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Episode 123 – ClusterVUK 2, The Quickening

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Jan 3, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

ClusterVUK 2: Multi-host podcast debates Munsters reveal, licensing, and industry drama.

Summary

A massive cluster-format Slam Tilt Podcast episode featuring 8+ co-hosts and guests discussing Stern's upcoming Munsters pinball machine, reveal strategies, licensing challenges, and pinball industry dynamics. The group debates theme importance, production delays (particularly Highway Pinball's collapse), and the impossibility of keeping game announcements secret in the modern era.

Key Claims

  • Munsters is coming to CES as an announcement venue

    medium confidence · Ron speculates about Deadflip/Stern announcing at CES; others discuss the likelihood but remain uncertain about the venue and announcement timing.

  • Transformers had 10 prototypes with Spike at Pinball Expo and they were sold to dealers

    medium confidence · Speaker (unnamed) asserts this as fact; another guest initially thought it was Walking Dead, correcting themselves.

  • Dennis Nordman left Highway Pinball due to unrealistic production timelines

    high confidence · Ron explicitly states Nordman cited unrealistic production times as reason for departure, marking a turning point for his confidence in Highway's viability.

  • Highway Pinball transferred most assets to Pinball Brothers before collapse

    high confidence · Martin references UK insolvency filings showing asset transfer occurred 6 months before final collapse, suggesting planned salvage operation.

  • Monster Bash Remake had the worst reveal of 2018 due to reactive, piecemeal announcements

    medium confidence · Multiple speakers (Ron, Jeff, Martin) discuss how Spooky/JJP were forced to reveal incrementally as leaks surfaced (topper, UL cert, NDA player feedback).

  • Munsters will have a lower playfield only on Premium and LE versions, not Pro

    medium confidence · Speaker notes this detail with skepticism about AC-DC's similar feature; no official confirmation provided.

  • Addams Family license is not currently available

    medium confidence · Speaker states 'I don't think the license is available' when comparing Munsters to Addams Family as spiritual successor.

  • Munsters was an 18th-rated TV show in 1964 and thus a questionable license choice

    high confidence · Speaker provides specific rating context and questions Stern's strategic rationale without a recent movie tie-in.

Notable Quotes

  • “As long as none of us become Nate... He's like the deadbeat dad of podcasters.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~0:10:00 — Humorous jab at Nate Shivers' sporadic release schedule for Coast to Coast podcast; sets tone for community in-jokes about podcast culture.

  • “If there's no flames in the machine, what's it called? Monsters is done.”

    Martin (Head to Head Pinball) @ ~0:25:00 — References Addams Family's bookcase ramp with flames as essential design feature; sets expectations for Munsters mechanical complexity.

  • “I'm going to try and purposely not view it, just like I did with Guardians, so that I can judge the game on its own merit before I get tainted by the theme.”

    Jeff Parsons (Pinball Players Podcast) @ ~0:32:00 — Reveals deliberate strategy to avoid theme bias when evaluating games; reflects design-first vs. theme-first player philosophy.

  • “If you were to make an Addams Family right now, what would you do with it?... the next best thing is Munster's license with today's rules.”

    Martin @ ~0:35:00 — Frames Munsters as spiritual successor to Addams Family; acknowledges licensing reality and modern design expectations.

  • “I cannot imagine this game on theme selling better than Deadpool did.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~0:40:00 — Expresses skepticism about Munsters' commercial appeal relative to recent licensed IP; questions Stern's strategic choice.

  • “The reveals don't matter anymore. They're basically bullshit at this point.”

    Jeff Parsons @ ~0:55:00 — Cynical assessment of reveal strategy effectiveness in modern era; reflects industry consensus on futility of secrecy.

  • “Well, let's just wait, and when they reveal it, then you know... It's not fun, Jeff.”

    Ron / Jeff exchange @ ~1:00:00 — Highlights tension between desire for information and enjoyment of surprise reveals; mirrors broader community FOMO dynamics.

  • “The moment for me was when Dennis Nordman left. And he cited unrealistic production times.”

Entities

Ron HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonDennis KrieselpersonJeff ParsonspersonCrystalpersonStephpersonSteve BowdenpersonMartin Robbinsperson

Signals

  • ?

    announcement: Speculation about Munsters being revealed at CES with Pro version, Premium/LE at Texas Pinball Festival; no official confirmation present in conversation.

    low · Ron: 'I think Zachary of Pinball is coming out on iPhone. Woo! You really think Stern's going to make an announcement at CES?'; discussion of typical reveal venues and timing.

  • ?

    machine_intel: Lower playfield feature rumored for Premium/LE versions only (like AC-DC), not on Pro version; speaker skeptical of its gameplay value.

    medium · Speaker notes: 'there's a lower play field, but it's only on premium and LE versions. I'm getting an AC-DC vibe there.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community consensus that theme is less important to modern buyers than when pinball was location-dominant; operator market shrinking.

    high · Ron: 'the operator market is probably less than what it used to be, and a theme probably doesn't hold the same value it used to'; Jeff and Dennis agree theme matters less to collectors.

  • ?

    industry_signal: Pinball manufacturers universally unable to keep games secret in modern era; controlled reveals now ineffective; reactive disclosure has become industry norm.

    high · Jeff: 'The reveals don't matter anymore. They're basically bullshit at this point.'; Ron: 'Stern is, as hard as they try, or don't try... I don't think they're ever going to be able to keep a game secret.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Stern's choice of Munsters IP questioned by industry figures; 18th-rated 1960s show without recent movie tie-in; comparison to Deadpool's perceived superior commercial appeal.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.560

0:00
recording started all right and there it is I think yeah good building yeah we're building okay oh are you ready no pressure I am ready all right I'll do the intro there we go coming to you from beautiful upstate New York This is the Slam Tilt Podcast, a show about all things pinball. I'm here with my co-host and partner in crime, Bruce. I fucked that up already because I didn't say my name.
0:38
Take two. Yes, yes. No breathing on the other side. That actually comes through. It is that sensitive. I know. Yours does too. I heard it also. I'm actually going to... Hold on. Let me try one thing before we do anything. Check this out.
0:53
What did I say? Uh, dear parents, Beavis sucks. Really? Cool. Uh, dumbass. Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Hill Podcast, a show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale.
1:57
Oh, stop. It had to end sometime. No, it's not ending. Okay, the regular broadcast had to end sometime. Yes, it is. This is episode 123. We are at the seventh flash.
2:12
So we are booted. We are finally booted. Nice. As we're about to boot, or get booted. Yes, we will. But we're not alone. Oh, no, we're not. No, we're not. I'll tell you what. We'll let the guests introduce themselves, because just that alone, they'll probably interrupt each other, and it'll be even more of a cluster.

Spooky's success stems from keeping production runs small and not overextending

medium confidence · Discussion of Spooky's manufacturing approach as model for sustainable production; TNA cited as example of game needing minimal adjustment.

  • Rock Fantasy venue now has Beatles, Seawitch, and other machines in collection

    high confidence · Ron and Steven discuss Beatles delivery (Thursday) and Seawitch placement at Rock Fantasy; specific venue details mentioned.

    • Ron Hallett @ ~1:25:00 — Key inflection point in Highway Pinball's credibility collapse; Nordman's departure signaled insider awareness of structural problems.

  • “I think that I just don't think he understood the manufacturing side... no he definitely did not... pinball is easy. What are you talking about? It's easy.”

    Martin / Bruce debate @ ~1:35:00 — Candid critique of John Papaduke's manufacturing competency; reflects gap between game design and production execution expertise.

  • “He's got a gold Prius, and he's the worst driver I've ever known out of anyone in history.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~2:20:00 — Humorous anecdote about Eugene Jarvis; humanizing comment about Stern legend's personality beyond design.

    • Nate Shivers
    person
    Josh Sharpperson
    Gregperson
    Eugene Jarvisperson
    Gary Sternperson
    John Papadukeperson
    Dennis Nordmanperson
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Highway Pinballcompany
    Pinball Brotherscompany
    Rock Fantasyvenue
    Munstersgame
    Beatlesgame
    Addams Familygame
    Monster Bashgame

    medium · Ron: 'I cannot imagine this game on theme selling better than Deadpool did. I'm going to stand by that.'; speaker notes low ratings and lack of modern cultural relevance vs. other available IPs.

  • ?

    business_signal: Highway Pinball's collapse was planned salvage operation; assets transferred to Pinball Brothers 6 months before final failure; founder's unrealistic timelines and poor manufacturing expertise root causes.

    high · Martin: 'Dennis Nordman left... he cited unrealistic production times.'; 'UK insolvency filings... Highway Pinball had hardly any assets. They'd already been transferred.'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Spooky Pinball cited as manufacturing best practice: small production runs, no overextension, minimal post-release adjustments (TNA example).

    medium · Bruce: 'Spooky gets it... just keep your production runs small don't over extend yourself... Produce within your means.'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Addams Family pinball license currently unavailable; 1991 movie tie-in was prerequisite for original 1992 Williams machine; Munsters positioned as closest spiritual successor with modern rules.

    medium · Speaker: 'I don't think the license is available... if you were to make an Addams Family right now... the next best thing is Munster's license with today's rules.'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Beatles gold edition being delivered to Rock Fantasy venue; collectors actively acquiring special editions and variants; secondary market activity ongoing.

    high · Ron: 'Get the Beatles. It'll be delivered Thursday morning'; discussion of Beatles alongside Seawitch at venue; Eugene Jarvis receiving gold edition.

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball podcast ecosystem expanding (8+ active shows represented in single call); saturation concerns about oversaturation; sustainability questioned (weekly vs. monthly schedules).

    medium · Ron: 'this is a podcaster's clusterfuck'; Dennis on scheduling: 'We don't do it weekly. We never did'; references to burnout and sustainability of weekly formats.

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Leaked images show prototype cabinet variants including black and white version; latest leaks may differ from earlier renders.

    medium · Speaker: 'I heard about there being a black and white version... one of the early purported leaks... one of the versions was black and white. But I don't think the latest leaked images were black and white.'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Rock Fantasy venue expanding collection with Beatles gold and Seawitch machines; hosts specialty items (bongs, adult merchandise); becoming notable pinball destination.

    high · Ron/Steven discussion of Beatles delivery Thursday and Seawitch placement; detailed description of 'porn room' with themed merchandise.

    • 2:33
    So go for it, guys. Who's on? You knew that was going to happen. Everyone's going to be like, oh, somebody else will go.
    2:42
    No, and then it was just like, are we just trying to see how long it is until someone cracks? It was a giant game of chess. A lesson in human behavior, folks. Yes. So we have Bruce. We have Dennis from the Eclectic Gamers podcast. Hello. We have Jeff Parsons of the Pinball Players podcast. Hello, everyone. We have Crystal and Steph from the Riptide Pinball podcast. Hello. Hey. We have Steve Bowden from the Meltdown Pinball podcast. Hi, Steve. Hello. And fun with bonus. We have Martin from the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. Good morning, everyone. Morning. Mrs. Pin is trying to get on. Oh, my. You realize this is a podcaster's clusterfuck? It is.
    3:33
    So, well, here's a question. How many people on this call were podcasters when we started? Zero. That is incorrect. I believe Eclectic Gamers started half a year before you did. There you go. Thank God we're not the oldest.
    3:50
    We started late January 2016. So congratulations. You're still going. That's right. You know what the secret is. We don't do it weekly. We never did.
    4:01
    Yeah. Lately, I don't even do a monthly. Yeah. And see, look how chill he is. He's probably got a five-day vacation going on here. Same, but with less chill. As long as none of us become Nate.
    4:14
    Nate Shivers of the Coast to Coast podcast? I mean, it would be great if we could be him, but, I mean, the way that he releases podcasts, it's like, surprise! I'm sure he'll be releasing one when Monsters comes out. He always shows up with some blockbuster interview, like, oh, hello. And magically, you know, everybody's feeds are still tuned to his RSS, so we'll all just pick it up. Anyway, so he'll just arrive when there's big news. I don't know. He's like the deadbeat dad of podcasters.
    4:45
    Wow. I thought we would have seen something with Beatles, though. Yeah, I was going to say. If it's anything. So maybe he's done. Maybe he's holding up a primacy going to do a double episode. Maybe no one cares about Beatles now.
    5:02
    I mean, they do kind of already exist in other forms. But did anyone hear? Deadflip said he's going to be going to, was it CES? Is that what it's called? Did I get it right? Yeah. Consumer Electronics. He's going to be going to CES. There's going to be a big thing happening there. I wonder what that could be. I think Zachary of Pinball is coming out on iPhone. Woo!
    5:25
    You really think Stern's going to make an announcement at CES of all places? Yeah. They never have, have they? They've had games show up there. They've had games show up there before. They've never revealed a game before, have they?
    5:38
    I don't know. They had a similar show that was at, like, in Europe where they, what was it, Star Wars was revealed?
    5:45
    Or showed up? See, it depends what you consider... Crystal Mania was released at CES, wasn't it? Probably. I think it was. That doesn't bode well for whatever they're releasing, then. Oh! Yeah, but I think on that particular show they were showcasing, because it was the first machine with Spike, right? So it was all about the new system. Yeah, but Spike was used with Home Edition Spider-Man a couple of years before, so technically Technically, it was an old system.
    6:14
    Technically, it actually was used in Transformers. The first 10 for Expo. The pen version. No, the full version. They had 10 prototypes at Expo, and they sold those 10 prototypes to dealers. Really? Yes. I thought it was Walking Dead. No, Transformers has, there's 10 Transformers out there with Spike. I know there was a Walking Dead with Spike. and they actually have badges on them that have Expo the date of on them. All right. How much do you think that would go for nowadays?
    6:51
    It is Transformers, so I'm thinking $3,000. Heh. Wow. It depends. Is it a pro or is it the horrible LE? I was assuming the horrible LE, which is the only version I've played. Yeah. Pro, pro, pro, pro. Pro, pro, pro, pro, which is actually better. It is better. Oh, it is better. No, the Pro is definitely better.
    7:13
    Ironhide Playfield. Oh, my God. Yeah, what does Rock Fantasy have? It's an LE, isn't it? We got an LE. We're rock and rolling.
    7:24
    I think it was a premium LE, and I don't think he has it anymore. Thank you, God. I just went for another metal radio. Yes, I did. Yeah, I don't even know what I'm saying. He doesn't have it? Because last time, I didn't even think he had it, and it was hiding in that other room with the other, let's say, paraphernalia?
    7:44
    No, Gorgar is back in the porn room now. Okay. And then Rolling Stones is, like, blocking off what used to be an aisle. Rolling Stones' Seren. Rolling Stones' Bally is next to Kiss, and then there's four games up front, all of which are EMs or early solid states, and yeah, I really don't think it's there. I'm sorry, can we back up a second? As a guy that's never been to Rockman, did you say porn room?
    8:11
    Porn room. That's why I use the word paraphernalia, so that you can, you know, there's that and there's other equipment. I see, okay. Equipment. 18 plus section, there are bongs that look like dicks, there is some literal porn,
    8:29
    it's where a machine is, Does that make sense? And we have a machine in the bathroom. Yes, we do. That's been there forever. Tactical, yes. That machine's been sitting there forever. What is that, a twin-win or something? Something like that. Yes, and I was there, Gene Simmons, and they had a kiss bond. Oh, boy. And I didn't get any residuals for that, I'm just saying. I'm surprised the show isn't sponsored by Rock Fantasy. We just did a great ad for them right now. How many people are going to go out just to go? Oh, hell yeah. New York Yankees bong if you're really a big Yankees fan. Is there a Red Sox bong in there, too? I don't think so. New York, you kidding me? Hey, you'd be surprised how many freaking Boston fans there are around here. And you'd be surprised how many Yankee fans are up here in Maine. I don't understand it at all. I don't understand that. No, I don't get it. New York Trank fans, probably. Probably. No, a friend of mine that I grew up with is a Yankees fan. I'm like, what the hell is wrong with you? Is that where you go? I don't know if that's true. It shouldn't be.
    9:31
    Man. I don't know. I went to school in upstate New York, and I was in the minority as far as being a Yankee fan. Most people were either Red Sox fans or Mets fans. Let's meet the Mets. I have a Yankee jacket I took shit for forever for wearing, which is weird. It's like, wait a minute. Hello. I'm in Albany, New York. You know, New York. Why do I have to take shit for wearing a Yankee jacket? I don't get it. I get shit for being a Yankees fan, too, by every Mets fan around me. So that's just how it is. Yeah. Well, you know, just tally up to the championships, that's all I have to say. And if you want to be, well, the other team was around more. Okay, tally them up from, like, I don't know, 1962 on when they both existed. There you go. What does this have to do with pinball? Sports. CS.
    10:21
    Monsters. Right. Not official, though, right? not happening, right? We don't know this, right? Should we start a pool?
    10:30
    Or was that what they're called when they do take bets? A betting pool? A betting pool, yeah. A betting pool of whether it'll be there or not, or like what version will be there?
    10:41
    What factors are right, what factors are wrong. We can make like a big square like on football games. Just be like, it'll come at this time and it'll have this feature. And it'll come at this time and it'll have this feature. Or, it's not the Munsters! I'm just curious how many of us here are actually interested in the theme of the game. Me. I am. Not particularly. It was always a show I didn't watch when I was changing the channels and stuff, because it wasn't the Addams Family. Yeah, it was not the Addams Family, exactly. But how important is theme?
    11:14
    Moderately. For theme, I don't know. We've all talked about this before. It's nothing for me. It's all about gameplay for me. I think theme matters to the operator market. Yeah, absolutely. But, I mean, the operator market is probably less than what it used to be, and a theme probably doesn't hold the same value it used to. But, you know. Theme does hold a big value. What does it mean to you, Martin? Because you're the one interested. Well, I am. And so let's face it, we are also the country that Thunderbirds was also a major theme as well. it was one of those things where Adam's family and Munsters were on repeat for many years through the 70s so it was always on TV so for me it is pure nostalgia I did love the show I preferred it over Adam's family it didn't get the movie which was The Resurgent which obviously then created one of the most beloved pinball machines, and I would imagine if that movie hadn't come out, people would still be scratching their heads if they made an Addams Family pinball machine today.
    12:23
    They better have the bookcase with the spot coming out and making flames. If there's no flames in the machine, what's it called? Monsters is done.
    12:35
    I'm a little bit embarrassed. I've never even seen an episode of Monsters. I don't know anything about it. YouTube is your friend. Is that a new voice? Yeah, I'd love to hear that. Isn't that a new voice?
    12:47
    Waparelli in the house, what's up? What's up? Buster Vuck 2.0. Drunker. More editing. Less editing.
    13:04
    I wanted to be the guy playing in the pinball tournament during this, but 38 people showed up, so I've got to take it sort of seriously. I'm in the backyard of a bar right now in between rounds. Boo. People probably think I'm doing something illegal back here. Well, you... Well... Here, we're... No, no.
    13:25
    We're talking about monsters. Are you psyched about monsters, Greg? Yeah, I'm stoked. I'm stoked for monsters. It obviously looks like it parallels a little bit to Monster Bash from the little bit of information that we have, but I don't know the show, but I'm under the impression it's pretty beloved, and, you know, I'm always looking forward to the new Stern. They've been doing a good job. That's a good attitude, I think. Yeah. Craig has the best attitude. We wish you well, Craig. We're all so negative here. For those people that haven't watched it, it is very similar to Adam's Family, and while both of them were comedy shows, Munsters was a lot sillier than Adam's Family. It was a lot more slapstick.
    14:14
    Dick! You're slapping your dick right now. No, that was, what's his name? Laugh. You remember the... No, that's not how he laughed.
    14:24
    It was more like that. Even I know that, just from memes. Yeah. I haven't seen the show either, so I'm happy to find out about the monsters from the game. I'm going to try and purposely not view it, just like I did with Guardians, so that I can judge the game on its own merit before I get tainted by the theme.
    14:44
    Tainted by the theme. Yeah, I want it to be basically an original license to me, even though I know it's not when I play the game. So I want the game to teach me monsters. I'm trying to think of what I remember of monsters. I remember that Dad was Frankenstein, and he was in My Cousin Vinny as the judge.
    15:04
    Oh, I love that guy. Yeah, and Al Lewis was the grandpa. I just remember he was friends with John Gotti.
    15:13
    And he was Dracula. And then the bride of, you know, Frankenstein was, of course, Lily. Didn't they have, like, a normal one, though, the one that wasn't a monster? She was the ugly one. Marilyn. That's what they called her. They called her the ugly one. Because she wasn't a monster. No, of course not. Yep. And they had, oh, we're forgetting the kid. The one who's going to be at Texas Finball Festival. Yes. Where Monsters is going to be revealed. No. Wrong. That's incorrect. Eddie Monster. Yep. It was Eddie. Yeah, the coolest card out, too. Yeah, there's lots of things about the show that are interesting. And I sort of made this point a couple of months ago when I was playing Adam's Family. And as I said, I know it's one of the most beloved machines.
    16:00
    Don't like it. But when I was playing this machine a couple of months ago, I thought to myself, if you were to make an Addams Family right now, what would you do with it? Well, I don't think the license is available, and it was an absolute nightmare at the time anyway. So the next best thing is Munster's license with today's rules. That's kind of the closest you're ever going to get to a new Addams Family.
    16:25
    I don't have any comment on the Munsters as a quality of a TV show in and of itself. And I get the nostalgia angle that Martin's expressing. My concern from, I guess, a strategic standpoint is this was an 18th rated television show of 1964. I just don't understand why it was chosen without there being a new movie or anything. Adam's Family was the same case. Without the movie, there never have been the pinball machine. But there are lots of shows that don't have pinball machines that rated higher that year than this. This last year rated higher. And it has a dog. yeah but Star Trek also I thought it did well in ratings back in the day though didn't it eventually come to whether it was syndicated it was similar to Star Trek when Star Trek was released it was below the 10th highest rated show of that year then when it got into syndication that's when it got really popular and that was the same thing with Munster so I don't think you can judge it on the year it came out hey guys I don't want to cut off I'm going to touch back in later Have a good day. Keep it going. I'm going to get a little bit drunk before I come back. I'm sorry. Good. You can play catch up. You will.
    17:38
    Well, Stern's marketing people must have read something into this that I cannot see. I cannot imagine this game on theme selling better than Deadpool did. I'm going to stand by that. That's the way I feel about it, too. Most of the people buying pinball machines, or a lot of them, don't even know what the monsters are. I just have a vague sense of it, and that's about it. But that said, if the layout's awesome, then that would be what would appeal to me, not the theme. And I wouldn't care about the theme anymore. However, this talk about, well, there's a lower play field, but it's only on premium and LE versions. I'm getting an AC-DC vibe there. And that lower play field I don't think was a very good use of space on that game. And I'm very skeptical that it will be a good use of space on this one. What version do we think will be a CES? Probably the Pro? I'd say Pro Maybe that's what they meant The reveal of the premium will be at TPF Although that's quite a ways in the future That's quite a way, yeah That's like a black and white version Was that a joke or was that real? I mean, I heard about there being a black and white version of the monsters There was a leaked picture, wasn't there? Like, there's, like, a red velvet side kind of thing going on?
    18:57
    Did anybody else see that? No, one of the – I did. One of the early purported leaks of some of the prototype mock-ups, one of the versions was black and white, at least on the cabinet. But I don't think the latest leaked images were black and white, so. Okay. So you're both wrong. Woo! Okay. Well, at least with this one, don't have the pressure of people's expectations. I think that's the problem people have had in recent times is if it is a loved theme,
    19:29
    well, Beatles will put it out there, Star Wars is another one, the expectations are so high. It doesn't matter now. They can just release anything and it will still surpass people's expectations because people just are really cool on that theme. The funny thing is, like, everyone knows there's monsters. And all the talk during the year of the different reveals. Like, I think a twerpy had, like, what was the worst reveal?
    19:52
    It just, it brings me back to, like, when Spider-Man was revealed. You know how old games used to be revealed? Like, Spider-Man. Was it 2007?
    20:03
    There was, like, this test location in Chicago. I don't know where. Bruce probably does because he knows everything. That these games would always show up. and certain people in Chicago knew where it was. And when a new game would show up there on test, there would be, like, you know, grainy cell phone video and pictures of this game. And that literally was the reveal.
    20:26
    Oh, God, I kind of love that. That's cool. They can't do that anymore because, you know, the Internet has changed all that. As soon as you get a picture of anything anywhere, it's out. So Stern is, as hard as they try, or don't try, depending on your opinion, And I don't think they're ever going to be able to keep a game secret at this point. Now, Ron, so what's your position? That you think that they should just go back to putting things out on test and just letting it, I guess, letting it leak? No, no. I mean, what's your strategy?
    20:56
    Well, do something better than the Iron Maiden one where they just announced the name with some, like, drunk VJ dude. Yeah, that was a letdown. That was like, and then they had an actual reveal, like, right after that. But it's like, if you're just going to reveal the name, I mean, everyone knew was the game. It's like, really, that's it? I'd rather just, like, you have all the pictures, you add everything, and boom, it just comes out.
    21:27
    At least they didn't wait too long after that to actually show the game. Well, I'll show you how old I am. I actually traveled to Chicago back in 2003 and played Simpson's Pinball Party on the test location site.
    21:41
    And then you dropped it. Nope, that wasn't me. I think I hear the ball clunking around on that play field as you speak. Nope. Oh, very good. Thank you.
    21:53
    I love it. I hate that game. Who just joined us? I think Mrs. Penn just joined us. No, it was Josh Sharp, I think, who just joined us. Or not. I'm here. Can you hear me? Oh, there he is.
    22:05
    We can hear you. Oh, God. I'm here. And we have Josh also. Wow. Josh sounds like he's striving as usual. That's the only way I do podcasts. That's the only way he does our podcasts is from his car. Once these days, he's going to get into a fender bender. I did a few things from Target. I'm like, oh, I will volunteer to go to Target right now. We don't get, like, you know, we don't get him at work. Only, like, Nate would get him at work and stuff like that. To get the more clearer Josh. We only get him in his car. Yeah, Nate at, well, Nate at work works because he's in, by the time he's going to bed, it's mid-afternoon for me. This is true. So we were talking about Monsters, you know, that game that we don't know is coming out, that's coming out. It's the ES.
    22:55
    So that was fun. Got to go, guys. Oh, man. He's going to get texted back right now. Right, right. NDA. That's all it says is NDA. The phone has been intercepted.
    23:07
    So I agree with you, Ron, about the teaser reveal video, which with the logo was stupid. I don't like the teaser videos at all. This isn't a video game. I don't think it works. But who do you think had the worst reveal of 2018?
    23:21
    Do you think it was Iron Maiden? That's who I voted. That was their reveal. Iron Maiden had the worst reveal. No, no. The science that reveals don't matter.
    23:31
    Yeah, even bombs can make people realize how, you know, things come out. I think, like, if you want, I don't know what he said here. If you want one of these better. Mark it down. There's your first name. There's a Bruce's name. Yeah. If you want to know, like, think of, like, Mafia.
    23:49
    They had pictures. They had actual gameplay stuff. They had as much stuff as you can reveal. Was that successful? Is anyone going to buy that game? I agree with you, Ron. I think Mafia had the best reveal of the year, but I don't think the worst was Iron Maiden. I think it was Monster Bash Remake. Oh, that's true. The apology reveal, the you-caught-us reveal, it can't get worse than that. Yeah, you're right. And it wasn't just one reveal. It kept happening. It's like, oh, the topper got leaked. I guess we have to admit it's the topper. Oh, we found out about the UL certification, so the game's known. We've got to announce the game. Oh, no, we had all these people come in with non-disclosure agreements, play the game, and then talk about how great the game that cannot be named is. It was just a constant reactive strategy. I'll tell you what, talking to those guys about how the reveal went for them, it's just devastating for their business. Trust me, just devastating. I hear the cheers in all their sales. Right. What you think about it, it's so difficult, though, to keep these things under wraps now, though, with cameras all over the world and everybody carrying one in their pocket. But, you know, it's impossible. Well, and people calling up, you know, licensors. Like, hi, I want to do a so-and-so pinball. Oh, somebody already has that. Oh, got him. Got him. All right. So I confirm that a pinball is coming. It's like whoever it was that said that before. The reveals don't matter anymore. They're basically bullshit at this point. Maybe. I don't know. Welcome to whose pin is it anyway? The rules are made up and the reveals don't matter. But, you know, the crazy thing is everyone is so hungry to know what's the next pin. What's the next pin? They're just dying to know what it is. It's like, well, let's just wait, and when they reveal it, then you know. I agree. That's not fun, Jeff. What?
    25:33
    It's not necessarily now that people – we are obviously keen to know what it is, but individuals are so keen on being the person that has revealed it to get their cool status points. level up. Gotta get that green badge on pin side. My dad would never share the old Williams titles with Zach and myself when we were teenagers because he knew that we couldn't be trusted because it was cool info to have. And that's why we just had to go into his computer and find the folder that said life and dig it up that way. But why all the secrets? It doesn't make sense to me. You don't want to give someone a reason to not buy what's available. I guess, but that seems really silly. Why not just tell people? Why not just say, hey, we acquired this license? Yeah, information wants to be free, man. Like, let it go. Let it fly.
    26:32
    What's available for sale is available for sale. Nothing after that matters. And whether you have a license or not, who knows if the game will ever get made?
    26:42
    Nothing's a certainty. I've had plenty of license at our work that, you know, went into the pooper. We could have announced it the day we got the license, but the game we put together didn't do well, or we ran into licensing troubles with respect to assets that we thought we had and we didn't, and then it would go south. It's so not worth discussing what you can sell to the public until you can sell it to the public. It's true. I agree. It's true. I mean, it's boring, and that's just the part that sucks. But, I mean, we can all answer this question. What's Gary Stern's favorite game right now?
    27:18
    Whatever's on the line. It's a game that we can't talk about, actually, I think. I'd like to see which response.
    27:26
    There has been a lot of drama around reveals. Martin, I don't recall, what won the twerpy for drama of pinball?
    27:34
    Oh, God, for drama? Oh, I literally just had all my results up. My favorite was the gunfella Because it was so nothing It was such a nothing issue People were so mad for all of 10 days Yeah, now the biggest drama Was the highway pinball collapse Oh, that's a fair one Okay Yeah It happened so long ago though That's true What was it, like Pinball Brothers And all that Pinball Brothers took over for Andrew And apparently during that stretch while they were selling aliens, they transferred most of the assets over to Pinball Brothers. So if you actually read those UK insolvency filings, you see that highway, Pinball, had hardly any assets. They'd already been transferred. Yeah. They knew what was coming. It was six months in the planning to be able to move things over. And my summation of it is that when they did put their money in, finally got keys to the office, They looked and said, this ship is going down. Let's just salvage what we can before it all just inevitably fails. And they did. I get the feeling that Highway may not have been a good businessman. Oh, really? You don't get it exactly? No, I literally had that feeling when they would interview him and he would give these obscene, like, dates on, like, when things were going to be released. Two weeks. Actually, it was worse before then. And he was actually giving out dates, like, in the beginning, six months, seven months, we're going to have a game. And then next year, we're having two games. Yeah, like, the next game is already, like, we're doing Whitewoods for the next game already. And, like, Alien wasn't even out yet. Yep. The moment for me was when Dennis Nordman left. And he cited unrealistic production times. And that's when I went, yeah, if somebody like him who's a veteran knows, there's something wrong here. Yeah, he knew what unrealistic production times were, but how come John Papaduke didn't know that?
    29:43
    Come on, I mean, just... You have to actually have built something in your life to know that. What are you saying? I mean, John Papaduke made several games. He made lots of games. Part of a team effort, I'm just saying. That takes a team. There's no I in team. And there's no P-O-P in team either. so do you think that now that John Papaduke is back on a team he might be able to redeem himself I think that I just don't think he understood the manufacturing side no he definitely did not nobody does getting into pinball for the first time pinball is easy what are you talking about it's easy well who gets it well Spooky gets it you know just keep your production runs small don't over extend yourself exactly Produce within your means, effectively. Make great games like TNA that Bruce loves.
    30:38
    That don't need any adjustment. At all. Ever. I know. Hey, but there is a new game coming to the Silver Ball Saloon. Oh, there is? Oh, segue, segue.
    30:51
    We are getting a Beatles. No. Diamond edition? Seriously? Gold. Oh. So does anybody in the world have a sea witch next to the Beatles full time? Yes. Rock Fantasy has that. I do. Sorry, Steven. I didn't mean to jump on your thunder. Jump on your thunder. Yep. Drink. That sounds really dirty.
    31:16
    Yeah. Just running it down. I'm ready to get drunk. I need a refill. I need a refill also, actually. If you wanted me to get drunk, I would just stop by the bar. Damn. Yep. Get the Beatles. It'll be Thursday. It'll be delivered Thursday morning. Wait, are you seriously going to put Sea Witch out? I was thinking about it, like right next to it. You've got to be kidding me. Oh, you're going to make Steph come up here and play a good Sea Witch. Bruce and Ron, why wasn't Sea Witch one of your three sterns to battle head-to-head?
    31:48
    I think it would have been a... I actually... People were criticizing the stars as the worst pick, which I don't understand your reasoning. Oh, no one would ever do that. Your reasoning was terrible, Dennis. My logic is always infallible. That's why I've got the 10th best pinball podcast out there. I've got the 11th.
    32:06
    Yeah. But you called it an EM? EMS. That must be the fastest EM I have ever played in my life. I've played some fast EMs. Play some Sonics. They're pretty damn fast. Yeah, but, I mean, not like that. Brutal, fast, oh. It's not all sweethearts out there.
    32:28
    Is anyone hearing the background noise? I think it's coming from Josh. Yeah, it's probably him. He's listening to his golden oldies now. He's listening to Beatles.
    32:38
    He's got his mask on. No, he's shopping right now through Target. Sounds a little tinny. I think it must be the silver edition. Ooh.
    32:48
    And now, is Josh still driving the same car, or did he move up in the world? Same car. Okay. Same car.
    32:57
    Speaking of car, did anyone see Eugene Jarvis getting his Beatles gold? In a preview? I can't believe it. I like that red wagon. It was pretty hot. More evidence of Roth Rolls and Stern working together. The world coming to an end. Yeah.
    33:14
    Look at just the tons of money Roth Rolls is obviously making, because their boss is driving such an expensive vehicle. Oh, I love Eugene Jarvis. See, we never got him on. That would have been cool. He actually, for, he has a gold Prius, and he's the worst driver I've ever known out of anyone in history. And all of the duct tape he has around his car is gold to match the paint color of his car. It's kind of brilliant. I believe it. And plus, if we had Eugene on, we would have a really strong R. Eugene beats the entire episode. Yeah. I think if we had him and Mrs. Pin on at the same time, we wouldn't be able to release the episode. It would be too much swearing. I have not sworn once, I will have you know. Yeah, hardly anyone's sworn. What the hell? This is a mature podcast. People need to drink more. That's why. Exactly. We're actually talking about football, too. What's going on? Was I speaking of the world coming to an end? And once we've got Josh on, because we don't know how long that's going to be.
    34:16
    I've already ignored three of my wife's phone calls. Oh, snap. Well, you might have to ignore a couple more. So the changes to Whoppers for 2018. Oh, come on.
    34:30
    What I want to say is every year it has been an absolute drama. This year, not so. Yeah, no, you're kind of right. It's a mild year compared to some of our more epic yearly battles with the public. Everyone's thinking of the money they're going to be making, like, ooh, yeah.
    34:52
    Yeah, I got to write a lot of checks in, like, a week. Looking forward to it. Can you tell us what you're checking out at the register? I can hear the beeping. So my wife and I are making, like, steak and potatoes for New Year's dinner tomorrow night with a nice bottle of Jarvis wine that my beloved boss gives us every year as part of our little Christmas bonus. And, yeah, I forgot to have picked everything up before, and I'm sort of running out of days to do that. You always have tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That's like last, last minute, and I'm sure that something else will come up that I don't realize yet, so I'm trying to minimize the things that I can mess up tomorrow. That's true. I didn't know Target sold steaks. No, I'm at the grocery store next to Target, so this is one. One, then I figured a Target because one of our bins that we put all of the kids' Christmas stuff in, crap. And rather than argue with my wife that, like, the $7 return on the bin is worth, like, my hour out of the house, I just figured I would jump in the car and return it for her and exchange it for a new one. Happy wife, happy life. That's how I roll. Tarjay. The Slam Chill Podcast, where you can hear Josh Sharp. Check out. Yeah, it sounds like a lot of steaks on that. Yeah, he's got a lot of beef in there. Holy crap. Nobody can multitask while doing a podcast like Joshua. It's high stakes.
    36:26
    Ten points for Steph. That was the well-done joke, Steph. Yes. Good with me, man. We call that a dad joke in our house. Martin, let me follow up with you. What about Australia breaking down into steaks, man? Why don't you bug in your representatives out there to get something started for you guys? Yeah, I think that's what we would need to do. I mean, obviously, it's not going to be as huge because we don't have that many states. But obviously, you know, talking about us being able to have a state championship, I think it's a good idea because we are geographically very sparse. I mean, it's a, what is it, like a four-hour flight from one side to the other. and there are some states that don't get represented nationally because other states, in particular Queensland, that dominates because they've got so many tournaments. So, yeah, I think it would be a great idea for us to be able to do a state championship. We've just got to get people on board.
    37:24
    I think there's probably enough people on this call that are participating at least in the attempts to qualify within their states that maybe they can speak to how much does that add any value to the year of playing and maybe even, you know, Bruce, for the upstate guys that you guys have, how that's been received over the last three years? How long have you guys been doing this? Three years? Two years? Three years. This is going to be year three. So for the upstate, I know people are already starting to ask me, when is it going to be? When is it going to be? I'm going to actually make it a little later this year. I want to do it like at the end of February, early March, so the weather doesn't get involved and I'm still looking for, we're going to put out, I think, I think actually the day after the Thursday, I'm going to actually put out the email stating all the representatives are upstate. Let's vote on a place. Let's nominate a place, and then we'll go from there. Is this the third or fourth? Like, where were they? The first one was at my house. Yes, the second one. The second one was in Binghamton. Oh, yeah, it was the fourth. The third was mine, and number four. All right. I'm positive we missed one there. Do you guys feel like something on that local level has helped add some entertainment value for the players that participate in the events around you? Yeah, yes and no. Okay. Some people do like it, and some people are like, you know, I can't be bothered. It's just another weekend they're going to lose if they go somewhere. At least with us, we don't make it a single elimination. We do a double elimination, the best of five games. So even if you have a bad first round, you're not completely out and maybe traveling seven, eight hours. So with the double elimination five, you might have a second chance. You know what the funny thing is, though, I argue. The whole upstate thing was born of the Super League. Basically the, you know, fuck the Super League. We're going to do our own thing because we have no chance to get in now because of the Super League. It's just going to be New York City.
    39:22
    And then I found, like, the last couple years, it's like because of the Buffalo tournament, If you didn't play in that, you're not getting in unless you are playing in a ton of events in upstate. It sounds like you need to shrink the radius of what upstate New York. It's like upstate New York except for Buffalo and Syracuse and this and this. Even with all the rock fantasy stuff I play, I would get in to the upstate because of, like, making classics in Buffalo.
    39:53
    You know, that's how I – those are the points that would get me in. Sure. It's fine. Like, we traded one fun thing for another. And Jeff Teolis is calling, so I will try to get him in. But it's not a big deal, honestly. That's perfect. I cannot be on with Jeff Teolis at the same time, so that's my perfect. Oh, no, no, no. You're the same? You're two the same guy? Yeah. Yeah, right. So what I'm hearing, Josh, is that it is of value. Where I think, to us, it probably adds value is that the state's leading to a national championship as well. And as I was saying, there's a huge representation in a couple of states and not in the others. And does it help promote pinball in those states where they don't already have tournaments? And the other thing to Bruce's point about yes and no is you have a ton of tournaments in the U.S. Any day of the week, we don't. Is it a way that will promote pinball further and grow the hobby? That's an interesting angle. I know that, like, this is the first time for the ECF, the European Championship Series, that we're not just having sort of the just the European circuit count. We're actually adding additional spots for individual country championships. And I think the feedback that I had gotten from there is like, hey, if you're in Romania or whatever, you really have to commit to the event within Romania is worth buckus so you're really left traveling everywhere in order to make the ECS final and now you can just play within that Romania championship series within just that country win that sort of satellite qualifier and then find yourself sort of in the big dance well I like if you actually we could do it maybe Martin for you guys is each state then goes again, like maybe you have the top four or top six players from each state meet each other and then, you know, maybe play into a monster 24 or 30-person finals to be the head of Australia or something like that. Well, Australia right now is 32, I think, right? Is that right, Martin? That's right, yeah. So there already is, yeah, we do have the Australian Championship Series. So is that ahead of criminals?
    42:21
    Yeah, it is. But as I was sort of saying, because there's one particular state which has so many more tournaments than others, in the top 32 right now, you probably have 70% to 80% of people are from this particular state, where if you do have state finals, you then do get even representation from each state. I think that's something we have in the U.S. that a lot of people don't like, but I really like is that, you know, while Zach and myself and Elwin and Werdrick and Lyman are all battling each other in Illinois, we're fighting for the one representation spot for Illinois. Yeah. There's been a lot of people that are like, hey, you know, Washington should get six spots because they have so many people and so many good players. And it's like the whole idea is that Nationals is not just another tournament where all of the good players are. it's really supposed to be this feeder system. But there is the other side of that also where if, say, like when Steve was in New Jersey, Steve could play in New Jersey, he could play in New York City because it was right across the border, and with Steve's talent could qualify in many places. Or, as you saw with other players, you know, one big tournament in North Carolina could make or break the whole, you know, North Carolina area if the guy wants to travel back down there. So now Steve is trying to come steal all of our money in New York City. I know, bastard. We're a lot closer. Guys, what's up? It's closer in New York than New Jersey. New Jersey's competition is like an hour and a half away, and New York's is the same. But since I'm in San Antonio, I have to fly in, which means no car. That's a long drive either way, Steve. That means no car. So no car means taking the train to New York is way easier. I agree. It has nothing to do with anything. I mean, I think the first year really showed that it worked. And then, you know, what Josh and those guys did, look how many people are playing in states that they normally wouldn't. I mean, New York confirmed already. Jerry Bernard is a Connecticut winner. Steve Bowen, you're playing. I'm assuming the Zollers are going to come in. Alberto, previous New Jersey state champions. Zeltman's playing. And then we've got people from upstate, people from the city. It's a good diversity of people.
    44:43
    So, Bruce, given that the Super League's gone, are you contemplating phasing out the Upstate League? No, not at all. Because actually people up here do enjoy it. Plus, it does... Because right now, the New York Finals is going to be Upstate, then New York City, Upstate, New York City alternating.
    45:06
    And for us, Upstate, You know, it actually, some people, it is a five-hour, six-hour drive if we have it, say, in Middletown one year. The California people are crying for you right now. No, I know. I know that. But guess what? We made our own way, and it actually works for us up here. But no offense, if I make the states for regular New York State, I'd be happy to go to New York City. I have no problem with that. Will I make it? Probably not. But anything's possible. the upstate tournament's a fun time too it is we have you know Steve's been in it twice you know Steve's crushed it two years and I've crushed it one year I don't know if Steve's gonna come up for the fourth one we don't know but we can have a new winner and that's really exciting and I don't know you'd have to fly in and take the train and take the Greyhound bus and then yeah really we have big cities up here it's a lot of work but um Steve beat Jeff Teolis in the finals Jeff who can't seem to join this call I keep adding him in, and then he's on and then drops off. That's because he knows I'm on.
    46:13
    Automatic teal is repellent? Is that what you're talking about? I have one more question for Martin. One more question. I'm feeling Australia right now. What do you think personally about a dollar fee within Australia? And second question, what do you think the global feedback would be from the player base if that was enacted out there Okay Well it interesting you ask that because that was going to be my next question to you I hope you don mind me asking this question beforehand because obviously the premise of the dollar game was to be able to then, my understanding was to be able to push money into the prize money and the promotion of tournaments, therefore growing the sport. Did that happen? And can you directly contribute those events happening to growing the hobby? No, no. Nothing's happened yet because we haven't given anything away yet. So, like, a lot of the stuff we do, like, that we've been copying from Big Buck Hunter is, like, I am a very patient person. So, like, we're 11 years in on Big Buck Hunter. where we just, my dad just finished writing our first press release for states that Zach will be sending out over the next couple of weeks. And, like, that will be the first sort of presentation to the world about, you know, the amount of money that's up for grabs on January 19th. So I think we're really close to seeing what kind of, I mean, we kind of get a feel with what, when Zach, you know, hits all the different media centers for every state every year, we sort of have a baseline of like how many stories we usually end up generating. And, you know, we'll use that sort of year to year average as our baseline to see like, were people more interested in hearing about it now this year? And then sort of were the stories more serious than they have been in the past when it comes down to sort of talking about what everyone is playing for and how not serious it was in the past or whatever. So we're like, we're close to sort of having our first data point of like, did this move any sort of social needle at all? Well, you did have higher amounts of players playing locally, like before Nationals. There's an increased amount of people playing in general, though, right, Josh? Yeah, I mean, that happened. But for us, you know, like we want outside money, and the growth and everything is great, and I sort of take that for granted at this point that, like, pinball is awesome, so it's just a matter of time as more and more people find it. you know, this experiment, and I know people hate me using the word experiment with this, but it really is about, like, how can we tickle the public consciousness at paying attention? And that has nothing to do with player growth. That has everything to do with getting a group of people that don't know we exist to sort of, like, give a half a shit about what's going on with us. Right. Yeah. Look, the event that I ran just over a month ago, we had prize money of about $3,000. And that was because every bit of money that went into the tournament, and it was kind of an Indy format. I completely ripped off the Indy format. So it was a large-scale format. But that $3,000 was just unheard of in an Australian tournament. and that's what got people's attention. So I'm just... We're obviously before the moment where you say, right, here's what's being pushed out to the community.
    49:51
    As far as a dollar per game, like, per entry, I don't think that really matters. I think a lot of people will either put up their entry fees per tournament and absorb it rather than sort of people sort of knowing that they're paying for it separately. But also, I like a lot of the pinball community. If people can see that the money is going back into the running of these things, people don't care whether it's $1 or $5.
    50:17
    Fair. Fair enough. Although, I mean, it's amazing the people that obviously were upset, they seemed even more upset that we were giving the money back rather than keeping it to operate. So I guess your mileage may vary. Sure.
    50:29
    Josh, I'm sold. You said you're taking money from me, but why aren't you keeping it? God. I literally got a tournament director yesterday who submitted his first results and, like, sent payment and was like, hey, I just wanted to let you know, I think you guys work really hard, and I think the $41 that we sent you is well-deserved to keep you guys running. And it was like, hey, thanks. Just wanted to clarify, like, I'm not keeping any of the $41. Like, it's all going back if this was in Indiana. It's like, you know, we're taking 75% of that. It's going to Indiana, and the rest is going to Vegas. you know no one likes to talk about competitive pinball which is why I'm going to leave and let you guys talk about future games that I can't comment on anyway well the question is are you making any interest on that money that's sitting there see there you go I am and it's amazing if you think about it right Nationals if you're at 18,000 and maybe that'll go up over 20 by the time all the last events And if that's the second most money in a tournament after Pinnberg, but only has 40-something players in it per person, that's the most money in a single event ever, right? I mean, Pinnberg's 100K, but it's got 850 people. If Nationals is at almost 20, but there's 40 people competing.
    51:48
    Yeah, we'll see. Someone out there will have to do sort of the expected return on your investment in attending Nationals. I don't know. Someone has to figure that out. So you can't tell us about Stellar Wars 2, Steve Ritchie's new game? Actually, if his game was unlicensed, Stellar Wars 2 would be impossible because you need to license it from Williams. That's true. Everyone's saying the Black Knight 3000 thing, and I'm like, wouldn't they have to, like, get permission from Williams for the Black Knight thing? Get permission or get sued? Yeah.
    52:19
    Well, how long does the copyright last in the United States now? Is it 37 years? Yeah, but it's Black Knight 2000. I'm talking about Stellar Wars. Stellar Wars is 79. Yes, I'm thinking you might be able to get away with Stellar Wars. Yeah, Stellar Wars. Right after Ed did it. It's like Chicago Gaming style. You crack the code. It's going to be a Y-body. It's Stern's first Y-body.
    52:43
    Is it going to be Stellar Wars 2, or is it just going to be like another version of Beatles on a Stellar Wars playfield? Maybe it'll be like a Stargazer or something. I think Stargazer is being saved for a Beatles psychedelic edition. Come on, we need another Starz. Just reuse Starz playfields or something. Oh, there you go. That'll be Home Model. That could be, what could they use that for? That could be Munster's Home Edition.
    53:07
    Oh, Bruce will like this. Somebody in the tournament I'm at today, I overheard CJ Smith said he stopped into the saloon, and it was the nicest stars he's ever played.
    53:16
    Oh, that's very nice. Thank you, CJ. Well, he hasn't seen Mrs. Pins or stored ones. That's true. Let's be fair. How's the stars coming along? It's done, right? uh ish you know ish it's mostly done it's mostly done have you played it yet we have we've played it a few times we need to replace the plug uh apparently we need three prongs instead of just two oh you've been talking to ron yeah not bruce that's for sure oh well sorry whoever i'm offending for whatever reason three versus two prongs makes no difference to me but apparently it's safer with three from what I've heard. Grounded. I like to remain grounded.
    54:02
    Bruce doesn't. Bruce doesn't care. Bruce likes to be the ground. He likes that tingle you get when you play the machine. Oh my.
    54:12
    It's a very weird sensation. Mrs. Payne, what you need to do is you need to sell that Starz Christmas sweater that you made. Oh, I mean, I could. I've gold-plated it already, so That could be difficult. I would buy one of those. I don't like Christmas letters. I would be happy to make you one if you really would like one. I can make that happen for you. No, Christmas is over next year. I hate to say the copyright for Stellar Wars will be going. I was totally wrong on the year. It is 90 years. Oh, good Lord. Damn. Might have to shoot for Airborne Avenger then. Put that money back in your wallet for an Avenger. That's not too much further back. That's only like a two-year-old. I know, but that's the oldest one he's got. We just got to cross our fingers and hope he can last.
    55:02
    How about Barracora? Josh, Roger could get that done, right? Barracora should come back. Who says it's not? Oh, okay. Boom. Sure.
    55:13
    Barracora 2, the fish returns. I don't think so. Barracora 2, we'll rip off some other artwork and get something going. I crashed at Steve Epstein's once for a tournament, and I went downstairs, and there was one in the basement. And I was like, oh, my God, is this like the prototype? Is this the original? He's like, no, I bought another one. I was like, damn. We need more green penises.
    55:32
    What does that have to do with it? Because he's been wrong over. I'm going to take my green penis and get without you guys. Happy New Year, everybody. Happy New Year. Bye. It's the Easter. Bye. I'm going to go do the rest of this and tell Jeff Teolas to go fuck himself. Later, y'all.
    55:55
    I'm going to head out also, but happy New Year's, everybody. I knew something was missing in my life, and now I remember it. I haven't been on the show in months. I really missed hearing Bruce talk about penises, obviously. Of course. Wow. Green penises. Green. Yes. Be precise. Oh, boy. Well, speaking of the green penis game, we had a poll.
    56:22
    Yeah, we're getting our asses fucking kicked. We're getting destroyed. Had a poll about green penises?
    56:28
    Oh, some people on this podcast voted the wrong way. Hmm. Sounds suspicious. It does. So what was the poll, Bruce, for those who may not have heard the last episode? three games of sterns that we chose against three games of ballys that Martin and Ryan chose. And right now we are getting crushed and people on this podcast chose poorly.
    57:00
    They're laughing in the background chuckling because I think they realized that they've chosen poorly.
    57:06
    Is that a tie? Is that a tie, Crystal? It doesn't sound very remorseful And this is also This is also somebody who owns a classic Stern electronics game So Now you have to sell it I guess I have to sell it Be gone Hang on I need to go vote on this Well what were the games Bruce We still haven't said that Stern was Stars Quicksilver and Stargazer Verse Centaur, 8-Ball Deluxe, and Paragon. And we are actually catching back up now.
    57:44
    We're now at 61% to 39%. We're not catching up, Bruce. That's creative statistics, Bruce. We're down 69% to 31%. So we have gone up 8 points. I think most of the voting is completed, Bruce. I think it's over. No, you don't realize what Bruce's next game is going to be in the next day or two. Going on Pinside, and posting it to the Stern Electronics Group post page, and then we'll see some numbers bump up. What did that mean? Yeah, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? They actually have in the forums a Stern Electronics only part where they talk about all old Sterns. Oh, a club. Yes. So there we go. We kicked a poll into that.
    58:34
    We'll get our votes. Voting for votes. So you think that the Sun Electronics Club is going to turn out and give you the votes you need? Or get us closer. I mean, they are superior games, though. They are, exactly.
    58:46
    Come on. It was a really fun debate. But you guys had an uphill fight, and you tried really hard, but it just wasn't right. I just put my vote in. Oh, boy.
    59:04
    I mean, Stars alone is better than those other three games. Come on. Exactly. Come on. Really, though? Yeah. No?
    59:14
    Stars better than all three of those games? All the games were good. All of them were good. I will give you that. But I voted Valley. Oh. Yeah.
    59:25
    Oh. Stars. I love Stern games, but Spentar, 8-Ball Deluxe, and Paragon are three of my favorites. I mean, Head to Head took two of the Class of 81, and you honestly, I'm sorry, guys. It's Class of 81. It's the only thing that gets to be called by its own year. It's Bally's Class of 81. Yeah, that's right. I absolutely agree. Okay, Embryon's in the Class of 81. I never heard that addition. Yeah. Well, they only got to go with three. That's right. I would have loved to have seen Embryon in there instead of Paragon. I think, like, Fireball 2 is also in the Class of 81. So, you know, all the class of 81 stuff. Not every 81 is going to be a signing gym, but 8-Ball Deluxe, Flash Gordon, Fathom, Centaur. I mean, come on. But the class of Stern 80 is very impressive, too. Fathom is so overrated. It's a good year. It's a good year, but I'm sorry, guys. You know what the best thing about Fathom is? They ripped off the top part of the play field and put it on 8-Ball Champ. You got it. That's it. That's how good it is. No, no, it sucks so bad. They needed it, you know, maybe we can salvage this game. So that's what they did, yeah. But that's also, I feel, why Martin was very smart, and he rejected Ryan's insistence on replacing Fathom, and instead stuck with 8-Ball Deluxe, which is a better game.
    60:49
    I did explain that in paragraph four of my... Of your novel? Yeah, I know. I'm just trying to be thorough. The summary really is, and it's kind of what Dennis was saying as well, these games aren't bad. None of these games are bad, and I love sternal electronics games. I really do. The premise of the whole argument was not that ballys are the best, therefore stern are crap. The premise of the discussion was, Ryan, stop buying these stern machines and maybe buy a bally machine of this era because you're missing out on some great games because you're only going Stern after Stern. That was my point.
    61:34
    Yeah, Ron and Bruce, you guys basically set Ryan down a dark path. Not dark because Stern is dark, but dark because Ryan doesn't really like Stern electronics games, but because you keep saying they're so great, he's just going to keep butting his head up against every single one he can find. He can't find them and doesn't play them. Except, let him go. Well, if he was that naive, as you're stating, he would have bought at least two or three Magic Girls by now.
    62:03
    No, it's obviously because he was probably not alive in 1981, so he wouldn't really have any, certainly no nostalgia for these machines, so he's therefore going to go on people's opinions of these machines, and yours is obviously a very loud opinion on these Stern Electronics. And they are great games. I get that they're great games. Well, I will say one thing. It's the here about Bally's as well. But I will say one thing. I remember in the 81, 82, what I was playing more than anything else. Here we go. Sinbad. That was the number one game I was playing back in 80 and 81.
    62:44
    Okay. Flash Gordon for me. The local arcade had a Sinbad. That's a Gottlieb, though. And they had also, I hate to say it, Ron, here we go. Yeah? Ocean Encounters and the Third Kind. Oh, God.
    62:57
    So what did that tell you? You think Gottlieb? And you liked it? Back then, that's the only thing we had in our local James Way arcade. Yeah, everywhere here, too. Gottlieb was dominant. Their production numbers were still really high at the start of Solid State, so I'm not surprised. until people realize, man, these suck. What the hell? Why am I buying this turd? Let me play Flash with this background sound, and I'm going to play this Gottlieb that's just beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Like, what is this shit? No, no, this isn't, no. They failed so hard at the solid state game. They never recovered either. They went from king to, like, shit.
    63:36
    Totally agree. But since we have everyone on, we're at the end of the year. let's say what we thought of like the games that came out this year we had Iron Maiden we had Beatles we had what Mafia what else came out Alice Cooper Deadpool Pirates I think that's it Deadpool forgot Stern's gotta be multiples of course Primus okay no actual new games I'm curious on, do we count Houdini? They shipped it right at the end of December, but it's mostly a swing. No, enough Houdini. Talked about Houdini last year.
    64:18
    As you wish. When you go to a lot of shows, I played Houdini like two years ago, three years ago it seems. I mean, it just, no. But they skipped the Whitewoods stage. Yeah, they did, and it shows. Apparently there is a Houdini just down the road from me in one town over at a bowling alley. I just found this out just a couple days ago. I've got to go down there and try it. I couldn't believe that it was actually on location somewhere in a bowling alley. Ryan, were your ears burning?
    64:45
    G'day, lads. Were your ears burning? We're going over what we thought of all the games that came out this year. And we were just talking about you. Sure.
    65:00
    You'll have to listen back. Okay, Ryan, since you just joined, what do you think of the games this year? none of them were really for me but they're still pretty good right surely wow that's your career in politics that was a very yeah political answer i mean it was i guess the other day i was playing pirates of the caribbean and i was absolutely blown away by everything that is in that machine and then just two meters away was an Iron Maiden and you can't help but feeling that there's like something missing in those games hardware wise but then you have to snap yourself out of it and say no like the game all the shots are still there on the play field it's just that you know Pirates of the Caribbean has these these big necks and uh you know the rocking ship and at the Whirlpool, the Maelstrom, but it still makes you feel like you're getting, I guess, more value for money when you see those things versus just art and shots. You're also paying a hell of a lot more money. You are. Well, I mean, the alley in Australia is like $13,000. The alley of Pirates of the Caribbean is, I think, $14,500. So it's a $1,500 difference. Isn't the C-E the L-E version of the JJ2 games, though? Yeah, true, true. Yeah. Hey, Bruce, what did you think of the games that came out this year?
    66:35
    Iron Maiden Rocks. What are you, Zach? Maybe. My God. Hey, Keith, that was Crystal. Enough said. Keith already knows about how I think of that game it's okay, I actually like Archer more I've never played Archer so I've seen a lot it plays really well, it's great you don't like the theme? I don't care about the theme honestly like I just don't like the four flippers I think it's something that kind of feels a little bit clunky to me even though the shots to the loop are super smooth and great I don't know. It's just, yeah, I don't know. It wasn't for me. You're in Logan Arcade, right? So you watch, surely you have a lot of noobs there that come and play pinball. Do noobs, like, actually use the top two flippers or just the bottom two and that's it?
    67:38
    I haven't really seen a lot of noobs play. There's a lot of people who come to the arcade who are, like, pretty amazing players, actually. so um but yeah no i haven't seen anybody really really use them i don't know okay we were playing this last night and somebody's actually had uh the premium in their collection for a couple of months and he said i just don't play it because i don't understand how to play it so i went through the rules i know right me i went through the rules but because i own the machine at least i know the rules of this and there was there was probably about eight people all around hearing the rules. And as soon as I finished, rather than people going, oh, yeah, I can't get it, people just said, how is anybody supposed to understand these rules just by walking up to this machine? Yeah. That's why you have a video on the screen now where it shows how to get multiball and everything else.
    68:34
    See, that's crazy to me because I feel like Keith made the game in a way that, you know, Keith and Stern made the game in a way that they wanted people to be able to step up and play, you know, like layman's kind of thing. Just like, okay, yeah, I got a multi-ball. Cool. Like, shoot around. And I don't know. It's, yeah. Well, for a crystal, most people do play that way. Yeah. When they get a multi-ball and first things you hear out of their mouth, oh, my God, there are so many balls.
    69:03
    Thank you. And that made their day. It does make their day. So if you go by, you know, what they're trying to goal, the goal of it is that's a perfect goal. Yeah. They just fulfilled that goal and made people maybe want to play another game or play a different game and try to do the same thing. Okay. What does everyone else think of Iron Maiden? We'll do it that way. We'll just go through one game at a time. I like it.
    69:29
    I love it. I think it's fantastic. I think it's the best thing Stern's done this year, to be honest. Why? because the thing I've said this on my show before the thing I like about it is when you play it no matter what you shoot you're doing something, you're gaining something as opposed to some shots like oh I made this ramp and I got 5,000 points. To a certain degree that's a sales pitch but once you finish most of the power features then there are shots that will do absolutely nothing. Like once you finish your third mode and you finish like the Super Orbits or Super Spinners, you can make shots that mean nothing. Like, that's only up to a certain point. That's their sales pitch. But it's not true for the entire game, full stop. And here's the guy that hardly gets to the entire game. Oh!
    70:21
    No, that's me. That's me. I never, you know, I don't do a whole lot with this game. But I like the sound. I'm not an Iron Maiden fan, but I like the music because it seems to fit pinball. I like the shots feel good. I like the upper loop. I like the shot into the sarcophagus. And the guy that does the call-outs on it, his voice is fantastic. It was just perfect for the machine. Rick Zayth, yeah, he's amazing. He did the call-outs in Batman as well, and you wouldn't be able to tell because they're completely different. He's so diverse. His voice has so many different ranges. It's great. I think it's – I love the shots. It plays great. I love the call-outs, the sound, even the videos okay.
    71:07
    I feel I'm in multiball too much. As for the video, I wish they'd left Keith Elwin in the video instead of taking him out. He's in there.
    71:15
    Did the code update, didn't he come out? No, he came out, but they put him back in in a rotation now. Every so many times you get there, you'll see him running. Yeah. Gotcha. No.
    71:25
    Overall, great art package, great call-outs. I like the sounds. I like the layout. I like that it doesn't look like a cookie-cutter stern. I like that it feels like the pro wasn't skimped on. You know, you got all the flippers and everything. I don't like the code set. I think it's too much of a woodchopper. So for the rules reason, it's not a favorite of mine. Also, I hate it in tournament. It plays way too long. Play the one at the sanctum, and you'll be all done with time. Well, how about this? Keith made a point about the fact that Iron Maiden... There's no point in having 18 modes or whatever. You just have five really good ones, kind of like Walking Dead. So what do people think about the modes in Iron Maiden versus something? I'm not sure how much time you guys have had on Pirates of the Caribbean, but when I was playing it the other day, there's 120-something modes and they mean nothing because it's all the same, you shoot the flashing light. But it kind of means that if you like that style of play, and in Star Trek, you can't get sick of that. You can't get sick of shooting the flashing light. But if you have five distinct modes, if you get into a mode that you don't like, you can kind of be like, well, now I have to play this mode that I don't like.
    72:37
    Yeah, it is my problem with it. So, you know, I think everyone knows I am pretty much going to trade it for a Munsters. the problems I have with the modes are that there's six of them effectively if you count two minutes to midnight if you can get there the two of those modes are multiballs they should not have done that that's one thing I think right now have your multiballs or have your modes don't have modes that are multiballs because you can't stack them with anything and the whole idea of this game is stacking modes with multiballs one of the modes Flight of Icarus I think is too hard, it is literally combo ramps, left right, left right and you can really only do that in single ball play so that's a bit of a bummer there, Fear of the Dark when you get that with the multi ball is fantastic but here's my overall problem with this game is Groundhog Day every time I start the machine I'm doing the same thing. It's not like I can look at it and say I am now going to do something different. It's literally start, get to edit letters, get a mode, get a multi-ball, rinse and repeat. Isn't that every game, mate? No, no, no, it's not. If you think about the comparisons I obviously have are Wizard of Oz, you can attack that many different ways. You can start something different. Sure, you're probably ending at the same point, but you're starting a different way.
    74:17
    Star Trek is, as you sort of said before, it's kind of the same in that you're doing the same thing, but shots are random, so it feels like you're doing something different. It's, you know, an artificial sense that you're doing something different. Lord of the Rings, my other game, you can attack that many different ways.
    74:35
    So has Mrs. Penn played Iron Maiden? Yes, I have. So what do you think? I like Iron Maiden. I feel like the, I like the shots. I think they're nice and smooth. Like I call it a butter machine because it's like nice, like smooth like butter. There's no saucer. You can't saucer it. What is, where are all of the new machines with the saucers? I freaking love a saucer. Anyways, I like Iron Maiden a lot. I don't love the music, so that part of it doesn't really draw me in. But I think it's a fun game. As somebody who is just more of a recreational player, I think Iron Maiden is fun. Would I own it? No. Do I play it when I go to an arcade? Yes. You're a recreational player? Because I hear your last podcast about how you were winning, and you were all about competition. Oh, my God. Well, but then I totally choked, and my husband kicked my ass, and it was awful.
    75:34
    So now I'm back to playing recreationally. And you can hear about it on the latest Mrs. Penn's Pinball Podcast.
    75:42
    Mrs. Penn, you are no longer allowed to say that you are a rookie. Chased my mind. I agree. I feel like once you hit 50 episodes, it's... You have been through the fire. You have been crucified, baptized, whatever you want to... You are one of us. Steve, are you revealing some fire and brimstone modes to us right here? Oh, God.
    76:05
    It's no code. I mean, you know, I haven't said much, but, you know, there will be some coded messages. What do you think of Maiden, or are you not allowed to say? Oh, Maiden is great. Maiden, I love Maiden. I think the reason why, I mean, this is just speculation of how I would think. The reason why those two other modes have multiballs in them is to increase the chance of a new player getting multiball because they have no idea what the heck is going on. so the way the game starts with all the white arrows lit so the new player can just shoot the center shot and so there's a two out of five chance of you getting a multiball of one of those. So it increases the new player of getting multiball so it increases the chance of them enjoying multiball which then increases the chance of them putting that second dollar in the machine. Yeah. That's why there's two extra multiballs there. Now see, that's what I think is something that's missing on The Walking Dead because I don't think that's friendly to any newcomer. No, you die. Walking Dead, just die and leave.
    77:05
    Walking Dead's got the bash toys to be the noob targets, as dangerous as they are. Well, one of them is, but the house wants you dead more than Sparky. Yeah, and I fall for the house. Yeah, the house will just take it and grab it and then place it straight down the middle. I mean, they don't just say, look, it's going down the middle. It's all like, not my house. And it's gone. And definitely so if the house doesn't work. Right, right. Do you think we should get to a point where, like, I don't know, like you start a game and it asks if you want to be, like, newbie mode or expert mode?
    77:40
    I'd be all for that. Don't they have that? Oh, probably very good. Well, I thought they were supposed to do that, but did they ever do it? I mean, is it ever on newbie mode? I think it's newbie mode by default. On one setting it was by default, but Magic Girl has that setting, right, Steve? arcade mode and some other modes.
    78:03
    Yeah, I'm not aware of those settings on Magic Girl. By the time it goes through me, it won't have that.
    78:10
    That's the hard thing, right? I mean, it's probably impossible to create the perfect rule set for everyone because half the people are buying in for their house and don't want to see multiple all the time. Half the people want to put it in an arcade and want to track the movies. Right, it is a certain balance. The balance is very tough, and some could say impossible. But, yeah, it is tough to build. I mean, you think about pirates. Pirates has – try to explain someone pirates, and you can confuse them into submission. But I just – when someone asks me, I just tell them, pick a lane and stay in it, and you'll have fun with it. You have five lanes. Pirates has five modes, and they're the multiballs. So pick one, pick a lane. I usually tell them to pick the guy who makes the outer loop easier. whoever he is. I've not watched any of the movies so I don't care. But he's the guy that makes multiball four easier. So I say pick him and shoot the loop until multiball starts. Trust me, it will. You're telling noobs to shoot inner loops. That's the hardest thing to do. Not that one. You see the size of that thing? That's huge. It's huge for a reason.
    79:22
    Isn't there a game that gave you an option of you're going to have three balls or you're going to have to play a timed game Yeah, Whodunit did that. Whodunit has knobbed it in regular. It gives you three minutes to guarantee. I think that's something that should have stuck. The time-based stuff never seems to stick. Whodunit tried it. You had, what was the Gottlieb one? Operation Thunder. You run out of fuel, but it's basically a time-based thing. They had, was it James Bond or one of them? Yeah, the Gottlieb Bond. They did different code with, you know, it made a three ball instead. It hasn't really worked well. I think,
    80:01
    what was the Capcom one? Kingpin. They originally started to program it as a time-based game, but it just, they decided not to. Safecracker. Safecracker is one. Yeah. Oh yeah, Safecracker is, yeah. Who here has played Pirates? You. I have. I played for a hot minute at Expo. Yeah, same here. Yeah, and that's, I played a bit, I played a bit six hours the other day, and it was one more game, one more game, and I stayed till like 2 a.m. playing it. It was so addictive. And that whole thing about plundering ruins the game, this, this and that, as I said, it's a balance. Yes, if you're playing in a tournament, then you don't want that stuff in there, but playing against three other people and having that plunder feature is absolutely hilarious. It depends who you play with. If you're playing with serious people, I get it, but I was playing with three really kind of like, just like blokes, all of them just like average guys, average players and the pondering thing was hilarious and I haven't had that much fun playing pinball in years. I'll exaggerate and say years. I learned that Carl D'Angelo is really good at it and don't play him on it or you will get destroyed as I did at Expo. I played it at TPF but that means I've only played the prototype. I really feel like if you play it on fight or you play it at a show, you're really not going to get the true experience. And I get that with every game, but I think Pirates really lends itself well to playing it at someone's house where you're not under time restrictions and people aren't behind you and it's not noisy. Say what you will about it being too complicated and all the nuanced rules are insane, but discovering the game I think is fun. Ryan, did you leave the option on to plunder balls from other players or was it just points and other things? I didn't muck around with the settings. It wasn't my machine, but yeah, plunder balls was on and the most hilarious thing was I went first most of the time and yeah, plundering balls from someone who hasn't started playing yet is truly the meanest thing you can do. Absolutely. I was wondering why no one got upset. It's like, what do you mean I only have two turns left? I haven't even started. Or maybe they were too drunk to know or whatever. I don't know what the situation was. That was a funny thing. It was that when it's time to plunder something of someone, sometimes the funniest option is not to go for the obvious one. Like, I was on one million points or something, and it was, you know, stealing, say, 30,000 points. You know, so they chose to steal off a person who was on 15,000. They start ball two or three at zero. Right. It's funny to pick on someone, I guess.
    82:49
    All right. So probably not too many people here play Pirates. Like I said, I only played it at Expo. Bruce probably hasn't played it at all. Nope. No interest.
    83:00
    No interest. Like you won't even give it a chance. It has a button. Oh, stop. Stop. Fine. Then pick the dude who you only have to hit the button once. They have a guy for that. Well, there's the gold. So he won't get any gold. He won't get any gold if he doesn't hit the button. No, there's a character. It's one button press and you get everything. Again, I don't know who it is because I don't care because I haven't seen the movies. I just know that there's a guy that does that. So the movie sets an app for that, man. Right. You're covered.
    83:33
    Oh, terrible versus. Now, the snore sound is because it's a wide body, and I do sympathize with that concern.
    83:40
    But I think it's, from what I played of it, I thought the layout took that space and did what it could to make it flowy. But without having played the finalized version, I don't really want to comment more on it. So what do we think of Deadpool?
    83:56
    I like it. I just played a few hours of Deadpool yesterday and definitely had some fun with it. It can get to, yeah, I was upset that I only stuck to the Meg suit once, I think, per game, unless I was missing something because I wanted to do that again. But then it gets to a point where it's just get bonus a lot. But I still had fun with it I had more fun with it than I mean the code does help it Having those weapons checkpoints Where if you get a certain number of weapons You get extra ball That was a natural addition I was hoping that would go in there But yeah I'm still having fun with it But yeah eventually I get the ball three I check on my weapons And then my bonus says Oh I still have 13 million in bonus Just for stepping up Alright I'm just going to bonus X until I'm dead And there's where your high scores come from So I guess that'll get fixed in the next version. They won't hold the weapons over, maybe. I mean, that's kind of weird. It's like now that I'm thinking in this rules way, I check in my bonus, my ball three, and meanwhile I've collected a bonus of like $200 million, and then I look at it and it's, oh, your bonus is $44 million before we've been plunged. And half of me is saying, oh, great, that's awesome. And the other half of me is saying, oh, no, why is it already $40 million and I haven't started? so like that's bad but that's great but that's bad so but other than that yeah it's still fun everyone's just smiling and nodding their head because they don't know any of these rules yeah I guess I spent a couple hours yesterday so I was still fresh in my mind so yeah when you play Deadpool you used to collect weapons like you remember you would go into the hole and then you would get I guess it's called the hell house hole or something and you would collect it and he would come up with these weapons and you'd be like there's a weaponator I like weapons, things like that and you would just get points and that's it now if you get 45 of those you get another multiball but it's separate by itself you'll get it you'll just get weapons by shooting things combos right the more combos you get you build it up and you collect it at the scoop any combo gets a weapon get the scoop to cash it in, 45 of them will start the mech suit multiball, which is just a fun little shoot four shots to beat people down and he's in a mech suit shooting people and they're all next to him trying to get him in classic Deadpool fashion. It's weird. It's been out for months, but I still feel like I can't judge it until it's properly complete. Kind of like Guardians of the Galaxy. It's not going to have that transformation that that game had, But, I don't know, I don't feel like playing Spurn games anymore until they're complete. That's tough. That's tough to judge. I mean, you kind of have to do a re-review every time because, you know, of the new things that open up every time. So, especially with Deadpool, like, Deadpool still seems like it's incomplete, but it's still fun. It doesn't have to be a huge, you know, a huge rule set for it to be fun.
    87:05
    I have a love-hate relationship with that lock ramp. I love the design. I love when I make, love when I get the, I do the super skill shot and can actually nail it. It goes all the way around. It feels fantastic. But, boy, it's the worst feeling ever when it clunks around in there and comes right back down to the drain. Especially when you make a solid shot, right in the middle. Oh, it's good. And it just goes click. Oh, no. And then you make another one and it just barely makes it. Yes, I got it done. For every time I miss, when I hit, I'm like, okay, that's great. And then I miss. I'm like, this sucks. Steve, what do you think about the multipliers? Since you're probably the only player that could Consistently hit it if you wanted to Right, you know Well, I guess in the latest version The multipliers have been nerfed I guess they don't last as long Maybe that was just the setting that I was playing But I know when I would get like a 2x or a 3x It would go away pretty quickly So I appreciated that Were you randomly getting it from like being in multi-ball Or did you actively go for the shot? I would say most of the time it was random There were a few times When I purposely tried to glance it off the target And get it to bounce up there And it did work But most of the time it randomly went up there Because I was just concentrating on something else Mostly I was just concentrating on getting bonus eggs Because I just wanted the bonus To count up to an obnoxious amount So I could just let it run for like an hour You know Because of the way the bonus counts up So I'm just like oh I just want to get like 8x bonus So it says like 200 million, so it'll just count for like five minutes. But yeah, most of the time it would be by accident where I would hear the snicked sound effect. I would hear it. I would hear Wolverine do his claws, and then it would sometimes work.
    88:47
    But yeah, only like a few times where I did it on purpose. I wish I could play this in somebody's home because every time I play it on location, I can't hear a damn thing, and I want to hear all the sounds that it's making. But my wearing headphones for work for 20 years, I don't hear anywhere near as well as I used to. I'm sure that the call-outs and everything are great, but I haven't heard a damn one of them. Yeah, that would be turned out. Not only that, but a lot of the times you go on location and the operators don't have it set up or it's been moved around so much that it's not set up the way it's supposed to be. Seven degrees and the SNCC target is level with the play field and just exactly right, which is the best way for it to be played. which I guess can be said for any pinball anywhere, but I know that... So don't forget to WD-40 around. When he said that, I was like, WD-40 near my pinball machine? No, no, no, no, no, no. It kind of scared me a little bit because I heard that you're not supposed to do that, but I guess... That could have been one of the twerpy drama categories, the WD-40 incident. We have two on location. We have a pro and we have a premium. I like this game, actually. I find it more approachable than Iron Maiden. I like the animation style, the 16-bit they went with. Big throwback to my fighting game days.
    90:12
    Nolan North, who I've heard voice Deadpool for years in video game media. So to me, the whole Ryan Riddles thing was silly. Nolan North was Deadpool long before. And I like, again, that it's not one of the cookie-cutter fan layouts. They did something different. And the least favorite part, though, is I don't like that right-orbit shot. It feels bad to me, especially when it falls in the shooter lane. But, eh, minor complaint. Yeah, code needs to get there a little further. I did play it on the new code two days ago, though, on the premium version, and it was on location, and people were at that game all night dropping in quarters. So it's resonating, at least with the cast. Has anyone else seen a copy that the bobblehead has actually fallen off? Because that's what's happened here in Portland. Not yet. No. Just a little Deadpool in just a spring.
    91:07
    That's tragic. That's so bubbly by the way. I would be tempted to get a Star Wars TIE Fighter and glue it there instead. Who are all these voices on my computer?
    91:25
    Is that Jeff Teolis of the Pinball Profile? Who is this? Wow, it's Jeff Teolis. Hi, Jeff. I think I heard Ron. I think I heard Crystal. It's spelled with a C or a K. No one knows for sure. I thought I heard Dennis.
    91:39
    Who else is on here? We have Jeff. The other Jeff. Which one? There's several. Jeff 1.0. We have Ryan C. We have Martin.
    91:49
    Hello. We have Mrs. Pin. Wow, Mrs. Pin. How'd you get away from... I got a Christmas card from you and Pinside Petey. Yeah. That's pretty... I don't know if it was real or not, but anyway, it looked good. How's everyone doing?
    92:02
    We're doing great. I can't stay long. I heard this was your last show, so I've called a few of my contacts, and I'm going to reach out to them now, and they're going to join you in a little bit, okay? Last weekly show. No, that's it, actually. Call the day. It's... By the way, Jeff, Josh was here earlier and he said fuck off. He did. Wow. That's a quote. That's a quote to him. That's a quote, by the way, yes.
    92:28
    Hey, Steven. Hey. Well, on that note, I'm sad and I'll leave because I didn't know Josh had anything against me. I made t-shirts for the guy for crying out loud. Okay.
    92:40
    Okay, bye, Jeff. See you later. I gotta go. Hey, congrats, guys. See you later. Take care.
    92:47
    He didn't really leave, did he? As Pinsley Petty would say. He did leave. Did he really? Yeah. What's going on, Jeff?
    93:01
    Who might this be? Hello. Who is this? Oh, my. I heard there were a lot of guys And the word slam and I had to join We finally got them on
    93:24
    I'm so happy we finally got George Takei on. How did you hear about our show? I thought it was about Star Trek. I was obviously mistaken.
    93:38
    So I must leave now, but live long and prosper. Target that explosion in fire. Yeah, okay. Feasers. Wow.
    93:54
    Everything's happening here. This is incredible. I hope that one of Teal's friends is not Pennside PD, because I swear to God, if that guy comes on here... How good was he doing the turkeys, though? He was very, very good. That was so smart. Fucking classic. It was 900 IQ there.
    94:14
    Yeah. I don't think he actually plays much pinball, if we're really honest. I think he's just, you know, a person with an opinion and a platform, but not really gets to play much pinball. I think he only has room in his apartment for one pinball, really.
    94:33
    At his mom's house, you mean? Wow. Hey, I only have room in my apartment for one pinball. Oh, that's the trick. Yeah, but you do have a pinball in there. I do have one. It's not mine. Uh-oh. Yeah, it's not mine. I'm borrowing. Oh, there we go. Someone's on the line. I hope it's a kiss machine.
    94:55
    Gene Simmons! It's going to be International Pinball Sensation, Gene Simmons. There's two pinball machines to choose from, so you can take the classic or you can take the new one from Stern.
    95:06
    Which do you have, Gene? Both? I have both, of course. How about you? I don't have either. They suck. Well, you can buy them when you see Kiss on tour. The end of the road tour, we're going to be playing for ten straight years.
    95:22
    Paul will be dead for the last four of them. It wouldn't ever end. You can buy the tickets now. I would strongly suggest buying them. They're going to sell out, and if they don't sell out, we're going to play there anyway, and we're going to give the comps to people. It's going to be a great show. You're going to enjoy seeing all the Kiss classics. There's so many to choose from. And Ron, on behalf of the Kiss Army, please stop fucking doing my impression.
    95:48
    Yes, sir. That is all. Gene, what's Love Gun Multiple about? It's not multiple, sorry, the lyrics of the song. What's it about? There's a super jackpot. Do you know about it?
    96:02
    No. Well, to Love Gun, if you play the flippers with your dick, you're going to get high school. That's the Kiss way. That's the Love Gun. Go to kissonline.com for more Thank you, Rock-On Rock and Roll is dead, but not Kiss We will live forever, goodbye Bye Gene The true master of the single entendre Okay, well we were talking about Deadpool Well Bruce, you think it's clunky I do, I do, I do Did Bruce like any Pimoma Shades this year? He just liked Iron Maiden. That's right. He just saved like Iron Maiden. And Ryan doesn't know the news that we're getting a Beatles at the bar.
    96:51
    For Ron's dad? Yeah, right. So when, let's see, who here has played Beatles? Me. I've played Beatles. I have. See which doesn't count, right? I have not played Beatles. See which does not count, but it's close. But it doesn't count. Beep, beep, beep. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. So what do we think of Beatles? Or Roos. This was fun. I thought it was a good game. Ask me Thursday. I went to the Arch.
    97:20
    Where's Christopher Frenchy? Is Christopher Frenchy here today? We can't make it, Pam. Oh, no. Oh, hi, Petey. Hey, how you doing? I'm good. How are you?
    97:38
    Did you get my Christmas card? Yes, I did. I made it into a mattress. Oh. Flattering and creepy all at the same time. Shit.
    97:54
    It's like we're cuddling. Oh, that's special, too. What were you thinking, a glory hole? I'm not that kind of pervert. Thank God.
    98:06
    We were. I have to know. Anyway, you were talking about the Beatles. What a shitty game. Why don't you do a real good band? What have they ever done? When the fuck is Wang Chung going to come out?
    98:27
    Everybody, Wang Chung tonight. Multi-ball. Anyway, I'm just here to say so long to Slam Tilt. Glad you're calling it a day. and one other thing. Fuck off!
    98:40
    Bye, Petey. Bye, Winnerspan. Bye. Hey, Petey. What? Fuck off! That might be the creepiest thing I've heard all day.
    99:03
    The peachy voice always reminds me of those cabbage packs. Our garbage pail kids. No, no. They're all high school. Mrs. Penn, how does Dr. Penn keep his manhood with so many people trying to, you know, take you away from him? Oh, I mean, Petey is a threatening dude. He is. So it is, it's sometimes difficult. I've got to talk him off the ledge, but he manages just fine. I give Dr. Penn a lot of credit.
    99:30
    You know, he's a great guy. What can I say? Um, Bruce, you know this is getting very weird. I'm just asking, what's going on in this program? Getting weird? Is that the best cartoon you can do? Oh, boy. That's pretty good right there. Very good, very good. Yo, you'll share, what have you been on, like 30 years? I mean, come on, come on, it's time to move on. Please. Family Guy ripped off a Simpsons, you know that. Oh, fuck you. That was a good Krusty Very good Krusty That was actually a very good Krusty Alright guys, I've got to go I will listen to the rest of this later Thanks everybody and have a great new year Bye Marty Bye guys Guys, I also have to run and put my children to bed Ah, now we know why she's kept it clean Mm-hmm The truth comes out They're currently fine, they're good But currently not screen time. Currently fine. That's probably about the time that I need to go upstairs. So this has been fun, though, and I'll talk to you all later. Thank you. Bye.
    100:42
    Guys, I got nothing better to do. I'm here for the restoration. Hey, I'm back. I just heard Parsons on there, so you can represent the Jeffs, okay, unless you can get Patterson on or Riviera or some of the other Jeffs. Guys, I got a boogie. Thank you very much for everything you've done for Slam Tilt. You guys rock. I heard Martin just leave, so I'll say this with him gone. I know Ryan's here. Those pricks stole everything from you. There would not be a head-to-head if it wasn't for Slam Tilt. I look forward to you. You know, they'll be special when they come out. So thanks very much for everything you do, Ron and Bruce. And love you guys, man. Thank you. Thank you very much. Got a boogie. See you, guys. See you. Good job. Bye.
    101:23
    They're dropping like flies. Nice. There must have been no one I wanted to talk about Mafia next.
    101:30
    Are you going to start with which of us have played Mafia, Ron? I played it. Okay, I guess that's it. And we're done. Wait a minute, Crystal didn't play it? It was right there. Played Mafia? I played Mafia. There you go. Yeah, I liked it, but I didn't like it for 70, what was it, 7,500? Exactly. Or more like 10,000. Oof. Woo. Yikes. Hard pass. Hard pass? Hard pass. 75 bills, yeah. Yeah. I mean, what other games are there to talk about? That was about it.
    102:06
    I mean, Oktoberfest is coming out. Cosmic Heart Racing. P3. Who's played that? Yeah. I played it. Yep. What did you think? It confused me.
    102:23
    It was at TPF still. So it was only about 50% code progress. So you need to bear that in mind. Mechanically, I think the module is really cool. It has this magnetic ball lock in the, I guess, sort of a ramp chamber, which traps up multiple balls. So it builds up. It looks really cool. It's supposed to be like kart racing, like Mario Kart racing, but I was confused on how I was. I guess I was to shoot the green arrows, but in some way you're interfering with the other racers. It was not spelled out. Overall, I think they need another, I'm using air quotes, real pinball game, another traditional pinball game. And that's not it. It's a gimmick style that I think works with the platform in the way that the minigames work with the platform. The mechanics are cool, but I think the mechanics on Multimorphic P3 are all cool. They need a killer app still. I've been saying it for quite a while, and that didn't change my mind. And I guess it makes more sense now that it's finalized in terms of code from what I'm hearing from others who have played it. But just not – there's just nothing there yet that makes me go, oh, I love it. I like a lot about it, but there's just nothing that just really pushes it home for me. I also played it at TPF. That's where I guess most of us got our time from it. Yeah, it was basically shoot the greens to go ahead in the race, avoid the reds. Oh, yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I did play that. Yeah, you play versus mode, and you can use powers against your opponent. There was a center target in the middle that if you hit that, you get a power-up, or you avoid someone's attack against you. And so you can either get speed, you can attack the other player by giving them red shots, things like that. You can slow them down in your virtual track. Shooting green sped you up, and shooting red slowed you down. And you can even stop if you're not shooting anything. So that was part of the attacks and things. So you can alternate between shooting shots and hitting the center to get your power up or use it or bank it or save it for later. But, yeah, you've got to do it in versus mode. Otherwise, it's not really worthwhile. But, yeah, make sure you get at least a couple of players to play with you, which does require more than one game. So, you know, but I did have fun when I remember. I didn't remember having a lot of fun when I played it at TPF. But, yeah, it's wipeout XL pinball. I've only played Lexi Lightspeed, I think I played it when it was very new at Replay FX, maybe three or four years ago, and it just doesn't feel like pinball to me I know they're trying and I know they're trying to kind of meld two things together but it's just not for me When I played it the first thing I thought was like wow there's a lot of buttons on the side of this thing Yeah there's like three It's the actual flipper button area It's like, I don't want to be confused as to which one of those is the actual flipper button. Well, they didn't want Bruce to yawn, so they kept him off the lockdown bar. What is that for? They can't win. It's either please you or please Bruce. I'd rather have it in the lockdown bar, at least then it's very obviously an extra button.
    105:31
    I like Lexi okay. I just don't. I don't love it. I don't love the layout. I don't love the rules. I like the ideas behind it, but what can you say? All right. So what are we looking forward to in the upcoming year at pinball?
    105:48
    Nothing. Okay. Time to pick someone. You're recording more episodes of Riptide. Yeah. You have to pick someone, Ron, otherwise we'll just play chicken because we're all very manly and waiting for other people to speak. That's why.
    106:02
    I'm looking forward to Pembroke. That's what I'm looking forward to. That is every year. That is the thing. Always, always, always Pembroke. I might skip Pembroke this year, actually. What? That's legal. It's illegal. You're under arrest. Can't do that. Well, I want to go. I can only afford one pinball trip this year, and I really want to go to TPF. And I also want to have, like, a real summer vacation for once.
    106:27
    Not that Pinnberg isn't a great summer vacation, but I want to go somewhere where there's water and boats and beer. There's a lot of rivers in Pittsburgh. Oh, yeah. There's boats and beer. You can get pretty much all that. There's boats and beer. See, we're set. I'm looking forward to getting to the point where I can finally talk about the things I can't talk about.
    106:51
    Well, I was talking today. We were so – that's our biggest disappointment now on TPF. Yeah. But the only clue I can offer is that just remember where I moved from, remember where I am now, and I'm not worried. So that's all. That's what gives me all the confidence in these guys is because you believe in them. I am not worried. So that's pretty much all I can say, but I'm looking forward to the time when I can actually discuss some things.
    107:24
    Well, when that time comes, reach out to the other podcasts that are still actually recording, and we'll all be happy to have you. Wow. Or maybe I'll call instead of a view to be on, quote, my show.
    107:39
    Yep, clusterfuck.com. Yeah. That'll be Clusterfuck 3 That'll be the Clusterfuck 3 When I invite you all on And then you can all just destroy me Or, you know, say good or bad things And then I can just take all the constructive criticism That's what I'm waiting for I just remember listening to the second episode Of Meltdown And I think something happens to me Something happened to my mind But I can't prove it It's like I don't have the evidence That's right.
    108:14
    Was that the whole story? Yes. It's like the thing where it gets gibbed or something. I don't know. I actually stopped my car, and I actually turned and looked at the speaker. And I reached, and I pushed the power button, and I said, not like this.
    108:32
    I don't know how it ended. I had to stop. I couldn't handle it. Whatever it was, I could not process it. I thought it was the intro, and it's like, okay, after the intro, the regular part of the podcast will start. No, I don't do... And then it was like, wait a minute. This isn't the intro. This is the whole thing. No, no. It was the story of an experiment. Yes, it was. It's a free form podcast. The next generation of pinball. Right. Yeah, you know, I mean, there's things that were explained. I guess that's why we had that follow-up episode, because I knew that that second was going to be WTF. It's deeply rooted in the lore. Right, yeah. I can't believe Root. 10 points for his name. So, Steph, did you listen to that one at 2X?
    109:17
    I don't remember. I honestly don't remember. But maybe. 1.5 at least, probably. I may have had to slow it down to a million. Okay, so you may have had to slow it down to get the full meaning. Okay. I don't actually remember. It's been a while. What's the fastest folks here listen to podcasts at? 1.5 is the fastest I can do with a really slow speaker. I can tell you that the podcast starts becoming, like, unintelligible through audio artifacts if you get up to 3x speed. There were certain podcasts that I was trying to seriously speed through, and it just, that literally turned into gibberish. But I can do about 2x now and catch pretty much everything. 2.2x, I think, is my upper ceiling amongst all my podcasts right now. I can't do it the audio person in me just says this is wrong this is wrong the addict in me says need more content now well when you're devouring a 4 hour show in 22 minutes of course you're going to need more content well when you're subscribed to 134 podcasts that keep freaking updating there's already too much content 134 podcasts and that's not even counting most of the pin feeds right now. I think I'm subscribed to 23 and like half of those are monthly or slower. That's not reasonable. What are you trying to say, Dennis?
    110:48
    I'm saying I don't need to play you at 2x. I got to say, y'all sound really weird at 1x feed. You mean normal, like what we actually sound like? Yes. I'm so used to hearing pretty much everybody at Faster Speed that it's like, what? The thing that will really throw me is the intro music. Oh, God. I hear it at normal playback. Yeah, that I can never get over.
    111:16
    The worst for me is actually the Twip podcast. That one at regular speed just sounds like it's way too slow with the steel guitar going there, but in tune, unlike how I do it. What is head-to-head? It's intro music. Is that something? I don't know. Is that like a band or anything or just random music? I don't know what that is. It took me, by the way, like about 50 of your episodes to realize your opening music was Dungeons and Dragons for a while there. Oh, well, our very first episode had a different theme song. It was only used in episode one. Can anyone remember what it was?
    111:56
    No. Didn't you reuse it again, though, recently? No, no, no. Oh, you just talked about doing it. Mm-hmm. Mm. I do not know. I don't actually, to be fair, though, I don't think I listened to you until episode three. Smart man. But if you did listen in episode one, you would have heard the theme from Dirty Harry.
    112:14
    Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Yep. You know, I need to go back and listen just to hear how this whole thing started. I was there, but I forgot about it. You can feel the pain in Ron's voice. That's all fancy. I always just went to Fiverr and hired someone to do a new song.
    112:34
    It looks like Crystal dropped off. Uh-oh. Hi, Crystal. Paging Crystal.
    112:43
    Oh, no. I'll go find out, I guess. What? Go find Crystal. I'll go find my co-host, BRB. So, Ron, what are you looking forward to in 2019 in pinball?
    112:57
    No editing. That's cool. That would be nice. Streaming. Let's see. So, other than that, more rest. More playing and less editing.
    113:13
    After this monster, you're going to have for this one. It's not going to be that bad. No one said anything. We'll be editing. Josh was really the only profane one. Yeah, what's up with that? I don't know. Went dark places. Jeff 2.0 brings that out of him. Yeah, he does.
    113:30
    Is Bruce back? I didn't know Bruce was back. He's vacuuming. No, it's his hair dryer. It is very tight in here. Well, that's not Bruce then. What's going on back there?
    113:42
    It's for his butt hair. Oh, man. Chris is back, by the way. Yeah, I'm sorry. I dropped my computer. Oh, no. Oh, nice. How's the Riptide? We near fatally affect our computers. I'm going to give up answer. I'm a klutz.
    114:06
    I'm looking forward to seeing less of a klutz. I'm looking forward to more Riptide episodes. I'm looking forward to working on my homebrew. Other than that, I don't really have much. I want to be a better tech, as always. That's just kind of an ongoing thing. just always learning and getting better at that stuff. Also, I'm looking forward to playing my pinball machines, which are currently in my apartment now. Yay, I'm looking forward to playing my pinball machine, which is in my apartment now, too. And the play field is down. You got it. Yay. Awesome. Yeah, I had some help, but see which is playable again. Hooray. Yay.
    114:46
    Hey, Crystal, how did you like the result of the audio travesty I put out on the meltdown of us? I haven't listened to it. I refuse to listen to it.
    114:57
    Jeff Deolis gave us too much fireball, and I'm not responsible for the things that I said. Oh, dear God. I listened to the whole thing. I was thoroughly glued.
    115:07
    Glued. That's a good word to use. A lot of editing and also non-editing, because I was like, at a point, I was just like, you know what? Forget it. Some of this can just be background, and then we're just commenting and then whatever. And then at a certain point, I just cashed out, and I just wanted to show, you know, Matt's Funhouse music at the end because it's awesome. So I'm like, okay. I did crank that in the car at the end and actually rewound it again. That is a winch. It's so good.
    115:36
    Look at this right there because he just tears it up just enough to where it's like good. Like, uh-uh. Yeah, I read it. It said my name on it. So it's like, oh, I'm on this? Yeah. So I have my usual reaction like I can't listen to that right away. I'm on it. Yeah, don't worry. Don't worry. Everything is fine. Everything's fine.
    115:59
    So, Steph, what are you looking forward to in the upcoming year? Well, I'm looking forward to more Riptide, Samus Cresto. Looking forward to playing more Sea Witch. Maybe getting a second machine. Maybe not. Beetle. Do it. I don't think I could afford a Beetles, man.
    116:22
    Trade to see which. No. Oh, no. That's my child. Okay. How did you say that? I'm looking forward to playing more pinball, seeing what new machines are coming out from any and all manufacturers, hopefully attending ReplayFX, seeing everybody, and overall just having fun in the wide, wide, wide, wide, wide world of pinball, which I just realized is the name of a podcast, which is why I just did all that reduplication. They haven't had that since December 2016. That's right. Wow, that's a lot of wants. It's been a while. Hey, Bruce. Hello. Bruce is back. I'm back for a few seconds. I've got to cook again, but I had to go cook. Did you bring this funnel cake fries? No. Oh.
    117:12
    It's burgers. Ron would be happy with that. I love burgers. Love a burger. So what are you looking forward to, Bruce, in the upcoming year? A vacation. a fucking vacation.
    117:26
    A well-deserved one. Happy anniversary, by the way, Bruce. Thank you. But when you work for yourself, every day is a vacation, Bruce. Oh, it is, actually, because I don't have to deal with the boss. All I have to deal with is my wife.
    117:39
    That's wrong. No, I just need a fucking vacation. I really do. But Pinnberg will probably be my vacation this year. So you'll get to see my ugly mug there. Who else hasn't answered the question?
    117:54
    Zach just came on. He should answer. What is the question? What are you looking forward to in the upcoming year for pinball?
    118:04
    Nothing. Uh. You proved Zach. More star, worse hope. You're going to get more games. Yeah, hopefully I'll be able to break 50 this year. That'd be cool. Oh, my God. I'm getting close. Not quite there yet.
    118:32
    Hopefully I'll sell Funhaus sometime soon. That'd be nice. Give it to that thing. You can always put it in the bar.
    118:40
    Oh, boy. Quick, what games do you want? She said quick, Zach. I was going to say that's such a long list, but it's actually not that long of a list because I hate everything. So I still want a damn Congo.
    118:58
    Lost out on another one this week. It's fun. I can hear the excitement in your voice. The voice always sounds like that. It doesn't matter. He's really excited right now. Well, I am so excited to be on another Slam Tilt podcast. It's my favorite weekly activity. It is. So are you the most recurring guest at this point? I doubt it. No, you probably are. I think Timmy is still. Really? No, I think you're about even now. No, hasn't Tim been on like eight times or something? Ten. You know what? I think it was ten. I think it's ten. He's like the Tom Hanks of SNL of slam tilt podcasts. But I think Zach has been on a lot too. Zach has definitely been on a lot. Give me a minute. Have I beaten the replacement Tim Balls yet? I think you actually have. Oh, yeah. You need to get your act together, Tim Balls 2. He was on earlier. Okay, so he's at least trying to keep up. Yep. So, are you having fun getting that genie in the house? Oh, it's still in the car. It's still in the car. That's my job tomorrow.
    120:07
    Yeah, what car is that in? The Honda Fit. How does it fit in a Honda Fit? Just fine as long as you're short or can just scrunch up your entire body since the seat is all the way forward. For those who don't know, Zach is how tall? Like 6'4", 6'3". Yeah. So it was a very uncomfortable ride from back to Rochester. Wow, that's like three and a half hours driving like that? My shins hurt a bit. Yeah, I would think so. And this is the genie. Did we talk about this at all? Or are you going to make new code for it? I think we did. I've made the new code. It just won't start right now. Ah. Okay. It's so new, it's revolutionary. You can't play the game. It's like Magic Girl. No, no. All the mechs work. They're all there. Well, they're all there. They're all there. I don't know. I'm looking for... Everyone's telling me there's a Magic Girl at InDisc, so I'm curious to see at least the shell of what it will become. Any day now. Yeah. Well, it needs two or three mechs, a full rule set. Now, Ron, are you thinking that it's actually going to look highly similar from Deep Root? Well, we have a person who could tell us. I know we do.
    121:22
    It's fun to know and then have y'all speculate about it, just like y'all didn't know, but know that it's fun. So I'll just sit back here and have fun. He is fun with bonus. That was fun with knowledge.
    121:36
    Steve's willing to give us some details in terms of that it's a fun game. Of all of the games being worked on, which is the least fun?
    121:46
    Oh, Jesus. You know, Steve, you were the first podcast guest host this year. Are you missing these hard-hitting questions I always love to come up with? Yeah, right. Hey, the reason why I found your show, Dennis, was because of the Predator debacle. So, I mean, that's how I found your show. I'm like the least dramatic of all the shows. Now I feel bad.
    122:14
    Well, would you buy that? Yes. I would. Okay. We have some items here. We've got to bring this classic, classic staple of the Swamptail podcast on the last episode. Can I start? Why don't we just do all the possible, you know, things, all the possible sticks we've done through the entire 100 plus episodes. Just run through them all. Wouldn't that be the best way to end it? Come on, I have 15 EM, game you like, game you hate manufacturers. Oh, okay. Crystal, do you have some? I do. I have, yeah, I've got, let's start with one. Go ahead. Okay. Is everyone ready? Everyone getting on eBay. Yeah. Okay. eBay item number 2533-0885-9092.
    123:14
    And I'll do an edit here. What's the number? eBay item number. You can't edit all this laughing. It won't be up to the screen afterwards. You're right. Ron Stupin, what's the number again?
    123:33
    253-308-859092. I need some chocolate wine for this one. Oh, boy. This is a friggin' disaster. Okay. It says, Batman Joker Pinball Machine Topper. fits any Batman machine, including new ones. I bet it does. Oh, yeah. I bet it fits any machine, period.
    124:04
    $200. From any of them. 100% positive feedback, though. Respect and recognize. Yeah, respect and recognize. The eyes are the best. They light up if you look at the... All Star Wars machines.
    124:21
    When I saw the first picture, I look at this and was like, why do they have a Freddy Krueger topper on a Batman 66?
    124:30
    And then it stood. I thought it was my mechanic. It somewhat looks like the Joker from the animated series. With a knife. Yeah, with a knife. I think it looks like the Joker from that Suicide Squad movie.
    124:47
    Oh, yeah, maybe. Yeah. Oh, gosh. You know, this is the Joker from the comic books where he had his face, he cut his own face off and put it back on. There was a character, a story in the comics where he cut his own face off and then stapled it back on. I think you're thinking of the hit John Woo movie, Face Off. Well, there's that. It was a whole storyline where that happened, so that's what this is, but it doesn't. So it's $200, $45 shipping. Would we buy that? Absolutely not. Not with that shipping amount. That's too high for that.
    125:30
    So you would buy it if not for the shipping amount. It's got potential. I mean, I like his butter knife. Yeah.
    125:41
    You better hurry this toast. more than 72% have been sold. Oh, oh, really? Um, okay. Out of the four available, three were sold. So that's 75%. Jesus. You know what? The seller also makes a really, a pretty decent creature from the Black Lagoon topper. It looks pretty good, but it also looks like he uses the same mold for that and for his Freddy Krueger one. And by make, I think you mean he goes to the Halloween section and finds the pop out of a grave on the ground things and just puts them in a new box. You're probably not wrong. And then he just photoshops them onto pictures of pinball machines.
    126:25
    Like, if you look, he's got all three Batman games there. And I was impressed that he actually, like, went and fit them all, but no, they're just photoshopped on top of random stock images.
    126:35
    So, what else do we got? Okay, let me see. You want another one? I don't know how you can follow that one up. I mean, that was an ace of spades right there. I mean, wow. Please don't follow it up. Just, like, give us something normal. Leave it. Okay.
    126:57
    I got one. Okay. It's on Pinside. Uh-oh. Oh, I have to go there? I have to go to eBay for that. I'll have to edit my host file.
    127:06
    Wow. Why? Okay, so. All right. I don't know how to say to go for the link. Just look for Stargazer in the For Sale section.
    127:19
    It's a Stargazer for sale. Looking to trade. Well, it says, trade my original Stargazer. It is in nice condition but not collector's quality. Looking for Adams Family, Tron Pro, Lord of the Rings, Metallica, Iron Maiden. Also considering cash offers, which the considered offer is $6,000 or best offer. It is located in... Rockford, Illinois. Yes, and Zach is doing what I should have done and putting the link up in chat.
    127:50
    Zach is the hero we needed but did not deserve. Looks okay to me. Yeah, it looks like it's in decent shape.
    127:58
    Yeah, it looks slightly better than Bruce's. Yeah, it does. That back glass looks really nice. Now, would we pay $6,000 for it? I might know this person. Well, unfortunately, given Stargazer looks like it's going to lose to the Bally set in the faceoff, I think if we hold out a few more days, this may come down $500. You know what? Throw the cup holder in. I'll take it.
    128:27
    $6,000? $6,000 is a lot. Okay, maybe not. Yeah, I like Stargazer, but to me it's a $1,000 game at best. Yeah, and there's some wear. There's a little bit of wear on the play field there. Yeah. Hey, what's next to it?
    128:45
    That's all you look at in these pictures. You don't even look at it. By the way, the reason this is going for $6,000 is because of you guys, because you've inflated the price on all these. I don't know. We're getting our ass kicked in the competition. Yeah, we must be wrong. We must be wrong. Sterns must be worth $1,000 if it's being disbursed by $1,000 baleys. They're two different audiences. You've got your Stern. You got 30-some percent of the vote, almost 40% of the vote. Those are the people that are buying the Ryans out there. They're buying and buying and buying, and there are so many fewer Sterns that were made, price is going up. But the moment you thought you were too big for your britches and started talking trash on Valley, you're going to lose. Oh, we'll still talk trash on Valley. That's easy.
    129:28
    Of course. We look forward to hearing it every other month. Ooh. As an aside, Timmy is still the most frequent guest. I have 11 occurrences, just a cursory check. And Zach, I have eight, I think, including this one.
    129:48
    But I think Zach... Yeah, it was either you or Raymond who is the second most frequent. Greg has four by my count, but I started counting about halfway through. I might have missed one. I'll get more comprehensive data later. Since you have so much free time, Ron, can you put a search by guest option onto the website? Actually, if you just use the search option, every guest who's been on, I use their name in the first part of the description always. Yeah, but then I have to know their names. I can't just sort by occurrences or something. Also, the Kostervok is an exception. I don't have everyone's name on there? I thought I did.
    130:23
    Not up front. Hang on. Yeah, I don't know. Well, let's give you another ticket. Okay. Ready, guys? Yeah, I'm ready. 3-2-3.
    130:34
    6-2-8. 5-3-6. 9-4-8. The almost live episode at the Silver Ball Saloon doesn't have the fact that Zach and I are on either, by the way. Oh my. So there are a few exceptions to the rule, which is why I said I'm guesstimating. It's a Mars God of War pinball machine. Gottlieb. 1981. Working 100% restored. Restored. It's restored. Brand new soundboard. Rotten dog CPU board. All new rubbers and LEDs throughout. Replaced a few weak coils also. The secondary trans light is new aftermarket. Plays great. Make offer.
    131:22
    Yes, sir. Got to turn my head to the left because this guy can't figure out how to pull pictures right now. Yeah.
    131:27
    Did he take the glass off? Luckily, he restored all those drop targets. Oh. 800? It's definitely not like you can't just buy those drop targets. Exactly.
    131:42
    Luckily, it's not restored. Oh, yeah. And this is located in New Jersey. I want to just direct your attention to the left. You'll see there's another game next to that, Mars God of War. Yeah, which is even worse. That is the game that I almost went and bought last weekend. Oh, really? Shoot the pyramid. I had money in my car and was ready to get on the road and buy that, and then it sold. Like, I can recognize it from the paint on the cabinets. Hey, Ron, you never answered my question before. What question? What was the game next to Stargazer? Oh, what was the game next to Stargazer? You never looked at it. I never looked at it, and I'm off the screen now. Fail. So what was it? No, I'm not telling you that. Oh, jeez. Okay. Fail, fail, fail. So would you buy that for $800, guys? With a rotten CPU and a new soundboard? Yeah, I'd buy that. Yeah. I'm in. No, I'm not in the market for widebodies. I'm in. Wow.
    132:42
    It sticks with it all the fucking time. Widebodies. Snob. Am I assuming, like, unlimited capital here, or? That can't be unlimited. it. Okay, am I assuming that I have enough capital and space to house a machine that's not like, oh my god, I really really want it? Yeah, tell me what I want, really really really want it.
    133:07
    That's not a Bruce's really really really really really want it. That's all I thought of when she said that. I was like, what the hell is she saying?
    133:17
    I mean, you'll I think at least another $50 removing all the LEDs from it. Yes, you will. Or we could just live with them, I guess. You can sell them on eBay.
    133:27
    LEDs are such a great resale value. Yes. It looks like one of the bonus X-Lights are out anyway. That's $10 off. On that right saucer.
    133:37
    So would you buy it, Steph? That's all we're asking. If you had $800, Steph, and someone was like, here's this, would you... Take my money. If someone wanted you to get them a pinball machine for their home, and they said they would spend up to $1,000, would you consider buying them this? It wouldn't be my first choice, but I guess. Maybe the ones I've played just haven't played that well, but I've never really had much fun on Mars. But there's four flippers.
    134:06
    A ramp that goes up and down. Late-change pop bumpers. That's the best feature in the game. I would have to play ones other than the one that I've played. So maybe, maybe I'd buy it, just to see. If I had $800 to just chuck at something. Okay, so I think we're all in agreement on that. That's a buy. We weren't all in agreement. Well, we don't consider you a wide-body snob.
    134:36
    I'm a wide-body snob, too. And you would buy this. She said she would buy this, though. She has opened her. If you're asking me to, like, just buy this for a non-pinball person, sure. For $800. Okay. I'll agree to that. But it's for you, Dennis. No, it's not.
    134:53
    It's not for me. Okay, next one. 233-074-914-318. Hey, I had one of these, too. There's some Harlan globetrotters. Yeah. From Harlem. What the? From Harlem. The city of Harlem.
    135:18
    Yeah, from New York. From New York. Harlem. Oh, yeah. Show the pictures with broken rubbers. And sitting on the play field, other rubbers. Just not on. And the glasses on still. And the glasses. I love that. All those glasses. It's glassy. This may be the first problem I've seen with no Mylar, but actually has at least some of the paint left on the play field. I agree. Yeah. It's dirty as hell, but I mean... Some of it's been filled back in with a Sharpie, but like, some of the paint is still there. You can still read the letters of the workers.
    135:53
    I mean... So it's definitely not booting. It's got graffiti on the front. Oh, lots of it, yeah. Coin goes in, coin goes out. I see. 800, really? It's dirty.
    136:06
    Very dirty. That's what happens when you try to get these ballys. because they were played so much. It's in California, so I doubt if anyone here is going out to get this one. The lights come on, but I put a coin in it. It comes out the return. Let me repeat that. Literally, that's what it said. The lights come on, but I put a coin in it. It comes out the return. I think that's the person who put all of the Sharpie marks on the front.
    136:36
    That's specific. the 70s were such a civilized time unlike today now you drop a coin and it just eats it occasionally if the game's on it might even give you a credit wow would you buy this? no not with it not working I wouldn't buy any Harlem wow I like Harlem I had Harlem once and then I got rid of it just like every ballet I've owned they're just not very good Whoa! Well, maybe if you'd reprogram them instead of reprogramming Genie. Hey, Genie has a better layout than at least, like, a third- Any game with a bag-a-tell section does not have a better layout. What bag-a-tell section? That's what I'm calling the whole upper left part of Genie. You mean the upper play field with its own flipper set and drop target features for additional scoring?
    137:30
    Yeah! Yeah, that's it! Come on! The thing that has absolutely no pins for a ball to bounce off of or anything that would be in a bag of towel? That part? I mean the part below that part with the ABCD lanes above the pop bumper in the lower left. You mean the 8-inch wide out lane with a pop bumper in it? Actually, I think it's only 6 1⁄2 inches, but yes. It's actually anything with the name Gottlieb on it he wouldn't buy either. Oh, that's right. He owns them too. There is a good one. I think we'll offer him. But hey, it's a wide body, so it's got that going for it. Yes. But it doesn't have an action button. It has two action buttons, one on each side. Boom. I want at least five action buttons, maybe six. Oh, God. Does the extra ball button on Jackabot count as the action button? It does. Yeah. Whoa. Bruce, you're on. Whoa, you're on.
    138:23
    So you thought that was not going to happen? No, I knew it was going to happen. It's just we started earlier, Bruce. Mm. Usually we don't even start until, like, 8 or 8.30. I know. It's been a long day.
    138:36
    Let's see. What else do I have in here? I did have one mention. This is from Gene. Gene Exwong. He messaged us to let us know that Defender has a manual kickback. That makes Defender even better. Yeah, how do we miss that? I mean, you love Defender. I know. I haven't played in a while, though, so I probably did forget. Everyone loves Defender.
    138:57
    I mean, yeah. We talked about the creator of Defender, Eugene Jarvis, earlier. I've never played Defender. Never. There's also a Gottlieb from 81 called Volcano with a manual kickback on the left.
    139:12
    Does it have a manual kickback? I don't know. The one I know of is never on. It has to be lit, but then you actually have to manually control it yourself on Volcano. I think I've only played Keeler's Volcano like once where it was working. Yeah!
    139:29
    Shut up. Now, what is the second flipper button on the right side of Volcano for? I believe that locks in which of the skee-ball lane shots in the upper right is currently lit, because it's cycling normally, and you freeze it, and then you try and hit that proper one.
    139:45
    It's just a drink. I played Volcano the last time I was at Keeler's. This is the one of the moving shooter lane? Yeah. That wasn't such a cool idea. It a cool idea I won say it isn Maybe if it wasn on Volcano you know It be just an execution Um I bought a game Did I mention that? You did? Yes, I did. What is it? Is it Liam? Uh, no. Is it a stern? No, it's not. No. Does it make you dance now? Oh! What?
    140:19
    Is it lethal? Wow. That was so wrong. I can't even comment. I don't know. Yes, it was Lethal Weapon 3. Yay!
    140:31
    So, yes, I got my guilty pleasure game, finally. Now I've got to figure out where I'm going to put it. Because you have no room at all. I don't have room. I'm going to put it upstairs so you can sell it and put Lethal Weapon there. What can I sell? Put that in. No. No one wants to play this game. Come on. Bruce doesn't want to play it, but I don't care.
    140:57
    No, you can tell TNA. I'll keep dialing it. No. Oh. Just give in and let the upstairs of your home become pink. No. Just Spider-Man. No. Yeah. No. What's the matter with you people?
    141:12
    Spider-Man's awesome. Tell him, Steve. Tell him how awesome Spider-Man is. It is awesome. See? How about you sell Dirty Harry?
    141:21
    Oh, I love Dirty Her. How about you sell me Stargazer? No. How about you loan her Stargazer for a little bit? How about you loan her Soul? Let's come in from the other way. Which one would you sell? Let's go from the positive direction. Ooh. Roller Games. No. I know exactly what I would sell. I talked about selling it before.
    141:45
    Any guesses? Drum roll, please. I'll tell us. No, no. Let's go Era. it's Martin's favorite era of game of older game as he has said Paragon no he said he wasn't a Valley guy hmm oh he's a Williams guy he was a Williams guy very good yes okay the only thing the only problem with that is it's got one of the Kahoot boards in it so I need to get one of the old ones fixed and back in the game because I won't keep the new ones now again? Can't you just buy one of those?
    142:23
    Wow, you know, that's right. I could do that. Do they do a combo one? I think so, yeah. What the hell is a Kahoot board? Yes, please. It's the Williams board. Basically, he sold a variety of boards. He sold the CPU board, the driver board, the sound board, the power board at one point, and he... The thing about him is they use the original ROMs, and they have shunt jumpers, so you can change it to any different configuration, from System 4 up to System 7, like any game, including Hyperball, which used the, I think Hyperball and Defender used a special config. You can make them play any of those games, but if you run custom ROMs, like we're known to do at Slam Tilt, you need a board like this, and not one that just is like an all-tech where it just has, like, you know, you pick the game, and he doesn't make them anymore because he kind of got priced out of the market by a lot of the cheaper boards. So I want to keep the board in case I get another, you know, early William Stiles date.
    143:32
    Like what? I don't know. Pocahontas. No, God. He was so bad. But with new code, maybe it could be so good. No, it's a turd to play field. No, not at all. Honestly, I wouldn't mind giving a Laser Q another go. Oh, I like Laser Q.
    143:53
    What's wrong with you, Bruce? Bruce, you told me to buy a Laser Q, and then I did. Yeah, Bruce, why did you do that? I just wanted to make Zach suffer a little bit.
    144:05
    It's before you really knew Zach and you weren't sure. So instead of telling him to get Alien Poker, you said, get Laser Q. Laser Q is the better of the two, I will argue. I actually like Laser Q. As someone who owns both of them. Does it have a spinner?
    144:19
    Yeah, just like Alien Poker. It's the exact same layout. I couldn't remember because I literally got second in a match at Sanctum under Alien Poker just because I just literally jammed the frigging shooter to get the most spins possible off the punch. Yeah, the great spinner that's only actually rippable from the shooter lane. Yeah, that is a slight design flaw there. Obviously, Steve Ritchie did not put the flipper placement because he would not have done that.
    144:53
    I can't wait for Stellar Wars 2, man. Wide body from Stern. Mm-hmm. Even wider than JGP just to really show him his boss.
    145:02
    Dan is going to order three or four just for the home, the work, everything. I already have a seat with Ritchie wide body. I don't think I need any more of them. Oh, okay. Well, let's see. So, Superman?
    145:17
    That's correct. Ah. Wow, that was a good guess. I was literally thinking, like, can't be a Williams. It's got to, you know, I'm thinking Atari. Yeah, I'd never think to Williams. Atari or die. On my ass cheeks. I pray you die.
    145:34
    So, are there any white bodies coming from Deep Fruit? That's the real question. Oh, that's a good question. Are there any mammal bodies coming? Yes, sir. Are there any cocktail opinions? That is another unnecessarily podcasting question there.
    145:51
    And that's that. How many different lockdown bars will your company need to buy? I don't understand the question.
    146:01
    I don't understand the question. 22-inch, 24-inch, 25-inch, 28-inch, 29-inch, and then you could have an action button or a multiple action button on each of those. That's like 30 different variations. Have you prototyped any ramps made out of saran wrap?
    146:22
    Have you ordered shooter rods or just launch buttons? More interesting questions. Talking about questions, how would you guys and girls like to do a quiz? A pinball quiz. if you answer two questions correctly, you make it through to the finals.
    146:45
    As soon as you answer two questions correctly, you're out until the finals. How about that? Okay, Bruce can't go. Bruce can't do it because he's got to go upstairs and cook again. You guys and girls need a buzzer sound. Oh, boy. Oh, my God. How many people are still in the call? A lot here. This is not going to pass. Yeah. Okay, I guess just scream out your name. Okay? I'm going to say Goldford's Wall.
    147:12
    No, just scream out your name, because people are going to forget there. All right, no, okay, let's do it. Go for the wall. What do you want, Steve?
    147:19
    I don't know. Deep Root. Meltdown. Because Deep Root, that would have been predicted, so I'll do something different. Dennis? Ooh, Jackpot.
    147:36
    Crystal? Jesus, I don't... Taxi, taxi. It's going to sound so weird when everyone knows the answers to the question.
    147:52
    Who else is there? Me. I'll do... I'll spin on taxi. Hey, comrade! We have Steph and Zach.
    148:04
    Well, I can't exactly make a stern noise. I'm not fucking doing that I don't know Zach what are you gonna do I'm trying it right now you could just say riptide whoosh or beep beep whoosh whoosh motherfucker beep beep and Zach he's actually looking for a clip he's gonna play probably There it is. There you go. What, do you start Reptile? Well, how many... So when I hear the first beep, is that when I buzz you in? Oh, yeah. Any amount of beeps. That sounded like it was longer than Star Wars' tilt warning sound. I mean, what was it?
    148:53
    All right, so we got Zach, Steve, Jeff, Ron, Dennis, Crystal, and Steph. That's everyone, right? Probably. Sure enough. Here we go. So you can't yell out the answer. You have to yell out your buzzer sound, and then whichever one I hear first. I'm all the way in Australia. Depending on the sound delay. Depending on the sound delay, which is when he happens to hit first. Yeah. Okay. On the default settings on Lord of the Rings, how many shots does it take to destroy the ring?
    149:27
    From when? From the opening climb? Yeah. No. I disagree with the question. From once you're in the mode. Is there a penalty for wrong answers? No. Go for the wall.
    149:43
    Yes, Ron. Seven. No. Damn. Ooh, jackpot. Yes, Zach? I'm going to go with six. Four shots and then up the ramp twice. Hey, Zach, you got... Okay. How many flipper buttons are there on the shadow?
    150:06
    Go for the wall. Pick up a button. Who's that bot? It was Ron first, Ron. Four. Yes. Okay. What are there? One more quarter. I have jacked. Those don't come to life. There are two flipper buttons. Yeah. I was going to say two. Yep. Two. Me too.
    150:25
    But they are buttons. They are flipper buttons. They are not flipper buttons. Not flipper buttons. They're diverter buttons. If you go to Marco and look for the part, it's going to say flipper button. Marco's just listing the cell. Okay, next question.
    150:41
    On the LA and premium model, what is the color of the double scoring insert on Metallica? Squish. There's a double scoring insert on Metallica. Squish? Ooh, jackpot.
    150:58
    Uh, who's that? That was Dennis? I think there was a wish before. There was a wish before. Ah, wish. That was Steph. Steph? Isn't it purple? Yes.
    151:11
    All right. Wait, that was right? Oh, yeah. I thought it was Wiesn with Metallica. Odes, what are the Wizard Modes calls on Adam's family and Squire Zone? Hey, comrade.
    151:23
    Hey, comrade. Comrade? Okay. Adam's family is Tour the Mansion. And now I forgot what the other one was. Nice.
    151:34
    You've got five seconds. I forgot the other game. Three, two, one. Go, Bill. Who's next? Steve. Twice. I'm so just lost in the zone.
    151:48
    It just happened. What's the deal? Five. Damn it. Come on, Jeff. How many balls you need to lock in Alien Invasion to win?
    152:01
    Since the symbol putting. Never played it. Steve, you know the answer. Come on. It's between two numbers, and I'm not actually sure. Go for the wall. For a million dollars, I would not be sure. Three. No.
    152:18
    Wow, I'm sorry. I've never even seen Alien Invasion. man I've seen Steve do it but it's three and two numbers and I'm not sure I know I've only been able to lock four in it so I'm going to guess five yes alright Zach is the first person who proceeds to the final so Zach you don't get to answer any more questions this is now between the rest of the people okay what color is the stripper in Big Bang Bar Beltel. Which? Yes, Steve. Green. Yes. All right, Steve is through to the finals as well.
    152:59
    What color is the floating dick on Quicksilver? Blue jackpot. Exactly. Estendance? Green. Yes. How much is the... You should know this one, Ron. How much is the super jackpot worth on Getaway High Speed 2? Hey, comrade.
    153:19
    Is it green? Go for the wall. Yes, Ron. You mean the regular jackpot? No, the super jackpot. Oh, the super. $50 million. There we go. Ron is through to the finals. We have one more place for the finals.
    153:38
    So we have Jeff with zero, Dennis with one, Crystal with zero, and Steph with one. How many doctors are there on Doctor Who? Hey, Comrade. Who's that guy? Yes, Jeff? Who's that guy? Stefan. Yes. Okay.
    153:56
    Here we go. How many times do you need to hit the sensor ramp in Thunderbirds to spell international rescue?
    154:11
    Who's that guy? Yes, Dennis? I think 20. No. Hey, Comrade. Yes, Jeff. 17? No. Crystal and Steph, it's up to you. You can make it through, Steph, if you can make it through. I can't stop laughing.
    154:30
    Oh, my God. Somebody guess. Does the space count as the thing you have to shoot? I don't think so. 18? Oh, sorry. No. All right, Crystal, it's all up to you, guys, as long as you want. Just write down International Rescue on count of letters, please. Seven?
    154:52
    Sorry, toss the question out. Wow, 19 times. Okay. Oh, gosh. Okay. What game is this mode from? Mars needs women. Hey, comrade.
    155:09
    I heard Crystal first. Is it Revenge for Mars? Yes. Okay. Hey, everyone is on one, so the next person that answers is going to win. Damn, I need to... Okay.
    155:25
    Question. The question is, in Aerosmith, how does Jackie pronounce multiball? Woosh, woosh. Yes, Steph? Isn't it multiball? Here we go. Multiball. Steph is in. Sorry, Jeff, Dennis, and Crystal. You're out. Good job, Jeff. All right. The final is between Zach. Steve and Ron. And Steph. Yes, and Steph.
    155:50
    The one who just got in. Despite laughing her ass off the entire time. I'm just here for comic relief. Okay, these questions are the ultra-hard ones, and they're all based off... Of ruleset, so I'm done. No, they're all based off cows, so you might like this. Moo? Okay. Yes, moo. All right, sure.
    156:13
    Moo. How do you see a cow blow up on Demolition Man? Meltdown. Yes, Steve? Hitting the trigger buttons while you're playing Ag Mac. There we go. Steve won.
    156:28
    On what game can you see a cow fencing on the D&D? That's the greatest. Yes, Zach? Black Rose. Yes. All right. There's a cow fencing in Black Rose? Oh, yeah. In the pop bumpers. Pop bumpers, yeah. I have to come up and play it again. Woo!
    156:53
    This one is a... This one's a double question. So if you get it right, you get a chance to double the points for that question. Is it double or nothing?
    157:04
    No, it's not double or nothing. It's just a bonus question. But you get to exclusively answer it. Okay. On what game can you get a cow of a jackpot? Meltdown Yes, Steve They said Meltdown The champion pub Okay And for a bonus point What number jackpot is it? Okay Alright, oh my goodness So you have Octopus 8 and you have Turbo 9 octuple is 8 then it's turbo then is there anything between that and that one? I'm going to say it's between 10 and 11 I'm going to say 11 it's 14 it's like octuple oh right mega super something right on what game are you a kangaroo jumping over a cow? Whoosh whoosh? Yes, Steph? Circus will tear? Yes, yes, yes. Okay. I love the way you said whoosh whoosh as a question.
    158:18
    I'm not sure of myself here. I've had way too much chocolate wine and I have a headache. On Indiana Jones, when you crash through the fourth right barrier...
    158:32
    I fucked it up. That's the... That is. Throw it out. What is the frog? Hello, honey.
    158:44
    On what game did a snake throw up a cow? Ooh. Zach? Metallica? All right, that's all I've got for cow questions. So the scores are tied with Steve at two and Zach at two. So here's a tiebreaker question for the win.
    159:08
    In Spider-Man, Doc Ock, you backhand him twice or in multiple. What does Doc Ock actually stand for?
    159:19
    Doctor Octavius? No. Dave? That was a Doctor Octopus. What? I mean, I let him go in. I let him drive right in there. I was purposely not.
    159:37
    Damn you, Spider-Man. I was purposely not answering the little Spider-Man question, and of course I'm supposed to get it, so I just let him drive right in and get it. Congratulations, Dave. You win the Clusterbuck. Woo-hoo!
    159:50
    Woo! It's just when he thought Jack couldn't hate Spider-Man more, I'm sure he does now. That would have turned him into a villain.
    160:00
    Oh, man. Oh, my goodness. Wow. This has been a cow of a show. We did it. Are we done? I've run out of material. Yeah, same. Quick, find material.
    160:15
    This must be the show that never ends. No, right. The edit that never ends. Right. No, that's Riptide. Yeah. So, before we say goodbye, and I'll have to wait until Bruce comes back for a final goodbye, for this show, or this episode, I'll say. Why don't we all just plug ourselves? Wait, what?
    160:37
    Plug ourselves! Plug! Don't all jump at once. Don't all jump in at once. All right, I'll start. Pinball Players Podcast. Find us on Facebook. I sound like Chuck Teels now. You can subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, and, yeah, join the Facebook group. And I may have another episode maybe next week, I'm hoping. Woo-hoo.
    161:06
    Dennis, next. Nope. Okay. I'm with Eclectic Gamers Podcast. That'd be eclecticgamers.com. You can follow us on Facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. We cover pinball and video games every other week. And I might actually get the episode that I recorded today up later today, if this ever ends. Okay.
    161:27
    Steve. FunWithBonus.com FunWithBonusOnline Pinball.site, Pinball.media Also works, they just redirect to FunWithBonus.com Meltdown Pinball Podcast On Stitcher, Google Play Spotify And about 8 others that I have no idea How I got on them, but I am on them And so that's it Crystal Steph and I Both are Riptide Podcast Pinball Podcast, something like that Steph, where are we?
    161:59
    We are on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play. You can follow us on social media, on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And we should probably record a new episode soon. Yeah, tomorrow. Wait, no. The other tomorrow. Tomorrow is tomorrow.
    162:22
    Time goes by. Thank you guys for your plans, and that gives me accountability. That's terrifying. And, Seth, you have a Twitch channel? Oh, yeah, Pinball Princess on Twitch. We'll hopefully be streaming more now that I have Sea Witch up, and if I can get myself a capture card, maybe I'll stream some video games, because I finally have my TV set up so I can play all of my consoles. Yay. And, Zach?
    162:51
    Uh. Follow me on Twitch. If you want to see weird stuff on a very infrequent basis. Oh, my. And your Twitch handle is?
    163:10
    A-C-A-J. What does the A-J say in full? That's a state secret. That's the A-C-A-J. Well, Australia is setting up a state championship series, so. so state secrets can be shared is my point the real question is what does the C stand for if you know that you'll figure the rest out hmm because it's not actually my name that is true Ryan yes head2headpodcast.com everything is there me and Marty do a weekly podcast but now that we haven't done it for two weeks we can't be buds starting up again which we talked about yesterday and we're like we're gonna be recording again and we're like yeah kind of enjoying like not doing it for a while so yeah maybe next week i don't know it's hard what have you guys done i don't know it's it's it's a lot of mental energy to to do it on a weekly basis right run like yeah it is yeah it is yeah the problem is not actually recording it and I know Marty does the editing, it's the mental energy to, not mental energy, but I think it's like wasted time thinking about when you see pinball news, how that relates to the podcast. And I've enjoyed just enjoying pinball for what it is and not how it relates to the podcast in the last two weeks. Yeah, I get that. Yeah, that's completely understandable. Because you always got to save it for the show, right? Save it for the show. Oh, save it for, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, save it for the show. Every time Marty talks to me before the podcast, I'm like, shut up, dude. Like, this is a podcast.
    164:59
    It's like, but I want to talk about it now. It's like, I know, but save it for the show. Yeah. Head-to-head is on hold until the pinball industry can produce more visionaries and other peoples for them to interview. Yeah, they've interviewed everyone at this point. I mean, when is Gary Stern on?
    165:16
    We haven't actually asked him on. I would have Gary Stern on any day of the week if I got the real Gary Stern and not the... Versus his body double?
    165:32
    I've heard so many interviews from him. I know what you mean. You don't want to hear the one that says the whatever miles of wire and all that stuff. Whatever miles of wire. Yeah, it's like, yeah, I've already heard this. Can we hear stories about drinking vodka or something? Or just give us something good. Or maybe some old-school stories. That would be nice. You know, me and Bruce would like that. He's a business guy, so you always got to think, you know, what's in it for him. Yeah. You know, like the pinball community wants to hear it, but it doesn't lead to necessarily more sales. And at the end of the day, that's his job, you know, like, yeah. But, yeah, I don't think we could ever do the year that me and Marty just did because, yeah, I don't know how we did that many interviews in one year.
    166:19
    Okay. Well, usually I plug all the podcasts, but they just plug themselves. Oh, my. Pinball Profiles. Well, Ron, now you should go plug yourself.
    166:32
    Oh, my God. Oh, my. So, Ron, is this the part where you would like us to, like, sing eulogies to you? No, no, none of that. And Jeff Teal with Pinball Profile. I'm Jeff Gifford. And Mrs. Penn. Can't forget Mrs. Penn. Just had her 50th episode. Mrs. Penn, eh.
    166:50
    Sorry. I regret you informing me that I have not written a 4,000-word letter for you to read while we wait for Bruce to stop cooking. Yeah. Well, here's the funny thing. When it came to reading the mail, the mail ball bag, it's not the same without Bruce doing his thing, but the mail ball bag, yeah, pretty much that's it. Hoo-hoo. Yeah.
    167:12
    Cool. Oh, my. Cool. I'll put a plug in here because, as our listeners probably remember, at some point Bruce screwed up when he set up his Google My Business account, and instead of using the correct e-mail address, he used the Slam Tilt one. So I constantly get, like, reviews for Silver Ball Saloon.
    167:38
    And just going through this in the last week, And I'm assuming these are public reviews. Well, if they're not, I guess I won't say names. But we got, you know, four-star review, great selection of pinball machines. I got a draft here yesterday. Okay.
    167:53
    Love this place. The owners are amazing. And we have best cheeseburger I've had in a very long time. And they spelled cheese wrong. It's E-S-E, not E-A-S-E. Maybe it's Canadian. I don't know. Great. It's a cheeseburger. It's great prices, drinks, and food. There are many games to play while you hang out.
    168:17
    So just kudos to Bruce. Business seems to be doing very well. The Silver Ball Saloon, which is located where, Zach? 135 West Street, East Rochester. Damn it.
    168:30
    The zip code is what, 14443? I don't know. Yeah, are we mailing him a letter? I was going to say, in case you need to mail him. Yeah. Well, Crystal, where is it located? I didn't understand Zach. What is it? 135 West Commercial.
    168:49
    Highway. Street. 135 West Commercial. New York. Easy to think of, it's West Commercial, but it's in East Rochester. So if you just remember West and East. It's a good place with the good guys. Yes. Definitely. My favorite burger and the Steph funnel fries.
    169:13
    Because apple pie logs are pretty lit too, though. Apple pie log? Oh, yeah. Respect that. Imagine an egg roll, but it's an apple pie log. Yeah.
    169:23
    Okay. It sounds like it would burn my mouth. Oh, yeah. It was hot. It might, but you'll be pleased with yourself while you're burning your mouth. All I know is after Steve burned his mouth, he turned to me and went, Steph, I'm so happy. I was so happy. That was the happiest moment.
    169:42
    And that was after winning the 12-hour. So, Ron, I have a question for you. Yes. Since you were kind enough to have us all on, and you don't want us to all just sing your praises.
    169:55
    I would like to know, now that you're scaling down from the once a week, looking back on your episodes, what segment did you like the most? You know, when Tony and I were on, we did the whole game you like, game you hate, because that was my favorite. But I want to know what, of all the stuff, you guys tried a lot of different concepts. So which one just resonated with you?
    170:18
    I liked the face-off. Picking the, even though the rules would just change over, well, with Bruce, they could always just change while it's happening. But trying to pick, like, three games, each pick three games, and you pit them against each other, and there was actual strategy as to, like, what order you did, because you were going game versus game. And then you have the judge. And a lot of times you have to sell games that you hate or you think suck.
    170:46
    So you get to try your salesperson hat on, which I'm not very good at. But still, if I'm trying to say how great a game Close Encounters of the Third Kind is or something, I always like that. Or it would be great to have Bruce Hestas say how much he likes Total Nuclear Annihilation or something. That kind of stuff could happen during that game. I don't know why. We stopped doing it because we used to do it when we had guests and they would be the judge. Right, I remember that. And at some point we just stopped. We just stopped doing it. I wonder if it was because you went through most of the years. I couldn't really recall. Yeah, and that too because eventually you just run out of years to get three games per manufacturer from. Yeah, as I would play along intellectually while listening, I think the reason why that one didn't click as well for me was because you randomized and got stuck with an entire manufacturer. And sometimes you were so behind the eight ball because you didn't actually have the game eight ball to argue that. I think it might have been in my mind. I wonder how it would have gone if you had done basically the same thing, but maybe randomly assigned three games each from the year instead of just getting stuck with the manufacturer and then picking the games. I don't know. I really liked your three game for me. like you do best out of three, not this whole, here's a game in the top 100, here's another game in the top 100. I like your whole, let's do a game from, let's pick a year. Oh, it's 1980. All right. But instead of you get Gottlieb and I get whatever's going to win, then instead it's like, here are all the games. We throw them in the randomizer and you each get a game randomized out of the year.
    172:22
    Like three each. Sort of like how you did. It may not have worked any better, but in my head it would have been interesting. I mean, I know you guys on Head to Head, you like ran out of games. So you had to go to the, was it 101 to 200?
    172:36
    What happens if you go to 201 to 300? Is that coming up soon? Ryan, unfortunately, left. Yeah, he's gone. The moment I made fun of how they stole your segment, you immediately dismissed Ryan.
    172:46
    Make Mexico smash the EM top 100. But it'll be pretty rough because once they go out of the top 200, I mean, Ryan already doesn't know any of the games from 100 to 200. So, I mean, when did I get to the end? It would just be, I mean, he'll know Thunderbirds. So there's that. I think that either debuted in dead last or a third from the bottom. Yeah, I think it was dead last or second to last or something like that. I heard some people say it was at the bottom and others said it was above Hercules and Bugs Bunny's birthday ball. So I don't know. I didn't know.
    173:18
    Hercules isn't that bad. It's actually playable. I'm assuming it's novelty factors. I mean, because it's not. You're playing a cue ball, basically. So maybe that – now, I haven't played it. I've played Bugs Bunny, though, and that game is atrocious. So bad. So horrible. That's right. You get – I'm sorry. I keep hearing Millionaire is the Worst System 11, and I've not played that, and I'm just wondering how bad is Millionaire to be worse than Bugs Bunny? No, no. Bugs Bunny is worse. No, I don't care. I played Millionaire and actually had fun for a moment. No, no. Bugs Bunny is worse. There's no way. I don't care. I got done with Bugs Bunny. and the next thing I knew I walked home with two Premier games and felt good about myself. Wow.
    174:03
    Now wait a minute, that's just System 11? That's funny. That's funny, yes, yeah. Damn, I might have to change my mind then.
    174:10
    I mean, Millionaire, at least it plays. It's a complete thought. Yeah. It's a complete thought. What's funny is you shoot the saucer until you light the 50 million and then you get the 50 million and then you get your score stolen and then you go home sad. I mean... Yeah, we played a game. It was two years ago, and they had a restored one. I don't know why, at Texas Pinball Festival. It wasn't restored. No one had played it.
    174:38
    It was a commercial vendor. They wanted $3,500 for it. Woo! And I saw it, and I was with a group of three other people, and two of them weren't really pinball people. They were at the show that I knew. It was like, we've got to play this. And I'm like, why? You're Looney Tunes now? No, no, no. but I've heard about this. We've got to play it. So we play through it, and everyone's clunking through, and they're like, well, this layout, I don't really like it. Gets to the end. I'm like in last place. Score swap myself into first. Guy looks over at me and goes, what the fuck was that? And I said, that's Bugs Bunny, motherfucker. Todd Carver. Why don't you buy it? He just walked away. Just walked away. There's the quote for the episode right there. That's Bugs Bunny, motherfucker. That's the title. That's a t-shirt, everything. That's funny, motherfucker.
    175:28
    That's funny, motherfucker. I think that's a good note to end it right there. I can't stop that.
    175:37
    I would buy that shirt. I would buy that shirt, too. Well, put little asterisk things over the U and the C. You know, just so I could wear it. Yeah. Get a bunch of us out of Pinnberg next year walking around with others. all right well we'll get bruce back in here edit uh but for uh everyone pinballlifter.com use your brain not your back yeah pinballlifter.com use your brain not your back pb lifter you know pinball star amusements use it for all your non-stern pinball purchase needs including Thunderbirds and we have Mike Pupo of Flipper Fidelity from the system for your machines. He's also a Stern distributor so you can call him and see if he has any Beatles left. Or if not, maybe he's got Munsters in. Or if he's got Munsters in. Thanks everybody for being on the show. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Thanks for coming on. We did it. Good luck. See y'all later. Bye. So, I guess it's just you and me. Just the two of us. We can make it if we try. Just the two of us. You and I. So, um, repairs? Yeah, uh, I actually had to fix a video game for the first time in a while. I had to replace a monitor because I have a bad flyback in the brand new game of Road Blasters that I picked up a couple weeks ago. so I luckily had a spare monitor pulled it out, popped it in the game it fit perfectly wired it all back up and now I have to repair a flyback and rebuild a monitor so that is arcade pinball related because you can use monitors like that in pinball 2000's see, I brought it all around in pinball again really, ok and then that's about it for repairs just basic little, you know, today I had a Big game coil wire break off. Basic stuff. Today is New Year's Eve. I got 10 games for free set at the bar.
    177:49
    Yeah. And I have, I ordered a bunch of shit. Oh, boy. A bunch of shit for the rig. So we'll see. They start to, got a bunch of cameras on eBay, other parts. getting a rig together for streaming fun. There we go, since, you know, we don't know when we're going to reprodcast. We don't know when we're going to podcast next. Yeah. But don't worry. It won't be a Nate schedule. No, no, no, no, no. We will be talking about other stuff. We'll probably talk probably after in this, because Ron will be telling us all about his fun time out there.
    178:31
    Oh, yes, I will. Yeah. It's going to be great. I can't wait to play Magic Girl. And all the old sterns and all those old great Gottliebs. Yeah, but like Spirit.
    178:42
    And Spirit. And Alien Star. Okay, well. That's two. I'll give you that, definitely. Okay. I had to help Zach today put leg plates in on his genie. Genie. And we set that up, and it's pretty cool with that board set with the pie in it. The Lizzie. Yes. Works pretty good. I gave him a couple ideas for the Lizzy because it takes about a minute to boot up on the Pi and also the emulator I said why can't you have the Pi running all the time and he went I never thought of that so have it running like in attract mode and then just when you power up the game then the solenoids and everything ignite and then you're ready to rock the solenoids ignite the solenoids ready to ignite well actually they're already ignite they're already ignited, it's just you just got to throw a brown film. When I think ignited, I think they're on fire. Fire, fire. So, yes, I'd like to thank Beavis and Butthead for just 100-plus episodes of great intros. Yes. George C.K., I'd like to thank you. I'd like to thank you, my brother. And thank you to the fans. You guys. All our listeners, they're fans. They're fans. Yes, listeners, fans. We're rabid fans. all 62 of you. All 62 of you. There should be 69 of them. Oh, my. Or 420. Oh, my.
    180:11
    Don't forget to vote for Head to Head. Yeah. Vote for Head to Head and Swippies. And, as I said, I'm going to miss you, Ron. We're going to do this again. We will be doing this, you know. It won't be as often as you think, and as everyone would like, but it was nice hearing everyone saying that they're going to miss us, and it was really touching. I was really, you know, shocked. We did reach those 69 people really easily. Yeah. Those 69 people. They were all on the Cluster Vuck. Yes, they were. It was one hell of a Cluster Vuck. Hopefully our listeners will find that entertaining, or would have found that entertaining by now, because this is going to air after that. Yes, it would. If you can't tell, this was not immediately after the Cluster Vuck. Editing, editing. Yes. But this has been Episode 123, The 7th Flash. We're booted. We're the Slam Tilt Podcast. We can be reached. We can't guarantee we'll get back to you, but we can be reached at SlamTiltPodcast at gmail.com. We're on Twitch, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. Pornhub. No. God damn. Some of your old stuff is, yeah. But if you just go to SlamTiltPodcast.com, it's all right there in the upper right-hand corner. Plus, you can also follow us, our personal, if you want to get in touch with us on Facebook. Come up to us at the show and say hi. If you see Ron and Indus, give him a big hug. No, do not give Ron a big hug. No.
    181:41
    So Bruce has to get ready for New Year's Eve. He's going to have fun. How late are you going to be out? Probably about 2 o'clock. And then I get home around 3. And then when you get to the house, probably 11 to pick up his game. Yep. I'm picking up Lethal Weapon tomorrow. So, are you going to take like a black hole and put it at the top of your building and then just drop it at midnight? No, we'll probably drop maybe like a totem because that's even a worse game. Wow. All right. So, it has to be a Gottlieb. Of course it does. Okay.
    182:14
    And we're probably going to lose our poll. I'm very disappointed with some people. I really am. I don't get it. Star Wars is better than all those other games. Exactly. I don't understand. I really don't understand. I'm hurt. I'm very hurt. I'm butt hurt. But at least that means with all those kind of people out there, more sterns for us. Exactly. Fuck these people.
    182:38
    Although I pretty much have all the sterns I want at this point, but... There's a couple I'd still take. Okay. What would you still take at this point, Mr. Gamitron, Mr. Toast? I would take a pinball. Oh, yeah. That's right. Okay. I would take a Quicksilver because we only own half of each. So if we get another Quicksilver, that'd be great, too. I would take a Cosmic Princess.
    183:03
    Hurry, hurry, hurry. I would take that. It's not that bad. I would take it if it was cheap. But that's about it. I think those three or four would be the last ones. Maybe a better Meteor because I got mine cheap and it's pretty rough. If I could find a better Meteor, it'd be good. Or a better... Another... Three. Three Cheetahs. Or a new and improved seed, which, oh, that's Beatles. You're getting that. Which I'll have on Thursday. Beatles gold. Yep. Which will be at where? Oh, great. Here we go. The Silver Ball Saloon, 135 West Commercial Street in East Rochester, New York. Come down and see the 26 games, including the new Beatles.
    183:44
    And I won't go through any of the other stuff again, because I already said it in the previous recording. So, from all of us here at the Slam Tilt Podcast, thanks, everybody. This has been Episode 123.
    183:59
    Say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Ron Hallett. Oh, my. Whoa, a dead body! Check it out! Get the man to the mayor! He's not dead yet!
    185:01
    Come on, Beavis, let's get out of here. Yeah, right. Beavis, did you see McVicar? He was like, oh, oh, oh, oh. I'm not a buzz cut and laid out with him.
    185:23
    We should go to school early tomorrow, you know, in case someone else dies. Dumbass. We're rich. We don't have to go to school ever again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's pretty damn true.
    185:47
    I am St. Thor supporting the and the Well, I'll see you tomorrow. Yeah, you will. And then we'll talk next week about our next show.
    186:31
    You're funny. Fuck you, Bruce.