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PNP 673- Why The Prime training Challenge On Transformers Is A Gamechanger

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·30m 24s·analyzed·May 20, 2026
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.026

TL;DR

Prime Training Challenge in Transformers offers revolutionary in-game shot guidance to teach players without requiring external tutorials.

Summary

The host discusses Stern's new Transformers pinball machine, focusing on why the Prime Training Challenge feature is a potential game-changer for teaching new players. He praises the Soundwave cassette mechanism and Megatron cannon, defends the limited edition's two-color scheme against criticism from another podcaster, and predicts moderate secondary market pricing for LEs compared to Pokemon's sustained premium. He also commends designer Elizabeth Gieske work on the code and feature implementation.

Key Claims

  • The Soundwave cassette ball ejection creates more chaos and difficulty for experienced players than a ball shot directly at flippers

    medium confidence · Host's gameplay analysis based on pinball mechanics understanding

  • Transformers Limited Edition machines will sell out but secondary market prices will remain near or slightly above MSRP within weeks, unlike Pokemon which sustained $3,000+ premiums

    medium confidence · Host's market prediction based on comparing IP popularity and collector base size

  • Transformers fandom is significantly smaller than Pokemon fandom when measured by Google search volume trends

    high confidence · Host cites Google search volume comparison and attendance at Maritime Collectibles Expo as evidence

  • George Gomez may have deliberately provided false information to Kaneda about the 'You've Got the Touch' song not being included to manage expectations

    low confidence · Host's speculation about designer strategy based on Kaneda's recent podcast claims

  • Prime Training feature could be as significant a game-changer as save state functionality in Venom and Dungeons & Dragons

    medium confidence · Host's design analysis comparing feature impact on player onboarding

  • Stern's main marketing challenge for pinball is how to teach new players quickly and easily without requiring external human instruction

    medium confidence · Host's observation about industry pain points based on pinball accessibility

  • Repainting a Transformers LE to a single color will make it harder to resell to approximately 90-95% of potential buyers

    medium confidence · Host's market advice based on collector preferences and secondary market dynamics

  • The Transformers game has more interesting shots and mechs compared to John Wick but is more difficult than Elvira or Pokemon

    medium confidence · Host's comparative gameplay assessment

Notable Quotes

  • “If anyone can, Elliot can.”

    Host (Drew) @ ~24:00 — Recurring catchphrase praising designer Elliot Eisman's engineering capabilities

  • “This is epic because it shows you what shots to hit where on the playfield while you're hitting those shots... this is a massive game changer.”

    Host (Drew) @ ~50:00 — Core thesis of the episode - emphasizing Prime Training Challenge significance

  • “Play before you pay. This is the way.”

    Host (Drew) @ ~45:00 — Long-standing advice to collectors about test-playing games before purchase

  • “I do not think Transformers will print money like Pokemon or Harry Potter.”

    Host (Drew) @ ~48:00 — Market expectation setting about Transformers' revenue potential compared to recent releases

  • “I'm almost 100% sure that a month or two down the road from now, there will be more than enough LEs available.”

    Host (Drew) @ ~44:00 — Prediction about LE availability and supply normalization

Entities

DrewpersonZach SharpepersonElliot EismanpersonElizabeth GieskepersonGeorge GomezpersonKanedapersonStern Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    design_innovation: Prime Training Challenge feature shows shot locations and objectives on playfield in real-time, potentially allowing LCD display to guide players to next target mid-shot

    high · Host describes feature showing 'what shots to hit where on the playfield while you're hitting those shots' and speculates about machine knowing which switches are being hit

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Soundwave cassette ball ejection creates more chaos for experienced players due to sideways trajectory causing slingshot interactions and outlane challenges

    medium · Host analyzes how erratic ball path is harder for nudging players to control than direct flipper shots

  • $

    market_signal: Transformers LE machines predicted to sell out but secondary market will normalize to near MSRP within weeks, unlike Pokemon's sustained premium pricing

    medium · Host compares IP popularity (Google search volume), collector base size, and Pokemon's $3,000+ sustained premiums versus expected Transformers trajectory

  • ?

    collector_signal: Repainting Transformers LE to single color scheme significantly reduces secondary market appeal and resale value to majority of potential buyers

    medium · Host estimates 90-95% of LE buyers will be turned off by single-color repaints, reducing resale market

  • ?

    industry_signal: George Gomez may have deliberately provided false negative information to Kaneda about song licensing to manage expectations and control narrative

    low · Host speculates that Gomez disclosed accurate negative info (Optimus doesn't transform) while lying about song to manage disappointment cascade

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.091

0:00
The Pinball is on the rebound. Hear the sound of our buddy Elodie, it's Orbeez. Pinball nuns for joys. He's talking pinball, craft beer and coffee, miffed the syrup and honey. He wants to laugh with his family and the random tangents. Stories of his boys. He's on the Poor Man's Pod Network. We're going to get more listeners for the Pinball Nerds Podcast. Coming to you from beautiful River Higerts, Nova Scotia.
0:43
You've got the touch. You've got the power. Welcome back pinball nerds to episode who gives a crap of your fifth favorite pinball podcast or probably lower because I hardly ever record anymore. But let's just get right into it today. You're not here for the preamble. You are here so I can talk to you all about what I was right about and what I was wrong about in my top five rad in one bad. Now, if you didn't listen to that episode, if you're really bored and you got nothing to do, but I bet you got a lot of stuff to do. So I'm going to respect your time and tell you that was a garbage episode. Don't go listen to that. I was very tired. I wasn't excited about doing the episode. I had a really long week, work week. I had a really long week at home. It sucked. I'm sorry. When you do 700 episodes of a blog-style pinball podcast, they're not all going to be gold. Of course, I would love a pole full of gold. Who wouldn't? But they're just not all going to be that good. But today's, I assure you, today's, it can't be worse, so therefore it has to be better. All right. I'm going to go in our good old buddy who does coast-to-coast pinball back in the day would always do five fast thoughts. Why do I always forget his name? I believe his name was Neil. But he would do five fast thoughts. So in the same fashion as five fast thoughts, I'm going to attempt to do five fairly fast thoughts. Now, I will say this. I do have to call out a particular pinball podcaster. Let's just rip off the band-aid. I'm not going to make you wait to the end. And Zachary Many, that's right, of the Pinball Show, also of Flippin' Out, LLC Flame.
2:31
You guys have Pinball, okay, sorry, I'm not even going to try to sing today. No singing, I'm still getting over a little bit of a cold. My throat is not ready for it. I'm a bad enough singer at the best of times and you already had to hear me sing You Got the Power. By the way, I don't think that You Got the Power is as important to the sales as some people think it is. Certainly not to me, it's not. That movie came out or that show, the original cartoon came out in 1984. Very good year, though. Same year my wife came out. Shout out, drop target. But here's the thing. OK. I don't think it needed that song. I know that like Kaneda was very excited about it. I'm sure a lot of people that were like born in the 50s, 60s and 70s who when they were in their teens or their 20s or their 30s, that song was huge. They're nostalgic for it. I watched the cartoon when I was four or five, but I could frankly have never heard, you've got the feeling. No, what is it? You've got the touch. I could never hear that again. It'd frankly be too soon. But anyways, I don't, I mean, maybe the very first time I hear it, I'll get nostalgic while playing. They have to limit it. It can't be playing like all the time. If they had that as the background song, like for the main mode on Transformers, about 10 minutes into playing, all of y'all would be like, yeah. Yeah, I've got touched and I didn't like it. I've got the power to turn off the sound, so I'm going to. Do you know what I mean? Where did the bad man touch you? That's what I'm saying. And was the bad man's name Megatron? Now let's get into it. Number one, I don't think I included this on my list because I didn't know how freaking rad it was, but Soundwave and his cassette tape deck, when he opens up and the balls fall out, or I think just like one ball comes out at a time, that ball just comes a-flinging out of there. I thought it was going to open slowly like an old-school cassette deck and just be like, almost like imagine the doors of the DeLorean opening and Marty's getting out, right? I thought it would open slowly and then a whole bunch of balls would, you know, droop, drop out all at once.
Transformers
game
Pokemongame
Jack Dangerperson
Dwight Sullivanperson
John Wickgame
Don Garrisonperson
Brandon Baxterperson
Carl D'Python Angheloperson
Barrels of Funcompany
Maritime Collectibles Expoevent
Poor Man's Pinball Podcastorganization
Jawsgame
  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Transformers positioned between casual-friendly (Elvira, Pokemon) and challenging (John Wick) difficulty tier with emphasis on interesting shot design

    medium · Host compares game difficulty and shot variety across recent Stern releases

  • ?

    product_concern: Split flipper real-time gameplay feature unclear in Stern's official explanation; host questions how machine differentiates between players and shot attribution

    medium · Host expresses confusion about split flipper mechanics and states 'Stern, are you listening? Okay. They didn't do a great job explaining it'

  • ?

    community_signal: Public friendly disagreement between Poor Man's and Pinball Show hosts over Transformers LE color scheme aesthetic and resale value impact

    high · Host calls out Zach Sharpe by name for planned single-color repaint, explaining rationale for keeping OG color scheme

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Stern addressing core industry challenge of teaching new players quickly without external human instruction through integrated Prime Training feature

    medium · Host identifies player education as 'possibly perhaps the biggest challenge' in pinball industry marketing and positioning Prime Training as solution

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Carl D'Python Anghelo transitioned from previous role doing instructional videos to position at Barrels of Fun

    high · Host mentions Carl 'being over at Bales of Fun' and noting he previously did instructional start videos

    • 4:39
    This thing is like, I don't know, it's like an animated mouth in a video game, how fast the cassette tape thing opens up and Soundwave shoots this ball at you. So that's going to add some chaos and it doesn't actually, everyone says, oh, shooting it towards the flippers is the worst. Okay, kind of maybe if you're a brand new player, but for probably 80 to 90 percent of players who have played more than 10 or 15 games in the last year, who's like 99 percent of the people listening to the show right now.
    5:07
    The ball's going sideways like that, creating chaos, hitting the slingshots, going towards that one lower pop bumper. There's a lower pop bumper in there, isn't there? Anyways, the balls going left and right like that actually causes a lot more chaos for like players who nudge because it's going to be really, really, really hard to actually get that ball out of the outlane when it's flinging back and forth on those brand new slings, right? Whereas like a ball even being shot towards you possibly from Megatron, you could do a fairly easy slap save and prevent from going straight down the middle. Well, with that being said, let's go into number two on my list, and that actually is Megatron. I did think that the Megatron shot the ball, and I think that if Optimus Prime didn't go down and didn't transform and Megatron didn't spin and move and shoot the ball, then you'd have really disappointed people. But let's be honest, I'm not nearly as smart as Elliot Eisman. I certainly am not an engineer. The only handy thing I am with is maybe duct tape from time to time and possibly from, you know, once in a while a microphone. But I'll let you decide on that one. Megatron shoots the ball and the only one we see in the teaser video, and we know that Stern likes to keep a little something for Ron later on, a little something hidden. Okay, so Megatron will shoot the ball to the left or from the player's perspective to the left and it will actually go on to a habit trail. It's only going, look, it appears as if it's only going, I shouldn't say only, it's still very incredible, but in comparison to what we saw in Houdini where the cannon launched the ball the entire three and a half, whatever, four feet of a play field, like from the very, very, very down by your flippers to the very, to the back box, right? This isn't that impressive. It's still cool, though, because it shoots it at a fast speed. It's still cool because Megatron is shooting it at you. But what we don't know, and the biggest question I think we all still have is, is, you got the touch! Is it in there? It is in there. No, that's not the biggest question. The biggest question left is, does Megatron shoot and hurl balls anywhere else? We kind of all assumed that he was shooting balls over that habitrail. It just looked like that made sense. But does he also shoot the ball straight down the middle between your flippers Or does he also shoot the ball directly at a slingshot so it goes right towards a left or right out lane and make it more dangerous that way Or does he shoot it like I would be shocked if this were true but it be really really really cool if he could actually shoot a ball for some reason or a certain mode over at Soundwave and Soundwave could open his little mouth slash tape decky thing and swallow the ball Wouldn that be incredible That would be so cool I probably asking for too much but who knows The man is an engineer If anyone can Elliot can Say it with me If anyone can, Elliot can. If anyone, okay, sorry. All right. Number three is I don't care that Optimus Prime doesn't open. That's, would it have been cool? Sure. But if you said to me, if they could only afford or only had time or energy to get one mech working, I still think I would much prefer, hell, I even think Soundwave opening up and shooting the balls out of the cassette area. And so that's a toy that you're actively playing with and you're interacting with and is shooting the balls at you. And then you have also Megatron doing the same thing, straight down a ramp coming firing right at your flippers, right, really fast. And he's turning and spinning and moving around. You also interact by shooting up the balls basically like between his legs for a better explanation after you hit the three stand-ups and shoot them up through there. So you're interacting with those two toys. And then even Optimus Prime, you can even tell when the ball hits it in the video, the four and a half minute video with George Gomez, I think they zoom in on it better. You can see that they do either vibrate or like when the balls hit it, they do. It does actually move more so than like a stand up one, like where it's not actually moving. It's just moving above it like Sparky and say Metallica. So there is some movement there. Obviously, it's very minimal. We also have movement movement that you're interacting with the kinetic ball. But my point is, and I don't know what the dinosaur guy is, I don't remember, I don't, my memory from whatever, 25 years, 35, geez I'm getting old, 40 years ago, my memory isn't that good so I don't remember what the dinosaur guy's name is but you have him on the left which is a pretty cool Sculp. And in comparison to two or three years ago when we would get really mad at Stern for never having sculpts or having one sculpt per game, they have four large, really good-looking, seemingly high-quality sculpts, and three of the four of them directly interact with the ball. And I believe, now I don't, obviously on the Pro, maybe on the Pro it doesn't have that, right? Like you can't, maybe on the Pro the Megatron doesn't move, and maybe on the Pro Soundwave doesn't shoot the balls out. But I guarantee you, I'm pretty sure I would have to go back and watch. But in the pro video, I think you still have the captive ball. Obviously, I would say most of the time they would include that. And it really doesn't matter because you would expect that it would be the pro would be a little bit stripped down. So probably one of those two things don't work in the pro, but who cares? All right. Number four on the list. I'm sorry to do this. I try not to call out other pinball podcasters, but if I do.
    10:30
    I have committed to do it in a constructive criticism way, but I'm sorry. Hey, Zach, you're wrong. I got to call you wrong. When you're wrong, you're wrong. Don't buy, don't buy, don't buy. Sorry. Zach is 100% wrong. He said something so upsetting. I almost messaged him, but I didn't. But I thought about it. And the fact that I even thought about it, this is like first time in years I've even thought about saying anything to Zach, okay? So this really grinded my gears. There's your Transformers pun for the day. All right. It did. It grinded my gears. He said that he didn't like the LE had the purple and the red. Oh my God. Is the purple and the red not only a throwback to George Gomez's obvious masterpiece Transformers from like 25 years ago, 30 years ago, whenever he made the original Transformers, but more importantly, it's showing you the Decepticons versus the good versus the bad. And the Autotrons, I don't know who they are. It's showing you the good dudes like Optimus Prime and his boys versus Megatron and the bad evildoers who are trying to steal the power from planet Earth or whatever the hell they're doing.
    11:38
    I'm sorry, Zach, you're wrong. He said that the first thing he's going to do is take his armor and repaint it all just one of the two colors. I don't think that will look better with the color scheme, first of all. And second of all, you may never, ever be able to go back perfectly to those colors that Stern used. So I would not recommend that anyone that has an LE does that, does that, because I would have to guess probably 95% to 98% of people who are ever going to buy a used LE. They don't care if it's a pro. They don't care if Don over there, Don's Pinball Podcast, gets a premium and tries to make it look like an LE. Sure, he can do whatever he wants with that. They won't care. But if you actually have an LE, like a limited edition, and you have made that many major changes to like the aesthetic value of what it looks like, it could be substantially harder to sell. Mind you, if you find that 3% to 5% of people that just want, that have to have one same color on the whole thing, who just can't, you know, can't fathom having color matching happening. It's got to all be one, you know, like if all your other pins are color matchy, then this one has to be color matchy. If you absolutely have to have that, sure, you might actually get more money from the 5% to 10% of people. But I'm just saying if you're someone who likes to keep pins for like a year to two like I normally do and then move on, you don't want to potentially make it so that 90% to 95% of your buyers for your LE are completely turned off by making it look – I'm not going to say it makes it look ugly. It just won't look as rad and it won't be OG. More importantly, it won't be OG. So anyway, Zach doesn't care about that. He's far too wealthy, I'm sure, makes too much. I don't think Zach's going to be in need of selling a pinball machine anytime soon, so he can keep it as long as he wants. And Zach, I hope you understood I was just kidding. I'm not really calling you out. I was kind of just, you know, I don't even have any real beefs anymore, hardly ever in life. So I got to make an artificial one once in a while. I got to keep you guys listening somehow, some way. God knows you're not listening because of how many rumors I get or how connected I am or because I was up till 3 a.m. talking to George Gomez. And speaking about talking to him, Kaneda told everybody, you know, last week, and I don't want to start any beef either, okay? Two beefs, one burger, we call that a JBC double, but we're not going to go down the burger route today.
    13:56
    Kaneda specifically said that he would not buy this game and he will not support it and he's not excited about it unless they get that song, We Got the Touch. So he reported that George Gomez had confirmed to him that they did not get that song. And so he's very disappointed by it. Now, I don't know if that was really reported to him or not. I assume that it was. OK, but how frickin smart of it was George Gomez to play Kaneda like a fiddle and go, yeah, I'll give you some correct information that the prime doesn't open up. But let me just completely lie to you and pull the sheet over the the the the wool over the sheep's eyes. I don't know. And tell him that the song does not exist and that he will not be able to get the rights for it. Because if I tell him that, everyone's going to be double disappointed about both. But at least when they find out, although Optimus Prime really can't transform whatsoever, but we dig at that song, at least they'll be partially excited. If everything Canadian reported on was true and it was all negative, and then today it came out and it was all negative, And if you not buying this then all the other negative nancies and Debbie Downers would have to step in and be like hey whoa whoa whoa I can believe this You didn get the song and it doesn transform I not buying this And now the whole narrative from all the talking heads like me is most likely going to be sure we would have rathered Of course we all would have rathered that he went down into that truck and then went back up That would be incredible Imagine him going down and you locking all the balls in him And then when you start your multi ball he standing up and he just turns around and like Optimus Prime like shakes his little behind and all the balls follow the bottom of the trailer Like that would be awesome That be cool That be great But it just not going to happen And it's kind of like with Jaws. Sure, it'd be great, but it's just not going to happen. So get over it and enjoy the fact that Soundwave is so awesome. Enjoy the fact that Megatron actually can turn left and right and you can lock balls in him and he can actually shoot balls out of a moving stand-up cannon. Like those things are all incredible. So let's move on here, though, to my favorite thing to talk about. Number five. And this is the real game changer here. OK, number five. I've got two words for you. Gee, ski. You go, girl. Can I say that? I think I can say that. All right. So here's that. She's a woman. She's a woman. Just for the record. She's not a girl. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to offend anyone. I was just using a local colloquialism. I don't think that linguistically was correct, but I'm trying here. I'm trying. Okay. So, gee, ski. I think I said that right. This girl got me excited. What this awesome design team member who's primarily working on the code, she is killing it. And I'll be honest, when I love you, I love you, Elliot Heisman. The chances of you listening to my tiny pinball blog is almost zero. I am the most Ellie Pinball blog out there. When he turned to the camera and kind of squinted and said, more than meets the eye, I laughed. I outwardly laughed. And I don't know. He knows he had to say it as being the designer of the game. I wonder if there was a way to say it that was slightly less cringe. I'm sorry. It was a little bit cringey. I'm sorry. But it was also funny. And then when I rewound it like five times, am I the only one who watched it five or six times in a row? I bet you there's some of you listen eight or nine times in a row. Not just the one minute one, the four minute one. Now, to be fair, I was trying to write a podcast. You listening to this right now might be deciding, are you going to spend your hard earned money on it? And what I would say is I suspect that I do think that the LEs will sell out. I couldn't tell you if it's going to be an hour or 10 days, but I'm almost 100 percent sure. And I've been wrong before, but I'm almost 100% sure that a month or two down the road from now, there will be more than enough LEs available. And if they are slightly over MSRP, I will be shocked. If anything, they'll be slightly over retail price for maybe a week or two while everyone figures out who wants one. And then shortly after that, we're not going to see what happened in Pokemon where it's still selling for $3,000 over two, three months later. I do not think that's going to happen. I know there is a ton of Transformers fans, but you have to remember most Transformers fans are kind of like me. Growing up, I watched a little bit of Pokemon. I was getting a bit old for it, but I watched a little bit of Pokemon. And growing up, I also did watch a lot of Transformers, like a lot, a lot, a lot of Transformers. But over the years, I started playing games like Pokemon Go, which got me back into it. And I started playing the two new games that aren't nearly as complicated as like Red and Blue and all that stuff. The two ones that you play on Nintendo Switch and you have like the Joy-Con and the ball that you throw and you actually have to catch the Pokemon. That game, you didn't need to be like a hardcore Pokemon nerd. It wasn't really a hardcore gaming game. It was very similar to Pokemon Go, but on the Nintendo. And then from there, I started getting into the art and the investing and the collecting side of it. And because 80 to 90 percent of people who are into Pokemon are not people who actually play the game, there just isn't that same crowd within Transformers. There's not like there's I just came from probably, I think, the largest ever collectible show on the east coast of Canada or very close to it at the Maritime Collectibles Expo at the Moncton Coliseum. And there was upwards of 150 vendors there. Some of them had booths with four, five, six tables, you know, so there was like, and it was packed. We had CTV News was there, which is a Canadian, well, that's a C, the C in CTV is Canadian TV, so CTV was there. And, you know, the local radio station was there, and Owen and I did really great, thanks to my Pinball buddy, Brandon Baxter, also came and he had some sealed product back behind my booth that we had that we were offering. Thank you to all my customers. I had a great time. But my point is, is there just isn't if you were the easiest way to look at how big a brand is, is to simply look at how many people per month. This is a simplified way of doing it. It doesn't tell you everything. But you type that word into Google and you see how much it's trending over the last 30 days, 90 days or a year. And you're going to see that Pokemon is typed into Google. More than most other words, other than probably the or a. And Transformers is probably not even in the top 100,000 words typed into there. So I wouldn't be shocked if we have upwards of a billion times per month someone is typing Pokemon into Google and researching it for any number of reasons, whether it be clothing, video games, Pokemon Go, YouTube videos, investing, buying sealed product, just interacting with it in some way, shape or form. You have to remember that in Japan, Pokemon is like a way of life. Like they have Pokemon trains, they have multiple stores, they have, you know, everything. Like the card game is only a very small part of it. Here in North America, the card game is a much larger part of it. But my point is, don't worry if you really think you want to, Ellie, follow my advice that I've said for years and years and years. Play before you pay. This is the way. Because I think you'll play it and you'll still love it. But other than people who maybe buy it in the first two or three weeks, I don't even think it will ever go for more than our retail. But if it does, it'll only go over slightly for $500 to maybe $1,000 for, like I said, maybe a couple weeks to a month or two max. Most likely, I think only a couple weeks, if at all. I can guarantee you by Christmas, you'll be able to get a Pokemon LE after you've got to play one, at least play a premium, and decide whether or not you want it. Now, as far as getting a pro goes, I mean, if you're a location, it's almost a no-brainer. I do not think Transformers will print money like Pokemon or Harry Potter, but I do think, especially with them using G1, with that art package, with the excellent animations being exactly what you'd expect using real scenes from the 1984 classic cartoon, the call-outs were great. They sounded like they were the real dudes from the show. At least they tricked me. I didn't go check on Google if they were exactly them. But overall, I think the game, the code, the code I'm probably the most excited for. I also think Elliot Eisman is kind of figuring out his style and what he's really into. And I think this definitely has way more interesting shots, definitely 100% way more interesting mechs than John Wick. So congratulations, take a bow, Elliot Eisman, Elizabeth Gieske and team over there at Stern. Again I still think you should play before you pay but I do think most people who play this it looks to me like there a good number of fairly easy shots but it not going to be as easy of a player as an Elvira or a Pokemon It's just not. It's going to be, you know, they've taken the baby gloves off a little bit. It's not going to be as tight of a playing machine probably as John Wick had a couple really tight shots. To me personally, I'm sorry, Gomez, if you're listening, which I doubt my homie Gomi is actually listening. But if he was, I'm sorry, I think quite a few of the Deadpool shots are very clunky, especially the Katana shot. I mean, I'm somehow ranked in like the top three or four percent of players in the world, and I can't consistently hit the Katana shot, even on ones that are locked in perfectly. I certainly can't hit it crisp enough for it to get all the way up and around, right? So again, you know, and that's fine. You know, some games can have some harder shots. There's nothing wrong with that. But here's where more than meets the eye really, really is honest because Elizabeth Gieske, and again, she's the one explaining it. I don't know if this was her idea, so I don't want to give her 100% credit. But whomever thought of the idea, not just the whole Cybercoins wallet, so now you're going to have a Cybercoins wallet that allows you to play exclusive modes and challenges in the game. The one that looked the most interesting by far was called the Prime Training. Now, you've all probably most likely seen the video. Go pause it and watch it if you haven't. Okay, it's near the end of the four-minute and 15-second one on Stern Pinball on YouTube and Facebook.
    24:14
    At the very end, she's explaining that once you build up enough coins, you can go play Prime Training. And if you watch the part of the video for Prime Training, it's so interesting to me. People use the term epic or game changer a little bit too loosely nowadays, but this is epic because it shows you, What shots to hit where on the playfield while you're hitting those shots. And I don't know how deep they go with it or how well it interacts with the code and if it knows you're hitting switch. Like if the machine intuitively knows through Insider Connected that you're hitting the certain switches because the program goes through Insider Connected. But wow, this is a massive game changer. This might be as big of a game changer as saving the game state in Venom and Dungeons and Dragons by Dwight Sullivan. But this could be as big of a game changer. Like, I don't know. I think this is a bigger game changer than even like the dead post by Jack Danger that brings the ball back into play. Maybe. I think it could be. Because for people like me, for me to be able to learn a pinball machine, the best way to do it at home was to watch someone like Bo and Karens or someone else teaching you how to play the game. Travis Murry, shout out to all these, you know, Tom over there at Fox Cities, shout out even Ray Day when he would make the baby's first game when he did it for Jaws and I think a couple of the other pins he just taught you like some introductory rules to play it. Well, to all those people, I have to watch all your videos like 10 or 20 times. Hell bone, I've probably watched your 100 videos a thousand times in total because I have to keep watching them to relearn them. So if I could have just a quick glance from my flippers up after I've shot the ball up a ramp or into a scoop or anywhere the ball is going to pause, if I can glance up and see where I have to do my next shot, where's most lucrative and how to like do a combo or I don't know where they're going to teach you. We didn't get that much information on it, but I think if it's implemented correctly, I truly believe that prime training could be like maybe they'll call it a different name on the next Stern Pin, but this could fast track amateur players into becoming novice players real quick because that's a major, major, major problem. It's possibly perhaps if I was in the marketing and the advertising department, I truly believe that this would be our biggest challenge. And it's how do you teach someone very quickly, very easily how to enjoy playing pinball without having a human there to do it. And I think they've even had Carl D'Angelo before do like a start video like press the start button. Now the flippers on the left and right will make the ball launch into the air like the and Carl's like told it now. I doubt whatever he was doing with that he's doing anymore with him being over at Bales of Fun. But I remember for either like one or two games, they were either in talks or they did do it where there's like explaining to you at least like how to start multiball, shoot the balls up these ramps, how to go here. But it appears to be that like while you're shooting it, they show a shot from the upper right flipper and the ball misses where the target was telling them on the LCD screen to go. And you hear like bam, like it's telling you like, nope, you didn't make it. Sorry. Try again. And so I'm guessing there must be some way it's interacting. Again, maybe I'm reading too much into all this, but it sounds like that could be the coolest feature. Something else I wasn't as thrilled about, and honestly, I don't think they did a great job explaining it. Stern, are you listening? Okay. They said you can play split flipper in real time. Well, first of all, you can always play split flipper in real time. Why couldn't you? But if what you're saying is you're now playing split flipper against each other, how do you know which person's hitting which shots? Because they could have backhanded it or four-handed it. That's what I'm confused about. When you're saying you're playing split flipper in real time, does that mean you and one other person is playing against someone else? In which case, why would the machine need to know that you're in split flipper? It doesn't matter. But if you're saying you're playing split flipper against each other, are you getting different objectives to have to do? Like that just wasn't explained very well. So I'm at least excited to hear more about that. But honestly, if it's just like, if it's just, I don't know, I don't know how that we do it. If it's just like, okay, now the other two split flipper people are up, that kind of seems lame. But anyways, you got the touch. You got the power.
    28:28
    Wow. Okay. Sorry. Geez. Wow. Well, guys, that's about all I got for today. I just wanted to say thank you so much for listening. There is Patreon over there if you ever want to hear me get really upset about not getting invited to a Stern Media Day. Today is a Stern Media Day. But guess what? I don't have to rant because I did get invited. Thank you, Zach Sharpe, for inviting me. I really appreciate it. I couldn't make it this time, but I'm actually getting close to the point of working at my work long enough. I can start taking vacation days, which means please invite me to the next one because I can't wait to go. Like other than my wedding day and the day both my sons are born, I think the first day I get to go to Stern is going to be like in there in the top five most memorable days of my life. Maybe winning the New Brunswick Pinball Championship was more memorable. I'm not going to lie. That being said, shout out to Riley McDonald who won our 30-person tournament Hub City Flipout 6 this last Saturday. Guys, I was rusty. I didn't play in six months and somehow I got second place. And if it wasn't for that pesky Riley McDonald, that three-time Nova Scotia champ or two-time Nova Scotia champ, who's a really, really incredible player, by far, by far, by far the highest ranked player. I think he's like in the top thousand or in around there in the world. He's our highest ranked player on the East Coast of Canada. I think I'm like fifth or sixth. I'm still up there pretty well. Thanks to me getting second. Now, if Riley hadn't got to the visitor center, literally on like 10 seconds into ball two, anyone playing Jurassic Park knows that if someone gets a billion against you in competition on a tight setup machine, that's good. Not only did he get a billion, but he got to the visitor center and he got 196 million or something in his bonus. So I was like, well, your bonus is like higher than I normally get in three balls. So anyways, I did not win the tournament. I got second. That's fine. Second's good enough for me. Until next time, remember to eat, sleep and breathe. Transformers Pinball.