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Halloween in July. Don calls the Pinball Helpline! BonusX!!

Bash Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·19m 49s·analyzed·Jul 24, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.023

TL;DR

Hosts debate buying a used Halloween machine via comedic helpline call with game analysis.

Summary

A Bash Pinball bonus episode featuring a comedic 'Pinball Helpline' segment where a host seeks advice on purchasing a used Halloween (Spooky Pinball) machine with minor cosmetic and mechanical issues. The episode includes banter about the game's design criticisms, an upcoming Houston trip to Wormhole Pinball, and practical advice about machine repair and maintenance.

Key Claims

  • Halloween has reliability issues, particularly with faulty boards

    medium confidence · Guest mentions 'mostly what people say about specifically halloween from spooky' regarding board problems

  • The guest finds Halloween's layout clunky with awkward upper-upper playfield design that causes ball stalling

    high confidence · Dutch directly states: 'I think it's kind of clunky. I don't really enjoy the layout, and I think it's weird to have an upper-upper play field' and 'it's going to like be stuck in play fields'

  • Pirates of the Caribbean (Jersey Jack) machines command $30,000-$34,000 on the secondary market

    high confidence · Host states 'Pirates of the Caribbean, the Jersey Jack game being worth like $30,000. I saw one for $34,000 the other day'

  • Halloween is not held in particularly high esteem by the broader community despite having dedicated fans

    medium confidence · Guest notes 'Halloween, it has its fans, but I would say generally it's not like a super loved game'

  • Accessing and servicing Halloween's upper flipper requires removing multiple playfield layers due to triple-playfield design complexity

    medium confidence · Discussion about flipper adjustment difficulty: 'you're going to have to take more than just the glass off' and questions about access through layered playfields

Notable Quotes

  • “I think it's kind of clunky. I don't really enjoy the layout, and I think it's weird to have an upper-upper play field.”

    Dutch (guest on Pinball Helpline) @ ~17:00 — Direct criticism of Halloween's core design philosophy—the layered playfield concept that defines the game

  • “I'm more of a flow guy in general. I don't really like playing premiums too much. I like playing pros because I feel like, right, the flow.”

    Dutch @ ~17:30 — Articulates design philosophy preference that directly conflicts with Halloween's complex layout

  • “Eliminate the fear, open up the gear.”

    Host (referencing audio engineering professor) @ ~38:00 — Motivational principle for machine maintenance and repair, encourages DIY troubleshooting

  • “Pirates of the Caribbean, the Jersey Jack game being worth like $30,000. I saw one for $34,000 the other day.”

    Host @ ~24:30 — Concrete example of secondary market value for boutique manufacturer games; used to contextualize potential Halloween appreciation

  • “I don't know if that applies to games that aren't held in super high esteem. I mean, Halloween, it has its fans, but I would say generally it's not like a super loved game.”

    Dutch @ ~25:00 — Frames Halloween's community reputation as middling, suggesting lower secondary market potential than Pirates of the Caribbean

Entities

DutchpersonJamie BurchillpersonDianepersonMattpersonSpooky PinballcompanyHalloweengameWormhole PinballorganizationJersey Jack Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Bash Pinball podcast planning Houston visit to Wormhole Pinball arcade to record content with Jamie Burchill and tour tournament/arcade scene

    high · Hosts confirm 'we definitely have like a Houston trip lined up for some time in the future...we're going to hang out with Jamie'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Halloween has dedicated fans but is not broadly beloved in the competitive/serious player community

    medium · Dutch: 'Halloween, it has its fans, but I would say generally it's not like a super loved game'

  • ?

    community_signal: DIY repair culture emphasized with practical troubleshooting encouragement and accessibility messaging for home technicians

    medium · Extended segment on 'Eliminate the fear, open up the gear' philosophy; detailed walkthrough of coin door diagnosis and solder joint repair

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Halloween's triple-playfield design creates flow problems and ball stalling issues that frustrate experienced players

    high · Dutch: 'I think it's kind of clunky...it's going to like be stuck in play fields'; host also notes left side of playfield is 'kind of lame'

  • $

    market_signal: Secondary market prices for Jersey Jack boutique titles (Pirates of the Caribbean) significantly exceed new game retail pricing ($30k-$34k range)

    high · Host directly cites observed prices: '$30,000...I saw one for $34,000 the other day'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.059

0:00
It's time for bonus sex. Do you like bonus sex? It's time for bonus sex. Just take a bunch of bonus sex. I'm proud to you. Bonus sex.
0:14
It's time for bonus sex. It's happening in 3, 2, 1. Hola mis amigos. I've been working on my tan. My plants are doing better. They send their regards, by the way. Matt's been playing Minecraft with his kids. Him and his wife have been taking salsa lessons. I guess they were inspired by 25 de Mayo. Ha ha ha ha. Just kidding.
0:42
Diane was originally going to do this intro, but I guess she used our Delta Sky Miles and actually went on vacation. We got stuck here. Ah da dang. Now her flights got all canceled and stuff. I guess some crowd striking. I don't know. But anyways, here's bonus sex episode number 16. Enjoy.
1:02
So recently, I saw Halloween pop up for sale locally. The holiday? I missed the... All I heard was, I saw Halloween for sale. And I was like, but it's June.
1:18
Who owns Halloween? You know what I need to do? I need to do some vocal exercises to really enunciate because I am so bad at mumbling. It's not that bad. I don't know why. It's not that bad. Yeah, it's because I'm working on it. After listening to my voice for hours and hours and hours, I realized that I am a mumbler. Mumblecore. Mumble king.
1:47
Pirates of the Caribbean
game
Donperson

product_concern: Halloween (Spooky Pinball) has known board reliability issues and mechanical problems with upper flipper alignment

high · Dutch confirms 'mostly what people say about specifically halloween from spooky' regarding faulty boards; listing describes crooked upper flipper

Maybe you can buy Halloween from Gorgar. I mean, if anybody could sell it. If Gorgar was selling a Halloween, would you buy it from him? No. I am terrified of Gorgar. Okay, yeah. I would never make a deal with Gorgar. But what if Gorgar has like the nicest machines that are like really well kept and that's like his thing? He's like the best seller. Gorgar doesn't accept money. He only accepts souls.
2:15
Virgin damsel. Souls. Yeah. Gorgar does not need money Yeah you're right he doesn't need money What if Gorgar only had Gorgar machines Yeah he's probably really vain Has like a hundred Gorgar machines And he plays all of them by himself He just plays one and he leaves all the rest Just turned on all the time What if Gorgar was the supplier of Gorgar machines For the world Oh man if Gorgar could manifest Gorgar games Just appear Yeah and sell them that'd be great I would buy a new Gorgon. I need your help. And I was actually considering, I don't know, maybe I should do it now. Okay. Calling the pinball helpline.
2:59
And I need you guys to talk me out of buying this freaking Halloween machine. I'm in a crisis. I need help because I'm about to buy this freaking game. And everyone around me is telling me, including Jamie, Virtual is telling me, don't buy that game. Yeah. But I'm so close to buying it. Call us in your hour of greatest pinball need. That is right now. Stand by. Okay.
3:34
Hello? Hey, is this the pinball helpline? This is the pinball helpline. Hey, how can I help you? This is Dutch Magazine. Hey, I really need your help right now. basically I need you to talk me out of buying this Halloween game Halloween? yeah everyone around me is telling me that I shouldn't buy this game I don't know what to do because I think it's a pretty good deal and I need your help well do you need my help? it sounds like you kind of made your decision already and you're just asking me to talk you out of it so I don't know I kind of am because I don't have anyone else like my mom she doesn't know anything about this stuff well that's okay well that's good to know I mean my mom also doesn't know much about it she knows a little bit more now I think she would know enough to probably try to talk me out of a Halloween I would say this okay I'm listening how much have you played that game uh you know you want like a number of games or just like how familiar in general you could say I would say I'm you know pretty familiar but I know they've had like problems It's like spooky, but... Well, sure. But I mean we not here to just like parrot like you know pinball talking points or anything like we can think critically for ourselves So what I would say is if you put up a lot of games on it and you pretty confident in the one that you getting uh doesn have a faulty board which i think is mostly what people say about specifically halloween from spooky okay you're probably okay i'm not a fan of it so i'm not gonna like if you're looking to me to be like hey i think it's a great game and like you should buy it i'm i'm not gonna say that because I think it's kind of whack. But if you like it, that's on you. I mean, I like Orbiter 1, so that's on you. Okay. Well, can I ask why you don't like it? I think it's kind of clunky. I don't really enjoy the layout, and I think it's weird to have an upper-upper play field. Ah, okay. I'm more of a flow guy in general. I don't really like playing premiums too much. I like playing pros because I feel like, right, the flow. Okay. So to me, like Halloween is the ultimate example of like a very clunky. It's going to like be stuck in play fields and that kind of shit. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Does that help? Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah. Thank you. No problem.
6:04
Excuse me. Yeah. You are blessed. Thanks. Seriously? Again? I always bless people when they burp because why not? I don't know. If you're going to bless a sneeze, why can't you bless a burp? You know, besides thank yous, we should be more open to blessings, right? Like we need to just accept the blessings just like thanks. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
6:30
So if this is somehow the only pinball podcast you listen to, then you might not know that we were asked to be on the Wormhole Pinball podcast, which is Jamie Burchill's podcast. And he's one of the wormholers in Houston. And they have like this incredible arcade scene that they've, I think, kind of cultivated and like tournament scene. And they have like a hundred and tons of games, 70 games or something that they rotate out. And I saw they had some cool updates on Instagram. They had like Jamie was doing like a little video walkthrough of. Yeah. Under construction location. Right. That they're fixing up for the games. Yeah. So we definitely have like a Houston trip lined up for some time in the future. It's going to happen. Yeah. We're going to stop in and we're going to hang out with Jamie. And the other wormholers. The other wormies. I think he said there's a total of five wormholers. Hopefully we don't get sucked into a time warp.
7:26
I mean, I'm on full alert now. But anyways. Yeah, you got to watch out. Because you never know what games they have. I am watching out. They might have. Don't say the name. Yeah, they might have it. Don't. Okay. I don't want to think about that. That was a crazy. Anyways.
7:40
But that was a crazy experience, man. I don't ever want to relive that ever again. Please. Please don't keep bringing this up. Okay. I mean, thank you for saving my life, but I don't ever want to go to that ever again. Yeah. I mean, I get it. Like it's traumatizing. You don't, I don't even want to relive the memories. Even just thinking about wormholes is like taking me back to that place.
8:03
I mean, I guess, is that the scientific explanation? A wormhole? I don't know. Did going on that podcast have anything to do with what happened? Oh my God. We got to talk to Jamie. Oh my God. Jamie, he knows. He knows more than he told us. Yeah. So, yeah, it was awesome being on his podcast. If you haven't heard it or I think it's also on YouTube. Right. Seen it. Check it out. You can see what we look like. Yeah. Without going to our Instagram.
8:40
Go to our Instagram. Because Don's making these crazy good videos and memes and stuff that actually tie into the episodes that we're doing. So there's some complimentary stuff to check out. Entertainment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Media. Would you like to know more? Wait, is that from Starship Troopers? Everyone's doing their part. Are you? The war effort needs your effort. At work, at home, in your community.
9:09
Would you like to know more? All right, man. So I'm just, you know, I need to know, right? Yeah. Halloween. I love that game. I've only played it a couple times. I called the pinball helpline for Nudge Magazine and I got some really good advice. Yeah. I really want your advice and your opinion. As my respected colleague and friend and fellow basher, I don't really care about Diane. I don't care what she has to say. Yeah, forget her. What do you think? I mean, it's a good deal. It local Why should I not buy this game So what is the stated condition of this game I think one of the plastics is cracked Okay okay Which allegedly is like a you know like a replacement part That shouldn't be a big deal. Right, and then I guess one of the upper flippers is slightly crooked, which is, you know, I haven't seen it, but that's what's stated in the listing, right? But it's well below market price. so all he says is that the upper flipper is like out of whack yeah yeah basically but i don't you know i haven't seen it so i don't and i haven't played it so i would suggest you need to assume that you're going to need to fix that upper flipper right away right and didn't you recently say that the whole reason you wanted to get a new game was so that there wouldn't be stuff to fix? Yes. Okay. So is that still true? Are you planning on, would you plan on just fixing this right away? Those two things are easy, yeah. Should be. Is it easy to fix? It should be easy. How do you even get to the bottom of the upper flipper on that game? I don't know. I need to look at it. Is it the upper play field or the upper upper play field? I need to look at it because it's well below market value. I feel like I wouldn't even consider buying that game until you look at the manual or the disassembly guide. What's going to be involved just with adjusting that flipper? How much effort is it just to adjust that flipper because of this triple play field layers? Which looks super cool, but now that you're saying that, I'm realizing you're right. It's going to be a pain in the butthole. Well, how do you get to it? Potentially, yeah. I mean, you're going to have to take more than just the glass off. I'm pretty sure that well okay I mean the other thing I would say is like the whole left side of the play field is kind of lame like it's just wasted it's just like those head shots it's just a bunch of yeah you know I look at it as a whole though I like the colors I like the artwork I like the vibe like the music and the visuals I want to put it in that room over there Yeah. Turn the lights off, turn the game up. Right. And have like a spooky party. Yeah. Are you going to want to do that all the time? Is this a game that's going to get boring fast because it's a very, you know, specific vibe and theme? Well, you know, and theoretically at that point I could pass it along, you know? I mean, you have a history of not selling your games. Right. Right. I see it as a way to play that game a little more. and then maybe decide to keep it or not. And if I don't want to keep it, then I have that investment to then put into maybe something else that I can just keep flipping or relative to newer games because I do want to have a new game and rotation that is reliable and it does play modern, right? Because the games that I have right now, they're a little older. So there's a different vibe and I kind of want to get more into the new games, right? So I know this is not necessarily the same as like a Stern, but it is a modern game. Yeah, I mean, things I like about that game from having played it maybe 10 times, what do you call it? Where it basically pops the ball into the in lanes, like right before the flipper. Right. It kind of scares you. And it's kind of hidden because there's plastics covering where the ball comes out. So it's like a sneak attack. Yeah. Which is super cool. And also, it's something that Dracula does. And more 90s games with the subways and the ball going underneath the play field. instead of just kind of shooting out on top every time. I think that's really cool. Yeah. And it also pisses me off every time I play it because I forget about it. Let me ask you a question. Seeing that, you know, it is a spooky game, right? Yeah. And they do less, the runs are smaller in number. Sure. Right. In theory, would this game not be more valuable in the future, in your opinion? That's a tough one. You would think because there's plenty of examples of that. Yeah. With Pirates of the Caribbean, the Jersey Jack game being worth like $30,000. I saw one for $34,000 the other day. Yeah. I mean, it's bonkers, the prices of some of these games. But I don't know if that applies to games that aren't held in super high esteem. I mean, Halloween, it has its fans, but I would say generally it's not like a super loved game. Yeah. I see that. So I don't know. I don't know if it would go up in value. I don't know why, man. I played that game and something about it, it just kind of clicked for me. I connected with that game in some way that I'm not sure why. Yeah, I doubt you'd lose money on it or anything at the price that it's at. Yeah, I mean, it's a really good price, man. It just whether or not you want to put effort into potentially removing play potentially removing play fields and i don know i don know what involved with that but it seems like it going to be a lot well just to do any maintenance on it i think uh i think it's all good advice man and uh we'll see you may or may not have another episode in the future where i'm just kidding i'm probably not gonna buy it it's it's still a lot of money right like to put into something that i'm not sure about But yeah, anyways, thanks, man.
15:21
Speaking of servicing games, I wanted to let you know that is up and running. Oh, really? Yes. Like you fixed the thing? Yes. How'd you do it? Before I get into that. Yeah, yeah. I just want to say for anyone out there who's got games or you're afraid to work on games, I wanted to give you guys this little note of encouragement, right? When I went to audio engineering school, right, in Florida. Yeah, I had a professor who was a really cool guy. Basically, the class is called Audiotronics, Learning to Service and Solder and stuff like that. He had a motto, right? Eliminate the fear, open up the gear. No fear. No fear, right? Open up. We should make, that's ours now, dude. Thank you. That's our, no fear, open up the gear.
16:12
yeah so i was in there playing t2 right you just got t2 the other day yeah and i looked at and i felt so sad are you gonna bleep the name of the game yeah we'll bleep it we'll bleep it which by the way these bleeps that are happening are because we haven't revealed the game yet yeah but but we'll just say that it is the game that i finally decided on which we will cover later which we referenced like 10 episodes ago or something right right which go back to that episode when I was looking for a game. Well, I found one. We're still working on that episode. But anyways, it needed some minor service of which basically is now done. Yeah. And I wanted to send you guys a word of encouragement. Open up that machine. Take a second look. Yeah. It'd been sitting there for a while because I wasn't exactly sure what had happened. I know that I had that battery corrosion issue we you helped me take that board out and then basically i cleaned it up still having issues i swapped out a bunch of parts nothing major but you know we had that issue where i still couldn't the little uh buttons on the coin door yeah they were not getting a good connection yeah they weren't registering or connecting so we couldn't set it on free play it wasn't start a game unless you put quarters in it yeah and it wasn't accepting quarters because it was set to lira right because i think it's from like italy or something anyways yeah i took a second look okay totally clear-headed it's been sitting there for a while yes i'm like waiting to find the time to invest and do all this stuff yeah matt the connection between the uh where the coin acceptor is at the very bottom right it was dangling it wasn't even connected it wasn't even connected so how does that make any sense so i just twisted up the wire a little bit and i made contact and then i pushed the button and it worked so i got my soldering iron and like in 10 seconds it was literally just a connection where the little coin receptor is. That was it. So it was unrelated to the battery. Because you definitely had battery leakage onto the circuit board. Definitely did and I cleaned it up and it still wasn't working. So just coincidentally at the same time, because it had been working before, at the same exact time something else went wrong. Yep. So don't lose hope. Double check the machines. Take a breather. Don't get frustrated. If you see some loose solder joints, just refill a little bit of solder and you can probably learn how to do that really quickly on youtube yeah relatively speaking right like yeah maybe this isn't going to fix more extreme issues with uh you know like the main board or whatever right but if it's as simple as a loose wire which there is a chance that it could be yeah you could easily fix that yeah no fear open up the gear open up the gear
19:01
thanks for listening please send your blessings to diane hopefully she makes it back soon we really need help but even more importantly many blessings to you guys for listening please accept them stay tuned for more stuff coming soon from bash pinball where we got a passion for bashing
19:31
Outro Music