absolute monster jam-packed episode number 201 here for everybody so buckle in and grab yourself a beverage we're gonna talk about everything for the home from home versions to commercial games that we decide to put in our homes for reasons and also the wives that tolerate us let's go Swinging for the rafters. Hello, everybody. Episode 201 now. We're on the other side of 200. Let's keep this on building. Hi, how you doing? Welcome from the past. It's Saturday, late afternoon here. Thanks, everybody, that joined on the live stream that occurred earlier today. Super fun to hang out. I love doing that Sunday morning thing with you. Let's jump right into it. We've been getting a ton of news over the last week. Little bits, little drip feeds, and some revelations that I was not expecting, particularly from my good friends over there in Sweden, the Pinball Brothers, who apparently is actually just one guy and not really a company but a design studio, but then contracts with Euro Pinball Corp in Milan, Italy, making games, whatever. Predator is the game on everybody's mind from Pinball Brothers. It has all the makings of being their greatest game yet. I mean, Alien Queen, ABBA, not a ton of competition, but wide-body game, a lot of ramps in it, a lot of wire forms. There's call-outs in it. There's gameplay. There's a little predator guy that jumps up and down. Wide-body game? I mean, this thing, for all we know, could play and feel just as good as Evil Dead, but there's just no way to know that because none of them have been made or sent to streamers or anybody. Not that I'm begging, although I would totally take a game and play it and give everybody my opinion. That'd be fantastic. But get this thing to somebody. We had a bomb of a news drop from them earlier in the week, a couple days ago. They said, hey, everybody, waiting on Predator or people that haven't even ordered or still don't know what the heck the deal is with the tariffs, where is it going to fall out, whatever. they announced that they're only going to make 150 of these games, or at least there's 150 more available. And in December, the production of this game will cease. Now, this game appears to be in production, as they did share a photo of about 45 or so cabinets that had stickers on them. Empty, they were up on their ends, no legs on them or anything. But this game is like somewhere actually being built now. Now, I'll give them a pass. I don't think the reason that they've shown off the game yet is because they're just sitting around on them. There probably weren't any production ones built or made yet. Maybe they had a production sample. Maybe they had a prototype, but, like, that's all they've had. So now this game, I guess parts have been ordered, and it's now in some sort of production. Haven't seen any play field construction. I keep seeing the same teaser videos put out there. But it's a game that I don't think we're all jumping and chomping at the bit, trying to get our deposits paid to lock this thing in. A lot of us are still kind of wait and see, especially with this game, which is being sold at the absolute peak of the market in the U.S. given international tariff duties that need to be paid, as well as international shipping that would need to be paid and all that just to get it landed here in the U.S. And there's just so many other options for that money that you really got to be in and excited on this title to pay that full price tag well. So the other part of that news about there only being, I guess, 150 left or whatever, is that there's a price drop of now sub $12,000. If you pick up this game in the U.S. from their distribution center in Pennsylvania, it's kind of east of Pittsburgh, between there and Altoona, if you know the Keystone State. So here's the deal. I don't know whether they're making or looking to make the same amount of machines as ABBA. They haven't released that as far as I can tell. So I don't know if the plan was to make 800 of these. I doubt 650 of these have sold, and now there will be another 150 left. That's 800 minus 150. What's that, 650? Yeah, somewhere thereabouts. Maybe they sold 25, and they're like, let's just try to get at least 175 of these things made and just say last call for 150 or whatever it is. Kerry Hardy made this point on his video that he posted a little earlier in the week. I don't know if it's live now. It was on his Patreon. Successful companies with successful products don't tend to do things like this. Case in point, Harry Potter CE currently being produced. This is the limited version from Jersey Jack. Of course, the limited edition was limited to 5,000, which is incredibly large in size. But collector's edition wasn't going to be limited in terms of number. It was going to be limited in terms of production time or ordering time or some such where there was going to be a window that would close. The fact that that hasn't happened yet speaks to the fact that it's selling quite well. So we got to infer from the Pinball Brothers, their game Predator pre-orders not blowing the sales off out there in Sweden. And so maybe they're looking to ending this quickly, getting to the next game. I'm not sure exactly what's going on. I was postulating on the live stream that maybe Keith Elwin is leaving Stern and he's going to land at Pinball Brothers. And so they're just trying to rush through the Predator production to get to Elwin's game. I do not think at all, 100%, that is not happening. So I don't know. I reached out to Pinball Brothers. They make these social media posts. Typically on Facebook is where I see them when I'm scrolling. And I try to reach out just to get some little tidbits of information. Occasionally they'll respond, sometimes with inaccurate information, I found. I asked them if I could buy the Ripley edition of Predator for $89.95, and they said yes, just from our U.S. distribution sites. Go ahead and get one. and I guess they didn't realize that I said Predator not Alien. I was making a little joke with them and maybe they just reverse trolled me and it's 4D chess or whatever. So I asked them, recently I posted and asked, you know, so are there 800 machines total built and this is the final 150? Are there only 150 total? Because the way that they worded that made it seem like there was only going to be 150 in existence, which is like, you know, Turner Pinball level of exclusivity. You know, it was like 100 games or thereabouts. although they're talking about Ninja Eclipse available. There's only 100 of those games. First editions, maybe they'll make some more, whatever. And I think, you know, as far as a game goes, if it comes out and it's limited to only 150, it means something to have something like that, unless the game is, you know, Blues Brothers or Spinal Tap or Punny Factory or something, where maybe it doesn't carry all of that cachet. Shout out to Andrew. What's up, man? So I don't know. I don't know what's going on. But I can infer that the game's not selling well, and they're trying to push these through, $12,000 is a bit easier to swallow than the $14,000 or so originally it would cost. But the fact remains that we still don't know exactly how this game plays. Now, we don't always, we, the royal we, I've done this myself, I've purchased games that I have not played yet. Well, I've at least put down deposits before, but that was because they came from companies with great track records. I think there's a balance of people that would be interested in this Predator machine if they were able to see it. And games that I have put deposits on, while I may not have actually played it at the time that I was like, gimme, gimme, I want that, Stern or Spooky or whoever, we've seen gameplay, like extensive gameplay from, you know, third-party, more objective players, not just people from the company in highly edited, scripted videos, but like, give it to a streamer, let them play for an hour or so and get a feel for this game. for all we know fam predator may play just as well as evil dead throwing balls all around the wire forms and everything compelling gameplay interesting modes and such but like we haven't played the damn thing yet this absolutely i mean honestly it's probably their best game and it's probably by all measures even a decent game but there's no way to know that and they're cutting the production off so you need to order one now i guess if you want one or at least to be new in box. Now they're making $150. Are they going to make $150 whether they sell or not? And then there'll at least be some available sitting in a dusty warehouse over there in Pennsylvania. If you want to get one here domestically, I don't know. I don't know. I haven't had a lot of success reaching out to these folks or at least hearing back from them. I did manage to get a media kit emailed to me pre-launch for Predator, but since then it's been absolutely radio silence. I've got a partner that I do a podcast with. We are Pinball. It's RetroJango. He lives over there in Copenhagen, Denmark, which if you haven't been, great town, home of Hans Christian Andersen. Go see the Little Mermaid statue down in the harbor. Get some food. Ride a bike around. Cobblestone streets, the whole bit. Great. Cool town. Cool town. Across the river, sea, inland ocean, lies the land of Sweden. You can take a bridge. You can take a ferry, whatever. And then about two hours up the coast or so is where Pinball Brothers is centrally located in the country. So I don't know why these dudes haven't got a game out to probably the most prominent Scandinavian pinball streamer, YouTube maker, unboxer extraordinaire himself, podcaster now, and let him play the damn game. He's probably the biggest Predator pinball proponent, how about that for alliteration, on the planet, probably. um this guy could be playing this game like every weekend streaming it showing it off uh giving us a feel of like what is this game like i know this guy he doesn't come off as shill to me i mean if it sucks he'll say guys it's very disappointing but it sucks i'm so sad right and if it's good he'd be playing the damn thing and telling me and talking about it so why not why not do that maybe these guys are just reserved but it's hard for me to see them say, okay, we're cutting off production of this game when no one's even played the damn thing yet. My God, we're going to get to Expo, and then will there be a mad rush in the last hundred of these? Why would you limit it? It's so strange. Pinball Brother, if you are listening, please reach out, donspinballpodcast.gmail.com. Let me know what's going on. I travel, dude. You do not have to fly me out there to come see your game for a media launch. Just let me know where it's going to be, and dude, I'll show up. I'll show up and play it, and then I can tell everybody it's good or, sadly, it sucks, get it, skip it, whatever. But, man, that's just crazy that that had happened. Speaking of Harry Potter, as I alluded to earlier, all word from JJP is that these guys are probably dancing with all the pre-order deposits that are coming in for Harry Potter CE. I keep seeing the same thing posted, waiting for my game, it's this number, deposit paid, when is it coming? I enjoyed the game. I think everybody that's played it has enjoyed it, at least on some level. And if you happen to be in that Venn diagram of I enjoy pinball machines and I enjoy bright LED lights and I enjoy Harry Potter, like, this is your game. They crammed everything in there. I would have appreciated a more nuanced approach of, you know, modes specific for each movie where you play through them each for a few minutes and each game can play a little bit differently. But they wanted to cram everything in there, these 30-second mini-modes strung along with fighting Death Eaters and stuff. Honestly, I'm not mad at it. I love this game so much more than Godfather, better than Toy Story 4. This is probably their best game, arguably. The topper, not quite the best. But despite everything and despite all the odds, this game seems to be selling gangbusters. Now, if I still own my Harry Potter CE, I would be hoping against hope that they would close off the damn sales of this collector's edition, and limit the numbers so I could retain some value of a game and some resale value. But if I was Jersey Jack Pinball, I would not cut off the sales until the orders slow to a trickle, right? I mean, just leave it wide open. If they're rolling in each day with 20, 30 games order or something, heck, man, just let it keep coming. Let it keep coming. Become the Harry Potter Pinball Company for two years and just crank these things out. and then once the sales do slow to a trickle I think then that's when I would announce last call three weeks and counting get your orders in here's your list of distributors email jeff at madpinball.com and get yourself a Harry Potter it's what I did I was able to pick it up at the factory even I think that can still be arranged super cool game and that tells me that it's selling well enthusiasm is at a high and for those of us that haven't jumped in on this game currently I mean I did but then jumped back out I think the fact that they're churning out so many of these things means that I think resale value down the road is going to be pretty favorable for new adopters of a used game so I think that's fine and if you lose a little bit of value when you go to sell your game later you've gotten to enjoy it this whole time I count that as a win so all of this is to say Harry Potter CE selling quite well and that is in the face of several factors not limited to the fact that there are AI issues with some of the art that may or may not ever be corrected, the fact that the call-outs feature Marc Silk, fantastic guy, but he's not doing the voice, the caricature, the voice of the Sorting Hat. You know, we don't have Hagrid personally leading us through this, you know. We have Marc Silk doing it. You know, in light of the fact that the topper is a bit lackluster compared to what we saw with Avatar and Elton John, where there was projections and everything everywhere I know we did get a single solitary projection but how cool would it have been if there was more dynamic graphics like filling the room as you playing this game and like literal pinpoint sparkles of fiber optics all throughout that sculpted castle. And a little bit more than just the plexiglass castle there in the middle. But the little wizard guy that spins around so funny around the tower. Love that. But despite all that, the game is still selling well, So I count that as a win. We'll see where it ends up. And early word from the rumor camp regarding this, more confirmation that Sonic the Hedgehog game license was secured by Jersey Jack, and that would be the next game to come out. Steve Ritchie's follow-up from Elton John, rumored to be Sonic. Somebody even posted a photo of Steve Ritchie at a conference or something wearing the same red shoes that Sonic was wearing. I think that's fine. Now, people are arguing back and forth, Would it be better if this was based on the classic Sega Genesis video game series, Sonic 1, Sonic 2? Sure. Would it be better if it was based on the movies so you could take more full screen opulence, let's say, of the resplendency of that screen there, you know? Take advantage of what is to be put up there, movie clips and stuff, throw Jim Carrey's visage on the side of the cabinet or whatever. Sure. I think either way that would be fine with me. I don't know that I definitely have come down on a preference. Somebody even postulated that what if the art was the movie for the arcade edition and the limited, and then that collector's edition went with 16-bit Sega Genesis art, a little bit more blocky in texture. Yeah, I mean, I think all that's a win. I'm warm on Sonic. You know, I didn't grow up with a Sega Genesis. I was from the Nintendo family. But I have gone through and I've played the games. They're fun. They're good. And I think when it comes to pinball, I think it works really well. The video games even had the Sonic Spinball, pinball-esque adventure with Sonic that came out. Super fun game. So, yeah, I could see the speed elements and things working their way in there. I think a mechanism for a loop would work good. Think of something, you know, if you were postulating like a wire form is the first thing that comes to mind. I'm thinking something more along the lines of, you know, the Death Star ramp on Star Wars Premium where it's like, you know, two parallel metal ball guides that raise up. So what if the loop was made out of that sort of structure, painted green so it matches the game, and then had some kind of auto launch system so you could send a consistent velocity of the ball through there, you know. Now, whether that should be the launch or not, I don't know. But that's, I think, how I would implement a loop that would be reproducible, right? Otherwise, you get a poor shot up there and it just falls out halfway. That's no fun. But I would also counter the, you know, one of the big draws from the original Sonic game was that vertical loop, right? We all remember that. Sonic 2 introduced the corkscrew as well as Tails, the secondary character there. So what if in a traditional wire form ramp, say maybe like a left orbit to a wire form, that would return down to the in-lane players and that wire form can do the corkscrew? I think that would be like a reliable way to add in there. that mechanistic element, let's call it. And maybe it's angled down at the play field so gravity can take that ball through there. I think that could be fun and serviceable. But yeah, you've got to have some kind of loop of some kind and fast screaming ball pass. I think this is a game screaming for a warp ramp from Richie. So bring it. This would be like an Elton John-ish layout with a little bit more speed and a little bit less honky-cat, let's say. and maybe uh maybe the topper will be more impressive so yeah maybe that's coming when are we going to see it honestly jjp could probably just build harry potters for two years before they need to come out with another game now i have heard from people that i think there were semi official sources kind of hinting that uh the next game will be out in the same kind of cadence of that 10 to 12 months window that we've been seeing lately with the last couple releases from jersey Jack. So what that could mean is that at some point, 10 months from now, they're somewhat caught up with Harry Potter orders. They may still have some to produce, but then they may go jump to a new game, Sonic or whatever it is. I heard some whispers of another theme that's out there. I would love for JJP to grab Super Mario Brothers and just do Sonic and do Mario and use that big screen and all that color and the lights and everything. They put a lot of sculpts in their games. I could see them really doing it. We'll have to wait and see. But for now, all eyes on Potter, man, and it doesn't look like the sales are slowing down anytime soon. What a successful game. What a gamble. Can you imagine being the guy that put down $5 million just for the license on the hopes that years from then, your game would sell so gangbusters that you would actually make money on that deal with a $5 million licensing cost. My God, and I think they may have actually pulled it off. So, they've got to be dancing over there at Elk Grove Village at the JJP Factory, man. Looks good. So kudos to them for seeing it through and coming out with a fun, compelling game. And I kind of want to play it again. I kind of miss it. I kind of miss it. All right, so what else we got? I'm going to take a small aside and talk about a fun project that's going to be happening at the upcoming Pinball Expo, Schaumburg, Illinois, late October. This is the big one, right? The big industry trade show that happens in Chicago every year. Basically the home of pinball. Stern is there. JGP is there. CGC's namesake is Chicago. American Pinball used to be there. All words are that they're still around and we're still waiting for their game. I've got no official confirmation. I've got feelers out, and I'm getting nothing back, so we'll see. But at this show, one of the fun areas, really, that's developed, especially over the last couple of years and expanded, is the homebrew area. Kind of tucked away in the corner the first time I went to the show three years ago, and now it's just getting more and more robust. Still dominates that back, what is it, the southwest corner of the event space. But, man, it's growing. And the quality of the stuff you find there, completely mind-blowing, to the point that it even inspired me to go tackle and start a homebrew project. So, yeah, inspirational, of course. Now, I've kind of taken my little hobby of making some little plastic mods here and there for some machines and then really steamrolled this into making some really fun and interesting stuff, particularly toppers. Just finished the King Kong Topper. It's a banana crate that lights up and it's got monkey arms on it. I love the damn thing. I'll post some photos up on the web zone here on Facebook when we finish up here with this recording. So go check that out. But other people have caught word of this. And not only will there be homebrew games at the show and they'll be voting on which homebrew is the best of the show and all innovative and all that. But there'll also be one for toppers as well, which I love. because I do homebrew toppers like a freaking madman. I'm making all kinds of fun stuff. So they were looking for somebody to host this event, and here I am. Yes, sir, signed up. We'll do it. So there's going to be a homebrew topper competition at the expo in October. So if you yourself have, I don't know, cobbled together some stuffed animals and threw it onto a piece of sheet metal and duct taped it to the top of your machine, go ahead and rip that thing off, fumigate it, and bring it on in and enter it in the contest because there's going to be some cool prizes and trophies for the winners. And details are finalizing up now. The way this is going to work is, I don't know, Thursday, maybe we'll set a cutoff by Friday. Bring your topper in, get it up on the wall, and there'll be a little voting canister or some such in front of each topper that enters, all right? Say, I don't know, the first 500 people that pick up their registration packets for the show will get a ticket, and they can take that ticket over and put it in the bucket of the topper they want to vote for that they think is the best or most creative or most pity votes or whatever the heck it is. And then what we'll do to encourage voting, I've got a pinball play field I'll be donating to give away to the winner randomly drawn from people that vote for the contest. So just voting, you're entered for a chance to win something super cool. And then we'll be picking a winner for whoever wins the most votes from the public. will go ahead and receive the People's Choice Award, and we'll have a cool prize for them to be determined. But I've got some, it's just about confirmed what it's going to be, and it's pretty amazing. It's pretty amazing. You're going to want to win this. Also, what I'm trying to do is get some tickets into the hand of industry professionals to come through and do, like, what the industry thinks the best or most creative or whatever Topper was, and we'll have a prize for them as well. It'll be super fun. So get the word out. It's free to enter. Just bring your Topper and then come and collect it. late Saturday or Sunday before the show's over. Otherwise, I don't know, it gets surrendered or something. But this will be fun. I entered this two years ago with my Elvira topper, and I took the prize, and it was super encouraging for me. And looking back to what I built then, we're light years ahead of there now with what we're making, what we're seeing, game-integrated lights and things, sound and motion, super fun. So I'm excited about that. So if you've got a project you're working on, you got till October finish it up bring it on in I think we'll do the drawing Saturday afternoon would probably be a good time that'll get people Thursday and Friday to come vote the people come in Saturday can still have a chance to enter and then we'll get everything given away before it gets too late and people start drinking all right that'll be the plan then come and pick up your stuff because I don't know what the heck I'm going to do with it the janitor is going to end up with it if you don't come and get it um and I suppose I haven't talked about this over with Rob Burke but if you've made a topper and you're looking to sell it, maybe you can put a price tag up on it and see if somebody wants to purchase it there from the show. Make a little extra drinking money, I guess. So super excited about that. It's going to be fun. I'll have some entries in there as well. I don't know if I'm disqualified from winning. Probably. What am I going to do with a play field? I'm the one giving the damn thing away. But it's going to be fun. It's going to be fun. So come and check that out. I'm waiting to hear back from my spooky friends. and they must be busy building Evil Dead. So I just got confirmation based on Bug's Screamin' stream. Go check that out on YouTube. He does a stream every Thursday night. It was him and one of the composers that he's using for their pinball games, and these guys sat there and mixed a song live. So super fascinating. And they dropped some hints or dropped some confirmation of where they're at in their build for Evil Dead. So it looks like I was right. I was thinking they have to be about halfway through production, this 888 game run by now and turns out they are. I think they just boxed up game number 450. Fantastic. So not only have they built Halfway, they've boxed Halfway. So they're probably even farther than that now. Their cadence is about 25 games a week and per a NAP Arcade article there and probably you got this information from the stream that during the time of Halloween they were making like 45 games or so a week. Evil Dead is more complex and it's going through a much more robust process of QC, so that's the reason for the 25 games a week. 100 a month, which gives them about four and a half months left, which gives us just about enough months left at the end of the year to get the production of Evil Dead complete by the end of the year, and then start on the next game, which I think that's number 14 for Spooky. I've got to go count it up again, but I think game 14, all the rumors are pointing towards a by Thanksgiving, you'll know if you're able to put a deposit on this game it's got all the makings to sell out man pretty quick pretty quick I can't wait to hear what people think of this game it's it's something it's something I'm excited and I would like to play it again so excited about that everybody is anticipating a great follow up for the spooky guys and production seems to be going pretty good I'm not going to jinx them or anything but we're excited now I was waiting to hear confirmation back from one of guys, they had sent me a picture of a new peripheral, let's call it, a new accessory for their Smash Hit game that looks like it's pretty much going to be a must-buy. And I just wanted to know if I can share it. So I'm going to go ahead and do that, and then I will just ask for forgiveness later. So they've kind of made it known that they're working on an extension peripheral for the launch button mechanism for Evil Dead that looks exactly like the Boomstick. And, you know, I was talking to him kind of early on in the design process. The whole idea, and this is like one of the first things that occurred to just about everybody. I mean, you're shooting a double-barrel shotgun when you launch balls into the game. And for Boomstick Multiball, you're literally shooting double-barrel, you know, pinballs into the game. Fantastic theme integration. So why not put a shotgun handle there? And they said, yep. And so that's what they're doing. And then the concept evolved over time to, well, if we're building the handle of a shotgun, why don't we build the handle of a shotgun? Like, instead of making it out of resin or carving it out of wood or 3D printing it, God forbid, why don't we make it like an actual shotgun handle? Like real wood inserts and everything into the handle so it feels good. And damn it, I saw a picture of it, and holy crap, I think these guys have managed to do it. If they can bring that to production, they've sold through, I think, a little bit over 80% of people that bought at Evil Dead bought that cool Cheryl Topper. And I think they're going to get similar sell through from this thing too. So how about that? A pinball company that makes things the community wants to purchase. Win-win. Everybody's happy. Go spooky. It's like I'm cheerleading them every time we do a show. But you know honestly this has been great Like such a great success story Small company Building slowly over time and now they like in their third age just killing it Can wait to see what they got next when that gets revealed That'll be super fun. Halfway through production. Super cool. So, guys, don't be mad at me. I just wanted to talk about it. I won't share the picture or anything yet unless I get permission. Hopefully soon. Hopefully we'll see it soon. Still no word on when this will be available, but, I mean, you're going to want one. I want to see how many people don't have an Evil Dead machine but still buy this anyway just to have it just because it's cool it's so cool that I think a cop would have a problem if he got pulled over and this was sitting in your car they'd be like where did you saw that off of where's the rest of the weapon you got felonies coming buddy that's what it looks like you couldn't let your kid take this out of the house it looks so cool so cool so my name's Don I play pinball machines I play pinball every day, as long as I'm at home or I'm on the road and there's pinball machines there. And so over the last week, like you kind of evolve, right? Or not evolve, but you kind of go through, you know, kind of peaks and troughs and valleys and what you're interested in, what's your favorite game at the time. And, like, I've been just locked in the last week on three games in my lineup that are not spooky, that are not JJP. I've been locked in on three games I don't want to talk about them So, Munsters Premium I don't know that Munsters really has The highest cachet amongst People in the pinball sphere If you ask them to name their Top three modern sterns You'd get some manner of Godzilla, Bond, Deadpool Or whatever Or someone might substitute Deadpool For Iron Maiden or Elwynn You spin the wheel Anything except Avengers Infinity Quest But for me like Munsters is super fun and I go through periods of time where I'm just kind of like obsessed with it and other times where it doesn't get as much play and so as far as like doing that whole all right one more game all right one more game all right one more game and then all of a sudden you're late for work that's been me and Munsters lately putting on the headphones and listening to a podcast listening to YouTube you know listening to something or other and just kind of getting in the zone and just playing some pinball Munsters is a lot of fun the code is approachable And I think that's what gets a lot of the, I don't know, ire up. I mean, if you're a good player, you're going to get through this game fairly easily. That's the part I like. I like that it's not a completely difficult game. Like, I don't have to be playing for 45 minutes in order to kind of get through all the code, or at least the major modes and everything. And for that, I'm thankful. You know, it's got a risk-reward in there with the cash out of the jackpots. It's got a lower play field that you can actually control where you want the ball to go once you learn where to shoot off the flippers. I do like that. It's not just a free-for-all and feels like you're wasting time. So I dig it. I like that I can go through and systematically collect all the family members and play that wizard multiball and then try to build it all up again and get through it twice in a game. It's just been fun. And I got the best version, man. The black and white Christopher Franchi art there. I will say this. This game works so well with the black and white. I mean, the original show was in black and white. Franchi can do monsters in black and white, obviously. I think a Universal Classic Monsters machine, also in black and white, would very much work. Godzilla in black and white was a little strange because it was more pink with all the red lights and everything. But it definitely works on monsters. It would definitely work for classic movie monsters. And I think it would work even for, like, Young Frankenstein, right? That Mel Brooks, Gene Wilder pic that was filmed purposely in black and white to capture that aesthetic. Like, comedy, horror, go together like peas and carrots, as Forrest Gump would say. Is that my second Forrest Gump reference of the day? I think I referenced him on my live stream earlier. But, man, game is fun. One more game. Get on there. The ramps are cool. Spot pops up. The ramps are satisfying because they're not the easiest thing to hit, but they do feel good playing. And it's a game I initially kind of dismissed. Like, I love the theme, but I felt the game was a little lackluster. and then later on as I got better at pinball, I kind of came back to it like, you know what? This game's kind of pretty fun. It's a simple game in the same vein of like a Black Knight Sword of Rage, but without the Black Knight Sword of Rage brutality. So it's fun. So I've been playing a lot of monsters. Right next door, I've been playing Star Wars Premium as well. I've liked this game since the first time I played it. I played it on location at a bowling alley in Madison, Wisconsin. It was a pro. and at the time I was like, I think I've already played a Star Wars pinball, not realizing that Stern had created another one of the original trilogy. And I stepped up and I'm like, this is a different layout. Let me play it. And then looking at it, I could see that, I mean, they had a Whitewater on the other end of the bowling alley and you could see all these crazy ramps up there and the Yeti and stuff, hidden ball paths, a lot of stuff going on. You look at Star Wars and what you see is what you get. I mean, there's no mystery on it at all. There's the force targets. There's some horseshoes to shoot. And when it comes to the pro, plastic ramps, like nothing is left of the imagination with this game. But for some reason, I was really drawn to it. Like, this is fun. I was playing as Luke because that's what happens default when you just hit start. You don't know any better. And so, you know, I'm doing the Death Star missions and hitting the turnaround U-turn a couple of times. And I'm like, I actually made it through a mode on location. I'm playing Star Wars. I shouldn't like this game as much as I do. But dang it, it's fun. And then later on, about a year or so later, after I'd owned some games, I'm at another bowling alley, this time in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, home of the Hoedag, shout out. And they had a Star Wars Pro there again. And again, they had like two games, right? And it was that and like an Avengers Infinity Quest. And so I'm like, all right, I'll play some Star Wars. And I was like, dang it, why do I like this game so much? I shouldn't like it that much. There's not a ton in here. You know, it's not Deadpool with the branching paths going around and a giant katana. There's no big major mechanism, especially with the Pro. But dang it if it ain't fun to play. I found a local premium. Wasn't priced terribly high. Picked it up. And I was thinking, well, I'll play it for a little bit and then I can move it on. But yeah, of all the games I have, that's probably the one that I'm least likely to move on anytime soon. I love it, man. So yeah, been playing a lot of Star Wars. I've played through Han Solo several times to get to blowing up the Death Star at the end of Endor. I've done that enough now that I'm starting to explore the other characters, you know, and finding that, you know, heck, these are fun too. So hell of a game. I know it gets a lot of hate. And I get it because it does play different than just about every other Stern. When it comes to the multiplier, it can seem really cheap, like a way that you can just blow up 3 billion points without really trying. As long as you know what to do or you get really lucky, right? But I don't know. Like, I love that game. And even if the next Cornerstone is another Star Wars of that same era, I'm probably still going to get it and put it next to my other one and still not sell the other one. All right, the third game that I've been playing this week, Pulp Fiction. Man, I'm back in it. I come in fits and starts with that game. And lately I'm back up on, would it be a fit or would it be a start? Anyway, I'm playing the game again. I went ahead and put mine on five ball, hate me all you want, but that allows me to have one or even two house balls and still be able to get into like a Pulp Fiction frenzy, which is just one of the coolest modes in that game. If you haven't done this, it's what happens when you spell all the Pulp Fiction letters and then put the ball into the pawn shop there in the middle. Every light in the game just starts going off. Call outs out the ass. And then everything is lit and it's just like a fun mode of shoot everything. We can give you all four balls in the game. Go nuts. And if you can keep the multi balls above the flippers, it's super fun. High energy. The game does colors you don't typically see. A lot of purples and everything. Pulp Fiction's frenzy mode. If you haven't done it, go try it. So you spell the letters every time you collect a set of arrows, right? There's three arrows on the main drop targets in front of you, and there's two on either side of the play field. And once you complete them, they all relight, and you can collect them again. Every time you complete a set of them, either the two or the three, it gives you a letter. You spell all the letters, put one ball into the pawn shop, and you're in frenzy. It's the coolest mode. The coolest mode. And I don't know that everybody's necessarily done that because, you know, you're probably focused on other things. You're trying to get the multi-balls, or you're trying to do the modes, or the movie modes, but play a couple of games where you're just focused on the arrows and play some Frenzy and tell me it's not a heck of a fun time. So that's another one that by the time you get to your last ball, hit start, go again. I want to keep at this until I can get the Frenzy a couple times. So fun. So fun. So that's what I've been up to this week in the world of pinball. If you want to get yourself a game, of course, show sponsor MadPinball, email jeff at madpinball.com, get yourself on a list. Spooky's list, of course, is making the news. But if you've got another game you're looking for, there's a lot of cool used games that they get out there in Ohio quite a bit. I think Mad's really kind of leveling up in their reputation and their reach. And so the fact that they are really easy to wheel and deal with, they get a lot of used trade-in games. They also route games. So they have professional techs on staff. They themselves tech their games. And so you can get a used game that's been gone over. That's where I got my Tales from the Crypt back in the day. And it had been gone over with the Mad guys. So I knew I was getting a game that was, even though it was a little older, it was going to play very well and kind of for a great price too. And the dudes were super easy to work with. So email jeffatmadpinball.com or corbinatmadpinball.com. Get out to either one of the guys. Get yourself a game or just let them know, hey, I'm looking for something. Or let them know, hey, have a good day or something. Or, hey, send me a T-shirt. I don't know. But, yeah, get at them. and if you want to use the WAP discount code that we're doing with the We Are Pinball I will send you personally a WAP shirt and a whole bag of cool stuff if you buy a game through them super fun, helps out the show, helps everybody out there you go get yourself a pinball machine man, it's awesome speaking of Star Wars pinball machines the home edition is at Costco I've been able to play it and chances are you have too because this game is just widespread now in Costco release it was kind of what I was expecting from Jurassic Park last year, but there was really only one Costco I found in the greater Chicago area that had it on the floor. The Rockford one would have it, but the Madison ones didn't. There's three Costcos in Madison and none of them ever got the Jurassic Park Home Edition. But damn it, if I haven't gone to every Costco and seen the Star Wars game there. Play's super fun. If you haven't had time to put or haven't had a chance to put time on it, go ahead. Slaymaker threw up like 13 million points, man. There must have been kids standing there holding a cold hot dog, like waiting for this guy to get off the machine so they could try it and flip some buttons around. And he's over there like looping wizard modes like a madman, putting up 13 million points, which is nuts for that home edition. So way to go, guy. The game felt robust enough. They switched away from the MDF when it comes to the play field, at least. I couldn't really get a sense on what the cabinet construction is like if they're still doing the MPF, which is kind of like that pressed, you know, what do you call it, wood powder, sawdust kind of stuff. or if they went to an all-plywood cabinet. Hopefully they did. And as far as scale, these games are about the same size as, like, Beatles or Bond 60th, like that little diminutive size. But whatever, it felt good. You can tell that the pop bumpers are all on single coil. Both slings are on the same coil because they fire at the same time. Gameplay-wise doesn't really seem to affect much. But, like, if you know, like, you can tell that. And let's talk about this, all right? This game's $4,800 MSRP. Costco's going to have it for probably $44 pretty soon because they'll run a little discount, and that discount will last for weeks and weeks and weeks. So you'll be able to save like $500 off of them once the initial fervor dies down. And then if you have a local Costco and you watch these things, they will go on clearance, and they will clear out their floor models. So you will be able to buy that floor model. And Jurassic Parks, I saw them going for the $2,000 range at some stores. So keep an eye out. You might be able to pick one up for that. But the game felt really good, and I'm glad I get to play the game at Costco. Now, this invites the argument. You guys are pinball enthusiasts. Otherwise, how in the world would you even know to find this show? So you can go onto Pinside and see, look, this game is $4,800 at Costco, $5,500 or best offer. I can get a Star Wars Pro right now and have the commercial-level game with all the coin mechs. I can put it in any pizza place and start earning money on it. You can't do that with the Home Edition. you know what are these suckers doing buying this game when this one is available here i think that is a terrible argument and i want to tell you why so right so this game say 4 800 bucks 47 99 whatever you end up getting it for uh that's for a new in box game that is already sitting there at your costco you just have to load it on a flatbed cart take it out to your truck and it comes with not only the stern warranty but the costco return Ryan Policky where If you're having problems for any reason, you don't want it anymore, it's been up to a year, just take it back to the store and return it. Like, there's something to be said about that. Now, you may say, yes, but you can get a game with much more modes, more call-outs, again, commercial availability to put this and earn some money or whatever, for just, like, $1,000 or $2,000 more. And to that I say, that's a dumb argument because, of course, you can't. All right? You can't tell me and seem that you're, like, super shrewd that, yeah, don't buy this thing just pay thousands more and you can get a much better version tell me a product you can't do that with okay tell me the home version of a product that you can't spend thousands more and have a commercial grade one doesn that apply to everything i have several 3d printers that are consumer models but relatively high end I could spend thousands more and get a commercial grade printer Of course I would. That would be more robust, would hold up well longer, would have more resale value. All the same things that a commercial pinball machine would have. And the argument's the same. That doesn't mean I don't buy my consumer model because that's what I want, That's the price range I'm looking for, and it does what I need it to do. All right, so can we get rid of this like these people are idiots for buying a new-in-box home edition at Costco when you can go on Pinside and Venmo money to a stranger in North Carolina that may be able to ship a game to your home that you don't know how to set up, doesn't come with any instructions, and if you have any problems with it, good luck to some guy in North Carolina. And also, I was just on Pinside, and there are only six Star Wars pros listed. So, like, how many of these are going to sell through? And not all of them are 5,500. Some were closer to six. So, I mean, what a weird argument. What a weird argument. Now, if you are a dyed-in-the-rule pinball enthusiast, dyed-in-the-rules, yeah, dyed-in-the-rules, we'll go with that, then, of course, you know the nuance and how to appreciate, and you would probably scoff at the pro and go for the premium, if anything else, or probably get yourself a Kong Pro, like if you really want a robust pro machine. So then what's the argument? You can get this home version for $4,800, but for just thousands more, you could get a Kong Pro commercial machine. Of course you can. Of course you can. What's that proving? What's that proving? Here would be the argument. Go and pick yourself up one of these used Ultramen that are playing Halloween code that people are selling right now for as low as like $3,400. Go get that right now on Pinside. You want a commercial machine with robust code. There you go. It's sitting right in front of you. Man, you might even be able to scratch together a freaking butter cabinet from somebody. That's what Dawn did. So just putting that out there. And, like, honestly, it wouldn't be the worst thing to have, like, the new home edition right next to Star Wars Premium, right next to whatever this new game is going to be, if it's a Star Wars 2, and just have, like, three, have a whole trilogy of Stern Star Wars machines lined up next to each other. Like, I wouldn't be mad coming home to that. Speaking of coming home, the Stern Expression Light Topper recently came home to Don's abode here. We saw this thing released. It's essentially a set of horizontal expression lights on a metal base that you can attach essentially to any Stern machine, ostensibly, and then there'll be lights coated in there similar to the expression light speakers that they have or whatever, whatever Stern's calling it. so it's a way to put a topper with lights on top of your machine and not have to wait for the $1,000 to $2,000 version that Stern's going to put out this thing comes in at $399, $400 and you get yourself a topper with code that's synchronized to your game and I will say that after owning it now for a little bit it's pretty robust it's better than I was anticipating those expression lights when they're facing at you are pretty bright enough to really be noticeable they tie in well to the speaker lights also Now, on top, there's two flasher domes as well that have, like, those kind of rotary LEDs in them. They're bright, too. So that's nice. And then there is that LED strip and a trough shooting straight up. So if you pay for the $99 acrylic and stick it in there, it'll light up, too, which looks fine. That looks a little more budget. What I am excited about is taking this kind of what is going to be a standard topper for the Stern spike machines and then maybe designing some of my own 3D model things to go and tie into that. Make a little scene but incorporate that light show that's synchronized with the game. That's what I'm excited about. Here's what I didn't realize. When I saw this thing, it looked like the light base that would bolt onto your machine. When I got it, it came in a box that's a quarter of the size of a Stern Topper box. I thought maybe this thing unfolds or something. No, this thing is half of the depth of the backbox top. So if you think of the size of a traditional stern topper with the metal plate and everything, this is half that depth, right? It's just about as wide as the backbox, maybe a little bit more narrow. But yeah, it's only like a half of the size. So it just uses the front two screws on each side to bolt into position. And so at first I was like, man, that's kind of chintzy. I was expecting a much more robust base. Now, from gameplay perspective, it looks fine. I mean, you can't tell what depth is there, and you still get all the lighting effects and everything, so that's fine. But yeah, that was interesting, and I wasn't quite expecting that. I think the reason they went ahead and did that is, one, I guess technically it doesn't matter that it doesn't reach all the way to the back of the cabinet, because you can't see that anyway. But this is also going to tie into these new Home Edition games and be synchronized in there as well, and I think that's the reason why the only one of these that's coded so far is for Star Wars because that's the game that's out in Costco right now. So it looks like, maybe not quite yet, but they'll be marketing these to that crowd at Costco as well to go ahead and put these on. And that may be why it's a little bit more narrow than the width of the backbox and then definitely not as far back as the full depth either. So there's my quick little review of this thing. Was it worth $3.99? I think so. Now I've created a Star Wars topper that I've been making. And I'm looking at a way to kind of meld this into this new topper from Stern. So I can take what is essentially my interpretation of the Stern R2-D2 limited edition topper, but tie in these expression lights, too, to get that interactivity. And I think it's really going to pop. So I'm excited. This is like a fun new platform for me. So check it out. So if you got yourself a Star Wars and $400, and you don't want to try to find one of those $3,500 limited to $500 R2-D2 toppers that beep boops and turns, and you don't already have one of mine, this is something you can get, and it doesn't look half bad. I'm enjoying it. I like that I got it up there, and I would like to dissect it and figure out exactly how it's working and, like, what else I can do with it. Super cool. So that's been fun. That's been fun. Did a live stream this Sunday. I'd like to get into doing some regular streams. I got on there, and essentially I was going to do kind of like this podcast-type format, but then with the interactivity of the people in the chat, we kind of just went and just followed the conversation wherever it was going. It's over an hour and a half. It's over on the Don's Pinball Podcast YouTube channel. You can go check that out. I know a lot of people consume this content on YouTube and so I think that's why you're seeing a lot of the podcasters either do YouTube versions as well or start doing more content over on the YouTube. So it's there if you're jogging around. Say if you're Jamie Burchill walking around your town and you want to put more content in your earbuds and play at one and a half speed go check out the Don's Pinball Podcast channel. We did that live stream. Super fun. I'll try to do it every Sunday morning as time allows, we'll say. What else is going on? So much to talk about, man. This has been a robust week of nonsense. Speaking of nonsense, people are speculating up and down about Mr. Keith Elwin and what he's up to. Now, the narrative that's being put out there is his contract is coming up with Stern. Is he under contract? Is he just an at-will employee? I don't know. and I don't think I'm entitled to know and I'm not asking for anybody to verify for me because it's really none of my business but people seem to be obsessed with the fact the current narrative is that JJP is trying to woo Elwin away from Stern to go over there and make games for them and then of course people come back and say well Elwin has been releasing one of his games or Stern has been releasing a title designed by him and his team just about every year and JJP would probably put him on an every two to three year cycle and would that really work Maybe he should be the George Gomez of Stern. It's all over the place. Somebody in Australia was saying that no, Ellen's going to go work at Barrels of Fun now. Who knows what's going to happen? I hope whatever he's doing is the best for him, and that's all I really care about. I just like playing games, and I'm not going to speculate on somebody's livelihood. However, what I could see happening, and this may be the kernel to the truth that set off all of this, Maybe his employment contract as it was Is coming up for renewal Maybe this guy Who was a tournament player Pinball enthusiast and then designer Really has become his own brand Like when we talked about Jaws was coming out When we talked about Kong was going to be coming out We weren't just saying the next great game from Stern is coming We said the next Elwynn game is coming So this guy Over his several releases here at Stern Has kind of built his own brand. Elwynn has meaning now, besides just the tournaments and everything, but in game design. So what if this guy decided to come in as a free agent and contract and license himself and then work on a license basis with Stern as a contractor? Maybe that's what he's been doing the whole time. I have no idea. I haven't seen anybody's contract. I'm not asking to. But I could see him becoming more his brand. Kind of like how uh kamikau did kapow games you know and it would contract with stern to make those studio games they called them uh elvira and such beetles i think was one of them um so maybe like elwynn can work as a brand now the exciting part would be is if he did not have exclusivity with stern i don't see this happening but let's just say that his brand would contract for like a game a year with stern pinball but also leave him open as a free agent to be licensed by other companies so say a JJP down the street could come in and license him for a one-off game for their company. Maybe Barrels could say, hey, we would like to pay you the license fee to develop a game for us. We'll release one under the Barrels brand, but also the Elwynn branded thing, and it could be its own separate entity. I think that would be exciting. Hey, I feel good for the guy that we're even speculating that his name is his own brand now, as far as game design. I think that's enthusiastic, right? very exciting, exciting for him. Now, perhaps when we heard that, this is like the third time I'm using this joke, but we heard that rumor of Skeleton Crew being bandied around about nine months ago, like the next Stern game was going to be based on that Star Wars spinoff, Skeleton Crew. And I was thinking, oh, well, maybe the Skeleton Crew just refers to the remaining designers at Stern, right? Because, you know, a Jacksoft design, and if Elwin's going somewhere else, and that only leaves Elliot Elliot Eismin and Brian Eddy. I mean, that's a hell of a skeleton crew, guys. Well, Borg's there, too. The joke was skeleton crew. I hope you had a laugh. That's what was intended there. But that was super fun. What else do we need to get to? Let's end with this. Let's end with this. I was over at District 1 in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Great place, 13 games, 80 tournaments. and Bond Pro the cornerstone made its reappearance there and so I wandered over and put three bucks through it and I will say now late in the game playing this fully coded thing I was having a heck of a time with Bond so I do want to do a bit of a defense on it, I've been dogging this game kind of shortly after it came out it was always fun but it was like come on guys, it's not like Bond guys are really getting into this game I'm like, this is never leaving. It's triple bolted to the floor. I'll sell my dog before I sell this game. And I'm like, dude, it's Bond. It's not trash, but I was like browsing the guys. But I will say I was having a fun time with the game, playing it now that the code is essentially complete. There's just a couple of things that keep me from elevating it to that lofted status that people seem to have. First off, I guess I'm just not that good of a player to really be able to get through all the modes and everything. Maybe this thing really shines if you're decent at pinball. But just a couple of things, you know, like the scoop that just shoots up the play field, doesn't really do much. That wire form that locks balls around the rocket, it didn't do a whole lot. I wish I could have shot up there a different way. The bond on the wand doesn't do anything for me. The pro doesn't have any of these things. They don't seem to, the gameplay doesn't suffer because of the pro, but that just means that there's not like really great elements that are in the premium that really make you want that, right? You know, the rocket doesn't take off and launch around the room. You know, it doesn't sink into the playfield and then rise up. You know, there's not, like, compelling cool wire forms. I still don't get what the underwater scene is. I know it's from a movie, but, like, you know, it's not a lower playfield or something. It's just kind of an action figure with a little spotlight on it. I don't know. It just feels like there wasn't enough there there, you know. Not that Bond is the only one. I mean, Guardians of the Galaxy, honestly, what's in the premium that's not in the pro? a couple of magnets under the playfield instead of just the one, the Groot arms that block the view of the ball, and was there something else? Did I miss something? Anyway, in defense of Bond, I had some good games on it. It was fun, and at some point, I don't think I would mind having a Bond make its way through the arcade here at home, but honestly, for the time, money, and expense involved, and the amount of fun and gameplay that I would get out of it, I think the Walking Dead remastered would be a better shot. Let me know what you think. Don's Pinball Podcast at gmail.com. That was a big, robust one, man. More information as I get it. Shout out to the Spooky Crew. Hope you don't mind me talking about your cool peripheral. Get at me over on Patreon. Patreon.com backslash Don's Pinball Podcast. It's only five bucks, man. Come on in. Hang out. Bonus content's being posted there. Rumors doesn't hear them. And more. Interact on the Discord. And hell, you're entered to win something every month. Isn't that worth it? Talk to you guys later.