Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast September 2023 recap

Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast·podcast_episode·1h 54m·analyzed·Oct 5, 2023
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

September 2023 pinball recap: P3 games, mystery company teases reveal, Stern news and updates.

Summary

Pinball News and Pinball Magazine editors Jonathan Houston and Martin Eb recap September 2023 pinball industry news, including two new P3 platform games (Dungeon Door Defender and Drained Byte Size), a mysterious new pinball company teasing a potential Labyrinth-themed game to be revealed at Pinball Expo, Stern's new factory move with multiple code updates, and various industry announcements and hiring decisions.

Key Claims

  • Two new P3 games announced: Dungeon Door Defender ($199) by Michael Ocean and Drained Byte Size ($99) by Nick Baldridge

    high confidence · Direct product announcements with specific pricing and availability through Multimorphic store

  • Mystery Pinball Company game will be revealed at a pizza party at Pinball Expo on October 20th at 9:30pm

    high confidence · Official announcement via Rob Burke, confirmed timing and location details

  • Canada Pinball Podcast speculated the mystery game could be based on the 1986 Labyrinth film starring David Bowie, directed by Jim Henson

    low confidence · Speculation based on homework puzzle hints; hosts acknowledge uncertainty

  • Stern announced a new run of Stranger Things pinball for holiday season at $6,999 (Pro) and $9,699 (Premium)

    high confidence · Pricing from Flipping Out Pinball distributor announcement

  • New Stranger Things run uses a different, non-backward-compatible projector than the original run

    high confidence · Direct reporting on technical specification change affecting code compatibility

  • Josh Henderson, described as a world-class tournament pinball player, hired by Stern as game software developer

    high confidence · Official Stern hiring announcement in September 2023

  • Stern released multiple significant code updates in September: James Bond 007 (v0.96), Venom (v0.91, v0.92), Foo Fighters (v0.97), and Jurassic Park minor update

    high confidence · Specific version numbers and dates provided; hosts describe updates as 'quite significant' with new features

  • Great American Pinball is offering a new Stern Pinball Alley sign ($1,999) and pop bumper lamp ($449.99)

    high confidence · Product announcement with specific pricing and dimensions from reseller

Notable Quotes

  • “It's basically a standalone game, which is different to Heist, but uses the same hardware in a different way.”

    Jonathan Houston (Pinball Magazine editor) @ ~7:30 — Explaining the P3 platform's modular game design capability

  • “If you wait long enough you could potentially have up to 16 balls in play at once, which I'm not sure whether that's a record or not.”

    Martin Eb (Pinball News editor) @ ~12:00 — Highlighting unusual gameplay mechanic in Drained Byte Size

  • “We've seen bad movies with very good pinball machines come out.”

    Jonathan Houston @ ~20:00 — Acknowledging that movie quality doesn't determine pinball game quality

  • “It's amazing they managed to keep it under cover for so long under wraps, you know, not actually no real leaks about who they are or what the game is.”

    Martin Eb @ ~25:00 — Commenting on the mystery company's successful secrecy in the social media era

  • “There's bits missing shot from underneath there's quite a lot missing. I thought it was interesting that the boards were labelled LIT dash 005 followed by a number so what LIT is I don't know could it be a labyrinth possible.”

    Martin Eb @ ~27:00 — Speculative analysis of leaked manufacturing details to deduce the mystery game theme

  • “I felt like that should be something that every current game should have from then on. It reminded me of Pinball 2000, but in a different way.”

    Jonathan Houston @ ~61:00 — Praising Stranger Things projector innovation and suggesting it should be industry standard

  • “We're thrilled to partner with the Fighting Illini players second year in a row.”

    Dave Peterson, co-owner of Stern Pinball @ ~73:00 — Official statement on university football program partnership

  • “I think they're really making the games come alive in a way which people feared wouldn't happen when they first came out because when they first released they had fairly basic code.”

Entities

Jonathan HoustonpersonMartin EbpersonMultimorphiccompanyMichael OceanpersonNick BaldridgepersonRyan ClaytonpersonMystery Pinball CompanycompanyGeorge SpelvingpersonCanada Pinball PodcastorganizationRob BurkepersonStern Pinball

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern announced personnel additions: Joseph Marchfield as Marketing Manager (15+ years experience in Miller Brewing, NBC Universal) reporting to Zach Sharp (Director of Marketing)

    high · Official Stern announcement of new hires with background details

  • ?

    community_signal: Stern partnering with University of Illinois football program for second consecutive year, with Fighting Illini players serving as brand ambassadors; Dave Peterson and Zach Sharp both Illinois alumni

    high · Official press release with quotes from Peterson and Sharp; confirmed extended partnership for 2023

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Expo 2023 scheduled for October; will feature Stern factory tour (Thursday morning), mystery game reveal (Friday 9:30pm pizza party), seminars (to be recorded and uploaded to Pinball News YouTube), and new game announcements from multiple manufacturers

    high · Official details from Rob Burke and event schedule; filming equipment being tested for seminar recording

  • ?

    leak_detection: Mystery Pinball Company manufacturing details leaked via photos showing hardware, backbox LCD screen, Fast Pinball board, three-flipper layout, and boards labeled 'LIT-005' with production units visible

    high · Detailed analysis of leaked manufacturing photos with speculation that 'LIT' could refer to Labyrinth or Little Rock, Arkansas airport code

  • $

    market_signal: Great American Pinball offering Stern merchandise: Pinball Alley sign ($1,999, 65"x18"x8.5", 50 lbs) and pop bumper lamp ($449.99, 18"x10", 5.5 lbs) as first distributor of these products

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.343

0:00
Two new P3 games announced. Mystery Pinball Company teases their new game. Interview with Pinball Expo's Rob Burke.
0:19
Hi, my name is Jonathan Houston. I'm the editor of Pinball Magazine and I'm joined here by... Hi, I'm Martin Eb, and I'm the editor of Pinball News, and Jonathan and I are here to look back on all the pinball world's exciting news throughout the month of September 2023. And, well, it wasn't a huge month for news, but there's still plenty of new game launches to bring you, lots and lots of software updates, And, of course, we are, as we mentioned in our headline, going to be looking forward to what's going to be coming up at Pinball Expo, which is later this month in October. Yeah, which is the longest-running annual pinball event in the world. And it looks like it's going to be a very interesting edition based on the events. and the schedule of events and new games by various manufacturers and so on. Yeah, more about that later. Yeah, exactly. Okay, let's start with our first headline, which was about two new games that have been announced for Multimorphic's P3 pinball platform. And they're both kind of fitting to the category of mini-games, but I know that's a slightly pejorative term so there are sort of add-on games or extra games which could be played on an existing multi-morphic pinball playfield which is a playfield module which is designed for the game which it was launched with but can then be rethemed or reverted to add new rules which is one of the big selling points of the P3 platform. Right, so basically once you have a certain playfield module installed in your P3 machine, basically you can play various types of games on it, or various games basically. You just load the different software, which is easily selected on the machine itself, and you have the same playfield with an entirely new rule set and different objectives and so on. Yeah, absolutely. And the first of those games is from Michael Ocean, who is one of the programmers for Multimorphic, and did a lot of work on the Heist game. And the first game is called Dungeon Door Defender, and it's available right now on the Multimorphic site. It runs on the Heist Playfield module, and it's basically a standalone game, which is different to Heist, but uses the same hardware in a different way.

Martin Eb @ ~88:00 — Praising Stern's commitment to substantial post-release code updates addressing earlier concerns

company
Pinball Expoevent
Josh Hendersonperson
Joseph Marchfieldperson
Dave Petersonperson
Zach Sharpperson
Jack Dangerperson
Zombie Yetiperson
Great American Pinballcompany
Buffalo Pinballorganization
Riot Festevent

high · Product announcements with specific pricing, dimensions, and weight specifications

  • $

    market_signal: Stern exhibited pinball games at Riot Fest music festival in Chicago, with games strategically placed for video exposure and backstage access for performers; hosts note potential for future music-licensed game deals

    medium · Video evidence of Stern's festival presence; hosts speculate about future IP licensing opportunities resulting from exposure

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Josh Henderson, world-class tournament player, hired by Stern as game software developer; joins other elite players (Raymond Davison, Keith Alwyn, Zach) at Stern

    high · Official Stern hiring announcement; hosts note this continues trend of top tournament players joining manufacturer development teams

  • ?

    announcement: Stern announced new production run of Stranger Things pinball for holiday season at $6,999 (Pro) and $9,699 (Premium)

    high · Official pricing through Flipping Out Pinball distributor

  • ?

    announcement: Multimorphic P3 platform receiving two new mini-games: Dungeon Door Defender ($199) and Drained Byte Size ($99)

    high · Official announcements with specific pricing, availability, and distribution channels confirmed

  • ?

    product_concern: Hosts note Stern's early code releases were 'fairly basic' and raised concerns about post-release development, but recent substantial updates suggest commitment to game evolution

    medium · Martin Eb praises extensive code updates (James Bond 0.96, Venom 0.91/0.92, Foo Fighters 0.97) as evidence of Stern taking 'a lot of effort' to develop recent games

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Canada Pinball Podcast speculated mystery game is Labyrinth-themed (1986 film with David Bowie, Jim Henson direction, George Lucas production) based on homework puzzle hints

    low · Speculation acknowledged as unverified; hosts note they haven't confirmed accuracy; word search, crossword, and maze puzzles provided no definitive confirmation

  • ?

    technology_signal: New Stranger Things production run uses different, non-backward-compatible projector than original run, creating potential code update complexity

    high · Hosts discuss technical incompatibility and implications for future code updates requiring separate versions

    • 3:15
    Okay. If you want to know more about that, then it's available for just $199 for the game, which is pretty impressive. Yeah. And it's been streamed by Buffalo Pinball. so Kevin from Buffalo Pinball will stream this, so if you go to twitch.tv slash Buffalo Pinball you can see that game being played and if you go to the Bonsai Morphic website and go to their store you can read all about basically what the game is and how you can buy it if you have the heist playfield module right, yeah and there was a second title there was indeed a second title you may remember will be reported a while ago on a whole new playful module and software game called Drained, which came from Nick Baldridge. Yeah, for amusement only. For amusement only games, indeed, is his company. Well known for his bingo podcasts and for making bingo games and also as a co-writer of the Coin-Up Cauldron series with Ryan Clayton, of course. Right. So he has done a number of games for the P3 Pinball platform, and the latest one was Drained, which came with its own module, as I say, but now he has brought out an add-on game for that module, which is very much like the way Dungeon Duel Defender works with the Heist Playfield module.
    4:56
    Drained Byte Size works with the Drained Playfield module. But it's a completely different way of playing the game, starting straight into a vampire battle with a countdown score, which you need to defeat the vampire before the score reaches zero. Every target and shot counts down the score, but there are ways of increasing it and ways of shortcutting killing vampires. but if you kill the vampire then you get a 10,000 point boast and you can then start a you can either immediately start a battle with the vampire, the next vampire or you can wait a little time for the intro to start in which case another ball gets added into play so there are 15 vampires in all to get through so if you wait long enough you could potentially have up to 16 balls in play at once, which I'm not sure whether that's a record or not. I think we may have had something similar in the past. But the P3 pinball system allows you to have that many games.
    6:07
    That time it was 15 balls. Right. So you can have 16 now if you do not lose a ball. It's going to be pretty tricky to keep those balls in play without losing any.
    6:22
    But there's an awful lot of stuff about this. There's a big article on People News you can read all about it, including lots of quotes from Nick about how the game works. And probably the best news of all is that the game costs a mere $99. Wow. And it's available to download from the MultipliFlix store. So you go there, you buy it, and then it appears in your list of playable games if you have the drained module installed in the game. So, now that this game is available, I assume, and this is just an assumption on my end, that the Drake module, if you are on the fence of buying it, now you can probably get a special offer where you get both games for that module at a certain price. But I'm not into the marketing or anything like that. I think you're absolutely right. The game will be appearing at the White Rose Game Room show, which is coming up in about a week's time, as I understand it. Nick will be there with his For Amusement Only Games stand, where the game will be available to buy along with the module. And if you buy the module and the Drain Game from him at the show, you will get the add-on game, the bite-sized game, included for free. And I think there's also some other promotions as well available. But have a look either on the Multimorphic site or on the Pimble News article, which gives you more details about how it plays and the offers that are available. But nice to see lots more games coming out, mini-games if you like, for existing playfields. Right, okay. So that rounds it up for Multimorphic, I think. I think so. Yeah, okay. Well we look forward to seeing Jerry and Other members of Multimorphic At Pimble Expo Later this month Yeah I don't think Nick is going to be there I don't think Ryan is going to be there Either but I'm sure Jerry will be Actually well last year He wasn't if I recall correctly I think It had something to do with I don't recall exactly what it had to do with probably family commitments something like that but Multimorphic was represented by a different vendor if I recall correctly yes that's right they were in the back on the right hand side yeah I remember it well anyway hopefully we'll see Jerry and other members of the Multimorphic family hopefully Michael and Steven and they'll be able to make it. So then moving on to this new mystery pinball company that we've been talking about on and off for the past I think four or five months. I think that's about right, yes. Yeah, yeah.
    9:30
    Not all the time news to report, but they were teasing that they were a new pinball company and oh well. We've seen many attempts of pinball companies trying to get off the ground, so you never know whether you should take it seriously, but it looks like we should take this one seriously. Yes, they've been showing some pictures of the game that they are going to be announcing very soon.
    9:59
    Well, there's some of the hardware behind it, including what's in the back box. So there's a sort of stone-sized LCD screen with a very similar sort of fold-down panel as well in the back box. The game seems to run on a PC running the fast pinball board set.
    10:22
    They've also been showing the other side of the play field where you can probably go through and calculate how many up-kickers and slingshots and flippers. It looks like a three-flipper game where I can work out from that. And, yes, several magnets in it, I'd say. It seems to have very nice metallic bronze coating to the lockdown bar as well, which there are about 20 of them hanging up drying. And several cabinets on a sort of production line, as well as lots of parts and underplay filled shots. but no indication exactly what the game's title or theme will be yet. But more hints were about to be revealed.
    11:18
    Last month. Yes. And they came in the form of the homework that George Junior, the son of this George Spelving that has been emailing us, which is a fake name, of course, but still.
    11:36
    this homework that had to be done, which contained three puzzles to solve. A word search, a crossword puzzle, and a maze, a way you had to go through, which didn't
    11:55
    tell you anything if you went through the maze and you found your way out of it. But apparently it still had to do something with the upcoming title, which by now is being rumored. And kudos to Canada Pinball Podcast for coming up with this suggestion for what it might be. According to Canada Pinball Podcast, this game could be, according to the hints, and we're still speculating here, or he is, but based on the Labyrinth movie from the mid-80s starring David Bowie and it's a George Lucas production directed by Jim Henson, who we know of The Muppet Show.
    12:46
    Now, I'm not sure whether there's any truth to this. Personally, I don't recall ever seeing that movie, so I have no idea whether it's any good and how much David Bowie music is in there, but it's a very good way to get David Bowie in a pinball machine because I think a David Bowie pinball machine would be a good idea. Yes.
    13:06
    Not sure it's a great movie at all, and maybe not that suitable for being converted into a pinball machine, but, you know, never say never, see what happens. Well, we've seen bad movies with very good pinball machines come out. We have, yes. Yeah, I mean, so we'll just have to wait and see. And it might be something completely different.
    13:34
    For everybody interested in finding out, the game will be revealed in a pizza party. And I'm not sure whether that pizza is a reference to anything having to do with the game or that movie that we just discussed. but a pizza party at Pimble Expo at 9.30pm on this Friday yeah Friday the 20th October right which is actually at the same time as Lloyd's LTG show which starts at 9pm but this has nothing to do with that and in fact we've been told by Rob Berg that this reveal will take place at a different location at the show floor than where Roy's seminar will be held. Yeah, as you said, originally they wanted to do it earlier, but it would have clashed too much with the existing seminar schedule, so 9.30 is when the reveal of the Mystery Pinball Company's game is due to happen. Right. In the meantime, they also sent out stickers of their logo, which is basically an explanation point consisting of a flipper, bat and a ball, to various Pinball media,
    15:06
    and I'm pretty sure that we'll probably be able to pick some of those up at Pinball Expo as well. Yeah, I'm asking for a physical address where I can send those stickers to.
    15:18
    I could be bothered to send a sticker. Yeah, but those will be worth money on eBay later on. Right. Okay.
    15:30
    Yes. Well, maybe I'll miss out then. But anyway, at the time of recording, we are on Wednesday night. So it's basically two weeks and a couple of days And we will All be revealed To coin the phrase And well kudos to The Mystery Pimple Company For teasing us this long And giving you a secret Yeah Coming up with something Showing off it And we wish you the best of course And we hope that it's a great game I think it's amazing they managed to keep it Under cover for so long under wraps, you know, not actually no real leaks about who they are or what the game is, so that's not easy to do these days. The age of social media and internet rumour, so all we have is just rumour. So, do you want to speculate? We usually don't do that, but do you want to speculate where they might be coming from?
    16:34
    No, I looked at the playfield drawing, there's bits missing shot from underneath there's quite a lot missing I thought it was interesting that the boards were labelled LIT dash 005 followed by a number so what LIT is I don't know could it be a labyrinth possible can't think what else LIT could stand for probably not lost in translation That doesn't seem to lend itself well to a pinball scene.
    17:13
    And also I had a quick look, because LIT is the airport code for Little Rock in Arkansas. So is there a pinball company anywhere around there?
    17:26
    No. Well, Nye's used to live in that area, but... Yeah. Yeah, no, or any pinball, I don't know, arcades or operators or... Yeah. Oh, well, anyway, we'll talk about it in a little more than two weeks' time. Yeah, well, in our next Pincast, of course, we'll bring you all the details of the reveal, but, of course, you'll be able to read all about them on both the Pinball Magazine and the Pinball News site. Right. Yeah, as we will both be covering Pinball Expo, Martin, probably a little deeper than Pinball Magazine, that has to do with language barrier and Martin being a much better writer than I am. but also while we're talking about Pimple Expo it's probably worth giving a little plug in now for all the seminars where they will all be recorded and hopefully if the equipment holds up anyway they'll all be recorded and uploaded to the Pimple News channel on YouTube and we'll have a special Pimple Expo 2023 playlist where you'll be able to get all the seminars in one place. So that's what we hope, anyway. This is all new equipment, and we're trying stuff out, and it's still under test.
    18:49
    But I'm sure we'll come up with something. Right. So if you can't make it, or even if you can make it, but you can't attend all the seminars, and trust us, you can't. A great way to Extend your Pinball Expo experience Or if you can't be there Experience Pinball Expo after all Quite right And talking of Pinball Expo One of the key features of that show Is the fact that you can do A tour of a pinball factory And this year The tour Which takes place on Thursday morning is of the new Stern Pinball Factory, which is still in Elk Grove, but in a different part, Elk Grove Village, I should say, but in a different part of the place. Yeah. And which brings us very neatly onto the latest news from Stern Pinball. Very nice bridge. Ah, isn't it? It's almost like I've been working on that, but almost, but not quite. Yeah. So, no, they have been showing off their new factory, moving into the new factory, and also venom being produced in the new factory on various social media channels. So we've already had a sneak peek, so to speak, but there's nothing better than to smell that new factory smell. Just bottle it and put it on eBay Along with your other eBay items Actually I'm not even selling on eBay But that's a completely different story If you want to know more about that Talk to me on During Pinball Expo Yeah, and everyone gets a free Mystery Pinball Company sticker I don't have any At least I don't think I have any I misunderstood that email and I sent them my email address because I think that's what they were asking for. Ah, okay. And I haven't been home for a week, so if they send something mysteriously... Yeah, by the time it arrives, you'll be over in Chicago.
    20:59
    Anyway, yeah, back to Stirling. Yes. New Pitbull Factory, yeah, video of starting the move to it, but that's not the only video, though. Oh, no. Tell me more Oh yeah They released a Making of Foo Fighters video Which is a Very nice video which doesn't feature The Foo Fighters at all but the game Yes and of course The team behind the Jack Danger And Zombie Yeti is in there I think And one of the programmers And God knows I watched the video but it was a couple weeks ago so forgive me for not exactly recalling who were in it but in the same style as we've seen with previous making of videos Stern does one for every almost every game that they do
    21:56
    yeah they do produce an awful lot of material for each of their new games but go over to youtube and have a look on the Stern Pinball channel over there and you'll be able to catch all of it. Right, yeah. But also, they've been making quite a few other announcements as well. We mentioned, probably not just last month, but the month before as well, about some new appointments within the pinball industry and certain pinball. And there's some new ones in September. And one of which is Josh Henderson as a game software developer. Right. Now, anyone who plays in tournament or follows the tournament scene will know Josh very well as a top class, a world class pinball player.
    22:50
    So it's interesting to see him joining the ranks of other world class pinball players. I don't want to go through them all, but obviously Raymond Davison and Keith Alwyn and I'm not sure of many others, and Zach, of course. Right. all working at Stern Pinball and developing, well, in this case, developing game software. So congratulations to him. But also they announced... Not to go off topic, but actually come to think of it, there's actually quite a few very talented tournament players, pinball players, working for pinball companies these days. I don't think that used to be the case in like the 80s or the 90s. The programmers and the designers, they never competed in pinball tournaments. I think Lightning Sheets may have been one of the first.
    23:49
    Yeah, I was trying to think how far back we'd have to go. Because going back a long time, back to pinball experts, they used to have a, this is how regular the flip-out tournaments, They also have an industry division, which was for people working in the game industry, but they were not allowed to compete in the main flip-out tournament because they had inside knowledge of how the games worked.
    24:20
    So that would make it quite difficult these days, wouldn't it, for main tournaments, because an awful lot of the top players wouldn't be able to compete in the Open or the Flipout Tournament. Well, it would give everybody else a better chance. Well, that's true. Yeah. Anyway, getting back to the recent hires of last month. Continue, please. Yeah, as I mentioned, there was a chap called Joseph Marchfield who has been appointed as Marketing Manager. so that will be he has over 15 years of marketing, media and business management experience working for companies like Miller, Brewing, NBC Universal as well as his own companies and he will be working with Zach who is director of marketing so he's the marketing manager and Zach is the director of marketing so there we go So bolstering their marketing team there, as well as their software programming with Josh. Right, okay. So congratulations on these new positions and their new jobs. We look forward to seeing you at the Stern Factory Tour. Indeed, yeah.
    25:44
    Or Pimble Expo, for that matter. And then, well, last month, Stern announced a new run of Jurassic Park, and this month they did a similar announcement.
    26:03
    Well, Jurassic Park was the 30th anniversary edition, but this month Stern have announced they're going to be doing a new run of Stranger Things. Yes. The game, not something that is stranger. That game, Stranger Things, which will be produced specifically for the holiday season. So if you're feeling festive and want to visit the upside down, then get yourself a Stranger Things, which should be available in time for the holiday season, Christmas, New Year. there's pricing which comes from flipping out Pimble saying that the Pro will be priced at $6,999 US dollars of course and the premium for $9,699 I don't know how that compares to how it originally came out at but it doesn't sound drastically different yeah don't recall that what I do recall is that and forgive me for not recalling who made the call to Stern, but as you may know, the premium and LE model of Stranger Things contains a projector under the apron.
    27:26
    But for the upcoming run, a different projector has been chosen, which is not backward compatible to the previous one. So it could be interesting if any future code updates come out for the game.
    27:44
    There should probably be two versions, one for depending on how old the game is, whether you have the first run, so to speak, or the second run. Yes, it does introduce complications in that, which I've often thought would make sense for, well, I think I've outlined this before, they should have different modules that can be updated rather than having to update the entire Gameco software.
    28:18
    So, you know, it shouldn't matter which display you've got or if they happen to change the Insider Connect camera that reads it, you know it shouldn make any difference but in this case it does in this it does so I guess this will be a unique version for the new run of Stranger Things games We don't know why they changed a different projector, but it could very well be that the projector that they used originally is no longer for sale. Yeah, absolutely. These kind of things have a very short lifespan on the market. And speaking of Stranger Things I'm actually wondering And I don't know the game So I might be completely wrong Because it's already in there But seeing the The exposure that The show had Due to that episode That featured Running Up That Hill By Kate Booth I think there should be an update coming up That includes Running Up That Hill Or Running Up That Hill Mode Oh, that's interesting idea, yes. I'm not on the programming team or creative team or anything like that. The licensing team. Yeah, well, you can't put it in for free. Especially not now. It's going to be an expensive song, I assume. But still, that would probably help sell the game, I suppose. If Running After the Hill would be in there. And I have no idea, I was very impressed with the projections from the projector on the playfield, and I even told George Gomez at the time that I felt like that should be something that every current game should have from then on. It reminded me of Pinball 2000, but in a different way, and I thought it was a cool innovation. I thought it was nice, but it was restricted. It didn't work in bright light.
    30:26
    So we had that call back to it. But anyway, we haven't seen any other game for since. But maybe we will. Maybe it will crop up on a future game. But we mentioned earlier about how Jurassic Park had the 30th anniversary announced last month, which we brought the details of. Well, to coincide with that, or almost coincide with it, there is a new Dino DNA Quest feature added to Insider Connected on the Jurassic Park game so this is a feature which runs throughout October this month we're in now and during that time you can earn unique Dino DNA Quest Insider Connected achievements there are a few names to them there's nothing you can do with them but you can still earn them Yes, that's right. Yeah, for completists out there who would like to try and get every possible achievement that is available, this is one you can go for, but only in October. So, of course, you have to be logged in with your Insider Connections account in order to earn them. And be fucking on a Jurassic Park somewhere. Right. So, and that's still not all Because Stern attended Riot Fest this year Which is a three-day music festival in Chicago Lots of rock and heavy metal music over there They had around a dozen games in their own tents But from the video that I saw It appears that backstage also So, pinball machines were available to play for the band and, well, roadies and that kind of personnel, so to speak. Yeah.
    32:23
    Obviously, strategically placed so it would look good in the video. So, a pinball machine just next to the stage, you know. I mean, if they're going to put it in a dark room somewhere else, it's not going to look that good in the video. But, well, it's a good exposure for pinball, I suppose. Yep, indeed, and moves it into outside the regular pinball crowd, which is a good thing, and gets, who knows, might lead to a tie-up licensing in the future for another music-based theme on the game.
    33:03
    Now, one of the stories we've mentioned before, was about Stern linking up with the University of Illinois for their Fighting Alini football team.
    33:15
    Well, that's been extended again this year for 2023, and Stern has announced a 2023 roster for the University of Illinois named in its likeness program, where representatives of their football team serve as brand ambassadors as part of Stern's effort to support student-athletes at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. You'll be wondering what on earth this has got to do with anything, if you're anything like me. And to be honest, it's a bit of a pet project, I suspect, for Stern. It sounds more like a PR project. It is, but a very restricted audience, I would say, because the players and their teammates will be playing Stern Pinball games. The press release will have a bigger audience than these young athletes playing new games once or twice, maybe. Yeah, if you're wondering exactly why Stern is teaming up with the University of Illinois, here's a quote from Dave Peterson, co-owner of Stern Pinball says we're thrilled to partner with the Fighting Alini players second year in a row Dave Peterson that is co-owner of Stern Pinball and Illinois Illuminis so he went to college there and another quote from Zach Sharpe says no one should support these talented players and introduced them to the game of pinball so near and dear to my heart. That's Zach Sharp, Director of Marketing at Stenpinball and another proud Illinois alumnus. So they both went to that university or that college.
    35:13
    So are these games going to be available to these players the entire season or the entire year? Yeah, I think so. We put them there for an afternoon, we take the pictures and we take them out and thank you and goodbye. Well, that would be a cynical view. I suspect they're going to be there long term. I mean, why not?
    35:36
    So, anyway, it doesn't affect any of us. And it's just a nice tie-in for Stern with their football team, their university or college football team. Okay. So, now, something that they didn't send out a press release for, which I think is probably more newsworthy than what we just discussed. And that's just my personal opinion, and it doesn't reflect on Martin whatsoever.
    36:02
    But Great American Pinball, probably one of the closest distributors or resellers of Stern Pinball, close to Stern Pinball geographically speaking, they are offering a new Stern Pimble Alley sign priced at $1,999 US dollars it measures over 5 feet long at 65 inch by 18 inch by 8 and a half inch and it weighs about 50 pounds that's what I call a topper Yeah, but this is not so much a topper as it is, well, that pinball alley sign that we've seen at shows where it was used, but of course arcades and other locations bought that sign as well. And a few home game rooms as well seem to have them. Yeah, okay, well you need to have a big game room. And a big wallet as well. Exactly. And Stern also did a decorative pop bumper shaped lamp and it's looking like a classic pop bumper like we've seen on the games in the 70s, I would say. It's like white with the blue triangle shape. Well, this is where my English is not that good. But okay, so it looks like a classic pop bumper, which oddly enough Stern hardly ever uses.
    37:50
    But still, it has the Stern pinball logo on it. And the good news is it's not that heavy as the Stern pinball LE sign. this one costs you $449.99 so basically $450 18 inch by 10 inch and it weighs about 5.5 pounds so there's more info on that on the greatamericanpinball.com website if you're interested in those totally good And I expect more resellers or distributors will be offering these, but apparently Great American Pinball was the first. So kudos to Mike.
    38:45
    Nicely done. And we'll see these probably at Pinball Expo as well. I'm sure we will, yes. These look very attractive. If you've seen the Stone Pinball Alley sign, it's a huge, huge item. But it looks great. Yeah. I think if you've got a whole bunch of Stern games, then putting that over the top on the wall really finishes them off, I should say. Right. Okay. So, now, you mentioned there was a lot of new code. Can you tell us more about that? I could do.
    39:23
    So I will. Yes. There is a new code for James Bond, 007. So version 0.96 came out at the beginning of the, well, middle of the month, 11th of September. A week later, Venom code came out with version 0.91 of that.
    39:46
    On the same day, actually a couple of days later, to tell the truth, Foo Fighters new code, 0.97 same 0.97 of Foo Fighters came out and that has it's fair to say that all of these updates are quite significant so I think congratulations to the Sturm Pinball coders because they are really bashing out a whole raft of updates of very extensive new features being added so a few bug fixes of course but putting new features into the games and really I think they're really making the games come alive in a way which people feared wouldn't happen when they first came out because when they first released they had fairly basic code, I won't say minimal but you have to have a sort of leap of faith that the games will be developed and we've seen in the past some games didn't get the code updates which they were sorely in need of and left them kind of hanging semi-completed. Well, CERN seemed to really have put a lot of effort of late into bringing out new updates for their recent games and that was followed by Jurassic Park. That came out with a new version which was only a minor one but it fixed a couple of crashes which could have happened.
    41:15
    And then a new version of Venom came out after 0.91 came out on the 18th of September, on the 3rd of October, literally two days ago, well, one day ago almost, Benham came out with 0.92, which added a huge amount more to the game and fixed a few bugs as well. We're not going into it all too much, but there's some new battles in there as well. a Grendel battle and a Gnull battle, which is all in multiple phases, so extensive updates. And if you have those games, I'm sure you've probably updated them already, or they might have automatically updated if they are connected to the internet. But it's really good to see Stern really pushing their code and bringing out updates and making a concerted effort because they've been criticized in the past. for her big a long time between updates. Well, they're coming out thick and fast now. So congratulations to the software team at Stern. And then keep in mind that, except for the Jurassic Park, all these other updates are still not at 1.0. No, there's a lot more to come yet. Yeah, so big updates now. And imagine what else is coming. Well, that's all we can do at the moment. That rhymes it up for Skirm Pinball Yeah So I'd like to Address Pinball Brothers right now Good, cool Okay And Well, basically On Facebook There was a small Discussion Or a common place through which Pinball Brothers responded by saying that they are going to bring new stuff to Pinball Expo.
    43:23
    And what that new stuff is, well, we don't know. It's new stuff. So we've been asking, like, okay, can you tell us what the new stuff is?
    43:35
    And guess what? They said yes. they said no we can't tell you that but we can tell you soon in fact we already set a date for an exclusive interview with CEO Daniel Jensen of Bimbo Brothers and I think we're well we know the recording date and we'll bring that to you in a couple of days Let's put it like that So there will be a special bonus episode Of the Pinball News and Pinball Magazine Pincast With an exclusive interview With Daniel Jensen And who knows who else From Pinball Brothers Hopefully talking about what they're going to be Showing Yeah, so they're obviously working on New stuff And we'll be the first To bring you up to date with what it is top men working on new stuff right so new stuff coming from Bimble Brothers soon so by the time you tune in to next month's pencast you may already have discovered exactly what that is but if not we will bring you all the details of it then but certainly watch out for or listen out for our exclusive bonus pin cast over the next few days, as Jonathan said. Right, so. American Pinball. Ah, yes, okay. Well, obviously their current game is Galactic Tank Force, which they have been showing in various places, including at the recent IAPA Europe show, which was held in Vienna about a week ago, I think. and that includes which is something which was unusual, although not exactly unique, but it does include a whole bunch of professional actors, not just providing their... The game you mean? Yes, the game. Not the AFR show. No, well there were plenty of actors there I'm sure but no, Galactic Tank Force includes a whole bunch of actors, not only providing voice work but also their likenesses and if you were interested in seeing them and talking to them about the work that they did for the Crack the Tank Force game you will be able to meet I think almost the entire cast certainly the professional actors from Crack the Tank Force who will be at Pinball Expo on Friday and Saturday at the American Pinball stand or an American Pinball seminar as well, which takes place. On Friday. Yes. Just give me a quick look to see if I can work out exactly what time it is taking place. Well, it's Friday or Saturday, and either way, the X-Wings will also be in the American Pinball. Ah, here we go, yes. 8 o'clock on Friday evening, obviously Central Time. American Pinball Galactic Tank for Save the Cows and Eat Ice Cream with David Fix and the creative team behind Galactic Tank Force. Right, so that's also designed, so Dennis Norman, I assume, will be there, Stephen Bowden, and of course the cast, the four main actors, real actors that not so much are involved in the design of the game, but portraying the roles of the characters they perform. Quite right, that's a creative team. So, yeah, I should include them. So Empress Anoia and I forgot to give you who everybody else is. Professor Plotnik. Yeah, exactly.
    47:34
    They're going to be there, probably in character. So, well, that could be interesting. Yeah, well, they've been in a typical dress as well.
    47:46
    But it promises to be a very interesting and entertaining hour, 8 till 9 on Friday night just before the launch of the Mystery Pimble Company's game right, so but that's not all American Pimble also released a game code update for Legend of Valhalla yeah, don't bring out too many game code updates but that just came out on the 6th of September. This is version 23, which interestingly added a jukebox option, which is something we've seen elsewhere, shall we say. Vikings like to listen to music as well. Of course, fair enough, yeah. And also added Victory Laps as an award shield of the gods at Victory Sorry, virtually lap completion On the outlane save Changed a few bits and pieces Added some double scoring Rebalancing some of the scores Just made it A little more complete And balanced, shall we say Nothing huge But It's a pretty complete game as it is So it doesn't need much So that's Version 23 person 23. And if it happens... Sorry, not version 23. I'm just saying version 23. That's the date, of course. Version 23.09.06, which is the date of the software, which is the 6th of the 9th, 23. Right. In reverse. Right. So I was going to say, if you haven't played Let's Talk Ohara, I strongly suggest you do, because I find it a very good flowing game. very pleasant playing game and it's really surprised me every time I played it how much fun it is so if you're looking for a surprise I would say in the sense that a lot of people don't expect the game to be as good as it is so to speak I think the problem is a lot of people haven't played it because there aren't that many of them out there so I think It's a little bit of a sleeper game If you know what I mean Those people who played it know how good it is And a lot of people get to it Yeah, especially with the new code updates Yeah, absolutely Okay, I think that's all the news we have from American Pinball So let's move on to Let's go a little bit north of the border To Pinball Adventures In Vancouver Well, they continued Teasing their upcoming Elements game On Instagram Now, teasing that game for months, if not years, together with, of course, their current game, Pony Factory, Elements will be one of the several new games to be revealed at Pinball Expo. Yes, indeed.
    51:00
    So, if you're interested in that, seeing a new game for the very first time when it's just launching you're one of the first people in the world to actually play it then Pinball Expo is where you probably should be so I'm not sure whether Andrew of Pinball Adventures is doing a seminar as well I don't believe he is I haven't seen him yet but this is always a preliminary schedule right up to the point where the seminars start and even beyond then sometimes So I haven't seen this as a speaker yet What a pity But then again The game will be there And that's probably what matters most And that's basically all the news there is From Pinball Adventures Personally I look forward to Playing both Pony Factory and Elements Because I'm rather curious Like are they any good and especially hearing from you that Elements is a really fun layout. Yeah, and I would expect it to shoot well, given it's prominent, or it's... ..provenant, I should say. But who knows?
    52:25
    Until we actually get our hands on it, we can't say. But we will, if we do get our hands on it, you'll hear all about it in next month's Pincast. So we were talking about potential game launches, at Pinball Expo. Right. Which might... This one is for sure unless something odd happens, but then again, you never know. Yeah, well, things do happen and games aren't launched when we were expecting them to. We've had that a good few times at various shows.
    52:57
    So, I don't know, that takes us on to Jersey Jack Pinball. Yes. Yeah, because there was a new Pinball profile interview Jeff Teolis and he's been talking to Jack Guarneri and Steve Ritchie and Steve's game from his first game for Jersey Jet Pimple is expected to be announced soon very soon I understand it but more than that we're not really in a position to say but yeah I think that's enough To be honest Yeah okay So Should we Comment on The theme That has been Speculated For Steve's game Oh you can You can certainly Comment on it Yeah Well Okay well When we If you recall Correctly We talked To Steve Ritchie The designer Of this game I think it was like a year and a half ago at the Texas Pinball Festival that's right, yeah, it would have been March 2022 yeah exclusive interview that we did back then thank you Steve for that in which you already told us that it was the game contained music but it was appealing to a young and as well as an older audience. That's what I recall from it. And with that information in mind, the theme that has been rumored, so it's pure speculation,
    54:50
    is that the game is based on Billy Joel. No, I kid. Yeah. No, either Elton John or Rocketman or something in the likes that relates to the music of Elton John, Captain Fantastic.
    55:12
    Yeah. Something like that. That has been rumored. It's a very strong rumor. We don't know whether there's any truth to it, but that's the rumor that's, let's say, it's a strong rumor. So New game from Steve Ritchie Announced Supposedly announced to be Very soon and that interview That Pinball Profile interview Is highly recommended To check out So go to the Pinball Profile website And you'll easily find it Over there But there's more from Jersey Jack Yes new code In this case, Guns N' Roses.
    55:56
    Quite unexpected, if I may say so. Yeah, I guess so. At least I wasn't expecting it. No huge changes this month, or in this latest update. Mostly updates to the underlying operating system, but also taking out the scorebit elements as well, because obviously Jersey Jackpinball no longer has a relationship with the score bit, so that's not what's supported in their games.
    56:29
    And the rest of it's sort of fairly mundane stuff about updating the score, shot logic, ball search, and a few bug fixes, and some improvements for taking the picture of you next to Slash. But not anything earth-shattering or show-stopping, so we won't go into any more detail about it because it's, it's twice as a version 2.0 is now available if you haven't already got it on your machine. Right. Okay. Moving up to a little bit north,
    57:07
    Wisconsin I would say Spooky Pinball Yeah yeah busy building a Scooby where are you game but also going back and doing some updates to Halloween we have new software version 1.13 a it's now available which there are quite a lot of bug fixes and new features in it. So, again, lots of hard work by the programmers at these simple companies now. Software updates are coming thick and fast, which is always good to see. Right.
    57:48
    Now, Halloween has the same layout as Ultraman. If I recall correctly, the 1.30 Ultraman update is not available yet. No, I don't think it is. I think Ultraman has been sort of left behind a little bit, but apparently it is coming very shortly. It may even be out by the time you listen to this, but when we were documenting our talking points for this particular pin cast, it wasn't available. Right, OK. And I do have a really fresh from the press hooky pinball news. Two hours ago, they announced on Facebook final calls on the Total Nuclear Annihilation collector's editions, which is basically the 2.0 run of Total Nuclear Annihilation. There are only two TNA CEs left before they are completely sold out. So if you're interested in getting yourself a Total Nuclear Annihilation remake, this may be your very last chance. Jump in before they are completely gone, is what it says. And how many were they making? 250, was it? Yeah, a run of 250, yes. Somehow I suspect they'll make 250 anyway, won't they? I'm sure I can sell two.
    59:07
    Yeah, well, and then they're probably done for a while, and then they'll probably take it back into production at some point. Oh, okay. A vault edition. I have no idea what I'm going to call it, but the thing is, TNA is a very popular game.
    59:27
    But there's not that many in Europe and they probably, I know there's a strong demand, but not at the price point that they were selling this upgraded version. But, well, who knows. I still see a big demand for TNA in Europe. Pure speculation on my end, but I think it's such a good game that if they are in the position to do a third run in a couple of years, I would do so. But it's all entirely up to them. If you're interested in one of the last two available remakes, then contact SpookyPimple immediately I would say or your local distributor if you have one yeah well the thing is with Spooky Pinball this TNA 2.0 run if you want to call it or CE wasn't sold through distributors you had to order it directly with Spooky Pinball oh right ok that's interesting that's support for that then if there are any issues to crop up but anyway we'll have more speculation but they managed to do well so far so oh yeah ok I think that's it from Swicky Pinball for this month so let's move on to one of the newer even newer pinball companies which is Hexapinball who are based in France and they've been showing their space hunt game yeah it's a pinball show where was that? that Shane was called sorry the show was called Games in Cholet which is in the city of Cholet in France and from what I understand they got very good feedback on the game also suggestions from people who played it for the rules and everything and they're taking these under consideration and slightly related to that one of the engineers on Space Fund by Hexapimble is Roman Fontaine who is well not a name that many might recognize but he's actually been very busy working for various manufacturers in the world of pinball including Highway Pinball King Pinball Pinsound in the year and now Hexa Pinball as well and the French website Pinball Mag which has no correlation whatsoever with Pinball Magazine published an interview with Roman Fontaine as he's French and they cover his entire career so far. So it's a highly recommended interview. And then, of course, the tie-in is that he's working on Space Hunt as well. So that's why we mentioned it here with Hexa Pinball. And personally, I'm hoping that Hexa Pinball will make it over. I don't expect them to make it over to Pinball Expo. No. But I do hope they make it over to the Dutch Pinball Open which is held mid-November. Yeah, in Eindhoven, yes. Yeah, so that would be very nice if they could make it there.
    63:21
    But there's no official news on that, so it's just a wishful thinking on my end in this case. But do check out the Roman Fontaine interview. He's a very talented engineer who deserves to be acknowledged for what he's been doing in the world of pinball. Yes, go to pinballmag.fr,
    63:46
    and then I'm sure you'll find it there as one of their featured articles. Okay, now, moving on. We mentioned about Cardona Pinball in the past, who are doing their 2.0 kits, one for No Good Gophers, a battle for the green, and also their latest release is Black Rose Skull and Bones. No actual news from them. I'll then do say that I'm hoping, if I can get my hands on a Black Brothers machine soon, to be able to install the kit and do a review of it.
    64:26
    Or you might be able to play it at Pimble Expo. Well, I'm sure we're going to play it at Pimble Expo, yes, absolutely. But it's very different to be able to get an in-depth review of the game, which includes the installation as well. You want to see how easy it is to fit the kit, whereas the ones that will be at BigBudgetXO will already be set up. So you may be able to see them, but you may not be able to understand how the kit is installed. So looking forward to doing that. And if that happens, I will let you know about it. Okay. Interesting.
    65:00
    Yeah, I no longer have a Black Rose. Yeah. I used to have one. It was a parts machine. but interestingly enough, this is just a side note, I saw the game last year and I figured, like, oh, this is whatever. This guy that bought it, like, good luck with it. He got it working up and running in, I think, less than three weeks. I was amazed. Oh. Because I thought it was a parts machine, parts missing, boards missing, and he got it completely running and kudos to him. So, it's quite a story, but okay. Okay. So, carrying on about events in the Netherlands. Mm-hmm. Oh, nice, Rich. Ah, I see. How are you practicing?
    65:49
    Not much, but a little. Yeah. Okay, so the Dutch pinball, yes. Yeah, I had a feeling you were heading into that direction, yes. Well, yeah. Yeah. Nothing is unpredictable. I didn't see any news from Dutch Pimple, but I did see a short video, a sort of looped gif, if you wish, that showed a Big Lebowski game with new illuminated animated art blades for the side, inside the cabinet, so to speak. for the big Lebowski so you have basically the various stars and shapes that are also part of the apron these light up in a sort of sequence there's this technique with foil that lights up in different layers or so which is probably used for this. But it looks very nice.
    67:03
    Not sure whether it adds anything to the game, but it's a very nice mod. It fits the theme. So it's not available yet. I understood this was like a prototype.
    67:21
    Not sure whether this was produced by The Art of Pinball. to which they recently made a deal that they would do the upcoming mods and topper and what have you. Yeah, and play-through toys and things. Yeah, exactly so. But if so, I think this will be the first animated, illuminated side art blades for a pinball machine. in the world. I don't think I've seen that ever before.
    68:04
    Yeah, you got me. I'm wondering. I've seen some available, like from PING Graphics, I think, have had some for which we see a similar kind of thing. That's correct. Thank you very much. But don't ask me which games they're for, because there are quite a lot of them. And they look very nice. So I thought it was a very good addition. but I'm sure it will be technically in keeping with the theme for the Wiglebowski with the stars and so on which will probably match very nicely with the illuminated apron as well yeah okay, moving on yeah, other end of the world Taiwan, to be precise, Hongpin Mike Kalinowski was present at Pinfest Newcastle which was held mid-September if I'm not mistaking and one of the five pinball manufacturers present the others being Gary Stern, Jack Warnieri Damien from Hackers Pinball to which we'll get into in a second and David Henkin of Henkin Pinball from the 80s. Yeah, an Australian manufacturer, of course. Yes.
    69:27
    So pictures were posted on social media of all five of them posing together, which is quite remarkable in the sense that it's already difficult enough to get a photo of Gary Stern and Zachary Newman together. Yeah, that's true. I think I was one of the first in years to actually achieve that. but well imagine now with five manufacturers so that was very interesting yeah past and present recently yeah and well that's about the only news from Homepin I did see that there was an article published which said that Homepin would reveal their next game at Pinball Expo. I know for a fact that it will be Pinball Expo 2024, not the Expo that we are experiencing in two and a half weeks.
    70:30
    So, that will be there. That would be very strange to announce the second game. They've hardly launched the first. Right. So, now they're still well, just starting actually with this is Final Tepper production. And, well, the other, their upcoming game should be presented probably, or launched at the Pinball Expo 2024. So, if you're looking for it, this edition, then I'm afraid I'm... You'll be out of luck. Yes. Right. Oh, yeah. Sorry. So you mentioned about Haggis Pinball and there being some other news from them what have you got? Well, guess what? They were present at Newcastle Pinfest as well Yes, as you said Yes, with two Centaur prototypes one of each model the classic one and the upgraded one was it the blood I forgot Ooh, yeah, now you're asking.
    71:43
    Right. Sorry. Anyway, they brought two Centaur games, as well as a Fathom and a Kel, so they had a small table with flyers and stuff like that.
    71:59
    All four games held up rock solid, as they reported on Facebook, which is a good thing. I didn't check whether Centaur has sold out since then but there's a good chance it didn't as it's a very limited run so if you're still interested see if they still have some available very curious to see whether Damien and Ryan will make it over to Pinball Expo this year I hope they do but of course Australia has had quite a trip to Chicago. Oh well. Yeah. Well, it would be nice to be able to play either the Centaur games. Right. I said Centaur Revisited, either the Beast or the Oblivion editions.
    72:52
    Beast, that was a block, sorry, I forgot. Yeah. Anyway, so, and at the beginning of September, Damien also posted an update, a video update on his Facebook page in which he said the company is on track with the production of Fathom and they still expect to finish the entire run of Fathom before the end of the year.
    73:20
    And of course then they will be moving on production to Centaur. And that wraps it up for Haggis Pinball. Very good. Okay. So what else have we got? Well, we mentioned about IAPA Europe, being in Vienna earlier in the PIN cast there was another company who was there I mentioned about RS Pinball having a big stand with various manufacturers but they weren't the only one with pinball machines there because Victronic were there from Spain and they had three models or three versions or three machines from their Super Hoop game which they also So they stand up very similar to the one they had at EAD Expo in London in January, where they had two Super Hoop machines, so they had an extra one for Vienna. And again, it looked like one of those machines had its playfield up so they could demonstrate to potential buyers how the game was constructed and how it looked under the playfield and inside the cabinet. So effectively there seem to be two Playable games there And one demonstration game But good to see BipTronic there Still with their Super Hoop game And hope it sells well for them Right so And We didn't mention it When we were discussing American Pinball But now that you mentioned The IFA show Where BipTronic has a stand of their own David Fitzoff, American Pinball attended the Ayapa show as well with a Galactic Tank Force game present in the RS Pinball booth so hopefully that resulted in some sales to European operators yes and also there was a distributor there as well, SAFF S-A-F-F amusement from France and they had an Oktoberfest game on this and two. Ah, okay. Okay. So, drifting off. But, well, there's still more news to come.
    75:38
    I think Bitronic, that was all the news that we could find. It's very quiet on their end, but it's good to see that they're still building new games. there was a story that I read I'm not exactly sure who brought it first about the Kingpin project from Circus Maximus basically being dead now if you may recall Circus Maximus was formed by Pipe and Angelo to continue his legacy and to basically get Pinball Circus finally into production because it never got past two prototypes or possibly three now, I would say.
    76:36
    We've seen another one at Pinball Expo being presented. But this was a project that James Loughlin took on I reached out to James Loughlin to verify whether there is any truth to the story of the Kingpin Project and the Circus the Pimple Circus Project both being dead I didn't get any response from James but well I'd say knowing James I wouldn't say I wouldn't be surprised if it's not that at all but it's just life getting in the way of things and you're not getting to what you want to get done because other things take priorities yeah I think it's sort of to say it's on hiatus and we'll it may restart at some point in the future but it hasn't been officially declared dead, shall we say. As far as I know, it hasn't. I haven't seen anything like... I mean, they did sell Translites as a deposit for the Kingpin game, and they sold like 250 of those, or 250 were available. that's not an unreasonable price for a transwrite in the first place but I don't think anybody got the message or received an email or something of a notification like okay we're done it's over and basically you got a transwrite and that's it top lock or not in those words but I guess you get what I'm trying to say. Yeah. We haven't seen any official notification that it's a completely dead project. Yeah, we haven't seen any indication there's any progress taking place on it either.
    78:53
    That's all true. Yeah. So there we go. So what about other companies? We've got a few where we have no news, haven't we? So, Chicago Gaming...
    79:08
    The way the production of Pulp Fiction should begin. Yeah, and also for Cactus Canyon, continue to...
    79:18
    Sorry, continue. Cactus Canyon remake to sort of be in production in any significant quantity. It seems to be really dragging its heels as far as that goes. From White's side. So, yeah, very interesting what's going on there, and hopefully we will get some answers at Pinball Expo. Yes, indeed. But anyway, for now, no news from them. Patretti Gaming in Italy. No news. No. There was a new video of World Wind 2.0 being played. There was, yeah. Yeah. Total Chaos, yeah. Yeah, that was it. Yeah. It wasn't for them, I don't think. but they shared it on their social media feeds Quetzalpinball in Spain yeah well there's still sort of a line with Bitronic people that we just discussed and we're still waiting for the Tokyo Drift game to be announced as the follow up to Superboot so we're still waiting for that no news then for this one Turn the Pinball No news either But hopefully Some news at Pinball Expo Yeah We expect them to Be there Even if they Don't have A game with them But probably We'll have A new version Of their Ninja Eclipse game So the latest Version of it So we look forward To seeing what They'll be doing There Scandinavian Pinball Factory Who we mentioned Before No news No I had a look For that I didn't see any News from them Either I think it's required, who are also distributors for Home Pin products, I believe. Right, yeah, exactly. So that rounds it up for the news from the pinball industry, manufacturers, that is.
    81:17
    And as we mentioned, in case you missed it, Pinball Expo is coming up, and we are very happy to be talking to none other than Mr. Pinball Expo himself, Rob Burke. Good. I'm broadcasting live from the headquarters of Burke Enterprise. We sell to the Texas State Fair a lot of their drink cups. So we have our team here distributing the cups to the various vendors that need the cups for their drinks.
    81:49
    Right. Well, obviously, while we're interested in that business, we would very much like to talk to you about what you have coming up at Pinball Expo in a couple of weeks' time. And also, have a few words about your other recent venture, the pastimes arcade, and find out how that's going on. But let's start with Pinball Expo then. And how's the planning for that going this year compared to previous years? Yeah, this year, the level of intensity and excitement from the attendees as well as the vendors has honestly reached an all-time high. We are actually sold out of vendor space, and people are still reaching out to try to get in to the show. and based on pre-registration and people that want to get tickets to the Stern Tour it would be close to double the size of any show we've had in the past so people are excited to get into pinball is really the excitement level among everyone and all the different shows everyone's doing really well in pinball is hot right now it's a hot subject and it shows for us in the numbers and the number of vendors that are coming to the show excellent news I would say yeah you know it's just a surprise I just you know I didn't realize the show would be as big as it is this year but I think a lot of people were extremely not happy but extremely happy with the show last year they had a good time there and for me personally you know I take pride in putting together the seminars and more and more people are reaching out to me and say hey you know I've come to Expo because of the seminars you know you have a great selection and they're always good and informative. This year, I mean, I've just lost my mind. There's more seminars this year than ever. We have over 85 people speaking in seminars this year. Thank you very much. That's just basically clogging up our entire schedule to see the rest of the show. Thank you so much. Jonathan, just think. You could write a whole book. Your next article, your next issue will be, you know, 89 pages, just all expos off.
    84:06
    If I make it, yes. if I'm right yeah but oh well so you have I've seen the schedule it's packed yeah I'm looking at it right now and thinking yeah okay so we start the seminars pretty much as soon as the buses come back from the Stern Factory tour on Thursday at lunchtime yeah it goes all the way through until well basically midnight with a movie and then starting again obviously early Friday morning 8.15 as ever with Ron Coon Jr and his usual slot, and going through to Lloyd in the evening. And on Saturday at 10.30 a.m. with Dino, and that goes all the way through until, well, 9.50. Yeah, it's just crazy. It's really, for me, it's really been fun, and, you know, I've always enjoyed doing the seminars, and for those people that want any kind of an education on any aspect of pinball, you know, of course they come to the seminars. Not everyone does, but those that do really enjoy it a lot. And we have so many different manufacturers doing their part in speaking at the show as well. So we have that plus a lot of new speakers. Just about everything A to Z. I mean, it's just so encompassing I can't even put it into words. Right. And you have, and we mentioned it already, the Stern Factory Tour, which will be at their new facility.
    85:33
    Yeah. So that should be very, very interesting. even myself I'll try to get on that first bus just ahead of Jonathan and just enjoy that yeah unfortunately I won get a chance to go to that because I be in the seminar room setting up everything for recording and the AV stuff on Thursday But Martin, I will get you every pan and I'll grab only one, one for my buddy Martin. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Well, hopefully we'll get a chance to actually go and visit Stern maybe on the Wednesday or the Tuesday just to check them out. and basically you sort of get some pictures that we can use later for publicity and part of the reports. But we'll see how that goes anyway.
    86:24
    So apart from the seminars, which is obviously incredibly packed, you are obviously going to have a huge number of machines there for people to play. Yes. Are these coming from your new pastimes location Or are these in addition Obviously you've got people bringing games as well Yeah, so that's a good question But yeah, I'll be bringing games from pastimes And what's good with these games at pastimes Is we're playing them every day So we're keeping them in 100% working condition So that's a plus for me bringing these games Because there's a good chance That they're going to hold off for the weekend And plus, we've been on almost death to be there to fix whatever does go down. But we're going to have a lot of games. There's no question about it.
    87:16
    And just to clarify, if people were thinking, I know it's quite a long distance to go from Expo in Schaumburg to Pastimes in Girard in Ohio. But if they were thinking of doing that, the Pastimes is closed for the duration of Pinball Expo. Is that right? Yes, it is. That's a good question because some people have actually reached out already wanting to come that week, but I just said, sorry, we're going to be closed for the whole week. We're pulling games and getting ready for the Expo. Plus, they're retiring. We're going to come back Monday and start unloading Tuesday and get ready for our opening on Thursday. Yes, it's a huge task to move that many people that long distance. Right. Now, as an organizer of the event, you obviously know what will be happening. And let me ask you, what is your favorite highlight that you are looking forward to? Wow, that's a great question. That's a great question. Man Well you know I always For me What I really enjoy the most Is seeing the pinball Aficionados That come from all over the world That to me gets me the most excited So If all goes well We have a guy That's coming from Hungary That's selling Pinball Playfield glass I think that's pretty incredible But he'll be there and Pinball Brothers, of course. But, you know, we have the World Cup tournament, as you guys know, and that's become popular again. We've got some guys from Ireland and Brazil and some other countries. So that, to me, is exciting because, to me, it's really fun to connect the pinball community together. So that, for me, is also a fun part of the show. And, of course, Interium, you know, our bumper blast on Wednesday night. and that is extremely popular. I mean, people from all over the world come and I'll have a lot of guys come up front and speak about, you know, the first time guys coming from other countries hadn't talked about, you know, why they came and welcome them to the events. So that's always a lot of fun. So, you know, there's just so much going on, so much energy happening all three days, three and a half days, you don't have any time to sleep.
    89:41
    And this year is no exception, especially with all the seminars. Right. You're killing us, Rob. I am. I know I am. Martin, I love you, man. That's all I can say because I do know that. And I don't know what else to do, guys. You know, in the back of my mind, I thought to myself, should we do Expo another day? Should we add another day? Well, there's something that's still available.
    90:07
    I don't know if, you know, start the show Tuesday and everything starts Wednesday. I thought about that. But I don't know if we're ready for another day of Expo. But there's so much happening, and you kind of wonder, like, should I do it so we get people more time to breathe? Well, maybe you should add another day next year for your 40th anniversary. Well, that's what I'm wondering. So, you know, I wouldn't mind having you put that out to your audience and, you know, get some feedback, guys. Let me know what their thoughts are on that.
    90:39
    Yeah. Would you be tempted to do it more on the Wednesday On the month of last day Or on Sunday Which we used to have Sunday of course Yeah but you know People just aren't excited about Sunday I have found Because even the shows that go on Sunday You know by 2 o'clock Everyone's pretty much done And it's like It's the point now where They put all their energy for the 3 or 4 days And everyone's pretty exhausted So, you know, they're trying to get home, and the thought of working all day Sunday just doesn't sound very appealing. Yeah, I understand. I would probably add, to answer your question, I would probably add, excuse me now for the bumper blast and get into the action on Wednesday.
    91:24
    Okay. Plus, guys, another thing I'd like to do next year is have multiple factory tours. maybe turn one day jack another so if I add a day that makes that more viable you know so I'd like to hear from your audience you know whether they reach out to me directly or through you guys and see what their thoughts are on that well you can do easily do a questionnaire of everybody coming over to Expo this year so maybe that's a thought you know Martin or Jonathan if you guys don't mind putting it on your website and just ask the people, maybe have a yes or no, you know, knowing that it's Tuesday, the additional day, and not Sunday. You know, just do what kind of feedback you get. Yeah, I could easily do a poll as part of the report for this year. Yeah, you don't have to. Lots of people read that. So we mentioned earlier about the bumper blast being the, kind of like the official launch of Pinball Expo on the Wednesday night. One of the issues last year I heard quite a lot of people mention Was that they went there But they've got all these wonderful games At Interium Which are there all the time But on the evening that they went there for the bumper blast All the games, or nearly all the games The pinball seemed to have been taken For use in the tournament So there was hardly anything to play And we're all aware of that As well as Interium So they are making a big concerted push to have a lot more additional machines just for the expo attendees. So they are aware of that problem, and hopefully this will be addressed, and it will be addressed correctly, and that will be a thing of the past. So Ontario will have their tournaments at the same time as the bumper blocks similar to last year? Well, what I think they're going to do is they're going to start it sooner, so it's done sooner and then that way we'll have more time for ourselves.
    93:31
    Okay. We mentioned earlier about past times and that's obviously been something which has taken up a big chunk of your time over the past couple of years pretty much since you first found the location for it.
    93:48
    To give you a brief summary of how and why pastimes came into existence. And basically, what people who are interested in going there, what are they going to find?
    94:04
    You're going to find, here you've got this crazy guy from Ohio that has got all these games, and he's sitting there thinking to himself, what am I going to do with them, number one. And then number two, thinking, I have nowhere to put these games to even play them and enjoy them for myself. So I was driving down a very popular street in our area, and I see this grocery store that had been closed for like two or three years. And I talked to myself, maybe, just maybe. So I made an inquiry, and the next thing you know, I bought it. It's about a 30,000-square-foot grocery store. And made the deal, and then spent the next year or so, a year plus, to turn the whole thing down. Now, out here was Josh. He helped me work down there. And he's saying it was three years in the making. It was. But we had a lot of construction, a lot of moving, a lot of cleaning. And, you know, you never know what you're getting into until you buy it. And then one surprise after the other, including a roof that leaked that I didn't know anything about. and if anyone knows anything about big flat roofs, it costs a lot of quid to fix it. Yeah. So, you know, we dealt with all that and finally my daughter got involved with the pastimes, as we call it, and she said, Dad, you've got to put aside a set date on when you're going to open this place. Yeah. I don't know. I'm giving you three months. You've got to shoot for something. So we put it in writing And we worked and worked and worked And made it happen So in the beginning You know we had games that weren't playable Or games that just weren't working real well But after three months Every single game's been cleaned Every single game's gone through And sure we do have games to break down When we have big crowds there But by Monday everything's fixed And when people arrive the following week Everything's up and running So, you know, it's a process. It's a long process and a learning process. But I think we've got it figured out now. And last count, we were around 615 as far as total machines there. And I believe over 400 just on the pinballs.
    96:31
    So my most recent purchase was a Keeney game called Go-Kart. And anyone knows about Keeney? They're most popular for making slot machines. but they made about a half a dozen pinball machines and there was a great clip on the Pacific Pinball Museum on this company but I was able to purchase this go-kart and I had never heard that title but here this game was designed by Ed Krinsky from Gottlieb, San Cruz so that game is sitting on our floor now and it took a lot of time to bring it back to life but it's there so that's the one thing we stress about A lot of unique games, rare games.
    97:14
    I have a Q-Bridge Quest pinball from Godlib that you don't see every day. And when I put it on the floor, the play field was really pretty rough.
    97:23
    But I got one of our speakers that came next year, Marcelo, I think it is. And he's wonderful at doing it. He's an artist. He really is a true artist. and he did a number on that play field that it looks like it's brand spanking new. So that's exciting to me to see things like that happen because my whole goal is to bring these games back to life, reproducing back glasses that need reproduced. I've got 25 gun shooting games, which you see one or two here and there, but to see 25 in a row is pretty nuts. Right.
    98:02
    I got games from just about every manufacturer you can dream of. Sounds like a place to visit But not during people's life You're right It is There's just no way you can see it in one day It's amazing the people that have traveled there so far A lot of people from Chicago This one guy came two or three weeks in a row He came for two days, went home, came back For two days But we have a very large number Of Spanish and Italian games That are up and running So that to me is also exciting To see those games And we'll bring all those games down to Expo again and people are going to kick our feet in some of those games. Although this is your venture, you don't actually run it on a day-to-day basis, do you? Yeah, we're four days a week.
    98:45
    You are there four days a week? Well, the staff is. You know, we start a family business, but I'm fortunate my wife and some of my kids have pushed forward to help out and be involved and work the show and work the pastimes and be there and I'm lucky to have family that's all encompassing and all embracing in this venture. So they help with the pinball expo, and they help with pastime. So it's almost like, Dad, what are you going to be up to next?
    99:19
    Yeah, so is there a manager at the place, an overall manager? Mike Hale. Yes, that's what I thought, yeah. Okay, so Mike's going to be busy there. One of the big problems, of course, with any large collections is maintenance. So how easy was it to find people who could actually fix these games and restore them with such a wide range of machines, from the very newest to back in the 30s? So I hired Mike Hale, and he's more on the newer, or on the later EM games he's very good at. So he helped a lot. But I have a fellow, in fact, he's given a seminar, the first seminar, Thursday at 1 o'clock, Mike Gullo. and Mike is my solitaire repair guy that I'll bring him to Expo but he's going to share some horror stories of some of the craziest things that happened to him but he's very very good at fixing the solitaire game so I'm lucky to have him and then I'm lucky to have Ron Kuhn. Now Ron Kuhn used to work for Scott.
    100:23
    So Ron comes down three days a week to help me out and fix games and Ron not only is good with the pinballs but he's good with the jukeboxes he's good with video games and he's good with off-the-wall manufacture. So amazingly to me, but he's taken a liking to fixing the foreign games. And this includes the Spanish games, the Italian games. So it's crazy that, you know, it's a gift from God to have these guys be there because without the repair techs, you know, you're dead. I don't care what kind of company or what kind of arcade you have. Without a good guy to fix the games, you know, it's tough. But every single game is up, every single game is running, and 98% of the games are working every week.
    101:13
    That's fantastic. Yeah, absolutely. You can't hardly comprehend it. Going to one place to have so many games working. I mean, I'm the first to admit it. But these guys, you know, stay on it. And I'm very lucky to have a team like that. Okay, well, good for you. and we're lucky to get that many games from that collection coming over to Expo as well for other people to enjoy. Yeah.
    101:40
    Now, Jonathan, I know that maybe you can't make it to Expo, but you're still welcome to pass that. I appreciate that, Rob. Thank you.
    101:51
    So finally, just going back to Expo then, if people were, if anybody was thinking about coming, was sort of on the fence about it, couldn't quite decide whether to come, how long to come for. What's your sales pitch to them to persuade them, to tell them why they should come to Pinball Expert? Well, that's a great question. I mean, years ago, my advertising motto was the everything for everyone show. So no matter what aspect or what level of pinball commitment or interest you're in, there's everything at the show. So, you know, there's things at our show you see nowhere else. some of the guys have shows where they bring in some of the artists and designers, but not the breadth we do. There could be 40, 50 guys, you know, coming to the autograph session, for instance. But to tour the factories is, you know, unless you live in Chicago, you can't tour the factory. And for that matter, they don't just open the door to everybody who walks around the block. They have to have special permission, or in this case, you know, you're part of a group of pinball expo. So it's a very unique opportunity to get treated like royalty by the manufacturers and to meet some of these head honchos. I know a lot of guys. I remember that Martin A. who came in one year. He used to be beating all these guys for the first time. So, you know, it just blows your mind to meet these guys and talk to them. And to see Richie, you know, is this guy, is he breathing? Is he a robot? No, he's like anybody else. He'll sit there and talk to you. So this is a unique opportunity to meet these guys. plus you meet people all over the world so it's like going to a class reunion you meet people, you make friends with them and there's just so much energy in the room that you don't know where to start first and when you leave with a feeling of satisfaction like man this was worth my time and then some because the opportunities of meeting people seeing things, learning from the seminars and seeing all the vendors. And a lot of the vendors are very unique to our show. They don't see any other shows. So there's so much to see and so much to do that when you wrap it all up, it's just the best value for the money that you can imagine if you're in the pinball. Right. And we've come a long way. I wouldn't have said this 10, 20 years ago. But, you know, at this time now, we know, I'm here in Schaumburg, and we have a, right now we're renting a double hall, which is about 70,000 square feet. And just to give your readers an idea of what it was in the past, when we were the hotels guys, we had 25,000 square feet.
    104:43
    So we were almost triple that. Yep. In vendor space. And next year, I booked a third space. Next year, we're going to be at 100,000 square feet. So my job is just to find everybody in their armholes and put up a booth in there and showcase their wares because that's a lot of space of just pinball. A lot. Right, right. But this year, we did it. People should come this year for the 39th, and then they can come again next year and see how much bigger you've made it for the 40th. There you go. But there is another aspect of the show that I do, and that is my son is into the retro video games, the Sega, the Atari, the Dreamcast, the PlayStation games. Well, the console games. The console games, right. So we've got about ten vendors that do that. So that's more for my son. And they add a little bit of interest and a little bit of a novelty to the show. But by no means is it the main part of the show, but it is part of the show so there's a little bit of everything for everyone and how do you describe it guys? I mean you guys have been to the show you're better in the group than anybody because you see it from a different perspective and Martin for you to be there and even for the seminars the level of seminars that you used to do compared to today, it's just crazy it is, I mean I would say that there's so much going on that it's very hard to keep across everything because you've got all the tournaments taking place at the same time as the seminars, you've got the prize draws you've got various contests going on for like a topper, a homebrew topper contest yeah that's a new event for this year as well I believe and the homebrew like you said the homebrew is becoming so popular the area we have for homebrew is growing more and more.
    106:48
    And as we've seen in the past, that very often leads to people getting jobs and careers within the industry as well. Yeah, Dave Fix is my vendor chair. He set that thing up and got Ryan a job. He has a Sonic homebrew game and he got a job at American Pinball.
    107:10
    Dave, keep that offer going for anyone this year. There's no guarantee, but he will give you an audience if you create a game and bring a game to the show that's really outstanding. Yeah, it's your chance to get to meet these people before they're famous, I guess. Yeah. Plus, you know, a lot of these guys aren't getting any younger, you know. Dave Christensen used to come every year, but, you know, the guys in the 80s now, it's hard for me to get them to come to Expo. He has a hard time getting around. So, you know, come see the guys when they're still here. It's still well enough to be here. And these are a lot of the people they helped form the basis of this hobby and the history of this company, of this hobby. Right. Okay. So, I suppose we should sort of round this up, not to make it too lengthy.
    107:59
    Well, I'm going to repeat my question. Aside from meeting the people at Expo, the international people or the people from America visiting, what's the event you look forward to the most?
    108:13
    The World Cup Tournament. and seeing the massive amount of vendors in the vendor hall. Yeah, it's an impressive site. A lot of them are coming for the first time, yep. Yep. Well, thank you very much for taking time out for your busy schedule to talk to us, Rob. And we look forward to, well, I will see you in a couple of weeks' time, and I'd like to think Jonathan will be there too. and we'll think about it I have a conflicting event so I can only be in one place hey Martin maybe what I can do for you is maybe I can have a little grill on the side and you can cook your food there yeah a little barbecue yeah that would work guys I want to thank you for reaching out to me I want to thank you for the media that you guys do because you guys help connect the world So you're a big part of this hobby, and I appreciate it. It's our pleasure, and thank you for joining us on this special interview. Thank you. Bye-bye. So thanks to Rob for bringing us all up to date on what's happening with Pivotal Expo and his Past Times Arcade in Girard, Ohio. A very impressive-looking facility there, and I really hope to get to visit it before too much longer. Right, other news, well I mentioned about IAPA taking place in Vienna, and RS Pinball, Stefan there, had a big stand with many manufacturers represented, so congratulations to him for flying the flag for pinball at IAPA. Right, and hopefully it resulted into sales and operators being more interested in operating pinball in public locations. Yeah, realizing how many different companies are building these days, and hopefully they'll want to be part of that. Right, and then there is the ongoing Deep Root saga. Ah, yes. No pin cast would be complete without the latest update on Deep Root. I think, remember, last month we mentioned about how Robert Mueller's attorneys had, well, first of all, he changed attorney, and then had filed a response to the SEC's motion for the court to give a summary judgment, which would basically be to find Robert guilty of whatever it was he was being charged with. Is that clear?
    110:58
    He filed his objections to that, and this month the SEC filed their response to his response. And what was their response? Well, they rejected every one of his objections, as you would expect, and a fairly comprehensive response it was to. far too detailed to go into here but it's a point by point rebuttal of everything he said and really came down to pointing out that Robert had rejected any kind of legal or other advice on how he should be investing the funds and when warned about the way he was using the money seemed to reject all that.
    111:49
    So now it's down to the judge to decide whether a summary judgment can be handed down or if a trial is required.
    111:58
    Don't forget this is still just a civil case. After this is concluded it's possible a criminal case may follow from the federal indictment but at the moment it's still a civil case and which limits exactly what penalties could be imposed were Robert to be found guilty of the charges from the SEC.
    112:25
    But more of that coming up, and I think we've got, I don't think anything's happening, I think it should have happened in November, but there will no doubt be more documents published, and I don't think anything actually, if there is a case, I don't think it will hit the court until December. hmm ok so no deep food at Pimola probably not this year no maybe for the 40th oh well yeah well so this is the upcoming edition being the 39th that's right yeah ok well never say never I guess that rounds it up for the month of September 2023 I think it does yeah we will be back at the start of November with our next Pincast looking back at all the events in the wonderful world of pinball throughout the month of October, of course including everything that happened that we can relate from Pinball Expo and anything else that we happen to glean from our trip to the Chicagoland area and maybe some pinball companies in that vicinity so until then from me, Martin Ayer, of Pinball News. Yeah, sorry for interrupting. And from me, Jonathan Houston of Pinball Magazine.
    113:54
    We wish you a pleasant month of October. Hope to see you at Pinball Expo. Yeah, and if not, then we'll see you next month. And don't forget our special bonus episode. Yes, that's coming up in just a couple of days. Yeah, it's going to be a good one. Yeah Okay So until then And until next month We'll wish you A wonderful time And Have fun Thanks Bye bye