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Concord Champ '25: Quarters, Tiebreaker on King Kong Prem by Stern. Streamed from The Flipper Room.

DRI374·video·41m 44s·analyzed·Nov 18, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.020

TL;DR

Concord Champ '25 King Kong Premium quarters match with code update analysis and battery failure.

Summary

Live tournament commentary from Concord Champ '25 quarters match on King Kong Premium by Stern, featuring Dustin vs. Jared and a tiebreaker. Commentators discuss gameplay mechanics, recent code updates (retry feature, upper flipper flip counting), mode strategies (Pterodactyl, Crash the Gate), and machine setup. Notable technical issue: battery died mid-game, requiring restart.

Key Claims

  • There is a bug in King Kong Premium where progress on 'Dead Eye' mode carries over from player two/four to the next game

    medium confidence · Commentators discussing a reported issue where 'the progress made for player two and four on the rapid fire mode...carries over to the next game'

  • King Kong Premium recently added a 'retry' feature for completed modes to address repetitive gameplay in NYC events

    medium confidence · Commentators note 'They added that thing as well. You can retry your scene, right? and finish it off' and discuss how this is a recent change to mode design

  • King Kong Premium code update now counts upper flipper flips toward the 'Flips' mode counter

    high confidence · Commentator: 'the note on the game says now the upper flipper flips count as flips' and 'Because a flip is a flip'

  • Virtual locks are being used at this tournament venue

    high confidence · Commentator states: 'So, for the information for chat there, they have it set on the virtual locks. So, the virtual lock makes the game play like a pro.'

  • Crash the Gate is a new mode recently added to King Kong Premium

    medium confidence · Commentators say 'there was something in there I didn't recognize' and 'That was a 31 now' in reference to new mode callouts

  • The game setup at this venue includes rubber on the center post, making it easier to achieve higher scores

    medium confidence · Commentator: 'It's probably set up easier with rubber on the center post and stuff like that. So, it's probably in the billions.'

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm happy to see Dustin got his jacket on because we know it's going to be business if he takes it off.”

    Commentator @ early game — Casual reference to a player's superstition/power move ritual

  • “You definitely want to get something bigger like a pterodactyl or something. Okay, with this multiball.”

    Commentator @ mid-match — Strategy advice on mode selection during multiball play

  • “the note on the game says now the upper flipper flips count as flips. So, I don't know if that's something how they must have coded that in.”

    Commentator @ late match — Documentation of a significant code change addressing player exploitation of upper flipper mechanics

  • “So, for the information for chat there, they have it set on the virtual locks. So, the virtual lock makes the game play like a pro.”

    Commentator @ during multiball — Clarification of tournament setup choice affecting game difficulty

  • “Crash the gate gets nutty. Yeah, the supers. Yeah. 2 minutes.”

    Commentator @ late match — Assessment of a newly discovered/added mode's high scoring potential

Entities

DustinpersonJaredpersonJack DriscollpersonKing Kong PremiumgameStern PinballcompanyConcord Champ '25eventThe Flipper RoomvenueArcade Legacyperson

Signals

  • ?

    code_update: Upper flipper flips now count toward 'Flips' mode counter, addressing previous player exploitation where staging upper flippers without engaging main flippers avoided flip count

    high · Commentator explicitly states: 'the note on the game says now the upper flipper flips count as flips' and discusses how 'the players were getting so good at staging the upper flippers without the flippers counting'

  • ?

    code_update: New 'retry' feature added to modes allowing players to restart failed attempts with reduced shot requirements

    medium · Commentators discuss: 'They added that thing as well. You can retry your scene, right? and finish it off' with context that this was added in recent NYC events updates

  • ?

    product_concern: Dead Eye mode progress carries over between games for players 2 and 4, creating unfair advantage where subsequent games start with pre-lit features

    medium · Commentators note: 'the progress made for player two and four on the rapid fire mode...carries over to the next game' and 'So, it holds a value'

  • ?

    design_innovation: New 'Crash the Gate' mode recently added to King Kong Premium with high-value super jackpots and repeating target sequences that can be cycled multiple times

    medium · Commentators unfamiliar with mode initially, discussing its mechanics: 'Crash the gate gets nutty' and tracking 50+ million point supers from repeated mode completion

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Recent code updates have significantly increased scoring ceiling; commentators estimate game-over (GC) is now in billions rather than hundreds of millions

Topics

Code updates and bug fixesprimaryTournament gameplay and strategyprimaryKing Kong Premium mechanics and modesprimaryMachine setup and configurationsecondaryLive streaming and commentarysecondaryPlayer skill and techniquesecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.75)— Commentators are enthusiastic about gameplay quality, appreciative of recent code improvements, and engaged with the competitive action. Minor frustration with battery failure mid-game, but overall tone is professional and supportive of both players.

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

at none other than archaeology's leading lady, the fearless and formidable Anaro. And by her side, the Are we going to practice? Jack Driscoll. Together, the adventurers set foot on the notorious terror island. How many players did he punch in the I did not see it to be? Uh, just one. Yeah, they're practicing. I need I need to rest. Okay. started a mode. In trouble and you're looking at the guy who's going to get her out. Make note of that both these players are [music] like they're not worried about hitting shots. They're worried about how to control the ball down at the flipper. Now he Dustin had had a danger or two before that. So, all right. Now [music] he's testing the chill, but it was moving. Got earbuds in your ear earplugs. All right. Here we go. Michael, this is it. This is live. Yeah. The TD versus uh the young aspir aspiration. They've been recycling or uh restarting Kong. Someone was saying there might be a bug or something that holds progress or some weird thing going on. But yeah, yeah, what they said was that the uh the the the progress made for player two and four on the um the rapid fire mode, whatever. What is it called? Uh, dead eyee. Dead eyee. Yeah. The state of that carries over to the next game for player two and four. Oh, that is weird. Yeah. So, it holds a value. Yeah. Makes sense. So, so basically you can you can start with like dead eyee lifts basically. So, and that that's a lot of free points if you know how to plunge. All right. Oh, went for the uh gong skill shot. I assume he's going to try to get his locks lit. Yeah. I'm happy to see Dustin got his jacket on because we know it's going to be business if he takes it off. [laughter] Uhoh. That's one of his uh [clears throat] power moves. All right. Where's he going? Single ball. I would go the uh cross the cast and yeah if you can crisscross valuable it is and it's also safe right when you're in and you can only play this mode in single ball right you can't play it in multiball it's too chaotic well you can play but it doesn't make any sense and another bonus of it as well is that you while you have so many ball paths leading there you can also make progress on your locks Right. While you're in across the C. So he's not getting the crisscrossing going. Watch out. Why go down? All right. Now he's getting some crisscrossing. There's a 3x award. Good patience there. Didn't overreact to battle. All right, that mode's Oh. Oh, another metal bounce. Wow. What is going on? Yeah, we got pro players here. They know how to bounce on on on metal post. I'm going to have to practice that at home. Where is that shot? Wow. That's Dustin's saying, "Where's where's that shot when I Okay, when I get it." So, is he trying to hit the island? Is that what is he shooting for? Or I think so. I think he wants to climb. Oh, nice nudge. He still doesn't have his locks going. There he found it. All right, one more target. The elusive target. There it is. Yeah, I was starting to worry if it was stuck or something, but let's see if he post passes for a lock shot. Oh, no. You can do it that way, but it's a little bit tighter. He was practicing the uh the post pass. So, all right. This is this should be a lock shot, right? All right. When's it when we going to go for the uh the mode? Right now. I always like to do it a little earlier versus later cuz you might start your multiball. Oh. What is going on with now? Let it drop back down. Huh. Yeah, this is Yeah. Roll it over. Start your mode. Yeah, you definitely want to get something [snorts] bigger like a pterodactyl or something. Okay. With this multiball. He's got his mystery lid, too. He'll probably get that though during multiball. What is that like 10 mil, I think. Okay, it's got it set up. Yeah. I now what are you going to go? Center ramp then right orbit. Use the gas bomb. Oh, nice. Post. Oh. Oh, he's fighting. Oh my god. There you go. Yeah, I think you should have went there originally. Yeah, on the fly. No. Yeah. And the thing is like, all right, beautiful. I chicken on that shot because what I do when it comes like I just like ski pass, post pass and then shoot it because hitting the standups next to the gong is just so dangerous. Okay, now he's need some drops to light some jackpots. So, which mode did he pick anyway? You know, I didn't even see. Oh, he's in. Oh my god. One more for Adabal. There it is. I think he's playing pterodactyl. Yeah, that's the one with the targets as well, right? The drop targets. And you collect on the All right. You got it lit right here. Stage. Jackpot is lit. Go up and around. That's not going to make it. No. One time's up. Oh, very nice. Stage this. Ed Boon. Complete. Is that 15 and a half? Kong. Multiball collected. Wait, what if the map went the other way around? One. All right. Stegosaurus, he was in. That's over. All right. Oh, we backhand that area. Okay. Yeah. So, for the information for chat there, they have it set on the virtual locks. So, the virtual lock makes the game play like a pro. Yes. All right. Double jackpot. Huh? Kong letters. All right, we got another super there. Can you just fish that over there? All right. What's the value now? 8.2. You would kind of think that would be a bit more value. I know. All right. Now, what's your play? You going to climb? [music] You going to collect your mystery on the right? Double scoring. I think I'd almost go over there. 2x scoring. Nothing running. Yeah. Go to the huh combos. Yeah. So, they've changed the modes. Uh the the NYC events the last couple of releases. I'm not quite familiar with what you do there. They added that thing as well. You can retry your scene, right? and finish it off. Yeah. Oh, with less shots. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, cuz it seemed like you're just playing the same mode over and over again. Yeah, but I think if you complete it, then you can't retry it, I guess. Okay. Well, it says retry, [music] not But yeah, I don't know how it works. C will tell us. When are you going to collect? Get the extra ball. Come on. Extra ball is like 15 million probably. going to take the Kong. Yeah. Backhand that puppy. There you go. Oh, that won't work. All right. A lot of work. All right. Not a lot done. You know, he's probably not just jumping up, down, you know, up and down excited, but but okay. You know, Jared's going to have to do something. Cross the chasm. Let's see if we can get those men. Hang on for your lines and try to get across All right. Yeah, I got this. Oh, to battle T-Rex. Ah, spider banana combo gan. I don't like the looks of this place. Oh, nice in lane. All right. Uses his button scream. I think I'd abandon abandon now [music] and go for my locks. Yeah, you can't have that many standups left. Does he have a button? I don't know. Yeah, it's flashing. So, he's got he got logs, huh? He was he was going to use it. All right. There must be like one stand up left there. Oh no. Timed out. All right, there we go. All right, locks are lit. Tried to backhand that. Yeah, you got so so so many nice flowy combos on this game. It's just incredible. letter collected. You going to start it now or get your second lock? Second lock. Now, where are you going to climb or just let it drop? Okay, I like it. Clean ski pass. Clean lock. Start your mode. See, I'm always worried about just starting the multiball without the mode, but he nails the shot. Jared knows what he's doing. No, he he knows what he's doing, but he just, you know, things happen. I would pick that as well. That's an idea. All right. I like it on the fly. Ed Boon. Oh, perfect. Textbook clinic. All right. So far, this is going to been a very good answer from Jared. All right. Stage this. Oh, Jackpot is lit. All right. Uh, too many balls in play. That's probably what's going on. That might come back though. No. There's a super. Thank you. No. Yeah. Yeah. 18. No. Why was that 18? One more for Ada ball. Yeah, that's not going to work out for you, Jared. Oh, he tried. Oh, [ __ ] All right. Yeah, it's you're out pretty even Steven here. I mean, obviously everyone is going to go down swinging here. So, I'm fairly certain we're going to run out of battery on this game. Oh, really? Yeah. But I'll deal with it when it when when the day comes. Yeah. rapid. All right. What did you say? Crash the gate. Yeah, some are those are new, huh? Yeah, there was something in there I didn't recognize. There was definitely a retry, but there was also something else. Yeah. Is this where the spinner is just like really juiced? Oh, what an All right. Is that an extra ball? 150 up. Nice. It's holding the ball in there for a while. Thanks for the raid, Arcade Legacy. Appreciate it. We still got plenty of pinball on the channel here for the next couple of hours. Oh, this is a tiebreaker going into the uh semifinals. He's got to hit the spider. It's going crazy. Or is that just multiball pummel? No. Oh, nice. Jack. There you go. Double check. That was a 31 now. He's collecting now. Yeah, these points are starting [music] to explode. Yeah. Oh. Oh, where did that ball come from? Oh, did he get the animal from the No. Yeah. Where' that Why is there a boss? Is that in the new code like that? I'm not sure that coming back with grace. No. Okay. Lock. Lock number one. Dead eyes lit. Going to let it let it fall. Is it two bank drops per lock? Okay. I think each for each lock, right, gets harder and harder. Oh, that was good patience. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This temple is lit. Retry. Locked. Retry. Is it locked because you completed it? Wow. Everything on this island is like just like me. Camera's ahead. This is gold, gentlemen. Escape the scor [music] 5 mil on the punch back. I guess you want to build that before you start shooting it or if I make it to the end of this trouble. Oh, okay. Yeah, but he did a lot of good work there. So, where's he at? 500 450. Yeah. Player two, you're up. All right. Jared sort of answered on ball one. He's got a little more work to do on ball two to answer. Yeah. What did he get? They get got a multiball. First ball, right? So, yeah. But now he's got to find points somewhere else. Lost Temple is Oh, it's coming back. There's the battery. Yeah, the battery died. Yeah, we have battery dage. Yeah. A few moments later. All right, we got the screen at least. We're gonna have to get rid of the player one scores. All right, Dustin's at 591. Pummeling. Oh, look at him pummel. New York City event. Rampage. This This is the flips one, right? Yeah. See, he's hitting the action button with his elbow. He's covering up the action. My arm won't bend like that. Now, the note on the game says that, you know, in the past, like if you staged the upper flipper, it didn't count for the flips. Oh, yeah. But the note on the game says now the upper flipper flips count as flips. So, I don't know if that's something how they they they must have coded that in. Yeah. Because a flip is a flip. I should have just made it. If you flip both flippers, you lose two flips, right? That would be a little mean. But yeah, but the players were getting so good at staging the upper flippers without the flippers, you know, the flips counting. Yeah. You could just kind of exploit it. Finishing bonus up to about 61 mil. Five. You better cash out or extend his clips. Yeah. We can. It looks like the insert is flashing to extend the flip, but I don't know. Yeah, he's out now. Yeah. Oh, he did cash out. Yeah. So Jared's going to have to at least double his score. Yeah. In one ball. Dead eyee. He's going to tack on another 50. Maybe not 50, but not at this pace. No. If you can can nail the shots, you can kind of get up close to 100. But then you need to be able to if you nail every shot, you get like 100. But should be happy if you get like one super. All right. Is a super lit. Yeah. He's going up top now. Did he get that one? Yeah. All right. What? 25. another mode. Oh yeah, this is something I haven't seen. I haven't seen this crash. The gate. All right, they got some juicy shoot the blue arrow to start a hurry up, but they gone. Okay. Also, the hurry up starts at your completed mo mode value. So then like look at that 67 there, right? Yeah, that's a huge hurry up. What shot was that? That was a pterodactyl. There you go. Look at that. 58 mil. Thought he was in a little trouble there with some swing town, but no. Crash the gate award. Oh, 71. You collect it again. 6.1. Now, is there a final final? Oh, it it relights them again. So, you go through, you hit all of them, you collect all of them, then it relights them all again. So he needs to get the drop. The drop targets are the big laser lo saying crash the gate gets nutty. Yeah, the supers. Yeah. 2 minutes. Yeah. I mean, he can be doing this all day. So, he doesn't have to do anything in between. Just shoot the gate. Is Is that how this works or I don't know. Is he shoot the gun to collect the hurry up? All right. Save and hurry up. Okay. So, shoot the biplane ramp. Does he have to shoot the biplane ramp in the between here or no? Or is he just did it? Shoot the blue arrow to start a hurry up at the gong with above value. Okay, so you shot a blue arrow. These these values are getting nutty. So Jared's going to have to get to this. Yeah, bang a gong and get it on. Yeah, that's pretty much what's going on here. So where's the supers coming from then? So is that just some that that 50 million super that just seems to be sitting around? 375 million points. Jesus Christ. I'd like to clap. Yeah. All right. Let's do it, Jared. Yeah. I don't know where where the GC is sitting on this game at all, but I mean, this game is in League, right? Then they play It's probably set up easier with rubber on the center post and stuff like that. So, it's probably in the billions. Okay. So the biplane is the super jackpot shot the fish race is saying. Yeah. So he basically collected Jared scores on that one mode. It's hilarious. Yeah, that's a hit or miss that mode. Yeah, I mean that's not going to get him there. So, no. No, he it needs to do the same thing, right? I think that's uh All right. He's in some type of Oh, lizard. Just got to make sure you don't double drain out of this. Yeah, there's a nice nice little wall he built for himself there. Mhm. So, do you have to complete all the modes to get in what Dustin was in? Crash the gate. as Yeah, that's what it seemed like because like all the values there were kind of attached to one of the like five or six modes, whatever. Yeah. Um but that's definitely a new thing they've added recently. When I while I had my Kong that when you completed a mode or whatever, it was just Yeah. just started over and nothing with it. Mhm. It's all treasure hunt times one. So, where do you get that to be five instead? Because that's what he needs or 10. It's right next to the tournament playoff. he's going to have to chop down a lot of trees. Oh yeah. Yeah. You must complete all full complete of all the modes to qualify. Crash the gate. Oh. So that's where the repeating the modes comes into play. So you repeat repeat them to build up the value. That's just the game or complete them. I guess scenes used to be unavailable after you started them fail or complete. Okay. This was the one original. That was the first one, right? And they've added two more, right? Yeah. NYC events. Yeah, I think so. Is that eight 80 spins or eight? Got to be 80 spins, right? 80 spin where shoot 80 more right spinners. Oh, there's a good one. Yeah. All right. So, three then. But this is also a flip mode, too, huh? Yeah. Right. flips. Left flips. Oh, so he did a he had a drain. Yeah, the drain is like five flips kind of. Oh, he's out of flips. Yeah. All right, that didn't pay out. All right. Next next next thing we can go after. Treasure hunt that we can chase down, but it's a wood chopping. Uh-oh. I think that's it. Yeah, Justin advances and we'll be ready for semifinals here soon. Cheers.

medium · Discussion of Crash the Gate mode generating 375+ million points and commentary: 'this game is in League...It's probably set up easier with rubber on the center post...So, it's probably in the billions'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Machine battery died during tournament match, forcing game restart and score recovery; commentator notes 'we have battery damage'

    high · Commentary tracking battery failure: 'There's the battery. Yeah, the battery died' and subsequent restart procedures

  • ?

    operational_signal: Tournament using virtual locks configuration and center post rubber to affect difficulty and scoring; commentator notes this makes game play 'like a pro'

    high · Explicit statement: 'they have it set on the virtual locks. So, the virtual lock makes the game play like a pro' and 'probably set up easier with rubber on the center post'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Pro players demonstrating advanced techniques including metal post bounces, post passes, elbow flipper manipulation, and ball control strategies

    high · Commentators observe: 'we got pro players here. They know how to bounce on metal post' and note techniques like using elbow to hit action buttons while covering playfield