So Brian and me, we sat down, we had the plan, and we just went to it, started building. We're going to have games. When we launch, we're going to come out, games in boxes, ready to go. I may have seen a video from the Houston, Texas warehouse where I saw a bunch of games in boxes ready to go. Plus, you had 10 here at Expo. It's a real thing. I think, Phil, when you got here on Friday night, was that the first time you actually flipped it in this capacity? It's been a while since I flipped it. The development on this has been going on for a while, but it's really come together in the last few months. I've been outside of Houston for the last few months, so the last time I flipped it was on earlier code, and now the code has much more progressed. It's much more stable now. You can actually play full games. You can get through all your modes, do all of the things that we were designing it to do, and it's really just taken on a life of its own. And he's also responsible for putting the spinner behind the Newton lock bolt. Oh, my goodness. I want to talk about this feature. So, yes, you can lock the ball on what looks like the left orbit. Two pegs come up. Pogos? Pegs? Forks? Forks, yeah. No, no, no. Just the pogo thing. Phil Grimaldi, all my Texas peeps and TPF friends know what I'm talking about. You've got to see this guy play. It's something. But anyway, these two pegs come up. And, okay, you've got a ball there. But there's a spinner behind the ball. and I'm playing with Bowen Cairns who also helped you Phil with the rules and he showed me how the spinner increases the number of spins you do and and the points are exponential in some sense so you really want to smash that ball into the spinner it so cool it is awesome When we were playing early Whitewood at the game one of the things that was missing was a spinner And I said, David, we have to... Your exact words, like, yeah, David, this is really, really good, but you know what this game's missing? A spinner. And he's just looking over the game. I go over to my shelf of prototype parts, I pull out the spinner, he's like, go and put it somewhere. And he goes, dude, we're trying to lock this down. I was like, it just screws onto the payfield. Figure out where it goes. So we were looking all around. There's only one place on this play field to put a spinner. It's right behind the forks. And David's first reaction is, no, we can't put it there. That's where the lock is. This is not going to work. And no, actually, it's going to work perfectly. We stage a ball on there. We crack that captive ball into the spinner, and it is so satisfying. It is. The kinetic satisfaction is just perfect. So all the real pinball players love that kinetic satisfaction. when you do something, when you do the thing. And there are multiple things on this wonderful game. In fact, I'm playing a game with Bowen, and I'm looking at what looks like a U-turn. I'm like, oh, I'm going to hit that and be prepared because it's going to come back. Whoa, where'd the ball go? Where did the ball go? It was supposed to come back in the U-turn, but the ball's disappeared. It's almost like it's thematic. Well, the whole point was to have every shot has multiple shots. So in that horseshoe, there's actually a drop-down horseshoe backing of it. So it's a traditional horseshoe, left and right, but when you've actually hit enough shots to spell Labyrinth, the back of the wall drops down and you shoot through it to start your mode. You've got all the movie assets. You've got, first of all, a lot of David Bowie fans that are thrilled to have this game, and the wonderful Jim Henson world, too. And you and I were talking before this, and what a wonderful license to work with. it was magnificent and it was one of those things of when we showed them the concept they understood that we were approaching this as if this is the world of labyrinth this is not from a linear story of sarah this is your experience your opportunity to find your friends that can help you go to the goblin city you know you can get them and they'll help you go quicker to the goblin city to see the goblin king or you can do it by yourself and you got to travel the underground or above the ground you got to see the knockers the four guards the cleaner, the oubliette, the fireys, the bug of eternal stench. We all love the bug of eternal stench. Phil, you've been standing there at the booth for over a day now and watching a huge lineup of people wanting to play these machines, and you've actually spread out some games. You had four to start, and then you had a big party on Friday night, and there were six more games at the party, and now there's a few more on the floor. You get to hear the reactions of people. It's great to hear pats on the back, and you're getting to tell them, but it's also nice to get some maybe criticisms. Well, I've been there in the booth with you for a while. I haven't heard any yet. Not a lot. People are loving the game. You see people drain and they smile because when you drain out the left out lane, a little fiery head pops up and taunts you, and it's fun. You see people laughing when they drain the ball rather than, you know, storming off and stomping off. And seeing the smiles on people's faces, that's like one of the best feedback we can get because ultimately that's what we were after. We wanted to make people happy that they're playing pinball and bring that joy and magic back. It's a very nostalgic movie for sure and a wonderful world, like you say. And when this game first was shown in the teaser trailer, I'm now seeing it obviously in person, but you looked at it and you went, oh my gosh, they didn't miss anything. They have everything you can imagine. That is a true world under glass. And I know that was something that you were very conscious to make sure we put a lot in there. Well, absolutely. And one of those things of when I approached this, I wanted to make sure that we represented exactly what the IP was. And it was IP first all the time. It's like how can we really tell the world that they created in a platform where people can actually truly interact with it? Like, you know, choose your own adventure. And, you know, so that led to me like what else can we add to this? And who are the best people that we can access? So there's Johnny Allen Fraser who works down at Weta. He's a huge Labyrinth fan. and he's actually has a full size he made his own full-size hoggle he has two full-size uh four guards in his own collection that he just made himself and when i told him what i'm working i need to do the sculpts for you like this we're going to do this we're going to make this a real world on the glass i need to do the sculpts i can see people buying those toppers if you will just to have whether they have the pinball machine or not so the funny thing about the topper like we had that original concepts and Johnny, like he, he was doing it. He was in the mock-up. So, cause he's in New Zealand, he didn't see all the process of the production. And he honestly thought the topper was never going to exist. And let's just say he was over here two months ago and he had never seen the machine finished. And when he walked in and saw that topper, he was like, holy, I didn't think you were even going to do that. I thought, look, you seriously made that topper? I was like, well, dude, it was in the concept art. What else do you think I'm going to do? He's like, you're crazy. Was he thinking plastic or something? He's like, dude, you're crazy. We've just made one of the best love childs we ever could have made. Because him and me have such a passion for Labyrinth. He's like, dude, I can't be more happy. Because, again, it's like if we draw it, I'm going to make it happen. We just got to figure it out. So I assume the two of you have known each other for a while because you've been in Houston for some time and doing what you've been doing. We've seen much of your work on other games. And it was kind of, you know, my good friend Marty Robbins, a fellow country mate of yours. we were talking like, you know, I hope David's doing okay. Where's David? And little did we know that this little child of barrels of fun was being created. And again, Houston, a great place to manufacture. I know a lot of your North American people are going to be super happy. It's going to be easy to ship these games. You've got distributors already lined up. But Phil, tell me about your connection with David in the Houston area. I mean, how well did you know each other? I mean, David was one of the first people I met when I moved to Houston. There's a pretty avid collector community i came in they kind of took me they took me in when i knew nobody in the area and i got to learn everybody who was who and uh you know we established the space city pinball league years ago and we just have a very tight-knit community in houston in general with the pinball community and we all know family the drone a family there's a lot of very talented people and we're all a big pinball family we all trust one another and that's you know ultimately why Dave was able to pull off this big secret is, you know, we all got each other's back and we're all eager to help somebody who's willing to go out there and try something new and exciting. And, yeah, it's great. Well, let's talk about some of the staff and what they do. Talk about Brian Savage. So he is my friend. I met him by selling him a home documented Doctor Who that I didn't want to sell. But he really wanted it. And he talked me out of it over a month. That's where our friendship began. And then as we got into it, because he was into pinball, we kept buying machines and talking and doing all types of stuff. And his background at that time, he was under license of Hasbro running the Transformers and G.I. Joe Collectors Club. Not bad franchises. No, it's good because he's had experience making toys for the Transformers Club and the G.I. Joe Club. So he knew a lot about running conventions and running collectibles. And he actually retired just in 2019 because it was just done. and that coincided with me taking a step back from what I was doing just trying to figure out what I was going to do and uh you know he was the one that kept pride of me he's like do it yourself dude like you're doing some pretty cool stuff why don't you do it and he pushed me over the edge it a big leap of faith and there had to be some sort of epiphany for you to to make this jump I had the experience And when you do something like what you doing it really does involve a lot of people like Brian like Phil like Bo and like all the other people we're going to mention in a second. But also, really, not to micromanage and hire the people, let them do their job. And that's probably something that you have done successfully in this short period of time at Barrels of Fun. Well, talking about micromanaging, it's like something I learned in the film and TV stage. for about 10 years, by being behind the camera, you want to be in control of everything because that's how Hollywood wants you to be, make you think that you've got to be in charge of everything. And I had a real difficult actor I was dealing with and I got to a point, I called my heads of department, my DP, he's like, I need you guys to do what you do while I deal with this person. And that turned out to be one of the best projects I ever worked on because I actually just let people do their job. So from then on, what was the tools I could give people to be successful? And then when I moved into pinball and I started meeting all these great creative people in all different disciplines is let them do their job. So when I stepped back and I was looking at all these people I've worked with in some capacity, it's like I need these guys to help. They're magnificent in what they do. And not typically the role that I saw them doing, but something that they could help me do. And that includes Eric Prepke as the coach. Oh, yeah. You've worked with him for a while. Yeah, I worked with him on Rick and Morty. So he's fantastic what he does. So I just went to him and said, hey, dude, I'm working on this title. You want in? And he's like, he loves Labrador. It was really funny finding out all these people that love Labrador. He's like a Muppet. He's huge. He's in Wisconsin there. I mean, all that cheese that he's had, he's developed into a Muppet. I kid, Eric. You know I love you. Yeah, and so I brought him on, and he's full-time at Barrels now. Nice. And then there's David Fosmer, who was the OS guy at the Coder at Spooky. And he stepped away, I think, over a year ago to do something else, just changing his career. And when I found that out, I was just like, hey, we're having some issues. Not issues, but we were working on an OS for our platform. And he just called and said, hey, would you help us out on some things? I was like, oh, Dave, of course. I remember working with you. We're friends. And he actually flew down to Houston. I was like, just come on down. I was just coming down, help me out, and he came down. And by the end of that five days, he's like, we're putting a house on the market. So he's like, dude, I've got to be a part of this. So he put his house on the market, and now he lives in Houston. So he's a full-time now. So we have 15 employees right now. Full-time employees. Obviously a lot of people on contract. That's something. So one of those people we want to talk about is somebody you're going to be working a lot with and certainly have so far, Phil, and somebody you've known from the competitive scene, Bowen Cairns. Dave's worked with him before. He's done Spooky. He's done some stuff with Multimorphic. How do you guys work together when it comes to coming up with the rules? Sure. I mean, a lot of this project and the rules were very organically developed. David brought me on end of 2021. At the time, everything we had was, you know, just concept drawings and layouts for the playfield layout. So we didn't even have a whitewood at that point or was an early whitewood. So I sketched kind of a high-level overview for the rules. I think maybe even a year later, I don't remember when Bowen came on, earlier this year maybe, so the rules had kind of, you know, we had a high-level overview of what the rules looked like. And then Bowen came in, we had the rules document, he looked it over, it looked good. As the game matured and we started flipping it, we realized things that we needed to change. And Bowen is just excellent at finding areas for polish, things we need to improve, how we can balance the rule set. He's got a bit of a math eye, doesn't he? Yeah, a little bit, yeah. I mean, and he has a competitive angle as well. And so what Bowen does is he, you know, the magic that he works is he takes that existing rule set and he just turns it into magic. So that's one of the excellent things about working with Bowen. And I'll also say Eric also has an excellent eye for this stuff too. So Eric can look at the rule set and say, you know, this isn't going to work from the programming perspective or here's how we're going to have to tweak this to make it work. some of the times like the rule document that i wrote didn't have enough detail in there and then eric will implement something i was like oh of course this is this is the way that it had to be and it's so good what a team yeah it ends up working out very well like i said it's very organic and it's all remote for the most part so we're all working in different states but it ends up being a very compelling product a very compelling game experience as you play it as you've probably I played it. It's a very fun game. It does make you want to keep going. It does make you want to keep shooting. I kind of noticed David said something. Here you are, a startup company, and a lot of companies will do a lot of talk. The talk you've done has said pinball is not easy. It is hard, and you've kept this secret for so long. Obviously, the goal is to sell games, but I've noticed you said to people here, please flip it before you buy it because you'll be impressed. First of all, you also know, as a salesman in a sense, Once they flip it, they're going to love it. If they already had the interest, you flip it, it's a done deal. And I thought that was very admirable of you. What I've loved out of being here, A, first of all, I can finally talk about it. And I can tell you there's probably a few people out there that are not happy with me right now because I didn't bring them in. And it's just because you've kept the secret from me. And it's just like, well, I want to see this be successful. And I want this to be a surprise for everyone else. but what has made my day is seeing the diversity in the crowds that are lining up for this game. When I see kids and mothers and their daughters playing this game,