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Zen Studios Star Wars Tables

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·41m 9s·analyzed·Jan 25, 2016
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Blockade hosts review Zen's Star Wars tables and criticize Fox franchise games for poor UX design.

Summary

Chris and Jared discuss Zen Studios' two new Star Wars pinball tables: The Force Awakens and Might of the First Order. They praise Force Awakens' physics and playability but criticize Might of the First Order's ramp difficulty and cognitive load. They also heavily critique Zen's Fox Animation tables (Archer, etc.) for poor audio design, lack of meaningful callouts, and repetitive spell-out-word gameplay that alienates non-franchise fans.

Key Claims

  • The Force Awakens table was designed by Peter Graffel, who also designed the main South Park pinball table

    medium confidence · Jared mentions looking up designers and discovering this from Zen Forums and in-game table credits

  • Force Awakens has 12 movie scenes that must be played in order (not player's choice like previous Star Wars tables)

    high confidence · Chris explicitly states he's gotten through 7-8 of 12 scenes and explains the mode persistence mechanic

  • Might of the First Order features a sunken mini-playfield overlaid exactly where the flippers are, creating visual and cognitive overload

    high confidence · Both hosts describe this as a deliberate design choice that creates challenging gameplay

  • Fox Animation tables use direct audio quotes from the shows rather than recorded callouts specific to pinball gameplay

    medium confidence · Chris notes audio quotes like 'you should not use the nerve gas' for ball saves don't correlate to game events

  • Zen's DMD text is too small and often displayed over complex backgrounds, making instructions hard to read during gameplay

    high confidence · Jared complains about this issue and contrasts it with Stern/Williams tables that isolate text without background distractions

  • A custom Archer pinball table whitewood was at Arcade Expo, possibly designed by Keith Elwin

    low confidence · Chris mentions seeing shots of it and being unsure about the designer attribution

  • Force Awakens allows mode persistence even if you lose a ball, unlike previous Star Wars tables with strict timers

    high confidence · Chris explains this feature makes the game less punishing and more enjoyable

  • Archer table has inconsistent audio normalization with some callouts being screamingly loud compared to others

    high confidence · Jared describes ball save callout volume issues making the table unplayable next to family

Notable Quotes

  • “The ball wants to go up the ramps and wants to go in the orbits. It doesn't—as opposed to Might of the First Order, where getting it to go into a ramp...if it just so much as grazes an edge as it goes up a ramp, it'll just start rattling around and roll back down.”

    Chris @ ~18:00 — Core criticism of Might of the First Order's unforgiving ramp physics vs Force Awakens' flow

  • “Force Awakens—that thing is, I don't know, it's catnip to me. I'm drawn to it. I can't stop.”

    Jared @ ~31:30 — Strong endorsement of Force Awakens' gameplay appeal and design

  • “Archer is now the yelling table because that's all it does. All the call-outs are yelling...I feel guilty playing this when I'm next to my wife and watching TV because all she hears is this bloody game screaming at me.”

    Jared @ ~53:00 — Scathing critique of Archer's audio design choices making it unplayable in social settings

  • “If you're making a table franchise like Fox, and you're doing it for a wider pinball audience, it's almost like it's creating a niche within the app itself. Like, if you make it really, really quote-heavy and sort of reference-heavy, you really do take away from the people who haven't seen the franchise before.”

    Chris @ ~58:30 — Critique of Fox tables' over-reliance on franchise knowledge excluding casual players

  • “They need to be informative, not just quips. They need to actually inform the player what's going on. Otherwise, they're useless, and they're just noise.”

    Chris @ ~69:00 — Core design philosophy criticism: callouts should guide gameplay, not just provide flavor

  • “With the Bally Williams real tables, there's a definite sort of—there's a UX or a user experience built into the table where it tells you exactly what it wants you to do, really, really simply.”

    Jared @ ~42:00 — Establishes benchmark for good pinball UX that Zen tables fail to meet

  • “Might of the First Order—it highlights some of those problems that I've always had with Zen Tables...where it's just it doesn't guide you to what you need to be doing.”

Entities

Zen StudioscompanyThe Force Awakens (Zen table)gameMight of the First OrdergamePeter GraffelpersonArcher (Zen table)gameChris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonBlockade PodcastorganizationKeith Elwinperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Hosts end episode with sarcastic criticism suggesting Zen developers should not appear on the podcast, indicating relationship strain over design choices

    high · Chris says 'That's a wrap on Zen bitching. Bobby will never come on again.' and Jared responds 'I hope they never come on again after hearing this'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Force Awakens establishes new benchmark for digital pinball physics by implementing dead passes and realistic bounce mechanics similar to classic Pinball Arcade physics, suggesting designer prioritizing simulation fidelity

    medium · Jared praises Force Awakens for 'that great white rubber bounce' and contrasts with other Zen tables: 'Force Awakens has that sensation where the ball's coming down, and if you don't flip your flipper, it's going to hit the flipper and just roll right down the center'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Zen's DMD text is too small, often layered over complex backgrounds, and lacks the clarity and guidance present in classic Bally/Williams and modern Stern machines that isolate text with clear visual hierarchy

    high · Jared complains 'the font height of the font in the screen is just too small' and contrasts with Stern practice: 'the font is front and center in your vision and there's nothing behind it to distract you'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Zen's approach to callouts prioritizes thematic flavor and franchise authenticity over instructional clarity, violating established UX principle that callouts should guide gameplay rather than provide ambient flavor

    high · Chris concludes: 'They need to be informative, not just quips. They need to actually inform the player what's going on. Otherwise, they're useless, and they're just noise.'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.123

0:00
This is the Blockade Podcast with your hosts Chris and Jared. wizard amusement.com the site to visit for custom pinball shooter rods easy to install totally unique mention blockade podcast for 10 off your order wizard amusement.com sales restoration customization
0:44
You are listening to The Blockade Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Frebus, a.k.a. Shut Your Trap. Joining me as always, my co-host, Jared Morgan. Hey there, everyone.
0:56
So, we talked a little pinball last week, didn't we? Yeah, we did. Quite a little bit of pinball. Gee, a lot of pinball. I suppose you're going to make me talk pinball this week, too.
1:06
Yeah, I think we should probably do it again. Let's blur on a bit about pinball. because there's been lots happening since the three weeks that we kind of didn't do a podcast. Yeah, I guess we got to catch up on all that before I can start going on about the things I usually like to talk about. Yeah, the movies and snacks component of the Black Kate podcast. You might note that those people on Blab, I am now wearing my Black Kate podcast t-shirt. It is full of wind and very attractive. And I hit with the ladies. So, yeah, get one. We should note all of the, you know, if you're listening to the podcast and you're like, what the heck is this Blab thing? And, oh, I missed it on Sunday. Hey, you know what? These things are actually archivable. You can look us up and find previous episodes that we've done.
2:03
So all you have to do is just go to Blab.im and then in the search bar, type in Blockade and all this stuff can pop up. So if you don't feel like listening to our ads or the little musical cues that Jared throws in and want to see our ugly mugs, then go for it. I believe you can even download the audio.

Chris @ ~32:00 — Systemic critique of Zen's table guidance and onboarding for complex modes

  • “It feels more real to me because that's exactly what happens [with ramps rattling]. I mean, you've played enough tournaments and stuff in real life, and that's exactly what happens with ramps. If you don't shoot them right, they rattle.”

    Jared @ ~29:00 — Defense of Might of the First Order's realism vs flow trade-off

    • Fox Animation (Zen franchise)
    game
    Epic Quest (Zen table)game
    South Park (Zen table)game
    Wizard Amusement.comcompany
    Medieval Madnessgame
    Pinball Arcadegame
    ?

    design_philosophy: Zen tables, particularly Fox franchise, rely heavily on franchise-specific references and callouts that create gatekeeping effect for players unfamiliar with source material, contradicting goal of wide audience appeal

    high · Chris critiques: 'if you make it really, really quote-heavy and sort of reference-heavy, you really do take away from the people who haven't seen the franchise before...it really does make it a little bit tough to get into'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Might of the First Order deliberately creates visual and cognitive overload through overlaid mini-playfield positioned exactly at flipper level, intentionally distracting players to extend game challenge and lifespan

    high · Jared calls it 'a challenging table' with 'optical tricks' and 'deliberately distracting' design; Chris acknowledges love for the challenge despite visual confusion

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Force Awakens prioritizes forgiving physics and ball flow with dead passes and realistic bounces, contrasting with Might of the First Order's punishing ramp physics that demands precise aim

    high · Chris and Jared explicitly compare the two tables' approaches: 'The ball wants to go up the ramps and wants to go in the orbits' vs 'if it just so much as grazes an edge as it goes up a ramp, it'll just start rattling around'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Force Awakens implements mode persistence mechanic where movie scenes remain active even after losing a ball, reducing player frustration compared to previous Star Wars tables with strict timers

    high · Chris explains: 'even if you lose a ball, the mode is still active. And so it doesn't disappear until you've finished the mode...now I've got to play through that whole thing again. So there's none of that with this particular table'

  • ?

    product_concern: Zen Fox Animation tables suffer from poor audio engineering including inconsistent volume normalization, non-sequitur callouts unrelated to gameplay events, and reliance on franchise knowledge that alienates casual players

    high · Jared describes Archer as 'the yelling table' with audio so loud it's unplayable near family; Chris criticizes 'you should not use the nerve gas' ball save callout as disconnected from gameplay

  • ?

    product_strategy: Zen appears to be continuing spell-out-word gameplay pattern across Fox franchise tables despite community criticism, suggesting iterative design constraints or deliberate thematic choice

    medium · Chris notes: 'It seems to be the way that most of the Fox tables have been designed: they're all spelling games. And I wish I knew that from when I actually got it.'

    • 2:23
    Maybe I'm not sure. Maybe that's only as an administrator, but I know that you might get the option just to get the audio if you don't want to listen, like watch the video or just like download for later. So if you want just the raw, unedited version with all the long lingering pauses and stuff in it that we have to cut out because of the time delay with the audio, then yeah, please do download the Blab audio.
    2:49
    Or you can just take the easy way out and, you know, deal with the sound. Yeah, because, you know, it's not that bad.
    2:56
    No, no. It's not like there's massive amounts of editing going on. When I listen back to the full show, it's not like I'm going, hey, Jared really fixed things there. He knocked off a whole 10 minutes from when we recorded this. Yeah, none of that's happening. It's like five minutes, if that. Sometimes if I'm feeling lazy, not even that. Because the last couple of weeks have been real busy for me. Anyhow, we can talk about that in the back room.
    3:25
    Good. So I guess we'll just jump right into this. and we're going to talk about what I meant to talk about last week and didn't have time, and I want to just dive right into it, and that is Zen's new tables. Oh, man. They're so good. So Zen surprised us all somewhat, I guess, because we've been complaining about it. We're like, oh, boy, I can't believe Zen doesn't have a new Star Wars table out. And then, what do you know, Zen popped out with a new Star Wars table. Here we are, some tables for you, yo. So, yeah, it's not bad. Yeah, so we got the Force Awakens, which is kind of your if you're familiar with any of the previous Star Wars tables, that's the one that is much like the Empire Strikes Back table and the Return of the Jedi table where you got the movie scenes and you're kind of playing events through the movie. And then they have the other table which is Might of the First Order. This follows along with what they've done with just the other Star Wars properties where they take certain characters or the bad guys or whatever and just let you kind of bash around and hear all their audio calls and stuff like that. So, yeah, two completely brand new tables. And I myself have been absolutely loving Force Awakens. And I know you, Jared, were saying you actually loved Might of the First Order. Might of the First Order, yeah, it's kind of different to what I've seen in the past from a lot of these Star Wars tables. Something about it, it's really quite flowy, actually.
    4:50
    A lot of the other ones were, too. So I think the Force Awakens was done by Peter Graffel, the designer. I think I'm just trying to remember that from the top of my memory. If you are interested in finding out who designs the tables, I've found out two things. I've mentioned one, which is there's a designers list on the Zen Forums website. But there's also, if you go into table explore mode, there's actually table credits for the designers on the game I didn't think there was but you can actually see them written on the playfield just like a normal pinball machine but it's not evident it wasn't really that clear to me that there were credits on the table so yeah good on whoever pointed that out to me I can't remember your name but thank you so yeah but yes it's done the main designer on all of the Star Wars tables has done this, the Force Awakens one. You can tell it's got a distinct style to it.
    5:59
    And it's, yeah, it's very playable, as I'm sure you agree. Well, I think what I most like about Force Awakens is the ball has a lot of bounce to it. The slingshots really fire the ball across.
    6:18
    You can do dead passes, which in a lot of Zen tables, I don't get that sensation where the ball's coming down, and if you don't flip your flipper, it's going to hit the flipper and just roll right down the center. Dribble down. Yeah, as opposed to bounce across. And on Force Awakens, it really has what I'm used to when I play Pinball Arcade, which is being able to do dead passes. It's got that great white rubber bounce. It's saying, like, off all the slings, off the top of the slings, it will actually bounce off the top of the slings quite realistically. I think that designer is really starting to put the real-life physics into the tables. Because as we found out from Bobby when she was on last time, it is up to the designer how they implement physics and how they implement the feel of the game to suit their individual sort of producer requirements. So, yeah, I really like this designer who does these games. He should do more. And I think at one point he was trying to encourage other table designers to put those realistic sort of mechanical effects into the game as well. So it's in shot realism and stuff like that, pop up realism.
    7:28
    But the other thing that's noticeable with it, and this to me is in stark contrast. Well, you can kind of do the A-B comparison between Might of the First Order and this, is that the ball wants to go up the ramps. and wants to go in the orbits. It doesn't, as opposed to Might of the First Order, where getting it to go into a ramp, and I've said this before, if it just so much as grazes an edge as it goes up a ramp, it'll just start rattling around and roll back down. Also in Might of the First Order, there's one ramp that is the ball lock that you can set it up. Yeah, I think it's just a ball lock ramp. I don't know how many times. I'll hit that thing full force not hitting anything on the way up it goes right down the middle and it goes halfway up the ramp and then rolls right back down it's like man how much force do I need to use to get this thing up I love the fact that it's actually like they're not vacuum ramps they do actually take some aim it's not vacuum ramps but it does to me that's what is kind of killing the fun of it for me on that table again it's like I want the shots to be completable and be able to have a flow to them whereas might of the first order i feel like it's me battling the table trying to get the ball to go exactly where i want to go and even though my aim is virtually true it's still finding a way to you know kick it back to me and so that's where i know some people love it like you're saying you love it and to me that's what's making that table not as exciting to me as force awakens it feels more real to me because that's exactly what happens i mean you know you've played enough tournaments and stuff in real life and that's exactly what happens with ramps if you don't shoot them right they rattle yeah but it's also some tables are designed when you think about like medieval madness you're supposed to be able to do that left right ramp right left ramp right ramp you know back and forth right right you're not supposed to have to catch it do an absolute aim and then you know fire it up again it's you know there's a real sense of flow that can you know happen to these um so that's why it's kind of funny because of the two tables now i'll say this of the two tables might of the first order is much more a classic pinball layout it doesn't have all the crazy doodads going on toys and things it's very yeah it's very light on the effects like the only real playfield toy i guess you could say is the big sort of stormtrooper dudes it and the ball on fire right and that right mechanic in the back with things not a distracting thing with him doing that oh it's fine as Forge Awakens has you know TIE fighters flying around and the Falcon flying around and Daisy jumping all over them you know the screen right as you trying to you know shoot a ball and you know it got all sorts of stuff happening pretty graphically intense yeah it yeah the raft heart is popping out and everything so it you know again that definitely the more fantasy of the two tables so i find it interesting that the more fantasy one is the better physics you might say or the more forgiving physics no but what i'm saying no but again no but again what i'm saying physics wise though is with the ball bounce. Oh, yeah. And again, I've played plenty of real tables where, yes, I can graze a bumper going up a ramp and the ball will still make the ramp as opposed to just like stopping dead in its tracks and not going any farther. Yeah, yeah. That's true. Yeah, it's funny. I see what you mean by the comment about the physics thing. You think that the Force Awakens table, sorry, the Might of the First Order would have those sort of more realistic bounces and stuff like that. Yeah. Interesting observation. The other thing that I noticed was that with Might of the First Order, I have no clue what to do. I had to look up the instructions and really find out, oh, that's where that has to go. Because it's stuff like you need to shoot this two times, but there's no indicators on the table to tell you how many times you shot something. When you're shooting into a lane, there's not a whole bunch of inserts that are lighting up, letting you know how many times you've done this. There's none of that. And there was one point where I kept on getting this countdown.
    11:46
    And I'm like, what is the countdown for? What shot do you want me to take? I played that table half a dozen times and couldn't figure it out, couldn't figure it out, and looked up the instructions. And it turns out that, oh, there's a ball locked in the turbo laser that's like a cannon, like T2. I'd never even noticed it. And why hadn't I noticed it? because whenever that happens, you're in multi-ball. Ah. And there's no, unless you're following the ball where it goes, and with Might of the First Order, there's also that sunken level, you know, like Black Hole has. Yeah. It's very cool, and I love the mechanics that they put onto it. But it becomes this thing where it's like, I don't know what level I'm even paying attention to. I've got balls rolling on top of it. I've got balls rolling below it. It is deliberately distracting. I love that. the fact that the mini play field is right, pretty much overlaid exactly where the flippers are. It's such a great mind frack that you have to like get your head around with that table. It's great. In multi-ball especially. Yeah, I wish it was like maybe a little out of focus or something because there are times when I can't tell where the ball is dropping from. Is it dropping from the mini play field or is it dropping from the scoop right above the mini play field? and there's been times when two balls are going at the same time, one dropping from the mini play field, one dropping from the top, and I'm not sure which flipper I'm supposed to be hitting. So there's a lot of that where it's kind of, you love it and me, I was like, this is unnecessary distraction. This is totally what I think about a challenging table. I don't think there's actually a more challenging table in Zim from a visual load, a cognitive load perspective than this table at the moment because it's got a few optical tricks in it, like that mini play field, that you really have to just sort of use your peripheral vision and just judge things rather than try and see things. It's a really clever design ploy by the designer on this one. I think it's something that I'd like to see a bit more of in the game because it really extends its life. It's not just a spell like all the fox tables. Don't get me started on those. um the all the just shoot this ramp endless endless endless endless times to spell a word like i i hate those tables i really do i'm kind of got buyers well that's because that becomes kind of boring that's i really got buyers remorse with the fox tables because you should not report them like do you not like them at all i know we'll talk about that in a minute but yeah yeah we will in a minute um so i mean it it to me matter of the first order it it highlights some of those problems that I've always had with Zen Tables, like I said, where it's just it doesn't guide you to what you need to be doing. It makes it kind of difficult to figure it out.
    14:37
    But I do like the challenge of it and I've enjoyed playing it for sure. It's kind of one of those I'm enjoying it enough to overlook.
    14:50
    Otherwise, on other tables, I just go, I give up and don't even bother with it. It's got something keeping you there. It's just like it's keeping you there begrudgingly. And honestly,
    15:02
    I think probably what that is because, like I said, it's very close to how a real pinball table layout looks and would be. It would be capable if you would be able to do that in real life.
    15:16
    So Force Awakens, that thing is, I don't know, it's catnip to me. I'm drawn to it. I can't stop um i never get tired of hearing the star wars music playing um i think the daisy voice that they used is uh i keep on saying the daisy voice daisy ridley is the actress uh right the ray voice um i think it's pretty good i think the fin voice is pretty terrible like like it really doesn't sound remotely so this is this is an interesting point you make about this because these are not original voice actors are they no these are right let's talk about how Zen could make improvements to the way games work from a player perspective. One of those is custom call-outs that tell you where to shoot and when to shoot. Shoot the right ramp, shoot the left ramp. Don't just keep on saying the same thing over and over and over again. Get the voice actors to record shot maps, shot call-outs, because it's the thing that really makes it hard to play as in-table for someone that's used to playing like a Belly Williams table, because they have all those call-outs. And the other thing as well, the DMD size, we're playing a video game here and that's fine and you are playing on relatively decent sized screens, but the font and the text in DMD is so small compared to... No, I can make mine bigger. There's two sizes to the DMD. I've got mine set on the maximum size, but the actual, the pixel size or the font height of the font in the screen is just too small and it's usually on a background that's got too much going on. Think about back in Belly Williams and even Stern pinballs. They don't mix the font with background images in Stern. It's basically that when they give you an instruction, they say, right, the font is front and center in your vision and there's nothing behind it to distract you. And there's also usually a bit of a delay and a bit of a light show before it kicks the ball out. Now, this doesn't happen on Zen, and it drives me insane. Insane. Because it's so hard to work out what you want to do.
    17:33
    Okay, so I've got to read the instructions because a lot of these modes are really complex. You've got to shoot this ramp a couple of times and shoot this drop and then shoot the scoop. And it's just like the instructions are blurred and you're trying to do this in real time with balls flying around. It's really hard for me. I don't know if it's like that for you too, but it is because I was messing around. Once I found out who the designer of force awakened was, I looked up some of those other tables and he did one of the, one of the two South park tables. He did the not the butters one, but the other one, the main pinball. Yeah. I love that. I love that table. That's great. But that thing is so busy and there is no, like the zoom in on something or the DMD. But again, it's that thing where you're like after it goes back to you playing you're like so where did you want me to shoot what what combo did you want me to do i have no clue where i'm supposed to be going right now yeah um yeah once you've played it enough times and you figure it out okay now you've got it but it it's like should it really be this much of a mystery to me it's sort of like um to me it's like with the belly williams the real tables there's there's a definite sort of we'll talk about this is there's a ux or a user experience built into the table where it tells you exactly what it wants you to do really really simply like there's no you've said shoot here and shoot here basically and some of the zen tables fail to do that i don't know what it is but yeah it's very strange very strange indeed the object is you got to go through the movie scenes in the past star wars tables you always have to choose which movie scene you want to do and they had one through six typically this one you don't get a choice you have to play it in order and i think there's a total of there i think there's a total of 12 scenes i wouldn't know as i've only gotten through about seven or eight um no matter how much i've tried to uh to power through them but i like that they're making you play it in order the other thing that i like about it is that even if you lose a ball, the mode is still active.
    19:44
    And so it doesn't disappear until you've finished the mode. And I like that because it's very annoying previously where you're constantly up against the timer and you're just one shot away and then it doesn't do it. And you're like, oh God, now I got to play through that whole thing again. So there's none of that with this particular table. and I really I think that's probably why I like it so much I appreciate a whole hell of a lot more for them doing that not making us work so much yeah and that being said though that being said again I've only gotten through 7 or 8 of the scenes it hard to complete them all and get through like I said I think there 12 12 scenes Gee that huge As far as modes go it huge That like the biggest And the really cool thing is that I was going to say sorry, that's, that's not the, yes, it is a lot in any of the, the Zen tables. Really? Maybe. Well, Epic quest, maybe if you count each of the things you fight as modes and leveling up. Yeah, but they're not there. The problem with Epic quest is it's always the same thing. You're always shooting the same ramps over and over again. Right. Whereas this is giving you a whole bunch of different combinations. Sometimes it's just shoot whatever's lit and they always stay lit. Sometimes it's you shoot what's lit and then all of a sudden that disappears and you're trying to disappear all the lit lights. Other times the lights are moving. So you shoot the shot and you just didn't get there in time and it moves to another lane.
    21:19
    Even the multi-ball is different because you can do Millennium Falcon multi-ball and it's just shooting the center hole, basically, and hitting drop targets or whatever to knock down to get the TIE Fighters going. But then in the movie mode, it's different. Yeah. I was going to say, that center hole, I probably haven't played it nearly as long enough as I should have, but I'm finding it somewhat challenging to hit it. It's a massive hole in the middle of the play field, but the angles that I think it should work on, just don't work. And it's sort of weird. Like I find it a little bit challenging to hit sometimes. But I think that'll just come with getting my eye in for the table. But did you find that as well? Yeah. But no, but like I said, the Millennium Falcon multiball is different than when you do the movie mode, which is them flying with the Millennium Falcon. And I mean, like the animations are the same where you're still having the Falcon flying around and the TIE fighters chasing it. But what you're shooting at is now completely different. So it's cool that they changed it up. And there's a lot of variety of where you're supposed to be shooting the shots. And I really, that's the other thing that I really enjoy out of it.
    22:28
    So, yeah, I'm full on on board with these tables. Let's talk a little bit about your despising the, what you call the Fox Pack. They call it the Balls of Glory, which really is kind of confusing. They should have just called it Fox Animation. Yeah, it's Fox in the core app. So in Zen Pinball HD on Android, it's got, on the front menu, You've got like all the, I'm sure it's the same FX as well, maybe. You've got like all the different like franchises. You've got Star Wars, Marvel, and then Fox. And when you go inside the Fox folder, it's actually got, it's got Fox Entertainment, I think it's called. Then inside, it's got the four brands that they've got inside. So that's what. Okay. So see, that looks completely different from what we see on Steam. So yeah. Because on Steam, it doesn't, they don't divide them up. It's just, yeah, they bundle all the Star Wars tables together. but they're just in a column row. And then at the very end of the row, all of a sudden, I mean,
    23:26
    different franchises can be mixed into the row. They're just not mixed amongst each other. That's really interesting.
    23:34
    Yeah, so there's not – yeah, you're not identifying it by table packs at all or branding at all. There's not a marble pack or anything else like that. This is almost like the whole concept that I think Farsight was trying to work towards with the new UI and the fact that they group it in folders. So it's sort of like a folders hierarchy in mobile. And I think that's probably just because there's not a lot of screen real estate in mobile, and they have to think about the way they actually do the UI. I really like the UI in mobile. I think it's really clean. I think really if Farsight just copied the Zen UI verbatim and just put their tables in there, it would be great, honestly. Not having used the new UI in Pinball, which we'll probably touch on later, yeah well actually let's let's let's touch on that right now because i really don't have anything else to say about balls of glory i haven't played it well i will i will actually say a few things about it um okay but let me let me just real quickly though since you're on the ui um there have been some we're going to talk about some silly complaints that i've come across but some of those silly complaints have been regarding uh farsight's new ui and it it's with the organization aspect of it uh i don't understand what people are expecting to see yes zenz is a much more efficient way of getting around it and i think farsight can still get to that point but graphically the the icons on zen are tiny compared to what uh farsight's using in their new ui well i'm purely going on what you're saying is i've not seen it they haven't done it for mobile yet well so okay yeah i'll nod and smile you'll just nod and smile and grin okay go ahead and uh say your piece we'll we'll get touch into this a little bit more. But yeah, go ahead and say a piece about those tables. Definitely in more detail because it's an important part of the next evolution for Farsight, I think. But getting back to the Fox tables, they're hard to play when you've got your speakers on mobile and you're just sitting in the lounge room. Number one on the Archer table, there's a few call-outs in there that are screamingly loud. they're like they're not they've not been normalized audio wise like when you get a ball save on archer um it's like you should not use the nerve gas or whatever that is because i don't watch the the series i don't know all the in jokes that these tables have there's a lot of yelling on the series but everything is just yeah okay well it should be called the yelling table so archer is now the yelling table because that's all it does all the call outs are yelling and the whatever her name is, the chief or the female character in that show.
    26:34
    That's like... Well, that's Mallory. All she does is yell in it and it's bloody infuriating. I cannot play this with... I feel guilty playing this when I'm next to my wife and watching TV because all she hears is this bloody game screaming at me. It's terrible.
    26:53
    So that's one complaint with it. the table's okay. Like it's got modes. It plays well. It's still a spell out all the words game, which drives me insane. It's so boring to actually shoot the ramps over and over and over again, just to spell out danger zone. That's a long bloody phrase, danger zone. That's a lot of shots to that ramp. And it's just, it gets long in the tooth over time. And it seems to be the way that most of the Fox tables have been designed. they're all spelling games and i wish i knew that from when i actually got it and it might have been it might just be because i'm not into the the fox animation franchises that much and i just don't get some of the references um in the in the tables but this is one of those things that if you're making a if you're making it a table franchise like fox and you're doing it um for a wider a pinball audience it's almost like it's it's creating a niche within the app itself like if you make it really really like quote heavy and sort of reference heavy you're really you really do take away from the the the people who haven't seen the franchise before and don't know any any of the memes in the in the the franchise and it it really does make it a little bit tough to get into i'll be honest um yeah i mechanically um some of the tables work okay like archer's got some nice toys in it the the way you interact with the car is really cool to start a mode you shoot the ball into the boot of the car or the trunk if you're in the u.s um and and then it just screams off the table and it drives off the table that's cool like there's some good effects in it but yeah just some of the the choices they've made and again like not using the actor callouts i think they might have actually used direct quotes from the shows like the dress the voice yeah i don't think that yeah i don't think they had anything specifically recorded for it because i think they they but the other thing they were pretty deeply integrated with fox this time around which is which is good because the authenticity is certainly there like you can really get the the authenticity of all these tables with relation to the franchise but again it just makes it really hard like the like you should not use the nerve gas is the quote you get when you have a ball save how does that relate to having a ball save like this is the thing like it the audio calls don't marry up with what's happening on the table and it kind of drives me right so that's all i'll say about the subject but be if you don't know the franchise and you don't know the fox like the fox entities that are being used um in here i would think twice before um getting into it that would be my call it's a bit of a harsh thing to say but that's how i feel about it at the moment which is a real shame and i'll just say that i haven't i mean i've messed with the tables but they didn't draw me in that much so and i do watch archer a lot um it does make me curious and apparently i missed it well i don't think i missed it because it was the day after I was there, but at Arcade Expo, there was a Whitewood, somebody, and I'm see, we need PinballWiz in here to inform us, because he knows all this crap, but somebody's making a custom arcade table. Yes, I saw it. I saw shots of it.
    30:23
    Yeah. Coast to coast. It's a... Oh, shit, I went, what? It's one of the actual pinball players, one of the top players, as I believe, designing it. I want to say Keith Elwin, but I don't know if that's for sure. Yeah, but it is. But anyway. But you're right. I was like, oh, how interesting. He's doing an archer table. We just had an archer table from Zen Be very curious to see with regards to the call outs like how he approaches it yeah to see if it a different if it a different aspect to what you addressing where it's you don't need to be so knowledgeable about the show to still get the entertainment value out of it so yeah it'd be i think that would be the biggest thing to zen like if you if you're making a theme table, which is the Zen's modus operandi, think about the call-outs that you're telling your voice actors to do, because they really do make a difference, because you're hearing them all the time. They need to be informative, not just quips. They need to actually inform the player what's going on. Otherwise, they're useless, and they're just noise. So, that would be my bug. And that's what we'll say about that. That's a wrap on Zen bitching.
    31:38
    Bobby will never come on again. It's all there. I hope they never come on again after hearing this. Hey, let's... Screw you guys.
    31:47
    I was going to say, hey, I just got put on their list, all right? You don't want to get taken off. I'd love to be put on a list. I don't want to get taken off the... A naughty boy list. I don't want to get taken off the promotional list. Well, this will be good because then whenever they do come up with a new table, I'll actually be able to post the press kit to the forum. Cool. Otherwise, we'd have to go dig around on other sites to pull. So the same things that they're sending to IGN and to Kotaku, it's the kind of stuff that I'll actually be getting sent to me and then I'll be able to post it. That's a wonderful. So that'll be good. Let's run through a couple of real quick things.
    32:25
    First off, our friends over at Ask Homework, they have got on Steam, they're doing the Project Greenlight or whatever they call that. um to try and get their game approved zachariah to get it into the clear zachariah tables yeah zachariah zachariah um anyway so i want to i want to point that out that everybody should go uh well we'll probably well we can tweet out the link but everybody should go into their steam account and vote for it to get put in um i personally i don't go you go i was gonna say I personally, I don't care for Zacharia tables, but as somebody that loves pinball, we absolutely need to support them getting made available for purchase on steam. These guys have done a really good quality product and whether or not you like the actual title itself should be irregardless because they're making some really good looking, good playing machines that I think a lot of people will really enjoy. And not only that, but when you get this competition going, when you get Zacharia in there and you got Zen and you got Pinball Arcade, it only benefits everybody else because that makes them compete against each other. And we want that. So, yeah, for sure, check out the link that we'll post in our Twitter feed and click on that. It's making everyone in the Ask Homework part of Pinball Arcade fans forum very, very happy because they've been asking for Pinball, Zacharia on Steam or PC platforms for a very long time now. when we were talking to Zolt in the past he was saying that they're definitely going to be looking at cabinet support and stuff like that now's the time that they're going to be starting to do this like they're waiting for the PC release before they start looking into cabinet support and stuff like that so anyway there's that we wanted to mention another thing we need to mention is the Kickstarter for Doctor Who is currently active for Farsight so if you feel like contributing to that make sure you go check out the Kickstarter and look them up and then the one other thing that I wanted to touch upon just to get it out there in the Kickstarter video there is some tables that everybody went oh those are spoilers those are leaks because like we saw a hand grabbing the double ferris wheel of Hurricane and there was a quick screenshot of Demolition Man that, you know, it was a really tight image of Demolition Man. And I think there was a couple of EM tables that were also shown. And everybody was like, oh, they must have these tables. It's like, folks, A, these are easily stock footage. Well, that's true. B, it's also not a true indicator that they have the machine there at Farsight. Because if there's anything that we've learned from them, it's they don't usually buy these machines until right before they're going to get ready to make them. Because they just don't have the room, right? No, they don't have the room. They don't have the right. They really don't. So, yeah. So what I want to go with this is we have on the Pinball Arcade fans forum, there are speculation threads about what is going to be happening in the next table. And it's become this big issue that once we know for sure that a table is coming, everybody screams for the thread to be closed.
    35:49
    Well, that usually falls in my lap since I'm the moderator that tends to pay attention to it. If you want us to close a thread, we need definitive proof. Definitive proof is either you showing us a picture that Farsight themselves posted on Facebook or in some other venue, or you can link us directly to Steam achievements in Steam, something tangible that has been released by Farsight, not something that you're guessing at or say, oh, I heard it on good authority or anything else like that. If you want me to close the thread, we need proof. We need it linkable. Don't just pop into the forum and be like, oh, it's going to be this. Close the thread.
    36:36
    Excuse me, who are you? I don't know. We should just wait until Farsight releases the table. That's definitive enough for me.
    36:44
    Yeah, but that's not how the speculation thread runs. Speculation Thread wants to move on to the next speculation so they're all about the they just leave it open deal with it well see this is why I'm in the Speculation Thread and you're not because you're not playing nice with them but what I'm saying is those that are playing with them this is what I need to close the thread because otherwise I'm not closing it and it doesn't matter how many times you probably should I've commented in the threads various times I'm not going to create a sticky on the thread itself because it's pointless because then the thread gets closed and then I just have to redo it again the next time the speculation thread. And I don't start the speculation thread either. No, I'm talking about like a sticky about what constitutes a closed thread and stick it right at the top of that sub-forum so people know. Oh, well. Too much. I'm just telling the people that listen to this that are in the speculation threads, this is what is expected of you, okay? How many people do you actually think listen to us?
    37:47
    Like, seriously. Enough! I know that some of the people that post in there listen to us because I see it all the time. Oh, they mentioned in the podcast. Oh, good. Okay. That's good feedback because we have no idea. We've got an idea about download numbers, but actual listeners is another thing altogether.
    38:05
    Yes. With me complaining, that's leading us into a segment where we're going to deal with silly complaints, but not yet. We're not there yet. I also want to... We're going to finish with the silly complaints, but I wanted to also mention we have our blockade table of... or tournament of the month happening this Saturday, the 30th of January. Sign-ups are on Wednesday, the 27th. This is the season ender. We've been... So it's our sixth one of the season. So this is for all the marbles, for point totals, bragging rights. if you were hoping to get that special one-of-a-kind, well, second-of-a-kind now, diamond background winner avatar, then obviously you're in the top three and you know what you need to be doing and signing up. But anyway, tables that are being played, just as a reminder, are Star Trek Next Generation, TDOF, Earthshaker, and Terminator 2.
    39:03
    So, really quite a good selection, actually. There's a lot of gron tables in there, but... Yeah, unfortunately, there are. Get gronning. get grindy indeed. Also, before I forget, Twitter, if you want to talk to us, at ShutYourTraps, at JaredMorgz, or, most importantly, at Blockade. That's where you will get all sorts of info. I tend to post to Blockade more than I post to my own.
    39:31
    Basically, if it's pinball-related, I post on Blockade, and if it's some other thing related, then I post on my own account. no we don't have the Instagram no we are not on Facebook for very good reasons yes thank you everybody for listening to the blockade podcast we enjoyed doing it hope you enjoyed listening to it I have been your host shut your trap aka Chris Frebus that has been Jared Morgan we will see you all again as always yes I forgot the as always we will see you all again next week same bad channel same bad time wait no what See you later, guys. Yeah, that is trademarked. I probably shouldn't use that. Too late. Bye-bye.
    40:18
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    41:06
    you