Good morning from Australia. It's not good morning where you are. We have a special treat today. Good evening, Bug from Spooky Pinball. How you going,
dude? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on. This is fun. I'm excited to just get to hang out and chat. You and I have talked a lot, but not in long form ever. Yeah. So, it's like it's cool to actually just get to sit down and hang out with you for a change.
Yeah. And also just um you know, being able to use cameras as opposed to texting. Text is always the thing that's like, did my tone come across really rude or abrupt or annoying? Like, you know, I pitched to Apple a long time ago when I was younger. I worked at Apple store and I said, "You guys need to do color text
because if I'm angry, I can write in red and if I'm happy, I can write in blue and if I'm like mellow, I can write in." and they're like, "That's a good idea. I still haven't seen it happen yet." Anyway, so, uh, thank you very much. I know that it's pretty late for you, although it's still sunny at the back. What's going on there? Or is that a green screen?
Uh, yeah. No, it's a green screen. I I put the I put this behind me. No. Uh, our our sun stays up like super late right now in this time of summer. It uh it's actually starting to get darker earlier. It was getting It was staying super bright till like after 900 p.m., which really sucks. But, you know, I'm sure this is what people want to hear Bug talk about is the the Carl Weathers in Wisconsin.
Well, you know, why not? So, um I was saying to you before that, um one of the things about the channel, I use the channel uh as a bit of a calling card business card. Anytime I get an opportunity to meet someone new, I'll go uh if you want to know a lot about pinball, watch the channel because Gonzo does a whole heap of awesome videos and it's like the top gear of pinball type of thing. Yeah. Uh, so there's probably a lot of people that don't know much about Spooky or they know of Spooky but don't know past games, a bit of history. Um, they obviously might not know even know about Dad and all that type of stuff. So, I thought we'd start with a bit of that if you don't mind and then we'll deep dive into wherever it takes us. So, um, but I really appreciate I know you guys are flat out obviously trying to get these 888 games out. Um,
but yeah, and we got some tequila.
Yeah, we do, don't we? Oh, that's weird.
It's 9 in the morning. 9 in the morning for me.
I'll say 9 in the morning for you. So, I'm happy to be ruin ruining your day right from this.
It's It's 8:00 p.m. 8:00 p.m. somewhere in the world.
Right here. All right. Cheers, my friend. Thank you.
So, um, obviously we know, well, some people know, not everybody, that Spooky was started 2013. I should know that. I was going off.
Well, I should know it too, but I can't remember. I think 2013. Yeah.
2013. And it was something that your your dad kind of came up with. Um, were you guys always I know obviously I know you guys have always been watching horror films and all that growing up. I've heard that story. Tell tell the audience a little bit about like where it all started and where you how you guys fell into it.
Yeah. So, I mean, pinball always around in my life. Um, one of the earliest photos of me as like a toddler is me standing in front of a Firepower 2 and flipping it. And uh when I was really young, that was back uh when you could still get games for really cheap. Like you could get Adam's families for like two grand and they were in decent shape. Half the time they worked. Um so my dad was really into getting old games in and restoring them and uh uh flipping them and whatnot. Uh there was this company nearby that routed games and they would get in games that just had actual rats and bats and cats living in them. And uh my dad would would they would uh he would offer to take him in and fix them up for these guys. And every so often they would give him a game as payment. So, you know, he fixes a Doctor Who, a Dracula, a haunted house, and a Gorgar. And they're like, "Okay, cool. Here's this Star Trek NextG that like didn't work or turn on and had a bunch of mouse poop in it." And so that really I was around that my entire childhood. And I idolized my dad. anything he thought, did, said, or whatever. I that's what I wanted to do, too. Like, I just wanted to be like him. I wanted to do his thing. So, I got into it, too. Um, fixing up games. And, uh, so throughout that time, too, he worked at a a printing company. And pinball was in the the dark days, uh, to say the least. Uh, and then this company called Jersey Jack showed up
and, uh, my dad got mixed in with them, kind of working on some printing process stuff with them. And about a year and a half, two years in, uh, he'd been doing a pinball podcast for a while. And this is back when there was only like maybe two pinball podcasts in the whole world. Um, and so he was doing a pinball podcast. He was doing this printing thing and kind of halfway working for JJP. And he is fortunately for me, just crazy enough that he was like, I just would rather start my own pinball company and do my own thing. you know, he he's a lot like uh I would compare him to like Rob Zombie in that way where he's like, I I know what I like and think is cool and I want to do that. So, uh he he took the leap on absolutely no money. We were we were not a wealthy family in the slightest. And uh he took the leap with absolutely no savings, no money, nothing backing it. Uh when he definitely shouldn't have, which I think is exactly what he needed for it to work. I mean, there's no motivation quite like quitting your job of over 20 years and not having the finances to
like just fall back on.
So, he was pretty motivated to get it working.
And to make a super long story short, from thereafter, uh yeah, 13 years later, we have a ton of games made and uh we're doing quite well. But, you know, we started with very small uh original theme, America's Most Haunted. And uh for about the first I think it was like six to nine months, maybe even longer, we had no games sold at all. Like there was I I think we sold five and one of them we sold to the guy that owns the Benton Bank. So in case you were wondering how far the reach was getting,
not very far. Not very far. Um, uh, we went to the Texas Pinball Festival and in the craziest weekend and turn of events, we went from like, you know, 15 total games sold after almost a year to all 150 games sold out that weekend.
Yeah.
And from there it it snowballed uh, just going on. We took every bit of money that we made uh from America's Most Haunted and we put it in Rob Zombie's pocket and got that license so we could make a Rob Zombie Spook Show International game. We did 300 units in that. Um I want to say that sold out in a I think it was like a month, maybe a little bit less. My memor is getting worse and worse every single day. It keeps
it keeps getting worse. So, I'm sure these details I'm not exactly nailing all of them, but there is a documentary um that showcases a lot of this early days stuff that led up to Rob Zombie called Things That Go Bump in the Night. It's on Amazon for like 10 bucks. And uh for for your pinball content enjoyment, it's worth 10. Go for it. It's actually a really nice documentary. I love the people that made it. I wish they do a part two because it ends on a very will they make it or won't they make it note. And um we're doing okay.
I didn't I didn't even know that. So, I'll look that up.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's a good watch. You get to see me in a bull cut and a sling cuz I broke my arm in football in eighth grade. So,
you know, that's worth the cost of admission alone to see that. So, uh, yeah, rolled into Rob Zombie and then, um, like I said, I I I can go into a lot of details about everything that followed that, but it was just
So, sorry, let me ask a question. obviously doing the original IP and then selling some games at Texas. What made you guys go or dad is go I want the next thing I want to do is Rob Zombie out of all the themes and all the horror movies and everything.
Yeah, there's a ongoing joke of spooky pinball picks its themes uh by us walking over to the movie shelf and grabbing something that we like. And uh in the Charlie Emery my dad era of Spooky Pinball, that is certainly true. He he wanted to work with the people he thought was cool. He loved Rob Zombie. He loves Alice Cooper. He loved the movies. He loved the music. I mean, he that was the stuff that really made his brain go and he just wanted to work with those people. He wanted to do those things. And fortunately enough for him, those things also happen to translate well to decent pinball machines, good pinball themes. So, I mean, you know, there's cases of him choosing exactly stuff like that, and there's maybe cases where he said, "I need a paycheck." And Domino's Pizza Company approaches you and you decide to do a hundred of those because, uh, something has to pay the bills to to keep the lights on at this little factory in Benton, Wisconsin.
So, um, yeah, how Domino's came about, actually. Yeah, it pretty much um we were approached again at this time. I'm in like junior high or high school or something, so it's kind of it's a little fuzzy to me. Um but I believe the both Jetsons and Domino's, those were two things that uh approached us. Um Jetsons was a whole other weird deal uh brought to us by other people kind of thing. Domino's approached us and was like, "We want to contract you to like make an original game and whatnot. We're going to sell it to a bunch of franchise owners and hopefully you can sell it to some pinball customers too. And like I said, we were a very struggling small company at that time. Uh, turns out manufacturing is extremely hard at any level, let alone pinball machine where there's like more cars, more parts in it than a car. I almost said more cars than parts.
There's more cars in this than there is parts.
Um, maybe that's true. I don't know. I don't know anything about cars. So yeah, it was kind of a they approached us and we needed we needed to do it to keep things going. So that's what we did. Um the what I think is when we really started coming together as a company is when um Scott brought TNA to us.
Uh we built TNA, which rolled into Alice Cooper and then Rick and Morty and then Halloween. And that's when we started really having our stuff together and figuring things out. Like we know how to make pinball machines. We know how to be a company. We know what we need to be doing.
Yeah.
And um
Yeah. Uh this is How long have we been a company? Like 13 years, 12 years, something like that. Yeah. 2013. Yeah. 25. Yeah. Yeah.
The the thing with the Jetsons intrigues me because it's one of my favorite cartoons growing up. And I remember before I really heavily got into pinball years ago, a friend of mine who was into toy collecting, because I was into toy collecting goes, "Oh man, there's a Jetson pinball. Have you ever played it?" I said, "Didn't even know it was a thing." Uh, and then I looked it up and I was going, "Oh, it looks very ' 90s looking." Um, I'd love to play one. I don't think I think there may be one in Australia. One or two maybe. I'm not sure,
but I've never I've never come across one. So, did So, did someone make it and come to you like Scott did with TNA?
Yeah, it it was similar to that. I don't know how much I like can talk about what that whole deal was, but essentially like people had a layout and the license and they came to us and were like, "We want you to make this and we're hoping to sell it for this and do that." And and some of it worked out exactly how we hoped and some of it didn't. And uh that's honestly that's really all I know about it cuz like I said at that time I just I wasn't around everything as much as far as like being in the shop building stuff every day other than when the school bus would drop me off at 3:30 or whatever and I'd come in and
put something together that they could rely on me not screwing up for 90 minutes
or or or drill the wrong holes into the wrong pipe. Or was that your brother? No, that was your brother, wasn't it?
I don't have a brother. on your stream uh on um uh sorry on um who was saying it the other day. I was watching the stream. Maybe it wasn't on yours.
No, don't remember. Anyway, um
well, dead flip looks like we we look like each other, so maybe it was
Yeah, both both community goers. Um yeah, the the Jetson things intrigued me. Um so Scott Danesi's TNA is one of my favorite games. It's funny because a lot of people find it incredibly hard and then some people will be like, "Yeah, but for the same money you can get a Godzilla which has a lot of ramps, toys, and mechs." But there's something about TNA where you just can play, you know, when you just have 10 minutes and you just want to play a game.
Yeah.
And not have to think and get your ass kicked but enjoy getting your ass kicked.
Exactly.
Um and the music just slaps. Scott's just with his music is just a genius. It's one of my favorite games to to still play today. It's It's one of my favorite games to stream for sure. I love getting on that. Now I kind of want to stream it this Thursday.
Let's do it. Um and then I picked up a CE version. I had the original version and then Space and you know games in games out type of thing. And then I really missed it when it left. Really missed it.
Um and then ended up finding a CE. But um really really cool. Um, so this idea of doing dual themes, right? So obviously Halloween and Ultra Man, how did Ultra Man come into the mix? Because it's such a I mean, it's already a niche hobby, right?
And that's such a particular theme. I mean, I know Ultra Man growing up and everything, so that's cool.
Yeah.
What how did you how did you choose Ultra Man or did they choose you?
Uh, that was my dad's choice. Um,
yeah. Wow. So, at the at the time, we had both licenses locked up, and we had concerns with Halloween being a rated R horror movie, and there wasn't too many of those games out there at that point.
Yeah.
Um, we were we had concerns that Halloween might struggle being a rated R horror movie. What if we had something that was more family accessible um that we could limit to a lower count and make it uh a highly soughtafter collectible item? Uh enter Ultra Man. And uh that's something that my dad uh he grew up on and then when I was a kid, he grew me up on it as well. So like we we loved Ultra Man like a whole bunch of the different series. Ultra Man, Ultra 7, Ultra Mabius. Uh it's stuff I grew up on and absolutely loved. And um so it just kind of about 10 things all came together that led to that idea of that making sense to do. And um it's really hard doing a dual theme, like doing a dual launch like that because
people will think like, oh, it's just the same layout on two things.
Uh that that's that's like lazy. That's that's cheating. The problem is is it's anymore it's it's two entirely different sets of approvals you have to get done.
Uh it's two sets of artwork, animations, code. Uh well, maybe it wasn't so much on Ultram Man, but uh TCM Looney Tunes, like two completely different sets of code there, right?
Um you have to get all of the licensing stuff to coincide at the same time to launch that game. It's just actually a ton more work uh for us. It's a lot harder on us on our end to do those, but uh we we thought it really made sense at the time. And I'd argue that it did work really well. Uh you know, there was both games sold out like pretty much immediately. Um and so I would say at that time, you know, there was just enough things coming together that made that idea make sense and it it did pretty well.
I find Ultra Many I'm I'm never played one. I really would like to find one. I find it so quirky and so uh so so unique. But um the Have you ever had a license kind of with the dual theme? Is have any of them ever gone wider or you want to share that playfield with the other like because they're identical, right? Like
I actually missed it broke up there for a second.
So with doing dual themes obviously playfields being identical, right?
Has have you had any push back from the licences at all about that going well that's I don't want to be the same. I always expected to get it, but instead they were always fine. They were just like, "Oh, that's that's their thing." Like,
yeah,
that's that's fine. You know, they they they actually looked at it more separate than probably we did and our customers did.
Um, but licensers are always really cool about it, which I always found surprising in a sense.
Well, I guess, yeah, like when you're not putting your pinball hat on, you know, you probably don't care because it's like, well, it's not going to have any of the other license on it. It's just a layout. I mean, we had a little collective here uh pinball gathering about uh back in January and we had Texas and Looney Tunes literally side by side
and I purposely asked everyone that played both of them as a little questionnaire for 20 minutes, did you notice that the games were the same,
right?
I made them swap and only one person because he knows his pinball was like, "Well, I knew." But everyone else did not even and then when I told them their mind blown and they were kind of looking over the playfield and you know so the games are so different that it it's it's really captivating at how unique uh both games are even though they're identical.
I think we perfected that system on TCM and Looney Tunes. I mean
something I think we do really well as a company in general is learn uh and listen to people. We learned from our mistakes and we listened to feedback and we learned and listened to all of the problems people had with how we handled the dual theme thing with Halloween and Ultra Man. And I think we really perfected it on Texas Chainsaw and Looney Tunes. And now that we've officially perfected it, we are never doing it again.
So you guys have made that statement that you're never doing it again.
Yeah.
Which is what I said last time and then we did it again. Uh but I really mean it. We're not doing it again. I'm not doing it. It's It's not I I think there's definitely in in a market like this where um there is a lot of pinball companies but there's also it's a niche hobby there is definitely a market for something like you guys do there's boutique for me I think boutique is the way of the future small company thousand games dream you know themes for dream themes for a small percentage of people um and it's definitely the way to go but um and and leveraging nostalgia I keep saying on the channel nostalgia is such a powerful thing. Um, you know, you could do any theme that has any nostalgic connection. Um, and it will do well as long as it's not a Bosched launch. Not naming names. Um, so let's touch on the whole plunger. Uh, I'm going to call it twanganger gate, right? Twang gate. Yeah, because Gonzo calls it a twanganger. Um, so there's a lot of people that like none of their games have plunges on them. They've got a push button, right?
What's the story behind that? about my uh hatred for plungers.
With height, I'm glad.
Yeah. No, I don't hate them. I mean, I do, but I don't. No, I don't remember how this came about. I had a debate on the Nudge cast with Ian about uh plungers.
I'm sorry, shooter rods. I'm gonna call it shooter rod. Shooter rods versus auto plungers. Um, and I have a multitude of reasons for why I strongly prefer auto plungers um over shooter rods. Um, some of them are because we're a manufacturer and we have to put up with a lot of stuff on the production line with doing it. Some of it's cost. Some of it is I just I can't stand watching people stand there with a shooter rod and they're just pulling it a little bit back and they launch. Oh, I didn't get it. Oh, I didn't get it. Oh, I didn't get it. And you know this guy is going to place seventh at best in the tournament that you're in and he's the one that is sitting there
trying to nail this plunger shot over and over. I've always been very just get the ball and play. I want to play the game. I never have walked away from a game that I had a really fantastic like grand champion had this the run of my lifetime on it. I'll never get that score again. I never walked away from it and was like, "Wow,
the shooter rod skill shot is just what sold me on that whole experience." That's why I want to buy that game. It's it's no, it's everything that comes after that. Let's get to the good stuff. Um, but don't get me wrong, I do have love for shooter rods and when you can do cool stuff with them and whatnot, but uh it also the cost that goes into the thing is
with the shooter rod,
you still have to pay to have a coil there that auto launches the ball regardless of which. So, if I really want to put my Gary Stern hat on and just look at it like cost analysis, we should cut this. I could say like why wouldn't we invest the money that we have to pay for this shooter rod which is going to be very expensive because of course we do custom ones because we're crazy. Um why wouldn't we put that in something way more interesting like additional features on an upper or lower playfield or an additional feature to a mechanism
that's a mechanism so good that it literally sells units. I would rather invest more money into something like that because that's actually going to have a lasting impact for people. And the biggest I I think like irre you can't argue against this point is that to do a shooter rod you have to have the fork auto launcher.
The fork auto launcher causes a ton of problems. It it fails.
We've seen it
infinitely more times than the plunger that we use, the single
rod plunger that we use. I mean
and we have had our issues with the fork auto launcher. I don't like pointing out other companies or what issues they have, but like X-Men had a ton of heat about the auto launcher thing in that game.
And it's like, yeah, I want to put the most reliable thing possible in there and I want to get the ball in play and get it to people so they can experience the actual great parts of the game.
Yeah. And that's a good segue to my next question. Um, one of the things, uh, and my hat goes off to you guys because you guys are so active with the community, whether it's Facebook, Discords, uh, being open to just receiving a message or whatever,
getting the feedback and engaging your your tech support team is is astounding. Like, they respond so quickly. You could ring them and they will FaceTime you like if it's that bad. uh like they they're so you guys are just so approachable as a company and I guess there was always that uh you know that stigma that there was a little bit of QC issues at the beginning. Ironically, I've owned most your games. I've never had a problem with any of them. Maybe I've been lucky. Um, but the fact that you guys have evolved and kind of learned from that, um, I think if there's that little bit of arrogance in the industry where a lot of people don't want to listen to the feedback or don't want to make the changes or don't want to adapt and you can kind of see where those companies are kind of had issues or going versus where you guys have just skyrocketed like um, you know, and I think that's just a testament to you guys and that's one thing that I don't think will ever change obviously. I hope it doesn't. Um, but you know, getting that interaction with the community, I think it's huge.
Um, you know, and I think we're seeing that now with obviously Jack going back to his role as a community person and uh because I think without that, you know, um where where would you be, right? That's that's the thing. But it's a your your hats off to your customer service element of the whole business is is phenomenal. So,
thank you. Um the um had a few questions from a few of our followers that like knew that I was going to be talking to you. Uh and we'll get to those in a second. Um Evil Dead, obviously Evil Dead's been extremely popular, sold out very quickly. The wanted ad list on Pinite keeps getting bigger and bigger. I'm sure you guys keep getting hounded. Are you going to make any more? Do you have any spares? Has anyone cancelled? um th this theme which like you know it's funny because growing up I watched the films never really thought of them. I'm not a huge horror person,
but um for me uh what sold it was the love Texas, love Looney Tunes, and then I was like, well, it's not a theme that like really appeals to me, but at the same time, the FOMO is getting to me. And then obviously I'm pretty I'm pretty chummy with Don's Pinball Podcast. And Don kept saying, "You got to buy one. You got to buy one. We're at Pinball the Beach. You have to buy one. Everyone wants one." And he said, "You're going to regret it." And then the funny thing is is that I was like, I'm gonna watch the films again because I hadn't watched them since I I'm 40 years old, so I think I watched them when I was like 15. And I don't remember any of the stuff I saw.
And I really think I appreciated more now than I did back then.
And then it made me, you know, kind of made me
be into the thing, right? Um, so I'm always ambassador for telling people to rewatch stuff when you're older. Like a friend of mine the other day hates on Cable Guy with Jim Carrey and I said to him, "Have you watched it now?" Like while when you're 40 years old because it's a completely different experience than obviously when you watched it when you were 15 at the movies.
Yeah.
Um but Evil Dead captivated me watching it now and then I was like that's a game I think like I need to get I can understand what everyone's talking about now with theme integration and blah blah blah. And now that we finally got one, like we got ours obviously uh air freighted across to be able to play it, do content. Uh you guys completely knocked it out of the park. I mean, theme integration um is probably one of the best I've seen. Um ironically, the layout's probably not as like um out there intuitive as like Texas maybe, right? Because
Oh, I agree. But it's like a simple but different. Like it feels different but it's simple, right?
Um but the the modes are so fun, especially the insanity mode. Like where did you guys So we knew you guys were like, "All right, we got to do our next game.
We want to do Evil Dead." Was there one that you wanted to do before, but you couldn't? Or was Evil Dead always going to be the next one? And did you know exactly what you wanted in there?
Oh.
To make that game?
I I signed Evil Dead back when Halloween was out. Um it like I think it had just came out.
Oh wow.
And uh I think I'm pretty sure that's when I approached the licenser and started talking to them.
Yeah.
And I don't know why at at that time after Halloween came out in my mind I was like Evil Dead is absolutely hands down the best horror theme we could possibly go get right now. And I I was like so confident in that to a fault almost like I I was just
I don't know why at that time I was like that is hands down the best theme we could possibly go and get. Um and then like time passed we did Scooby-Doo, we did Looney Tunes, we did Texas Chainsaw and all of a sudden it felt like horror maybe wasn't as in in the pinball space. And I spent every day for a year being like I hope people will accept that Evil Dead is the theme. I hope people will accept that. But at the when when we signed it, I was like, this is hands down the like one of the best things we could possibly get. And uh it was it felt good to be have that confirmed to me again that this was an absolutely perfect theme for pinball that people
really wanted and even people who weren't um Evil Dead fans who like really love the franchise, they could see they were like, "Oh, I I get why this is so good for Pinball." And a lot of those people even bought the game. I I kind of wager that like probably half the people who bought Evil Dead were not huge fans of the movies before the game came out. Like it I was shocked by how many people were won over
uh by the theme.
I'm sorry, by the game in general. Like I think it just really
I think it proved itself and I think it won those people over. Um but yeah, we always knew like going into that design, we always knew that it was going to be Evil Dead like in that design and everything from the start. My cat just jumped on the table. Hi, Ginger.
Uh, we always knew that. Um, and yeah, I something just happened that we decided this was the one we needed to throw the entire kitchen sink at. Um, and it's a good thing we did because I think it worked.
It look, it worked really well. Um, and I think it's so approachable. Like I had a friend played the other day who's not into pinball, but he's into Evil Dead and he's like, "Man, if you could buy one, he would have bought one." Like because it was he he I could see that he stayed alive in the game, no pun intended. Um like the ball lasted a long time for him. Like as a newbie walking up, it's not hard. Uh he had so much fun. He hit the, you know, certain modes that like he he just felt like he was in that world, right? And that's the whole idea, right? this world under glass thing. Um, was there anything that didn't make the game that you wanted it to be in the game?
We originally wanted the seller door to also shoot the ball back out. That that was something we wanted to do that we we did not we weren't able to get it done. I'm sure Luke could do it now,
but at the time we were we were drowning in how much stuff we put in the freaking game. Um, we also wanted to have the uh the dagger sculpt on the habitrail, the VUK habitrail. We wanted the dagger sculpt coming over top of that. But I mean, honestly, I really mean it. We ran out of money. Like, we just ran out of money to throw at the game. We were like, there is we literally can't put another single item in this. There is so much in it. The BOM is so high. Like, we can't put anything else in here. So, uh, we're, you know, a lot of that stuff's, uh, fortunately like the mod community has come back and they've done a lot of cool stuff and we have something really cool coming as well, uh, that you actually can put in more games besides just Evil Dead, but, uh, we'll have a cool thing coming really well as a mod for it, too. So,
was there um, one of the questions that my friend asked and then ironically was asked last night to Franchie by one of Kh one of K's Patreon meetups that we do once a month. M
um was the fact that the book doesn't play a huge part in the play field? Like there's elements of the book and there's like the little book above the magnet. Was there a decision behind that on purpose? Because the book is a pretty big part obviously, right? But
yeah, so we we treat the captive ball area as the Necronomicon. I mean, there's a little bent metal there with a a sticker on it for the Necronomicon. As you interact with that, you progressively go more and more insane, which activates eventually the the insanity mode or the the mirror mirror mode.
Um, so we we put it there. Um, you know, originally we were talking about like having a book that would maybe open up and the pages would do certain things in there, but it just felt like every other item we were putting in was going to be more impactful as a mechanism than the book. Like fighting physical deadites
and locking a ball in an actual cabin,
all that stuff felt more impactful. chasing a hand running across the playfield. All that felt like a better use of space and mechs than a book that opens, you know, at at best opens and has like some lit up pages and whatnot. All those things felt
like they would
be a better gamified thing. Yeah. Yeah. A pinball moment, a gamified object
to put in there versus that. So, I mean, like, yeah, if we had unlimited money and an extra 3 to 4 in either way to go for a super wide body, we could have gotten it in there. But
yeah. Yeah. And that's that's again another good segue to the point that your games are um incredibly good value for money. Um
people are going to think you sent me the questions ahead of time or something if I keep segueing to your next one.
I know, right? But um uh you know like you're you look at the game and you know you unbox it and art blades are included and it's powder coated and there's plastic protectors that are color chosen to match and the rubbers are color coded and the rubbers the flippers have stickers like it is jam-packed.
Yep.
You know
topper it comes with the topper knocker shaker RGB kit and the speakers the flipper buttons and action button RGB. Uh there's a magnetic set on the the display, on the coin door, on the lock down bar. There you go.
Um the armor is all custom cut, too. It's not just like straight boring armor. We do something cool with it.
Yep.
Um
custom plaque, interior graphics, like you said, the plastic protectors.
I'm just trying to keep going through the list. Yeah, we uh we put a lot in there. Uh at the price tag that we're at, I I pretty confidently will say I think we have the best deal in pinball, hands down. When you look at what Ellie's or collector infinite deluxe sexy back version of whatever game every other company offers, it's usually in a lot of cases three to four to $5,000 more
than what we are offering in our CE model. And we have everything that they are offering for those. And even if you add the topper for 1,500, it's still what $1,500 $3,000 cheaper than a lot of these top end models. So
I think we hands down have the best deal. And I try not to ever say like we're the best at this and that. I don't like
I don't love marketing stuff that way, but I I it's pretty hard to argue. I feel like
uh at that point.
No, 100%. I think it's one of those things where like I'm not going to say the other manufacturers don't have passionate people behind them that love Oh, they certainly do. They certainly do.
They do. But there's an element of like even again my friend that has doesn't play pinball goes, you can really tell this game's been made by people that love the theme but especially love pinball, right? And he didn't get that from another game that was sitting right next to it, right? And I'm not going to mention what it was, but
um, you know, he
he he's like, you can tell that game's been made because it it it needs to be made for a reason. the other one, right? Yeah.
Um and I can fully relate to that and I can fully see what what he means. Um the, you know, obviously there's a lot of talk about what's coming next and all the little hints that have been dropped and the fact that you guys yourself have said the topper on the next one's even better. Uh the topper on this one is like I didn't realize like the top of the wood on top of her head has like nails in it and there's details that no one there's no one everyone's no one's ever going to see that right. Yeah. Unless you put on the floor obviously. Um, but like at what point did you guys kind of go we were making Evil Dead, this topper has got to be like we knew exactly what this topper had to be. Um, was that always the vision or did you did you have a different idea and then did this one instead?
I'm pretty sure this was always the idea. Um
because there's some really old old old pencil sketch drawings of
us trying to figure out how we could have the original was that we wanted that top of it to be kind of like flat flat and when it would open up she would come out of the top of the head. But then we would have to like cut this massive hole in the tops of the heads. And if people didn't have the topper uh what do you do with this gigantic hole that is up there uh for the for the games when they when they go out normally? Um, I had a buddy who named Jason Egan and uh, he has escape rooms and other experiences in Las Vegas. And I I just swear every time I talk to him, he has some like other random business thing that he really he does and like really excels at where he's like, "Oh yeah, we made all the dummies for this puppet for these trailers for this movie." Like Lionsgate contracted me to do that or we made all of these prosthetics for this promotion for this movie or whatever. And I was just talking to him because just hanging out like chatting or whatever and I was like, "Yeah, we really want to do this like cool topper thing in Evil Dead." Um, and he was like, "Oh, I I gotta I can hook you up. Like we could put something really sweet together uh for that for you." And I was like, "Seriously?" And he was like, "Yeah, I'll talk to my guy Gary Tunacliffe." And uh I was like, "Okay." And then yeah, fast forward, we have what I think is the most successful topper in pinball history. I think it's about like 800 of those sold out of 888 games.
That's what I was going to ask you to confirm because I heard a rumor that you had sold 800 of them. So,
I'm I'm thinking it's I'm pretty sure it's right around 800 now. Yeah.
Yeah. Wow. I mean, I can understand if some people uh haven't bought it. Maybe because they've got young kids or they don't have the height uh and they don't want to put it on the floor because you guys include a an extension cable kit to put it on the floor in the box.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's called the the bottom extension kit. I didn't name it. Uh but it goes uh underneath the game and you can do the topper right in front of uh like like by the legs down below, which I think is a
horrible idea because the first time somebody comes over and they're playing and they don't know it's down there and it makes a noise and moves and lights up, their foot's going right through that freaking thing. Just right through.
I don't know if anybody's done the bottom. Somebody sent me a photo of the bottom if you have the topper and the bottom. I don't know that I've seen a photo of anybody doing that, which is really funny because we included that kit in every single topper that went out.
Yeah. Well, that's Yeah. I I thought I was like, "Oh, that's amazing. The fact that like it's included, which again costs money, right?" Yeah. Well, that's an example of when I say sometimes we listen to a fault
because that whole thing came about because one person said online,
I don't have this the space above the game to do this. Spooky Luke, can you include some sort of kit that we could install it below? And he said, "Yes, absolutely." Like immediately.
And then he went to AJ, one of our developers, and he was like, "Hey, are we able to do that?" And he was like, "I think so." And he's like, "Good." cuz I already told everybody we're going to include it in every game and I was like, "Oh, well, we better get it figured out then."
We better do it. Is um is there a game that after listening to feedback and all that type of stuff that you have made that you'd like to go back to and redo to do not to ultimately change like the layout or anything, but just to tweak or do like a second run of
uh all of them?
Yeah. I mean, I knew you were going to
I would say above above anything Halloween. I would love I would love a second shot at uh doing that one from scratch. Uh as far as code goes,
I actually still love the layout. I think the layout's really fun, but I I would love to start that one over from scratch. I would love to men and black pen click everybody
and then just be like, here's the actual code that we wanted to do.
Is it I mean, is that not still doable though? I mean, I mean, obviously code costs money. I understand that, right? But let's say I started, let's say we started a GoFundMe, right, for to to let's raise money to redo Halloween code, right?
Because all everyone that owns one wants one down. How hard is it really to do?
Uh, well, the license is expired, so we have to
do that. It would it'd be a ton of It would be insanely expensive. insanely expensive because
the the code development on a game is
arguably to me like the hardest part
um and takes the longest and usually costs the most money. So that would be
near near impossible unless
by some miracle people showed up with just hundreds of thousands of dollars and I was able to run to the licenser and be like let's do it. But I I don't I think I'm just going to look forward to the future instead. But we're still we're still doing what updates and Halloween is the thing. We still do an update at least once a year on Halloween
and uh we have full intentions of doing that still this year. So
yeah, you know, I really love
I'm a sucker for upper playfields and lower playfields and the fact that
that's the game for you then.
Like that's the game for me. Um, now for the people I I don't know if you want to repeat them, you may not want to repeat them, but for the people that don't know the hits, the hints that you've dropped right on the next title, have you purposely dropped those or did you accidentally drop those hints?
What do you think I accidentally dropped? Um, there was one thing I don't something to do with a Was it a uh not a statue? I can't remember what it was. It was something on a stream. I was going to look it up and then I ran out of time. But there was something I was like, "Oh, was he meant to mention that statue?" Um, I thought I think it was a statue or
Yeah, I'm not sure. I could be wrong. I could totally gaslight you right now because you're on like there was no statue and
maybe there was
statues aren't a real thing. What are you talking about?
Yeah, dude. I've got like two young kids and I I basically have them full-time cuz my wife's a teacher and I my memory is just like baby brain is the worst. Like just remembering things is just terrible. Um, but is there anything is there anything that you purposely have given hintwise that you could say today that you would?
And I totally understand if you don't want to.
What have we told people? We've told them like three flippers, pop bumpers, standard body. Uh, standard body. We think the topper is cooler than Evil Dead. We think it's even cooler. Um, I don't know, man. I've I've dropped a lot of hints out there. It's hard to do it like on command. I usually do it on the fly when I'm in the middle of my stream and I just
of course,
you know, I'm like whatever.
So, those that don't know, obviously you've got your own YouTube channel that you tend to catch up weekly, like on a Wednesday night,
Thursday nights. Yeah. Yeah. Uh 700 p.m. Central, Thursday nights, uh Bug Screaming Stream. It's on YouTube now. Uh and I usually go live. I've I went on quite the run recently of like really cool interviews, code updates, and like special occasion things.
Uh I did a really good run recently. I'm kind of
at the moment a little dry on some ideas, but I have more coming uh in time as they get here. But yeah, I do it I do it every week.
One of my favorites you did was the segment where we we all watch the old trailers from the old games.
I love that's my favorite one to do. Fantastic. It's I I I might do that this week actually cuz I I kind of those are my favorite to do because all I have to do is sit down, laptop, camera, margarita,
play videos, make stupid jokes, talk with the chat who is usually loving it because most people haven't seen that stuff. It was kind of like a hidden gem that I found.
Um, and we just go over like old promo from the 80s and 90s and early 2000s and it's glorious. I mean,
yeah,
just I wish we did trailers that way. Yeah, there there's
a lot of the one of my favorite games is Dracula and that trailer on Dracula which actually then had Gary Oldman in it and like Yeah.
Um you know they they were cutting in between like cuz a lot of the games were coming out at the same time as the film, right?
Yeah. Like Terminator 2 came out the same day the movie came out. So nobody even knew.
Absolutely bonkers.
Yeah. And it's kind of like I miss the old days of the you know how there was that particular guy that used to do movie trailer the voice guy
like this summer like that guy like that nostalgic element of how movies used to be
trailered and how even pinball machines used to be trailered. Um, I'd like to see like one of the things I like that Pinball Brothers actually did for their Predator poster was their poster actually look like an 80s 90s movie poster that been folded and had the creases, right?
Creases is a good touch. Yeah.
Yeah. Like it reminds me of like the nostalgic connection to that. I'd love to see someone launch a pinball game and do it like the way that you showed the um um those those trailers. That was that was so good. Those launch videos were phenomenal.
Um
so yeah, maybe you can do that for the next one. Um
uh couple questions I had. Are we going to get profiles do you think where people can save their profile, their scores on their own machines like
Oh, in Insider Connected basically.
Well, yeah. I mean, I know Inside Connect there's a big beast, but just something as simple as just being able to save your name, have your profile that keeps your your name in the game and the um what do you call it and the scores, etc.
Um I still think Stern should like open up Insider Connect to every company and then have like a spooky section, a JJP section and just sell that because it's such a a powerful machine that costs a lot of money to do that I think helps grow the community. It helps people, you know, bring people together. And I don't know whether if Spooky approach uh if Stern approached you and said, "Hey, do you want to use my insider connect, you probably would do it." Um I don't see why some people wouldn't, I guess. But
well, if Stern approached me for anything, I would certainly answer that email or phone call.
Yeah,
I have tremendous respect for their company. Um
Yeah. No, we we've definitely been talking and working on certain things of like that nature because we we've heard the community loud and clear that that is something everyone has an interest in
and um we've been trying we've been working over ways to do it our own way um that would still get everybody what they want and also ways that we could add unique little things ourselves in there that is specific to spooky pinball. And I mean
without like confirming anything like yeah we are going to do something in that nature. It's not going to be the level of insider connected because that probably cost millions of dollars to develop and keep running at this point, I would imagine.
Um, but we will be working on something in that nature uh for Spooky. Um,
probably should think of a catchy name for it. Can't call it Spooky Cider Connective, but probably won't probably won't work.
Probably have to be more creative.
We'll uh that's something we could probably come up on one of your streams. everyone puts a a title in the comments. Um, so that was from Shane. Shane wanted me to ask that question cuz he's had all your most your games and and loved them. Um, the other thing someone else asked was, "Are we going to get like you guys did a fantastic additional top for Scooby-Doo?" Right.
Um, with the bookcase opening up, are we getting anything like that for Looney Tunes at all?
If it sells out, I promise we'll do it. If Looney Tunes and TCM sell out, we will do aftermarket toppers for both of those games, but they have we just need more units to sell to justify it. If you look at
which you can't use Evil Dead as an example anymore, but like Scooby-Doo, you know, we sold a lot of Scooby-Doos and a decent amount of toppers. If if I do the math on how many I think we would sell aftermarket toppers for something like TCM and Looney Tunes,
there's just not enough of them out there for us to really justify it at this time. But if those games sell out, you have my word. We will make something happen. Absolutely.
Done. Um,
so tell everyone to buy those two games because they're still available. And TCM is my favorite game that we've ever done. I think it's severely underrated. And I'm not just marketing TCM like this because Evil Dead's sold out.
Um, you know, like Looney Tunes is also not sold out.
TCM's our best game. Like it I I think it's hands down our best game. It's the most underrated. And I I think I yeah, it's criminally underrated and I I think more people need it. It's really great.
I I say this to a lot of people in a lot of the Discords, a lot of the chats, I say to people there's uh Looney Tunes doesn't get enough talk and love and if you're a horror theme, Texas is just TCM is an amazing game. So yes,
I'm constant ambassador for that. And I tell people the same thing about JJP's Avatar. I I just think that it just was mismanaged as a launch and obviously everyone knew Harry Potter was coming but that's one of their best games and I am for those three titles because I'm always telling people go go and play Looney Tunes and TCM.
Well, and the thing with TCM is a lot of people are like oh it's like too hardcore of horror.
Evil Dead is
five times more graphic than Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Like as far as seeing actual gore and violence and whatnot, there's a lot more in Evil Dead.
And we show a lot in Evil. I mean, we show a lot
in Evil Dead. There was clips in the recent wizard modes where as I was playing, I looked up and I was like, "Oo, like I remember that. That's rough."
Uh, so like I I don't think people need to be as gunshy about the theme and the
the intensity of the horror with TCM. Is TC Texas Chainsaw an intense horror movie? Absolutely. So is Evil Dead. Yes, Evil Dead 2 is kind of a comedy and whatnot, but the first one is it's just a straight up really freaky horror movie. Yeah.
And it's got a lot more
gore and everything than Yeah.
I could go on about this for a while.
No, no. Look, it's an interesting thing because uh I was always surprised. I mean, I don't know. Uh did you guys actually announce how many you want wanted to build of TCM and Looney Tunes?
They're both limited to 888 units
as well. Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay. Yeah.
And can you disclose how many you've got left or
There's plenty to go around for each.
Okay. So, we're going to craft FOMO now. So, there's 150 left.
There's There's only 10 left. Act now.
Yeah. And we're only building them this year.
Yeah.
It's uh Yeah. Crazy. Look, I I will keep telling people you need to jump on the TCM Looney Tunes thing because the layout is very the ball paths are really unique. the way the the um the modes work in both of them being so different. I know a couple collectors that have got both ironically even though the playfields are are identical. So um so okay so we anticipating that your new game is coming out probably around the same time which is November December right um and you haven't been shy about telling people that you your next you already know what your next four games are right and you're already working on the next was it four or three
two maybe
five
five the next five games there you go I was being conservative Um, so like h how did you choose those? Were they just like same thing? They're things themes that are just we need to do before anyone else does. Is is it really is it risky concretting that many that far in advance as well?
I would say it would be, but not with these themes. It's not risky.
These are pretty safe bets. I would say uh when thousands of people request the same four to five things from your company and you have the opportunity to go do those things, you should probably do those things.
There you go. So that that gives a really good insight into uh into that.
Pretty easy decision. Pretty easy.
Yeah, easy decision. Um um the I just want to make sure that I haven't missed any questions from the little fan base that we have. Um where is it?
Oh, Rick and Morty. I just wanted to touch on Rick and Morty, right? Because that gets so much slack for like
people just it's too hard. Like some of the shots are not makeable. And I was like really I don't have that experience with my one. I I love the theme. Yeah, maybe the maybe the left ramp is a bit tough, but I wouldn't say it's unmakable. Um, like obviously Scott did that game with you guys. Um, like was that again something that you guys wanted to do as a theme or was it brought to you as well?
No, no, no. We approached them on that one. That was actually arguably a big gamble because when we went to go get that license, they were in like the middle of season two.
Uh, which is really early on in the adult animated television series uh to go and sign a license. Uh I I still cannot believe the gold we struck when we at the timing of signing that cuz right as we signed that and the game was coming out
was when you started seeing Rick and Morty memorabilia everywhere you went and it was peak popularity and I mean the stars just aligned for us on that one. Uh,
and it it came about by um one of our our te the lead of tech support, AJ, that I'm sure many many people know. Um, he was a huge fan of the TV show and I was at work and he told me to watch it. I started watching it. I was still in school at the time or whatever. And uh, we were taking some trip somewhere uh, probably to a pinball show. That was where all of our trips were. And I was in the back seat watching it on like my laptop or something and I was just cackling my butt off because it was freaking hilarious. And my dad was like, "What the hell are you like watching back there?" I was like, "The show Rick and Morty AJ recommended." He's like, "Oh yeah, I've heard him talk about that." Whatever. Blah blah blah. And I actually like hooked up the computer to the ax, so he couldn't even see it. He was just listening. And he found it equally as funny as I did. And he got really into it. and we would obsessively just rewatch each season over and over because we loved it so much. And yeah, I don't quite remember how uh we actually ended up like contacting Adult Swim and securing the license, but uh it just was something we really wanted to do and the show was getting bigger and bigger and everything just lined up really well.
And how did Scott get involved in in the process?
We we wanted Scott to do another game. Uh, TNA was a huge success. People were kind of wondering if he was going to do another for us. And he was also wondering if he was going to do another for us.
Um, if if I can speak for him on that, I I would say he also didn't know if he like I don't want to say felt like doing another, but
like he I don't think Scott ever had many intentions of being like a full-time pinball designer or anything like that, you know?
So, he we approached him with the license and said, "This is what we want to do." and he he actually took some time to think about it and was like, "Let me make sure this is like where I'm going because he's like,"I do love that show. This would be really fun. I do have some ideas for more pinball layouts." And uh yeah, he he obviously took the gig and I'm very thankful he did because it was freaking awesome.
Yeah. No, I I love Rick and Morty. I think it's great. Um look, we've been going for an hour and I know it's late, so I mean I could talk to you for another hour, but wouldn't do that to you.
I've got multiple hours left in me. No worries. the um uh for me it's always fascinating seeing uh like I dabble in kind of a little bit of pinball design just mucking around for homebrew or rethe or something like that. Um have you ever thought about doing because obviously with your following on um YouTube and I man you had a massive one when you guys were giving away Ultra Man.
That was crazy.
You had a lot of people.
I had to get to a wizard mode and beat it during that. You know how terrifying that? Imagine you have to pee in front of 2,000 people. Yeah. Yeah. Like
I don't care how bold you are, you're gonna get pee shy. It's
Have you Have you thought about leveraging that in a way where like uh because I've always thought it'd be cool to sit down with you and go let's think of your like dream theme. Obviously not one that you've got in the bank already out of the five, right? But let's like let's design it together. Let's just pencil stuff. Let's put some ideas down and chat with the community about what would you put in this game? what mechas has anyone got an idea for a mech and kind of do something like that because I think that's I I like hearing someone's perspective and I think Jack's talked about doing this in the future where he's going to allow people to come in and and see the thought process behind
where do where do we start
like
I think a more realistic version of that that I am not just interested in but planning to do and I think I want to do it for Evil Dead Actually, because Evil Dead has been such a success, the community has welcomed it so much and loved it.
I really want to write a mode for Evil Dead in a live stream with everybody. I want to sit down and say, "Hey guys,
this is this is the mode like this is the insert we have for the mode that we have to write. Uh these are this is what we can work with for you know assets for this. What do you guys want to do? What do you what are you thinking?" and try and do a form of like communityr written mode and then have Ben code it and then implement it and then live stream that mode AC across some period of time of course.
Yeah.
Um I think that would be really special. I think people could I I think everybody would be really excited to be a part of something like that that the shot at like having the thing that you came up with kind of get in there because I mean that already happens. People tell us like, "Have you thought about trying this in Halloween?" And then in the next update, they see it in the game and they're like, "I remember telling them that at a pinball convention that I saw them at. This is like insane that this happened."
And then I say, "No, you didn't. I came up with it on my own." No.
So, it would be really awesome
to get everybody involved in writing a mode. I think that would be a cool
cool way to to start with it.
Yeah. No, I think it's a great idea. Um, one of the things I did want to touch on, if you don't mind, is Bruce Campbell, right? So, obviously you got this license. Uh, movie one and two are owned by different people. Is that correct? The license.
Correct. Yeah. So, it's funny. We said we'd never do dual themes again. And technically, Evil Dead is a dual theme. It is two completely separate licenses that I had to get to kiss and join together for this machine. But fortunately at the the very second I pitched the idea, I I was in touch with Movie One first,
and I told them, "Hey, obviously we want to do this. This is going to be awesome. I really think for the best experience possible encompassing the whole world of the franchise. We should get movie 2 involved." And they were totally down for that. And when I reached out to movie 2 and said, "Hey, uh, movie one, like we're doing this thing with them. They're cool with you being part of this. we would love for you to be a part of this. Like are you do you want to do this? They were they were immediately on board which is
amazing. I mean nothing in licensing goes that easy let me tell you.
Uh so that was really really cool
to see that they wanted to to jive together and whatnot.
And then so where did Bruce Campbell come into it? Because obviously you're like we need to get him to do call outs, right? Um, and he's such an approachable person because you see him at all the like comic cons and he does signatures for a lot of people and like he's he seems to be really approachable. Was he on board straight away to do something like this?
Pretty much. Yeah. So like from my understanding uh Bruce had a certain set of like rights or approvals to one or two uh that he had to do anyway. So to some degree he had to be aware of the project. Um, and then we both I told both movies like we have to have custom callouts from him. Like that is a deal a borderline deal breaker for us. Like he has to do call outs for the game
and they put us in touch with his agency and whatnot and we we talked to them and worked out a deal and everything and and yeah, he
he delivered.
I I like his call out. One of the ones that made me laugh and smile as soon as I turn the game on was the one that references, "Have you ever danced with the devil in the under the moonlight?"
I think I think that was one of my lines
which is uh a friend of mine was like that friend of mine from the other day. He goes, "I've heard that before." I was like, "Yeah, Batman." I was like, "It's uh it's iconic, right?" And um and even doing because there's a lot of call outs, right? There's a lot of audio in that game.
Oh, there's so much. Yeah, we're still putting more and more Bruce call outs in every single update.
And do you need to get a like if he's recorded them and he's happy with them, do you need to go back to him and go, "We're going to put this in the game
or is he
No, no. You you write the script, you send it to the licensers, they approve it,
he approves it,
you record all of it in however many sessions it is that you're doing
and that and then yeah, you you still tend to show them like, hey, here's the recordings afterwards and get that approved as well." And then yeah, it's good to go in the game.
Cool. Well, that's good to I was just really always been fascinated by that. And one of the things I really wanted to touch on quickly, if you don't mind, is I think what uh really brings this game together is the art package, right? And
the I unboxing it, looking at it, it's probably one of the best art packages in relation to color palette and, you know, theme integration, everything that in pinball to be honest. I mean, I know it's a big call, but I'm a huge franch. Um, me, too.
Chris is Yeah, Chris is a huge asset for you guys. How How did that all come about? Obviously, because there was something that made you guys go for him. Like, what can you tell us a bit about that?
Yeah, I um our relationship started with blackmail as all good love stories do. I was at Expo and he walked up to me and he was like, "Hi, you need me to do an art package for your next game or one of your next games." And uh at this time I had talked to Chris a few times. I was on his show once and we had seen each other at shows a couple times and but we we were by no means like friends or partners in any sense at all. But I knew him and I loved the heck out of his work and really wanted to work with him on at some point.
And he came up to me and he said, "Hi, you need me to work on your next game." And I said, "Oh yeah, why is that?" Cuz you know, he he has said that like before or whatever. And uh he's like, "You need me to work on your next game." I'm like, "Yeah, why? Why, Chris, why is that?" Because I know what it is. I was like, "Oh yeah, Chris, what is it?" He goes, "Well, it rhymes with evil dead." And I was like, "Oh [ __ ] dude. Calm down." Like, we're in public.
That's pretty funny.
And I was like, "Okay, uh, I hear you. Let's talk uh when we get out of the show." And he was like, "Okay, here's my phone number." And I got his phone number and went about the rest of the expo. And, uh, got home from expo Sunday, you know, resting and recovering. And then, you know, midday Monday, I get a text message and it's some examples of artwork for Evil Dead. And he's like, I'm he texted me like, I've already started the back glass. Let's talk. And I was like, well, I think Chris is doing the Evil Dead artwork for us, so I guess we better sign a contract or offer him some money or something here. And uh so we we obviously struck a deal, started working together and uh we were we were talking more and more frequently. You know, we started off talking just like once a week and then once every few days and soon after that it was just like every single day we were talking with each other and I was like damn this is one of my favorite people I have ever gotten to work with. Like I really enjoy chatting with him. We get along, you know, we we just we love the same stuff. This sounds like I'm talking about how I met my wife. Um, but I was just like, I really, really enjoy working with this guy. He's an insane talent. I love what he's bringing to our company. And we had a lot of really good licenses coming up and sitting on the plate. And I was like, man, I want him to do those, too. And I started talking to him about those licenses and he's like, "Yeah, I'm on board. That sounds awesome." The problem was he was also telling me that he was potentially doing games for like four other companies. And I was like, well, [ __ ] Because there's a couple problems with that. One, like, is he gonna have time to get to the stuff that we're doing? And two, and I hated to look at it this way, but I was like, well, our artwork has always been really good. And our artwork has always really matched our brand. like our our spooky brand has always had certain things about it that we don't want other companies to really match per se.
And if I have two games come out that have Christopher Franchiart and JJP has two games come out and Stern has two games come out and Barrels of Fun has two g and every other company, name them all.
Yeah.
That way I don't rat anybody out specifically. Uh name them all. Uh, if every one of us all of a sudden in a year comes out with games with Christopher's artwork on it,
we all look the same.
Yeah.
And I can't do that. I Our brand has to look different. Our art has to look different. And I was like, well, shoot. I would have to not work with him anymore then to have that not happen
unless I put a ring on it and and he has to stay with us. So, I started talking to him like, "What do you think about doing like exclusive work for us?" And he's like,
he's like, and the thing with Chris is he's not like motivated by money. He's motivated by working on stuff he wants to work on and staying busy. The dude works harder than anybody I've ever known.
It doesn't matter what time of day you call or text, he is sitting at the computer working on art, doing something. He He is And it's seven days a week. It's all the time. And uh so he was worried like, "Can you keep me busy enough? Like if I only do your stuff, can you keep me busy enough?" And I was like, "I promise you I will make sure to keep you busy enough. Like we will keep you fed with very good licenses
um and plenty of them."
And uh I I think he would testify to that that we have and that we have kept him plenty busy. So yeah, that's that's the story of how we we ended up getting exclusivity with him. You know, he sold his soul to the he sold his soul to Spooky, which so did I. So,
we're in it together.
I I I love Chris. I speak to him occasionally. Um and his personality is very u captivating, very magnetic. Um he tells it how it is. He's very similar to me. I mean, if we lived in the same city, we'd probably be BFFs, but um he he's just such a such a unique individual um that uh you can see, like you said, you just started realizing that I really like working with this person or talking with this person
um because he's just such a lovable person and I got a lot of time and respect for him. He does some of my some of the artwork he's done like, you know, Godfather, Galactic Tank Force, Beatles, Batman. And it's like it's just um there's something about his artwork that I can never explain it to people, but I just find it so mesmerizing because it kind of looks like a photo, but it's a portrait and it's not a port. Like it's it's so hard to put words to describe how good his artwork is. But I need to get a Christopher Franchi shield shirt.
Yeah, me too.
I I genuinely think he's the best in the entire industry. I do. Yeah, I do. And he is on top of that he is
the funniest, kindest, most talented, generous. My gosh, he is he just gives and gives to everybody.
Yeah.
Uh he he's one of the best people I've ever had the pleasure of working with. And uh I'm a lucky dude. I'm really lucky that I get to I mean the ongoing joke at Spooky, too, is that we just we work with our friends, you know? Like I hired my best friend from high school
to work on the production line just because I was like, well, I don't get to see him outside of work very much. So
if I get him here,
then I then we can still hang out and whatnot because I live here. Um, so it's it's really great just getting to work with a bunch of people that I love who I I deem my closest friends in the world. I really do work with all my closest friends uh at this point.
Awesome.
So I'm a lucky dude. We'll we'll wrap it up there and we'll do we could probably do a followup um to this anyway and I'm going to try and get Chris on the channel as well. But thank you very much, Bug. I know it's late for you. Uh guys, please do me a favor. Go play Looney Tunes in Texas.
Yes.
Not not trying to shield the [ __ ] out of it, but you'll like, you know, I think if you obviously can't buy an Evil Dead, you'll be surprised at how good Texas is and just go out there and play it. um because I think it's uh it's been misunderstood and maybe not even played. A lot of people just haven't played it. So, do that. Obviously, head over to your channel. We'll put that in the link as well. And thank you very much again. Love what you guys do. Thank you for supporting me. I know I've probably been annoying you with text messages and stuff. Um I promise I'll stop now. Um and
if you stop, I'll think something's wrong. I'll be like, "Don't do you still like me?"
Oh, yeah man. I you guys have always been, you know, fantastic for me. So, thank you very much. Uh we'll we'll see you again on the flip side.
Thank you, sir. Appreciate you having me on. [Music]