Welcome Welcome everybody to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is episode 81 and my name's Martin and with me... It's Ryan C. And Marty, we've got a special guest on today. This guy has just won the ultimate pinball tournament in Australia, the Australian Championship Series. So number one in Australia on that part. He's been playing pinball since he was at least like, I don't know, six months old or something. He once described pinball players as either fat or stupid. Ladies and gentlemen, Richard Rhodes. How you doing, Richard? Triple A at your service. How are you? That's really, really good. And you won the Australian Championship Series recently in Canberra and put on a good showing. How did that go for you? Yeah, that was one of my best events. I actually wasn't expecting to win. In fact, I had a feeling that Pat Nicholls in the first round was going to beat me, and I was already planning to start riding back to Melbourne to dodge all the rain the next day. So maybe that lack of pressure ended up getting me through. I'm not sure. So, Richard, talk to us a bit about your pinball history, I guess, because you have been around the pinball scene in a... And not in like, hey, I used to go to a fish and chip shop and play pinball every once in a while with my spare tannies. Like, you were very much into pinball at a pretty young age, right? Yeah, well, I'll start it off. The earliest memories were back in Melbourne in, say, the early 80s because I can remember wanting to put $20 on Black Knight in the Melbourne Cup, which ended up winning because at that time Black Knight was my favourite game. Okay. So I think video games ironically got me into playing pinball because I kept losing so much money and I diverted to pinball and I don't know, just like there was a day that I can remember where I thought to myself, I wonder if I can cheat the game and manipulate it. And so I started doing things like holding flippers up and trapping balls and letting it bounce over, and I thought, wow, I've actually got control of this rather than a video game where it's got control of me. So it's an interesting frame of mind that, you know, some might say that the way we play today is not actually the way pinball was meant to be played because, I mean, back in the day, they were designed to make money, and anyone that was too skillful wasn't good for the operator. So I just think it's interesting how it's evolved into being competitive now when it wasn't really initially. So what would you say have been some of your favourite games over the years? Favourite games of all time? Probably, well, I really like the SS games like Black Knight, Black Knight 2000, Fathom, Medusa, Black Pyramid, you know, those sort of games. But of all time, it'd have to be maybe Adam's Family, Medieval Madness, Getaway Bram Stokes Dracula and maybe Star Trek Next Gen but those sort of early 90s, mid 90s games you know, in my opinion they're the best ever made so yeah. Yeah look and the reason why I wanted you to come on the show is that we often have many you can't see my air quotes but I'll say discussions let's call them colourful discussions and And really it's about, I guess, your appreciation for the Bally Williams machines. My take on it is that that's kind of your favourite era. Lesser the sterns of recent times. Would that be a fair thing to say? Yeah. It was an interesting time. I left school like around 1989, 1990. and right back then, three games came out roughly at the same time. It was Adam's Family, Terminator and Getaway. And they were just so much different than anything before them and they were unique in their own right. So that really got me started. But it was the interaction and engagement with the game. So, I mean, like we were talking about the other day, the seance mode in Adam's Family, that just never gets old. and the super jackpot in Getaway. That doesn't get old either. Of course, along with the supercharger and maybe the interaction in Terminator as well. It's just, they've got that recipe of getting you back to the game over and over, even when you've completed it. So would you say it's kind of like theme integration, really, is what you think stood out back then as opposed to today? yeah I think so but also the mechanical interaction so I mean you know when you shot the ramp on silence it thumped the game like there was a physical like movement there that you were part of and helped do like and yeah like get away the supercharger I mean it's just the mechanical design back then was so much more than it is today I mean, there's different reasons for that, obviously. It's not the market. How would you compare the Getaway Supercharger to something like, you know, the Star Trek, whatever it's called, where the balls are whizzing around and you have to load, you know, three or so balls into there? Sorry, Star Wars, yep, Star Wars. The Hyperloop. Hyperloop, yeah. Hyper Space Loop. Well, I'm actually pretty happy that that got implemented in the game because that kind of reminded me of Getaway. But at the same time, it wasn't innovative, so it wasn't something fresh. And I think the Superchargers works better, because I think the, what do you call that, Hyperloop on Star Wars, I mean, yeah, it seems to kick balls around. It seems to not be as effective, and it doesn't really have a purpose for the gameplay, so to speak. like the supercharger actually counts down towards jackpot and super jackpot, but the Hyperloop really doesn't do anything except, you know, the visual. Yeah, like it doesn't really have a purpose. Like I'm happy that it got implemented, but there could have been more that, you know, could have been done with that. Okay. So you were kind of like testing games back in the day, right, with Cameron Silver? Like you told me a story once how he used to work there somewhere at Time Zone in the City in Melbourne? Yeah, so pretty much when I started playing a lot of games, a lot of pinball, that was in Bourke Street in Melbourne. And I got to know Rob McIntosh, who I've just posted about on Facebook. He went to IFPA3 and played with Dave Heggie. And then he came back and taught me all these new flipper skills like drop catching and live catching, stuff that we didn't know back then because it wasn't internet, so we couldn't communicate. But Cameron Silver happened to be the tech, and I actually ended up getting a job at TimeZone working under him. And because we used to play the games so often when they came out, they happened to be prototypes as well, we used to fill him in on things that weren't working. So as a result, when he worked on Scared Stiff, he put me, Rob, and Josh's name under a fault finder section in the attract mode, which I thought was a bit quite funny. I didn't spell your name wrong. Instead, he did it intentionally for legal reasons. So Josh Holmes, his last name was spelt wrong. I think Rob McIntosh's last name was spelt wrong. So I think there was some legal issue with that. And they probably had to pay you, probably, but if it's the wrong name, it's not you. Yeah, I guess. But that sort of nitty attitude of, you know, wanting things working perfectly is sort of like saving me to this day. So you might get a sense of that on the forums. Yeah, we do. And so you've also been in the media as well. And is it true that you are a 40-something gigolo? That's what I've read somewhere, Ryan, that he's a 40-something gigolo. Is this the case? What's that all about? Well, Marty, if I am, you'll be the first to know. No, it's not really true, although I did say it. Basically, I got interviewed for the first time in 2012 for the ACDC comp, and, you know, the guy said, oh, what do you do for a living, and how old are you, and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And I said it, and then he printed it. And I thought, there really is no need for the Pinball community or anyone else in the news to know how old you are, what you do for a living, and et cetera, et cetera. So the next time I saw the guy, I said, listen, you know, is there really a point to this? Like, you know, you might as well say I'm 40 years older than Gigolo, but don't say that. And, of course, what is really pressing? And then, of course, this latest schmozzle with this woman in Canberra, And, you know, she goes, what types of people play pinball? And I'm thinking, you know, that's an odd question. Like, you know, it's like saying what type of people drive cars or what type of people play tennis or what type of people play golf? Like it's sort of judgmental right there and then. So basically I came out and said, well, look, you don't need to be this and you don't need to be that. You don't need to, you know, be Einstein and da-da-da-da-da. And then, of course, she goes and prints it. So, you know. What was the headline? The headline was, you don't need to be fit and you don't need to be smart. You don't have to be really intelligent. Yeah. Yeah. So pretty much she, of course, puts that right below my photo. So you've got this bloody, this unit playing. And it's like, so in a way, I'm kind of paying myself out. So I just, you know, I'm hoping that people didn't, you know, taken the wrong way and say, you know, come across as arrogant or, you know, that sort of thing. No one took it like that. It was all just an article. And you and I spoke since, and basically the summary was they've got to try and make it interesting. And for an outsider looking in, we are a bit of an odd bunch, if we're really honest outsider looking in. But if they just printed an article that said, you know, this person won a pinball tournament, that's not interesting enough, I don't think, for them. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I've always been promoting the sport, and people even laugh when you call it a sport, but there's just not enough credit given for the amount of skill that's involved, and 99% of people don't know that. So it's really important for that to come across. They never mention that in articles, like in mainstream articles. They never say, oh, there's all this skill and there's techniques and et cetera, et cetera. So I think that exposure is slowly getting out, and I think that's why pinball is getting more popular is because it is skillful, and there are competitions. Well, let's talk for a second about your skill, because you are ranked currently 105th in the world, 67th on the Power 100 list. You've got a winning record against Neath, 14-11, 24-11 against May. You've got almost a winning percentage against almost everyone in Australia. What is it, do you think, that you see common people like myself do wrong when they play pinball in a tournament? What advantage do you have over others? Okay, I'm going to give away a lot of things here, and it might work against me, but it's good. It's good for the community. If I walk up to someone, I watch them play, I'm in a comp and they're flipping balls around in multiball and they're not trapping, I already know I've won. So if they're on Adam's family and they're not trapping up, they're on Twilight Zone and they're not trapping up, Walking Dead and Demoman are a little different because you can't but if people aren't trapping up either in multiball or outside of it then they're at a severe disadvantage because you've just got more chance of losing the ball when it's out of control than you have when you're attempting to control it yeah so that's the main part it's just ball control so I mean when I'm playing in a comp and the ball is not on a ramp or in a hole or in a saucer or anywhere else. It's on the fly. The only thing I'm thinking of is controlling it. And that might be to shoot a ramp to get it under control, you know, to get it on a feed back to the flipper. But, yeah, that's the only thing I'm thinking of is controlling it, not making points and not putting it up the top of the play field so there's less chance of me losing it. But, yeah, just getting it under control. Do you think that works to a disadvantage for you on more modern games like the Stern games? Because, as you mentioned before, your favourite games are the oldest old-state games and the Ballywoos era, where you get into multiball and you have to do a certain amount of things to get the big payoff jackpot, whereas in Stern games, it's kind of like 20 seconds, jackpots everywhere, so trapping up doesn't necessarily work to your advantage in those games. It won't, but then I won't trap up on those games. So, I mean, I'm on a level playing field by playing on the fly on Walking Dead with someone else that plays on the fly. So I can change my game. If I have to play on the fly, I will, but I'll try not to if I don't have to. But if someone is on a game where there's a lot of feeds that allow you to trap the ball, like Adam's family or Twilight Zone, and they're flipping around randomly, then I know, you know, I've got a really good chance of beating them. Well, then, so you've been playing tournaments, obviously, a long time, longer than anyone I know in Australia, because I've certainly noticed over the last couple of years that people's skills are getting better. Are you seeing the same thing over time as well? Oh, sure. Like Simon Peel, he's really come on, and he won the Flip Frenzy in Canberra. There's a few other guys like Timmy Chapp, Tim Chapman, I taught him a few things and he changed his game. I think what's interesting is that, well, firstly, people shouldn't change their game to play better if they don't like playing like that. So if they're happy playing the way they are and they're happy doing that, then that's the most important thing, that they're enjoying themselves. And some people don't want to change their game because they don't like how slow it goes. They think pinball's flip, flip, flip, and that's how they like to play. So that's the most important thing. But, yeah, skills definitely have improved. And I think if it wasn't for the internet, ironically, which is one of the things why pinball died, people wouldn't have the resources to learn new skills. So people like Jordan Treadway, amazing. Like, I'd actually rate him above me as a pinball player in a complete sense. Well, he's beaten you 22 times. He's only beaten you three times. So, yes, he's beaten you. Thanks for pointing that out, Brian. But you're right. He's the generation that learnt. He learnt on the internet. He just watched all those things and just practiced, practiced, practiced. We had to relearn. But people can change their game. It's not like driving a car or it's not like playing golf right-handed and you've got to learn left-handed. It's not that bad. It's just changing a few things and being patient. Um, but Jordan, uh, yeah, go on. Do you think that you have to kind of, like, abstract yourself out of the game? Like, if you talk about the 90s belly-wheeling games, like, when you get into multiball, it really wants to get you excited, and it's very good at doing that. The game before that usually has, like, some kind of, like, repetitive tune to, like, hey, you're playing the game, and then, bam, multiball's happening. And, you know, when I was young, and even when I started playing tournaments, like, I enjoyed multiball so much, because it was like, exciting, exciting, exciting. But to actually play well in a tournament, you have to say, no, fuck off, machine. Like, I will play exactly like I was playing before because you're trying to excite me to losing the ball. There are some modes, like countdown modes, and it's the sound of the game which gets faster and faster. I can't quite really think. Maybe... V9 or... No, no, no, I'm talking about 90s plus. It's like getaway when the music gets faster and... Whitewater. Yeah. Whitewater somewhere. It'll ramp up every time you get an advanced raft. I'm trying to think of like, this might be outside of multiball. There might be modes to influence your action or make you get more fired up to lose the ball or take more risks. But yeah, you've got to... It's kind of... It's a little difficult because you want to get involved in the game, but you've got to ignore that stuff. So, like, yeah, you can't start playing faster when the music gets faster and you can't, you know, change your style of play and your train of thought when the game changes. But that's the way it's designed as well because they're designed to make money, so... Has your shot accuracy just come from just playing an insane amount of pinball? Because you put up, I think, $6 billion on my getaway. Was it $6 billion or $2.5 billion? It was a lot. You got 700 or so on the first ball go day during the monthly comp. Does that just come naturally over the years, or does that come from adjusting your shot every time you play the game? Well, that getaway actually plays a lot easier than most because of the super bands. Is it Titans or super bands you've got on there? Super bands. Yeah, because they deaden the ball, so it's a lot easier to trap. so I think if the rubbers were changed I think the you know it wouldn't be as easy to get that score but um I don't know I mean I got my eyes tested a while ago and I'm a 2010 vision so I'm like better than 2020 so I think that's got something to do with it but um I don't know I've always been good at games with hand eye coordination so I mean just around the time that I was playing pinball I took some time off to play golf like properly and got down to six, but I couldn't get better. But I used to play pinball, I used to play, sorry, golf more than I played pinnies. Like I played them all the time. So, yeah, things with hand eye, I don't know. It's just, I'm not quite sure of the reason, but shot making is, you know, probably the best part of my game. I'll tell you the other thing, and this is me observing you for quite some time. Obviously, we've played in a lot of tournaments. you probably and I've seen other people over time, it's the calm factor the first thing you've really got to overcome to get good in competitions is your nerves and you remain calm throughout the game even if you get a bad drain or a bad bounce sometimes you might shake the machine and walk off with the shits, but when you're actually playing the ball you are calm till the very end Yeah, see, that's interesting because, you know, I play a lot of poker and my previous jobs involved poker. And when playing that game, you really have to work on remaining calm and not being results-focused. So for me, to play pinball well, I have to be calm. Like, you see a lot of players moving around, and like Donovan Stepp and Paul Jones and stuff and Peter Watt, and there's nothing wrong with that. But for me, it doesn't work because if I start getting too physical in terms of, you know, sort of jumping around and flipping hard, then for me, I'm losing control. So I have to remain as calm as possible. I mean, in my head, you know, the heart's pumping. You just can't see it. But, I mean, when I go into a tournament, I've told myself, as soon as you get nervous, you've already lost. So I've sort of trained myself not to. And then when I think about that, you know, some people think, oh, I've got to be nervous, I've got to be on the ball. But you watch them play a warm-up ball, and they have your loops and ramps and the flow is beautiful, and then they start and they trap up and then, not that trapping is bad, but the whole game changes because they've all tightened up. so when I start a tournament I tell myself not to get nervous and then when I'm not nervous I'm kind of free rolling but as soon as I get nervous I've lost how do you tell yourself not to get nervous do you pretend I remember Bowling Kieran saying if you've got one more hit to the scoop to start the multi-balls pretend it's five shots because you'll make it are you trying to trick yourself or are you just saying don't get nervous because that doesn't work for me that's a good point part of the nerves is associated with the results and this all really kind of comes back to poker which actually has a lot of parallels with pinball I mean it was banned in the states and you know it was considered a gambling game and you know it's got elements of skill etc etc but yeah part of the nerves I think is when you come up to a tournament and you think oh god I've got all these players to beat you know if I win this tournament I'm going to be playing so and so next and then I'll be playing so and so after that so I'm training myself not to think about results just playing the game which ties itself into not getting nervous but yeah it can be a little difficult I mean that last ball on World Cup soccer on player three ball three against Jason in the ACS probably Probably, I wouldn't say I was really nervous, but that was really clutch. Like, you know... You missed the shot to start multiball a couple of times. I was trying to hit the ramp and I just couldn't get it, but that wasn't nerves. That was just me finding the shot. So I just couldn't, I couldn't find it. But coming down to the last ball, that was, I was a little fired up. You know, the blood was pumping a bit harder than it normally would have been. And, geez, that was satisfying to make that shot. That was one of the best shots of my competitive career, getting in that hole. So if you haven't seen any physical reaction, like if I start pointing to the game, you know that I'm really fired up. And I pretty much knew once that went in there, I had the comp one. But, yeah, it's, you know, in regards to me trying not to get nervous, there's no real sort of rules that I go by. But I've just told myself that if I do get nervous and I start thinking about the players and start thinking about the game, start thinking about, oh, I didn't get much sleep and... That's my excuse. Yeah, it was. I haven't eaten enough and I'm not feeling good and I've got other things on my mind. I'm not very smart. Yeah, I'm not that intelligent and, you know, I'm like... I'm just a washed-up fucking gigolo. Those were the days, Ryan. Those were the days, man. But yeah, as soon as I start telling myself You know Like all these bad things Then I've already lost And I'm thinking, well why am I competing When I have to put myself through this So I just tell myself There's no point in getting nervous There's no point in being results focused If you're not going to enjoy yourself And also I think You know, there's like It's not one ball, it's three balls I've got another two balls if I make a mistake So, I mean, that game against Peter Watt where I had two basically like kind of house balls and had like 10 million on Iron Maiden, I just train myself to think there's always another ball. And if it's heads up and it's best of five, I've always got other games that I can win on. So, yeah, it's just training myself not to get in a negative situation. Yeah, okay. So for someone, look, let's call it as it is, who's not necessarily a big fan of recent sterns, you're an absolute demon on Iron Maiden. What's that about? Yeah, well, Iron Maiden is a special game. That could be in my top five all time. I mean... So what is it about that? because there's obviously other stones that have been released. I'll just put it out there for the last five years that people have said are the best games, right? You don't agree. So what is it about Iron Maiden that sets that apart? It's got a unique play feel for a start. That double loop at the top, that's only really been done on Judge's Red, but it's not really that effective. So that was innovation. There's always something to go for. There's always something to go towards. The shots feel good. The ramps are not the hardest to hit, but they're not easy either. I love the way the jets are designed, so it doesn't drain as much as it does out of, say, Tron or Kiss. It's got innovation, like the spinner on the left to light revive. That's never been done before in pinball. And it works. The mechanics of it work. I mean, funny I say that because it didn't work when I was playing. Yeah, I called it wrong, whatever. But generally, you know, things work on that game. And it's easy to understand, but it's hard to beat, which is, I think, what Pat Lawler said about Adam's family, and that's the key to a successful pinball, is it's easy to understand, but it's hard to beat. So, I mean, the sound's good, the art's good, I think the theme integration's good, but there's always something to do. So it's not like you have to grind out something and then it happens, but there's always something to go for, and I think that's an excellent game. So you don't actually have machines at home, so therefore you play most of your games, or all of your games, either on site or in tournaments. I have these two categories. One is games that I love playing for fun and therefore would have them at home. And then there's games that I don't necessarily love, but I like playing them in tournaments because I play them well. And Kiss is a prime example where I don't like the game, I would never own it, but I really like playing that in tournaments because I just gel with the layout. Is that kind of a thing for Iron Maiden as well, is that you know you can play it well, so therefore it's a joy to play? Oh, not really. I mean, there's games out there that I find quite difficult that I still enjoy, and some of those are SS games. I mean, they're a bit more random, like Black Pyramid and Fathom. It's just that's a difficult game to play. So, you know, there's different situations. Like in a comp, like Star Trek, Stern, I actually enjoy it because I like the feeds and, you know, just the shot layout, you know, I enjoy that. But there's games like I like playing not in comps for other reasons, like might be the art, like Paragon. You know, I really like playing that. And Centaur. Centaur is a super game. And, of course, you know, games that I've discussed before, Fathom. But, yeah, they've got a little bit more randomness to them. So I'm not a fan of those in comps because I don't believe it's a true judge of skill as it would be playing something sort of in the 90s. Let's get Josh Sharpe on and talk about EMs, 90. Yeah, sure. Look, what I'm really trying to roundabout find out is why you're not a fan of modern sterns. Oh, well. Why are you not a fan of modern sterns, Richard? How long have you got? We've got about another five minutes, go Okay Multiple reasons They're not unique enough There's too many similarities in terms of the code You're either bashing on something inside a multiball Or the layouts are similar Or they're flipped over And the theme integration just isn't there in the code like Star Trek Next Gen versus Star Trek Stern I mean you'd have to agree that the theme integration on Next Gen is just better than the Stern one like I think you were talking a few episodes ago to Josh Sharpe about what you do in these certain modes on Star Trek and what are you actually doing like you're not you're just sort of shooting a shot and it comes up with a clip or a sound effect and that's it I think it's the lack of interaction and engagement from the player to the game of these late model games. That's the main thing for me. Do you think that carries over to other modern games from other manufacturers, like Jersey Jack, or are you just talking about Stern in particular? Yeah, well, I'm just talking about Stern. I mean, Jersey Jack, you know, I was over the moon when I heard that they were creating Woz, and I think the theme integration for that game is fantastic along with the play field. But, you know, it's almost like the themes that Jersey Jack, you know, Jersey Jack have got a head on, like on the play field side of things and Stern have got the themes. It be great if they could merge companies and you know Stern could do the same and Jersey Jack do the play field because you know they all unique I mean the Hobbit doesn grab me but Pirates of the Caribbean you know, that's a lot of effort, you know, to get that game to what it is. And I think you can see the difference between that and say, you know, what's come out, let's say maybe Guardians or Aerosmith. You know, you can see there's just more effort being put into innovation and the LCD and, of course, the sound. I don't know. At the end of the day, it still comes down to the shots, right? Like, the thing that you love most about Iron Maiden are the shots. So does it need to have a lot of theme integration to do that? Like, do you really care about the theme integration in Iron Maiden or do you care about the shots? Well, if it wasn't for the music, I mean, if Iron Maiden was another theme... Well, it was meant to be Archer, right? So, I mean, the theme integration wasn't done from the ground up. It was like, well, how do we put Iron Maiden on this Archer playfield? Well, from the top down, the most important things for me about pinball and playing it and everything to do with it, I always look at the playfield first. The playfield is the most important thing. And then comes the code. and then comes the sound and the art, and the last is the theme. So, I mean, like, fish styles. I couldn't care about fishing. Whitewater, I couldn't care about whitewater rafting. But they are excellent games. They are fantastic. Like, the integration, yeah. Theme slash themes integration, I think they're slightly different. But the play field, ultimately, for me, that's why I'm playing pinball. Like, otherwise, if it was just a theme, I'd sit at home with like metallic or Iron Maiden posters on my wall and listen to the music but I'm playing pinball or a video game with them or something that's why I'm playing pinball is because I like the mechanical design and the interaction with the user and they're pretty face with the things that work and that really satisfies me. So like out of this family we've talked about this before, you can't stand it Marty but the design of that game is, in my opinion, the best that's ever been because, you know, things don't reject. The thing shot, the lock shot, does never, ever reject. So the bookcase never, ever rejects, ever. When you shoot it in that lock hole when the bookcase is open, the chair works the way it should. It doesn't kick it out down the guts like it would the snake on Metallica. You know, I just, I appreciate things that work. and when they work, like a ball going in a saucer, like on Monster Bash on the left-hand side, the creature shot, it goes in there and kicks it out beautifully. Like, it never rejects in that shot. But then you'll have, like, a kick out on Stern Star Trek on the Pro, and because of the design, it's either hitting the top of the slingshot and then kicking it down the guts. It's inconsistent. Do you know what I mean? It's inconsistent. The actual mechanical design of those saucers, say Transformers, then Star Trek, Star Wars. I believe it's the same design. And because of that, the feeds are different. It's interesting you say that because, I mean, when I got my Hobbit pinball machine and I was playing the first couple of games and I was shooting the left ramp, which feeds to the right side, and one out of every ten shots, the ball would swirl around and it would just get so much spin and sometimes spin out the out lane. And it got me so angry because, I mean, it ended up being just a really quick fix, but I was like, how many years have they been designing games with the ramps that return to the thing and they couldn't get it right? You know, like there was some manufacturing defects. That's the same with Den-O-Man. When it comes down the left there, I was watching Robert Gagnon play a tournament, I think it was a year or so ago, and it was coming off the left ramp down the Y-form and it went down the left out lane twice. But that probably wasn't a spin. That happens to mine because the machine is set at like 8 degrees or something ridiculous where it just jumps over. Yes, it bends that up. But, yeah, I don't think that happens when it's set to 6.5 degrees. Yeah, so, I mean, if I'm playing a game and things aren't working or things are set up badly, it just sort of ruins it for me. So if the footbringles are not right And you know Maybe some globes aren't working But yeah that sort of ruins it But also just the design of the game Like something you can't change And it's like yeah I just don't I just won't play it Yeah fair enough Well shall we go to some news Ryan Sure let's go for it Alright I'll start with the second news item And let's just talk about Pimberg because Pimberg tickets went on sale over the weekend. There were 1,000 tickets this time for sale as opposed to, I think, 840 last year. And there were 50 VIP tickets that went on sale. It was 11 o'clock a.m. Eastern Standard or whatever it is, which was 3 o'clock in the morning here. And then the rest of the tickets went on sale at midday over there, 4 o'clock in the morning over here. Did you try and get the VIP tickets, Marty? Yes, I did. And I'll tell you why I did. I did pick for a couple of reasons. Because if you remember what happened last year, I put the wrong ticket in my cart. And by the time I took it out and got the right ticket, it was already sold out. So I wanted to have a test run. So the VIP tickets were a test run. Refresh, saw it, put it in my cart. It would have been no more than three seconds and it was sold out. So did you buy them or that was just a test run? Well, it was unavailable. So by the time I went to... Ah, okay. So it was when you select how many tickets you want and then you go add to cart. Ah, that's when it adds to your cart, okay. Yeah, so by the time I put it in the one and then add to cart, it was already sold out. So at least I got to see what it was going to look like so I knew what it looked like. And so when it came to four o'clock in the morning, Oh my god, it was so fucking nerve-wracking I was just having heart palpitations Because I was thinking, what if I fuck this up again? What if I miss out? So literally, like the rest of the world Refresh, refresh, refresh, refresh There's the ticket, get one, into cart And there it was, I got my ticket Cool So I was absolutely stoked And my understanding is I don't think we've got the official, but I'd heard that it all got sold out in about 10 seconds, meaning all 950 tickets were in a cart within 10 seconds. That's nice. That's freaking insane. That's insane. It's insane. It'll be interesting to see how big the waiting list is. I think last year it was 400 plus. But, I mean, when the demand is that strong, you would almost think that they will probably... I mean, they increased the price by, I think, $10 this year. Is that how much it was? Yeah, that's what I've heard. And I think the excuse for that was to pay out another division, like D Division or something. D Division. Yeah, E Division. Oh, E Division. Yeah. Didn't last year. Yeah, there's over $100,000 in prize money. Would you still go money if it was $50 extra? Yeah. Yeah, because you're spending a lot to get over there anyway. For the price of accommodation, it's like $4,000 plus. So, you know, for an extra $50, it's not much for the overall price. But there you go. But, you know, first division, division A first prize is $15,000 US. So there's good money there. Like division B, it's $4,000 US. So, you know, it's not bad. How come you're not going, Richard Rhodes? Two reasons. One, I've already been. And two, money, I guess. Yeah. I was kind of thinking, if sold out in like, what, five, ten seconds, would it be the chance of them doing one, you know, or two every year? Well, they used to be, because obviously, yeah, they used to be Pappa and Pinberg, And I think because there's only one now, it means everybody converges on this. And, yeah, that's one of the arguments is that, you know, if they had a PAPA facility like they used to, they could do PAPA, and that's, you know, 400 or 500 people. That satisfies everybody's need to do one major tournament a year. So you can then choose. But, you know, they want to grow Pinberg, so not having PAPA allows that, I guess. I kind of think that even if they did have Faber going it would still be popular because of the format I'm not sure that people want to grind for three days trying to qualify I do, but that's my kind of play but Pinburgh, I just think it's the social aspect, it's the format of the event I just think it's so popular but I'm not sure how they do it because it's done at replay, yeah, and there's other things going on, so I'm not sure that they'd be able to do it without that event happening at the same time. Yeah, I think that's it. I think the actual event, although, you know, the majority of people that were there really were in the tournament, but I think that, you know, general admission ticket sales do, you know, bump up the overall, you know, financials of the event. But yeah. But it's also getting the place, like, to actually get the venue to do that, at that size, I think they can only really do it because replay's happening, and they haven't really got a venue at the moment, or I'm not sure what's happening with the PAPA venue at the moment, but when I went to Pimberg in 2013, it was at the PAPA venue. That's right. Well, they moved to the David Lawrence Convention Centre because that was the only way they could grow Pimberg bigger than PAPA was actually at capacity with the people that was there, so that's why they moved, and so they are still they're promoting the replay effects and that event and still it's getting bigger each year. There's bands, there's arcade machines, there's console areas and PC areas and all that kind of stuff. So it's actually become a gaming event because if it was just the pinball tournament, the space is too big for that. But each year, like last year they were, even though there's 840 players, they put on new tournament directors, they put on new tech staff to see how they could cope with more people and it was effectively training them so they could go to 1,000. So, you know, it could go bigger and all it's going to be now really is more tournament directors, more tech and more machines to make it bigger effectively. I want to see an event to finish it off on Sunday, whenever it is, just 1,000 persons for frenzy. Right? That is crazy. I don't know. I'd want to go, but it's a luxury for me. And the same with the IFPA and any other international event. It's like $4,000 or $5,000 to go to a tournament that I've got a pretty good chance of not winning. And it's going to cost me more. So, you know, of course I'd love to do it. And if I was living in the States, I'd be going to everything. It's just that it costs so much. Well, and that's why, and I don't know whether we're going to talk about it in detail, But, you know, it's why it's really good having things like, you know, the Brisbane Masters getting as big as it is. And obviously we had flip out last year, the Melbourne Super Bowl tournament, that which was the first real go at that, which, you know, had 70 plus payers. And we're wanting that to be bigger each year. And we're also looking to have another, inverted commas, major comp in Melbourne as well. So, you know, we're trying to grow that here. It's interesting because if you kind of try and juxtapose what's happening in the US, they've got so many big tournaments on, as you said, like it's happening all the time. There's, you know, the Stern Pro Circuit and it attracts a large amount of people. But it's usually, unless I'm wrong, it's usually just kind of like one event. Like there's some event that's going on, it's like MAGFest or whatever it is, and there's one tournament there and that's it. Whereas in Australia, because we have less of those around, when we run a tournament, it's a tournament weekend, right? Like the Cooley Classic, for example, was like four or five comps in three days that were worth almost 100% TGP. And I'm just looking, just for stats purposes, at Jason Lambert, who I believe is recently overtaken. and Paul Jones is now the Australian number one player in terms of ranking. On that weekend of the Cooley Classic, he finished first, first, second, second, and he got 146 whoppers from that. And obviously, I mean, you almost can't get better than that, first, first, second, second. But, you know, it's not worth that much because we don't have, like, 500 people playing, but they make it, like, just an insane weekend. And I don't know. I know Pimberg is all about the social aspect and that whole, like, the way it kind of works where you spend the first day and then you get to go up to divisions and all that kind of stuff, but wouldn't it be cool with that many people there if there were kind of, like, an event every night? I don't know. I'd want that, I think, if I was there. In Brisbane this year, there's going to be 10 days? 10 days, yeah. Yeah, it's going to be massive, so... 10 days, that's cool. But, say, speaking of tournaments, Ryan, did you know you can now bet on people in pinball tournaments? Oh, shit. Corruption. Yeah, I know. Collusion. People are going to throw the game just so they can win. You know, it's interesting. And I understand why people say that. So basically, yeah, you can now bet, I think, on, what is it? The next, is it the third? I want to tell. I'll say it's final. Yeah, you can actually bet on the winners there. and people were sort of saying, oh, you know, that's now opening it up for people to throw the game and do all that kind of stuff. I mean, it's interesting because we want this to be considered a sport and that makes it even more sport-like. Yeah, I mean, it does give it... It's a double-edged sword, right? Because it does give it legitimacy, but, I mean, so many people... literally is like mathematical chess, right? You don't shoot shots that are worth nothing. You go for the maximum output. If I shoot this round twice, I'm going to be in multiballs and give me more points. So I think people, a lot of people that are into pinball do gamble. And it does raise the question of you know... And since the prize money is so small, if you're going to get $100,000 if you win, then you probably wouldn't throw a game, right? But if you're getting a thousand bucks or so, if you win, or like a Josh Sharpe made trophy. Yeah. You know, it's one of those things where it, I don't know, it just calls that into question, but that's like every sport. And, you know, it's in every sport, right? So... It's different for us because we've interviewed the people, right? Like... Yeah, I do. I'm not saying we've interviewed them now and they're cheaters. I'm just saying, you know, how many other sports can you gamble on where you can, you know, just add the person to Facebook and start talking to them? Yeah. Not many. No. Yeah. So, anyway. So, anyway. MyBookie is the website that you can do it. What country is that from? MyBookie. AG. Is that Argentina? No, that's AR. No, I don't know. AG domain. That's exactly what I'm doing. Antigua and Barbuda. Barbuda? Not Bermuda, Barbuda. Yeah. What the fuck is Barbuda? Yeah. What? I don't know. Regency is... It's in the West Indies. There you go. Okay. So it is like Trinidad and Tobago, but it's Antigua and Barbuda. Yeah. Okay. There you go. So your money's definitely safer there. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Here's another piece of news for you. So, who has played, and the answer is everybody, who has played Space Cadet Pinball on Windows? Me. Richard, of course you have. You're in IT, of course. And it's really crazy. I think it was like Windows 95 and 98 and then ME, Media Edition, whatever it was. And now it's not in Windows. And I think that's because resolution, right? They couldn't be bothered making it so it actually looks good in a higher resolution. But so many people you speak to have played Space Kid on Windows. It was a free game that came with it. And arguably, when you're done with Solitaire, you want to play something else. So there was a Reddit post recently where somebody said that they're going to try and make it into a real game. And I was reminded that I think in about 2012, somebody tried the same thing. do you think this is a worthwhile project? No. Richard, what do you think? If they don't want to make money out of it, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it was fun to have a free pinball machine on Windows but it wasn't necessarily an amazing layout, if we're honest. It's better than most. It's better than most is mighty. I didn't say monsters, I just said most Yeah, we're going to get to monsters because we're going to deep dive on that one and your thoughts on that I've got to go guys but it was fun, I will join you again soon Alright, thank you Ryerson See you later my sons See you later Alright, so next piece of news Richard What do you think about Zachariah machines? I like them Yeah, so do I. I'm a big fan of them, and I've sort of said that they're going to be the next machine manufacturer that's going to start going up in price on the second-hand market. And you want to talk innovation. Like, Zacharias. You know, remember they had, I can't remember which one it was. It might have been Devil Riders or something. One of them that has that play field that sort of, almost like a round section that's probably about a third of the machine lowers and raises. Yeah, yeah. Maybe that was Time Fantasy or something like that. Anyway, so basically there's news that the Zachariah app, for those people that play Pinball Arcade, there's also Pinball FX and all those others, but there's also the Zachariah Pinball app, which I think is made by Zen Pinball anyway, so it's the same people. So they're bringing out a new app and they will maintain the old one, but there's going to be a new one and they're going to update the physics, apparently, which was the only thing I found a little bit iffy about the Zachariah pinball app. And three new tables are going to come out, which I think they've done all the good ones and they're probably just going back to the back catalogue of all the EMs that they did. You know what I find quite interesting as a side note? I was speaking to a few guys on Aussie Arcade a few years ago and the reason they got into pinball was because of Pinball Arcade. Yep. And I think that's kind of ironic that the internet and consoles are the things that killed pinball, but they've also got people back into playing. Correct. They're playing pinball arcade and they can only play it for so long before they want to play the real thing. Right. And I think that's really interesting. Well, I was playing, what is it? You know the virtual pin? Yeah, VPX and all that kind of stuff. And I was playing that for a very long time But it wasn't actually until I started playing the pinball arcade on my iPhone That that was when I got the bug again And I think it's because I think even though people argue that the physics aren't that great And they're probably not because it's an arcade game But it was close enough for me to feel a sense that I was playing the machines that I played when I was a kid. And I was literally playing one day and I went, you know what, I'm going to buy a pinball machine for home and it's going to be my favourite game from the era. And that was Roller Games. Yeah, I think it's interesting. You can still interact with the game and you can still take advantage of the art and the sounds that it has to offer. Maybe not the gameplay, but it was quite interesting. because I think I was playing Toten, Tales of the Arabian Nights, a few years ago, and people were saying, oh, it's not that realistic, but it kicked two balls out from the shooter lane. That's real enough. Yeah, I thought, hang on, did they code that in, or is this actually a bug? But I thought that was pretty cool. That is pretty cool. So, yeah, that's what it is. It was not perfect, and digital platforms find it very difficult to be perfect because you can't have the 100% randomness of the vault trajectory. But it was enough, and I think it's been enough for a lot of people to really, I would say, give some credit to the resurgence of pinball based on pinball arcade. I'd put it there. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, anyway, I'd say everybody check out Zachariah's app on the iOS store and probably Google Play and all that kind of stuff. So the next piece of news Is that There's some more Media coverage of pinball Which I think can only be a good thing As long as As long as they're doing it The way we want them to do it Unlike the movie Special Winlet Which really I'm on the side of That they're really taking the piss out of the pinball community As opposed to Trying to promote it But What did you think of that? of Special Wind Lit. Yeah, I felt the same. I mean, it's good to include some characters, but I think the only media or documentary that I've seen which puts him all in a good light was Wizard Mode. Yeah, with Robert Gagnon. That was a great film. It didn't take the piss. No, it was really good, wasn't it? I think it was more about him and his family, Who I have had They're great people That it was about the game But yeah that's the only thing I've really seen Maybe Tilt I can't remember it but I think Tilt The Battle to Play Pinball Yeah look that was good in that it was a very factual documentary But it was also It was also A pretty depressing film as well So I don't know whether it made people want to get into Pinball But anyway It was a good documentary. But the reason I mention this is that the Stern Pinball Pro Circuit Championship that we're talking about, so that's going to be on March 9, I believe, so only a couple of weeks away. And it's actually going to be featured on an ESPN show called The Ocho. About time. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, pushing for this sort of thing years ago. It's really interesting Throughout the podcast we've sort of brought this topic up A number of times And I know we sort of asked you know Roger Sharp and we also asked Josh Sharpe And Zach Sharp and just about Any Sharp really we will speak to Is you know could you Could you have A pinball Format That would be popular on Let's call it commercial Television I think that heads up match play That they played in Vegas What was that actually called? Yeah, it's called heads up Like that's great to watch It's a little tricky going from one game to the other Continually, you know, moving your eyes But I still think that that really It really appeals to The pinball player Already Because, you know what I mean I know what you're saying, it's easier to understand is if you have to start a certain mode or you need to get a certain multiplier, that's an easy objective, but that's still, for us, there's so much that we already take for granted knowing about pinball, but somebody that's still coming in that knows nothing about pinball, I still would think would be quite lost on that. No, but see, with that format, if you've continually got players going for the same objective, then the viewing audience is going to learn what they have to go for after they've been taught and shown. So that's kind of cool as well. And that opens up more avenues. Like people, you know, are just not sure how comps work and they think it's score-based and not target-based or objective-based. So, I mean, that can be... It doesn't have to be only that, but, you know, that can be included. I think if it was like the heads-up format where you've got both playing at once, I think that you're right. It's really hard to know which one you're following. You kind of do get accustomed to it. I think it would almost have to be a modified version of this. And Ryan and I have talked about this, where it's actually time-based. So let's say it is, you know, you've got to activate a particular mode. One person comes up, they start, and then you see the timer running, and then it stops, and then you've got that time to beat and people, you know, the next person comes up and, you know, it cuts to a bit of a profile on them and you see them in their home and, you know, you get a bit about their life and then bang, they've got 45 seconds to beat. They plunge the ball and then it just counts down, count down, count down. I think that's kind of how you've got to simplify it enough so the audience knows that there's a singular objective and they know what they're looking at. Yeah, sure. I mean, that can definitely be part of it. But, I mean, like I was watching Indisc when it was on, and I thought that feed was fantastic, because the people that were commentating were informing the viewing audience, you know, what to go for and what they have to do, and, you know, I thought that was great, except for the time the machine was turned off, which was actually, that was great viewing as well. But yeah, I think the current formats are definitely something that can be televised Anyway, so speaking of tournaments So Melbourne, where you and I live, we've now got our own bells and chimes Did you know this? I didn't until I read it in your email And that's pretty good, that's really good Yeah So I'm hoping that grows Yeah And what's You know what's really interesting About this Is that this has actually Come about So there's a There's a girl that goes to Well she's been to Pinball Paradise To Ryan's tournaments And she is just Right into it Right So she I would say She's probably been playing The last four or five months And she's like Why not I'm going to start this up And she has And I'm like That's Freaking awesome You know what I mean that's not her own that's that's part of the whole bells and chimes around the world yeah yeah it is it's it's part of that group so there's now bells and chimes yeah all around the world mainly in america and you know you might as well you might as well take you know their branding and the reach that they've got and start up a melbourne chapter and that's what's happened so that's pretty much the same as the nz chapter as well yeah yeah absolutely It's all sort of the same format And how it's set up Yeah Okay cool yeah that's pretty good Yeah I think it's great So there you go Yeah look forward to seeing more Players Get involved And maybe in more comps as well So yeah that's really good I think it's a good thing So Richard how much do you love Completely unfounded rumours Oh, I don't mind them I've got one for you Depends on the rumour though, but yeah Okay, well, I had an anonymous tip-off Which we do get And I could ignore it or I could mention it And I'm going to mention it, just why not Why not Now that we've gone this far, you can't do anything And the reason why I want to mention it is because if this game gets made, and I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again. If this gets made, you will have my money. It's not Harry Potter, right? So, yes, obviously, if it was a Harry Potter machine, you would have my money right now. I would empty my wallet right now, and you can have the $5 that's in it. But what I've also heard is that Jersey Jack may or may not be working on The Matrix. Wow. What do you think about that as a title? Ah, yeah. That's up there all time. All time best titles. And I mean, the ability also, the way they incorporate images in their LCD, could you just imagine it with like the code going down the backbox absolutely that could be that could be the best it could be so when I heard that I and again it was probably someone that knows that I love The Matrix The Matrix is actually my number one favourite film there you go I've said it and maybe someone knew that and they're like I'm just going to shit Sturmati because it'll get him really excited but ever since then all I've been thinking about was you know and obviously people loved the first, they didn't really like the second or the third, I did I actually liked all three I just didn't see them as being, even though obviously the story was meant to be a continuation I just felt that they were done at different years so the style of the movie kind of suited the year anyway I making excuses for the second and third film which everyone says is shit but anyway the point I'm making is I was thinking of some of the scenes that you could turn into really freaking cool modes and one of them was um I think it was in the first film where they were on their ship which is called the Nebuchadnezzar and those flying, robot-y, spider-y, octopus things were trying to get them and they had to, you know, turn the whole ship down. Remember they had to turn all the lights off and the power off and just sort of hug to a wall? Yeah. And then they had to use the EMP or whatever it was to do that. So there's that kind of atmosphere just in that scene already that I just went, yeah, that's cool. You've got all the bullet time In the second movie you've got the big Highway chase With the white dreadlocky dudes And then obviously in the last movie You've got that massive Bloody battle You've also got you know Do you choose the red pill or the blue pill Like already that is You know you go into a scoop and it asks you To you know choose which one Oh my god I'm getting a bit excited There's a lot of stuff they can use. But that leads me to ask if you can get hold of the Johnny Mnemonic re-themed Matrix. Yeah. How much do you pay for it? I don't know, because I'm not a massive fan of the Johnny Mnemonic pinball machine. Right. So... And some of the soundtracks they've implemented, it's really different. It's pretty cool. But um Working with the assets You know to actually do a proper We're going to do And again you think Jersey Jack With that kind of license would just go Absolutely bananas Yep Yeah definitely be something to look forward to Completely unfounded But that's the latest rumour that I've heard Anyway Maybe it's wishful thinking I would bloody hope so Because that would just rock my world Wait a second Yeah, so there you go So, let's talk about Social Media Watch for a second So, did you see that article? I'm going to say that you did because it was all over Facebook Any person that had anything to do with Facebook Was linking this article about this drunken woman That lost her money on a pinball machine And then just went absolutely ballistic Did you hear about this? I haven't. Right. Believe it or not, I don't know anything about it. Okay. It's a really long article. I'm just going to try and give you a few of the headlines, right? Here we go. A Monroe County woman who was dangerously drunk just after midnight Sunday assaulted two police officers and an emergency medical technician after the 26-year-old lost money in a pinball machine at Plainsfield Township Bowling Alley, Slatebelt Regional Police Day. So, Keely, I think her name is, Keely Nicole Cunningham of the 100 block of Indian Spring Drive in Hamilton Township was reimbursed for the money lost in the machine but punched the glass on the game. She was told to leave but instead requested more alcohol. When she was refused, she threw a cup of water in the face of an employee before heading out. Right. It's on the ISBA website as a comp player. You could have been thanked here for an event. I'll tell you what, though, that leads me on to when you said she punched the glass. When I was over in the States, I was playing in two comps, and I've never seen this before, but there was two times where the glass got smashed. Really? Yeah. One time was actually in the IFBA comp, but I think they used the wrong glass. It was like, because when it smashed, it didn't shatter. Right, okay. It just got broken seats. Yeah. And the other time was on Whitewater in Full Tilt at Ballard in Seattle. And, yeah, like, I've never seen it before. It happened twice in, like, the same sort of... But what were the circumstances? Well, someone got angry. Oh, but did somebody actually, like, punch the glass? Yeah, yeah Man I'm not sure if they smacked the lockdown bar and shattered the glass But I think, yeah, I think they did punch the glass And then also, actually, it happened at Pimberg on Checkpoint The glass got smashed as well That was, every event that I go to overseas, someone's just smashing the glass What the hell's that? Common denominator in all of this, do you think, Richard? Mm-hmm Do you just happen to be there at all of these things? Yeah, well I take back what I said about you remaining calm, is what I'm saying. I have been known to get a bit frustrated. And that's the other thing that Jordan has on me, is he never blows up. And he does, he'll just say a few words. And that along with the fact that I don't think he really dislikes a lot of games. You know, like he's happy to play anything. He doesn't like to play anything. What's that? He doesn't like Star Trek. Really? Yes. There you go. There's a tip. Always pick Star Trek on Jordan. He's going to kill me for saying that. Wow. Yep. Oh, I'm surprised. I'm surprised as well because it's not like it's a crazy layout, but just he struggles with it for some reason. Oh, okay. Well, he's got to start playing again. I don't know what he's been doing. Like, he's missed the last few comps, and I'm just hoping he hasn't decided to take a break. No, I think he is. I mean, he took a break, obviously, the last three, four months of 2018 because he was doing his exams, but he did actually want to go to ACS, and had I told him that I was driving up, he probably would have gone. So, anyway. Okay. So, there you go. So, what were we just talking about? We were talking about Smash 4 Us, And I do remember Bartronica, which is a barcade in Melbourne, somebody did exactly that same thing on the GoldenEye machine they had there. They got angry and thumped the glass and it shattered everywhere. That's kind of interesting because when I used to operate games back in the early 90s, I had Star Trek Next Generation, and one of my friends knew that I had that on site, and he was going to ring me up and pretend to be like a joke public and say that he's just put a jug of beer through the glass just to muck around. Now, yeah, yeah, yeah. Getting on to that sort of frustration side of things, it's an interesting debate on what you can and can't do when you decide to get a bit frustrated on a game. Like, you can slap save and can make the biggest sound ever and by slapping the side of the game, But if you slap the lockdown bar, that's actually seen as being almost as bad as a slam tilt sometimes. So that's been a debate on AA is like, you know, can you shake a machine? If you can, how much can you shake it? You know, if the tilt's not set right, does that mean you can shake it a lot because the person hasn't set it up properly? Things like that. It's an interesting debate. And basically people are saying, well, when you transport machines, there's a hell of a lot more damage done during the transport phase than there is when they're being played. I might, okay, my, if I hadn't seen that thread, but if I was to weigh in on that argument, which I'm going to, try stopping me, is I think if you are doing something to save the ball, that's fine. But if you're doing something because you've got the shits and you're abusing the machine because you've lost the ball, then that's not on. There was an interesting situation at B Division at Northwest Champs in Seattle 2013. No, 2011 when I went to the IFPA. Robert Gagnon was playing Bram Stoker's Dracula and you know how they've got issues with the tilt. He actually shaked quite a bit and it doesn't register all the tilt warnings. so he um the missed ball went in the left hand side of the game whatever you call that hole and uh he missed hitting it and then he lost his uh other ball so he shook it so much that the ball actually came out but those little coasters that the legs sit on it fell off that yep and and i'm kind of thinking well he has attempted to save the ball but he's moved the game a hell of a lot And I remember in Brisbane Masters, Jimmy said, you're going to be given a zero for the game if the game falls off these coasters. So it's an interesting... You know those little rubber coasters we talked about? Yeah, and I think that's because on some surfaces you can really slide those machines too quickly. And also, you know, with the recent scones where they're a lot lighter, it's much easier to move these machines. And what I think they're trying to avoid is you move them so far that they actually interfere with another person playing side by side. There was actually an event at Coogee where one of the guys was playing Funhouse and tried to save the game by... save the ball by death saving. Right. He moved it so far it went into the next guy's game and that game tooled out. Yeah, there you go. But that's exactly right. That sounds kind of silly, but that's the stuff that they're trying to avoid. Yeah, it is interesting Yeah It's a fine line And I think it's one of those things where it's just up to It's up to the person running the tournament and the community And I think really it's about You know, it always being a bit of bad sport It's like when you're up against somebody that No matter what, they tilt their ball regardless. If you're a person... And yeah, you know what? And you know, when you're trying to mentally get in the zone and then you've got to wait 60 seconds, well that 60 seconds sort of takes you out of the moment, you know what I mean? So we're just trying to, I guess we're trying to avoid that unnecessary behaviour. I think to solve the problem, just set the tilts up right. Yeah, agreed. Like just set them so that you can't really do that. Like iron mode where I had a double danger against Peter Watt. That was set up properly. But yeah, have it so it's not crazy sensitive, but also so you can't move the machine all the time to, you know, stop it going down the middle. Yeah, fair enough. Last piece of social media watch. Our good friend of the show, Todd Tuckey, was on a show called Counterculture. It's like a show that goes for, I think, about 25 minutes. He was on it for probably just under 10 minutes. It was a really good sort of one-on-one interview with him. A couple of little tidbits he gave out. One thing he believes Stern makes between 8,000 and 10,000 machines a year. Now, that's kind of the number that I've heard. Would you believe that? Yeah, I think so. But back in the early days, they were doing three machines a year, and now it's sort of like two and a half or two. Well, it's kind of five, really If you count Primus and you count Beatles And you count Iron Maiden And you count... Deadpool came out last year as well And there was probably one other as well Like, didn't... No, I don't know I thought there was one at the beginning of the year as well Yeah, so they're making a lot of machines So, $10,000 That's a lot of dollar Yeah, I'm not sure what the actual cost of making the machine is But, you know, what have they got, 90% of the market or something? Eh, that's what they reckon Maybe 98% I think things are going pretty good I think they're doing alright So, Richard, I think they're doing alright Yep I think a lot of people like their machines, is what I'm hearing From a business point of view, they're doing everything right. Yeah, absolutely. Because they know that for the majority of players, the theme is the most important part. Yep. I mean, I was talking to Shannon the other day who said that if Slayer came out, which I personally think it will, he would buy it instantly, like instant. Okay. And like back in the day when I was a kid, I used to love playing space games and haunted house games and games with tough guys with girls in bikinis on them and stuff like that. I mean, that's what attracted me initially, but for some reason I've sort of gone the reverse and the theme is the least important. But from a business point of view, Western knows that themes sell, ACDC Metallica, you know, Walking Dead and Iron Maiden, of course, even the Beatles, which actually I really like. Well, yeah, to try it and test the layout And I like the little mods they've done to it And if they could do that to more SS games, that'd be great Because it's actually the pre-90s Sterns I love them all So like Starbazer, Meteor, Galaxy You know, they're great games And if they'd repaint those and bought those You know, oh jeez, good times, good times But yeah, the theme for the majority of people today I think is the key factor in selling a game. Yeah, fair enough. So speaking of pinball machines and themes, let's talk about what we've been up to this week in Pinball Richard. And one of the things, we did actually do something together this week, didn't we? We did. We went to the Munsters launch party. Yes, we did. We did. And so there were two competitions on. They were run by Ryan, who's left us tonight. So there was the main match play tournament And then there was also a Munsters side tournament Let's quickly talk about the side tournament I won it Now let's talk about the other tournament Because I didn't play in it How'd you go? No good I just didn't play well You know what? Guess what I've said? That happens Yeah it does What happened? And I got to the top eight, and then I made some mistakes. Yeah, I don't know. I just might have been rushed, or I'm not sure. But it was best of three, I think it was. Or you had to play three games and get the most points. And, you know, some of the games I didn't realize ball stable was off. Right, okay. Yeah. Like, ball stable was off, and I let it drain. So, yeah, I didn't. If I prepared, I might have gone better. But, you know, I guess also I was still getting, you know, I just came out of the ACS and I was sort of a bit on a high about that, so I was a bit sort of carefree. Yeah, it didn't really matter. But it was a good event, and it's really interesting how Ryan's come around from, as I assume, he didn't really like tournaments or playing in them. Correct. And now he's loving running them. That's exactly right. So it's going really well Yeah And he runs them really really well And he's really passionate about them as well So I think that's kind of the direction That we're seeing he's taking And good on him because The pinball scene in Melbourne Right now Is absolutely thriving And I remember a few months ago I was sort of frustrated Going you know what we need more tournaments We need more whopper points Is really what I was saying and there you go, he did it Yeah, it's interesting things started off in Sydney in late 2010 and early 2011 and Sydney was where it was at and then it sort of moved to Queensland and then down to Melbourne and then across to Adelaide and now Sydney's gone Yeah, I've heard that there aren't actually well I think Frankie's Pieces is doing like a monthly thing but there's not that many tournaments being run in Sydney at the moment. Well, Z-Ball, Roger, had finally gone down the IFPA route, but then he stopped. But he used to have tournaments way before. He used to have tournaments going into the early 2000s. He was, like, one of the only guys doing it. But, yeah, there was, like, leagues up there, and, you know, things were going well, but there was just issues with, you know, people getting to the locations and parking and, you know, so it's a bit of a shame, but it's not to say that it's not going to start up again. Yeah, it comes in waves. As I said, look, we had a lot of tournaments and then we had some that sort of fell by the wayside and now there's a bit of a resurgence. It just takes someone that's really passionate about doing it to just put a lot of effort in because it's a lot of effort. And, you know, Ryan's putting a lot of effort into running these comps. So, you know, and I think he does two a month, so. Well, it was back in, I think, 2010 that I accidentally found out about Aussie Arcade, the forum. And then while surfing around, I found Dan Robar, who was the IFPA director. And I thought, oh, cool, there's IFPA, there's a director here and there's tournaments. So I emailed him and said, Dan, where are the tournaments? He goes, there are none. And I've gone, well, how about we get these started? and then I ran into Norbert at a meet in Brisbane, which was called Mega Meat at Stu's Place, which was like the Penrith meet, but it was in Brisbane, like that sort of farm style thing. And then I, because I did Norbert's course back in 93 when I operated games, and I said, Norbert, I think comps are the way to go to make pinball grow. And then he started the AMD leagues and the comps at Supernova, so that worked well. Yeah, they were great. Yeah, so, but it's really great to see that AMD is still on board, you know, especially with sponsoring the events with prize money and stuff. So, you know, it's really good that they're, you know, they're tagging along. So, yeah, it's interesting how things started and how it's grown and how now we're, like, top three in the world in terms of participation. Yeah. And so, the main tournament there, the Match Play 1, was won by Jared Mendoza. So, well done, Jared. What are your thoughts on Munsters, Richard? How honest do you want me to be? Be as honest as you were on Saturday night, but probably less so by about most of it. Right. Okay. I haven't played it enough to really know what's going on. However, I think the art is great. The theme I couldn't care about. I can't say that it's good or bad, but I just don't never really take that into consideration. I think the art and the LCD images animations are really good but I'm just not seeing anything special in the game. This is obviously my opinion and I'm not saying I'm right but the ramps are nice but from Pat Nichols did a little write up on the scoring of it and he goes, oh it's like I've been through Monster Madness or whatever it is, four times. All you have to do is super jackpot is let it get to 6x and then get it. So, I mean, I personally think it's a Tales of the Crypt re-theme because the multiball start, the sort of the bash toy is in the same position, the ramps are similar, the jets are in a similar spot. I mean, that mini playfield looks really cool and I like the way it's modified, but that's just taken for a family guy. but I'm not seeing anything there which has any useful interaction with the player. Like, I'm just not a fan of the super jackpot that you can get outside a multiball. I mean, super jackpot is a jackpot that should only occur within a multiball. I just don't agree with it. Like, you know, you start the game off and it goes in the left-hand side and you get 500k. Like, you know, I mean, it's got to be special. like the Super Jackpot and Getaway in my opinion is the best Super Jackpot of any pinball machine that is special when you get it, that really is special but when you can get them willy-nilly, nah I know what you mean, but I'll tell you the moment that I had, because obviously I did win that, but I qualified by getting 164 million on it which is obviously a decent score and you can get Super Jackpots I think this is good and what's necessarily bad at the same time, is that you've got a super jackpot. It can be worth $1 million or it can be worth $37 million, right? So you get the same amount of fanfare regardless of the score. The difference is that when I got $37 million, everybody around me went, oh my God, wow, and cheered because you knew that that was a massive jackpot. But the fanfare is the same regardless of whether it's $1 million or $37 million. I think my highest super jackpot I've had is $48 million. And, yeah, I kind of see what you mean. I don't mind it being a super jackpot outside of multiball. And what's really interesting is when you are in multiball and you get in there because you've got balls going everywhere and you can't cancel it because you're going to lose balls. So this is this instant risk reward that you have. am I going to try and save all the balls that I've got or am I going to try and keep going further with the Super Jackpot and get the multiplier by hitting Kitty? It's not a deep game and that's probably the biggest criticism that people have given it is that the code is shallow. You know what? I'm just going to call it like it is. It's shallow. So you're getting back to that risk-reward. I prefer the old days when the risk-reward was with your bonus. And, you know, when you couldn't tilt out. So when you build up a massive bonus on an SS game like Black Pyramid, which was where the majority of the points were, that was really risk-reward. Yeah. Like, you know, try not to tilt out and save the ball and potentially lose your score. Do you know the game that I think, the most recent game that Sturm has done that's had that was actually WrestleMania. Yeah, they had big bonuses. Iron Maiden also had big bonuses. Yeah, that's right. But I just remember that, and also, you know, with the big countdown, I just remember, particularly with us in Romania, the reason why that stands out is because people would just not move that machine because they were so worried that they would lose their bonus. That's how much it was worth. Yeah. I mean, you know, just for me personally, I'm just looking forward to the days when, you know, Playfield shot multipliers are Not in the game and bash toys Are not in the game I mean bash toys are fine But not in every game You know what I mean Yeah I understand And like playfield multipliers like You know it's nice playing a game like Say Creature or Adams Or Twilight where you're sort of on a level Playing field Like there's been situations Say maybe on Ghostbusters or Whitewater that if someone gets lucky and gets there five, six times, and, you know, there's nothing you can really do to chase it down. So, yeah, it's just been used too much. Like, I'm okay with them, but they've just been used too much. Yeah, I agree with you. I much prefer playfield multipliers to shot multipliers, but I think when the focus is on the multiplier and where it's at and probably the first game that really sort of, you know, it separated people that understand multipliers to people that don't I think was actually Game of Thrones when people were playing Tyrell which was the multiplier mode and they could rack up the big scores because they knew how to manage the multiplier. I don't and I forget that they're there so I'm always at a disadvantage and then obviously Star Wars and I streamed at Wes's a few weeks ago and it frustrated the hell out of me because I had to move the multipliers and it's a flow game where you have to stop, move your multiplier and then shoot. Well, that's not Steve Ritchie but luckily I did remember his teachings and played it in the knockout tournament and that's how I won that game was by using the multipliers but I would much prefer no multipliers at all. Yeah, I think the attention is being diverted from a lot of parts of the game when you've got a multiplier like that on Star Wars and I was actually thinking the other day that if you're really on the ball then you'd have it so it was roving and you'd set up the amount of flips that you'd need to get it to a particular shot. So if you needed the right ramp to start the hyperspace I think it is So you set it up one shot from the right And then once you hit, oh sorry, one shot from the left Yeah, I know what you mean, yeah And then you hit the left flipper And then the shot diverts to the right ramp And then you hit an X amount of times And then by the time you get it up the Death Star You know, you can do that But it just seems It seems that you're concentrating so much on that aspect of the game That you're missing out on other things You're missing out on like flipping the game, really just enjoying the game and the shots and the sounds like maybe multiplying your bonus like on Adams when you get far enough into the game say you get to 100 bear kicks, when you start multiplying your bonus, your bonus can get up to 350 million or so but that's not diverting your attention from multiplying other parts of the game, it's just the bonus which is just making a shot but I don't know, there's just There's just so many games recently where it just seems like the designers, which I've got nothing against, are under pressure to spit out a game on time. So they'll just use multipliers, we'll put in a few bash toys, and then we'll go from there. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It seems like a quick fix. Sure. I know what you mean. I don't actually agree, and that's why I had to walk away from the discussion that we were having on Thursday, Because I just didn't agree. And I knew, I know that I can't win you over. You can't win me over. So we can agree or disagree. I can just bring up the 1990s games and show you that the variety that was done back then ended up in brilliant, brilliant games. And I get that. But if you're the kind of person that says Adam's Family is the best game in the world and I think it's terrible, then we don't have the same taste in machines. It's that simple. I know Adam's Family is a good game. I absolutely know that it's a good game because so many people think that it's a great game but I don't like it. That doesn't mean it's a bad game and that's kind of what I'm sort of saying the inverse of that is with Stern. There are a lot of people that like Stern games. It doesn't mean they're bad. It just means you don't like them. Sure. but also they have 90% of the market so you haven't got really much to choose from. Well, and I guess that's what they're saying. That's what they're saying with, you know, Jersey Jack coming on board is pushing the boundaries so hopefully you're going to see them sort of do some innovation but, I mean, if you are the only player in the market, you don't need to innovate. You just need to streamline your operations and just get your product out there. That's where, from a business point of view, I couldn't agree with you more. and from a criminal point of view, I couldn't agree with you less. Yeah. There's a problem with the industry at this point in time where if people are lining up to buy remakes, like Monster Bash, Attack from Mars, there's a problem. Like, if people are lining up to buy games that are made over 20 years ago and they're not really interested in buying games made today, there's a problem with the industry, in my opinion. Well... What other reasons would you do that? You're not going to buy an iPhone from 2003, or if they remade the A50 CSI BMW, you're not going to buy that. Well, there are car manufacturers that are remaking old cars, and they sell out of them. It doesn't mean that they're selling the same amount of units. No, no, no, but, you know, that's the, I don't know, collectors back in the day, but I'm getting the impression that people are buying these remakes because, you know, they're not kind of happy with what's being produced today. Yeah, I think... They're in the top three on Pinside, yeah? Yeah, of course they are. There's Attack on the Heart, Watch the Bash and... Yeah, absolutely. And it's because they're obviously fantastic games of the time, but there's also what you're getting is a great game with nostalgia. You actually get a nostalgia effect as well. And I've sort of said this with video games and it's my biggest criticism that I have of video games from the 80s in particular is, you know, when, okay, I'll use, let's say, Galaga, for example. Stoke up Galaga and you hear the sounds and it's like, oh my God, I'm back there. And then, you know, the game lasts five minutes or whatever it is and you go, okay, I'm done. The nostalgia effect doesn't cover up the fact that you've got a short experience. So this is probably the danger when remaking some of the old Solid State games. I think Beatles works because they're not as short ball times as you would have had on an original Sea Witch. So there is extended gameplay there. but that's what you've got to be mindful of is that you can if you go too far back in time you may get the nostalgia effect but it might not be enough to bring the gameplay forward Yeah we see I mean if nostalgia was part of it which it is to a degree then you could remake Checkpoint, but they're not remaking games that are average back then. They're remaking the best. No, that's right. They are. Yeah. But I think the majority of people that are buying these games are buying it because they are so good. Yeah. Rather than it being a nostalgia. I used to play Medieval back in the day, you know, 20 years ago, and, you know, I think the majority are buying it because they're such great games. Yeah, sure. Yeah, but, you know, humour's been lacking. Yeah, true. And just a little quirkiness in pinball, you know, those Easter eggs and things like that. I don't know. It's just there's not enough engagement. And so it is engagement And I think I can summarise And you were saying it earlier when Ryan was on as well You don't really get those Wow moments Like holy crap I'm experiencing something for the first time That has just floored me Because I've never seen it before I did an Iron Maiden Actually two games recently Star Wars and Iron Maiden Iron Maiden when I got to What's the you know, when you get all the jackpots, you know, the ramps and the loops, what do you call that? Do you know what I mean? The power jackpots? Yeah, yeah. What does that accumulate to? Cyborg multiple. Yeah, when that happened the first time, I was seriously blown away. Like, that animation and the sound effect, I couldn't stop playing it. Sure. And I think I wrote up on Facebook, you know, I fucking love this game. and that's a big statement for me. And also in Star Wars, when you destroy the Death Star, that really got me off. Like, that was great times. No. When I was streaming at Wes's a few weeks ago, I destroyed the Death Star and I looked at it and said, are you fucking kidding me? That's it? No, not the actual working of the Death Star opening, the actual visual animation. Yeah. With Han Solo going, great shot, kid, that was a one in a million. Sure. That didn't do anything for you? No, it really didn't Maybe you're not a Star Wars fan No, I am a Star Wars fan I'm not a fan boy, but I'm a fan Because I was saying the other day The first time that I destroyed the Death Star And Han Solo, you might want to beat this out Han Solo goes, great shot kid That was one in a million And I was in the room by myself And I'm going, I've just screamed at the game You're fucking damn right it was I went right off I thought the theme in Star Wars was great with the visuals and everything. I'm not talking about the field, but the integration I thought was pretty good. There's a few, you know, the skill shot was a bit dodged and the multiplier, yeah. But, yeah, that's Star Wars and Maiden and Walking Dead are probably my three favourite sterns. Okay. And people usually give it to me about it, you know, about certain aspects. but, I mean, Walking Dead I spent 18 hours straight on at Hashman's Place because I was determined to get to the last man standing. And then when I got there, I played it for another six hours. So that's a good game. It is really good. There's a few things I'm not happy about it, like the play field set up, but the integration, the whole package, yeah, that's pretty good. It is really good. And, look, another thing that we did this weekend, we went to Axel's pinball meet as well, And again, what I really like about it And probably what you liked about it as well Is that he really has a collection of You know, the era that I really like And the era that you like So Solid States and some Bally Williams So I'm just trying to remember some of the games now So we had Six Million Dollar Man We had Blackout There was Wizard of Oz There was Whodunit there was Rollercoaster Tycoon, there was a Revenge from Mars, there was a Centaur, there was a Space Shuttle. What have I missed? Yep. Demoman. Demolition Man. Black Rose. Black Rose. And I think that's about it. That Space Shuttle he reconditioned was absolutely amazing. Wasn't it? Yeah, that was incredible. Oh my God. What game did you play the most? Probably Demolition Man. Yeah, I did see you on that quite a bit. I played probably Blackout the most Until one of the coils blacked out There was actually Smoke that came up in the machine Because one of the coils actually died That's the secret wizard mode then Yeah it was So it was that It was Centaur Centaur is still just One of my favourite solid states And I kept playing Six Million Dollar Man just because I really hadn't played it that much when it came out. So I played it a lot. It was fun. Yeah, the little thing about Demolition Man, for about 20 years, I think it's Wasteland Motley Ball when that starts and it yells out Phoenix. Well, for about 20 years, I kept thinking it yelled out Venus. Okay, true. And so every time it started I'd go Phoenix I just Don't realise It's saying Phoenix Until Pat Nichols Pulled me up on it On Yeah A little embarrassing But you know Whatever It's embarrassing to be Yelling out a Bananarama song I'm just putting it out there So You know That's what you've been saying For all these years A Bananarama song So Yeah Well which really Was Shocking Blue But whatever Anyway Had a good time It was great collection. All right, we're almost done. Let's go to the mailbag. I've got... I'm going to read out two emails that we received this week. One... In fact, both of them are going to be interesting discussions, I think. So this is from Ezra. Hi, Ezra. Ezra writes in a lot, so thank you very much. We do always appreciate your feedback. So what he's talking about is mini playfields, specifically mini playfields that you get on a premium or limited edition. So he was sort of talking monsters, Aerosmith, Game of Thrones, ACDC, and he sort of said technically Transformers because they kind of do things different on those. He said, these are the stir people machines with an extra mini play field for the premium. What's the best and what's the worst? Well, the worst is Transformers. If you can really count it. Yeah, I know. You kind of can on that right one where you can sort of move it left and right, I guess. Like Jersey Jack did that a little better with the ship, and by a little better, I mean a lot better. Yeah, correct. Yeah. But Game of Thrones could have been really good because I was actually picturing a shot which would... What's that chair on the right-hand side, the throne? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the throne. They had a super jackpot shot where you had to get up the mini playfield and then from the right flipper you'd shoot it around the left there and then it would loop all the way around to the chair. That would have been really cool. But that's a good play field, but it's just designed wrong, I think. Like, it's only really for a multiball. It could have been coding, I think. Like, the physical nature of the play field's great, but the coding I don't think is that good. Yeah, I agree with you. It's just, they've done nothing for me. What about Aerosmith? Yeah, I haven't played it enough. Okay. My take on that is, I like it because it's short and sharp. You get it up there, get your targets, do the right little orbit thing, and you're out. I think that's kind of cool. It doesn't keep you up there too long. True. But then I kind of like mini playfields which you can play at the same time as the normal play field such as Grand lizard where you can stage So you can hold balls down the bottom and stage and stage the top But that's yeah, but that's not technically a mini play field I mean that's that's just one play field that's just happened to have a sectioned off bit at the top. I know what you mean though I think the best thing to play Phil Bryce-Durns, Family Guy Shrek Yeah so what he's actually, he talked about those ones that are on the premium in LA only so Munsters, we're yet to play it but it looks kind of cool ACDC is That's the same as Shrek or Family Guy Well it's not and people have said it's not but I'm going to reserve my judgement until mine arrives It's been modified, it's slightly different but I think generally it's the same with the same sort of symptoms. And the actual physics of it, I think it works really well. Yeah, people have told me, well, people that I know that have played DLA say that it doesn't feel the same as Stewie Multiple, like Stewie Playfield. It still doesn't feel like a normal playfield, but it doesn't feel like a toy like Stewie does. It's somewhere in between. So, as I said, I'm reserving judgment on that. And, yeah, so then there's other sort of mini playfields that I've sort of added to this list. Just so that we can think about what is overall the best mini play field. So we talked about Monsters, Aerosmith, Gamma Thrones, ACDC and Transformers. You can rule that out. There's probably more than this, but the others that I can remember are Elvis. So then obviously Family Guy and Shrek. World Poker Tour WWE WrestleMania Simpsons and then I'm really stretching it here somewhat you've got Lord of the Rings with Path of the Dead can I get away with that one? no I don't think so I probably can't with Batman Dark Knight either with that right one as well which is effectively Path of the Dead but on the right hand side And then the other one The original part of the Caribbean But you know That's just for the still shot kind of thing So Yeah I think I think Family Guy Is the best one they've ever done Yeah I think it's kind of cool Yeah It just works well All the physics work well It's like a reverse of Hercules Like Hercules It actually plays quite well, although it looks ridiculous. But, yeah, this one's just a reverse of that. So, yeah, it's not bad at all. And, again, what I like about the Family Guy one is when you do get streamed multiple and you're playing both playfields. That's kind of cool. And that's what's going to happen with Monsters, except you've got separate buttons now as well. That'll be interesting. Yeah, right. That'll be interesting. But if you want to go back to really good mini playfields, You're talking about Black Hole, Forty House. Yeah. They were proper. They were really good. And we did talk about this recently. There was a machine that, I think it was only prototypes that was done, and it was based on the movie Krull. Do you know of this pinball machine with its lower playfield? Yeah, I think I've played it. Yeah, so it's almost a full-size playfield underneath, but it's got this magnifying lens that makes it look like a small playfield, but it's actually a proper size. So I've never seen one nor played one. I do want to at some stage. You know, it's interesting. The being played field, if you could call it, on Congo, is actually really simple, really effective. Yeah, it's not bad, is it? Yeah, it's kind of cool. For what it is, it's quite good. Yeah, cool. All right, here's the last email that we're going to get to. Thank you, Simon, for writing in. I'm going to try and do this in the right tone, this email, because it's actually quite accusatorial, is what I'm going to say. It says, Dear Head2Head, Martin seems obsessed with ramps being in the right place. Basically, he supports cookie-cutter fan layout designs. Isn't this the problem with recent sterns? Aren't they all a bit samey? There's nothing that's surprising about them. If Martin ran pinball, it feels like there would be no whitewater, no Circus Voltaire, no Roadshow, No Tales of the Rabie Knights Pirates Funhouse or Banzai Run Please discuss Is that your view though? No No It's actually not And do you know what I've done? Here's what I've done I've gotten all scientific on your ass You ready? Okay Fire away Here's what I did I I I read that and I went No That's actually not true I I actually really like quirky pinball machines In fact, that's why I love solid states, and I love all the quirky Bally Williams as well. My argument in the end is, if you're going to do a fan layout, then make sure the shots feel good. That's really all I'm saying. If you do a fan layout and they don't feel good, the case in point I always give is full throttle. Full throttle is, effectively, it is the ultimate fan layout, right? but the shots are just not in the right place so you've got to adjust it doesn't feel right, okay? That was my argument. But here's what I did. Here's what I did, Richard. I thought I'm going to get scientific on this and I'm going to see what the results are. So what I did, I took the top 100 from Pinside probably not necessarily the best way of doing it because I think if you went to 100 to 200 you would find all the games that I love that aren't conventional. But I figured at least I'd start with the top 100 already this took way more time for me to do than responding to an email. So what I did is of the top 100 I then categorised them as being cookie cutter or not. Cookie cutter is subjective in itself, right? But for an example, Monster Bash, Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness they're considered cookie cutters, right? So I've said of the top 100 I've counted 26 that I would consider cookie cutters And you've got things like Lord of the Rings, Metallica ACDC, Star Trek, Totan, Spider-Man Theatre of Magic, you know, all that kind of stuff, right? They were pretty much You look at them and you say You're a variation of something else, right? Would you agree with me on those? Generally Yeah, cool And so I said 26 cookie cutters Of the 26 I love 8 of them Being Attack from Mars Lord of the Rings Metallica Star Trek Aerosmith Game of Thrones And Monsters Right? There you go Okay But I'll tell you what I don't love I don't love Monster Bash I don't love Medieval Madness I don't love ACDC I don't love Totan I don't love Spider-Man Theatre of Magic Scared Stiff Iron Man Cactus Canyon or Star Wars. And there's more. So when you don't love something, you like it, you don't love it, or you just don't like it? I just don't like it. Like it's not something that... If you had Medieval and Attack from Mars in your house, you just wouldn't really enjoy playing them. No, Attack from Mars I love. I don't love Medieval Madness. In fact, I really don't like Medieval Madness. What was the other one? Was it Monster Bash? Monster Bash. Right, Monster Bash. If you had Monster Bash and Medieval in your house, you actually wouldn't enjoy playing them. Well, that's not an example you could give, because I would never own them. No, but if I gave them to you for free, I said, Marty, I've got these games, I need you to look after them for six months, I'm going overseas for a while, and they're in your house, you just wouldn't be playing them like... I would play them, but I wouldn't play them madly, if that makes sense. Wow. Yeah, no, but this was saying to you before, Monster Bash currently is the number one game on Pinside It's a great game It just doesn't do anything for me And it's a classic fan layout cookie cutter I don't love it, right? Anyway Is it the theme or is it the code? I think it's the code I tell you what I love playing Monster Bash in a tournament Because I can play it well I just don't love the game, right? It's that simple Right, okay So that was the first category was, is it a cookie cutter? The second one is, is it a conventional layout or is it an unconventional layout? Now, this, again, is very subjective. So I would say something like, or like when I say conventional, it's either like a fan layout or a conventional layout, right? So you've got the same thing. So Twilight Zone, right? That's not a conventional layout. Would you agree? Yep. Okay. I said Iron Maiden isn't a conventional layout. Definitely not. Yep. Indiana Jones, Pinball Adventure? This is the Williams one. Yes. No. No. Cool. I do want to make sure, and obviously I've got Adam's family there and I've got Wizard of Oz and Simpson, Pinball Party, right? So they're the ones that I consider aren't conventional. So, of the 36... Wait, hold on a second. Of the 62 of the top 100 that I believe are not conventional, it's a 50-year-old split. 31 of them I love, 31 I don't. Right. Right? And the ones that I would consider fan layout, so 36, I like 14 of them, and I don't like 22 of them. Right So I just thought I'd get a little bit scientific Because I kind of looked at that email and I went Huh, I think you've got me wrong But, you know, I do love Star Trek And I do love Lord of the Rings And I do love Munsters And my summary of Munsters is It is, yes, it's not revolutionary as far as layout goes But I think it's Borg's best layout I think he's perfected the Borg. So you reckon it's better than Walking Dead? Yes. The layout, yes. Okay. Like, Walking Dead is just the feet out of the jets that I'm not a big fan of, but it's got some pretty nice shots in it. That right shot, the left ramp, the right ramp, and the left loop, they're pretty sweet. But yeah I mean Munsters, I'm just wondering if it was a different theme Would you still feel the same way about it? If they did Rolling Stones With a Munsters layout Would you still Feel the same? I mean there's obviously some things that would be an absolute put off Munsters I was never like Obsessed with the show And in fact I watched it a lot When I was a kid I've never watched it as a teen or an adult. In fact, I've still not watched it. And, you know, if I loved it, I would be going, oh my God, give me a box set, or I'd try and find a way to download it to watch it. I'm not really all that fussed by it. I love the nostalgic value of it. But for me, I just, I really like the layout. It feels good to me. But I love games that are not fan layouts, and the prime example is Wizard of Oz. Wizard of Oz is one of my absolute favourite games of all time, and it is a very unconventional layout. I don't know. I mean, maybe that's due to the too many playfields it's got. Sure. I would have thought that the main layout was fan. But, yeah, that's... For a first game from a brand-new company who was the first ones to introduce an LCD screen and RGB LEDs, like, what an incredible effort. Yeah, it really is. So, anyway... Yeah, as I said, the point is that I wasn't sort of saying that, You know, therefore, ramps need to be exactly where they are, therefore, I'm only a fan of cookie-cutter fan layouts. You're actually really far from the truth there, Simon. And in fact, you said it feels like there would be no Whitewater. Whitewater is one of my all-time favourite games. There would be no Circus Voltaire. Circus Voltaire is one of my all-time favourite games. Oh, Roadshow. I have been on record by saying that Roadshow is pretty much the only super pin that I like. Tales of the Arabian Nights, love it Pirates, I don't know which one you're referring to New Pirates, I love Funhouse, I do not like I do not like I don't know, there's just something about Funhouse I don't like Banzai Run, I love Banzai Run So, you know, I think you're sort of missing what I'm saying Because I read that email and I went Huh, that's not me at all But then I just wanted to get a bit more scientific to prove my point What do you think? Are you a fan of Daldin? Yeah, I do like Daldin a lot. It's interesting because that's said to be, in some aspects, the reverse of Funhaus. Yeah, but so was Tron. Tron was supposed to be a reverse of Funhaus as well. Right, which is a reverse of X-Men. Everything is a reverse of reverse. X-Men's a really interesting one because X-Men You wouldn't call it a fan layout It's just It's got some unusual shots And loops around And I don't like playing That game in tournaments because I can't Get used to the layout But god I'd love that as a home game It's a shame The storm ramp wasn't as smooth As the Ramp on Tron Yeah. Like, that combo is a nice combo to hit. So it's like a right loop into upper right ramp into the fin shot, the flinch shot. But that's a smooth combo. That's nice. Yeah. But, I mean, I don't know. The best combo in multiball, in my opinion, is start, turn, extend and warp drive. So it's a shame that there's nothing like that around at the moment. Because that's kind of like a movement itself. and that really, you forget about everything about the game when you're in that combo. You just want to complete it. And, you know, you've got a chance of draining the ball, but it's just so much fun. You just want to keep doing it, especially when you get super spin a little bit. I've just got a love-hate with Star Trek Next Gen. I hate it and I want to love it. And really the only thing I just don't like about it is the outlines. and it's just because they just feel unfair. I think you've just got to buy one that's set up just perfectly. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Because I had this new and it really played, it was sensational. Yeah, the shots just felt great. And especially with the ROM updates, those additions, yeah, it's pretty cool. And a few S-Rods in there. Well, you know, it's interesting you say that because I loved it when it came out. Obviously, like a lot of people, I had, you know, time off from pinball from about, you know, what am I going to say, like maybe late 90s to late 2000s. And so I remember playing Next Gen at the time when it came out. Loved it. Ever since I played it coming back to pinball, I've hated it. And I think you're probably right in that they're just worn over time. I mean, obviously, it's one of those machines that's notorious for breaking down. It probably just hasn't worn all that well. Yeah. I actually sighted that at a pub in Brunswick Street, and we took it upstairs for a function, and I came back a few days later to get the take, and the entire pub was gutted, like, on the ground level. I couldn't... There was nothing in there. There were no chairs, there was no till, there were no glasses. And for two weeks, I didn't know how to get upstairs to see if the game was still there. Right. So I had to find the landlord who wanted my driver's license just to, you know, see who I was. Yeah. He let me in. And I went upstairs, and the game was just sitting there by itself with nothing else in the entire venue. And back then, you couldn't insure games. Right. So $7,000 back in the early 90s when houses were worth $100,000. I was stressing out Yeah For like a few weeks Figuring out if they've stolen it So no one said anything That they were shutting down And yeah there was the game And um Yeah we took it out But uh I had that At La Trobe Uni as well Um And I actually bought World Cup Soccer back then too Which in my opinion Is the best soccer game ever made So Here's I tell you what I've only got one problem With World Cup Soccer I love the game But I just think it's That the layout is too good for a soccer game Too good? I think it's too good Like, you know how it's got like the swirly ramps And all that kind of stuff? That's not very soccer-y to me I don't know There's just something about it But I love World Cup soccer Am I allowed to? Is it a fan layout? Um I think you could say it is I think you could say it is but I really like the subtleties like on those ramps on both the left and the right ramp if you shoot it halfway up there's a little hole which will pop it back into the jets like those subtle things where you know there's inclusions that you wouldn't see today you know those sort of like avenues where it doesn't go in there often but sometimes does you know I just like I like sort of those kind of shots, those hidden, like, camera twilight zones, sort of dead shots. I love that sort of stuff. Yeah, I agree. But that's just missing today. It's a loop, three jets, two ramps, the feet of the flippers, and a center shot. Obviously, Maiden's the exception. I think Deadpool's the exception, too. Yeah, that actually is quite a different layout. I think it's user-friendly, and the theme's good. Yeah, I didn't mind that at all. Yeah. One thing I've said about Deadpool, and again, it goes against my Marty Likes fan cookie cutters, what I've said about Deadpool is it's not your direct shots that matter. It's all about the rebounds. Yeah. The feeds back to the flippers are a bit more user-friendly than people have been complaining that the ball times are too long. Yeah. It's such a hard thing to do to create a game where it's not crazy hard, like ACDC, and it's not super easy, like, say, Deadpool, maybe. Well, so funny you should say that, because there's a second part to Simon's email, and he says, also, what's your opinion on no ball save on Munsters? I saw some newbies play it the other day on location, and you've never seen $2 swallowed up so quickly. What do you think about that? Yeah, you need ball saver on site. I think Munsters, it might have been taken off because the game's just a bit easier, but I'm of the opinion, in tournaments anyway, that you should always have a ball saver on a game which doesn't have a direct feed to the flipper from the plunge. So if you've been given the option to flip a ball straight away and you miss, okay, that's your fault. but like on Star Wars you know potentially you can have two plungers and it can drain you can never flip it that's when a ball saver is needed in my opinion yep and a walking dead yeah right walking dead yeah walking dead in a comp if you didn't have a ball saver on you'd potentially have three house balls no I did that was me at the Australian Championships last year that's why I came second because just walking dead just out of those pops did it twice yeah so any game doesn't have an absolute 100% feed to a flipper, say like Creature, you always hit the flipper from a feed there. Yeah. That's okay to not have a ball saver. And I think Adam's family is the same thing. I don't think that generally has a ball saver either, along with Whitewater. But yes, like Walking Dead, Star Wars, those sort of games, you need a ball saver in my opinion. Well, there you go. I agree. So there you go. thank everybody for writing in, please make sure to do it again, we love your feedback and Simon in particular I loved your feedback because I actually loved doing the research today and you know looking through all these different machines and I pretty much looked at the picture of every single machine to determine whether it was a fan layout or not or whether I would consider it conventional or not and I had a lot of fun doing that because I got to watch a lot of pinball pictures today so there's nothing wrong with that So Richard, thank you so much for coming on And congratulations again on Winning the Australian Championship Series That was a massive effort It was good to see you there Anything else you'd like to say? Well yeah I got round to not breaking my ankle like last year And I wasn't overseas in Cambodia The year before So I guess I'll speak to you This time next year when I win next year's one Yeah, that's exactly what's going to happen Good fucking luck I can only cry All right. It just depends if the dog is going to go or not. That's, well, we all think that, don't we? Anyway. Yeah, he's definitely good for the game. He is so good. Anyway, so thanks, everybody, for listening. If you want to catch us, please, facebook.com slash head2headpinball, just hook us up. Twitter is at h2hpinball. Email us at head2headpinball at gmail.com or Instagram is head2headpinball. We'd love for you to chat with us in any of those social mediums. So, thank you. Thanks again, Richard. we will speak to you all again next week, bye now see you