Coming at you out of St. Charles, Illinois, the special When Lit Pinball Podcast starts now. Thanks for hitting that start button and taking the plunge. Here are your hosts, Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb. What is going on pinball land? This is the special When Lit Pinball Podcast. I'm Ken Cromwell. Across the table from me in the Two Brothers Pinball Pale Ale Studio is Bill Webb and this is episode number 13. Bad Boy Bill, what's going on? You know, honestly, this isn't really pinball related, but we're going to kind of jump into stuff that's more pertinent to people's well-being. Wow. Right into it. Right into it. Okay. Let's do it. Just give it to you the way that it is. Shock and awe. So there's a hurricane heading up the Atlantic right now aiming towards North Carolina. So anyone that might be living under a rock and only listens to podcasts, you might want to look that up. Let's hope that's not the case. But yeah, there's a category four and they think it might be a five hurricane heading up to North Carolina. So you're just giving like an emergency Carl Weathers shout out here? Or is there like a back story to this? Well, you know, honestly, we were on Facebook earlier and somebody had posted on the Pinball Enthusiasts forums, hey, you know, live in North Carolina, storm's coming, what can I What can I do to save my games because of potential flooding? Now, this hurricane, there's supposed to be 150 mile an hour winds and like 12 foot swells coming in as well as like 30 inches of rain. So I mean it's kind of the end all be all for 72 hours or however long it stays in that area. Yeah, there's not a sub pump that's going to save you in a disaster area probably. No, no. So this poor guy, he lives in that state and he's trying to save his stuff or do whatever he can. I was like, I can't move my games or however he said it. And he's like, anyone have any ideas? You know, a lot of people had good ideas. Move it to higher ground, wrap the games in plastic, get them out of the house, move them someplace, you know, out of the area, higher ground. And, you know, there were a couple of comments that were a little sarcastic. But, you know, my idea was to, you know, if worse came to worse, you're by yourself. You can't move. Everybody's trying to fend for themselves at that point. That's the thing, you're in a disaster area and people are prepping probably their own homes, boarding up windows, taking care of personal belongings. That's not the time to ask your buddy or your neighbor, hey, can you help me move some pinball machines out of my basement? Because that's insignificant probably for most people. Yeah, so you know, and let's just hope that this guy's house is boarded up, they've got all their affairs in order, and this is just a little bit of extra time to try and save, you know, thousands of dollars. For sure. We'll see you next time. We'll be right back. I know everyone was just poking fun because, you know, they're not in that situation. We've all been there, you know. I mean, don't get me wrong, there were a couple there that I laughed at because they were pretty funny. You're like, it's pretty unfortunate that people had fun at somebody else's expense, except for the couple comments that were funny. Yeah, but, you know, nonetheless, though, I mean, this is a hardship that somebody's going to experience. I think as a pinball community, you know, when someone has a potential issue like that, you know, try and save the, you know, jokes for something else. Well, hopefully there's a group of enthusiasts out there that help each other out in prepping for a storm. I mean, that's... We don't really have hurricanes, obviously, in the Chicagoland area. We have tornadoes that, you know, are... You can't predict a tornado, but we have had severe flooding and it can be nerve-wracking. I do remember one instance having water in the basement with pinball machines and it's the worst feeling in the world. That's the one time where you go downstairs and step on your carpet and hope that you This is a production of WGBH. I remember when you got that Transformers and you were showing it to us, I was like, what's all this grit all in the playfield? And it was like sand from the beach. Yeah, it was actually on the Jersey Shore at Barnacle Bills and the... Barnacle Bills. Barnacle Bills, kind of irony. Ironic. But, yeah, so honestly it was inside and it just got trashed out because the sea was like 20 feet or 15 feet above where it normally was and it just trashed the arcade out. So I bought said game, rebuilt the cabinet, got a new playfield for it, powder coated everything underneath. Still waiting on doing the harness. Got another friend helping with that. Yep. And, uh, I mean, we're making headway, but you know, I mean, so not all games that get trashed out are complete trash. It's just how much money do you want to dump into rebuilding them? For sure. Well, I know for a fact that you've made so many, you've put a lot of time and effort in, in, into making this almost better than new. So this is like a, like a high end restoration above and beyond on this hurricane pin. And I think the story behind it is pretty remarkable. Once people have an opportunity to see it. And I think At some point, you're thinking about bringing this to some pinball shows and sharing the backstory on this, because you're keeping this Transformers LE alive. Yeah, you know, I mean, that was the whole premise of it was, you know, well, it didn't start out that way to me. I just wanted a Transformers. I figured, you know, this would be a great game to do. Turned out it was a little bit rougher than I thought. And, you know, I've got more money into it than the game's actually worth. But, you know, the playfield or the cabinet I built for it, the artwork is actually darkened up from the original. The paint that's on the cabinet, instead of being the Stern color, it's actually the color of the white, of the black on the cabinet that was in the hurricane whitewashed with the sand and mud. There's a bag of the dirt that came out of the original cabinet on the side. Brand new playfield, everything underneath is all custom motor-coded. Brand new, new old stock playfield, right? Brand new, new old stock George Gomez signed playfield. For an LE that's unheard of, so that's nice. Thanks, George Gomez. The Inters enshrosion We do have a segment at the end of the podcast. It's called Industry Buzz. Out Pinball Podcast, INDISC, Scott Danesi. Out Pinball Podcast, InDISC, Scott Danesi. The Out Pinball Podcast is a production of Iowa Public Television which is solely responsible for its content. The Out Pinball Podcast is a production of WGBH. The The theme might not be what we're all accustomed to or something that's, you know, in pop culture or popular doesn't mean that's going to be a bad game. It just means that we got to see it, you know, dialed in. Everyone made fun of dialed in. Well, not everyone, but there were a lot of people that made fun of dialed in. And that game's, you know, pretty kick-ass in my opinion. It's incredible, but again, I think one of the things that might have held back a little bit more sale potential for Dialed In was the theme. It didn't speak to a lot of people, but that pin shoots incredibly. So I think when you look at Houdini, it's a beautiful pin. The theme is pretty cool. It's Houdini. It's a magic pin. Magic pins have already... Very iconic. Exactly. I think maybe the one criticism that that pin's taken on were that the shots were a little bit tighter than most people are used to. Yeah. And for some people it was frustrating, for other people they enjoyed that. So Josh Kugler, who coded Houdini, and I'm sure is working on Oktoberfest, has gone on record as stating that the shots are wider or easily accessible in comparison to Houdini on Oktoberfest. So that alleviates that concern. The other thing that you take into consideration is that Joe Bouser doesn't really have a consistency when it comes to playfield design in pinball. It seems like every release that he has can potentially be drastically different. So now coming off Houdini, you've got this Oktoberfest pin that's going to be a little bit more easier to shoot as far as shots and a revamped playfield design. We know it's a three flipper game. I think there's an upper right flipper in this game. That's been confirmed too. So that's exciting. You've got the use of that extra flipper. You know, I don't mind Oktoberfest as a theme. And I've said this before, before that this was confirmed, that Oktoberfest has a lot of potential to appeal to a lot of different people. The question that I have in my mind, I think most importantly, is how do they tackle the theme? John Popadiuk, Automated Amusements, rad cabs or side art panels on cabinet, John Popadiuk, Bowen Kerins, Laser Los, Mirco Playfields, LBJ, I'm literally in my head what I vision is National Lampoon's European vacation when Chevy Chase is at the German Fest in Germany or whatever, you know, whatever fest that was, you know, everyone's just getting hammered and, you know, Russ is off, you know, romancing with the girl in the back. For sure. See, now, selfish me, for me, I think that would be awesome to have a pinball machine like that. The reason I don't know that they would concentrate their efforts in such a way is because, again, they've also gone on record saying that American Pinball wants to release The Internet is fraught with information of objects that people should fazer jus' for – they have enabled their hands to gain access to the Internet in the short-arreовор modivated form hijs. TV pharmacy has from its対 terti Radi-USB studio access the radio and radio providers to meet you, switch channels, and find stations to use omni payment, radio posters, tele swab antibiotics or anti- district broadband Mr. Mel Restaurant, Fastいう Pinball Podcast, inSight Network, Hyun barbaro, Big Bang TV, and Peace industrials. The Out Pinball Podcast is a production of WGBH. In alive space for which better luckòn We're on dig foreign farmland And that's right, bar owners and operators. It would have been nice hand in hand going into September. It would have been maybe an easier way to kind of get those into bar locations and have like launch parties for that. But you bring up an interesting point. Do we really care exactly when Oktoberfest is going on as it coincides with the launch of the pinball machine? Maybe not because we just want a fun theme, right? I think the artwork's got to be, it's got to be fun and maybe have a little bit of a scatly clad women on the trans light with some some beer drinking and I think that it has to have a lot of humor and campiness kind of like medieval madness where you know you had just awesome call outs and I wanted to captivate that classic Bally Williams 90 genre of pins that in my opinion just haven't really been captivated. Captured. Poking fun. Yeah. Poor humor. Yes. You know. Little tastefulness and some jokes and humor and, you know, have a family mode if there's some things that are a little bit out of line for the youngsters. Well, like Baywatch, you can turn off the mode where the girl is rubbing the suntan lotion. Baywatch? Did we just mention Baywatch? For good reason. We're at like 70% episodes of Baywatch. Yeah, we talked about Independence Day though, you know, and we talked about a new movie but uh you know and and i'd want to say one other thing all about american pinball you know the people that kinda hate on who need well you know what yet the shots are tied could have done things differently of course this is the first time you know you show me a better anyone's first and that plays like that well it was their first in not Joe Balcer's first pen I mean, Joe has to know what's going on. He's an established designer. I think under, and I don't mean to cut you off, but under the time in which they got that done was incredible. And even if they had plotted that out for a couple years, it's still, it's a formidable pin. It's not garbage. It's not something that was thrown out there and you decided, I'm going to support this company just because they're good for pinball. It was a valid first effort for this company. I'm going to give them eight grand and hope to get a machine. I am pumped up. I'm ready to see the game. I'm ready to flip it at Expo. I'll be there at that launch party, which is going to be Thursday at 830 at Pinball Expo in Chicago. Yeah, I look forward to seeing it, especially with it being their second title and all the other things that they've learned from their first couple games. Well, their first game, yeah. Well, their first game, but, you know, just in general. The Out Pinball Podcast is a production of WGBH. We see you next time Things you wanted to add on that but I don think so No what do you have on the docket today A couple things I got in my back pocket we can talk about later Okay so Stern is shipping their Deadpool LEs now I think the first shipments are going to Europe because they take longer George Gomez posted that on Facebook today. That was pretty cool. So that's cool. So the LEs are out, the pros go first, then the LEs, and then premiums are last. I believe so. Well, just whatever's sold. Okay. Because they don't build a game unless it is already sold. We'll hear from you, guys, about first-hand stories of pinball and live offers, favorite models, and most of all, the chin too gestures. And he co-hosted this week in Pinball Podcast with Zach this week. And they opened up just rocking it out with the potential of Goonies, like a Goonies-themed pin and Goonies the movie. Well, and if you're at home or if you're in your car or wherever you're at, but think about this. You're playing your Goonies pinball machine. You know, you have the truffle shuffle mode. And then, you know, out of the middle of nowhere, you have, you know, Chunk coming from your basement. Hey, you guys! Yeah, I mean, come on. I mean, that's iconic. That's, you know. The Out Pinball Podcast is a production of WGBH. This Week in Pinball website. And this guy now is putting out news on Mondays and on Tuesdays. He goes in and he gets Zach to kind of anchor that podcast show every single week. Zach's he's had some unbelievable guests hosting the co-hosting the show with him. I've become a really big fan of Dennis Kriesel, who's been in and hosted, I think, three times on that show now. And he hosts Dennis, the Eclectic Gamers Podcast, which covers a lot of pinball. The thing that I really appreciate about Dennis is how he's able to articulate his thoughts in a manner that I wish that I was able to do. And he also has a great writing style and those articles can be found on This Week in Pinball as well. So I'm glad you brought that up. Kudos to those guys. When I think about what I'm going to listen to or what I'm going to read on a Monday morning, This Week in Pinball, the website, is what I go to first. And then when that podcast is uploaded, I nail that podcast out. Thank you, Zach and Jeff, for all your efforts. We appreciate it. It's good times. It starts our week off in a good way. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's the best part of Monday. The only part of Monday being good anyway. Well, hey, I'll take it, though. Hey, you know, I need a little bit to get you through the day, right? You know there's a problem with me, though, man. When I'm waking up on Monday mornings and I'm getting the kids off to school and I'm like, oh, I wonder if the podcast is uploaded. I wonder what's going on in this week in pinball. Is that what my life's become, man? Where I've got to wonder what's going on in pinball. I'm not putting on Fox News or CNN. I'm not checking out the Carl Weathers for the week. I'm like, what's new in breaking and pinball? The problem is you're not watching the 7 o'clock news at 5 o'clock with Cheryl Scott. No, man. Cheryl Scott's a meteorologist here in Chicago on Channel 7. If you are bored and have nothing better to do with your time, feel free to look her up. Cheryl Scott has good times. She is. She's very knowledgeable about Carl Weathers. I love the uncomfortable silence. Yeah, she is. She's a good meteorologist. She is. And a Blackhawks fan. Easy on the eyes, yes. But anyways, going back to pinball, besides, you know, Carl Weathers people, Aerosmith just got a code update last week. And one of our guys in our pinball club has that game. And I actually reached out to him to ask him what he thought of it. Does he have, he has the premium or the LE? He has the LE. I'm surprised he's still married with the amount of pinball he has over there. It's good his wife likes pinball. It is good. Yeah. But, you know, I mean, I'm going to kind of highlight what he said. The game has smart missiles now, which is pretty cool. Smart missiles? Smart missiles. Okay. Very similar to VIP passes to ACDC, so that's kind of cool. Okay. And actually, one of the, you know, honestly the code update really brought the game along, according to what he said. I don't have a whole lot of time on one, but that's one game that I wouldn't mind having. But, you know, and I'm going to quote him when he says this, but he said, this is like the best of Lonnie D. Ropp code. Like he took code from different games and the best of, you know, all the coding that he's ever done and kind of moshed it all into this code and, you know. It sounds like Lonnie's not messing around on this Aerosmith pin, which is a pleasant surprise for a lot of people that it might have second-guessed them in the past. It's funny because we both recognize the fact that we appreciate similar Aerosmith songs and you're probably you like more of the classic Aerosmith or appreciate it more than I do but what I was always thinking it'd be awesome my Aerosmith time like was the Alicia Silverstone Liv Tyler videos amazing and all that stuff off the what was the what was the CD that had the cow on the I forget what it was and I'll have to look that up and somebody can correct me if I'm wrong. We'll be right back. We're on the phone right now during the podcast and I'm looking at the Aerosmith CDology. Yeah, no, it was Get a Grip. Oh, Get a Grip, that's right. Get a Grip. It had like the cow with the lactating nipples like on the front. So I mean right then and there you're like something's going on with this machine. Yeah. Well, it's like when they had the CD before I think with the two trucks, you know, one truck parked on top of another. Definitely interesting choice but whatever. Anyways, but yeah, so Aerosmith. Yeah. So it's on your list. That's definitely one I would like to have. And Lonnie's rocking the code. And Lonnie's rocking the code. What about Batman 66? Is that something on your radar? Because again, code updates are flying out of the shelves for that one. Batman 66, I mean here, there's always games that you want, it's just how much room and how much money do you have. Yeah, that's a thing. Yeah. Have to play some scratch offs. And guess what? Even if you have the room and you have the money, that doesn't mean you're going to have the time to actually play them. Well you're right, that's the thing too. Just knowing they're down there, able to be played is a pretty comforting feeling on a daily basis. True. And that's when you don't play them very often. No. Then you're down to no machines and you're like, I need to go buy some more right now. Right. Exactly. Exactly. What else you got, Bill? You're driving the show today. I'm loving it. So on that same Facebook group, Pinball Enthusiasts, there was a guy that bought a game out of an online auction or he was at the auction, bought a Twilight Zone. I don't know what he paid. We'll see you next time. We're paying for his education right now of learning how to fix this. So the gist was he purchased this pin online from an auction. And then the people that were in the user group, because I had popped in not even knowing that you were on that thread or on that Facebook group. And it was one guy in particular that was just really kind of raining on the guy's parade. Good luck with that because I know the back story. The operator that had those before gutted all of them and stole parts and pieces out of them. We'll be right back. We have a special episode on this episode than I think I have in previous episodes. With the backstory of Bill Webb, only on the Special Winlet Pinball Podcast. How we got into this? On a very special episode of the Special Winlet Pinball Podcast. Number 13. Number 13, the Bill Webb backstory. But you know, the second game I ever bought was a getaway. It was a project game that I bought out of Pennsylvania. Showed up, cabinets falling apart, playfields dirty as sin, half the boards don't work, I was going to return it to get a refund, but it was going to cost me too much in shipping, and I said, you know what, screw it man, I'm into this game now, so we're going to see it to completion. And built a brand new cabinet for it, that was the first time I'd ever built a cabinet, went through four or five sheets of plywood to get it right, and, you know, that was my education. Right there, you know, it cost me four grand to build this getaway. They're not really worth four grand. Even now, this was like four years ago, and they really weren't worth four grand, but it's a pretty game that I have, which is why I want to build another one because that was the first attempt at it and it's nice. It's just, now I have refined my skills and I wanted to make the ultimate getaway. Right. So you'll be on your second attempt at building a way possible. Yeah. So, you know, as Mike Fox says, I have the world's most expensive getaway followed up Knapp Arcade, Streetlight, The most expensive getaway and mike fox knows this stuff because he's the pinball manager or the uh... the warehouse manager pinball life and that's a gentleman that's been in the arcade and pinball scene for years and years and years so yeah for him to give you that of owning building the most expensive anything on the planet you've got an exclusive title we've got two we got getaway transformers and transformers yeah now you have a transformers that plays as well So I have two. So I have one that was in the hurricane. I bought a second one because I wanted to be able to test the assemblies and certain other items while I rebuild this to make sure that they're all going so I can track down any gremlins before the actual game fires up for the first time. Great idea. Which actually that Transformers is going into the, excuse me, Penn Stadium booth at Expo. Oh, so that's going into the pin stadium booth. Yes. So, and for those who don't know, pin stadium offers, I don't know, I guess in my opinion, probably the most remarkable lighting improvement on any pinball machine that I've really ever seen. It's like GI on steroids and it's customizable with colors and UV flashers and Scott, who Many of these channels may soon may not stand the chance of hosting the And I'm so happy you're here. How's that working? If I had time, I'd love to have both machines there, but, you know, that's not gonna happen. Well, that's pretty cool. Yeah, so anyone that wants to play Transformers, go see Scott, see the pin stadium, and throw a game on Transformers. Very, very cool. I was talking to Mike Burke, who is running the Pinball Expo solo now, or, he has a team, but, you know, he's the front man for that. We're not going to make this an expo show. I do want to talk more specifically about expo as we get closer. But for those that aren't going to expo, I don't want this to be boring. But real quickly, a couple bullet points. There will be a Stern pinball machine that will be given away for those that are bringing games to be played in the free play area. And that's Stern High Roller Casino. I think they're giving away. So if you bring a machine in and you let it be played through the course of the weekend, you get a free entry to that. Stern is giving away or the expo is giving away a Deadpool pinball machine and that's for anybody that buys like a full weekend pass. You get an entry and then you can also for additional entries like pay 10 bucks to get those. You can win a Deadpool machine? So you can win a Deadpool, which I think is, you know, I would assume your odds to win that at Expo is probably better than most contests that you're ever going to. Better than the lottery. Yeah, so they're making their effort. There's new staffing here this year to try to help ease the transition from prior Expos. I've noticed that there are other companies that are jumping on board. I think Spooky will be at Expo this year, which is nice to see. Terry is officially working with Expo with his launch party. And Terry, the owner, Terry and Margaret, owners of Pinball Life, they will be having their Pinball Life open house party, which will start on Thursday. And I was talking to Terry today. This should be up and live on their website and on Facebook for those that want additional information. The Out Pinball Podcast is a production of WGBH. Number one, anybody that buys a ticket and it's $10 and the proceeds, 100% of those proceeds go to JDRF, which is the fight for juvenile diabetes. And they're actually helping out Brian and Deb Kelly. For those that know Brian Kelly, he's an infamous pinball restoration specialist in the community. The Out Pinball Podcast is a production of WGBH. The cool thing is this too, this will be the official spooky pinball Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle release party at Pinball Life. So for those that are wondering what that game is all about, you can jump up there and catch the game. You've got Scott Danesi who will also be there. He's working on his second game right now, but we'll have TNAs in the house over there at Pinball Life. So, well, there's like 40 plus machines or 30 plus machine. I mean, there's right. There's another 40 games for sure. For sure. From Williams to more modern day Stearns. Now, this is the thing, too. You're not just walking in and playing a couple of pinball machines and some gimmick games and oh, there's Niles Cooper, I'll flip on it. Oh, hi, you're Scott Danesi. No, it's not. I mean, it's an experience to go to the party, Especially for those that like to network with people or be able to put a face with a name or an online username. For those that do frequent pin side and you're wondering who's the who's the guy behind the screen name? You know these guys come to this pinball like party like they do Expo And you're able to really kind of have a pretty cool experience you you will find yourself most likely not playing as much pinball as you will be talking To everybody that's there. And Terry and Margaret are great hosts. The charitable cause is unbelievable and I back it 100%. It's a great you know, they're always around. It's a perfect. It's a great party. Yes, the people there are really nice. I don't think there's ever really been anything that's been too out of hand in the last couple years. Terry's taking good control of that. Yeah, and that's with limiting the ticket sales. Oh, yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up because don't wait because what happens is and again And it's going to be a capacity regardless if you go out and buy your ticket now or not, and Terry doesn't get any money out of this. No. But don't put yourself in a position where you thought to yourself, oh, I wish I would have got a ticket, because once the tickets are sold out, that's it. There's health and fire code issues there, and they're so on top of it right now. Doesn't matter if you're from Texas and you drove 2300 miles. I mean, the sob story doesn't count because I mean... It doesn't. We're cool. We're good friends. But I'm not coming to the door. So if you don't have a ticket, you guys are screwed. The Out Pinball Podcast is a production of WGBH. I think there will be options in beer I know that Two Brothers Artisan Brewing will be bringing the Pinball Pale Ale so that will be there But you know not even looking to plug anything and Terry didn ask me to talk about this The reason that I talking about it is the same reason I talking about Chicagoland Expo I want to support our local pinball organizations and pinball life has been so important and we're lucky to live so close to be able to be working on a machine and be like, ah, son of a bitch, I need these rubbers or these LEDs. I'm not putting an online order and waiting two days for it to come. We're driving 20 minutes asking Terry if he can have, you know, ask somebody to pull some pieces for us and we're going home that same day. So if I can help them with anything, that's awesome. And real quick, don't get on Terry's bad side by showing up with a two-page list of part numbers saying, Hey, Terry, I need these parts. Can you, you know, get these pulled in the next, you know, two hours? That is great. Yeah, so if you do have an order you'd like to pick up at Pinball Life, I recommend that you go ahead and make a copy of your cart and just email Terry personally www.invisibility.com Behind the lense of this fair sadly stillечат były Winke lawsuit"- – Czyna Siwia, Associate Professor at PIVS, Am hut kitgrw óS…" www.indisciples.com All right, everybody, it's just a short back and forth questions with somebody that's got something pertinent going on in the pinball industry. And this week's segment of Industry Buzz is with Eric Meunier, the designer of Pirates of the Caribbean. Getting the news from around the industry in this week's Industry Buzz. Jersey Jack Pinball. All right guys, we are live, actually recorded live, out of Jersey Jack Pinball in Illinois today. And with us on the show, gracing us with his presence, is Eric Minier, the designer for Pirates of the Caribbean. And we're actually in Eric's office right now. I'm looking around and as I take a peek, there are multiple playfields on the walls, we've got multiple trans lights, pieces of pinball history. And then in the middle of the office is a Disney Pirates of the Caribbean. So Eric, one, thanks for having us in. Thanks for having me on the show. Yeah man, welcome to the show. How's it feel? This has been your first endeavor on your own machine and these games are shipping. Finally, yes. Yeah. It's been a long road. I mean, people say pinball is hard and until you've done it, I don't think anyone really understands just how much that means. It's, there's a lot that goes into it. A lot. I've been working on this game, it feels like forever. It's only been... How long would you say? Like when was the first time where you were sitting down you're like alright it was the May before we released Dial Dance that was two years ago two years ago yeah did you know that your next game or your first game was gonna be Pirates of the Caribbean or was it just approached to you or offered that hey you've got a game in the pipeline and like how does that whole process work I was told we were going to do pirates and from there I said okay it's it's your Your game. Go. And, you know, come up with something to show us in, you know, draft out of Whitewood and show us in a couple months and we'll let you know if you actually get to do it or not. So it was like a little trial and error. Yeah. Like see what you could do. Yep. Yep. So you obviously, you literally took the ball and ran with it. Yes. Definitely. The game, first time I was able to flip on it was just prior to us talking and it's incredible. It's really like nothing that I've shot before. bill antw connector Jerry dick Guy so when did during half an hour official كل company and It's awesome. Like I haven't gotten bored of it. I don't think I will get bored with it. Code wise, shot wise, it's a fun game. I'm happy with what the rest of the team did and it's really cool. That's kind of where we were talking about on prior podcasts. Games, most initially, most games are fun because it's new. Yes. But it's the longevity of that game, how long it can sustain itself to be enjoyable in a home or on location. And this game just seems like it offers so much. You're not getting bored. I'm a pinball player myself. I'd like to think I'm good. I'm not as good as Keith Elwin. I can play. I want to make a game that I would enjoy to play. I want to play a game that I find fun and challenging. I'm really into deep rulesets. Tournament style play is entertaining for me. I wanted to make a game that would hold up on a tournament setting and hold up in the home and hold up out en route. So it's got flavors of all those aspects into it when I was designing the game. Right. So you've got all the movies that are integrated into this one game. So it's kind of like the ultimate Pirates of the Caribbean game. Yes, absolutely. When I was designing the game, the fifth movie hadn't even come out yet. It was announced, but they didn't have any trailers, they didn't have anything. I was actually able to read the script about eight months before the movie came out. Oh, cool. Okay. So I could kind of figure out what they were talking about. Like there's zombie sharks and there's this ship that comes out of the Devil's Triangle to chase after Jack and all this other stuff. So a lot of that was coming into play in the initial concepts well before I ever saw the movie. It was an interesting way of doing it. The other four movies, I have the Blu-rays here. I was watching them for weeks on end and taking notes of all the characters and ships and you name it, whatever. There was all that different inspiration came from the movies and then all the cool toys we could make out of those. But yeah, the fifth movie was definitely an interesting way to come up with content for it. Yeah, so you're kind of learning on the fly as you're trying to integrate that into your game. Yeah. Yep. You were given the opportunity to design Pirates of the Caribbean. Were you a big fan of the movie franchise or did you find yourself having to familiarize yourself with the franchise as you were designing? I had watched all the movies before I started this project but probably only one time apiece. I wasn't a huge fan but I'm definitely a bigger fan now. Yeah, for sure. It's cool I got to meet some of the actors in the movies while I was designing. Really? Which was really cool. Any fun stories that... I mean, you might want to share? Hanging out with... Late Nights of Drinking? Not that far. The Pirates Ramen Booty? Right. Kevin Jason McNally, who does the voice acting in the game, is Mr. Gibbs, the guy with the big pork chop or mutton chop sideburns in the movies, the first mate. So he did the recording for us and he was just a blast to talk to. He was super cool. And just writing a script for a professional actor. I wrote the script. Okay. I was guiding him on how to call out jackpots and multiball and stuff like that. Well, because it's different for pinball than if you're on a movie stage. Right. So I got him into a recording studio in London and he's like, oh yeah, mate, I'm taking time off from my show at the Shakespeare Globe. This is my day off. And I'm just like, oh wow, we're on a completely different level. You're performing at the Globe and now you're recording audio for a pinball. So that's a lot. And you're giving them some directions. Right. Yeah. Right. Is there Academy Awards for callouts? Maybe there's Twippies for that. I don't know. There could be. There should be. There should be something, right? Yeah. So yourself, Eric Meunier, you've got Keith Elwin, Scott Danesi. Oh, sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm just shifting gears for a second. So you've got yourself, Keith Elwin, and Scott Danesi. You guys are kind of the new kids on the block, so to speak. You guys are really breaking into the pinball mainstream with some pretty heavy titles. Do you guys converse at all on the side or are you guys buddies outside? I don't know Keith personally. I know some of the other guys do. They're in pinball league with him. I do know Scott pretty well and we hang out and talk all the time and have fun. Is there like a little competitive rivalry that goes on? Do you feel any pressure? I don't. You have to... We're friends. And like obviously we're not doing trade secrets or telling each other trade secrets but like you don't put Scott Danesi under an NDA no but like when he came to Texas when he saw the game and got to play it he congratulations and this is awesome the mechanical engineering is out of this world like the game design is great and you know I when I played TNA for the first time I he was right there because I was playing the Whitewood at Expo and I'm like dude this is awesome this is a really fun game a huge change of pace We're going to be talking about some of the most popular games in the world, and we're going to be talking about some of the most popular games in the world. I'm a pro gamer. I've been playing a lot of video games under my belt so far. So who knows what the style, how I'll play. But I'm not purely flow and I'm not purely stop and go. I like to be in the middle. Are there any machines or designers that had an influence on you and on how you're designing and playing right now? Oh, definitely. Like, I mean, I've got 10 games in my basement and I've got 22 different playfields on my wall. Yeah, there's a lot of playfields on the wall. And I look at all of them all the time. You know, I looked at, so I've got Whitewater at home. And I, absolutely that's an inspiration for the way that I designed the shooter lane. But there was one thing I wanted to change. One of the things I didn't like about Whitewater was the way that you could short plunge forever until you got the skill shot onto the upper playfield. Okay. And I wanted to make my skill shot, you know, so that you weren't there in a tournament setting forever, people plunging the skill shot, because I, that really bugs me when people do that. All right. You know, for like a minute they're trying to dink the skill shot on a game like that. And Pirates, if you short plunge it, you don't get the skill shot you necessarily want, which is the ship or the upper flipper. It's going to drop into the pop-bombers, which is still an award, but it's not as good as the other two. And I'm looking at the back panel on this is a limited edition that you have in your office. Yep. And there's this constellation board, which looks like it's a series of twinkling LEDs in a random pattern. And I'm not sure that everyone's familiar with how that works. Do you want to take a second and just kind of walk us through what's going on with that? Sure. So, designing the game, trying to come up with something to put onto the back panel to make it more interesting, more entertaining. We talked about just putting a decal on there that looked like a starry night. And then we decided to take it one step further. Let's put an LED board on there that shows different constellations because it's a pirate-themed game. They're, you know, navigation by stars. So we're going with this concept of if you navigate by the constellations that you see twinkling here on the back panel, you can get something special. So on the constellation board, it'll show an array of lights that are twinkling, and that will be a shot or a target or something that you're supposed to hit. And if you hit 10 of those in a game, it'll light extra ball for you. I'm a big attract mode guy. I like to look at these machines as much as I like to play them. And it looks really, really nice in attract mode just to see it kind of randomly illuminating. So that constellation board is offered on which models? The limited edition and collector's edition. Okay, the limited and the collector's. So the standard edition has the plastic there, but there's no LED board behind it. However, you can still do the rule. So if you shoot into the star map, which is the center shot on the playfield that starts all the different chapters, It will light up the shot or target that you're supposed to hit. It'll flash it white a couple times so that you know that's the constellation shot or target that you're supposed to hit right now. Yeah, no, I like it a lot. It does that on the other games, on the LENCE as well, and it really helps because sometimes trying to pay attention to what's on the back panel and the different shots you're shooting. If you see something twinkling over there, you're like, okay, I'm only a couple more away from my extra ball constellation award. Right. I'll try to pick those off. So you have, what's on the line right now then? Are you guys... We're doing LEs and standards to get them out to customers in on route location. Sure. And to get games overseas. Okay. Because they, you know, spend a couple weeks on a boat. So we're trying to do games that are going overseas as well as get them into our distributors show floors so they can show them to their customers and stuff like that. So when the game was on the line originally, were you out in New Jersey? I did. I did go out to New Jersey. And just to put in perspective, we're in Bensonville, Illinois. We're in Bensonville, Chicago for the most part. This is like a satellite office for development? Correct. This is our engineering office. So all of the game development happens here. Right. So then manufacturing is done out in New Jersey and I went out there right as they were starting up production to help them iron out some of the problems. What's a typical day like when you're out there on the line with everybody? Get up really early and go home really late because you know there's there's so many hundreds of things that go into a game and if one part comes in that needs to be tweaked or needs to be modified or if it's not quite I mean there's so many tolerances that can build up and affect things then you need to think on your feet and how to get the production line keep the production line moving like that's the number one priority the production line has to put out games what tweak can can I do can I show them to make the game work Do you have, like, if you had to, in a pinch, could you jump in on a line in any given spot and perform? Absolutely. Yeah? Absolutely. So could you build one of these in your garage? I built the first game on the production line. Really? Yeah. From start to finish? From, they had some parts on the playfield when I was there. And then I was there, I didn't personally put the tools, use the tools in my hand. Yeah. I was directing the line managers on, you know, let's go, let's go on this part here. We should push these parts to a different station because it might make more sense to do this layer and then that layer. I mean, there's 20 different stations out there where they and they build up in layers and sometimes it makes more sense to do one versus another. At a certain point, right? You need the efficiency. Yep. So, I mean, as you're seeing that come to fruition, that had to be pretty exhilarating because at that point it's real. It's like, hey, this is this is going online and this is going to come out. It's surreal at that point. We've got millions of dollars worth of parts that I signed off on. Yeah. It's on my shoulders. Right. If they're wrong. And this is real. It's real now. A couple extra parts in your garage? You build one out of your garage? I mean, there might have been some parts. You never know. Right. Something falls off the truck. Let me ask you this. And I had actually, we had sat down, we talked to Steve Ritchie about this. And I'm just kind of curious because I know you're a fan of the show. I know you're a fan of the show. I know you're a fan of the show. I know you're a fan of the show. I know you're a fan of the show. I know you're a fan of the show. Steve Ritchie I wanted to go to my head. People seem to like the game a lot, which is cool. I'm glad I get to, that people enjoy what I've created. You know, it's, it was fun at Expo last year to unveil it and show all my friends, you know, I mean, I'm in a pinball league with 32 other people and I wasn't able to talk to them about it. I was gonna, how is that? So you've got all your close buddies, guys that you've been playing pinball with for years, you're working on the next game that's coming out for Jersey Jack Pinball, major pinball manufacturer, and you have to be tight lipped. I mean, John Popadiuk, Loser Kid Pinball Podcast, INDISC, Scott Danesi. The Out of Pinball Podcast is brought to you by the Out of Pinball Podcast Network. I'm a distributor up in Wisconsin. He's a distributor for several other pinball companies and he asked, he's like, do you have any problem with this? You know with me distributing for Spooky or for Chicago Gaming or anything I like of course not You know I mean no it not a conflict of interest for you It like you have your business and you still support me every chance you get All right. So, as far as little hidden treasure, so to speak? There is something very special. Oh. If you can get all six multiballs in the game running simultaneously. That sounds pretty easy. You'll get something really cool. Something really cool will happen. All right. So, I'll leave it at that. So, okay. So, the idea is to do that with the glass on? Yes. Right. It's, we've done it here. I don't know if we've done it on stream yet, but that'll probably happen soon. Are you guys still streaming on, is it Fridays? Um, we've been streaming every other week or so now, so I'm not around tomorrow in the afternoon, so we probably won't be streaming tomorrow, but we might be streaming next week. Did you need for me to come in and just kind of pick up the stream? I'm looking to get into streaming, I think. Hey man, I mean... I'll just, I'll water the plants and, uh... You're missing special guests. Knock out a couple games of pirates. There you go. The, uh, no, it's great. Any shout outs you want to make? I mean, there had to be a team of guys behind you that made this possible. The sculptures on the game were done by Matt Reisterer from Back Alley. Back Alley, yeah. He's incredible. He's a super nice guy to work with. Absolutely. Dave Link did sculptures as well. He does sculpting for a lot of games. Very good at what he does. Awesome. Our artist, this is his first pinball machine. Really? Yes. His name is J Zielinski. J Zielinski. J Zielinski. He blew it away. I mean, we had to get every single actor in this game to sign off on their hand-drawn artwork. He drew their faces and every single one of them signed off first pass. Wow. Which was incredible. So this is again like an example of photo realism. Yes. With illustrations. Similar. So we took- Christopher Franchi kind of has a similar style. Yep. So we took the assets that they had and Disney said, take our assets that we provide you, put them on your game and you're done. And like, no. We don't want to just slap a bunch of pictures on here. It's like we want to take the assets you provide and draw them and make them hand drawn artwork so that it looks good in a pinball machine setting and it does. And they understand Disney, you know, there's a lot of red tape to go through with Disney, but they got on board and they approved and now they have the game there and everyone that's seen it there is just completely blown away. They didn't understand the scope of what we were trying to do, but they get it now, and it was incredible. The software team has done a fantastic job on rules and implementation, so that's Keith P. Johnson. Those guys might need a vacation after this one. Yeah. Keith P. Johnson, Joe Katz, JT Harkey, and Ted Estes, I mean, just did awesome jobs. Mechanical engineering on the game, there's awesome mechs. Obviously there was some trouble with some of the stuff that people all know about. It sucks that we had to pull those mechs out, but that was what we had to do to make the game work long term. And did I want to do it? No, but we had to do it. And that's just, that's how it works. So mechanical engineering, still incredible on the game. They did a great job. Oh, animations. Yeah, the animations are what, I mean the machine in general is beautiful. The animations just look like they were studio produced scripted animations. It's really, really nice. So, JP DeWin in the Netherlands did an awesome job on the animations. I mean, hand drawing that user interface, treasure map on the back, and then the different videos you'll see in the wizard modes were all hand drawn to remind people of the scenes because we were restricted from using a lot of the scenes in the movies, which was unfortunate, but that's what happened. There's so much going on in the game. You don't really have time to look up and look at scenes in the movie unless you're looking at an additional stop and go. So I don't know that that's actually anything horrible. We got to use some fun stuff in there. We got to use some ships blowing up and some of the skeletal figures and stuff like that. So JP did an awesome job. David Thiel did a fantastic job with the music and the sound effects. Yeah, Dave, it just seems like he always knocks it out of the park. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely one of the most experienced audio engineers in the world. Awesome. And just did a great job on it. And the game takes your picture because as I'm looking at a lot of these high scores going across the LCD, they look like wanted posters back in the day. Yep. And that's kind of, I think especially on location, that's pretty cool to kind of see that. Yeah, I think people will really like that. You know, it's a fun little feature to throw in there. We have made it so you can turn off the camera when you start a game if you so choose. If you hold the right flipper button down, you will not get your picture taken if it bothers you. So that's in there. No need to fret about that. What's next for you, man? So it looks like you knocked it out of the park on your first effort. So congratulations to you. Thank you. You have another game in the pipeline. I do. I am working on another game. Let's talk about that from start to finish. In depth and in detail. Right. Just need to know the theme and the... Right. Theme and style and... Have you been working on it for a little bit? A little bit, yeah. I think I started in April. I started drawing it. So I'm actually right before you came in, I put away the computer that I was using to cut my second whitewood. Did you have to hide it? I did. Right. I was sniffing around for everything. But thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate you being a guest of the show. And for being a guest of the show, we want to present you with some Two Brothers Artisan Brewing Pinball Pale Ale. Excellent. We're not in the Pinball Pale Ale studio today. We're on location at Jersey Jack. But you know. I appreciate it. Don't drink it all in one place. I will not. Congratulations, man. All right, so that was the first edition of Industry Buzz. And the one thing I noticed on that interview, Bill, not only the cutting edge questions coming from me, but the lack of questions coming from you. Well, Ken, that might have been because I wasn't there. You were not there. I knew something felt off. Yeah, yeah. That's why that interview might not be as good as some of the other. No, I'm just kidding. No, you're absolutely right. No, but in all honesty. I had to take a lead for once. I got to listen to that interview ahead of time and actually I thought it was really good. I haven't met him yet, but I really do from that interview can tell that he's a real down-to-earth guy, real humble, with a strong passion for what he's doing. I agree. I think the thing with Eric is that he's got a great, I feel like I'm dating him, he's got such a great personality. Long watts on the beach. Long watts on the beach. I'm a tourist. John Popadiuk, Automated Amusements, rad cabs or side art panels on cabinet, John Placid, Larry K. The Out Pinball Podcast is a production of WGBH. Even your best hitters in baseball will make changes when they're on top of their game. You don't want to be complacent ever because I think when you kind of let your guard down and think everything's okay, that's when you get rolled over. So, you know, you've got to be on guard. You know, it's funny that you say something like, well, you say it that way because actually one of the companies that I work for, one of the owners' favorite saying is the road to success is always under construction. There's a lot of roads to success in Chicagoland area. There are lots of roads under construction. Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Success everywhere. And when you get past it, you don't really feel successful. You feel late. You are late. Yeah. Exactly. That's actually pretty funny. But, yeah, so, you know, like I said, anyone that listens to this and listens to that interview, I think it was a really, a real good interview. Well, and the thing, thanks, Bill, the other thing was this, it was the first time I shot We'll see you next time. This is not something that you will master and get bored of in two weeks. This game has longevity. You will always find something new. And Eric joked, he wasn't, actually he was dead serious. He's like, little Easter egg for you guys. If you're able to get, and this is the funniest part, all six multiballs running simultaneously. And I was like thinking to myself, hey Eric, quick question. Who the hell's ever going to do, who's going to do that? I'd get six multiballs running simultaneously, but I guess when you do that, some great stuff's going to happen. No clue. That's why it's, I mean, in the home, you can't beat it. Well, the first person that can email us and say, hey, we got our pirates. Right, glass on. Glass, well, I don't care if it's glass off. Tell us what it is. We won't share that on the podcast. We're just curious to know what it is. I'm kind of curious to know what it was. And it kind of made me think of when you get a machine, it's like you're learning some sort of math theory. And you're able to kind of master that theory over time and you feel confident and you can knock out problems. Pirates code is more of an advanced math theory, whereas you've got your basic theory under belt that you're able to apply towards the advanced theory. And learning that advanced theory slowly but surely just makes you better overall and then you understand pirates to its capacity. So it's not something to shy away from initially. You just have to put the time in on it. Well, you know what, that's kind of like any game though. I mean here, let me ask you this question. Did you actually get to a multiball in that game when you played it? I'll be honest with you, there was no ball save and this always happens to me man. Like I go in and I'm playing with these guys that are developers or coders or world ranked pinball players. And they always say they suck. Oh yeah. That's the best line. I suck. None of these people ever say they suck. You know who sucks? I suck. Because then I go on there and literally I'll have the worst ball of my life. Like I'll plunge it in like four seconds and it's in the drain. And I'm like, well, that's coincidental, you know, whatever, par for the course. Next one, some crazy thing, boom, in the drain. Next one, out lane. So, I mean, I, no. Okay. All right. Well, and you know what I mean. I did not get a multiball going. I go, we've been through that on other games too, so. But you know what I mean? To pull, you know, like young kids in, they feel like they won the game when they got a multiball. You know, they don't care about anything else. Look, I won. I got a multiball. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We'll see you next time. You want to know who's the pinball guy? Who's the pinball guy that beat the pinball on several occasions during that two player game? Who? Eric Minior. You would think the guy designed the game because he knew all the shots, he was schooling me. It made me feel pretty bad. But you know what? It made me think that I would love to own a Pirates and play the heck out of it because you've got 22 opportunities or chances or options to choose what path you want to take into the game when you start off. I mean that's crazy. Oh yeah. And that's 22 different characters that you can play for. Each one has their own advantages and disadvantages. And each character plays or gives you advantages to how you wanna play. So you kinda get an idea of, are you somebody that likes to be multiball heavy? Are you somebody that likes to load up the multipliers? Are you somebody that likes to extend time on modes? I mean, each one of those characters, you can select based on your playing style. So I think that's kinda cool. All right. That you can actually do that. Well, and you know what I mean, here, you hear a lot of feedback from people on machines, you know. And it seems to be, you know, we were talking about this earlier that, you know, for as many pinball players there might be, there's even more critics of pinball machines. Yeah, you're right, man. You are absolutely correct. You know, and guess what? It doesn't have to be fun. It doesn't have to be fun. It doesn't have to be the same thing over and over. You know, everyone's going to like different stuff. You know, some people think certain games are stupid. Bill people love them. You know one experience I had last summer and I kind of go with talk about this with Ken sometimes is I got a Bally escape the lost world from somebody that was moving for like $50 and I'm like dude sure... I remember that game in your garage Yeah, it was complete trash, you know what I mean it- It wasn't trash it played, it was fine Yeah, it played. It was fine, you know recipes, It wasn't the prettiest thing but having it in the garage and not downstairs in the row of pinball machines, that was actually a good time to open up the We'll see you next time on Pinball Podcast. The pinball machine is a level of bullying that goes on online with pinball machine collectors. Don't worry. The people that are bullying on pin side are telling their kids at home, you know, don't succumb to this. Don't be a bully at school. It's just, what did you say earlier that I thought hit? It's like we're all like these, these established adults and we're worse than toddlers when it comes to pinball. It's like high school. It's, it's stupid, but you know what? And again, everyone has their own way to approach things. No one is ever wrong for their opinion. It's very hard to be wrong for opinion. It may not be popular, it may not be liked, but you're never wrong for your opinion. Now where that crosses the line is what you do with that opinion is when it can cross the line. You know what? Be critical of people's efforts, but be respectful about it. And that was the whole thing that we always said on the podcast. We're not vanilla. We don't love everything. I think that's pretty evident. And guess what? If we don't like something, we don't bash it because of that simple reason that, you know, number one, there's someone out there that probably is going to love it and we don't want to deter that fact. But we don't shy away from saying that it wasn't for us. I mean, that's the other thing. That's kind of where I'm going with this. I mean, we're not here to blow sunshine up everybody's you-know-what all day long and everything is hunky dory. The podcast is here for this reason, guys. Myself and Bill, we like to talk pinball. We want to share our thoughts with you. The Out Pinball Podcast is a production of WGBH. We're not the podcast that's going to be here and we're going to break stories under other people's efforts and short them. We're just not going to do that. I think our mainstay in this podcast community is offering our comments on what's happening and being able to talk to some people that are in the industry that are close to us and just being able to give a fresh take on things that is respectful. All I can ask from other people is to be respectful of us because we automatically give you our respect. So on that note, Bill, I have no idea why I'm on a soapbox because I don't need to have to be on a soapbox. But I don't know. I felt like I had to get that off my chest and I can't even figure out why. Just because it seems like there's been a little more downs than ups with Pinball really. But that's okay. Right. I feel the same way. But on that note, it is time to end this show. So wherever you're at, you have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Are we wrapping up episode number 13? Gonna wrap up. Slash 14 for you, because you don't like 13. Gonna wrap this up. Yeah, so we want to thank everybody for listening. We want to thank Jersey Jack Pinball and Eric Minyer for allowing us to come in for that interview. We want to thank everybody that participates in pinball and that has offered us our feedback and has contacted the show. If you're looking to get in contact with us, you can go ahead on our Facebook group and that's Special When Lit Pinball Podcast. You can find us on our social media pages at pinballpodcast.com, or you can contact us at specialwhenlitpinballpodcast at gmail.com. We're happy to correspond and get back to you. I want to ask you guys to not forget to take some time out of your day to play some pinball, because for Bill Webb, I am Ken Cromwell, and for Two Brothers Utterson Brewing, this is the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast. So long, everybody.