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Episode 49 - Nic Talks Electromechanical

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 19m·analyzed·Nov 22, 2017
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

EM pinball experts debate design philosophies and rating system discrepancies across Gottlieb, Bally, and Williams machines.

Summary

Nick from Nick's North American Pinball Tour joins Tony and Dennis to discuss electromechanical (EM) pinball machines from the 1960s onward, focusing on the three major manufacturers—Gottlieb, Bally, and Williams. The hosts compare IPDB and Pinside rating systems, revealing starkly different top-10 rankings, and explore EM design philosophy, gameplay styles (lane chasers, target shooters, circular flow), and manufacturer distinctions. Nick advocates for circular flow games and criticizes certain Gottlieb designs for rewarding completion over high-scoring gameplay.

Key Claims

  • Bally's Wizard (1975) marked the point where Bally took over market dominance from Gottlieb in the EM era

    high confidence · Nick states this as a historical marker for manufacturer dominance shift

  • Gottlieb machines are more mechanically fussy and require extra finessing compared to Bally and Williams

    high confidence · Nick compares Gottlieb maintenance to owning an Alfa Romeo Fiat vs. a Mustang (Bally/Williams)

  • Williams EM games have weaker artwork and sound compared to Gottlieb and Bally

    high confidence · Nick notes Williams' chimes were 'clankity' and the sound is the weakest of the three manufacturers

  • Freedom (middle pop prototype) is extremely rare with only approximately 100 units produced

    medium confidence · Nick mentions reading this statistic but admits he cannot recall the source

  • Many classic Gottlieb games feature flawed gameplay where completing target/card sets yields no meaningful bonus

    high confidence · Dennis extensively analyzed Flip a Card, finding all targets worth only 50 points regardless of lit status, with lane shots worth more

  • IPDB top 10 EM games and Pinside top 10 EM games share no common titles

    high confidence · Tony explicitly states: 'not a single one is on that IPDB top ten' and 'Entirely different'

  • IPDB top 10 consists of 8 Gottlieb games, with 6 of those designed by Ed Krinsky

    high confidence · Detailed analysis of IPDB rankings showing Gottlieb dominance and Krinsky's influence

  • Fireball (Bally 1972) is the most recognizable and flashy EM pinball game, often compared to Pac-Man's status in video games

    high confidence · Nick describes Fireball as 'the Pac-Man of EM pinball' and notes it was featured in Playboy magazine for mainstream exposure

Notable Quotes

  • “Gottlieb glamour is what kind of pulls you in. Their artwork was first-rate... Everything about it is just a pleasure to interact with.”

    Nick @ early segment — Encapsulates the Gottlieb appeal and aesthetic quality that draws collectors and fans

  • “If you bought a Bally Williams, you probably bought like a Mustang. But if you bought a Gottlieb, you'd be more of an Alfa Romeo Fiat kind of cool car, but a little more time working on them.”

    Nick @ manufacturer comparison section — Vivid analogy explaining the trade-off between accessibility and refinement across manufacturers

  • “Fireball is the symbol for EM pinball in general. That is the art and the gameplay that people remember the most.”

    Nick @ Fireball discussion — Establishes Fireball's cultural significance within EM pinball community

  • “Norm Clark is the Walt Disney of EM designers. He's the one who just threw in all kinds of whimsical, crazy, innovative new stuff.”

    Dennis @ designer discussion — Characterizes Norm Clark's design philosophy and legacy

  • “Sweethearts is my example for the hypocrisy of fans of Gottlieb because Gottlieb fans who love Sweethearts hate El Toro... but Sweethearts is two lanes of Bagatelle at the top and you don't ever get the ball.”

    Dennis @ rating system critique section — Articulates fundamental criticism of lane-chasing Gottlieb design philosophy

  • “All of the targets are worth 50 points, whether they're lit or not. And if you complete the whole set, nothing happens except the opportunity to earn a special... the only way to correctly play this game is to not play the game and just hit the ball back up to the top over and over again.”

    Dennis @ Flip a Card analysis — Demonstrates design flaw in reward structure across multiple Gottlieb games

  • “I'm definitely a circular flow kind of person... I kind of like more circular side-to-side movement all around the table. It's big figure-eight kind of patterns.”

    Nick — Clarifies Nick's design preference and explains why 2001 ranks highly

Entities

NickpersonTonypersonDennispersonGottliebcompanyBallycompanyWilliamscompanyEd Krinskyperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: TPF (Texas Pinball Festival) serves as showcase venue for restoration projects and community engagement

    medium · References to Snow Derby restoration for 'TPF 2016 Best 70s EM'; upcoming announcement planned 'After TPF'; Tony notes attending TPF for chime experience

  • ?

    event_signal: System 11 tournament recently concluded with Freedom prototype reaching Final Four, validating Nick's game selection idea

    high · Tony references 'System 11 tournament we just wrapped up' and notes surprise Freedom advanced 'because it was in the Final Four'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong Gottlieb fan preference in EM community creating potential backlash against critical analysis of classic machines

    high · Nick prefacing criticism with 'this will invite probably some hate hate mail'; Tony joking 'All hate mail will be directed to Tony'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Lane-chasing Gottlieb games with minimal playfield area post-plunge criticized as bagatelle-like rather than true pinball

    high · Dennis compares Sweethearts to El Toro negatively; characterizes both as 'two lanes of Bagatelle at the top' with restricted play area 'about the size of a piece of toast'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Gottlieb design philosophy emphasizing completion-based rewards over scoring incentives creates gameplay tension between artistic intent and optimal play

    high · Dennis' detailed analysis of Flip a Card showing targets worth 50 points regardless of lit state, with completion yielding only 'special' opportunity; extends to 'ton of' other Gottlieb games

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.239

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Tuesday, November 21st. This is our very special episode 49. And I'm Tony. And I'm Dennis, and we're joined here with Nick, the Nick, from Nick's North American Pinball Tour. I hope I said the entire tour's name correctly, Nick. Is it? I didn't even hear. I'm sorry. I was looking at the list of EMs that we're going to talk about. Well, that's really why we're here. I figured normally we start with our introductions, and I thought this would be a good segment. I have nothing new to report because we had a podcast two days ago. Yeah, I haven't done anything. I work. You might have some information to tell us about just sort of what you've been doing going around with EMs, at least on the most recent leg of your tour. Yes, of course the huge 15,000-mile loop was completed in the middle end of July, but I'm still doing little smaller loops to areas like Chicago, most recently out to Roanoke and then Virginia, and now I'm back in Kansas City. This isn't really a part of it. I'm not fixing any games on this particular run. Instead of dropping off a game to a collector, picking up another, doing play field swaps, that kind of stuff. This is just a maintenance run. But I'm going to be doing little runs here and there.
1:35
But there will be an announcement that will be made in late March. During this episode. Yeah. Freaking. Oh, no, no. After TPF. I do have a plan in the works that's very interesting. I like how your idea of just short little trips include things like Roanoke, Virginia that's right outside the door I walk there every day, that's how I do it Texans drive a lot like my Scottish friend said his mom was trying to buy a ticket to Texas and she's like, you can just book me anywhere in Texas he's like, no, no, you can drive all day and be in the same state No, no, it's not going to work. So, yeah, it's fine. 2,000 miles is nothing compared to 15.
2:25
I'm broken in in pinball driving. Well, we're here to talk about what is commonly referred to as EM pinball, or for those not familiar with the jargon, it would be electromechanical. So pre-electronic, post-electric. The EM era is pretty broad, And I know you don't want to go all the way back to the pre-war era, pre-Flipper era, perhaps even the wood rail era. So in terms of interest, just what type, what EM era is of interest to you? What do you think is the most exciting that was coming out of EM? Well, I think we'll keep it, you know, we'll keep it casual while we're all here. And yeah, wood rails and pre-war machines are a lot of fun. They're really interesting. They have a lot of history to them. But I think for what most people kind of want to, I think we should do like a more high-level approach in what people are most likely going to have and play and kind of relate to. And that's probably right around the 1960 and up, right, after the wood rails, up until the transition point in solid state. So we'll just kind of keep it there and focus on the three big manufacturers, you know, Gottlieb, Ballet, and William. And let's go ahead and start off then by what distinguishes these companies. Obviously, they're different companies, but what sets them apart? Well, I know we'll explore this in more depth later, but when I've met a lot of people who are really big into EMs, you possibly as an exception, they have broadly been could be described as Gottlieb fanboys and girls. But it's mostly boys and it's mostly Gottlieb. And so I think that might be a good manufacturer to sort of start with. But obviously, they had different designers. Each company usually had a couple of main ones, it seems. But what distinguishes all these companies apart from one another? And I think you might be better to answer this than someone like me, beyond the fact that you have more knowledge in EMs in general, but also that you know from working on them some of the mechanical differences behind the play field that we're in. We'll just have to make our way through the weeds on this one. Oh, my gosh, there's so much to consider. Gottlieb is of course the most popular because they were dominant right up until Bally's, I'd say Wizard in 1975 was the game that Bally said we'll be taking over now thank you very much, it was a nice run but before then Gottlieb was completely dominant in the EM era so Gottlieb, let's see I mean to categorize, you know this is going to invite probably some hate mail You click the cameras, podcast.gmail.com. All hate mail will be directed to Tony. Yep, that's my job. I get the hate.
@ play style preference section

  • “IPDB top ten, eight of these are Gottliebs, and six of those eight were designed by Ed Krinsky. And we had one Bally and the one Midway... no Williams.”

    Tony @ IPDB analysis — Quantifies the statistical dominance of Gottlieb and specific designer influence in community ratings

    • Norm Clark
    person
    Steve Kordekperson
    2001game
    Fireballgame
    Flying Turnsgame
    Sweetheartsgame
    Flip a Cardgame
    El Torogame
    Heat Wavegame
    Teacher's Petgame
    OXOgame
    Freedomgame
    Space Stationgame
    Snow Derbygame
    Blast Offgame
    IPDB (Internet Pinball Database)organization
    Pinsideorganization
    TPF (Texas Pinball Festival)event
    System 11 tournamentevent
  • $

    market_signal: Norm Clark positioned as EM design innovator comparable to Walt Disney, contrasting with Gottlieb's glamorous but mechanically problematic designs

    medium · Dennis' characterization of Clark as 'Walt Disney of EM designers' who 'threw in all kinds of whimsical, crazy, innovative new stuff'; multiple Clark designs in Pinside top 10

  • $

    market_signal: Freedom middle pop prototype extreme rarity (estimated 100 units) driving high collector demand despite production challenges

    medium · Nick noting demand from collectors wanting to purchase Freedom prototypes; discussing option to convert existing Freedoms to prototype specs 'later in the pipeline'

  • ?

    community_signal: Nick actively conducting preservation work through North American Pinball Tour, including playfield swaps, restoration, and detailed mechanical knowledge

    high · Described 15,000-mile loop completed mid-July; conducting maintenance runs; collecting examples of rare machines like Freedom prototype

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Rating system divergence (IPDB vs Pinside) suggests fundamental community disagreement about EM game quality metrics and values

    high · Zero overlap in top 10 rankings across two major rating systems; IPDB dominated by Gottlieb lane-chasers, Pinside by Williams flow games

  • ?

    technology_signal: Mechanical complexity of Gottlieb machines requires additional maintenance and expertise compared to Bally/Williams equivalents

    medium · Nick characterizes Gottlieb as 'the most fussy to deal with' requiring 'extra amount of finessing and work' despite refined player experience

    • 5:08
    So, see, Gottlieb, I like to classify. Gottlieb is really, I'd say their primary focus was, you know, artwork and just finesse. You know, the big G, Gottlieb, it's almost like, it can almost be glamour, G for glamour. The Gottlieb glamour is what kind of pulls you in. Their artwork was first-rate. They had this beautiful back-box animation. The playfield artwork was fantastic. Their chimes were the most melodious. They had the tune chime boxes that just sound the most harmonic and pretty. Their mechs are very silky. The flippers are just very... They just have a refined feel to them. Everything about it is just a pleasure to interact with. Most people who are EM fans, I'd say maybe in their early 50s and up, when they were in the arcades, that Gottlieb was the most popular manufacturer. So there's some nostalgia there as well. Right. And we see that in the solid state era as a big driving force behind what some people think of and still think of as maybe the best manufacturer. And we won't go into that in this episode. but so now so far I don't think you're going to generate a lot of hate mail because everything you've said about Gottlieb was pretty praising good art, good sound you even threw the mechs about which I wasn't sure you would or wouldn't well they do well that's the thing as far as the players perspective is concerned the mechs are very refined and silky and wonderful under the hood there of the big three, probably the most fussy I'd have to say to deal with They require an extra amount of finessing and work, and each manufacturer had their strengths and weaknesses, but of the big three, Gottlieb is the, let's relate it to 80s cars. If you were a kid in the 80s, you bought a Bally Williams, then you probably bought like a Mustang. You probably had a car like that, but if you bought a Gottlieb, you'd be more of an Alfa Romeo Fiat kind of cool car, but a little more time working on them to get them. Okay. What would you highlight regarding Williams, which I think is often the least talked about of the EMs, at least in my experience? Yeah, it's a shame because Williams' EMs are really fantastic. They've made a lot of really terrific games, especially right towards the end of the EM era. and some just really terrific multiplayers but with Williams the artwork is probably the weakest of them and also their sound is the weakest their little clanky chimes have that real clankity clankity sound when I had Skylab its chimes were not a high point unfortunately and that's kind of the sad thing because chimes are one of the things that really still make EMs kind of different and really pop. And one of the things I really enjoy, it's like when we go to TPF, when you get up with a whole bunch of games with the chimes going at the same time, that gives you the kind of feel more than modern pinballs do when you're playing. Hey, there's a whole bunch of pinball machines here. Those chimes, the chimes kind of make it all. It gives you the aura and the kind of worldly feel of it. I think, Tony, that's a really good point, because I would say that in all of pinball, that audio is the most important of the five senses. So maybe it's four senses because if a coil burns, then you can smell. Yeah.
    8:46
    There's a lot of taste in the pinball. Exactly. But of the three senses, I think sound is the most important because it rattles around in your imagination, and there's just some sort of physical connection that it makes between the brain and your body. I think the 70s era Williams do seem to be known, at least, maybe because the production numbers were higher. But I'm just thinking a lot of people are familiar with things like Space Mission, Grand Prix, Spanish Eyes. Yes. Maybe more for its forward artwork than anything else. But, you know, so it did start to get some attention. But I've always had a sense, Nick, that you're more of a Bally fan. Well, actually, I like all three and really. Yeah. See, here's the which is better, which I like all three. In fact, I like even Sonic. I dared not ask which is better. Right. We'll figure it out by your tone. Thank you. There is no definitive better. There's just better things about different things, elements. But, yeah, if I had to pick one sort of company, forget it. I'm not even going to answer that. I'm just going to say I like different things about the companies. Bally, though, is probably my favorite just because if I had to pick one pinball company for all time, both EM and Solid State era, it would just be Bally. because I thought they have just the most games that I like. But, you know, for me, it's Bally Williams are kind of up there, and then Gottlieb is third, I think, to those two. For me personally, and I'm sorry, the fans, I really, really like them. I know they're really cool. I love my 2001. It's a terrific game.
    10:16
    And I do have some Gottliebs I really like. But in general, if you line them all up, you'll find that the Gottliebs do have a quaintness about them that to me is, in this modern age, doesn't quite keep up as well as the MBC. I won't be sending in an email because I'm the one who has to read it. But what I'd like to explore actually is, because I think you've led into it really well, is what do you think of as the broad, broadly speaking, the play styles that EM games come in, the flavors? I think those of us, you know, we mostly talk solid state, as most of the podcasts that cover pinball do. And in there, there are generally two types So the point-and-shoot games and then the flow games. And that's what everyone talks about nowadays. It's like, oh, this is really, is that flow? And flow is always the big focus now. But there are a few that are like, oh, yeah, point-and-shoot. I like those. That's what Street Fighter II is. For the three people who like Street Fighter II, the pinball machine, it's about, oh, well, it's a shooter's game. It's a shooter's game. But E.M.'s, they were more experimental, I would say, in their layouts overall. And a lot of that was probably just people hadn't figured out just exactly what felt great. Anyway, that's my lead-in, but what would you say, broadly speaking, are the play styles that we see in this sort of 60s and beyond of EM? Well, maybe that is similar to the solid states. It's kind of a three-legged table. You've got your nudge lane chasing kind of game. So it's like if you're chasing lanes and it's a nudgy kind of game, that's one style. Another style is the target shooters. I guess you can call it point and shoot, target shooters. and the third is circular flow and I guess that's also flow. So there's three. Well, maybe someday there'll be square flow, but I haven't seen it yet. But there's certainly no nudging in the solid state kind of games. I mean, maybe to save your ball, but certainly not as a... Right, not like a play style. Not as a primary survival thing, not really. That's good because I don't like it. Yeah, and a lot of Gottlieb games are lane chasers. They're very much like rollovers, roll over the lanes, collect them all. There's a certain OCD characteristic to a lot of these older Gottliebs where the point isn't so much to get a high score, but to kind of light up all of the elements, all the cards, or all the pool balls, or all the things. And you can earn specials, and that's done usually by rolling over targets or lanes and so forth, and that involves a lot of nudging. So it's sort of the evolution of the Bagatelle and Vigna Bane are all nudging. and then it gets into more pinball rules. So what style do you favor? So of the three, I'm definitely a circular flow kind of person. Target shooting games, I'm there and back. That kind of V formation is... I kind of like more circular side-to-side movement all around the table. It's big figure-eight kind of patterns. More of your Bally Williams will have that.
    13:15
    2001 is my favorite wedgehead, and that has terrific flow. all the way across the studio. 20 drop targets, two pops, slings at the top, and it's just got this fantastic movement to it. And it's probably why, although we'll get into the relevance of IPDB ratings. We will. It is currently number one, so maybe there's some truth to that. It's the drop targets. Everybody loves drop targets. They're just satisfying. Yes. I do like some of the, and pool was often a common theme for, which makes sense because of the nature of that game in and of itself to play billiards pool, not the swimming pool-themed pinball machines, of which there are some.
    13:55
    Quite a few. But, yeah, broadly speaking, I concur. I like the ball to keep moving. I like watching it travel. The more places it gets to go around the play field, the better for me. That's the element of pinball I've always liked. So, well, occasionally I like a good shooter's game, especially with drops, a good set of drops. It's a lot of fun. It wouldn't be what I would predominantly like. Some of the things like your restored freedom prototype that you have, I think, is a fun flow game. Well, that's the... Even if some people say you can't hit the spinners, some say that it's not possible. But it is. It is possible. It is quite possible. I think the frustration may be with this, that cradling the ball requires a little different skill set than normal to line up that shot. And that's what's good about the prototype. Because it teaches you new proper skills. And we see that. We've seen that. And so, I mean, not to – we can touch on it again at the end because the System 11 tournament we just wrapped up the last episode was your idea. That is why we did it. People might think you've never seen a solid state game, but you do. You've played a couple. Oh, of course. Yes, I've got that. But I've always found – I was really surprised how far it got in the tournament because it was in the Final Four. But Space Station. Yeah. The thing about Space Station that some people really like and some people hate is where those slings are located. Anyway, freedom, A+. That was our first TPL. We fell in love with that at our first TPL. That's why we were in the interview. Well, you know, I mean, the middle pop freedom is, you know, I don't know where I got the statistic that there's only 100 of them out there. I read it somewhere, and then I forgot the link to it, and I don't know. but there's certainly not very many but if you do see one whatever condition it's in for heaven's sake buy it and call me and just sell it to me because you already have one I know but you know what will you do with two I can restore it and people will be all over it yeah I got folks who really want one but anyway I'm not letting this one go you bring me another one I'll do it for you I'll keep my eyes out but I have not seen one up yet well there's an option to convert an existing freedom over to that and that's later in the pipeline if I've got time to do it. I actually put freedom and the prototype into my watch list and I've never seen anything. I've seen regular freedoms come up. Especially in solid states. But nothing else. Well, they made over 5,000 of the standard freedoms.
    16:33
    Which is still... I might have one and not even know it. I'm sure it's still a fine game but it just I can't see how it could possibly have quite the same fun and quite the same play. That middle pop just is something special. Yeah, it's Norm Clark's finest kind of evolution of the middle pop format it's like a different conversation right there but by taking that away you're really just removing his signature on it and that whole figure eight thing so it does, yeah it's like We can go ahead because you brought it up and this is an excellent time to transition into rating systems oh my gosh and there are two different rating systems I think most of our listeners are familiar with Pinside but I want to hit on that one second because I think IPDB is in a way the more interesting only because it's so I want to say anachronistic but you might have a different take on it but just I pulled these yesterday so these are as of November 20th 2017 for those going back and listening Here is the IPD list of the top 10 EM machines, starting at number one, which was, as Nick already mentioned, 2001.
    17:44
    I think that deserves to be 2001. This was a Gottlieb 1971. Number two is a game Tony and I are very familiar with, as is probably just about anyone who's ever played an EM. That would be Fireball. I love that game. Valley 72. You know, and here's the thing about Valley Fireball is it is the Pac-Man of EM pinball. It is the, you know, Pac-Man is the symbol for video games in general. Well, Fireball is the symbol for EM pinball in general. That is the art and the gameplay that people remember the most. Because they made so many of them. The home version, Fireball Classic, they have Fireball 2, they got the Fireball, you know, that Fireball with the spinning disc. And there's just, that's made an impression more than any other game. So it's the most recognizable, for sure. It's probably, I think, the most flashy in the sense that they stuck in just about every mech they could come up with. I guess it was featured in Playboy at the time when it came out, which got a lot of layman exposure that normally it would just be in an arcade. Yeah. Thank you, Tony.
    18:46
    Sorry, Fireball, number two. Number three, I have no familiarity with this. It's a game called Flying Turns, Midway, 1964. It's a Flying Turns. Flying Turns is a pretty cool game. It's actually a two-player game, and it's a pinball, but it doesn't have pop-up versus. It's like kind of a little, it's a smaller scale target shooting kind of game. And you, as you earn laps and so forth, there are these two little toy cars in the back box. It has this little shoebox, little cinema thing in the back box there. The cars race each other. So as you make progress on the pinball machine, little cars kind of lap one another in the back box. and it's just really good looking. It's actually, you think a game like this, a lot of these little horse race kind of games or things in the back box are kind of novelty-ish, but this one's actually really fun. It's got a good layout. It's a lot of fun for two people to play. So that kind of deserves its place up there. Game number four. Now we're getting in trouble. Now we go off the rails. This will be Schweet Hops. Gottlieb, 63. It a Wayne Nines Am I saying his last name right Nines yeah only one of these designers I think is still alive yes yes and he made some great games, like Marble Queens Goodwood Rail, a bunch of games he's done a really good job well he's probably listening, so why don't you say why you don't like this one well, you know Sweethearts was number one on the IPDB a couple months ago and it got bumped off and I thought that was an utter travesty because I personally absolutely cannot stand Sweethearts. I'm sorry. But if you look at the layout, and I can just pull it. I don't know if you can pull it up here. I'll pull it up. It won't mind. But I don't even need to do that. So Sweethearts is a game where actually Sweethearts is my example for the hypocrisy of fans of Gottlieb because Gottlieb fans who love Sweethearts, and they most often do, hate, and they love to dog on, El Toro. El Toro. El Borro? Yeah, everybody picks on poor El Toro because they're like, it's two lanes of Bagatelle at the top and you don't ever get the ball. And I'm like, okay, Sweethearts is two, same thing. You plunge the ball and it goes through one lane and then it goes through another lane. And then when you finally get the ball, your play area is about the size of a piece of toast, and you can either hit the gobble hole at the top or go down the drains on the side, which are huge. The end. So it's like, play Bagatelle and drain.
    21:21
    Sweethearts, the game for you. You know, I'm like, I don't get it. So you probably have it a little bit lower even than four.
    21:29
    Just a little bit. It would be just, there are so many Gottlieb games that have that play mechanic where it's like, collect the whole set. You know, why? So you can earn a special. But who cares? Like, well, I mean, not who, I mean, some people care about that. Okay, that's going to be a fight right there. That's going to be a fight. That's what we want. Yeah, well, here you go. We need the drama. Playing for specials in the home or tournament environment is... Here's why I came to that conclusion, that it just doesn't really add much to the gameplay.
    22:02
    Nostalgia is one thing, but okay. I bought Flip a Card. It's a really neat asymmetrical layout. It has this nice fan of shots. The risk-reward is there. Actually, you can flow, hit it right back up to the top, to the lanes. It's like, this is a really good geometry. So I bought the game. This is early on in my restoring hobby. And I put in my due diligence, 40 hours, and I rebuilt the thing, riveted new target faces on and polished all the plastics and just did everything, all my little fixes. And then I realized, wait a minute, all of the targets are worth 50 points, whether they're lit or not. And if you complete the whole set, nothing happens except the opportunity to earn a special. which is not going to help you if you're competing in a tournament or trying to hit a high score or whatever. So really the only way to correctly play this game is to not play the game and just hit the ball back up to the top over and over again because all the lanes are worth either 100 or 300 points. That is how to win that game. Catch the ball, send it back up to the top over and over and that's it. I'm like, well this is just stupid. So how many other Gottlieb games are like that, where you're just sort of... And then I was doing my homework, and I'm like, a ton of them are like this. So in hindsight, what I should have done is hacked the gameplay so that when you complete the set of cards, you get like 2,000 points. You get a bonus or something. Because, you know, those are the risky shots. So anyway, that's... So Sweethearts is one of those games. You complete all the cards, and that's supposed to be... Number five, not flip a card, but pop a card. Gottlieb 72. Eh, whatever. I mean, it's I think it's better than drop a card, which is the drops. I don't think the drops reset after you get them all. They did a lot of cards. Drop a card, flip a card, pop a card, top a card. Oh, there's a whole lot of card games in the Gottlieb line. Number six is another Gottlieb, Abracadabra. Now, interesting thing about Abracadabra, if you can click on that, Jeff Brenner. And he only designed three layouts for Gottlieb. Only three. Okay. But all three of them were absolutely beloved and had even other kind of iterations made honoring them. So Abracadabra was one of those games. As you know, Abracadabra inspired games like Pioneer, where it had those same two angle drop targets and no slings below. And Quick Draw, Fast Draw also has the two angle drop targets and no slings below. So Abracadabra kind of influenced those two. But so Abra's a really well-liked game, you know. Okay.
    24:49
    I believe I've played this. I think one of our area collectors owns it. Number seven is Crosstown. Yes, that is the replay version of the Flipper Fair layout. Flipper Fair is the first game to have that layout with this wide gap between the flippers. And it was originally designed as an add-a-ball. And I think it actually kind of needs to be an add-a-ball. The geometry is so difficult. That flipper gap kind of needs that risk-reward shot to earn an extra ball, in my opinion. Number eight is Target Pool. I believe that one is in Pinball Arcade. Yeah, that's what I call the baby 2001. It's kind of a similar layout. I like that layout. Yeah, it's pretty neat. Number nine, Card Whiz. Now, here's where I just have to jump off. I just don't care for that stair-step drop target aligned in. whatever, the drop target where it's kind of diagonal like that. I just don't really care for, like, Atlantis. I don't really like the shot, the way it works. I don't like Card Whiz. I don't like Sky Jump. You know, it's just something about that kind of, you sacrifice a lot of the play field to make that work, and I don't think there's quite enough action for me. But, you know, it is popular, so who cares? You know, one person's opinion. And rounding out the top ten on IPDB was Fast Draw. Yep. And Fast Draw is very popular, and that's one that I just need to get a little more familiar with. Taking my doing what I do, because I've only, I think, played half of these games. But some noteworthy things. This top ten, eight of these are Gottliebs, and six of those eight were designed by Ed Krinsky. And we had one Bally and the one Midway with the little race cars and no Williams. In fact, if we scroll down, the only Williams that pops up is Lady Luck at number 14, which I wouldn't put above dozens of Williams before we even. So, you know, like space missions better than that. Right, right. So, you know. Now, I think. So let's go ahead and let's transition over to the Pinside top ten. And it will be interesting to talk about the analytics of that once we get through them. But I will note up front, Pinside's top ten, not a single one is on that IPDB top ten. No kidding. They are entirely different. Wow. Entirely different. That's kind of crazy. That's why this is going to be good. All right. So number one, according to Pinside, is the Williams 1964 hit Heat Wave. That's a good one, though. That is a good one.
    27:21
    Heat Wave's got great artwork. But number one out of everything? It's number one. I don't know about that. It's number one, Nick. Wow. Number two, same designer, Steve Kordek, who I'm familiar with because I own two Kordek games. Of course, everywhere you trip over is Skylab. But I also had three coins, which was one of the 60s designs. Not one of the better ones I'm right at. Teacher's Pet is number two. Woo-hoo! Teacher's Pet. Well, that one didn't grab me in terms of geometry. It does seem like a kind of collect-all-the-letters, kind of completionist game like that.
    27:58
    I had one, but I sold it. Number three, another Williams game, OXO. Norm Clark. All right. Norm Clark puts his tail. He's my favorite designer, and he's the Walt Disney of EM designers. He's the one who just threw in all kinds of whimsical, crazy, innovative new stuff. Just tried everything. He's just completely unpredictable. And OXO, there's one. He has the projection lights underneath to change the X's and O's, and you have to make the shots to... I mean, you think tic-tac-toe is not very exciting. There are some tic-tac-toe-themed pinball machines that came earlier, like Egghead and Squarehead, I think those are tic-tac-toe games. And there are a couple of others, Wood Rails. I've not played this. OXO is actually... It's very fast, very shot-oriented, but it also has flow, and the effects are kind of neat, the way the lights change. And that one's cool. Yeah, it's a great game. so basically what it's looking like here is literally anything can be an EM theme I mean tic-tac-toe teachers anything can be an EM theme and be absolutely perfectly acceptable in work could be there's a world pre-license and maybe pre-taste in some cases I mean well you know how about marbles you know like just playing marbles and Marvel Queen. There you go, this one. I mean, probably some girl sitting on a yacht and it's called Sodipop. She's just sipping a, you know, or a phosphate.
    29:35
    There are a lot of things like fairy tales and stuff I've seen. Oh yeah, a lot of, yeah, Wonderland, Alice in Wonderland, they had that. I know like Mayfair, which is basically My Fair Lady kind of look thing. Yeah. Yeah, they aped movies of the day. It was kind of interesting. Without actually doing it in such a way. Yeah, yeah.
    29:56
    Well, number five, we'll, let's see. Yeah, another Williams. No, I'm sorry. I need to do number four. I was skipping that. That would be, that's not Williams. It's a Gottlieb, Snow Queen.
    30:07
    Yeah, that's a liked one. I have a Snow Derby. I got the one we repainted for the TPF 2016 Best 70s Enum. Very popular game. Got a lot of players. and of course we did the cabinet in blue instead of white and we used white webbing with lacquer instead of black webbing so it'd be a lot more like snow and it's kind of you know for some people it's blasphemous but the original you know it sounds probably morally wrong yes but it looks amazing it looks so cool um so yeah oh that's what every mad scientist says when their abomination comes. That's amazing. It needed to be repainted anyway. Oh, okay. It had to be repainted anyway. It was in terrible shape. The original design is kind of like this Tequila Sunrise look. And you're like, well, that's not very snowy. It doesn't even look... We just didn't want to redo it like that. It just didn't... So, anyway. Whatever. But yeah, fun game. All right. Well, it's in at number four on Amazon. I think I've actually played either Snow Derby or... I think I've played Snow Derby. I played one of them because that's the one with the girls on the snow machine. Yeah. Backlash. I've seen, yeah, I know I've played that machine. Number five is a Williams game, and that's Blast Off. That's a good one. Actually, and that's the Adaball, and that's a pretty neat game. Yeah, I like that one. Another Clark game, so of course you did. Is it? Norm Clark did Blast Off? That's what I have written. I may have jotted it down wrong, but my notes are impeccable. I should know this because, yeah, actually it is his because he did Apollo, and that's the same one, and it's just the Adaball version. Okay, so there you go. There's an innovative game. Launch the rocket, get the thing, has the bagatelle in the back box. He's just the one who's added all of his whimsical stuff. Anyway, okay. All right. Number six. This one's going to be controversial for you, Nick. So I'm warning you up front. Do we have any Gottliebs so far? Only Snow Queen so far. Okay. Everything else has been Williams so far. This is not Williams, and this is not Gottlieb. Okay. This is Woe Nelly, Big Juicy Melons.
    32:11
    That is not an EM. That is what I thought, but it is in there on the list at number six. Whizbang Pinball 2012 version. Yeah, that can't be there. That's not it. It was there, and I was following the rules of the segment as laid out, which was as of November 20th, 2017. Pinsize says that is the number six. Okay, we're just going to give them a mulligan and move on.
    32:38
    Mulligan! All right. Well, moving past that one, then it would be, we will be back to Gottlieb, and it will be their 1971 game Sheriff.
    32:49
    Okay, so it's the four-player version of Lawman, which is the, it's like Atlantis, except it has the ball gate. So you hate it because of the stair step. Well, I don't hate it. It just doesn't. You highly dislike it in a way that could be described as hate. I see why it's popular. I've got lots of friends who like it, and it's great. I don't think it's terrible. I don't have faint. It's just deliciously faint.
    33:15
    It does take a long time for that bonus to count now. It's like, you're just waiting all day for that. Anyway.
    33:23
    Number eight, Dancing Lady. That's kind of like King of Diamonds, I think. Isn't that the one that's got that roto target that's kind of in the middle? I actually don't know Dancing Lady. I'm not sure. I might be confusing. I think that's the one. We've got the Clayfield Cola up here. Yeah, I think it's got really nice artwork. Yeah, that's got a road to a target. Yeah, that's a pretty neat one.
    33:44
    I haven't played it, though, so I think it looks great. Number nine is a ballet game, Skyrocket. Oh, well, I love Skyrocket, and that's number four on my personal list, and I have one. And it will be at TPF in 2018. That one, incidentally, is the only of all the games on either list, Harry Williams' design. Are you serious?
    34:08
    Harry Williams designed Skyrocket. At least as per my notes. How can that be? That's a ballet. With it being a ballet, I was confused as well because I thought, well, I know he did stuff for Stern Electronics after doing stuff for Williams. I didn't pull up any of the specific details. You might want to take a look on your system to see if there's any additional information because this was pulled from the details on Pinside, not IPDB. So they could also have something in error. after all they did say whoa Nelly isn't EM well there is let's see here designed by Harry Williams well they say so as well on IPDB well the notes continue to hold it's a solid design I mean it's the most beautiful EM in terms of you get the best light show of any EM with that game just the way it selects the bonus points it looks like a little firework show is going off in your game I will have a newly clear-coated and beautified version, so come see it.
    35:09
    Well, and then number 10, this might help alleviate some of the issue here with Wonelli, because number 10 at Pinside is a tie. So there are actually two games at number 10. One is, well, they're both Gottliebs. One is from the 65, and it's Cowpoke. And the other is from 77, and that's Centigrade 37. I see. both very popular graphically impressive with such a nice mechanical finesse silky exactly beautiful both of them have back glass animation it's kind of ironic they both do but neither one is my particular cup of tea but that's cool who cares love the artwork on Cowpoke love kicking the cowboy thing it's great But kind of a similar problem. Your gameplay is very small. It's like once you get the ball, it's kind of all down there. You just kind of hit the road target. Of course, Centigrade 37. Here's where we can talk about Centigrade. So Centigrade, it's just got to be all about the theme with that game. Tell me about the waterfalls, George.
    36:19
    Tell me about the waterfalls. Yeah, the little bagatelle kind of thing. Yes, that takes up half the, well, all right. I'm rounding that way too high it's more like a third of the entire right hand side is consumed by this well that's Jeff Brenner's innovation they came with Atlantis introduced the little side baggage did Atlantis ruin EM?
    36:47
    because that seems to be the theme of this discussion I'm looking for the silver thread that links it all ok well here's the four games with a little side bag of tell. Okay, it's Atlantis, top score or 300, which is the bowling pin in the game, Sheriff Lawman, which is that one, and Centigrade 37. So of them, that's a good question. How would you rank those four? I like top score or 300 the most out of those. It's got that cute back box thing. It's got a spinner. It's fast. It's just cool.
    37:20
    Then I'd probably put probably Atlantis below that and then probably Lawman Sheriff. and I guess last would be centigrade 37. I just don't. I think the drop targets aren't as fun as having a whole rack, and yet there's no spinner like 300 has to score things, so it's just not as much going on in terms of layout and geometry. Cool artwork, sure, cool artwork, but the soul of an EM is its geometry. That is kind of what it is. I do agree with that. I also think it's interesting that of those four categories of games there that you described following this feature, your two least favorite are the two that are in the top ten on Pennside. Yeah. The Sheriff, Sheriff Lawman, represented there. Yep. Though they did have Centigrade 37 beneath that, so at least that is in agreement with you, broadly speaking. so you both recall when we got through doing the IPDB list I noted that those were 8 Gottlieb machines and then we had the 1 Valley and 1 Midway and most of those Gottliebs were Krinsky designs in this case, 4 of the top 10 are Williams and that's split, 2 are Kordek and 2 are Clark and then we have 4 Gottliebs 3 are Krinsky, 1 is Wing 9 and then we still have one valley and then we have Wonelly.
    38:46
    Well, you can throw out Wonelly and you elevate the two. No, we do. The one thing of consistency is that there's only one valley in either of these two top ten lists.
    38:58
    And I wondered what your thoughts were on that because when Wizard came out you still had almost a decade worth of stuff. A decade worth of stuff. Stuff being EMs. Oh, not really. Well, no, I thought it was 71. It was 75. So, no, you don't. That was right towards the end. Yeah, Valley got out of EMs quick after Wizard. I mean, they didn't last long at all. In fact, it looks like their phase-out year was... I was way off. Yeah, they phased them out in, I mean, even by 77, they only made 155 Evil Knievels and 170 Mata Haris. And then they used kick-off to use the last of their parts. and it was like 1 of those just to run them out But by 77 Ballet was already running for the way ahead of the game It still weird to me to hear the numbers difference when you talking about production runs but modern pinball machine being 200 games 300 games It's like, yeah, we built 14,000 this game, and we put out eight games this year, minimal. Well, that's been nice when none of those arcades had any video games to take up space for them. Yeah. I always thought it was really interesting that Gottlieb was so slow to adapt away from EM. Though I understand the logic behind it. I understand their logic. But I would say they were probably the most conservative company of them all. Despite what innovations they're going to be known for. The Flipper. But those were like one-offs. And France still wanted EMs, is my understanding. That was their big export market. and so France kept saying well no we still want the EMs and so Gottlieb said well we're just going to keep building EMs because the French are a huge market share for us and they're not asking for solid state until they did and then they were too late and they outsourced their system one and then we go into things that are beyond the scope of this particular episode fascinating I love the fall of Gottlieb I think it's worthy of the book yeah but you can't compare the fall of Gottlieb without looking at also the rise of Valley because they both are hand in hand. Bally just in 75 was just, I mean, and they hired Norm Clark. They got him from Williams and he became the head of the pinball design department at Bally right when they were taking over. And then you get to have a whole chapter about the fall of Bally because it crashed and burned before God made it. That's right. By 82 they were already like, oh my God, what are we going to do?
    41:27
    It's going wild swings everywhere. We can talk about that later. But yes, Well, we covered all the main categories I had for us to hit on. So I want to turn the floor over to you, Nick. Okay. What do you want to talk about? Well, let's see. So we just covered why we looked at IPDB and we looked at pin-side ratings, and they're really not consistent at all. And you just have to realize that the rating systems currently are completely subjective. that while there may be a shred of truth, at least in terms of weeding out the truly awful games from the games that are popping people like, in terms of an absolute scale, meaningless. Utterly meaningless. Do not pay any attention to what something is ranked on any EM list because there are far too many. We don't have the same amount of experience of people playing different manufacturers and so forth. and what we do see is a huge majority of Gottlieb fans who are pumping the ratings for the games that they like the most because they were the most popular and people who grew up playing those games the arcade I'm technically too young to be an EM fan because when I was an arcade kid it was all like Xenon and Space Invaders and you know video games and Solid States I didn't see any EMs in the arcade. I missed it by a year or two, but they cleared those things out almost immediately in solid state. So I just missed it. So I'm not beholden to any manufacturer, whether it's Gottlieb or not. I just care about the best game. But just before me, folks who are say in their 50s, mid-50s and up, they are going to almost always favor Gottlieb. So I think the ratings will always be kind of skewed Gottlieb for that reason. Play a lot of EMs, you go to like the PPM Expo or you go to a place that has a lot of EMs and you're a newbie or you're just getting into pinball, then I think you could probably get a better score from those people in terms of sort of objective rating because nostalgia is not a part of it and so they're going to be just looking at the games.
    43:42
    I think that's being a Gottlieb guy, nothing wrong with that at all. Yeah, what's your theory behind why, at least going to the top tens, is Penn Cite so different? You go from an IPDB which is so overwhelmingly got leaving the top ten as to almost not even be worth talking about the two exceptions that we noted to a case where they're a tied plurality with Willis. what explains to you, what explains the fact that at least on Pinside, from the top to the top it isn't all Gandhi I can't say it's well representative because it's still just two manufacturers but Williams all of a sudden is putting up a major showing I could maybe argue it's not even with their particularly best games of course you could say that about him with Pinside it's about participation and it's also that I think the crowd probably does skew a little bit younger in general, and then you also have not as many people participating, so it's just skewing the ratings all over the place. Yeah, I think you're right about the demographics. I also think Pinsides, with their current protocol of EMs only requiring five ratings for something to become ranked in the top list, that's really low. I think that was the only way they could generate a list is they had to just drop the demands because I mean they made so many why not mandate the 15 votes that you mandate on all the solid state the only reason would be because the demographics there's not enough people waiting to have the EMs for it to ever happen I certainly don't want people to think that I have anything against Gottlieb at all I don't and I really am glad that there are so many people who collect them and preserve them Any EMs, any people who want to save the EMs is great. Save the EMs. Yeah, and Ravens. Don't forget to save the Ravens. Sorry, he only cares about saving EMs. Well, you know, the EMs do have a specific knowledge set that's a little different for sure.
    45:52
    What we should talk about is something I learned on my pinball tour when I was playing this home challenge. What I learned, though, is that I was having a lot more fun. It was about halfway through the tour I realized that the multiplayer EMs were just a heck of a lot more fun to play with other people than the single players were. And when I first got into this hobby, I just went straight to IPDB, and I looked at the top ten. I'm like, oh, yeah, well, I've got to get El Dorado because that's a top ten game, and I've got to get Atlantis because that's a top ten game. I hadn't played these games before, but I was like, yeah, those are the ones to get.
    46:35
    And as I started collecting and as I started kind of trying different games, it's like, okay, well, maybe I don't need those. But the difference between multiplayers and single players is it's all about the social aspect for me. Like when I'm playing pinball, I really like that, you know, back and forth kind of elbow rubbing, kind of staying focused on the game aspect. and in the beginning the collectors were saying, well you don't want to get the multiplayers because of the lack of carryover features, they're not as complex, you're just playing a one ball game, nobody wants that, it's just not as good of a game but I think that's kind of a wash when you contrast it with the experience of playing pinball with a purse, throw shade on them and hope they drain so I can play it's a back and forth and ball times are really quick on the multiplayers, that's a good thing is that you don't have to wait a long time. It's not like Lord of the Rings. You're waiting 15 minutes per ball. You know, it's like, even if you're playing against Keith Elwin, you know, it's like, he's going to drain pretty soon here. So let's just see how long this is going to take, you know, and my turn is going to be up. And finally, there are some multiplayer EMs that do have carryover features. Stalads and Stripes tracks the number of balls that you have per player. Keeps track of that. 8Ball has a thing, tracks how many players, A Surfside tracks the bonus as you play. So it's not... Some multiplayers do have carryover features. So I don't know. That's basically... I'm divesting most of my single players at this point. And considering how much faster EMs play than solid states, I really think multiplayer EMs are kind of the ultimate now. Well, I fully understand the social aspect because TPF, case in point, is a lot of... Normally, me and Dennis will walk around TPF with whoever else we're there with. and we'll play multiplayer games. But occasionally you wander apart and this and that and you play some single-player games. And it's just a different feel. I mean, when you're playing by yourself, okay, I played my three balls. I'm going to go try another game. It's completely different than when there's two or three, four of you playing on a machine and you're laughing and you're joking and this and that. I mean, it's got a completely different feel. Because I know like at TPF a lot of times I'll go, I've had several times where I've split off to go, you know, call the wife and see how the kids are doing this and that. When I come back, I'll play like three games on the way while I'm wandering around because the place is huge. And it takes forever to find anybody. And it's just a completely different feel. And I think it's the same reason why, even though I'm not a very good player, I like going to tournaments. It's because I like talking to my friends that I only ever see at a pinball tournament. I like having that interaction with people. But that's pretty much the only time you ever see them. But at the same time, it's the reason you actually go because I'm not that good. but I mean it's still fun right it's the reason you go it's like single player experiences now that you can have on like your Xbox or PC or whatever are just so vastly amazing that it's really even making a single player pinball game almost it's kind of hard to compete you know what I mean for your attention it's just very very difficult but social it's still vastly superior you can't get that when you're playing on your phone or whatever. Nobody cares. Yeah, or when you're playing multiplayer, I mean, most video games, you're playing multiplayer, you've got a headset on, you listen to 13-year-olds telling you about how they've had relations with your mother. And they don't know what pinball is, so it remains pure.
    50:12
    So, yeah. Well, that's my little sales pitch for multiplayers, but I think that the issue of you don't want multiplayers because there's no carryover features is vastly overstated. I only ever had one multiplayer EM, and it was a wood rail, so I didn't care much for it. The problem with the single players is no one wanted to you couldn't play them with me, and so no one really wanted to play them. And then when I got, obviously in my case they were solid states, but with multiplayer games, oh yeah, you could do I mean, we'll go, I'll have four or five people over. I call it Tony Pinball, because he's the one who started where he goes and it'd be like, oh, how many people do we have down here? Three. And he'll start three players on all the machines. And it'd be just like, we just go.
    50:58
    And then he'd catch up with somebody like, come on and drain. I got to go. I got to play. It's my turn. Why don't you accept the outlay? Why can't you just accept your fate? Sort of thing. You do it like that. And then we see who won which ones and who won. You did them all at once. So it's kind of, this is a weird thing. That's kind of cool. Yeah, it's interesting. No waiting. You're just like, oh, I got it. I'm not sure when somebody gets a really long ball on something. But it's amazingly fun. But that's less risky on the end. Yeah. Because there ain't very many that give you long balls. I could go for a while on Skylab, but other than that, all night. Yeah, Skylab does last a while. That one's got a long ball time. Yeah. But, you know, I mean, that's just an amazingly fun thing. It's just, I mean, because you're literally jumping through, you know, five or six different games where you're playing, and it's not, oh, we're going to play these six. It's literally, it's like, I just played Jurassic Park. Now I'm playing Star Trek. Now I'm playing Superman. man, now I'm playing Firepower. Now I'm playing Shark. The thrill of it is because of the challenge, because you're changing games immediately to games that play completely differently. What was your pick? Do you want to give me just your best one, or do you want to do what Tony and I did? If you've heard the last episode, we gave our top fives. Oh, I've got that already down. I mean, as far as the AMs, yeah, I got them. I mean, I got them all the way down to, let's see here. Oh, wow.
    52:15
    Folks can't, because this is an audio medium, and they cannot see the complexity of the spreadsheet, but it has got, it almost looks like a heat map thing going on here. Oh, yeah, yeah. This is my, so yeah, this is all the games I've like, yeah. So, okay. So if you want to really learn the EM map, I mean, I've only been in this now for four years. I'll have people come up to me, you know, they're like, I have this game. It's my grandmother's attic. And we were trying to, it's a pinball machine. It's got a picture of this woman in a blue hat. It's Mayfair or whatever, you know, like, oh, yeah, that is it. Yeah, yeah. I got the map figured out. So if you want to really know, it takes time to learn what EMs you really like. I mean, that sounds obvious, but you have to look at geometry and kind of think about what kind of a player you are if you really want to get your collection really tuned to you, and everybody's different. But because these EMs aren't your arcade, and there's no arcades even anymore either, you know, then how are you going to play these things? So you have to go to the internet pinball database, ipdb.org, and create yourself a spreadsheet with just five columns. And the first column should be, love it, own it, want to buy it, got to have it. Second column is, I like it. If I see one, maybe I'll buy it. Okay, but I'll definitely favor. Third column is, play it. I don't need to own it, but I like to play it if I see it. Fourth column, like the artwork, something really cool visually about it, but I don't really even want to play it. I just appreciate it for kind of what it is aesthetically. And the fifth column is I don't even want to look at it. You know, like it's just your terrible trash column or it's your column of I need to try it to figure it out. So those are your five columns and then every row you have a year. So just spend the day, go to the IPDB and just say, I'm going to look at everything that came out in 1967. Today I'll go over to 67. You just go through all the games and kind of click on them and kind of like, you can go to YouTube and sometimes they have videos and fill in your little grid as you go. And then if you do the whole map, like I did this the first year and then a year and a half later I did it again just to kind of check if my ratings held. You go to these pinball shows, you play them, you cross them off your list. So I got the map. so my list of favorites is a highly curated list heavily filtered EMs so it may be subject to change but it's really hardly changing at all now so this is just for me personally and this show I hope this show wasn't too like here's what Nick likes he doesn't like Gottlieb so who cares I don't want it to be you eat around the bush so much until you got tired that they have to wait until the second half before they really hear the hate on God. It wasn't until we got to the ratings that he started with specific games being named. Right, like Sweetheart. The haples were raised. The fangs were bared. Krinsky cowered in his grave. Krinsky, that guy was just a design maniac. And apparently that was so pervasive that even all the way up until Premiere that they think that was just normal. He doesn't have a design cycle that tight. It did involve that the guy might have been a little bit crazy there. He didn't wake up, drink three or four cups of black coffee, design half of a play field at breakfast, design the other half of the play field, start a new game. I mean... Yeah, no one equals Kerensky and ever will in terms of his prolific output. Just unbelievable. He made some horrible games, and yet he made some terrific games. So he's all over the map. You make that many, you just... You're bound to have something that falls short or hits it out of the park. Yeah, no, that's just amazing. So do you have any Gottliebs in your top five?
    56:14
    Yes. Okay, yes. Then you're not a hater. No, I'm not a hater. I don't hate Gottliebs at all. You've just proven it. You don't need to explain. Okay, okay. I've proved it. Let's prove it. Just overweighted is all. But that's okay.
    56:25
    Irrelevant. You've proven unbiased. This is how the internet works. So that's all the proof you need. So this is what I have, and this is from my collection. There are some that I'm looking for. So, absolute favorite game, Freedom Prototype. Easy, easy. I actually know that was your favorite. I mean, best EM by far for me. And then Old Chicago.
    56:49
    Then 2001. Great flow, great drop targets. Then Skyrocket. Not only does it look great, it plays great.
    56:57
    Then I've played around with the listings a little bit. I think maybe I'm kind of experimenting if Sinbad is going to hold up at the fifth position. Oh, I have only played the Solid State iteration of it. I actually like the layout of Sinbad. Some people, they made a lot of them. I don't know. Some people aren't fans of it. I don't think, see, one of our members of the Dallas Makerspace, his name's Chuck, and he has rebuilt, using the meticulous method that I kind of teach over there, he's completely rebuilt his Sinbad and it just plays amazingly well and he's also replaced that crappy plastic spinner with a metal spinner so it'll thwack and it really has the speed and it just is a lot of fun it's a really good layout and I have a solid state Sinbad too, I think the transition period, System 1 they made some EMs in that period I like the solid states better, I like Sinbad, Solid State over the EM. I like the Joke of Over Solid State over the EM because the drops don't reset on either one of them and well, then what are you going to do? Nothing to shoot at. Except for Cleopatra, I'll take the EM there because it's the exact same game either way. But yeah, Sinbad, I'm playing with that at number five. We'll see.
    58:14
    Next is a game called Expo. Norm Clark game. And what's fascinating about Expo is I just completely threw it away when I looked at it at IPDB because it looks like this big empty field of red and these huge out lanes and there's just like five pops and like what are you shooting at this just looks worthless but what's so neat about it is that the five lanes that you go through at the top are like these power-ups so each lane gives you a different power-up like one of them will make a stop you know like a post raises up between the oh okay yeah the thick post you know it blocks the ball so one of them is that one of them raises a mini post on the left out lane one of them opens a gate that redirects the ball back into play one of them post saves on this yeah one of them opens a gate back to the shooter lane so if you get all your power-ups then um you can focus on uh you have to light up these uh one through 12 and it's not for specials it's actually for points you see that's what's cool about it you light up one through 12 and And then the spinner spins on the back box and you get 500 points if it hits that magic number versus one that's unlit. So anyway, the point is, as playing it, you turn the tables on the game itself. And that's a Norm Clark, again, one of his crazy ideas, but he's managed to, as you play the game it somehow makes it easier the more you play So anyway just a really cool game and a multiplayer So there you go Out of Sight is next That would be number six
    59:46
    Or no, that's seven. Five, six, seven. Then Rancho, Williams Rancho. Okay. Yeah. You played that one? Seen that one? Okay.
    59:53
    Then Aztec. Then, yeah. I'm going to, but I'm going to modify it because it's a little too easy to abuse the spinner. So I'm going to modify it so that you have to go into the little grotto after you get your first go-through on the lane, light the spinner. But after the spinner, after you use it, you have to go through the grotto to light it. It forces you to play a little more. So I'm going to work on that a little bit.
    60:19
    In Spanish eyes. The first three-inch middle pop game by Norm Clark. And again, that was his castle layout, as I call it. It's a beautiful, fantastic movement. Great game. There's been one for sale in the area here for quite a while. I haven't liked the price on it. Oh, what's he asking? I think he's now down to 975. Oh, unless it's perfect, you know, then, you know. It's Craigslist at anchor. Yeah. I mean, if it's been rebuilt. He started it at, I think, 1200. I was like, I'm sorry. They made a lot of them. They did make a lot of them. It's not a rare game. And some people really hate the artwork, but. It's Cubist. Yeah. I mean, I guess it depends on your view on, is it Picasso? I see the Cubist. Yeah, yeah. Well, you see how expertly trained I am in art. Yeah. I read one book once and I forgot it. It just makes me happy. It just makes me feel like I'm in the 70s at some old grocery store with crazy colors. I don't know. It's just something about it I like. I would like a modern game to reincorporate the middle pop. I'd like to see. Yes. Well, there's Miss Universe or Miss Adventure. It's the guy that did the sort of steampunk royale game. I've heard of Miss Adventure. I've heard the name. I'm not familiar with the name. Yeah. it's a middle pop game that also has an upper play field and he has created, he's recreated Norm Clark's kind of that lower layout. And he didn't have that one at the Northwest pinball arcade show, but, um, he had some of his other games there, but that designer, I forget his name. Pardon me. I did meet you at the show, but you're, it's yeah. Yeah. Okay. That is modern. Let's see. Uh, Grand Prix. Oh, I really liked, I really liked this year. Everybody likes Grand Prix. Yeah. And I do too. But when you put it up against some of these others, there's really only yeah, I mean there's really there's not a lot to do on it. It is satisfying to shoot and I think it's fun in multiplayer content. Yeah, very, very fun. Very fast. Very cool. And the one we played was that really nice one. Oh yeah, of course. Nick probably told him, clear this. Yeah, it was beautiful. Oh, it won. It won best 70s. Yeah, but then he did that was the HSA playfield restoration and they did the match style because you notice the playfield wasn't glossy at that kind of knockdown level. I actually prefer the glossy look because I think it gives your light bulbs kind of more specular highlights and it just looks more dazzling. You know what I mean? But some people, if you want the original kind of, that's an option is the little matte look. But it's a beautiful game. Absolutely. Deserved to have been.
    62:54
    Then Bow and Arrow. And that's really, I think it's QMAC's first game, isn't it? Yeah, it is. and that's the start of the big valley back glasses you can see bow and arrow is the game where they're really starting to gear up for the big fight that kept on going then Cleopatra old Cleo, I got the EM Cleo played that a few times that was one of the tournaments I seem to recall they did have it in the bank in 2016 I think you're right Yeah, at least it didn't broke. Oh yeah, it was Brian's. It was his EM.
    63:36
    And then Sheba, which is the two-player version of Campus Queen, which is a game that Tony would like to have at Campus Queen.
    63:45
    Dennis, for Christmas, after I did the thing, he got me a little magnet made to look like the bad Campus Queen black glass on my refrigerator.
    63:56
    Yeah, no, because I've told the story a bunch of times, but that's the game where I hated it and I hated it and I hated it. And by the end of the weekend of TPF, it's like, I kind of want to own this game. Yeah.
    64:08
    That game is on my grail list. That's my one. The game that I would really like to have. Now, if you like that one, and this one's on my want list as well, you need to look for one called Big Day. It's kind of a Mardi Gras theme. It's a valley. It's a similar era. And it's a similar hit the mushroom bumpers to open gates, but it has a little bit of a different flow to it, but it's similar to that Campus Queen kind of design. That's Big Day. That one's not very common, but... Okay, so we're almost done. Then Flipper Fair. I just like the... Or Subway, if you will. I like that layout for just being an add-a-ball kind of old-fashioned and yet still nail-biting kind of fun. And then Snow Derby, the one that I... Yes. The GPF is very well. So all those are very strong, I think, games. Kind of battle-tested in terms of their fun. And then the ones I'm looking for, if you have any out there. I'll just name real quick. You're doing a little. There's other podcasts that do this. We do not, as a guest. All right. No, you made it for me. Okay. Well, these are also good games. So anyone could look for these. But this is a one-player I'm making an exception for. It's a Zachariah Aerobatics. Okay. Yep. who played Aerobatics. I've played it virtually. It's really great gameplay. I think the strongest of the Zachariah EMs, I think. Really, really great.
    65:35
    And then, of course, I have a Queen's Castle, Zachariah, which I have not... I can't rate it because I haven't played it yet. Of course, big day, looking for that. I'd like to get an EM versus Hot Tip. It's got that Rancho Aztec, kind of that late layout that they had.
    65:50
    Joker Poker, Solid State, I'd like to get that. Pioneer, Good old Pioneer, I think it's great for a two-player, or four-player, Spirit 76. There's one that Bally made called Seesaw. It's this funny theme of this, I guess it's like women can't drive, is kind of the theme of this game. And it's this lady who's looking backwards at this car that's gone through a restaurant, people running out of the way, and help, you know. But it's just a Bally game. um let's see that valley and the offensive theme yeah that could be an episode we do at some point don't do that yeah it's really it's got a funny theme let's see um solids and stripes there's a norm clark game and i don't know if you guys have seen this one but the no lower half of the play field is just this empty pool table with these six kick out holes absolutely abysmal one player game and fantastic two player game because there's no point in playing by yourself it's like uh i don't know if You played Surfside? Gottlieb Surfside?
    66:55
    I don't. If I did, I don't remember. I think that's probably the best multiplayer Gottlieb ever made.
    67:02
    But you have to play it with somebody else because you can steal the bonus from the other person and it's got this competitive thing.
    67:08
    But anyway, good game. Let's see. Finally, Space Odyssey and Wizard. Those are the last two I really look forward to. Yeah. A lot of these are pretty well known. Yeah. But not many Gottliebs. I'd say looks like about six maybe Gottlieb's. They're pretty well distributed. Yeah, that's not a bad sample from your… Yeah, it's about even for each manufacturer, six, six, seven. Very eclectic of you. Yes, I like to mix it up. And then, of course, one issue of contention, let's talk about preserving EMs real quick. To EM or to LED or not to LED, that is the question. and some people just hate it. So you shouldn't ever, never, ever, that it always looks wrong. That's right. I published an article on Pinside years ago about doing this thing called Stealth LED, and it's a recipe that involves mostly these Comet warm white frosted LEDs that you put in the right place. You don't put them everywhere. you just put them under the inserts and in the back glass mostly. And you don't put them under plastics or anywhere your eye can directly see a filament. What that does is, because you see bulbs, you leave the bulbs where your eyes see the filaments, and the LEDs fill in the inserts and the back glass. So it's kind of this best of both. It's like, well, it looks brighter, I can see more of the artwork, but then again it looks... Is there really a reason for this? Yeah, that's the point. is that you don't want to see the LEDs. You want to see the game. I mean, I could be completely wrong on this, but it seems to me that a lot of the older back glasses, they get a lot of heat damage from the lighting in the thing, and I would think that the lower temps that the LEDs are putting on are going to preserve your back glasses better, I would assume. Yeah, I would think so. I mean, it just seems to make sense because it looks like almost everyone I've seen, most of the chipping and some of the worst stuff is always right where the light bulbs are, and that paint's always being heated, and then cool this little one of the machines off and heat it and then cool it. Because incandescents get hot. I mean, they can get real hot. So it just makes sense. I guess the other thing that would come to my mind on a restoration would be your propensity for clear-coating. Yes, that's a must. Abomination. No, no. EM, a clear-coated EM is a luxurious, dazzling, wonderful, beautiful, fantastically playing game that transforms it.
    69:40
    Like, I mean, to me, no one really, very few people have played a brand new EM who can remember. But when they came off the factory floor, they were like flat and fast and bossy. And I don't wax my clear-coated play fields. I just use Novus II to clean them occasionally, but you don't really need to wax them. When I first got my first EM and the balls were sticking in the inserts because they were cupped too much, you know, I was like, well, I really hate that. So I tried, you know, I popped them out and sanded them flat and re-decaled them and, you know, spot cleared them. And then it was like, yeah, that's cool. But then the edges still aren't quite perfect, you know, and it's just. And so why don't I just have it airbrushed and just clear the whole thing to see how that turns out. It was really more of an experiment. I don't see I think people may be reluctant to do it because they got one off Craigslist for 300 bucks and it looks you know it works and it plays it's like why should I spend $600 and you know a whole weekend to strip it and do it if it's only going to be worth it and I'm like oh that's not the point it's that if you take an EM all the way to fully restored beautiful or even better than new restoration clear coats and if it was a beat-up game. I mean, Snow Derby was in pretty bad shape when I got it, and it won because of all the work we did. It was repainted, it was cleared, it was stealthed, it was da-da-da-da-da. And so you can turn it into this almost like a modern game. And I know all of them, you don't have to do that to all of them.
    71:21
    We need museums. We need pristine originals. If games are in really good original shape, you don't really need to do that. I like taking the ugly ducklings and turning them into these superstars. maybe they've been Hollywoodized maybe a little bit of plastic surgery I'm doing on them a little nip here a little tuck there yeah you know but gosh they really just they play great and they look great and I'm really kind of addicted to that look so yeah you know I like them and I can see especially if it's a if you're just a collector or somebody who only has a couple pens but you've got one you really love. Even if it's just one, I can see doing it. And it's like, I really, really love this game. I'm going to go all out on this game. I'm going to fix this game. I want it to be special because this is my one true most important game. This is the one that's going to live in my collection no matter what. So even as just a small time collector or somebody with just a few pens, I can see doing it on something really special like that. And what Dennis, what you were talking about, people who play modern games, they're used to seeing a little dazzle, a little glitz. So I do want my games to be relevant to modern players, and a sparkling, tuned-up, dialed-in kind of EM does get played more. It just does. So you're saying they shouldn't have done the matte finish on that Grand Prix? Oh no! They shouldn't have won after all. Huge, huge mistake. Huge. I am not saying that. I put lots of games on that Grand Prix, and that was just fantastic. He had the door chromed. You noticed that? Oh, it was so nice. He had the perfect back glass. He did some things to that, too. It was a little... Yeah. You let him know. He wants to sell it. I got $500.
    73:16
    Actually, a fully restored EM, if it's had the whole works treatment, is usually, well, if it comes out of my stable, it's minimum $3,500. and that's not even a like I'm making money thing that's a if I have time to do it because you're a friend kind of thing and because it takes so much time yeah I mean it really winds up being not worth my time to do as beautiful as they are and I'd love to do it I'd love to have a crew and just crank them out but there's a if it were a business they'd have to be like six probably five thousand six thousand half price ranges Yeah, right, exactly. And that's his business. But that's not my business.
    74:02
    I just want to have a little barcade and a little place where I can show and share my games and just do tournaments and have people enjoy them. That's really my goal. And teach the skills. I want people to know how to preserve these things. So anyway, I don't really have anything else except that I am going to make a kind of announcement about my plans. I do have a plan in place. Always good to have a plan. Yes, this traveling kind of teaching and fixing thing that I do is going to get dialed down because there's something I'm going to be doing soon. It'll be after TPF and I'll have a little announcement. I think it'll be interesting. That's all I can say. Well, a tease, but we'll... Yeah. We'll accept it. It's only a few more months to go. That's right. It'll be here before you know it. So quick. I'm really fast. Well, do you guys have a, not necessarily top five, but what EMs in your mind, I know you haven't played everything, but that really pop out? Oh, okay. Well, I mean, we've touched on several of them already. Freedom Prototype was a, was a major standout for me. I haven't had a chance to try Spanish Eyes, but because of scoreboard, I have a fondness for what middle pops I have. played, even when they're not the best players overall. I think that element's really good. So I've always been attracted to that.
    75:32
    I liked the Grand Prix as well that we had mentioned beforehand. Mayfair, actually. I love Mayfair. Yeah, it's good. I like that one. I like the thing where you've got the rotating target, and then you've got the kickouts to attack it. That was actually one of the top ones on my list I was thinking of was Mayfair. Yeah, that was good. I've played a lot of Mayfair up at Penapalooza. And I like 4 Million BC, or is it 40 Million BC? Yeah, 4 Million BC. I forget the number. How much does he like it? You can't remember the name. 4 Million BC, I really like it. I like the skill shot that they've got going for it. I think the way the multiball works is relatively clever. Even though it's a short flipper game, I think overall it feels like I'm being productive on it. So those would be the ones that I would name. Okay. Tony? Of course, most of those would be on my list also.
    76:31
    In addition to that, I know with me, part of it, a lot of it's the aesthetic. I know Dennis is less aesthetic-oriented than I am. I like Knight Rider.
    76:44
    Knight Rider's fun. I like the aesthetic. I like the semi-truck thing going on. I don't know. I just like Knight Rider. It's fun. It's got an aesthetic I like. trying to remember the name of it. Fireball. No, no. Surf's Up? Oh, no. Surf Champ. We actually had that on location for a while. I should have named Surf Champ as well. Yeah, Surf Champ, man. I like Surf Champ. Except Baby Nick. I'm, I'm, I'm, who cares what I think? More Gottlieb hate. Yeah, it's, the problem is the spinner doesn't go anywhere. It goes right into the pop bumper. So it's like, okay.
    77:30
    And this rollovers, and the rollovery thing is... Okay, well, regarding the spinner, I want to give you a piece of advice. This is going to be very new to you. Not every game is going to give you a spinner to rip. You can just rip at will. But it just... A wise man... You can rip it, it just doesn't go anywhere after that. It just sort of thumps. It punishes you. There's a punishment. It's like, here's this juicy spinner. Now suffer.
    78:01
    Well, then why, instead of surf champ, there should be, like, the guy in the back class is eaten by a shark. That's the sad... I'm surprised there's not a... It's called surf chump.
    78:12
    I'm surprised there's not just a chump themed pinball machine. There's just bloody water and arms and shark fins and stuff. feed right into all those people who went jaw so bad. Jellyfish attack.
    78:25
    That's the knockoff. It's the same layout, but a different art. Yeah, Chicago coined jellyfish. They did the Chicago thing.
    78:33
    Shoot for the urine. Yeah, I picked this thing away. For those that don't know, it's relevant. That's relevant. It is. Get a pee on my foot, man. Get a pee on my foot.
    78:47
    But not with Man O' War. see that would be the most quaint Chicago coin titles like warm swimming pool everybody looking at each other suspiciously you know anyway we've reached our limit easily here so I'm going to go ahead and cut us off at this point reminder you can reach out to the podcast facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast or email to us eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com we're available at Eclectic underscore Gamers on both Twitter and Instagram. And thank you very much, Nick, for coming on the show. It was my pleasure. Always a pleasure hanging out with you guys. And until just under two weeks, we will be back at that time. And so, goodbye. Have fun.