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Data is King

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·51m 25s·analyzed·Feb 21, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.027

TL;DR

Zen FX app pricing and progression updates; sealed Jurassic Park unboxing discovery.

Summary

Chris and Jared discuss recent Zen Pinball FX app updates on iOS and Android, detailing progression mechanics, grinding timelines, and pricing strategy. They also cover a notable unboxing video of a 25-year-old sealed Jurassic Park pinball machine discovered in storage, and Brad's new Pinball Garage arcade venture in Ohio.

Key Claims

  • Chris maxed out all seven Zen FX tables on iOS in 16 days by playing daily challenges

    high confidence · Chris explicitly states: 'I completely maxed out all seven tables in 16 days. I played daily challenges every day.'

  • Android beta users face 10x cost multiplier compared to iOS for upgrades and progression

    high confidence · Discussion comparing costs: iOS 10 Zen coins vs Android 100 coins for final promotion; iOS 300 vs Android 3,000 for upgrades

  • Zen is implementing A/B testing on iOS with selective offer banners for purchasing all tables at ~$25

    high confidence · Chris reports: 'some people are seeing it, some people aren't' and notes Zen is 'heavily segmenting players'

  • A sealed Jurassic Park pinball machine was stored for 25 years in climate-controlled conditions and remained in near-mint condition

    high confidence · Chris recounts the unboxing story: batteries survived, minimal dust, only cracked flipper rubber tips, no corrosion on boards

  • Brad from VP Cabs is opening Pinball Garage arcade in Ohio with 60 pinball machines

    high confidence · Chris mentions Brad purchased the sealed Jurassic Park and is opening venue: 'they're opening up an arcade that I think they're saying they're going to have 60 machines set up'

  • Zen FX Android app will achieve parity with iOS upon production launch

    high confidence · Jared states: 'I have been told the Android app will be on parity with the iOS app when it goes live'

  • Data East Jurassic Park uses BSMT 2000 audio system named after engineer Brad Schmidt

    high confidence · Chris explains: 'BSMT stands for Brad Schmidt Stereo Technology... Brad Schmidt did all the audio engineering for it'

  • Zen has implemented targeted table part drops in the final upgrade stages to reduce duplicate progression items

    high confidence · Chris describes late-stage progression: 'for the last two tables, I was only earning those two tables parts... within two cycles, boom, I maxed out'

Notable Quotes

  • “I completely maxed out all seven tables in 16 days. I played daily challenges every day.”

    Chris Frebus @ early_progression_discussion — Key data point countering grinding concerns; establishes realistic progression timeline

  • “Everything is multiplied by 10 for you... Unfortunately, the multiplication doesn't work on the earning side.”

    Jared Morgan @ android_pricing_discussion — Highlights the asymmetrical cost/earning structure on Android beta that disadvantages early adopters

  • “If you're thinking that 16 days is a long time to grind, it's not. I've been playing Clash Royale for over two years... I still have not maxed out eight cards in total.”

    Chris Frebus @ grinding_comparison — Contextualizes Zen FX grinding against other freemium games to reframe community complaints

  • “It was beautiful. It's just like it was refreshed without the box. It's barely even got any dust on it. They found one spider web.”

    Chris Frebus @ jurassic_park_unboxing — Describes pristine condition of 25-year-old sealed machine, establishing the exceptional preservation story

  • “Flick the switch and... No worries. Yeah. The good old BSMT, which apparently stands for Brad Schmidt Stereo Technology.”

    Jared Morgan @ jurassic_park_boards — Confirms functional operation of 25-year-old boards despite battery concerns; reveals audio system naming convention

  • “Their logo is sweet. It looks like an old hot rod, but the wheels are pinballs.”

    Chris Frebus @ pinball_garage_mention — Describes Pinball Garage branding; positive reaction to new venue's visual identity

  • “Zen is clearly listening. Now, I don't know if they have necessarily made changes on the Android side of things, but there's changes happening on the iOS side of things.”

    Chris Frebus @ zen_responsiveness — Establishes Zen's iterative approach to feedback and platform-specific implementation strategy

Entities

Chris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonZen StudioscompanyBradpersonPinball GaragevenueJurassic ParkgameBlockade Pinball PodcastorganizationZen Pinball FXproductBrad Schmidtperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Platform-specific pricing and feature parity strategy indicates complex QA/testing requirements and potential user experience fragmentation

    medium · Chris notes confusion in community discussions: 'It's really, really confusing... people are going, Oh yeah, I'm seeing a call to action banner... Yeah, no one here in the Android thread is seeing that'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Internal testing feedback indicates community perception of grinding as excessive; Zen appears to be addressing through mechanic iterations and transparency

    medium · Chris provides counter-narrative with personal progression data: '16 days is nothing... compared to Clash Royale two-year grind' and notes earlier podcast was 'lively discussion' about pricing

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Zen FX incorporates advanced ROM integration for survival challenges, including blanked target banks and soft plunge mechanics to prevent exploits

    high · Jared: 'they've blanked out that bank of targets when you launch the ball somehow. So that's some serious ROM integration there that they've got going on'

  • $

    market_signal: Zen testing special offer call-to-action for purchasing all tables at approximately $25, with selective rollout via A/B testing on iOS

    high · Chris reports segmented player experience: 'some people are seeing it, some people aren't' with offer 'something like that. Which is a little bit more than what a regular Zen table is'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Zen implemented targeted table part drop rates in late-stage progression to reduce duplicate items and improve grinding efficiency

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.154

0:00
this is a blockade podcast with your hosts chris and jared you are listening to the blockade pinball podcast i'm your host chris freebiss aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway around the world jared morgan hello everybody Jared, I am noticing here something different right off the top of this podcast and that is you seem to be staring directly into the camera and you have something very similar to what I have in front of your mouth look at that yes I do, I decided to go all in and get a proper mic set up for the podcast and I take it sounds better, I don't know No, it sounds really good. But did you move your camera? Were you using the camera on your laptop prior? Yes, I was. And I went and got a Logitech C615 to put on top of my screen. There you go. So I'm not using the laptop anything anymore. I'm using the screen. It's just a better position. Yeah. So, yeah, I just went and did it.
1:14
Now it's like you're not looking down on me. Right. I was like, yeah, I know. Yes. It's better, too. It's more natural. And you need to do it when you've got one of these mics on a boom because they're fixed position and you've got to pretty much keep your position. Otherwise, it sounds weird. Yeah, that is true indeed.
1:33
So this is all fascinating to people that are only purely audio listeners and not YouTube watchers. But there you go. Which is why you should go and take a look at the YouTube. And, you know, specifically, I did something. We released the video and podcast, basically, in general, of my conversation with Mel Kirk and Thomas Crofts and Akos Gerke from Zen. and I didn't want to just release the video without having any kind of conversation about it and so I went ahead and did something new I've never tried it before but did this YouTube premiere thing and it allowed me to type in my comments as the video was playing usually it's hard for me to type comments and talk at the same time like we try to do sometimes with the live podcast here. Oh yeah, it's left right brain thingy. Oh, completely, completely. So it was kind of fun to be able to do that and type MIM, but what I was going to say is if you go check out... Hey, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Just do that. It's free. It's free.

“It shows the level of ROM integration that Zen has... they've blanked out that bank of targets when you launch the ball somehow.”

Jared Morgan @ rom_integration_discussion — Technical insight into Zen's survival challenge design and ROM behavior modification

Medieval Madness
game
Fish Tailsgame
Getawaygame
Black Rosegame
Party Zonegame
Junkyardgame

high · Chris describes experience: 'for the last two tables, I was only earning those two tables parts... within two cycles, boom, I maxed out the other two tables'

  • ?

    product_concern: Zen FX mobile implementation successfully reproduces dynamic GI lighting and playfield dimming effects not fully present in predecessor TPA

    high · Chris recalibrates initial impression: 'there is GI lighting, which I wasn't aware of before... it dims and it flashes... Farsight only managed to sort of half implement'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Zen Studios planning day-and-date release of tables across mobile, PC, and console platforms

    high · Chris references previous podcast interview: 'they mentioned tables on the mobile app day and date with PC and console'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Android beta pricing multiplier (10x) creates asymmetrical progression burden compared to iOS; Zen maintaining this intentionally to prevent rollback issues at production launch

    high · Jared theorizes rationale: 'they probably had to go really anal with it... they know that if there was anything weird going on in the Android beta that they couldn't stop, then they would have had no back out plan'

    • 2:43
    And do that, and then you can find the podcast. It's episode number 164. And as the video is playing, my comments will pop up in real time as i was on a stream yeah so that's something new if uh i don't know maybe do that more often depends um yeah you could add your own narrative to it and then when eventually the reason why you did that of course is because i still haven't done that interviews post-production yet because my weeks have been ridiculous and i was telling chris before the show that you know Yesterday I was planning to do that, but then didn't take into account how long it was going to take to build furniture.
    3:29
    We got a big delivery of furniture. We decided to sort of update all of our furniture in the house because we had this mismatch of just weird colored furniture. You know how it is when you have kids? You acquire weird bits of furniture and nothing ever matches. So we thought, no, no, we're going to go and do that. But yeah, it literally took me, well, since 10.30 in the morning until about 6 at night to finish that job. So I'm very sore this morning. Got the old hand cramps from doing all the fastening? No. There's lower back cramps. Oh, okay. Yeah. And I've got what is essentially a small-sized car worth of cardboard in the garage. I've had to actually park the car outside because it's literally, it looks like the Mazda but in cardboard. It's that much cardboard. Cardboard four-time though, right? Well, yeah. It's going to be cardboard cut down and then taken to the dump time. That's what it is. They're going to actually park the car again.
    4:28
    No fun. That's when you've got to make the kids Halloween costumes early. Yeah, well. You're a robot and you're a robot. And the whole house is a robot. Exactly. Yeah, because there's that much cardboard. You can actually dress the whole house up in a costume, I reckon. It's ridiculous. I do want to, though, real quickly, just at the head of the show, why not do it at the head of the show? But I did want to say thanks to Mel for setting it up for me to be able to talk to the guys as they were in Budapest. It was a little bit of tricky scheduling there because you got to remember, me and Jared have a very limited window of time that is convenient for both of us to talk to each other. and then you throw in Europe and trying to do it during their business hours which meant I was doing the podcast or that recording interview session at 8.30 in the morning which was 5.30pm for them so it's like their work day was already over and yours was just starting yeah so that was a bit of a trick I do another podcast called the Write the Docs podcast. And we have someone, got me, someone from the West Coast of the US and someone from Berlin. So just have a guess how hard that is. Well, that's the same thing whenever we have Sven come on because he's that same time period. So he winds up, when we do our normal podcast session recording time. It's like 12 o'clock. Yeah, midnight for him. Yeah. It's just too, it's rough. I mean, luckily we have a guy on that podcast that doesn't mind actually staying up late because if he was not a night owl, we'd be screwed. I don't know how we'd make it work. One of us, it just had to be a rotating roster of people having a really bad night, basically, and staying up.
    6:19
    Hey, did you happen to check out that unboxing video of Jurassic Park? Oh, no, the one that had been in storage for like 17 years. Well, here's what I didn't... Yeah, well, for those that don't know the story, the brief story, if I'm... I believe I'm getting this correct. because I read it a while ago and then I watched the video recently. But it was that somebody had done some work for somebody in terms of, I don't know if it was doing their game room or whatever, but the person was purchasing pinball machines. And as a gift, they bought an additional machine for the guy that was doing all this work. But then before they could give it to him, there was some major falling out between them.
    7:03
    Feelings got hurt, if you will. And the guy just was like, I'm not talking to you anymore. oh okay well the person that bought the machine just kept it in its box for the day that the guy came to pick it up right okay picking it up and so these years later 25 years later um finally they were like i don't know if the person the the host homeowner had died or whatever but as they were getting rid of stuff they contacted the guy and they were like look we still have your machine. If you don't want it, it's getting put out onto the sidewalk for the trash bin. Oh. And so he reluctantly picked it up, accepted it, but again wanted no part of this thing, basically, and sold it relatively cheap. I don't know what the sales number was. But the person that bought it, of all people, Brad from VP Cabs. Oh, right. Because Brad has a new venture there in Ohio. I think they're calling it pinball garage, and I've got to say, their logo is sweet. It looks like an old hot rod, but the wheels are pinballs. Oh, that's cool. It's really cool, and they're wearing the t-shirts in the video, so that's why I was able to see that. But yeah, they're opening up a... I just did a Google search for it then. Yeah, they're opening up an arcade that I think they're saying they're going to have 60 machines set up. Pinball machines.
    8:29
    So... Anyway, it was like, hey, that's Brad. He's doing the... he's doing the unveil. So yeah, they, they get this Jurassic park. It's never been opened. It's brand new inbox. They had a lot of warnings from people going, Oh, it's going to be utter, just trash inside. Um, but he was promised that the thing had been stored in climate control conditions.
    8:52
    Goes through, opens this thing up. It's beautiful. It's just like it was refreshed without the box. It's barely even got any dust on it. They found one spider web, and that was it in terms of bugs.
    9:05
    The only issues, you might say, was the rubber was cracked on the tips, like on the flippers. It was on the flipper tip. It was really cracked, but elsewhere it wasn't. So even the rubber wasn't in terrible shape.
    9:24
    But what cracked me up was as they were unboxing this thing, of course, they're documenting it all. Yeah. and being careful with how they unwrap it. And at one point he goes, yeah, so at this point we could completely repack this thing up and put the straps back on and sell it as new in box. And I'm like, but why? Why would you do that?
    9:46
    Yeah, but I mean, if you're going to do that, you should have just sold it on. Well, you shouldn't have done an opening box video. It's kind of like there's proof on the internet that it's not exactly fresh out of the box. Yeah. But it was interesting because he was pointing out how a lot of people have had to repaint their T-Rexes, and here was a brand new mint T-Rex that a lot of people have had to repowder coat the launch gun. And here it was, just not a mar on it. Absolutely perfect. Also interesting to see what it was packed with. All the paperwork was perfect. It wasn't creaky or crispy or whatever. You said it felt like new paper. Brand new.
    10:30
    I think the thing with those pinball machines is they pack them up for export as well. So when they pack them, they don't muck around. They're really well sealed. They're really well environmentally protected. Right, but if it's just kept in somebody's garage that's moist conditions, humidity, metal's still going to rust. Things are going to break down. That wasn't the case at all.
    10:54
    That's pretty cool. It's an interesting video. I recommend everybody go check that video out just to see. I mean, do any of you remember a Data East machine being new in box and unpacking? No, I don't. I would have played one that was new out of the box. Sure. But I would have played a Jurassic Park that came out of the box. I've never seen it out of the box, though. So here, the biggest mystery that they were scared to death of was, what were the boards going to look like? Oh, yeah. Because this thing was packed with the batteries. Oh, dear. In place. Yeah. Perfect. Batteries had not exploded, not a single ounce of corrosion anywhere. Wow. And I guess it's the kind of battery that it was packed with instead of just a regular NICAD. I forget what – I don't know. He explains what the deal is of why these batteries survived as long as they did. Of course, they didn't fire up the machine with those batteries. They popped them out, and we're going to put in some new ones. But yeah, no, and sure enough, they didn't put the legs on. They just had it up on their dolly, so it wasn't even raked properly. It was just flat.
    12:01
    But flick the switch and... Came up? No worries. Yeah. Right. Yeah, I remember that. All by the immediate... Yeah, as the head starts moving. Yeah. The good old BSMT, which apparently stands for Brad Schmidt Stereo Technology. Brad Schmidt Stereo Technology, which is BSMT 2000 on that era of Duddery's because Brad Schmidt did all the audio engineering for it, so they named it after him. I only found that out recently. The interesting thing, too, is that, I mean, I don't know if you've ever come across in Jurassic Park in real conditions Something about them makes them one of the loudest tables you ever hear in an arcade Because of the vibrator in it the rocker No it just the music everything about it, it just overpowers every machine around it. And they fire this thing up and it translates in the video. They're like, wow, that's loud!
    13:07
    So, no, it's a loud machine. In terms of what's coming out of the speakers. That's just the stock speakers in it, too. Imagine if you put the Flipper Fidelity speakers in the thing. You'd blow your brains out with it. And the thing is that back then, because of that sound system, it was all MIDI. And because of that, it was just really on the louder side of things, I think, rather than having MP3s or the digital compression system that Belly and Williams used, because that was real audio downsampled a lot. so it didn't quite have the impact that BD straight out of the machine had yeah so anyway that's a pretty cool thing too of you it was like 25 minutes long I was like am I really going to sit through this and I sat through it and you did because it was like ooh what's next so and the cool thing is when you unbox something like that you get all the promotional plastics in it so yeah that's pretty cool. They're actually, I've got a few of those from back in the early 2000s and I got some, I got a theater of magic one. I've got a pinball 2000 pin droid or I'm a, I'm an, an official pit droid key ring, which is pretty cool. But they go for 25 bucks on eBay. Like, it's ridiculous. So, well, you get some, it even came with a Jurassic Park poster. A theatrical trailer poster. Yes, except for it wasn't printed on what they would put in the movie theaters. They made mention that it's a pretty thin piece of poster. And of course, any piece of paper that's been tightly wound for 25 years.
    14:51
    It's like that. It stays like, I mean, they're, they're unfurling. It was like, there ain't no way you're relaxing that. Not, I mean, no, it's basically the only way you can relax. He's put it through a laminator and lock it in place or, or lock it behind frame. But even then it's going to be like, you can tell the curls are going to be happening. Yeah. It'd be fighting. go back to its original state.
    15:13
    Let's talk about since we last talked, we had a it was fun. I don't think you and I have had that lively of a discussion. No, I don't think so. In the history of the show. I was listening back to it when I was doing the editing on that and I was going it's not as bad as I thought it would be. It was still like we were having a good old argument about things. A good old argument about the current state of the Williams Pinball Android beta app and pricing. In that two-week period of time, or thereabouts, there's been all sorts of changes.
    15:52
    I mean, Zen is clearly listening. Now, I don't know if they have necessarily changes on the Android side of things, but there's changes happening on the iOS side of things. And again, these things are going to happen for android eventually eventually but very much right now android is in beta and so there's all manner of data and uh scenarios that zen is testing um yeah really is this there's ab testing going on left and right in that app at the moment yes i have been told i have been told the android app will be on parody with the ios app when it goes live. So we just need to hold our wallets closed and then just wait. In the meantime, let me explain some of the things that have transpired in the iOS app.
    16:45
    First and foremost, for those of you that are complaining about oh, what a grind it is, and oh, it's going to take forever, and all this stuff, I completely maxed out all seven tables in 16 days. 16 days? 16 days. I played daily challenges every day. I did not always complete the daily challenges because sometimes like, I'm sorry, but one ball on Party Zone and one ball on Junkyard are brutal. Yeah, they're horrible. Those are not easy tables to control the ball on.
    17:23
    Yeah. There were plenty of times where I didn't get, say, the 15 stars that I stopped at 10. and I eventually like once I got the third challenge open for the most part by having in order to play the third challenge you have to have three stars on your tables and once I had like two or three tables three starred it was much easier to collect table parts obviously because you have all that many more times and I was able to three star the rest of them probably within two cycles.
    18:03
    I think that's how it works a lot of the time with sort of tiered achievements like that. Once you just chip away enough to get access to that extra tier, you start to burn it down. It was the same if we use Sky Force as an example that Shunemapa used to play. You do your one star, you do your basic or your easy levels, and you've got very little stars for doing that. But then you unlock the next level of difficulty, and you've got more. And then when you get up to the fourth level, stars are just raining from the heavens. And you've got very little problem upgrading your craft and all that at that point. What I didn't even think to do until the final two days of me playing, I didn't unlock the fourth challenge. Now, in order to do that, it costs 100 Zen Coins. and I'd been hoarding my Zen coins, but I had like 150, 160 of them. Oh, wow. Because I just didn't know what else I would need to be spending on. And somebody all of a sudden posted on the threads, oh, yeah, I completed everything. And they'd said that they'd unlocked. And I went, screw it, I'm doing it. So I paid my 100 coins, did that. Now I have four daily challenges to rip through.
    19:16
    So that completely sped up the process. No problem. That's for sure, yeah. in terms of cost of maxing out the tables, it costs us 10 Zencoin for that final promotion. 10. It's 100 on Android at the moment, so you can see how unbalanced it is. Well, what I've realized, you guys are getting multiplied by 10 on everything. Yeah. So it's 30 to... It's like, what is it, 300 to upgrade and 3,000... 3,000 for you to upgrade. So they've had a multiplication factor of 10. Yes. Everything is multiplied by 10 for you. Yay. Unfortunately, the multiplication doesn't work on the earning side. No, it really doesn't. Oh, boy, Jesus. It is just, well, yeah, definitely not. Like, I'm out of Zen coins at the moment. I can't even, like, I can't do anything. The other question was, well, what happens? Because when I was doing the beta, getting my final collection of table parts took forever because I kept on getting other tables parts. I don't need those parts anymore. There's nothing to do with them. Well, suddenly, for the last two tables, I was only earning those two tables parts. And if I wasn't getting a part from that, I was only getting tickets. So I was just getting a buttload of tickets and the table parts. And like I said, within two cycles, boom, I maxed out the other two tables because that's all I was getting. if you're getting that yeah if you're actually getting targeted parts and also tickets well then yeah so it looks like zen addressed that question of what would be happening that's good because that was a little bit of a pain like you don't really want to receive duplicate parts for a table you don't have and that's going to translate well when they start releasing more titles um sort of which if you listen to the previous podcast they mentioned uh tables on the mobile app day and date with pc and console that's pretty cool yeah so if you're if you're playing the daily challenges every day chances are you'll pretty much be able to get to level like star level 2 instantly by upgrading and and then you'll have access to the game just as normal so yeah essentially you'll have a free game on launch day which is not bad at all not at all I need to clarify a few things that I said about the graphics and look and feel of the tables that I was originally looking at at the beta. The more I look at them and the more I played them, the more I can see. It's probably because it's on a smaller screen and it doesn't have quite as much like DX11 effects, of course, as the PC version. But no, there is. There's GI lighting, which I wasn't aware of before in my initial play of there. And it dims and it flashes. and you know the i think that was the biggest thing that i i sort of became aware of it's like wow okay so yeah like the playfield's dimming it's not as apparent as it is on on steam but it's like oh yeah like it's just dropped the lights and um and certainly on medieval madness it's very noticeable because they've sort of made that table kind of dark yeah um and you can really see it when it dims the lights on there so yeah i mean that's something that you know i think Fastlight only managed to sort of half implement in the last couple of seasons. And it wasn't really, it didn't affect the shadows and everything. It was just like, turn off the lights, turn it back on again. So, I mean, that's a big deal. And then you've got things like the, what was the other thing I noticed that was different? It was just the, something about the lighting, it was just heaps more dynamic than if you compare it to TPA. and it's because I think it's just the way they do the light sourcing on Android. It just seems to be really, really precise in the way that it actually casts light rather than a little bit generic like it was in TPA. So those are two things I wanted to provide an addendum to. And this is in the beta, so as they go along, it's only going to get better. So, yeah, I think it was actually, the problem was, it was just like the freemium model was just overshadowing everything for me. It was just tainting my entire opinion of the game. And that's what a lot of the discussions were, where I just kind of was like, you guys are, you know, you're not seeing the forest for the trees.
    23:46
    It's getting so hung up on the currency and the grinding that you have to do and completely ignoring the game itself and what's going on there. And that's why I've been making a point in the threads of just saying how quickly. Look, if you're thinking that 16 days is a long time to grind. It's not. I've been playing Clash Royale for over two years. That is a game where it works on the, it's freemium. You can pay, and it does this dual currency thing. You know, with them it's coins and diamonds. and so you can buy all this stuff so you can more quickly upgrade and everything. But you're basically opening treasure chests and you're earning cards. And you're trying to max level all of your cards. And each time a level increases, so does the cost to max it out for the next stage. Getting to 13 is the highest level. Getting cards to that level 13.
    24:57
    Within your deck, because you build a deck, you have eight cards. I have five of the eight cards that I use maxed, and those other three, I'm either one or two levels away from maxing out. I've been playing it for two years, people. Two years, wow. And I still have not maxed out eight cards in total. Wow, that's like only eight cards and you still haven't got the Right Okay So you want to talk about grinding and I mean we doing wars We doing I mean we trading You can trade cards with other people daily You donate cards I doing all of that And you still can crack it No no So if you want to talk about grinding I sorry but 16 days is nothing That a blink That's a gift. That's essentially like three weeks on the train to and from work for me. Yeah. And that's probably a couple of goes, a couple of resets as well. And again, I didn't do any resetting. Yeah. And, like I said, I didn't always reach all 15 stars per daily challenge. So if you have even a modicum of skill and you're only getting – because getting the five stars is relatively simple.
    26:19
    Ten is a little – sometimes I've had to reset it. Yeah. Especially Black Rose. Oh, God, yeah. Black Rose is one of those that you either score really well or really bad. and you've really you've got to like certainly on black rose and i think even fishtails to an extent as well you've really got to think very carefully if it's like a like a survival challenge you've got to be on point you can't be bricking shots because it will take you right up to the wire if you can't be bricking shots and you got to be careful about like sometimes starting multi-ball is the wrong thing to do based on how much time you have left like it's monster fish If you can do monster fish, that's probably better if you're short on time. Yeah, you know, on fish tails, I found out that doing long cast over and over, maxing it to 5 million per long cast, and then just spamming that, is a lot of times better than any other shot on the entire table. Yeah, that's true. It's actually a very lucrative shot that you just don't realize until you start spamming it. Yeah. And, yeah, it's something that if I ever see a fish tails in real life, I'll be spamming the hell out of it in tournaments for sure. It is one of those shots, though, that if you miss it, you miss it bad. Yeah. You'll finally get into that groove, and you'll hit six, seven in a row, and you're like, yeah! And then all of a sudden, you can't hit it to save your life. Yeah.
    27:39
    You're done. Yeah. Interestingly enough, Getaway, I don't know what is wrong with me. I can't shoot those loops at all. Oh, the inner loop? Yeah, me neither. The left and right orbit, I should say. The orbits. Oh, really? You can't get them? On PC, not a problem. I can do it. On mobile, oh my god, I'm just... I cannot find the sweet spot. Fricking everything. Cannot find the sweet spot. That was... When I'd see a getaway as a challenge, I'd just go, uh-oh. Oh, that's going to be bad.
    28:12
    I couldn't get the scores going. I just couldn't. That's another one, you're right. Unless you basically... You really... I think it's a race to multiple on that one. Yes. if you're in a survival challenge. You've just got to get to multi-ball. I've noticed, too, that it shows the level of ROM integration that Xen has because, you know, in a survival challenge, how it always ejects the ball for you automatically and does a soft plunge, so you can't exploit certain parts of the table. Well, it'll always soft plunge onto that bank of targets that sits right against the supercharger ramp, but it doesn't trigger them ever. So actually, it does not trigger them ever. It doesn't actually award you a value when it hits them. And the ball hits them at a rate that would actually trigger them, like with velocity that would trigger them. So they've blanked out that bank of targets when you launch the ball somehow. So that's some serious ROM integration there that they've got going on. I'm going to circle back around some other things I've noticed about ROM behavior within the game. But first I want to do the one other thing that's changed with iOS. and I'm not seeing it because I've maxed the tables, but plenty of people are reporting that they loaded up the app and all of a sudden, right there at the top, it's saying, would you like to buy all the tables?
    29:30
    Special offer, basically it's offering you two days in which to fork over the money. And price-wise, people are saying, I haven't been able to get a definitive price on it, but I want to say it's like 25 bucks, something like that. Which is a little bit more than what a regular Zen table is, but that's fine. It's a little bit more, but it's not monstrously more. It's not $10 compared to like $2 or $3.
    29:58
    And that's fine. So, again, Zen listened, and they're trying to... Now, here's the thing. Some people are seeing it, some people aren't. I just read today one person who said they saw it on their... They loaded the game onto their son's iPad. they saw it but it wasn't on his device they've been ab'd they'd be segmenting yeah the rollout of this like they they are just it seems to me that we can expect heaps more of this behavior from from zen the fact that they are heavily segmenting players i can guarantee you that on android it may be that everyone has actually got the same segmentation um because there's so many people there saying that yeah level three is all 3 000 stars uh 3 000 tickets to to upgrade and like no one has actually come back because i asked the question because i had a suspicion after the last time we talked i went no are we actually being segmented and um no one's come back saying no it's cheaper for me so it seems that everyone who is using the beta essentially everyone who's an early adopter has all been in the that pricing tier at least right and we because we're in beta we haven't actually seen that call to action banner that you're seeing on iOS yet.
    31:14
    But I'm sure that when it goes out of beta, we actually did get an update, I think, to the app a couple of days ago in Android, I think. Or maybe because the problem is that there's a mixture of iOS and Android feedback coming into the Android thread. Yeah, I know. And it's really, really confusing. I'm guilty of it myself. Yeah, it's like, ah, so, and I think the people are going, oh yeah, I'm seeing a call to action banner. And it's like, yeah, no one here in the Android thread is seeing that. So it's great to hear that this is what's happening, but we should probably keep the chatter between the two in the app. Or at least, you know, at the top of your post, say, iOS user. Yeah, iOS observation. Because I think it is important also for the Android people to see what's next. It's the future. Exactly. Essentially, they're seeing into the future what the app will probably evolve into. Because I think it's definitely, I don't think Xen would ever go, hey, look, we're going to really be grafting Android users within the interest of their life compared to iOS. There's just no sense in doing that. No, no. So, yeah, it'll happen. We just need to be patient. And until then, we'll just keep on grinding because the advantage that Android users have, and this is probably why they've done it, is that when the app switches over from beta to production, we won't lose any of those entitlements that we've got. Right. They'll stay with us. And I think that's probably the reason why they've gone really harsh. And they've gone for 10 times and multiplied because they know that, you know, if there was anything weird going on in the Android beta that they couldn't stop, then they would have had no back out plan for that. So they probably had to, in hindsight, they probably had to go really, really anal with it and really, really tight because it was their insurance policy just in case something went wrong.
    33:02
    Yeah. They also, I noticed they were playing with some things in the Skills app portion in the multiplayer, which I want to talk to you a little bit about your matchup mode, if you have touched upon that, which is not in the iOS version. Okay. But first of all, what I want to say is, so previously what we had was within the Skills app, you have what's called practice tournaments and then pro tournaments. Pro tournaments are the cash money tournaments. Cash tournaments or practice tournaments are just the tickets that are inside the app.
    33:39
    And everything had been medieval madness. The pro tournament was one ball, and the practice tournaments, there was a one ball and a three-minute challenge.
    33:53
    Okay. So then the other day, so I'm in the midst of the pro challenge. and going for the leaderboard, and all of a sudden, it switched on me. The leaderboard didn't switch, but it went from being one ball to three-minute high score. In the middle of the game? Not in the middle of the game itself, but in the middle of the tournament. Oh. And that wrecked me. Oh, right. Because I got really good at keeping one ball alive. I started to know what my safe shots were, had a routine of what I needed to shoot and everything was fine. Three minute, where it's unlimited balls, completely different strategy. You just risk everything. It doesn't matter. Go for the riskier shots. And basically what it means is spamming the drawbridge.
    34:46
    Because that's kind of the quickest way to get the pointer. Unless you're really good at hitting ramp shots and can get not just get, say, catapult and joust multipole, but getting also damsel and peasant and getting trolls. Because then each shot you make is worth like 1.5 million. Yeah, and you basically got everything is lit. And those trolls, I find they're not nearly as dangerous as they are in real life compared to in the level one and two and possibly three physics models. Yeah. Like the three-star physics model. You can smash away them all day and they're fine. Yeah. you know, you're not going to drain off them. Yeah. So to say the least, it went from me being able to beat most of the people that I was competing against to all of a sudden it's, Hey, who can get to 15 million first? Oh yeah. And I just watched my, my ranking. I'm on my, oh man. But in the same time I noticed in the practice mode, all of a sudden there was three different machines that were available.
    35:53
    And I'm like, Oh, okay. So they're going to, you know, start integrating, adding other tables. Two days later, it was back to purely medieval madness. So they're even mucking about in there and trying something else. And what they pointed out in the prior podcast was that,
    36:15
    especially with skills, you want a very narrow lane for people to travel in for playing because you want to focus all the players to one location so that there's a lot of players to play with. If you have a ton of options, then everything is spread out, and you're hurting for players. And that's a big problem within skills if you don't have other players to play against. It becomes painfully boring and sometimes frustrating because all you need is two matches so that you can move the leaderboard, and if nobody's getting matched against you and you're seeing other scores leapfrog you, you're like, what the heck is going on? I'm not even getting a chance to get into the fight. so yeah you definitely need all those players so people were commenting then that on Android in the matchup side of things there was all sorts of frustration going on because I guess and you can tell me if you've seen this but all the tables have the same score that you're trying to go against or something I didn't notice that when I played it I was just bored and I was like not getting any really interesting table parts. I thought when I first loaded up the beta and tried it, the tournament thing didn't seem to be working. So I thought I'll go back again and try it again and see what happened. And it was.
    37:40
    So I spent, I think it was 25 tickets, which in the current times 10 pricing model is like a real painful spend at the moment. because it's like 25 tickets will unlock another like three challenges for you. So I went in there and unlocked it. And then I think it was a time challenge and I wasn't expecting. I didn't know. This is three minute challenge is what they're saying. Yeah. And I didn't know what to expect. So I started playing. It was medieval madness. I thought, okay, I'll just start flipping around. And then I saw this score of the other person just racing. It was rolling over like nothing else. It was like, it was counting up like to a million, pretty much every, I don't know. 30 or 40 seconds and I was going what is this guy doing and I just it completely threw me and I just bombed out obviously he was going for the castle over and over and over again because that where you be getting the big points so he was just trapping the ball shooting the drawbridge trapping the ball shooting the drawbridge over and over and over again Right Because that where you be getting the big points So it was just trapping the ball shooting the drawbridge trapping the ball shooting the drawbridge over and over and over again
    38:39
    But I just, yeah, it left a sour taste in my mouth, so I haven't gone back since. Because it wasn't like they didn't explain what it was about. It was just like, hey, here's a tournament. It's 25 tickets. Go and do that now. Because I think what somebody was commenting to me about was that it was three minutes,
    38:58
    but like 25 million was the score that you needed to beat. It was 25 million on the getaway, 25 million on junkyard. 25 million? No.
    39:13
    On the getaway, or was it even the getaway? Oh no, excuse me, Attack from Mars. They go, Attack from Mars, you launch the ball, and it just goes away. This is going to constantly launch and you're going to be at 25 million, no problem. But yeah, Junkyard, good luck getting 25 million at all, especially in three minutes. 25 million on Junkyard is a really good score.
    39:34
    It's like you've got to get into Destroy Bob to get 25 million, pretty much. So a lot of jackpots. Are you believing that the players that you're being matched up against are real players or are they bots?
    39:51
    I've only played it once. I don't have a large amount of data to select, but I think the person I went up against was Rob3D, and I have a feeling he's a real user. I'm pretty sure he's an Android user. I've seen him before, so I've got a feeling that it's real. Okay. Because there's probably not a very large subset of players in there, but it seems that it's asynchronous. It's like somebody goes in there, does their game, it records the score, and then when you go up against them, it just plays back that score. Which would make sense. Yeah, that would make sense. It's essentially what Farsight was trying to do and failed to do. Yeah. Because they did the same thing, and it was kind of really cool. But, yeah, it's done right here.
    40:33
    Yeah. Farsight would have been really cool if there was people that were actually playing. I'm not even talking about the skills aspect of it. I'm just talking about the head-to-head mode. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah. Getting a matchup in head-to-head was just like, is anybody out there? Hello? Beulah? Anybody? Yeah. yeah it was tough but this is much better like i think i will do it again once it's out of um beta and i have a little bit more currency to play around with because it's just it's an extra way of getting levels and it's an extra way of getting you know a little bit of it's a different way of playing and this is you know again what zen is all about it's about an ecosystem and it's different ways to play pinball in an engaging way and this is certainly one of them It will be good when it actually gets out of beta. See, I really wish that while it was in beta, I was playing the skill side while it was in beta, and there was only like three of us in there. But that didn't affect the prize. The prize was still third place gets a buck, second place gets two bucks, and first place get three bucks. And I was just like, come on, people, just play a match. If you just play a match, you'll be on the leaderboard, and you'll get that buck. is the easiest buck you can win in a game. There were some times where I was like, oh man, I've got a scores post and there's not a single person playing against me. I'm not even going to win.
    41:57
    That's just the way it is. Now, there's been an explosion of players. There's a lot of players that are doing the cash game.
    42:07
    It makes it a lot more difficult to do the easy bucking. It's not easy anymore. No, not anymore. so yeah I think by the time this podcast comes out which will not be Christmas I suspect there's only a couple more weeks max left to the beta in Google a lot of people in the Android beta and digital pinball fans are saying that no one's in there from Zen there's really zero representation from them in like commenting in the thread we didn't have that much in the ios oh really no it might just be they might just be reading and then responding without even like confirming or basically all of a sudden we'd get a notification saying hey there was a new update that would be about the extent of it um you know so i think right now they're just purely pouring over the data that they're getting from from gameplay i think the the stuff that we're saying is just anecdotal and the data is speaking louder than words i look and say i guarantee you the data is saying way more than what anybody is saying and the funny thing is that probably all the things that i've said about the the beta and the model and everything is being debunked by the data that i'm providing them about my usage because i'm playing it i am playing it every day still right and i am um i'm resetting the challenges because for me at the moment it's the only way you can actually progress in the game you can't just keep on grinding but um yeah i mean i'm sure the data is saying something different about my usage than what I think I am doing.
    43:42
    Data doesn't lie. The human brain does. All the time. So we... I don't know if you guys have seen this commercial. I don't know if it made it to your continent there, but Toyota has re-released the Toyota Supra. It's been gone for a little while as a car.
    44:06
    They reintroduced it during our Super Bowl, so it was a big commercial, but it was basically the Supra drifting on what was an oversized pinball machine.
    44:17
    Oh, yeah, I've heard, I've seen, well, of course, the internet's here, so I've seen reference to the ad. It's always been when I've been traveling, so I haven't been able to watch it. And I think the tagline at the end is something like an old favorite returns or something like that. But, you know, tying into this whole resurgence of pinball, but it's just kind of interesting how it's like, wow, they just made it a national campaign out of pinball.
    44:44
    That's huge, right? Now, when's the super pinball machine coming out? You know what? If anybody's going to put it out, you know it's going to be spooky because they're the ones that are doing all these corporate one-off machines. One-offs, yeah. I think it was on Instagram. Somebody was doing some really, really slick rendered short videos of a pinball, like rendered 3D pinball shots. And it was just like, it was this carnival themed pinball machine. And it was really, really good stuff.
    45:19
    I don't know what it was for. It certainly wasn't a crossover for this super ad because there's no cars in it. But like, it was like crazy. It had like all the action at the top of the play field and then it followed the ball underneath the play field and then showed you what was going on underneath the play field and shot the ball back up again and it looks really amazing. So I've seen it a couple of times on my Instagram feed and I've watched it over and over again because it looks really good.
    45:45
    Some of those goings-on under the table are almost more fascinating than what's going on on top. Oh yeah. I mean some of those habit trails that, or what are they called? Subways? The subways, yeah. Yeah, it's just like wow.
    46:00
    There's a lot of action going on underneath the play field. So yeah, it's pretty cool to watch sometimes.
    46:08
    Interesting, interesting. Well, hey folks, I think we're going to stop there. Because why not? But hey, because we can. Because we kind of control the show.
    46:21
    Have you headed over to Redbubble yet? If not, what's your problem? Why are you not buying a glorious blockade t-shirt? They come in a multitude of colors. Or phone case. Or sticker. Whatever. It doesn't matter. Go check it out. Won't you please? All proceeds go towards us and this show. Yeah. There ain't many proceeds, but, you know, we always say, hey, if you feel that what you're getting out of this show is of value, we look for support in any way, shape, or form that you can. That can be either by buying a t-shirt. That can be by donating to us via PayPal. That could be by simply going over to iTunes and leaving us a starred review. That would be helpful because then that promotes us within iTunes and, you know, kicks you up the ranks a little bit. A little bit like free advertising. Exactly. So if you want to go, see, you can do it completely free, not a penny dropped. Just simply taking your time to go over to iTunes and giving us a review. That would be fantastic.
    47:27
    You should also be following us on Twitter. That is at Blockade. When you do that, then you get all sorts of notifications and retweets.
    47:37
    Lately, I've followed a couple more people from Zen and have been retweeting their stuff. Because this is how we get a lot of our news about digital pinball. It's all about following people that work on the games themselves and going, hey, they just mentioned something. What's that got to mean? Yeah, that's right. Exactly. Follow the bouncing ball, if you will. Indeed. and for sure I'm saying now subscribe to the YouTube channel why don't you why not because specifically you'll get to hear this very podcast much sooner than it comes out in podcast form that's right at the moment I need to find a way to automate it and I haven't quite cracked it yet because it actually to do it you've got to listen back through it I guess the question is if you're listening to this podcast I'd like to ask you a question do you care about the timing points in the show because if you don't it will save me literally an hour each time so if you don't care about if you never look at the medium article that accompanies this this post and you never go geez i really like to know like you go back to it you go oh where was that bit that i'll talk to you about you know how much they hate the iop and then you know uh oh it was that yeah 25.43 and they were so cool i'll just go and like listen to that part again if you if you never do that just let us know because i might be doing this for no reason and i'd like to know if no one cares because i'll just top and tail it and then just release it it'll take me 10 minutes boom bam done exactly although something tells me you'll still post uh videos and stuff if uh if it if it's relevant you like it yeah sometimes you go nuts for no reason and i just go clearly jared wanted to share yeah sometimes i do but the thing is that but because you're listening back to it, you can, it does let you enrich the show notes because you do actually have to listen back to it like in 30 second jumps usually.
    49:35
    But you know, you'll get things. Oh yeah, that's right. I need to insert the video here and you just go and find the video and insert it. So it's benefit to it, but also it's just, it's a grind doing every, every week or so. So yeah, if you like it, let me know directly. If you don't, then let me know directly.
    49:53
    Cause I like that. And the easiest way to do that, too with Jared is again, go on Twitter, follow him at JaredMorgz and just send him a note. Yep. Be like, yo, stop it or don't get rid of it. I like the numbers.
    50:12
    But hey, if you do want to check out the medium, it's blockadepinball.com slash episodes. That's where that stuff is. I know I still have not written the article wrapping up this thing here. the micro cab partly because I'm still wanting to tweak one thing and I just haven't bothered to get around to it but I really need to get on that and post that too alrighty well with all that being said we shall say sayonara buh-bye shalom what else do we got see you later Mike okay that too bye
    50:54
    custom pinball shooter rods. Easy to install, totally unique. Mention Blockade Podcast for 10% off your order. Wizardamusement.com Sales, restoration, customization.
    51:07
    Don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that Blockade is delivered to. We can't improve unless you tell us how. Now stop listening and play some pinball.
    51:24
    you