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Steve Ritchie Interview!

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·18m 32s·analyzed·Jun 28, 2026
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Steve Ritchie details Sonic the Hedgehog pinball design, upper playfield innovation, and technical mechanics.

Summary

Don interviews Steve Ritchie about Sonic the Hedgehog pinball at Jersey Jack Pinball. Ritchie discusses the game's innovative upper playfield featuring a polycarbonate surface with edge lighting, advanced magnet mechanics, and custom target designs. They cover licensing constraints, gameplay flow, design philosophy, and specific technical innovations like the magnet-driven loop and opto-based targets.

Key Claims

  • Sonic the Hedgehog is based on Sonic Generations IP specifically, chosen by Sega for style guide compliance

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie states Sega 'chose Sonic Generations' and 'adds specifics' through style guides for artwork

  • The polycarbonate playfield uses AR (abrasion resistance) coating on both sides and can be buffed/polished like new

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie explains polycarbon AR product specifications and maintenance, contrasts with past Stern manufacturing issue where sanding removed AR coating causing fogging

  • Upper playfield has nine possible shots total, with one featuring a wire form gate that can be removed for tournament play

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie directly states 'there's a total of nine shots up there' and gate is added 'for now' but would be removed for tournaments

  • The custom stand-up targets on upper playfield use opto switches with beehive springs rather than micro switches

    high confidence · Steve explains the linear target design uses 'a round shaft that passes through an aperture' with 'a little U-shaped opto thing' and PC board that is 'probably going to last forever'

  • The magnet loop mechanism requires no rear engines and operates one-way, with extensive code iteration and high-speed camera analysis by lead coder Bill Grupp

    high confidence · Steve describes the magnet implementation and credits Bill Grupp with 'many, many iterations of code, of timing' to make it work

  • Sega rejected inclusion of the Sega logo/sound drop in the game 18 months ago despite Steve's desire to include it

    high confidence · Steve states 'Everybody's asking for Sega... we asked them 18 months ago. Right. And they said, no. Can't put that in the game.'

  • Taylor Snyder is a young programmer who came to Jersey Jack without pinball experience but is a lifelong Sega/Sonic fan

    high confidence · Steve describes Taylor as someone 'who came in here and didn't know pinball at all' but 'was a Sega aficionado' and 'a great programmer'

Notable Quotes

  • “Sega controlled a lot of things. They were very good about licensing now. I would say they're like one of the best licensors I've ever worked with. They're very cool. But they add specifics.”

    Steve Ritchie @ early — Insight into Sega's approach to IP licensing and style guides, which directly influences design constraints

  • “I can't remember the first one I used, but what's cool about polycarbonate is the first thing, it can be buffed and polished and cleaned, and it's easy.”

    Steve Ritchie @ mid — Addresses community misinformation about polycarbonate durability and maintenance

  • “I like games where I can walk up to it and I can't tell just by looking how to get the ball around all the different paths or what each shot does... I still don't even know every ball path of the upper play field.”

    Don @ mid — Describes design philosophy around mystery and discovery in complex playfield layouts

  • “I wouldn't trust magnets. I don't know. A magnet can work if you've got metal on the sides, two ball guides, it's probably going to work fine.”

    Don @ mid — Skepticism about magnet reliability in pinball design contrasts with Steve's implementation

  • “The worst thing with a magnet on the play field is if it's inconsistent, if it's supposed to throw the ball to target, And it works 90% of the time. That 10% is really disheartening.”

    Steve Ritchie @ mid — Acknowledges the core reliability concern with magnet mechanics that makes the Sonic implementation noteworthy

  • “Bill Grupp, Bill Grupp is the lead coder. He had to work hard, man, to make that happen. Many, many iterations of code, of timing, lots of things we had to measure and look at with a high-speed camera.”

    Steve Ritchie @ mid — Credits technical execution effort and precision engineering required for the magnet loop

  • “Everybody's asking for Sega. Like, we wouldn't ask. We asked them 18 months ago. Right. And they said, no. Can't put that in the game.”

    Steve Ritchie — Reveals specific licensing negotiation details and timing of the request

Entities

Steve RitchiepersonDonpersonBill GrupppersonTaylor SnyderpersonJersey Jack PinballcompanySonic the HedgehoggameSegacompanySonic Generationsproduct

Signals

  • ?

    design_innovation: Sonic uses a transparent polycarbonate upper playfield with edge lighting and AR coating, enabling ball visibility while simplifying wiring complexity. No inserts used on polycarbonate surface to preserve clarity.

    high · Steve discusses polycarbonate AR coating durability, edge LED lighting from underneath, intentional design to keep ball visible, contrasts with inserts approach

  • ?

    design_innovation: Custom stand-up targets on upper playfield use opto switches with beehive springs instead of traditional micro switches, providing adjustable PC board design intended for long-term reliability

    high · Steve describes linear target design: 'round shaft that passes through an aperture' with 'U-shaped opto thing' on PC board that is 'probably going to last forever'

  • ?

    design_innovation: One-way magnet-driven loop mechanism triggered by opto sensor as ball enters, operates at any speed from slow pushes to full shots, required extensive code iteration and high-speed camera analysis to achieve consistency

    high · Steve credits Bill Grupp with 'many, many iterations of code, of timing' using high-speed camera measurements; describes one-way operation and speed-independent triggering

  • ?

    design_innovation: Fourth magnet positioned below six badnik targets adds unpredictability—sometimes throws ball back up the middle hole, sometimes allows drain, adds excitement while providing ball saves

    high · Steve describes magnet placement and behavior: 'interferes with a lot of stuff... does interesting things... saves a lot of balls... from going down the middle'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.056

0:00
And now join me for a very special conversation with your hero in mind, Mr. Steve Ritchie. So you made a game. I did, sir. Yeah, it's Sonic the Hedgehog, the battle for Pandora. I forget the tagline for it. It's just Sonic the Hedgehog. Okay, I like it. So I was looking at it. First, when I heard the rumor of Sonic coming out, I'm thinking Sega Genesis 16-bit. But is this based on a certain property of video games, like some generation? Okay, Sega controlled a lot of things. They were very good about licensing now. I would say they're like one of the best licensors I've ever worked with. They're very cool. But they add specifics. And I'm glad they chose Sonic Generations. And that's what we want for artwork. I don't want the pixelated stuff on the game. It isn't pretty. And we do have a little pixelated action on the little displays. I do like those displays, yeah, and the rings. The five of them. They're full of information. I don't know. It just makes the game kind of more fun. Yeah, I mean, so this is fun. It's like a vertically mounted insert. Like, it's giving the player information, but like where the player is actually looking. Yeah, it's actually a screen. Sometimes we scroll text across, you know. I saw, and that was one of the things I noticed first off. And at first I'm thinking maybe there'll be LCD screens or something for some higher resolution graphics. Then I saw the close-up pictures online, and it looks like the same LEDs that were on the Elton John piano. It is. Yeah. But standing from player height, player distance looking at it, the resolution looks much better than what I was thinking just looking at pictures online. It's not bad. Yeah, yeah. And it's fun how it's synchronized. I saw, like, the Sonic letters were lit up there for a while. Right. And it spells out bonus, stuff like that. So, like, I've only seen this game, it's been just about 24 hours now. So all of this is still brand new to me. I'm trying to digest everything. Yeah. And kind of so is everybody else. So the polycarbonate upper playfield does have a coating on it. People are out there talking about clear coat like you sprayed an epoxy or something on it. Can I speak to that? Yes. Okay. Don, yeah, there's a lot of misinformation out there, I mean, about polycarbonate playfields. I've been using them for years and years. I mean, I can't remember the first one I used, but what's cool about polycarbonate is the first thing, it can be buffed and polished and cleaned, and it's easy. It's not that hard to do. And if you keep it clean, it's good to have decent balls and change them out now. And that's an important thing I would do for any game because I don't want my silk screen or the artwork peeled off the play field. I want to protect everything.

Steve initially resisted doing a 'cute' themed game but was won over by the fast gameplay and Sonic theme

high confidence · Steve says 'I did not want to do it in the beginning I never made a game with little flowers... they don't do cute' but changes stance: 'You do fast... I do fast'

@ mid

  • “I did not want to do it in the beginning I never made a game with little flowers... but it's compelling... the more I saw the game, the more I thought, wow, it's fast.”

    Steve Ritchie @ mid — Shows design evolution and how game speed eventually won over initial aesthetic reservations

  • “The plunge goes into the orbit. And then I was able to combo right into some ramps when I was hitting right. So, yeah, the flow is here.”

    Don @ late — Confirms quality of shot flow and combo design during hands-on play

  • “Every time I was draining out, I was a little bit sad. And that's kind of what you want if you're doing an upper play field or a lower play field area.”

    Don @ late — Describes the emotional engagement with the upper playfield design—wanting to stay in play rather than drain

    • Elton John
    game
    Joe Katzperson
    Keith Elwinperson

    licensing_signal: Sega required use of Sonic Generations IP specifically with strict style guide compliance. Rejected Sega logo and associated sound drop 18 months into development despite Steve's desire to include them.

    high · Steve states: 'Sega wanted us to use it... they add specifics... if it's not in the style guide, it doesn't matter... they're not going to sign off' and 'we asked them 18 months ago... they said, no'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Steve prioritizes playfield designs where players cannot immediately understand all shot paths and mechanics—complexity that rewards exploration and repeated play

    high · Steve says 'I still don't even know every ball path of the upper play field because sometimes I'm shooting back there... the ball is popping up different places' and values this mystery

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Steve emphasizes keeping the ball visible to players as much as possible on playfield, which drove the polycarbonate upper playfield choice and rejection of inserts

    high · Steve explicitly states: 'I think it's really important to keep the ball visible to the player as much as I can' and 'I'm not putting any inserts in a polycarbonate field. It's clear, dudes'

  • ?

    product_concern: Previous Stern manufacturing issue: polycarbonate windows in lower flipper area were sanded, removing the AR coating, causing fogging in some games still in arcades. Steve acknowledges this as source of industry rumors about polycarbonate durability.

    high · Steve discusses: 'We did have a problem once at Stern... they sanded the whole thing... they took off the AR coating... it kind of became foggy... some are still out there that were foggy'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Sonic development involved Taylor Snyder (young programmer, non-pinball background but Sega/Sonic fan), Bill Grupp (lead coder), Joe Katz (mentor), and Steve Ritchie (designer)

    high · Steve describes Taylor as bringing programming skills and Sonic fandom, credits Bill Grupp as lead coder with Joe Katz as mentor figure

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Upper playfield is designed to keep players engaged with quick exit options if desired, but compelling enough that players want to stay—multiple shot paths, center bumper for rescue, flipper feeds from lower playfield

    high · Don describes: 'Every time I was draining out, I was a little bit sad' indicating emotional investment; Steve describes exit paths: 'you can exit pretty quickly' but 'it is fun'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Spin Dash mode freezes ball on ramp, player builds cursor position using flipper pounding, selects green area for collection bonus. Similar timing-based interaction to pyrotechnic moment in Guns N' Roses but active player-controlled rather than passive

    high · Don describes: 'ball freezes on the ramp. You pound the flippers. The information's on the screen... you move this little cursor until it's over a green area'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Don reports shots feel consistent and responsive to player input after second/third game, finding shot positions on flippers reliably when maintaining consistent reflexes

    medium · Don states: 'In my second or third game... I was already finding where the shots were on the flippers. They were fairly consistent as long as I was consistent with my reflexes'

    • 2:40
    So polycarbon AR is a product, and that's the only one I've ever used. And all the manufacturers that make polycarbon sheets, it's 316s thick. And all of them have a compound called AR, abrasion resistance. And so it is coated on both sides.
    3:01
    They don't scratch. I mean, most of the people that make comments about, you know, polycarbonate scratching didn't even know or have any clue that there has been such a thing. But I've used it many, many times in the past. And you can go and look at these games and they can be polished and cleaned to look like new. And if it gets really bad, I can't imagine it. I don't know anybody that's – no one's ever talked to me about having to replace a polycarbonate plate field.
    3:31
    We did have a problem once at Stern. Oh, no. Well, here's what happened. Tell me. We mounted the polycarbonate window right in the bottom with that little area where there's lower flippers. Yeah, yeah.
    3:45
    And they tried sanding the whole thing. And when they sanded it, they took off the AR coating. That's the first thing they did. Next thing is it gets hot and it kind of lost. It kind of became foggy. And there were some play fields that we made. We tried to get them all back, but some are still out there that were foggy. So that's probably where the rumor comes from. Okay. That was a big mistake. We should have never done that. And yeah, and if it got out in some arcade somewhere and it's been earning, you know, that's probably the one you'd come across. Right. Pretty much continuously. Anyway. Yeah. It's that it's not a problem. It's not worth wasting any time. So one thing I didn't notice until actually seeing it and playing it now is the it is edge lit, too. Like there's the lights. I don't know where they're coming from. No they coming from a bar of LEDs that underneath L and it just in the front Yeah Because I can make it go any further back There too many other obstructions on the playfield And the reason why there no inserts up there is because there so much wire involved You don't see it when you look at the wood playfield, but up there, it's like, I mean, to have inserts? Well, first of all, I'm not putting any inserts in a polycarbonate field. It's clear, dudes, so you can see what's underneath. Keith, I think it's really important to keep the ball visible to the player as much as I can. Going around orbits and stuff, that's fine. You shot it, you know where it's going to come out.
    5:10
    Upper play field, same thing. There are some shots you can't, you know, the ball isn't there, like the orbit shot up there. It's like, ball's not visible, but so what? You shot it, you know where it's going to come to. Yeah, that was a fun upper play field. I didn't notice it bending or warping at all. The edge lighting was cool, and I could see through it and didn't notice if there's any glare on it at all. I played the arcade edition with the glass, without the glass, and either way I could still see straight through this. Well, when you have a play field like that or anything reflective towards the back of the game, you're not going to see it in the back glass because the reflection angle isn't there. When it's out here, you've got a big angle, and it has a lot to do with how much you see of reflected stuff you don't want to see. Yeah, a clever design at work. And this upper playfield, we're talking about it a lot, but it's kind of the big dominant thing when you walk up there. I wanted to ask, I didn't write down any questions or anything, but prior to this I wanted to see, when you started this project, did you already have the idea that you wanted to bring back an upper playfield like that? Did the theme speak to you, or did a couple other things not work, and this is where you landed, and this is what worked? No. I mean, I always wanted the upper playfield because things got like, I don't know, 16, 17 shots, not including stand-up targets. I will include the round Sonic targets on the upper playfield. Those things are cool. The little spring, yeah. It's the first time that a target with nothing hanging down, like a stand-up target's got a lot down below the playfield, right? I can't do that there. I don't want you to look at it. I don't want it to block anything. So I designed a target that is linear. And the urethane ring helps a lot, but there's also a nice little, like, kind of a beehive spring that compresses. And, I mean, for me, it plays just like a stand-up target. And that's what I want. I want good bounce, you know, not have it go click and, you know, fade away. I want it to throw it back at you. Is there a micro switch behind that? No, there's an opto, which is really cool. Okay, that is cool. It's got like a round shaft that passes through an aperture, you know, and a little U-shaped opto thing. Okay. And it's a PC board, it's adjustable, and you can, you know, it's probably going to last forever. So I like games where I can walk up to it and I can't tell just by looking how to get the ball around all the different paths or what each shot does. You know, when you walk up and it's like what you see is what you get, it's like it takes the mystery away. So this game, I still don't even know every ball path of the upper play field because sometimes I'm shooting back there and, you know, It's popping up different places. I get that little flipper kick that the ball is going to kick out to the orbit and feed it. So I like that complexity. That isn't really a question. There's a total of nine shots up there that are possible. One has a wire form gate that we added. But for tournaments, I would take it off because when you make that shot, the ball goes back down to the lower play field. But we took it. We gated it off for now because we wanted to keep it up there. Yeah. If I can make it up there, let me play up there. Yeah, well, another thing that people don't realize is you can get up there anytime you want. You don't have to shoot up the middle. You can shoot the left rim. And if you make a nice shot, it's going to go up there. I saw you do it 10 times. I did. Thank you. Everybody heard that? Did you hear that? Another thing I didn't expect, you know, just seeing from the online stuff was the loop and the ball accelerator. Like, in my head, it was a moment where you activate it, then you get the ball locked there, and then you build up the speed and go. But I was able to hit it on the fly. The magnets would just activate and then boom, I'm in the loop and the ball is coming back to me. That's fast. That was fun every time I did it. And you also got, you got spin dash too. Yeah. I like that. The ball freezes on the ramp. You pound the flippers. The information's on the screen. You pound the flippers and you move this little cursor until it's over a green area and you collect, you know, what you got. But you have to hit the action button to collect it. Yeah. This is similar to the pyrotechnic moment in Guns N' Roses. It is. Only that's a passive. You wait timing-wise until it's in the right area. This thing you build up and then boom, smack it. So that was fun. What cool about that magnet ramp is you can push the ball in with your finger It goes up and around the loop Okay Yeah Or it just works at any speed which is very cool You shoot it up there, it just works. Yeah, you explained it to me while I was playing that there's an opto that triggers the ball as it enters. There's no rear engines for it. It's one way, right? No, it's just one way. Yeah, okay. We contemplated doing some stuff like that, but we might in the future. I don't know. Probably not. I just want to say that Bill Grupp, Bill Grupp is the lead coder. He had to work hard, man, to make that happen.
    9:49
    Many, many iterations of code, of timing, lots of things we had to measure and look at with a high-speed camera to see what was going on. It was not easy to make that happen, but it works good now. Yeah, I mean, the worst thing with a magnet on the play field is if it's inconsistent, if it's supposed to throw the ball to target, And it works 90% of the time. That 10% is really disheartening. Yeah, but magnets, I don't know. You can't trust them. I wouldn't. I don't know.
    10:17
    A magnet can work if you've, you know, like in Elaine, like on Star Trek 2012, underneath the Vengeance, there's that magnet there. If you've got metal on the sides, two ball guides, it's probably going to work fine. Yeah, or like in this battle arena where there's the magnet underneath there that induces some chaos back and forth. It seems to work really well.
    10:39
    Myself, my friends were kind of more magnets, more fun, so I like to see magnets in pinball. Me too. There is a fourth magnet too. Oh, did I not discover this one yet? Just below the six badnik targets. Between the slingshots up at the top. Okay. Okay, and what it does is, I mean, I put the shot right up the middle. I mean, draw a line from that shot, it goes straight down the drain. Okay, but that magnet interferes with a lot of stuff. It does interesting things. Now and then it just throws it right back up in the hole. Oh, that's fun. But it saves a lot of balls. It really does from going down the middle and adds a little excitement. Yeah, yeah, that's fun. Speaking of excitement, I love me some spinners. I was able to rip that spinner on the upper play field. Was there any thought to putting a spinner in the orbit on the lower play field? Yeah, there was, but it's like, there was so much going on over there. Okay, we have optos, and they all take up room, and you have to be able to let the operator or the owner get to them to repair them. And so I could not find a space for it there because there are so many other wires coming in from other optos adjacent. Everything's pretty tight in there, you know? You look at some of the width of the distance between those lanes, and it's like, I don't have a lot of room, so we took it out. I'm always curious about the reasoning behind it, because there's always a reason, but it's not always readily available. Sometimes it's counterintuitive. Oh, here's another thing. Yeah. Lay it on me. Everybody's asking for Sega. Like, we wouldn't ask. We asked them 18 months ago. Right. And they said, no. Can't put that in the game. I would have put it in the game. I love that. You know? I played Sonic with my son. I'm 76. So it's like my son was, I don't know, he's 50 now. Anyway, that was about the last time I played Sonic. I mean, I knew how to play it, what the rules were and all that stuff. But, you know, I just remember that. Thank God. I love that. Yeah, that's the first thing that popped in my head. Like, I can't wait to turn this game on and see that. But licensing is complicated. It is. And the people that are offering the license to be available for a product like this may not be the same people that own the license to whatever that sound drop is. People that are outside our industry do not understand licensing. And it's like this game and many other licenses, most of them come with a style guide. Yes. They tell you exactly what you have to do with art, design, with a lot of stuff.
    13:16
    Personally, like I said, some people pine for the pixelated stuff old days. I'm glad that it isn't there because this is so much more polished, clean. It's nice. The colors are hot and bright. In the 3D, it looks awesome.
    13:32
    Sega wanted us to use it, and we were happy to use it. Yeah. And oftentimes, even if it was, you know, a core driving thing you wanted to put in there, if it's not in the style guide, it doesn't matter because you're not going to get it. Right. Yeah. They're not going to sign off. So, yeah, move point. But yeah I like to see that we were expanding into pinball themes now going into you know video game properties that we know I as nostalgic for that as I am for Jaws or some of the other films from the 80s I have to be honest I did not want to do it in the beginning I never made a game with little flowers Did I hear that about Elton John? A long, long time ago I said they don't do cute. They don't do cute. But it's compelling. We got this kid, Taylor Snyder, who's amazing. He came in here and didn't know pinball at all, okay? But he was excited about, you know, programming. He was a great programmer already. I mean, he's just, he's got good teachers here too, though. Bill Grupp and Joe Katz and others.
    14:32
    You know, he just sucked it all up. But he's also, since he was a little kid, a Sega aficionado. Oh. I mean, he loves Sonic and especially Tails. And it's like he sort of told us about things. And the more I saw the game, the more I thought, wow, it's fast. Yeah, so you don't do cute. That's up my alley. You do fast. Right, I do fast. Yeah, so I like what you did here. Well, I did cute, and I'm not a chamber.
    15:03
    You unlocked the inner furry. I get it. I don't do cute. Get out of here with that. That's so fun. I was able to combo some shots. That orbit is satisfying. I like a satisfying orbit. The plunge goes into the orbit. And then I was able to combo right into some ramps when I was hitting right. So, yeah, the flow is here. The upper play field's fun. If you don't want to be up there, you can exit pretty quickly. But it is fun with that center bumper there to go ahead and rescue your ball with a nudge. Yeah, it's totally playable. I mean, it's a key part. I love it. You can also hold up the right flip rep there as it comes around. The looper comes out, you know, where the ball enters from the block down below. So it rolls in, you hold that flip rep, toss it to the left flipper, you get a nice shot right at that, you know, the center hole up there or that under and over shot. And I like that stuff, but what I really like is staying up there as long as I can. Yeah, yeah, I was finding myself do it. Like every time I was draining out, I was a little bit sad. And that's kind of what you want if you're doing an upper play field or a lower play field area. There's still some flow between that playfield and the lower playfield. I mean, say it breaks up flow. I don't agree at all. Yeah, I don't think so. I think it's action, action, action the whole time.
    16:18
    Reminiscent of some of my favorite games, such as Portal or Final Resistance, and the fact that there's a big structure mechanism in the back of the playfield where the ball can be at two different levels doing fun stuff. And I like that. I like ramps. I like ball paths. I like wire forms. Bumpers are fun. All right. Have you been drinking Red Bull? No. Oh. It's time for a commercial. I'm six Diet Coke soon. Are you? Yeah. I'm a Coke Zero guy. Okay. But Red Bull. I love Red Bull. I'm drinking a 12-ounce right now. Are you designing a cute fast game? Break open an icy cold Red Bull.
    16:52
    There it is. Red Bull, the drink of champions. Yeah. What else? I want to get back and play this game some more. Okay. Yeah. Art's fun. It looks like it delivers exactly what you would expect. And I can now say playing it like it does play well. The shots felt good. It was in my second or third game. I was already finding where the shots were on the flippers. They were fairly consistent as long as I was consistent with my reflexes. And so, yeah, it was fun. I want to go play it again. It's great. I'm glad you do.
    17:21
    That's the goal. Dude, I can't wait to see what next is from Steve. I want to ask you about this watch, though. I've been meaning to you. You're so fashionable. And I always see your watches in pictures. I only wear black clothes. Okay. It's the accessories that make the look. Okay, yeah, it's all right, yeah. The watch is an Invicta. It's like, they don't make it anymore. It's called a TI-22. Everything gray here at the base and the band is titanium. So it only weighs about a pound. Oh, man. I'm not a watch guy, but if I was, I won't want that. Or an Invicta. Someone look that up. Maybe next Father's Day. Invicta. Well, perfect. Thanks for spending some time with me. I really appreciate it. It's no problem at all. I enjoyed it. All right. Yeah, I'll come back and I'll bring you a Red Bull next time. Next time they're on me. Okay, that's great. Thanks. Good talking to you, Don. Special thanks to my gracious host over at Jersey Jack Pinball and for Steve Ritchie for sparing some time to talk to me about his game. It plays incredible. Go check it out. More than that, go check out the man. If you see him at a show, tell him he's awesome all the time. I'm sure he's heard it all before. But, yeah, well done, Steve and team. Game was super fun. Thanks so much for the invite. We'll talk to you all soon.
    18:32
    Thank you.