Don's back with the dispatch from the Texas Pinball Festival. Hello everybody and those of you that joined us. Shout out to all the special friends. Want to take a moment and get together and give you my day and a half of experience here at Texas Pinball Festival 2026? So let's get into it and drop that now. Oh, got that one off a little bit early. What's up everybody? Wanted to do a quick dispatch from Don, from the TPF show floor. I've been here for a day and a half. It is, as of this recording, Saturday. So if anything amazing happens tonight, you'll hear about that on the subsequent episode. But I've been all over the show floor. I've seen all the new stuff. I ran into everybody. I can't walk 10 feet without getting into an awesome conversation with someone cool. So shout out to all of you highlighting my boy Russell. There's too many people to list that I've talked to. Eric has been great. Charles Thomas, Sterling Martin, every... We'll get to it. I'll do a whole rundown as soon as I get home. But let me go around the show floor and just give you some fast facts, all right? I know everybody's hitting the interwebs right now with everything. I wanna give you my input. Who do we even start with? Why don't we start with the most exciting thing that I was personally excited for, walking into the show floor. And that was who showed up late on Thursday night and loaded in at the last minute. But our good friends over there at Turner Pinball, Heyo, just brought out Yukon Yeti from the depths. This is the game that was just revealed, trailer just dropped, and then game was right available. What great timing. You know, it's always hard to coordinate releasing a game at a show like this, because there's so many moving parts. Ask Hexa Pinball how that works. And we got the game here. I got to see it. I got to play it. I got to load it in. I damn near got to set it up, but I was sleeping in a little bit on Friday morning. But I have played it and it is super fun. So the game released, I got word that it was coming out the day prior and then tried to, you know, sort through all the things and get ready to get hyped for it. And then boom, before you know what, it was released. And listen, man, nobody, well, I'm sure a lot of people, but myself, I have a lot of that nostalgia, a lot of member berries for Whitewater from back in the day. One of my favorite Bally Williams games. I know you like Adam's Family. I know you like Attack from Mars and Indiana Jones. Whitewater, for some, not for some reason, it's that ramp, that roller coaster ramp to the Whirlpool. I love that. And I like the theme with the mountains and everything. It reminded me of like, you know, again, being in a theme park area. It was fun to shoot, right? And so I had heard probably three years ago now that Whitewater 2 was in development somewhere. The Norman had this design floating around. I think it was, you know, flirted with American Pinball for a while. Heck, he might even have brought the Spooky for all I know. But it ended up actually in deeproot, it turns out. And then to the capable hands of Chris Turner, one of the nicest guys in pinball. And so I had heard the rumors just like everybody else that this game was coming, and not only coming, but coming soon, right? And it dropped on us. And so like, it was all I could do to resist like grabbing one of these games. I like Chris's build quality. I've been following his journey since he was at Expo in 2023. Was that when Ninja Eclipse was there with the half cabinet? And then it was when Labyrinth Tom Jones, Last year, and so this is like his seminal like time for a hit like this is what it has to hit. And I think it did. And so let me just give you some quick facts and everything. I know everybody's gonna have some assessments, you probably seen streaming gameplay. Game is fun to play. Game is super fun to play. The ball bucks up to the upper playfield. And then yeah, I was able to hit the ramp. And I was able to lock balls in that avalanche lock system, my first play and like walking up to it, you know, for it's got the longest line on the show floor for sure. But walking up to it. Those are the two things that I wanted to I was able to do them in my first game, was very proud of myself. I had people watching as well. So like that's always cool. But yeah, the roller coaster ramp, the wipeout ramp, whatever, I forget his official term for it, the Rapids ramp. But it is even better than the one that was on Whitewater. The peaks seem a little bit taller, the valleys seem a little bit deeper, but it's engineered well. The ball careens down there and just hugs the ramp the whole time. I was worried about air balls, ball air time, didn't see it. The way this works, you hit the upper flipper shot. There's two pass to take, a tight one that kind of hugs the Yeti. That's the one that then drops down to the lower ramps and lower playfield, the main playfield. It's that outer one that wraps around. And essentially the ball wraps all the way around, goes across the back plate, goes through a one-way gate, and then smashes all of its kinetic energy into the wall, deadening it, and then it rolls down the ramp. And so you're going to get a consistent feed down here. I'm a fast shot around there isn't gonna cause air balls to hit the glass, you know, or fly off or fly over your flippers or anything. So it's clever. And I think that is attributed to the fact that Dennis Nordman, the original creator of the whitewater design, did this design as well. So this wasn't just like, let's take this concept and like make it work. Let's not take this foam core that's been floating around that wasn't really a game, Dutch pinball exclusive. Let's actually let the designer design, man, let the man cook. And so all the shots felt good, right? It's not like the world's most tightest game. It's not like the world's most boring this game. It's got fun shots to hit. It's got the wave ramp and it's in a Turner cabinet, which I like his build. So you get all the other things, the contact plates, the lights that are in there, the glass is embedded in the armor. It's all one piece. Lift the whole thing up, move it out of your way, play with the cabinet. It's one of the slickest cabinet designs that we have here. And then his playfields are unique. He uses a polycarbonate hard top. And so the thing just like, it's like you're playing on a sheet of glass, man. It was just awesome. And to that point, and he pointed this out to me, the Merlin's Arcade that is on the show floor here has been the machine that's been drug, it was at the show last year, got played nonstop, getting played nonstop here. Like seriously, like if you don't like dimples, if Shirley Temple offends you because of her dimples, this is a playfield with no dimples at all. Like there's not a scratch on this dang thing. So it seems to be holding up and I'm like, well, yeah, but Chris, right? David David Van Es, Bally Williams, Straight Down the Middle, Bally Williams, Straight Down the Middle, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Barry Oursler, The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Barry Oursler, If you're playing a multiplayer game and you want to get up to five balls in your multiball or whatever, or let's say somebody locked a ball already and you're coming up fresh and you want to put balls in there, there's no stealing right now of anybody's ball that's locked. But if you put two balls in there, then there's physically three, although you still have to award another ball. It'll, that's why it holds up to five. You can put a fourth ball in there, which would be your third ball. And then instead of avalanching and dropping four balls at once, it'll keep stair-stepping and it'll feed those balls to the upper playfield and retain that We seen both things going here Dudes from the electric playground have a great booth right there Uh you know Rob and Alec and team Nick you know it slash American pinball at this point They got their dual deck toppers up there on both Star Wars games. Looking fresh. Rob came over and just like, man, the dude's a madman. He'd started the five ball, multiball. We all got to watch it giddily like on setup day. So that was fantastic. So Yeti is fun to play. Okay. There's my take. Don, is it so fun to play that you bought one? And of course I did. It's Whitewater 2. I've been waiting for this game for three years. Somebody actually made it and it's actually good. And I was, I'll admit this, I was a little bit nervous. I did, I heard there was only 500. I knew that I wanted it. I love Whitewater. I got permission from the family to go ahead and get this game. And I went ahead and got it. And I'm like, I hope, I hope it turns out to be good. Like, doesn't feel cheap. Doesn't feel light. Doesn't feel like not a full game. And like, I was totally relieved when I went and played this game. The Mad Pinball guys have played it. I've played it. I'm excited for it. I won it yesterday. I think it's going to be a fun game to have in the game room. I'm not going to speculate on what the secondary market's going to do. That can do what it does. For me, I like this game. I like Yetis. My favorite roller coaster on the planet is the Matterhorn at Disneyland, which has a Dick White Yeti right inside of the mountain. And so like, that's it for me, man. I'm connected to this game. I like it. And I like that Turner got a good game out. So thank you, buddy. Thank you. That was super fun. So Yukon Yeti, there's two of them on the show floor. Long lines for both of them. Ryan Shocker, the art looks awesome in person. Probably looks awesome in pictures. It's Christopher Franchi art. He did the cabinet, the side of the backbox. There may have been a little bit of things that he's done to the back glass, but it's primarily addressing for the cabinet in the backbox and I guess the front area too. And it looks awesome. There's also a topper. I don't think he did the art for the topper. But yeah, it's Houdini. All right. The game is still the same. The playfields the same. Nothing's been changed. It's the same Houdini that you've seen in the past. I think there might be some reflective art blades that they're going to be putting in there. There's decals on the cabinet and they're telling me that they want to do direct printing but they didn't have that ready for the show. So time will tell. It does come with a decal that says, you know, your number out of 100 up there on the top. It plays like Houdini. You played Houdini before. If you were waiting for a Houdini and you want to pay full price and get this one, it's got better art than the original. So there's that. It plays well. It does come with a powder coat. It's gonna look just like the black wrinkle powder coat that every game comes with. It feels just like that. It does have some copper tones that are in there. A subtle difference. I would've went a little bit bolder with it. I would've went a little more glossy with it, but that's what it is. So there you go. All right. I met the new Jay Michael... Jay Brian Vincent, Brian Michael Vincent, the new guy from American Pinball met him, Matesh was there, talked to Rob over there, Nick's over there. We'll see you next time on Pinball News. Not even any Patreon content, but like something's coming. So we'll kick that around. They did announce Circus Voltaire, of course coming out two trim levels. One of them will be a remaster with new art. The other one won't, I guess. The price is like under $10,000 for both of them. You've probably heard this already. Now it's probably already reported about it, whatever. The gameplay is just like Houdini. Just want to put that out there. If you really want one, this is the best looking Houdini there is. Yeah, it's a Houdini. Let's go to the, let's just keep going around the room. The homebrew area in the back corner. Phenomenal, man. These guys level up every time there's a show, like a made show between Expo, between here, Aaron's over there with Fast. People are assembling whole teams now for their homebrew efforts. And I want to talk about bootleggers because this was one of the standouts from the show. So there's a whole Twitch stream that Manu did. I popped in there and played bootleggers for a while. A lot of us were over there. They streamed all day showing each machine. So if you want to go over their Twitch channel and check it out, like there's everything there. Bootleggers, Whitewood right now, but the concept is what's key here. So this is going to be an open source homebrew pinball machine. Okay, a whole team of people are getting together. The guy that did the Harry Potter homebrew, I think his name's Kyle, did the Harry Potter homebrew. He's kind of in charge of this or spearheading it. But the idea is that this will be an open source homebrew machine that will be designed, will have a theme, We'll have code, we'll have everything. And you, the home consumer, can then go either manufacture or purchase ready-made parts and assemble this game yourself for the experience, to try to get a pinball machine a little cheaper, for funsies, just for learning, cultural enrichment, whatever you want to do. They're going to develop this game and then, you know, go find yourself a flat pack cabinet package or build your own cabinet, buy some boards. We'll essentially be a shopping list of everything you're going to need. The wire forms, the ramps, and everything specific to this game will hopefully be stocked from Marco, if not Pinball Life, you know, one of them. So the parts will be readily available for people. You could purchase them. You'll be able to purchase the play field and then just do home assembly like IKEA pinball. But you already have the code that's done. You just have to put the computer in, load it up. This is kind of fun, man. And if this takes off, I want to do this and build one of these things because there's There's no better way to know how to do homebrew than to have it basically you walk through your first one. They're talking about having YouTube videos for each step so you can watch it step by step and put this thing together. And then of course, once you do that, you can then alter it. You can then change the theme. You can then work on your own code, re-theme it. This really opens up a lot of cool stuff. I'm really excited about it. Now the concept for the game, it just has a prohibition area, bootleg, whatever, gather The ingredients, corn, rye, mash, whatever. I mean, you know, the code will come. Code will come. The layout that they have shoots fine. It doesn't do anything that's revolutionary in pinball, and I think that's perfect for this project. There's some really cool flow shots. The ramps felt good. There's no paw bumpers. So it's a simple but interesting layout, you know, without just putting a paw bumper nest in the back and a left orbit or right orbit, two ramps to return to flippers. Like, it's got some flow shots, got some interesting things in there, a laser kicker. So it'll be kind of a cool game for people that might just want to do something fun and take a crack at building your own game. These are guys going to have step-by-step videos on how to do it. So that's cool. Tiki Tapu was my other favorite game that was over here. It's a tiki themed like really kitsch 1960s looking like think tiki room and jungle Antonio Cruz at Disneyland. I was really into that vibe. There a volcano that can physically lock balls and shoot them out the top like everything you would want from like a like a like a 60s era kind of tiki bar looking machine Super cool Go check that out And there like 10 other games over there So that was super fun moving around the room There was a DeLorean for some reason I not sure what that there for other than just to kind of be there and be cool So I here for that Barrels of Fun is here. Barrels of Fun does not have a new game. I am hearing some whispers that there was maybe supposed to be a game, but it might have been that like eight months ago they thought maybe we can hit this target and then of course life happens. So no new game right now, thank God, because I picked up a Yeti I didn't know I was going to buy. The last thing I want is for them to bring something devastating like a freaking, you know, donut cat themed princess donut pinball machine from Dungeon Crawler Carl. And then like I'm forced into that too because like I can't help myself and then I've got to answer for it. So thank goodness for that. Push that down the road. Get out the Winchesters, get out the Dunes, and then get out the lead and let's see what's next. But always fun hanging out with those guys. They're there. They're selling some labyrinth parts. So I don't know. I don't know that there'll be any more labyrinths produced if they're liquidating their wire forms and such. But if you're a home brewer and you want some cool ramps like they're already made, they're not that expensive. I think you can get like three of them for 50 bucks like a steel. Other hot key quietly watched as promoting the são. First, and most importantly, Incuno 날 energy! If you might be looking intently, Z움 has been at the heart of down wind сохранism. If there's any that love it, and enjoy this move on, go change. Remember we're tangentàiou're game a chateau came from the AUDIENCE and someone will 1991 cin OD Sóанные Wondernoce romaneumな directory k affirm struggle Mengenberg screen tv. It's a way that you can then leave that the cacophony of the loud show floor into a more intimate environment. Meet with the sales team, play the game quietly, let your kids play it, play it a few times. Lift the hood, take a look at it. You know, in a cool, chill environment. Last year they were there with Labyrinth. It was really cool. There was Sips & Nibbles. I loved it. No snacks this time, but there's three games and it's a place you can go play Winchester without really waiting in line. So like, by all means, go partake, man. We got a day and a half left to the show. You can find me on Twitter at jigglehandles. You'll probably find it, and you'll find some other stuff as well, like going around. I went in just about every door that I could access at the event center, and there's fun stuff tucked away in different areas. But be kind. Don't loot anything. There's a media room. Super fun. Shout out to the guys from Funhaus Pinball from Brazil. Thanks for inviting me on to interview. That was great. Thanks to my boys, Retro Ralph and Jamie Burchill. We can jump on the roundtable later. We're just having fun. Then again, that's the take-home point the best part of the show it's just all the people that are in there so yeah barrels of fun was there they're over at the games long lines for everything people are digging it whatever moving on next let's just talk about spooky pinball if we're just going around the periphery of the room spooky pinball 19 Beetlejuice machines 19 Beetlejuice machines humming along there's pin monk fans in there for the show games so people are having a great time they're at least two groups deep on every machine and again there's 19 of them the The Beetle Tent was super fun the first day when we were allowed to have the lid on it. So apparently the fire marshal came by and had problems with people that had these little pavilion tents set up and they said, you know, unless it's flame retardant, you can't have a lid on it in case the sprinkler system needs to go off. So we had to remove the top of the Beetle Tent, although I think people were rebelling against that, so we may throw it back on there. But nevertheless, playing Beetlejuice on the show floor in the tent, you can hear it. There's been people in there the whole time despite the humidity. Lauren Conan Webb was a destroyer of But if these magnets end up left over after the show, I'm sure you can contact somebody and they'll mail them out to you. But my goodness, man, it's crazy. It's crazy. Somebody's been grabbing magnets and throwing them up on Pinside for like 80 bucks too. And like they're selling. So kudos to you. Whatever, man. If people have money, people want to get things when they want to get them. There you go. Shirts are for sale. Christopher Franchi is over there. Give him a squeeze and a hug. And it's been nuts. Monica's over there working the booth. Go say hi to her. Buy yourself a t-shirt. They have a new 13th anniversary spooky cat t-shirt. Super cool. Hopefully they're left over and they'll be at the next show. Man, I'm exhausted walking around the show floor. I'm exhausted even talking about it because we're not even halfway done. We still got Multimorphic to talk about. I was going to do a whole Multimorphic Minute about Drained and how I think it is very unique submarinesDIAлаг.com unless we're looking for money I apologize men we check out the we необ- I'm standing there and I'm playing a cell phone game on a $11,000 pinball machine. It's kind of weird and I like weird. I have a passion for the absurd as the French say. So like I don't mind it. It's just this I'm trying to wrap my brain around it. Okay. All right. Drained. Okay. 17 stand up targets, a pop bumper, six drop targets, three and three in the back in the most arcanoid looking layout ever in pinball, right? Okay. Let's start with that. The only thing that is satisfying in the game is the shooting. Straight up the middle, there's a metal scoop and a gobble hole. It's the funnest thing to shoot in drained. When you shoot the funnest shot that there is in the pinball machine drained, you lose your ball and you are severely penalized. Your ball is gone. It's like you just let it go down between the flippers. The game is designed so that the only satisfying shot that is in the entire game makes you and that is like such a random punk rock approach to pinball where they're like you want a pinball machine designed for fun that's too trendy we're going counterculture baby 180 degrees we're going to turn society on its freaking head we're going to make a game that's the opposite of fun when you succeed you die it's a metaphor for life we're going to call it drained two thousand nine hundred dollars unless you want the drained art package then it's just over three thousand provided you already own a multitag machinelish viber wright.datsówall содерж niyat. This will end the Multimorphic Minute The game and then still have production until you can get to it and then it like six eight months later down the line before you finally putting them out best to just wait until you anticipating like you know uh four to eight weeks to begin production so people don have to like sit there and wait a year to get a game that would suck can you imagine if you had ordered a game and then multi took like a year or 18 months to get it like we know that would never happen it would be absolutely terrible for that to happen stern pinball is there with a lot of pokemans All of these are great games, and they have consistent lines on them. Everyone's having fun playing Pokemon. If you get into the top ten on the leaderboards at the show, you get a prize. One of the top prizes is a big jumbo box of Pokemon cards. I even want the dang thing. I had a great game on a premium. I got almost 300 million points. I played each multiball at least once, some of them twice. I caught a Pichu, which is like a tiny little Pikachu, successfully. I like the premium. I think the pro is just fine. If you've got a pro and you're like, I don't really want to spend any more for the premium, I think I'm going to give the gameplay in the pro, you're going to get the gameplay in the pro. For me personally, I would want the premium. Not that the magnet doesn't add a ton, though it's one of those things that's like, that's kind of neat when it happens. The whirlpool, I played it several times. Again, it's kind of neat when it happens, but it's not like, I'm so glad I have this. The best thing is just having the scoop there when it's time to catch the Pokemon and you can put it in the scoop and it goes in the subway. That's more satisfying than just hitting the ramp. It is fun to see the little pokeball jibble back and forth like a belly dancer in front of you. The Pikachu turning head, I didn't really notice it in gameplay, but everything's really loud. Maybe when there was speech going, I would be directed to it. It's again, it's kind of cool that it does it, but like it's not a gameplay must have. So if you're one of the holdouts who's like, dude, the pro is just fine, you're right. Okay. And if you're someone like me, that's like, I just want to have the fun little extra things, then yeah, go for the premium. Either way, I would say, I haven't played the LE yet, but I would say put a shaker motor in your game, whichever one you get, and then think about the cabinet expression lightings at least that go inside the cabinet. I think those two things would really be what you would need to just flesh it out. So if you got a pro, save the money that you would have put towards a premium, get a shaker motor, get the lights, and I think you're gonna be okay there. And buy somebody's aftermarket Pokemon shooter rod. They are everywhere. Okay, I'll probably be making some at some point, but there you go. Stern Pinball doesn't run the booth, it's fun, one of the distributors. They are there selling of course their games, they have shooter rods, they have toppers, whatever. Walking Dead is there, there's two of them. There's no Walking Dead LEs, which is kind of the fun one to play, so I don't know, if you haven't played it, there it is. There's a John Wick over there, whatever, it's a Stern booth. Jersey Jack is essentially here with a mirror image of what they had last year. It's fun to see Jack and Steve Ritchie and stuff walking around and everything, but we all know that they're not there with a brand new game. We all know that they didn't say, you know, not one dollar out of your pocket. So it's a carbon copy of last year and there's just Harry Potter's there. So that's where we've come in 12 months with Texas Pinball Festival and Jersey Jack Pinball. So I'm hearing again, the rumors that I've been hearing and not from like, like super credible people just kind of like floating out there is sometime this summer, a new game from Jersey Jack, whatever. If they're ready to produce it, they'll release it. Okay. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Barry Oursler. I don't know what Barrels is going to do. They're a wild card. And I have a pretty good idea what Spooky's going to do because they have a pattern. But then things can change as well there. So who knows? Who knows what's going to happen in the future? But for right now, the money that I did start to accumulate again went on over to Yeti. And poor Hexa, man. That's really the foul ball of the show. You know, Hexa was ready to release Three Musketeers. They did release it. They had a media day in France on the 20th on Friday, and they were supposed to have it concurrently here. Game is stuck in customs. I would have hoped that, you know, if they were going to try to hit this show, that this game would have already been imported, you know, weeks ago. But, you know, things happen. Maybe it wasn't ready to go, whatever. I would have liked to have it, you know, flown over, game tested, approved, and then ready for prime time, because this would have been the place to show it. Now, it will get shown. The game will be coming over, and I believe the Mad Pinball guys, because they are some of the greatest people in pinball. All info at MadPinball.com. If you want to get a game, if you want to get on the list, Jeff Corbin, Kyle, Zach Angeli over there at Mad Pinball. Get on a list, man. Go back in time about three months and get on a spooky list if you want to get this next spooky game, or at least just get your name on for like the next next spooky game. Okay. But these guys, like true ambassadors of pinball, they'll get a rare pinball machine and they'll just tour it around the Midwest and Ohio. I heard this thing is going to be in Buffalo. Basketballact.com Meu dia, men. Thanks so much. I took a picture for Cengiz. I gotta get over because it seems like every minute of the day I'm supposed to be somewhere recording something or streaming something. So I'm gonna head back in. I'm gonna go find myself a Diet Coke and then we're gonna get lit. I think it's raging till 1 am tonight. Insane. There's my dispatch from TPF. I think I covered just about everything that's been going on. Back Alley Matt has mods for Beetlejuice that just dropped, and I can tell you, seeing them in person, they do look pretty cool. Especially the beetle snakes for the speakers. And then the little Reverend guy with that Tim Burton arch for the ramp, that looks really good in person. His TCM stuff looks good and it, I mean, I could go for hours, man. I could go for hours. I'm gonna head back over there. Be cool. Don's Pinball Podcast at gmail.com if you want to discuss things with me directly, or on Facebook or on Discord or at patreon.com backslash Don's Pinball Podcast. If you want to support the great effort of independent pinball media, I appreciate it, man. Free listeners and the Patreon members, you guys are great. Wade, what's up, buddy? Thanks for meeting with me. If you see me, just say what up. It's the most fun thing. And if you see me with my family, please do me a solid and come on over and ask for an autograph or something. You can throw it right away afterwards. But it really makes things cool for me to goof about later. They're just like, son of a bitch. So if you could do me a solid, if you see me around anybody, please. Oh my God, that would be awesome. All right, guys. I'll be good. I'm going to go back in. I'm going to grab a Diet Coke. I'm going to show my voice is going to be gone in about an hour. bmxott образ zez