Um, I don't know, but I'm I'm curious what you would have what you would expect because Labyrinth has six main modes, uh, four different wizard modes, uh, different multiballs, a special mode called Barrel Ball people can do to have a social a social fun game instead of playing playing individual pinball. We play barrel ball pretty often at on tilt when the tournaments are ending and people that have lost are waiting to do something. So it is it is a used mode for sure at on tilt. I can tell you for sure. Uh it's pretty neat. It involves going into scoops and trading players. It's it's pretty crazy. Yeah. It's inspired by Stall and uh Jess Donardo, one of one of the uh employees at uh uh AB Barrels and Eric Brookie, the programmer. And then we also worked in Tim Kitsro, the voice of NBA Jam, who shouts at you while you're playing that game. It uh it works out. It's really fun. Totally. I think the friendship multiball has one of my favorite types of mechanics, which is where you can build and add multiple layers to the main multiball and then it changes how big it is once you initiate it. Um, definitely a favorite element of Labyrinth for me. Uh, would you consider that was a that was a cool rule to to build up where you're like, okay, we've got three jackpots in this mode and they're going to be built by the by the different characters. How do we want to build these so that it can grow? and we're like, "Oh, we could make them we can make the deck by one, two, three, four million if you're if you're uh at the levels." Like, that's not enough. When do you walk away from a game and be like, "The code's complete." Like, there's just this is there's nothing more I can do to this. How do you know? Um, this is this is a general rule for anyone working on any project. You don't at some point the project just says or the company just says or whatever the world just says, right? That's it. You don't get to do any more with this. If you get to a place where you're like, I'm satisfied and this is there's no more good work to be done here, then you messed up. You didn't do enough and you don't have enough good ideas to drive the project. We're not going to finish Dune because I mean, we are going to finish Dune, but we're not going to get everything that I want be in Dune and the other people want to be in Dune. We're never going to finish uh the projects other than to say, "All right, that's that's all the time you have on this. Let's get it done. Let's get it out the door so we can go back to working on Toy Story 5. So, it's funny you say that because I feel like Nice plug. I feel that it's funny the way you say that because that's the perspective of of a creative application, right? But you're working on something that is technical. It's mathematics. So, it's funny to me that I think that rules design is something that is a mathematical technical thing, but is also inherently a creative like application. I think it's far more of a creative application than people think of it think it is. Um, and you can look at games you love and games you hate and see the creative decisions being made in those games regarding rules and feedback and progression and uh see the positives and the negatives. So like there's there's a game from Stern from maybe 5 years ago now uh called with the Star Wars and people have a lovehate relation. Some [Music] people adore Star Wars. So it is a Steie playfield. So you got the fast flowing ramps and loops and it actually looks and feels a lot like AC/DC. It's AC/DC with a with a U-turn behind the left ramp. AC/DC in space. Spacey DC. spicy spicy I don't know high space um so divisible error is asking uh but uh oh sorry go ahead no I just mention about that is that the rules design there by Dwight Sullivan is about uh playfield uh shot multipliers and the shot multipliers are driven by hitting a target bank and increasing the multiplier and then and then using your action button to decide where to place the multiplier by turning it on turning it off moving it around. The shot multipliers are so valuable that they dictate everything that the player does. If you are not using the shot multipliers, you are going to lose to someone who is using the shot multipliers properly. So much so that the tournament mode had to limit how much the multiplier goes up. And a lot of players don't know that you can actually move the shots once you turn off the actual multiplier and to red. But it's clear that he must have taken or the rules designer based the entire application of the game around that concept to to our earlier point where you talked about coming up with a grand idea and then building the bottom layer. I'm assuming that must have been this. Yeah. And to me those grand ideas have to come from from the the IP itself. like there isn't anything that I associate with Star Wars and and attached to that that shot multiplier structure. I'm not saying it's a bad structure, but what I am saying is that it it ties the game to doing things in a particular way that are being pushed onto the player by the rules. And that that's going to happen in every game. So, like when you play Dune, I'm going to push you to play the game a certain way because of the day night cycle that's in there. You can only battle harvesters during the day. You can only do prophecy modes at night and vice versa. So, uh there is always going to be some pressing from the game to say what you can and can't accomplish, right? Uh but in some cases that is that is like pretty ownorous. Uh, and it can affect whether you enjoy that game or not. Uh, it's scary. You're making a decision early on. Like, like Dwight is one of the greatest pinball programmers of all time because of creativity in games is is just there. It's on point. It's always there. He did Sopranos. He did Who Done It? Uh, he's done he did Game of Thrones. He's done so many games with so much detail and in the concept and execution uh that that no one else is doing. Uh, and those things can be big swings. Uh, and if the big swing works, it's amazing. And if the big swing doesn't work, it can make people so pissed off at playing that machine that they won't want to come back and do it again. Sure. Um, I'm going to I'm going to plant this idea in your head from divisible error and then ask you a a question before that happens. So, Divisible is asking if you could walk us through what it is, thinking of a rule, implementing it, and then some of the like coding level uh process of that. just like what code looks like for not like super technical. You don't need to go into like C++ or C, you know, details. Uh but but before we get into that, I am curious what is is it a uh is the pressure on when you come up with that grand idea and you see that the game is going to be that direction, right? And you wonder like is this going to be accessible for a certain type of player? Am I excluding extremely good players or am I excluding extremely, you know, amateur players like Brass League gaming? Uh, is there just a way when you're designing it that when you've committed to the to the design concept? At what point are you like, this is where it's coming? Like the dayight cycle, this is going to be a feature, a baseline element of the game and we're running with it. Like I don't that's what everything's going to be based around and if they don't like it, they don't like the game. So, first of all, it's not just me. we got the whole team of people uh other creatives, other rules designers, other programmers, uh everybody else who is helping to make those decisions. So I think some of the grander uh weirdnesses that people propose, they don't make it because the other people on the team are like, are you sure you want to do this? Couldn't we do this? And hopefully you come up with an idea that's better than any any individual could by uh by collaborating. Um, ultimately though, you're exactly right. You can put structures in the machine that are a little divisive and can make people think that that they don't like the game. And uh, I I want to avoid that if I can. U, but ultimately, you do have to do things that are part of the IP like um, sorry about that. Like the giant prolapsed anus worm. Well, if you don't have a worm eating your pinball in the in the Dune pinball machine, you mess people are going to complain. That's that's it's got to be there. And and if you don't have good rules around that, like I'm able to call a thumper. I can call a thumper myself by using the action button as long as I've earned a thumper. But the thumper also happens automatically at other times. So the players who don't know or want to use the action buttons can still get that experience. Imagine if it was only on the action button and someone just said, "What does this button do?" I don't know. I'm not touching that. They would never see the worm. That would be a terrible decision. And I think the worm is really well integrated. It works off a mechanic that people are familiar with. I mean, it's similar to the Circus Voltater's uh ring master uh if you're not familiar with that game. Um also, it solves the problem of eating the ball. It allows the ball to move around the playfield in unique ways. I mean, it really is. You know, I don't think pinball should be that serious anyways. So, I think it's pretty funny that the the worm, it kind of looks like a butthole, but there's a lot of butthole games that I really love. Lord of the R, if we're going top three butthole games, Lord of the Rings, you know, Rush is up there. And I guess, you know, Tales of Arabian Knight, do you count that magnet as a butthole? What What happened? You forgot the best the best of all. You got the ship from Nero from the Star Trek. There you go. the by far the best butthole. Uh, all right. So, reeling it back. Let's let's go through the code thing for Divisible before he unsubs. So, you hate my You're going to hate my answer about code. My answer about code is I don't care because I don't code. Uh, I go to Eric and I say, "Hey, hey, Eric, can we do this, please?" And then and then we and then we get it in the game and we test it and play it and we see what happens. So that's the best that's the best position to be in is you tell someone else to do it. Eric has been Eric is a fantastic programmer and he did I worked with him on Rick and Morty on Labyrinth on Dune and uh his quality of work is unparalleled. Um I think that I mean I have a picture of what it's going to what it's going to be like with the rules as implemented. But I think one of one of the things you don't anticipate is how a new rule might interact with the existing rules you already put into the machine and you might end up with some something that either blows up the score because two things together just just feed to each other or more likely they get confusing because you shoot a thing and it's supposed to be this thing but it's actually that thing and people are going to think it's that thing because it's got the same effect as this other version of that thing earlier and you realize you have to do it a different way with a different shot because the players are expecting the left ramp to always behave this way. So, one thing I've really One thing I've really loved about Barrel's games, and uh I don't know, please tell me if this is something that you're responsible for, but uh to me, Barrel's games look like they have a certain level of simplicity to them, but when you start playing them, you start to reveal like all of these shots that are both not necessarily hidden, but the pathways of the ball are way more complex than the game seems from initially like just looking at it. At least that definitely Labyrinth is like that. And from what I've seen him doing, I haven't played it yet. We just got it on till two days ago. I'm playing it tonight in three hours or less. So, I'm pretty excited. No, no, it is that way. Uh, we have a whole area. The entire right side of the game is pretty much um tied into the the siege mountain that uh the the Fman live in. One of the most threedimensional sculpts. I'm sorry, just to interrupt real quick. These sculpts are the best sculpts on any pinball machine. There is a level of three-dimensionality and depth and underglass feeling that no other game has. And this this is not a paid sponsorship at all. Since since Flintstones since best rock since Flintstones, you've heard it right here. Uh, sorry. Continue. Um, I don't Oh, yeah. So, the right side has all these different shots that have multiple pathways to them. And so you'll shoot a ball through there and it'll come out somewhere perhaps unexpected. Uh, and it feels it feels good when that happens. You want there to be flow, but you also want there to be unusual things happening at regularly until you really get used to where everything is. Labyrinth was better at that than Dune is just simply because Labyrinth had these these maze-like pathways everywhere. Well, like if you look at the top right, the top right has all these different areas for the ball to travel through, and it's unclear where they're going to go in, where they're going to come out. And we can trap the ball there, too, with uh there's actually three different locking areas in that right side. Uh there's uh there's a lock in the mountain at the top of the ramp. Uh there's or a stop stopper anyway. There's a lock inside the little battlefields. And there's a there's a lock around the orbit where Manny can grab and drop the ball. It's funny. It's funny you mentioned that. I there was in the behind the scenes video that was produced that you guys did that's much longer. We did it on a live breakdown of it. And there's a part where they do the mountain's gone and you can see it. And I specifically call out I was like, "Oh my god, there's a magnet. There's a diverter in there. There's a there's a stopping pin." Like there's just so many ways to control the ball's path out of what seems like one shot. I just that's that's neat. I like that. Yeah, you want that. And it's not that hard to do, but you have to commit to it from the outset. Um, the thing that actually makes that that implementation the hardest is where are you going to put all of the optos, uh, all of the things that that trigger the poppers, any kind of solenoids that are that are back there, any kind of magnets that are back there, where where are they? Everything has to physically fit in the space. And uh simulation tools uh like uh Solid Works do a really good job of allowing us to figure out like, oh, okay, this is actually buildable using these tools. And we use just off-the-shelf tools. We're using the same tools that Williams was using in the in the '9s to make their games. I mean, some of the greatest pinball machines ever made from are from the 90s. So, if it worked, it should work now. We can eat the ball like Totan and we can jump the ball in the air like like Circus where Totan two great. We can also if you get the chance to we can we can pop the the the worm up about halfway and with the ball held so it's not going anywhere and then use it as a bash toy. So there is there is uh more since that is since that is a spiral mechanic. It's a it's a rotary drive, right? Is is there a risk of that mechanic becoming sternified? That's what I'm calling stuff that isn't properly tested and then breaks later uh when people are actually playing it. I don't know the exact number of cycles for testing, but I am extremely confident uh that there the testing on these things is is ridiculous in a good way. That's what it has to be cuz you're No one's going to buy this game unless they trust us to make it well and to make it work. Why should they? It's a lot of money. Uh that we need to prove ourselves every time. I couldn't agree more and I' I've been very vocal on the channel talking about how I think the inclusion of all of the stuff that uh David has chosen to include in the game in terms of like the halo lights, the expression system, the upgraded speakers, the fact that you get two LCD panels, the clear coating, I mean all the difference the topper like for the amount of money that is more and the fact that there is only one version of the game. I think it's a very consumerfriendly model and I think it's one that's one of the reasons why I was like I'm going to buy a Dune. I like the books and I really think that this company has people in in mind first about making really really quality pinball machines. So, but I'm looking forward to seeing if that's true. Now, the people working on this game, you got me and Phil Grimmaldi from Houston uh on the rules. You've got Eric on the programming, the mechanical design uh from from Travis and everybody else in the team is uh the Q the QC of the people making the machines like this is this is that's really where it matters the most. You have we have a team of full-time dedicated people whose entire job is to make make Dune pinballs. So those are the same the same people who who had full-time job making the labyrinth pinballs. So one criticism I know that has existed from Labyrinth was that the flippers felt kind of soft or squishy and I remember feeling this at onilt. Do is the mechanism that is in Dune the exact same flipper mechanism or is that something that is people are just it's in their head and that the solenoids are the same as William solenoids? So yeah, the solenoids are the same as William solenoids. uh and we are continuing to work because there are multiple there are multiple ways that things like that can happen whether it's temperature whether it's board sure I mean the pulse the pulse length for how long the charges boards we have we have a lot of controls we have a lot of controls in the software for how it's going to work um and so so you can change the software but also one of the things that I think we attended to on Dune is not having uh super tall ramp shots. Uh so in Labyrinth, the left ramp is very tall. The right ramp is not as tall, but it's still taller than anything in Dune. And this allows us a couple things. One is you you don't have to have as much flipper strength to make all the shots. And two, you have more visibility on that second lower screen. So, you have more real estate there to do uh interactions with the ball, which I think that lower screen is such an awesome thing. A lot of people are like, why aren't other pinball manufacturers doing it? And my answer to that was like, well, this was designed from the ground up for barrels games. Like that that was just how their machines were designed and and just forcing a second screen into a pinball machine isn't like you just can't just throw it in there. like that would have to be designed in and those mysteries of what problems that causes would need to be resolved. So, it's definitely a thing that really sets the barrels games apart visually for sure. Uh, which is funny since I believe it was just on here. You can see it using as an example where it blows up one of the harvesters. Oh no, don't do it, man. Don't do it. This is a little past that. Yeah, this is this is worus out of me. There we go. It's It's still It's still guard time. Yeah, this one. But yeah, there's an example of it exploding after and then it explodes and then boom, it explodes onto the screen as well. Um, has there ever been a rule or a concept where you were just like, "Man, this is so cool." And it just didn't get implemented? Like, do you have a favorite rule set idea that just hit the floor? It just wasn't feasible based on the game's design, man. Um yeah. Yeah. Well, I haven't done it yet, but uh I want to do it, which is um increasing the challenge of choosing to increase the challenge or payoff of things at the potential expense of losing losing your ball outright. Uh so, I thought the hand the box hand would make you lose your ball for real if you failed it. I'll play this mode for 10 million or play it for 100 million, but if I don't get the 100 million, I I die. And uh yeah, the well the the the box thing is more like an outlane save uh issue kind of similar to the old um like like the the stuff on Wizard of Oz. So, you would have died otherwise and you have a chance to uh to make it up. Okay, cool. Um let's see. Let me check my notes real quick. And we've covered so much stuff. I love that we went from TV game shows back to Arachus. Um, what do you what makes a what makes a rule fun to watch versus fun to play? I think is an interesting concept.