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Episode 236 - D&D For You and Me!

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·53m 53s·analyzed·Jan 5, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Stern announces D&D Tyrant's Eye with premium voice/creative talent and deep RPG mechanics at established pricing.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers Podcast discusses Stern Pinball 2025 cornerstone game, Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's Eye, featuring an all-star creative team including designers Brian Eddy and Dwight Sullivan, voice actors from Critical Role (Laura Bailey, Marisha Ray, Matt Mercer), Kevin Smith, Michael Dorn, and composer Chris Valesco. The game introduces RPG mechanics including character progression, procedurally generated dungeons, a gelatinous cube magnetic toy, an articulating dragon, and the Pin Save persistent progress system. Pricing remains stable at $7,000 (Pro), $9,700 (Premium), and $13,000 (LE with 740 unit cap).

Key Claims

  • Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's Eye is Stern's first cornerstone game of 2025

    high confidence · Dennis explicitly states this is the pinball segment topic and refers to it as 'Stern Pinball's first cornerstone of 2025'

  • Limited edition is capped at 740 units

    high confidence · Dennis: 'This time the limited edition count is capped at 740 units. so they've kept that slimmer than what they used to be doing back during the pandemic at 1,000 units.'

  • Pro version has a bash dragon toy that moves up and down; Premium/LE versions have side-to-side motorized movement

    high confidence · Dennis detailed breakdown of dragon toy differences across versions in rules explanation

  • Dungeon Crawl mode features procedurally generated paths that change weekly

    high confidence · Dennis: 'And every week, it's a new procedurally generated path. So you can't just memorize the paths. They change weekly.'

  • The gelatinous cube appears on all versions with magnetic hold/release capability

    high confidence · Dennis: 'It's over over the right habit trail area. So it has a magnet so we can hold and release a ball... That's on all versions.'

  • Critical Role cast members (Laura Bailey, Marisha Ray, Matt Mercer) provide voice work

    high confidence · Dennis explicitly lists these actors as part of the voice cast and confirms their involvement with Critical Role

Notable Quotes

  • “Well, they actually did it. It's over over the right habit trail area. So it has a magnet so we can hold and release a ball.”

    Dennis @ mid-content — Confirms gelatinous cube is a major playfield feature addressing a design need Dennis had joked about earlier

  • “And every week, it's a new procedurally generated path. So you can't just memorize the paths. They change weekly.”

    Dennis @ mid-content — Highlights the replayability innovation in Dungeon Crawl mode differentiation from standard pinball

  • “I don't normally get excited about – well, I'm jumping ahead. But I don't normally get excited about audio. But this is – you had asked me this morning, was there ever any audio package this stacked in pinball? And I said I think the closest we could cite would have been when Williams did Star Trek The Next Generation because they got pretty much the entire bridge crew to do it.”

    Dennis @ mid-content — Establishes the extraordinary scope of voice talent on D&D as historically significant for pinball

  • “I really like the RPG elements. I like the procedurally generated dungeon concept to have it be a little different every time.”

    Tony @ end-content — Positive community reception to core game design philosophy

  • “the cabinet art on the LE is just spectacular, especially the side art on the head is insane to me”

    Tony @ mid-content — Praises visual presentation and artist selection (Vince Prose from Magic the Gathering/D&D art backgrounds)

Entities

Stern PinballcompanyDwight SullivanpersonBrian EddypersonElizabeth GieskepersonChris ValescopersonVince ProsepersonLaura BaileypersonMarisha RaypersonMatt Mercer

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Hosts recommend multiple information sources (Naps Arcade article, Kineticist coverage, Loser Kid Pinball interview, official gameplay video) indicating robust content ecosystem around D&D announcement

    medium · Dennis provided four separate links in show notes: Naps Arcade, Kineticist article, Loser Kid Pinball interview, and official 15-minute Stern gameplay video

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Procedurally generated dungeon content innovation addressed directly to solve memorization problem in competitive play and increase replayability

    high · Dennis: 'every week, it's a new procedurally generated path. So you can't just memorize the paths. They change weekly.' Tony: 'I like the procedurally generated dungeon concept to have it be a little different every time.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Stern pursuing RPG progression mechanics and persistent character advancement as core design feature; represents evolution of pin save system from Venom

    high · Dennis: 'I've been wondering about the evolution from what they did in Venom... And I think that it really, if anything, is going to use that pin save system that was first seen in Venom, an RPG-related game makes the most sense for it'

  • $

    market_signal: Voice talent assembly (Star Trek TNG bridge crew comparison) positioned as historically unprecedented for pinball industry

    high · Dennis: 'was there ever any audio package this stacked in pinball? And I said I think the closest we could cite would have been when Williams did Star Trek The Next Generation because they got pretty much the entire bridge crew to do it.'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.162

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, January 5th. This is episode 236. I am Tony. I am Dennis. Tony, are you okay? Is the snow light and fluffy? it's lightish and fluffy-ish. It's got a lot of ice underneath it. It was bad last night listening. My dog decided she needed to go outside at like, you know, going on three in the morning. And I put her out and did all that stuff and came back in. And a little bit later, it started sleeting. And it sleeted pretty good for at least an hour, hour and a half. That was on top of the just freezing mist that was the majority of the night. Everything was black ice out there. Yeah, I looked out. I got up at about 3.30, and I saw the snow hadn't really started yet, but you could see the ice shimmering off the streetlights. It was scary. I saw all sorts of photos of the interstates. I knew it was bad when the Kansas City subreddit's number one comment on photos of the traffic was actually, why haven't they shut down I-35 and 435? I'm like, I never hear people even contemplate shutting those down in Kansas City. We'll shut I-70 down west, like west of Hays in western Kansas all the time. But I've seen it, I think, shut down as far east as Salina, you know, so they can focus highway patrol vehicles all on the heavier traffic, heavier population areas. But I can't think of the last time they actually closed Kansas City's interstates. Oh, yeah. I have no idea. I know 69 was closed last night for an extended period of time, too. but it was yeah I saw a whole bunch of videos and clips and stuff it was just it looks like the big trouble was where they've done all the rebuilding and they've put in those big slow arching sweeping bridges to get rid of the where they've gotten rid of all the clover leaves and all the really tight stuff so you've got the big long sweeping bridge those were all just solid ice and vehicles like weren't able to go up them i saw a video that had like four plow trucks sideways trying to go up one of them yeah i saw on one of the area pinball discords this morning i don't know what time it got posted but someone was a hey does someone have a vehicle that can come and get me because i think he said his van couldn't get up the hill right yeah that's that's uh well i i i am probably gonna have to go into work and and do some snow plowing this afternoon uh just of our like facilities and stuff. So I went ahead and swapped my vehicles out. So the old beater stick truck is what I have set up in the driveway to drive to work because I figure if I'm going to get in an accident because of ice and stupidness and everything, I think I'd rather get in an accident with the vehicle that I'm already on the edge of having hauled off because it's pretty much done with its life than the thing I'm still making payments on. Yeah, that kind of makes sense. So we've updated everyone on our snow. We're still okay.
person
Kevin Smithperson
Michael Dornperson
Luke Gygaxperson
Gerard Wayperson
Chris Prynoskiperson
Brendan Smallperson
Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's Eyegame
Critical Roleorganization
Vox Machinaproduct
Dennisperson
Tonyperson
Naps Arcadeorganization
Kineticistorganization
Loser Kid Pinballorganization

personnel_signal: Vince Prose selected as artist based on fantasy/gaming background (Magic: The Gathering, D&D 2000s work, The Boys TV series); thematic artistic fit deliberate

high · Dennis: 'Going with a magic artist to do this made a lot of sense, I think, and it really shines through' and detailed Prose's portfolio in fantasy/gaming art

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pro tier excludes motorized dragon articulation and physical dungeon crawl scoop; Premium/LE include these features. Hosts debate whether these omissions meaningfully impact play experience

    high · Dennis: 'you lose two main things with the pro versus the premium LE, and that was you lose the fully articulating dragon with the cool ball spinning... And then the dungeon crawl, a little scoop'

  • ?

    product_concern: Hosts express uncertainty about playfield maps as information design choice but acknowledge effective insert use for clarity

    medium · Dennis: 'I'm not normally a huge fan of maps on play fields. But, again, the main thing is to convey information. And they seem to have done a good job with their inserts'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: D&D as pinball IP moved from perceived risk (movie box office concerns) to strong positive reception based on game-mechanics focus and talent assembly

    medium · Dennis: 'a lot of people were like, all right, they're doing D&D. Are they going to do the movie? The movie didn't do all that well blockbuster-wise... I think a lot of people understood that it would probably just be based off the game, which it is.'

  • ?

    business_signal: LE unit cap maintained at 740 units (reduced from pandemic-era 1,000 units), suggesting continued FOMO management strategy

    high · Dennis: 'This time the limited edition count is capped at 740 units. so they've kept that slimmer than what they used to be doing back during the pandemic at 1,000 units.'

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern maintaining $7,000/$9,700/$13,000 pricing structure despite inflation and supply chain costs; no price increase from previous cornerstone titles

    high · Dennis: 'pricing remains the same as the last few games. They did not raise prices with this one. So the pros are $7,000. The premiums are $9,700. And the limited editions are $13,000.'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Dungeons & Dragons licensing leveraged to attract high-caliber creative talent; theme popularity appears to drive talent participation rather than requiring monetary incentive

    high · Dennis speculates: 'it's just that it's Dungeons and Dragons and people are so into Dungeons and Dragons that that they just were like falling over themselves to participate in the project. Like it wasn't a hard sell'

    • 3:26
    What's going on since we last recorded a couple weeks ago? We're going to talk about a pinball release because we knew it was coming. We didn't know we would have news this episode, but we do. But before that, we'd like to do our updates. So what's going on, Tony? I've had no major differences in my personal life stuff. I'm still playing Brotato. I'm still listening to Wind and Truth. I've not I did not really partake that much of the Steam winter sale this time around because I figured well I'm mainly just playing Brotato anyway so I'll just keep with that I did have the hilarity in I'm listening to Wind and Truth and I've got my and I was driving and I had my smart watch on and it kept popping up, hey, your heart rate has increased. What's going on? Because I was in the middle of just completely revelations that change backstory and make things so much different and completely changing character arc type stuff. It just kept popping up a warning because my heart rate was increasing so much. Wow. Okay, so you're really into these books. Oh, yeah. No, this series is huge. As I said, this is book five. Each of these books is like 1,000 pages or more. I think the shortest one of these audio books is like 40 hours.
    5:05
    They are major, massive stories that I've been listening to for over a decade now. Cool. Other than that, the only other thing I had that I was going to toss in real quick, because it's not enough to resurrect the tabletop section because I've not actually played it. But apparently, like just a day or two ago, Bandai dropped a teaser that they've decided, in addition to the normal Gundam video games and the Gundam card game, they're now kicking out a Gundam miniatures game. So there's going to be a Gundam version of 40K dropping.
    5:41
    Gundam K. I'm kind of surprised they haven't kicked something out like this sooner. Yeah, actually, I'm surprised as well. Yeah, I would have thought so. Okay, interesting. Well, for Gundam fans, FYI, if you want to get into tabletop Gundam. It's coming. Yes, it is. It makes sense because they literally have a series of shows and video games called Gunpla that is about people who build the models and then fight battles with them. Hmm. So, yeah, it's been a long time since I've seen anything Gundam. So last one I watched was one of the cartoon animes where the guy just kept saying, I am Gundam. I guess he was Gundam. I don't know. I thought the Gundam was the mech, though. So maybe there was some sort of philosophical meaning behind that. Maybe. Well, I have not played anything Gundam-wise. I have because I had this whole last week off. I've been off since Christmas. So I go back to work Monday. But because of that, I was like, I'm going to be playing games. So I've continued playing Marvel Rivals, which I talked a bit about on the last episode. So I'm doing that as one of my hero shooters. However, I did get several new video games for Christmas. In fact, I got three of them, and I have started all of them at this point. So the first one that I started and ended up finishing is a game called Squirrel with a Gun. Are you familiar with the squirrel? I have heard of it, yes. Okay. I had not. I was just brought because my poor little Amazon wish list was decimated, and people always contact me and going, we need ideas. Your list is empty, Dennis. I'm like, fine, fine, fine. Let me go through. So I try and go through and find video games, but so much of those are digital now that it's hard to have someone easily be able to find like a – I don't care if it's a code or whatnot. But most of the time with Amazon, they're just selling discs. So I saw this, and it had a picture on the cover. It had a squirrel holding like 1911 or something. I was just like, you know what? Yes, this is probably the game for me. I didn't know anything about the game. I was just like, no, it's a squirrel and with a gun. What's it like? I don't know. Is it like Goat Simulator? I've played Goat Simulator. Kind of. So I bring it up. Well, I was going to bring it up anyway because I did play it. I did beat it. I finished the game.
    7:55
    It's a platformer. So there is gunplay in it with the squirrel. However, the squirrel can't climb whenever the squirrel is holding a gun because it needs its paws to climb. So most of the time you actually don't carry a gun.
    8:08
    And it reminded me, I think it was on our Discord, our EGP Discord. Someone had asked about us, or maybe someone had written in, and we discussed it, though, on a prior episode about platformers. And there was this question about us playing platformers. So here you go. I have now played and finished a platformer. I still have it. I still have all of my skills. I'm basically Squirrel Meat Boy going around doing squirrel stuff. And so I was going to suggest this one as a platformer that it's not too hard. There were a few puzzle areas that confused me. I think there was only one area that I had. No, there were two areas, I think, where I had to look up where I was supposed to go. But otherwise, the game had some pretty decent hints. However, it's a super indie game. Like, the graphics are really not there very well. And it took me a little bit at the start to get used to how the squirrel jumps. It doesn't jump like how a lot of characters jump in these sort of games. It feels different to me. So probably because you're a squirrel. So that took a little bit of adaptation. But then I found out yesterday, because today is the start of Awesome Games Done Quick 2025, that they put Squirrel with a Gun in the bad game block. So maybe I shouldn't recommend it. It's in the bad game block. I kept going back to it because I had fun with it. So anyway, I liked it. But according to the world, it's a bad game. But you know what? Tastes fairy. So that's Squirrel with a Gun. So I did that. And then another game I started and finished is one you will appreciate, Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2. I do appreciate it. What did you think? Did you like how I said 40,000 instead of 40K? Yes, that was great. Do you know why I said it like that? No. Because I got so confused about what was going on, I had to start watching Warhammer videos. Oh, you should have contacted me. I have links to wonderful multi-hour lore videos.
    10:04
    Some of the things that I put on to sleep at night are literally like ASMR'd, like quiet monotone 40K lore videos. Oh, those are in the recommended now. I see the ones like Warhammer lore to sleep to. listen listen to the horus heresy uh-huh four hours they're great so anyway because i mean i was able to enjoy the game with you know with it being what it is but i'm just like at the i i i'll tell you where it was it was at the moment where i defeated an enemy and i'm like why did he turn to dust and i'm like i just have to look it up i just don't know what's going on i didn't need to know why the guy's suits were full of dust i was just like but i want to know because it's an interesting thing and I'm confused about it. So I watched a video of a baseline summary. It was an hour long of the Warhammer 40K or 40,000 as many of them would call it. The Warhammer 40,000 universe. I saw a video that just acquainted me with the 20 Primarchs. That was 45 or 50 minutes long. And then I saw another one that I think was about an hour long that was, as the person had noted, a very brief summary of the Horus Heresy. And they said, you need to understand this because it's the background to everything that's happening, even though it was 10,000 years before the game. Yeah, it sets everything up. So now I better understand.
    11:36
    And so, anyway, so I finished that. I haven't done any of the other subsidiary content that they've included, the other battle missions and stuff like that, but I got through the campaign. Yeah, I did the same thing, because a lot of the battle missions and all the other stuff is multiplayer. and I don't really do that much multiplayer.
    11:58
    And the last game, which I just started a couple days ago, is I got as a gift the Yakuza Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth game. So I played Like a Dragon. I've only played two. This is now my third Yakuza game, but I've only played one that's the traditional format. My first one I ever played was Like a Dragon, which is an RPG style. so anyway this is the one which is in hawaii so uh i'm not quite sure how far i'm in on it i think at one point yesterday i was five hours in and i felt like four and a half of those hours had been cut scenes so i'm now calling it like a dragon infinite cut scene because there's just a lot like it's the whole hey look your controller powered off to save battery sort of cuts cut scenes Oh, that's bad. Those, what I would stereotype as Japanese role-playing game style cut scenes. Just massive cut scenes. Right. I finally got into a part where it's really opened up and letting me just run around and do stuff, play mini games, get in combat and things. But for a long stretch, it was just cut scene, cut scene, cut scene, little bit of action, cut scene, cut scene, cut scene. So anyway, that is the game I'm currently working on. I have not started what I got on Black Friday yet, which is Island Wake 2. And I still haven't started Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster 5 and 6 since I beat those back on the PS1. So that's where I'm standing. You've got to beat that like a dragon game because there's another one coming. Yeah, this one wasn't on my list. This one was just sort of a surprise gift. But I am enjoying it. I enjoyed all of these games Warhammer was very violent though Oh it is So I have to put a warning sticker But nothing feels more awesome than the kind of built cinematic scenes where it just like you and an enormous horde and it's just lived this so long enough for the cutscene to activate. That's all you can do? Mm-hmm. Yes. And I like the first Space Marine game, too. So I do recommend it to people that want to play something older. It's quite a bit older, but I think it would still hold up. I think so. It's been a while.
    13:56
    Well, speaking of holding up and speaking of role-playing games like Infinite Wealth, let's jump into the pinball segment, Tony. There's only one thing to talk about in the pinball segment, and that is Stern Pinball's first cornerstone of 2025, Dungeons & Dragons, The Tyrant's Eye.
    14:11
    Don't worry. I'm not going to keep doing the eye, eye, eye thing like DPX. Let me go ahead and run through the summary stuff real quick, Tony, and then we'll just have a conversation about it. because I know you and I have looked at the images. We have watched the gameplay video.
    14:25
    I have a link in the, I have four links in the show notes. Guys, if you want to know about this game, I got all sorts of stuff for you. I got a link regarding the reveal from Nap Arcade. So if you want to read about it, you can read about it there. I've got a different article, which covers some different aspects of it over from Kineticist. So I've got the link to that as well. If you want to continue reading stuff, if you don't want to keep reading stuff and you want to listen and or watch stuff, I've got a link to the Loser Kid Pinball interview with Brian Eddy and Dwight Sullivan, who worked on Dungeons & Dragons Pinball. And then finally, I have the Stern gameplay reveal that I just watched this morning. That's only 15 minutes long, and Dwight is explaining the entire thing as it goes about. So if you want a quick summary of kind of how the rules in general work on it and a quick look at how a premium LE version looks of that game, go ahead and check that video out. It'll get her done real quick for you. So, all right, here are the design details. As I mentioned, Dwight Sullivan and Brian Eddy are on this game. The rules and programming were handled by Dwight Sullivan and also Elizabeth Gieske. Brian Eddy is the designer of the game. Music was done by Chris Valesco. Art is Vince Prose. Voice work is a huge cast of characters. I'm going to name a few key ones. One, they got Kevin Smith. You might know him from Mallrats. Or anything else that he's done. so so we got kevin smith um tony you love critical role the the show i i do they play games so they got what marisha ray laura bailey and matt mercer matt mercer also does voice work in overwatch what's his name now is it mccree or cassidy it's cassidy now cat thank you i just cowboy yeah but but yeah no he he's he's casting but i mean i mean but all all three of them are pretty well versed uh laura bailey has won awards for multiple of her stuff she was in last of us and uh a variety of other things oh these are well-known voice actors i'm not kevin smith but the critical role folks and of course a lot of them all of them are doing voices in vox machina the animated short movie several of them show on I mean all three those three all are obviously because they're characters from that but so for those that don't know on Amazon Prime I think we've mentioned it before but there's a show it's gone what three seasons now of Vox Machina and it's basically some of their critical role campaigns but turned into an anime I think that's the best way to summarize it I think so anyway if you want to enjoy more of their voice work and you don't want to or you need something in addition to Critical Role. Critical Role, I don't watch Critical Role. That's a Tony thing because it's like in-depth and it's huge. Wasn't it at one point the biggest thing on Twitch? Yeah, for years and years and years, it was the biggest thing on Twitch.
    17:25
    Until they got too big for Twitch. Yeah, they're still on Twitch, but they were the people who they got big enough that they were able to cut a deal with Twitch so that they could simulcast on YouTube and Twitch at the same time. And then they also, they stayed so big that they're still on Twitch and YouTube, but now they also have their own pay-to-play channel where you can go through their own website to have access to a bunch of extra stuff as well. So you know you're big when you have your own pay-to-play site. Right, and what I find interesting here is that those are a lot of the big voice works, but they've also got Luke Gygax in there, Gerard Way, who is the lead singer of My Chemical Romance, uh uh chris piranoski who does who's the executive producer of like half of the stuff uh you remember watching from certain periods of time like he's a supervising producer for all of lower decks star trek lower decks okay he's executive producer for legend of vox machina uh lots of the net netflix stuff like big mouth uh executive producer on this tiny little show called beavis and Butthead, executive producer of Venture Brothers. You know, little things, things that nobody's ever heard of before.
    18:58
    And then the music was Chris Valesco, who has been the composer for basically everything lately. God of War, Bloodborne, the original Warhammer 40K Space Marine, all sorts of stuff he's been the composer of. Interesting. So Overwatch, I forgot. Yeah, he's Overwatch's composer.
    19:33
    Ah. So, yeah, they, Assassin's Creed Unity, The Long Dark, Company of Heroes 2, Injustice Gods Among Us, Borderlands 2, Mass Effect, you know, tiny little things. So they really went all out on this stuff. I mean, they dug deep and pulled in some big name people. Yeah, I was when you were mentioning that to me before we went live, I started to wonder if this was just like they were able to reach really, really deep for this. Or if it's just that it's Dungeons and Dragons and people are so into Dungeons and Dragons that that they just were like falling over themselves to participate in the project. Like it wasn't a hard sell is what I'm wondering.
    20:27
    Yeah, and it's it's completely possible. I mean, they've got Brendan Small, who was the creator of the Metapocalypse show on Adult Swim back in the day, and the voice of Nathan Explosion from that show.
    20:46
    Did tons of voices in Venture Brothers and all sorts of stuff. So, yeah, I think it's just a matter of a lot of these people have tie-ins together through other things. And I think they were able to it gave them access to a very large and deep bench that they might not normally get access to. And I should probably also go ahead and point out, even though, you know, you've focused on a lot of the the individuals involved in the audio. But back on Vincent Prost, he has done a tremendous amount of art. I wasn't really familiar with his name. However, he's worked on a lot of productions as well, kind of like you mentioned that executive producer being involved in things like Lower Decks and stuff. But he won an Art Directors Guild Appreciation Award for contribution on The Shape of Water. But he's also worked on The Boys, a TV show we both really like.
    21:45
    He's done Carnival Row, which I never watched, but I've seen some of the art from it. And he's done artwork for Magic the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons back in the early 2000s. He did stuff like that. The video game Mortal Kombat versus DC, that used to be a staple at EVE, not E3, at EVO, the fighting game championship. He did work on that. So he's well known in gaming and television for fantasy. So anyway, so yeah, big name, big name there. And, of course, biggest name to a lot of people back on the voice work would be Michael Dorn. He's voicing the dragon. But most of us remember him as Worf in Star Trek The Next Generation and a variety of the other Star Trek shows where Worf continued on. So very, very exciting in that regard. I don't normally get excited about – well, I'm jumping ahead. But I don't normally get excited about audio. But this is – you had asked me this morning, was there ever any audio package this stacked in pinball? And I said I think the closest we could cite would have been when Williams did Star Trek The Next Generation because they got pretty much the entire bridge crew to do it. And that's the best I have to bring up. Right. So pricing remains the same as the last few games. They did not raise prices with this one. So the pros are $7,000. The premiums are $9,700. And the limited editions are $13,000. This time the limited edition count is capped at 740 units. so they've kept that slimmer than what they used to be doing back during the pandemic at 1,000 units. Key features. So some of the key elements, and y'all are going to want to go and look at a playfield shot to really understand this. I'm not going to go into a lot of placement detail, but a few of the key things that stood out to me were there is, and I made a joke about this on the pinball show when Dungeons & Dragons was rumored, and I said that they really needed a gelatinous cube. And I mention that because the gelatinous cube is one of my favorite parts of the Dungeons and Dragons movie that came out with Chris Pine. I just thought it was a really cool integration. And, of course, you know, the idea of a cube being able to get stuck in it makes a lot of sense for a game like pinball. Well, they actually did it. It's over over the right habit trail area. So it has a magnet so we can hold and release a ball. They get stuck in it. You actually end up like locking a ball in that. It can also lock a ball underneath it. So it's really cool. Uh, that's on all versions. There's a shield ball saver. They actually have gone back to put the physical ball saver between the flippers. This is a metal bar and you hit the action button and it pops up and it'll stay up for a certain period of time. So that's to protect against center draining. That's in all the versions. Uh, the dragon toy, uh, that one is in all the versions, but there are two different flavors of it. On the pro version, it's a bash toy. It moves up and down. It has targets underneath it. So occasionally you'll bash the dragon in the head. On the Premium and LE, it likewise goes up and down, but it also has motors to let it go side to side.
    24:45
    There's a diverter that's only on the Premium LE that helps assist, I believe, with the ball locking for this. But you're able to lock balls, and it will spit out balls to start a multi-ball that's involved with the dragon. So that's a difference there, but the dragon does appear on both versions. The Premium LE is the only versions that carry the—there's a scoop for Dungeon Crawl. This is virtually achieved in the pro. So dungeon crawl is still there as a feature. But basically, when you go into dungeon crawl, it combines sort of a video mode where you're navigating a dungeon where you're moving forward or maybe you have different directions you can turn. And so occasionally you'll be asked to choose a direction and such on the screen. But you progress by actually shooting physical pinball shots. And I guess there are five levels to that. And every week, it's a new procedurally generated path. So you can't just memorize the paths. They change weekly. So it's got that. Pin save. This is basically Venom 2.0, for those of you familiar with Stern Pinball's Venom. So that's their insider-connected driven system that lets you keep track of where you were in the last game. So even where you were in a dungeon can be saved. And this includes leveling your characters. That's the part that you'll probably remember from Venom, or even if you want to go even a little bit further back, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles allowed you to kind of progress your turtles and remember that status. So there's Penn Save for all of that. You are able to opt out of doing that. So, for example, competitively, you can set it. So just like with Venom, where no one's using their leveled up stuff when they're playing. Likewise, you can even go in, I saw in the gameplay video, and set it up so that it will default one way or the other. If you want it to default to not remembering your progress, you can do that, or you can flip it so that it will default to remembering your progress. But when you start a game, you always have the option to switch between them. So they have that aspect in. And then the basic rules are very, we'll call it D&D lite. They have four different characters that you can choose at the start of the game. They each have their own various abilities. You choose a location on the map which is sort of what between the slings and those maps determine what sort of quests and part what your journey is going to look like And you traverse that map and the game has a battle system So you'll do missions like escort dwarves, and then there will be, you know, monsters will appear and you'll need to hit certain shots to defeat the monsters before they defeat your party. And you're trying to complete those quests and their mini wizard modes. And you're going to go along and there's like, you got to fight Tiamat. There's always a Tiamat. You got to go fight Tiamat. So that's my nutshell summary, Tony. What are your thoughts on this? Because I think a lot of people were like, all right, they're doing D&D. Are they going to do the movie? The movie didn't do all that well blockbuster-wise. And I think a lot of people understood that it would probably just be based off the game, which it is. And for a lot of people, that's, you know, it's an IP, but was it a risky IP? What do you think? I think that it's popular enough. I don't know that I would call it a risky IP. I think the route they went is a really good choice. and the fact that they've obviously poured so much into it. I will say the cabinet art on the LE is just spectacular, especially the side art on the head is insane to me.
    28:08
    And this is definitely going to be one where I've not played it. I could be completely wrong, but my guess is going to be the premium LE is going to be the way to go. That's interesting. I thought that initially as well, but after watching the gameplay video and hearing them talk, it's like you lose two main things with the pro versus the premium LE, and that was you lose the fully articulating dragon with the cool ball spinning, and the ball spinning is very, very cool. They show that off in a variety of video at this point. And so it looks really cool. But again, it's like, well, I could live without that, I suppose. You still get to actually interact with the dragon. It's not just a flat plastic. And then the dungeon crawl, a little scoop that raises up from the play field in the center. And instead, you have to do that virtually. But you get to keep the cube in both versions, which I was a little surprised about. I thought they'd sacrificed the gelatinous cube. But I think they decided that was too cool to get rid of. So visually, the spectacle is very, very good on the premium LE. And I think I'm with you currently where I lean towards it, as is often my general reaction. I really want to try them out, though, because I'm wondering – this one might be one of those where I'm like, yeah, the premium looks really, really cool, but I would be really happy to live with a pro. Right. It's not it's not like Guardians of the Galaxy where it's like I have absolutely no understanding why I would ever choose a premium over a pro because of what you gave up seemed like nothing. I see something here. But again, it reminds me of like Ghostbusters. And it was OK. The Slimer got to move around a lot more on Ghostbusters. But ultimately, I felt the pro was a was a perfectly good experience. In fact, the pro in that instance may be not a good example because it was a better experience because the Magna slings, as cool as a concept as they were, were super limited versus regular slings. Like they just didn't cause a lot of action. So anyway, yeah. Yeah, that's an interesting point. And yeah, the art's awesome. Going with a magic artist to do this made a lot of sense, I think, and it really shines through. I haven't looked really, really closely yet at a lot of the play field indications to know if I love that or not. I'm not normally a huge fan of maps on play fields. But, again, the main thing is to convey information. And they seem to have done a good job with their inserts to make sure you know what's going on. So what do you think of the RPG elements that they're putting into this? I really like the RPG elements. I like the procedurally generated dungeon concept to have it be a little different every time. and you actually choose your path through things and have it change every, what is it, week that it changes? Yeah. I find that as a really interesting idea. And I think that it really, if anything, is going to use that pin save system that was first seen in Venom,
    31:10
    an RPG-related game makes the most sense for it. I mean, it is the exact perfect thing to see in a game like this. Yes, I completely agree. I've been wondering about the evolution from what they did in Venom, because what was done in Venom I thought was extremely interesting from a software perspective. Unfortunately, as we've discussed before on the show, what Venom ended up being, the combination of it being a pure, like the fanniest fan layout to ever fan, And then if you went, there was an example where if you went pro, you gave up everything. Right. It's just because the game was all about picking the character and then there being physical changes to the game state. And when you had to give up all of that, I mean, it's just like the pro, we played both versions. And the pro felt like such a shadow of what it was like. The whole spirit of the game didn't just felt like it was lost. And normally that doesn't happen on pros, but I felt it did on Venom. And I think it was because they got hung up with the idea of having the game state changes, which are super cool. But just I guess my long story short is with Venom, I just don't think it should have ever been a cornerstone. They probably should have done it like Elvira and said that premium is the lowest model because the pro is going to be such a bad experience comparably. But here where the game state is like they've really thought of it from that leveling RPG perspective. You're right. The type of game that this is, what Dungeons and Dragons is, the idea of being able to do that sort of stuff makes a lot of sense. If you go and listen to the Loser Kid interview, which, again, I do have a link to in our show notes for folks, there was some Scott and Josh asked some questions about some of the things, some of the leveling aspects and stuff and RPG elements and wondered about certain features, which, you know, they wanted even more. they were asking about even more heavy D&D stuff. And Dwight kind of had to explain, no, no, some of that stuff that you're asking about, we couldn't put in because we tested with it, but it just made it too complicated. It doesn't lend itself to pinball. So they're trying, again, it's RPG-lite. It needs to be pinball first and foremost. Right. But picking and leveling the characters, but you don't have too many, at least not to start with. I think you start to unlock characters as you go about, just like you would unlock characters in Venom. but I think it starts with Cleric, Rogue, Paladin, and Wizard. So you go and you can level those up and stuff, and they have certain abilities that come into play. But just like you go, there's a shop where you can buy items that give you certain pinball-related perks, but it's not going to have a slew of, oh, let's choose an item to use at this time and stuff. It's like stuff activates and things like that. We could go overboard quite easily with a game like D&D. I do think we should probably acknowledge, which we've probably discussed it before because we used to cover the tabletop segment. But Tony and I have played like tabletop Dungeons and Dragons. Like I DMed games and we've gone to CantCon and we've played with strangers and just one-off campaigns and stuff like that. So in a way, this game is probably more in our wheelhouse than I think it is with a lot of pinball people. But honestly, the reaction I've seen so far is extremely positive to this. D&D has had a remarkable resurgence. I know there was a lot of hate early on with the release of fourth edition D&D, but the truth of the matter is the lightning of the rules and the changes made from 3.5 to make it more accessible, combined with the popularity of people live streaming campaigns and stuff, has shot D&D into a new resurgence point. that has just been huge for the last, I don't know, 10-ish years now,
    35:00
    that it doesn't surprise me. There's a lot of people who have played or have knowledge of it at this point or still play on a regular basis. So I think it's definitely no surprise at all that it is being well regarded just from a theme standpoint. but combined with what we've seen from the gameplay and what they've put into it, it definitely feels like something very different than what I expected out of a lot of Stern games that we've seen lately. And it feels like something that has, like we saw initially in Venom and stuff, the possibility to have a lot of depth and a lot of replayability. The question is going to be how does it actually feel to shoot. Yeah, and that's a good thing. Kind of the final area I wanted to talk about there is in terms of the layout. So unlike a Stranger Things or a Venom, this is not a fan layout.
    36:02
    Mandalorian was another recent Brian Eddy game, and it wasn't a fan layout either. But in this instance, we have a – it's almost like a Steve Ritchie concept in terms of – I always think of Steve Ritchie when I see two flippers at the bottom, and then kind of at the midpoint we have a flipper on the right because he really likes to do that a lot. However, the shot angles here are different. Richie will often have like a one ramp or one major shot access thing, and then the rest of the extension of the flipper might be to hit stand-up targets or something like – or drops, like in Star Trek, for example, Stern Star Trek. But here it looks like there are a couple of key shots kind of early on the flipper for one of the ramp shots and such. So anyway, I like that Eddie has deviated from the fan. He does an excellent fan, but we already – it's so tough when you have a game like as good of Attack from Mars in your repertoire. When you go back to the fan layout, people are going to compare it to your best fan layouts. Well, and you've also got a worry coming in with the Dungeons & Dragons medieval theme with medieval madness. So changes would have had to have been made not to just seem like medieval madness too. Sure, sure. Or you don't want people to look at it and go, is this Game of Thrones again? Right. You don't want any of that sort of stuff. So in that regard, I think that they – it's pretty immersive in terms of World Under Glass and stuff, even the pro. Again, because they were able to get a dragon figure, the gelatinous cube. If you knew anything about Dungeons & Dragons and you looked at this, you'd probably identify pretty quickly that it's Dungeons & Dragons. But I think they've done a pretty good job on it overall in terms of like I wouldn't put this up to Evil Dead's level of theme immersion just visually, but it's a very good job. Any final thoughts on it? Actually, my overall take on it is I really like what I've seen so far. I don't know how great of a shooter it is from the 15 minutes of gameplay. I mean, it looked smooth and all of that. I don't know is this going to be a really, really easy game. it doesn't it didn't look overly brutal but the guy playing it on the stream is really really good right that's always a very dangerous and they were it was constantly catching and cradling the ball while they talked about shots and then making the shot but when but but how how well will that work for a more average player is always going to be the question well you always call your shot tony so you'll be fine. What are you shooting? I'm shooting the ball.
    38:28
    It's weird. I didn't get my hopes up on this theme. I never try to over themes, but given my background, I've played a number of D&D video games as well as having played the tabletop version. So while I'm not super steeped in it, like I wasn't a hardcore player of it in high school or anything, I've always really liked the idea of it. I've seen the movies. Even the bad one with Jeremy Irons. I actually just re-watched that here over break because it was on Amazon Prime. I just needed to see him. I needed to see him chew up the scenery. I just needed it. That movie was terrible except for the scenes when Jeremy Irons – he just chewed the scenery so good. He made it worth it.
    39:10
    But anyway, yeah, so far I've been really impressed. I've struggled to really get into a number of Brian Eddy's releases since he's come to Stern. but this one's looking very, very good for me to enjoy. So I look forward to trying it. And I reckon it almost assuredly will be at TPF, which we plan to be at. So we should get a chance, if we don't get to play it locally before then, to get it in March. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. Well, what I'm looking forward to, Tony, is hearing about video games. So what's going on in the video game world? in what should be no surprise, there wasn't a whole lot in the two weeks since our last episode, since that was basically Christmas and New Year's.
    39:54
    But we did get a bunch of Switch 2 leaks that came out, including reported leaks from somebody who has a non-working physical version of basically the case shape and everything. so it's just the rumors are that it's just slightly larger than the current switch similar design removable joy cons it looking like the joy cons are magnetically attached now as opposed to the old physical latching system And it also reported that they use a magnetic system on the joysticks themselves which should eliminate or will hopefully eliminate the Joy-Con drift problem that had because the old position sensors were breaking and wearing down.
    40:50
    We do know that Nintendo confirmed a while back that the system is going to be backwards compatible, so we know that that's going for it. But rumor is also out there that they are more likely than not going to make the announcement by the end of January because the leaks have been coming out so fast.
    41:11
    There's been several companies that have actually released images of their accessories, one major accessory manufacturer actually released a trailer that showed some accessories and included a barely fuzzed out blurred version look at the Switch 2 and they were forced to pull that whole trailer down.
    41:38
    So we're definitely getting to the point where they're going to, we'll probably start getting all the full stats and the official word on it here before too long. Hmm. Well, yeah, solving the Joy-Con drift, obviously, that really plagued the Switch launch, I remember, because it wasn't like – I've had all sorts of controllers develop drift after I've used them a lot, but those poor Joy-Cons started to have issues like the first month. Yeah. It was really weird. It was really bad. We have gone through so many Joy-Cons, and my wife actually has a toolkit and has gotten the stuff and has pulled Joy-Cons apart and done repair jobs to them to try and improve it and all sorts of stuff because we have four switches in the house. So it's something we've seen a fair amount of. But that would be lovely if that problem went away. Well, it's very cool. So we're going to have some news in 25 from Nintendo, so that's great. Yeah, definitely going to have news on there. I just grabbed a – I found a listing of a couple this month and next month, a couple big releases are on the way.
    42:52
    Like coming up here in January, the new Dynasty Warriors, Dynasty Warriors Origins is coming out. there hasn't been a mainline Dynasty Warriors game in a while, like six years or more, I think. But the Dynasty Warrior games, I don't know how much you ever play them. They were fun. Nothing like a game where you're one person and you're slaughtering more warriors than the current population of China in every single battle in ancient China. I've never played any version of Dynasty Warriors. When I want that experience, I play Space Marine. I mean, that's valid comparison.
    43:32
    And also coming out is Sniper Elite Resistance because it's time for a new Sniper Elite game. It's been a long time since we've had a close-up slow-motion shot of a bullet passing through somebody's scrotum.
    43:50
    I have played those games. I have, too. There was another one that has come out. The last one I played was four. Apparently, there was a fifth one that came out. Now, then this one's coming out as well. But they've always been fun games. So this one, from the sounds of it, you're basically being part of the resistance in France. So I'm sure it's still going to involve slow motion murdering of Nazis. Yes, yes. The World War II ones have been my favorites. Yeah, I very much agree.
    44:27
    And then next month has some really big titles coming out next month. Like a Dragon, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. So you've got a month to finish yours.
    44:37
    Yes, we'll see. We'll see how many more cut scenes I have to get through. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is coming out.
    44:47
    Assassin's Creed Shadows. Oh, yeah, the Japan one. They finally decided to let Assassin's Creed go to Japan. People are very excited for that. Civilization VII. Oh, just a little one. Just a tiny one. I mean, I might get it. Maybe. I think I've owned pretty much every other Civilization game. Some of them with a lot more hours put into them than others. Yeah. It's not the same without Leonard Nimoy being the encyclopedia reader. That is always going to be the best, and just for Sputnik.
    45:25
    Sputnik is so good because it's just Leonardine voice. Beep, beep, beep. I wonder how many takes it took him to do it. I don't know. But I did find a YouTube video once upon a time that was literally just every single call-out he did in the encyclopedia. Yes. And I actually listened to the entire thing. They're very good. I would actually recommend, as nerdy as it is, I would recommend people search it out just to hear how good he did those things. I mean, it was just, I don't know. It was just one of those pieces that stuck with me as just a really good choice to do. It's like one of the most memorable performances in video games for me, right up there with Tim Curry in Red Alert 3. Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, it is one of those things where I have hundreds of hours, in that civilization.
    46:18
    And I never skipped an encyclopedia reading when you completed a tech. It was always worth it, every single time, no matter how often I'd heard it.
    46:32
    Also coming out is Avowed. It's from Obsidian. It's a first-person game set in their Pillars of Eternity universe, which were their isometric role-playing games that originally started as a kick-started game for the first one, and then all of that. And then what's probably the big one in February, the reason some of these games are releasing earlier than originally planned, at the end of the month, Monster Hunter Wilds is coming out.
    47:02
    Yeah, Monster Hunter kind of hunts down all of the other games that come out around it. I've never played one. I've never been interested enough to play one. I've played several of them, and I cannot get into them. I lose my interest quickly but I know so many people that they are the end all be all the hours I have in Battletech they have in every Monster Hunter game so it's not like oh yeah I've got 600 hours in this game it's like yes I have 600 hours in this game and the one before it so it is a enormous undertaking.
    47:48
    So, also, big, I don't know if I'd call it big news, but interesting news, Stardew Valley, the cute little pixely farm simulator where you can, you know, just make your little farm and help save the little town and maybe if you want to romance some of the people living in the town or not, your choice, has hit 41 million copies sold across all platforms.
    48:21
    Wow. So, and I was lucky I was doing the math, and I think my household is four or five of those. Because I have it on PC, and I'm pretty sure both of my daughters have it on Switch. I know they both have it on Switch, but I think they might also both have it on PC in addition to Switch. So.
    48:43
    That's a lot of copies. That's a lot of fish. And they're doing it. Godzilla flashbacks. Little Godzilla PTSD right there. Yes. They've also started a concert tour this upcoming year of just a 35-piece orchestra going around playing medleys and sections of songs from the game while video plays projected on the wall. This is apparently the second one of these concert tours that has happened, and it's been incredibly popular.
    49:29
    They've already got a ton of sold-out dates, so it's obviously pretty big. And then I think the last thing I have is Awesome Games Done Quick starts today. It kicks off in like 15 minutes from when we're recording. So we're just about to the kickoff of the most awesome week in speedrunning. Yeah, and there's a lot of – if you like to see games broken, you can usually find – it doesn't matter what type of game you're into, generally speaking, as long as it's not just like a multiplayer-only game. Just you should be able to find one. And, yeah, a lot of them are going to be at really awful times, but they record them all, so you can go back and just watch them later. Squirrel with a Gun, I think it's at 4 a.m. Central. so I probably won't be watching that one. Yeah, I think they're looking at it. I've got the schedule pulled up right now. Looks like they're opening with Pikmin, an all-parts run, and they're following it up with a single-player, no SLA, Portal 2 run.
    50:36
    And I think they've got like five Zeldas in this throughout the whole week. That's a lot. Zelda's always there, but that's a lot of Zelda. The first Zelda is Wind Waker, any percent run that starts tonight. Yeah, and I know they've got Breath of the Wild. They've got the Tears of the Kingdom. They've got the newest one also. And then probably Ocarina of Time. I don't remember. That would be my guess. That would be a pretty solid guess. I can't remember anymore. Anyway, a lot of Zelda. A lot of Zelda.
    51:11
    Metroids. let's see oh they're doing a they're probably ending with a Metroid they're doing a Yakuza run yeah they're ending with Super Metroid Legend of Zelda oh Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom so the newest Zelda is the bonus game at the they don't ever miss the bonus game they're actually rocking a Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time then the bonus game immediately afterward is Echoes of Wisdom then they do their big recap and then they'll go to Super Metroid at the end of the week yep pretty exciting time they're doing two back to back Elden Ring runs one of them played on a saxophone oh yes well as long as the dog isn't back I didn't check for him I didn't check but I didn't catch that there's The dog is back.
    52:12
    Because he's not a very good boy, if you ask me. Bad boy. Bad. No, he's more like get good, noob dog. Get good.
    52:23
    So that's what we'll be doing most of this week is watching as much of that as we can and then going back through and catching the ones that we missed because they're at weird times or whatever.
    52:37
    Yes, scroll the gun. 4.30 in the morning. Yep. It's so mean to that squirrel. Don't they know that's game of the year?
    52:47
    I like in the middle of the night when they do the silly things where there are just a ton of games that they run that each one's run time is like sub-20 minutes to speed run it. Yeah. It's like 15 minutes, 8 minutes, 12 minutes.
    53:03
    So, no, they're doing an all-romance Fallout New Vegas run. Interesting. And they can do it in 30 minutes.
    53:13
    Yeah, apparently. Yeah, there were ways to do New Vegas fast. But that's what I've got for today. All right. Well, if folks want to reach out to us, they can email us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. We're available at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. If they want to support the show, we sure would appreciate it. We're over at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. We have three tiers over there, including as low as a dollar a month. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as Eclectic underscore Gamers. This has been our remote recorded version, so hopefully it ends up sounding all right, but we will find out when I get done with editing it. Until two weeks from now, my name is Dennis. I am Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See ya.