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BDYETP 78: The Wizarding World of Totally Chaotic Space Hunting

Bro, Do you Even Talk Pinball·podcast_episode·1h 17m·analyzed·Jun 4, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Pinball industry news roundup: Harry Potter licensing rumors, new Hexa Pinball Space Hunt machine, Godzilla topper, and Whirlwind 2.0 upgrade kit.

Summary

Kevin and Nick discuss recent pinball news including the Harry Potter licensing rumor (Joe Kamenkow's Facebook post suggesting Jersey Jack secured the license), a $1,000 Godzilla topper, the new French manufacturer Hexa Pinball's Space Hunt machine ($9,500 base price), and Pindretti Gaming's Whirlwind Total Chaos 2.0 upgrade kit. The hosts express skepticism about toppers, caution about new manufacturers, and mixed reactions to Space Hunt's gameplay video quality.

Key Claims

  • Jersey Jack Pinball has secured the license for Harry Potter pinball

    low confidence · Joe Kamenkow of Kapow posted on Facebook claiming JJP got the license, but Kevin notes this is speculative and heavily rumored rather than confirmed

  • Christopher Franchi's art was used in a Stern machine prototype to pitch Harry Potter to Warner Brothers and J.K. Rowling

    medium confidence · Christian Line and Mrs. Pin on Loser Kid Podcast confirmed the mockup was Franchi's art and a Stern prototype, per Nap Arcade reporting

  • J.K. Rowling has been anti-pinball, viewing it as a gambling device associated with bars

    medium confidence · Kevin states this as rumor: 'she has been totally anti-pinball because she thinks it's a gambling device and associates it with bars'

  • Hexa Pinball's Space Hunt is priced at 8,900 euros (~$9,500 USD) base, with elegance package upgrade at +2,100 euros (~$2,260)

    high confidence · Direct quote from flyer: 'priced the game at 8900 euros or approximately 9500 us dollars'

  • Space Hunt estimated delivery is Q4 2023

    high confidence · Directly stated on Space Hunt promotional materials: 'Estimated delivery of the first machines is during the last quarter of 2023'

  • Godzilla topper costs $1,000

    high confidence · Kevin explicitly states the price: 'Yep, $1,000 for a Godzilla figure breathing some smoke with a bunch of booty rate and some LEDs'

Notable Quotes

  • “Jersey Jack has secured the license for Harry Potter for pinball. No waiting, no speculation. They locked it in.”

    Joe Kamenkow (via Nap Arcade reporting) @ early in episode — Central claim driving major pinball community speculation, though Kevin immediately notes uncertainty and that 'a lot of this is speculation'

  • “I know it's a big deal to everybody, but I've never read the books. I was too old for it when they came out, and I don't know. Do you care about Harry Potter?”

    Kevin @ mid-episode — Personal revelation that both hosts lack investment in Harry Potter IP despite acknowledging its importance to the community

  • “I think that's kind of what we're seeing here it's like the competing company is kind of sabotaging this launch if that's indeed what's happening here”

    Kevin (discussing Joe Kamenkow's post) @ mid-episode — Offers theory that Kamenkow may have deliberately leaked info to damage competitor's launch

  • “It's also a speculation thing because people see the price on these go up, so they sell out and they buy them and they sell out. and then that's it.”

    Kevin (on toppers) @ topper discussion — Describes secondary market speculation and FOMO dynamics around premium toppers

  • “at least these guys you know we kind of were riding uh ballerama and saying just put a game out and we'll decide if we want to buy it at least these this company did that they're like all right we built a machine it's here you can buy it or not”

    Kevin (on Hexa Pinball) @ Space Hunt discussion — Gives Hexa Pinball credit for shipping a finished product rather than vaporware, but still expresses caution

  • “wait until these are in boxes ready to go, preferably after some other folks have gotten them and you can see how well they work, what board set it's running on, you know, how do they break all the time?”

    Kevin (on Space Hunt) @ Space Hunt discussion — Practical advice reflecting community wariness of new manufacturers post-Pinball Brothers, Alien, and other troubled launches

Entities

Joe KamenkowpersonJersey Jack PinballcompanyChristopher FranchipersonChristian LinepersonHarry PottergameScott DenisepersonHexa Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: New pinball manufacturers face high bar for community trust due to reliability issues with previous entrants (Pinball Brothers, Alien, etc.)

    high · Kevin advises: 'wait until these are in boxes ready to go, preferably after some other folks have gotten them' and references 'Pinball Brothers kind of venture where the machines are failing all the time'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Whirlwind Total Chaos 2.0 extends Pat Lawlor classic theme with weather/storm hunter aesthetic and new rule modes

    high · Flyer shows new backglass featuring 'man in a van' weatherman character; new mode names include 'Run Run Chicken,' 'The Piggies,' 'Area 51,' etc.

  • $

    market_signal: Harry Potter pinball as potential industry game-changer due to massive fanbase crossover potential

    medium · Kevin acknowledges: 'I think that it, I mean, because of how popular Harry Potter is, I do hope there's a Harry Potter pinball because I think it's, it's good for pinball to have a Harry Potter pinball'

  • ?

    leak_detection: Joe Kamenkow's Facebook post claiming Jersey Jack secured Harry Potter license; appears to be unauthorized leak or sabotage

    medium · Kevin notes 'From there, it gets murky' and speculates on why Kamenkow would post this, suggesting it may be drunk post or competitive sabotage

  • ?

    licensing_signal: J.K. Rowling's reported anti-pinball stance due to gambling associations and bar venues

    medium · Kevin states: 'the rumor is that she has been totally anti-pinball because she thinks it's a gambling device and associates it with bars'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.232

0:00
Coming up on this episode of Bro, Do You Even Talk Pinball? Apparently there's some space new game. Who knew? There's Harry Potter rumors. There's some nonsense about Dave Fix talking about Galactic Tank Force. All that and more coming right up. The Super Jet Pod!
0:30
I need a loop. I want targets I can hit. I need the scoop. I need a double super chatbot in my life. That's right!
0:49
And now, the Hall & Oates of Pinball Podcasting, Nick Lane and Kevin Manning of Buffalo Pinball. Boom shakalaka! What's going on, everybody? Welcome to yet another episode of Brody Even Talk Pinball. I'm Kevin. That's Nick. What's going on? I haven't seen Kevin since the last time we did a podcast. Nick's been busy. You've been a busy guy. Yeah, I've been busy. Flying all over the place, doing crazy stuff. I got woken up by about 3 a.m. with Whitney Houston being played. I was sleeping with the windows open. Because it's a nice time of year to sleep with the windows open. and my neighbors decided to have a dance party at 3 a.m. So that was pretty good. Could be worse, though. Winnie's not bad. It could be much worse. So you've got to count your blessings, Kevin. At least I want to dance with somebody. I was like, what in the hell is going on?
1:40
You have like one neighbor. You live in the middle of nowhere and yet like, you know, I have houses all around me, which is funny. And it's like quiet as can be. You have one neighbor out in the country and you're the one getting woken up at 3 a.m. to Whitney Houston. Yeah, I think they think nobody else has ears around here or something. I mean, there's literally like fields behind my house, but I have a neighbor on each side, and one of them decided to have a dance party last night. So there you go.

“This is where we like grill flyers for a minute... and when you get to this part where it says exclusive features and then as a bullet point it says digital service menu the digital is not capital”

Kevin @ Space Hunt flyer review — Critique of Space Hunt's promotional materials showing poor QA and attention to detail on a $10k+ product

  • “I love that they didn't even... there's so much to be said about this right and here's why i think we focus on this because they're trying to sell us a ten thousand dollar pinball machine and the flyer is fucked right”

    Kevin @ Space Hunt flyer review — Core criticism: professional product lacks professional presentation materials

    • Space Hunt
    game
    Pindretti Gamingcompany
    Whirlwind Total Chaosgame
    Godzillagame
    Zombie Yetiperson
    Kevin Manningperson
    Nick Laneperson
    Nap Arcadeorganization
    Pinball Brotherscompany
    Aliengame
  • $

    market_signal: Hexa Pinball entering market with finished product and pre-orders; represents shift toward proven-product-first approach vs. vaporware

    high · Kevin credits them: 'at least these guys... they're like all right we built a machine it's here you can buy it or not' contrasting with previous industry practice

  • $

    market_signal: Premium topper accessories ($1,000-$2,000) perceived as overpriced with limited value in home use

    high · Both hosts agree toppers are forgotten after initial appeal; Kevin notes speculation/FOMO economics driving prices up; both refuse to purchase despite acknowledging visual appeal

  • ?

    announcement: Hexa Pinball officially announces Space Hunt pricing and pre-orders

    high · Detailed flyer with specs, pricing ($9,500 base), elegance package ($2,260 upgrade), Q4 2023 delivery estimates provided

  • ?

    product_concern: Space Hunt promotional flyer contains multiple proofreading and formatting errors despite $10k+ price point

    high · Kevin explicitly critiques: 'digital is not capital the brake system b-r-a-k-e system is not capital but everything previously was capital' and characterizes as 'garbage'

    • 2:06
    You know, a little Whitney Houston to start your Sunday, but we're going to start it off with some ads.
    2:12
    I'll do the ads this month. I feel like you've been doing the ads. I'll do the ads. Give you a month off. Penn Stadium, our premier partner, Penn Stadium Lights. Go to pennstadium.com. Use coupon code Buffalo to save 10% on your app-controlled LED lighting kits for all your pinball machines. Make them look great. You can pick different colors. You can adjust the brightness. You're going to make it look great. Pinstadium.com. Comment pinball for your LED lighting needs. Commentpinball.com. Light up all those inserts in GI with the best LED lighting on the market. If you need a pinball machine, go to FlipNOutPinball.com. Flip the letter N out to pinball.com. Zach Manning, that's Nick Lane's preferred vendor for when he buys all his hot new Stern machines. If you want to win a pinball machine, a new Stern, you can go to pinballraffle.org, support a great cause, and get yourself in. They do a monthly giveaway for a brand new Stern Pro. And if you win, you can upgrade it to a premium if you want.
    3:11
    Titan Pinball, I just put a bunch of Titans on my games. titanpinball.com. Use coupon code BUFFALO to save 10% on your competition rings over at Titan. Replace those nasty old rubber rings with beautiful Titan silicone rings. Multimorphic. If you're looking for innovation in pinball, this is the place. Multimorphic.com. Great partners of ours. We love showing off their new games, including the new Final Resistance. We're going to talk a little bit more about that later. And Jersey Jack Pinball, another great partner. We love revealing and showing their games. Jersey Jack pinball.com. Uh, you can check out the latest release from them, the Godfather and the God Godfather. See, he's rolling off the line. And then our, our podcast exclusive partner pin side. If you got to want to talk about pinball, you want to research pinball. You got something broken and you want to figure out how to fix it. Chances are somebody on pin side has already been down that road. You can go there and, and find the solutions to your problems. You can also just argue with Nick. That's also a possibility. Uh, pin side.com. Although he's been too busy to argue this month. So, uh, Not so much with that. It's, it's tough when you have a life, you know, the more of a life you have, the less arguing you do on pin side. It's true. Yeah. That's kind of how it works. Yeah. I had a life, but I also wanted to argue on pin side because there's a lot of, uh, nonsense on there. I mean, there was so much hype though with the galactic tank force that it, like it, it basically begged everybody to come in into that hype thread and discuss it. Like they were begging for attention. So I was like, okay, well let's see what you got. That's it. And then when I saw that it was a dumpster fire, I've been about my ways. That thread has died off, to be fair. There hasn't been much to discuss. It needs to. One other thing, I want to give a quick shout-out because we got our merchandise. We don't talk about this on the podcast very much, but if you go to buffalopinball.com and click the Merch button at the top of the screen, we just added the Play Angry shirts to the Merch store here. You can get your Buffalo Pinball Skull shirts in a variety of sizes. We got Brody Even Pinball shirts. and there's some mugs. The black mugs are discontinued. So if you want one of these, grab it before they go out of stock. We have the Buffalo Pinball logo and the bro varieties. We've got white mugs and then some stickers too. So you can rep the brand, hashtag brand. Thank you for all this work. Yeah, I'm really excited about this. Thanks to Kevin for getting those up there. So we've tried to push more. We talked about merch last time. Finally got the Play Angry shirts, which have been unavailable for like four years at least, maybe more. That's my favorite design. It's done by a local Buffalo artist, hand-drawn, really cool. I think it's the only way to play pinball. And we've also added Kevin. Sorry if you said this. I was just looking up who the artist was, which is Joel Mentor out in Buffalo. Just wanted to give a shout-out to him. But we've also added, rather than like, I think there's the Gildan shirts, which are not bad, but I'm a T-shirt snob, So Streamlabs offers Next Level as well. So we've got Next Level t-shirts in both the regular. I think in all the stuff, their Next Level is now an option for the shirt. So just pay attention to what you're ordering. If you're a snob like me, you can get a higher quality shirt. And if you like a burlap sack, which is an improved burlap sack, you can get the Gildan. The Gildan is not bad, to be honest. But I think that name has been damaged because, like, every time somebody made a custom t-shirt back in the day, It was like Gildan and it was like the cheapest t-shirt material ever. Yeah. The, the Gildans I picked are not like the generic, like $5 Gildan shirts. They're the nicer, like blend shirts, but I know. Yeah. Next, next to stickler for his next level. So we put those in there for him. Thank you.
    6:53
    Kevin was very kind and, and just, um, happily did that. And I, I appreciate it. He's just like, this is probably shut Nick up about the shirts for a while. So it's great too, because, uh, you know, if you, if you buy a shirt that I don't, I don't know if it'll work on here, but there's an alert that goes off if you buy a shirt or something from the merch store during the stream. Oh. So it integrates with our stream, which is kind of cool.
    7:18
    So there you go. That's all the plugging we're going to do this time. We're going to get right into the news. But before we do that, we're going to have Tim Kitzroh introduce us. Here's the tip. It's the latest pinball news. So hot, it's on fire. All right. So, you know, we've had a lot of news lately, and there's been a lot of brand-new pinball machines. The past month has not been quite as fresh with the hot new pinball machine news, but there's been some crazy stuff going on, including this. I don't know if you've followed this at all. So Joe Kamenkow of Kapow, who has historically worked with Stern,
    7:52
    went onto Facebook and posted about how Jersey Jack got the license to Harry Potter. The post itself reads, hey, pinball fans, here's the scoop. Jersey Jack has secured the license for Harry Potter for pinball. No waiting, no speculation. They locked it in.
    8:11
    And with it, he posted this picture of what is a stern machine mocked up with Harry Potter art. And so this is I'm reading from Nap Arcade. And he followed up with what the info was on that picture. So apparently, let's see, Christian Line and Mrs. Pin on Loser Kid Podcast, they went on and said, I can confirm that the mock-up that was posted on that Facebook post was indeed Christopher Franchi's art, and that was a Stern pinball machine prototype that he was going to hopefully use to sell this game to Warner Brothers as a machine that could be made. Beyond that, a lot of this is speculation. I know for sure that because the image was made, that it was brought to Warner Brothers and J.K. Rowling, and they were trying to get past her because the rumor is that she has been totally anti-pinball because she thinks it's a gambling device and associates it with bars and places of ill repute. And so I think that they probably thought that, and through Kamenkao's actions, got them to lighten up a little bit and loosen up with the chance to make this pinball machine. From there, it gets murky. So somehow it went from Stern to Jack, I don't know if you remember before The Godfather launched,
    9:29
    Jack Winnerion on Facebook posted a post saying, because CERN was about to announce their game, he was like, hold on, and he posted a picture of him with the Harry Potter characters. So people started speculating, is J.J.P.'s next game not going to be Godfather? Is it going to be Harry Potter? So maybe they did get the license, and maybe that's down the line. but why do you think Joe Kamenka would go and do something like this?
    9:55
    I have no idea. I don't know. It's so weird. Maybe he was drinking. I don't know. Like it was a drunk post. I have no idea. I don't know, Joe. I don't know why he would do that. I kind of care less about this theme. I know it's a big deal to everybody, but I've never read the books. I was too old for it when they came out, and I don't know. Do you care about Harry Potter? I don't. Like Harry Potter is not my wheelhouse at all either. Like my wife really likes it and my son really likes it. I just, for whatever reason, never got into it. Like I've been to the universal studios, theme parks and ridden the rides. And I tried watching one or two of the movies and I'm like, eh, you know, it's fine, whatever. You know, I just never got into it. I think it, I mean, because of how popular Harry Potter is, I do hope there's a Harry Potter pinball because I think it's, it's good for pinball to have a Harry Potter pinball. It's going to bring more people who are Harry Potter fans. They will then turn their attention and play the game. and maybe some of those people will become us weird pinball people. It's great. What an overlap. Yeah, it is a huge theme and a huge license, and no doubt it would be amazing for whoever ended up getting their hands on it. So it is cool to see that maybe it's a possibility.
    11:04
    It reminded me of this website or this blog post that Scott Denise put up a couple months ago. It's like he says, why do pinball slash game companies keep their licenses secret during development? So I'll read a little bit of this. He says, so Scott Denise of TNA and Final Resistance and Rake and Morty. Y'all know Scott. He says, this is like an interesting question that I get asked from time to time, and I realize I have a much longer answer than just for FOMO. So here's a nice blog entry about it.
    11:34
    As you're aware, many different types of companies that develop products with officially licensed themes keep said licenses a secret during the development cycle for a number of reasons. This is obviously not limited to pinball and video game companies. I'm going to list the main reasons that I know about that have been exposed to below, but there are probably many others as well. So theme licensor and competitive edge. The licensee and licensor usually want to keep the product development under wraps to get ahead of competing licenses. This also keeps any ideas and designs secret from other companies until the full reveal. Also, there are unfortunate things that could happen behind the scenes if a competing company found out about a theme. Sabotage can happen, and licenses can be swept out from under you if you are not careful. for unlicensed themes this can hurt the company because others could potentially replicate the theme or design elements so i think that's i mean that's kind of what we're seeing here it's like the the competing company is kind of sabotaging this launch if that's indeed what's happening here um it also gets into this next post with the the fomo and hype and stagnation i think that's what we saw with um pirates of the caribbean because that got through so much of a delay they announced it and then it got postponed and delayed and uh people just like the hype train fell off so scott says yeah a company is going to want to manage hyper on a product and this is actually important to help drive sales and to keep a professional appearance if a company announced a theme that excites the community at the beginning of the development cycle this will generate a bunch of hype only to have it die down and people lose interest and move on to something else i don't think necessarily that's going to happen with harry potter because this is a theme that people just really, really want. But it does take away that initial, like, Harry Potter, oh, my God, take my money right now. Like, you kind of lose that initial, like, drop of information and that excitement that gets built up.
    13:22
    Avoiding leaks is another point that he makes. Leaks can be damaging to these companies. If a license is revealed too early, it can result in spoilers, reduced sales, loss of excitement. Keeping licenses secret helps to prevent these types of leaks, but it's not foolproof, as we all know. They can also hurt the original IP as well, as it could be something like an unreleased movie or unreleased content. That's not what this is. Obviously, in this case, could get the company in hot waters. The community what-ifs, I think this is probably the biggest concern for Harry Potter because people start to envision these amazing, impossible things that are never going to happen on a pinball machine. and then when the game comes out they're going to inevitably be disappointed right it's like uh so scott says if a company announced the theme early or during development the game community starts throwing out ideas left and right these ideas cannot all make it into a machine otherwise it will look like a homer simpson car and lose all connection to the designer's vision of what it should be this complicates things in other ways too uh like hey i came up with that mac where are my royalties my feelings are hurt xyz um so there's like scott said um there's probably many more reasons but they uh you know i think a few of these things point to some of the things that could happen and maybe why the uh joe may have have dropped this may some other folks have speculated speculated that it's just sour grapes and he's he's pissed off because he didn't get the license so uh he's gonna try to destroy their other the launch so i don't know what do you think nonsense i mean i i don't i i don't i can care less about any of this this is this is not it's not exciting pinball drama to me no no this doesn't this doesn't get nick fired up that's okay i think still it's been it's been one of the big uh one of the big topics that have been uh discussed over the months so um harry potter i hope it happens like you said i think it'll be a huge uh theme if it does um and uh we'll go from there all right so godzilla Godzilla topper. Have you seen the Godzilla topper, Nick? I have. I have not looked at the price. Again, like, okay, now there's the price.
    15:37
    There it is. Yep, $1,000 for a Godzilla figure breathing some smoke with a bunch of booty rate and some LEDs. There you go. I mean, that's pinball these days. And if you – Oop, mute that. so we can see a better they're they announced other accessories to like the the side rails and the launcher the plunger and all that i love how they're just like repurposing that uh dinosaur egg from jurassic park into everything that he fell windows now now now it's like a godzilla egg and it was the the gemstone on avengers and they're really they're getting their money's worth yeah yeah the art blades look pretty cool um it's got the zombie yeti art uh but yeah i think it should be his tail he pull his tail i like that'd be fun i mean it's stupid it's a stupid idea i've just you know i mean it's no stupid than most of the other dumb you know automatic plungers that happen the custom one here yeah um so there you go uh i will not be buying i have a godzilla you have a godzilla are you buying a godzilla topper uh well i'm i'm not buying any toppers because I can't fit them. But even if I could, Kevin, absolutely not. This seems very overpriced. Yes. Even though it's a big deal, a steal for only $1,000 instead of $2,000 like Mandalorian toppers. But I don't know, man. Toppers. Toppers, like, toppers seem like fun for a minute. You know, like, I get it. They're like fun for a minute. And then I don't know. yeah we were talking about this on uh in the discord and i was like you know i went to james's house shout out to james he gets a shout out every episode i feel like um and he's got the mando topper and i'm like oh that's really cool you know what i mean and then you play the game and you never look at it again yeah same as even like the awesome black knight topper same thing you know yeah like when patrick got like i i would i talked a lot about the black knight topper i was like that's one i would get and then patrick got the game and he had the topper on there and i saw for a second that I totally forgot about when playing it. And then it's like, huh, I was like over it. Right. Like it's something like, you know, you want something, you see it's cool. And then when you're, you're there, you get over it really quickly.
    17:59
    Yeah, exactly. So it goes back to the, so it's like, what was the original purpose of a topper? It was to attract play and attention on location. And it does that, right? Like you walk up to it and you're like, oh, that's really cool. Or if you, you know, you see it across the room and there's a cool, uh, cool effect going on. and it's like, oh, it draws your eye, right? It kind of does its job. But in a home location, I think in the home, the thing is you can make them look consistent across all of your games. If you get one topper, then you're like, well, all the rest of my games don't have toppers now. So if I get them all, then they'll all look consistent. So I don't know. If you're obsessive, I guess that's the thing to do. It's also a speculation thing because people see the price on these go up, so they sell out and they buy them and they sell out. and then that's it. Yeah, I mean, look, they're not for me, but I don't fault anybody for certainly having a topper. Why does my screen look weird? Because I chatted to you. Now it's all out of whack.
    19:01
    I'm blurry. You were blurry. You see the mean things that come and says to me. There you go. Now he's back. All right. My screen's, like, freaking out. Like, I'm getting all these weird lines on my screen. It'll be fine. What do you want me to do about me being blurry? You good now I a real person I swear to God It was a autofocus thing All right So yeah Topper get one if you obsessive about having all your Toppers your official Toppers. Is Goran going to talk about that? Oh, I'm sure. We do have a new episode of Topper Talk, so there's more coming on that. Martha asked me, she's like, what are you guys even talking about with this episode? I was like, I don't fucking know. It's like, you know, because, you know, they release five games, you know, all at one. And so the last two episodes, or maybe pushing it to three were great, and now we're like, well, we were talking about toppers, and I didn't care about that. And she's like, aren't you going to step on Goran's toes in terms of toppers? I was like, I don't care about toppers.
    19:57
    That's his territory. I'll say, I don't care about toppers. Look at the price. It's crazy. And that's it. Some are cool, right? We look at some, like the Mandalorian, I thought was cool, and then you look at the price, you're like, all right, carry on. but I mean listen if it helps subsidize and keep prices pinball low and other forms of business great I can't get excited about them though man nope can't get excited I don't even have the excuse of my ceiling is too low and I still don't buy these toppers because I'm like there are much better things I can spend $1000 or $2000 on it isn't a thing that goes on top of my pinball machine Sergeant Ski says do the economics of pinball make sense to you Economics in what sense? I'm not sure what... That's too broad. Yeah. But if you want to refine that, I can... Yeah, we can circle back to that. But we do... This is a really... This is Kevin reads the news and we talk... Yeah, we kind of react in real time. So along those lines, we do have a new pinball machine to talk about, everybody.
    20:58
    It's very exciting. You're all going to love it. And here it comes. It's not that. It's this. Space Hunt. space hunt so all right there's there's some things we could touch on here so new french developer manufacturer hexapinball hexa released new details on its debut title space hunt they have priced the game at 8900 euros or approximately 9500 us dollars at the current exchange rate an upgrade to the quote-unquote elegance package i love that it includes a mirrored back glass, radcals, powder-coated armor, inner art blades, anti-reflective glass, pin sound speakers, and a shaker motor is available for additional 2,100 euros or 2,260 US dollars. The game is now available for pre-order through three French distributors below.
    21:52
    Let's see. Okay, here you go. Space Hunt. All right, the goals. Play as the hero Spherus and free your people from the yoke of... This has got terrible translation on it, too. So I'll just read it verbatim, and we can all enjoy it together.
    22:10
    Free your people from the yoke of the space hunters. Complete all original missions to defeat the enemy. Game features. First game feature. Three pinball machines. Whoa, wait a minute. Hold up. Now you've got my attention, Kevin. I was kind of up asleep. I was looking at Joel Mentos' art, which was really good. But you're telling me Space Hunt has three pinball machines? I mean, it's the first game in the future. That's right. That is the first time in pinball. Yeah, one pinball machine morphs into three. This is okay. That's right. So what happened was in Europe, pinball machines are called flippers. So it translated flippers to pinball machines. So it's a translation issue.
    22:50
    Oh, yeah, that's a good start. Two tray levels, whatever that means. Double entry central ramp. Long access ramp to the mini tray. half pipe and double wire ramps spinner three illuminated drop targets there's a hidden plot pilot i can't read that it's too small um here i can i can zoom us in hidden plot hidden plot right kevin multi balls up to four balls and a single pendulum shot exclusive features digital service menu brake system okay i thought it was like a brake brake system okay b-r-e-a-k which is i like what like they did here this is this is uh i'm sorry guys this is where we like grill flyers for a minute yeah uh but like i love that they didn't even there's there's so much to be said about this right and here's why i think we focus on this because they're trying to sell us a ten thousand dollar pinball machine and the flyer is fucked right like and and when you get to this part where it says exclusive features and then as a bullet point it says digital service menu the digital is not capital the brake system b-r-e-a-k system is not capital but everything previously was capital they don't give it like this is just garbage this is like right out of the gate like no attention to detail they'll gladly take your money for a garbage product but they can't even just like even just have somebody proofread this for a second anyways carry on yeah so whatever brake system means you know i thought galactic tank tank force had that under control but But, you know, they're trying to capitalize on that as an exclusive feature.
    24:24
    Soundtrack and original voice. Okay, great. It has sound and light. There's stereo sound system, three-channel amplifier, separate treble and bass adjustment, 120 RGB LEDs.
    24:34
    Estimated delivery of the first machines is during the last quarter of 2023. There's the elegance package, which we touched on earlier. I do like the terminology elegance package. That's good. I wish, like, Jersey Jack instead of Collector's Edition would just call it the Elegance Package. I'd be more of a buyer. All right. I'm going to play a little bit of this just so everybody can appreciate the music from the trailer. Oh, I've got to load it up on my end.
    25:06
    This is like a shot for shot replication of a Stern trailer. Is it playing, Kevin? Yeah, it is. you might not hear it through the yeah you're not gonna hear it through basically you don't there's not much here all you need to know is that it says space hunt over and over dude look at that pendulum yeah it looks really slow and floaty from the gameplay video you know what i mean like if you're gonna pick pick angles and and shots to show off your game wouldn't you crank it up in the back and make it look nice and fast is it just me or does it have kind of like um um a tna like aesthetic on certain things about it yeah i mean it's got that kind of like color palette is along the lines of TNA, I would say. I wasn't even thinking like the triangles on there or the text. There's something that I can't articulate. Oh, maybe that like center bank of... I don't know. I would have to look at TNA to compare side by side, but there you go. Space Hunt, baby. Space Hunt! The Space Hunt he comes. all right so there you go uh everybody sign up and get your your uh space hunt i will say at least these guys you know we kind of were riding uh ballerama and saying just put a game out and we'll decide if we want to buy it at least these this company did that they're like all right we built a machine it's here you can buy it or not um although they haven't proven that they can manufacture them yet because that's the next huge hurdle i would say wait until these are in boxes ready to go, preferably after some other folks have gotten them and you can see how well they work, what board set it's running on, you know, how do they break all the time? Is this going to be another Pinball Brothers kind of venture where the machines are failing all the time and you're having to swap out boards? And, you know, I've heard some nightmares from folks who have bought Alien. So I would proceed with caution, but at least it seems like they have a full machine here to sell and uh hopefully it will exchange product for money and the people who receive the the product will be satisfied with their purchase that's you know in a in an ideal world i know that's a lot to ask but um in an ideal marketplace that's how things are going to work so all right so there you go space hunt another sort of new machine but not really uh somebody has decided to ruin yet another classic Pat Lawler game. It's a, it's a whirlwind total chaos, everybody. With a bunch of things that don't even make sense in the whirlwind, uh, theme. But, uh, oh yeah. Uh, so this is the, coming to us from Pitmall News. It's the second 2.0 upgrade kit to be released from Pidretti Gaming. Uh, they were the ones who did Funhaus, uh, 2.0. So, uh, Rudy's Nightmare.
    28:20
    Um, so yeah, at first it's like, okay, cool. This is like the weatherman in the van from the back glass. That's cool. Makes sense to kind of focus on him and build him out into a new expanded rule set.
    28:35
    Let's see. I want to get to the part where it shows all the rules. So there's a new side art that comes with it. There's a new back glass, which looks okay. You get the screen and a new speaker panel.
    28:50
    A new translate. and yeah looks all right and integrates with the fan like you would expect uh okay here here's some of the modes by the way kevin our stream title is incorrect which would explain why um there's probably not a lot of people watching right now well there's also the the ife international the finals happening so that's probably why everybody else is having is doing they don't want to hear us read the news no so uh yeah so um yeah i didn't update the stream title All right, whatever. I'll fix it after this. So some of the modes are the Donato. What? Armor the House. The Scary Boys. What? SG Zombies. No, this is 5G Zombies is what it's supposed to be. Wow. Area 51. Run, Run Chicken. Wow. My favorite, the Piggies. Yeah, that's my favorite, too. And Bermuda Crab, of course. Bermuda Crab's not bad. I mean, I shouldn't have jumped on the piggy. And nuke Nick. Nuke Nick. What? It's a personal attack.
    29:58
    Acid plants. Sui versus nannies. All right, here. I'm going to play this, and I'm going to update the stream title. Let me introduce you to a man in a van. It's a man in a van. A storm blaster chasing storms anytime, anywhere. He loves donuts. he really loves donuts he loves donuts and coffee one windy day this happened not the van oh no not the van oh my god who cares it's payback time this is whirlwind total chaos oh yeah featuring new artwork new artwork wow look at it it's beautiful new animation all right new animation we like that okay to fix the van yeah you gotta fix the van it's like uh the piggy nuke nick the scary boys okay yeah we did this already okay i don't care there you go uh so funhouse rudy's nightmare was whatever i haven't played it it looks like not that great to me uh it's like i like the idea of bringing new new uh modes and expanded rules to these classic games, but man, the execution just has not been there. I think the best one so far has been Bride of Pinbot, which was kind of the first one that kicked all of this off. All of this revolution of doing these 2.0 kits. But this falls squarely into the not-for-me category. I would much rather just have an original Funhaus or Whirlwind and play that.
    31:51
    Yeah, the best part about that was you get to hear the voice of Silk. That's right. Shout out to Mark Silk, you know? Yep. But other than that, how much is this thing, Kevin? Let me see.
    32:04
    Where's the price? I think it's like $2,500, something like that. Sure, whatever. I'm looking at the Pinball News article here, and they don't put the price right up top. Dude, wake me up when one of these mods of those old games are awesome. Right? Like, let me know when they're really good, and then I'll pay attention. Otherwise, I'm just going to assume this is just nothing. Yeah, it says the prices yet to be confirmed, but check their website for availability and distributors. All right. So if you want to ruin your whirlwind, you can go ahead and do that. All right.
    32:41
    Some other news. We've got a multimorphic update for you. So they occasionally do public updates via email to everybody who's a customer, and put stuff on their website. And this was part of that. They said the new P3 pinball module, Final Resistance, breaks the sales records set by Weird Al. So it sounds like Final Resistance is selling even better than the licensed Weird Al game, which is pretty great. I was talking to Scott about it when I was down there for the reveal, and it was, you know, I'm like, in this case, like Scott's the license, right? Like people love Scott. They love his games. so you know they wanted to see what was next from him and you know it it's not necessarily like he's like gonna bring in new folks in a pinball like a harry potter theme would but the people who are in a pinball and they love it um they want to see what's next for him so congratulations to to scott and the team over there um they they've all they offered an update on production so they're a couple months behind on their full p3 cabinets uh that folks had ordered with with the launch of weird al uh and the final resistance got pushed back a month or so as well so you know it's not you know we're still seeing jurassic parks rolling out that people ordered years ago so it's uh it's it's you know it's not not um not exclusive to uh multimorphic that there's going to be delays but i i think they tend to be the most uh upfront about it and the most uh most transparent about where they are with their production so i'll give them a shout out for that but you know a good good news from uh multimorphic there uh there's also and i don't have it open here but uh for amusement only games the makers of drained have teased that they're working on a new module for the p3 so um kind of looks like uh like nick baldridge and and it it sounds like he's got a team assembled for this one so he won't be doing everything himself which is a good idea and kind of reminds me of scott denisi going from tna to um to the uh rick and morty where he's like all right that was i could do that once but now i need i need some support because it's a lot to try to to pull off yourself um so yeah be on the lookout for that he's got an email for amusement only games does that he puts out quarterly so if you want to learn more about what he's working on check that out um on the jjp side of things they're bringing their they're bringing the Godfather Collectors Editions on the line I know the folks who ordered a Collectors Edition of Godfather have been waiting for this and so yeah as of Friday they're hitting the line now there's a Topper if you're into Toppers get yourself one of these good to see those making it into production they also in the excuse me since our last show speaking of Toppers we're taking all the Topper hype from Gorin new topper art blades and for Jersey Jack Toy Story are coming on and now available.
    35:53
    This is straight up booty ready topper. Their toppers are only like $200 though. It seems like that's what you should get for or what you should pay for a topper like this. You know what I mean? And the side art blades are kind of like the shelves in a game booth at a carnival or something like that with all the prizes. So if you're looking for some side art blades or a topper for your toy story, you can grab one now.
    36:24
    All right. Great. We don't want to leave the great folks at American Pinball out of our update. So here's the most recent update from American Pinball. This comes to us from Map Arcade.
    36:39
    The gentleman over at Pinball News and Pinball Magazine interviewed American Pinball's David Fix. So this is all inception. So this was originally on the Pinball Magazine and Pinball News podcast, but we're reporting it via NAP Arcade. They interviewed David Fix. He says, American Pinball has found a solution to the bending center tank targets on Galactic Tank Force. The company signed off on a 500-unit run of all three pieces of a bracket designed to strengthen the targets weeks ago.
    37:08
    As soon as they are received in American Pinball from the manufacturer, AP will send them out to its customers.
    37:14
    Let's see. There's other issues that have allegedly been resolved, but this is where it gets good. He says, David Fix went on to state that Galactic Tank Forces on location are, quote, earning on par or a little better than Foo Fighters at quite a few different locations. He referenced specific locations like Antarium in Chicago, where the game earned $938 swipes on the game during the month. Rocketeer in Buffalo and several locations in California.
    37:44
    American Pinball's recent run of Oktoberfest is apparently, you know, he said they have, you know, demand for more Galactic Tank Force. They're going to be doing more Houdini. They extended the license for Hot Wheels.
    37:56
    What is your thought on GTF earning on par or a little better than Foo Fighters? I mean, I find that hard to believe. So, okay, a couple of things.
    38:08
    Sure, there might be. I mean, how many locations even have this game? But is it possible that there's a location that has both Foo Fighters and that, and there is a location where it out-earned for one month? Maybe they've had Foo Fighters for two months now, and, you know, GTF just came in, so everybody plays it once or even twice, right? Like show me six months of both games after they both been there at the same location for six months And I bet you any amount of money that Foo Fighters will earn out earn GTF, right? Like everyone's going to play GTF when they see it for the first time. Right. I'm just gonna say everybody, but like people will play it the first time. It's like, what keeps people coming back? Will they be playing it six months from now? Right. Like those are all the real things. Will it still be working six months from now? Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, that could be factually true, but I don't, over the long run, there's no way that this game out-earns Foo Fighters. Yeah, no chance. I don't live in that reality. I'm in reality, and in reality, that's not going to happen. I can tell you right now. Some things I'm just certain about I can tell you right now. So good for GTF if it is performing well in places. I mean, that's 968 plays in a month is incredible. Like, great, great. Is it held up? There's no issues? I want to call this place and really talk to that operator. That's amazing. I'm surprised. Good for GTF. I just, again, six months from now, let's see what the story is. Yeah, I think to your point, like, there's probably very few of these on location. So the ones that are on location, people are concentrating in that one spot to go play it, right? If you want to play it, I'm going to go. If there's one location in Chicago and it's at Interium, I'm going to go there if I want to play GTF versus where I can go to five different locations and play Foo Fighters. You know what I mean? So it's going to spread out the distribution of those dollars. And it's also, like you said, the novelty of the new game. There's always new games earned, and then it's either going to drop off if people decide they don't like the game, or if it's a good game and they want to keep at it and keep playing it, they'll keep coming back. so yeah I mean look I think we played that game more at Pinbrew you know and there was a Foo Fighters there and this is the first time playing a bunch of the games like we spent a lot of time with it and one of the reasons I played a lot was because I just knew I wasn't going to get access to that game I don't know when again right like so I wanted to do play it as much as possible because it has been this attention-seeking game let me let me try to do my due diligence on it obviously was falling apart was a terrible experience we talked about that but I sure as hell played it more than Foo Fighters. And yet I bought a Foo Fighters for a location. I didn't buy this game. I would buy Foo Fighters for my private collection. I would never buy GTF. So, you know, again, let's see six months numbers. That's what's going to matter. Yeah, totally. Like we were playing that game because we knew we weren't going to be able to play it anywhere else. And we wanted to be able to talk about it and get our impressions in. So yeah, all of that. And all right. So there you go. Um, Oh, another fantastic update for y'all. If you want to get your hands on another hot new game, you can go out this weekend to the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show to check out Pony Factory. It's making its first public appearance, and apparently one of them was already broken. So shocker, shocker. You can go, if they're still working, and you're in the Northwest area of the United States of America, these states united, you can play Pony Factory for your very self maybe get yourself a flyer or a bottle opener or whatever they're having some show specials it looks like I love that they have the banners for their other quote unquote upcoming games like First Class and Sushi Mania and Elements get hyped for all those games, First Class I'm really looking forward to that one I do want those banners though I would put those in my game room Yeah. Yep. You should just sell those with his art that he stole somewhere off the internet. Probably. Yep. All right. So there you go. That's, that's the pinball news. That's all we got for you. Um, I do, we do have, uh, I wanted to give a quick, um, shout out to the, uh, the Buffalo pinball league. We wrapped up yet another great season of Buffalo pinball league. We're going into season 10. Who won that league? Uh, I don't know. Uh, some guy named Nick Lane. So congratulations to him. I don't know if you guys know him. heard he's a good guy yeah depends who you ask really though if his opinion is a smug asshole too on pin side so yeah if his uh opinions agree with yours then he's a good guy but if not then he's an asshole you know real real simple uh equation there yeah exactly um so the the top finishers this year were uh nick first place greg lapa second place our buddy patrick was third and And fourth was our friend Matt.
    43:21
    In the B division, Mark Nagy, the legendary Mark Nagy, took first place. Brett Wallace, who was back in the league for the first time in a few years, took second place in B division. Kelly Anderson was third, and Christy Weiss was fourth. I think the main story here is that Buffalo Pinball favorite, Mark Nagy, took first in B. That's what people want to know. Mark. He's the man. Dr. Mark. He's the man. worldwide, known worldwide, world famous. His amazing tutorials. My favorite part of this was Patrick's Motel 6 shirt because he had such an amazing Motel 6 experience when we went to Penbury that he got himself a shirt. You know what I like about this portion of the news? It's like you're watching the national news one moment and then all of a sudden the local news kicks in. It's local Buffalo news. That's right.
    44:12
    There's things happening. There's local folks that listen to this. We've got to let them know what's going on it's also people you know we do stuff beyond just twitch and and podcasting we do we run events and tournaments and leagues and stuff like that that's right that's right some of the other stuff we've been up to and and sometimes nick wins so there you go sometimes all right what is happening in our game rooms let's do some game room updates so for me uh oh i wanted to show these so let's do uh where's my button for this i haven't done this button in a while uh we'll just do it this way news photos bam i got some mods from leor so leor uh is a sort of a partner with it with the channel he uh he hooks us up with mods so we can show him off on the stream and in our games when we when we stream them on twitch um he sent me these amazing mods for my uh for my toy story 4 this is probably one of the coolest mods i've ever seen it's this ticket booth uh mod that goes over so it replaces the little plastic cover that covers the diverter on the left ramp on toy story and the the quality is just really good he he hand hand models all these and they're they're resin cast they're not 3d printed so they look really great and then he hand paints them and then there's lighting integrated that integrates with the game um so that just really really makes that that game look great uh they're that part of the game And then we've got another massive upgrade is this curio cabinet mod that replaces the booty rate over the scoop.
    45:48
    It's a full 3D model of a curio cabinet where you rescue Forky. Just really makes the game look so much better. So here's a shot of it all lit up where you can see both of them. It's just an incredible mod. Some of my favorite mods in pinball right here that I've ever put on my games. They just look incredible. So thanks, Lior. Be on the lookout for more of his mods. If you're in the U.S., you can get them from Little Shop of Games.
    46:12
    Yeah, so love it. Oh, and I wanted to show this, too. Even the packaging looks incredible if you go over here.
    46:22
    The boxes are all, like, embossed and super glossy and full color. It's like he really goes over the top. So his mods are not cheap, but the quality is there when you get it. That's for sure.
    46:35
    So that was it as far as mods that I've done this month. Mostly I've been playing Zelda because everybody in the world is playing the new Zelda game pretty much. So a lot of my game time has been going to that. But I did get out and I played Scooby-Doo, Nick Lane. Can you believe it?
    46:55
    I guess I can believe it. Do you want to hear my impressions on Scooby-Doo? Sure. Okay. um it's uh it's not as bad as i was expecting how about that it's very average it's a very average game i feel like it's it's better than it's better than an average spooky game it's not better than the average scott denisi spooky game it is uh um it's got a very like safe fan layout.
    47:29
    Especially the shot to the van. It kicks out and then he can very easily trap it on the right flipper and go back into the scoop and try to get your van multi-ball.
    47:39
    The upper playfield is, it came across on stream as like the upper playfield was slow. That is, yeah, exactly. Put me to sleep with Scooby-Doo. That's the impression you get when you go up onto that upper playfield. It's a bit of a snoozer. I don't know, Spooky's got this weird obsession with upper play fields. I don't think we need upper play fields on everything. You know, one day they're going to get it right.
    48:04
    They're going to keep working at it. It looks great. Spooky games tend to look really good. They've got that part down. The flippers felt pretty snappy.
    48:15
    But the code has got a long way to go still. and you know considering where halloween and ultraman ended up code wise i do not have a lot of faith in this game getting to a place where it's going to be an amazing game code wise either so um you know it is what it is right now i can see why they haven't sold out of these like they have all the rest of their games because it's i don't know it's i i appreciate boutique manufacturers for offering something different, but this game just didn't do it for me. So, yeah, it's kind of like, whatever. What a great review. It is what it is. It's not a review, it's impressions. Impressions, that's right. I slipped up, Kevin. You did. It's a good thing you jumped in there. Woo! Close. Yeah. I'm not going to say I look forward to playing it, because I certainly don't look forward to playing it, but like, you know, one day maybe I'll play it, and then I can also share my thoughts everyone said it's really easy and long playing and but you didn't have that impression no so it was actually kind of hard but we only completed modes like we played it like you know six or seven times and the uh we only completed a couple modes throughout all that time so i think what happened is they they they initially started shipping the games with the outlane posts and baby modes where it was like impossible to drain on the sides and they changed that out of the factory so it is a little bit harder change it no sure he didn't change it no he said his ship that way yeah okay all right good to know yeah so um yeah the music yeah the music and sound is not great on it the the multi-ball music is kind of repetitive and you know there's it's like a four bars of music when you're not in a mode and stuff so uh yeah yeah it's just james like it or is he getting ready he does like it so maybe there's more to it that once you dig into it or maybe he's just in... He likes it until you find out that he sold it yesterday. It was great until it wasn't. Until I needed something else and then it left. Well, look. Jesus Christ, Scott. We've not done a bro stream. Even technically, we take the summer off.
    50:29
    It's really hard. I want to go over and stream that and Bond and Lebowski and blah, blah, blah. And then... I know every weekend's busy, you know, and getting everybody together. So it's rough. Like, I want to play these games and get them on stream and play that. But it's hard to sacrifice, like, a nice day to do that. Like, if there's, like, some weekend, Kevin, that we're around and it's, like, shitty outside, we should probably go do that. Yeah. Yeah, it's so hard. Like, there's pinball tournaments and stuff, too. And I'm like, man, you get, like, three months of good weather in Buffalo. I don't really want to spend it indoors the whole time, you know. Yeah, 100%. I don't want to spend it indoors playing pinball whatsoever. Yep. So pray for rain. We literally have not had rain in like a month in Buffalo. It's been so nice.
    51:18
    So you got to take the good with the bad and take the good when you can get it here weather-wise. So we're taking advantage of it for sure.
    51:26
    Speaking of spending time inside, that's what I'm going to do next weekend. But it's not for a pinball tournament. I'm taking my son is like super into chess. chess is like the hot new thing with the kids these days so uh i'm taking him to cleveland for a chess tournament uh but along the way we're gonna go to the new pastimes arcade in gerrard ohio this is rob burke's insane collection of games he's got all these crazy import games and uh i was like oh yeah we should go there so we're going out on friday and we don't really have anything to do friday night so we're gonna go to pastimes and check out that insane collection of games. So looking forward to stopping down there. They've got pinball machines and arcade games.
    52:14
    Approximately 600 games according to the listing on Pinside. Look at all these games. Oh my god, dude.
    52:22
    I've been there. It's cool. Yeah, I forgot you actually went there. But yeah, now it's open to the public.
    52:29
    I'm stoked. I'll do a show location report on the next episode of the show now that it's open to the public and everything's in place and up and running. Definitely looking forward to that.
    52:45
    That's all I got. How about you, Nick? Let's see. What do I got? I got the Rush Expression Lighting Kit, finally. I'm actually going to install it as soon as the stream is done. Let's wrap this shit up quickly, Kevin. Dave Seuss is going to come over and help me because I've got to take the play field out. I can definitely install like the um art blades myself but the playfield's got to come out and that's a good two-person job so really happy that i i waited for that it finally came out um so that that's cool that's exciting i i had somebody ask me about big buck hunter reloaded on pinside so i might as well share uh that question uh during the stream in case anybody else has a question on it i was asked if I like it still after I got it in October. And my answer is yes, I am happy with it. I could see why people sell it. I don't play it much. I don't pay the subscription anymore.
    53:44
    But when I do fire it up, it's fun. I'm happy to have it. I have 13 pinball machines in the basement. So I've got enough pinball. There's never enough pinball machines. What am I kidding? But the place that it's at, I can't put a pinball machine there. All the things I talked about before, and it adds something else to my game room. So it works for me. I like it. Maybe I'll put the subscription back. But I'm happy I have it in my situation, but I can see why somebody who maybe doesn't have a ton of space or rather have a pinball machine there, I can see why after they stop playing it, because we stop playing every game at some point, I can see why you want to not pay $40 a month for something you're not playing, even though you can still play the game. You can't do the online leaderboard. I can see why people sell it. For me, it's a keeper. Hopefully that helps anybody else considering that thing. It's good to provide an update after like six months of owning something because, you know, when you get something, you're first in like the honeymoon period. And the real question is like six months, a year from now, how do you feel about something? So it works for my situation. And again, I don't think this is a reason to get a game, right? Because people cite this and it comes up and I'll say it. Oh, like guests love it. Like I'm not buying a toy for guests. I'm not buying a $7,000 toy for guests to play when guests come over like four times a year, right? Like I want to be a good friend. I want to entertain people, but I have enough toys downstairs in the basement. But it is something that is a lot of fun when you have people over and they're in your game room. They definitely gravitate towards that. And the four-player kind of mode, team mode is awesome in that. So always a good time. That's my kind of update on there. And then a big update for me that I can – I'm only going to say so much right now. I want to say more, but I'd rather not talk about it. I'd rather do and then talk about it. But we're in the process of creating a Buffalo Pinball co-op, which I'm really, really excited and passionate about.
    55:41
    So, like, people have posed the idea of doing a co-op in Buffalo years and years ago, but I never was motivated to do it because we had plenty of places to play on location. I've got my own collection. And it just didn't make sense for us, per se, or this area. But, you know, things have changed. For example, we've lost locations due to the pandemic, so there's less places to play. My personal collection has expanded where I've got people babysitting my classic games that I don't want to sell, and it would be great to put them out of place. And then also, you know, some newer people have come into the hobby locally, who we talk about on the stream, like Dave Sousa and Matt Taylor. Great guys. They've got a lot of – they want to do a lot more in pinball. They weren't there, you know, four years ago when we – you know, back in 2018 when we had, like, our last big tournament at the Yacht Club. So they kind of missed out on that. But they have a lot of energy. They're smart guys. So kind of riding that energy. And I'm – my passion has, like, been rekindled in terms of wanting to do that next step. and also shout out to Tim Hood at Wormhole. He also inspired me. So we're going to do a co-op.
    56:56
    Matt has actually purchased a building in Buffalo. It's an old bar. So he's currently renovating that. I think why it also works for us is that,
    57:08
    how do I say this? Like it'd be difficult to do if I was paying rent to some landlord that can change the terms or change the rent or we couldn't modify the space that much. But the stars have aligned right now, Kevin, is what I'm trying to say to everybody. The stars have aligned that now is like a perfect time to do a co-op.
    57:28
    It won't be open until next year. I think the direction I'm going in is going to be quite different than a lot of co-ops out there. And the model I'm going to run with is going to be a little different. And I'm really excited because I think I'm on to something that's going to be unique. And I think it's going to be something that we'll be proud to show off. and people are going to say look at what the people in Buffalo are doing So that where I at I got some key people on board that I been talking to Again I don want to say too much because it always a work in progress in terms of the direction I leaning today It might not be the direction I do three months six months from now But here's the thing. I mentioned this. If anybody is local and likes that idea and wants to put games at the co-op, like you're like me, you're running out of room, you don't want to sell games, feel free to get in touch with me. I can give you more details about what I'm doing. We can talk about how you might be able to fit into that space. And if you have games lined up, I'd love to talk to you about that. That's awesome. Yeah, I know some of the insider stuff with this, and I know you're being selective about the information you're sharing at this point because you don't want to get the cart ahead of the horse. But there's great stuff coming and very excited to see what this turns into. I also want to give a quick shout-out to the folks that came over from JBL Pinball. They were streaming the IFBA World Championships. thanks we got some gift subs going on in chat so welcome to everybody who jumped in from that and we're you're just in time for topper talk pretty much so you're gonna want to stick around for that but we get we got a little bit to talk about before that so we have I put out the Q&A like we normally do for the talk show and we got one from Stephen Haberman on on Facebook that I thought was would be an interesting topic for us to talk about he says I'd love to hear your thoughts on the auction pinball estate in stewart virginia there's a pin site thread showing the final prices have you ever bought a game at auction and what was your experience so i went and i i looked this up and uh man it was this this estate auction with all these pinball machines and all these cool old uh coin operated machines like there's slot machines and stuff like that I'm like, man, what a collection, right? But if you look closely, like, look at this. Like, look at that rust on the side of Super Mario Bros. on those side rails. Like, that's kind of a red flag to me, right? Like, so there's some cool games here, but they might not necessarily be in the best condition. So the thing with auctions is, you know, you're buying what you – buyer beware, I guess is what I would say. um you gotta you gotta take what's there um i have nick i don't think you've ever bought from an auction have you i have not no and and really quick kevin did you give a shout out to jdl pinball which just came in with a raid yeah i did i did so well you get to jdl pinball appreciate it um yeah so uh and like like look at the the time expander in the back here like the plastic is not sitting right oh yeah so ideally you want to i've bought a game from auction i bought it was very it seems like a very similar situation to this too it was not an arcade so let's talk about there's like two different kinds of auctions you can do there's like an arcade and amusement auction where like that's all they sell is like say uh an arcade goes out of business or uh an old collector has or an old operator has a a barn full of old machines and they decide to auction them all off um that's one thing and then there's like auction houses who will do estate sales and occasionally you'll you'll get a collector who passes away and they put their auction up their collection up for sale through auction um that was the latter is how i bought my game there's an auction house not far from here that does you know estate sale auctions and things like that and they had a collection of mostly ems but a couple solid states and that's where i got my matahari and it was a 450 matahari when all was said and done which at the end you know when you hear that you're like oh 450 for matahari that's pretty good but that game needed a lot of work and so the advice i would give is typically auctions have preview days where you can go and see the um see the merchandise in person evaluate it um ideally they're going to let you plug it in and turn it on and see if it works or not uh open up the back glass and see like if there's acid damage on the boards things like that um when i got my matahari i did not do that which was not wise but i told myself you know if this stays under 400 i'll throw a bit on it and that'll still be worth it even if i have to buy new boards and things like that um based on where the where the pricing is for that game um you also need to factor in that there's buyer's fees and tax on top of the hammer price. So you may bid, say, $400 on a game, but you're going to want to factor in about an extra 20% on top of the hammer price for what you're actually going to pay for that game after the auction fees and the tax are factored in. So I went and I found the list of pricing for this auction, And I was like, oh, you know, these prices are pretty good, right? Like you look at a Doctor Who for $2,500, you're like, hell yeah, all day. Fishtails $3,750, that's a pretty good price, right? Roll-in $3,800.
    63:05
    Street Fighter II for $1,500. I mean, that game's garbage, but that's like where that should be. So the prices seem pretty good when you just look at title and price. but then you know I looked a little further down and it said these were re-imports that had been in storage for 20 years many were in rough shape don't judge the pinball market by these prices so that's why you really need to go and see the games in person or have somebody local that can go and see the games in person for you if it's something you're going to buy remotely that you know so you can get a quote unquote good deal but you may end up getting just more of a headache to deal with, especially if you don't have the technical skills to build these games back up from the ground up.
    63:54
    So, you know, that's my insights on buying pinball machines from an auction. If folks in chat have any experience, we can talk about it further. But we got one other question from Chris Balinski on Instagram, wanted to know who the rumored designer of Harry Potter was for J.J.P. and we don't know. We don't even know if JGP actually has this license, but it's all to be determined still.
    64:23
    That's all I got. Anything else? Nick Lane. I got nothing, guys. I got nothing. All right. I don't know if this chat has any questions for us before we wrap it up, but also I'm going to move on. It's shilling our merch, so I'm going to do it again. Guys, we got new merch. We got the Play Angry shirts are back. We've added Next Level, like that's the name of the brand of the shirt, t-shirts to the existing merch designs that have been up there. So a great way to support what we're doing at Buffalo Pinball. There's no paywall for our content. We make money by the joke money that YouTube pays us for views, subscriptions to Twitch. If you just want to flat out send us money, which somebody did, which was really nice, you can send it via PayPal to buffalopinball at gmail.com or you can the win-win is you buy yourself some a shirt buffalo pinball and we get some money you get a cool shirt and uh everybody's happy so i gotta show always be shilling kevin at least if you're gonna show show for yourself exactly exactly like you said you know we've been doing this for i don't know eight years now and you know we never pay all our content you know we just figure like let's get it out there we want to we started this because we like talking about pinball yeah we figured this was a good way to to share our thoughts and ideas with the world, with the stream. We bring new games, tutorials, things like that. And not throwing shade at that approach. If that approach works for somebody, then by all means, my thing is be pragmatic and do what approach works for you. Yeah, I think Patreon, we had one for a little while, but for Patreon to work, you have to do more content. Yeah, do a lot of work. It defeats the purpose. Right, exactly. not worth your time and effort right right yeah so we just wanted to like we like doing what we do we don't want to turn it into a job this is our this is our hobby part of our hobby and uh it's a fun way to to share what we love with everybody else so yeah so guys uh kevin did a good job of reading the news uh i think the the bad thing about all those five games coming out once it's i think there's going to be a drag on content you know that's just that's what it is like i again i'm always amazed at people that do more than one podcast in a in a month we We barely do one a month, but for better or for worse, there's nothing really to get fired up about and start cursing and swearing. It's been a chill Sunday. It's kind of nice. That's good.
    66:48
    Sunday is the day to relax, right? So that's what we're doing. Yeah, I'm sure people are disappointed that I didn't do enough cursing and swearing and all that. You know, you've got to keep them guessing. You can't do the same thing every month, you know what I mean? Yeah. Dude, I'm going to be out. If anybody's listening in the Denver area, I'm going to be out there. I think I'm going to play in a tournament on Sunday I think it's in Conifer I think that day I'll be free And I'll play in that tournament So I'm looking forward to checking that out I'm going to connect with Ryan from Comet We're going to go see If Ed's listening to this She usually does We're going to see the Barenaked Ladies Play at Red Rocks Looking forward to that I don't know if I'm going to get to play pinball against Ed Hopefully He always travels with a game in his road case, and he wins when we play, but it's kind of like a carnival game that he's got set up.
    67:44
    He's got this weird road case. I don't know what's going on with the pitch and everything. He can play the game, but I seem to struggle on the one game we play.
    67:54
    So my challenge to him is, again, I look forward to maybe I'll get to play against him, but let's do this at some point. we gotta find neutral ground we gotta like go to a place where it's like a location and then we'll play like the best of seven or something or you actually enter a tournament I'll come up to Canada when you're off you enter a tournament I'll enter a tournament and we'll see who does better that's real I like it throwing down the gauntlet that's right he loves to talk trash so it's all good it must be at Blizzard Mountain yeah there's a tournament next Sunday I was looking There's a tournament at Lions on Saturday, but I think I'm going to be playing disc golf. I'm going to play disc golf every day out there.
    68:38
    Anyways, that's the end of the show. Rambling, throwing out the gauntlet, trying to get something going. Yeah, we got a question from DeathGoneX. He says, thoughts on Final Resistance. How is Godfather so far? Oh, fuck yeah. I wanted to put that in my update.
    68:54
    Yeah, let me jump on that one. Yeah, there you go. This is thankfully. All right. So, listen, I am still, I got Godfather in early April, and I'm still playing it. I still love it.
    69:05
    It's definitely a one more game. I think the length of the, like, sometimes you can get your ass handed to you quickly, and even, like, the quote-unquote longer games aren't that long when I play it. So I really, like, this game really is a sweet spot for me personally. I'm really happy to have it. I wish they would come out with an update for the bugs that are in it. I'm a little disappointed that, like, one of the bugs, Kevin, is the mystery rewards. Did you realize that? No, no, I haven't run into that. You have. You probably just don't know. Okay. So, like, and this is good for anybody who's got the game right now.
    69:40
    I think, like, something happens if you keep the settings stock. And, like, you can get, like, if you complete the veto lanes, I think the mystery rewards get better. And at one point it's supposed to go into, like, if you ever notice, Kevin, If you've ever noticed, you've had a lock shot lit in the right orbit, and it doesn't lock even though it's lit. That's a bug. Okay. It's supposed to divert into the mystery thing and hand a mystery award. The way you fix that is you change the mystery award to, I forget what the stock is, but you change it to rotate, and that will work like the game should. Okay. You'll be able to lock it. When I was playing at your house in League, lock was lit, and I couldn't lock it. I was like, am I doing something wrong, or is there a bug? So it's definitely a bug. That's one that everybody's probably encountering, but maybe they don't know. And then I just avoid the skill shot one. But other than that, dude, I highly recommend this game. I can't recommend it enough. I put a review up on Pinside in the rating section. And, you know, I said why I like it a lot, but I also said, you know, kind of maybe the polarizing things. And I tried to articulate why, you know, maybe it's not for everybody. so try to do a really good review of it but yeah absolutely love the game happy to have it yeah the layout is so fun I was playing it again the other day and it's just like man it's got all those crazy diverters and it's super fast and flowy and I don't know I love the risk reward building up those massive like cash outs and then getting your multiplier up before you hit that scoop and the machine just like craps out points it's great yeah i love it it's it's like it's like the perfect game for me honestly in terms of layout and what i look for in rules and and obviously like i love the juicy jack presentation and quality right like i don't buy the game just because of games presentation or quality it's got to have the nuts and bolts in terms of uh design and rules and feel of the game and i said this on the last podcast this game has made me excited for you know if it's true that Steve Ritchie's doing Elton John, I'm seriously not considering that game in a way that I wouldn't before. Because I love music games, not like an Elton John fan per se, but I can see that being awesome after playing Godfather. Yeah. I'm stoked to see what Steve Ritchie's doing and what Mark Seidner's doing. It's like, hmm. Yeah, we've seen so much from Eric and Pat in the history of JJP. Getting some new designers into the mix is going to be cool. So definitely, definitely excited to see what's coming from those guys. So as far as Final Resistance, I haven't played it since Pinbrew. I mean, I played it the most when I was down for the reveal. It's super fun.
    72:28
    It's more of a, like, I think Scott described it as his take on an Attack from Mars kind of game, and I kind of get that. But it's, the toys on it are so cool. that spaceship that just fires the balls at you and the kickback on the far right that comes into play sometimes and the overall presentation and package. I'm really looking forward to setting that game up at my house and hooking the subwoofer up to the P3 and just really soaking it all in.
    73:01
    Super stoked. I'm a big fan of the cyberpunk themes and stuff like that. It really kind of checks all the boxes for me. Couldn't be more excited to get that one in the collection. and hopefully it'll be in the next month or two. So once I have it, I'll be streaming it, and we'll talk about it more on the show for sure.
    73:19
    All right. Cool. I think that's going to do it. Thanks, everybody. Topper Talk time? Yeah, time for Topper Talk. Thanks, everybody, for another great month. In the meantime, we'll see you on the Twitch streams, and we'll catch you next time here on Bro, Do You Even Talk Pinball? Have a good one, y'all.
    73:40
    It's Topper Talk with Goran right now. Let's all have some fun. This is about plastic on top of your pin. Go and buy one now. There's a topper here and a topper there. Here a topper, there a topper, everywhere a topper. It's critical to the gameplay experience. You must buy one now. It's your monthly fill of toppers right now. Topper Talk with Goran. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Topper Talk with Goran, the part of the podcast where Kevin and Nick give me about three to five minutes to talk about everything happening in the very active and profitable topper community. Now, today, we're going to be talking about the brand-new Godzilla Pinball Topper from Stern Pinball. So let's head into the office, and we'll talk about that now. All right, so here we are in the office. So let's jump right into the Godzilla Heat Ray Destruction Topper. Here's a quick little video released from Stern Pinball so you can see what we're talking about. I love that burning building fire effect. I think that's awesome.
    74:42
    So that's about it from the video, but we have a photo here that Stern Pinball also released, so we can see we have the burning buildings in the background with that flame effect. And then the main focal point is this Godzilla sculpt here that is breathing a heat ray. We have some 2D tanks here as well as a Mechagodzilla head in the background. Now, according to Stern as well, according to the description, it also says that there's going to be a special flash lamp that projects Godzilla's shadow. I'm unclear on where that is on the topper, but I'm sure that will correspond to gameplay. Overall, the topper has 21 RGB lights as well. And the big thing is it does have an exclusive mode associated with it called the King of the Monsters Time Attack. And you can't experience that without the topper. For me, I really like the atmosphere that it's trying to build with the burning buildings and the plane and the Mechagodzilla in the back, as well as the tanks. But, you know, the main toy for me is really just a copy of an existing sculpt on the Premium. And I just feel like the heat ray also just takes up too much space. For me, it looks like the start of an actual Stern topper that's finished by someone who's just making a topper for fun using action figures or extra toys they had laying around. So, you know, this topper is priced at $999, which is nowadays for Stern on the lower end of toppers. And I think they acknowledge that. They said it's going to be under $1,000, which rarely happens. And I think that really shows with the topper. So they're trying to create something that is more affordable for everyone compared to other toppers. But, you know, there's definitely other more interesting to look at toppers that have been released recently from Stern, in my opinion, like the Rush topper or the Mandalorian topper.
    76:43
    But with that said, I do love the overall atmosphere that it creates on top of the game and the extra mode that you get is always nice as well. thank you for tuning into this episode of topper talk with gordon tune into the next podcast for another episode and as always get out there and buy a topper thank you for coming to my topper talk