Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Episode 46 – Jerry Thompson: Stern Sound Engineer

Head2Head Pinball·podcast_episode·2h 10m·analyzed·Jun 4, 2018
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.022

TL;DR

Stern sound engineer Jerry Thompson shares his journey from radio to pinball and insights on comprehensive audio design.

Summary

Jerry Thompson, Stern Pinball sound engineer, discusses his career path from radio to pinball sound design, detailing his role creating comprehensive audio packages for games like Ghostbusters, Batman, Star Wars, and Iron Maiden. He explains the collaborative design process, sound implementation challenges, working with external talent, and his philosophy that great sound design should feel natural and immersive without being noticed.

Key Claims

  • Jerry Thompson created sound packages for Ghostbusters, Batman, Star Wars, and Iron Maiden at Stern Pinball

    high confidence · Jerry Thompson directly states these are games he worked on as Stern's sound engineer

  • A typical pinball sound package contains hundreds to thousands of individual sounds, with Batman containing approximately 3,500 files

    high confidence · Jerry Thompson explicitly states 'thousands' of sounds and confirms 'three and a half thousand' for Batman

  • Jerry Thompson first full sound package was Ghostbusters, working with programmer Dwight Sullivan

    high confidence · Jerry Thompson directly states 'Ghostbusters' was his first full sound package with Dwight Sullivan

  • Game sound package development typically takes approximately one and a half years from start to finish

    high confidence · Jerry Thompson states 'these days, a year and a half' for a typical game

  • Jerry Thompson helped organize the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show in Seattle in 2008

    high confidence · Jerry Thompson states 'I was one of the organizers of the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show' in 2008

  • David Thiel previously handled Stern sound packages for Spider-Man and Pirates of the Caribbean

    high confidence · Jerry Thompson states he learned from reading Pin Game Journal that David Thiel 'had just done Spider-Man and Pirates of the Caribbean'

  • Jerry Thompson contributed voices to the Mustang and Woe Nelly pinball machines

    high confidence · Jerry Thompson states 'I ended up doing several voices in the Mustang game' and did 'some sounds for that and some speech' on Woe Nelly

  • Rick Zieff, a voice actor in L.A. who plays Spike the Dog on Tom and Jerry, was nominated for an Emmy and provided voice work for Batman and Iron Maiden

    high confidence · Jerry Thompson identifies Rick Zieff as voice talent, mentions Emmy nomination and Tom and Jerry role, confirms work on Batman and Iron Maiden

Notable Quotes

  • “I'd describe it as my dream job, really. I mean, you know, how fun is that to get to do something that you love? You know, my job and combine my passion, which is pinball.”

    Jerry Thompson @ early in interview — Thompson's core motivation and passion for sound engineering in pinball

  • “Every sound that's in the game I have to provide. And so, you know, that's hundreds of sounds. I mean, you know, when you think about anything that's on the display, that has to have an effect that goes with it.”

    Jerry Thompson @ early section — Explains the comprehensive scope of sound engineer responsibilities

  • “I'd describe it like doing Foley for movies where, you know, you've got to recreate the footsteps and all that. I mean, everything has to have a sound, you know, every switch, every button.”

    Jerry Thompson @ early section — Clarifies the Foley-like nature of pinball sound design work

  • “If I've done my job well, you don't notice it. It just feels right. But, you know, like you said about the spinner, if it's wrong, then you notice it.”

    Jerry Thompson @ mid-interview — Thompson's philosophy on sound design effectiveness: good design is invisible

  • “Here I am in the factory at night working with George and Lyman getting Batman ready for Expo. And I'm thinking, this is so surreal because, you know, I mean, here I was, you know, asking these guys for their autograph and now I'm getting to do a game with them.”

    Jerry Thompson @ mid-interview — Reflects on his journey from fan to collaborator with legendary designers

  • “I thought, yeah, so I thought, you know, I had a package together for it and I thought, wow, this is not bad, I'm done. And then the work started.”

    Jerry Thompson @ discussion of Ghostbusters scope — Illustrates the underestimation of work required for full sound packages

  • “I love going to work. And so George asked me that night, he said, so is making a pinball game everything you thought it would be? And I said, it's a whole lot more work than I thought. And it's, you know, it's just, it's more fun than I, you know, I did radio and all that.”

Entities

Jerry ThompsonpersonGeorge GomezpersonDwight SullivanpersonDavid ThielpersonLyman F. Sheats Jr.personSteve Ritchieperson

Signals

  • ?

    design_innovation: Jerry Thompson uses Foley-like production techniques, looping spinner sounds to test timing, and layering music with effects to ensure proper audio blending and prevent clashing

    high · Thompson explains: 'I try to replicate what it's going to do in a game...a spinner sound will end up being like half a second to three quarters of a second. And I do. I put them together in a row and see if it sounds good together' and describes playing music tracks while layering individual sounds on top to adjust volumes

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Thompson's core philosophy is that excellent sound design should be unnoticed by players—it should feel right and immersive without drawing explicit attention

    high · Thompson states: 'If I've done my job well, you don't notice it. It just feels right. But, you know, like you said about the spinner, if it's wrong, then you notice it'

  • ?

    collaboration_signal: Sound design at Stern involves tight collaboration between sound engineer and programmer; programmer makes final decisions on sound priority, timing, and implementation, while sound engineer provides options and creative input

    high · Thompson explains: 'That's up to the designer and mainly the programmer' and describes working closely with Dwight Sullivan, Lyman Sheets, and Rick Nagel, with extensive phone calls and regular visits to Chicago

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Stern sound packages rely on Jerry Thompson's curated network of external talent: musicians, voice actors, and orchestral composers selected for specific project needs

    high · Thompson describes being 'like a casting director' and leveraging long-time relationships with music collaborators and voice talent like Rick Zieff

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.087

0:00
www.hidtohidpinball.com Welcome everybody to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is episode 46 and my name's Martin and with me... It's Ryan C. Marty, we've been interviewing people non-stop. Who else have we got left? Have we missed anyone? Well, we've probably missed someone that probably does need to get a bit more of a profile on these things. What do you think? Yeah, sound's important to me. I talk about sound all the time. So we picked up the phone and we dialed Jerry Thompson's number. Jerry, how are you going? Hi, how are you guys? Good, good. So how would you describe your job as a sound engineer at Stern Pinball? Wow, jump right into it. Well, I mean, I'd describe it as my dream job, really. I mean, you know, how fun is that to get to do something that you love? You know, my job and combine my passion, which is pinball. And, you know, I just, it's not like work, you know, when you love it. Yeah, well, it's kind of what I said before about, you know, probably needing to raise the profile of it. When we think about machines that are being designed, we sort of hear the design is by this, the art by that, the sound is that, but it's not necessarily as defined I think as the other roles. So that's kind of why we're sort of asking that first question is how would you describe it to people to understand the importance of it? Well, you know, that's a good point because even friends of mine who, you know, when I say I do pinball sound package, they say, what is that? So I said, well, basically every sound that's in the game I have to provide. And so, you know, that's hundreds of sounds. I mean, you know, when you think about anything that's on the display, that has to have an effect that goes with it. You know, it's kind of like doing Foley. You're familiar with Foley for movies where, you know, you've got to recreate the footsteps and all that. I mean, everything has to have a sound, you know, every switch, every button. And honestly, I mean, before I started doing it, I didn't even realize how much went into it. Okay, well then, so then let's step back before we go into really deep diving into the pinball thing. What was your career before getting into pinball? And so what led you to do this? Well, I started in my oldest brother was in radio, and so I started in radio when I was 16. I got a radio job at the local radio station, and then I ended up doing mornings in several cities and eventually making it to Houston, Texas, and doing mornings there for a radio station. And during that time, I met some pinball people. For example, I had seen a Twilight Zone pinball game in a store in like 94, and I loved Twilight Zone, this TV series. And I just, in the back of my mind, I thought, I've got to get one of those one day. But, you know, at the time, eBay wasn't around. Who knew how to get a coin-op machine, you know? So when eBay came around in 1998, I found one, and so Twilight Zone was my first machine, and you know how they grow after you get one. Yeah. Well, we didn't know. Pretty quickly. So I met pinball people in Houston and I went to the first Dallas pinball show and the first Houston pinball show. And so I just, you know, I moved to Seattle in 2003 and started just doing audio and video production and voice work. Got out of the radio, the daily radio business, but I still voice a lot of radio and TV stations around the country and around the world. Actually, I've got some stuff in Dubai and Hawaii and various other places that I do.

  • George Gomez and Lyman F. Sheats Jr. worked with Jerry Thompson on Batman

    high confidence · Jerry Thompson explicitly states 'getting to do a game with George Gomez and Lyman F. Sheats Jr.' regarding Batman

  • Theremin sounds were used in Ghostbusters for Magnus ring effects, an idea suggested by programmer Dwight Sullivan

    high confidence · Jerry Thompson states Dwight Sullivan suggested using theremin for Magnus ring sounds and praises the result as 'one of my favorite things in the game'

    • Jerry Thompson @ Batman discussion — Summarizes the difficulty yet reward of pinball sound design work

  • “I love that feature. It never fails to scare the crap out of any of the vicinity. I mean, I just, I love the Ghostbusters game.”

    Jerry Thompson @ Ghostbusters discussion — Thompson's enthusiasm about specific sound design elements, particularly the loud scream feature (Dwight Sullivan's idea)

  • “Man, there's not a bad apple in the bunch in the whole building. I mean, everybody gets along, and there's no, you know, I'm going to better you or snake you. I mean, everybody wants to make a great pinball game.”

    Jerry Thompson @ late interview — Describes the collaborative culture at Stern Pinball

  • “I have to trust my gut on it...I've owned games for so long and I play and I got a good feel of what a fun game is and so I kind of have to trust my gut on it.”

    Jerry Thompson @ forum feedback discussion — Thompson's approach to balancing feedback with his own creative judgment

    • Stern Pinball
    company
    Ghostbustersgame
    Batmangame
    Star Warsgame
    Iron Maidengame
    Mustanggame
    Woe Nellygame
    Rolling Stonesgame
    Northwest Pinball and Arcade Showevent
    Rick Zieffperson
    Greg Freresperson
    Lonnie D. Roppperson
    Steve Wiebeperson
    Burt Wardperson
    Adam Westperson
    Rick Naegeleperson

    community_signal: Jerry Thompson exemplifies the trajectory from passionate community member (collector, show organizer) to insider professional within Stern Pinball, reflecting broader industry pattern

    high · Thompson transitioned from organizing Northwest Pinball Show to being recommended by industry contacts (David Thiel, Lonnie Rott, Greg Ferreres) and eventually becoming Stern's primary sound engineer

  • ?

    product_concern: Poorly timed spinner sounds that overlap due to long duration relative to spinner rotation speed create auditory clashing, as exemplified in Magic Girl

    medium · Host mentions: 'Magic Girl...you hit the spinner and the sound is too long for how quick the spinner is. So it just overlaps on top of each other'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Sound engineers initially underestimate the scope of pinball sound packages; work expands significantly from initial concept to final implementation

    high · Thompson describes initial assessment of Ghostbusters: 'I thought, wow, this is not bad, I'm done. And then the work started. So then it's like, Dwight's like, well, we got all these display effects to do'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: For licensed IP games like Ghostbusters, sound designers deliberately use period-appropriate instruments (Lindrum, Simmons, theremin) to create immersive era-specific audio

    high · Thompson states for Ghostbusters: 'I wanted the music to have that...I've got a Lindrum machine...I've got a set of Simmons drums too...I want to use this stuff and have period authentic...sound in the game'

  • ?

    content_signal: Community members actively speculate and express concerns about unreleased game content before official reveals; feedback patterns emerge around licensing and repetition fears

    high · Thompson describes Ghostbusters announcement: 'People complained before the game was even shown. When they announced that Roy Parker Jr.'s Ghostbusters thing was going to be in there, everyone was like, oh my god, if I have to hear that song every single time'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Stern's internal culture emphasizes collaboration, mutual respect, and shared commitment to excellence; no internal competition or politics; everyone motivated by making great games

    high · Thompson states: 'Man, there's not a bad apple in the bunch in the whole building. I mean, everybody gets along...I mean, everybody wants to make a great pinball game, and that's the cool thing about it'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Licensor approval processes vary significantly by IP; some licenses (e.g., Batman) are more permissive with large sound file libraries; programmers may create 'island of misfit tunes' with unused content

    high · Thompson explains: 'Every license is different...Batman was a nice license because we had so much available' and mentions Lyman calling unused tracks 'the island of misfit tunes'

  • ?

    product_launch: Modern Stern Pinball sound packages take approximately 1.5 years from initial assignment to final production, with ongoing work throughout programming and refinement phases

    high · Thompson states: 'Usually a game will take, I mean, these days, a year and a half' and describes continuous daily involvement with multiple projects simultaneously

    • 4:19
    So I got to Seattle. I met pinball people here. And eventually we just had a yearly get-together that got so big we decided to do a show in 2008. And so I was one of the organizers of the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show. So I'm a pinball fan and so I've been doing sound for a long time.
    4:45
    Why did you want to start working in sound? I know you've obviously got the background and you said it's a passion that you do, but there's many sort of high profile careers that you can have in sound. Why pinball? Well, I was producing radio imaging after I got off the air as a DJ. And so basically that's you, it would be my job to create the sound of the radio station. You know, imaging is the things that go between records and station promotions and things like that. So it would be my job to write those, produce them, sometimes voice them. And, you know, so my job was imaging. And so the journey to pinball, actually, I met through our pinball show here in Seattle. So it was my job to get people as speakers. And so Steve Ritchie came up our first year, and I needed some more people to fill out the schedule. And so luckily we have Steve Wiebe who lives here, and he was in the King of Kong documentary movie. I don't know if you're familiar with that, with Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe. So he came. Greg Dunlap, who used to work at Williams, was also one of the volunteers who put the show together. And he said, I've got some video that I took when Williams closed, just like walking through there. And he goes, you know, I could do a seminar. And then I found out through reading Pin Game Journal that David Thiel, who was doing Stern sound packages, he had just done Spider-Man and Pirates of the Caribbean, lived here. And so I contacted him, and he was a speaker at our first show. And so he and I got to be friends. We started going to concerts together. We went to ACDC and Steely Dan. And, you know, we both like music. I'm a drummer. And so we became friends, and I met Lonnie Rott through David. And so in 2011, when the Rolling Stones pinball game was being worked on, Lonnie called me and he said, hey, sorry? I said, it's a great machine. I was being really good. I think so, too. I bought an LE. I had a pro, and I got an LE because I liked it so much. I love that game. And I love the Rolling Stones. But so Lonnie said, I know you were in radio and, you know, how about you help out writing some speech for Rolling Stones? And I was like, yeah, I'd love to. And so, you know, that that was like, cool. And then so fast forward to Mustang and Lonnie called me and he said, hey, since you didn't get to talk in Rolling Stones, do you want to talk in Mustang? And I was like, yeah. So I ended up doing several voices in the in the Mustang game. You don't like the jackpot collabs and stuff like that? I did those, you know, and that's the one thing my kids go around making fun of me. They did it at the time, you know, going, jackpot! Because there's some really crazy ones in there.
    7:41
    So, yeah, so, you know, I got to know Lonnie, and I got to know Greg Ferreres through the show in 2009. He came here, and he and Dennis were my guests then that I invited, And they kind of got together at a restaurant and decided the idea of Woe Nelly back then. And so Greg and Dennis would always say, well, yeah, if not for Jerry, there wouldn't be Woe Nelly and we wouldn't be working together again. So when they decided to produce Woe Nelly at Stern, Greg called me and he's like, you know, the game's going to have sound now. And I thought, you know, you should be in it. And so I did some sounds for that and some speech. And so that I mean, you know, Lonnie and Greg led me there. And then I met Dwight when I was there after Wonelli. And we were talking and I was working on something else, just, you know, not a full project. So I said to him, I said, you know, I know you're doing Ghostbusters. And I said, I really, really want to be the guy for that. I said, I feel like I'm the right guy for this. And so he said, but you've never done one by yourself. And I said, I know, but just, you know, if you give me a chance, I know I'm the right guy. And so he's like, well, let's go talk to George. So we went into George Gomez and he said, but you've never done one by yourself before. And I said, just, you know, I said, let me, let me, give me a chance. And so I came back home and I said I got the right guy. There's this guy that's been a friend of mine for years that I played with in a band, and I knew he'd be the perfect guy for music for the game. And so I got him to, told him what I wanted, got him to do a couple of demo tracks and sent them back to them. And luckily they gave me the chance. And it's been great ever since. I just, I love, I love my job. I can't say enough how fun it is making pinball games. So when you're thinking about the packets that you're putting together, you've got to balance a lot of things together because, as you said, every single bit of sound that comes out of a machine you've got responsibility for. So that is speech. That is also ambient sound and music that's playing in the machine and it's also any sort of noise that happens when you hit a spinner or you hit pop bumpers, all that kind of stuff. What's your approach to trying to pull all those things together? Well, Ghostbusters, I kind of had the idea I wanted it to sound like the movie and the era. I mean, I wanted the music to have that. And I have a Lindrum machine that was the drum machine of the 80s. It really was. Yeah, so you're familiar with it. I know the Lindrum very well. And so I've got a set of Simmons drums too. And so I was like, you know, I want to use this stuff and have period authentic, you know, sound in the game on the music. And then I looked at the Playfield art and, you know, the pop bumpers have the city scene where the streets are going through there. And I was like, OK, well, pop bumpers should have horns on them. And, you know, I got to I got to tell you, though, on the on the premium in L.E., Dwight Sullivan had an idea for my favorite sound on that. And that's the Magnus Ling sounds. I don't know if you've played the game and you know those kind of twirling sounds you get when the ball is... Now that I'm hearing them, are they the Simmons hits sort of pitched down?
    11:14
    No, those are actually... I had used in something else a theremin, which is an older instrument. The Beach Boys, you know, have theremin on their records. Yes. And so Dwight was programming the Magnus rings, and he called me, and he's like, these are doing some really cool things. He goes, I need some kind of cool sound for that. And he said, what about that theremin? And so I worked on some of those, and that just, I mean, that's one of my favorite things in the game, and that was Dwight's idea. That's the other thing, you know, it's like it may start with me, but it's a process. And that's what I really love, too, because in radio, I was kind of like, you know, they gave me the job and I did it. And nobody, you know, there was not really collaboration. Maybe in the old days before radio became so consolidated, you know, we would all get together and say, how do we brand ourselves or how do we do a promotion to compete against the other station? But, you know, now that a lot of radio stations in the U.S. are owned by two or three big companies, there's not as much of that, you know, battling each other. You kind of work together to not step on each other. So I love working together with the Stern guys and the programmers and designers and bouncing ideas off each other. It makes it better. The collaboration makes it better. Jerry, so you are creating the sound package, and I guess you have a massive list of all the sounds you need to get into the game, and you present that to the development team and say, you know, here's 3,000 WAF files. But you don't get to actually implement them in the game, right? So there can be sounds that are left out or things that are maybe not designed and put in there on the final cut the way that you envisage them. Is that right? I usually title them where I think they should go. And then if Dwight or Hoover's programming, Lyman, Tanyo don't think that's right or want to try something different, we'll do that. But usually I try to say, let's put this here, this is my vision of it, and then we'll work together to make it better. I mean, Keith on Iron Maiden really had that game planned out rule-wise and a lot of sounds. I mean, he envisioned that whole game in his head, you know, and he was like, I want this Stuka sound.
    13:43
    And, you know, he had specific ideas, which is great. You know, I mean, he, that game is really, you know, I mean, that's a, it turned out great. You know, I know you guys have already interviewed Zombie Eddie and Keith about it. And, you know, I'm just, Rick Nagel was the software guy on that game and he did a great job too. So how about, like, the example I was trying to lead to is like Ghostbusters, for example. So every multiball in a Pinball machine usually has its own unique sound and kind of backtrack to it.
    14:18
    I believe, I'm not sure if it's changed on any software updates, but when I owned the machine, if you were playing a mode and then got into multiball, the mode music would override the multiple music. If you weren't in a mode, you could then hear the multiple music. Is that something that you wanted specifically or is that just maybe the implementation of the software? Because it's not common that a mode music would override a multiple music. That's up to the designer and mainly the programmer. I mean, Dwight is – I was really fortunate to have my first full sound package with Dwight because he's such a great teacher and a great organizer. I mean, Dwight knows going in before he starts programming anything how everything is going to go. And he's very, very organized. And it helped me because, you know, he could make a list and say, hey, here's all the things we're going to need. So make stuff for this. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, that kind of thing, what plays when and how, you know, the priority of how it plays would all be stuff that the programmer would decide.
    15:25
    Okay. Do you, is there a lot of back and forth? I mean, have all of your projects been different in the way of how much changes you've had to make with all of the sounds that you put in there? Well, luckily not a whole lot. I mean, you know, sometimes you think something's going to work and then you hear it in the game and you think, oh, that's not big enough or no, that clashes with something else and you have to change it. But I did Ghostbusters and then Batman and then Star Wars and then Iron Maiden. And so two of those games were with Dwight. One is with Lyman and one is with Rick and Keith. And, you know, everybody works a little differently, but the thing I love is there's nobody in that lab that doesn't want to make a great game. I mean, there's nobody just going there to punch a clock and get a paycheck. I mean, everybody's passionate about making the best game they can. And so, you know, and that plus, if the graphics are great, if the design's great, you don't want to be the guy that lets everything down. So, you know, I mean, it makes everybody better, you know. How do you make sure that sounds don't clash? Like, for example, I always kind of wondered about, like, spinner sounds because, you know, you might get, say, 15 spins per spinner rip. So do you know exactly how long it takes for a spinner to turn around and then do you loop that sound 15 times kind of getting slower at the end to see what it sounds like or do you have some kind of virtual sound set up for that? That's exactly how I do it, yeah. I try to replicate what it's going to do in a game to see and usually so a spinner sound will end up being like half a second to three quarters of a second. And I do. I put them together in a row and see if it sounds good together. And so, yeah, you're right on. That's how it's done.
    17:36
    Sorry, one more thing. The moment when I realized that was when I was playing Magic Girl and that machine was kind of slapped together and you hit the spinner and the sound is too long for how quick the spinner is. So it just overlaps on top of each other.
    17:55
    I haven't played it. It's not really a finished machine, but that's when you kind of realise how hard it must be to get that kind of perfectly right versus just kind of like playing a sound every switch hit and not stopping it and the sound being long enough and everything. So, yeah. Well, like I say, my question along those lines was going to be that if you're compiling all these individual sounds together, which, you know, as you've talked about, having to recreate sounds, having to, you know, have music, it's not necessarily really your role to make sure where they overlap or not. That's the programmer, right? Well, yeah, I don't want anything to clash or not sound right. So I'm pretty involved. I mean, when I'm doing a game, we talk a lot on the phone, and I usually spend several weeks a year in Chicago at Stern, even though I do most of the work in my studio. I think FaceTime is important, and the collaboration is something I really enjoy. But when you're putting these sounds together, are you sort of playing some of the music and then overlaying some of the effects so they don't clash, so they actually complement each other?
    19:15
    I do have an ability to do that, yeah, and that's how I kind of like mix the volumes. You know, I'll play a music track and then listen to the individual sounds on top of them to adjust volumes. And then there's always a lot more tweaking as you go, but that's just like a first pass to get them in the ballpark. Yeah, so I imagine that. Getting all those sounds to be right on the level is fantastic, and then you throw a huge scream over the top.
    19:48
    That was Dwight's idea too. He said, I got an idea. He goes, give me the loudest, just, you know, terrifying scream you can. And then he goes, I'll show you what I'm going to do with it. So I love that feature. It never fails to scare the crap out of any of the vicinity. I mean, I just, I love the Ghostbusters game. You know, I mean, that is, I like so many things, how they turned out in that, you know, sound-wise and game-wise. And so, you know, to have that be my first game is like, oh, wow, now I got to do this every time. Do you look back and think that you would change anything?
    20:30
    Not that I can think of. I, you know, it to me does what I wanted it to do, which is, you know, sound. Because when I'm playing, I want to be immersed. And so I wanted it to feel like you're right back there in the middle 80s and, you know, in the movie. And I think it kind of gives you that vibe. There are some, it's an interesting mix because some of it is more contemporary music, but it kind of all fits in. I kind of, you know, you change gears and like on P.K.E. Frenzy and stuff like that. But I think it works as a package. My favorite was Gozerian music. You know, I would always play that ladder so that when I get to the third modes, I love the way that kind of, that beat kicked in. I was like, you know, anyway.
    21:19
    How much, I mean, you've got so many sounds. I mean, I think in Batman, when you open up the sound file, there's thousands. I think there's like three and a half thousand or something crazy. Yeah, that's right. So, I mean, do you have to get – do you put more in there than you think is needed so that you only need a one-self licensor approval? Like, how does your sound engineering tie into licensor approval? Do you just give them all the files and say, approve this? Well, you know, every license is different, and that one – that was a nice license because we had so much available. And Lyman works a little differently where he wants to have lots of choices and so I gave him everything. So there's so many files in there because I went through all 120 episodes and pull clips and then there's a lot of speech in there. They're almost exactly the same call-outs from about three or four possibly different people, like the Super Jock call-outs and hit this ramp and that ramp. Well, there are multiple takes of each line from narrator stuff, and so Lyman will pick the one he likes and then eventually may eliminate the rest of them after he decides that's the final. I'm not, you know, he, and there are, we did more music than we needed because I like to have choices too because if you get into a situation where something doesn't work then you can go, well let's try this. But yeah, Lyman calls it the island of misfit tunes, you know, he's like, I'm not sure about that one, let's put it over here. And I, you know, that's the thing to me and Batman is what a special game. I mean, you know, getting to record Burt Ward and Adam West and getting to do a game with George Gomez and Lyman Sheets. I mean, come on. I started as a pinball fan. I mean, I was just a few years ago, you know, I'm the guy dragging all of my trans lights and everything else through the line at Expo having them all signed. You know, I mean, I really I was a fan and I'll tell you, I love Steve Ritchie stories. So the first time I met Steve Ritchie was at the Texas show in 2002. And, you know, I was so nervous. I go up there with my Translite and I said, would you sign this for me? And he said, it was Star Trek Next Generation. He said, do you own this game? And I said, yeah. He goes, does it work? And I said, yeah. He goes, that's rare.
    23:57
    So, you know, I love Steve. And so, you know, it's... What games do you own? Let's get a bit of background about Jerry Thompson. You said you're a pinball fan. How many games are you rocking your collection at the moment?
    24:12
    I haven't walked through and counted them lately. I usually have about between 20, 25 pins and around 15 classic vids.
    24:24
    Here I am in the factory at night working with George and Lyman getting Batman ready for Expo. And I'm thinking, this is so surreal because, you know, I mean, here I was, you know, asking these guys for their autograph and now I'm getting to do a game with them. I mean, I am so fortunate. I just, I like, you know, I love going to work. And so George asked me that night, he said, so is making a pinball game everything you thought it would be? And I said, it's a whole lot more work than I thought. And it's, you know, it's just, it's more fun than I, you know, I did radio and all that. Greg Ferris said to me, he goes, you know, you got such a cool job. You met all these rock stars and introduced people in front of thousands. And, wow, that's cool. I go, no, you got a cool job. You get to make pinball games.
    25:14
    So you're saying that it's obviously hard work, but is it different than what you thought it would be to work on sounding pinball?
    25:25
    Well, let's take a step back. Remember, you went up to them and said, trust me on Ghostbusters, I've got this.
    25:33
    Well, I thought, yeah, so I thought, you know, I had a package together for it and I thought, wow, this is not bad, I'm done. And then the work started. So then it's like, Dwight's like, well, we got all these display effects to do and we got this, you know. And so, yeah, it's, but man, I mean, you know, it's not really work when you love it. So how long does it take from the start when they give you the call and say, Jerry, we're doing Batman or Iron Man, and you start that day? When do you finish? How many months?
    26:10
    Well, I mean, it depends on how long the programming goes and if I'm still doing stuff. But usually a game will take, I mean, these days, a year and a half. Okay.
    26:22
    It's probably hard to quantify your work that you're doing in that time, but, I mean, are you working a couple of times a week on the game or every day?
    26:32
    Because I have more than one thing going, I'm usually, I mean, I usually do something, you know, or a lot, depending on what needs to be done every day for Stern. So, yeah, it's like a regular job. It's not just a, hey, I'm going to work two weeks a month or a month a year on something. I go through the whole process from start to finish. And so how do you go from working from something like, you know, you're talking about Ghostbusters and you really wanted that 80 sound, but then, you know, jump forward to Ion Maiden being a rock pin. How do you manage the leap between those two things? I guess maybe just because I've had experience over the years of producing so much different station imaging things for rock stations, country, you know, whatever. I'm able to switch gears and I like being busy and working. I mean, even back when I was doing mornings on the radio, I had like five or so TV stations and several radio stations that I was doing in addition to my regular job. So I like staying busy and doing lots of things. And so I'm able to switch gears pretty quickly. I mean, that music, that's great pinball music. And then so you just kind of, when you hear the music, you know, I just kind of think, well, what's going to sound good with that? You know, and I mean, you've got, I try to, orbits or ramps, you know, you want to have some movement to the sound and, you know, impact to targets and things like that. Do you think it's like a thankless job? Do you think that people like to stand in your pinball machines but they don't know that it's happening? Like you said, you're talking about the movement from when you hit a ramp, maybe there's an off-to at the start. So you start the sound and then when you complete the ramp, it plays another sound. But do you think that a lot of people don't actually know what's going on while that's happening? Honestly, I didn't know until Ghostbusters. I didn't realize. And so probably, but that's okay. I mean, if I've done my job well, you don't notice it. It just feels right. But, you know, like you said about the spinner, if it's wrong, then you notice it. So, I mean, I'm fine if, you know, I mean, if you go and play the game and it feels right to you, then great. That's what I did what I'm supposed to do. Do you ever read the feedback on games, maybe on Pinside or elsewhere, regarding certain soundbites? I know when, like, Ghostbusters came out, I mean, people complained before the game was even shown. When they announced that Ray Parker Jr.'s Ghostbusters thing was going to be in there, everyone was like, oh my god, if I have to hear that song every single time, I'm going to pull my hair out, this, this and that. And of course it wasn't, but do you read that feedback and maybe take any of it on board? Any constructive feedback on forums? I see it sometimes. I don't read it regularly. And I mean, I think you have to take any feedback and weigh it, you know, no matter where it's from. I mean, if you don't, then, you know, you're not going to grow. But I also think, you know, I mean, you have to trust yourself. I want to play the game and if it feels right to me then I think okay because I've owned games for so long and I play and I got a good feel of what a fun game is and so I kind of have to trust my gut on it. Well and so Stern obviously coming to you for the sounds but you've also got to work with external people on sound as well. So as you mentioned before, there's somebody doing music or somebody doing voice call-outs as well. Is there a lot of reworking that needs to be done when you are also working with external people as well? Not really because I'm usually on the voice session and kind of explain to them. I mean, you know, they don't know what a pop bumper is. If it's just a voice talent, you know, that doesn't know pinball and they don't know what some of the things mean. So you have to explain that to them. But I'm fortunate that I've got some music guys that I've known and worked with. And, you know, I can say, hey, can you give me this? And they know, you know, and it's it's yeah, I've been fortunate with that because I'm not I'm not, you know, I'm kind of like the fun part of it, too, is I get to kind of be like a casting director. Or if I can, you know, I've got a guy that's really great with orchestral music, I can get him or, you know, and so that's the fun part of it too, you know, is finding the right people and finding the right voice guys. I mean, I love the voice work in Iron Maiden. Yeah, well, that's what Keith was saying last week is that, you know, you said, you know, you've got this guy and he worked on, I think we said Batman and absolutely nailed it. When you first heard it come back, did you just go, yep, absolutely nailed it, or were you a bit surprised about how great it was? He's pretty versatile. His name is Rick Zeef, and he's a voice actor in L.A., and actually he was nominated for an Emmy recently for his work. He plays Spike the Dog on the Tom and Jerry show, and so he's a really talented guy. But, yeah, I mean, you wouldn't know it was the same guy. And then he brought Alina, who is the female. He found her. And, I mean, they sound great together. And, again, a great guy to work with.
    32:10
    Man, there's not a bad apple in the bunch in the whole building. I mean, everybody gets along, and there's no, you know, I'm going to better you or snake you. I mean, everybody wants to make a great pinball game, and that's the cool thing about it. So let's talk about the Beast guy, for example. So walk us through the process. Keith gives you a list I guessing of everything he wants the Beast to say Is that how it starts Right yeah Right You find the guy right What his name Sorry Zeef Rick Zeef yeah Rick Zeef Okay yeah So you ring him up Do you want to do, you know, can you do a beast, you know, devil-like voice? He says, yep. So what happens then? You said you coached him, so you're in on the board. Well, he, so yeah, so I'll, you know, he sends a demo and then I give it to Keith and, you know, And then, of course, licensors get approval on everything, and they liked him too. And so then, yeah, we proceed with the script. But, yeah, I mean, his first attempt, you know, he nailed it. We were like, yep, that's the voice. So how does the coaching process work? Is he in, like, a professional recording studio?
    33:27
    You're maybe, like, over the phone, and he has the lines in front of him, And then he just goes by one by one. And then you say, I'll put an inflation on this, do that. How does it work? Yeah, he doesn't really need a lot of that because he also teaches voice acting.
    33:45
    And so, yeah, you know, you kind of get well. And like I said to Adam West, when we sat down to record, I said, you know, I'm not going to go over each line with you. You're Batman. He goes, thank you. That's a wise choice. I mean, you know, he knows the character. I just told him, I said, you know, we instead because he had kind of morphed into Mayor West. And I said, we want to take it down a notch and be, you know, 60s Batman where, you know, you're really, you know, teaching and, you know, dry. And so but I mean, you know what? That's that's just one of the cool things. He came back, he came to Expo, you know, in 2016, and so he came in to record some more. And so I'll just tell you a quick story about him. He was signing some stuff, and he's reading the cards and that voice. And, I mean, man, you know, that's an experience I'll never forget, being in a room with him. Because he could read the phone book and make it funny, you know. And so we did a lot of names and things. And so later I saw him in the day and I sat down next to him at the meet and greet and he said, we did such great work today. Jenny, Joan. And he just starts naming. You know, I mean, yeah, oh, it was, yeah, what a great guy. Is that when you recorded all of the names for the Super Alley owners, like the 80 owners? Yes. Because I noticed that is actually in the firmware, but it hasn't, you know, you know, John, answer the phone. Right. But that hasn't been implemented yet. But you've got, I guess you recorded answer the phone as like, you didn't make him say that 80 times. Right. And then he went through the 80 names, right? Right. Yeah. And then I put them all together. So were you working with him in the same room? Yeah. Yeah, because he was in Chicago. One take? Yeah. Well, some of them, yeah, you know, he did more than one. But yeah, pretty much, I mean, he, you know, he didn't really need any direction. So there was no push, because I know there's a lot of, I'm not sure if they're in there, but, you know, there's a lot of funny call-outs, like, hey, don't you know this is a Super L.E. Oh, right, yeah, I think he says, like, hey, congratulations on the Super L.E. or something like that. I don't remember exactly what it was, but yeah. Yeah, so, you know, those, those, Lyman will do those, you know, when he gets to it, I guess. I mean, you know, he's an artist and he's doing a great job and, I mean, the game is just, talk about a classic game. I think that's one of those games that years from now people are going to, you know, either say, I'm glad I got this or, man, I wish I bought one of those It's got so many clips and the show is so well integrated. How about Star Wars, right? So Star Wars, massive franchise. Was there much restriction on sounds to use? And did you actually have to create a lot of new assets?
    37:00
    They provide what you need, you know, which is great. I mean, they gave us whatever we needed out of the movies. And so, you know, and you can't really create those, recreate those iconic sounds. I mean, you can't make your own Blaster or Millennium Falcon, you know, or X-Wing. I mean, those are iconic sounds, so they have to come from them.
    37:27
    But there's still other things. I mean, there's a, you know, we were fortunate to get some of the John Williams original score, but other pieces of music have to be created. And so, but yeah, that was, you know, fortunate to get so much content from the movie. Are you also having to then, you know, thinking about the speaker systems in each of the machines, as you was kind of putting your sound engineer hat on as well, do you then have to sort of balance or, you know, in fact, master the sounds for the device and the speakers that are coming out? Yeah, I mean, I take that into consideration. I mean, the challenge with Star Wars was, okay, we've got some John Williams music and everything else has to sound like, you know, it could live in this world. And so, I mean, that's a challenge for my music guy to, you know, hey, you've got to be up against John Williams and make it sound like it should be there, you know. And so that was, but I think it, you know, I think it all worked. I guess where I'm getting with this, do you then listen to the machines from the actual Pinball machines, so you're physically listening to it, and then have to balance things then? Yes. I can do it on the computer when I give them the sounds, but yeah, there's nothing like actually hearing it in the game and making adjustments. So yeah, there's a lot of tweaking after it all goes in. In a perfect world, do you wish that the sound system on a Pinball machine had higher fidelity speakers and a bigger subwoofer or maybe a headphone input at the front?
    39:11
    Well, you know, that's something that's available, fortunately, and the Iron Maiden LE came out with the sub and the better back box speakers. But, I mean, you know, you can't know where things are going to go or how they're going to be used. And so, you know, you got to – I think it's great that, you know, people can change it or do whatever they want to their sound. I know a lot of guys add subwoofers. I haven't put any of those on mine. But, you know, everybody mods theirs to their liking. So, you know, I – and they – you know, like I said, for the LE and you have the headphone kit available. So those things are available if somebody wants to do it. For sure. So going back to Star Wars, do you put forth your recommendation of like, oh, hey, let's get this person to do the call-outs, and they say, oh, you know, so that's not possible? Like, how did it work with that one? Because I know the license must have been very expensive, so. Well, the Star Wars people, I mean, they have their approved voice people that do other products or movies or whatever. And so with Star Wars, they say, you know, here's our guy. And, you know, so that one was not a case of where we have to go out and find a sound-alike for things. I'm saying, like, if you listen to people on Pinside, like these massive Star Wars fans, I really wish Mark Hamill did it. Is that not in the question because of the dollars that he would? I can't imagine what that would cost. Also, if he would even do it. I mean, there's a reason Tom Hanks was not on the back glass of Apollo 13 or Michael J. Fox wasn't on Back to the Future.
    41:03
    Some people don't want to do that. So it's, you know, you, I hadn't, that's the other thing I had no idea about is the intricacies of licensing and how everyone is different. And, you know, it's easy to be a fan and to be passionate and say, wow, this should have been this way or that way. But, I mean, until you know all the details and everything that goes into it, I mean, it, you know, everybody's goal at CERN is to make a great game and to make it as best they can. With what they're allowed to do, you know, and so I know, you know, nobody's ever going to be happy 100% of the time, but it's, believe me when I say we're giving you everything we can give you. Yeah. Do licenses, when you submit the files for, you know, approval, do they want to see it cohesively together? Do they want to see an example of gameplay and see how the sounds kind of match up together? Or are they literally clicking on a WAV file and it's a pop bumper sound that lasts 0.01 of a second?
    42:10
    And they say, okay, yeah, it sounds good. I'm not there every day, so I'm not 100% sure, but I do believe the Star Wars people came in and played the game and physically saw it.
    42:28
    Again, different situation. But some licensors I'm sure will give you the stuff and then you, you know, they still have to see it but they may not have a physical game. But I mean when you have the most valuable property in the world I guess you want to be on top of it. Is there any, I know it's probably going to be hard to answer this one because you know a lot more than we do, but is there a theme that you would love for people to be making to Pinball because you just think orally You will go absolutely crazy putting something together.
    43:02
    Oh, you mean my dream project to work on? Yeah, because most people when we ask Dream Theme for pinball, they're thinking about the visuals. Again, it comes back to what we're saying about how sometimes the sound engineer or the sound person can be a bit of an unsung hero. But when people are thinking Dream Theme, the first thing they think of is visually how it looks. But you would be looking at this very differently thinking, orally, how would you put a killer sound? Sound Package together. Yeah, well, you know, if anything I say would become speculation, you know, and so I shouldn't say anything.
    43:40
    You're working on it right now, aren't you? There is some cool collaborating going on, I'll say that. Well, is there one thing I know that they absolutely wouldn't make that you would love to do?
    43:56
    No, no, I can't. No, I can't really say that. Damn it. They're making all the dream things. That's what they're doing right now. Stern's on top of it. How many games are you working on at the moment?
    44:09
    Have you ever worked on more than one game at a time? Oh, sure. Yeah. Usually it's at least two at a time.
    44:20
    Because one is about to go into production and one is starting. So there's always some overlap. But, you know, everybody, it's fun, you know, I'm collaborating with the different personalities, and we're all friends. I mean, I love Dwight and Lyman, and I'm becoming good friends with Tanyo, and, you know, he's doing some great stuff. We've done some fun stuff together. He's one of the programmers, Tanyo Kleissen. And so, you know, and I've gotten to know Keith and like I said, man, you know, I love going to work.
    45:03
    Because, you know, I mean, you know people who hate their job, hate their friends, you know, hate the people who work. But that's not the case. I mean, I look forward to my trips out there to work, you know. I mean, we end up, Lyman, actually, Lyman sent a meal plan. And he's like, here's the meal plan for Jerry's visit this week. Pizza? You know, we end up spending a lot of time together, too, outside of work. And so, you know, I value my job there, but, you know, the people and the relationships, too. Well, everyone that we've spoken to from Stern has said that. Now, on the surface, everyone that works with Stern that's on a podcast is going to have to say that. But it is actually genuine that people really like working with each other. There's actually some fun banter between people as well that makes it fun.
    45:59
    Yeah. You're not the only sound guy at Stern either, right? You're not doing every single Pimball machine by them. No, there are other guys. Ken Hale did Guardians of the Galaxy. And I believe he did Aerosmith. I'm not sure. Don't quote me on that. Do you work with them in any capacity? Like, do you bounce ideas off each other or help each other out in any way?
    46:31
    No, I mainly work with the designer and the programmer. I haven't interacted with one of the other main sound guys. But, you know, I would. It's just that the opportunity hasn't come up. Because, you know, usually everybody's busy.
    46:49
    Would you ever want to present a concept for a machine to Stern? Oh, I think everybody dreams of making their own machine. Yeah.
    47:00
    I grew up, I'm about to turn 50 next weekend, so I grew up in the 70s and so Evel Knievel was, you know, It's a wonder I'm alive because I used to build ramps and dump my bike over things and I wanted to be Evel Knievel. So if I had the time and the resources and could build my own Evel Knievel machine, I would love to do that just for fun and see if I could make one. I mean, who knows? I mean, Keith did it and now he's a designer. One of the interesting concepts, and I know that people often talk about their dream themes and they always pick either a band, a movie, whatever it is. But there has been this, almost this alternate theme that a lot of people have talked about and it's a music based pin where it actually builds songs and bring a bit like, you know, those rhythm action games that you had on the PlayStation where they break the songs down into individual stems. Right. Do you think that would make a cool pin and would it be a successful pin? Hmm. I had not heard of that or thought of that. How would that work? If you think, I'm trying to try, I wish I could remember the name of those games on the PlayStation, but effectively you've got the tracks breaking down into your bass drums, your bass guitar, your guitar. And so in a pinball machine, it could be that you go up a ramp, it adds a particular line and starts building that. You then hit the pop-up 20 times, it then adds the vocals. Or if you do this, it then adds another part of the song until you actually are then starting to build the whole song. Right.
    48:48
    I don't know. I hadn't thought about that. I mean, I don't know about a whole game doing that. Yeah, there was a concept that someone came up, and as a sound guy, I mean, that'd be pretty challenging, but that'd be kind of cool. Well, but would it, in a whole game? I mean, that's, or would it get older, you know, I mean, that's, I don't know, it might be cool. Crapy Plays would never hear the song, right? Like, Crapy Plays would be hearing just the bass line. It might be cool as a mode or something, you know, I don't know, I hadn't heard of that or thought of that before, so. So, you know, who knows, maybe one day it'll show up.
    49:28
    I'll call you and go, hey, thanks for that idea. Yeah, the game I'm trying to remember was, it was actually called Frequency. And all I'm saying is that it's not just the one song, Ryan, it's multiple songs. And they are licensed songs, but they've actually, you know, been able to split out the different stems. So you can then start creating a song based on what you do. I honestly wish I could remember who it was that came up with the concept, but I listened to that and went, yeah, that's kind of cool. But it would be quite a challenge rules and sound-wise to put that all together. Yeah, that would, yeah, like I say, hadn't thought of it before. Now you've got my wheels turning.
    50:08
    It's going to be the next game. Jerry, you said you've got like 20, 25 Pinball machines or so. What era of Pinball machines are you attracted to the most? What have you got in your collection? I do not miss all the games, but is it mainly the newer titles?
    50:22
    No, I don't have any EM games. Most of mine are 90s and newer. I've got a lot of the newer Stearns, the rest of the stuff I've worked on. But, you know, back to the classics like, you know, Twilight Zone and Adam's Family and I've got Steve Ritchie's Elvis. I'm a music fan, so, and I like, I've got Elvis and Rolling Stones and, you know, I've got a Mustang Ellie, of course, because that was my first one that I got to talk in. But then I've got Gilligan's Island and people go, why do you have that? I go, because I've seen every Gilligan ten times. I grew up on it, you know.
    51:07
    And I love Taxi, you know, Mark Ritchie's game. I've got a Taxi. And I have the pinball ringer on my phone.
    51:17
    Oops. Do you think Twilight Zone, I'm begging you to answer here, Do you think Fight Zone has the greatest down package of that 90s era Bavillians games?
    51:29
    Man, that's a tough question because I'm a real big fan of Dan Forden's work on Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars and then Star Trek Next Gen and Vince Pontorelli on Monster Bash. I mean, that's an amazing package.
    51:49
    But, yeah, Granner, I mean, Chris's work on Adam's Family, Twilight Zone, Indiana Jones. I mean, you know, Indiana Jones is a really cool package. But I grew up watching Twilight Zone reruns, and so, yeah, I mean, Twilight Zone is pretty immersive, you know. And so I, you know, I hope that one day people will go, man, you know, that Jerry made some good games.
    52:16
    Yeah, I think Twilight Zone is really iconic and my pinball story was playing pinball when I was a little kid and when I got back into it it was not the visuals, it was the sounds that triggered my memory of me playing 20 years ago and I just remembered all the sounds in Indiana Jones and Twilight Zone and Getaway. And it sounds like they have this kind of magical thing where they can just be implanted in your head and just sit there, dormant, and then when you hear it again, it can trigger a memory, right? Yeah. Well, you know, I appreciate that you listen and you notice. I mean, you know, a lot of times if you see them on location, it's so loud or so busy or, you know, sometimes if you have a lot in your collection, you don't actually get to hear everything. So that's one cool thing about, you know, people using headphones now. So you're getting to actually experience the whole sound in the game. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, the designers and the programmers get a lot of recognition. And, you know, Jeremy Zombie Yeti is getting a lot of recognition for Ghostbusters and for Iron Maiden. So, you know, I don't feel like an unsung hero. I just, you know, like I said, it's great if you don't notice and you don't go. It would be much worse if you went, man, that doesn't sound right. But the fact that you're playing it and you're having fun and you don't notice, that's good for me. I'm happy with that. I don't need to be well-known. I want to do something like the radio stuff that I did was all over. You talk on the radio for four hours or whatever. It's gone. You make commercials, whatever. There's no lasting thing to go back. But now I have a Mustang LE in my game room and my kids just had their birthday party here and their friends were like, you know, here and they're like, hey, that's my dad talking. So that's the cool thing about it. I mean, 20 years from now, when I'm playing Ghostbusters or any of the other games, I can, you know, look back and say, man, I made something that's cool. You know, and that's one of the big difference. That's the big difference between broadcasting and the pinball. It's like I'm actually doing something. I mean, you know, you got these guys that will forever be legends like George and Steve and John Borg and, you know, I mean, who created fun. I mean, how cool is that to make fun? Yeah, definitely. Well, Jerry, we look forward to seeing your work on future games. That's hearing. You mean hearing.
    54:53
    You can see this down ways as well, can't you? The speakers are vibrating, I'll be thinking of you. So one of your games will be coming out this year? Something that you're working on? Yes. Possibly? Yes. Yeah. Two games coming out this year? And what are the next games? Well, you know, I don't know. You know, you never know.
    55:15
    You know, that was part of the fun too. Back a long time ago, you know, it would be like, man, the excitement of when a new pin came out. And now everybody wants instant gratification and they're like trying to figure it out or guess or whatever. It's like I can tell you there's lots of good stuff coming and you're going to be pleasantly surprised. It's very easy to say that on the inside actually knowing what's coming out. You're like, you don't need to know, just be surprised.
    55:47
    Part of your contract is probably that you get to get a game or buy a game at a slightly discounted price. When you're putting down $13,000 for an Iron Maiden L.A., you want to know that the team is working on it, you want to see the leaked features, you want to see that. I think it's a lot easier. Yeah, I get it. Well, I can tell you, though, that weighs on me when I'm making a game. I mean, I think about, you know, this is, because I think about my money that I'm spending for a game. So I'm thinking about the guy who's spending his money, and I want to give him the best thing that I can do. And that's why I'm not really blowing smoke. I mean, that's everybody's. These guys, you would not believe. That's the other thing that surprised me. You wouldn't believe how much these guys work. I mean, you've got guys working six days a week, all day, every day, especially software guys. And, you know, they're not doing it because they have to. They're doing it because they want to make something great. And, you know, I mean, not everybody's going to like everything like you don't like every movie that comes out. But, I mean, it's it's that's the goal to make something great. And so going into it with that attitude, you know, I mean, you know, it's it's it really makes everybody step up their game.
    57:06
    Thanks, Jerry. That was absolutely awesome. And we'll maybe chat to you the next game that comes out. We'll interview the entire Stern team again on the next game you're working on. Oh, that's a cool idea. That's a great idea.
    57:20
    Well, thanks, guys. You know, this was the first time I have been interviewed about pinball, and so thanks for making it fun and easy. Yeah, it was great. No worries, Jerry. Thanks, man. So there you go. That was Jerry Thompson. Ryan, what did we learn? He likes working at Stern Pinball. Well, he does. And probably the one thing, and you know, on the weekend I mentioned to somebody that we were interviewing this person. I said, oh, you know, sound engineer. And do you know what they said to me?
    57:49
    What do they do? Oh, no. So now they know. Well, and I said, well, listen to this next episode because I think that was probably one of the things that I really wanted to get out of it was that, you know, we mentioned it as well. But, you know, everyone talks about the designer. Everybody talks about the coder. Everyone talks about the artist. But we don't really talk about the persons behind the sound, so hopefully this gives us an opportunity to raise that particular job as a profile. We had a bunch of guesses, and the person who guessed it right on Facebook was Mr. Dr. Pinn himself. Was Dr. Pinn. Yeah, and on Pinside it was Swinks who put it all together. Yes. And everyone got confused by the tummy gun. Well done, everyone. You win absolutely fuck all. I like all the ones saying it was Steve Ritchie and Gary Stern. I have no idea where that came from. Or someone from prison, but anyway. Alright, let's not discuss that. Let's keep it clean, money.
    58:46
    Let's head to the news. This week in Pinball News. You know what? It's another week. Some more Batman code.
    58:56
    I love Batman money. Have you played it a lot, like me? Like recently? I haven't played it recently, but I want to. It's the same thing we say every single time. I know. We haven't played it. We really want to play it. Because they're just not out there. They're not out on site.
    59:12
    Well, I think there might be one in Southland, the shopping centre there, but I just don't get down there, so I don't see them. But I'd like to, because it is just shaping up to be an absolute classic. Yep, there's new stuff in there, but yeah, we don't really have anything to talk about because we don't know. We should let Keith talk about it. He really wanted to talk about it last episode and it kind of didn't make the final cut. We didn't let him talk about it, so next time. Next time, Keith, on. What else do we have? Well, Jersey Jack news. Yeah, they still haven't brought the Pirates of the Caribbean to production, but they're still streaming every single week. Eric sat down with Kevin McNally. This is the guy who does all the call-outs and did more speech this week. Status Report is in there and Plundering is in there, so you can now plunder. I didn't get to watch the stream, so I'm not sure if that was like... I think it was the first reveal of the Plundering, so maybe someone can let me know the timestamp of that. So watch a one-hour video to see the Plundering happening. This week in Pinball, I'm sure he'll actually do a timestamp of that. Thanks, Jeff. You're the best. Christopher Franchi was on the Slam Tilt podcast. Yes, he was. This is the cool thing. I mean, we interviewed Christopher Franchi, Jeff Teolis interviewed him on Pimball Profile, and Ron and Bruce did on Slam Tilt. And there was three completely different interviews, right? Yes, completely. And that's the great thing. Like, we can interview the same person and get three different lots of information out of him. So, he was quite open. We'll link it in the show notes. He said that he will be hiding, possibly hiding hexagons. Hexagons, I know.
    60:57
    So you'll have to lift up a ramp or something and underneath there will be this tiny hexagon and you'll go, okay, that was it. Or maybe. I actually can't remember. I mean, I remember us joking about it when we first had, I think it was Steve Bowden on like episode seven or eight. And we did the first, you know, little quiz trivia show. And I said, how many hexagons are there? It was like 200 and something I think you counted. Was anyone kind of joking about that before? I can't even remember. Like, did we start this whole meme thing or did it exist before? I don't know, but they were pretty obvious, so I don't think we were probably the first people to mention it. Okay. Now, maybe I was the first person to attempt to count them, but that's cool. I don't know. That's cool. I'd like to see it in something like nothing to do with Guardians of the Galaxy. I doubt it's going to be obvious. I don't think it's going to be someone holding a hexagon in their hand instead of a microphone or something. No, I think it'll be a little bit more subtle so he can get away with it.
    61:57
    Yeah, and I guess he won't go too much into the details of what he said, but one of the things that kind of stood out was that he works a lot with Joe Kamikawa and he said he's kind of re-energized and he wants to be involved more and maybe there's kind of something coming soon. So what did you get out of that, Martin? What more can you do except release Pimball machines? Well, and I think that's what Chris said as well. He said, you know what, but the next step is for Joe Kaminkow to actually start manufacturing his own machines. But how could you? You couldn't do that, surely. Well, you know, we're probably before the event and we can all say, fantastic, Joe's a great guy. So cut to three years' time so it doesn't go sour like other ones where they actually realise being a pinball manufacturing company is a massive undertaking.
    62:54
    So it's all Willis and Stern surely wouldn't let him go, so to speak, and let him kind of take the talent like Chris Franchard with him. No, probably not. He would have to buy something. Maybe he could buy Deep Rood out. They seem like a good up-and-coming company to actually take into, right? Yeah, maybe he could, you know, bail Dutch out and become the new Dutch, I don't know. Oh my gosh, I've got it. John Papadook, right? He's gone from, you know, he worked at Williams, then by himself, and then American Pinball tried to save him, and then Deep Roots now. Yeah, it's just the next step. To Papadook.
    63:35
    That's the sound your money makes when it's going down the train. Oh no, we shouldn't say they're two names together. No, we do apologise to you Joe. Yeah, Bercow is a very serious business guy. He's a great guy. Yeah. So. Okay.
    63:56
    Talking about D-Broot, would you like a free D-Broot Bimball machine, Marty? Absolutely I would. Where can I get one of these that are available in Australia as part of a prize?
    64:08
    You can't. This Week in Pinball, everybody knows the website. It's kind of shot to fame pretty quickly in the last year, and everyone kind of uses it to get their weekly Pinball news fix. And Jeff basically, he's on the side of the street. He can't afford to live in a house anymore. He needs the money, money, money. He's gagging for cash. He is. He said he spends 30 hours a week. How many hours do you think we spend a week on the... We spend at least that. Okay, well, if you times it by two, so we record for like two, three hours, say six hours, and then editing. How much editing do you do, Marty? About four or five hours. Yeah, so that brings us up to... Yeah, I think it's possible... I think if we had a tally of how much you and I speak about pinball each week, we are easily 100 hours. I don't know how it's per day.
    65:11
    So basically, just asking for donations. But this isn't just like, give me money. The donation actually can help you enter into a like a sleep stakes kind of thing Yeah it on his website we link it But basically if you donate you can win a free Deadpool Pinball machine I believe if you don't want to donate, but you still want to win this Deadpool Pinball machine, you can still enter. Yep. There are other prizes there as well. Well, I mean, Deadpool don't even have Pinball machines out yet. So this is kind of like, like if you want to donate, just donate because you want to help out Jep. Everything else I guess is just a possible bonus but apparently up to I think four people machines and the designer will come to your house and set it up. Yeah, and one thing to note as you know probably more than I do, researching all this news isn't really all that easy because you've got to find all the different sources and yet Pinside gives us some information but it's people you speak to, it's random emails that we get. We then have to fact check those with other people. We don't do speculating. No, we don't. We speculate the shit out of this stuff. Yeah, we just see some posts on Pins there and like, yep, that's happening. Yeah, but I can understand why it's time consuming. To actually find this stuff is, yeah, it does take a bit of time, so good on him. Yeah, and people spend a couple of bucks on a cup of coffee every morning and they don't think twice about it. But so, yeah, give it if you can. And I was listening to the Collective Gamers podcast today. I haven't finished it yet, but they talked about it. And Zach from Straight Down the Middle was on there and he was like, oh, I'd love to win a different Pinball machine, whatever it is, but do I want one of their designers coming into my house?
    67:07
    It cracked me up. Why not? I don't know. Pinball people are weird, right? Hey, that could segue into the next thing. Well, before you do though, I just wanted to say that there are other things, as I said before, there are other things to get if you don't want a deep root pinball. You can get, there's like pin stadium lights, measle mods gift cards, there's a silicon ring kit from Titan, you know, all that kind of stuff. Comet pinball, I've got some spotlight pinball. Is it an option? Like, hey Ryan, would you like some silicon rings or would you like a pinball machine? Or a dialed in Translite autographed by Jersey Jack himself. So anyway, support Jeff and This Week in Pinball is what we're saying. Okay, why would you not want a pinball designer in your house? Well, what does that pinball designer or that pinball person smell like, Marty? Roses.
    68:01
    Sandalwood. I don't know. Did you watch that video that I sent you during the week? So, I thought this was a bit of a joke, but it's real. Someone, the mod couple, have created the world's first Pimball clone, right? Earthen for men. I know. And it's, I don't know if they've rebranded it, like they've just bought some Dolce Gabbana. Isn't it called New Inbox? New Inbox, that's it. It's got a very cool, like, Stern-looking box without the Stern logo, and a, like a pretty printed trolley. Trolley. You've got slippers and balls there.
    68:46
    I don't know. The first thing that somebody said to me was, fuck, $99, that was so, you know, like. Oh, give me bottle deodorant first. Yeah, some, we call it Lynx, I think in the US it's called like Axe Body Spray. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So look, all I'm going to say, I'm going to do a proper review without smelling it because it's going to smell like poo, right? It smells woodsy, okay?
    69:14
    I don't know what it is. But for somebody that does, you know, I have quite a collection of cologne, I think the box looks great. I love the fact that it's got the trolley on it as well. The actual bottle itself is a bit of a mess. It doesn't look too classy, does it? No. Because whenever I see a flipper bat, I associate that. It's like one of your trophies that you've cobbled together.
    69:41
    We can't get it. Whenever I think of a flipper bat, I think of like it's dirty because that's the part that's kind of the rubber's rubbing up against and it's where you get the most contacts and that's the dirtiest part of the pinball machine almost, right? Yep. I don't know. I can tell you now guys, when you redo this and please redo this, when you bring out your Super LE fragrance, all it needs to be is a... Is that going to be one of 30 or one of 80? Well, it can change their mind depending on demand. You have to send a video in to be able to get this. All you need is a glass cylinder for the clone and a pop bumper on top. That's all you need. Pop bumper cap on top. That's it. Nothing else. That would look great.
    70:32
    Marty, it sounds like you have marketing. Well, you know I'm all about sales and marketing. Yeah, you'll be waiting by the phone. They'll call you.
    70:43
    I've got to say, I thought it was a joke, but apparently it's real, right? It's funny. I mean, you know, it's one of those funny things that I'll laugh at, but there's like absolutely zero chance that I'll buy it. But if you were to buy it, I'm not going to make fun of you. I'll be like, can I smell your neck or wherever you are? I'm clicking on the order button now if that's on offer. Just don't spray it downstairs, Manny, okay?
    71:10
    Okay, let's move on. This is getting ridiculous. This is a very serious news week. Dutch Pinball. Speaking of all things hilarious. Hilarious, yeah. Well, I mean, not hilarious because everyone loses their money. Well, Leo. Apparently, I mean, I think this email was released like a year and a bit ago, but no one really paid attention. Well, no one believed it back then. Yeah. I mean, I think their excuse was, you know, the prices increased for the machines and they said yes and the price increased again and then they said no and that's when they kind of left. and I'm not sure if we've mentioned but Dutch actually said that, sorry, ARA said they would like to buy Dutch out but they have 51% I believe of the company so they have controlling power over it and Dutch said no because they're... For those people that are catching up, Jus Pinball tried to make Big Lebowski, got a contract manufacturer called ARA, and then they never actually paid ARA, and ARA are holding them to ransom, have actually now sent them a letter of suing them, also a letter of abandoned goods.
    72:27
    They want to be able to sell them. Well, this is it. So I was having a conversation with somebody in Australia that's in the know, not mentioning who it is. But is that what can happen? If they send a letter to Dutch Pinball that says, you've got to pick up these goods and pay for them in 14 days, otherwise it's considered abandoned, does that mean that they actually can sell those goods? I don't know if that's a rhetorical question because I have absolutely no idea.
    72:57
    It's speculation. I just don't know whether it's that clean and they can go, oh, well, you didn't pay for them, so we're now going to sell these machines, even though they don't have a license agreement. How do you think they would sell them and how do you think and what price do you think they'd put them on? Oh, they would be, you know what, I don't know these companies well enough to know whether they would, you know, do the right thing and just sell them as is or whether they would say, well, there's only 40 of them, let's 30,000 each please. I reckon they wouldn't want to deal with people and someone would just say, hey, I'll buy all your stock for this much and they'll just say, yep. And people are probably ready contacting them and trying to get dibs because this would be the, or just like we said, the next Big Bang Bar, the Big Lebowski Pinball machine. Yeah, could be. Anyway, bottom line is, they never paid for any of the machines, I think is the summary of this news piece. No, I mean, we don't have their bank statements or anything, so we don't know for sure, but yeah, I mean, when you get caught out in a lie, then it kind of, you second guess everything, right? Yep. Anyway, so, sorry Lucas. I have to report on this stuff. Poor Lucas.
    74:18
    Spooky. Yeah, Spooky's got an update. Were they talking about shipping Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle? What did they have to say, Ryan? Well, they said they were going to start shipping some games in June, and I think they kind of said this from the get-go, but, you know, you kind of just forget a little bit about Alice Cooper because there hasn't been... Like, I think Deadflip was going to kind of stream it when they were kind of happy with, you know, where the code was at, but that kind of hasn't happened yet, so... I guess that'll be kind of like the second unveiling of Alice Cooper because people are seeing it at shows but no one's really taping it and people can't hear it. So I guess I'll get a bit more excited about the machine when I see that. They reckon they're going to ship all 500 Alice Coopers in 18 months, I guess. That's from the start of shipping. That's a long time. I couldn't wait that long. Yeah, I know it's a long time but the way I look at that is you are going to get your machine. Yeah, but I mean, how long can you, I mean, the fact that you still don't have your Iron Maiden is pretty ridiculous, can you imagine? It's only been three months. Yeah, exactly. So can you imagine eight times that amount?
    75:28
    Yeah, but I, you know what, if I knew that I was... Nine times that amount, sorry, my math is really bad. If I knew that I was number 498 on the list and it was going to take 18 months, I'd go, Yeah, you know what? 18 months, I'll wait. But if I didn't know where I was in the queue, that 18 months would take forever.
    75:51
    Yeah, I guess only one person is waiting 18 months and some people are waiting 18 months. So I guess we're doing a worse of scenario.
    76:01
    The filmmaking TNA is apparently their neck and neck in sales numbers, 400 and something, maybe 450 or so. But of course Alice Cooper is limited to 500 units whereas TNA is not limited at all. So they'll keep on making them as long as there's vans. Okay. Well, good on them.
    76:23
    They've got a good business model. I like what they're doing and you will get your machine. Marty, are you into pinball streaming? I am into pinball streaming and that's not necessarily the kind of segue that you wanted to give me. I didn't read about this before. I know you didn't know that much. That's what it was. Well, would you like to be able to play, well let's just say you've got a Metallica. Yeah. No, okay, let's say, let's do this again. You've got a Star Trek.
    76:55
    I've got a Star Trek. Yes. Wouldn't it be cool if we were playing those machines at the same time in a different location, but the scores were being recorded so we could see those scores against each other? How would you do that, Marty? Well, you would do that with a new product called Pinball House. Pinball House? Yes, from a company called Allplay.
    77:18
    So, this is, I've actually just, I've literally pilfered this from the Pinball News website. So, everyone go to pinballnews.com.
    77:25
    So, basically what they're saying is that they've developed a hardware-based system that allows you to record, Good scores in real time and then have those scores submitted to the network so you can actually then track your scores against other people. There's high scores around the world that you can try to achieve. You can then go head-to-head with somebody.
    77:54
    This is what everyone's kind of been asking for to be stock standard. Who mentioned it? Was it in our interview or another interview where someone was like, if somebody wants to create the framework for that, that would be great? I can't remember who said that. Consuming so much content, I don't know who said that, but someone did. So, anyway, I think this is a very cool thing. They've currently got it supporting 18 machines, including, you know, Metallica, Addams, Fishtails, Elvis, Ghostbusters, the Magic Star Trek. So, you know. Why not everything? Like, do you think they have to do something specific to each game? Well, remember we talked about when I was at Indisc, they were... Scorebit or whatever it was called. Yeah, whatever it was, right? So, you know, it needs to be able to read the screen to know what the score is. So there's probably some calibration required for each of the machines. So, I don't know. Or it may actually be that it... Ah, okay. ...it leads in with the machines, though. Yeah, okay. I'm looking at now that the D&D kind of, like, passes... Through the D&D controller, yeah. Yeah, so they would have to do that whole frame-by-frame thing, but instead of doing it via camera, it's just kind of feeding off the dots.
    79:09
    Oh man, it'd be so much easier if the company's provided like an interface to get that information without trying to use DAD.
    79:19
    Anyway, so this thing... This is a cool thing, right? Yeah. So, I mean, it's pretty expensive. It's, uh... Well, I think it's 500 US.
    79:29
    With... No. So it is. It's not cheap. All pay, I reckon, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The home system costs 670 euro, which is 782 US dollars, excluding the monitor, but including the webcam, or even more, including the monitor with the integrated webcam. So probably in Australia, it would be about 1500 bucks. Yeah. And then you have to pay a subscription fee as well to be on the network. And I probably could read the article and figure out if you have to pay a subscription fee per unit or maybe like if you have 10 machines on site. I don't know. This is an awesome idea, but it's one of those things that's like it's so hard to catch on when it costs that much. Yeah, but you know, these people have got to make a living out of this, right? Oh, I'm not saying that's too expensive for them. Like, yeah, they have to make money, but it's like a new company saying, hey, we're going to make a $100,000 Pinball machine, like we've got to eat. Cool, but no one's going to... Yeah, I know. And it's really hard to know what the price point for this is because, you know, and they're obviously out there now, so they're probably going to gauge demand. And, you know, maybe they are getting feedback where people are saying, $200, blow it out your ass. Hey, in our position of, you know, doing a pinball podcast, I think we should totally get one for free, Ryan, to review it. Without a doubt. So, all play if you're listening. And we know you are. We know you're listening. Send us one. Send us two so Ryan and I can play it. Oh, my gosh. That'd be perfect. And we could do head-to-head battles streaming. And we could be head-to-head the official sponsors or players of AllPlay, whatever the hell, you know? You wouldn't even need to pay us money to mention you all the time and talk to your product. We'll talk about it anyway because your product is so good. And it's such an affordable price as well. Yep, that's exactly what we would say. Have you received three ones?
    81:38
    But anyway, I like this and you're right. We have talked about that this probably should be now. Every single like Sterns. I know. This should have been in pinball machines a long time ago. They've got the ability to do it. I'm trying to look at the screens of what it says, but it's in like Spanish. Like, I don't know what Juga and Juga Online means, competition.
    82:02
    Yeah. It'd be cool. Yeah, I reckon. It looks cool. All right. What else, buddy? Houdini? Well, yes, so we've now had a confirmation that Houdini by American Pinball is coming to Australia and we've got pricing details, Ryan. How much does it cost, Ryan? It is, you know, speaking of low, low prices, this is $11,990, Australian dollars, which is about $200. So that's including 10% tax and that's including a bunch of extras I believe, Manny? Yeah, so if you go to mrpinball.com.au and if you order before July 1st, you'll get Magic Glass, Sideblades and a Shaker Motor which I think are about $900 in total extra if you order after 1st of July. Okay. Yeah, I look forward to playing it. It's 7,000 US and I know they kind of don't include tax in their price and our pricing through tax in the Australian pinball levy. So it's a bit more expensive here but yeah, I look forward to playing. I look forward to your having a shot on it. Well, that's right. Well, we do know that there's some on their way and when they arrive, I'll be streaming on the Melbourne Silver Ball League Twitch page. So we will let you all know, believe me. Should we just review it now?
    83:37
    Shots are tight but findable. Tight but findable. There it is. Yes, there you go. What else? Oh, well, something that we sort of had a bit of a little bit of a tip of a while ago. So, a new mod for Wizard of Oz.
    83:54
    Yep, a guy called Steve, I can't remember his username, Guyver or Goover or something. Yep. That's with a G. Anyway, the first following up on Pinside, yep, something like that. So he made the Red Smoke Witch mod, and I'm not a guy that's digging into mods, but Wizard of Oz is such a beautiful game, and that witch just looked like she had, you know, just a bit of a messed up face. And this guy made this beautiful, beautiful replacement mod. And instead of her being in a glass jar of confusion, she's in this like the red smoke, just like the movie.
    84:30
    And he kind of told us that he's working on a monkey mod. And I just, as soon as he said that, I went and I looked at the monkey and I'm like, you can't be because there's no space. There's no way to get this to work.
    84:41
    And he's like, yeah, it's really hard. Like, it's taking so much time, but I want to do this. and yeah, he did it and it not only is a kind of a really cool looking monkey that picks up the ball. The wings move. They flap. Yeah, and pretty damn cool. I think it's a collaboration with somebody else. There's no price, but this is how cool the mod is. I put up a thread on Aussie Arcade asking if kind of 10 people will come in and order with me to get them down. So instead of shipping, you know, 10 different packages internationally, which is quite expensive, just ship one and I'll distribute them from here. It was in a couple of hours and I said, no more, no one can take me. You all can get them directly from him, but I got my 10 people within like five hours or so. So you must have mods for Wizard of Oz are the Red Smoke Witch Mod, the Wind Monkey. You can't get the red, he's done. Like, people are begging, like, can someone please, like, sell me theirs? And everyone's like, no. No. They can buy my time machine or something. And so I spoke to Steve when I was in India. Hi, Steve.
    85:50
    And it's one of these really weird things where you look at it and you go, that looks spectacular. He was stepping me through what it took to make that. And it's not an easy thing for him to make. So no wonder he's like, I'm done, I'm moving forward with something else. Yeah, he posts pictures on the thread as well and it's a very, I don't know anything about making something custom. I've got a 3D printer here and I can press a button and it's actually a 3D print. But that's not what this is, it's not 3D printed and I just like buying stuff that's already done and it's actually painful to know the process because you're like, oh man, if I was making that it'd be like double the amount. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, so we'll link that in the show notes you can get on the list. No price and no date yet, but he is taking interested names. Yep, so there you go.
    86:45
    What else? Anything happen this weekend, Ryan, of note? Some really cool pinball tournaments? Yes, so the IFPA 15 World Championships were held in some country called Canada, I think it is. Canada, yeah. I think Jeff Gialos lives there. Does he? Okay. So how does this work, mate? Correct me if I'm wrong, the top two players from every country, or 32 countries, get invited. They get first kind of dibs to say, yep, I want to go there. And then if they pass, it isn't going down the list. If a country doesn't send anyone, then it probably goes to the next highest ranked player in the US, I guess, or Canada. I think that's the case. I really don't know how the others get in there. But yeah, you're absolutely right. So if the top two people in Australia, for whatever reason, don't want to go over to the World Championships, then they sort of just pass it down the list until somebody is available and wants to go. So I think Jeff Teolis was like 10th on the waiting list a couple of weeks out and then they kept on, people kept on cancelling because life gets in the way. And then a couple of days before the event, he was first on the waiting list. Wow.
    88:01
    And basically some guy couldn't get on a flyer or something. Some guy from Austria. So Jeff Teola somehow scraped in. So well done to you Jeff. You had a blast. So we had Mitchell Sechnack and Grant Stephens representing Australia. They didn't get into the finals.
    88:19
    There was also Simon Haxton and BJ Wilson from New Zealand. I don't think they got into the finals either. So that was the top, I think top 32 was the cutoff.
    88:29
    Yeah, and then it gets through, the format's really weird. Well, probably not weird for people that know the format, But it's kind of like nine rounds of match play, which is quite long compared to other tournaments, right? Yep.
    88:41
    And that's to determine that, you know, it splits it in half, 32 leave and 32 stay. Yep. And then a couple of people get a buy, and basically it's best of seven? I think it is the best of seven. So how would it... You have to win by two, right? So if it gets to 7 and it's like 4, 3, then you keep on playing? Is that right? Yeah, probably. No, I actually think that there is a maximum of games. The maximum is 9. I think, yeah, it goes to 9, I think. Yeah, and so basically when you get to the top 32, it then becomes head-to-head elimination. So you versus another person. And based on the qualifying, I think it's like maybe the top 8 goes straight into the top 16, so they get 2 buys, and then the next one probably goes straight into the top, I can't work it out, like top 32, top 16. What I do know is the journey of the person who won. Do we want to announce who won? Go for it. Yeah, it was Raymond Davidson. Second year in a row. So he qualified quite high and was in the top 16 so he had a couple of eyes.
    89:56
    And I was just looking at the sort of the results that he had. Oh my God, he dominated. In the first round he was against Johan Gernberg and he won four out of the six games. He then played Eric Stone in the top eight, won all four games, didn't drop a game. Then top four, Trent Organstein he played against, he won four of the six games. And then in the final against Daniele Aciari, straight sets again, 4-0. Yeah, I didn't get to watch too much footage, but I watched a bit of Daniele and he was, I think he was on at some stage like a 14 or a 15 game winning streak. And he was just like, I've never seen this guy play before. I'm sure there's plenty of footage out there. And I was like, wow, no one's going to beat this guy. I've never seen someone play. Daniel A. Gawson. And then he lost in straight steps. How was Raymond playing? Yeah. And look, you know, Raymond's just a bit of an all-rounder. And I was watching, I didn't get to watch a lot of it, but he's just got the best of everything. He's got very good flipper skills. He's got good accuracy. He's got good recovery.
    91:06
    He's just really in control most of the game. Very, very calm player when he's playing. So yeah, no, absolutely smashed it. So this is a Pinball major, I believe, and it's one of those events where Pimberg and Papa, anyone can kind of rock up, but this is by invitation only, so this is the best of the best, no one that is there sucks. If you end up in the top 32, you're pretty much playing the best 32 players in the world, so people weren't losing because they were sucking, they were losing because everyone was playing better than that. Absolutely. So overall for the event, fourth place was Adam Becker, third was Trent Organstein, second Daniel A and first was Raymond Davidson. So well done. Congratulations. Two years in a row. Well done. Yeah, the streaming was kind of done over Twitch and it was a bit lower quality than normal I think because of the area they were in had really bad internet. But Buffalo said that they did record a local version and they'll upload it on their YouTube page. So I guess I'll just link the YouTube page, I don't think it's up yet, and you can check it out in the show notes. Yeah, awesome. That's it for the news. It's time for Slam the Top 100, 100, 100, 100. If only we had like a song.
    92:26
    I wish someone would make one for us and we could just include it every time, Marty. I wish. I'm not going to play it. Someone has. There's a joke between me and Marty.
    92:39
    Okay, so last week, Islam's Top 100, for everyone that doesn't know, roundly pick a game from the Pinside Top 100 list. Marty argues why it's so good. I argue when mine is so good. And then we argue why the other one is bad. And we put it up on Facebook, on our Facebook page, a couple of days later. And the community votes for who wins.
    92:59
    So, this is the first and last time I'm ever going to beat Keith at anything. Will Wynn got 41 votes and Simpsons got 38. That's right. How did that happen?
    93:15
    Do you know why I think it happened? I think that a lot of people really don't like Simpsons, but also you had the better gift. No doubt. I did look for a good Sinsen's gift. I mean, that was a good Sinsen's gift. It was a good one. But I think that's what it is.
    93:35
    Are you a WorldWin fan, Manny? I don't mind it. A lot of what I said last week was actually the truth this time. It wasn't even on a flyer.
    93:47
    In that I don't... It makes a good tournament game because it's set up pretty brutal to begin with. So I don't really find it a fun game anymore like I used to. Yeah, I guess I haven't played it enough, but I don't, you know, from what I've played, I don't feel like it's a bad game in any sense, but I don't feel like it stands out above almost anything else. I was looking at the top 100. I mean, only Funhaus, which is a very iconic game, has a higher rating than World of Wings. So this is pretty much saying this is the second best pre-90s game of all time. Yeah. It also was quite funny, listing back again on the argument, Keith, who was my wingman, really didn't want to be yelling at me. You can tell. It rules. It has lots of them. Yes. Shots. There's shots and rules. Come on, Keefe. I mean, okay, Alien Invasion. Whenever I play Alien Invasion, I always think, like, the thought process that had to go into this mode at the design stage. Like, it can't. I always think when I play a female machine sometimes, like, oh, you know, what kind of cool wizard mode could this have? Could the Hobbit have a rule like this? No, you can't because you have to have double switches in certain places. You have to have all these staging spots that you can't get in the end of the pinball machine. I love that mode so much. It's one of the coolest moments and modes in Pimball and Invasion on Sins of the War, buddy. Anyway, I think the wrong one won, but it's in the argument and maybe the GIF. Yeah, mate. So, let's do this week. Do you want me to take the first number or do you want to take the first number, mate? I take the first number. I always ask at this time so you just don't think that it's great.
    95:41
    Please generate a number from 0 to 100. Sure. 94. Barakora. I love Barakora. Oh, you are all about Barakora. Can we go back to 30 seconds this time? Yes. I don't know if I can last a minute talking about this game. You can have 15 seconds if that's what you're talking about.
    96:08
    Okay, Marty. Go. Please generate a number from 0 to 100. It'll be 99. It's going to be 100 so you get Rob Zombie.
    96:18
    29. Ghostbusters. It's a great game by Jerry Thompson. Ghostbusters. Oh my god. What? I'm going to begin. It is very popular to hate Ghostbusters at the moment without the, oh my gosh.
    96:37
    Okay, let's do this. You can go for a minute if you want money. Yeah, I'll go for as long as I need. We can do 30 seconds. Okay, ready, set, go.
    96:48
    Ghostbusters, what an amazing game to come out in recent years for Stern. Art by Jeremy Packer. So Zombie Yeti absolutely knocked it out of the park with how visually this looks. And the sound is amazing by some guy called Jerry Thompson. He's great.
    97:09
    Love this game. Love the flipper gap. Love the right ramp. I thought that was quite a bit of a unique ramp, how it goes up and comes back. It's a fun game. It's a challenging game. The rules will get better once they bring out some new code, but it's a great game. Love it. Okay. I'll let you have a 40 seconds.
    97:32
    Okay. Here we go, Barakura. Tell me all about what you know. Barakura. Beautiful game made by Williams in 1981. What a year that was, Marty, right? What a year.
    97:44
    Beautiful art, the backlash. You've got the mysterious girl sitting there. The rules are amazing. I mean, all these games, you know, the multiplier at the end, the countdown, amazing. You've got the three pop bumpers in the middle, you've got that spinner, the sound that it makes. It really takes me back to 1981 when I was minus three years old Completing the number sequence at the top one two three 4 5 6 and the drop targets on the side Spelling Barakora I mean who doesn like to spell the name of the game when you playing the game It just as you say Marty it of its time It of its time I present to you Barakora That a pretty good word That how you play the game You spell Barakora just look at the drop targets and the things on the side That how you play Barakora Is that really it? That's how you play the game, Marty. How do you play Ghostbusters? Well, I don't know. No one knows the rules. Alright, it's time to slam. You ready to slam Barracora, Marty? Yep. I got naked chicks on the game as well. Yep. Who doesn't like some naked chicks? Anyway, I think they're aliens.
    98:49
    Alright, you ready? She's got a fish hanging out of her head. What the hell? Sorry, I'm doing a job for you. Alright, you ready, Marty? Yep. Set, go. So I'm going to tell you this, Barakora is actually a great game, it really is. And obviously you knew that it was designed by Roger Sharp because you would have mentioned that. Sure. Surely you would have mentioned that and Barry Arsler and Steve Epstein. You know he faked in ball? You would have mentioned Roger Sharp in your opening argument. But the thing of it is, Ghostbusters is just a much better game. Those two side by side, you'd pick Ghostbusters any day. Great rules, great game, great designer.
    99:29
    Okay. For some reason I was thinking of Roger's staff, I'm like, wait a second. Oh no. Okay. I need to tone myself down because I don't understand the level of hate. I have unnecessary hate for Ghostbusters, so I don't know if I want to unleash this because I'm externs listening. All right, guys, I don't really mean this. This is just to win the contest against Marnie. Okay, Ghostbusters, where do we start? I'll start with the positives. I'll give you some beautiful art, okay? Knocked it out of the park, sold out immediately, right? Great for on-site. Noobs love playing it. But do you know why they love playing it? Because there's so much random shit going on in this fucking game that people that don't know shit about Pinball think they're doing well, but they're not. They're sucking. This game has the most frustrating rule set in recent time because you basically need to set up your game based off the skill shot. And if you miss the skill shot, you're in jail. You're in pinball jail. Little fucking little green snot comes down and you have to smack him with a ball until you start a mode. And then you're in this weird ladder system that you can't even choose which modes you want to do next unless you hit the right shot. No, no, no. I'm just going to keep on going for five minutes.
    100:59
    There's no jackpots in this game. There's only super jackpots. He's bastardized the word super jackpot to mean nothing special. A super jackpot is meant to be super, okay? It's meant to lead up to that, right? But all you've got is, you know, the Scaleri Brothers come down, these stupid targets that'll brick and jump over the side rails, right? I don't even want to mention the side rails and how the ball just jumps over there without a super plastic mod, right? So you hit those two targets, the super jackpot is lit, you hit it, and Ernie Hudson's like popping veins out of his neck going, Super! Amazing call out, and then you see on the screen, what do you see on the screen? One million points. One million fucking points. There is still a skillshot exploit on this fucking game that they still haven't coded out. All you need to do is half plunge and then full plunge and because the switches are in the wrong place, and it can be coded out of the game but they haven't done it because they're just too lazy to do it yet, it awards you the skillshot, 10% of your shot and starts the scene.
    102:00
    The wizard mode is not even in there, okay? This is two years old and the wizard mode is like some stupid fucking mode you can't get to. No one can understand the math behind this, right? Like, you know, getting marshmallow ramps and fucking looping supers. I don't like seeing, like, 7.9326 blah, blah, blah jackpot. Just give me a round number. Give me 10 million, give me 12 million. It's got RGB LEDs, but they don't, like, do anything. The magnet slings are annoying. Great sounds, but the magnet slings will piss you off, and you're rewarded by the ball throwing it down the outlane.
    102:40
    Okay. The fucking extra ball. That's it. Wait, wait, one more thing, one more thing. It is a pinball sin to flash light in your face like this game does, but also flash the ball save insert. It's not allowed. You're not allowed to flash the ball save insert unless you actually have ball save active, and this game will do it to you and confuse you. Okay. So, you've just gone for five minutes. Well done. Just allow me there for one rebuttal on Barracora.
    103:16
    Go for it. It doesn't matter. How many letters are there in the word Barracora? Are you talking about the double letter thing that I saw? No, you're just asking the question. I don't know. How many letters are Barracora, Marty? There are nine. How many targets are there to spell Barracora? Is there eight? There's eight. There's one target that's got double R. All right. There you go. I've just won the argument just based on that. Oh, really? Have a dispelling mistake on Ghostbusters.
    103:50
    How about that video mode? That is a pinball thing. That video mode, Marty, that doesn't make sense. The video mode was so shit they put another video mode in there. Like, do you want to play this one or that one? I'll play the other one. At least it's got a video mode. What's the video mode in Barracora? Video modes suck. I don't care what video modes are. That's a plus for Barracora. So you were talking about how you can light the 1, 2, 3, 4 lanes. Yeah. You know that there's a 5 and a 6 there as well. I think 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Yeah, it's double numbers. I saw it with my eyes. And do you understand the rules that you can do with those up the top in lines? Do you understand the rules of Ghostbusters lighting? Do you like that massive flipper gap in the middle? But you know what? I would love to know. How about the geometry, Marty? How about the geometry of that PKE ramp, Marty, where the ball just sucks all the momentum out, and basically you have to get a hex baser and shift it down so that it works better.
    104:50
    I'm not sure about the guy who designed that. I don't think he's a good egg. That's all I'm saying. He's no Roger Sharp. You have a good one, that one, right? Guys, vote for Barracorda. It's a vote for the nice people in Pinball. Yep, there you go.
    105:04
    Hilarious. So that will be up on our Facebook page in a couple of days to give people enough time to listen to the arguments before they vote.
    105:14
    I tend to get an argument on how Ghostbusters sucks. Anyway, it can be a good game. It's just totally redo the software and all the insert spacing and some of the hardware.
    105:26
    It just sounds good though. Sounds great. The art is amazing. Yep. To be honest, I mean, as I said, for the people that aren't into pinball, they have a blast. Like, people that are average at pinball as well, because they get like these weird, really weird scores. Like, oh my god, I got 500 million, how did I do that? That's amazing. I'm the opposite. If I get 500 million and I have a shit game, I'm like, that sucks. Anyway, alright.
    105:53
    Shall we do a competition? Let's just have a sorbet moment, cleanse ourselves from that, Go into a competition. Sure, you need to talk my own. I'm going to calm myself down.
    106:04
    Actually getting angry talking about Ghostbusters. How long did you own Ghostbusters for? I owned it without paying for it for about a month and a bit. And then the guy offered it to me and I said yes. And as soon as I paid for it, I immediately started hating it. And I don't know why, but it then became mine. and I became a lot more judgmental of it. You? Judgmental? No. This is the thing, Marty, you have to hate pinball machines, otherwise you have, you know, like people are good looking because there's ugly people. I know that sounds like, it's not PC or anything, but that's just life, okay? The beard of Blake, the beast guy. Yeah, he's good looking because, I'm going to be talking about it again, right? He's a good looking guy because, like, there's some average looking people and that's okay, It doesn't make you a nice person or anything, but you have to hate pinball machines. I don't believe in the notion that every pinball is... Yes, every pinball is a good pinball machine, but... Except for Rolling Stones.
    107:06
    I love how you said that in the interview. I didn't get it. No, wait. So, Jerry, just so you know, because you will be listening to this after, I have been on record many times saying that Raleigh Stone's post-turn is the worst pinball machine ever made. But you have to say that so that you like Star Trek, right? Right, yeah. They're not all good. They're not all different levels of goods.
    107:31
    They're like Zombie Eddie said. Everything's different. All right. Competition time. Yeah, go for it, Marty. You explain it. I don't know. All I know is that you've written Star Wars comp. What are we giving away in the competition? And then I can explain the comp. So we're giving away a Stern Star Wars Translight. I believe it's a pro-translight.
    107:54
    Signed by nobody. I can sign it if you want. We can sign it. If you want to devalue it. Donated by Jared Mendoza of Facebook fame. Hi, Jared. Hello.
    108:05
    So what we're going to do, we had so much fun with our Pirates competition where people sent in voice clips and sound clips doing their best pirate impersonation or pirate poetry. You know, that worked as well. So this time, to win this Star Wars Translite, you need to send us a sound clip of you doing your best Yoda impersonation about something pinball related. Yep, it doesn't have to be long, you can be as short as you want, just make us laugh and this time we're not putting it to a, well we won't put it to a Facebook vote unless we can't decide on a winner. If we can decide on a winner then we will decide a winner. We will be able to ship this to anyone in Australia or if you're going to Pinball, Marty will bring it along. Yeah, or I'll just hand it to somebody at Pinball with some money and say post it to this address. Yeah, or we can do that. But unfortunately if you're in Spain or... Where are all our listeners from, Marty? Aruba. We've got a lot of listeners in Aruba for some reason. We've got four listeners from Aruba one week. Where is Aruba? I don't know. Caribbean somewhere. Okay. Oh man, that's so cool. Hello, people in Aruba. Let's just put it out there. It was probably somebody on vacation. Oh, you ruined it for me. Or someone using like a VPN because of everyone else. They don't want their work to know that they're listening to the greatest pinball podcast of all time at work. Okay. So send it in to headtoheadpinballatgmail.com. That's head, the number two, headpinballatgmail.com. It doesn't matter if it's in a WAV or an MP3 file or whatever your iPhone or Android phone records as. Just open up a little memo app, record something funny and send it in. You have until next week to do it, so by the time the episode airs, it will decide who the winner is. Yep, awesome. We look forward to hearing them. This week in pinball, pinball, pinball, pinball. Love it, that really worked. Sponsored by Mewinbox Clones.
    110:23
    Stop smelling like a dirty bastard. What did we both do this week, Marty? So we both went to the Ross Town Retro Pinball Arcade for qualifying. How'd we go?
    110:39
    Okay. I was just happy. This is the guy who has the paragon with the gate or the little protector thing so you can't get scissored. I was happy to be there while everyone was getting scissored because guys would get it. He removes that little gate. I was so happy. Man, I love Paragon. It's just such a cool game. I kind of want every pinball machine, but Paragon is up there.
    111:08
    Yeah, I did pretty bad. I still hadn't got the billion shot on Brighter Pinbot, and I was like, okay, well this is my chance to do it because I never get to play this game. I got into multibull, I shut up that ramp, big wheel goes on, five million. I swore so freaking loud, and his kid was like right there next to me. I felt so embarrassed. And then I was like, what do I do now? And I guess I followed your advice from last year, if you remember. I just kept on shooting the left round, and I finally got the billion shot. So I was happy. At that point, I was like, all right, I'm going to drain my balls, move on to the next female machine. You did the same thing, Marty, except your game was about 45 minutes long. Do you know what? I think it did go for about 45 minutes. And I actually got, well, my final score was four billion. But that big wheel shot that gets you the billionaire, I would have done that 20 times, minimum.
    112:03
    But I actually had a malfunction on the machine. So it's actually got three balls in the machine instead of two. So I locked two balls up into the bride in her eyes. I shot it into her eyes and it then shot out another ball into the plunger lane and that was it. So we opened it up, we tried to then, you know, do the ball. So we took the ball out, started ball searching, but then every time I got up the ramp, it would just go into one of the eyes and then come straight down and not stop. So I ended up having to finish the game and get a consolation ball and I did nothing on that consolation ball. So we ended up over four billion, which was respectable. Second highest row of the day, I think. It was, yeah. I mean a lot of the games, they're all old school games so they're all brutal. That's a modern game there. Yeah and basically this is just qualifying so everyone goes there throughout the day at any time they want. I think you started at like 7am or something ridiculous and finished at 11pm and everyone's put their scores in and we still don't know how we went. Last year if you guys remember I mysteriously qualified first which doesn't make sense, I've never played any of these games before. This year, I guarantee I did not qualify anyone here first. I had a really good game on Fathom, Marty. Yeah. What did you score? Like, you say a good game. Like, a good game on Fathom, you know, particularly that one which was, you know, it's set up pretty tough. That would be, you know, maybe 500,000? Yeah. I got 19... No, 19,000.
    113:46
    Was it 18,000? 18,100. I had two house balls, I didn't get to slip, and then I was so angry at the third ball, I just fumbled the ball. So the third ball was my mistake. It was funny because I had some really bad games, but I was just, I don't know, I'm so used to playing brutal games now. I was like, okay, that's Pinball. I wasn't upset or anything. So yeah, I might manage to, I think what it's going to happen, I'm going to almost be, I guess, straight into the finals. And that Fathom score was confirmed to be the lowest score of the day. So I'll cop like a 10 out of 100 on that and that'll get me out of the finals. Well, let me tell you why I might not qualify.
    114:29
    Why is that, Marty? Because when I was, the next day when I was, you know, thinking about it and I went to the Ross Town post on Ozzy Arcade and looked at the list of the machines and I went, oh, centigrade 37. Did you not play it, Marty? I didn't play it. Oh, hey, but it's on the score sheet. How do you miss? Because it's the very first one. The first one, you thought it was like a header. I thought it was like a header. So I actually don't have a score, so I may not qualify for the scores. Wow. So that would be okay. I'd be okay. I would live, but that's what happens. You're not going to drive there and, you know? No, qualifying's over.
    115:11
    Well, someone made a mistake, because the format changed. So Mr. Facebook's fame has to go back and re-qualify. Oh, okay. Well, maybe I can go back at the same time. I shouldn't have told you that. That's my final spot. Go on.
    115:27
    I'm looking out for you, Marty. Yeah, no, it was fun. Did we do anything else together? I feel like we did something else together.
    115:34
    No. I was at your house, but I didn't really knock on the door or anything. Not really. The other thing for me, I went to the Bayside Pinball tournament. We actually streamed it. That was probably the first time in a while that I've actually streamed a comp and that was fun. I had some technical problems but we managed to get it working and this was the, I don't know, I think about 18 months in the running that they had a rattle, well a house door prize and they were giving away a Gottlieb Stargate. That's right. Yep. So someone won. I didn't know who they were. It wasn't me. Rick, something like Rick. How did you run the company? No, not great. No, I got into the semifinals but then had a malfunction on Metallica. The ball got stuck. You love Metallica. Metallica never lets you down, mate. I know. So the ball actually got stuck behind Sparky, so it was actually wedged.
    116:37
    So it then, we tried to get it out. I then plunged the ball. I started the next game, I got a consolation ball, started the game, dislodged the ball, so then I had two balls, let one ball go as I was instructed to do, then the ball ended. Then, there was two balls in the plunge lane.
    116:59
    No keys, by the way. No keys. So, had to plunge those out, start again. By that time, I was just, I'd lost my rhythm, so just... It's just, Consolation Bulls just kind of suck in general, especially on a game like Metallica because... You're setting up Sparky or you're setting up... The whole game is about kind of like slowly building this whole like, you know, to your ball three. Yep. And if you have to start again, then that's just kind of shit. But anyway, I was watching you online and the guy who beat you in that game didn't know what Crank It Up was. And I was just like, oh man, Marty, if you don't beat this guy after, he skips Crank It Up, Like you cash in a 5 million. I know. Which, hey, some people have scored less than 5 million in Crank It Up. I do often. But anyway, are you streaming last night as well, Marty? Yeah, now, so, last night I streamed The Walking Dead Limited Edition. Thank you, Jeff and Vicky. That was, oh, I love that game. I really do love Walking Dead.
    117:59
    But I remember when we were talking to Keith and you, we sort of talked about the fact that the premium and the limited edition had got a special mode or something that's different. About Iron Maiden. About Iron Maiden, yep. Yes. Well, so does Walking Dead, premium and limited edition. Is that the crossbow? It's got crossbow multiple.
    118:18
    Well, isn't that in the Pro as well, but you just have to kind of shoot all the shots versus hitting them? I thought that that was unique to the premium and limited edition. Correct if I'm wrong. Well, there is crossbow mode 100% in the Pro. So, um, but I mean, what do you do in crossbow multiple? I don't know. That assumes that I've been there to know. Ah, okay. I thought you were like, and I got to it and it wasn't easy.
    118:42
    No. No, because, um, you know, the arena shot is doable. The CDC shot's doable. So is Ban. Tunnel. Impossibility. It's really difficult to do. So, anyway, it's such a great game. Really interesting. How about you? I went to opposite competitions. We were avoiding each other this week. So I went to Pixel Alley, which is my closest comp, and it's a three-strikes competition. Marty, no one in the history of this three-strikes competition has ever won the comp without any strikes. Until this week. I managed to pull off an absolute fluke of a run, and I won my second tournament ever. I was waiting for my phone to ring and people have messaged me like last time telling me that I'm awesome. It didn't happen. And I was hanging out with a couple of the guys afterwards with grabbing some burgers.
    119:44
    And I was joking about it and like, yeah, no one cares the second time, right? And then Stacey was like, oh, no, it's because you haven't closed up the last game in match play. Like it still says we're still playing. So he closed it off and I sat there and looked at my phone and yep, nothing. So I'm just a normal guy now. Yeah, it happens.
    120:04
    It's funny because, you know, I've talked about it a million times before, where Star Wars is, it has the war to play field where it leans left and leans right. I had two really amazing games on there where I got over a billion and bought the Death Star.
    120:21
    I just knew, maybe it was the pep talk that Keith Elwin did where you learn off the first ball. Just whenever the ball got anywhere near the top of the slings, it's always going to bounce to the outlane. I just whacked the side of the Maiden as hard as I could and it worked.
    120:39
    I went to go see the Iron Maidens on Friday. I guess it's not really Pinball related, but since we talk about Iron Maidens so much, this is the female cover band. They were really good.
    120:53
    Just super talented and super good looking. Super hot. I'm sorry, but if you're good looking, like, to be talented, it's just the double threat, right? Absolutely. You don't need to. When you're really good looking like that, like, you could just, it sounds horrible, but you can just kind of, like, live your life really easily and just listen to that. But these people, they're just fucking awesome. They're just so talented and good looking.
    121:22
    Just to be really superficial, but come on. Did you get a new pinball this week? Yeah, when I was driving back home from Ion Mane, I just saw it dumped on the side of the road. It was a creature from Black Lagoon.
    121:35
    People don't want it these days, you know, just from association of some people involved and managed to get a creature in my house.
    121:43
    It's a cool game. It's either hate it or you love it. I'm still going through it because it is absolutely brutal. Yeah. There's a really neat thing where you can turn off the ball save and put it to zero, but then when you put it in tournament mode, there's like a forced ball save, and I can't find the ball save setting anymore. So I have no idea what's going on there. I might just leave, it's like a three second ball save, I might just leave it on. Yeah.
    122:11
    Having a bit of issues with the left orbit, you know, the kiss. Yep. I never kind of like looked, because there's so many ramps and stuff there, how the ball actually gets in there. Do you know how it gets into that little kiss scoop? I do know that it gets stuck there sometimes, but it's a subway, isn't it? Well, it's not a diverter that comes down or anything. It's actually a one-way gate, and the ball just kind of hits the one-way gate and then somehow bounces to the right where the scoop is. And when you look at it, you're like, wouldn't it just bounce back directly? And that seems to be happening in a really good shot. It kind of bounces back. So I don't know how to fix that. I don't want to bend it too much or anything, but yeah, the hologram's kind of working, not the brightest. This machine is just on loan. I'm joking about picking up on the side of the nose. So it'll be at my house for a couple of weeks and then it will leave to its owner.
    123:07
    My kid absolutely loves it. I don't know why. I had a previous creature in my house for, it was another loan, for like a week only before it was picked up. And she remembers it from like two and a half years ago. She's like, I remember this Pinball machine and when's the guy going to pop up? Do you want to hear her review? Well, yeah, absolutely. But I also just, did you know, you were joking about how you just picked it up on the side of the street. Did you see that, I think it was either this week or last week, there was actually a machine in Sydney that was on the side of the road. Someone put up a gum tree or what you would call a Craigslist, post saying $0, come and pick it up. And then a week later, it was sold for $3,500.
    123:56
    Yeah, and it had very specific wear on the pictures were horrible. It's just like a side picture of the Pimball machine, but it had wear so that when someone listed it up for $3,000, there was like a witch hunt. I was like, I know that's the fucking machine. How dare you? It is the space station. Space station, yeah. So, I mean, everything the guy makes is private, right? So it doesn't really matter what he sells it for if it's $3,000, $2,000 or $1,000. Exactly. At $3,000, absolute rip-off.
    124:28
    So, yeah, this is how you play the creature from the back lagoon, according to my kids. Hey, V, are we just playing creature from the back lagoon? Yes. And have you played creature from the back lagoon? You have to spell film. How do you do that? For F, you have to make people kiss. Ew. And for R, you have to shoot the smack bar. Yeah. And for L, you have to spell page. Yeah. And for M, you have to shoot the slide. Okay, and then when multiple happens, what do you need to do? You need to... Rescue. You? Rescue the girl. Yeah? From who? From the creature from the Black Lagoon. So is he the bad guy? Yeah. And you're the good guy? He. The girl? Yeah. What did you tell me before about the girls? Oh, um, no, no, I know why the creature from the Black Lagoon wanted to kill the girl, because he was falling in love with her. And why do you think that? because he's holding her like in a grin and she's going... I can't... this is audio so I can't see what she's doing. She's throwing her head back. Yeah. Do you think she's falling in love too with the monster? Yeah. Really? Yeah and she thinks it's silly. She thinks it's silly? Yeah. Okay. Alright, see ya. See ya. She is adorable. So there we go. That's really good knowledge, right? I don't know how she remembered that and I actually had my three-year-old in the background being really noisy so I'm like, let's do it again and she couldn't remember the second time. I don't know how she remembered it but is Slides sliding into the chick, like getting up and close? No, isn't that the, I don't think it is, isn't it? I don't know, well because, hey, I didn't know, I never knew what it was. He kind of like does the animation of like a slide then breaking, right? Or is it like putting the film in? I don't know. Because when that guy is kind of like coaching the girl to come closer, like, come on closer, slide right in. I'm like, ah, okay. So first you get a kiss, then you go get some snacks from the snack bar, then you buy your ticket, and then you slide. Slide on over. You slide it in, Marty. No, you slide over. Or slide it in. Ryan. Come on. This is back in like the 40s and 50s, anything goes there, Marty, okay? That's right, absolutely. She did not want to kiss that guy, alright? Hashtag me too, he wasn't listening.
    127:15
    Anyway, it's going to make people cry in Rage Skills, which is this week ends, there's going to be 30 plus people there. I am looking forward to people raging on this machine because it's just... This is another thing that I want someone to explain to me. Why do the slings on Creature on the Black Lagoon stick out past the plastics?
    127:38
    I always thought, like, oh, people have installed the wrong rubbers or something, but they stick out. Like, when you look at it from the normal pinball view, they stick out way more than other slings. Just something that I've noticed. I've not noticed that before. You will now. That's all I'll be thinking of, and I'll be complaining about it.
    127:57
    That's right. Anything else? Mailbag? Anything in the mailbag? Yeah, Eddie messaged me and said on Star Trek it's very easy to fix that ballgame, you just need to replace a small post with a slightly larger, thicker post. I don't have a million spare parts in my catalogue thingy, so yeah, I still haven't gone to Batings and bought that little thing.
    128:25
    We got a couple of emails saying they were awesome, but nothing... Yeah, I mean, we get them all the time, so, you know, thanks to everybody saying we're awesome. Hey, Marty, we kind of joked about it before, like, you know, just between us. Is Keith going to beat Keith? You know, we did Keith Elwin and Keith Johnson, and Keith Johnson just, like, blew up our numbers, and we knew that Keith Elwin would do too. So, who won? Was it Keith or Keith? Okay, I can absolutely confirm that Keith was the most downloaded episode that we've had. Wow, I feel sorry for Keith, but Keith just is a bit more interesting than Keith. Keith, yeah.
    129:09
    Keith! Keith. So look guys, get in touch with us, please email us at headtoheadpinball at gmail.com. Always go to our website, headtoheadpinball.com, Twitter, H2H Pinball, Instagram. Are you still doing Instagram at all?
    129:26
    Yeah, pretty much once a week when there's a new episode. Yeah, okay. There you go. But get in contact with us. Send through your competition entries for Yoda giving us a pinball comment. That would be amazing. We can't wait to hear them. Yeah, and no Facebook. Yeah, I feel like we should still be talking about it. I've got nothing to say.
    129:51
    Thanks everybody. We will speak to you again next week and thank you to Gerry Thompson for coming on. Gerry Thompson, play us out with Gozer the Gozerian. Bam.
    130:08
    And then you chuck it in. Yeah, okay, got it. You better do it. Oh, real, for sure. Okay. My name is Jeff.
    130:40
    Iron Maiden, Deadpool, Pirates of the Caribbean, Black Knight.