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Harry Nutter and the Call-in Collector

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·57m 8s·held·Aug 2, 2016
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

BlahCade covers Big Hit, 8-Ball Deluxe hints, and head-to-head mode launch with collector call-in.

Summary

BlahCade hosts Chris and Jared discuss Harry Potter licensing complexity, Pinball Arcade's latest release Big Hit, upcoming 8-Ball Deluxe, and head-to-head mode launch. They take a call from collector Andrew in Tennessee showcasing his Ripley's and Metallica machines with custom mods.

Key Claims

  • Harry Potter pinball licensing would require deals with Warner Brothers, Scholastic (publisher), and J.K. Rowling

    high confidence · Chris and Jared discussing HP licensing complexity around 15 minutes in

  • Farsight chose Q-Ball Wizard over 8-Ball Deluxe in a previous poll despite 8-Ball Deluxe ranking first with voters

    high confidence · Jared explaining Farsight's decision-making process, attributed to not having played 8-Ball Deluxe before voting

  • Norman from Farsight played 8-Ball Deluxe for the first time at Arcade Expo 2.0 in January 2016 after Jared showed it to him

    high confidence · Jared recounting his interaction with Norman at the expo where Norman changed his mind after playing

  • Big Hit has removed the center post from between flippers compared to prototype/production versions

    high confidence · Jared discussing Big Hit gameplay improvements on Pinball Arcade

  • Head-to-head mode for Pinball Arcade launched July 31st at 3 p.m. Central Time on Steam and Android/iOS

    high confidence · Chris providing specific launch details for head-to-head feature

  • Andrew has acquired a collection of premium machines (Ripley's, Metallica, Medieval Madness) spending only $3,000 total through strategic buying and selling

    high confidence · Andrew detailing his four-year flipping strategy during call segment

  • Ghostbusters (LE) has Magnus slings with programmable behavior that can spin the ball in circles

    high confidence · Andrew describing Ghostbusters (LE) sling behavior he experienced

  • Pinball Arcade Season 6 is themed around 'sports' with confirmed titles being Indy 500, Big Hit, 8-Ball Deluxe, AG Soccer, and Doctor Who

    medium confidence · Jared laying out season 6 sports theme and confirmed/potential titles

Notable Quotes

  • “So if you see these guys in any of these expos, drag them out. Go play a game with them... Go show them what you're excited about and ask them what they're excited about.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~25 min — Core advice to community about engaging with Farsight developers at conventions to influence future game selections

  • “If you can see it, it needs to be right. And if you have pro mode, you can see it. Therefore, it needs to be right.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~35 min — Design philosophy on quality standards even for details not visible during normal play

  • “Metallica is so deep I be honest with you I had metallica for two years now and i just still learning it”

    Andrew (caller) @ ~70 min — Reflects on depth of modern premium games and long-term engagement value

  • “I only have three grand into my entire collection, to give you an idea.”

    Andrew (caller) @ ~65 min — Demonstrates business savvy and market opportunity in secondary pinball trading

  • “Pinball is social. It's more fun to play against other people. There's just no doubt about it.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~85 min — Rationale for importance of head-to-head competitive modes in digital platforms

Entities

Chris FriebuspersonJared MorganpersonPinballWiz45BpersonNormanpersonAndrewpersonJ.K. RowlingpersonBlahCade Pinball PodcastorganizationFarsight StudioscompanyPinball Arcadeproduct

Signals

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Discussion of how Harry Potter pinball licensing would require negotiation with Warner Brothers, Scholastic (publisher), and J.K. Rowling, suggesting significant complexity and cost in securing multi-party IP

    high · Chris: 'you'd have to not only do a deal with Warner Brothers, you'd also have to do a deal with Scholastic... and J.K. Rowling... there'd be a bit of a cut going on there'

  • ?

    community_signal: Jared emphasizes importance of community engaging with developers at expos to demonstrate game appeal and influence future selections, based on his experience converting Norman's opinion on 8-Ball Deluxe

    high · Jared's extended anecdote about showing Norman 8-Ball Deluxe at Arcade Expo 2.0 and recommendation to 'drag them out' at expos

  • ?

    product_concern: Multiple visual/artistic issues noted in Big Hurt Pinball Arcade release: reversed Big Hurt sign on scoreboard, missing assets in pop bumper saucer, posterization throughout table, and floating glove rotation mechanism visible in pro mode

    high · Jared detailing: 'Big Hurt sign on the scoreboard has been reversed... lost all of its assets... posterizing all over the table... floating there in magic land'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Removal of center post from Big Hurt improves difficulty balance by increasing risk and reducing 'snooze fest' gameplay, indicates attentiveness to playability feedback

    high · Jared: 'having that in the middle is basically like a snooze fest. So you've really got to have that in there for the game to be at least half risky'

  • ?

    product_launch: Pinball Arcade head-to-head multiplayer mode launching July 31st on Steam with public beta already live; Android/iOS beta to follow in coming weeks. Three game modes: high score, 5-minute, 10-minute

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.171

0:00
This is the Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jared. You are listening to the Blockade Podcast. I am your host, Shut Your Trap, a.k.a. Chris Grievous. Joining us as always, my co-host, Jared Morgan. G'day, Chris. How are things today? Things today are, they're swimming along just peachy keen.
0:48
Good. Yeah, I'm a bit jealous of everybody that's out there playing at Replay FX in Pittsburgh right now. It looks like a pinball cornucopia of good times. It does, doesn't it? Man, it looks amazing.
1:06
Yeah, they were showing pictures all week on Twitter of the warehouse and the map of all the machines that were going to be going in there. It looks like so much fun. And then Pinball Arcade tweeted out, because they of course have a booth there, and they tweeted out a pic of our good friend PinballWiz45B 45B playing at their booth.
1:27
Ah, right. There you go. I must have missed that one in my tweet feed this week. So I fully expect him to, PinballWiz that is, to come back to us next week and spill the goods on everything that he learned. Not that he'll learn much because he doesn't have an NDA. No, he doesn't. But he's a nice guy, so you never know. He might be told some things. Right. We'll get into a little later of why you should go talk to Farsight when you see them at one of these... Events. Pinball. I don't know. What do you call them? They're not conventions.
2:05
They're expos. Expos. Yeah. Pinball expos. Anyway, we'll get into that a little later. But first, most pressing news to discuss. And this has directly to do with, Jared, you being in the future and me, what I'm doing tonight at midnight. Okay. What are you doing at midnight? Well, there's a new Harry Potter book coming out. Oh, right. I have been tasked, as I have been tasked with the past few books, to, at midnight, go and pure cure the book so that my wife can stay up the rest of the night reading it. Feast upon us. Yeah, so that by the time that I wake up, she then shoves it in my face and says, you must read so that then we can discuss. Right. So this is actually a requirement of your marriage. Yes, this is. This is one part of our wedding vows.
Replay FX
event
Big Hitgame
Eight Ball Deluxegame
Harry Potterproduct
Ghostbusters (LE)game
Metallicagame
Ripley's Believe It or Not!game
Medieval Madnessgame
Arcade Expo 2.0event
Steamproduct
Orange County Pinball Leagueorganization
Warner Brotherscompany
Scholasticcompany

high · Chris providing specific launch details: 'July 31st Central Time, 3 p.m.' with Steam public beta active and mobile beta to follow

  • ?

    event_signal: Replay FX pinball expo in Pittsburgh showing significant community engagement with major manufacturers exhibiting, multiple pinball personalities in attendance

    high · Chris and Jared noting photo updates from Replay FX throughout the week, PinballWiz45B spotted at Pinball Arcade booth

  • $

    market_signal: Andrew demonstrates active secondary market trading strategy: built $3,000 collection in 4 years through consistent buying/selling at $500+ profit margins every 1-2 weeks, indicating healthy market liquidity

    high · Andrew: 'I only have three grand into my entire collection... I'd always make at least $500 on a machine every time I bought and sold it. Sometimes it would be every other week'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Active aftermarket customization community evident: custom Metallica hammers (30 units from California maker), powder-coated side rails, LED upgrades on Ripley's, center post mods for Ghostbusters for playability improvement

    high · Andrew showing custom hammer, powder-coated rails, LED work; mentions center post mod bought for Ghostbusters LE

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pinball Arcade Season 6 themed around 'sports' with confirmed titles (Indy 500, Big Hurt, 8-Ball Deluxe, AG Soccer, Doctor Who) and potential additions from sports game library (Roller Games, NBA Fast Break, Banzai Run, etc.)

    medium · Jared compiling list: 'season six here of Pinball Arcade, which is the season of sports... We've had Indy 500. We have Big Hurt. We're going to have 8-Ball Deluxe'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Ghostbusters LE known for extreme difficulty with brutal side drains and wide flipper gap; Magnus programmable slings add unpredictability but require precise setup; center post mod makes game significantly more forgiving

    high · Andrew: 'side drains are extremely brutal... center drain... tough... he had bought some kind of a mod that had a center post that went between the two flippers, and that made it worlds better'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: 8-Ball Deluxe won community poll 2.5 years prior but was not selected by Farsight; instead Cube/Wizard was chosen, likely due to developers not having played 8-Ball Deluxe and misjudging its appeal based on appearance/video

    high · Jared: 'A poll was taken... 8-Ball Deluxe came in first... instead we got Centaur... because that's what people voted for. Or they chose not to do 8-Ball Deluxe'

  • ?

    content_signal: BlahCade runs live call-in segment with pinball community members on Saturdays at 3 p.m. West Coast, enabling real-time discussion and community sharing of machines and experiences

    high · Chris inviting Andrew to call in, discussing live video of his machines, mentioning 'We do it every Saturday, same time, 3 p.m. West Coast'

    • 2:57
    This one will be a little bit different just because it's a play, so it's not written as a novel. But here's my question to you. Yeah, okay. I think I remember hearing about that. Yeah, here's my question to you. You being in the future, could you go out and get the book right now?
    3:17
    Oh, no. Well, maybe. I don't know. Why don't you know these things? because Harry Potter is not relevant to my interests not yet, how old are your kids? it soon will be, believe me true that being said, we were into it before we even had a kid yeah because it's been running a long time now you look at the first couple of movies I'm going to do this with my wife here how long have the books been around? trust me Jared, when your kids are 9, 10... What about him?
    3:56
    My wife's like, screw your kids, what about you? Read the damn thing. I don't... I'm 37. He's 37. Why wasn't he? Oh!
    4:12
    I've seen the movies. He's seen the movies. Does that help? Oh my gosh! what a great troll level 100 plus so as you can tell that if you came into our house and didn't participate in Harry Potter Madness you wouldn't be allowed in our house there'd be a book shoved in your chest don't talk to us until you finish this you have a job before you can enter this realm must complete the book, the series, not just the book. Right. The whole trilogy on the seven, what? Seven movies now? There was eight movies because there were seven books. They split the last book into two. Oh, that's right, yeah. That's ridiculous, eh? I would like to catch up with all the movies at least because I got to, well, I think the fourth one, I think. Oh, no, it gets even worse, honey. He's only gotten up to the fourth movie. yeah she's giving you a stone stare right now i know it's bad because it's silence so i got i got to thinking though with uh with harry potter what a great pinball machine that would make i mean think about it they've done it right crazy not only i have two different ideas two that would play perfectly for pinball the the first idea is just harry potter world the universe in general being so filled with magic think of all the cool things and if you think about just past tables that have been magic based or whatever themed of disappearing balls balls popping up in different areas uh you think about like missed multi-ball with uh with dracula think about on metallica the hammer that slams the ball down into the table the levitating ball in um pinball magic. Exactly. There are so many cool things that could be done via pinball and just have a Harry Potter theme. Now the other thing that I think would be even really sweet would be, how about a Quidditch table? And you think about it, Quidditch, you have these three hoops.
    6:28
    Yes, he knows what Quidditch is! So, Quidditch, you've got the three hoops, which could easily be shots that you're having to make, launching the ball through the hoops. The whole game is based off of the various you've got the golden snitch, you've got the blood, you've got the quaffle. Anyway, there would be all these things that you could actually do to make an interesting you could have different sized balls if you wanted or you could just have like Twilight Zone QUIT INTERRUPTING! You could have, like, Twilight Zone had the ceramic ball. You could also have the golden ball come out for the snitch, and it would be a hurry-up shot that you've got to be able to launch it into something or whatever. Mobile action bounds. Your flippers could look like the best, the bludger bats. I mean, I don't know. I mean, just, like, it is amazing that it hasn't been turned into a pinball machine back then. How incredible would it be to see, like, it would all be habit rails, and insanity, you know. Exactly. And, you know, gravity-defying habit rails as well. So, you know, the ball would jump between them and stuff like that, pretty much like a Rube Goldberg machine, I'm thinking, you know. And just, wow, it would be amazing. It would be so cool and doable. Like, you could just go crazy with rails and just have them, like, going between each other and over and above and down, and it would be pretty cool. It would be expensive. like it would be like a $15,000 pro, you know, stern one, because there would be no pro. You'd have to have like the premium only for this, just with the amount of tech that they need to put into it. But, geez, would it be fun? Yes, it would. This would be something that Zen should make up. This is a thing that Zen should do because they would be able to do it justice.
    8:28
    And, again, them being able to do multiple tables with the same license. and VR like gee like they're going to sign up like imagine that table in VR yeah that would be the bomb like yeah the whole seven tables like you could theme it around everything it'd be so like logical just to do those seven tables as like a the Star Wars pack you know so you're welcome Sam yeah please accept who's the owner of that property that's That's Warner Brothers. Yeah. They have to do a deal. Well, you'd have to not only do a deal with Warner Brothers, you'd also have to do a deal with Scholastic.
    9:11
    They're the ones that published the book. And then, yeah, J.K. Rowling. You'd have to... Boy, there'd be a bit of a cut going on there.
    9:21
    Imagine that. I mean, when you think about it, there's a very good reason why Warner Brothers is coming out with a... the was it Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them?
    9:34
    Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. And it was a thin little tiny supplementary pamphlet of a book and they're turning that into a trilogy. A trilogy, right. And the thing is, it's not even based on the book. The book was a textbook, like a school textbook. So, Jake Rowling went and wrote a whole script that has nothing to do with the book necessarily but point being they're milking that thing for everything it's worth oh yeah yeah it would cost a it would cost a uh just a tiny licensing fee tiny little bit you know yeah ten dollars on the way no kickstarter but ten dollars no kickstarter yeah well speaking of tables that are on the way that we actually can look forward to and many of us have been looking forward to for a very long time. It's Big Hurt.
    10:36
    We will talk about Big Hurt in a little bit. That is the newest table that has dropped on Pinball Arcade. But in their newsletter announcement, they gave the hint of what to look forward to next. And although some people are positive, is Sharky's Shootout because the hint showed somebody holding a magic 8-ball, and there's an 8-ball, I guess, at the top corner of Sharky's Shootout. It's a simple body. Yeah, the clear obvious winner here is it's 8-ball deluxe, folks. We're finally getting that ballet classic.
    11:15
    Because it's top of the line. Yes, the clue says it's top of the line. That'd be deluxe. Yes. So that's really, really something to look forward to. A lot of people have been anxiously wanting that table. A poll was taken. How many years ago, Jared? Two and a half? Yeah. Something like that. And 8-Ball Deluxe came in first, and instead we got Centaur, I believe. Something like that, because that's what people voted for. Or they chose not to do 8-Ball Deluxe, because instead they decided they were going to do Cube or Wizard. Don't know why. I do. No, I do know why. And this is leading all into why if you see Farsight at one of these expos that you should go talk to them.
    11:58
    So Farsight chose 8-Ball Deluxe because they did what a lot of people do who have never played a particular machine. And that is they looked at YouTube videos. Oh, you mean they chose Cubole Wizard? Cubole Wizard, yes. Yes. So they'd done the poll. They knew that 8-Ball Deluxe came in first. They looked at it. I'm sure this conversation went, oh, that's for Pool Q or Pool Ball themed table. That's kind of... Isn't there another Pool Ball table? Yeah, wasn't there that? Hey, wait, there's that other game. Micro Riot Soft made it. And it has the exact same name as ours, which is Pinball Arcade. And, hey, in Pinball Arcade, there was that cue ball wizard. So I think they looked it up on videos and they went, hey, look, it's DMD. It's a Gottlieb, which we need to get more Gottliebs into the game.
    12:46
    So let's do that one. Yeah, and then I think they looked at the video and they just kind of went, hey, this looks like it's more fun than some boring stand-up target or drop target bonanza. And that's what they went for. They might have played – I think they had played Q-Ball Wizard at an expo or something like that. But here's the thing. They never had played A-Ball Deluxe. Yeah. So flashback to last January of 2016, and I'd gone to the Arcade Expo 2.0. Farsight had their booth there. Norman and Mike were there, like I'm sure they're at Replay FX right now. And I was talking to Norman, and we decided to go out onto the floor, play some machines.
    13:35
    And before we even walked out onto the floor, I was like, so have you played A-Ball Deluxe yet? And he was like, no. I'm like, boom, let's go. Let's go do it. So I walked him over to A-Ball Deluxe, showed him the table. He had a look at it. He was still just kind of like, I don't see what the big deal is, but okay, I'll mess with it. And he had two games on it, turned to me and was like, I get it now. I understand.
    14:01
    So I'm not saying that I necessarily influenced him or influenced Firesight to do A-Ball Deluxe, but I kind of am I take credit You help them understand that it a good game Yeah because Norman is the purchaser of pinball machines He also producer on the game And if you can get Norman excited about something as a producer of the game, he holds a little more sway over what direction they're going to go on certain tables and machines. So, yeah. So if you see these guys in any of these expos, drag them out. Go play a game with them. I mean, they're great guys to hang out with and talk with, but they're also fun to play pinball with.
    14:46
    Go show them what you're excited about and ask them what they're excited about so that you can see for yourself why it is that they're excited over something. And then you can come onto the forum and spill the beans.
    14:58
    Yeah, I would love to do it. I would love if I was in the U.S. to go over and just go, yep, I'm going. Wherever you're going, I'm going too. Yeah. Because you've got really good pinball events over there. so I would like that would be cool so why don't we go ahead and talk about Big Hurt then yeah let's go and do that so yeah Big Hurt was out I've been playing it there's some things I'm pleased to see about it and that is that they have removed the center post from between now you said that was prototype with center post or was that production run? I think, well, I've seen tables out there with the center post in it. I've played on one, but in fast lights they don't have it, and that's a good thing because it's too easy anyhow, the table, and having that in the middle is basically like a snooze fest. So you've really got to have that in there for the game to be at least half risky.
    15:59
    So that's good to see. They also, what else did they do that was notable? And they have done some, on mobile, they've done some lighting up the back as well, which is not normally expected on mobile.
    16:19
    And it is, they've sort of lit up the back sort of scoops, you know, where the ball goes around left field and right field. Yeah.
    16:30
    They have actually lit those up sort of environmentally. and that looks really good for mobile. It actually looks really quite convincing up there.
    16:44
    I have noticed some weird things going on that were on mobile at least and that was that the Big Hurt sign on the scoreboard has been reversed, which is weird. Okay. So it's actually been flipped. Okay. And then up in the pop bumper area, there's a little saucer that the ball can fall into.
    17:07
    That's lost all of its assets, so it's just a big sort of hole, basically, with no sort of red cup in it. Okay.
    17:17
    And there's also, we were talking about posterizing a couple of episodes ago, There's posterizing all over the table as well, which I don't really think was there in the beta. I didn't really notice it as much. Or maybe I expected it to be in the beta and cleaned up before it was released, but it wasn't. So those are the three things that I saw that were a little bit weird. And, of course, having pro mode, you zoom on the table, you get like a helicopter view of it looking down. When you go over the back where the glove rotates, there isn't a cutout where the glove actually rotates. is just a solid bit of wood. So it's just floating there in magic land.
    17:59
    My opinion is that, sure, you don't actually see it in-game. If you're just playing the game, you don't see the thing going there. But if you can see it, it needs to be right. And if you have pro mode, you can see it. Therefore, it needs to be right.
    18:13
    So they're the sort of things I've observed about it. My impressions have been A, and this is just after a day of playing with it not terrible for a godly premiere It's certainly more enjoyable than I always want to say Reno 9-1-1, Rescue 9-1-1 and TX Sector It's definitely better than those two and miles better than Class of 1812, which I just can't stand so yeah I do also I'm not thrilled with the artwork on the table but I also recognize it's kind of like with all the Sega tables how they had this really horrible silk screening that they used and so it kind of hid the insert lights like they were supposed to shine through the silk screening and instead it always just kind of turned out muddy and it wasn't really nice and crisp graphics at all. It didn't look like they were painted on. It was just... So I'm not thrilled, but that's again, that's not a slide on Farsight, that's a slide on God of War Premiere.
    19:28
    I'm having... I managed to get through all the standard goals without too much even knowing what to do on the table. Now I'm into the wizard goals.
    19:40
    Trying to figure out the table itself without, I always like to mess with the table before looking at the rules, and I'm still trying to figure out how to light certain aspects of the table to advance modes or advance endings.
    19:54
    But, yeah, I mean, in general, it's not bad. So, yeah, with Big Hurt, the one thing that I'm not disappointed with is I like that it keeps track of your home runs and the catches. It's got that, I feel that it has at least embraced the sports theme of it and given you something that has to do with baseball. Yeah. I think actually for me, I'm not really a big fan of baseball, but it seems to have the theme wrapped up pretty well. Like you've got all the thing, all the terminology that you would hear. Yeah, you've got innings that you're advancing. You've got base hits filling up the bases. Then you can do your grand slams, your home runs. You're trying to get to the World Series for your wizard goal or wizard mode. So, I mean, yeah, it seems to have really captured a lot of that, which is fun. And plus, on top of that, it just goes into what we've been referring to season six here of Pinball Arcade, which is the season of sports. The wide world of sports ball. So we've had Indy 500. We have Big Hurt. We're going to have 8-Ball Deluxe. I've compiled a list of what I feel are the potentials so we've got if you count 8 Ball Deluxe and then we know AG Soccer is coming and we know that we have Doctor Who which we really got to figure out how to make Doctor Who a reason for being in the season of sports so that leaves 5 more tables if we can knock out the rest of them in sports and my list of potentials is Roller Games, NBA Fast Break, Banzai Run, Radical, World Cup Soccer 300, Vector, Monday Night Football, Blackwater 100 and what the hell, Evil Cone Evil.
    21:48
    Because it's a bit old school. It's a bit old school and hey we do have to have an EM, right? Isn't that the idea that we're going to have an EM? Absolutely. I think that would be a great EM to put in the collection. yeah that sounds like a pretty good lineup really why don't we bring in a caller a listener who goes by the name of Andrew and let's ask him his opinion of this good idea hey Andrew do you hear us do you hear me yeah ah there we go yes we do hey so you follow us on Twitter I actually as you noticed I got brought on blab from a friend of mine and actually signed up through Twitter and stumbled across this. Sorry, I just ran inside and out. I actually stumbled across it right after you had finished the show.
    22:44
    So I'm a pinball nut and I'm kind of right over here by my few here. So right now he's showing us Ripley's, Metallica, and is that a medieval man? One of the remakes. Oh, the remakes. Nice. Nothing wrong with the remakes. very nice that is very nice i mean especially since ripley's i absolutely it's one of my favorites in pinball arcade and uh you can never go my second ripley's and i i won't get rid of that game how does it uh how does it play compared to pinball i played a bunch of them and like i said this being my second one this one plays spot on to pinball arcade and And I bought this one with 80 plays about eight months ago, which doesn't have. No.
    23:38
    That's incredible. I don't know how much you'd be able to see, but it's, I mean, it's flawless. I put a cliffy on the hole there, but there's nowhere under the hole. It's, did a bunch of LEDs, you know. Yeah, it's looking pretty nice. Just to give you an idea, this is kind of a telltale sign right there that there's nowhere to go. They're coming our way.
    23:58
    Wow. That's pretty slick. Yeah, so listeners, if you were on Blab right now, you'd be staring at an absolutely gorgeous replay.
    24:06
    Why aren't you here? You should be here. So, yeah, I've been doing pinball for a while, probably going on four years. and I just tried the Ghostbusters Ellie two nights ago.
    24:23
    Yeah? I got one in, and then another friend of mine up the road I'm going to tonight to try the Hobbit, so that'll be interesting. You've got some good friends. How were the bumpers on the Ghostbusters Ellie? The Magnus slings, if you get them dialed in. Yeah, the Magnus slings. The biggest thing that I noticed at first, they didn't feel like they were responsive at all, and they just didn't seem like they were working.
    24:46
    And I'm a stickler for setup. So, you know, this guy didn't even have it leveled when I got over there. So we went ahead and leveled it. And I also just really adjusted the switches so they were so close that, I mean, you could just breathe on them almost and it would fire. So then it was perfect. I mean, the thing about it was that, you know, they seem like normal slings, but they do something weird every now and again. Like it'll grab the ball and just spin it in a circle and then fling it off sometimes. Right. It's got a little bit of programmability in there. It's neat. It definitely changes the, you know, the whole feel of the game. Because I played pro and I played the LE.
    25:29
    The LE and the premium play, you know, night and day different. Oh, okay. So it was interesting. Ghostbusters is tough. I mean, the side drains are extremely brutal. The center drain, because the flippers have a wider gap, are tough. He had bought some kind of a mod that had a center post that went between the two flippers, and that made it worlds better, just more forgiving, but it made it more like a normal table instead of something you drain every three seconds.
    26:03
    Yeah, that would be better. You messaged here saying that you can't wait for the Stern Pinball Arcade. What is it that you're looking forward to most? Just the fact that you get to play tables that you don't usually get your hands on? Or is it just seeing how it translates digitally? Well, how it translates digitally. I mean, I've pretty much got a chance to play anything I've ever wanted to play, with the exception of maybe Big Lebowski at this point.
    26:28
    I live down in Tennessee, and I go to an auction that's every two months or so local here. They have a ton of pins. I got a handful of collectors locally that, you know, all the top new pins that come out, they usually pick them up. I paint houses and stuff. Nice. So I don't, you know, me buying pins is kind of, you know, I was fortunate enough to have, I only have three grand into my entire collection, to give you an idea. Wow. So how did you swing that? I bought and sold and did services on other people's machines and mods over the course of four years or so. I just kind of never spent a dime other than putting it back into pinball.
    27:13
    So, yeah, it worked out really well. I was following the market really hot and heavy there for a while when it was rolling. So I'd say I'd always make at least $500 on a machine every time I bought and sold it. Sometimes it would be every other week.
    27:28
    so now i'm a two-year-old and i don't do that yes we know that uh very well how that goes what is it what is the uh the table i mean obviously having a medieval madness that's always on a lot of people's bucket list for the must-have machine uh what is the table that you're eyeballing that you're just like, I must get? Well, Ripley's, obviously, that's been one that I've bought and sold. I never get sick of that, and that's probably one I'll keep forever.
    28:04
    Metallica's been great. I'd really like to play more. I play Lebowski, because it looks great. I just haven't, I don't know how much, I don't know enough about it, you know.
    28:17
    Medieval Madness, Attack from Mars, Theater of Magic, those are all my staples from when I was growing up. okay um okay i mean picking one is pretty hard hard to do you know metallica is so deep i be honest with you i had metallica for two years now and i just still learning it well you love that table Every time I put my hands on it I think it fantastic It great man And I don know if you seen this hammer or not but I got one of these custom hammers
    28:45
    If you can see that. It's different than the normal hammer? They made this guy out in California made 30 of them. And I was fortunate to get my hands on one through another local collector that had sold his machine and pulled it off and set it aside. And I had him work it into a deal with a Johnny Mnemonic. All right.
    29:06
    Because I wonder if it's one of the guys that's in my club. I know that one of the guys is in my pinball league. I'm in Orange County in the Orange County Pinball League that's in Southern Cal. and uh like the guy that runs our our club is one of the makers of uh color dmd okay this guy yeah he probably he's working yeah yeah yeah yep yep he's in our league all right that's why i was like i wonder if it's one of our guys because i know there's a few guys that have done some mods on metallica that have been pretty sweet uh that have been done on This is the other big one that I did on, and I don't know if you can see too well, is the side rails. Oh, yeah, they look good. I have them powder coated. Oh, yeah. If I can get it. I can't quite see on the camera facing that way. It goes all the way up the side. Yeah, that looks pretty nice. Which is pretty awesome. Yeah. I think it's safe to say that looks very metal. Yeah, I went there.
    30:09
    Well, hey, thanks for joining us, Andrew. Drew, certainly good to talk pinball to anybody and everybody, and we appreciate you following us. Absolutely. Feel free to comment any time. We do it every Saturday, same time, 3 p.m. West Coast. Figured do the math for everybody else.
    30:28
    I appreciate it, guys. Thanks, Andrew. All right. Thanks, man. Bye-bye. So, see, folks, we do take calls occasionally, so long as they're based on pinball and not like what we had last week, which was a screaming black lady that called us misogynistic pigs because we were two white guys.
    30:46
    It was a funny time. Yeah, that was a load of laughs, I must say. So did we have other pinball business to approach? We covered Big Hurt. We covered 8-Ball Deluxe.
    31:06
    Oh, the head-to-head. It's opening up on Android. Thank you. Exactly. And it's also in beta right now. It went to public beta on Steam. So right now, some people may not know how to access this, but when you open up your Steam library, right-click on Pinball Arcade. At the very bottom, it'll say Properties. Click on Properties. It'll open up a tab. Across the tab, there'll be something that says Beta. If you select on beta, it'll give you what the betas that are currently running in Pinball Arcade are. One of them is called the public beta. Select that, and you will be able to now be a beta tester on the head-to-head mode that Farsight has just put in. They made some improvements to the user interface. So you still have the four boxes up top that say last played, newest table, table of the month, or free table of the month. and random. Then directly below that, it now says Arcade. So if you click that, it'll automatically bring up all the tables that are available, which is nice because a lot of people were confused about how to get into the tables because it was that little tiny icon at the upper left of the screen.
    32:25
    But also, so there wound up being four tabs on there, but one of the tabs is head-to-head. For a while now, that thing's been on mobile. It's been, hey, coming soon. This is going to be a thing. And it's been like that ever since we got the new UI on Android. But now it's actually going to be a thing on July 31st Central Time, 3 p.m.
    32:48
    And they're doing it for Steam also. Same thing, July 31st. It's 3 p.m. Central, so West Coast, that'd be 1 p.m.
    32:57
    East Coast, that'd be 4 p.m. yeah they're trying to get as many people on to it as possible now obviously by the time this podcast gets posted that date will have passed but I do encourage everybody to go check it out we got to try and make this thing work to work out all the kinks so that it functions in a way that we're all happy with I've tried I've gone on a couple of times just in the past day seeing if anybody is there I've been able to find one person in the queue and at one point it connected me with the person but it never let us have a table go. So I don't know what the issue was.
    33:38
    So those are the kind of things that they're trying to work out to figure out what's happening within the game.
    33:44
    So yeah, everybody, I very much encourage you to get in on the public beta and mess around. So just for the record, this head-to-head open beta is only for Steam. In the newsletter it said Android and iOS beta begins next week, that means the beta begins, not the actual head-to-head ability to do it. Because if that would mean that they would be having to release a build, a beta build today, so that we could actually do that. And it's a weekend there, so I very much doubt that's going to happen. So I think mobile users will get their opportunity in the coming weeks to actually test this out, which will be pretty cool. Yeah, I mean, I'm certainly looking forward to it. pinball is social. It's more fun to play against other people. There's just no doubt about it. Just like Gary said, it's fun to compete. Yeah, it's fun to compete. The three modes currently they have are high score, 5 minute, and 10 minute. I don't plan on playing high score. No way.
    34:45
    5 minute and 10 minute. That's great. Bring that on. That'll be awesome. Other things that have been spreading my attention. So I've been watching a couple of crappy movies this past week.
    35:02
    There's a video store that's been around me for years and years and years. I never bothered stepping foot into it. And then the Batman versus Superman Ultimate Edition came out. I didn't see this in the theater, but I was like, if I'm going to watch this movie, I'm going to watch it with the extra half an hour of stuff so that I don't feel like I'm missing anything. And then I found out that the old Redbox, they will not carry that version because they don't carry any special edition stuff. So I was like, all right, I got to go find this thing. So I go into the store, and not only do they have that, but it turns out that they carry a whole slew of 3D Blu-rays. I was like, sweet, because I never get to watch. Right. So next thing I know, I come home with four movies.
    35:45
    Well, the sway of 3D got me to watch the Point Break remake. Oh, it's 3D. Oh, really? Yeah, great. Yeah, what a... Slightly soulless.
    36:04
    The funny thing is, is the entire time, because in Point Break, it was just a bunch of surfers, right? In this movie, it's a bunch of extreme athletes. So they're doing motocross riding. They're doing skydiving. They're doing wingsuit. They're doing rock climbing. And the whole time, we're like going, boy, it's like no fear.
    36:27
    It's no fear. They didn't remake Point Break. They remade No Fear and turned this pinball machine into an actual arcade game. I mean, into a movie.
    36:38
    Yeah, it was pretty terrible. And then the other 3D movie that I watched that was really good 3D, The movie itself was just kind of eh. It was a movie called The Walk, which is about this French guy, true story, who back in when the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York opened,
    37:01
    actually before they opened, he wound up stretching a tightrope line between the two buildings, so 110 stories up, and then proceeded to cross them. I remember seeing shorts for that. It didn't get much press over here at all. So it was a... Right. And there was a... Well, this was back in the 70s that this happened. I'm not quite sure exactly what the date was. There was a documentary. It's one of the movies of the year. Yeah, there was a documentary.
    37:27
    Yeah, the documentary a few years ago was called Man on a Wire. That was really good. I really liked that.
    37:34
    The movie was a little bit kind of over the top with the acting. I mean, the guy himself is over the top, I mean, even in the documentary. But then having an actor do it too, just kind of like, I don't know. There's something odd about it. But the 3D in it, spectacular. So it was a reference 3D movie for your list now, is it? It would be a reference 3D just because it gives you that sense of verdict. There's all sorts of, you know, the camera being directly behind the guy, and then it just kind of rises, cranes up, and looks straight down 110 stories. And then at one point, the camera zooms all the way down, you know, like it's falling all the way down to the crowd below to get a reaction shot. And I mean, there was some really good stuff and it did. So within 3D, there's what they call before the window and beyond the window. Before the window is the kind of stuff that pokes out at the audience, goes, ah, and then beyond the window is the depth.
    38:32
    And a lot of the people that do 3D, they feel that the before the window is too much of a gimmick, that it takes audiences out of it. But the thing is, there's certain filmmakers that have figured out a way to do it where it's an enhancement, and it doesn't stand out. It doesn't become that, oh, there's my 3D moment. And what it does is it sucks you in. It makes you feel like you're sticking your head through the window and then pulling your head back out.
    39:01
    Cameron did it really brilliantly with Avatar. Yes, oh, man, that was amazing. Ridley Scott did it brilliantly with Prometheus. the movie Gravity flawlessly worked it in there and so this movie too there's certain moments that just like his pull, his balancing pull will just be because they're doing a side profile shot of him the balancing pull is just sticking right out there in front of you there's also a way of framing for 3D that is a skill in and of itself there are certain shots that you do in a normal movie, typically they call them over the shoulder.
    39:38
    And that destroys the illusion in a 3D movie. You either have to have somebody completely off the screen or completely on the screen so that they're confined within, and that sells the illusion of where you are as opposed to having somebody just all seen chopped. It destroys the illusion for your eyes.
    39:59
    And not many people know how to do that well. So this movie did it spectacularly. Again, know your directors that know what the heck they're doing with this stuff. But like I said, it wasn't that great of a movie, but it was great reference. So it kind of brings us back to what we were doing a few podcasts ago with the – Tables you'd recommend as reference. Top ten. Yeah. Exactly.
    40:25
    But then I watched a movie last night that turns out it was made in your backyard there, Joe. Oh, yeah. Over on the Gold Coast. a movie called San Andreas, which I then feel completely insulted that it was made in Australia because San Andreas Fault runs through Los Angeles all the way up to San Francisco and should have been made here entirely in California. Yes, so they could yet again destroy the Golden Gate Bridge. Like they always do in movies. Yes, yet again. That bridge. Yet again.
    40:56
    This was an entirely silly, silly movie. It's about the big one. Yeah, it's got the rock in it. Yeah, with the rock. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. But, you know, you're talking about a 9.5 earthquake, and these things are just completely making all the buildings crumble. The thing about Los Angeles is most of our buildings have been built for earthquakes and to handle sway. Now, I would expect some of the buildings to suffer damage. What I don't expect is the buildings to just fall over like a tree. I'll say that. I just I don't buy that. I mean, maybe I'm wrong. But and, you know, what we locals have all come to understand is that not being a possibility. Maybe it actually scientifically is. Somehow I doubt it, though, because that wouldn't make an interesting movie. You know, buildings falling does make for more interesting. Yeah. But man, this thing was a green screen. Oh, yeah. I mean, oh, there was some really shoddy CG that you're just like, I mean, like, for instance, obviously San Francisco being surrounded, well, not surrounded, but having so much water around it. You get a 9.5, 9.6 earthquake. Well, now you're going to cause a tsunami, right? So tsunami waves are going to come in and just flood everything. The interesting thing that I found was the water never receded. like I would think the water would surge flood and then retreat back as a wave would again maybe I don't know my science of tsunamis but instead they just played it out as everything is now flooded and again if as Jared's been to San Francisco and he can tell you San Francisco lots of hills ups and downs that would have to be a pretty huge tsunami to flood right well I mean I can buy a wave cascading over it all but then the water going to drain right back out It's not going to stay as standing water.
    43:00
    Here, it stayed as standing water. So that then they could have them in a boat driving through the city. Yeah. That's where your shoddy CG was because... I love it. clearly they did not flood a city so they could drive a boat instead it was here let's put these actors on a boat that's on a gimbal and we'll film them against a green or blue screen and then we'll cg the world around them but it just looked bad and uh and and they had all this debris i mean like massive amounts of debris in the water right and they're driving right through it with an outboard motor and i'm like i'm sorry your outboard motor's gonna seize it's completely knocked off the mount as you drive through right yeah right as you've got concrete and rebar you're popping up everywhere um i knew i was in for it though the very very first scene they've got this gal driving down uh you know on a windy road probably in maholen drive and uh they did the typical like an oncoming cars coming at her and she oh there's something in my purse that i must need at this exact moment even though i saw a car coming and then she looks oh no no she drove just fine and then her phone rings and and it's a text and she answers the text and nope still doesn't crash into anything and then an earthquake hits and a rock slide happens and smashes her car and sends her sent you know flying over the edge but um but which which basically is foreshadowing in the movie that anybody that's slightly bad is going to have the earthquake taken out it's gonna be anything else right so we all got the earthquake right um but anyway so they have her car go over the hill.
    44:42
    It's entirely a CG car because the physics of the car just looked false. We've seen enough cards in movies before there was CG of what it looks like for a car falling over the hill that your eye immediately goes, nope, that's wrong.
    44:58
    So yeah, it was a crap fest that was made in Australia. Probably because it was cheap to make it here. Oh, it would be much cheaper, you know, stage space there.
    45:12
    Because they probably would have done it on the old coast, which would have been through the movie lots out the back of Movie World, which still are there. They used to actually run tours through them. They had, like, soundstage and all that sort of stuff, a little bit like Universal Studios did. But they shut that down when they were caught on fire, I think. So now they actually do have, like, professional movie spaces out there now, like lots. But, yeah, I don't know that a lot of movies actually use them anymore here. I think we're becoming too expensive as a destination for movies.
    45:48
    Yeah, Australia had the incentives going for a little while. And the problem with Australia is you have to get your actors and crew to Australia. That's expensive.
    46:01
    Yeah, it costs a little bit of money there. I mean I know that you guys have film crew there that can handle it but all the equipment has to be shipped in and especially for a big budget movie it's just a lot of importing it is, there's a lot of importing so yeah I'm sorry that we managed to pump out a dodgy movie about earthquakes but it wasn't our fault, it was the movie no I don't blame you entirely I was the director.
    46:35
    So you guys haven't had to suffer through my movie talk in a long time. That was pretty painless. We saved it for the end. That was pretty painless. I'll just edit it out. I will say that Earthshaker is much better than Soundwave.
    46:51
    Oh, yeah, right. I was going through last night, and I was flicking past Earthshaker. I was nearly about to play it last night, but I decided to go and check out some of the other tables that they did. resource bumps in. So, Gorgar has the proper HUD now. It actually has the HUD that's, like, themed. It looks like an Elven numeric. Oh, yeah, they said that they were going to fix that. Yeah, so that's looking pretty good.
    47:20
    And I played, I think, Black Hole for some reason. I just felt like, yeah, let's go play that. I went, man. And they've done, they've actually finally put in the, the little saucer cup into that on the left-hand side where you shoot it up into the saucer. That actually now has some art there. It makes it look like an actual saucer, not just a hole.
    47:43
    So we got one in there, and we lost it from Big Hurt. They only have a few. They only have a few of these digital assets. They can't, you know, copy and paste.
    47:56
    So, yeah, that's what I found last night when I was playing it. I tried out the random button, and it put me on a couple of tables that I hadn't played in a while, so I was like, oh, okay, cool. And then I hit it, and it threw me onto Black Knight, and I went no. And then it threw me onto Class of 1812, and I went no. And then it threw me onto Black Knight again, and I was like, what are you trying to tell me? No. and it makes me kind of want some way of being able to tell the game never suggest these I should random you on favorites only maybe that would be a good idea get me to actually go through and favorite stuff that's for sure because I'm not bothering like going nuts in Black Knight until that time Black Knight is emulated and they make it better. That's what it is. I'm trying to think of another reason why you ought to play it, but there isn't really that much compelling reason to.
    49:01
    Yeah. So next week, actually the day after our podcast next week, I got the pinball league going again, and the good news is it's at this guy's house. It's only like seven minutes from me. Should be able to make that. Unfortunately, I don't know the guy, I mean, other than in passing, so it's not like I have an open invite to go over to his house whenever and play all of his machines. I got to work on that. My people skills aren't that great. You should totally sort that out when you're over there. Say, hey, look, I'm only seven minutes away. Maybe I could bring a slab over. Right.
    49:34
    But anyway, they did say that he just got in a Hobbit. No, excuse me, Wizard of Oz and Game of Thrones. So that'll be good to get some plays in on those without having to dump. Bring your headphones for Wizard of Oz. you should really do it. Yeah. Decent ones too. Yeah. Cause you'll love it. I do. I don't think I own decent headphones. Bring some headphones along.
    50:02
    I'm, I'm wearing my decent headphones, my, my iPod or iPhone. I have, I have wireless, uh, seven or 5.1 headphones for my home theater, but they're wireless and they, no, they, They kind of need their receiver dock to send the signal from. Yeah, that's right.
    50:23
    You will like it if you can hear Wizard of Oz through headphones. They've actually got the headphone port on the door, which I believe they do. Yeah. So, yes, it's very good. Well, gang, we have made it through yet another podcast. We appreciate you all for listening. Why don't you give us a follow like Andrew has done on Twitter and knew then that, hey, our podcast was being recorded live. He came in. He requested that he talk about some pinball. We let him in, and that segment happened. So to do that, follow us at Blockade on Twitter, or you can follow at Jared Morgz or at Shut Your Traps. Either of those three, you'll find out that when we're broadcasting and when we mention pinball and stuff like that. That's right. next week we'll be talking about pinball things in case you haven't figured out we never know what the hell we're going to be talking about the next week because that's how you should do it exactly it's more spontaneous that way if you are having an issue with the fact that we've never yet been able to do a half an hour long podcast and we keep on doing these 45-minute to an hour-long sessions, do what I do sometimes and listen to our podcast at one-and-a-half times speed. The jokes come much quicker. The banter is much livelier. And, you know, I actually – it's my preferred method now. I would probably be unintelligible because I speak fast anyhow.
    52:01
    More than I normally am. The only weird part for me is my laugh winds up sounding like a chipmunk. We should put it out here. It doesn't actually speed the pitch up. It speeds the tempo of it up. So it still sounds funny as hell.
    52:16
    For the record, I listen to all American podcasts at 1.5 speed because you guys all speak too slow. True facts.
    52:33
    Hey, why don't you go ahead and check out our T-shirts at represent.com forward slash blockade dash shirt.
    52:43
    Somebody pointed out to me that the forward slash actually has a true vocabulary name. It's something like a vergine or something like that, but God forbid if I used that instead of saying forward slash because everybody would be like, I typed in vergine and nothing happened. I've never heard of it being referred to as that.
    53:00
    I don't even know if that's exactly the word I know. I just remember it started with a V. Somebody showed it to me at work the other day.
    53:07
    I was like, no, that's just a forward slash. I'm sorry. I don't care what vocabulary it was. Although I do wonder about the current generation, what they would think if you said, oh, push the pound sign.
    53:20
    Would they know what the hell the pound sign is anymore? Because it's a hashtag. Yeah, do the hashtag sign.
    53:27
    Yeah. But I still get that on, you know, when you put on hold or you're leaving a message or whatever, and the automatic operator says, push pound sign when you're done. I can just see some 17-year-old looking at his phone going like,
    53:44
    I don't see, is that a British pound? Yeah, it's a bit, yeah. Oh, dear. I'm just going down the rabbit hole. I'm on Wikipedia.
    53:59
    Oh, no. Oh, I'm on Wikipedia. I'm just five clicks away from total annihilation. Well, in that case, we should spare you that misery before you go down there.
    54:13
    A solidus. A forward slash. No. No, that's not what they called it. There you go. Hey, you can't trust everything that people say off the cuff either.
    54:26
    Are you saying I'm making something up? No, no, I'm saying your friend is. No, he showed me. It was on his phone. It was from the internet.
    54:36
    Alrighty, gang. We're going to let you all go. Thanks again for listening. See you later. Bye-bye. WizardAmusement.com, the West Coast leader in classic pinball. Makers of custom pinball shooter rods and buyer specifications. Swap out your standard ball plunger with something themed to your specific table. Installs in less than five minutes with no custom tools. even if you don't own the table looks great as a pinball memento to admire prices start at $39 but mention blockade podcast and receive 10% off your order wizardamusement.com sales, restoration, customization don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that blockade is delivered to we can't approve unless you tell us how now stop listening and play some pinball
    55:28
    Oh, wait, here we go. Where am I talking to? Right here. This could be edited out, right? Yes. Okay. Totally. Okay, because...
    55:40
    No, I want to sit. Yes, you may or may not be in the outtake at all, so no. Hi, this is Andrea Frevis.
    55:53
    A.K.A. Ben's Belly. Oh, I sound horrible. No, you don't. I don't like that. It's a little too bad. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about the echo. You'll get used to it. You're hot. I know.
    56:05
    Yeah. Okay, so what's wrong with you? Oh, I sound. Just bring me back to him when he's icing. Radio's not for everyone. Yeah, she doesn't like her own voice. Radio's not for everyone. Yeah, radio's not for everyone. Well, I think it would be fine if she wasn't hearing the loop back into the headpiece. It's not happening to me. It's like I'm yelling at myself! I want your ass! See what it feels like? Right, yeah. Can you go see what it feels like? To be yelled at by you? I don't want it.
    57:01
    I reserve that for other people.