communities take shelter don's pinball podcast is back to descend upon you with a tornado twisting twist tie of terror to your face also i played harry potter don't want to talk about it let's go so kaboom my name is don garrison good to meet you fellow listener episode 195 is coming at you I've had a great week, man. I played some Harry Potter. I visited a new location, which I would like to highlight. I am sending Kong banana rods around the world, and the orders completely astound me. And we're going to get into that and more. We're leading up to a week of Predator. The hits just don't stop hitting, man. What did Smash Mouth say? The game starts coming and they don't stop coming? You know, they're rushing out of money in my wallet, man, and I know that I am not alone. But I would like to start this show off not with a pinball play review, not with previews of Predator, even though we're getting tons of teases. I want to start with a location review because something cool happened to me two days ago. It was Father's Day, I believe, according to the Gregorian calendar. And I found myself on a road trip with the family as one does. We were heading to Duluth, Minnesota to go get Dululu in Duluth. Hell of a town, by the way. Hell of a town. on the way we're going through inadvertently i didn't realize this ahead of time through the town of danbury wisconsin and i got to stop by yellow river pinball now i've seen this place pop up in my facebook feed and from what i recalled it was someplace out in the northern reaches of wisconsin uh where there were a heck of a lot of american pinball machines to play of all things and then i knew they had like a location you could stop by and play but i didn't look at any details or anything so i'm driving through this town i just stopped off at like this awesome BP station that was loaded with everything from like, like actual fur caps made with like actual animals to like every kind of road gum you would need. Got some fuel, got some diet cokes, we hit the road. And then like my mom is sitting in the backseat. And she's like, Whoa, what's that pinball place we just drove by? And I'm like, what are you talking about? We're in Danbury, Wisconsin. There's like nothing out here. It's like ATV trails and side by sides, man. I'm like the only actual vehicle on the road. And then I flip a Yui and go back and sure enough, here's just like this desolated little main street of tiny little shops that probably closed in the 50s. And then there's this place called Yellow River Pinball sitting there in this hut right next to the park and an ATV trail and all kinds of crap. I think it was a giant deer statue out front, too. It was totally northern Wisconsin. We're up in the Northwoods here. It's like two hours from my house or something. So I'm like, hey, fam, anybody wants to go in? Come on in. Everybody else sit in the car. And, of course, teenager wanted to stay on the phone. Everybody else wanted to hang out in there. So mom and I, we go into this place, right? I walk in the door and like here are 12 pinball machines in a tiny little room, about five people in there, some kids running around. And I'm like greeted at the door when I walk through with two Barrio barbecue challenges, both working, both in fully operational operation captivity capacity, ready and waiting for you. So they had a standard edition and that limited edition Barrios barbecue challenge, side by side, a galactic tank. There was like two galactic tank forces. One was working, one wasn't, I believe. There was some old Gottliebs. Like, it was the most eclectic collection of machines that I'd ever happened across. So I walk in there, and I know I got the fams in the car. We're supposed to be heading to Duluth. So I'm taking a little unscheduled side trip, but I want to play some damn pinball, right? So a lady greets me when I come in. I'm like, hey, this is this place. You know, I'd seen your Facebook ads. I didn't put two and two together exactly where you're at, but here I am. Are these on Coindrop? Is it pay one price? What's the deal? And this floored me. Lady said, no, they're all on free play, and we have a tip jar on the way in, you know, if you want to keep the games operating. I was like, what the heck kind of place is this? I happened by just at the right time. I think they're only open two days a week, Saturdays and Sundays, and it's like a free play arcade. Just throw some tips in the cup. So I threw in my five bucks, and then we went around playing some games. We had some Cactus Canyons there. We played an Elton John CE. like my mom of all things got to play like two burial barbecue challenges, got to see a galactic tank force, there was a ninja eclipse right inside the door, like Turner Pinball, like number three of a hundred, like what is this place I don't think, I'm trying to think in my head, I'm not sure we saw any stern machines in this little pinball room there was a room a little bit bigger, just full of machines getting repaired, I saw Gottliebs torn down I saw fishtails that a customer had dropped off just a bunch of 70s got leaves it was nuts man like of all things to see in the middle of this town in Wisconsin I was just going to drive right on by in fact I did and my mom called it out we did a little turnaround so I got to take my mom and she got to play Elton John CE and got to play Barry Hill's Barbecue Challenge and I'm like this game here this Barry Hill game is so rare it was the death of a company and so I kind of find out I was talking to a lady a little bit after that and they are also distributor solely from American Pinball. So all they sell are American Pinball machines. So this place is, I guess they're not distributors anymore. I asked her when the next game's coming out, and she says, we're just waiting. And I'm like, dang it, hope Cuphead is awesome. Because that's, of course, the rumored game that came out is going to be forthcoming. And last I heard, several months ago, that was still the plan. Who knows at this point? Who knows? But what a gem of a place, man. And if you're ever in the region, it's like northwestern Wisconsin, heading towards the Minnesota border. If you're within like 40 miles of this place, go check it out. If you're there on a weekend between the hours of 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., I think, pop by, play some pinball, and throw some tips in the jar. We were there for like 10 minutes. We played two or three games, and then we had to beat it. But I did get to play Ninja Eclipse and two Barrio BBQ challenges on location. They exist. Holy crap. Still, the stickiest shooter rods. My mom was like, look, you've got to send them a new shooter rod for that game. It's so sticky. And I'm like, I know, I know, right? Maybe there's barbecue sauce on it. No, they're all like that. Even Galactic Tank Force is like that. We didn't even get into all that business. But what a cool location. Man, what a cool location. Wanted to give them the shoutiest of shout-outs to go check that place out. Should we get to it? Should we get to it? Or should I do a little commercial bump? I've got these King Kong shooter rods half a banana, makes me laugh makes other people laugh too, you guys are ordering like crazy I'm cranking more out I just filled up the web store again so far, this was weird this week, I sent a shooter rod to Santa Rosa, California of all places, which is like my former town in California that I lived in, like that skate park I grew up at, the malls I went to the junior college I went to for five years the street where I used to live in my car all of it was there, Santa Rosa, California and boom, some dude orders a shooter rod from there, so I shipped that out this week and I was like, this is awesome man I've come full circle, I've gone from living in my car on the street, to being a banana vendor to the entire country fantastic, and then today, I got an order to ship one out to the little town, this floored me little town of Lewiston, Idaho almost said Wisconsin Lewiston, Idaho, which was also a hometown of mine. Actually, it's where I lived prior to moving here to Wisconsin. Like a town I never knew existed until I answered like a job search ad and then looked it up. And it's this tiny little town. It's in a river valley nestled on the Snake River and Clearwater River where their convergence is. Like Lewis and Clark came through here. Pocahontas has a statue in the town. It's right on the Washington State border. the town of Lewiston is in Idaho. You cross a river and you're in Clarkston. And I lived there a year until I put it together that like, oh, they were named after Lewis and Clark. Lewiston, Clarkston. Oh, and that's why there's statues here. Okay, now it makes sense. Like, that's how fast my brain works. Anyway, so they're getting a Kong Shooter Rod. This is nuts, man. I love it. They're only $60. And you can put them in any Stern game you want. Put them in a Galactic Tank Force if you want. I think that'd be fun. Hell, ask me. If you've got a Galactic tank for us and you want a Kong shooter rod, I'll make you a fudge covered one. How about that? And I'll send that out to you. A chocolate dip banana version of this. I'm having so much fun with it. And you guys keep ordering them. I did make some flipper toppers for Kong. I got the two barrel banana flippers for the main flippers, one with some shrubberies on it to match the jungle, the right upper flipper. Left upper flipper has a floating log and a crate that's in a river because that's a river section. And I threw together a start button, which made me laugh because it's like a skull with cross bananas instead of cross bones. It's a whole vibe, man. That's an add-on for only $40, man. You can get that at $100, the whole thing. It's over on Pinside or email me or find me at a show or whatever. Just putting that out there to commercialize myself. Speaking of commercializing myself, one more thing. I have now heard back, we're doing a WAP promo with Jeff at MadPinball.com. If you buy a game from Jeff and you give him the code WAP, you get a free t-shirt. It's really a swag bag for me. I got contacted and I'm sending him out today. So that offer is live. If you're buying a game anyway, hit up Jeff and get yourself a swag bag, man. And you support the show and all that goodness. So give yourself a pat on the back. So here's what happened. I was sitting there. I think I was eating lunch at Taco Bell. And I got a notice on my phone, flipping through Facebook, that Lumberjack Johnny's over in Appleton, Wisconsin, has a, what's it called, Harry Potter collector's edition on location. Come play it. It was brought there. It's one of the display samples from Kingpin, local distributor here in Wisconsin. Set it up over there at Lumberjack Johnny's until they get their full machine. Go play it. Like I saw this thing and immediately made plans to go and play the newest game from Jersey Jack Pinball. So I'm not the only one. I'm not alone anymore. And I have played it. So here you go gentle listener dear listener is my first impressions playthrough of this game So everybody else has played this before me it seems like You know usually I one of the first because I find out where it at and I get out there Didn't happen this time, and I'm totally okay with that because it was cool watching the release and then, like, building anticipation, and then I got to go play it. And it was the perfect setting. It was the perfect setting. Lumberjack Johnny's, if you haven't been, which is probably most of you, it's a newer location. They have two locations, actually, one in Green Bay, one in Appleton. And this place is It's like three locations all tied together There's some kind of anime toy shop And then there's escape rooms And then there's lumberjack jollies Which is axe throwing A bar which spans the entire length of the arcade And then about 25 to 30 arcade machines Mainly sterns A couple of JJPs thrown in there And a token Looney Tunes No Berrios Barbecue Challenge Come on are you even an axe throwing place If you don't have Berrios Barbecue Challenge But they dropped a Harry Potter CE like kind of on its own location in front of what appears to be where they live stream tournaments or something. So this is a bar. It's open until 11 p.m. It was already the afternoon. It was a Saturday, Sunday, Friday night is when it was. So I was like, man, I'm going to go there. It's going to be mobbed. It's going to be crazy. But you know what? I'm going to get to go. I'm going to get to play pinball because they've got a ton of good machines there. And I'm also going to at least, if nothing else, I'll get a play on it, and I'll be able to watch people play it, and I'll get more of a sense on what's in this game. I could see that Mia Lima art in person I could run my hands up and down the cabinet because no one's there to tell me not to do that so we made plans, we got out there 6, 7pm or so like early evening, still full of Taco Bell walked in the place and there was just a handful of people there there was a husband wife duo that was on the game and so I went and got some quarters and just as we were walking over there they were finishing up, they'd been playing for a while so they went on over to Elton John or something. And then there's Monica and I standing in front of Harry Potter Collector's Edition on location with no line of people behind us. Really nobody even seemed to notice it. And so we just start pumping quarters in this thing and fire it up. And we started with a couple two-player games and then we started alternating off just playing one player so you can get ball after ball after ball and just try to keep that momentum going. And it was just the best way to play a brand new game for the first time, especially like this. I mean, we're going to go to Expo and there's going to be lines on these things forever. There was no waiting. We got to play like 15 games in a row before other people started slowly filtering in. It was a Friday night, and then it got a lot more action. But we got our fill, man. It was great. We went up to the buffet and just scarfed all the shrimp to ourselves and had a great time playing it. Since I haven't played it for a week, I was listening to other people's interpretations of how the game is. Mostly it was favorable, including from people that I trust, that I know, friends of mine that have played it. Some people played and went and upgraded their orders to the CE just because they liked it so much and they didn't want to wait that long to get it. So good on them. I'm among them. I got the opportunity to grab one of these. Hopefully it will be in the first round. Still waiting to hear back from that. But, you know, Jeff is working his magic the hardest. So that's why I stick with the guy. That's why I stick with the guy. so I had heard people that were saying that the code was a real big problem with this game and it's like oh that's not really what I want to hear we've gone through code issues with John Wick going through code issues currently with X-Men it's complicated they're working on it good on them you know but I don't want to hear like man the game's sandbagged with code because the art of the play field fantastic you know the shots and layout look like some of Jersey Jack's best definitely some of Eric's best I like that he's borrowed from elements of his other games and put it together. But the code, like that fruit nougat that binds everything together, sounded like it was a problem, which discouraged me a bit. I'm happy to report that I played myself 15 games on this thing, and I didn't notice any code issues. Maybe they come later? I don't know. Maybe I'm an above-average player. I was having a blast on this thing. First off, to hinge off what I said earlier, this being Eric's best game and how he took elements from his other games and put it in here. Obvious to see where that is. The other thing, though, I think he took was feedback from some other games. I love Guns N' Roses because of the light show, the theme, the music. It's fantastic. The layout is okay, but there's parts of it that just are kind of grating, and I don't think I'm alone in that. That plunge is weak sauce, man. It's got the weakest spring in there because the skill shots, you just want to roll over those little sensors to match the flashing lights or something, but what that precludes you from doing is give it that nice full plunge, hold the left button, go all the way around the orbit, and like, let's get into the game, man. Like, I love that. You know, Black Knight Sword of Rage, I'll do that. I'll hold the left button and just get that full plunge. Deadpool lets you do the full plunge. Pulp Fiction lets you do the full plunge off the left flipper. Monsters lets you do that. Guns N' Roses does not. This weak little, eh, eh. I think you could even use one of the Berrios, uh, America Pinball plungers would even make it up all the way. So, like, I watch all these gameplay videos, I'm like, damn it, I'm ordering the game. And then I was like, wait, I don't even know what the first plunge does. Is this an Eric plunge? Please don't be an Eric plunge. Man, it was awesome. So, you know, plunging the ball for the first game, goes in, crosses over if it's a full-strength plunge, and goes into that left orbit. I love that. I love that. I want to just, you know, when you're frustrated with a game, when you just want to get to the next ball, throw the ball in there and let it clear in orbit, and then, like, start at the top of the machine, and then let's go. You know, that's what I want to do. Not this little short feed and things. Now, you can short feed it. There's a little drop off there, and the ball will feed down to the right flipper, and then you can kind of pick your skill shot, you know, if you're into that kind of thing. I just want to jump into the mess sometimes, and I'm glad I have that option. So thank you, sir, for that. Now, the first game I played definitely lasted less than 90 seconds. Holy crap. And I know this will probably come across in videos to people that recognize it. I certainly didn't. This game will drain your face if you're not paying attention. there are some new ball paths that you need to get accustomed to on this game. So the right and left, what would be like the return lanes, which typically would be drains, are not drains in here because of the Pirates of the Caribbean bottom that Eric has brought back. Thank you, sir, for that. But particularly that left return lane that's over there, that thing will rocket down and shoot right off your left flipper into the gullet. I guarantee you, your first game you play on here when you're not ready for that, not ready to ski jump that ball into a sling or something, Your ball is going to drain, and you're going to be standing there like me with your hands on the flippers, and you didn't even do anything yet, and your ball is already draining. Now, people are complaining about this scoop to start modes. I don't know if I'm special, but I seem to not have any issues hitting this scoop. In fact, I think my second ball I plunged, I managed to get right into that scoop, and then I had my left flipper held up like this ball is going to come out of the scoop. It's going to go to my left flipper. I'm going to catch it, and then it will fire off at whatever is blinking. But no, dear listener, it actually went to my right flipper, which was not staged at all for this, and then the ball immediately drained. So I'm like, great, I'm doing fantastic in my first two balls here on Harry Potter. Now, as I played my second game, then into my third, I got into the hang of when to kind of stage my flippers down there, when to jump balls around, when to drop catch them or whatever. And then I was just having a blasty blast, because this game has got the ball divergency of Godfather in a nice, like, cluster grab of diverging ball paths everywhere, places where I can't even see where the ball is going. And even when I did see where the ball went, I can't repeat that shot the second time because the hidden diverters are in there and you've got rotating staircases and stuff. And it's just like a maze of ramps and ball paths and trajectories that I still can't even wrap my head around, and I love that. I want a solid nucleus that looks like cancer growing just chaotically and haphazardly, but with things that flow and don't brick. And that was my experience playing this game. Now, interspersed with this, I'm trying to pay attention, and I got my third eye open, and I'm like, okay, am I hearing call-outs from the movie? Am I hearing characters that I recognize say their lines? Am I hearing Snape talk? Yes. Am I hearing Harry talk? Yes. Am I hearing the Golden Trio say stuff? Yes. Am I hearing other effects? Am I hearing Marc Silk? Absolutely. Marc Silk is all over this thing, to the point that you may even need to attenuate him just quite a bit because there is just so much speech in there. Now, games launching at .7 code, so speech modulation and audio ducking is something that can take place between now and 1.0. But, like, that wasn't distracting for me playing the game. It was just, like, there was so much Potter everywhere, man. I'm trying to figure out, like, how to hit shots, trying to figure out how I start the multiballs. I swear it took me, like, eight or ten games before I started a multiball, which, if I'll remind you, this being an Eric game, Usually, like two shots off the plunge, you're already in multiball land, and they start stacking and everything. We saw that in Guns N' Roses, saw that definitely in Godfather. Now I think he's listened to that, and I had to work for every multiball that I got to. The Explore Hogwarts multiball seemed to be the easiest one to get. Golden Trio multiball was fantastic. I love that, and I'm proud of myself. I didn't go online and look up all the rules or anything. As I was playing, I knew there was a multiball up there. I noticed I was having balls go up and lock up there on the Guns N' Roses wands, but I couldn't figure out how that was happening. Well, it turns out you just have to spell the name of the character, and then that awards you a lock, and then you can go shoot up there, and the lock will go up there. Ron is pretty easy. He has three letters in his name. You hit his drop target, spell his name. They're there on the screen in the right lower corner. It spells out their names, and then as you hit the numbers, they light up their letters. When you light all the letters of a character, you get to put your ball up there. Cool. Ron is super easy. Hermione is second easiest because her drop targets are right up around the corner. She does have more letters in her name. And then I was like, well, where the hell is the Harry targets? Until I noticed, oh, that's right. The inserts on the inlanes and outlanes all spell Harry. They're player controlled by the flipper of where the lit one is. So that was a simple course of just, you know, putting the ball on the right to unlit letter as it rolls down the in lane. And then, boom, you get that. So I got myself the Golden Trio multiball a couple of times. I did the Explore Hogwarts multiball, and as the ball was rocketing down this left return lane, and then it would hold my left flipper up it would oftentimes leap off of there running to the slings and then go right into the scoop And I thought this is great design All you got to do is hold up the flipper when the ball coming down it bounce between the slings a couple of times and then boom, right in there, let's start modes, man. I don't know, I've listened to some other folks. I've listened to, you know, my good friend Kaneda. We had a long conversation the other day about this and I listened to the rest of his live stream because he had just played the game and this was the guy telling me that the code was so problematic with the game. Jersey Jack, what are you thinking? Discouraging me a bit. Glad I actually went and played it first. And then when I heard his recounting, because I was trying to reconcile, like, man, where's he getting this from? Was my game not like the one he played? So he had gone to automated. Cool guy runs that. I met him over at Pentastic. And he went up there, and he had the coin door open so he could do, like, the infinite ball return thing. And then he was doing that to play through the entirety of the game and code that was in there, and then that kind of soured him. He said that the end wizard mode was great, but, like, getting there was problematic or he was having issues or something. And I'm like, well, that's not the experience I had. I went on location. I put in money. I played the game. I certainly didn't have the luxury of removing the glass or opening the coin door and, you know, cheating my way through the game. So maybe that – well, I mean, that would definitely portray the game in a manner which wasn't designed for the end user, right, if we're just, you know, glass off and rolling balls around. Whatever. Play games however you want. If you want to put rubber band on the out lane, go ahead. But I didn't even look at any of the long gameplay streams. I didn't look at the rule sets or anything, mainly because I need some context to hang rules on. I can't just read a rule sheet and then go and want to go play. And then once I'm comfortable with the game and the shots, then the rules start to make sense to me. Then I can go back and it's like, oh, okay, now I get it. But I would say maybe if you've heard something that's discouraged you, even if it was myself talking about the MinaLima graphics before I had a chance to experience them go experience it for yourself, definitely a good thing get your name on a list because it doesn't seem like games will be shipping all that soon and go try it out I will say that games are shipping now they're going out to locations, they have the priority and so everything is going to be everything here pretty soon but I'm glad we had that long discussion and things are good, things are fine but his experience then was just a lot different than mine was. I had somebody reach out and put a comment on the Facebook thread. You know, Don, you seem to like everything. Is there something you don't like? And I was like, well, yeah. I think I make that pretty clear when I play stuff and I don't really care for them. I do, so it's nuanced, right? And I'll get back to Harry Potter in a second. But I really like playing new pinball. Like, a new pinball machine comes out, I know I've never played it. I didn't play it when I was a kid i didn't play it now you know i didn't play it at a laundromat somewhere where it was in like horrible condition you know i didn't go play it at somebody sounds like i've never played it before and that only happens once you walk up to a game you've never played it you plunge your first ball and like let's go i've got no context to hang anything on i don't know what i'm doing but let's see how things go and then from there you know in repetition you start to learn the game and get the sense of it and all that business um you know you can do a first impressions playing it a couple of times, but then after you've had some time with it, then you can do, you know, a review. And when you do a review, or at least when I do it, if I'm ranking a game, like, you know, if I'm trying to say, like, is Jaws better than Godzilla, you know, I have to look at all the categories, right? This is not just any one thing, you know, it's the art, it's the layout, it's the shots, do they brick? Is the game fun to play? You know, are the callouts good? Do I feel like I'm immersed in a theme, whatever the theme is? And then what's the cost of the game, you know, because a game can be incredible, but if it's priced higher than I care to spend, then it's not a game that I would recommend, right? But we don't have to buy every game. Arcades can buy the game, and you can go play it on location and just put a dollar in. You can put a dollar in Deadpool. You can put a dollar in Puny Factory. You can put a dollar in Twilight Zone. So what's the difference? That's going to take from one to the other. And so that's where you weigh in on themes and everything. So Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The play field art looks good. The cabinet art looks just weird to me. The scopes and the lights in the game, I think, are the best parts of it. The call-outs that I had heard when I had played it and when I watched gameplay of it didn't care for it, especially the jackpot Alice part was really off-putting. Thankfully, I think they've addressed that. The topper looked fine. Not that you can get one because the company made them out of business. And then the price was really high. But I did like that there was exclusivity, that there was only $500. So, you know, not a game, like, I would recommend to buy. It's not a game I would buy, but it's a game that I had fun playing, even though it was only two balls. I did get to play a three-ball game in Vaux-le-Brook at the European Pinball Championships, so that was fun. And so, like, on the one hand, I like the game. On the other hand, it's not a great game. You know, so am I cheerleading a game that's not great just because I like everything? Well, no, not really. It was still fun to play, but it's a pinball machine. It's better than a poke in the eye. It was better than Hercules. It was better than Punny Factory. Is it better than Dune? Questionable. But I'm not one to sit there and say, is that what I'm supposed to do? I find some games, if I like it, I really talk it up. And if it's a game I don't tend to want to purchase, I have to just sandbag it. ABBA's not a good game, but I would still have one here if I could get gifted one, of course. If I could find one for $3,000 I'd probably pick one up Because I think it's a really weird game to have And I'm kind of into weird stuff I think Queen's not a very good game And I don't think I would spend $3,000 for that So that's not liking everything You know, if Portal was $3,000 It's also 3,000 pounds You know, I'd probably get myself a Portal for $3,000 I wouldn't get a Portal for $8,000 I definitely wouldn't get one for $12,000 So there you go I don't like everything off the bat, but I do like playing new pinball machines. I like playing Portal. I think it's super fun, and I was very excited to go play it. So excited that when I got told I couldn't play it right away, I was kind of bummed, man, because I was so enthusiastic. I bought a T-shirt. I bought two T-shirts for Portal. I still have to do a giveaway for that other one. So I don't think I necessarily like everything, but I do like playing new pinball, and I do get enthusiastic about that. So if you're waiting for my opinion to tell you which game to buy, maybe seek the opinion of others. Because I like playing new pinball. But there's games that come out that I definitely don't buy. And there's other ones that as soon as they launch, I'm selling stuff to get them. Harry Potter being one of them. Avatar was another one. Evil Dead was another one. So there you go. I still think the best game of last year was probably Jaws. And number two was Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So there you go. Harry Potter. Okay, so I had heard that there was, and I mentioned this on the little live stream I did. Facebook's probably deleted it by now. The Radcals, I love them, man. I love them thick plastic panels of graphics that are hard to totally destroy. You can scratch them. You can buff them out. They feel better than a decal. They're not just going to tear. You know, and even Stern with their LEs still gives us foil decals. They're still just stickers. But the Radcals are thicker, man. When I talked to Eric Menear at the factory, he told me they were about six times more expensive than a decal to produce, so I can appreciate that. And I like on the premium level trims that you get this extra little thing. I wish they would carry it over to the Artblades as well, too, because they do make plexi-printable Artblades, and they're just as awesome. A very shiny finish. And so the Mielimas, which have that kind of foil-ish effect on them, I had heard that maybe that was just a decal and wasn't a radcal because it wasn't shiny. It was a matte finish. And I was like, oh, my God, please no, right, because I wanted that Radcal, wanted that thickness. So as I was sitting there waiting to play the game, I went around and kind of picked on it a little bit, and I can tell it's not a decal. It is thick. So I think it's kind of like, you know, Radcal thickness-type product but with a matte finish with foil in it. I think that's what you're getting. It's got a great texture to it too. I was rubbing my hands all over this cabinet, man. Like I might as well have been at a strip club. and I was putting dollars in it so I guess I think that's apt but it was durable graphics that were on the front, the sides of the cabinet and the backbox, I didn't peel them up but you could kind of run your finger on the edge and see that it was something with some thickness and some heft to it and of course, just like every other game from X-Men to King Kong to whatever the art looks better in person and this art, the Mia Lima art looks fine, it looks good, I dig it I get it now, I get that Mia Lima is the design firm that's done things not only for the books and paper craft, like that's been talked about in the exposés that people have done, the featurette that Retro Ralph filmed. Shout out to Retro Ralph. But they've also done footage and graphics and things for stuff that's in the parks, some of the theme eggs. So some of the posters that are in the shops in Diagon Alley, for instance, I believe they had a hand in. So now I'm on board with it, man. This is great. This is a theme park tie-in. That's all I needed. I'm happy with it. I'm satiated. Let's talk about the topper. Topper was the other thing. If there was two things I could change, it was going to be the art in the cabinet, art in the play field, fantastic. That's fine. That's fine. But the topper, I was kind of wanting a little bit more, and I don't think I'm alone here, and I think this is apt. So if we look at the Godfather topper with the two little animatronic gangster guys and the sculpted scene, great. The Avatar topper sold me an Avatar. I didn't even want to look at or consider the LE. You know, if I couldn't get the CE, I didn't want to get anything. So I got myself a CE, and I love that topper. And I just set a GC on Avatar, and I was having fun even looking at the topper then. Like, between balls or whenever the ball gets stalled somewhere, you can look up and get some information. And I just like having it up there. I would miss it if it wasn't there. It's an added dimension to the game. So Jersey Jack has been on a straight rocket ship trajectory when it comes to their topper game, man. Guns N' Roses, all we got was that little plastic marquee that you had to add aftermarket lights to to get it to trail around. Now we're getting, like, full toppers from J.J.P. I love it. And so of course for their flagship game the greatest game maybe ever from them you know time will tell But is there another bigger theme out there I don think so You know this has got to be a devastating topper And if it not an articulating animatronic sorting hat on top of there it's got to be like Hogwarts Castle with projection effects and fiber optics and all this stuff. Magical, you know, scene-changing stuff going on. And instead we got some very tasteful acrylics and a diorama. An acrylic kind of backplate there in the middle space showing the back of the castle. and then some cool light-up strips in front of some, are they sculpts? Are they just metal tin painted castle parts? Oh, and then you get the little flipped-up plastic owl. Oh, my goodness, that owl. And then you get the little stitch that pops up. Oh, man. So, okay. I wish they were a bit more, like, animated, although I haven't seen first-party toppers use, like, 3D-printed rack and pinion type things, with servos and stuff, like spooky uses, and that we've seen with the Electric Playground. But the Electric Playground Godzilla topper, was it the Godzilla topper that had that spaceship that would lift up and move down? I wish we had more of that effect, you know, with the hooty owl and the little golden snitch there. I get the guy on the broom going around the castle. It's kind of cool. There's animations up there, which is cool. There is a projector, so yes, that's fine. If this was a first-party topper from Stern, I would think it would be, we'd be talking about it as one of the best. It's one of the best toppers I've ever done, Stern Pinball. Look at this thing. And I would expect to pay $2,399 retail for a topper like that if it came from Stern. But because it came from Jersey Jack and we just saw the Avatar topper with the Pepper's Ghost effect, we saw the animatronic little gangster guys in Godfather, this feels like a step down and you're okay to feel that way. I feel that way too. I really wish we at least got a fully sculpted castle. and I mean why couldn't you put fiber optic effects in there? Money probably and then you would have to get it approved and maybe they tried to do that and the approval process didn't permit it. Who knows? Maybe we'll never find out. But this is what we have. I'm waiting to get the thing even though I did take some pictures up there. I'm trying to see if there's a way to add projector effects behind the castle there to just project on the ceiling a little bit more. A little bit more dynamicism is what I want. So we'll see what happens. But the topper, I'm disappointed in, but I'm telling you, if it was coming from Stern, we would be lauding it as like the greatest topper since Black Knight Sword of Rage from Stern, right? Because, you know, this is so funny. I got to tell you this. So I went from playing like 10 straight games of Harry Potter. I then took a break, and I went over, and the next game that I played was Venom Limited Edition by Stern Pinball. and the flippers on that game, which there weren't a ton of people playing like Venom had been played all day and was rocket hot. Those flippers felt, and they were probably as strong as they ever are, they felt weaker than the ones that I was just playing on Harry Potter. Harry Potter felt like it had stronger flippers or maybe it was just the faster gameplay because Venom felt just kind of like slow and formulaic. I mean, compared to go from Harry Potter to Venom, I mean, my God. like Venom is the fanniest of fan layouts the fan is all the way as far away from you as you could possibly get still a fun game still like it but like what a palate cleanse it was like going from the hot tub and then jumping in the pool at the hotel and it's like oh god this is definitely different and not as good get me back in the hot tub Harry Potter is just loaded with so many shots with like a lot of innovation and thought that went into them the snake from one into another the branching ball pass all kind of work. The call-outs work with the spinning staircase. Venom is just like, man, all the shots are in the back of the playfield. It's like, it's Stern's P3 module, to be honest. And I think it would work absolutely well in a P3 machine. I think they should license that and make a P3 version of Venom because it's perfect. You just shoot the, slam the whole third of the playfield in the back there, add some fast locks, and there you go, man. There's another module for your P3. Man, I was just like, this, these shots feel so open and so empty. Like, where's the rest of the game that's here? And then I look up at the topper, and I'm like, my God, this topper looks jank. So the Venom topper is a very silly topper. It's got that screen in the middle, which shows that ferrofluid, because, of course, the ferrofluid issue didn't end up being a viable product. But the rest of the topper is just, like, some plastic and some light boards, you know, little LED flasher lights. Like, it's nothing. and I know that cost, I mean I'm sure no one bought them but I'm sure it's like $1500 or something for that stinking topper and then I look over at the Hogwarts topper and it's got these cool lighting effects that go off and it interacts with the game there's fun little animations that pop up we still have to wait and see what the projector's going to look like and how it's going to be coded in the game but it just looks like miles better and then like feeling the cabinet and this was a limited edition stern, this was a $13,000 stern at launch I can get it for $7 now but it was like a $13,000 other game and I was tossing it around like it felt like nothing after just coming from a brand new collector's edition JJP. Things are 50 extra pounds. It feels different. The texture of the art on the side of the cabinet in particular, the fact that the flippers feel nice and staunch. Is that the right word? Flippy? Strong? Whatever. They don't feel like dialed in. They don't feel like Hobbit. They feel like strong. and the 3,000 miles an hour that the ball shoots out of the Death Eater, a little scoop, bucket, hole, whatever. Holy crap, man. I managed one game to put a ball into that Death Eater and then it launched back at me, a 90 miles an hour fastball. And on the right flipper, I managed to correctly hit it right back and went straight back in the Death Eater, spared like no time and it was straight back out again just as fast. Like, that was nuts. If you get the chance to like, you know, get the Death Eater shot, throw it back in and have it come right back at you. That is fast, man. If that ball was directed at the glass, it completely would shatter, I would imagine. It's the fastest pinball moment I've experienced. That was crazy. And then the fact that the balls then can loop into these little side passages and then scream down across your flippers and jump from one to the other or just yeet themselves into the slings and the ball keeps going and then you pick your movie and your whatever. There's 90 little mini modes, little 30-second modes in this game, I guess. There's horror cruxes to collect. But all I know is I was just lost in this Harry Potter world, playing some fun pinball with a fun theme that I care about, with sounds that make sense to me and art that was on point. It was a full experience, man. I appreciated it. I like the powder coat. I wish they had lights behind the armor on the side, like the cabinets for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. But other than those little nitpicky things, this game is delivering, and I want it to literally be delivering because I want to play this damn game again. My kid, who's like diametrically opposed to anything that I'm interested in because he's a teenager and full of that angst, is even like, so when's this game coming, Dad? Like she's interested in it. My wife's interested in it. My friends all over town want to come over and play it when I get it. Like this is cool, man. This is cool. This is fun. This is part of the fun of pinball that I'm having. And, you know, I don't know if that makes me a shill. I kind of feel like to be a shill you've got to be getting paid, which I'm not to do this. from any pinball manufacturer, but I'm having a lot of fun with it. I'm having a lot of fun with it, and it sounds like you are too because the distributors are having their best sales since COVID. Everything's coming up pinball. We can't wait for Potter, so there it is. And if that wasn't enough, we've got Predator coming out in two days now. I've seen all the teasers. I can't wait to see the full layout of this game. I can't wait to see the full layout of this game in motion. I know Jengiz has been feeding us information. There was a little extra tidbit that popped out. First debuted on our Patreon channel for WAP, and then now it's kind of all through the cosmos about all these fun little things that are happening. We've seen the chopper, I think. Chopper's in the game. Wouldn't it be funny if this layout for Predator was actually the original layout for ABBA, and then they went ahead and then said, no, we've got to get a better theme for this, and they put Predator on that theme, and then they just kind of threw something together for ABBA and put it out? Wouldn't that be funny? Wouldn't it be funny if we knew how many ABBA machines actually sold? Is it more than 100? I would like to know. I would like to know. And if they're sitting in boxes in a dusty warehouse, I would love the opportunity to go rescue an ABBA and have that weird game with the strange art and weird shots and strange code and weird flippers in my house just because I still think it's weird. I still think it's weird. I'm sad. I was at Pentastic, and it was down the whole time. I was at the Pinball Championships, the Euro Pinball Championships I didn't get a chance to play it I did get to play Dune, I did get to play Alice in Wonderland, so that was fun And then I spent the whole time in the homebrew area Because those were homebrews I'd never get to see at all And they're all over in Europe and shiny and super nice Yeah, so that was fun So we got Predator coming up In two days, on the 18th We'll talk about that We'll talk about all that Pricing, I think it's going to be greater than $10,000 for the base unit. I think it's going to be less than $12,000. We'll have to see. I don't know how taxes and tariffs and shipping will all fit into that. I don't know when these games are going to be made. I don't know if they're in made and in boxes ready to go. I don't know if it's going to be order now, and then in six months the first 25 will be going out, just like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and then without the topper because that company that made the toppers for the Alice in Wonderland game went out of business, and now they have no supplier. they have to find a supplier to now make that oh what a position to be in where's Lior please help us this is pinball man this is pinball this week and this has been an absolute episode be sure to email me at donspinballpodcastgmail.com go get yourself a Kong banana I don't care what game you put it in I will ship it out and mail it to you and plenty of you are doing it flipper toppers are available anything else patreon.com backslash donspinballpodcast That was a lot. Hey, you guys in the booth, how'd that go for you? Was it good? All right, awesome. Yeah, I told them about the email. And the Patreon, yeah. We'll throw some content up there, too. Harry Potter, man. What a game. Email Jeff at MattPimba.com. Use code WAP. Get a t-shirt. Talk to you guys later.