Thank you for watching. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to episode 98 of this flippin' podcast. We are recording with daylight hours. Crazy. Weird for us, but I got a snow day from school. Taylor is recording on his end directly from the Reese Rails Production Facility, also known as the garage. The garage. I'm in the shipping department right now, actually. I'm actually in my bedroom. I'm set up there. I just let the dogs out. They're good to go. And we had a lot of stuff to cover because pinball has been busy lately. We're entering the busy season of pinball. Next weekend, I'm in Denver. Two weeks after that, I am in Texas, as are you. Yep. Pinbird ticket sales happened. Two-second sellout. Oh, that's right. I forgot about that. I've traveled to Wisconsin and visited the wonderful folks at Spooky Pinball this past week. And I got to obviously play some Rick and Morty as well as Alice Cooper Nightmare Castle. So we're going to talk a good amount about those games and top of whatever else we venture off into. Oh, and wrestling season has concluded as of this past weekend. And we had a good year. I think since we last talked, my team went on to win regionals and semi-state. And then we had two kids place at the state finals for the first time since 2004. So it was a good conclusion to the season. And we already started off-season stuff this week. I had practice Tuesday. I was supposed to practice today, but we have a snow day, so there's no practice. That's what I've been up to. Congratulations. How about you, Taylor? What are you doing, wrapping things? I am wrapping rails. I have, yeah, I'm in my garage right now wrapping rails. Tommy hit me up and told me he had a snow day. And I said, we were supposed to record on Tuesday. My kids are, like, it's getting really busy. And so Tuesday didn't work for me. And then we're supposed to record tonight, but I'm supposed to go to a school meeting to fight for my kids' rights to get an education. Yeah, so it's busy. So this actually works out. But, yeah, I played in a tournament. I played in a tournament. And how did you do? I did not do well. But it was a tournament. I went to the Richmond Pinball Collective. It's a Stern Army location. I am one of those as well. Yeah, so it's a Stern Army location, and they're doing their monthlies. And I don't know if it's – it's just a – I think it was a three-strike format, three or four, groups of four. And it was on Sunday, like 1 o'clock, and we were kind of quiet day at the house. So I ran in there. Yeah, I did not play well. I had horrendous games on most notable Star Trek Pro, Stern Star Trek Pro. I had a horrible game. It's a game that I can normally do pretty well on. Yeah, I don't know. I just didn't play well. But you know what? I have to say, I've been on this diet, and I think I mentioned it on the last episode, maybe yeah we did go over our dietary plans so I'm on this diet or I was on a diet that ended the 2nd of um February so it's 30 days and I haven't really introduced a lot of like carbs back into my diet and I think that I'm just fucking tired I'm like I've lost a lot of weight and I'm at the point where I feel like, yeah, I think it's affecting the way that I played. Yeah, because you're too skinny, man. You're unhealthy. I might be unhealthy right now. Yeah. Don't worry. Texas barbecue is coming up. We're going to fix that. All right. Yeah, we're going to have barbecue. Who was it? Who was talking about going to barbecue? Scott Larson? Yeah, Scott definitely brought it up. I think he said that he was paying. I think he's taking us to get barbecue. I mean, I'm not one to turn down a free meal. I've got some bets going with some other friends that involve the winner of the bet buying a meal as well, which I'm pretty sure I will be the one getting the meal from that. So I'm looking forward to eating free. What's the bet? He was selling a game, and I think basically I told him he was undervaluing it, and he didn't believe me and he posted it for a lower price. So I, being the good friend I am, took his post and I quoted it in a reply being like, wow, such a good deal. But in the quote, I altered the price to increase it, forcing him to therefore increase the price. and uh nice i i believe that it will end up uh being sold for that price or close to it uh essentially i i'm just gonna be right i have a good feeling on that so we'll see uh but yeah man i'm i'm psyched for that like i know last time we talked i just mentioned how long wrestling season is and it was but then like the kids finishing so strong for the year um and we're like right on the cusp of as a team as like a program of like we could do really amazing things so like when saturday ended at state to state finals although it was awesome that we had two guys that were all state um and i'm very proud of them and it was great to be a part of those kids like one kid's graduating and he's wrestling for the university of indianapolis next year and the the ones going into his senior year, I was still just, like, disappointed in how close, like, small changes. We could have won matches and been wrestling for state championships instead of fifth place and seventh place. So anyway, like, come Monday, I really want to just get back into the wrestling room and start working with some of our younger kids that are doing the off-season stuff. So that was exciting. Well, I have to tell you that Kristen saw the picture you posted on Facebook. Kristen is my wife. And Kristen was like, so I saw a picture of Tommy, like a wrestling picture. And I was like, yeah. And she was like, she, he was standing next to wrestlers that look like they won something. And he looked really, really, really disappointed. And I, and I explained that. I explained it to her that like your guys had like gotten really close. And I, yeah, I think from what you said, like there were a couple of like tight matches at the end or whatever that just cost them. And it was kind of like a little bit of a letdown. Not that you're not proud of them, but it was like, you were on the cross, But, yeah, she was like, yeah, ask Tommy why he was so upset. And so that is basically it. My heavyweight, who's fortunately a junior, lost two one-point matches in a row. That's why he ended up wrestling for seventh. And then my senior at 132 got beaten overtime. It's at the state level. It's very similar to pinball where you have a very elite group that makes it to those finals. And once you do, it's who's having the better day. And occasionally you get a weight class that has somebody like a Keith Elwin who everyone knows they're most likely going to win. But a lot of the weights, it's just very much who's having the better tournament. It's really cool to see. It's a weirdly emotional experience, too, because, like, I had forgotten because I haven't traveled with the team to semi-state in a couple years because I'm just usually working in our semi-state. It's like two and a half hours away. But there's a round they call the ticket round. You win. You punch your ticket. You're going to the state finals. And that's like, you know, that's what most kids' goals are when they're going to do a sport. and to see kids losing that round, like how emotional they get, and it hurts so bad as a coach because you know how much I've experienced that. Like you know how much it hurts and sucks. And I was like, that was kind of what I was talking about last time where I was like things just impact me more, and I don't remember it being like that. Yeah. And I talked to a few of my buddies who are coaches as well at one of the events. I think it was at Summer Theater State, and they were just like, yeah, yeah, man, did you forget? And I was like, I think I did. He was like, it's so much worse than when you're the wrestler because as the wrestler, you're in control and, you know, like it's your fault what you did on the mat or not. But as the coach, like you take it on for multiple kids and you blame yourself for their loss that you didn't prepare them and you feel their pain plus your pain. And I was like, oh, yeah. So it was good to know that I'm not alone in feeling that. But we had we took eight kids to semi-state. So over half of our teammates, the semi-state. And there, there's 16 kids per weight, and seven of our kids won the first match. So we had seven kids in the ticket round, and four of them won in the ticket round. So three of them, you know, were a match away. And two of them lost really close matches there. And you see, luckily, two of those were juniors, and then one's a senior. You know, his career's over and that sort of stuff. And then the team score came down to literally the last three weight classes. and we were able to win the team score at semi-state. That was the first time they'd won team semi-state in like 30 years. So that was really cool. I thought it was the first time ever, but it turned out there was a time where they did way back in the day. So that was good. Like I said, strong finish. And then I came back from the state finals. I got home close to 1 a.m. on Saturday, and I was up and down at the bar on Sunday morning getting ready because we hosted our monthly tournament on Sunday at the exact same time you were playing and yours. I was playing in our monthly tournament, 1 p.m. And that's your Stern one? That's just our monthly four strikes tournament. We don't put this. I'm not big on the advertising the Stern Army thing. I do think they do some good stuff, but I mostly just use it for the launch party aspect. Oh, okay. Which we did with Stranger Things, I think, the week before, which went terrible. Oh, no. Well, we talked about that on the last episode that you talked. I think we did, about you selling it. Yeah, I was trying to. Nobody wants it, unfortunately. It's got a bad reputation right now. Yeah, so we only had five people show up to the launch party, but there was, I think, six launch parties in the state of Indiana or something all that weekend. So they were kind of spread out and not as big of a deal as they used to be where you'd, like – I remember driving to Chicago for launch parties because they were the only places that would have games a couple years ago. and now it's just it's everywhere so it's a good thing uh but it it makes it not as fun uh iron maiden and stranger things launch parties were terrible for me at my location um jurassic park's launch party was great i had like 30 people show up so uh it just seems to depend on what the game is and how it works out with everyone else's schedules and where they're being hosted and stuff but uh did you have cake did you have an early jurassic park uh yeah pretty early i mean that's i think that's one thing is like if you have an oversaturation i mean even stranger things i think the launch parties really happened a lot later than the release than most of the time right i mean it seems like normally it's like i think i had a game for a month right of like a couple days before the party is that you're right that makes a difference um but obviously if there's And so if there's a ton on location as well, it's not going to get people to drive just to check out the game. Because, yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I think the way they released that was cool, that it was basically like, hey, we're officially announcing this game and it's on location. I think, unfortunately, it released with code that was really early. and yeah, I think that a lot of people were bummed by the code. I know that recent code even new code has had problems with crashing. Yeah, I've heard that. A lot of crashing. I haven't experienced it, but I also haven't played it a ton. I will say I know I raved and ranted a little bit about Stranger Things last time. I still absolutely do not love the game. I'm still disappointed in the game. Just again, not that it's necessarily bad, it's just not my interpretation of what the game would have been with that theme. But the code update and the ability to kill the Demogorgons by bashing them and not just shooting it into the mouth is a huge improvement. So it was great that they got that integrated in as quickly as they did. But yeah, I've heard reports, I saw a lot of people worried about the launch parties and which conversion of code to run because of the crashes I think they are somewhat tied to a turn the heat up mode from what I've heard, which is on the season two side of the play field. But, again, I have not experienced that on my machine, but I've probably played like five games on it since the code update. So, yeah, who knows? I haven't seen it. I haven't heard any reports of it. My one-way gate underneath the Demogorgon broke again. Fixed it again. um otherwise it's been pretty solid for me it did end up being my top earner um but it it because it's a dollar a play uh but the demo man that i added the same week actually was right near it with the same number of plays it's just cheaper to play um so that was i thought was kind of interesting um but yeah that part's going well so what's the deal with the ball hangups on on Stranger Things. Is that the gate you were talking about? That's the gate, yeah. There's a one-way gate. So you shoot under, you drop the drop targets, you shoot up the middle, and the ball kind of goes into a little metal ball guy and curves out to the left. And there's a one-way gate there so that the ball can't roll back up through and start a mode. Yeah, but a lot of operators have just straight up removed that gate because it's not something that happens often. and if it does, it doesn't really seem like a huge impact to the gameplay. So if mine were to come out again, I will probably completely remove it. But it was in the tournament on Sunday when it happened, of course, so I had to move the people off of that game temporarily and then fix it while they were playing their other game. But anyway, the ball was stuck long enough that through ball search it didn't find it and it kicked out another ball and threw everything off. Yeah. And then I read something about, or maybe somebody told me about an issue with the magnet lock, where the ball would, like, stick to the back wall and then the second one would go. But I don't know. It just sounded like there were some weird issues. I don't know. Yeah, I've heard the premium stuff. Somebody released a video of a different type screen material to put on the projection areas that makes it look a lot better. That was interesting. It's called Black Diamond something. If you check out the owner's thread, there's a lot of mentioning. He did a five-minute comparison video of the factory production material versus the one that he came up with or is using. It's pretty neat stuff. It's cool to see very much like the alien machines. With our hobby's growth and with the number of very intelligent people we have out here in our hobby, not saying that you or I are one of those, trust me, I'm aware, but they exist, and they're able to solve a lot of these problems these machines have. Like Alien was essentially kept alive by hobbyists, and hobbyists are now improving things on Stranger Things, and it's just neat to see how quickly people are finding solutions to stuff that is deemed a problem. Yeah. But it has gotten better. Like I said, it was my top earner. I just don't enjoy playing it as much as I do Jurassic Park. And I don't think there's a lot that's going to change that. And that's all right. Maybe some other people do love it. There seems to be plenty of owners in the owner's thread that do. But I've also seen a lot of people post them for sale pretty quickly. I know there's been at least three pros for sale in Indiana. and to my knowledge none of them were because somebody was upgrading to a premium or an LE. It was just not there. Cup of tea. Which that didn't help me selling mine either. There was some all over the state for sale already. Saturation, man. Saturation. Yeah. Well, I get it when there's a game that's, yeah, my game's basically brand new, but it's not brand new and for a couple hundred bucks more you can get brand new. I can see why people would do it. It makes sense. my game does have, so like you bought a show game before, right? Yep. My maiden was a show game. Did you happen to check how many plays were on it from the show? I did, but I do not remember. It was played nonstop. Yeah, so typically what I've heard from shows is like 300 to 400 plays is pretty common depending on the length of the show. And my game, even though it's been on the floor for almost a month now, it does not have that many plays on it. So that gives you kind of an idea of, you know, yeah, you can get a better deal at a show game with a few more plays than what mine's got in a month, that sort of thing. So I understand. Plus with Texas Pinball Festival coming up and the Midwest Gaming Classic where Marco does their show game deals, a lot of people who want a discount are going to get them that way as well. And, again, I get it. And hopefully the game keeps earning for me a little bit. And hopefully the code keeps improving and it does become something that I find a little bit more enjoyable. We shall see. But on that note, I will do one of our amazing transitions to a game that I got to play that I did enjoy. I am really digging Rick and Morty so far. And just like you're saying with the whole Stranger Things having some crash issues on the latest code update, Rick and Morty had a few bugs in the initial code that shipped roughly a little over a week ago. And I believe they've released five or six code updates in the last week or two since the game started shipping. As they are squashing out bugs as soon as they pop up and doing a lot to be very proactive about getting the games playing well. and it's a very challenging game. I can see a lot of casual players being a little turned off by the speed. I know Scott mentioned in an interview that he lives on the tiers of players or something along those lines and I can see how that's going to happen. But when you do have a really good game then, it feels super, super rewarding and good. I was fortunate enough to do that the other night. I think I played all the modes that are currently in the game, and I got a couple multi-balls. There's only the one multiball in the game right now, but I think I started it three times maybe in that game. I traveled to, I think it was at least five or six dimensions, because that's how you like the extra ball, and I was able to do that. And I had fun playing it the whole time. So I am enjoying that one a lot. And I rode up with Dan St. John from Main Street Amusements because he got one of the very early Bloodsucker editions. I think he's like number 30 or 35, something like that, at Spooky Pinball in Benton, Wisconsin. It was a very long day. It was roughly 12 hours of travel with, you know, gas stops and rest stops and whatnot. We got back and set up the game and played it. and it was really cool to see Spooky's facility and how much it's grown and how many machines they had there built or in the process of being built. And it's just, again, it's a fun company to support. I think part of what I like about them so much is how much they own their mistakes and are openly open about how they're always looking to improve things. From their code to their production to their build quality, it is all, I don't know. I enjoy it, whereas I feel some of the other companies either don't address their mistakes or flat out, like, deny them, like the clear code issues and stuff. You know, nobody out there is perfect. We had a little bit of squabble on our Facebook page with some CPR stuff this past week. Segway. Segway, yeah. And again, I think Stu just hadn't seen my second post, but CPR released a Frontier back glass, which I was really happy to see because I needed one months ago, and I'd already bought one from BG Resto. So I made a joke about, hey, can someone order one and check the text for me? And in my mind, it was a lighthearted joke. I really didn't mean to offend, but there was recently, as you are aware, if you listen to the show or you're a tailor, some misprints on the Meteor play field where they're missing some text. So in my mind, I was making like a lighthearted joke at that. And then, you know, below that, I commented like, hey, look, we all make mistakes. The vast majority of CPR's products have been, you know, incredibly good. And they really help save a lot of games and contribute a lot to the hobby. But Stu took a little bit of an offense to that. So my apologies if you were offended. Again, it was in my mind a lighthearted joke. And I have multiple CPR products. I really appreciate what they do. I actually just installed some of their plastics on my Dragon Fist in the past week. and they just released, as of yesterday, Viking Back Glasses, which I don't really need because my Viking Back Glass is awesome. But they also released a mirrored version of it, which was not how it was produced initially, and it was one of the few games from that time period of Valley that's not mirrored. And there's a guy in the Netherlands who's actually been making mirrored Viking Back Glasses for, like, years, and I've been emailing with him for the last couple weeks about ordering one, and they're like $450 shipped to the U.S. and I was still going to do it because it looked so good. And then CPR released one last night and now I don't have to order from the Netherlands. So that's a positive thing. And that's like my only ballet that's not a mirrored back glass. So I kind of really want to waste money on it and make it look mirrored like all my other ones. So to backtrack a little bit and to address the issue about the CPR Meteor playfields and Stu's comments on our Facebook page. So I think what's important for people to understand is that our Facebook page is our Facebook page, and it's our Facebook page. So we're going to post whatever the fuck we want on there, and I don't feel like there were any cheap shots. Like, yeah, certainly like you made a joke. But they forgot to put they forgot to put text on their media playfields. Now, I had I had one. I sent it back and I had great communication from Kevin at CPR. He was just like, hey, man, if you're not happy, like he like we went through what fixes people were working on and stuff like that. And Kevin's just like, hey, if you're not happy with it, send it back for a full refund. No issues. great communication. I sent it back. I got a refund, but it still happened. You know, I mean, it's like, we're making light of it. And I understand, like, I mean, I run a small pinball business. Now I'm not like doing high scale stuff. Like, I don't, I don't know. I don't know how to say it. I don't, it's not, I, you're an independent contractor doing everything on your own right but i also i also understand the the emotional tie you have to the product you're putting out right so i i get that but i feel like the way that he came on he came on our so my my relationship with cpr kevin at cpr dealing with my media play field was exceptional it was like hey i'm not happy with the product he's like hey no problem send it back so i did um and yeah I don't know man I don't appreciate somebody coming on our Facebook page and like basically calling us out somehow like we're doing something like terribly disrespectful by making light of something that did happen you know it's like that's a kind of that's kind of a big fuck up to just not include text and I don't feel like we gave them a ton of shit about it it It's like, yeah, this happened, blah, blah, blah. I'm surprised it happened. But, yeah, I don't know, man. That left a bad taste in my mouth, especially, like, when we have people who are listeners who post stuff that get called out by Stu. And then he basically disappears, which is like, all right, so you come on our page. You fucking, like, start up a bunch of shit, and then you duck out. and the thing is it's like this idea of like a public Facebook page like I'll own it but if you go to somebody else's Facebook page and you see the shit they're posting it's like and I even posted to him I said you know it's glass houses because if you go to his Facebook page you see the shit he's posting on his Facebook page so you know and I'm not going to get into what's on his Facebook page but I certainly looked at that and was like okay so this is where this guy's coming from. I mean, I don't know, man. I was pretty surprised by that. He tends to have a reputation as not the greatest communicator. But he's a representative. He's a representative of CPR. So CPR's only public thing where they come out and say this shit is him coming on our Facebook page, ragging on people, because I'm having a conversation with a friend of mine, albeit be it like a listener who's posting on our, our, this little podcast Facebook page, but mine explaining like what I'm doing, like the options because he has a meteor play field, you know, he's looking to do a full restoration. Um, so I, I don't know. I mean, I think it's, you know, it's, it's tough because, you know, in my, in the comment that I made, because, you know, Stu was basically like, hey, if you're not fucking happy with it, send it back. Now, that's not verbatim, but basically that was the idea. And it's like, well, it's not that easy because people want the playfields because you have a playfield. Like you have a media playfield that's brand new. They're going to offer digital prints eventually, but maybe you don't want a digital print. So you're trying to make, like the comments that were made on our Facebook page was by somebody trying to work out what they wanted to do. Because they did, I do feel like they wanted to hold on to it. But whatever. I just think it's, I don't know. It left a bad taste in my mouth. Yeah, I get it. I'm still excited when they release the product I need and appreciate it. But, yeah, I got that vibe from the whole conversation. It was a little, I was hoping for a reply from Stu to be there like, oh, sorry, I didn't realize it was lighthearted or a joke. And I get it because I think Stu does the art, so maybe he did feel personally attacked by it. But, you know, not really in my intentions. I was trying to make light of a situation where some people weren't happy. But, again, CPR was taking care of them one way or another. Not that it was a perfect solution, but, you know, they're trying their best as well. So, eh, it is what it is, man. Not a huge deal as far as I'm concerned, but we'll move on. And when they have something I need, like a work I don't need but just want, like a mirrored Viking back glass, I'm going to be right there with my hard-earned money, as I say here on my snow day, for my job getting paid. All right, fair enough. Yeah. I did see Stu also mentioned somebody happened to comment. I shared the Viking back glass to our page. He didn't comment. I'm guessing he's just abandoned us or something. But I saw on another place where it was shared, somebody asked if they were doing playfields for Viking, and he said yes. They've actually already been CNC'd. So that was cool. Although mine is really nice. Whoever did the clear coat on it, roughly whatever it was, 15 to 20 years ago at this point, it's kind of brittle at some spots. It's a little bit harder than other clear coat, which I know is not the typical clear coat problem where it's too soft. but I'm worried about it like eventually breaking or chipping, and I really love that game, and I just love the artwork, so I wouldn't mind just having a play field around. I've become a little bit of a play field addict, man. I just really like playfields. I think the art is so great. I know you're like an art collector, and you like various arts, and you're an artist yourself, and I'm not artistic, and I have like some random things I like, but like pinball play field art to me is just so beautiful, and it's like functional. and know what it can become and the joy it can bring. I don't know. Anyway, I'm looking forward to see when they release that as well because that would be something I would be into. I would be totally into a Viking play field. I don't own a Viking, but that is a game I would buy in a heartbeat. So good. Yeah. And a play filter just roached on a lot of games. On the vast majority of them, yeah. I think they didn't make a ton, but I don't think they sold a ton, but I think the ones they sold were really enjoyed and played heavily wherever they went to. Because, yeah, the vast majority that I've come across over the years have been loved by having steel balls rolled across them in excessive amounts. Back to some Rick and Morty. I may as well kind of go over my first impressions or whatever. but um i watched the stream with jack danger from up at wisconsin and i think they're doing another stream this saturday from the same location potentially as they hosting an official launch party for the game there but uh obviously if you watch that you saw some of the shots were not feeding great The upper flipper shots most specifically. And they have since made some adjustments to that game. Spooky, one of their factory guys, Luke, who's been there with them forever, I think we mentioned him last episode, he's put out a series of small YouTube videos already that are really nice, like short 30 seconds to a couple minutes, depending on what it is, showing you like, hey, if your game is having this issue, adjust this, which I thought was really cool that Spooky's doing that, little things like that. But what I largely found is that those upper flipper shots, so they remind me a lot of The Shadow because The Shadow has a upper flipper in a similar location. But what throws me off is the shadow being o ne of my favorite games and playing a lot. I can hit that loop pretty well. So in my brain, like that upper flipper, that's where that shot's at. And that's not at all where the shot's at on the flipper and Rick and Morty. So after playing a few games on it, once I found it, it wasn't actually that hard of a shot to hit. It just takes a little bit of getting used to. And then the garage shot, which is intended to be the hardest shot on the game from the upper flipper, it is. but it's also very doable once you, again, learn kind of where that shot is at on the flipper. So I enjoyed it. Started playing that more. Starting the modes is somewhat easy. You got to shoot the ramps, which lights the middle scoop. And just so if any of you are fortunate enough to already have a Rick and Morty or have one near you that you're traveling to play, I thought I found a bug in the code where I shot the ramps, and then the scoop did not light, and I was like, oh, it must be just a bug. You know, it's not ready for the mode. I'm so confused. You shoot the scoop, nothing happens. I thought maybe just the light was out. But what has in fact happened is if you shoot the ramp to light start mode and the center scoop is not lit, look at your orbit shots, either the right orbit into the portal or the left orbit into the garage access from the portal. that means what you have actually gotten ready to start is Pickle Rick mode and Pickle Rick mode starts from the garage shop because in that episode of the show Pickle Rick is in the garage to start with so it makes complete sense and it's another great example of theme integration but apparently that was Bowen's idea and Spooky posted about that to clarify confusion for somebody else who had asked about it and that made a lot of sense So then I went back and tested it, and sure enough, I was able to do it again. Realized my start mode, if the scoop was not lit, but my garage arrows were purple, which is the same color that start mode would be. You shoot the garage, and you start the pickle wreck mode. The modes are varied in what it requires you to shoot. It requires you to shoot all over the play field, which I know we've talked about before is one of my favorite things about a game, where you're not able to just rinse and repeat a certain shot, but instead are required to shoot a variety of shots around the play field, and each of them seems to be doing something. That's always nice. The playfields, I know that Spooky has posted about, like, improving the quality of their clear coat and having some of the best playfields around. I can tell you that my America's Most Haunted, that's, like, six or seven years old now, down at the bar, it's actually Mark's, but it's originally the game that I own, so the same machine. that playfield still looks amazing um and it's sitting right next to iron maiden and jurassic park which both look worse for the wear compared to it as far as dimples go and then when we actually visited the the spooky factory it's it's one thing to look at you know 20 to 30 machines that they have on in various stages on the assembly line and see the playfields but they also had their prototype test machine there and uh i looked at it very closely and i couldn't find dimples in it man it looks like their playfields are holding up really well same thing with main street amusements um the game's been there a week now and i've gone down to play it like i said a few times and dan has even said himself that it's been hard for him to make any adjustments to the game because people have been playing it non-stop since it was put there um i know several people who have traveled up from indianapolis to come play it already as well as other areas because it's one of the first on location. I don't know what Spooky's secret is, but the playfields look freaking nice, man. And I know there was a batch of TNAs that had some issues, so, like, they're not flawless, and Spooky addressed that. They worked with people. They got people new playfields. So, I mean, again, they're not perfect, but they're working to improve. I don't expect any of the companies to ever come out and just say what they did, because the reality is they are a business and it is competition and you don't want other companies just stealing what you've worked for, I assume at least. But they're doing something right with their playfields, that's all I know. I don't know how they're doing that. I don't know how you make a playfield out of wood and prevent it from dimpling. I don't know either. I'm not a scientist. I mean, my concern would be if you're... Because, like, my theory has been on the newer playfields, like once I went to a thicker clear coat, was that, you know, you still had wood compression underneath the clear. And then the fact the clear didn't dimple basically meant that the clear was separating from the wood, right? So you would have the dimpling. I still don't understand how that would work, right? But like if you think about a car, a car has a clear code that even if it gets bumped, it – like you're – I don't know. There's parts where if you push on your – if you push on the car, it'll just pop back out, right? There's flexibility in the clear. I don't know. I'm not a clear code expert. Yeah. But I don't know what they're doing. That's good to hear that somebody figured something out. Yeah. Like I said, we'll see how they hold up long term. It's obviously a very short test period, but it looks good. I'm trying to think what else there is with it, man. The art package looks good. The LCD looks good. They changed their backbox design so it's more like the modern Sterns where the display just kind of folds down and you have access to the boards so you don't have to remove the back glass to do code updates and stuff. The USB drive is right there. It's incredibly easy to stream from. Jack Danger mentions it in the stream that they have an HDMI out, so you can just plug it into your capture card, essentially, and you've immediately directly captured the display and the audio for your stream. So that's a nice improvement for streamers. I am impressed with the game. I've enjoyed it so far. I think it has a lot of potential. I double-checked. I think I'm number, like, 546 or 536, something like that. But I ordered one of the standard editions, so they'll be built last. So I have roughly. Can you explain that to me? Explain. So you said that Dan's was one of the first Bloodsuckers or the first Bloodsucker? No. So basically. What does that mean? So similar to the pro premium limited edition. Right. He just does a regular standard. And then they call it the Bloodsucker edition this time. But essentially an LE. Right. But can anybody. Yeah. Go ahead. Yes. They did not limit it. Right. And their whole thing was that that version would be built first. If you wanted all the tricks, you would get your game first. Yeah. Okay. You would basically, it's like, I think it included the powder coating. I don't know. Powder coating, maybe speaker lights, some other stuff, basically. Now, what comes factory on a Pro? So everything's the same gameplay-wise. It's all cosmetics. So I guess it's more similar to Jersey Jack's old model, at least before Wonka. And it was $500 more. What about, like, Shaker Motor and stuff like that? I don't think Shaker Motor was included, but you can upgrade. Like, so when your game is getting ready to be built, they send you – You can upgrade that stuff. Yeah, they send you basically a features list of do you want this added in. That's awesome. Yeah, it's kind of nice because that's an advantage of not being a necessarily mass production facility. but there's still a lot more personal one-on-one stuff with customers and you have that option as your game is being built. They contact you a couple weeks before it's going to hit the line so you can get all that stuff ordered and then they build it and they bill you. But anyway, what they were going to do is build all the Bloodsucker Edition ones first and from the best estimates that I've seen in the different various threads for it is they sold roughly 730-ish of the Bloodsucker edition and only like 20 of the standard editions. Oh, look at that. Who's got the LE now, suckas? Yeah, so mine will technically be more limited, but I have a long wait for the game. I was actually asked by a local person who I've sold a game to before, and he's pretty active on Pinside. But if you've been paying any attention, a lot of people have been selling their Rick and Morty spots since it was limited to 750 and profiting on them pretty decently. Yeah. And he just flat out asked me, he's like, why aren't you selling your spot? Like, you have a long wait. You've already got one you can play. You know, you've been known to wheel and deal. And it's just one of those things where, like, I want the game. I enjoy it. I like supporting Spooky. I don't want to profit on their end. I talked a little bit about it with Katie and Charlie while I was up there. Yeah. How do they feel about it? I mean, they don't like it, but basically they're like, there's not much we can do about it. Like, once you've paid for your spot, it's your spot, you know. They said they did find out that somebody, they didn't name anybody specific, but they said a person was going around to distributors and trying to buy up any spots they could and then selling them. So basically they didn't tell me the name, but they said they gave that name to their distributors and basically blacklisted that person from buying anything, which I thought looked pretty cool. So they're trying to do a little something at least. But in the end they made the deal for however many would be produced with Cartoon Network. Charlie did tell me that they make that deal because that gives them their 18 months of production, keeps them busy, but also because they already have two more licenses that they're being worked on, and those licenses also have a time frame on when they need to be built and stuff. So, like, they've got, you know, although we know they're busy for the next 18 months with Spooky, or with, sorry, with Rick and Morty, that they already have their plans for the, you know, next 36 months after Rick and Morty, per se, maybe, with whatever those next licenses are. We don't know it yet, but they know it. Now, are these going to be Spooky games, or are these going to be contracted games? I didn't ask any details at all. He just said they had their next two licenses ready to go, and they were already on the clock. Wow. That was all I got. I didn't pry for any more information because I kind of like being surprised by the lack of leaks from Spooky. Like when Rick and Morty was announced, it was a genuine surprise for a lot of us. I enjoy that. It feels like Christmas is a pinball person when you find out there's a new game, and you haven't heard rumors about what it is and stuff. CERN releasing the heavy metal thing. I think it's just the Star Wars Home Edition redone. But kind of cool that they, you know, popped that out as a surprise. And I'm still, I think they said March 20th, which is right before TPF. So I'm hoping there's one there. It would be cool to see it. I'm curious about it. Nothing I want to own, but still cool. Now that looks like it's in partnership with a toy company, if I'm not mistaken. that. I think it was a toy or a comic, but yeah, it's with something. I think that the people they tie, sorry, I'm wrapping Quicksilver rails right now. One of these is yours. I have seven sets. Of Quicksilver? Yep. I was going to say, I'll let you know, I know I ordered a Molly Sweetie, but my buddy Dane is the one producing ball guides for that game. I got pounded with Quicksilver orders. I have. Yeah, he posted that he could make the metal ball guides for the game in the owner's thread and then like a custom build thread he's doing because he's building one from scratch. And I think he has around 30 orders for custom, for side rails, not side rails, but metal ball guides. So don't be surprised if you get a bunch more Quicksilver side rails orders. I was, I don't know, yeah, I don't know what happened. Like all of a sudden it was like Quicksilver, Quicksilver, maybe it was, I don't I don't think I advertised, but I don't. I might have told a few people you could do them. Oh, really? No, it's cool. I just like all of a sudden it's really interesting to see like what comes in, because what's interesting is I have had no mere rails ordered yet. I wonder why. Well, no. Now, to be fair and exact. And so this is, again, classic Stern game. We're talking about, you know, classic Stern playfields. I bought a playfield for Quicksilver from Mirko. Yeah. That's who's reproduced those. Mine honestly seems really good and okay. Dane has now bought two playfields from him, and both of them have had soft clear coat, and they're missing key lines on the star rollover inserts. I know a guy in Indianapolis who bought one, and the same thing, softer clear coat and it's missing key lines for the star rollover inserts so there's another playfield manufacturer again missing something seemingly simple from their playfield um and in addition it's got clear coat issues and i apparently am fortunate Mirco has had issues with art missing since his first run of attack from mars i mean oh yeah my first attack from mars shit I'm trying to think I had I'm trying to think if it's a no the first attack from Mars I got I sent it back because it was so fucked up like every insert had cracking around it I mean it was like so bad so I sent that one back and then the one I got shit I think the one I got back was fine or maybe I sold that one and got another one I don't know I went I went through like two or three playfields before I settled on the one that I was going to actually keep. And one of the super jackpot shots on, I think, the lobster ramp, which is the right, or the cow ramp, which is the right ramp, one of the keystones at the bottom, well, it's not a keystone if it's at the bottom, but it basically looks like a keystone at the bottom of the insert was just not printed. so all the other all the other little keystone looking ink areas were done but this one so I sent that off to Chris Hutchins at High End Pens and he fixed it painted it airbrushed it or whatever and then re-cleared it so on top of like a $1, 000 play field I spent another $600 to get it fixed. So, you know, Whitewater, he had the issue with the hat, the Whitewater. It was the inside of the hat of Wet Willie in the center of the play field was missing art. I don't get that. You know, like one of my suspicions with that was like I wondered if there was a requirement to make a change, right, so that there was a way that you could actually distinguish his playfields or something. I don't know. It just seemed like a really weird miss, you know? But, Tommy, are you still there? Oh, I'm here. I'm just listening. Yeah, so. It's one of those things, I think making a playfield is hard. And even if we go back to the older days, if you look at, like, Bram Stoker's Dracula, I know that those playfields were produced by two different companies, and one of them is more desirable. Yes. I always forget which one is which, and I know, like, specifically for me, Creatures from the Black Lagoon, you have the hot pink and the light pink versions of that play field. Yep. I hate the light pink version. I think it makes the game look old and dirty no matter what, no matter how nice of a play field it is, whereas the hot pink makes it look very much like a pin that was made in the 90s that is reflecting the golden era of the 50s, and I love it. And so I think that's one of those things, making a play field has always been hard and will always continue to be hard. Well, one thing I know – Where we want it, we want it perfect. It's just hard to do that. But so one thing that Mirco started to do, and I don't know if he's still doing this, I think one of the things that's – it's good for the hobby, but it's detrimental for those manufacturers of new playfields, is that there's this, I think there's an idea because of competition, you have to keep secret what you're working on. Now, I know that Mirko has, I think he did it with his Addams Family play field, like actually posted pictures online and asked people to check the art prior to printing. Oh, yeah, that's definitely smart. But I don't know if he's still doing that because, you know, it's like CPR and him seem to drop playfields at the same time of the same title. But that's certainly something, I mean, you know, like the Meteor play field was, it's a tough one too because I feel like the way that playfields are released, so like, you know, CPR does a, you know, they do like a, not a pre-order, but they do an interest check basically. and you sign up and then you'll get called, you'll get an email. And I think part of it is kind of – because I looked at – I got the email. I looked at the picture they sent, I think, and I bought it immediately because I – personally, I probably had time, but my fear was like, oh, I'm going to miss out. Oh, absolutely. That's my concern with that Viking. I know they just didn't make a ton of Viking games. Right. So in my mind, if they only run a batch of 20 playfields or 30 playfields, it's like crap. You want to get in. Should I just grab one now just in case? And that's why I think, like, because Birdo commented on our Facebook page about that. Like, that's who I was talking to. And I think that's the thing. It's like you have a play field in hand, right? So, like, if you have a play field in hand, people are going to figure out how to fix them. I mean, like, the avenue that I was thinking about with the play field was just getting a screen made. And then you could just rescreen it. Yeah, and David Yopp has one as well, and he's done his own screening of playfield parts before, just in restorations. Exactly. So my thought was, like, he's easily going to do that to his. Yeah. So, I mean, that's a solution, but it's like, yeah, there's something about having it in hand. Even if it's not perfect, you know, like if you – It's better than nothing, or it's better than a roach playfield. And I'm in a good position with my Meteor that I was not going to put it in my game because my play field plays really, really nice. It's not perfect. Oh, I recall. Yeah, I recall. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tommy had it living in his living room for a while. So I don't know what we were talking about. Oh, Quicksilver playfields. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm wrapping Quicksilver rails right now. Yeah, man, I'm like – I got hit with Quicksilver. I think I've done like 11 sets so far. Yep. And I'm on vacation. Hey, man, you're always on vacation, don't lie. I'm trying to buy a pinball machine. I know, man. You got to work. You got to get that JP money going. Yeah, so go ahead. I just do want to chime in. I know we said we're going to talk a lot about Spooky. I did want to chime in with a Alice Cooper Nightmare Castle. Michael and Danielle, my friends here in town, they have three wonderful daughters. Love hanging out with them. Wrestling's over. I'll get to see them more. But I went over there for dinner the other night. I made some jambalaya for Mardi Gras. It was delicious. Anyway, they have an Alice Cooper, and I got to play a couple games on it. And I was largely inspired to want to play it because our friend, who I think may occasionally listen to the show, I'm not sure. But regardless, he's just an awesome guy. Carl D'Angelo was streaming that, attempting to get to and defeat Billion Dollar Babies, the wizard mode of the game. on his channel, IE Pinball, on Twitch, and he uploads to YouTube as well. And watching a world-class player play the game and then seeing, sorry about moving my microphone there, seeing all of the really interesting rules that the team at Spooky came up with really made me appreciate it more, and I wanted to try it out. And I have to say that I really enjoyed the game, and it's very fun. It's very tough. That seems to be like Spooky's MOs. They don't really make easy machines. But, man, it's done well. I enjoyed it. I like it. I encourage people to give that game another try if you come across one. But definitely check out Carl's stream so you kind of know what you're supposed to be doing. I don't think it's anywhere near as complex as, like, let's say Jurassic Park. But just because of the limited access and coverage of the machine, people walk up to it unknowing, and there's just so many shots on it, it can be a little bit intimidating or difficult to kind of just understand what it is you're doing. But I really enjoyed it, so I wanted to give that thing some credit as well while we were still roughly on spooky, which we transitioned to their good playfields and to bad playfields, and then came full circle to another game. Well done. Also. Well done, Tommy. Before we started recording, you made a post to our Facebook page. I regret that. And so it turns out if we do that during the day, apparently everyone who should be at jobs is trying to avoid working and instead will comment on what we should talk about. And I've been sitting here replying while we've been talking as best I can, but people brought up a ton of stuff that I had totally forgotten. All right. Do you want to do that now or do you want to do – Yeah. Okay, do you want to do that now? What else were we going to do? Oh, so my question, because I actually asked you online, I texted you and chatted with a couple people about it. So I mentioned that I'm interested in a Jurassic Park, right? Correct. The question that I had for you and a couple other people was, would you, with that game, do a premium or a pro? And the way that I phrased the question was basically, you know, the value you get out of the gameplay with, like, what is the value you get out of the pro versus the premium? And do you add, like, I'm thinking about, like, just dollar amount that you would have in the game. Because, like, I would want, like, a shaker motor. I think the art blades on the inside of the game actually look pretty cool on that game because it creates an atmosphere. Now I don't know if they're available. I don't know if you can get the actual stern blades, but I know that there's aftermarket blades that people have made. But the way that I'm coming at it as well is on the premium, I don't really care. I mean, the dino head grabbing the ball is super cool, and I can see my kids really liking that. from a player standpoint, I don't really care so much because I kind of want the ball in play. But at the same time, I like the Raptor lock on the premium more than the pro mech because of that little turnaround up top where the computer shot is just not my favorite because at least on location here, the ball gets stuck there all the time. Yeah, so I asked you and a couple other people, And so, yeah, what do you think? I mean, I think the premium, I listened to your interview you did with Jonathan Bergeron. Jonathan Bergeron, which was awesome. Yeah, he was great. Yeah, thanks for doing that. Thanks to him for coming on. But I agree with what you guys said. I think the premium is the prettiest package of the bunch from an artwork standpoint. Yeah, absolutely. And exactly what I told you when we chatted it up online about it is I don't think the premium priced is justified in the gameplay of Jurassic Park. I think that Keith has done an excellent job of packing the pro and keeping gameplay similar enough between the two that there's not really a big difference in the gameplay, albeit the dinosaur head is super cool, and I also like the way the raptor lock works on there, so I get it. but I don't think to get the enjoyment out of the game is necessary, whereas I really enjoyed Deadpool, but I totally see the value and the premium on that game because I think the drop targets on the lower part of the play field add a lot to the game. I'm a huge fan of drop targets over stand-up targets, and I think the fact that the left orbit shot doesn't feed the pop bumpers on the premium version of that game, whereas on the pro it does, is big because if you have a really good ball on that game, your bonus can get pretty big. So if you're aware of that and you're playing the pro, now suddenly you can start going left orbit all day and just building up your bonus multiplier, and you'll also activate disco modes while you're doing that. and I just I think that has the potential to be exploited by high level players whereas on the premium it's not going to go in there and feed that, it's going to feed your right flipper and make you shoot other things so to me that's a game where I again I don't like the price difference but I understand why somebody could argue that the premium plays different enough that it makes a bigger difference to the gameplay Magic Park, those mechs are cool and they do alter the game a little bit, but I don't think they drastically change how the game plays. Do you think premiums hold their value better? No. If I bought a Pro, so if I buy a Pro and I put a shaker in it, I put some Art Blades, you can get a shaker for $80 from Pinball Life, right? Yeah, yeah. So I put a shaker in my Pro, I enjoy it. And what's the price difference between a premium and a Pro? Is it like $1, 200? Is that right? No. More? I don't know. Maybe you're getting good deals on premiums. No, I mean, but I don't know. I don't know. I mean, like. I thought it was more like 15 to 18. Okay. From between a pro and a premium? Yeah, it probably is. Yeah. I mean, I can look up what Stern's site says for, like, the recommended, but yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I was thinking it was less than that. Because I'm adding. No, it's got to be more than that. With those mechs and Stern's pricing, I mean. Yeah, I thought it was almost like a $2, 000 difference between the models. Shit. I mean, because I'm thinking, like, if you took $2, 000 and put it into a pro, you would have Invisiglass or you would have PDI, right? PDI is like $400 a sheet if you don't get a discount, $350 or something. Yeah, but who buys that? Why are you buying that? I'm just saying, like, what you could put into – I had a conversation with somebody at Penberg that had purchased a – and now Jurassic Park came out. It was basically, like, released at Penberg, right? Yeah. They purchased an LE. And one of the reasons they purchased the LE because they said, hey, look, it's a better deal. I could get a premium, but if I want the stuff that an LE has, like the Invisiglass and stuff like that, it makes sense just to get an LE, and then you don't even have to add it. So I'm just saying, like, to make up that price difference on a pro, like if I'm like, hey, I want to put – $1, 600 price difference. $1, 600 price difference. So $80 for a shaker, right? $300 for PDI, $350. So you're at $450. And then if you want to do ArtBlade, you're looking at like $80. I mean, I'm trying to think like what other – you want to upgrade the speakers because the speakers on my Iron Maiden are so, so bad. Can I just say that? I just did say that. They are so bad. And I don't know what it is. It's like they sound like they'll kick in where they'll start sounding really gravelly. And it's not like I play that game like crazy loud, so it's not like I blew anything out. But if somebody knows what's up with that, I need to replace those. I replaced the speakers on Ghostbusters. You still have Ghostbusters? I forget. I do have Ghostbusters. Yeah, I can remember. I do have Ghostbusters. I do have Ghostbusters, and I have a new cabinet I need to put the game in. Oh, yeah, that's right. I'm going to have like, I'm going to be a stern. I'm going to have a stern row. If I got Jurassic Park, I'd have five sterns. Two classics. Damn, dude. Well, that's okay. All right. I know both of them are backordered. I think both of them are backordered. I know premiums are backordered. So, I have some time to make some rails. Yeah, to raise some more funds. I mean, look, if my game earned And if it was one of those really busy locations where this thing was making hundreds of bucks a week, I would totally upgrade to the premium. But mine doesn't. So I'm happy with the Pro. I really enjoy it. If a great deal popped up on a premium, maybe I could jump at it. But it hasn't. And I wouldn't mind getting a Deadpool premium, quite honestly. I really enjoy that game nowadays. So good job, Stern, on that one. I'm giving them credit where if you like Stranger Things, again, I'm not enjoying it right now. But I didn't enjoy Deadpool when it came out, and that code got so much better. And then I really appreciate that game now. So it's totally possible I'll come around on Stranger Things too. And I apologize for my voice. I don't know if I'm getting sick or something, but I bit my tongue really hard at wrestling practice the other day too. So I've got like a swollen tongue, and my voice sounds like it's weird in my head right now. It sounds normal. Okay, that's good. I mean, it doesn't sound great. I'm not saying it sounds great. I'm not saying – I'm not built for radio or TV. I'm not saying we're going to be joining a network anytime soon, but. Oh, so I have just one thing, and then we'll go into, well, I guess we'll answer people's questions or whatever. But we are sponsoring the women's tournament again at Texas Pinball Festival. Awesome. I'm happy to say that we are. So Reese Rails is an official sponsor of this flipping podcast is an official sponsor and we are going to we covering the fees paid to the texas pinball festival for the tournament trophies and then we're going to um we're um we're doing something we're getting um hundred dollar hundred dollar credit at Soft Plunge Pinball that the organizers of the women's tournament are going to figure out how they want to split that up. So I don't, you know, if they want to split it up, whatever they want to do. So we are doing that again this year. So I'm happy to share that. And Raleigh and Elizabeth, I've chatted with them a bunch and they're both great. And I'm happy that we can do that for them. So all the money, all the money that people pay for entry fees will come back to them as prize money. My understanding. None of the fees will have to get paid to TPF. We're covering that. Boom. Well, that's on Taylor organizing that. So thank you, man. And you get the credit. Well done. Thanks for throwing our podcast name out there. Great job doing that, man. Oh, yeah. I'm happy to do it. So there you go. Nice. Got to build that karma because I definitely need the karma. I need the pinball karma, man. On the note of the women's tournament and tying it into another transition to our Facebook page post, we thank you, everyone who's writing stuff here for us to talk about. And I apologize if I mess up your name. I'm so bad with names. But I believe Gillian Holly from, I think, Ohio here, they are hosting the first ever women's 24-hour tournament this weekend. Oh, that's awesome. So I wanted to give that event a shout out. She posted that on there, and I figured that's a good transition from the Texas women's. I did add myself to the wait list for the Texas Pinball Festival tournament. I'm, like, way down on the list. I think I'll do what I've done the last few years and just, like, maybe play a few games and classics and enjoy the show mostly. But to the women doing the 24-Hours Tournament this weekend, good luck. Where is that going to be held at? I am not 100% sure, but I believe she helps out as part owner. I don't know the full story with the location there. I'm trying to find it on our Facebook page. I think she was on the Backbox Pinball Podcast, if I'm not mistaken. I think I remember. Might be Arcade Super Awesome, potentially. Maybe, yeah. But I feel like I remember that name from Backbox Pinball Podcast, but I am not 100%, which is a great podcast, and you should listen to it if you get a chance. I should. If people have not. I'll find an advertising for it. Here we go. The Women's Ready to Play in the 24 Hours registration is open. It's called the Bell's Bunkin', and I'm clicking the link to give more detail. I'm assuming that it's sold out on a wait list with it being this weekend. it is loading location Crazy Martins in Pequot, Ohio Crazy Martins, Pequot, Ohio there you go so that's going on this weekend good luck to you women partaking in that and then I had somebody else Mr. Eric Wurtenberger ask for an update on the pinball marathon, the 26 hour event as I was waiting for wrestling season to wrap up so I could turn my focus to that the update will be that Mr. Eric Wurmberger has agreed to stream the event. Oh, nice. That's awesome. We have coverage coming to you for 26 hours from North End Pub here in Lafayette, Indiana. Chuck Wurt. That's pretty cool. Chuck Wurt, yeah, he streams with Straight Down the Middle, I believe. That's DETM? Yeah. Do they still do that now that they're TPM? I think he's, yeah, I don't fully understand the whole network thing, but he still streams, I know, because I follow his thread on Pinside, where he posts that he'll be streaming. We did a test for internet speed at the bar, and he said we are good to go. We plan to have 25 machines for the tournament. 15 of the machines will be located in the bar area, so those will be the ones that we can provide streaming coverage from. The other 10 will be located out in the bowling alley, and we are going to add amendment to the tournament description that for the last hour of the event, the top group will be limited to the 15 bar games so that we can provide streaming coverage of the top groups as the tournament is winding down. On that note, I will also update that we have 51 tickets sold, meaning that we have, I believe, 12 remaining because I had 63 for sale. So we still have 12 spots open for the pinball marathon, May 30th and 31st $75 entry fee all money goes back out to prizes and cash payments and medals etc we're not making anything on it from the bar outside of whatever you guys eat and drink there for that 24 hours so do that and we always have 20 machines down at the bar and I will be bringing in a few others for the event specifically I will be bringing in Harlem Globetrotters I will be bringing in Strange World a one-player EM by Gottlieb a Wedgehead I will be bringing in Mad World a two-player EM by Bally I will be bringing in my newest game that we didn't talk about yet that is currently sitting on a dock in London waiting to board a plane tomorrow called Nautilus it is a Zakaria or Zachariah, I never know what they are, EM one-player machine called Nautilus. Very excited to get that game. That is a beautiful-looking Pimmo machine. Yeah. Well, that will be there pending. It survives its flight. It is boarding the plane tomorrow from London to Atlanta. And then it will come from London, England, yes. And then it will come from Atlanta to Indianapolis, Indiana next week on the 3rd where it will arrive and hopefully clear customs so that when I drive down to the airport on the 5th to fly to Denver, I can actually pick it up while I'm dropping my car off and leave it in the car while I'm in Denver for the weekend. But anyway, those, that's three EMs, Globetrotters, that makes for four. And I think our fifth game will be Dragon Fist. And Dragon Fist will allow me to segue to something else. but that will put us at 25 games at least. If we need to bring in a few more, we will, but mathematically we don't. Just hoping everything holds up, which it should. Of course, I just jinxed myself by saying that. Those will be some of the other games there. So you got Mad World, Strange World, Nautilus, Harlem Globetrotters, and Dragon Fist that will be added to the tournament lineup. For those of you interested in the pinball marathon, those are some ones you don't get to see all that often, at least not some of them in really good shape like my Harlem. I guess that's pretty common, but mine's really nice, so take that. Eric also asked about the Soren ROMs. Yeah. Soren was just interviewed on an episode of the Pinball Profile, Jeff Teolis. Soren is the one I think we mentioned last episode with my demo man. He redoes the cold on some older games to make them more tournament worthy, and it just happened to be coincidence that we mentioned that, and then they released an episode because I guess that was recorded in October. Yeah, it was like a while back. And I lost Tommy. Hold on. I can't hear you. I can see you, but I can't hear you. Did you unplug your headphones? Can you hear me now? Yep, I can hear you now. Awesome. All right, I'm back. Sorry. That wasn't too bad. I don't know what happened there, guys. My mic got muted somehow, and I didn't move. Anyway, Soren pulled all his ROMs from online. Michael and Danielle just got a road show, and I played that the other night as well. And I thought that Soren had done a ROM for that. So when I went to look it up yesterday, I found that he did, but I couldn't find it online. So then I posted it to forums, and Soren himself replied that he is just taking a break. I don't know what that means. Yeah, what does that mean? Don't know. Don't know what it means. But, I mean, he replied to my post within a few hours, so he's still around pinball. But he's taking a break. In my mind, I thought maybe after that interview it drew attention to what he's done and Planetary gave him some crap or something. But none of that was released publicly. That was totally me just theorizing. But anyway, if you needed one of Soren's ROMs, they have become a little bit harder to find. But fortunately, we have, again, really smart people in this hobby. And a lot of people just downloaded them whenever he released them. So if you need them, make a post about it, and anonymous angels may reach out to you who have files to send your way. That's all I'll say on that matter, and hopefully he'll come back because, again, his ROMs really improve the games, and it's really nice. That was soaring. That was replying to Eric's comment on that. I saw that as well, and, yeah, I'm not sure what's up with that. It's too bad. I have his ROMs in my roller games, and it definitely makes the game much more playable in a tournament setting. I don't know how it makes it playable in a tournament setting. Yeah, that's literally how I feel with Demolition Man. Somebody asked me about it yesterday or posted in that thread, too, and I literally said, you know, Demo Man went from a game that I like to occasionally play when I saw it in a location or somewhere because it's fun, but it was something I never really wanted to own because I knew it would just be not fun in tournaments. And now it's a game I'm really glad that I own, specifically because of Soren's ROM. It made that game ownable to me. I also put up my new high score on that game like a week ago, nine and a half billion, played demo time twice. It was awesome. Nice. I recommend that game. He's taking a break, so hopefully he'll be back. Yeah, I think he will be. So that's always nice. What else do we have in here? Oh, yesterday, Jersey Jack Pinball announced that they are moving their manufacturing to Illinois. That's right. So basically, their design team was all based out of that area already with Keith Johnson being their coder, who I know is a Chicago guy, is a southern Wisconsin, northern Illinois guy, somewhere in that area. and basically it's going to move all their facilities closer together and lead to better communication, I would imagine, closer to their parts. In my mind, the bad part is how will this impact manufacturing if they now have to hire people to build games there who need to be trained and what facilities, et cetera. You know, a lot of questions. But I think overall a positive move that will probably save the company money. What do you think? Yeah, I think that makes sense. I mean, if you're moving closer to your supply chain, that totally makes sense. I mean, and I assume most of the people are out there because Stern has been there. And not just Stern. I mean, the history of pinball is it's a Chicago-based business in America. Yeah, but I mean, I'm just thinking it's going to cost a lot of money to pack up and move, right? That was what my thought was. Yeah. But I guess, realistically, I mean, I don't know what you have to pack up. All your parts are probably coming from that area anyway already. Whatever your next game is at the line, it's like, hey, keep that shit there. We're coming. Yeah, but just think about all the tweaks that they've – I mean, because Jersey Jack has been open now since 2011. Really? I think – well, I got my Wizard of Oz in 2013, summer 2013. Yeah, that in my mind was like a 2013 game, but I guess you're right. They did announce it a couple years before that. A couple years. I mean, it might have been 2010. So you have a production facility, a factory. I don't know if it would be a factory, but you have a factory, a pinball factory, that you've tweaked over time. Maybe it's easy to just pack that up and move it halfway across the country, but it doesn't seem – I mean, I'm just thinking about there's got to be a pretty solid financial reason to pack up and move because of delays in production, because of the time it's going to take to move. It seems like you would have a break in production. So, I mean, I think about like when CGC stopped working with Stern, you know, there was a time where it was like it took time for them to gear back up in their own facility. so I think a couple things that a takeaway is that maybe you know I think that there's always been rumors that Jersey Jack was struggling and I guess it could go either way it's just like they are struggling so they really need to figure out how to how to make be a more efficient company which would mean getting closer to your supply line or they're doing actually financially pretty stable that they can say, hey, we're going to shut down the production line so we can move. I don't know. I think it's a good long-term thing. I mean, it makes sense to me as long as it's not being done because it's like a Hail Mary, like, hey, we've got to figure out how to cut every cost. And one of the costs is having to ship parts from the Chicago area to us in Jersey. I don't know. I don't either. We'll see. I think time will tell. But my guess is, although it was announced yesterday, I have a feeling this wasn't any sort of a rushed decision. This probably had been going on for months. And with them expected to be showing a new game, most likely Guns N' Roses, designed by Eric Menear, in the very near future, I would assume that they'd want to be set up to send that into production very quickly, just like they did with Wonka. Yeah. I think Wonka was available within a month or two of them showing it, which was a huge improvement for them over previous games. So I imagine that this planning has been going on for a while, and hopefully we'll get more details in the coming weeks if that game is unveiled. I'm hoping it makes an appearance at Texas Pinball Festival, because I'm excited to see what he's done with his second design, as Keith and Scott and Eric have sort of been like the new blood in pinball over the last couple years. And so far, I'd say Keith and Scott did really good with their second designs. I got a feeling Eric is going to as well. Looking forward to seeing that. All right, so I have another question. I have one from our Facebook. Steven, oh, man, it's got to be, I think it's Steven, but it might be Stefan. Steve Haberman? Oh, man, sorry about that. Yeah, I know. Names are hard. I mean, I think it's Stefan. Is Stefan a name? It is, but so is Steven. Right, okay. Well, Steven, Stefan, Haberman, I've met him. Great guy. He asked, what is the worst refurb or repair mistakes you've made? What's yours? I know mine. So I've got two, and they both involve Frontier. So let's see. The first one was while I was working on the play field this past summer. I think I talked about it before. I had it on the rotisserie, and I had removed the clamps to show my dad something, and I forgot to put them back on, and I went and did stuff for, like, the rest of the day, and when I went to work on it at night, I spun the rotisserie and the play field just fell off. And I was very fortunate in that all I did was chip one plastic. That was really dumb. That was pretty dumb, Tommy. Yeah, it was. And then I did the classic mistake of being like, I know how connectors go. I don't need to put in a key pin or to label these connectors. and when I finally went to power up Frontier a few months ago, I had plugged in every connector to the rectifier board in the correct spot, but just upside down, so completely backwards. Oh, no. And it was blowing my circuit to my house as soon as I would plug it in. So when you're not real good with electricity, you're like, crap, I wired something in the cabinet wrong, so I'm like rewiring the power switch. and all sorts of stuff. But no, it just turned out these connectors that I was so positive I knew exactly how they went, I had plugged in upside down, and I called over Michael for his help in diagnosing my issue, and he spotted it, like, immediately. I was like, yeah, that's why I always put the key pins back in. And I was like, yeah. Yeah, that's a good idea. So, yeah, that was, I'd say those have been my personal worst ones as of this time. Yes. How about you? Oh, man, I've never had a fucking problem. actually that doesn't even surprise me you're just no so on um on my doctor who when i i painted the cabinet and i so i painted the cabinet with oh shit i can't remember what kind of paint but i you know i did i mean you know it's it's a cabinet with decals so like the prep time is just so stupid you might as well buy a new one but you know i did all the prep, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then when I painted it, I gave it some time to set, to cure or whatever. And then I put the details on and then I set the game up. So, you know, I can't remember. I think I set it up in my shop so I could like get it completely done before I moved it into the game room. And I had to lower the head for something. Maybe it was, I can't remember what it was. Maybe it was the wire. I don't know. I had to lower the head and the bottom of the head stuck to the top of the lower cabinet. Nice. And so when I pulled it apart, it actually pulled some of the plywood off. Oh, so it looks great in my lineup. You know, I've got like a completely restored Doctor Who, but I just know that in the back of my mind that I have that complete fuck up under the head. So in retrospect, what I would do now, I would actually put some felt, like little felt tabs on the corners of the head just so that you actually like one, you would stop that from happening. I mean, I had given the, I had given the paint like a ton of time to cure, but I think I may have done it in the summer. So maybe it was still a little bit soft. but yeah I would put like I would put like just something under the cardboard well no no I'm just saying like if you put like little felt tabs like you would put to protect like a table underneath the head on each corner even when you so when you fold the head up it's not like that entire surface isn't coming into contact with the surface of the top of the lower cabinet does that make sense yeah I get what you're saying so you're getting a little bit of that separation so that you don't have to worry about that paint sticking. So that was kind of a fuck up. I'm trying to think, like, on my – what's some dumb shit? On my stars, I had a problem. I could not figure it out. I don't even know. I still can't remember what it was, but I ended up sending – A white was wrong on the schematic or something? Well, no, that wasn't it. It was my – I think on my stars, like, I was having problems. maybe it was my meteor. I was having problems and I ended up sending the boards out and like the boards came back and they were all, they checked out that they were all okay. And it turned out, because something was real, something really weird was going on. Like I was blowing a fuse or coils weren't working. And I like went over the entire thing. And then it turned out it was a connector thing. And I put a connector like I had, I think it was on the rectifier board where I had moved it over one. And I don't know how I didn't catch that. But in doing that, I wasn't sending enough power to the coils. So it took me sending my boards off, paying to have my boards looked over, getting them back, putting it back in my game, still having the problem, and then recognizing that I was actually – no, you know what I did? I replaced the connectors that went to the rectifier board. and one of the kyfercons in the actual connector was off. So when I rebuilt the connector, I misspinned one of them, and because of that, I was not getting enough power to my coil. So it was just fucking stupid, just not paying attention, late-night shit in the basement. yeah I did something similar with that split second I had last year yeah where I redid the connector but I didn't misplace my pins which is what I thought I did but I actually just had a bad crimp on one of them but one that controlled the power going from something to the MPU yeah so it wasn't getting power to get the game to boot I'll do it like I could not figure it out for the life of me so but I kept like comparing pictures of my connectors before to what I had there and it looked right and eventually I had to take it to Dan and he was able to diagnose it better and notice I literally just had to crimp one wire poorly and that fixed it. Trying to think, anything else? I mean there's just been shit along the way. Yeah, basically like you're bound to fuck stuff up if you're a content publisher. Or like you forget that, I know that on Whitewater on whitewater I like I did something on whitewater where I like had it fully assembled and I had forgotten to oh you know what I did that was really stupid that maybe it's not stupid but it's just like a rookie thing is that on my whitewater and I did a full restore on whitewater as well so it was like complete cabinet teardown at that time there were not playfields available so I did have mine And I did have mine, like, painted, and I had it restored, clear-coated. But so I re-grained all my ball guides, right? And so, you know, I do the whole thing where you, like, you hit it with sandpaper, and then you take it down to, like, a scotch-brite pad, and you, like, make sure you grain it really nicely and stuff like that. So I did that, reinstalled everything into the game, put all the fucking – put everything in. So all the ramps, the ramps took me like a day to like dremel them down so that the transitions were super smooth and shit like that. And I think I got it done. And I was at the point of playtesting. And after like four games of playtesting, like there was just black shit all over the rubbers. And I had gone back with, I think I'd gone back with traditional white rubbers. It was like before like Titans and stuff were around. And I figured out that what I had done was that when you grain the ball guides, and this is the tip I was fair, if this is not just a well-known thing. But when you grain your ball guides, like even when you wipe them down, like I wiped them down with Novus or whatever or cleaned them, they still have like a grit on them. So what I do now that I wish I had done then was after I grain my ball guides, I'll wipe them down with whatever, but I'll take isopropyl alcohol. And then really I'll wipe the ball guides down until there's absolutely zero residue. Because you create, because you're grinding, you know, you're sanding that metal. It just creates like dirt and stuff in there that you just don't even see, even like wiping down with Novus. so that sucked because I dismantled it so I could get the ball guy that goes all the way around the orbit that was kind of a fuck up but lesson learned lesson learned and lesson shared so those were some good fuck ups what do you think? I think my cabinet one was the best yeah I'm sure it's just awful Indiana championship belt, who holds it? Our current champion is Mr. Ryan Donahue, and this son of a bitch is just running all over the state, defending the belt left and right. So congrats to him. Nice. But he is just posting, like, a picture of him at some place, being like, come get some. Come get it. He's being, like, a heel about it in pro wrestling terms. But then when, like, there's official tournaments, the coward doesn't show up with his belt, you know? Oh, snap. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting how that works out. Ryan, if you're listening, which I hope you're not. He's not listening. If you are, then all the trash talk that I've done stays in place. But, yeah, he's having a lot of fun with it. It's still going well. We had our second annual tournament back in December for it. That was won by Luke Sheehan from Illinois. So we've now had champions from Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana all have the belt at some point or another. and again Ryan is currently the champion and people are still having fun with it which is what its intent was uh it's been pretty I think it's I think it's been a success I've enjoyed it and it does seem that when people post you know that they are the champion they're they're bringing it to a certain tournament for a defense um that it does slightly increase the turnout uh that tells me that some people do care about it which is kind of nice nice um uh Adam Jordan made the comment. He said, using Google or fitness. Using Google or fitness. I think that's a typo. What does that mean? I don't know. I'm just saying using Google. Okay, using... Facebook probably. Google or Facebook to diagnose issues. Yeah, using Google or Facebook to diagnose issues in games instead of asking Facebook groups and pin side the same questions over and over. Adam is a cranky old man. He is. I get to see him next week. I think that, you know, I don't know. I still post to Facebook groups every once in a while because I think that it's helpful to, like, have a hive mind. And that I think a lot of times by posting to groups that are really active, that people might actually point to, like, you might have, you have an issue, but you don't necessarily know what caused it. And so if you can reach out and have somebody else that had that issue, you can kind of work through, especially if there's like multiple reasons why it could be happening. I don't know. I totally get what you're saying. But personally, I am always too embarrassed to post those groups because I assume any issue I'm having is something simple that I just can't figure out. Yeah. I instead Google it and try to find it. And usually between Pinside and the old RGP threads, I can figure things out. And if not, then I call on local friends. Yeah. And then if I get super desperate, then I go online. I think RGP was really, really searchable. And that's the one thing about Pinside, because there's a lot of tech stuff on Pinside. It's just not. It's like the way the search algorithm works sucks. What I've learned to do is instead of searching on Pinside, is search on Google, like whatever my issue is, and at the very end just add the word Pinside to it. Oh, nice. That actually helps quite a bit. Pro tip. Okay, so Dan answered that. Let's see. Yopson. Oh, wait, I got Neil Wagner. Hoarding. My game room is full with seven of my favorite pins. Should I start bringing them upstairs or start selling to make room for something different? But I personally, I have 11 games. I know you have a shit ton, Tommy, but I have 11 games and I'm at a point now where I'm out of space. Oh, yeah, I'm out of space. My game room is set up to where 11 pins fits comfortably, I would say. And I don't know. I think it's a matter of, like, how many games can you play at the same time, one. How many games, what kind of variety do you want to have in your lineup? I mean, I do like a variety. Like, I have, you know, a couple of solid states, System 11, you know, mostly moderns. But, I mean, I do like that. I mean, I think a seven-pin collection is a pretty good size. You know, I think that you can have 28 people over and everybody is playing, you know, a four-player game on a game, that's pretty decent. And if you can keep up with that amount of pins, always have everything working, then I don't know. I mean, unless you're like, I just don't want to lose any of the games I have because they're in such great shape or something like that, I get that. But, I mean, in my house, it's nice to have a game room where you kind of go and it's like it's its own separate thing. like you go into the game room and it's like you're there to play pinball. So that's, that's the way I like it. I'm, I'm looking at picking up a Jurassic park and I'll, I'll be moving a game out. So that's my answer. Tommy, what do you think? I said build an extension under your house. Thanks Tommy for that. That's really helpful. Or start routing some games at a local establishment. Yeah. It shares your collection. It's forced me to become a better pinball owner because I have to fix things more often, but I've learned a lot from it. I've increased the amount of pinball activity in the area. I've got new friends that now enjoy the games that I have more. And I totally get it. I'm right around 30-ish games, and I don't want to have more than that. I do want more than that, to be honest. But I think that's a very large question without being an insane person. Considering my limited space, if you've got a giant house or basement that can fit 100 games, like, absolutely, I get why you would have 100 games. I can't fit those games in my house, but between my house and my location, that's .2 miles from my house, I can fit what I have. You have how many? You have 30? Yeah. That's fucking crazy. How many are working? Like, 100%. Like, set up playing. 27. You got three folded? Or three, like, in process? or yeah I've got frontiers folded right I'm Tara still waiting on a play field James Bond been broken for like three years okay that crazy So my friend Dan he operates out of Center of the Universe Brewery and they're having a pinball tournament coming up, the East Coast Classics Championship. It's the weekend of March 21st. I think I plugged it already. I'll plug it again. But I think Dan is – I think he's there. You know, like he operates a couple games. He has games at home, but I think it is like he wanted to have more games, and so operating was the avenue that he took where he can – I really do believe that he is putting them out there because he wants to – it's a little side money, but it's mostly about he's building a hobby, and he loves the hobby. The idea of operating, I don't like it. Like it's just not – I don't see myself having the time to like upkeep games like I would want. Like I think you're in a really good situation because of how close you are, the proximity to your location. You know, Dan's location is like a pretty good hump for him, and I think that that would be tough for me. Yeah, like if this wasn't that close to my house, there's no way I would do that. Yeah, but yeah, you know what? Dan asked a question about the best approach to introducing pinball noobs into the hobby and trick them into loving the same thing as me. So that's Dan's question. I think your comment was offer prizes. Yeah. I've heard multiple people say if you have some sort of an event, even if it seems like a stupid little prize, people winning something, it clicks something in their brain that they can win stuff by playing this. Now, how would you set that up on a location? So, for example, didn't you do something where if you came and you posted a certain score on Jurassic Park, you won something? Yep. We're still doing that. Literally stickers. Okay. I went on Amazon. I did the same thing for Stranger Things In fact I should probably run a quest for that again But I bought like 150 Stranger Things Stickers for $7 Okay So I'm not a mathematician but that's like what Not even 5 cents a sticker Or something Yeah that's not a lot Yeah and So basically You play the game Take a picture of your score Bartenders have the stickers you go show them you get your sticker there you go that's pretty cool um but honestly the biggest thing is um i mean i think part of the reason you and i do this podcast is because we are both pinball enthusiasts like we are generally enthused by pinball in all sorts of ways like playing it restoring them owning them collecting them etc etc yeah right yeah so and again i have a huge advantage with my location being close but like when I do have some free time like it's not wrestling season and I'm not exhausted I try to hang out at the bar and play pinball and show people like I'm having fun and show them like some of the things you can do on the games when we were having our tournament Sunday we were on four of us were on a game of world cup soccer and a younger kid probably like close to 10 I would say maybe came right up to Monopoly next to us and he put a quarter in and it's 50 cents and it didn't do anything so i literally was like hey man that one actually cost 50 cents like here's a quarter out of my pocket yeah he's like oh thanks you know and he puts it in he goes oh well what am i supposed to do so like i started showing him some stuff and then my turn came up on the game and another one of the players from the group was like hey man you know try this and showed him like what he should shoot after that um and then one of the other guys was like hey i won two free games on the the nascar machine over there why don't you go play them you know so like when you show enthusiasm and granted that was a kid when i'm hanging out in the bar it's not kids it's adults But the same thing kind of applies. When you show them what the machines are capable of, where the skill set is involved, it draws them in. Because not necessarily that they're immediately enthused by it, but when you share your passion for whatever it is you have with others. I think as humans, we enjoy seeing what I consider genuine passion for anything. I don't care about board games. It's just never been my thing. But I have a couple friends that are really into them. when they start telling me about their game they're playing and the rules of it, like, seeing that emotion from them draws me into it. Yeah, yeah. I think that's, you know, why we watch sporting events is because a lot of those players or athletes, whatever it is, genuinely love and have passion for what they're doing. I think that's one of the things that's nice that you have is, like, you do seem to have like a pretty consistent crowd that goes into your location, right? Because your location is off of, is it off of Bowling Alley? No. Yeah, it's a Bowling Alley and a bar. Right. So you have people who are going there with the idea that they're going to engage in some sort of competitive activity already, right? Yeah, that helps for sure. Yeah, so that helps. And you also have like idle time. You have people waiting for food or just having beer. Like you have a really good location. Yeah, no, please don't take that for it's really busy and I make a ton of money, but we already have people there. But I think that's the thing. It's like if you have a solid location where the people who are coming in are going to have the opportunity to experience, to have a good pinball experience, I think that that's really important. And I think that Dan's location, Center of the Universe Brewery, which is in Ashland, Virginia, I'll plug it again. I think he has a really solid location. I think, you know, for me it sucks because it's really far for me to get out there to go and support him. But then, like, we have another location, Bingo, which is a great location. And, like, the operator is really responsive. But it's not a great location to have a good pinball experience because it's – and this is not to take away from kids because I love my kids. But I don't necessarily love other people's kids, like, getting their grimy faces up in my pinball machine while I'm trying to play. um like it's very much like it's kind of a it's not a um what are the what are those places called the uh arcade bar places i don't i've never been to one you know i'm talking about like where it's um oh shit uh uh dave and busters right yeah so it's kind of like i mean i feel like they have a bunch of like kind of dave and busters type of games there you know where it's just not pinball and there's, I don't know, like I've had experiences at bingo where, yeah, I have like kids coming up and they're like putting their hands on the glass. And I'm like, yeah, you know, and their parents are next to me playing a game. And I'm like, hey, your kid is like up on my machine. So I think that's, I think that's something as well. I do think, you know, I think Dan has a good location. I just, I think it's like so far out and I don't know that people are going there to play pinball. But he has regular tournaments and stuff. I think he's a stern Army location. So I don't know. I think the prize thing is a really good idea. You just have to hope that the location is totally like, yeah, we're totally into that. Yeah. It's worth checking out the PinQuest app to try that out. Now, what about your – I guess the thing is, how do you get somebody to love pinball? How do you get somebody – I think to go to the core of the question, I think from my experience, just because I'm speaking from the area that I live in and Dan's a friend of mine and we're both local. And I think the thing about Richmond that's been really cool over the last 15 years that I've been in the hobby, like a little over 15 years or something. I don't know, but like when we started our pinball league, like there's just not a lot of pinball activity as far as like people getting together and play. Like there are definitely some guys who have like, you know, there are definitely some collectors, but it wasn't it wasn't a player's type of environment. And I think that by starting the pinball league, like it just gave people an opportunity to have a regular opportunity to play. and I think now we have the Richmond Pinball Collective, we have multiple leagues, we have multiple locations and I think a lot of it is just giving people an opportunity to play. I think it's very much the field of dreams. If you build it, they'll come. Yeah, absolutely. If you put a pinball machine somewhere, they will get played and then people will start to enjoy it. But it's got to be maintained. It's got to be maintained, right? So you want to give them a good pinball experience. I mean, that's the thing. It's like you want them to have a good pinball experience. And I think putting the games out there, like because Dan has another game. I can't remember. I think it's like he's got a – I think he's got like a solid state at a location, but I cannot remember the name. Oh, it's called Hangspace. So he has another game at a place called Hangspace. I think that's something that's like if you can like have multiple locations, and like if you could have multiple locations and somehow get those people together, I don't know. I don't know. Prizes. I'll go with prizes. All right, Tommy, you got that one. Prizes. Mike Martin, they've got an NBA fast break. He opened a – they have an arcade down in South Carolina. I think it's called Upstate Pinball. Got to look. But they have a linked NBA fast break, and he was asking about if there was another location that had one. and you said there was. Yeah, I know at least the pinball in Indianapolis has linked NBA fast breaks. So that's one close to me that I'm aware of. I know I've already seen it at Replay FX. They've had it there before. I'm not sure about where else, but it has been seen. It is very cool. Very cool. Yeah. I thought you got that out in public. Yeah, Mike is down at the Upstate Pinball and Arcade Museum in Simpsonville, South Carolina. And they opened recently, so go check them out. What else? What was David yopping about? The Sharon Pinball Circuit event in Germany for next month has been canceled already due to the coronavirus. Folks, buy your mask. Get your water. Yeah, it's interesting, right? I mean, think about coronavirus is obviously something that's happening in the world. And pinball is something where people travel, especially Pinburgh, right? Pinburgh is an event where people travel from all over the world to come to Pittsburgh to play in a pinball tournament. There's a lot of uncertainty right now in the United States as to what's going to happen. and I will tell you that my personal opinion is that we're going to be affected by it. It's happening. It is happening right now. I will tell you right now, like, because of people I know and the businesses that they work for, some of which are, like, large Fortune 500 companies, like, they are right now, they are proactively figuring out what to do. Like, they are like, this is going to happen. It's going to affect our employees. We need to know what to do. So. I'm not trying to be paranoid guy, but the reality is like the shit is spreading and they really don't know how it spreads. They don't know the incubation time. Like there was a case in California where they don't know where the person got it from. So that means it's in its community. Yeah. I mean, I'm not in the CDC, but now there's a pandemic team because they got fired last year. so I think I don't know man like I'm thinking about Texas right I mean I hate to say it but I'm like do I want to go to Texas do I want to go do I want to go and get on a plane right now and travel on a plane with a bunch of strangers like I want to be at home and I don't know I want a Jurassic Park pinball machine so I can play it when my kids are out of school for a month It's nuts dude I am the complete opposite end of you I am not worried about it at all I think we're going to be completely fine And if half the planet got wiped out I'd be totally cool with that too So yeah I'm very pro end of the world Tommy No like for real Like we've ruined everything Like what's the bad guy from Avengers The purple guy Snaps his fingers Oh yeah Thor Forgot his name But I'm on his team. Oh, God. Yeah. Well, I – okay, so I call dibs on your Nautilus. That's cool. I don't want Stranger Things. I'll take your Jurassic Park Pro. There you go. And, yeah, I don't know, man. I mean, so, okay, regardless if you think it's going to affect your local area, It is going to affect people because there's going to be a paranoia. It's already affecting people. I just remember this happening when I was a senior in high school with SARS, and I remember the swine flu. It happens every couple years with stuff. I got the swine flu. They're still here talking to me right now. Am I? Yeah, I am. I'm pretty sure. As I was saying, it happens all the time. you know, like, eh, we're going to be fine. I don't think, like, every individual on the planet is going to be fine. Like, some of you all are going to die from this thing for sure, but, like, we're going to be fine. Okay. That's where I'm at on it. Jeremy Newbold asked, actually, he didn't ask, he just typed Louisville Arcade Expo, but then he went on to say nice things about us. Louisville Arcade Expo is coming up, but I think it's always the week after the Texas Pinball Festival. Oh. And I never attend because I've just gone to the Texas Pinball Festival. I'm pulling up their website, though, to confirm some dates. That show is very close to me, and I do believe they will have some pinball tournaments this year. Although their website seems to load very slow. What is going on? There we go. Oh, no, it's actually March 6th through 8th, which is next week. And I will be in Denver. for the pin masters oh that's right now are you playing are you playing yeah you're just you're just doing pin masters i'm doing pin masters and there's like a some sort of strikes tournament on sunday that i'm playing in um very cool of the denver pinball community which is a large one basically put on i think starting next wednesday through sunday there's tournaments like every day at different locations so for those people that were coming out for nationals and for pin masters or one or the other or whatever, you can make your travel time more whopper valuable and worthwhile if you wanted while you're there. Very nice. Let's see. I think that's it on questions or statements that people made. I'm not going to respond to any more. Do you see any more? Oh, heavy metal was brought up. We touched on it earlier. Do we think it was codenamed TMNT, or do we think that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is coming? I think Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is coming. My guess is just like last year, it'll be unveiled shortly after Texas Pinball Festival and then most likely appear a week or two later at Midwest Gaming Classic. I think that happened last year with Black Knight and the year before with Iron Maiden, if I remember correctly. That seems to be Stern's sort of pattern. But with Stern, there's no guarantees. I do think it's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I think the game is going to have really unique geometry and be packed with features and mechs. That's all I know. Have you seen it? That's all I suspect. Have you seen it? I have not seen it. All right. I have not. Have you been told something? I haven't been told something with any sort of confirmation. Okay. That's like, this is stuff I've heard floating around. Okay. But it's not total speculation? It's not total speculation. Okay. so I think it's coming I think it's going to be cool I think it's going to be based on the original comics much more of like a Deadpool type thing where it's not the movies necessarily and I'm excited to see it as a child I was a huge Ninja Turtles fan curious about who's doing code myself but yeah I'm just curious to see it I hope Zombie Eddie's on the arcs I think he could really like do some justice to those old comic books we'll see But, yeah, I think Heavy Metal is a cool side project that Stern did, essentially building them to order, which I think is the first time Stern has done that, to my knowledge, which I think is pretty cool. Yeah. It seems to be a nice little side project and a new way for Stern to approach the business. But, yeah, Ninja Turtles I'm definitely looking forward to. There's rumors of the Blood Zeppelin coming out with a Quicksilver play field layout similar to the Beatles and Sea Witch. I shared something about that on our page like six months ago And like only one person caught it It was pretty funny Good job, Yancy He spotted what I had altered on the playfield But I don't know if that's going to be another Kapow title What the cost on that will be If it's even real Trying to think what other rumors there are for Stern right now Those are the big ones I know Ninja Turtles, Quicksilver, the Heavy Metal thing Which isn't really a rumor, it was announced If you could buy if you could buy one game right now that's currently being manufactured, what game would you choose for rules and what game would you choose for gameplay? Right now, so like as it sits. Like, even if I already own it, because I would totally get a Jurassic Park. Just, yeah. The rules on Jurassic Park are awesome. Okay. Like, they just are. It makes you shoot everything. Yeah. Everything you shoot counts for something. He does a great job of putting in, I don't know what you want to call them, like milestones or smaller objectives so you feel like you're achieving. Like, you have the simple task of open a paddock and capture the dinosaur. Every time you do that, the light show, the animation, the sound, it makes you feel like you've achieved something. Doing a T-Rex mode or a computer room mode to completion and collecting a fossil makes you feel accomplished. And in doing so, again, you're boosting everything else. Like, it's just the way Keith's brain works with his game design is awesome. awesome. It's like he's played before. Yeah, it's almost like he's played before. But that would honestly have to be my choice for both just the layout and the rules. Oh, really? So, overall, overall, okay. Yeah, it's awesome. Like I said, I really enjoy Deadpool, but it is a little bit, it's on the simpler side. Yeah. It does have some nice nuance to it where you can collect your team members before entering modes. I've started really focusing when I'm playing that hitting the stick target for the playfield multiplier yeah I did something on it the other day where I got up to the 5x and I collected juggernaut and a final shot and it was worth 500 million that was pretty sweet that's pretty good yeah nice little feeling like that but it doesn't quite have the depth of like you're building up these things like you are in Jurassic Park right um but yeah like like that's just how I would go I've already discussed my, not disdain, but not my love of Willy Wonka. It's whatever it is. I don't think it's a bad game, but I just don't love it. And then Rick and Morty, I think it's going to be a lot of fun. I've got to cut it, but it's still super early. So as it sits, no, but hopefully 18 months from now or so, whenever mine's getting built, I'm looking really forward to seeing where that's at. Cool. Yeah, how about you? What would you get? I'm looking at getting a Jurassic Park. Yeah. I really like, I mean, I will say I really like the Elvira game a lot. I just think it's, I'm a huge Nordman fan. I think he, like, has good humor. It's got, like, decent flow. That's been really fun to play. I have a friend who has one. So, you know, it's nice to be able to, like, not worry about losing money while you're playing. Um, so that's, yeah, that's been fun. But yeah, I think like current production wise, I would go with Jurassic Park and that's what I'm actively looking at. I just, I like the, the depth of the code makes me want to own one in my house and like really explore it. And yeah, I mean, that's where I play most of my pinball because I don't have a ton of free time. so it's like okay what have I played on location that I'm thinking about as I drive away right and Jurassic Park is that game right now so that's what I would get yeah it's just a masterpiece well done it's awesome alright so Tommy I think that's it Yes, sir. Episode 98. That works for me, dude. Episode 98 is in the books. Time's Got a Snow Day. I just wrapped. I got to go pick up lunch and take it to a look-up if she didn't get a snow day. Yeah, her school's in the city. They fly our ship beats. I don't know nowhere. I got an advantage. I have to go ship a set of Harlem Globetrotters. I just wrapped. I got to go ship a play field. I just wrapped 19 sets of rails. Boom. That's impressive, man. Thank you. Fight the wrapper. Flight 2000, Cheetah, Sea Witch. Check out the rails that I just did. Flight 2000, Cheetah, those just came in, Sea Witch, Attack from Mars, seven sets of Quicksilver rails, Theater of Magic, Comet, two sets of Twilight Zone, Circus Voltaire, Tales of the Arabian Nights, and Harlem Globetrotters. Classic sterns for the wind, man. It's pretty crazy, right? I know we're trying to go and all, but did you own a Circus Voltaire at one point? I did. do you miss it at all? There's stuff on that game that I absolutely hate. I hate the DMD animations. I hate the Ringmaster is so annoying. Like his call outs. It's a beautiful game, but I just do not like that layout. I think it's like a John Pukaduke, you know, just throw everything out on the play field. That stupid ball that blocks the shot on the left. I mean, it's all stuff that looks cool, but it's really made by somebody who's, it seems like they never would have played a pinball machine before. Just because it's all, like, really blocked. Like, you know, it's like the juggler, like the juggler area is cool, but it's just like remove the juggler area, remove that section. So it's not taking up so much real estate and then make stuff over in the upper left that you can shoot at. But it's really like, it's not my favorite. That's okay. That, that works. I was just curious, but it's a beautiful game. And honestly, like I bought mine and I wanted to restore it because the game I bought, it was pretty, it was pretty rough. I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't crazy, but I bought it to restore it. And at that time, IP, Illinois pinball was supposed to do the playfields. And so I was like, I was talking to Kim at Illinois pinball and I was like, hey, are the playfields coming out? And they were like, yeah, yeah, they're coming out. They're coming out. So I had the game and I was basically like, I'm going to I bought it to restore it. And then they bailed on the playfields or whatever happened, like they had printing issues. And so I was just like, screw it. And I think I sold it to buy my Lord of the Rings. so which I no longer have but I would like a Lord of the Rings back to make sense I just want to be curious about it was just wondering I thought I would do well on location I think it would do I think it could do well in location I think it's really pretty I think it's like the art package is really colorful which I think helps yes it's a really bright game I mean I could see like walking up and like as my play style i don't like it because i feel like it's really cluttered like i like open games one of the reasons i love iron maiden is because i feel like it's really open um but yeah it's just like really cluttered speaking of speaking of location games i just one thing um monster bash you still have it still doing well no i sold that like oh you did oh shit we haven't talked in a while no yeah that one's that one's been gone for a while So I bought my Royal Rumble and my Star Wars. Yeah, it did fine. Yeah, it started taking a while. Dan ended up getting one in town, and it's just not a game that I love. Yeah. So it was kind of like, hey, if I can go play it at Dan's, why do I need to own it? Copy that. Yeah, we try not to double up too much. So it was just one of those things that if I could sell that and buy something else, I can't remember what I bought at the time, to be honest. But, yeah, I didn't need it anymore. Now, I was super impressed with the quality from CGC. I'm curious when they're going to release Cactus Canyon, because I think that's their next game. And I've heard some pretty strong rumors that they're doing their own licensed game as well. Oh, really? So I don't know what it is, but I'm sure that they're working on something. Is that the Christopher Franchi one? I have no idea at all whatsoever. I haven't really heard that it's happening. I haven't heard any details. On Cactus Canyon, have you heard that they are going to be doing the Cactus Canyon Continued or something similar? Yeah, it would basically be a complete game, actually. The code would be redone. Yes. That is a game. See, that's what's interesting, right? Like, so Jurassic Park Pro. Like, do you like Cactus Canyon? I do. I think that game has got some really cool mechs in it. Yeah, it's really fun to shoot. But the bonus multiplier exploit on that game is awful. Oh, is it? Yeah. How do you do it? What is it? You just keep shooting that left loop up into the pops, and there are only two rollovers that are completed to do your bonus X. Copy that. And your bonus can be just massive. You can't max it out? You can't max it out in the game. No. You can't? Okay. All right. Well, hopefully they fix that. Yep. So I imagine that will be dealt with. All right, Tommy, I have to go. I have to go. Yeah, Tommy, go ship stuff. Go ship stuff, and I will talk to you later. And this was episode 98. And they can Later Later Tommy Bye Oh my God! around you when you sing. This will feel like you and me. I'm the same as you. For you I am and he is you. It's a game. I am not a game. Never, never stand up for me. It's a game. I am nothing, never never be a father. I don't want to be rejected I don't want to break your heart And it's not my mission, I'll do But I've opened up your heart Freedom is given If we can't give I have no freedom How do you feel? Take a look at my face But just in my heart If we can't give It was just me and the dog! In the deep, I am not it. There was never, free to call it. In the deep, I am not it. Thank you.