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Episode 89_Summertime Funn-er

The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 7m·analyzed·Jul 20, 2026
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.022

TL;DR

Dan's month-long Transformers deep-dive: tuning, rules strategy, code updates, and emerging mod culture.

Summary

In this summer-focused episode, Spencer, Dan, and Mark discuss their recent pinball experiences, primarily Dan's deep dive with Transformers after a month of ownership. Dan details extensive gameplay tuning (flipper power adjustments, popper alignment), rule mechanics (Energon management, One Shall Fall multiball strategy), and code evolution from .86 to .87. The hosts celebrate a strong summer release window (Transformers, Sonic, Tails) and preview Expo. They also discuss streaming initiatives (Every Other Thursday streams on Twitch) and the nascent modding community around Transformers, including mentions of moving toy mods and 3D-printed customizations.

Key Claims

  • Tails is shipping very soon, in August

    medium confidence · Dan responding to Spencer's question about Sonic Tails shipping status

  • Transformers code updated from .86 to .87 almost immediately after unboxing, changing how you qualify Transformers

    high confidence · Dan describing his experience with the game: 'when I unboxed it, it was .86...almost immediately, before we even streamed the next day, they did that big code drop and it updated to .87'

  • One Shall Fall base value can reach 63 million with pre-planning vs. 18 million going in naked

    high confidence · Dan explaining Energon storage strategy: 'I think I've had mine like 63 million...The base value, if you just go in there naked...is like 18 million'

  • Mojo Mods is working on a moving Optimus Prime toy mod with a lighting gatling gun effect

    medium confidence · Spencer describing mod video: 'they've got a moving Optimus Prime, and he's got like a big gatling gun or something...it's lighting up like it's shooting'

  • Soundwave plastic on Transformers premium/LE doesn't line up with his buttons in the final game, unlike previews

    high confidence · Dan critiquing aesthetics: 'The plastic is fine, and in the previews...they sort of showed it lined up with his buttons. But on the final game, they moved it way off to the side...he doesn't line up with his buttons'

  • Dan has played approximately 300+ games on Transformers over a month

    high confidence · Dan: 'I'm about 300-some plays in on it...I put probably 250 games on this thing myself'

  • Physical adjustment to the upkicker wire form (moving it a couple millimeters) resolved Dan's repeated pop-up failures

    high confidence · Dan describing fix: 'he's like, just move that wire form...I just grabbed it and...gave it probably a little bit more force...a couple more millimeters...that made a difference'

  • Airball intensity on Transformers is significantly less severe than on Monopoly

Notable Quotes

  • “I think a lot of what you can do on games, and I think a lot of people just roll with it, right? They don't really bother to go in there and fiddle. It's just mess with your power, right? Mess with the power of your flippers, mess with the power of your poppers. Modern games let you get really, really detailed on it.”

    Dan @ ~8-10 min — Emphasizes the modern tuning depth available on contemporary pinball machines and how most casual players overlook customization options

  • “So if you can hold off and play all five modes before one shall fall and then store some Energon, get some Dynabot jackpots, you know, get some final blows, you know, you can get it up. To a much, much higher base value.”

    Dan @ ~35-40 min — Reveals sophisticated rule strategy for One Shall Fall multiball that rewards pre-planning and mode sequencing

  • “It's like when it's this or when it's at a ball. I'm just like, okay, I'm going to hit that shot. And it's like, nope. It's like Space Bridge for 5 million points.”

    Dan @ ~48 min — Humorous observation about inconsistent shot reliability, highlighting a common pinball frustration dynamic

  • “I know that there's a lot of people still out there just itching that it doesn't have a Transforming Optimus Prime. And it's like, hey, man, I'm sorry. I bought a pro anyway, so I probably wasn't going to get that. Although I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you transformed on the premium, I probably would have bought a premium.”

    Dan @ ~60 min — Acknowledges community expectations vs. actual product tier and reflects on what might have changed purchasing decisions

  • “It's fun like Black Knight except for it doesn't want you dead.”

    Dan @ ~70 min — Compares Transformers favorably to classic Black Knight while highlighting improved modern design philosophy

  • “Well, because I just, you know, when you mod your game, there's, you know, we talked about this before. There's good mods and there's stupid mods. It's TM, by the way. Stupid Mods is my mod company. We haven't sold anything, but it's just a genius name.”

    Dan @ ~53 min — Self-deprecating humor about game customization philosophy while establishing his permissive stance on modifications

Entities

SpencerpersonDanpersonMarkpersonRickpersonGregpersonKendrapersonAdampersonMikeperson

Signals

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Transformers features sophisticated pre-planning mechanics around Energon storage and mode sequencing that reward skilled players, with One Shall Fall base values ranging from 18M to 63M+ based on preparation

    high · Dan's extensive explanation of Energon strategy, mode completion sequences, and base value multiplication through careful play sequencing

  • ?

    product_concern: Transformers upkicker experienced inconsistent pop-ups (failing 4-9 times in succession) that required physical wire form alignment adjustment, though distributor support resolved it quickly

    high · Dan's detailed account of upkicker malfunction and resolution: 'And I finally reached out to Greg at Flip N Out Pinball...just move that wire form...moved that wire form...a couple more millimeters...that made a difference'

  • ?

    code_update: Code update .87 significantly revised Transformers Multiball qualification mechanics, requiring Prime hit + lock light activation + upkicker plug sequence instead of simple repeated upkicker hits

    high · Dan: 'the biggest difference...it changed the way that you qualify Transformers Multiball...much, much more nuanced rule than originally where it was just like just keep plugging it into the up kicker'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Transformers generating significant aftermarket customization ecosystem with 3D-printed toys, action figure mounts, moving toy mods (Mojo Mods), and LED modifications, indicating strong collector engagement

    high · Discussion of custom 3D-printed Laserbeak, Optimus Prime arm relocators, moving Optimus Prime with lighting effects, Bumblebee action figure mounts, Soundwave replacements

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.085

0:00
Welcome to the Spinner's Lit Pinball Podcast, Episode 89, Summertime Fun-er. I'm your host Spencer, with me are my co-host Dan. Hey, how are we doing folks? And Mark. Hey everyone.
0:37
Well, we're right in the middle of summer and it's that weird point where there's stuff happening in Pinball, but like not like real big news, but there's a lot of rumors and stuff on the horizon. So, you know. Well, we just got out of like a ridiculous, ridiculous sequence, right? We did. You know, the Transformers dropped, Sonic.
1:00
Has Tails started shipping yet, or are they still just showing it off? Tails is shipping very soon. I think in August is when they're supposed to be shipping.
1:10
And then there's been a couple noteworthy announcements, or pre-announcements, right? Like the announcements that everybody knows are going to happen, but you don't really know. Right. They haven't made it official.
1:22
Yep. Yeah. But usually in the summertime, nothing ever happens. So this is kind of a nice reward, having two games or three games in this case released in such a short amount of time. It's pretty awesome. Usually you get your Stern release and you're just looking forward to Expo. Exactly. So, hey, that's pretty cool. That is. So Expo is going to be a real charge this year. You know, a lot of cool stuff going on.

medium confidence · Dan comparing machines: 'the air balls that come off of that single drop target on Monopoly are so much worse than the air balls that come off of the three drop targets on Transformers'

  • Stern's Elizabeth has said 'what you see is kind of what you get' regarding Transformers code development

    medium confidence · Dan referencing manufacturer: 'I know that Elizabeth has said that what you see is kind of what you get'

  • Three bonus modes for Transformers are still 'coming soon': movie mode, Optimus vs. Megatron, and missions

    high confidence · Dan: 'there's like three of them...the movie mode coming soon, Optimus vs. Megatron coming soon...the missions...None of that's available yet'

  • “if you're an 80s kid and, you know, it's got a great theme, it's got a great use of the theme. And even if you're like a modern pinball player, it's a cool, challenging game with neat rules that I think have some room to grow.”

    Dan @ ~62 min — Summary assessment of Transformers' cross-generational appeal and growth potential

  • “So I'm not like, oh, my God, man, it's, you know, it's got a dimple on it. I want a populated play field right now.”

    Dan @ ~30 min — Pragmatic take on wear and tear as acceptable vs. functional issues requiring intervention

    • Dan (different)
    person
    Elizabethperson
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Mojo Modscompany
    Flip N Out Pinballcompany
    Transformersgame
    Sonicgame
    Tailsgame
    Black Knightgame
    Monopolygame
    Indiana Jonesgame
    Galactic Tank Forcegame
    Weird Algame
    Godfathergame
    Lodi Capital Corridor Pinball Leagueorganization
    The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcastorganization
    Elk Grove Pinballorganization

    gameplay_signal: Modern Stern machines enable granular flipper power tuning (percentage-based adjustments rather than coarse high/medium/low), with Dan adjusting upper flipper to 85%, lower right to 95%, lower left at 100% to manage air balls and shot consistency

    high · Dan's detailed flipper tuning: 'I lowered that down to about 85%...dropped it about 5%...dropped it like 5%...I kept the lower left like still full power'

  • ?

    community_signal: Dan and Rick launched 'Every Other Thursday' social stream series on Twitch.tv/Elk Grove Pinball to broaden streaming content beyond personal collections, combining community play with entertainment

    high · Dan describing new streaming initiative: 'we run the Lodi Pinball League...for a year, we've been like, we need to do an every other Thursday stream...did our second installment...Twitch.tv, Elk Grove Pinball'

  • $

    market_signal: Strong summer 2024 release window with Transformers, Sonic, and Tails shipping in rapid succession, reversing typical industry pattern of sparse summer releases and driving anticipation toward Expo

    high · Spencer: 'Usually you get your Stern release and you're just looking forward to Expo. Exactly. So, hey, that's pretty cool...Usually you get your Stern release and you're just looking forward to Expo'

  • ?

    product_concern: Transformers Soundwave plastic positioned off-center over pop bumper in final production vs. preview alignment with buttons, creating aesthetic dissonance that Dan identifies as prime customization target

    high · Dan: 'in the previews...they sort of showed it lined up with his buttons. But on the final game, they moved it way off to the side...he doesn't line up with his buttons, which sort of annoys me'

  • ?

    product_launch: Transformers ships with three bonus modes marked 'coming soon': movie mode, Optimus vs. Megatron, and missions/training, indicating post-launch content pipeline

    high · Dan: 'there's like three of them...the movie mode coming soon, Optimus vs. Megatron coming soon...the missions, the training...None of that's available yet'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Dan's extended Transformers play experience (300+ games over one month) vs. his existing collection (Monopoly, Indiana Jones) reveals shifting opinion toward positive assessment and retention rather than route-out

    high · Dan: 'at this point, it's not just enthusiasm talking. I've put enough time into it to know that if I hated it, it would be on the road like Ninja Turtles...I'm absolutely dying to get the bonus modes in there'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Dan explicitly states he purchased Transformers in Pro tier due to lack of motorized Optimus Prime transformation on Premium, indicating Premium tier value proposition weakness for this title

    high · Dan: 'I bought a pro anyway, so I probably wasn't going to get that. Although I've said it before...If you transformed on the premium, I probably would have bought a premium'

  • ?

    vendor_service_signal: Flip N Out Pinball (via Greg) provided prompt, knowledgeable technical support for Transformers upkicker issue, reinforcing positive distributor-customer relationship and problem resolution capability

    high · Dan: 'Greg is really good. He's very knowledgeable...super, super prompt, super friendly, you know, got right back with me with good advice'

    • 1:49
    Yeah. So, Dan, you want to start us on our summer road trip? I mean, I guess that I can. All I've been really doing is playing Transformers. Nice. Since that's what I got. I've also done a couple pinball streams with Rick. We did one of Transformers. I think we might have done that before the last episode or maybe right after the last episode. It was right after. I watched the whole thing. It was great. Yeah, we did like a three-hour stream on my fairly untuned game with a couple of our buddies, and that was fun. But I've had a lot more time with it since, so I can lay down some nuanced opinion. Before, I was a little bit like, well, let's just call this the first impression since I've only really been playing it for, It was like a day at that point, right, or maybe two days. Yeah, it was right before, actually, because we had played. We opened the game and then we streamed it like almost immediately. And then I went on my trip.
    3:04
    So I will say this. Having had Transformers now for just over a month, I think, it's really, really good. And I had to do some dialing. The new in-box experience was good. I had to do some tweaking, I think, that you have to do on any pinball machine if you want it to play the way you want it to play. And I finally really got into it and moved some lane guides around, slid some stuff around, took care of that popper problem that I was having and got the Grimlock ramp to feed pretty consistently to the upper flipper, which is nice. I think a lot of what you can do on games, and I think a lot of people just roll with it, right? They don't really bother to go in there and fiddle. It's just mess with your power, right? Mess with the power of your flippers, mess with the power of your poppers. Modern games let you get really, really detailed on it. I remember back in the day, it's like, you know, Day to East were like coil power, low, medium, high. And you're just like, high, of course, like, you know, let's just pound this thing to pieces. Now it's like you can drop a flipper. You know, if you're hitting a shot and it's a rattler and you feel like you're overpowering it, you can drop it 5%. You know, if you're hitting a shot and you're just not quite making that ramp, you can raise it 2% or 3%. That's cool. Yeah, so off the upper flipper, I lowered that down to about 85%, and that's making that little whip around jazz ramp a lot more consistent, the one that you hit to get the combiner pieces. And the lower right, I dropped it about 5%, and that makes the Grimlock ramp much, much, much more consistent. And like I said, it just feels like you just hit far less rattlers because you were just sort of, you know, pounding it into the end of that ramp. And it was, you know, hitting that turnaround and just being like and just coming back. And then I kept the lower left like still full power because that's still got that long, long shot up that right ramp. And you basically need all the juice. I did drop it like 5% and the ramp was still makeable, but I felt like it was just you had to be definitely, definitely accurate. I'm afraid to hit that shot. And, you know, I wanted it to, I want to hit those shots with some authority, right? So I would say that, like, if you're really an accuracy player or if you're really trying to dial out the air balls, you could probably even go down five more percents on most of these. But I still kind of, you know, have that more power is better power mentality. Yeah. But I want the shots to go, right? And I think that tuning your game is just a humongous, humongous part of that. So turning down the power for the flippers, did it help with air balls too when it hit the targets on Megatron? So I think it does.
    6:09
    I mean, I'll be honest. Like, it's a new game. I'm about 300-some plays in on it. So I feel like it's mellowing out just because you're kind of pounding some of the springiness out of the stand-ups. Sure. But like, you know, yeah, you're still going to get some lift off of drop targets. I mean, that's just the nature of drop targets. I'll tell you what, though, the air balls that come off of that single drop target on Monopoly are so much worse than the air balls that come off of the three drop targets on Transformers.
    6:44
    Like it'll launch that ball all the way across the play field and into a flasher on Monopoly, and it just consistently knocks this one flasher out of its base. Oh, wow. It's hanging right now. I need to slide the glass and just pop it back in place.
    7:01
    And, I mean, that's, you know, a good six, eight inches away where generally on this, you know, it pops up a couple inches. It'll hit that wire form and it'll come back down. I know a lot of people are, you know, super worried about dimpling. A lot of people are really super worried about is it going to damage the wire form.
    7:20
    In my opinion, no. So, like, I don't think it's going to be a big problem. And in terms of, you know, the dimpling, it's like, well, once there's one, who cares, right? Right. As soon as you play a game, there's at least a dimple. So, for me, I'm just kind of like, I mean, I don't know, it sounds kind of thick, but, you know, in a weird way, I kind of like a little airball action. It's exciting. Yeah. I agree. You know, it doesn't bother me too, too much. I mean, you know, there's some games. Indiana Jones is a great example, right? Like, you can launch an airball off of the adventure, the, what, ENT, ADM, the three drop targets, and it goes consistently right to the left out lane so badly that there's a deflector there to catch it. Yeah. And a ball state when it happens. Right. So, you know, airballs are a thing. Like, you can tune and you can dial and you can change things and you can put deflectors in, which, you know, was what we did on Indiana Jones. But at the end of the day, air balls are kind of a part of pinball. And as long as they're not, like, lofting the ball out of bounds like Galactic Tank Force style, you know, you're probably going to be pretty okay. Like, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Your game, your happiness, your mileage may vary. I'm not that hung up on it. The biggest thing for me was that upkicker was very inconsistent. Like it would work five or six times and then it would have to try four or five times. And eventually, I don't know if it was moving or if I did a tweak that made it worse or changed the level of the game. It was just like, you know, try like seven, eight, nine times in a row. And I finally reached out to Greg at Flippin' Out and just sort of said, hey, man, I'm having a problem. And he said, get in there and adjust it. And I'm like, oh, bro, you don't think I tried that? And he's like, well, try it like this. And I did. And I hit the sweet spot. And it fixed the problem completely. I'm, you know, at least 20 games in since that adjustment. And it hasn't missed one pop. So was it an adjustment in the software? No, it was just physical, just going in. And I thought it wasn't hitting the ball square. And he's like, just move that wire form. He's like, just undo those two screws and just move that wire form. And I just grabbed it and, you know, gave it probably a little bit more force than I'd been giving it before. And I probably got a couple more millimeters out of it. And that made a difference. I think they lowered the power on that in the update. Like, they lowered it down a bit. So I think that originally people might have been, you know, it might have been overpowering the uptick. But for me, like, it was just clearly not in alignment. Yeah, it was rattling on that curve probably, right? And then it just came right back down. It just would, it would just pop up and it would just hit something and fall down and pop up and hit something and fall down and pop up and hit something and fall down and it would just do it over and over and over, you know? And at first, again, you know, it's a new game, right? So it'd be like, oh, once or twice and then it would figure itself out. But it got to the point where like, yeah, you know, 250, 300 games in and it's trying seven, eight, nine times. And at that point, I'm worried because I'm like, okay, well, this is definitely causing additional wear and, you know, very negatively impacting the gameplay experience. So it's like, you know, I need to reach out. And if nothing else, you know, when you buy a game new and you have a distributor and you're having a problem, you know, don't suffer silently. Let them know. They might have words of advice or if there is a big problem, if there is a tech update, something like that, at least they'll know, oh, yeah, we've talked to them about this. You know, there's some history. So, you know, I'm not like, oh, my God, man, it's, you know, it's got a dimple on it. I want a populated play field right now. Yeah, that's a different story. You know, like I said, I just want the game to work right. Sure. And Greg is really good. He's very knowledgeable on the top. Oh, yeah. Like I said, super, super prompt, super, super prompt, super friendly, you know, got right back with me with good advice. And so everything's working super hunky-dory. And then a friend of mine had a Spike 2 shaker motor, which works on Spike 3. And so he gave that to me the other day and I installed it. And so now I got some shaky shaky when the Transformers multiball starts. That's really the only time I've noticed much action from it. Maybe the occasional hit. I feel like it should always shake like crazy when they show Optimus Prime on the screen, like rolling by as a truck or something. Oh, yeah. Good point. That would be a good thing to add in code. Hopefully, we'll get a lot more shaky, shaky. But it's good. I always like having a shaker motor. And besides that, I've put up some good scores. I still haven't managed to take back my GC. I've come dangerously close, which would be nice. But Adam is still a little bit better than I am. And, of course, he was playing on the earlier code, so, you know, maybe he made it happen. I don't know.
    12:39
    Maybe the earlier code was better. And speaking of code, since you're talking about it, was there any major changes that you saw since you unboxed it? Have there been any good updates? No, it's still, so when I unboxed it, it was .86. Mm-hmm. And then almost immediately, before we even streamed the next day, they did that big code drop and it updated to .87. Okay. And the big difference, the biggest difference, I mean, there's a bunch of differences between .86 and .87, but the biggest one was that it changed the way that you qualify Transformers Multiball. Right. So that was where you have to hit prime and then that lights lock and then you have to plug it into the up kicker to actually do the lock, which is a much, much more nuanced rule than originally where it was just like just keep plugging it into the up kicker. Yeah, that felt a little more satisfying when you had a little more things to do to lock off. Well, that up kicker is an easy shot. Optimus Prime isn't a hard shot, but you have to time a little bit differently. Normally, the up kicker you can literally hit from either flipper pretty much any time that you want. That's true. And so with Optimus Prime, you can hit it from the lower right if you can time it just right. You got to kind of finesse it in there. And sometimes you can even do that whitewater thing where it's like you kind of bounce it off of Optimus Prime and then ride into the scoop, which sometimes is great, you know, especially if you're trying to, you know, get your first two locks. And sometimes it's annoying because you're not trying to start your multipall yet. You're just trying to get it ready to go before you start a mode or you, you know, pop your playfield multiplier and you're just like, nope, start multiball, here you go. But, you know, usually my sequence, you know, when I start playing now is I kind of have a pattern where it's like, well, I have a ball saver, whether I hit a skill shot or not. If you have a skill shot, you get a little bit more, is I try to knock down the drop target so that my mode's ready to go. And if I get a ball to the upper flipper, I try to take a pot shot at Optimus Prime so that I have a lock ready to go. Right. So you're always basically working towards your Transformers multiball and you've always got your mode ready to go. And while it's probably not, you know, critical to take a multiball with a mode like Monster Bash or something, It still is a good way to get a lot of points and a lot of free mode progress while you have multiple balls on the play field. And some of the modes, you know, are very conducive to that. Some of the modes, you've got to be a bit more of a sharpshooter so they don't work as well. But I always like taking a mode into multi-ball if the game gives you the option. And so, you know, that's the first two things that you do. The other thing that you do, you know, now that I've played it some more, is you want to, like, store up your energon. By hitting the spinner. Okay, so that's, okay, so the spinner, you open up that Energon that you're talking about. And so while you can use your Energon to make your mode easier, generally I don't, because if you have stored Energon when you go into One Shall Fall, you get more base points. Oh, okay. So you don't go for Energon, or what is it, Energize? Yeah. I mean, I'll Energize if I've already played One Shall Fall, and I don't really feel like I need the Energon for anything else, although I don't know, it might figure into Rescue Optimus too. But for now, I'm just sort of using it, just sort of trying to hold on to it. You also get a bonus if you play a Rusted mode, which is if you can finish a mode non-Energized, the next mode will be Rusted, and you can use the Energon to fix the rust, or you can just roll with it. And play the hardest version of the mode. Oh, okay. And it's Keep, right? Is that what it's called? It's Energize and Keep are the options, or did they change that word in the code? Okay, so it's Energize and Keep. Okay. And Keep means you're doing it harder without completing the mode easier. Energize makes it easier, and storing the Energize makes it normal. And then if you can beat a mode on normal, Rusted is hard, and then Cure is easier. Not the easiest mode, but it's the easier version. But if you can take Energon into one-shot fall, you get a higher base. Okay. As well as getting Dynabot Jackpots, as well as getting Final Blows by finishing modes. All that will add to your base. Plus, I figured out that you don't have to defeat the mode. As long as you play the mode, you'll get another perk towards making the mode easier. Like, it'll make drains not hurt you or it'll make the red shots go away faster. So if you can hold off and play all five modes before one shall fall and then store some Energon, get some Dynabot jackpots, you know, get some final blows, you know, you can get it up. To a much, much higher base value. I think I've had mine like 63 million. Oh, wow. Okay. The base value, if you just go in there naked, you just play two modes, don't accomplish anything, don't start any energon, and then plug it up there is like 18 million. Wow. That's a big difference. Maybe it was like 50 million and I finished at like 63 million. But yeah, so it definitely can be a much, much more lucrative mode if like, yeah, you do a little pre-planning. Mm-hmm. So that's cool. Like, I really like the fact that there is some strategy. It doesn't change the mode, and you can continue the mode, which is interesting. Like, you almost don't want to continue the mode because you want to get each of the modes on the board. So it's like if you played Autobot Run and then you failed and then you get around to starting your next mode and you accidentally hit the mode start on Autobot Run, it continues you from where you left off, which is great if you're in a position to finish the mode. But I feel like both the mode timer is shorter and really unless like I was going for mode completions, which I think you'll need to for Rescue Optimus because I think you have to complete all five modes to play that.
    19:06
    I would rather just move on to my next mode. Sure. You know, just play it because then it's another another mode towards One Shall Fall. Now, after one shall fall, I suppose that there's no real benefit to not, you know, playing the next mode or not finishing the mode because you're working towards completions. At least last month. Okay, that's cool. I love the rules on that. And like I said, just the pure joy of playing it with the call-outs and the music. I mean, the 80s music is so good on it. I love the music. Oh, dude, it's so dope. It's such a great game. It's one of the better Sterns that has come out in a while. So I'm very happy with it. I'm absolutely dying to get the bonus modes in there. Yeah. None of them are there yet, right? So when you go in there, there's like three of them, and it's like, you know, the movie mode coming soon, Optimus vs. Megatron coming soon. And what was the other one, like the pinball school one, the training? The missions, yeah, the missions. None of that's available yet. Oh, man. And I'm just kind of dying for it to come up because I feel like that's going to be super fun. But, yeah, I put probably 250 games on this thing myself, and I'm, you know, still pretty entertained. I was out there playing it today. I finally, for the first time, qualified Combiner Multiball and then drained out before I could start it because, yeah, I've shipped out the little side shot. Yep. And it's just like, for whatever reason, I can just drill that freaking shot when I don't need it. And I just needed it today. And it was all like, nope. It's like when it's this or when it's at a ball. I'm just like, okay, I'm going to hit that shot. And it's like, nope. It's like Space Bridge for 5 million points. Yeah, you hit it every time. Yeah. I had fun with, what's that multiball when you get all the parts?
    20:58
    What is that called? The TechSpec multiball? Yeah, TechSpec multiball is really fun. Yeah, so combiner is the one where you get the parts of the robots. You have to complete three combiners. Okay. Still haven't played that. TechSpec Multiball I've played a few times. And I guess that when you're in TechSpec Multiball, the whole idea is to collect every color of TechSpec. But I haven't done it, so I don't know what happens. Oh, cool. That does sound fun. It's a good one. But yeah, so Transformers, man, you know, the more that I play it, the more that I like it. I know that there's a lot of people still out there just itching that it doesn't have a Transforming Optimus Prime. And it's like, hey, man, I'm sorry. I bought a pro anyway, so I probably wasn't going to get that. Although I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you transformed on the premium, I probably would have bought a premium.
    21:45
    I guess that would have been too cool to deny. But yeah, if you if you're an 80s kid and, you know, it's got a great theme, it's got a great use of the theme. And even if you're like a modern pinball player, it's a cool, challenging game with neat rules that I think have some room to grow. So I know that Elizabeth has said that what you see is kind of what you get. But I can officially say at least at this version of the code after putting a month on the game, yeah, it's super, super worthy. And at this point, it's not just enthusiasm talking. I've put enough time into it to know that if I hated it, it would be on the road like Ninja Turtles. Well, Dan, I can relate exactly to what you're saying because I played it. I got to play it at Calneva, and all the things you were saying in our previous podcast from a month ago, I had so much fun playing it. So I totally agree with everything you said about that game. It's great. Spencer, you were about to say something that I totally cut you off. No, you're all right, man. Yeah, so I didn't send it to you. I got to post it on our group chat. But earlier today I sent to Dan a little quick video I found. It's Mojo Mods. I guess they do like a really cool Godzilla mod.
    23:02
    It's not available for sale yet, but they sent a short video where they've got a moving Optimus Prime, and he's got like a big gatling gun or something. He's moving and it's lighting up like it's shooting. Looks pretty cool. Optimus Prime actually uses an ion cannon. Oh, thank you.
    23:23
    Thank you for that case in the end. I'm the expert. So, yeah, this popped up on the Transformers threads a few days ago, and basically what it reminds me of is, you know how on J.J.P. Godfather, they have the mobster with the machine gun, and he'll turn and fire the Tommy gun, and the Tommy gun lights up. So it's like an Optimus Prime, but it's like full body.
    23:50
    And yeah, he's just going, whatever he's shooting, he needs to obliterate it. He's going off. And it looks good. Cool. I mean, who knows what it's going to cost, you know, but it looks dope. And I think that this will be one of those things in the game that people are going to just lose their minds trying to figure out a way to fix, right? Like there's already, like if you go online, you go to the Transformers threads, there's people sticking action figures all over the game. There's people mostly just sticking action figures all over the game. There's people doing some cool 3D printed stuff. I have a 3D printed laser beak that my friend Mike made for me, and I have some Optimus Prime arm relocators that my other friend Dan made for me, the same guy who gave me the shaker motor. And so I haven't really started messing with those, and I stuck a Bumblebee action figure on there. But I went ahead and took them off the other day because I was going to mess with some new. I was going to use the part that Bumblebee was mounted on to figure out a better way to get laser beak in there. But he was just a little too high up off the playfield. The glass would have hit his tail end. So not quite yet.
    25:07
    But I do feel like when it is time to put some 3D printed crap on there, I'm going to put some 3D printed crap on there.
    25:17
    Well, because I just, you know, when you mod your game, there's, you know, we talked about this before. There's good mods and there's stupid mods. It's TM, by the way. Stupid Mods is my mod company. We haven't sold anything, but it's just a genius name.
    25:33
    And I don't mind stupid mods. You know, a lot of people are just like, are you anti-mod? No, no, I'm 100% the kind of guy who's like, look, it's your game. You know, do what makes you happy. You don't have to spend $500 to put something on your game to give a little flair, a little flavor. And, you know, there's a lot of guys who, like, we're customizers by nature. You know, having a pinball machine is extra enough, but we just can't let well enough alone. And, you know, I can put this guy here and that guy there. And for Transformers, there's going to be a bajillion ways to customize this game because the fandom is so deep and there's so many toys that are going to work in this scale with the machine. So, you know, I think that there's going to be a lot of opportunity. And yeah, these guys is, you know, Optimus Prime like is fantastic. But there's other guys who've done, you know, LED lights on, you know, the eyes for Megatron and Soundwave and the existing Optimus Prime and guys who have, you know, figured out already, you know, that they're going to put Devastator over here and they're going to put a Starscream over there and they're going to put a Bumblebee over here. And they found, you know, replacements for the stock Grimlock that look even better. Which, by the way, if anyone replaces their stock Grimlock off their premium or LE and wants to send it my way, I'll take it because I think the stock one looks fine. Uh-huh.
    27:01
    What I would really like to see, because the one part of that game that really aesthetically, like, just doesn't work for me is the Soundwave plastic. The plastic is fine, and in the previews for the game, they sort of showed it lined up with his buttons. But on the final game, they moved it way off to the side. He's kind of over the pop bumper, and it's definitely more visible, but he doesn't line up with his buttons, which sort of annoys me. So I would like a good Soundwave mod. I think that the good Soundwave mod is what's going to really start the process of, okay, now I'm going to change everything on this game. It's going to go from unmodded to stupidly modded.
    27:41
    Yeah. But that's kind of where I'm at on Transformers, you know, with the mods and whatnot. Like, there's a ton of possibility. And for now, it's just like I'm going to cool it, but I'm going to start amassing the pieces that I need so that when it's time to do it, you know, it'll become like the standard, the promium. You know, everything will look like it's supposed to move and do cool shit, but it won't because it's a pro.
    28:09
    Except for the option that's wigging out and shooting out the playfield. Yeah, there you go. Probably not. That sucker's going to probably be like $1,000.
    28:17
    Yeah, probably. If I spend $1,000, I'm buying the topper. That's all I have to say. Yeah, there you go. There you go. And then besides that, we've kind of started a new thing with, actually before I move on, do you guys want to know anything else about Transformers? Sure.
    28:35
    What do you want to know? You're not helping me here, Mark. No, sorry. Scratch that, reverse it. I think Spencer fell asleep. No, I'm right here. I just want to come out and play it. I haven't got a chance to play one yet. Dude, I would love that. Like get in the car and just run out here and, you know, or get on a plane and just run out here and, you know, spend the weekend or we'll just put another 200 games on that machine. There you go. It's fun like Black Knight except for it doesn't want you dead. Right.
    29:11
    No, and then so Rick and I, you know, we run the Lodi Pinball League, the Lodi Capital Corridor Pinball League together. And we both were playing in Folsom and then we both stopped playing in Folsom.
    29:26
    And for a year, we've been like, we need to do an every other Thursday stream. And so when I got Transformers, you know, it just happened that, you know, I think I got it on Wednesday and then Thursday was league night. And we're like, OK, well, let's let's stream. It was their league night, not our league night. And so I thought, OK, well, let's let's stream Transformers. Let's do our every other Thursday stream. And we got some other folks to come over and play it. And then, you know, two weeks later, you know, we were talking. We're just like, hey, we're going to get together and stream tonight. And Rick was like, I don't know, maybe. And I was like, hello, do you want to go to your house? Do you want to play at my house? Do you want to talk to this person and see if we want to play over there? And we were just havin' and havin' about it. And then Kendra, who, you know, plays in our league and kind of runs things, She said, hey, you guys streaming tonight? And I said, oh, yeah, I guess I should probably finalize those plans.
    30:20
    And, you know, Rick was like, yeah, I'll bring the rig over to your house, which, you know, makes it easy. Then we just got to pick what we're going to play. And so we did do a second installment of our Every Other Thursday stream. It doesn't have a name yet. It might just be Every Other Thursday, kind of a social stream. And we did Galactic Tank Force and we did Weird Al. Oh, cool. Weird Al would be a good one for me to watch because I never know. Yeah, if you guys want to check out, I mean, it ain't a tutorial.
    30:48
    I mean, we might talk a little bit about what you're supposed to do, but for the most part, we're just sort of like flailing away. So if you do want to check that stream out, you can go to Twitch.tv, Elk Grove Pinball, and Rick also streams. He streams all of kind of our major NorCal, you know, shows, Pinnagogo and Golden State, as well as he does private streams of his own collection And where he puts on exhibitions when he's playing his own game. So, yeah, man, check it out. But it's been really, really fun. And I'm sure in a couple weeks, hopefully we'll get a new code drop on Transformers. But now that it's getting more dialed in, I think we might end up playing some more Transformers on the stream. Or we might see if we have somebody who wants to host us and we can go find another recent game or another weird game. And, you know, the whole goal is to probably, I think, for Rick just to kind of broaden his horizons and not stream his own games over and over and over. So we probably find something fun to go play But yeah so you know check out Elk Grove Pinball if you haven A plug for a friend of the show Rick who been a guest several times And yeah we keep streaming If you ever have any suggestions for games too hit us up at our Facebook We love to hear it Or his Facebook which is Elk Grove Pinball Cool.
    32:10
    So that's about it for me. Mark, what you been up to? Oh, man. Speaking of games, I had the opportunity to play two games that just came out. One is still the one that I played, which is Tales of Arabian Nights. It was a prototype, so it still had the misspelling of lighting lamp instead of lightning lamp. And there were some other things. Isn't it lightening? Yeah, it should be lightning lamp, not lighting lamp. You know what's funny about that is there's a Sega Genesis game, and it made it all the way to release. Uh-huh. And the original title of the game was Thunder Force 4. I guess for whatever reason, when they brought it out to the States, they wanted to rename it Lightning Force. But what they ended up renaming it on the box on the title screen is Lightning Force. Oh, wow.
    33:04
    So that's apparently a very easy mistake to make on a corporate level. Yeah. But other than that, everything worked pretty much like the production game. I was playing the latest code, which basically means just getting the bugs worked out. And all I can say is the first time when I saw it, I was like, wow, this is a beautiful game. Now, for people who are fans of Brian Allen's work, you'll love it because it's got that style that he has in his artwork. But he didn't go overboard like he does with other artwork, like a monster-type theme and stuff like that. It was very tastefully done. He did have a couple of things, you know, like a cyclops in the corner and other stuff like that. But it really held true to the original artwork with a modern twist. So I was really impressed with that. It's gorgeous. The lighting is beautiful. It really has really nice GI. It's not different colors on the playfield. It fits with the mode. So if you have a green jewel you're trying to accomplish, the whole playfield has a greenish tint to it. Thanks to all of the lights that are on the side, which are like the side rail lights. I don't know the exact trademark name for those particular things, but they're really nice because they don't face upwards. They face on the side, and they're kind of embedded on the cabinet on the sides. So right where the blades are, it's kind of like right in there, which is really nice. So it's kind of out of the way, but it really lights up the place really well. The lighting that's underneath, especially underneath the lamp, the magic lamp, is really cool because it changes different colors, But then when you get lightning lamp, I almost said it wrong there, it changes to like a purple and then a bright flash of white so it looks like lightning shooting from the sky. Very cool. The original one had a red disc and it just had white lights underneath it. And it looked cool, but they've really made that a lot better and it kind of has a star effect of the lighting, kind of like a star filter like you see from the old 80s. It shows where it has a little halo around the light. It kind of does that, too. So it has a little star effect with the lighting underneath it. And I think the original one did that, too. But it was cool having that diffuser plate, spinning it around, and changing all these different colors. That really caught my eye. Yeah, I'm sure that that's arresting. Yeah, yeah. It was really beautifully done. And I have to say that the LED work in the inserts is fantastic. Really nice and bright, great use of colors, and fits really well with the modes. So the lighting is top-notch. It has it on the back box. I was obviously getting to play the Anniversary Edition, which is the LE model, and it had the lighting in the back box, and it had it on the sides, and it had it under the cabinet and everything. So you were just surrounded by lights similar to other games that have those types of features.
    36:26
    Now, the one thing that really caught my attention was the gameplay. The gameplay is really the thing that I noticed right away. Yes, I saw the lighting. Yes, it was beautiful. But I was happy to say that when I played it, and people are agreeing with me and having the same opinions, that it plays like the classic Williams table. It plays like the classic table. All right, well, I'm just going to go ahead and say this right now. Yeah. No two pinball machines play alike.
    37:01
    Okay. Don't even worry about if it plays like an original or not because there's going to be that guy out there who just insists that it doesn't. I've had an original for 30 years and this feels nothing like it. Right. You know, if it flips and the targets register and, you know, the balls traveling over a brand new clear-coated playfield off of brand new flippers, it's going to definitely feel sharper and snappier and better, quote unquote, than, you know, your 30-year-old one that's, you know, been played 20,000 times. I remember when I had MMR, you know, people were just like, ah, it doesn't feel like medieval madness. And I'm like, I agree. I completely agree. Yeah, you're right. Because I've had medieval madness and I've had the new medieval madness and this feels like a new medieval madness and a better medieval madness where you can make the ramps and, you know, you can hit stuff with just impunity. Right. So I think that it probably, you know, I would be very careful about making the claim that it feels like the original because that's something that's so subjective. But, you know, from what I was seeing from the videos, that thing looked like it played beautifully. Yeah. Okay, so let me, you have a really good valid point there.
    38:21
    Let's just say. Just because I lived it. Here's the thing. Here's the thing that I noticed that is that I've played Medieval Madness remake. Yes, it plays different. But what I noticed compared to the other remakes is that the flipper responsiveness, which they must have done in the software, is way more snappier than the previous game of Funhaus that Podrety did. So as far as comparing that to Funhaus, it's night and day. So when I was playing it, I was thinking, yes, it plays like the original, but at the same time, it felt way more snappier than their previous game. So I'm just saying that it did not disappoint in gameplay. The rules were the same. There weren't really many any things that were different because I wasn't playing the new code that's supposedly going to have some additional things to be able to earn those jewels. So there'll be a lot more objectives or more shots you have to make to attain that jewel instead of making it so easy where if you hit one pop bumper, the mode is done. I don't know which one that is, but it's pretty quick.
    39:37
    They might make it more difficult to acquire the jewels where you have that option where you go and you have to make your choice, whether it's like a lightning lamp or a bonus or two jewels or something like that. They might make that harder if you want to change the settings. Don't know, it's all speculation, but there definitely is going to be something done to the code to make it more challenging and more rewarding for people who are trying to get points.
    40:00
    I think that's necessary. It is necessary. I think that Toten has always been a game that got by on its looks. Agree. Everybody always was just like, Elderly Raven Nights is a gorgeous game, but it's a bit of a dog to play. Right. And, you know, I think that it sounds bad because I know that we kind of throw this name around and it's almost always in a negative way. But, like, I think that it's one of those games that caught a lot of slack because it was a J-pop. Yeah. And there's a weird cultish fan base that just loves all things J-pop, except for Episode 1. Nobody likes Episode 1. Except for me. I think Episode 1 is fine. Right. But, yeah, I think that, you know, a lot of people just, it was always held in that high regard because it was a late WPC. There weren't a whole lot of them out there. It was one of Papa Duke's, like, what, four games? And it just, it looked great, you know, especially the playfield art looked really, really great. Right. And I think that, you know, and I was very much like, you know, Tales of Arabia Nights, man, like, that's one of the elite, super elite games. It's one of the ones that when they were talking about, okay, what are we going to remake, right? Well, we're going to remake Medieval. We're going to remake Attack. We're going to remake Monster Bash. And it's like, okay, that's kind of the trifecta. What's the fourth one going to be? And I was like, oh, it's got to be Tails. It's got to be. Like, what are they going to do, make Cactus Canyon? And they're like, we're going to make Cactus Canyon. Yeah. And, you know, Cactus Canyon is a game that was just rare, right? Like, it's a fine game. Like, I like Cactus Canyon. I wouldn't turn down a Cactus Canyon ever, ever, ever. But at the same time, the big thing about Cactus Canyon was just that it was rare because it was the last game and it had been kind of cut off. It had been pirached.
    41:57
    Like they stopped making it early so they could start making Pinball 2000. So Tales to me was one that I'm really shocked that CGC didn't get on because I was just like, it's got a bit more game quality than practice to be sure. But we still have that possibility that like we could throw some more code at this thing and make it an even better game. So it's great that they're taking this title over the finish line. And it's great that they're making the two versions of it so you can have one that's a little bit more classic adjacent. I just wish that the remakes wouldn't have gotten out of the habit of making the remakes, the true remakes, not the remasters, but like the remakes that are basically like the original. I feel like that was where I messed up with My Medieval was I liked My Medieval remake and so I put all the Royal Edition stuff on it and then to me it felt, you know, it was flashier.
    43:04
    It was fancier. It had a bigger screen but it wasn't quite as legit. But I feel like, you know, for the price that they're selling these modern remasters, redos, whatever you want to call them, you can get a nice tail. So if you really want an original, great, you know. Right. And for somebody who wants a modern game that looks like a retro game but has modern guts and updated code and beautiful lighting and reworked art, Like, this is going to be a wonderful, wonderful option. Right, exactly. There's a couple of things they have to fix that I played on the – there are actually three things that I noticed that I told Pedretti actually directly through Roger because Roger works with pinball traders. And he communicates directly because he works with Rick from Planetary Pinball. And they are receiving the communication through Pinside and through direct email to send to Pedretti to let them know of what improvements they need to make. And those three things that I saw was the magnet. The ball is not in the center before it goes into the hole when it opens up before multiball. I thought that it fell down too fast, but in the original one that I got to play just a couple days ago, So it falls right away before the multiball starts. So there's no choreographed thing before it. It basically, as soon as multiball starts, the ball goes into the hole and that's it. So that was pretty normal except the ball was not in the center. They addressed that by putting in a new type of alloy that will allow that ball to magnetize right in the middle and not hit the sides that could chip up the play field. The second thing I noticed was that the star savers, the star cages on the outer lanes were not staying up long enough. They only like popped up and went right back down like within like a split, about a half a second or even maybe a second, but even maybe less than that. But it was quick. It was like save, boom, down. And when I played the original, there was at least two seconds saved before it went back down. Yeah, because it gives the ball time to settle. Yeah, exactly. So it gives ball time to settle, and you don't drain it so easily because when I played the prototype, a couple of times it like shot it up and goodbye, the ball was gone because it was too fast. So they could fix that in software, not a big deal. The third thing I saw was there's a light that's shining above the skill shot, and it was confusing because the way that the light was shining, it was directing it on one of the skill shot choices, which are basically the leaf targets that are targets that are set in different positions so when you shoot it higher or lower, you get that skill shot. Well, it was confusing because it looked like it was only shining on one part, and there was a discrepancy between what was on the screen and what was there when you were shooting the ball based on the light. So I told that to Pedretti, and you're not going to believe this, but they actually coded something in the side rail lights to have it shine on the part where you have to hit the skill shot. So that was cool. They took my suggestion, and they put it into the film. What did you say? That's an awesome detail. Yeah, yeah. So that was something I suggested, and all of a sudden Rogers said, hey, look, check this out. I go, holy crap. It's actually shining on a spot where you have to hit. That's awesome. And they were able to do that by differentiating the different lights in the side rail lights, which is really cool. And they call it scoffing. Yeah, they call it scoffing. They call it scoffing. Yeah. We're going to make that a term. Yeah, there you go. So you've got to say that every time so that it gets around and people will be like, oh, man, you see how those lights are scoffing? Oh, man, that's amazing. Yeah, we can have a term, a coin term now. That's cool. The other thing and the fourth thing is that when the countdown bonus timer goes, there were a couple of times where I had it where I had a really high bonus and it skipped. It went and it was done. Where the other one, it goes like that. So it was like skipping numbers or it was going too fast. And when I addressed that problem, I got a response saying that the fast software is so fast compared to the original code that they have to code a certain amount to slow it down. So once they slow that down, it will be just like the original when it does the countdown bonus. But those are the only four things that I saw that need improvement. All pretty easy improvements as far as gameplay goes. The screen is beautiful. The display is awesome. I love what they did with the artwork, with the animations. It holds true to the original, but it adds a little pizzazz. I know there were some people saying that the snake looks like a baby snake, and it should look like an adult snake and stuff like that. I really didn't see that, but you know how picky people can get. But overall, the display is awesome. And honestly, I still, there's something about dot animation that is more appealing than just the regular straight LCD display. I don't know. I don't know what it is, even though it is. You know, is it LED or LCD? I always get it wrong.
    48:52
    It's an LCD display, right? Because that's liquid crystal display. Right. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I'm in trouble. The LED is like when it's like a real dot matrix display where that's the light emitting diodes. Okay. Now, here's what I feel about that. I've always kind of felt weird about this because, you know, I'm a bit of a DMD game enthusiast. Sure. I've always felt really weird that like on the remakes, and I guess that they did bring over the people from CGC who worked on the CGC remakes. So that's kind of why this has a real similar vibe, which is great. Those guys do fantastic work. And I was listening to another podcast where they were talking to them, so that's where I got that from, no first-hand experience.
    49:38
    But I've never understood why they go for that dot-looking and that hybrid, I guess, where it's like some of it's high-resolution and some of it's dots. Like, why make your freaking words look like a dot matrix? Like, if you're going to use this LCD display and you're going to do high-resolution graphics, And you don't have to use stuff that looks like dots. Don't use stuff that looks like dots. But I think that there is a technical reason that they have to do it. The way that they were talking about it is that it's not exactly emulation. Like they are remaking the game, but like certain aspects of it, I guess, need to be similar to the original for it to work without it just being a complete redraw.
    50:22
    So I don't know. I've always felt like I either make it look like it's good color dot matrix or make it look like it's high resolution and dot matrix size, but I've never kind of understood that weird hybrid style. It works. I like it, but that's just my opinion. I like it. Somebody else does too, right? Someone who's designing games or there's a technical reason, but yeah, I don't hate it, but I just was always like, you know, give me a complete redo or give me the original. Right. It does look great. All the display work looks really nice. I think it looks better than the stuff that they were doing on Medieval and Attack especially. I don't have as much experience with Monster Bash or Cactus, but at that point I think those games weren't trying so much to continue. They weren't trying so much to be original style. They were trying to be enhancement. Right. Yeah. But overall, the display is they did a really good job with that. And the sound package is great. I mean, it sounds awesome. The speakers that they use are good quality. And speaking of quality, the build construction of it is, I think, a lot better than what they did with Funhaus. They learn from their mistakes, and they fix a couple of things. If you look under the hood, there's different connectors, so they don't have the ones that pop out real easily or break off. So they fix that. The wood is obviously really nice material. The plastics are good quality, just like the original. Those aren't easy to form. Those are really nice, wavy, clear plastic ramps and stuff that is not very common in other games, Which, of course, gives you that aesthetic appeal and gameplay that makes those particular design elements really make it fun and exciting to play. Kinetics. It's all kinetics, yeah, yeah. Kinetics, it's fun to watch the ball fly around. It is fun to watch it go around in a spiral and then all of a sudden you go, wait, oh, it's not going in a spiral anymore. Oh, and then now it gets grabbed by the magnet in the ring and you have to destroy the genie and all that stuff. So, yeah. That's why people love Papadook games. Yeah. Papadook games all have really good kinetics. Whether you like how they play or not, it's just fun to watch the ball whiz around. It is. On spiral ramps and watch it, you know, jump through the air through a hoop and watch it get grabbed by a magnet and disappear into the playfield. It's so important to have a game that it's fun to watch the ball do things on. Yep. You know, it has diverters and ball paths and interesting things. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of perfectly super fun to play games that are very efficient. They put the ball where it needs to be when it needs to be there, but there's something about having a game that has big spirally ramps. That's one of the things that I think Elwin does so well. Right. His games are absolutely fun, in addition to having great shots, just to watch the ball whiz around and do things on it. Yeah, he's a master of wire forms. He knows how to get those things curved around in interesting ways. Yeah, and I feel like he took a lot of that from the Nordmans and the Papadukes of the world who they love their balls to have complicated ball trails. That's the way Pinball should be. It's fun to see that kind of stuff.
    53:49
    There's an argument that, you know, that kind of Steve Ritchie Star Trek, which puts the ball where it needs to be as fast as it needs to be there, is also fun. Yeah. Right? Like, it's very efficient. And that is pretty much that I've experienced so far. I'm going to get to play it a little more if it's still there. But again, a shout out to Planetary Pinball for allowing me to come out there and play the prototype. And like I said, the game should be shipping pretty soon. I don't know if they're – I think they're going to be doing the standard edition and the legacy edition at the same time. They're going to be running them at the same time. So you don't have to wait for the Legacy to be done and then the Special Edition or Standard Edition. I don't know. I think it's Standard. It's Classic. Who knows what it is? Standard? Legacy is the old one. Yeah. Legacy is the 30th anniversary one, right? No, I think it's, yeah, I don't know. I get always confused. There's always L.E. Yeah, you could get that. We're not getting paid for this. Yeah, okay. And there's some videos of this on our Facebook, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's a video on our Facebook page, and I also post it on Pinside, and it's on YouTube. It's under Nevada Pinball, and you'll get to see a lot more games being streamed on that channel. So if you haven't checked it out, you can check it out. Yep, just do a search on Nevada Pinball, and you'll find our first video we posted on there, which is sales. Authentic Mark Pinball under the somewhat sketchily named Nevada Pinball. Yep, there you go.
    55:25
    At least it's not Wyoming Pinball. Yeah, there you go. Not yet. Well, I think one of the important things about Toten is that the original game, they didn't make a lot of them. It was another one, like you said, Dan, it was toward the very end of the Valley Williams era of manufacturing pinball machines. There's only like just over 3,100 of those made. So this has given an opportunity for people who've always wanted to own one or at least play one on location to have that opportunity a little more readily available, just like with Medieval Madness. The remakes have allowed more people to get it in their hands and actually play the game as opposed to just playing it on their phone or tablet in the simulated world. Yeah, the free version that you got with Pimball Arcade when you downloaded it was Tales of Arabian Nights. Yep. Of the Arabian Nights, sorry. Yeah. Yeah, I do feel like that is a big reason that a lot of people have that game on the brain because it was everybody's first game when they did Pinball Arcade, right? Yeah, it was. It's the same thing with, what's the one that was built into Windows, Space Cadet? Yeah. Space Cadet. Like a ton of people know Space Cadet just because it was like, you know, it's probably the world's most widely distributed pinball game because I think it came out with every edition of Windows 95. It did. And I played it all the time. It was actually a pretty good game.
    56:56
    Oh, oh, they made 20,000 Adams families. Really? Because Space Cadet says hold my beer. There are a hundred million copies of Space Cadet out there. Yeah, there is. But no, it's super, super exciting that they are going to continue to bring us these classics in a modern form so that they're going to be seen in arcades and in new people's collections. And I would really love if they'd get back to making them a little more affordable. Yeah. It was real, real nice. We can get a Monster Brass classic for $6,000, guys, just saying. Oh, those days, yeah. At least, you know, they're going to have these games available so that if you've had an Arabian night-shaped hole in your heart that you can finally fill it with a newer modern version that's being built with some love and care and some lessons learned, right? Right. Lessons learned. Lessons learned and listening to customers, listening to feedback from the pinball community. They really did a good job on this one. They've taken everything to heart and put it into this new game. And if I'm not mistaken, this is the first Papa Duke remake that is made successfully. Isn't that correct? It's the first Papa Duke remake, right? I believe so, yeah. Okay, because we have... Yeah. The first two were Eddie's, and then you had a Gomez. I don't remember who made Cactus. That was Gomez. I think, wasn't it? No, it wasn't. I forget his name, but he's only made two or three games, and one of the other ones he made, or designed, rather, was the Stern Rolling Stones. Oh, okay. All right.
    58:43
    We were talking about that some time ago. Was made by Matt Corialli and Tom Copera. Oh, Tom Copera. Okay, okay. He's made a lot of games. I think that Matt Corialli was kind of the main guy on it. He was the head designer. Okay. Yeah, because it was the endgame, right, of that classic Williams pinball. So yeah, weirdly enough, it didn't have any of the usuals on there.
    59:12
    It doesn't even have a coder like mentioned. Interesting. Just game design, Matt and Tom, engineering mechanics, Lewis toy, artwork, John Yalsey, animation, Adam Ryan, Jim Rath, sound Rob Berry, music Rob Berry. It's probably why it has a very, like, if you've ever spent some time with Cactus, it does have a very different presentation than the Valley Williams of that day kind of tended to. Much kind of to its detriment because the Valley Williams of that time were so good. But, you know, 903 of the original produced, but now you can get the remake for like $6,500. So if you want Cactus Canyon and it is a fun-ass game, go get it. And the remake is really good. Remake is really good. Not to steal from the Tales of the Arabian Nights here, but like the remake of Tactics Canyon, like with that new code and everything is really good. And that new barn door thing that they did for it, man, that just stiffens that game's difficulty right up. The saloon door thing where you have other modes? Yeah, the original you could always just tee off on the outlaw if there's no other shot to make and it's perfectly safe. Yeah, you hit that saloon door and it's closed and the ball's coming back at your flippers. Too sweet. Yeah, I know. I want to play one so bad. I got to play it over at Golden State in the white bubble.
    60:34
    Oh, did they not have it at Pest Start? No, they only have Cactus Canyon, but they didn't get the kit. Oh, wow. Yeah, they were like the first place I ever played. They were not only the first place I ever played the remake, but man, I played the hell out of it. Like, I got the high nude and everything. I kicked that game's ass. That's awesome. The three of us played that. I was one shot away from High Noon, and I drained it. They just got that in when I was up there with you, Dan, and we all three played it. Yeah, and I beat the crap out of it. It was awesome. You did. You did beat the crap out of it. It plays great. So, yeah, I'm excited for the Tales of Ravion Nights remake because that's one of my – I don't want to say it's my favorite pop-up game because I really like all the Valley Williams stuff. And Mike Danner, I even kind of like Episode 1, you know. Sure. And I'm glad to see that they're getting those out or going to be and getting into people's fans. Tails is a fantastic game. I like that game a lot. Oh, it's great. Like I said, the only thing that turned me off is the simplicity of it. Like when I played it on Pinball Arcade, I was done after the first game I played. I was like, oh, I already beat the Genie. It was like it was over. But if they do something with the code like they're promising to do, it should add a lot of variety to it to make it a little more challenging for experienced players. But it's great. It's great. The next game that I had a chance to play is Sonic the Hedgehog by Jersey Jack Pinball. And I got to play a collector's edition display model. So it was a showroom model.
    62:15
    Holy crap. So this is one of the first releases. They sent it around to the distributors, right? That is correct. It's a first release. It's not like a prototype or anything. It's just first production runs. Correct. First production runs. Yes. Okay. Because Toten was a prototype. You got to play the prototype. That is correct. It was a prototype. It was not a production game. Correct.
    62:39
    But holy crap. Sonic the Hedgehog. Steve Ritchie delivered again. Man, I have a long review I wrote. I don't know how many pages it would be if it was in a Word document, but it was long. And people read it, which is awesome. I got a lot of nice compliments from everybody. But I'm not going to go into much detail as the review because I really, really went through all the different parts of the game to really get a feel for something that you would have in front of you but wouldn't see in person. Basically, I tried to make it as visual as possible in my descriptions. But getting to play it, wow, fast, frantic, exciting, holds true to the game as far as the Sonic the Hedgehog video game. I think it's Generations, if I'm not mistaken, is what they used for the video clip. Generations was the basis of the graphics and the sound. Okay, okay. So Generations is basically it was a kind of an anniversary game that they did where it took the modern Sonic and it took the classic Sonic and it put them together in one game So it was like a remake of a lot of classic levels.
    63:59
    It's already kind of a love letter to Sonic Band. So if you were going to try to make a piece of Sonic media that was going to appeal to all the Sonic people out there, because there's a lot of different generations of Sonic, quote, unquote, generations of Sonic, this is probably a good place to start. Well, and it makes sense, too, because like you said, Sonic generations, right? Well, why not make a pinball that appeals to all generations? Well, not to be like a jerk, right? But when they started talking about Sonic, they were like, we're going to make Sonic the Hedgehog Pinball. And I was like, okay, great. They're not going to make the version of Sonic that I really care about because the version of Sonic that I really care about is like 40 years old and was on a 16-bit console. But, you know, I'm sure they'll make a very decent Sonic game.
    64:51
    But, yeah, if they had made a Sonic game where the graphics were all pixelated and it looked like he was on, you know, the 16-bit Sega Genesis, I would have been in even bigger trouble than I am. And I'm already in big trouble because I'm a huge Sega fan.
    65:05
    Sure, absolutely. But, yeah, so the original rumor, though, was it was going to be straight out Sega Genesis Sonic. And I was like, oh, my God, where am I going to come up with $10,000 plus to buy this thing? Right, right. Right. And like you said, I think they made the right decision just because with a high-res screen and the capabilities of mixing and matching not the same levels like in the 16-bit, of course, there's some really good tunes in there.
    65:36
    Well, it's from Sonic the Hedgehog 1. You know, Chemical Plant is from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. It is. There is Sky Sanctuary is from Sonic the Hedgehog and Knuckles. So there's absolutely 16-bit content in there and 16-bit tunes.
    65:57
    They're just, you know, reinterpreted through a, you know, more modern 3D gameplay design and the sound is redone so it doesn't sound like it's coming out of the Yamaha sound chip from the Genesis. Right. It's the content that you want. Right. Exactly. First impressions when I saw the artwork, it's perfect. It totally screams Sonic. It's got all the characters, got the beautiful sculpts. It's a Jersey Jack machine. They went all out. They didn't leave anything out as far as the aesthetics go. So the red trim around it with the lock bar and the side rails looks fine, especially when you have the cutout, the laser cutout to have the blue shine through. That's really cool. The side art for the Radcals with the glitter effect is awesome. It looks like Sonic is exploding out of the side of your machine. Very well done. The play field has the Green Hill Zone feel to it, and it works. It totally works. Gameplay, awesome, fun, and definitely one more game appeal. The upper play field makes that game, and usually it's the opposite. Usually I think, oh, upper play field, we're going to be up there forever. When is the ball coming down to the main play field? Not this one. This one is, dang it, I had another shot I wanted to make up on the upper playfield. And then, ah, darn, it's going back down. So it's like you want to go up to the playfield more in the upper than you want to stay in the bottom, which is pretty cool. But it seamlessly works together to make that gameplay where it doesn't feel like it's dragging in any area of the whole pinball machine. So it looks like it's super objective-based. Very objective-based. Like you choose your level and your level is basically your mode. So there's no kind of null gameplay state where you're trying to do something. Like you say, okay, we're going to chemical plant. It plays the chemical plant music. It shows the chemical plant graphics and it gives you a set of shots that are either checkpoints or rings. Correct. And the goal is to either collect rings to raise values or you can almost, there's like other objectives that you can do to increase your grade or you can just speed run the checkpoints and try to finish the mode as fast as possible. Exactly. You can do a speed run. Which is very much a Sonic the Hedgehog gameplay style because you can jump into the game on Sonic the Hedgehog 1 or 2 and finish the level in 30 seconds and get a big time bonus. Or you can run around, you can find items, you can collect rings, and you can take a long time and give yourself other advantages like being able to collect Chaos Emeralds and multiballs and stuff like that because you slow down to explore, which is really, really cool that it's able to kind of take that weird dichotomy of the Sonic gameplay. A lot of people have always called Sonic the world's clumsiest platformer because you want to go fast, but sometimes you have to go slow. Yes. And Sonic's not built to do that. Yeah. So it's cool that they've managed to kind of work that into Pinball. I don't remember who the coder is. I watched one of the flipping out streams with him on it, and he was talking about it. But, I mean, the guy had a super good grasp of how they were going to move Sonic the Hedgehog out of, you know, the video game space and into the pinball space yet keep the Sonic flavor alive. And they did. And that's the best part. Especially like when you finish a mode, or sorry, a level, then all of a sudden you get the bonus countdown. Just like the end of when you finish a board or when you finish a level, it does the countdown, you know, counting the number of rings and everything like that. Yeah, it's straight out of a video game. Yeah, it is. It's like playing a video game on a Pimball machine. It's straight out of a Sonic the Hedgehog game. Yeah. It looks like something out of Sonic Adventure or Sonic Adventure 2 or Sonic Generations. Right. And it's so addictive to try to hit that left or the right loop and just slide around there. And then you hear the ring sounds as it goes around, you know, oh, it's so good. And it's funny because when I think about it, a lot of Steve Ritchie games have that mechanic where those loops, I'm thinking getaway. I'm thinking of the high speed, the regular high speed. You whip around those loops and it builds up your bonus. It's the same thing with Sonic. You build up the rings, it gives you your end of ball bonus. But what's cool is it gives you a level bar to see how well you succeeded in collecting rings. So one time I got S, and I was like, oh, that's good. I know that's good in video games. S is the highest rating. Is that superior? What does that stand for? What does S stand for? I have no idea. Sugoi? It's Japanese, right? Sugoi is like Japanese for WoW. Oh, okay. No, that's good to know. It could be superior. I mean, you know, and then you go S, double S, you know, when you're going crazy. But I think Sonic only goes to S. Okay. Yeah. So that was very addictive. Maybe superior. We can say superior. Maybe Sonic. Yeah. F for Sonic.
    71:41
    The shots are good, are great on a lower playfield as well as the upper playfield. But, man, he really did a good job with that upper playfield because it's fun. There's a loop you can do. There's a little mini ramp you can shoot up. There's a spinner that you can rip, but you can't rip it continuously. It's like you get one good rip, and then that ball is out of control, and you've got to get it under control to make another shot either on the right side or whatever.
    72:08
    The mechanic on the upper play field for Dr. Eggman is pretty awesome as far as how it goes left to right, goes up and down, and it's easy. The first one is real easy, but, man, it gets harder when you get to that third level. If you choose it, it definitely gets progressively harder. And it will screw with you because you're right about to shoot it, and all of a sudden it goes up and you miss it. So it's like it's definitely taunting you, and it's giving you more of a challenge. He's like, ha-ha, missed me. He does. He goes, ha-ha, missed me. Yeah, exactly. So he really taunts you.
    72:43
    But it's so cool. It's a very Steve Ritchie thing to do. Right, right. He loves for his games to make fun of you. Exactly. The other thing that I really was impressed with is this is the first Jersey Jack that I got to play that I knew what I was doing when I stepped up to the game. I could figure it out. It wasn't like, oh crap, I got to look at this flow chart or I got to read 20 pages on tilt forums to figure out what to do on this game. No, it was real clear cut. You shoot the rings to increase your bonus. You have your shots clearly displayed on the little LED displays that are in circles and rings, which, by the way, does a great job giving you that 16-bit feel.
    73:34
    Yeah, those rings are so genius. They're awesome. They're just awesome. Those rings are so genius. Like, I saw those things, and I was like, oh, my God, that is excellent. And the cool thing is, this might be getting ahead of your thing. No, go ahead. They're on every edition, so if you do end up cheaping out and going for the arcade edition, which is something that I would definitely do, you don't get screwed out of half of them. Oh, I know, and that is amazing that they include that in the arcade because, I mean, yeah, I know screens are pretty cheap, but the way they implemented it, just surrounded by a gold ring, you know, it's just, oh, it's just cool. And it has arrows to tell you where to shoot, or it has little sonic spinning when you have a spin dash, and oh, it's awesome. I just love it. It takes your playfield inserts and it puts them in a 3D space. Exactly. Without it just being a stand-up with a light bulb on it. I mean, Pindball's been doing that for years, but it's something cooler and fancier. And that's the whole thing, right? When you're doing Jersey Jack, like, I know we live in this world, and this is kind of a side rail. I'm sorry. I'm about to take Spencer's, just steer us off the path. But, like, everybody's just like, well, Transformers are Sonic, Transformers are Sonic, Transformers are Sonic. And it's like there are two different games that are doing two different jobs for two different sets of people. You know, Stern, you know, yes, they make an expensive version of it. But, you know, Stern makes like this working class F-150 kind of game. You know, it's meant to go everywhere. It's meant to do everything. And you can buy a nice version of it if you want to. But when you buy a Jersey Jack game, and I've owned a couple now, and I will undoubtedly own another one, probably Sonic. You buy it because it's cool. You buy it because it's fancy. You buy it because it does crazy things in a crazy way in the pinball space. And, you know, I'm not going to say it's no compromise because I'm sure that they've had to take things out that just aren't going to work. You know, Pirates of the Caribbean is a great example where they lost some features. But at the same time, it's just like they're the most batshit, crazy, fancy, beautiful games out there.
    75:42
    And that's why you buy them. Although I will say this, you know, you talked about the art. I think both Harry Potter and Sonic had a really corporate looking art. Oh, yeah, for sure. They badly need a Franchi on their staff to take that corporate looking art and make it beautiful in the pinball space. But, you know, they're great games, you know, and those rings are like the exact example of why they're great. It's just, you know, or the bopping spotlights on Guns N' Roses, you know, or the rocking pirate ship on Pirates or the piano on Elton John with the little dude that moves around is they sweat the details. Well, they give you that magic. They give you that high-end premium pinball feel. And you pay for the privilege, but that's what Jersey Jack does. Right. You know, so it's cool that that's a thing that they came up with and they're just like, we're going to put this in the game. And I'm sure there'll be some version of the rings in future games, just like the Hot Rails have made it into every game since they've been created. Sure. Because I think that they're a really, really good idea that time has kind of come. But even if they're never seen again, that's still something that you can look at Sonic the Hedgehog and go like, that was a cool thing. Yeah. After a Dreadpool did. Yep.
    77:04
    But the gameplay is awesome. It's fast. The flippers are super snappy. Honestly, I felt like I was playing a stern. They were just powerful like you would not believe. The ball with the loop is an awesome feature. It's cool because it's almost like a vacuum. It sucks the ball up and then it goes right around the loop, comes right back at you. Even if you barely get in that spot, going up the ramp just a little bit, it will fling the ball back at you. And then, of course, then you can hold it and hit the flippers rapidly to build up your speed on your Sonic Dash. Your Sonic Spin Dash. Yep, Sonic's been dead. And then you hit the action button to release it. Oh, and then you hear the famous, you know, the sound, you know. Oh. I mean, if you're a Sonic fan, this game delivers in spades because you feel like you're playing the video game. And, heck, I had interest playing the video game over and over again, getting to each level, and I didn't get bored. And it's going to be the same thing with this game. A lot of people say, well, it's going to be boring doing it over again. And I'm sure they're going to sprinkle in some different stuff to make it kind of go a little bit more original than just playing a strict video game version.
    78:20
    But it makes me come back for more. It's like, ooh, I want to try this other level. Or, ooh, I want to try to get all the Emeralds during multiball. It has that one more game appeal. And I don't know. I don't know if I would get bored with it or not. I just, the way I felt, I was like, dang, this game could last a long time and not be boring. So who knows? I mean, only time will tell to see what people say. But, man, I can't wait to play it tomorrow. I'm going tomorrow to play it again, this time to shoot video. So I got totally sidetracked and played the game, and we didn't even bother shooting the video. But we're going to do it tomorrow. But, oh, it's so good.
    79:02
    Yeah, you're like this on video. Yeah. Of Sonic? Boy, that's short. He posted that little short reel and then to the top or whatever. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was just like a cell phone video. Yeah, I feel like with Sonic, kind of what you're saying is like the gameplay is not meant to be like a normal pinball machine. Uh-huh. Right? I feel like they were going for something different, which is exciting, which is a pinball game that you're supposed to be able to play fast. And I think that in a lot of ways, I think pinball might need that kind of innovation, that kind of evolution, not just, okay, well, it's a different shot. Okay, well, it's a different fixture. Oh, okay, you know, this does this, that does that. Because I don't really know if there's anything new under the sun you can do with magnets and the steel ball that we haven't seen some variation of at this point. Maybe making the ball teleport or something for real, not just be staged. But I think that like changing the game to where it's like, okay, here's your goal. This is your first level. Hit these five shots as quick as you can. Okay, great. Here's your next level. Do this and this and this as quick as you can. And to see, you know, maybe the whole goal of Sonic is to see how fast you can be. Or, like you said, to explore the content, play the multiballs, collect the Chaos Emeralds. And the more kind of unlockables and stuff that they work in there or the more multiballs, the more stuff that they give you the sidetrack on will be what keeps it alive. But I think some people will just be into it to see, like, how fast can I get through all the stages and beat all the bosses? Yeah. Did you see at Summer Games Done Quick, they did a nine reactor speed run of total nuclear annihilation? So you read my mind. That's the game I was thinking in my mind. I did not see it. But that's the same kind of one more game appeal, right? Simple rules, but you go back to it. That caught a lot of people's attention because they're just like, oh my God, speed running pinball. Yep. You know, rather than it being, you know, score based and you're going to sit there for four hours and try to run up the highest score that you possibly can, you know, taking safe shots and slowing the game down. Why don't we speed the game up? Yeah. Why don't we make the game crazier and more frenetic? But it's always a hard sell in pinball to do something different than the expectation. That's right. But I, you know, to kind of, on a personal basis, you know, when they announced Transformers, I was excited. When they announced Sonic, I was a little less excited because I was so excited by Transformers, but Sonic is one of those announcements that like at any other time, I would have been like, oh man, like this is the most amazing thing ever. And, you know, for me, at a moment of time in pinball for them to say, yeah, we're going to make Sonic the Hedgehog and Transformers back to back is like so terrible because it's just like, well, I can't buy them both. Right. Right. You're a fan of both of those franchises, I know. I mean, absolutely. You know, when I showed my wife Sonic the Hedgehog, she's like, so when are we getting one of these? And I was like, well, not incredibly soon because we're going to buy Transformers. But, you know, Sonic is definitely, you know, a game and a theme, you know. And it's just like it's it's almost like with, you know, we talked about the Generation One Transformers was like a very, very dedicated like shot at me. It's like, OK, on the other hand, we're going to give you Steve Ritchie making Sonic the Hedgehog by Jerser Jack. What do you think, Dan? And I'm like, oh, fuck you guys. Yeah, exactly. Come on. Like, what kind of Sophie's Choice bullshit is this? Like, how do I choose? I must have them both. Well, Jamie being a really very knowledgeable in the video game universe, holy crap, she will love this game. I know she will. I'm sure I'm probably not going to get a chance to play it until California Extreme, and I'm sure it's going to be super annoying to play at California Extreme because Harry Potter was super annoying to play last year at California Extreme. But I'm really looking forward to somebody getting it so that I can spend some time on it because, yeah, I think that that game's going to be just awesome. I would love to hear your opinion once you play it because I was wowed. Let's put it that way. I was wowed. It was cool. It was – I can't wait to play it. In any JJP game, I think that when you sit down and play it, you're like, this is great. Yeah. There's not one JJP game that I played yet that I'm just like, this is a piece of crap. Yeah, that's true. Because they put so much time and so much effort and so much attention. And again, you know, they charge for the privilege, you know, when your entry level is $10,000, yeah, you better execute. But, you know, I think that especially since they went away from, you know, they were making a basic edition at one point, which was a little bit more stripped down. You know, I had the basic edition of Pirates and it still was incredibly stacked. But like the basic edition of Guns N' Roses looked a little sad compared to the limited edition. But since they've gone away from that and they're like, everybody's going to get the same gameplay experience, everybody's going to get the same features, you know, you're just not going to get rad cows, you're just not going to get invisible glass, you're just not going to get our basic topper, and we're going to save you a couple thousand bucks. So I'm just like, hey, man, that's a cool thing to do, you know, even though I know it's their worst seller. It's just like, you know, keep it as affordable as you can because I think people respect the fact that, you know, hey, maybe I don't have, you know, $15,000 to buy the LE, but, you know, maybe I can scrape together. I can sell two games and scrape together $10,000 and, you know, put it in an order. So, you know, maybe I'll do something stupid. Although, I don't know, man, every time I try to sell a WPC, Spencer yells at me.
    85:10
    You don't sell the WPCs. Yeah, yeah. We don't sell the Williams. Now, you mentioned Topper and the Topper on the CE model. Oh, man. I don't know how they pull that off, but it is cool. I mean, it's one thing to have characters going back and forth, sliding into each other like they're fighting.
    85:35
    But then they put a screen behind it to match with the choreography of the motion. And then on top of that, instead of just sliding around, it spins around and it spins towards you and it spins away. And, oh, wow, it's like the characters are alive on the top of it. And the topper is so cool. So, I mean, if people have the money to get a CE, oh, man, that topper is awesome. Can you see it when you're playing it? Nope, you can't. But you can sure enjoy it while you're waiting your turn. But, oh, man, the topper is so cool. I love Black Knight topper, don't get me wrong, but this one is in the top ranking for ingenuity and innovative design. It's really cool.
    86:19
    It's a different idea, though, right? It's not just the talking head, which, you know, seems to be a popular topper. But, yeah, it's a really super interactive topper with a lot of motion and graphics and lighting and things flying around. You know, it's, again, just something different. You know, Jerser Jack brings the cool stuff. They do. And it's so cool to have that included. I mean, yes, you are paying a lot for a CE, but you do get the topper. So, yeah, that's pretty cool considering that kind of topper would probably be $2,000 if you bought it alone. So, I don't know. I'm just, if I sound like a shill, fine. So be it. I think it's a fun game. I think people are really going to like it. And I can't wait to play it when it's in somebody's collection or on location, whether that's in Reno or in California. Man, if there's one, I'm going to go put quarters in it because it is fun. Fine on. So is there anything else we got, Mark, on your end? And that's about it. As far as the Reno scene, holy crap, I think we got tournaments every day now of the week. We got on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on different weekends. Not every weekend, but there's weeks that we have a tournament every single day, which is insanity. And of course, I have to pick and choose which ones I want to go to or I probably wouldn't be married anymore. So I have to be very careful on my choices, but it's pretty awesome. It's for all different levels, all different formats you want. On Monday nights, we have it at Comic Kingdom where it is punk rock pinball. I don't know if you ever heard of punk rock pinball, but it's kind of like the other version of IFPA without all the strict rules. So you can have more fun with formats and stuff like that, and Reno's trying to do a lot with that to be a part of that group. And, of course, we're still doing IFPA, but it gives us a little more flexibility to do something that is more creative and experimental that we can get away with, which is cool. So, yeah, Monday nights I have not gone to yet. Like I said, I have to pick and choose and choose wisely because otherwise I'd be playing pinball every single night, which even I think that's too much for me, which is shocking to hear me say that. But there's a time where you need a break from it. But Calneva is going strong. We had a tournament just recently that I missed out on, but there's another one coming up, I think, if I'm not mistaken, the end of this month, which is a Transformers Pro launch party that they're going to have. And now Jason added 21 games at Calneva now. So he added a Oktoberfest, a X-Men Pro that he just purchased, a Venom that he just got that he took out of one of the locations that closed up, and he also put in a WrestleMania, the old Data East version. Cool. So, yeah. Royal Rumble. Thank you very much. Royal Rumble. Yeah, so pretty awesome. Terms still going on at Press Start, Terms going on at Elbow Room, and having the worst month ever for playing pinball for me. I haven't been able to make a first place yet, so I'm working on it. But having fun and really enjoying the summer and knowing that two-week school is starting soon, I don't have to worry about it. I can still enjoy my time and not have to go to those stupid meetings and those icebreakers and worrying about my kids they've got to teach And coming up with lesson plans, that's all behind me. Mr. Retirement. Mr. Retirement is here actually officially in only a few more weeks. So July 31st is my last official day with the state and Walsh County School District. So anyway, yeah, that's what's going on in Reno. Lots of fun stuff and more things coming in the future as more games get announced. So stay tuned. Right on.
    90:36
    Well, like Dan did. Well, have fun following that up, Spencer. Yeah, that's, you know what, man, this is what we got going, so I just let everybody run with it. No, that's cool.
    90:48
    So just like Dan did, I was actually inspired by Dan when I was out. We spent all that time playing Black Knight Sword of Rage with the Shaker. And it's funny you mention Royal Rumble because that was the first, that was like the third game I'd ever owned and the first DMD or more modern game. And that came with a shaker motor stocked from the factory. It really enhanced the gameplay. And so I got a shaker motor and put in Dungeons and Dragons. And it's pretty cool. And it's enhanced the gameplay a bit. And we've been through a really major heat wave here, which are still in the middle. A lot of us have been miserable hot. So beyond working, I just don't want to go anywhere.
    91:28
    And so the way our house is, the basement's always way cooler in the winter and way warmer in the summer because all the ductwork's right above your head.
    91:38
    It's nice and cool down here. So I've been playing more Dungeons and Dragons, and I've been playing a Eleanor Weavehart character trying to open up the ranger because I hadn't opened up, you know, I'd opened up the Bard and whatever other characters. So I'd opened up two other characters, but I hadn't opened the Ranger.
    91:59
    And so I'd been getting up to this one section where you go on this adventure and you fight like, you go to like four levels of a dungeon. And at this level, you finally get to the Beholder, which is like one of the bosses, kind of like a mini wizard mode. And I get like down to one hit on this thing and I'd lose my third ball and that would be the game over. So I start all over at the beginning of that level and just keep doing it. So I finally, about what, a week ago, I get through it and then there's a goldfish in this area of the dungeon just sitting in a fish tank or a bull. And so the character grabs the goldfish that's talking to it and says, oh, no, that wasn't a real Beholder you were fighting, Xanathar, whatever his name is. It's like, that was just a mirage. Here's the real one now. And he crashes through a wall like the Kool-Aid man, and he got to fight his second one. And then I immediately, of course, drained. So I said, you know what, man, I just took a late Saturday night and just said, I'm getting through this. And so 20, 25 more games later, I got through it and opened up and unlocked the Ranger. I was so pissed off about that because, like, hey, Kool-Aid, like, what the hell, man? You know, I really wish I actually would have said that.
    93:18
    What's that? You sent us the most hilarious text ever after that happened. And I mean, if we didn't have some idea what you were saying, it like wouldn't have made any sense to anybody at all. Like it sounded like you were having a trip. That's what you said. You said, are you having a stroke? You were just like, I'm all the way to the Beholder battle after like 50 or 10s. Then Helena Waveheart grabs the fish from the ball. Then I get hit. Oh, that Beholder was just an illusion. Now I have to fight the real Beholder. He's holding the staff of Palencar. And you're just like, you're like, dude, what are you on? And can I get some? Like the text reads like you are ethically pissed, but you're nerding out to like the highest level of like, like, oh, it's awesome.
    94:08
    Yeah, then I sent you guys videos with the arrow that says fish. See the fish in the bowl? Because we started laughing at you because we're like, dude, are you having a stroke? Are you smoking crack? Like, we knew, like, at least I knew what you were talking about, but it's just like, if I had just showed this text to some random stranger, they would have been like, oh, man, this guy, we need to get him some help. Yeah, that was your first response was like, are you having a stroke? Or no, wait, are you on gummies? And I'm like, no, no, I'm fine. So you can see it in the video.
    94:44
    Mark's just like, whoa. I want some of that. So in the video, it's like when it's just like still photography, like sketches, but it kind of moves. You'll see the character holding the fish full. And then when you're finding the beholder, if you look in the corner, I never even bought it because I'm too busy looking at the play field. And then in the video I'm watching and Mickey took a video for me to show you guys and he zooms in. I'm like, oh, the fish is in the corner and it's animated. So it's like moving and breathing and it'll kind of like say something once in a while, mood slips.
    95:19
    Yeah, so the second Beholder you fight, he's got the staff of Palantar. And you're like, so, oh, it's not bad enough. I got to fight a Beholder. Now I got to fight a Beholder who's got the staff as well. And because that one that I forget what character now So he on the back So that like the first boss you beat If you beat him you go through like 10 levels of fighting different monsters and then you fight him and he drops the staff and you have a choice for you to grab the staff or go after him So you go after him, and then you've got to fight like six dragons. But the gold dragon, when you get an extra ball, the gold dragon brings it to you. He's like a good dragon, kind of like a luck dragon, so he will help you. Fight these other dragons. Wow. So, yeah. Oh, yeah. There's, you know, it's, I'm getting pretty far through the game now, and it's at code point 101, so we had that big code drop where every game got more code updates. They updated some even more gameplay, and they seem to have fixed all the bugs, so it's running pretty smooth and everything's swollen. But, yeah, I still got to wait to get through the whole game, but I'm making progress. But it just, I've been playing this thing for a while trying to get through that beholder to get to the next. What's that? Isn't that just the perfect home game? That's what I was going to say. It kind of is. It's like I mentioned earlier with Sonic. Like, Sonic, the way that the rules go, maybe this is an evolution of pinball gameplay. This is an evolution of pinball gameplay in another direction, right? This is taking it out of the just, okay, I'm going to hammer on safe shots and get a high score. And it's taking you down the storytelling route in a very, you know, in a pretty deep way that I don't know if any other game really has ever attempted to do. I mean, I'm sure Dwight's, you know, the mastermind of this because he's apparently a huge D&D fanatic and he's probably just banging away feverishly on those keys, you know, coming up with these storylines and these just weird little details that, you know, So the ones who know, know. Yeah. Which is awesome. Elizabeth is also working on the game code, too. Not anymore. Now she only works on Transformers. Oh, okay. But she was. Hands off my girl. Yeah. But she was, which really helped. That's why I want to play more Kong, because she's on that code, and Jaws as well, because she's on that code. And she's kind of the same thing, like, oh, let's have this, let's have this. Yeah, Tos, she did some of the side modes, some of the really fun side modes. Yeah, right. Elizabeth is a genius. She's an awesome coder. I'm a fan of hers. Every time I hear she's bringing a breath of fresh air. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And again, the guy who did Sonic, he's like a brand new coder kid, too, I think, and apparently a huge Sonic fan. Cool. So it's really, really cool that they're bringing in this new blood who's, you know, thinking different thoughts. But also, I mean, again, D&D, you know, it's Dwight's brainchild, and apparently, yeah, that's just, but yeah, when you were singing this story, when you were telling this tale of your high adventure, which was rad, except for the fact that you were like raging, and it was so funny. I was so fucking pissed. I've heard someone playing pinball lately. I'm going to Spencer again and I'm going to steer the bus off the road. We were at League a couple weeks ago and we're at Henry's house and we're playing J.J. Pirates and Rick didn't know to turn off plundering.
    98:59
    Adam calls from the other room. He's like, hey, can we plunder? And apparently like people have been asking that all night and they wouldn't have been saying no. And I was just like, sure, I don't care because I was sure he was going to plunder for me. And so Adam does his plundering and George steps up and he's like, where the fuck did all my points go?
    99:21
    I was, oh dude, I was hella weak. Now, of course we adjusted it, right? We gave him back his points. But oh my God, man, it was the funniest thing. That is hilarious. It's the second, it's the most pissed I'd ever heard anybody until your first post the other day. I almost put my hand through the glass. You were like so mad, but so articulate. It was amazing. Yeah, I literally almost put my fist through the glass. I was so fucking pissed. I know it, man. Remember, I was about to open my garage door and throw turtles down the driveway, but my truck was parked in the way.
    99:56
    It's great that, you know, it's great that, you know, you can get this kind of emotional response, but it's cool that it goes into that much detail building the scenario for you to be able to play. And I think that's a fish and then the staff of Helen are the not going to fight it. It's like, what are you even talking about, man? You need to take a step back. It's like Dwight is the dungeon master, right? He is. He is 100% true. He is the dungeon master and he's making the best story ever that you're experiencing through his coding and his imagination. It's awesome. And you picked a perfect game, Spencer. Yeah, so for like three months I've been playing this level. Like I'll go play other characters because I need a break from it. And then trying to get to the Beholder, Xan, whatever his name is, Xanathar.
    100:50
    Because I beat Sandmaster twice and got the staff and all that stuff. So I probably get it twice because I've been down to like one tentacle thing left. It shoots out a blaster and I drain or whatever. So I finally get through it. And she's talking to the fish. I'm like, oh, cool. I'm going to get a cool treasure. We're going to get, you know, I'm thinking we're going to get the Ranger opened up. And then you're like, oh, no, you're going to get the Kool-Aid man. Oh, yeah. No, Kool-Aid man's like, oh, no, this is the real one. You've just been firing a thing. And yeah, it does. It's like, and here he comes busting through a wall now like the fucking Kool-Aid man. And I was like, oh, yeah. I was like, oh, yeah, I got the staff of Palantar, too. Oh, great. And then I'm going to drain, you know. And that's what I was raving to you guys immediately after that, bro. And like the wonderful friends we are, we spend like half hour just giving you shit about it. Oh yeah, oh yeah, no, it was like, yeah, like again, like the best friends you are, it's like, oh yeah, let's fuck with Spencer unmercifully for the next hour online. It wasn't unmerciful. No, I know, I'm just messing with it. There was some mercy in there, but I mean, you know, you couldn't pass up on that opportunity. No. And Mark's response just, whoa.
    102:08
    It would have been better if it was like Mark has left the chat. Yeah, it was something like, whoa, that's really deep. I didn't know it was that deep.
    102:22
    I can't relate, but I feel real bad for you. I do it, you know. I was just like, man, that was the best day ever. Spencer just nerded out so hard. Yeah, I was like, quote, whoa, sounds serious. Yeah, no, you literally said that.
    102:43
    It was something else hilarious. What kind of Harry Potter bullshit is this? Right? Oh, yeah, I said, are you talking about D&D Pinball? That's what he said out there. Yeah, are you talking about D&D Pinball? Yeah. Like I said, we just thought you were ripping balls. That was so funny. Yeah, it was, yeah, it was Dan was like, because after my long tirade, he goes, are you having a stroke? He's kind of got the little laughing crying emoji. And I'm like, no, but I'm fucking pissed as hell, you know. And yeah, yeah, so. Don't get into the good shit.
    103:20
    Oh, yeah, here we go. Marks was like, so, okay, I can't relate to you, but I can't relate to a Sarn Free Law.
    103:33
    I'm the three-level first question again, man, it was so funny. That's right, I just asked, I can't relate.
    103:44
    If you called me on the phone, it wouldn't have been nearly as funny, though. Oh my gosh. Oh, man, that's funny.
    103:55
    Oh, yeah, the code is super deep for sure. Yeah. That's right. So, yeah, so if you have a limited budget and you want to get this game and thinking, hey, is this going to last a while in my collection? The worst part about this game for me after having a year and a half is there's one shot that's so tight. It's just frustrating as hell. It's on the right. It's the little shot that it's like a little quick hairpin. The right ramp that comes back down to the magnet just above the upper right flipper and the magnet will grab it in most modes. And there's times where I'm not really trying to make that shot where I make it smooth as butter. And then there's times when I'm trying to make that shot to lock it up to get either to the upper loop or the upper ramp. I cannot make that shot to save my life. That's called every shot in the history of pinball. Yeah, it is. Other than that, I mean. I'll hit it by accident when I don't need it. Yeah, when you don't need it, yeah. And then as soon as I need it, I'm like, I'll have the perfect stack up ready to go, and I'm just like, all I got to do is hit this one shot, and it's going to be, it's going to start a series of events. I'm going to get 100 million points. It's going to be awesome. Break it, break it, break it, drain, game over. You know what's funny is getting through all of that, that whole quest was not like if you're going for points like you were playing it in a competitive setting, that's the worst thing to do because the points weren't worth shit. Right. So then like two days later, I'm just playing the game. I forgot what character I was playing when I played the game, but I set a new high score. And I was just playing and having fun going, hey, I'm having a pretty good game, you know. And it's like, so I got it up. I still haven't hit a billion yet.
    105:52
    But I did hit 825,973,370. So I'm closer to a billion. You know, Mickey's got over two billion on that game. I don't know how the hell he got that. Because I got all the multiballs. And there's three multiballs that I'm aware of. Dragon Multiball.
    106:14
    You know, he's got two things you don't, bro. Yep. Reflexes and vision. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. So there's Dragon Multiball, which on the pros is six-ball multiball out of the gate.
    106:29
    There's Gelatinous Cube Multiball, which can be like two, three, or four-ball multiball. Can never get it. Never can get it. Oh, it's so hard. Yeah, it is, but I can get it pretty regularly. Okay. If I'm really focused on trying to get it, you know, kind of thing, you know, because, yeah, you got to shoot it up the left ramp, which feeds around. It's the left ramp, so it's a loop shot in the far left, and then the ramp drops down, and it feeds to the far right ramp return. It's a nice long shot. And there's a time constraint, right? You have to hit it or you have to start all over again or something like that, right?
    107:12
    It's like a hurry up almost. Yeah, you get it lit. Yeah. And then you got to hit it and it's variable. It's like two, three, four, five times sometimes where you got to hit it, depending on which character you're playing. Okay. Because there are variables between the characters. Like the ranger I just unlocked, ranged weapon shots, he does real well and scores higher points with. So then after you get those two and you got to go visit the dungeon, so you do all three of those things and then you get Tavern Brawl multiball, which I've only ever played as a two-ball multiball until about a month ago, I got an add-a-ball. So you can get an add-a-ball arrow lit and add it to a three-ball and I don't know beyond that. But yeah, so that's how I did it and I got it to an 800, almost 900 million score. From that game or just on another game that you played? It was on a different game. It was on a different game, yeah. Yeah, it was like two nights after because I just went out and said, I'll turn on the game and play and try playing the new character, the ranger. Okay, so you started from the beginning is what you're saying. Well, yeah, well, I started with a different character. Okay, okay. Yeah, so.
    108:27
    So almost like a fresh game but with a new character. Right, so now I have all the characters. There's still a boss and then like I think the wizard mode left. And there's other stuff that I haven't got to yet, other adventures and like that. So there's still a lot of stuff in the game I haven't seen yet. And then of course there's the unlockable character that you can only get with the top or which still isn't out yet. Oh yeah, that's right. So yeah, so I'm a little bit, you know, miffed on that. But, I mean, I'm probably not going to buy the Topper anyway because, as I've told everybody, it's like Topper won't fit in my basement. The game barely fits in my basement.
    109:12
    I've got about two and a half, maybe three inches of clearance above, maybe about three inches because I've got – Yeah, that's not enough. No, I've got a crane game toy and it's an official licensed Dungeons and Dragons toy and it's a red dragon. So it's got the old tag that says official D&D, whatever. And that's sitting up on top of the – it's our unofficial topper. It's sitting up on top of the head. So I have that. So that's my Dungeons and Dragons and having fun with you guys and texting a mad rage because I was so funny.
    109:51
    Because I had it. I thought, oh, my God, I've got this. I've got it because I've been trying to beat this thing for literally like three months. Not every day, but, you know, a couple times a week I go down and play a few games and I'm going to try to get past this tonight. And because I remember, Mark, this has been a while, when one night you were playing and you got through Sandmaster. Yeah. And you got through the, like, what is it, five or six dragons you got to battle? Yes, I did. Yes. That was awesome. Yeah. Yeah, it is. But it's like, it's a workout, man. It's not like five minutes. It's just like 35, 40 minutes. It's like Lord of the Rings, man, where you're in for the long haul. You know, you better do your cardio and your stretching because you're going to be a while, you know. Pack a lunch. Pack a lunch, man. Bring a sandwich with you. Bring a towel. Yeah, bring a towel because, yeah, it's like, you know, it's like Richard Swims in the corner going, come on, give me five more. You can do this. You know, it's like, no, my knees hurt. But you have to go through all these different levels of the dungeon and fight all these different monsters. It's like, you know, I was fighting floating skeleton heads that were on fire, okay? I was like, oh, that's kind of fucking cool.
    111:06
    You know, you know what I'd love to see is some Ray Harryhausen shit with this. Well, I kind of did because I bought minotaurs, so that's kind of cool. So, you know.
    111:14
    But, yeah, that's... Wow. That's got to be the deepest game in rules that I can think of. Is that there, man? Dungeons and Dragons, man. I leave the content. Like, it's got content. Like I said, man, when you're finally done with it, you know, or just bring it over to Uncle Dan's house. Yeah, really. The funny thing was, we were talking about it, too, and you were like, I think I'm done with Dungeons and Dragons. I'm like, dude, you can't be done with Dungeons and Dragons yet. Dungeons and Dragons is too good. It is. There's definitely still stuff to do. There is. And here's the wall. I can play a shallow game over and over and over. Like, I can play through Adam's Family, and I can get to tour the mansion and just have a good time. But, you know, eventually, like, that's going to get, you know, you're going to get tired of that, right? And you won't want to go back to that game. Or, I mean, if you do, you're just going to be like the final frontier. It's like, I love the game. I can do it once or twice, but I don't have it at home so it doesn't get too old. And every time I do, you know, I have that game for a while. I get to the wizard mode a bunch of times. Like, okay, I'm done with it. Like Dungeons & Dragons feels like that game that like you're never going to run out of shit to do on it. Yeah. And they may update the code again down the road. So, you know. Yeah, but that's where I get. I wouldn't hold my breath. Yeah, I'm not. It's not going to happen. Yeah, I'm not because I still got plenty of stuff to do on it. But, no, I get frustrated sometimes because, and, you know, Russ and I were talking about shooting play much. She doesn't really care for it. She's like, it's too hard. I'm like, it is a really hard game. It is a hard game. But when you finally, and that thing, I get frustrated because I'll hit a wall. Like I hit a wall with the Beholder, Xanathar. I could not get past that guy. That's why I was so pissed because I'm like, oh, I beat him. I got it. It's like, no, you didn't. There he is right there. I was just an imposter. I was like, what the hell, man? Oh, man. Yeah, that was good because I'm talking to a co-worker, and he's a dungeon master. He's been playing for decades, and he plays every Saturday night. And he's come over and played the game a few times, and he really loves it. And we're talking, he goes, yeah, he goes, yeah, that particular character does that kind of thing a lot. And I'm like, oh, now you tell me. I wish I had known this, you know. So it's kind of like in Ghostbusters, like, Ray, next time you ask if you're a god, you say yes. Yeah, exactly.
    113:37
    Yeah, so that's my Dungeons & Dragons adventure, and I put the shaker motor. So one of the cool features on the Shaker Mode, and I'll leave off with this, is when you end a ball and it's counting up the bonus, it gives a little pulse, and then a bigger pulse at the end of your bonus. Or you can just hit the flipper button and it'll end it right there. So that's kind of a cool thing that's doing with the... The Shaker Mode is very nicely integrated in that game. They've done a nice job with that. Yeah, I can't imagine that's not a great game for a shaker motor, especially with the dragon battle. Yeah, it is. Yeah. So that was it. So the only thing I'll add that's completely unrelated, but it's in my head and we haven't talked about it, in case anybody out there that doesn't know this, Venom is heading into the vault. Because you had mentioned Venom, Mark. I did. Yeah, Venom is now heading to the vault. So if you want one, grab one or grab a used one. Right.
    114:39
    Dude, you can get used Venom Premium so cheap. Yes, you can. Yeah, no. So, yeah. And it's not the world's worst game, man. It's not. There's a lot there to like, but it definitely was not his best play field. Right.
    114:57
    No. Dungeons & Dragons is a much, much better Mark Eddy play field. I think so. Yeah. Or Ryan Eddy play field. Brian Eddy. But I don't think Denim's terrible. I got Brian Eddy and Mark Ritchie confused.
    115:11
    Conflaggerated. So, yeah, so if you're on the fence about Dungeons and Dragons, you know, and you've got the coin to get one, a newer or a used one, grab it. Get it while we get it. It's such a cool game. It is such a cool game, so I'm really still enjoying it and having fun. And I'm kind of just poking around looking at, maybe there's another mod or so I'll do. So I did also do a good cleaning on it. It wasn't really dirty or anything, but I've really not done anything at all to the game. And then the thing was spinning fine, but not to my liking. So I took a Q-tip and a tiniest little drop of silicone lube, and now that thing, I'm kind of worried it might set itself on fire. It spins so much. Yeah. I had that super lube stuff and that thing. My spinner is spinning like crazy. Yeah. After the show, you should check your audits and see how many plays you have on it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, actually, I can pull it up on my phone. Well, I can pull up how many plays I've done. Okay. So I've done exactly 700 plays. Oh, wow. Just me. I think I have about 1,100, almost 1,200 plays on it. But I can check it. Wow. Yeah.
    116:22
    See, that's what happens when you actually play your games. I know. So, yeah. Yeah, so people who have these games are like a year old. It's like got 32 plays on it. It's like, why did you even buy it? That's where I'm at, man. I'm like, how could you, you can't even get, you can't even get like through the first level of the dungeon on 32 plays, man, you know.
    116:42
    And that's part of the cool part, too, is you're going down these levels. So you're meeting new people and you're talking to people and you're fighting and like, well, they want a deal. They want a tribute for it to cross into the next level of the dungeon. You don't want to give them one. So you find them. Okay. Right.
    116:57
    And, you know, again, you're 700, I think 700 plays in, you know, and you're still adventuring, you're still living the journey. Yeah, that's a perfect home game. Like, that's awesome. Yeah, it's so cool. That's so cool. So, yeah, it is. But see, now I really want to transform us, too, because you guys keep talking it up, and I've been watching. I watched the video of you guys playing it, Dan, and I also did watch the one the other night of you guys playing, And I'm like, oh, that's so cool.
    117:32
    That is such a good game that, like, again, it became kind of a meme game that everybody just loved just to shit on. And, like, it just, it needs, it still needs a little bit of help. Like, mine is still a little bit twitchy sometimes where, for some reason, just for me lately, which is nice, It'll just be like, hey, you want a couple extra balls in play, Dan? And I'll be like, yeah, sure, that'll be great.
    117:59
    Yeah, it just releases them for no reason. Yeah, it's just like, here you go. But, like, it really is just a super awesome game to play and, you know, just looks great. And it's got a lot of good stuff going on and a lot of great call-outs and a lot of content there that I think that people will never see because they play it once. They just go like, ooh, this game's fruity, and I got killed by the UFO, or by the tank. And it's just like, don't shoot at the tank. The tank is designed to murder your face. Right, wait until you have a ball saver, then tee up on that sucker. But yeah, that's just such a good game that people just, you know, just crap on because they don't understand it. But, you know, awesome, awesome Dennis Nordman game.
    118:47
    There's rewritten code, though, right, coming? There's supposed to be more code and, you know, God bless American Pinball because they're crazy. But, you know, they were talking about, yeah, we got all these new sculpts and I think we're going to do another super limited edition of it. And I was like, man, the last Galactic Tank Force super limited edition didn't turn out so good. You guys ended up blowing them out at $6,500. But, you know, let's see what happens. I do think Galactic Tank Force is the game where American Pinball, I don't think it was their downfall from a design aspect. Because I think it was their best game. I think it's their downfall from the, yeah, we're going to try to charge $16,000 for it. Marketing kind of made them suffer a little bit. Yeah, they got a little too cute. Yeah, they did. They got a little too cute. Everybody was willing to give them a chance. People who played it loved it, but they got a little too cute. Yeah, keep it simple. Yeah, yeah. Make a game. Show us the game. Sell us the game. It's not very hard. Right. It's not rocking. Jersi Jack was kind of getting there with Sonic. Like, they didn't go too bad, but even still, I feel like the release of Sonic was a very weird thing where they gave us, like, the one-second teaser of the day on our Jersi Jack games. The only thing that I'm excited about with that was it gave me a reason to turn on Guns N' Roses and just let it run a track mode so I could get a little peek at Sonic, which I think is genius. Like, it definitely will make me stay integrated if you're giving me some sort of worthwhile content besides an ad for Harry Potter. Yep. Give me a sneak preview. Give me a behind the scenes. Give me something that I won't see anywhere else because I'm dumb enough to let you pipe advertising into my house over the Internet.
    120:35
    Right. Yep. Yeah, man. So I think that's about our show for tonight. Anybody else got anything else? Before we do shout-outs and thank-yous? Nope. I'll have a trip report after I come back from Milwaukee in August for District 82 for the Super Classic Series. Nice. So I'll be looking forward to that, sharing that with people. And other than that, yeah, that's about what's going on for me.
    121:04
    Right on. Yeah, no, we're just continuing on with CCPL, you know, Season 39 here in Lodi. And like I said, every other Thursday we're doing our Twitch stream with Elk Grove Pinball. So if you're interested in that, you know, just watch the Facebook page for an announcement when we're going to stream. And if you have any suggestions, throw them out there. You never know what we'll be able to find. Yeah, keep streaming. I'm really enjoying that too. So keep that content. You and Rick and the gang, keep that content coming. It's really cool. So we're all really enjoying that. Oh, Mark, before we go, you got an update on your James Bond too, right? I did, yeah. It was a minor update, but it did change the interface to be able to go into the settings. So it had the new interface. But as far as gameplay, it didn't change anything. But man, I just played it the other day again. Now that my daughter's not going to classes as much, I have more time to play it. I actually had Jeff Reinhold over and we had a killer game, like a 45-minute game between my son, Jeff and I. And, man, that game is so good. That code is so good. Every time I play it, I'm like, oh, I want to get a Transformers or get something different, you know, but then I'm like, oh, this game is so good. Every time I play it, I just love it. So it's not going anywhere. It's not. It's just I love the code on that. And like I said before, I love it how you have to finish a multiball to get another reward for a multiball or finish a mode to earn a multiball. It's just, ooh, I love that. Instead of just, you know, hit the lock shot and then start it. You know, there's more to it. But I love that game. I love it.
    122:52
    Yeah. Well done, then. Cool. Who would like to start? You know, Mark, why don't you go ahead and start to shout out some thank yous? All right. Well, I'm going to give a shout out to all the listeners, all the people visiting our Facebook page. I'm noticing the traffic is going up and people are watching those reels and listening to our show. So I hope it gains more and more popularity because we really love sharing our just talking about pinball and about fun things that are happening. And I just want to thank all the listeners. I haven't done that. So, of course, all you guys always, it's pretty obvious, but thanks listeners for listening to us and I hope we get more.
    123:32
    I like it. Dan, what you got? Well, I want to thank Spencer for probably the best laugh that I've had in weeks. I played with, sure.
    123:43
    You know, Spencer meltdowns are always the best meltdowns, you know, and a big thanks to Rick, Kendra, Adam, Dan Costa, Jeff Claybaugh, everyone who came around for my little Transformers unboxing, everyone who hung around for the pinball stream.
    123:59
    We've been having a lot of fun with Elk Grove Pinball doing those streams. Big thanks to, as always, Jamie for just tolerating shenanigans and for telling her people to come and check out our stream. They're a very interesting bunch. And definitely, you know, big thanks as always to you guys for coming along on the ride.
    124:25
    Yes, sir. Yeah, man, as always, thank you to my best friends and co-hosts, you two, for getting together with me once a month and talking pinball and laughing and joking and having a good time. And, you know, not calling 911 when I have a severe meltdown online. And Mark brought such a great point. I'm going to have his color welfare check.
    124:52
    He's downstairs screaming at the Pinball machine. We don't know. I think it's in Wyoming. You guys are also spread apart. It'll be like three days later. They're like, he's fine.
    125:02
    He's fine. We had lemonade and ate cookies on the porch. Yeah. Cookies. Oh, cookies. Yeah, and all the listeners and all the people have been watching our videos and our reels and commenting and responding and supporting our little endeavor here. You know, it's still fun. You know, again, we don't make any money doing this. We're not – and to the people that do do it and make a buck or two, got no beef with them. God love you for it. But, yeah, I mean, we're just having fun, you know, and putting out some content. And I want to shout out and thank you to all the content creators because, you know, during my workday, man, I'm listening to a lot of the other podcasts and you guys keep me entertained and informed and I really enjoy it. So thank you so much to everybody listening and creating cool content and creating games so I can be in my basement yelling and cursing and, you know, like Dan, you know, drag it upstairs and throw it to the curb. By the way, for those listening, we're not opposed to making money, so if you want to pay us.
    126:07
    Yeah. We work for pinballs and pinball parts. There you go. And barbecue cornets. Pro-pain accessories. Exactly.
    126:20
    So I'm going to wind it up. We've done shout-outs and thank-yous. Oh, hey, do we have a date on California Extreme? Oh, yeah. Yes, it's on CaliforniaExtreme.com. Take it out, Spinner. All right, all right. So email us at TheSpinnerIsLit at gmail.com. Visit our Facebook page.
    126:42
    You can listen to us on our home flagship at SoundCloud and iTunes and not Stitcher. What's the other one? Podbean. Podbean carries us and whatever fine podcasts are sold. So this has been episode 89, Summertime Fun-er. Anyway, play Pinball.
    127:04
    Keep America Strong. Pirates of the Caribbean, Attack from Mars, Deadpool, Jocko, Jocko, Jocko, Jocko, Jocko, Jocko, Jocko, Jocko, Jocko.