You're listening to Don's Pinball Podcast. Thank you very much, my good homie Ryan, for that intro. I love it. I'm getting the mileage out of what I paid you, dude. What is this? Am I allowed to do two podcasts in one day? I'm all about breaking those rules, breaking down those barriers, and breaking this news. Can you believe how this Monday has started? I had an avalanche of things to talk about, and then it kept on dropping. so we're going to get into all of that and at some point i need to actually review godfather do you guys remember that game but first the news is gonna drop can we hit it oh man pulp fiction finally dropped we've been waiting all afternoon because we heard monday It was the day that we were going to hear more about this Mark Ritchie-designed pinball machine celebrating 1994's Quentin Tarantino hit and the movie that formulated a little bit of my adolescence. And it has dropped, and I've got information. Let's get to it right off the top. If you haven't heard anything about it yet, let's go with the price. First off, two versions, a special edition and a limited edition. One will set you back $7,999 Royale with Cheez-Its. The limited edition version will be $1,500 more at $9,499. Does not include shipping, so that will be distributor dependent. But I've already seen quotes for prices under $10K delivered, and everybody is out there on the distro, ad, Facebook, stream, center, and everything everywhere. So if you need one, you've probably been already slapped in the face by five different distros. Go get you one if you want. by the numbers there will be 1,000 of these limited edition versions so the pictures of the play field are out there the review trailer is out there it's on YouTube it breaks down you know some of the shots but basically lists all the mechanisms and toys contained within Pulp Fiction pinball now there's a little story on the Chicago Gaming Company site they're the ones that are producing this game which were are actually putting together this machine produced by Play Mechanics, which hitherto for has been unconfirmed, but is likely raw thrills as new pinball arms. So there you go. Is this going to be a one-off? Is this something that they've decided to jump headfirst into and we now have another company? Time will certainly tell. The story, though, from the website states that Quentin Tarantino, Mr. Pulp Fiction, Mr. Hollywood movie star, wanted a Pulp Fiction retro-inspired machine for his home. And so this is kind of the product of that, or at least that led to a commercial product now being available. What are you getting with this thing? Well, I'll go over the shots and layout here in a little bit. Let's cover who designed this thing. So Mark Ritchie, you know, brother of Shao Kahn himself. He was known for doing big guns, taxi, police force back in the day. So his experience on prior games fits the mode of what this is supposed to be. now initially we were thinking this was going to be as if this game came out when pulp fiction came out in 1994 more like the dot matrix display era of games but apparently they wanted even earlier an 80s style pinball machine maybe the type of pinball machine that would have showed up you know in in the back of that club where uh bruce willis was getting the pack of red apples you feel me with marcellus wallace there and everything maybe this was the game that would have been back there in the corner, you know, something that came out about 10 years earlier. I'm just trying to tie it together. Who's doing the, what have I got? There it is, sounds, David Thiel. He's done tons of games before in the past. Josh Sharpe is on Rules, a competitive pinball player extraordinaire. And Scott Pekulski is on Art. He's done some dot matrix displays for video games in the past. So these guys, Mark, David, Josh, and Scott are responsible for throwing this thing together. um what do we got going on uh with pulp fiction pinball so both versions will have essentially the same play field the same play field sculpts there's really just embellishments in this case that you're getting uh when you go from that standard edition or special edition to the limited edition uh they're going to have full sculpts all right i've seen the sculpts and they're in the review trailer of jewels vincent um the royale with cheese sitting up there with a bite taken out of it um and the watch the watch that was kept in a very uncomfortable place for number of years in a POW camp. If you watch the movie, you feel me, right? Limited to the limited edition, okay? The main thing you're getting with this LE, because both of them have the chrome plated door, the die cast chrome plated coin door, the chrome accents, but you get the topper. And the topper's the main thing that you're getting here. It's the outside facade of Jackrabbit Slim's ringed in LEDs with a couple of vehicles in the parking lot with working headlights. The whole thing lights up and flashes and there's two plastic mannequins of mia and vincent that dance around i guess it coordinated with the game and the machine in addition to that if you spring for the extra 1500 you're going to get a chrome speaker panel hard to put a value on that and the standard one looks just fine as it is but you will get that extra little embellishment uh shaker motor mirror blades those you know if you want to install them yourself they run about a hundred dollars each there's a bad mother flipper wallet so the wallet that belonged to Jules that he whipped out at the end of the movie there in the diner said bad mother whatever on it so there's that will be kind of the the metal embellishment in the apron or down there on the lock bar that'll have your edition size number in it you know did you get number 200 of a thousand or whatever so you get that couple more things they're throwing in a promotional banner hopefully that's a full size one for the wall and a certificate signed by the designer. So attribute the value to that, which you will So for you getting about 300 bucks in parts plus a banner and the topper And I really think you topper is where all this money going Limited to that still a pretty good size run So if this is going in your home, or you really have a soft spot for this movie to put in your bar, I think that's the version to go for. I've been seeing with the distributors that I've been popping around on, they're asking for $1,000 deposits for either one. So send your $1,000. Now, if you want to secure one of these, I don't think securing a standard edition, on its face would be too difficult. However, this is Chicago Gaming Company, and there are a lot of people that are still waiting on their orders of Cactus Canyon, both the LE and SE+. But don't worry, faithful listener, because there is now a deposit deferral program. So I went to the Pulp Fiction site on Chicago Gaming Company's page, and scrolling down there all the way to the bottom, there's a link that'll take you to the rules manual, the feature matrix, but right between that, There's something that says deposit deferral program. And so what this is, is a way that if you're still waiting on your Cactus Canyon and your thousand dollars has been tied up with a distributor and you decide you want this game, you can attribute that thousand dollars to Pulp Fiction. I don't know if that means that, uh, I haven't read the rest of the fine print here. Um, looking over, hang on, let me pause for one second. All right. This was an important point. so I want to take a moment and read it. So this doesn't get you out of having to pay for that Cactus Canyon. What you can do is transfer your $1,000 that's tied up in Cactus Canyon to Pulp Fiction, get your Pulp Fiction, and then when your Cactus Canyon is ready to ship, they will then ask you for the full price, including that initial $1,000 that you had put down. So it's a way to kind of shuffle the money right now, but you're still going to have to come up with it. And there's an agreement here that says it's binding that if you then sell your spot for your Cactus Canyon or don't otherwise come through with that when it's ready to ship, if they haven't already, they would cancel your Pulp Fiction order. So I don't know the utility of this. I guess it would save you $1,000 now if you were still planning on going on both of these games. But interesting that they've done that. What I haven't seen is exactly what is going on with expectations of when this thing is ready to ship. Are these in boxes and ready to go out like a Jersey Jack or Stern does with their reveals? Or is it going to be like Cactus Canyon where a year from now you can still be waiting only now you have well i guess you wouldn't have two deposits tied up right it would just be one bouncing back and forth between games either way that is up on the website if you want to see it let's get back to the game for a minute though let's just talk about this game uh it looks like they've got over 250 call outs or lines of dialogue from the film and that looks like the majority of what you're going to get given that this is that alphanumeric display there's no dot matrix display like a 90s game there's no lcd screen like a modern game they're promising modern gameplay in a retro package and at least they they came through with a price that's under ten thousand dollars so for once let's at least you know applaud them for not going completely insane with this um you know given that you'll be playing this uh they did go through the uh the the matrix that gives away you know the modes there's multiball modes in here there's four or five different modes there's two mini wizards and one wizard mode i'm not going to go through all that or everything but let's look at the play field here for a little bit let's get of what this game's going on. Where should we start? Let's start at the bottom. So a two-flipper game. The art's got kind of a matrix kind of display of different bonus point values over the gun. You got art of the central characters to the film. Single in-lane, single out-lane. Fairly basic design down low. Scoop in the lower left area beneath that royale with cheese. Scrolling up on it, it looks like there's fill lines as if this was a 3D print, but it is full featured with paint and everything. So I don't know if this was like a resin cast with the low resolution cast that they did, or if this is a 3D printed with integrated colored plastics or painted afterwards. You'll have to see when you get one in person. A couple of standup targets down there on the left. And then let's see, how many shots are there? One, two, three, four, five, six with a spinner. And I don't think that's another one over there on the left. So six main shots. Looks like there's two orbits, each with a heart spinner on either side. looks like there's two different graphics of the different sides of the heart on either side of the spinner so maybe when it spins it'll have a beating effect is that how you're going to deliver the adrenaline shot to Mia's chest during that mode next to that there's what looks like one, two, three in lane drop targets, you know how much I love those followed by looks like a Vuck at the bottom, at the back there that will shoot it up into a wire form that disappears behind the back of the playfield looks like it comes around to a little ramp on the right underneath the briefcase follow along with people at home if you have this picture up next to that there is a shot that goes behind this pawn shop sign which has three drop targets in front of it looks like you drop those lock a saucer in the pawn shop or shoot behind it that's where the three pop bumpers are and this is the area where it looks like you plunge and the ball will enter the play field up there at the top there's rolling lanes and between the two middle posts there that middle rolling lane does have a saucer that's listed as the big kahuna bonus saucer so i guess when that's activated you can shoot up there and then try to get your ball to stop in a saucer stop me if this game is sounding familiar to when i just reviewed earlier today um on the right looks like there's one drop target into another saucer that looks familiar um i think what i'm seeing here is a kind of simplified version of bond 60th with some actual sculpts in it and a buck in the back i think the gameplay is going to be of a similar category um this game though comes through at half the price fully loaded um and it looks like if you're a fan of the movie which i am this would be fun to play again i'm gonna you know if i'm coming down on it now i'm not reaching for my wallet um i don't know when i would get this game if i did order maybe the distros will know more and we'll find out some more information soon um but watching the video that uh briefcase sculpt in the right upper back by vincent there does spin around open up and show that golden light um on vincent's face from the movie you know so that was great so a two spinner game uh pretty normal layout down below There is a scoop. Otherwise it stand targets some drop targets and inlines and such So it looks like the kind of game you could play with four people in under 20 minutes and you know have a beer at the bar And that looks completely appropriate for that Um for my home um something like this may not hold my interest for a deep amount of time. Um, so I don't think I'll add this to my home arcade. It does look cool though. And at least it's under 10 grand. So good going there. 9,500 fully loaded with that topper. The topper does look cool. So check out the video, everybody. I'll throw a link on the Facebook page. Let's move on to the next big drop that happened today, and that's the leak, the leaky David Fawcett. More information from Galactic Tank Force. Now, over the weekend, they have been releasing, finally, information. It's been preceded by leaks, though. This is a leaky sieve is what we got going on here, American Pinball. I don't know where this company is at with regards to their release schedule. We don't know when we're going to expect to hear anything. I've heard March 17th thrown around. What the heck day is it today? 13th so that would be next week that would be in time in time for texas i'd have to check my calendar um but who knows at this point uh american pinball doesn't seem to be following what all the other companies are doing i hope uh they are in fact a company and not just uh uh you know some sort of uh pinball conglomeration of um you know people was you know sitting around and bolting these things together it almost seems like more like they're a hobbyist group at this point um nevertheless this game is leaked out i have a high resolution image on the play field um you know thanks canada for alerting me to this that's where i saw it first so you get the credit sir give yourself a pat on that back of yours um where do we start with galactic tank force i mean do we start with the tank have you seen that um this fully featured version apparently will come with the plywood cutouts rimmed with leds with full graphics of tank treads that magnetically attached to the legs on either side of the cabinet. And oh, let's speak about that cabinet. That back glass will fold down and there's a full gun turret on top of it. This matches the rumors we had been hearing of Galactic Tank Force looking like a tank when it's all folded up. And you know how often we fold up our pinball machines in a state where you're not able to play it at all. Nevertheless, it's definitely weird and I'm one dude that's down with weird. What I'm trying to figure out though is if I order this deluxe edition, does it come fully assembled like this do i have to assemble it is there a separate box do i need to get a dolly or escalator to take it down the stairs or do i just climb inside the cabinet and drive it down myself what galactic tank force all right gtfo uh starting at the bottom um two flipper game is there an upper flipper in galactic tank force i don't think i've seen one unless it's hidden there somewhere this is a two flipper game um with a single in lane single outlanes but some really cool little plastic sculpts that are not plastic sculpts plastic plastics that sit over the uh the slings another side two women one arm with a laser gun the other arm with a dead stare and some kind of ice crown is this like space elsa we don't know anything else about the story of this game um underneath however the flippers there are these two uh switches um with uh rails up that you can roll over it looks like uh in the middle there under this uh you know Atomic Shield Defense. This is probably a pop-up ball saver, like we've seen on some other retro games, real retro games. So it looks like if this ball save is up and your ball is sitting down there and you lift a flipper, it'll then roll down one of these lanes. And perhaps that'll be how you can affect modes. Oh my goodness. All the way down with the play field, I'm just seeing this. There's a little UFO with a green light and a cow underneath it. I'm glad they snuck that in there. The cow looks like he's on a space planet though. I need to know more information about this game. American Pinball, would you release what the heck is actually going on with this or walk us through it? Because this is all over the place. There's space, there's tanks, there's ice cream, there's Elsa. What else do we have? I don't know if I'll do a whole shot-by-shot breakdown, but this is the first day I've actually been able to see up close this play field. What I have noticed, though, is they've gone ahead and stuck in their own pin stadiums here. And actually, looking at how mechanistically they attach here in the back, I think they kind of look very similar to Penn Stadium's. I can't tell if there's any interior art blades in this design at all. But this will make this whole thing glow pretty good. So this will be a pretty looking game. Let's see if there's an orbit around the side, three pop bumpers in the back, this major mech of the spaceship with stand-up targets. Looks like it drops into the play field to open up and you can shoot through there. I like that. And they have a plastic ramp to wire. Where's this other wire coming from up in the left here behind Potnick's jackpot lab? Oh, it looks like there's a Vuck back there that drops into the plastic trap. Okay, more plastic traps, more Vucks. There's a lot going on in the back of this play field. Exciting game to play. Probably even better game to drive around the living room pretending you're a tank and shooting stuff. I want to see more information. There is at least a full LCD screen. So that's all about I can say on Galactic Tank Force. We don't have a price. We don't have a date. We don't have addition sizes. What does the topper do? Is the topper removable? Is the topper going to hit my drywall when I flip the thing up if I want to play it? All of those questions are still pending. But at this point, we've got at least the release of all the major games now that we know of, right? Everything from Queen all down through to Pulp Fiction. Man, pin march is nuts. Are we going to see all these games in Texas? What's going to happen the next few weeks? It's blowing my mind. it's blowing my mind almost more than the the the searing retinas i'm getting from staring at this galactic tank force high resolution photo with all the greens and the purples and ultraviolet i'm gonna have to put on some spf i have one more thing i still have to talk about today man this is a marathon day do you guys remember that game that jersey jack released called godfather i mean it's been out forever now right it seems i've played it twice now actually went back into madison back to Blue Moon. Great place to go. We got some food this time. The grill is legit. The bar setup is great. And they have a rotating barrage of top shelf games. The only pro they have is a Stranger Things, if that speaks to the quality of what they got. The LEs are in there. I was told that there be a LE Foo Fighters here at some point There be a Pro Foo Fighters sometime like maybe this week They doing a Pro League on Wednesdays It going off in Madison If you within 200 miles stop by this place Tell them Don sent you. Let's talk about Godfather. I've played it twice. What do I think? I think it plays like a Jersey Jack machine. I think it's better than Toy Story. I think it's about as good as Pirates play-wise, theme-wise. I think it's about the same as Pirates look. So with regard to the Godfather theme, if I can for a second, if you were to take, like, let's say Toy Story, and we're looking at theme integration here. If you took the Toy Story theme out of Toy Story and you laid down a generic, you know, carnival game, carnival pinball game, the pinball game, and left everything else mechanistically the same, the virtual pinball portion and all that, I think you'd still have about the same game. So I would say that there was, you know, kind of a light frosting glaze of theme integration to Toy Story 4. I think there's more of it to Godfather. I think Godfather, you are playing a mobster game. You are a character in that world that they have created, in that mobster world. There is a lot more integration, though, of the Godfather theme in Godfather than there was for Toy Story in Toy Story. I think if you remove the Godfather theme and just dropped in, you know, just switch it, made it Goodfellas or something, I think you'd still have a game, but the five families thing that you start with wouldn't really make a lot of sense. you know um so you know you wouldn't have that uh the scenes from the movies would be different so you would lose that um you know horsehead shooters i guess you know is another integration i think it's in there the theme is in there this is you can tell this is obviously a godfather theme um my wife who hasn't seen the movie since you did but 30 years ago um you know believed and said you know this game feels like godfather to me so you know i get it it's not you know we're not sitting in a maroon play field here you know and everything's dripping with burgundy you know there's lights in here and there's action they made a pinball game um but the theme is entrenched more than it is there i think if you took pirates and if you took the pirates of the caribbean disney's pirates of the caribbean theme off of there and just dropped into generic this is a pirates pinball game i think you could still kind of play the same game so i think the theme integration for godfather is more intense um than it was in uh pirates of the caribbean definitely more than it was in toy story 4 now conversely if you were to look at a deeply theme entrenched game that Jersey Jacks produced, Guns N' Roses, if you were to remove all the Guns N' Roses theme from that machine and just drop in, this is rock band the game and you need to get these characters to the concert, there wouldn't be anywhere to go with it. It would just be ramps and shots, but what music would you use? So I think from the theme integration spectrum, I think it'd be super deep with Guns N' Roses, fairly shallower with Toy Story 4, and Godfather between Pirates and Guns N' Roses, I would say. So I think it fits. I think it's good. shot wise the game's fun I mean you can really appreciate all the diverters especially as you're playing and you know the shot that you hit up into the ramp that you think is going to come to your flipper all of a sudden it comes down a drop ramp and it's heading straight down the middle so react dude you know the gangster part up there is fun it sounds like now that I've got to play it more when you hit the the central figure up there the god the the capo guy he changes his name like each time must be different characters from the different movies I've only seen the first one though I did see it recently. Otherwise, I do like the wire forms, especially that one on the right that comes straight down and hits that stand-up target. I have noticed that sometimes it comes down, hits the stand-up target, and then just kind of rolls to your flipper leisurely. Other times the thing hits it dead on, and it comes firing down there. So you do have to be ready for that, or maybe keep a flipper raised. I want to get more games on it. I did have a mini blow-up when I hit about three different multiballs, and then I was about to start the Five Families multiball, and then the early code peaked in. So during certain modes, if you drain, the ball notices that you drain, but doesn't really do anything about it. So that'll probably be in the next code update. If it happens to you, the way to get out of that is just a tilt out. Otherwise, you know, it's fun. You know, you play it, and every now and then you hear that, I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse. And you're like, oh, he said the thing. That's exciting. So I think as far as the theme integration mode, it's not as deep as Guns N' Roses for sure. But it is better than some of the other ones, particularly, I'm thinking Wonka. if you were just to remove Wonka and drop really any theme in there I think you just have just about as much fun and that's because there's no songs that you'd be missing or anything so I think that's enough for today man looking over these playfields check them out they're online pretty easy to find at least Pulp Fiction has been officially revealed and we could take a look at it let me know in the comments what you think and also head over to Don's Pinball Podcast Facebook page click a follow on there I'm also selling my t-shirts man people love seeing these things in person. I was handing them out left and right. I was selling them to people. I was giving them away. Check them out. I've got two pictures on the Facebook page right now of each version of it. And I'm offering $25 to ship this thing to you anywhere in the United States. I'm losing money on the deal. Get yourself a cool t-shirt. Get yourself with something a step above just a plain graphic or image. I mean, this is a custom graphic I had done online. I think it's cool. I wear these things around. People dig them. People that aren't even into pinball, some old lady at a gas station was like, what is that shirt there? And I had to explain what a podcast was to the old lady. And she said, that's wonderful. And then I think she might have been inebriated a bit. But, you know, go talk to strangers, man. Strangers will be your next best friend. Go buy one, 25 bucks. Email me, donspinballpodcast at gmail.com, and I'll send you a PayPal link or a Venmo link or whatever the heck, and I will send this out to you. Let's hit it. Oh, man, my mind is pinballed out. I've been like at Louisville all weekend here. News is dropping all up on my head and I'm dropping the news to you. Like I do, man, get yourself a martini or something. Let's see what else the week brings to us later. Everybody be cool. Thank you.