feared." So, yeah. So, there was that. Um, I'm not a massive Harry Potter fan. Like, I I like it fine. I've never read the books, watched a few of the movies. I think it's a great series, but it's doesn't it's not like properly my bag. So, I wasn't sort of bothered one way or the other. I didn't think that the the right hand side of the CE was much to write home about. I thought it was a bit too uh I don't know what I thought of it really. Um it didn't feel very pinball to me. I I thought it was risky. I thought it was going to be hard to marry up all the artwork. I didn't know what they were going to do on the playfield. Um we saw the lefthand side later on. I thought that one looked a lot better. Uh and then eventually we sort of started seeing those like really blurry top down pictures of the playfield. M um and those those pictures looked a bit rough to me. Um but I don't know, we sort of saw the high-res and then we saw the um the promo and after seeing the promo, I've got to say I thought it looked really good. Um yeah, I was I was impressed. And I'm not like I'm not a huge JJP fan. I really like Elton. The other games have sort of been a bit blah to me. Um, particularly in the days of sort of the low flipper strength JJPs, I thought GNR was floaty. I thought Hobbit was floaty. Um, Toy Story didn't do anything for me. Um, but, you know, I think Elton was sort of the first game when that all changed and then obviously all the previous games have all changed now because of those capacitor fixes they've sort of released um, for those titles. And you know, for all intents and purposes, it looks like Harry Potter is a fast shooting game as well. I think the the no ramp returns to the inlanes I thought was a bit of a weird thing, but then on reflection, I think it's kind of cool. Like it'll make it a bit more challenging. It'll make it a bit faster. Um, you know, it's it's a risky maneuver. It's not typical and I like it. Um, the upper playfield looks fun. Um, I think there's lots of fun modding opportunities which we'll get to, but tell me, man, what what did you think of it? What was your reaction? Yeah, you know, well, we've kind of teased this kind of Harry versus Harry thing and it's uh obviously we can talk about Dirty Harry if we want, but there's been just a lot of comments about, you know, is this game packed, right? Like, I think that's where everyone just keeps wanting to see Jersey Jack do what they did with Wizard of Oz, their first title, on some level. Um, and we've heard various comments along the way about why they're not doing that. One is because they have to make so many of these and if they really make it too complex, you know, from a business perspective, they decided that's not the way that they can afford to go. Um, but okay, but speaking of was though, like what how is was more packed? Like, man, I I just so I think it is because there's just so many things to do in that game. um and interact with and things that move and like you can literally like if you were to point at pot in my opinion to a certain degree if you were to point at Potter and it would be like what is like the most interesting thing it's very clearly to be that diverter with the staircase and then maybe maybe the uh the pot with the balls that fall into it. with with Wizard of Oz, there is um so many different things to point at in my opinion that are interesting about that. Um I don't know the game well enough to kind of rattle them off off the top of my head, but yeah, I've only played it at one show. Yeah. And I loved it. I thought it was really great. Um and you know, I suppose the pop in the outline is one of them. You've sort of got the trees that do something as well. Maybe they bounce up when you hit them. can't quite remember. Um there's some kind of like uh witch witch sort of um what do you call it? A magical ball or whatever, but that that's been modded as well. There's obviously upper playfield with the you know Kansas house that's got all of the targets to shoot around it and a flipper up there. The moving monkey. Uh there's a thing in the bottom lefthand corner where the ball save or the ball. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. The pop in the outline. the moving monkey. Uh you've got the the crystal ball on the left with um crystal ball. Yeah. Yeah. And so I've got it I've got it pulled up right now. I mean there's there's there's a lot going on with it. Um it is a wide body too though, right? It is a wide body. I it's it's really just a matter of like you know what are people expecting out of like such a great theme for pinball? I mean whether or not you like Harry Potter that interested in it. I mean, it is a great theme for pinball because of so many things to borrow from the world. So, to not like put, you know, all those things in the game and and with it with the Hogwarts like putting it on the top or rather the underneath the game, I think that's something that's probably disappointed uh some folks. Um, now now take like I mean I'm going to jump over to like Twilight Zone, you know, comparing it to that. Um, a lot more people know this game better than Oz. I mean there is this is this is known as classically the most packed game. uh amongst games that are that are super popular and I definitely feel like there's no question here that it's not on that level of packed either. Uh but then there's also a lot of people talking about how the software, you know, is packed and like, you know, that just a lot of these companies are deciding to invest in, you know, moving a lot of the work and the expense at the end of the day like into that area. So that's that's a fair argument as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I I to be honest when I when I first looked at it, it wasn't you know I I thought it was packed when I when I sort of first looked at it. So seeing sort of these comments coming back sort of I find them sort of quite surprising to be honest. Um, you know, and there's, you know, and it's it's quite difficult sort of making that argument that, uh, you know, the more packed you make something, the less good of a shooter it's going to be because there's going to be more things blocking ball paths and, uh, changing ball paths or holding the ball up or whatever. Um, but in some ways that's a, you know, there's a balance, isn't there? You know, too, too much and everything becomes overloaded. And you wouldn't exactly call was a smooth shooter. No. No. That's the thing is like it's not I mean the personal opinion here obviously but it's not not the best shooter by any means. So no no and and I think in in a lot of ways you know therein lies its charm as well you know I mean I don't I don't hate it on that basis. I just think that it's it's a bit of a sort of a peculiarity in a lot of ways um that pin and you know and but it also deserves a lot of respect because it sort of changed the pinball industry at that time. Now, now I got I gotta So, I was I was fortunate enough to go to the Northwest Pinball Show in Seattle area this last weekend. Uh, shout out to uh Aaron with Fast for for hosting me on a certain level. Uh, making it a little uh cheaper to get out there. So, Aaron, thank you so much. Got to show off our Twilight Zone Topper. Uh, the point I'm making is I got to play Dune. Uh, okay. a game that I, you know, personally didn't have like a lot of interest in um due to like just my perception of the color palette of the game and it just feeling kind of like dry and and that was just my kind of first takeaway, but seeing it in person, you know, very different opinion on it. Um really enjoyed uh playing it. Um and and I I just got to play Potter, right? I'm not going to like kind of form too strong of opinions. I mean, I have some opinions on the topper for sure. Well, we should uh that's the next topic of conversation, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So, so um but yeah, Dune is Duna is pretty cool, guys. Definitely check it out if you get the chance. And I and I love that there's this like really interactive mech that I've never seen anything before. And maybe that's maybe what I feel like I'm missing from Potter is just like that one thing that I can like if I'm describing it to someone who doesn't know anything about it, like, oh, you got to check this one thing out. Um, and describing a diverter that has 14 ball pass just doesn't just doesn't hit the musket. Yeah. No, I I know exactly what you mean. Um, and I think, you know, that the hardcore Potter fans um, you know, have made made mention that the staircase isn't even sort of one of I guess the main features. I think it was in the first movie. Um, it's not the thing that people remember from Harry Potter. Um, but it does make for, you know, in in terms of a feature of Harry Potter that relates well to pinball, then, you know, you could say, you know, that is one of them. You know, like a a moving staircase and the ball sort of follows that staircase. I mean, that seems, you know, if you're watching the movies and trying to pull stuff out that would be relatable to pinball, that that's an obvious one, I think. So, um, I think it's I think it's a really interesting mech. Uh, I'm sure it would have been very difficult to pull off. Um, and I don't know, like the reports seem like it's a really good shooter. The hype and owners threads have been going absolutely berserk. I don't think I've ever seen threads, you know, with that many posts, uh, you know, like I sort of read them all through and try and catch up on everything and then leave it for half a day and jump back on and there's another 300 posts to to wade through. Like you can't even you can't even read them all because there's not enough time. You sort of have to skim read them all um just to make sure you're catching everything and and you know trying to ignore all the beefs between people. trying to skim away all that stuff. Um, and you know, like JJP threads are like that, too. I find them really sort of hardcore in terms of people going at it. Um, you know, there's obviously a huge swath of JJP fans on pin side and they go hard against all the Stern fans and stuff. Um, which I think is a little bit stupid and sad really. Like, you know, I'm probably more in Stern's camp, you know, just by virtue of buying more of their games and stuff. But, you know, I think that any pinball fan would want Harry Potter to do well because it's such a big license. So, it doing well and JJP doing well and potentially reaching new markets um using the license of Harry Potter to reach those people I think is a really really good thing. So, I'm sort of rooting for it to succeed. Yeah. Yeah. Well, a a couple kudos from my end before we talk about the topper. Um the the 10K price point for every all the shots, everything is amazing. Yeah. Um, I love the I love the idea of picking one of those up on the aftermarket for maybe for a little bit cheaper. It's just like getting in on a Jersey Jack that's like very much more loaded than Avatar. Got to give him that, too. Like I feel like there's a lot more going on there. Um, now on the topper side, like like there's a lot of negativity about it. I think just on a high level, I don't I don't love how different it looks from the CE. Like it feels like it's not part of that package at all. Um, and I I wish I I actually kind of like the artwork on the side of it just like as a whole package. Um, yeah, I've come around to it as well to be honest. Um, I think seeing it all in context, you know, with everything, particularly with the lefth hand side as well. Um, I think as a whole package, I think it really works. So, yeah, I'm I'm behind it now. But the but the topper is like just doesn't fit at all. And and I think it feels like the topper was a bit of an afterthought thought. There's rumors going around that Leor was going to possibly do it and that kind of fell through at the last minute. Uh when you watch the highlight video that Retro Ralph did, like they don't even show the topper. Um so either they're not loving it from that perspective or maybe they kind of were it wasn't ready. I don't know. Um there's a lot of talk about a projector being in it. I don't think that really changes my opinion on it as far as like just the overall look and feel. Um, well, a projector only works too if you know you've got the kind of space to support that, right? Like, you know, if you're in a basement with a low roof, it's not going to really do much, is it? So, you know, that's only going to be effective for a certain subset of people. Um, yeah, that, you know, that's not going to wow me. But I suppose with a crappy topper lies an opportunity for mod makers, right, Rob? Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, just a little bit of update from us. Um, we of course have announced our Alice's Adventures in Wonderland topper expansion. Uh, it's looking amazing, Dave. I know you've seen it. Um, mate, it's it's awesome. Yeah. So, so good. It's, uh, it's it's amazing because of the lighting. Uh, like so, so it's all coming together. Did it wrong. Tell me who did tell me who did the lighting. Uh, Dave, you did the lighting. You did the lighting. No. So, really, but it's using the lighting that's already in the game, right? So, you know, it's it's it's it's it's coming off the lolly board. It's integrated into the game. It's mode driven, so it'll be responsive to game events. Um, you know, and it'll be and and it's using servo motors to do little hidden tricks and treasures. And you're telling me you're already saying you're already saying too much, Davey. You're we're not allowed to talk about that yet. Okay. No. No. So, um, so so I'm super excited. I think we're probably like two, four weeks away. I'm waiting on my game to arrive still. I've got to do the photo in the video. But, um, from a story perspective, Dave, I'm just so excited about like this this module that you made for mod makers. It's going to make the topper come to life. Um, and the lighting on it is incredible. It's matching the lighting that's on the side rails. Melvin is even writing some new lighting specifically for for the topper. He's he's very excited about it. Um, so lots lots cool to come there. The reason I bring it up is because I do think there's an opportunity for for folks to do some interesting stuff with the topper from an expansion perspective. I mean, we saw T. Diddy do that effectively with uh Jaws. Uh we saw Jazz Buchche do it effectively with Godzilla. Uh it's obviously going to happen with this topper. Uh it's like people are just like they're they're just drooling. They're like just like oh my god. Like the mod makers are just like jumping on this. Um, yeah. Yeah. Which is which is a bit of a risk in a lot of ways as a mod maker, you know. Um, you know, I think that anybody who is, and I'm I'm not looking at it, just so, you know, just to put it out there, I'm not looking at it. Um, I think that anybody that is looking at it needs to hook up with everybody else who might be looking at it as well. Yeah. and try and um have a conversation because um you know I think I think stepping on each other's toes and stuff is just it's probably the most difficult aspect of what we do and you know we always uh sort of try and um you know you know push for a very integrated sort of community and and scene. Um, so you know, I I've I've reached out to modern makers in the past when games have been released just to sort of let them know the areas that I was looking at and to try and, you know, get them to sort of share the areas they're looking at just to try and, you know, just, I guess, carve out areas for yourself that you're not going to step on each other's toes. Doesn't always work out that way. Um, as we'll see later, uh, there's some mods for D&D where three mod makers, including myself, are sort of all looking at one area. Um, but I I guess in situations like that, um, you know, you just try and, you know, be as cool about it as possible and and, you know, and, uh, just be open and and honest about it, I guess. Um, but yeah, the, uh, the the thing that sort of struck me about, uh, the topper uh, in terms of mod makers looking at it was that probably that's the one area where there's the biggest cause for potential copyright infringement. Um, I think, you know, this got mentioned on the Potter thread. Um, somebody brought it up. Somebody sort of came back at that and said, "Well, you know, you could just do a generic sort of castle. It could be for anything. It wouldn't have to be sort of Potter specific." Um, even though it would sort of look like a Potter castle and sort of get away with it from that perspective. Um but obviously if you've got um you know wizards on on broomsticks flying around turrets and you're going to replicate that then you know there's going to be a bigger risk there. And I think that um when it comes to toppers too and and sort of the level of work involved and the price points involved, you're more likely going to get flagged up by people who are going to litigate that sort of thing. So, I think it's um I think it's important that anybody who's going to be looking at this just pays attention to that. Um I know that there's sort of uh topper makers around the place that um have been leaning pretty heavily into copyright infringement. Um but they've been doing sort of low runs of things um and so possibly haven't been jumping up on people's radar. But yeah, anybody who's looking at this, just be very well aware of that. Um I know Leor got taken down for his Guns and Roses topper. um a couple of years ago and I'm not sure that that one's ever seen the light of day since. Um Guns and Ross are obviously pretty hot on the litigation And my camera is gonna have problems. I'm really sorry. That's it. You don't sound like you got a lot of hope. It's coming back. Oh no. Well, it's it's going to be a battery issue. So, no, I'm going to have to leave it off for a little while, I think. Oh, that's charge. Yeah. What I'm going to what I'll do is I'll change my uh I'll change my camera so it's not so Yeah. Take Yeah, I'll take over for a minute. Yeah, good really good point that really good point on the IP side. I mean, I think that's one area that we're kind of hesitant is because we want to do something really nice and like if you if you're kind of blurring the lines on this one, it could be it could be challenging for sure. We got a little video up of it now. Um yeah, I don't know what these buildings are made of, but obviously there's the there's the little uh the owl that just came up. It's got a little bit going on, but if you compare this to the Avatar Topper, I mean, the Avatar Topper is just like so amazing. Like, it's it's it didn't even get as much credit as I think was due uh on that on that one, and this one certainly is not not on that level. I mean, but do you think that do you think that it's also by virtue of like them spending loads of money on the license, possibly loads of um money on the R&D, you know, even though the playfield people saying the playfield isn't packed, there's a lot on there. There might not be sort of standout sort of toys or items, but there's there's a lot on there. So, yeah. Um, you know, is it is it just because, you know, when you're looking at the bomb, they they ran out of cash and so they sort of just had to put anything up in the top, you know, in the end, you know? I don't Yeah. Yeah. It's like and also it could like I'm sure the staircase and the concept for the topper were probably pretty early on and you build the entire thing around the staircase and it is what it is and you you had this topper concept with this castle and maybe they kind of had some ideas to do sculpts or and they just found out they couldn't couldn't pull it off, you know. Yeah. Um it's uh it's interesting. Um man, I'm I'm watching I got this video over here. I'm going to pull this back up. Okay. Yeah. So, are you able to see the video that we've got up right now? Yeah. Yeah, it's on. Okay. Okay. Yeah. It just I don't know. It just looks Do you know what I don't like as well? The thing that I The thing that I don't like the most about it is those those side returns. Why are they there? Yeah. It's almost like they were going to do something kind of Avatar-esque with like building this like box of action and it I I it just makes it look like a diarama like like a school project. That's a good point that the castle if it were like you're able to see the the skyline naturally. Yeah. Yeah. It would it would look so much better without those side returns I think. Yeah. And then you've got that that weird plastic with the Yeah. It's uh it's a hodgepodge kind of of of stuff. Not the best, man. It's really not the best. Um, would you would you guys look at it? I would be really curious about doing a topper expansion. I think people are really going to like what they see that we do out of Alice, but I think that that is um it's really tasteful in a lot of ways and it's like, how could I make something tasteful for this one as well? Also falling within the IP uh side of things, right? It's just like I I don't I don't know how I would go about doing that against a license that I think is probably very protective of so many elements, you know. Um so that would be a risk for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It' be it'd be a difficult one to skirt around and they and they had this video to refer to as well. Damn it. Yeah. Whoops. In that case, you're definitely not going to look at it, are you, Rob? Yeah. I don't know, Chris. Chris, if you're still out there, I know I entertained it. Um, I I did. So, Don yesterday on his podcast gave us a shout out for Pulp, I think, and he said he told people that we were doing a a Harry Potter topper. And I don't know where he got that information. So, I called him today and I was like, uh, what's up, man? I was like, you know, where did you get that information? He's like, oh, you know, I just heard some people were doing a Harry Potter topper. I'm like, okay, so I guess that's us. No, but you know that's as that's as tenuous as it ever needs to be to drop on a podcast, bro. You know that. I'm honored for us to be a part of any rumor mill. If you want to rumor about us, then we'll we'll take it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Old news is good news, man. There's only one worse than people talking about you, and that's people not talking about. Yeah, definitely. So, we could talk about Top Potter for another half an hour probably. Uh but uh I we should save our real comments for playing it. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think we should. Um, but do you want to Did you notice Let's talk about playfield mods. Did you Did you Did you notice anything on the playfield that you think uh could do with a little bit of sparkle? Let's uh let's pull our screen back up. All right, guys. We're going to keep talking about Potter. Sorry. No, you're fine. You're fine. It's only half past, so we got a little bit of time to talk about. Yeah. All right. I got some images up. I'm going to kick us back. Uh what do you think of the tree? Uh, and the the uh this guy right here with the tree and the car. Did you like how that was executed? Uh, yeah, I did. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's I think it's nice. I mean, I think a floating car is is always going to look a bit weird and a bit inongruous. Uh, but it's but it, you know, for people who are familiar with Harry Potter, which I'm not, you know, I think it makes a lot of sense. So, um, but yeah, I like the fact that it's tied to a pop bumper. I like the fact that it moves. Um, I think the tree itself looked like a nice sculpt. Um, you know, it's always a little bit difficult to tell from these things because they're sort of promo imagery, so you can't really see what it's look like, what it looks like paint, u painted or close up. So, um, I'm interested to see those things. I think the Death Eater could use some work. So, um, but again, that's going to be something that's going to be a really tricky thing to sidestep from an IP point of view. Um, but obviously, you know, we know some mod makers that are really great at replacing large sculpts with even better large sculpts that have, you know, got more time and effort put into them and better paint jobs. So, I'm really hoping that one mod maker in particular uh turns his hand to that Death Eater. Um, but we'll have to wait and see. And and I and I do think it's an IP risk just, you know, because it's so iconic. Um, but yeah, there's two other areas that I thought um definitely looked interesting and that was the cauldron. Uh, I think at the moment it's just got like a green lamp sort of shining up through it. Um, but you could you could sort of make that a bit bigger. You could um make it bubbling. You could make it, you know, potentially have an auto stirring thing, you know, like they do in Potter or um or a pouring potion somehow like levitating. You know, there's sort of a bunch of ideas that you could do for that, I think. Um but obviously balls still need to fall through it. So, you sort of you cut you're restricted a little bit in terms of what you can stick in there because it still needs to have a tunnel to allow balls to fall through. So, I thought that was a that was a potential. And the Quidditch field up top too is just like a flat plastic. So, you know, there's huge scope I think for doing um quite a detailed 3D sculpt up in up in the Quidditch area. Um so, a lot of lot of lot of replacement stuff which like with Kong there's opportunity for brand new stuff, but you're kind of seeing maybe kind of upgrades is a lot of what you're seeing with Potter. Yeah. Well, to be honest with Kong, it's a similar thing as well. Like, um, you know, now that I've got Kong here, I can I can certainly see new areas that I didn't sort of identify when I was first looking at the game. And that's always the case, you know, when you're sort of just doing your initial scans of stuff. You sort of you're trying to pull it in, but you're you're really only focusing on the stuff that the promo uh video wants you to focus on. And when you've actually got the game in your hand, you can sort of pour over the playfield. you know, you can play it obviously and work out which areas are sort of the most uh often shot and used and and relate most to the rules and the progression and things like that. And it's it's those areas you really want to focus on because they're the areas that the customer is going to be focusing on when they're playing the game as well. Um, and obviously you want to um, you know, you don't want to put your mod in some back dark corner that nobody's going to notice or use. Um, you want it, you know, front and center. So certainly with Kong, um I noticed, you know, at least another two areas that I hadn't identified in the promo videos that I that I thought would be, you know, uh good for some upgrades. Um so we kind of we've talked about on past shows where it felt like kind of the amount of mods was starting to tail off kind of we got Godzilla and then trickling down. Uh is modding is modding back with with Potter? Do you think there's like a a resurgence or is that even still a feeling you're getting? Yeah. Uh, I think Kong's going to see a lot of mods. I think, um, there's certainly some, you know, there's certain people, uh, within the community at the moment that have sort of gone a little bit quiet, and I think that's probably because they've got their heads down and they're designing stuff. So, T Diddy, Tom, who we love, uh, he's gone a bit quiet over the last month or two, um, since Kong was released. Um, the last two mods he released were for uh, Metallica Remastered. I think he'll be working on some Kong stuff most likely. Um, and I think probably, you know, that the topper will be something for Harry Potter that he'll be sort of definitely thinking about as well. Yeah. Um, Chris C arcades, he's gone quiet for ages. I don't know what he's up to. Um, he had some um, Stumblore Stumblore. He had some Godzilla. uh uh sling toppers that he released a little while ago and that he's been collecting some names on. Um I think they were due for release in November. Um but he sort of made a couple of posts in the Kong thread, but not very much. He's sort of and he's been pretty absent on the uh on the I think he's been completely absent on the Harry Potter thread. So I don't know what he's doing. Uh Sroal, who's uh sort of fairly new on the scene, he's been doing D and D mods. Um he's been uh I think he's got Harry Potter incoming. Um I don't think he's looking at Kong. I think he'll definitely be looking at Harry Potter. Um but obviously with Harry Potter, we've always got to sort of recognize that um uh you know JJP typically sell less games than Stern. So they've not generally been um places where mod makers have gravitated to besides Leor and people like that. But Harry Potter's obviously a different kettle of fish. It's a bigger license. The question is, how many more games are they going to sell based on this license than they usually would? And will it be of the order that Stern would sell on one of their normal cornerstone games? Yeah. Well, you got they got the cheaper model, so I think that helps for sure. Um, obviously going to be a popular title. So, yeah, I'm hoping uh we see some really really cool stuff. So, I think I think because it's not like a comic book style, I think like doing the style of mods that a lot of the folks that you mentioned are doing, it's just a really good fit, you know, by default. So, um All right, man. Are we we ready to talk about some mods? Yeah, let's talk about some mods, man. So, I don't have my I don't have my favorite video to play. I totally failed to cue that one up. Um how how's my audio? There's a little bit of music playing in the background. Can you hear that or are we okay? I can't hear the music, man. Okay, perfect. Perfect. All right, I'm gonna switch up our screen here and get you live. Um, are you uh you ready over there? I'm ready, bro. Okay, cool. Give me just You tell me. Yeah, you tell me when you got my screen up. I got your uh I got your pin. Yeah, I got your pin side up. Okay, cool. So, I mentioned earlier um so he's been a pinside regular for a while now. He's um sort of always pops up on the threads making comments and stuff. He Wait, he does mod? Yeah, man. Yeah. Oh, he he he shits on my stuff all the time. I can't wait for this. This is awesome.