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Episode 64 - Break Glass In Case Of Emergency!

Special When Lit·podcast_episode·46m 24s·analyzed·Aug 6, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Pinberg recap: Wonka camera durability fix, Poker Run cancelled, Keith Elwin's design innovation sparks reflection.

Summary

Ken Cromwell and Bill discuss industry news from Pinberg 2019, including Jersey Jack's Willy Wonka display and a quality control issue with the Oompa Loompa camera toy, American Pinball's decision to abandon Poker Run as their third game, and Stern designer Keith Elwin's emerging reputation as a legendary designer following Iron Maiden and Jurassic Park. They reflect on design philosophy differences across Stern's designers and speculate on whether Keith's fresh approach might influence others.

Key Claims

  • Josh Coogler stated Poker Run is likely not happening for American Pinball game three due to lack of public understanding of the theme

    high confidence · Ken Cromwell citing Josh Coogler's statement from American Pinball

  • Jersey Jack Pinball identified that Oompa Loompa camera on Willy Wonka breaks due to air balls hitting it, caused by weak material

    high confidence · Steven Haberman's Jersey Jack Pinball update from the episode

  • Jersey Jack Pinball will replace broken WakaVision cameras with stronger versions over the next couple of weeks

    high confidence · Steven Haberman's Jersey Jack Pinball update

  • Keith Elwin won his fifth Pinberg championship and is now working for Stern Pinball

    high confidence · Ken Cromwell's recap of Pinberg results

  • Spooky Pinball had minimal representation at Pinberg 2019, with only Total Nuclear Annihilation present and not fully set up

    high confidence · Dr. John's Spooky update, noting Alice Cooper was absent and TNA was the only Spooky presence

  • Keith Elwin's designs (Iron Maiden and Jurassic Park) represent a departure from typical Stern design philosophy

    medium confidence · Ken's analysis of Keith's design approach compared to Steve Ritchie and John Borg

  • American Pinball is considering one of four previously teased themes for game three instead of Poker Run

    medium confidence · Ken speculating on American Pinball's direction after Poker Run cancellation

  • Oktoberfest has received positive reception from owners and operators following recent code updates

    high confidence · Kaz's American Pinball correspondent report citing owner Mike Revell's praise

Notable Quotes

  • “We have your dog. And I said, no. You need to come down with a leash because I don't have a leash for your dog.”

    Ken Cromwell @ opening — Humorous opening anecdote setting the tone for the episode

  • “Sadly not a Spooky game to be seen...we're going to put our Alice Cooper on site soon in a very well used public venue to see how it holds up.”

    Dr. John (Spooky Pinball correspondent) @ industry buzz segment — Reveals Spooky's strategy to test Alice Cooper's durability at competitive events

  • “Poker Run...it's likely not going to happen due to the lack of understanding of the general public of what the theme actually is.”

    Josh Coogler (American Pinball, cited by Ken) @ industry discussion — Confirms cancellation of rumored American Pinball game three

  • “There's a difference between confident and content, too, right? Content means you're not willing to aspire to do anything else because you're just happy with what you have, whereas confidence is you know what you're doing is good.”

    Bill @ designer philosophy segment — Articulates key distinction in how designers approach innovation

  • “Keith arguably could be the best pinball player that's ever lived...at least in the competitive scene. I don't know that anybody's been more dominant than Keith Elwin.”

    Ken Cromwell @ Keith Elwin discussion — Establishes Keith's competitive legacy before transitioning to his design work

  • “Keith Elwin is introducing different designs, something that I think a lot of people would consider kind of outside of the box from what we're used to coming out of Stern.”

    Ken Cromwell @ design innovation discussion — Identifies Keith's design philosophy as distinctly different from established Stern designers

  • “I get a false sense of security when I look at something and it looks like it's bare. Right away I think, oh, well, they didn't spend a lot of money on this.”

    Ken Cromwell @ playfield design discussion — Reveals collector preference for visually packed playfields as marker of perceived value

Entities

Ken CromwellpersonBillpersonJersey Jack PinballcompanyWilly WonkagameAmerican PinballcompanyOktoberfestgameKeith ElwinpersonSpooky Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Willy Wonka's Oompa Loompa WakaVision camera toy breaking due to weak material when hit by air balls; multiple owner reports; Jersey Jack responding with replacement program

    high · Steven Haberman's correspondent report: 'That toy has broken on a number of owners' machines due to air balls hitting the camera. This was due to a weak material being used in the build, and JJP is replacing those cameras that break.'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Keith Elwin's fresh, unconventional design approach at Stern potentially influencing other designers to push boundaries and innovate rather than rely on established formulas

    medium · Ken's extended analysis: 'Keith Elwin is introducing different designs, something that I think a lot of people would consider kind of outside of the box from what we're used to coming out of Stern' and discussion of whether competitors will 'push the envelope and think outside of the box'

  • ?

    product_strategy: American Pinball cancelled Poker Run as game three due to poor public recognition of theme; likely pivoting to one of four previously teased themes

    high · Ken citing Josh Coogler: 'Poker Run...it's likely not going to happen due to the lack of understanding of the general public of what the theme actually is'

  • ?

    code_update: American Pinball released code updates for Oktoberfest including new music, call-outs, and animations receiving strong owner/operator praise

    high · Kaz's report: 'Owners and operators have been really enjoying the updates to Oktoberfest...He says Oktoberfest is an amazing game that's fun and challenging, but it's easy to understand'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.139

0:00
coming at you out of st charles illinois the special when lit pinball podcast starts now hey what's going on pinball land welcome to episode number 64 of the special when the pinball podcast my name is ken cromwell i am bill uh bill what's going on man how are you oh dude long week man long week the week last week last week was long it's a weird week in general yeah dude it's like that funky week before the kids hit school again yeah you got all that nonsense you know my wife's a teacher so like right now it's you know depression you know the summertime blues because it's coming to an end and yeah me frankly dude it's it's it's a reprieve the first day of school because it's like i can come home yeah i have an hour before craziness hits and right now when they're home it's just i got craziness that leaves the house for school So it's like I'm back on vacation for the next eight months is what it almost comes out to be. And then actually you pulled up today. We're getting ready to podcast, and you brought in a stray dog to the studio. Well, I mean, he looked like he needed a good home. Problem was he had a number on his collar. And when you called the number and explained that we had their dog in their possession, what was the reply that you received on the phone for a lost dog? Yeah, if you could just bring this dog down to four houses away. Right. We have your dog. Ken and I are just stumped looking at each other like, really? We have your dog. Right. I mean, what if we're borderline ready to bring it to a place for animal testing or something crazy? Exactly. Not that we're going to do that. Out of courtesy, we called and said, hey, we have your dog. And they said, well, can you bring it back to our house? And I said, no. You need to come down with a leash because I don't have a leash for your dog. And what ended up happening? And we still walked that damn thing down anyway. Because nobody showed up for the dog. So anyways.
1:47
And, dude, the one thing I wanted to do, just because I'm in that type of foul mood today, is be like, we got your dog. And just totally F with them. But it would have been totally lost.
2:00

  • “I love packed play fields. And nothing against what Stern was doing...But when I looked at it, I don't think of like a fully packed, fully featured play field.”

    Ken Cromwell @ Black Knight discussion — Critiques sparse Pro playfields while praising packed designs like Ghostbusters

    • Alice Cooper
    game
    Total Nuclear Annihilationgame
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jurassic Parkgame
    Iron Maidengame
    Pinbergevent
    Replay FXevent
    Josh Cooglerperson
    Dr. Johnperson
    Mike Revellperson
    Steven Habermanperson
    Ghostbustersgame
    Black Knight Sword of Ragegame
    Munstersgame
    Holly Koskinenperson
    Daniele Anzhiariperson
    Joe Balcerperson

    competitive_signal: Keith Elwin achieves fifth Pinberg championship victory, establishing himself as potentially the most dominant competitive player in pinball history

    high · Ken's statement: 'Keith arguably could be the best pinball player that's ever lived...I don't know that anybody's been more dominant than Keith Elwin' and confirmation of his fifth Pinberg win

  • ?

    venue_signal: Pinberg 2019 reached 1,000 registered players, demonstrating significant growth and scale of competitive pinball tournament infrastructure

    high · Dr. John's report: '1,000 players registered and playing' at Pinberg in Pittsburgh

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Spooky Pinball plans to deploy Alice Cooper at public competitive venues to test manufacturing reliability and identify potential design modifications

    high · Dr. John: 'we're going to put our Alice Cooper on site soon in a very well used public venue...to see how it holds up as far as manufacturing and reliability goes'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Keith Elwin transitioning from player status to designer with strong early reception suggests potential for elevated status comparable to legendary designers like Brian Eddy

    medium · Ken's analysis proposing Keith could be categorized as 'legendary designer' after just two games (Iron Maiden and Jurassic Park)

  • $

    market_signal: Collector/player preference for visually packed playfields as indicator of perceived game quality and value; sparse Pro-tier machines perceived as less feature-rich despite functional equivalence

    medium · Ken: 'I get a false sense of security when I look at something and it looks like it's bare...I love packed play fields' regarding Black Knight vs Ghostbusters comparison

  • ?

    industry_signal: Manufacturers acknowledging increased competition and need to innovate; market shift forcing designers to 'raise the bar' rather than rely on established formulas

    medium · Bill's analysis: 'The market is shifting. They have more competition...you've got to keep raising the bar. Otherwise, you get left behind.'

    • Okay. Yeah, you've got the eye of the tiger going today. For those of you that are upset with pinball podcasts that don't start off talking about pinball, we went for about 2 minutes and 10 seconds. But right now we're going to get into the pinball news. Getting the news from around the industry in this week's Industry Buzz. Hello, it's Dr John with my spooky update for this week. If it's a bit noisy, I apologise, because I'm actually standing in the middle of the main hall of the Pinberg at the David Lawrence Convention Centre in Pittsburgh. It's the start of day two, and it's a huge event, of course, with 1,000 players registered and playing. All the manufacturers well represented. represented sadly not a spooky game to be seen so um we'll hopefully eventually see some spooky games used in these big competitions we're going to be putting our alice cooper on site soon in a very well used public venue i'm going to see how it holds up as far as manufacturing and reliability goes because i think that's one of the key things that people are looking for when they put games in big events that the game is going to last well throughout the competition. So all we can do is test it on site. Maybe Spooky can learn where things need to be modified if there are any breakdowns. But we'll see how we go. But I hope you're all having fun over there at the studio, and I'll be in Chicago next week to catch up live with the lads for a bit of a stream with Emily. Thanks again, guys. See you later. Hey, this is Kaz, your special when lit American pinball correspondent. it. There's no major news on game number three, but the team at American Pinball continues to tweak and improve Oktoberfest, as team member Ferrett worked hard on code and later competed in Pinburg this weekend, finishing around 60th place out of nearly 1,000 competitors.
    4:00
    Owners and operators have been really enjoying the updates to Oktoberfest. I spoke with one owner, Mike Revell, who goes by Arcade M on Pinside. He's owned the game for a few months and says that he and his wife love it. They're enjoying the new music, call-outs, and animation. He says Oktoberfest is an amazing game that's fun and challenging, but it's easy to understand and that they leave every game with a smile. Everyone I spoke to has praised American Pinball for listening to their customers to continually improve their games and are all looking forward to game number three. For American Pinball, this is Brian Kossner.
    4:40
    Hey everybody, this is Steven Haberman with your special Wendlet Jersey Jack pinball update. All eyes from the pinball world were on Pinberg 2019 this year, and Jersey Jack's new game, Willy Wonka, was on display. It was one of the main games on the main stage in the finals of the Pinberg tournament. It was actually the last game played on stage in the finals. Daniele Anzhiari and Andrew Rosa II were playing on it to break a tie in second to find out who came in second and who came in third. Daniele eked out Andrew on that game. The winner was Keith Elwin, his repeat and his fifth victory at Pinberg. Congratulations to him. Also to mention, any Wonka owner or those concerned or interested in things that happen with a new release, There has been talk about an issue with the WakaVision white camera. That toy has broken on a number of owners' machines due to air balls hitting the camera. This was due to a weak material being used in the build, and JJP is replacing those cameras that break. They reported that it'll be a couple weeks before those start going out to reported issues. If you run into that issue, report it to your Jersey Jack support team, and they'll be happy to help you out. That's our update for this week. See you next time.
    6:08
    I kind of take the back of the envelope drawings and I'm able to turn them into real things. Welcome to another Multimorphic Update. I'm your correspondent, Ryan Claytor. That napkin idea translator you just heard from is the latest Multimorphic member I'd like to spotlight. His name is TJ Weaver, and he is... One of the mechanical engineers here. I'm responsible for basically representing everything we do or make in 3D space on a computer. TJ gradually transitioned into work at Multimorphic starting in 2013. I started out kind of doing this a little bit on the side, but then I kind of got pulled into doing it full-time, and I quit my day job in 2015, and I've been doing this full-time ever since. As you heard, TJ's been at Multimorphic in a full-time capacity for the past five years and started on some very early engineering work for the P3, including modeling and making fundamental mechanisms for the P3 architecture. So these are things like the new hovering flipper and slingshot assemblies to the wall and scoops and even the infinity ball trough, to name just a few. But you can add a bunch of game-specific mechs to that list as well, like the eight-ball spaceship lock for Lexi Lightspeed, the show-stopping triple ramp lock on Cosmic Kart Racing, and he even has a big engineering hand in the P3's upcoming full-featured game. In closing, I'd like to thank TJ for his time on this interview and for his cutting-edge work on the P3. I'm Ryan Claytor, your Multimorphic Correspondent. Stay innovative.
    7:38
    So always good with the correspondence, checking in. Interesting, so we think about Spooky Pinball and their presence at Pinberg, or their lack thereof. That kind of surprises me a little bit. All the manufacturers are represented except for Spooky Pinball. And I did want to have a side note. Dr. John did contact me after he had submitted this and said he did spot a TNA. It just was not set up at the time that he was there. So total nuclear annihilation was at Pembroke. Yeah, that is real surprising, honestly. I mean, with that showing that competition that was going on there, not to see one. Not in Alice Cooper's, at least. Yeah, Alice Cooper's is the newest installment from Spooky Pinball. But, I mean, there was nothing else there except TNA. So I guess that's representation of the company. I guess I'm surprised with all the machines that we didn't see more of a spooky presence there. Well, it's the end of summer. Dude, no one wants to go to a pinball show.
    8:28
    Right. But, I mean, I don't think. I'm kidding. I was like, spooky didn't need to be there for the machines. That was an extremely huge show. So thanks for Kaz checking in at American Pinball. Now, recently it's come to our knowledge that Josh Coogler has stated that Poker Run, which is one of the rumored titles that American Pinball were potentially launching for their next effort.
    8:49
    Josh says it's likely not going to happen due to the lack of understanding of the general public of what the theme actually is. Now, he also said that it's another Joe Balcer theme that he's always wanted to do. So you've got Oktoberfest, and then Joe Balcer is, I guess he'd like to roll into Poker Run. What are your thoughts on that? I think that they should go back to a Houdini-style theme, if not a licensed theme. I think that's where it would be. Yeah. It'd make a lot of sense to go to licensed at American Pinball right now. I don't think it'd be advantageous for them to do another original IP right now. I don't know if they're ready for a licensed theme right now. If they're far along on game number three, I don't know that you can just switch the theme to a licensed theme. So whether or not they've acquired one, I'm not sure. I think likely we'll probably see one of the four that they've teased or that they've mentioned. But I'm open for surprises. I mean, who knows? Maybe they did. I went on record. I thought for sure it was going to be Poker Run because it really made no sense to do Poker Run, in my opinion. And I thought that would be the ultimate curveball. You started seeing these clues on Facebook of these car keys. You know, it's like, all right, well, you need keys to start a vehicle to even get involved with the Poker Run. So I don't know. I guess we have to sit and wait and see. But I'm not buying any of that propaganda they're putting up on Facebook. I think it's just trolling in general. Absolutely, dude. I bet you it's going to be Sherlock. That's the most recognizable out of all of them in my eyes. When you say Sherlock, and I was listening to this week at Pinball, Dennis Creasle was saying, well, Sherlock, you use keys to lock a door. So maybe they're teasing Sherlock. I mean, it's just one of those things. I don't care what they're teasing. I'm telling you, it's going to be Sherlock. It's going to be Sherlock Holmes. It's got to be, dude. It's got the most recognition out of all of them. Okay, but also, I mean, Josh is talking about how Sherlock Holmes is going to require a lot of special code if they choose to go in that direction. And if they're already working on game three, doesn't that make you believe that maybe Sherlock Holmes has already been passed? I'm thinking at this point we're looking at Valkyrie or Robin Hood. I think those are the two that we're looking at. Now, I'm 0 for 1 in the predictions because Poker Run has left the building. So, again, I'm thinking Valkyries or I'm thinking Robin Hood. I'm putting all safe bets on Sherlock Holmes. All right, good. We'll have to bet a burrito on that one. Absolutely. In the Pinberg final, the last game everybody played was Willy Wonka. Now, that's pretty interesting. For the tiebreaker, for second and third. It's pretty awesome. So the Wonka final game in the Pembroke Finals at Wonka. And now we're hearing that there's been a little bit of a quality control issue in regards to the actual Oompa Loompa camera holding guy that has gone down a few times. But, you know, at Jersey Jacks, we understand that this is a problem for air balls, and we're going to go ahead and correct it with something else. If you remember when Wonka first was revealed on the Buffalo Pinball Stream and that was the night at MGC Yes Like within the first I don know couple balls Oompa Loompa went down Remember that He just flew off the play field He just – Clean off. Right. I was like, oh, hey, we got Oompa Loompa down. So they're coming up with stronger Oompa Loompa camera guys. Yeah, they'll be replacing. But you know what? I mean, let's dig into this just a little bit more. Yeah, let's go for it. We're going to dig an inch here, Ken, if you're up for it. Let's dig an inch. But you know what? Nothing is infallible on a pinball machine. No. You know. When you get an air ball, when you get like one of those metal balls that has air underneath it, I mean literally anything is possible. I'm surprised that this has not happened or at least I haven't heard more stories of this happen. Every so often you get that air ball that hits the playfield glass. Oh, yeah. And I've had an instance where I barely dinged a playfield glass and it just shattered into pieces. I've heard stories of back glasses with that happening. if a if a pinball hits in the right place is it possible for the playfield glass just to shatter all over the playfield into the scoops so not me being careless all over the place i've totally trashed out a pinbot translate you know literally just being being careless dude that hit the corner and that my basement wasn't finished and just the right amount of just snap that sucker right i mean the corners are the vulnerable points right those corners that you you tap that and it's going down We saw that at Stern. That happened when we were there. An employee was moving some glass, set it down, and – Yeah, yeah. But here's the funny thing. So over the weekend, dude, I had a couple of sheets of just trashed-out glass that I had to get rid of, and I wasn't going to go find a dumpster for them. So I'm like, you know what? Throw them in my – Bill's tip of the day.
    13:18
    Throw them in a – Bill's tip of the day. We should get some intro music for that. Yeah, we got to get some. That was horrible. See if Scott can rip something up for that. Right, in between his soundtrack for game number two. Yeah. I mean, he can just slow the beat down from TNA, and that's fine, too. Yeah, or do it in reverse, maybe. Yeah, exactly. There you go. I like that. Okay. And your tips of the day should also be in reverse, so that when you play him, TNA plays in the tips. I'm sorry, man. So it all makes sense. Right, exactly. I like it. All right. No, but, dude, I take a black garbage bag, put the whole thing in, wrap it up, and have just the tiniest corner exposed and whack it with a hammer. Yeah. And I had this glass that was probably on a T2 originally. Why do you expose the corner? So you can smash that corner with the hammer, and then the whole thing shatters inside of the bag, and you don't make mess everywhere. But if you had the bag over the corner, couldn't you just hit the corner anyways? I like doing it with the... A direct hit? Yeah. But, dude, I had to smack this piece of glass for five minutes to get this thing to break. Yeah. And I've had one, dude, you barely tink it, and it shatters. Yes. So, I mean, that's just luck of the draw. That's how it goes. A quick story outside of pinball. I remember years ago, it was like negative 12 outside. And this was back in the day where I didn't have a lot of kids or I didn't have any kids. And I could go out late and I could come home and I could come home at like 2 in the morning. And my wife didn't care. And I wasn't out every single week or every single night at 2 o'clock in the morning. But on my Thursday nights, I go out at 2 o'clock in the morning. Yeah, you took off Sunday. Right. So I remember coming home and I took off Sunday. I come home. I don't have my keys to get in the house. And my phone's on like 2% battery. Yeah. And everything dies, and it's minus 12. I'm stuck outside. So the only defense that I had, because I'm too proud and embarrassed to go to the neighbor's house and knock on any doors, wake them up 2 in the morning, was I need to jump into the window well. And the window well leads to like – I'm looking at windows to get into the basement. Emergency exits, exactly. Egress windows, yeah. Right. So I'm like – I'm hiding in the window well after trying to start my propane grill because I was trying to start like a campfire outside for myself just to live because it's freezing. A little hobo fire. I like it. So I'm like, I cannot do anything. I just see Kenny Cromwell in a flannel jacket, just rubbing his hands like coming to America. Another tip, the propane grill doesn't start at minus 12 either. It just doesn't. So it's like, all right, that sucks. So I'm like, I'm going to have to kick the window in. So I'm like, all right, so I'm like lightly kicking it because I don't want to get glass all over the place. Kicking it, kicking it, it wouldn't break. I'm in like full-fledged kicks. The glass would not break. I couldn't believe it. I'm like, I'm going to die in a window well because I can't kick a window open. And finally, literally after 40 or 50 kicks, the window falls out. The whole window frame comes out and falls on the ground, and then the glass shattered.
    15:57
    But then I got in the house. And I'm sorry to, you know, as I digress here, but it reminds me of like these pinball play field, like this glass. It can take a beating, but if you get it in the right spot, you're in for a little bit of a surprise, right? Yeah. So you got to be careful. So anyways, good job on Jersey Jack Pinball correcting a little quality control issue. And in the grand scheme of things, if something's going to go wrong in that game, it might as well be one of the – Something easy to fix. Yeah, something like a little play field or a little WakaVision Oompa Loompa. I wanted to take a moment to congratulate everybody that took part in Pinberg. As you know, we're not like competitively based pinball podcast, but I think it's important to recognize everybody's competition level and their camaraderie. And I did find myself from the outside looking in on Facebook this past week just seeing everybody having a good time and going to Pimberg and replay FX. And I wish I could have been there. And, you know, it's interesting because when you see these shows, I mean, we're out of the Midwest, right? So there's a couple shows that we can get to a little bit. Relatively easy. And it's MGC and Pinball Expo. And then this past year we went to TPF. We talked about wanting to get down to the Louisville show because, again, it's a driving distance for us. But when these big shows go on, and even these little shows, and we're not there, and I'm seeing people having fun, I'm always very envious that we're not there. Because there's nothing more I would like to do than drop everything that we're doing, fly out to a show, stay there for a couple days, and just mingle with everybody. Yeah, I miss that time, too. Yeah. So I felt a little left out, but I want to congratulate everybody at Pinnberg, and I want to congratulate the winners. And we know who the winners are. I want to congratulate Keith Elwin, who's now working for Stern Pinball, for winning his fifth Pinnberg. And I wanted to congratulate Holly Koskinen, and I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing your name, Holly, for winning the second annual Women's International Pinball Tournament at Replay FX. So, you know, everybody that's there that took part, congratulations. And you may be a little bit jealous. Maybe next year we can make it. Hopefully next year that we can make it. I'd like to expand a little bit. Now, we talk about Keith Elwin, who's won his fifth Pinberg. Which is just crazy. It is crazy. Now, Keith arguably could be the best pinball player that's ever lived has ever walked the earth, at least in the competitive scene. I don't know that anybody's been more dominant than Keith Elwin. I wanted to ask you something because now we're seeing his design, his designs come to fruition on these play fields, right? We saw the archer pin that was turned into Iron Maiden. And I think when we talked last week about the sophomore slump, how do you follow up a successful pin? Well, he followed up with Jurassic Park. And from everything that I gathered that I saw on the stream, it looked like a solid shooting pin. But then from the pinball experience that people had at Pinburg, It seemed largely everybody walked away with a positive experience. So now Keith has two games that are arguably some of the best pinball machines that Stern's put out in quite a while. And you say, well, it's a small sample size. It's only two machines. You can't really say anything. But let's take a look back. Let's look at somebody else who's a renowned pinball designer who's currently working at Stern. And let's look at Brian Eddy. Brian Eddy had three pins that were – two of them were major blockbusters. And we talk about medieval madness. and we talk about Attack from Mars, but then you look at Shadow, that's gained a lot of traction as of late. So the guy is a legendary pinball designer with three pinball machines. So now we're getting close to potentially categorizing Keith as potentially a legendary designer. But I've got a question for you. When we think about Stern and we think about the machines that are coming out, you kind of have an idea about the approach of each of the pinball designers. Like, you know what Steve Ritchie is going to aspire for. You know, he's looking for fast and flow shots. And you know that with John Borg is looking for smooth shots with kind of a fan layout. I mean, so you kind of typically understand what these guys are doing. Keith Elwin is introducing different designs, something that I think a lot of people would consider kind of outside of the box from what we're used to coming out of Stern. In your opinion, and if you want to take a minute to think about this, because we have no show notes today. We're just kind of going on the fly. Freestyling it today, people. Freestyling. So hopefully it's good listening. Literally no prep today. But do you think because Keith is in the building, not that anybody feels intimidated, but do you think because of the way in which his newer and I would say fresher designs or more fresh designs are approached, do you think that it could potentially change the way some of these designers are approaching their pins moving forward? And what I mean by that is do you think that they see that there is an appreciation for something that's new and that maybe the other designers start thinking a little bit more outside of the box? Or do you think that these guys are secure enough and confident enough in their designs that have sold over the years that they really don't have to change as much? And I'm talking about like – I mean every design that comes out is different. Yeah, I mean – But you have like that characteristic of a designer. Yeah. Do you see anybody starting to sway a little bit, maybe push the envelope and think outside of the box? Or do you think everybody's kind of like steady goes and you know what to expect for me when I come out with a pinball machine? Honestly, I could see the envelope getting pushed. I mean, it's kind of like the heyday of pinball all over again from the 90s anyway, where, you know, you sold X amount of games. I'm going to sell this amount of games, you know, and we don't know those numbers now. Right. But you can tell. Not from Stern, for sure. No, no. But, I mean, you can generally tell the success of a pinball machine, especially in the used market on what they're going for.
    21:24
    And, you know, it seems as of late there's been a lot more innovation coming into games. Yeah. You know, I'm staring at Black Knight Sword or Age LE and the Lexan upper playfield. Great idea, you know. It is an interesting idea because you get to see what's going on underneath. I know, like, World Poker Tour also had kind of a plastic upper playfield Lexan, didn't it? Yeah, I'm not sure. Okay. I've never actually stared at one long enough to notice. Okay. So you don't think that, for instance, Steve Ritchie and John Borg and Brian Eddy are sitting in their office and they're going, oh, man, that one's doing something completely different. I think I'm going to try to implement something that I've been working on or something that I've been contemplating because I think it's easy to, if it's not broke, don't fix it, so to speak. Yeah, but I don't see them being content anymore. I don't see them being content, you know, especially with a lot of the stuff that's been coming out. There's a difference between confident and content, too, right? Yes. Content means that you're not willing to aspire to do anything else because you're just happy with what you have, whereas confidence is you know what you're doing is good. And maybe some of it intermingles or intertwines. Yeah. I just always wonder if, because, I mean, Keith is the newest designer there. He's the youngest designer there. If that kind of forces or at least opens up the possibility of a different thought process when these guys are now approaching their, you know, more recent designs or their newer designs going forward. I could see that definitely impacting. I mean, let's be honest about this, too. The market is shifting. They have more competition. Maybe not, you know, as crazy as, you know, like Ford and GM or anything like that. But, you know, there's more competition. There's more products out there. So, I mean, you've got to keep raising the bar. Otherwise, you get left behind. And I think Stern has raised the bar. Oh, absolutely. Especially with his last release I very pleased with what I seeing as far as I love packed play fields And nothing against what Stern was doing like for instance with Black Knight Sword of Rage Pro But when I looked at it, the game shoots fun. But I just when I look at it, I don't think of like a fully packed, fully featured play field. And I don't know that that's fair because that was not their intent with the pro necessarily, because it's going to go on route most of the time. Yeah. And their operators. But for those that buy pro machines, you kind of want to look at something and kind of wow at the spectacle. I remember one of the first times that I had done that recently was when I first saw Ghostbusters, when it had come out. I mean, it was just such a populated, packed play field. And this is a source of contention between you and I, but we'll get into that later. What's that exactly? You love the premium. I love the premium. You love the magnetic slings. I love the magnetic slings. The goggles. Yeah. And the Subway. Yeah, I love the Subway shop. And honestly, I've had my Ghostbusters for two or three weeks now. And I got a Pro because I didn't – it's not that I didn't like those features. It's just they didn't warrant the extra money in my eyes. Because I really like the way that the Pro flowed versus the Premium. But at first glance, the Pro looks packed. I mean – It is packed in my eyes. I mean, dude, that's a solid game. And I think you might be kind of proving what I'm trying to say. is when you look at the Pro and the Premium with Black Knight Sword of Rage, it looks a little more sparse on that Pro, whereas on Ghostbusters, the Premium and the Pro both looked like they were pretty packed. I think a lot of that might have been the artwork package that Jeremy Packer put together, Zombie Yeti, because it creates a busier play field. But they had packed that with a lot of molds and toys and things like that to kind of make you feel like you're in a city that was under glass. And it's a beautiful machine. I really like it. I mean, that's probably one that's going to be there for the long haul. Recently over the weekend, you know, just kind of going into this a little bit more,
    25:06
    Munsters. Munsters is one of those games where the pro, it doesn't, you know, it lacks the lower play field, but it flows really well. It plays great. Could there be more to it? Sure. But I don't think you're really missed out on a whole lot by not having the lower play field.
    25:24
    And I'm really enjoying that game. Good. Yeah, so, I mean, there is a discernible difference. between those models on the Pro and Premium versus Ghostbusters, where you're missing a couple features, but it's not as crazy. Well, and going back to Jurassic Park, again, it's just one of those games from Stern that they released where I look at it and I was like, wow, that just looks like a packed play field. I like that. I get a false sense of security when I look at something and it looks like it's bare. Right away I think, oh, well, they didn't spend a lot of money on this, or there wasn't a lot of ingenuity that went into this. And it's not just Stern. and it's any pinball machine that comes out that looks like more could have gone into it. And I think that's what caught me at first glance with Willy Wonka, because when you look at it, it looks like it's packed. Maybe it's not as packed and feature-packed as some of the prior Jersey Jack pinball, like Wizard of Oz or Pirates, but it's a packed play field. There's a lot going on. So I don't know. I guess time will tell to see where the designers go with their new designs, so to speak. And I can't wait to see what Brian Eddy's got coming up. You know, we've got the Dennis Norman pin, which will be the next Scared Stiff offering, which will be coming off from Stern, I'm hoping, by the end of the year. I want to see the art package there because I know Greg Ferrer's, you know, he did the art for the first two, and I'm a big Greg Ferrer's fan. He's my favorite pinball artist, and I want to see what he does with number three. And then, you know, I want to see what Brian Eddy has in store because when you think about pressure on somebody, I mean, Brian Eddy is so heralded on the three pins that he's done. I want to see what he's doing working within the constraints of a modern day pinball company that has probably a little bit more of a budget per pin. And I just am really curious to see what he's able to put out and then have it still make sense for Stern to be able to be profitable on the pin. I'm really curious to see what he brings to the table as well. But it's Brian Eddy, dude. I think whatever he does will probably be, you know, exceptional by any standard. I mean, I think initially that's probably the case. He's got a big following. But I think right now so many people are critical of absolutely everything on a pinball machine. I don't think it's going to be a free pass for him. I think he will have to absolutely prove himself. Not that he's not worthy of being a pinball designer, but I think he's going to have to prove himself that his fourth game is going to be something that people are going to want to collect and buy and play. But, yeah, I mean we had him in the studio. And him having the background of programming I think lends itself well to designing games. I mean, he has that ability to think from a coder and a designer. Right. And that's what's interesting with Keith, too, right? Because he's got the ability to figure out a layout that makes sense. But because of his competitive pinball playing, he's got kind of a scoring balance that makes sense to him. And then he's the one that's writing the rule set on these games for himself. Yeah. And then he's got help with the actual code portion. So, I mean, he's one of those guys that kind of has his hands over maybe more of a design of a pinball machine or the creative process of a pinball machine than maybe some of the others. Yeah, I agree with you. So let's go to social media watch here, Bill. I know that this weekend was fun for you. And as we all do when we got some downtime, we pick up our phones and we see what's going on on Pinside or maybe Facebook or maybe your favorite YouTube channel. Or maybe you're picking up a Twitch stream. Was there anything this weekend, social media-wise, that passed the time for you this weekend, Bill? Okay, so you know I don't ever go on Facebook a whole lot. I mean, I try to, but I'm not very proficient at it.
    28:46
    Friday night, we're going to kind of cancel Bill's Corner this week because we're going to be talking about this. This just in. So Whirlwind sold this past weekend. The gentleman came Friday night to pick it up. Had a switch bank error two hours before he got there. Figured it out. It wasn't a big deal. So Saturday morning. That always sucks, right? Dude. Someone's on their way to pick up a machine and you're getting this switch errors that never happened before. That sucks. A monster episode of Tourette's in my basement when I saw that. Yep, I bet. So whatever.
    29:20
    But so Saturday, because Whirlwind's done, everything was clean around the house. I had like nothing to do for a change, which is very, very rare. Right. So I go on Facebook, see a post that somebody had made, kind of poking fun at somebody else at that person's expense. And I didn't like it and kind of retorted. I don't want to go too in specifics of this. I don't know if that's good character. No, I would agree. I mean, we don't want to use our show as a platform to call any individuals out unless they've done some harm to the community or to somebody individually. Yeah. This is just like a post that we kind of thought was in poor taste because it called somebody out that works within pinball. and uh there's a good friend and we know the hours that this person puts in on said stuff well and it was a meme that made that kind of poked fun at at that person and their um and their association with games that come out provoked meme unprovoked i don't know but it's facebook man you know you know what to expect get it man but you know i mean this is pinball who so why did that bother you because there's bigger stuff in the world to worry about like what there's something bigger than pinball companies i don't know i can think about the 40 people that you know were shot this weekend between two mass shootings yeah that's horrible so for you to come up with a creative meme because you're gonna poke fun and drop some interest and blah blah blah yeah but can you can you really i mean with me it's hard to put that in perspective because a lot of times you need some type of if you focus on all the negativity and all the serious issues in the world i mean then we should never we shouldn't be podcasting right now because there should be something else we should be concentrating i will say touche to that just i think that specifically was in poor taste sure you know i mean guess what and in that thread people were saying well you know they're part of the public the pinball uh limelight they're gonna be subject to ridicule and stuff like that you're right doesn't make it right make it fair and to kind of streamline this process essentially somebody had posted something that kind of uh went out of their way to ruin somebody else's credibility that works within pinball. And they did it in a meme. Yeah. And Bill kind of challenged them in asking what they've done for pinball lately. And it just kind of escalated. It went over 100 posts within the Facebook page. And it seemed like there were a few different arguments. One, the argument was, well, this guy's got the right to express his opinion. And then number two point was, well, you can express your opinion, but you can do it professionally without being you know completely rude and calling somebody out on public form somebody's feelings and then number three were the guys where it's like and i this is my personal favorite guys oh you just gotta toughen up and just suck it up and if you can't take it then you need to go somewhere else and god forbid if something happens to you you go cry to your mommy it's like it's like the uh the tough guy you know that you know back in the day we would get hit with a stick and we liked it and you know you guys are all snowflakes it's just an opinion get over yourself and it's funny because those people are forcing their opinions on everyone on everybody else yeah when they so it's like it's such a contradictory statement and that's and then i realized that because i got involved that i was ken playing big brother no i mean i mean i'm kidding we got each other's backs i mean well yeah dude it was just i didn't need to protect you no no i said what i needed to said and i just you know i i when it got closer to you know when it got past It's like 20, 30 comments. I was like, you know. It went over 100 comments, man. Yeah, I started kind of backing out of it. You were smart. Because at one point I realized that I was in a discussion with this guy that was telling me that I needed to just blow it off and let it go.
    33:00
    And I was trying to discuss my side of things longer than the original reason why I was in that thread, which was to defend somebody that I consider a friend that works in pinball. Absolutely. And that's when I was just like, this is where it doesn't make sense for me to even be in here anymore. because I mean, why even you cannot. And I realize this. I wasn't trying to change this person's thought process. Yeah, because you can't you can't win an argument on social media. It just doesn't make any sense. You don't even try. But what I was trying to do is I was trying to offer a different perspective of how the delivery system of that meme and how everybody jumping in and in support or lack support, how it just it doesn't doesn't make sense. I mean, you should, in my opinion, there would have been a much more tasteful way of saying what he said. So nonetheless, no one is ever wrong for how they feel. It's just how they choose to interject their thoughts and opinions into things which make it wrong. I think him being concerned about things. In your opinion, it makes it wrong. In my opinion, yeah. In my opinion doesn't mean, you know, it's not the end all be all. But I think there's always a respectful way. And when someone says I could do something better than this person, great, let's see what you've done. You know, I love those people that say, oh, I could, you know, build a pinball cabinet. Listen, I'll be the first one With my meme of the guy sitting down on the couch Eating popcorn, because I would love to watch that Well, the other thing I didn't really understand was that The gentleman that posted the meme Supplements his income by providing A service for the pinball industry But then he went out of his way to call one of the Industry folk in a public forum, which was a Pinball enthusiast forum So the whole thing just didn't seem like It was tasteful to me And it was just kind of like, why are you biting the hand that feeds you because without this guy in pinball maybe pinball is not as prosperous as it was And maybe you not you know providing a service in pinball because he not there you never know and i won name names but literally i was on the the couch after this and i was looking up uh powder coders because i want to get something uh you know the rails and stuff done on munsters oh powder coating yeah and of course what pops up the gentleman i kind of just had it out with on facebook yeah nonetheless that that business is just a bit outside your reach now they're good sir i think a lot of people were backing you up and what you were saying and i appreciated that the one thing i did notice too is like when somebody went out of their way to kind of be belligerent and and just in my opinion untastefully rude within that topic i like to click on their profiles because with with doing the podcast we've got a lot of people that send friends requests and and i always kind of peruse their profile to see who i'm accepting as a friend and uh and i'll accept or i'll just let it go yeah but on on all these individuals that were aggravating me because of their forceful way of trying to force their opinion on others. I can say that none of them were in my friends list, which I thought was very interesting because that means most likely a lot of the people that listen to our show share a lot of our ideology and a lot of our beliefs and how we're respectful to people in general. So that kind of actually made me feel good. And again, it's not to say that I can't be friends with anybody that goes about something a certain way. I'm happy to have a beer with you and sit down at a pinball show and talk and get to know each other on a one-on-one basis. But I absolutely don't agree with the delivery method or the approach of going out of your way to call somebody out on a public forum like that. And I just don't like it. I think it was kind of in poor taste. Hopefully that now that this much light was shed on everything, it will make people think twice about spewing someone's name in pinball. right you know unless they're doing something they shouldn't be doing in in their life that is like criminal you know there's no reason for the witch hunt but i i agree man i agree that person you know uh like i said um no harm no foul nothing but respect you know we just see things differently and there's nothing wrong with that but just wanted to shed a little light on my perspective sounds good i bet it feels good they vent a little bit and get it off your shoulders no i could go on for another 20 but there's no point before we do that let's play drain it or save it all right it's time for this week's edition of drain it or save it drain it or save it's brought to you by learmods.com offering you custom playfield lighting for your pinball machine l-e-r-m-o-d-s visit learmods.com today now bill this is these are off the cuff drain it or save it because you don't even know what they are i didn't give you the warning earlier so you have not prepped for these so we're going to take it on the fly here are you ready let's do it first one is pinberg has inspired you to join a competitive pinball tournament drain it or save it i'm gonna have to drain that really i'm fresh out of time so i don't have the time to join something like that um not with a baby coming in the next uh 10 weeks uh you know right now i'm just trying to line up everything with the the house and baby rooms and paint basement and getting my pinball row kind of hopefully to uh a done uh so there's no work that needs to be done, so it's turnkey. I'm not going to have the time port here soon. I get it. I wouldn't mind doing it one day, because right now is not the time. Okay. I'm going to say this. I have been inspired to join a competitive pinball tournament. You know which tournament I'm going to join? I'm curious. I am going to join our pin crawl, which takes place at St. Charles here within our pinball club. Okay, all right. And get that going. It was at like five houses and 50 pins over the course of two or three days. No, it was like five weeks. Five weeks. But you know what? I got a lot more appreciation for competitive pinball than I ever have. Do I want to go out and go to Pemburg and register myself in a tournament? No. But I can see myself getting into something casual at a bar. Maybe a selfie league or something where you can just kind of go in and do it. So I'm going to save it. I was a little jealous and envious of everybody this weekend. All right, we've got number two. The moving T-Rex on the new Stern Jurassic Park is enough to convince you to buy the Premium versus the Pro. Drain it or save it, Bill? I am going to drain this as well. Draining it? Well, it's not because I don't think it's a great feature. Just because I am probably in on the Pro. Yeah, you're in on the Pro. Yeah, meaning like we've already had discussions, and I am probably picking up a pro. All right. I'm going to save it. Which will be the first new in box. Yeah. So I can't say the premium is better. Which is huge. Yeah. Which is huge. Kind of a present to myself. I'm going to save this because there's nothing that I hate more than buying something and feeling like I missed out. And that moving T-Rex, whipping the ball all around the play field, maybe even throwing it up and shattering my play field glass is something that's exciting and keeps me on the edge of my seat. You know, I'm the guy that's going to go in, you know, that buys the Wonka LE because I want the Wonka Vader in the back, that mech. And I'm the guy that goes in on the Jurassic Park Premium because I want the crazy dinosaur flinging the balls in the playfield because I'll feel like I was left out if I didn't. So moving T-Rex, I'm going to save it. Now, finally, Bill, here we go. This is interesting.
    39:48
    Manufacturers are not as concerned with playfield lighting presently because of several aftermarket options to light the playfield. Drain it or save it.
    39:57
    Ooh. I am kind of stumped there. And let's repeat it one more time, because if you're listening in the car, think about this. Manufacturers aren't as concerned with playfield lighting presently because of several aftermarket options that are currently available to illuminate that playfield. Drain it or save it. I am going to save that. Oh, hard take. Only because. Why? And realize, I just said earlier, guys, I bought a Munsters, and Munsters is a little dark. I don't think that was our intention to make a dark game, but it was kind of dark. I had a set of pin stadiums I put on at Life is Good. Yeah, right. But, yeah, only because of that. But, I mean, here, I'm looking at Black Knight. That's a very well-lit game. Well, that's because there's pin stadiums in there. No, there's not. No, I'm just kidding. I do not think that Black Knight is a well-lit game, but it's not as dark as some games that are out there. Because the color scheme on Black Knight, and I'm going to save this as well, Bill. I'm going to be in agreement with you. When I saw Wonka when it first came out, now when we played Wonka originally, we played at JJP Headquarters in Bensonville. Under fluorescent lights. Yeah, there's a lot of overhead lighting. But then the first time that we got it home and we opened up the SE and it was in the basement, I thought there was some GI out. Yeah. But it wasn't. It's just I'm so used to seeing everything blown up, lit in my face, whether it be with a pin stadium kit or spotlights or overhead lighting, that when I saw Wonka, it wasn't that it's not playable, I just wasn't used to it. But I would have thought that it would have been a little bit more bright or illuminated out of the box. So I'm going to agree that maybe there's not as focused of an effort to really light these things up. But again, I think a lot of us are kind of trained now to see something that's overly lit, and you kind of expect that stuck out of the box, and you're not going to necessarily get that. Well, I mean, and just for people at home, you know, to get an idea of what Ken and I prefer as far as a playing environment, do we like playing with the lights down low and the play field lit up? Yes, no overhead lighting, just the play field. Just it. Yeah. So, I mean, for us, it might be a little different than on location in the bar where there's lights and stuff like that. That's true. To sum it up on Drain It or Save It, Pimberg has inspired us to join a competitive pinball tournament. Bill's going to drain it. I'm going to save it. The moving T-Rex on the new Jurassic Park is enough to convince Bill or myself to buy the premium over the pro. Bill's going to drain that, and I'm going to save that. And then finally, manufacturers, they're not as concerned with play field lighting presently because there's so many aftermarket options to illuminate the play field. Myself and Bill are in agreement. We're both going to save that. And that's Drain It or Save It, brought to you by LearnMods.com. So, Bill, I mean, that's going to kind of wrap up episode number 64. It's always fun getting together. We're streaming Monster Bash tonight. I wanted to take a quick second and let everybody know how they can get a hold of the show because we do like getting emails. We do like interaction. First of all, we've got our Facebook page, right? Special When Lit Pinball Podcast. If you want to email us, specialwhenlitpinballpodcast at gmail.com. It's a mouthful, but it works. You can email us there. If you want to catch us streaming on the Flippin' Out Pinball channel, we do it every single week. You can go to twitch.com or twitch.tv, and you will type in the search box, flip the letter N out pinball. It's all one word, flip N out pinball, and you can follow our channel there. And every time we go live, you'll get pinged, and you'll know that we're doing that. Now, last week we streamed the TNA Whitewood with Scott Denisey for about three hours. And we have our After Hours Call-In segment. People got to call and talk to Scott. Super fun time. Scott's been on the show a few times, friend of the show, personal friend of ours. So that was good. And with Monster Bash this week, we hope to have Jurassic Park up and running here in the next week or two. I don't know what the timeline looks like as far as games that are coming off the factory floor and going into the consumers. But I do know that when Zach gets one, it'll be here quickly. So that's what I'm looking forward to. And we are also on Instagram. So you can follow us on Instagram at SpecialWinletPinball. Awesome. So that's Instagram. Finally, one last shout-out. Now, if anybody had purchased the Special Winlet Pinball Podcast t-shirts, it's our Tiki Girl design that was done by artist Brian Holderman. You'll know that in that t-shirt, in the scoring reel of the pinball machine, there's an Easter egg, and it's 0476, 7-6, and that stands for the month and the date in which Roger Sharp made the shot that saved pinball. Now, the reason I'm bringing it up is because Roger Sharp just recently celebrated his birthday, and myself and Bill, we wanted to wish Roger Sharp a very happy birthday for one of the best pioneers, founders, and ambassadors of pinball, in my opinion. So, Roger, Mr. Sharp, happy birthday. Have a good day, man. Have a good morning, good afternoon. No, no, no, no. I have a good birthday, but I think we both wished him well on Facebook. So we did get that out to him. He's such a great guy. We've had the pleasure of being able to sit down with him over dinner and met him at some pinball shows. And he's just a very down-to-earth guy, very articulate, very educated, very knowledgeable, and very humble. Dude, so refined when he's talking about stuff. Yes.
    44:53
    It's intimidating in the beginning, but then you realize that he's just a laid-back guy that just knows his stuff. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, and he's not afraid to let you know, tell you some stories or anything like that. He's a great guy, man. We are both better off as far as people for having met him and being able to spend some time with him. He is one of those people that you could have a conversation with him, and he'll be like, well, I couldn't think you were any further from the truth. He said that to me. Yeah, dude. But the way he says it, he says it like jazz. It doesn't make you feel like an idiot. I forget what the question was, but I remember it was on the podcast. I'm like, Roger, with this going on, do you think it would be A or do you think it would be B to be better off? And he's like, well, based on the options that you give me, I don't agree with either of those options. And I was like, oh, no, Roger Sharp just took me down. But it's always a good conversation with Roger. So, again, happy birthday. Happy birthday. Everybody, thank you so much for listening to Special One Lip. The listening numbers have been crazy off the hook, way out of our wildest expectations. and whatever is going on recently over the last four or five months. We've been on this surge. That's been awesome. We couldn't do it without the support. And, you know, if you know somebody that's into pinball, maybe has not listened to a pinball podcast, consider reaching out and letting them know, hey, Special Early Pinball Podcast, give them a try. Myself and Bill, we'd appreciate it. Absolutely. So for Ken Cromwell, I am Bill Webb. Everybody, have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening. And for Bill Webb, I am Ken Cromwell. Everybody, have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening. And don't forget to take some time out of your day, play some pinball. So long, everybody.