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My Little Star Inks

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 41m·analyzed·Oct 3, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Blockade Podcast reviews Inks mobile game positively; discusses Zen Pinball updates.

Summary

Chris Freebus and Jared Morgan discuss household appliance failures before pivoting to an in-depth review of Inks, a mobile pinball game recently released on Android through publisher Noodlecake Studios. They praise its aesthetic, physics-based ink mechanics, and puzzle elements, comparing it favorably to Pinout while acknowledging it doesn't compete with Zen Studios' offerings. They also briefly mention new Zen Pinball releases including the final Star Wars tables and a surprise My Little Pony table.

Key Claims

  • Inks is a mobile pinball game by an unnamed developer, published by Noodlecake Studios, released on iOS previously and now on Android

    high confidence · Jared and Chris directly discuss gameplay, installation, and availability across platforms

  • Inks features 120+ playfields across 5 collections with watercolor-style ink physics and blending mechanics

    high confidence · Chris counts playfields and collections on screen; they estimate 24 playfields × 5 collections

  • Inks costs $5 AUD in Australia and $1.99 USD on Apple Store; free via Apple Arcade subscription

    high confidence · Chris states pricing explicitly

  • Inks has no freemium mechanics or energy bars limiting attempts

    high confidence · Jared explicitly praises this design choice and contrasts with typical mobile games

  • Digital Pinball Fans Forum was recently revamped under new owner Graham with active Twitter updates

    medium confidence · Jared mentions discovering Inks through the forum's Twitter account, describes Graham as 'new owner'

  • Zen Pinball released the remaining Star Wars pinball tables and a My Little Pony table as surprise additions

    high confidence · Chris and Jared discuss these releases as recent Zen Pinball offerings

  • Inks has better flipper physics than Pinout with less slowdown

    high confidence · Jared directly compares the two games' physics performance

  • Zen Pinball Party is available via Apple Arcade

    high confidence · Chris mentions it in context of accessing Inks for free on Apple Arcade

Notable Quotes

  • “This one has a really simple aesthetic to you... in each category you've got all sorts of boards, and the idea behind the game is that you're actually creating sort of art when you're playing pinball here.”

    Chris Freebus @ N/A — Core design philosophy of Inks — art creation through gameplay mechanics

  • “I like it better than Pinout. It's a little more satisfying... This is definitely not a contender to try and trump Zen Studios off their top tier at the moment.”

    Jared Morgan @ N/A — Clear positioning of Inks in the mobile pinball hierarchy relative to established competitors

  • “It would completely take you out of the zone that this game was designed for... this is why I'm so glad that they didn't go down that path with this game — that it's not a freemium hellscape.”

    Jared Morgan @ N/A — Explains design philosophy and what makes Inks successful as a relaxing experience

  • “This is for chillaxing. This is absolutely for chillaxing or for very short bursts of gameplay. You can do a playfield in like 30 seconds if you're good enough.”

    Jared Morgan @ N/A — Defines the intended play pattern and accessibility of Inks

  • “I'm so glad that Noodlecake were able to publish this game out to Android. It's been sorely missing — like, good quality pinball games are always missing from the Android store.”

    Chris Freebus @ N/A — Indicates market gap and significance of Inks on Android platform

  • “I'd say for me, if I had to rate it, I would — I don't really do half ratings — I'd say this one is a solid five for me.”

    Jared Morgan @ N/A — Direct rating and endorsement of Inks as a complete experience

  • “Well, I mean, literally, I've had less than 24 hours with it. So it's hard for me to do that... I like it better than Pinout. It's a little more satisfying.”

    Chris Freebus @ N/A — Frames comparative assessment despite limited play time

Entities

Chris FreebuspersonJared MorganpersonInksgameNoodlecake StudioscompanyDigital Pinball Fans ForumorganizationGrahampersonPinoutgameZen StudioscompanyZen PinballproductZen Pinball PartyproductApple Arcade

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Digital Pinball Fans Forum revamped under new management (Graham) with active social media presence providing community updates between content drops

    medium · Jared discovered Inks through revamped forum's Twitter account; describes Graham as 'new owner' doing 'really great job' with 'tidbits of information'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Inks deliberately designed as 'chill' experience avoiding freemium mechanics that fragment attention and relaxation; intentional design choice praised

    high · Jared emphasizes: 'this is why I'm so glad that they didn't go down that path... it would completely take you out of the zone that this game was designed for'

  • $

    market_signal: Mobile pinball gaming market on Android severely underserved with quality titles; Inks addresses gap identified by Chris as 'sorely missing'

    high · Chris explicitly states 'good quality pinball games are always missing from the Android store. It's usually junk'; Inks fills this niche

  • ?

    announcement: My Little Pony added to Zen Pinball as surprise IP addition; indicates licensing expansion into children's entertainment properties

    high · Jared reveals 'the surprise is My Little Pony'; Chris responds with unenthusiasm 'I'm not sure that was the surprise we were hoping for'

  • ?

    announcement: Zen Pinball released final remaining Star Wars tables to complete previously announced licensing commitment

    high · Chris and Jared confirm 'remainder of the Star Wars pinball tables is now available, which is fantastic to finally cap off that collection'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.304

0:00
blockade pinball podcast this is the blockade pinball podcast i'm your host chris freebiss aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway across the world it's jared morgan hello everybody how you all going how you going chris um okay okay well okay then yeah well you know here's the deal um been in the house uh 19 years and turns out that appliances don't want to last much longer than that and 19 years no they don't like the fact you got 19 years out of it is pretty good mate come on um and and they've all decided to start crapping out at the same time yeah that's what they do yeah so um it will like it started with our dishwasher um where just the little latch that opens up for the soap decided to not work anymore now the dishwasher for a while hasn't been actually doing the best cleaning job and it was in the house prior to us buying it so lord knows how old that dishwasher actually is it's 20 plus years for sure decades old yes um and so now we've just been taking the little you know soap tabs and throwing it into the bottom of the dishwasher and running it and figuring, hey. It's honestly the best way to do it. Like, I don't know why, if you're not using powder or anything, like, I've been told by a person who, you know, I've replaced all my appliances here at this place. And he said, yeah, look, we just, like, get the little dishwasher packs, throw them into the bottom. You don't need to use the door. In fact, the door will actually, those dissolvable ones, sometimes if they fall weird, they don't dissolve. Yeah. And you end up doing a wash for nothing. So you're just sucking the bottom and they'll sort themselves out. So you're doing the right thing there. But, you know, that being said, like, the dishwasher rack is, you know, some of the posts have rusted off. Rust. Oh, well, rusted off completely. It doesn't open easily. Nothing gets dried properly. I mean, it's ancient, right? It's pretty knackered, as we would say here in Australia. But we were dealing with it. And then go to dry and close the other day, and the little thing is saying it's going to take 70 minutes to dry the clothes. and was like, what happened to the typical 37 minutes? Interesting. And then even after that time, clothes were coming out slightly damp. So I, hmm, so go outside while the dryer's running, put my hand near the vent, and then put my hand under the vent. It's just cool air. I'm like, crap. You're like, no heating. There's no heating happening here. So then my wife immediately is just like, ah, is it something you can fix? And I quickly looked on a YouTube video, and I went, I'm not touching those electronics. I mean, it's like possibly an $11 part, but the guy's whipping out his multimeter and telling you to turn off the power. I'm just like, no, I'm not messing with an appliance.
product
The Pinball Showorganization
Safecrackergame
Medieval Madnessgame
Star Wars (Zen)game
My Little Pony (Zen)game
Blockade Pinball Podcastorganization
Zachperson
Siennaperson
Spinggame
  • ?

    announcement: Inks released on Android platform after prior iOS exclusivity; Noodlecake Studios expands title availability to broader mobile audience

    high · Chris and Jared confirm Inks now available on Android through Google Play Store; previously iOS only

  • ?

    product_concern: Flipper physics performance in previous mobile pinball titles (Pinout) created gameplay frustration; Inks addresses this with improved ball behavior

    high · Jared compares: 'There's definitely slowdown when the ball hits the flipper in Pinout, whereas this one... it doesn't... the ball is wild most of the time'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community sentiment toward mobile pinball gaming shifted upward with Inks arrival on Android, addressing long-standing quality gap in platform

    medium · Chris frames Inks release as fulfilling market need; enthusiastic tone contrasts with previous dismissal of Android pinball offerings

    • 3:04
    And so then she's like, well, how much is the service going to be? I'm like, I don't know, below $100 probably. She's like, oh, okay. So I continue to do some drying. And all of a sudden I hear this big loud clunking noise. I'm like, what the hell is that? Open up the dryer. Yeah, you know, one of the fins, the tumble fins, has snapped off and it was just tumbling in there too.
    3:30
    It's really trying to tell you that you need to replace it, right? Yeah, at which point my wife is like, well, I guess we're getting a new dryer. And she goes, well, we might as well get a new washer at the same time since we bought those both at the same time. And I'm like, now we're like doubling the cost of what that's going to be. But it's actually, it's true. and your wife's got the right idea, unfortunately, even though it costs you some money.
    3:54
    And, you know, there's something to be said for replacing everything at the same time because anything you have, you've got to know in baseline with everything then, right? Yes. And, you know, okay, I know when my warranties start, when they're finished, how old the appliances are because I actually installed them myself or got them installed. And I did that with my oven. As my oven crapped out, it just stopped heating. And, yeah, you know, I probably could have just got a new element for it, but the cooktop was all gross as well, and all the knobs were cracked, and the dishwasher was a real cheap model that was really noisy. And I went, you know what? I'm just going to Bosch everything. And I just replaced it all, and I have no regrets because everything is new, modern. It's probably more energy efficient. Oh, for sure, energy efficient. Absolutely. Oh, yeah, by the way, our oven crapped out like two years ago. Oh, right. Okay. And that was a fun one because it's a built-in gas double stacked oven. Double oven. Which we then found out that they stopped making those like 10 or 15 years ago. Right. So I can't get a double gas in that spot. I could only get electric. But in order to do that, I would then need to get rewiring done into my kitchen because I'm wired for... I don't have that kind of power coming in. You don't have the 15 amps you need for the oven. I think it's 220 for us.
    5:20
    And, yeah. So we just bought a little Cuisinart air fryer instead of dealing with that. Also, that's how you've been doing... Yeah, you know, I'll tell you what.
    5:30
    As far as appliances go, I use my air fryer more than I use my oven. Yeah. It's such a good little invention. Like, if you don't have one, You are missing out, folks. And that's not to mention the fact that I think I mentioned before I need to get new iPhones because Verizon sent us a message saying, by the way, those iPhone 5Ss that you have, we have two of them, we're not supporting those come January because they don't have the – we're shutting off the network that runs on those.
    6:04
    Oh, right, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, everything is getting real expensive real fast. Yeah, it's horrible. It always happens in 3s too, doesn't it? Oh, God, yeah. Always. You can never escape it. And I'm surprised that when your oven decided to die a couple of years ago, they all didn't die then because they talk to each other, don't they? Like they go, all right, I'm broken now. Now it's your turn to break quickly now. Yeah, we had our, this was another fun one, we had our, this was a few years back, maybe five or so, our refrigerator crapped out on us. And we were like, okay, that was fine. We didn't even buy it. We'd gotten it from somebody else. Or excuse me, yeah, we'd gotten it from somebody else. We're like, well, yeah, we'll get a new refrigerator. Well, then we discover that the cabinets that we have that go above the refrigerator, yeah since the time those were installed refrigerators have gotten taller and none of them fit in the spot that we have so we'd have to remove cabinets so you're like rip out the door rip out the cabinet yeah yeah i could see that that happened to someone here where i live like they there is a cabinet above the the uh the fridge um but they chose to get a fridge that was just a titch bigger than that cabinet and so there's no bottom on the on the a cupboard that's above the fridge anymore which is a bit annoying because my fridge i deliberately got to fit the height of the the actual existing cabinet yeah um because you know you can get french door fridges that have the same sort of size we don't have the big swing out door because i've got like a space a door swing limit um in my kitchen as well so you know you can get them you just you know have to actually spend a little bit more money to buy them and i think this is why the people who used to live in this house didn't do that because they were tight so you're like never mind don't want to deal with it yeah that's right exactly so anyway that's what I'm saying okay but good but not good for the wallet yeah not good for the wallet at all just be thankful you don't have to actually get these things installed like as in new powerpoints or new fittings or anything like that or modifications to cabinets because I've had to go through that with my kitchen because, you know, a 20-year-old kitchen, yeah, stuff is no longer compliant. Like if I've got a gas cooktop, you have to have like 650mm clearance between the top, like part of the element to your cabinetry above in Australia. Otherwise, it's not compliant. So I had to get my entire section of my cabinetry modified so I could actually install a new gas cooktop, even though there was a gas cooktop there already. but I had to go and get it modified so I could actually get a signed off gas certificate. And it's like, well, that was $1,000. Thanks very much. Because, you know, there's a PowerPoint in that little alcove that needs to be taken off and then redesigned and they had to like, you know, cut the cabinet. And then, you know, I had a range hood as part of the package. So they had to put that range hood in, duct it. So like the $1,000 was fair enough. It was how much it costs to do that work. but it's sort of like, wow, that's an extra cost over the five grand that I had to spend on the package to actually get all the cookware. It's like, wow, okay.
    9:35
    Yeah, open your wallet in $1,000 increments when you have a house, right? That's how it works. Pretty much.
    9:43
    All right, so let's move on to actual things because we have things to talk about today. Stuff and things. Yeah. Our favorite. apparently there's been a game uh on apple for some time that i hadn't paid attention to i think i like noticed it a while ago like coming and never bothered downloading and then uh it just came out onto android and so jared posted about it and i was like hey should we maybe do a thing about this okay and i said uh yeah we definitely should we'll Do a thing about this. So I actually found this out because I don't really do a lot of Android gaming anymore. It's mostly PC. So I actually found this out through the newly revamped Digital Pinball Fans Forum.
    10:31
    Graham, who is the new owner of the forum, is actually doing a really great job doing little tidbits of information through the Twitter account for the forum. So if you're on Twitter and you want to get some nice little updates about digital pinball between the episodes that we do, absolutely subscribe to the Digital Pinball Fans forum Twitter because I found out that they released inks through Android, yeah, through the forum. So it was really good.
    11:09
    So I installed it. I thought, I don't know, This sort of thing is always, I quite like this style of. Yeah, by the way, we didn't say, well, I mean, Jerry just said the name. Inks. That's the game we're going to be talking about. Inks. Yep. Been there for ages on iOS. And when I saw it, when I saw it first released on iOS, I was like, wow, that looks really good. But, you know, there was no word at all that was coming out of Android.
    11:36
    But, yeah, now it's out, I can see what the hype was about. We're going to actually show you what that's all about. Yeah, we're going to take a look at this. Figured that this is, you know, now and then we'll actually talk about a mobile game. A good mobile game. So this mobile game was produced by a studio I'd never heard before. But it was released by a studio I have heard of before. And we've actually done some of their games before, which is Noodle Cake Studios. so a pretty sure noodle cake were the ones responsible for um snowball and um a few other games of this ilk as well so they're the publisher in this case okay um but yeah this is the the interface for it it's very it's i would describe this if i had to put into a category as chill pinball um yeah you might say it's kind of like when we talk about pinout that was the name of that one right yeah pin it out yeah yeah um that being said i like this one better just saying i this one has a really simple acidic to you which we'll see as we start playing it so in each category you've got all sorts of boards and i'm just going to play the very most first basic one to show you what this is a really simple rule set which is you want to hit all of the colors and splatter their ink, you might say. Yeah. And once you do that, you clear the level. Just like that? Just like that. So that seems very easy.
    13:14
    But then all of a sudden you get variations where we'll go to here. Hey, look, now there's bumpers. So you've got to avoid the bumpers in the shop shoot.
    13:29
    And I'm not hearing the audio, unfortunately. I know Jeremy never hears the audio. Well, I never hear the audio.
    13:37
    But it's very chill audio. It is. And if it doesn't end up coming through, the audio is very similar to EM chimes and soft tones. And there's no music in the game. It's just the sound of the elements in the table. And when you pop the ink in the table, it's got a really satisfying sound to it it's got a really splooshy sound to it splooshy and the real as you can see with some of Chris's past attempts here each, the idea behind the game is that you're actually creating sort of art when you're playing pinball here and it's really interesting to see how the colours blend and sort of amalgamate with each other to make the different tones and stuff on the play field. It sounds weird because you're going, well, this is a pinball game. Why are we looking at the colors? But it's sort of like a key mechanic of the game. The fun part is seeing the ball trails because you realize... The ball trails are really fun.
    14:47
    How often you'll hit the exact same angle. Yeah, that's right. And when you go over the ink pads and it refreshes the ball's ink pad, essentially, you get these nice little draw scribble patterns around there and each one of these tables or play fields you can actually share um online if they're like a shareable thing so you can share your pinball art um after you've played a table if it looks really interesting but the the mechanic in this one is um interesting here so chris has showed you with this particular one what happens when you and do a lot of shots, you get different rankings. So the one where you got there is like a one.
    15:30
    So that's like a ranking that says, yeah, you've done an all right job, but it's not flawless. But to get the top rank for it, you've got to do what you just did then, which is get all the one shots. So on each, I've worked out how they actually judge you. You get like that star award that he's got there. So on the ones that you do one shot, it's basically on each pad section. So in this one here, it's possible to go do two pads at once if you sharpshoot it.
    16:10
    But Chris is going for the one pad per ball. So he's going to get a one ranking here if he actually manages to get the other ones. but you can actually go and get a star ranking on it if you use the aiming power-ups as well. That helps you sort of hit two pads at once. So there are power-ups in this game which I've found. Oh, hey, the sound just kicked in. Oh, good. Hey, hello. Oh, and then the black hole just got me. Yeah, the black hole just got you. Yeah. Yeah, so it's got some classic old-school play field elements, like gobble holes and stuff like that. Hey, good shot on that black hole there, Chris. Yeah, really good on that black hole. To be fair, I'm looking at my... Ah, that black hole wants your ball.
    17:04
    And then once you've done really bad, you just get a black ball. Yeah, you just get a black... So your ball changes color every time you drain, and now you're just black. Yeah, now I'm basically failed. I'm going to look at the phone itself and see if that helps. Nope, that didn't help at all. Nope.
    17:23
    And now it's just drawing black lines everywhere. Oh, you got it. I got it. You drained. I got to drain and drain.
    17:35
    I love how it sucks it in like a vortex. Look at that. I didn't even get a ranking. Oh, you got a black? I got a black ranking. Oh, that's a bit brutal. You suck. I'm surprised it's not an achievement, because the other thing in this game is, probably with iOS as well, it plugs into the iOS Game Center and the Android Play Games API. And there are awards that you get through the game, like how many pads you've popped and stuff. This one is particularly brutal. So show them the power-ups. I've never actually used the power-ups I just know that there's a bumper stop that goes in between and then I know that flipper one The red thing is a sharpshooter mode, it actually has a target like a wave of laser light that goes across the playfield and it helps you shoot the shots now on Android, at least in the levels I've played there's no limit on each of the shots so you can use them as much as you want So I want to show this particular board because I take a look at it folks particularly that center shot yeah I'm going to try and hit it if I can because I want to show alright so that one hey look at that it's nice it feeds back down again back down all the shock and Chris is doing those last three shots on the fly too which is no mean feat oh now you just got one more to do oh there we go nice yeah so you get a one for i got a two for that yeah i got two for that so we see that board but then look at this board and look at that center it's an automatic center drain it's an instant center drain which means that is what you have to then hit last if you want to if you want to do actually that's a that this is a really good point. If you don't use power-ups, I didn't think of it that way. I guess because you're not getting a limit on the power-ups.
    19:44
    But there is a strategy element, which is a good point to raise here. You can. Well, you can on Android. There you go. I did do it. There you go. There's actually an achievement that you actually get. Oh, you drain.
    20:01
    Yep. So this is where they introduce the first power-up, or the second power-up, which is the lane blocker.
    20:10
    But I think your call is right there, Chris. You've got to actually do that center one last, and that'll get you the... I didn't think of that as a... There we go.
    20:23
    So there is... You do have to plan your shots in this. Yeah, you do. There's a smidgen of a puzzle element to it. There is. there is definitely a puzzle I haven't tried down here at the bottom wow look at this thing wow this looks like it's going to be a little bit hard this would be the last level of this particular grouping of tables so if I had to guess the idea is to utilize the bumpers as well as you can I think it's all about letting the bumpers juggle you all around everywhere and I would think that maybe even I was going to say would you do a loop here and then try and there we go that's what you want, a bit of bumper action let's try that, doing a loop again you might be able to backhand it as well I tried so as soon as it hits a color, it bounces it back there we go yep which one did mine not oh I see it, it's that yellow in the upper left that's right yeah you gotta shoot it through the bumpers which is no mean feat it's quite a tight shot and this is where oh you nearly had it this is where the sharpshooter power up would come in quite handy because it really helps you snipe those really hard to work out oh nice shot yeah very good so see how on that one before you cancel it see how all the ink packs that you hit in the game they're not just like regular colors they're actually water-colored style and they they blend just like paint it's actually really quite beautiful to see what happens to your playfield after you've popped them all and each time you play depending on how you've actually popped things and the velocity at which you pop the um the ink packs on the playfield determines how far the ink spreads and whether it spatters and stuff like that so there's a real they've really focused on the physics of the ink pack in this game. It's just really quite satisfying to play. Yeah, so, I mean, like I said, if you look further... Hey, look at that. Whole different set of... Well, there's some brutal, brutal-looking layouts in there. Right? Wow. Looks like there's some ramps in there. Yeah. So... So, heaps of opportunities to challenge yourself in this game. And, like, you have a look at all these, like, play fields. There's... How many play fields would you think there are in each one? There's 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, I think, in each collection. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Yeah, 24. And there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Five collections. Collections. So doing the math, 24 times 5. Everyone in the comments, you tell us how much that is. It's like 100. I'm going to say 132. I don't know. I don't have a calculator. Sure. It's over 100. Put it this way. It's definitely over 100.
    23:32
    Yeah. I think. So that's a lot of gameplay. And I think there's quite a bit of repeatability and going back and just trying to get the perfect score on each table in here. And it's actually, I really do get the sense of it being sort of one more go. I can do it this time. Right. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Absolutely. It's really, really well-paced. And so, look, I have to say, I'm so glad that Noodlecake were able to publish this game out to Android. It's been sorely missing, like, good quality pinball games are always missing from the Android store. It's usually junk, as I covered ages ago in my Is This Actually Pinball segment on the show. and so it's great to see this level of quality coming to the Android app store and the Google Play store and it's a really satisfying game. For me in Australia, I think it was five bucks. And for me, it's $1.99 on the Apple store or if you have Apple Arcade, it's free. It's free. There you go. You can't argue with free. Yeah. So if you're already doing Amplified Cave for Zen's Pinball Party, grab this. This is free for you. Yep. And you should absolutely give it a go in that case because, yeah, you've got nothing to lose with this game. It's great. Yeah. So what would you give this out of five if you had to rate it? Well, I mean, literally, I've had less than 24 hours with it.
    25:09
    So it's hard for me to do that. Like I said, I like it better than pinout. It a little more satisfying In terms of you know obviously it not true pinball but it's not the pinball we're all used to. So do I like it less than Zen's offerings? Yeah, because, you know, those have, I believe, infinitely more playability to them. Oh, yeah. This is definitely not a contender to try and trump Zen Studios off their top tier at the moment. Yeah, but I mean, if you were to, I'm going to say if you were to remove Zen from the equation and just have it compared to other basic pinball apps that are out there, I'd throw it at the top of the heap of those.
    26:05
    In which case, I'm going to say, I'm just going to give it a 4.5. 4.5 out of 5. It's not a 5. No. so I think that it's pretty good and I think I'm the same I've only had it for I think three days now and I tried to put a bit of gameplay time into it each day leading up to this show so I could sort of really understand what the go was and I think it's I always have liked Pinout, I love it it's aesthetic and I like the graphics and audio treatment that that game has. It's really good.
    26:50
    The thing that did let it down were the flipper physics. They were very much specific to that game. Yes. And it's a bit of a shame. There's definitely slowdown when the ball hits the flipper in pinout, whereas this one, unless you have a power-up on, it doesn't. like it's pretty much the ball is wild most of the time on the play field.
    27:17
    And that's a really good, that sort of, it's not meant to be real this game either. It's not a simulation.
    27:22
    But like kind of the frustration with that was that you'd sometimes lose the ball to a lower board and then to a lower board. And you felt like you were,
    27:34
    it felt a little Temple Run-ish, you might say. where it was all about progressing forward, not about perfecting a board.
    27:45
    That's right. The goal was to get essentially the stars or whatever the mechanic was in that game, orbs, and that contributed to the time you had in infant mode at the end. So it was all about essentially building up your time so that you could have as much time in Infinite and almost try... It's almost like the game was designed to be played in Infinite mode and you were just working up and building up to that Infinite mode, which I liked as a mechanic. I thought that was really good. This is for chillaxing. This is absolutely for chillaxing or for very short bursts of gameplay. You can do a play field in like 30 seconds if you're good enough. And there was another Apple Arcade game that kind of reminds me of it. Let me see if I can bring up what... I don't have access to it anymore, but...
    28:40
    I want to say it was called Sping. Okay. I think that was the one that I was playing. And it was basically...
    28:54
    You had a ball that was dropping, and it had like a grappling hook that you'd shoot, and then you'd spin it around and fling it around the board. Oh, yeah, I could see Sping. and that was it was same kind of mechanic or not some kind of mechanics but lots of boards for you to perfect and based on it was a little bit of timing but also how many points you garnered while going through that's how your ranking went so it kind of reminded me of that and I wound up of all the Apple Arcade games that I had downloaded during that time that I had access to it that was the one I wound up playing the most okay interesting so that's what I'm saying if you knew what that game was this is definitely a good good go but i'd say for me if i had to rate it i would just i don't really do half ratings i'd say this one is a solid five for me um it's it's got the legs on it to make it satisfying it's in-game aesthetics it's graphical style it's sound design all those things really make this title quite highly rated for me um I do quite like I'm sure I'm going to get really frustrated as I get into those upper levels on the games they look really hard but at the same time there's always going to be a way that you can perfect them you just have to find it and that's sort of half the fun of this game working out the right way to approach it like you showed do that center shot laugh because it's Drain Monster it's really well designed you can imagine if this was a Smurfberry game where you would have only so many attempts per board and then the energy bar would go, oh, you can't make another attempt until you watch a video or you do X, Y, Z, you know. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, it would be horrible. It would just completely take you out of the zone that this game was designed for. And this is why I'm so glad that they didn't go down that path with this game, that it's not a Smurfberry hellfest, because it would ruin it. it would ruin what the game was um it's there to make you relax and those those models make me not relax when i play mobile games so yeah great work on this title it's excellent all right so let's move on to uh then uh zen offerings so obviously if you uh watched the latest pinball show uh you know i actually didn't watch the latest pinball show you know what neither did i i didn't watch Because I just like, I was busy and then I went, hey, look what's here. Ta-da! Yeah. Dude, I just didn't feel the need because the things were there. Maybe if I had them, I would have noticed the thing that Jared pointed out to me about what's available.
    31:42
    We forget to. Yeah, so basically the remainder of the Star Wars pinball tables is now available, which is fantastic to finally cap off that collection. Oh, and then the other table that... Well, let's just do this. Okay, so that was the large bundle that was going to be dropped. The large bundle of releases. Did me and Jared even think about the remaining Star Wars titles? No. For some reason, I just forgot about them. We were concentrating on Zen originals or Marvel. So that was kind of funny. And then, as for the surprise... we whiffed it hard on that one too because surprise is my little pony my little pony yeah um oh okay yeah i'm not sure that was the surprise we were hoping for it's funny you know because i've like i've been watching the bleedables i've actually been playing a reasonable amount of pinball effects lately mostly thanks to my son zach because he has been hammering safecracker like he actually was the one who got me the collect all tokens award on that game he has been loving that table a lot um which has been good for me because every time he he's a token hunter he will go for the the safe every time and not stop playing until he gets the safe a safe breach but he isn't interested in playing assault on the vault so I am the one who uses the tokens to chase my leaderboard score so currently I'm the first on the leaderboard in pinball effects for um savecracker with a uh five million and change score high fives which is what you need on the on that game to get on the leaderboard at the moment it's uh it's quite a hard slog in assault in the vault to get that high um so yeah he's been slamming it and then because of that we've been going through some of the other tables and exploring around even sienna's been enjoying things like medieval madness so we've been definitely playing that a lot recently um and yeah it's been good for them to experience these new tables in particular my little pony um because i think when we were doing the beta for the Zen Bimple party, I handed the iPad over to the kids and said, hey, try all these new tables that are coming out, all these kiddie tables, let's call them that, from all these different brands, and they sort of had a couple of goes on them, but then they kind of went, meh, and they just went back to the Williams tables, which were in the collection. So it was a bit weird to see their reaction to it on the iPad, but when it's come to the PC, and they've, again, had the controller, had the chance just to relax on the couch and do it, not stare at a little screen. They've become more engaged with it. Like Sienna has gone back to My Little Pony quite a bit and has enjoyed the accessibility of that table and its modes and being able to feel like she has a sense of achievement in some of the tables. I mean, not to say she's not a slouch on the Belly Williams tables. Like on Medieval Madness, she got a 90 million score on the table, which was not bad at all. so you know she's getting much better at it but yeah she really has enjoyed the My Little Pony table for what it is that one's Thomas Croft design who I actually like his designs and it's just one of those things that I we had asked if they were going to tweak the rules make them a little more difficult or even have that option it's not there which is disappointing because I think the layout is fun even if the theme is like out there for us but even still it's just kind of like oh man I wish you had just beefed it up a little bit for us because that makes me disappointed that I know that when How to Train Your Dragon comes out it's not going to be what it could be and that's a really that table has probably the most scope for having a different rule set on it. We pointed that out when we first saw it. It's got real legs to it. It could have a very different rule set, but I just don't think they're going to do that. They must have decided not to.
    36:18
    I think they were entertaining it. They were going, maybe. We might actually look at doing it. But, yeah, I don't know. Maybe we'll see it when they catch up. One of those things, we'll have to bring that up once more next time we talk to Mel and be like, so, do we keep our hopes up or do we dash them now? Because we'd like to know.
    36:40
    Yeah, we'd just like to know so we can either keep it off the list or put it back on again. Yeah. The other thing that kind of changed for us, so we have been using the pinball pass.
    36:57
    Yes. and because of that we never got to see what the discounts uh building was we once then introduced that and everything uh but then all of a sudden we got an email that said um yeah your zola pinball pass is now canceled i was like wait a second yeah exactly it did definitely come as a surprise and no one else would have received this. It only would have been probably us because of the fact that through the recent press back update for My Little Pony, that's when the change that they would have announced in the pinball show came out to how the pinball pass is being administered. So Xsolla is out and it's now, The Pinball Pass is now an in-app store-specific purchase in Epic Games. Which should make people a little bit excited there, because guess what that means? Yeah. We're inching closer to the one purchase across all devices. Yep, because Xcel was not compatible with consoles, which was the real rub there from what I understood. so they they had to ditch it because of that and it wasn't like you know once you got it set up it was all right but it was not really a seamless experience you had to go in there and you know sign up for an xceller account and then like log into it and it was like a uh it wasn't a smooth experience to onboard into it so i think now with the fact you can buy the pinball pass in app and it's not just the pinball pass for a year or for a month you can actually do a day pass now which is going to be good for people who are still on the fence with the titles and they don't really want to go all in with buying them but they may want to have like a games night or something and they they want to you know have over and over and have full access to the catalog and they can do that now just for a night and also it's a really cheap and fast way of testing out what the pinball pack offers if you like that sort of model and you know if you're into the subscriber model for um games like apple um apple arcade and things like that you know if you haven't tried the pinball pass it's actually not bad like you get access to everything and they're all there um but yeah we put to zen that maybe it will be good rather than getting reissued a pinball pass when the changeover happened because it wasn't smooth for us and that's only because we were in the beta. The code, we beat the code being actually released into production that did the seamless upgrade between Xsolla and the App Store. So it all just fell apart for us, which, you know, that's what you're there for to test things out. We get that. But the Zen fixed us up by giving us some ticket packs, which we're very thankful for. With that, we finally got to see what it looks like to do mass discount, because lo and behold, there was 27 tables that we needed to buy.
    40:21
    Yeah, all of a sudden. It was a little bit daunting to go. So I kind of did a breakdown of what all, kind of what entailed, rather than, basically we wanted to catch, we wanted to do the maximum that we could. And currently, since Star Wars had gotten released, they were 33% off. I don't know how long that sale runs if it's still just the first week or maybe it's the first month that they were doing that at but I want to see where that went because it was that whole idea of yeah they're 33% off right now but the more you buy then all of a sudden bonus kickers happen you get tears, actual bonus tears in the purchasing side which is what's really interesting So let's start with the base discount that you get. So there's three types of discounts that are available at certain times. So you get a collection discount, which is if you buy all the tables in a particular group, you get a collection discount, which is I think it's something like 20% or something like that. and then you get a level discount as well. So how many tables have you already got versus how many do you want to buy? There's a price or a level that you get the more tables you buy. So if you already bought, in our case, probably half the collection, I think the discount was sitting at about 21% or something like that. So you then add those two together. Actually, I think the first one, the pack discount is like 10%, not 20%. And then you get it up to, so you've got like 30% discount just like that for just having, selecting a pack and then having your tier discount. But then on top of that, if there's any promotional discounts that are happening in the store, you get that tacked on the top as well. And I think some of the packs that we got, some of the Belly Williams packs that we bought when we bundled all those ones together, That was up to like 55% off or something like that. Yeah, so I have a breakdown of what the percentages were for myself as I went through it. So basically I picked up the remaining 12 Star Wars tables.
    42:50
    When all is said and done, I got 57% off on those. It basically brought it down to the price of 19 tickets per table. Which is cheap. Which is basically $1.90 a table if you work it out. A table. Yeah.
    43:05
    Which, okay, let's admit it, that's still not the best that you've ever been able to get those for on Steam. Oh, definitely not.
    43:15
    And we'll get to why... That's not such a bad thing. Yeah. But on the surface, you're like, right, that's going to be your initial reaction. Yeah. For Williams, the remaining tables, it wound up being 36% off that I was getting.
    43:35
    That's right. I got those two mixed up, the two packs. It was definitely Star Wars. You're right. That was the steepest discount. It was like, whoa, okay, that's quite a lot. So the Williams, it was the – basically, I was getting 29% off of everything plus an additional 9%, I think, or something like that. I don't know. Anyway, it wound up being 29 and 38 tickets apiece for those tables.
    44:04
    So, again, that's not – it's a little bit on the steep side, but it is what it is. If you look at those ones though, let's compare Bally Williams to Star Wars and I think the cost per scene there is just license through scientific games that's the offset which is interesting if you look at it like that that's the offset that we need to pay as far as the discount goes to make it still reasonably profitable for Xen And then I picked up Homeworld and My Little Pony for basically 29% off. So 43 tickets for those.
    44:52
    So anyway, it wound up being 27 items for 718 tickets for an average of 44% off across the board. Across the board. Yeah. So you could actually, for that particular batch, that was probably about a good half of the tables. It was 700 tickets, which that's not bad, particularly with the realization about what and why this is actually really important. Yeah, because now if things go the way that we're suspecting and hoping and been hinted at, when consoles come to fruition, you'll be able to fire up your PlayStation 5. And if you've already been purchasing on Epic Game Store, you're going to be able to have those tables ready to rock. Once Steam unlocks, tables are going to be ready to rock. You're only going to have to buy that one purchase, and then you're going to be able to open it up wherever. that's yeah i think what our assumption is i think that's where things are looking like they're going um with this um so everything seems to be lining up um to the whole cross-purchasing thing becoming not just a um a nice to have or perhaps we'll look at doing it but it actually looks like it's becoming more and more of a certainty um as time elapses which is really really nice because like I said there was a time years back where I decided I was going to make the switch from buying tables on PS3 to buying them on PC. And it was a bit of a bitter pill to swallow when I had to repurchase. It was definitely some sticker shock. Yeah, it was. For sure. And then it was that whole idea, like, why I never wanted to buy on PS4 because I was like, well, PS4 is going to go away. And then there's going to be a new PlayStation. And then what? you know and i want to be fretting whether or not things are going to carry over and whether i have to do more purchasing and stuff so it's like i think it eliminates a bit of that stress for if your purchase is justified and are you making the right choice like especially if you're you know let's say you are also a switch player and you're like well if i'm gonna buy for one console or the other which one do i want to play it well you know i won't play it for the one that's portable or do i want to play it for the one that's going to have better graphics you know well that's right or you know do i want to you know like where do i actually wait and have the portability or do i wait for the fidelity like you're saying and so you don't need to really make that choice anymore you just need to go well i'm going to buy them once at the moment you can only buy them through epic games school but as as that uh landscape starts to grow with the eventual release of consoles and um you know steam and stuff it doesn't really matter where you buy them so you can actually hunt around for the sales if you've got like multiple ecosystems like you've got like a switch and you've got pc um and you got steam well uh you can sort of just play them off against each other and sort of hunt those discounts down as they get released but it's going to be interesting to see how zen manages that um so that uh they balance the sort of discounts being offered between platforms so people don't feel like they're losing out on I don't think that there's going to be platform-specific pricing anymore. Is this going to be store-specific? I think it's going to just be, hey, these are all on sale. Because that was what Mel was saying was so difficult was if you wanted to put something on sale, you first had to get approval from Sony or Xbox. And it was because you're using their store. But if Zen is using their own store, they don't have to wait for that approval. if it's an in-app store which is what it is yeah it's not through you don't buy dlc through the store it's just through the the actual um app itself and again i'm using i'm using rocket league as the example because that's what i feel this is going to be like where it's whatever the sales and the seasons they all start all at the same time and the sales are the same thing There might be a platform-specific accessory that you can buy. Like, you can get Mario hats on the Switch. You're obviously not going to have a Mario hat then on your PlayStation for your car. But beyond that, everything transferred over. And, you know, again, I'd be playing on the Switch, and I'm like, hey, I'm going to see what it's like on the PC. I went over to the PC, and everything was there. Everything was there. Yeah. It's such a good experience. and it means that you have the flexibility of where you play when you play and yeah honestly that's what players are demanding at the moment with a lot of these sort of more let's say casual style games that don't require a mouse um you know it's what everyone wants so the other thing i would say right now for those of you that have not purchased and are waiting for it to come to steam or come to console.
    50:11
    Mel had hinted that when this comes out of early access and is the thing, that all the sales that currently had gone, you know, when a new pack released and it was on sale for that initial week, I believe all that's going to just be, there it is on sale. So that was the other thing, just pointing out that, yeah, you know, 27 tables when and you that was with Star Wars being at 33 off which a lot of these when they first released that what Xen has been releasing at is that percentage off So conceivably you could get even better discount than what we just picked up on more tables.
    50:59
    Because of the ability to group them. The more you group, the bigger the discount. So if you're not buying half of the Star Wars tables now and half later like we did, the chances of you getting a much steeper discount because you're packaging all those tables in one collection, it's a real thing. You'll actually stand to save more, potentially. Well, because that first initial dump, when Epic Games Store just first opened with this, we were given 1,200 tickets, and we used every single one of them to purchase... How many tables was that? Was it 25, I think, maybe? I don't know the exact number, but it was, yeah. It was something of that nature. We were able to get everything but Pasha, basically. And that was using all 1,200. And now we're basically getting the exact same amount of tables with, what, 400 tickets to spare? Yeah. So the discounts are real if you bundle these things. And we've seen it firsthand. So, yeah. The console, folks, when it lands on there, and Steam, folks, if you are still avoiding buying anything, it seems like there's a fairly good chance the sticker shock to upgrade won't be as bad as you may have first thought.
    52:24
    True that. All right. So now that we've been talking about this, Jared, I'm just going to leave you up on the screen because I've got to get this up and running. Okay. We're going to show you. I guess we'll show My Little Pony. We've shown it before, obviously, in... Zen Pinball Party. But this is a bit different. It is a bit different. Bring this up there. There we go.
    52:54
    Getting that going. Hopefully, I still have all my audio settings. so that I'm not blowing out the audio. I should also probably check for...
    53:06
    I've got the streaming music turned off. Oh, yeah. Although, I don't think there's anything in copyright. If I put Star Wars, there is. Oh, yeah. If you do Star Wars, you'll absolutely get copyright. Hold on. We're going to just... It's easier for me when using the controller. My little pony pinball. Go into this.
    53:25
    And then change the settings. in the table. Yeah, that's a good call. Alright, now I'm going to go down here. Let's see. Settings. There we go.
    53:35
    Mute license music. Where is that? It was on audio. Oh, it is in there. I've already got it muted. Okay, good. And I've got all my other... I think you don't actually have it muted. You've got it turned off. Because it would be green if it was on.
    53:52
    There you go. Now it's muted. Excellent. No copyright strikes for us. No, we don't want those. So the nice thing about this is now I finally actually am able to, you know, see the table.
    54:06
    Rather than look at it and go, wait, what is going on over there? Were you playing this when it was on Zen Pinball Party? Were you doing it on a phone or on a tablet? Oh, you were doing it on a phone. I was doing it on a phone. Oh, wow. Yeah, that would have been hard. But have a look at what they got you. as the table scrolls around, you've got visible ramp transparency and really quite high resolution artifacts everywhere on the table. Everything's very, very crisp. I did get that in. They had to make some trade-offs, obviously, with the Apple version. Certainly. But this is, yeah, it's a pretty shiny table. There's actual GI lighting going on and introspective stuff. That being said... I never leave home without my party cannon! Let me... I want... I don't know. The bright future!
    54:59
    That'll just be me. I hate it when I do that. I went one view too many. Okay, there we go. So that's the classic view that I always go in. Here's my thing.
    55:09
    Where's the lighting? Yeah, there is... It is cartoon bright. It really is cartoon bright. And there's not a lot of... I mean, the GI lighting is there, but you don't notice it because... The room is so bright. So bright. And that's very disappointing to me. Yeah. Again, I get appealing to a certain audience, but how about appealing to your regular audience that is used to, you know, that...
    55:40
    Yeah. ...is playing that. I think it's fair enough, too, that they probably wouldn't have been able to do more realistically. lighting on iOS. Right. We're on PC here. We've got the power to do it. Yeah. So I'm hoping,
    55:58
    hoping, hoping, hoping that, again, this was just the quick port and we'll see... There's more work to come. Yeah.
    56:09
    Maybe it's when they get all the other ones in as well that we'll see a pass done over these tables to sort of, you know, Right, because I imagine that would be much like selecting arcade or classic for playing, that maybe it would have you select that sort of thing for look.
    56:31
    I know I can't hear the audio on this, but I don't need to. No, you don't. I could hear it all, because, you know, Sitter has played it. And I've played it, too, because I wanted to put a leaderboard score up. And someone, I think their current leaderboard score is about 550 million on this at the moment. Which, having played to my leaderboard score, which is about 250 or 260, that's a lot of this audio that you have to listen to.
    57:02
    And it gets a little repetitive. Oh, it definitely gets repetitive. Yeah. It's a bit of a hard one to spoil. I mean, I'm not the demographic that this table is aimed at, and I totally understand that. So this is what I mean by lighting. We have two of those crystals lit. You can barely tell.
    57:23
    Yeah, that's right. And they should be just glowing. And so, in effect, even though you're making it nice and bright for everybody to be able to see, you're also making it a little bit more difficult for knowing what you need to attack. Yeah. Because nothing's dropping. And also, I mean, this is beyond what they can change now, but having those element crystals on the ramp like that is a real missed opportunity. It's really flat, and it's really... They could do what they do with Tales of the Arabian Nights in an enhanced mode with the amazing-looking crystals that are all three-dimensional and faceted, and they look amazing. It would be really nice to see that here, but that ship has sailed. How many times can Chris hit that? I don't know Just shoot it again Chris No I know what you're trying to do You're trying to shoot that really massive The gigantic target The first some preset It's virtually impossible It's as big as a bus You still can't hit it Oh look This is comical You know what I'm going to do? I'm just going to get like Multi-ball going and then I'll bash the heck out of it Yeah, that's right.
    58:41
    Yeah. The thing is that, you know, Sienna was talking as she was playing it, and I was commenting on the sound effects and all the things. She was giving me the detailed backstory about all the ponies and going, oh, yeah, so this is this, and this is the reason why we're doing this. And I'm going, oh, okay, right. So I kind of get it more. It still doesn't change my opinion.
    59:04
    I don't care, but I get it more. Yeah, I understand. why I don't care anymore. Um, yeah. So, the interesting thing, though, with this, as cheeseball as My Little Pony is, um, I still like it better than Homeworld.
    59:21
    Well, you know, uh, it's, yeah, it actually is more fun, and, why is that, do you think? I think because things are happening, the flow of the game is better, um, it, it's kind of Steve Ritchie-ish, you might say, in that sense, with the flow.
    59:43
    You can get multi-ball pretty easily. Well, you can get not only multi-ball, it's not that hard to get wizard mode on this either. No. If you've completed all the shots. And look, everything... This is sort of Spell-O-Rama in a really light sense. Like, you've got three shots to light the mode. So, it is definitely Spell-O-Rama, but you're only spelling three things at a time. I can deal with that. Right. Well, three things is standard to me. I mean... Yeah. You know, that's how it all works on things like medieval madness and stuff like that. So that's like... That's fine. That's pretty much standard. Like three or four, I don't mind. It's when it's seven to eleven.
    60:25
    That's like... Not really. So, yeah. So that's how it works. It does flow very well. All the shots. The jump ramp shot is satisfying to hit. So there's good stuff. There's good bones in this table. This would be a table that you could easily re-theme and reuse the layout into something different. Maybe add a few more toys on and you could have a completely different experience if you had a bit of a time to re-design it. And that middle ramp reminds me so much of WWF Royal Rumble, that center shot that used the loop up in the middle. It's, yeah, I went, oh, look, it's WWF Royal Rumble in the center shot ramp. So it's, it's got a lot,
    61:15
    it's got, it's got potential. Like, they could do things this way. I really want to hit, I want to get that multi-ball.
    61:22
    Oh, you're one off, aren't you? Uh-huh, I'm one off. And I really think that's the best thing about this entire table, because it's just plain bonkers. Oh, it is. The multi-balls in this are incredibly rewarding. And Chris doesn't actually have the visual extras, like the trails, ball trails and stuff turned on for this, I don't think. No, I don't have ball trails turned on. But when you do and you get multi-ball, they have rainbow ball trails. Wait, should I turn them on? Yeah, turn them on. All right. Because it actually looks really, really cool in this game. Like, the ball trails actually really sell the theme even more. Where are our ball trails? gameplay. Uh, yeah. Okay. Turn along. For this game. For this game, I'll do it. Yeah. Because I didn't know that. And I'd like to see just how bonkers this gets. It's bonkers. Yeah.
    62:14
    Oh, come on. See the ball trails? Well, yeah, I see that ball trail. There you go. Now you get ready, because it's going to get wild. It's just like rainbow vomit everywhere. Oh, rainbow vomit. Hard. The tree has always been good. Oh, here you go. Oh, so that's how it works. I like that, like, Sienna was really pointing out the fact that, oh, like, all the balls are actually themed to the different ponies. That's really cool. Because she's getting, she's really getting what they're selling here in this table, like, she knows what's up. And I think that's really cool. This is a very satisfying multi-ball. I have no idea what's going on. I'm just flipping like crazy because there's way too many balls on the table. Way too many balls. But that's what's kind of making it fun. Yeah, and the ball save is so long in this mode. They just keep on coming at you. Because normally with the multi-ball, we know that the best thing to do with multi-ball is to drain that first ball immediately and just get rid of it if it's a three-ball so you can trap up and just be dealing with two balls. That's the secret.
    63:19
    I hit my camera angle and I'm not in a position to fix it. To change it, you have to pause and then... Oh, I almost had it. You're trying to catch the balls. The thing is, the balls feel, in this mode, they feel really ping-pong-y. Like, they have this really... There we go. Sort of, I don't know,
    63:40
    this ping-pong feel to them. They feel lighter and more bouncy. Yes. Oh, yeah, there is a jackpot. Yeah, right there. Cross-ramp shot. Oh.
    63:52
    Yeah, and this mode here is the one that you absolutely can explore. Hey, Applejack! points like that. That's six ball multiball because there's so many balls flying at you. Literally every shot is scoring points. So it very much reminds me of, what was that, Apollo 11?
    64:12
    Oh yeah, the 13 ball multiball, yeah. It is quite reminiscent of that. And all multiballs in this game are six ball multiballs. Oh, all of them are? Yeah, so the main multiballs you get for the wizard mode is also 6-4. It doesn't have the coloured... I don't think it goes to the theme balls that just goes to silver. But it's bonkers crazy. You're only one away from getting wizard mode. You need to get cupcakes, which is the left orbit.
    64:46
    Yeah, if you can manage to qualify that, you can see the wizard mode at the same time. Alright. How do I know that I need... What is telling you that I'm almost at weather? In the bottom left-hand corner, you'll see the list of modes. That's it. And you might have just been... You've got extra balls everywhere.
    65:07
    So I will give you a tip. If you want to get big scores in this game, the thing you need to select from the scrolling selection of things is that weird thing that looks like it's actually Rainbow Dash's emblem, and it's coming up now.
    65:26
    And when? Now. Well, for me, I'll probably delay, but it's like the thing that looks like a comma in the display. It's got like a... Yeah, that thing. So that'll give you playfield multiplied by two, basically. So you get two times the scores. And that seems to qualify for jackpots as well. So that's the one to pick if you think you're going into a multi-ball mode. Select that one for your ball and you'll get big points. In fact, it's not a bad one to check all the time, because it'll get you some decent points during modes as well. I know that when I was playing it on the app that I was using whatever to get my multiplier up and get held.
    66:09
    Oh, yeah. Hold on, dear hoops! I am just about to be brilliant! Yes, the multiplier does play a quite big role in this game, too, it seems. so yeah just go and shoot the shot so the thing i found with this game and i'm sure everyone who's played this game before has worked it out as well the the shots you need to hit in each mode don't change it's always the the center um um scoop is the one that will score you the most points excuse me um and all the other ones will give you good shots but that that center scoop is the one with the great shots.
    66:48
    So now you qualify for the wizard mode, I think. Oh yeah, that's a good point. Yep. So shoot the unshootable shot.
    67:03
    Yep. I know right now our audience is going, good lord, can you just finish this table? Yep. Yeah. We feel your pain, but come on. And time and time again, now it's time for the wizard mode. The real magic is the six of us working together. Get ready for the ball vomit. More rainbow. So it's that weird call. You said it's a cloud with a rainbow coming out of it. Yeah, it's rainbow dashes. Oh, so that's how it works. But it's basically your emblem. So interesting that now it's just regular silver balls in this one. It's silver balls. Yeah, wow. Jeez.
    67:40
    It's still chaotic. Still. That's for sure. Yes. And yes, the balls do feel, they're definitely different. They're not as bouncy as those other ones. Yeah. They feel weighted. Yes.
    67:51
    So it's interesting that they've actually introduced the different ball mechanics for the easy-to-get, the sort of first minor multiball. This is essentially like the major multiball. It's almost like, I think, for the real players, not the kids. Okay. So I'm not saying that kids can't get up to this mode if they're good enough. But this feels like the mode that, you know, if you know what you're doing and you get the rules, this is your reward. But again, if you walked up to this table, it wasn't difficult to get a multiple award. That was something. No, it's really not. And that's what my whole point with the other episode was. Where you should be rewarded even if you're just flipping about not knowing what the heck you're doing. Yeah. Because it makes you want to learn what to do. Yeah, multi-ball will get you... Multi-ball brings all the boys to the yard, essentially. So if you want the multi-ball to sort of entice you in, and then they'll get you hooked on the game. Like, all the belly-wooden games that we've seen make multi-ball getting simple. Like, it's clearly laid out. You know exactly what to shoot for. There's inserts on the playfield that tell you these are the locks, and you strive to get those in the game. Homeworld does not have that at all. everything is just it's just a guessing game unless you read the instructions whereas i mean arguably this thing as well is a bit of a guessing game unless you know to shoot that that single shot and then hit the jump around um you know that won't be apparent to you and i will say that when i first played this game i kind of discovered that by accident just by shooting around but once i knew it was there it was like oh okay so this is how you get one of the wonderfuls cool well then I'll shoot that all the time.
    69:42
    So here you go. Now you're back to the start again, and you do it all again. And unfortunately, it's not like it gets more difficult the second time. No, it's the same level of difficulty. Yeah, we're not doing the, oh, now that you've finished it once, you now have to actually complete each mode or hit a certain...
    69:59
    No, it doesn't make it harder. So it's just the same. so that's why there's a 500 million high score in the leaderboards for this one so you're saying I shouldn't go for that right now? go and do it hey look, it doesn't worry me because I can't hear the audio, it's just a silent game for me which honestly, it's quite pleasurable watching it play like this because I don't have to hear the ah, so that's how it works that was a very good imitation right there I'm just like I'm scared of how many extra balls I actually have oh you probably got like 18 stacked at the moment I think so I'm going to hold on where's my 94 I feel like I need a cool 100 million before I can quit yeah right well you probably get that bonus you can't beat us if we never give up now you gotta shoot the unshootable target Chris oh look you got it Oh, so that's how it works. They really take the cardboard cutout to a new level with this game. They are the biggest surface area targets I've ever seen in a pinball machine.
    71:08
    They are quite large. And here I go again shooting the exact same thing over and over again. Look at you go. Such consistency in your shot making there. Like, how many times do you want that shot shot? Oh no, the extra ball is the blinking, Jared. Oh no, don't shoot it.
    71:27
    It's what we call hate pinball. Where we're now actively rooting against me. Yep, grudge pinball. Ah!
    71:42
    Oh, yes. Alright. I'm going to drain. And let it drain. You'd always like, you know, the great thing about Zen is you can just pause the game, exit out of the table, and continue where you left off, Chris. Is that the only bonus? Thank you all so much.
    72:00
    I hear you, Jared. Oh, I got cake. Cake. Cake is a lie. Too bad we can't boot that game up in here. That is a shame, isn't it? Like I said, lighting-wise, that one's very much a disappointment. But hey, we've got these other Star Wars games.
    72:21
    Go to... Which one? Rebels. Go to Rebels. Two down from where you are. There we go. Is that new to this?
    72:32
    It is. Yeah, it's one of the new ones that was released. What is it you want to do? Because I know you have a bug. Yeah, this one has a bug that they haven't addressed. You're not exactly anything. We're a crew, a team, in some ways a family.
    72:52
    Oh, is it not? It's very much playing something that we shouldn't be hearing. Oh, but the licensed music is muted. So it's on. It's muted. Why is it not muting? I don't know. Zen!
    73:07
    I want to try that and see if the music actually changes or not. Why? Because I was expecting some generic music to be going on. I thought they do. the music. They put a generic soundtrack into it. I've never played it without music.
    73:28
    Needs a little something. It's also a little bit louder, this table, than Tony's was. Like, it didn't listen to me telling it to not have the volume up. Oh, the mix? Yeah. We discussed this later.
    73:44
    So I will say, this is the only thing I've found. Like, the voiceover and environmental sound effects in this are way more pronounced than um they should be so like you always have to turn the master volume down you would think that would fix it hey wait mute oh yeah you turned it off it really should be on yeah it should be on to mute licensed music like it was already on when you came in there it should not have been playing the well the audio i turned the volume I'm going way down so that now we just plain can't hear anything.
    74:21
    That's fixed it. So the bug that exists on this table, which is potentially really lucrative, is that if you get thruster multi-ball, so for those not familiar with this table, that big flashing thing in the middle is a thruster, and you shoot that a number of times, like one more time now to light the first lock and do the same thing again to light the second. and then you can choose how many balls you continue locking for greater jackpots in that. So you can start with a two-ball multi-ball, or you can actually keep locking balls up to about five, I think, and get really, really big jackpot possibilities off it. It definitely is risk-reward with this mode. But the problem is that, and I'm pretty sure this did not happen on the one in Pinball Effect 3, but the ball, for whatever reason, gets stuck in there. and the way you build up the jackpot in this game is to shoot into the thruster and it like does a couple of spins spits it back out again and you know then you can shoot for the jackpot shot so while it's spinning all the playfield lights blink in unison like it's just flashing constantly blinking blinking blinking but I don't think any of the black that the jackpot shots are cashable I got a jackpot payout up to 130 million. 130 million and I cashed it. So I managed to shoot a shot at just the millisecond timing that I needed between pulses and I managed to cash it in and I ended up in the press release build I I got 330 million on this table which is way higher than any of the scores posted at the moment So if someone can just luck out and cash in one of these big jackpot scores it's going to completely skew the leaderboards in this table. It's a massive bug. I mean, massive is probably an overstatement. It's not that big a deal. You can play the game, but it's just really unbalanced at the moment with that bug. And also, not satisfying, because you can't actually get into the jackpots and legitimately work your way through a moldy ball. So, I think it's not a tricky bug to fix. They just need to change how that thruster mechanism retains balls. Or just shut it off after 10 spins or something like that, or 20 spins.
    76:53
    It's not a difficult fix. So... I want to point out, you know, this is an animated series also, just like My Little Pony was. It is, yeah. But look at how not bright this table is. Like, the lights are popping. I'm understanding where to shoot based on what they are. I mean, this is still not even a very dark table. No, it's not. But it's dark enough that the lights are affecting the look of the thing. And so that's all I'm saying. effect that the lights it's what you call that the lights are conspicuous on the playfield they're not washed out okay so you go and select multi ball now they start your multi ball with two balls and you'll see the ball stays in there and shoot it back in there and it will stay in there again oh they go look at that for you it's spitting out maybe they did a bit in this tip maybe they fix it or maybe it is oh i wonder if it's actually a um a gpu issue then you know this is i've got the rtx 30 series uh you've got a gtx so i wonder if this is actually something to do with the a combination of graphics settings i've got high everything and all the anti-aliasing on and I think ray tracing's on and I've got it at 60 frames per second as the cap. So I've capped my frame rate at 60 frames per second but like on my one, it will spin forever and ever and ever and ever. So that's really interesting that you're not seeing this but that's also disturbing in the fact that those people who have high graphics cards might be getting a very different gameplay experience here. So that was very interesting to see. Yeah, this is definitely behaving the way it should be behaving, and that's how it behaved in FX3. So that's something that I can add to the case, because then it's the fact that it looks like on GTX, like you're a 16, you're a 1080? No, 1660. 1060. So you know on the GTX era of cards without ray tracing on it's not a problem But on ones with ray tracing on I could always test it with ray tracing off and see if it does the same bug And that would probably isolate the issue But yeah, that's that's definitely
    79:30
    Something I'll be testing out Yeah, so that was the only one that I saw but the thing that I liked about these
    79:38
    getting past the bug The thing that I really like about these tables on the new Game Boy FX platform is that there's just more subtlety in the lighting. And you get... it's clearer than it was on FX3. And it's just a little bit better, I find. So, yeah, I'm glad to see these Star Wars tables come to the platform, and I'm looking forward to getting into them more. Well, not only that, this collection of Star Wars tables is the ones I like better. Yeah, that's right. These are what I would consider the better of the Star Wars, the ones that are now in this collection. Yes, I agree. What about the one that is... I forget the name of the table It's the one set on Endor That's Jedi Yeah, was that in this collection? Or was that the first look? No, that came in this collection Yeah, it looks amazing Yeah, I'll show that Environmentally It just looks like Is that Jedi? Yeah We saw this in The Force Awakens as well With this sort of playfield sort of environment being literally part of the playfield. Like, look at that. That is... That is like world under glass stuff right there, right? Like, it looks like you're just in the middle of a forest. It's such, such immersion. The only problem that I have with this one is because in cabinet view,
    81:26
    at least when I was playing this in FX3, That ramp right there to... Here, I'll do this. The ramp to the right. Which I can't even get to.
    81:39
    In viewing mode? Yeah, that whole thing gets cut off. Yeah, it disappears. Because this is a super wide body. Super, super wide. Yeah, it's massive. So, yeah, you're right. You do lose bits of it if you're playing cabinet mode on here. But as far as playing this on a sort of desktop or, you know, eventually console, this really showcases what the new graphics can do. Because I don't recall it being like this on FX3. It's pretty good on FX3, truth be told.
    82:20
    Does it have this environment? Yes, it does. On FX3? Mm-hmm. Oh, right. I must have been... But I think the resolution like the actual environmental resolution is much lower. It's just you can see I think this was the last of the tables of the like I think we got I think it went obviously Empire was first and then I think it went A New Hope and then I think we got this one. Yep. And this to me was the best of the three lighting wise. Yep. I love this table. Just because it's really fun. The Battle of Endor mode on this is so fun. I will always select it from the mode selection first. When I do it. So Battle of Endor. Let's see.
    83:09
    There you are. Yeah, what do we do? It's like an instant six ball multiple. Oh. Here we go. Oh, look out.
    83:22
    Oh, sorry, four ball. I stand corrected. but still, a vomit of balls. That's funny. Yeah, that's heaps. More than you can actually deal with, generally. Considering I have no clue what I'm supposed to be doing. You've got to hit the lit lanes. I'm just trying to read the DMV for you. Oh, thank you. Yeah, this does suffer the DMV problem. Yeah, it does. Hit the lit lanes to hotwire the door. Shots left one. So you've got to shoot the lit lanes. It's the bin ramp. Yeah, that's right. The one that's really hard to get to when you're trying to control 50 million balls.
    83:54
    Yes, so this is... Unfortunately, this era of table was definitely a hard one. Good shot. Thanks, guys. You did it just before when you ended the mode. Yeah, of course, that happens.
    84:12
    But, you know, that's a really fun mode in this one to play. It's a multi-phase mode, too. The first step is you do that, then you do another thing, and then another thing in the mode. So it actually really tells. It's got a good narrative flow in it, that mode. Yeah, so this is another one that Deep designed.
    84:27
    So that's why I like Deep stuff. Let's show the last thing that got added into Pinball FX, I believe, with this latest update. Correct. And that is... Let's just say that we went over to Indiana Jones. And look at this, folks. You can now play Pro Mode.
    84:49
    Yeah. So, no power-ups. steeper play field, wider out lanes and no extra balls. So basically this is tournament settings. This is absolutely tournament settings and I can say this with high degree of confidence these tables play like the ones at Netherworld now. They are brutal.
    85:08
    So hard. Gorgeous lighting. Oh yeah. So good. The tables are mean. They're fast and mean and they won't last long on them. Like that? You have a look at the leaderboard scores. Yeah, like that. I'm like trying to get control of the ball and I just plain can't. And honestly, this is like when you're playing Indiana Jones in the arcade, that's your experience. Like I've had many times have I got a one million score on my first ball in this game. Like it is not easy to play if it's set up to make the operator money.
    85:46
    So the thing I like about this is while I think the play fields, I think they're just a touch. Watch the video mode. It's impossible to watch.
    85:55
    Ready? Whoa, whoa, okay. I think it's this one. Oh my gosh, I got it right. Oh, what a... I chose wisely. You have chosen luckily. Luckily, yeah. I did it the other day, and I was so off, it wasn't even... It was like, no, I had no idea. There's actually a pattern. So on each mode, there's a pattern in which they appear that you can look up online if you want to have a look at that.
    86:28
    But yeah, these games are now very hard to get high scores on. If you have a go at Medieval Madness, you'll play this in any arcade around, and you go, yeah, that's pretty accurate.
    86:44
    Certainly for me, the score I got on Medieval Madness in Zen with Pro Mode on was very similar to the score that I usually get at Netherworld for an average game on Medieval Man. It's like it's... It felt, unfortunately, very real. So my only... My only problem is... So I'm in View 2. If you look at... Well, I'm going to use the right flipper being up. Look at the angle that it's at. right there below the line of Indy's shoulder, basically. It lines up very nicely to that.
    87:26
    Previously, when we had selected Pro Mode or Classic Mode, the flippers were a bit shallower, I think. I could be wrong.
    87:37
    And so Indy may not be the choice one to do because I don't know that we had varying flippers even in the Steam version. but so you see where that is though right now so if i go exit out of this and i go into arcade so this should be the easy easy version right yeah that's right with all the Everything. Yep.
    88:13
    And we'll fire this up. It's in the same view. And it's the exact same flipper angle. Yep. Not changed. Has not changed one iota. Now, the question is, did anybody ever notice before? Does anybody care?
    88:34
    I don't know. So I'm going to quickly exit out of this. I'm going to go into medieval, like you said. Yep. Because I want to see. I know for sure medieval had varying flipper degrees. So let me see what this is. Since we're on arcade, let's go with arcade first. Yeah.
    88:57
    Turn off the enhancements. So if I flip up, it's just above the scroll. Yeah. Basically touching the red of the scroll. Touching the red text, yeah. That's why I call it as well. Yeah.
    89:19
    Okay, so, that being said... Go back. I'm now going to go into pro mode, which should be the most difficult.
    89:40
    and it's touching the red again. Yeah, touching the red. So it does not change. And the reason why I don't care for that is it allows you to do exactly that, catch the ball as it rolls down. Yeah. With the shower flipper, it bounced over to the other. So it makes catching the ball really hard.
    90:00
    Like you try doing, if you try to catch the ball from the eject from the castle in any of the medieval madnesses I've played, and I've played a couple of them, both remakes and originals, it's danger if you try and do it from the left flipper and trap up. You've got to try and take a whole lot of speed off the ball by essentially half-drop catching it. There's no way you can do that, what you just did then. There's absolutely no chance. And doing a running shot to the castle off the left flipper, with actual flipper pitch, like, it's so hard. You've actually got to trap up and shoot to be accurate in your shots and in one's actual real table. So it's... If you want pro,
    90:53
    I would say put shallower angles in and then maybe reduce the playfield pitch a bit. Because I think at the moment, the playfield pitch is actually... all they've done is they've made the table really steep and they haven't really changed anything else except for tournament rules and tournament ROM settings. I think the playfield angle is a little bit ridiculous in some and I can tell you this for a fact because on Creature, when you shoot the slide, a vertical up kicker, I've had it pretty much fall back into that kicker five times in a row because the pitch is so steep that it can't actually clear the popper and actually eject onto the wireform ramp. So they've got some tuning to do in Pro, I think, before you can really call it done.
    91:44
    And again, I don't know, maybe that's just my particular settings that I've got at the moment. But it's definitely...
    91:56
    I don't know. Some tables suffer worse than others. And I mean, there's an inconsistency as well with ball saves across the tables as well. And this maybe is something out of Zen's control. In fact, it's a ROM setting and how ROM settings happen in tournament. But some tables, like Circus Volterra is a classic example of this. When you're playing that in pro mode settings, there's zero ball saves in it. Not even on a house ball, stopping for giving a house ball, like three-second ball save or something like that. It's nothing. It's basically like an 80s early-sold state. It's brutal. Whereas on something like Medieval Madness, you've got a house ball ball save. So there's nothing consistent across the tables. And I think if I was making a tweak to pro mode, I would make it so that you at least have some ball save to just remove the frustration of getting a house ball at the beginning of it. And I'm not talking about a long ball save. Just enough time for the ball to do a loop, come down, brick something, and drain. So, like, you know, less than five seconds would be enough. I think the biggest thing I'm noticing right now with this slope is that the ball is not doesn't bounce up the table so high yeah that's about the biggest difference that I'm noticing and you can't like that princess ramp is one that you've actually got to actively shoot for now like you've really got to aim for it and oh there you go I wasn't aiming I was doing a running ball but the thing is that I've found that and if we I don't know it's probably just me but in some of the games that's not pro mode this is not a pro mode observation this is something that I've just noticed in Grim Tales is that when you're not in a mode you can easily shoot the ramps and shoot all the shots no problems when you're in a mode it's like the ramps like shrink by half like I'm bricking shots everywhere and I just cannot get a shot on it and it only seems to be the shots that I need to shoot are actually narrower or harder to get. I don't know what it is, like whether it's flashing light paralysis or something like that, but I just cannot shoot them to save myself. I don't know if anyone else experienced that when they play that game or have it on other tables that that happens to but it's just really, really hard for me to get a shot on that table when I'm in modes so maybe i just need to suck less and play it more right yeah so i think uh to one of our friends out there that uh feel like doing this confirming things for us i'll probably do a visual check and see but i don't know if i'm going to photoshop anything and figure it out that way um compare go to use medieval madness because i know like i said i know this is for a fact it's different in pinball effects 3 compare between um and you can pick either pro mode or classic, it doesn't matter. They both have the exact same flipper angle compared to the arcade mode. And you'll see a noticeable difference in the flipper angle. See what the flipper angle is for that and see which flipper angle then they decided to choose for pinball effects. Are they using the arcade flipper angle or are they using the called the Williams flipper angle, you know, the pro flipper angle.
    95:29
    I'm almost positive they're using the arcade which is the same angle that pinball arcade used i mean yes it makes the game playable and extended but that's the problem is it makes it go extended and it's not what the flippers are like if you're playing on a real table no it's not um because i just specifically remember playing hey roller games yeah i love mentioning it where literally the flipper angle well i'm gonna get it to my camera was like about there as opposed to yeah there and it was like almost flat and i was like are you kidding me there was like zero chance of catching the ball unless you could actually do a live catch um and sometimes yeah like you'd have to compare flipper angles on other eras of that table because sometimes operators would use the wrong length plunger and stuff like that so in some cases there are mechanical problems there that would have caused the flippers to be that shallow but i do remember on that era because that was around the same era as a mouse and round and stuff like that yeah it's like 90 wait was it one of those showcase back boxes with the speakers on the top no like uh dr dude and all those no it wasn't it was like a no because it's not belly it's williams oh yeah right I believe it was 1990 91 maybe okay so towards the end of the system 11 era and rolling into the WPC era yeah because I specifically remember the arcade that I worked at that had it within a month of me starting there Funhaus came out okay yeah okay so it's If that was brand new out of the box and they got it and the flippers were like that, then definitely that's stock. But memories can fade over time. Yeah. So I think over the generations, they've standardized flipper mechs and standardized plunger links. But there definitely were some variations in the early days when games were shipping. There were like discrete plunger parts. for some of those mechanisms. And before they really standardized it to the WPC flipper mechs, there were all sorts of different mechanisms that the flippers used as well, that changed the way the flippers behaved. So yeah, anything before the WPC era, so like Whitewater, Twilight Zone, all those ones, was a bit of the Wild West with how flipper mechanisms worked. even on some of the games like Black Pyramid and that era of belly game, they completely redesigned the slingshots. So they're on a slide mechanism, not a lever mechanism. So the whole mechanism was actually linearly slided out, not kicked like this. So they were doing all these testing different mechanisms and different flipper mechanisms to see which ones held up better.
    98:44
    And they sit on the WPC ones now. which makes it hard to compare. Yeah, head over to Discord. Let us know if you care one way or the other, if you're like, I'm fine with this, or if you're racing hell and being like, no, damn it, you need to put in these other flippers.
    99:04
    And then that's another question we're going to have from Mel next time we talk to him is, is this a conscious decision? Is this something that, you know, through their data testing and mining, is this what Zen came up with is going hey this is what people are most comfortable playing and want to play as opposed to spending whatever extra time doing the tuning for having a very minor amount of people wanting give us the old word of what you think about that beyond that trying to think if there's anything else that I think we've covered every topic that we were hoping for today i think we have yeah we've we've really done it it's been a bit of a longer show but we we had lots of things this is the problem when we play games there always goes along particularly my little pony sorry about that yes oops as you would say oh yeah oh yes let's never do that again um yes agreed so obviously next month we're going to be getting a Williams title that's the roadmap and then after that we're getting another block of tables I'm assuming that's going to be the remainder of the Zen Originals yeah something tells me the Marvel Collection is going to save for actual console release I suspect so yeah and who knows maybe we'll get yet another one of these pinball party exclusives. Obviously the licensing is wearing off for exclusivity period.
    100:49
    So we'll see what happens on that front too. Granted, these are going to be new tables for a lot of people who either are Android based or never bothered doing the pinball party. Yeah, well I would never be able to touch these tables unless I was in the beta for them because I just don't have iOS. So yeah, it will be brand new for some.
    101:13
    Yeah. So next time we'll be back talking about all the usuals. Probably, yes. Stuff and things. Lots of that. Until then, folks. Bye-bye.