information to help me with my play. I do like the idea that it shows you what shot to go for next, or it's kind of like a pinball caddy. It's there with you kind of letting you know what shot to go for next. What I'm really curious of, and I didn't find the answer to this. I didn't hear it mentioned. I didn't really see anybody do it on stream. I don't think I did see anybody do this on stream. I'm curious to know because on the right-hand side, it's very interesting. So you got the MagnaSave right there, which is in a new place that I can't recall any game ever having it right there where your thumb's at, basically. But what I found interesting was, is they had it right next to that MagnaSave was the little boxes that showed kind of what to go for next. It gave you hints what to go for next. I'm curious if you trap up, can you hit that box with your hand just to cycle through what to go for next? That would be interesting. That's something I've never seen done. And that's probably something I would actually take advantage of. I mean, stepping up to a pin and not really knowing the rule set, but having it basically tell you what to do would be cool. But I was really surprised that it felt like the majority of players that were stepping up to the game weren't really doing that. And even if they did look down, they would end up taking a shot that was the exact opposite shot to go for. So I don't I don't know. That speaks on so many different levels that maybe we're just asking too much for the casual player to really understand what they're looking at. Maybe that's proof right there. I mean, everybody that was there playing it, I assume that they played pinball for a while, that they've been around the block a time or two, and it didn't feel like that they were really intuitively looking at it too much. But could be wrong. Maybe in the chaos of it all, somebody was, and I just happened to miss it. It just didn't seem like it to me. So tell me what you guys think. I'm sure everybody is very opinionated on what's going on with this game. Outside of that, I don't know what else to really comment on for this. I don't know how else to comment on the potential manufacturing. I don't know how else to comment on anything else that's coming out with Deep Root right now. For me personally, my stance is I'm just going to take this just one step at a time. And basically whenever they officially put anything out, that's when I'll make a comment on it. That's when I'll break it down if I can, if I need to. And right now the only thing I feel like I can break down is just what we saw on the stream. And what we saw on the stream was an okay game that I don't feel like it, you know, geometry wise, I don't know if I would have fun playing it overall. Like I said, I didn't really enjoy shooting it a year ago, but maybe with the right code, maybe with the adjustments hopping on it again, I might enjoy it. I don't know. I'm willing to give it, give it another chance. I'm interested in playing it. I mean, any new pinball I'm interested in playing, but you guys tell me what you think. You guys think this is coming out anytime soon. Did you guys enjoy watching the game be played what did you think about the game that's the most important thing more than anything else what do you think about this game is it something that you feel like it's going to make you open up your pocketbook or your wallet or do you feel like you're going to actually put a quarter in this on location you feel like you're going to go to coin drop and you're going to go play this so i don't know guys but other than that if i don't get out another podcast pretty soon. You guys have an awesome Thanksgiving. I do have my Avengers kind of fixed, so I'm going to be able to play some more games on that. And then my next podcast, if it's not out by Wednesday, I'll probably put one out maybe this weekend, or I might even wait till next Monday. And then my next one will definitely be my Avengers review, which I'm definitely looking forward to because I mean, I'll admit it guys. I love that game. But other than that though, guys thank you guys so much for listening i greatly appreciate it and i will talk to you guys later have a great thanksgiving guys