Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Yoku's Island Express

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 3m·analyzed·Jun 5, 2018
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Arcuda Cabinet Mode launches with bugs; Pinball Tournaments goes live; Chris reviews Yoku's Island Express platformer.

Summary

Chris and Jared discuss the Arcuda Pinball Cabinet Mode release with early bugs, community feedback mechanisms, and licensing questions. They cover the Pinball Tournaments app with real cash wagering, and extensively review Yoku's Island Express—a platformer game using pinball controls that Chris found highly engaging and addictive despite not being a traditional pinball simulation.

Key Claims

  • Arcuda Pinball Cabinet Mode has a hard June 30th deadline for Farsight to address known bugs before release

    high confidence · Chris and Jared explicitly state Arcuda is setting the cutoff date and applying pressure on Farsight to complete bug fixes by June 30th

  • The Spike system uses ARM-based Linux architecture with distributed computing boards, and H.264 video streams are rendered as picture-in-picture overlays rather than full processing

    medium confidence · Community commenter 'Grindworks' provided technical explanation; Chris and Jared validated and explained the architecture

  • Three-monitor cabinet setups work better (9/10) than two-monitor setups (7/10) in early Arcuda testing

    medium confidence · User comparison feedback reported during podcast; reflects early adopter experiences

  • Yoku's Island Express uses pinball controls (flippers/bumpers) as primary navigation in a platformer/exploration game rather than as a pinball simulation

    high confidence · Chris played 12 hours, completed story mode, detailed mechanics extensively

  • Pinball Arcade Cabinet Mode's $149 unlock expires June 30th; licensing constraints may prevent post-cutoff sales continuation

    medium confidence · Chris speculates about Williams licensing cuts; hasn't confirmed with Farsight/Arcuda yet but plans to ask during Farsight visit

Notable Quotes

  • “The speculation about SPA TPA code base is naive.”

    Grindworks (YouTube commenter) @ early in episode — Community member provides technical correction about Stern Pinball Arcade architecture; Chris and Jared acknowledge the valid criticism and use it as teaching moment

  • “That's this game. Right. Okay. So incredibly playable, incredibly repeatable in what you want to do.”

    Chris Frebus @ late episode, Yoku's review — Chris's core assessment of Yoku's Island Express's addictive gameplay loop

  • “You know that feeling when you're playing pinball machines that kick your butt and you go, ah, just one more. I can just go. And next thing you know, it's been two hours.”

    Chris Frebus @ Yoku's review section — Directly compares Yoku's Island Express's addictiveness to traditional pinball gameplay

  • “It's not a flipper. It's more of a punch. Very much like the space kit or pinball kit.”

    Chris Frebus @ Yoku's mechanics explanation — Clarifies how bumper/punch mechanics work in the game

  • “I'm going to hunt you down I'm going to like steal that five bucks right out of your wallet.”

    Jared Morgan @ Pinball Tournaments app discussion — Humorous but pointed reaction to game crashes affecting real-money gameplay

Entities

Chris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonArcudacompanyFarsight StudioscompanyPinball Arcade Cabinet ModeproductPinball TournamentsproductYoku's Island ExpressgameVilla GorillacompanyL17companyZen Studioscompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball Arcade Cabinet Mode $149 unlock expires June 30th with hard deadline set by Arcuda; licensing constraints (possibly Williams receiving cuts) may prevent post-cutoff sales continuation

    medium · Chris speculates: 'If they're getting a cut, that's why. That would be all the answer that you need' regarding Williams licensing impact on sales cutoff

  • ?

    event_signal: Blockade Podcast requested dedicated Arcuda Cabinet thread on Pinball Arcade fan forum to consolidate bug reports and discussion (awaiting webmaster implementation)

    medium · Chris: 'The request has been put in to make a natural Arcuda cabinet thread, dedicated and not just part of a general thread. We have to have our webmaster create that'

  • ?

    community_signal: Arcuda Cabinet Mode community providing constructive, detailed bug reports with specific configuration information and workarounds (e.g., command prompt fix to lock camera view)

    high · Chris: 'Most of the people that are commenting... are being very specific with their feedback that's excellent' and community discovered command prompt solution to lock cabinet view

  • $

    market_signal: Zen Studios actively promoting adjacent game titles (Yoku's Island Express) through Pinball FX social account, suggesting industry cross-pollination and awareness of pinball-adjacent mechanics

    medium · Chris notes: 'the sheer fact that Zen tweeted out and it was not even Zen, it was Pinball FX doing the tweet saying, hey, congratulations on this game. I went, that's kind of bizarre'

  • $

    market_signal: FASA newsletter #75 (light on content, lacking 'spicy' information) promoted Pinball Tournaments cash competition and Arcuda Cabinet Mode with animated GIF

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.191

0:00
This is the Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jared. You are listening to the Blockade Pinball Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Frebus, a.k.a. Shut Your Trap. Joining me as always, halfway across the world, Jared Morgan. Hello there. haddy haddy haddy haddy haddy so folks sorry but no I'll get that out of the way right now what was that you glitched out maybe it's my end oh well I just said for the non-glitching portion of our audio no interviews today no we've spent all of our interview cash at the moment so yeah this will just be an offline show yeah which is fine um but uh what's what's the hubbub just in general going on there no not a lot really it's just work is very busy at the moment for me um i've just on monday will be my um one month anniversary of joining credit sense so that's pretty exciting it's going very fast um because i'm being very busy uh so yeah it's been fun a very good bunch of people there busy can be good. We'll accept that.
1:26
Yeah, to our end, it's, you know, start of summer. That's about the extent of things. Yeah, right. We,
1:35
as some of you may, well, I know some of you have discovered, so we record our podcast, obviously, live using YouTube, and then that video actually gets sent immediately as soon as we're done. So if you ever feel like watching an unedited version of our podcast, no sound effects in the order that we actually record it. It's available, and some people actually do pay attention and watch it. Some people go so far as to even comment on it. They do? They do. And I wanted to kind of highlight one person's comment because they have way, way more information than myself or Jared are even capable of knowing.
2:20
All right. So this is from Grindworks, and they say this was in reference to us. It was our speculation episode. That's what it was. All right. It says the speculation about SPA TPA code base is naive. Oh. Yeah, way to ingratiate yourself to us, but okay.
Spikeproduct
Grindworksperson
Rob / Flippy Floppyperson
Mike or Bobbyperson
Blockade Pinball Podcastorganization
Fireballgame
Williamscompany
FASAorganization
NOX modproduct
LocoRocogame

medium · Chris critiques: 'the newsletters at the moment i wish there was there was something they could put in there extra that would make it a little bit more spicier'

  • ?

    announcement: Yoku's Island Express released as pinball-mechanics platformer by L17/Villa Gorilla; garnered Zen Studios promotional attention and strong positive review from Blockade Podcast (12-hour play session, story completed)

    high · Chris: 'I think I put in about 12 hours on the game, which was enough to actually finish the main story mode' and 'incredibly playable, incredibly repeatable'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Arcuda delaying Chris's planned Farsight visit by two weeks because they are sending updated boards/hardware to Farsight for implementation work before his visit

    high · Chris states: 'Arcuda has requested that I delay that slightly because they got some things that they're sending to Farsight' and 'they're like, we're not sure if it's going to be there quite by the time you get there'

  • ?

    product_concern: Pinball Tournaments app has critical bugs: multi-ball drain logic error where simultaneous ball locks/drains cause invalid state (two balls in shooter lane or loss of active ball), and game crashes on Ion multiball release

    high · Jared detailed: 'if you have two balls active at the same time and you have one ball start to go down the drain and then you lock the ball' the game invalidates the lock and advances ball count. 'the whole game would go and kick me out to the phone menu'

  • ?

    product_concern: Arcuda Cabinet Mode experiencing multi-monitor setup quality variance (3-monitor: 9/10, 2-monitor: 7/10, NOX mod: 6.5/10) with inconsistent backglass animation across tables

    high · Community user feedback: 'the three-monitor setup was a 9 out of 10. the two monitor setup was a like a 7 out of 10' and 'some tables looks great other tables what the hell is going on'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Spike system architecture uses H.264 video streams as picture-in-picture overlays with minimal processing overhead rather than full rendering; ARM-based Linux distributed computing

    medium · Grindworks comment: 'This is simply an H.264 stream that is running on a second ARM board... isn't an issue when it comes to technical emulation'

    • 2:42
    Because honestly, we don't know the code base, so yes, it is naive. Yes, you are correct. We don't know. Yeah. Uh, so we're going to allow Grindworks to educate us. Um, he says, uh, or she says, who knows? Uh, the native code is for arm and running on an embedded Linux OS. And when Farsight compiled this for Stern pinball arcade, they needed to make a number of adjustments regarding the LCD screen on the new Sterns. This is simply an H dot two six four stream that is running on a second arm board. I think about, think about it like a cheap Roku stick. and isn't an issue when it comes to technical emulation. The real problem is screen real estate.
    3:28
    Continues, Stern has always wanted the SPA app to be a place for people to learn about the actual tables, and they have never experienced any substantial direct revenue benefit from TPA or SPA. And when the Spike system was designed, the idea was to have simultaneous real and virtual releases of table.
    3:46
    A better question is who Scientific is partnered with for the reproducing tables for future simultaneous physical and virtual release, will we see some of the popular games like Adam's Family and Twilight Zone get the Chicago-style remake, along with proper VR release? Managing licenses has overhead, so I can guarantee that there is no net value to continue with a company like Farsight.
    4:05
    Well, yeah, it sounds like that person doesn't have an axe to grind at all. Totally impartial. But the information about if you can filter all that out and listen to the information. Yeah, please filter it, because I don't have a clue what they're talking about. So what they're saying is that because Spike is a distributed computing system, so it's got boards that drive discrete parts of the pinball machine rather than one big board, what he's saying is the video feed is essentially just H.264 is essentially like DivX, if you know what DivX is. So it's that codec, and it's just viewing out video. So all they do is they take that and present it into, like, a separate area on the screen is what he's saying. So it would almost be like just picture in picture. Okay. and would just render it on the fly, apparently, from what this person is saying. Right. So in other words, it's not going to be hogging up a whole bunch more processing power. It's literally kind of like running an audio file. Essentially, yes, like running a movie to an extent. But I think there's going to be some interactivity with it. So, of course, you need to display things like scores, and you need to trigger the display to display things when it is. So there is going to be some degree of orchestration required. But from what this person suggests, it's not going to be like we don't have to render the stream. It's just the streams will be there. They'll just be called on demand, essentially. So that's good.
    5:27
    That will be a lot easier. It sounds like what they might have is like a video loop, and then they overlay the scores over the top video loop. Sure. That's what it seems like to me. And so it's ARM-based Linux that the Spike system is using. Okay. So ARM is the processor type. processor architecture, which is often used on Android and sort of like those smaller form factor devices, which would make sense because each of those little boards in the Spike system would have to have their own processor to actually orchestrate the stuff that's on the board. So if that's the case, what he was saying is that Farsight need to recompile for their particular system. So interesting. That information was good. The rest, well, thanks for your time. Well, you know, I like to now and then give dissenting opinions a shot at us. But the point being, folks, we do appreciate, hey, if you've got information that we don't, please. Call us out on it. Call us out on it, and we'll be happy to spread proper information.
    6:35
    The info that was just dropped there is completely out of my wheelhouse. someone in mind but I didn't know the details of the specifics of how they've done it so I've learned something today so thank you person on YouTube for doing that the more you know and I'll just put this out here now too hey if you want to comment on a video go for it do that if you want to comment directly to us you can also do that Our email is blahblahblockade at gmail.com. And I should say blah is, if you can't guess, B-L-A-H. Yeah. Yeah, just... The correct way of spelling it. Exactly.
    7:22
    What else is going on? Well, it looks like the Arcuda key for cabinets got released. and with that release Jared and I as well as the people that bought it received an email that basically stated this is they're getting it into the hands of the customers right now but there are bugs Arcutus aware bugs and Farsight is going to be working on these bugs up to the June 30th cutoff point and the reason why they're going to be working on these is because arcuda is making them yes you know when when you're a company that hired another company to do something you get that uh ability to say hey make worky make worky ours is more important ours has a deadline um yes a fast rapidly approaching deadline fast rapidly approaching deadline so uh understandably though there's some frustration among the people that have purchased that we're hoping things are going to be working flawlessly, and there's issues. So some of those issues kind of depend on your setup. The one person that said they have the three-monitor cab setup said, works beautifully, have no problems. People that have the two-monitor setup, theirs is a little more dancing that has to be done with finessing the program. Apparently.
    8:58
    So there's that. Apparently, there is only one true cabinet view right now. The other three views look like they're straight out of Pinball Arcade. All right. Okay. So people are obviously understandably ticked about that. Yeah, fair call.
    9:17
    When they exited the game and then came back to the game, it didn't stay on the cabinet view, so they would have to switch it. And then if they turn on another table, they'd have to switch it again, the camera view. So somebody figured out a way to the command prompt to keep it locked in on, I guess, this camera for. So as soon as you start up your cab, that's what's displaying. Most of the people that are commenting, it sounds like these are all the people that did the $149 unlock. so I don't know and I'm assuming it's going to be the same issue for those that did the $500 purchase also they won't be able to tell though until they get the cabinet because it won't work on a homebrew cabinet no there's two different versions of the 500 there's the Arcuda 500 and then there's the just regular 500 the Arcuda with all the tables unlocked the 500 yeah so point being folks A apply the pressure man say what you they need the bug reports say what you're finding say what the problems are say how if you're finding solutions or whatever um and by and large the group that are commenting on this are doing exactly that right none of this oh my game's broken and you know they don't stop off yeah they're being very specific with their feedback that's excellent One person did a comparison between, well, they apparently have two different cabs because they had a two-monitor cab and a three-monitor cab. And they compared it also with the NoX mod, which is what the community's mod was. Yeah. And their conclusion was that the three-monitor setup was a 9 out of 10. the two monitor setup was a like a 7 out of 10 and the no x uh mod is a 6.5 out of 10 so they were still saying that they like it better than what was available but um only just only at the moment yeah but they kind of feel like and and what they're also saying is some tables looks great other tables what the hell is going on uh so like like they were saying that you know some tables the back glass looks nice and is animated, but other tables say like, and we pointed this out, black hole. There ain't no animation going on other than the score. So it's not spinning. It's not doing a light dance. It's not doing anything.
    11:52
    So like I said, there's a lot that needs to be done, and Arcuda is aware of this. They figure it's better to get it into the customer's hands early and let you guys kind of source out a lot of the bugs that you find as well as their list that they're currently aware of, just in case they've missed anything.
    12:15
    But they are, like I said, Farsight will be working on this. I don't understand why Farsight couldn't work on this post-June 30th, but I will say this. Arcuda is probably saying, do it by now. This is what our customers expect, and they're the ones setting the cutoff date. and my best guess is if some things are missed, if some things aren't implemented after that, Farsight will still be able to deal with those things. Yeah, I believe so. I think this is Arcuda putting the hand to the fire. Screws on. Yeah, totally. Because it's like, go on, get on with it and make this thing the best it possibly can be so we can actually promote it positively. Exactly. And actually get the sales we need to get before we can't physically sell this thing anymore. Yeah. You know, it's, you know, just more like a, I think, I don't know how the licensing thing is going to work, but you'd think that, you know, if you already have the tables, you could continue to buy the 149 unlock only option past June 30, because what would you be getting with that? I'm not saying this is possible, but I'm theorizing here. It's like, what are you getting with that? You're getting the ability to unlock the tables you already own, because you have to have the licenses for those tables to be able to unlock the tables in the game. So why wouldn't it be possible to actually continue to sell that? I don't know. Why didn't we ask that question when we had Mike or Bobby on? Yeah, that would have been a good one to ask. We might actually follow up. We might actually follow up with them about that because that's a really interesting proposition, right? Because what would be the licensing disadvantage for that? It's just essentially a game mode that you're unlocking. the TPA.
    14:01
    It's on-disk DLC. It's already there. You're unlocking a mode, essentially. You're paying to unlock a cabinet mode.
    14:11
    It's an interesting question to ask. The only thing I can think of is unless Williams is also getting a cut of this. It's possible. If they're getting a cut, that's why. That would be all the answer that you need. That would be the very cut-and-fast answer to that, wouldn't it? Yeah, it would be interesting to ask. Maybe we'll see if we can get an answer out of either Arcuda or Farsight on that one. Yeah, and I do plan on, I was planning on going up to Farsight in the next two weeks.
    14:41
    Arcuda has requested that I delay that slightly because they got some things that they're sending to Farsight. Oh, I see. And so they want me to be able to see, basically the cabinet that Farsight has is the same cabinet that Arcuda's had available for three years now. Yeah. So it's not the newfangled new design that they have, but this cabinet is able to do all the things that the new cabinet will be able to do. So it just doesn't look aesthetically as nice. So functionality there.
    15:19
    And so that's why Arcuda's still sending stuff, boards and everything to Farsight to have implemented. So I guess they've got something that they're preparing right now and is in transit or whatever, and they're like, we're not sure if it's going to be there quite by the time you get there. So if you can delay. So we'll see. But if we don't get the question answered by then, I'll certainly, when I'm at Farsight, ask the question point blank and see if we can get an answer. See if we can get an answer. Yeah, exactly. Because we officially in June now We on the launch pad essentially That right this so yeah Countdown clock is ticking It ticking yeah
    16:00
    Well, it's good to see the community is really doing the right thing there and really highlighting all the bugs they need to do in the constructive way they need to do it. So, excellent. Great work. Yeah, there was one comment popped in. It was just like, started doing the, I don't know why I have to pay for this far side problems did four years ago. I was just like, you're not the customer. Fortunately, everybody ignored him and didn't even pay attention. I was like, okay,
    16:26
    bye bye. Yeah. Um, and we're trying just for those that, uh, that do frequent the, the Pimble Arcade fan forum and have been commenting on this particular, uh, thread. We, the, the request has been put in to make a natural Arcuda cabinet thread, dedicated and not just part of a general thread. We have to have our webmaster create that. So hopefully that'll be implemented, and then you'll be able to have an actual dedicated place to talk about all of this stuff compiled. Yeah.
    17:04
    Well, that'll be good. Yeah. What else is new? Well, we did see the newsletter come out from FASA. I don't know if you got that. It pretty much had the info we already knew. which is which is uh let me just go and open up the email it was very it was a short newsletter i did the newsletters at the moment i wish there was there was something they could put in there extra that would make it a little bit more spicier because they're sort of uh well they're a little bit light on the uh the uh the fun stuff that used to be in there you know how you always used yeah yeah how you always used to have the the great information that you go oh yes it's a newsletter i can't wait to read this so in this newsletter newsletter number 75 um there was a plug for pinball tournaments compete for real cash i have yes you you have i have i just went live uh yesterday oh yeah so they did that they also put the uh the t minus 29 days it was only 29 days left to go until you can't buy any more tables uh then they actually did an announcement in there for Pinball Arcade Cabinet Mode and they had a nice animated GIF for Akuta burning away. It looks really cool.
    18:24
    So yep, they highlighted in three different versions which was Pinball Cabinet Mode for Steam PC, standalone product for existing virtual video pinball owners and deluxe product for Akuta video pinball cabinet owners. And they highlight the things we already know.
    18:40
    So, you know, it's got dot matrix display to support and all the graphical improvements And they also talk about, I think, the features that they talk about below the three dot points, which is below the deluxe product for our Cuda video pinball cabinet. They actually show a picture of the cabinet and then they go into detail. So it's probably important to realize that things like the, hang on, just reading live, deluxe options, do it live. Do it live. Great radio. And deluxe options, which include touchscreen gameplay and real pinball parts support, including Fripple Cores. That is only for the Yakuta dedicated pinball cabinet, so be aware of that.
    19:28
    So, yeah, it's just the usual plug. And then they highlight the free-to-play tables for the month, and literally that's it.
    19:36
    That's your newsletter. I'll mention real quick with the pinball tournaments app and the real cash. Cash. So I didn't deposit any cash. I had one cash of the opening achievements. Okay. So I started with three a dollar. Three a dollar. And each entry, if you do the basic small entry, is 60 cents, basically. Oh, okay. And you're going to win a dollar. how's that work? I don't know how it works who's making money there? it's all weird but anyway I tanked my first two matches and I was like oh no I only got one more match and then I won't have any money and then I went on a streak and won six in a row so you're literally rolling in real cash currently my winnings are at $5 and we're going to try and get that up to $10 because I'm only paying the dollar matches because once I get up to the $10, then maybe I'll actually throw down for one of the $5 matches and really increase the money. So what do you win with the $5 match? $3.
    20:51
    What? So you get $5 plus $3 winnings. Something like that, yeah. So you get $8 back essentially. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And if you lose, you only lose $3. So it's – Oh, okay. I don't know. I can't quite figure out what's going on. That's bizarre. Yeah, whatever. All I know is that it certainly makes your palms sweat a little bit more when you have a bad game. I bet it does. And there's certain players that I've been being matched up with in the basic version, what they call practice mode, where no cash is on the line. I've been playing against the same two players for two weeks now that's all that I get paired up with I don't get paired up with anybody else and it's really annoying and one of the players they'll have terrible games you know every like third game and so I feel fine you know like if I have a bad game maybe it'll be on their bad game and I'll still be able to win or whatever this other player just is thumping me and And I'm like, please don't be in the cash game yet because as soon as I see your name pop up, I'm going to be like, oh, man, I just lost that one. So I did have, and this is prior to the cash game being updated with it, I had some issues with the game. And I notified Flippy Floppy about it. But the prime issue, and see if you think this is fair. So if you are familiar with fireball at all, which is what this table basically is, if you lock a ball, a ball then appears in the shooter lane. Yep. However, if you have two balls active at the same time and you have one ball start to go down the drain and then you lock the ball, what happens? Well, if you're going out the out lane, right, there's obviously triggers in the out lane. and the sound effect of the astronaut dying, going, ah, happens. Okay. So if that sound is triggered, but my ball still has not, we're talking two balls simultaneously in motion. So ball number one has gone down the outline, has triggered that sound effect. Ball number two is headed straight for the lock, has not quite locked yet, but then locks, and then the ball that was in the outline finally hits the center drain and drains. Yeah. What do you think happens? do I get a ball in the shooter lane and continue on the same ball or does it say that I am lost the ball and now have moved on to the next ball oh it does the latter doesn't it does the latter so it actually invalidates the ball that's in the lock and classes it as a ball 2 from ball 1 and then even better is if it happens really simultaneously, you'll get two balls in the shooter lane because it registers that the ball went to the lock and it needs a ball in the shooter lane, but it also registered the exact same time that it was draining and you're on to a new ball. And so the guys at Firesight, Rob Flippy Floppy, he specifically was just like, I've always wondered why two balls could go get in the lane at the same, you know, in the plunger lane. And I went, yeah, that's why, because your trigger on the out lane isn't officially calling it an end ball or a drained ball. It's waiting for the trigger in the center. I'm like, don't do that. Yeah, don't link the out lane switches to points and sound, but don't link it to game state. That's essentially what the problem is. If you had any other pinball that you were playing that had ball save flashing and the ball went through the out lane, it would give you a new ball. Yes. And count it as the same ball. It's not going to still wait for it to actually hit the center drain and then go, oh, nope, nope. It stopped blinking before it went center drain. You didn't make it in time. No, that's not the way it works. It knows the ball is dead. That's right. After doing death saves, which... Which, good luck with that. Yeah, good luck with that. Hey, you know what? If you can do a death save, good job. Yeah. I feel you should be rewarded. Yeah, exactly. If you can get that ball back into play again, yeah, have a fun time with that. Yeah. So, anyway, I found that to be rather annoying. And then I had another issue where the game was just suddenly crashing. I had two balls locked, and then I'd go and hit the captured ball to release both those balls, what they call ion multiball. And as soon as I hit that ball, the whole game would go and kick me out to the phone menu. yeah when I go back and do the app it counts as an aborted attempt so anybody that plays against me automatically wins oh that's not cool no that's not cool either so I made sure I reported that also the thing is when you are playing for real cash it's going to make me get livid yeah that's right a game crash is like well that's crap normally but when you're playing with cash it's like I'm going to hunt you down I'm going to like steal that five bucks right out of your wallet.
    26:15
    Yeah. So anyway, that's what's going on with that. Okay. I've got two more bits of news. I'm going to save the last bit of news because it's not really vital or anything. It's not news either, but it's just correspondence. But remind me, talk about Zen and controllers. Talk about Zen. Talk about Zen and controllers. But what Zen tweeted out this week was a basically congratulations to another publisher. The company is L17. The developer is Villa Gorilla. And they have a new game out called Villa Gorilla. They have a new game out called Yoku's Island Express. and normally I wouldn't pay any attention to this kind of thing but the sheer fact that Zen tweeted out and it was not even Zen, it was Pinball FX doing the tweet saying, hey, congratulations on this game. I went, that's kind of bizarre. So I clicked on the video link and lo and behold, it's a platformer type game using pinball controls. So flippers and bumpers. And that kind of made me go, hmm. That might be up my alley. I don't know. So I contacted the publisher and said, hey, we do a podcast. What do you say? Do you want some promotion, if you will, or at least a review of your game? And they complied and gave me the review code. So I've been playing that for the past couple of days. I think I put in about 12 hours on the game, which was enough to actually finish the main story mode of the game. Okay.
    28:00
    More than enough to get an idea of what it's like. What it's like. And I will say this. You know that feeling when you're playing pinball machines that kick your butt and you go, ah, just one more. I can just go. And next thing you know, it's been two hours. Yes. That's this game. Right. Okay. So incredibly playable, incredibly repeatable in what you want to do. So what it is, is you are a dung beetle that lands on this island with what more or less is a pinball. It's shiny, and it's round, and it's not colored like poo. So that's why I'd say it's a pinball. However, it has all the qualities of some other substance in that it floats. It doesn't have any bounce. so basically what this pinball the dung beetle basically has a leash on it if you will and pushes it but if it's downhill then the ball rolls and pulls the beetle so if it's on a downhill any kind of gravity once gravity takes over it feels like an actual pinball rolling and the basically this island the way it's set up you get into these jungle-ish areas or whatever. And there is flippers and pop bumpers of sorts. When I say pop bumper, it's more like a...
    29:31
    It's still activated by your flipper controls, but it just punches out. Oh, yeah. So if the ball rolls near it, you punch it, and it'll send the ball flying. So it's not a flipper. It's more of a punch. Very much like the space kit or pinball kit it um yes yes um but down on and this isn't in all levels uh that are within this game but there are some sections that very much resemble pinball machine in terms of there's out lanes or called in lanes more than that return lines return lanes yeah uh but there is two flippers at the bottom of those and in between them is a thorn patch you don't want to go in the thorn patch But if you do, then your ball will plop down below it, and a plunger kicks it back out up onto the main field, if you will. Okay. And instead of points, you're scoring these fruit bubbles. Okay. You collect the fruit bubbles. They go into your little wallet. By having the fruit bubbles, you're able to unlock other plungers that are spread throughout the jungle that you're in.
    30:40
    So they give you access. Get you access to new areas. I see. Cool. So the layout of this... I'm not familiar with this kind of genre of game other than I played a thing on my PlayStation Vita called LocoRoco.
    31:00
    This very much reminded me of that in terms of most of your map and where you're going is fogged out until you're able to access that area, and then all of a sudden the fog clears. but your exploration of these areas is very maze-like so you get into an area and you try and do some things that are in there but then something inevitably leads you out of the area and next thing you know you're a couple of areas away from it you're like wait a second what's doing something back there and then you try and get yourself back to that you're like how do i do this and so it kind of winds up being a maze of getting through it so somebody said it reminded them of Castlevania or Metroid. Oh, right. Okay. In that respect.
    31:45
    And so that where the addictive part of it comes because in my mind I like well let me clear out an area so I don have to come back to it but inevitably you have to leave the area to go do something else not necessarily story mode but it's like they give you all sorts of different tasks different missions there's different people island natives if you will whatever scattered around that like oh hey do you want to help me oh hey can you do this and because it's pinball and you're flipping and you can't see the entire area of where you're going you're like well i wonder where this flipper takes me and you start flipping and next you know you're on a habit trail that takes you over a whole completely different area and you're like okay wait do i explore this area that i'm in right now because it wanted me to or do i go back to my other area and inevitably i just kind of was always like well Let me just see what's going on here. Yeah. What's over here? The next thing I know, I've got like six different missions open of things that I can do. And I'm literally going, wait, oh, crap. How do I get back to way over there? And you can do a map zoom out and see the entire world. But it's not super duper detailed. So you think that you're like, oh, yeah, the path goes right through here. Yeah, easy to get back. And then when you go back in and you zoom in, you realize, oh, yeah, there was that one little tiny riser that my ball can't get past. Yeah. And in order to get past it, it takes you like six moves of going all the way around kind of thing through that area. So there's where the frustration aspect of it comes. But so in terms of how does it play as pinball? Like I said, the ball don't bounce. So you're not going to be doing any dead flips or dead passes. You're not going to be doing tip passes. There is no ball spin. It's not that kind of... It's not a pinball simulation. It's a game with pinball interactive elements. Yeah, yeah. Pinball is how you navigate, but it's not a pinball game per se. but the pinball are in me still having a blast you know playing around playing it and going around so i wind up completing the entire story mission but then there's all these treasure chests hidden around there's these little things that are planted in the ground that are hidden around and there's where the true mystery of it all is because now you're trying to figure out how do I get these? Where is the secret passage? What do I have to do to access this stuff?
    34:35
    There's a lot of water around and you can see things in the water but you're not able to dive because your ball floats until you get this little thing that attaches to your ball as a fish and then the fish can swim it. So then you can dive. So there's a lot of areas that you go past and you're like, there's something in there and I can't. And then you have to wait until later in the game to be able to access it but of course by that point you've kind of forgotten what was down there um so how do you what's the uh mechanic like when you so you've obviously finished the game so can you go just level to level and select where you start from no oh no it's not that kind of game so what they have instituted there is what they call the beeline and it's basically a series of cannons that will shoot your ball.
    35:21
    And there's three different beelines, if you will, that swarm around different areas of the park. So you're able to rapidly get from one end of the map to the other end of the map.
    35:34
    But sometimes it's a bear just trying to figure out how to find the correct plunger that will even get you onto the beeline. There's also an entire underground area that there is no rapid access to. so at the point of the game that I'm in now where I'm just hunting down secrets it's kind of it's okay because I'm not worried about missing anything I'm just about I need to explore this area that's over here let me pop up up up you know pop over to it and clear it out as well as I can but like my son wanted to know what the final boss battle was which was it was an insane bit of pinballing with multi-ball going to going on it was kind of fun to all the fun all these other um troops were like you need our help and so all of a sudden three more balls got loaded in and you're flinging them around and the big boss was at the top of the the playfield if you will and kept on launching obstacles on the playfield that you had to smash through cool and the little the the other helper multi-balls needed to get basically put into ball locks where their swords were. And once you locked all three of them, then they would eject again, and now you could actually attack the boss. That's cool. So like I said, it had full-on multi-ball feel, and there were definite targets that you were shooting for. And if you shot your ball into one of their targets, that didn't fly. It had to be them specifically going into it.
    37:11
    But anyway, once I finished it, my son was like, oh, I'd like to see that. and I go, I don't think I can show it to you because I can't go back and just reload it. It's, that area is now clear.
    37:22
    So that makes me wonder what the replay factor on this is. I wonder if, well, maybe after hearing this review, they might actually consider making replayability a little more accessible. Because for me, you go into something like, well, most games really, that have a level style play. And if you're going back and you finish the game, you have unlocks to be able to just go and select a level and have fun in it, right? Yeah. But I think that's what they're saying part of the fun is, is the navigating around, trying to figure out how to get where you need to get. Ah, so do you think that maybe the whole concept of beelines is essentially, okay so go to playfield one playfield two playfield three and essentially each one of those b lines is like a separate playfield universe type of thing no because again it's not even specifically they're not even specifically playfields um it's more about going into they haven't divided up into like there's a uh what they call like morrow hill and then there's the underworld and there's this ape falls and this area that's all snowy up in the sky. So there's different environments and within each of those environments are what you would say are a couple of different playfields, if you will.
    38:58
    But it's not like... Don't get in your head that when you look at the map it looks like just a whole bunch of playfields laid out. Oh no, I wouldn't think that. They're like themes. Yeah, it's a lot of themes. And there's per area, I would say that there was only really one true called pinball playfield.
    39:22
    Everything else was navigation purposes kind of playfield. So everything else was like platformer. Yeah, because there's these what they call man-eating plants.
    39:32
    And so long as you have the appropriate attachment or skill unlocked. When you go, when your ball goes flying by one of these, you activate the flipper, it'll grab onto your ball, and then you'll all of a sudden spin around in a circle. Oh, yes. And then you can fling yourself off of it and be released. So that's why I say there's a lot of true platforming aspects to the game. and all the mystery hunting, which is what I'm doing. I'm verging on frustration right now because I see areas I need to get into and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get into them. Right.
    40:16
    And sometimes I know that one time I was really frustrated and it was literally a situation where I just hadn't swam down far enough with my ball or butted up against an invisible wall, if you will.
    40:31
    And once I did that, I was like, oh, now I'm in. Oh, sweet. It's all unlocked and clear. So I'm trying to find all of those. But the game is $20. It's available on Steam as well as Xbox One and PS4. for people that like this style of game i think it's it's worth the 20 bucks um you know steam i inevitably it's going to go on sale i think if it's a 10 game it's absolutely anybody should just be like let's scoop in you know and have some fun yeah get some have some fun um if you're just a diehard pinballer this isn't
    41:18
    this isn't the game for you in that aspect. I think you kind of brought up because for the same price you can buy a black flag. Yeah. Black flag or pinball wicked. And you were like, Oh, well, what should I do? And I'm like two different, completely different experiences. You know, one is like an orange or would you like an apple? You know? Yeah. I mean, you know, yeah, they're both fruit.
    41:41
    Yeah. You know, and it was, it was funny though, because I got to kind of thinking about it and I went, well, here's the deal. Black Flaggers, Pinball Wicked, it's basically what you expect out of Zen these days. Right. But it's just the one table. Yeah, right. And so are you really going to get anything other than something that... It's like the pro pinball packaging on the table. Right. I mean, you've got something that can look phenomenally way better than Zen has ever put out on one of the tables. But it's still, at the end of the day, it's another pinball table. Yeah. So for the same price, you can buy something like this, which gives you some of that pinball experience, but isn't a pinball table in the least. It's actually, it's not only a pinball, but it's a platformer as well. Yeah. So you get two games. Yeah. So, you know, and I think that's why it really has held my interest is because it's like, hey, there's these touchstones that I do. I like flipping. I like that as a mode of navigation. And we've even commented about how Zen and their storytelling within their tables, that sometimes when people were complaining that it wasn't pinball enough, that it was just a video game or whatever, it was like, yeah, but it's using pinball interaction to tell its story.
    43:06
    And that's kind of what I categorize this as much, much, much more, that it happens to use pinball stylings to tell its story.
    43:17
    But, you know, if you're looking for something that, like you said, I think 12 hours in, I'm 68% done with all the mysteries of the game.
    43:27
    You know, all total by the time I'm done with it, it's probably going to be a 20-hour game once I figure out where everything else is. So $1 an hour. $1 an hour, you know, hey, is that worth it? That seems pretty good to me. You know. That seems pretty good to me. so anyway getting it yeah i mean but i can say without a doubt i i like what i'm playing it's fun i'm enjoying it so good job villa gorilla and uh thanks to uh to l17 for for throwing 17 or team 17 excuse me uh for throwing that our way so that we can uh shine some light on it uh like i said if you're on the if you're on the fence about it if you're like i don't know if i will or if I won't, take the chance. Yeah. You'll probably, you'll most likely enjoy it if you like platformers and pinball.
    44:15
    I mean, it's cutesy at the start, but here's where I would really say, if you enjoyed playing Snowball, if you enjoyed playing Space Cadet, you're going to love this because it smokes those in every way, shape, and form. Right.
    44:31
    Whereas Space Cadet has more true pinball physics, but it's that same kind of idea of bouncing around to different zones and doing different things. There's a similarity to that. Snowball has a lot more in common, you might say, with this except for this is done with really good graphics and a storyline and is just way better on pretty much every other aspect, but the physics are similar.
    45:04
    There's where your comparison is. Did you ever on PS2, maybe you weren't on PS2, but there was a game on PS2 called Flipnick, and it was this game with three distinct levels, but the levels were huge. And it was true pinball action, like you're on these tables and you're on playfields. But within the tables, I guess, zone, you would flip off to different segments of the playfield. It was all 3D. and and yeah i just i loved it like i played it so much no i'm not familiar with it at all oh yeah well i'd love to someone re-release that on like made that available on steam because it would be awesome um but it sounds to me a little bit that there's elements of that style of play where you're jumping off to other areas within like in a a zone or that sort of thing with this game. So I think, based on that alone, I think I'd actually probably really enjoy this game. So this is what I wish that, you know, the Farsight game that shall not be named Oribles.
    46:15
    Oribles. Horribles, yeah. This is where Farsight should be looking for new IPs. You've got this great pinball following and you obviously know how to do the physics of pinball but this kind of game really opened up my eyes to this is where you could do your offshoot. This is where you could do so long as you had the design team and everything that could handle this kind of thought pattern. Because again, I'm telling you, man, once you got the whole map open, you just go, jeez Louise.
    46:54
    It is a maze. You have to be a maze designer. That's all there is to it. to put this thing together. Because it looks like one nice cohesive picture, but then when you're actually navigating around it, you're like, what the hell?
    47:08
    It's pretty insane. It's a very interesting way to describe it, I think, too, because a lot of the time when you're thinking of a platformer-style game, I think that's basically how you would make one. It is essentially, unless it's a linear platformer, it would be maze design. Yeah, I mean, today you think about, if you think about your Mario game, they're very much point A to B You know when you in the map world it no I completed this section now I moving on to the next section And when you done with it and you go back everything is in a straight navigatable line It's not these random how-do-you-get-to-it kind of situations. You're always moving forward in something like Mario. Whereas this, you can go back and around and up and down. And it's sort of like not really three-dimensional, but it's like 2.5-dimensional. whereas like mario you were looking at the levels you could actually lay them flat in a big long broadsheet that would just appear out like a big linear design whereas as this map is like up and down and left and right and you've got a whole lot more areas that you've got to jump between and i'll say this if you were able to just travel left to right on unencumbered and up and down Unencumbered, it would kind of take a lot of the fun value out of the game.
    48:34
    I was hoping that at some point, because it was mentioned in one of the storylines about teleporting, I was like, oh, that would be so nice if I could just teleport to this area and not have to spend two minutes trying to get to it instead.
    48:50
    And obviously when you're down to the nitty-gritty of trying to find things, that's all you're concerned about. You're like, oh, do I really have to go all the way back? you know yeah exactly am i sure that i cleared out every single room i don't know uh you know so like a percent complete on each of the zones no do you have it let's see this is these little this would be a good thing to add in later after they've like really because it's only just been released hasn't it it is what you do win is maps that show you uh like within this area here's all the treasures oh okay so you and that's what i'm saying i can see where the stupid treasures are but unfortunately they're in great they're in fogged areas and i can't figure out how to break the fog yeah so there's so on the one hand it's like yay i know that i've cleared out the areas that i can actually navigate through but how do i get to the areas that i can't navigate to so you know we'll find out yeah i'm not knocking i'm certainly not knocking the game for its exploratory nature.
    49:56
    I'm just saying that it can get frustrating. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, that's fine. Well, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. And who knows also, this is why I say replayability, once I'm done with this, I might start it up again and just see how quickly then I can get through stuff. Clear your progress and go speedrun. I think that might be a good idea. Maybe that would be because it's always tough on the first run through the game because you don't know what you don't know. exactly so it'd be like like it'd be great if you could set up like another profile in the game and say right i'm going to speed run this well you can i think it can record uh three different scores oh sweet so you could you could totally do that yeah so you could have your core one that you're just working through yourself and then you could speed run your way through i reckon that'd be fun a fun way to actually do it and see what you could unlock yeah wicked anyway so there you go folks Check it out. Again, the name is Yoku's Island Express.
    50:51
    Now, da-ding, da-ding, you have a reminder. Zen and controller. Ah, yes. So I've been playing, I use my PS4 controller to play. And if people want to know why I use a PS4 controller instead of an Xbox 360 controller, well, when it comes to pinball, it's really easy. And that is the way I grip my controller. I hold it very low. And I'm showing this for those that are watching the video. I hold my controller very low so that my fingertips are just on, on the bus.
    51:24
    Yes. If I'm playing on a three 60, you need to have full grip. Yeah. With your hands fully engulfing. And then that's when your left thumb is actually going to be on that left stick. More likely. my problem is is that on 360 controller the way i hold it my thumb would be going to the d-pad instead of the left stick that's up here so if i have the nudge i can't do the nudge that is quite natural like i've got my my xbox 360 controller here and yeah it is a natural feeling to actually want to put your finger there on the thing but if you've got long hands you can actually go like that and so anyway yeah i mean i know people that play it that way i just find that the full grip is better if you're playing triggers. If you're playing triggers then it makes complete sense to do that. If I'm playing a first person shooter I'll throw on the Xbox 360 controller and it feels natural. It's fine. But I do find my hand cramps when I'm holding the 360 controller as opposed to the Playstation controller which I'm very loose on my grip with when I play. So with playing with that with Steam for a while I was having to use a third-party app called DS for Windows to make my controller function and then Steam wound up integrating PS4 controllers into their what's called big controllers back yeah into their thing and that way a game could if you're playing with your controller instead of having to translate Xbox button configurations to what your you know X's and B's and Y's, well, instead you would just have circles and triangles and squares, like the standard PlayStation symbology. Now, not all games have integrated this in this manner.
    53:11
    Farsight. What I'll say is, if you're using Big Picture or using the Steam's integration, it will actually function within Farsight. You don't get the button hints. You don't get the button hints, and there's also a little bit of a frustration factor in that the controller's not quite... Like, on a PS4 controller, you've got the touchpad that can act as a mouse control. Well, then you don't get that functionality. Right. There are certain functions that... and it varies game to game. Me playing Yoku's Island Express, I had to use either the DS4 Windows or use Steam's controller configuration. Right. Here's the deal. If I do that with Zen Pinball FX 3, navigation, it skips tabs. Oh, does it? There's something going on that it skips tabs, and it skips every other one. And I'm going to like, well, that's really bizarre. Now, the only reason why I even approached this was because usually what I do is I just plug my controller in. I don't have the profile set up at all in Steam, and it treats it as just a 360 controller. But I wasn't getting any rumble feedback anymore, and I used to get rumble feedback in this. So that's when I started kind of experimenting around and seeing what was going on. And, you know, when I did it through the Steam's version, I was like, yeah, I got rumble, but I can't navigate for crap. And it's skipping tabs, and there's no way for me to highlight those tabs unless I go then use my mouse to try and do it. So anyway, I ran through this whole scenario, and I was like, okay, enough's enough. I contacted Zen and sent them a, if you will, a bug report. They got back to me within a day and were like, tell us more. All right. So I was like, okay. So I ran through three different controller configurations, one being with the use for Windows, one being with Steam's big picture control, and one being no controls whatsoever, just plugging the controller directly into the PC and seeing what it does. and reporting back on what I found. And the reason why I also say this, I've also been playing Rise of the Tomb Raider again now that I have the graphics card that can handle it. Yes. Again, no PS4 configuration. I just plug the controller in. It works like a charm. Everything's beautiful. So various games, it functions just perfect. Other games, it doesn't function so perfect. So my point to Zen was, you guys are a pretty polished product. I saved this in my email and I'm just saying as much as I'd love to have Rumble just be put in and if you could solve that because you had it when you first introduced the game and then for some reason it stopped recognizing the controller probably when they introduced the Jurassic Park pack that happened so if you can figure out a way to get the Rumble back in, fine but with as polished as you guys are, maybe you should look into integrating the PlayStation icon and fully recognizing the controller and just taking it that one extra step. And then they got it back to me and were like, thanks, it's all really helpful. We'll pass this along to our guys and see what they can do. So good customer service. That's really good. We'll see what happens. But I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly they got back to me. That's very good. Well, that's pretty typical of Zen, they're right. They're pretty good with those sort of things. yeah that's really cool anyway that's all that was new for this week Jared well that's a fair bit of new stuff I'll mention for those that are interested since it's the very end of the podcast I went and saw this movie called Unbound Unlocked no now I'm completely missed on what it was it's not Unbound it's not Unlocked upgrade. That's what the word I'm looking for. Upgrade. It was, see, it's things, words, they hard. Yeah.
    57:25
    It's this, it's this low budget sci-fi movie that came out. Basically, it's about a guy that gets a, who's a paraplegic, gets a chip implanted into his neck. And suddenly he has kind of control of his limbs. His brain is sending signals through the chip and the chip is the thing that's actually translating it. only thing is the chip starts talking to him and yeah the chip starts talking to him and at one point he gets into a fight and he's getting his butt kicked and the chip is like I can take care of this for you if you'd like and he goes yes fine you have complete control next thing you know he's just walloping the ever living crap out of the assailant wow I just want to point out It's a fun bit of sci-fi that for some reason, even though it has very little in common with it, reminded me a lot of RoboCop.
    58:19
    And when I say that, it's because of the – it could have been an incredibly cheesy movie. And instead, real quickly, it wins you over to its side, and you're like, yeah, I'm going to go with this. Yeah, right. And it's kind of – it just becomes fun to watch and see what they do. There's nothing deep meaning in it. It's not hard-hitting sci-fi. It's essentially, if you watch Black Mirror on Netflix, it's essentially a larger-budgeted episode of that with really good fight choreography.
    58:53
    And that's not a knock on it. This movie is produced by Blumhouse, which means it cost less than $5 million to make. And for what they do with their money, they do a pretty dang good job of it. That sounds good. Yeah, they actually filmed it down in Melbourne. okay so there you go anyway I just wanted to you know it's summer and this is the kind of movie that just would get swept under the rug so keep your eyes peeled maybe when it comes on video or whatever that you'll want to check it out it's a good one yeah I'll keep an eye out for that alrighty beyond that hey if you want to contact us why don't you do that via Twitter is a really spectacular method of doing that the show is at Blockade or you can contact myself. I am at ShutYourTraps and Jared is at JaredMorgs.
    59:47
    Make sure you also stop by our website, which is we just found out this week. Don't type in HTTP. Yes, for the link. Yeah, just type in blockadepinball.com slash episodes and you will find our site. it's a short url kind of yeah we use a service called rebrandly and what it does is it meant that we originally when i set up the medium site i thought i could actually get a custom domain registered for them and i couldn't so i had to think laterally and i used this url shortener and rebranding service to allow us to still use our domain name but jump off to a completely different site um and it turns out that they don't use um the a the secure protocol the https protocol they used to use http so if you put s in front it goes screwy um so don't do that just use just go blackheadpinball.com forward slash episodes and you'll be fine yeah or just go to medium.com forward slash blackhead um pinball podcast and you'll find it there too Yep. So there's plenty of ways to skin the cat. But the reason why you might want to go visit our site and check out our episodes is that when Jared does these posts, he oftentimes drops in video clips of everything that we've been talking about or web links to things that we've been talking about. So it's definitely worth checking out and seeing, you know, rather than just blindly downloading the episode. Go to the site, check it out, and you can see a rich experience. Exactly. A richer experience. He puts a lot of work into it, and it's definitely worth checking out because a couple of times when I've gone and looked, I was like, oh, look at what he found. That's cool. Rather than me having to go search YouTube for it, it's bam, right there. It's right there in your face.
    61:44
    Exactly. Alrighty. Well, that's enough from us. We will be back next week talking about what? Don't know. It's a mystery. Who knows? Even to us. we really wish that we had some like we had three weeks of really good news or well news not necessarily good and now we're like coming off the high and just going oh man there's nothing left I mean I honestly don't believe we're going to hear squat about anything until June 30th that dates can just come and go and then we're going to be floating in the ether it's going to be floating I reckon after that whatever happens which we don't actually know I reckon there's a good chance that something will happen after June 30 we're crossing our fingers that it is we're hoping otherwise we're going to have to start like doing cabaret or something on the show because we have nothing else to talk about so anyway like I said it's a mystery what we'll be talking about next week but hey tune in anyway because we'll talk I guarantee that We'll be here.
    62:56
    Alright, well, until next time. Thanks for listening. Bye-bye. WizardAmusement.com The site to visit for custom pinball shooter rolls. Easy to install, totally unique. Mention Blockade Podcast for 10% off your order. WizardAmusement.com. Sales, restoration, customization.
    63:18
    Don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting a service that Blockade is delivered to. We can't improve unless you tell us how. Now stop listening and play some pinball.