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DPP #106 "TCM vs LT: Which one is better?"

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·36m 8s·analyzed·Mar 2, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Don declares TCM the superior game, praising both machines' value, build quality, and gameplay depth.

Summary

Don reviews Spooky Pinball's newly released TCM (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and Looney Tunes machines after four days of gameplay. He reports excellent build quality with minimal issues, praises the value proposition at ~$9,700 for collector's editions (comparable to Stern Premium pricing), discusses the butter cabinet upgrade ($1,500), and ultimately declares TCM his favorite due to superior emotional range and game flow, though he affirms both are excellent games that justify their price point.

Key Claims

  • TCM and Looney Tunes collector's editions are priced at approximately $9,699 MSRP, comparable to Stern Premium pricing

    high confidence · Direct pricing statement: '96.99' mentioned multiple times as the CE price point for both games

  • Spooky changed the launch mechanism on recent games (since Halloween) from a shooter rod to a direct-fire coil plunger system with variable power

    high confidence · Don explains: 'they have eschewed the shooter rod for the launch button for the last three titles now everything since Halloween Ultraman has been launch button... It's hit directly from the rod right out of the coil.'

  • Butter cabinet upgrade price has increased from ~$1,000 (Rick and Morty era) to $1,500 due to third-party automotive clear-coat finishing bottlenecks

    high confidence · Don states: 'the butter upgrade price, because of the clear coating required... the price has now climbed to $1,500. from where it started, which was around $1,000, I think, in the Rick and Morty days'

  • Looney Tunes code is approximately three steps behind TCM in development maturity

    high confidence · Don: 'TCM is definitely three steps down the lane past where Looney Tunes is as far as code'

  • Both games include factory-installed features typically purchased separately for Stern machines (shaker, knocker, powder-coated ramps, lollipop rails, art blades, custom speaker grills, laser-cut hinges, toppers)

    high confidence · Don details comprehensive list of included CE features vs. Stern Premium requiring aftermarket additions

  • Only approximately 10 TCM and Looney Tunes machines are currently in consumer homes (as of recording date)

    high confidence · Don: 'There's only probably only 10 of these out in existence right now for normal people's homes'

  • A quarter-inch screw came loose from a plastic on TCM; replaced with a larger 3A screw with no subsequent issues

    high confidence · Don describes isolated hardware issue: 'a screw that came out of a plastic... there was a quarter-inch screw that was in there which was just barely biting'

Notable Quotes

  • “TCM has that. But it also has horror. It also has fear. It also has trepidation. It also has, like, excitements. It has anxiety-inducing segments... You're feeling all the cycle of emotions as you're playing this game.”

    Don @ ~42:15 — Core reasoning for declaring TCM superior; emphasizes emotional depth and thematic engagement as differentiator

  • “For $96.99, for the price that Scooby-Doo was, essentially, for the same price as Stern Premium, they've been putting more and more into their games... everything is there.”

    Don @ ~28:45 — Value proposition thesis; establishes competitive positioning against Stern Premium tier

  • “The assignment was go make the flowiest game you can imagine, and that is what they've done.”

    Don @ ~33:15 — Assessment of design intent and execution; indicates deliberate focus on gameplay flow

  • “I managed to hit it eight times in a row. Fantabulous. So incredible value, great fun layout, engaging themes.”

    Don @ ~33:30 — Direct gameplay testimony supporting flow design success

  • “They're making them right now. And I think I'm going to get more of that solidified from other folks after TCM, after TPF, when we get more people to go and actually play these games hands-on.”

    Don @ ~35:40 — Anticipation of broader community validation through hands-on exposure at Texas Pinball Festival

  • “This launches with a revving chainsaw. Come on now. Which of these games is my favorite? We're going to get to it.”

    Don @ ~13:20 — Reaction to TCM's skill shot design (variable-power chainsaw launch); builds intrigue for comparative assessment

  • “If this is a game that you're not so sure on, you're probably going to have it for a few months and sell it off and get yourself an Attack from Mars or something. It's probably not worth it.”

    Don @ ~20:30 — Practical guidance on butter upgrade ROI and resale value expectations

Entities

DonpersonSpooky PinballcompanySpooky LukepersonTexas Chainsaw Massacre (TCM)gameLooney TunesgameScooby-DoogameRick and MortygameStern Premiumproduct

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Spooky maintaining proactive support contact with early adopters; multiple check-ins from manufacturer team on machine condition

    medium · Don: 'I've had the boys reach out a couple of times, like, everything holding up okay? You need anything?'

  • ?

    community_signal: Two friends committed to ordering Looney Tunes after hands-on play; in-person demonstration significantly outpaces streaming video effectiveness for consumer decision-making

    high · Don: 'two of my friends, after playing Looney Tunes, are set to order them... Watching these streams, it's hard to get a sense on what the game is like'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Spooky deliberately pursuing 'flowiest game' design philosophy with four-flipper layout enabling upper-playfield loops and satisfying shot sequences

    high · Don: 'The assignment was go make the flowiest game you can imagine, and that is what they've done... when they hit the upper orbit shot off the upper right flipper, and it loops around... you can repeat it'

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival (TPF) will feature butter Looney Tunes for public hands-on demonstration in coming weeks

    high · Don: 'there's going to be a butter version of Looney Tunes at TCM, a TPF in a couple of weeks, so you can go see one in person'

  • $

    market_signal: Spooky's collector's edition pricing ($9,699) now directly competitive with Stern Premium tier without price premium, despite significantly enhanced feature inclusion

    high · Don positions Spooky CE as 'right about there basically right on par with what a stern premium would put you back'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.108

0:00
How about some end of week content for you? Don's Pinball Podcast is here for number 106. This is the Looney Tunes TCM review episode, or at least first impressions for the better of the week that I've had these games. Which ones are better? I'm getting all kinds of questions. Which one do you like best? Any issues? Here it comes.
0:30
I mean, it's been about four days. I've been playing the heck out of some Looney Tunes, let me tell you. But TCM, that theme is so rich, like a thick pudding that's been overboiled. So which one's better? Well, I have an answer. I've been pushing off that question. People have been asking me, Don, what do you like better? Do you like TCM? Do you like Looney Tunes? You got them both. And my answer so far has been yes, right? I've been taking solace in the fact that I don't have to decide because I have them both. So, you know, don't ask me. You make that decision up to yourself. and then I've been thinking and going back and forth playing one, playing the other, going back to the other one again what a palate cleanser that is I think I have started to kind of formulate a favorite in the bunch and I'm going to get to it because that's what everybody wants to know which one of these games is better and I'm going to tell you my take on that but I thought it would be fun to just kind of coalesce all the questions I've been getting bombarded with for everybody through email, to Facebook, to the messengers and everything else and just kind of get at where I'm at with everything So first off, how were these games holding up? Fantastic. I have had minimal issues with either game. You saw when we unboxed them. We plugged them in live. They fired right up. They're working a lot better than my audio system is and a lot better than my box juggling skills, if you happen to watch that live stream. So I haven't had, thankfully, knock on all the wood in the room, any issues with these games. No game-breaking issues or anything. The code is still early, so occasionally some balls will go into a VUK and then they'll just kind of sit there. and either wait for a ball search or have to turn off Turn Back On. It's only happened, I think, once for each of them, maybe twice for Looney Tunes because that code's still a little early. And you can tell it's a code bug that they're working on. And from what I hear, there's already a Looney Tunes update that's in the works coming pretty quickly. So, you know, no different than, you know, early adopting any pinball machine, right? So no launch issues, you know, no play field issues, no play field wear, no mechanisms that aren't working, no servos that are down, no lights that are having a problem. In the back of my head, I'm like, am I just super jinxing myself right now? But honestly, I've had no issues. The support's been great, too. I've had the boys reach out a couple of times, like, everything holding up okay? You need anything? Are we good? And so, so far, so good. Now, there's only probably only 10 of these out in existence right now for normal people's homes, including one on location at IO. There's a TCM down there. But so far, they're holding up. So the issues I have had, one was with TCM, and it was a screw that came out of a plastic. I was playing, and then all of a sudden screws rolling down the play field. I went to go put it in, and because they include the plastic protector and the plastic, I think there was a quarter-inch screw that was in there which was just barely biting, so I went ahead and put a 3A screw in there, and there's been no issue. So there was a screw that came loose. Literally the only problem I've had so far. No problems with the launch mechanisms or anything. And to that, I was going through this game with Spooky Luke when he was over, and they showed me that they've actually changed the mechanism entirely for the shooting mechanistic deal. The one that they had with Scooby-Doo with the two-prong method, and it was made out of two parts that were bolted together. And if one of them happened to get a little bit out of alignment, it would send your ball up, rattling up the lane, and then it wouldn't make that 180 loop. so that happened on mine after about 20 plays I took some pliers realigned them and then I haven't had an issue with Scooby-Doo since then there's been some kind of aftermarket ninja something or other to attach to there to help keep them in alignment I haven't had a problem since I just did a little bend but now the launch mechanism is completely different now they have eschewed the shooter rod for the launch button for the last three titles now everything since Halloween Ultraman has been launch button. In this case, there's a coil and a plunger that launches the ball. So it's not even a tertiary mechanism that has to fire from a coil and then hit your ball. It's hit directly from the rod right out of the coil. It's variable power, which in the case of TCM, is utilized for the skill shot, to hit which one of the targets you want to do there by revving the chainsaw, which is one of the most satisfying ways to start a pinball machine. Thank you so very much. As opposed to some other games that are out there with launch buttons where you hit the button and it just kind of dribbles into the play field. This launches with a revving chainsaw. Come on now. Which of these games is my favorite? We're going to get to it. I do want to make a little note to myself. I'm going to talk about value, too, in a second at the end of this. What else did I have here for it? Those are really, so far, the only issues that I've had. You know, playing about 25, 30 games on each one. Seven of us have come by to play these games now. And of the seven people that have played these games, two of my friends, after playing Looney Tunes, are set to order them. So people, I'm telling you, man, you shouldn't necessarily buy a game sight unseen unless you're a crazy person like me. I've been known to do that. But once people play these games, watching the streams is one thing. And I even heard this from my buddy Russ that came by. Watching these streams, it's hard to get a sense on what the game is like. but having it down in front of you, seeing the colors in person, seeing the thickness of the clear coat on the play field, the way the inserts look, everything from the fonts to the colors to whatever, like it's impressive in person, and I can concur. Now, I had the luxury of going down to the factory within 48 hours of the announcement, so I didn't spend a lot of time, you know, combing through, you know, Pinside and Kineticist and NAP Arcade looking at the photos before I had already seen them in person. So, like, obviously I was sold day one. I put down deposits for both of them, you know, when I came by.

  • TCM and Looney Tunes have longer ball times than some competing machines (Black Knight Sword of Rage, TNA) due to four-flipper layout and upper playfield design

    high confidence · Don: 'This game plays longer than Black Knight Sword of Rage does. It plays longer than TNA does.'

  • Spooky has committed to maintaining the $9,699 MSRP for TCM and Looney Tunes collector's editions and cannot raise pricing

    medium confidence · Don: 'they're committed to that price now. they can't raise it now'

  • Looney Tunes code update is already in development and coming 'pretty quickly'

    medium confidence · Don: 'from what I hear, there's already a Looney Tunes update that's in the works coming pretty quickly'

    • “I haven't had any issues with these games. No game-breaking issues or anything. The code is still early, so occasionally some balls will go into a VUK and then they'll just kind of sit there.”

    Don @ ~8:00 — Overall reliability assessment with known early-code caveats; sets expectation for early-adopter experience

    Jeff and Mad Pinball
    company
    Russperson
    Texas Pinball Festival (TPF)event
    Black Knight Sword of Ragegame
    TNA (Impact Wrestling)game
    Labyrinthgame
    Attack from Marsgame
    Godzillagame
    Avengers Infinity Questgame
    Jawsgame
    Ultramangame
    Halloweengame
  • $

    market_signal: Butter cabinet upgrade bottleneck due to third-party automotive clear-coat finishing vendor causing production delays and price escalation ($1,000 → $1,500)

    high · Don: 'because of the bottleneck with the third-party finisher, it can take longer to get your game... they're building them as fast as they can get them'

  • ?

    announcement: Spooky Pinball TCM and Looney Tunes officially released; early units in consumer homes with positive reception

    high · Don has both machines for review; approximately 10 units distributed to consumers; factory visit occurred within 48 hours of announcement

  • ?

    product_strategy: Spooky CE tier now includes factory-installed features (shaker, knocker, powder-coated hardware, custom speaker grills, toppers, art blades) traditionally requiring aftermarket purchases on Stern machines

    high · Detailed feature-by-feature comparison showing comprehensive inclusion of premium cosmetics in $9,699 CE baseline

  • ?

    product_strategy: Looney Tunes code update already in development and expected 'pretty quickly' following release

    medium · Don: 'from what I hear, there's already a Looney Tunes update that's in the works coming pretty quickly'

  • ?

    product_concern: Only minor hardware issue (loose screw on TCM) among ~25-30 games played; early code bugs (ball-in-VUK stalls) expected and being addressed

    high · Don: 'occasionally some balls will go into a VUK and then they'll just kind of sit there... It's only happened, I think, once for each of them, maybe twice for Looney Tunes'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Don's confidence in Jaws Premium recommendation has reversed from enthusiastic endorsement to cautious skepticism

    medium · Don: 'Two years ago it would have been like oh, yeah, you should go get Jaws Premium right now. Well, don't even think about it. Now it's like, think about it, dude.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Spooky transitioned from two-part shooter rod launcher (prone to misalignment on Scooby-Doo) to direct-fire coil plunger with variable power starting with Halloween/Ultraman

    high · Don: 'they have eschewed the shooter rod... everything since Halloween Ultraman has been launch button... It's hit directly from the rod right out of the coil. It's variable power'

    • 6:36
    So, you know, I'm happy to get that. Should you get a butter cabinet or no butter cabinet? So I begin to ask this a lot. Don, do you think it's worth it? Don, I'm thinking of getting a Looney Tunes. I have to have a TCM. I'm thinking about butter. What should I do? So, you know, it's such a personalized decision. Right now, the butter upgrade price, because of the clear coating required that has to be done, like automotive-style clear coat on every panel exterior to the cabinet, the price has now climbed to $1,500. from where it started, which was around $1,000, I think, in the Rick and Morty days or so. And so that is due because there's a third party that actually does the clear coating. Spooky doesn't do that part in-house. They do the direct printing, but the automotive clear coating is done by a finishing company. And, you know, they're just getting hounded and bombarded, so the price is what the price is. Now, should you get that? Does it look better in person? Of course it does. Does it feel better? Yes, it does. Is it necessary? Of course it's not. This is a glamour project. This is a vanity project. And if you want your machine to look as good as it possibly can and the butter finish is fantastic, then that's probably worth it to you. Now, if you're scrimping and saving your pennies just to come up to the purchase price and the shipping and the taxes just to get there, then asking for another $1,500 on top of that is probably a bit overkill. But if this is the only machine you get this year, if this is a theme that really speaks to you, if this is going to be in a prominent area in your game room, in your family room, in your dining room, in your grandmother's bedroom, then it's probably worth it for you. So I would take a look at what you're expecting to get out of it. If this is a game that you're not so sure on, you're probably going to have it for a few months and sell it off and get yourself an Attack from Mars or something. It's probably not worth it. I don't know that the Butter Cabinet upgrade necessarily gives you that resale value. You know, if there's 10 Scooby-Doos that are out there on the secondary market and one of them is butter, it's not like that one will get you an extra $1,500 at the time you sell. But for all the Scooby-Doos that are listed out there, you know, if yours is $500 more than everything else but it's butter, that's going to be the one that the buyer wants to get. So it would help you resale insofar as it would get people to look past the other ones and towards yours because it is such a desirable upgrade. but it not like investment quality So if this is going to be a game for you for the medium to long term you got the space you got the budget you want to F around and find out absolutely go for it Now, the only downside to that is because of the bottleneck with the third-party finisher, it can take longer to get your game if you order butter because there's a limit on how fast they can produce it. Now, Spooky's brought everything almost in-house, and this is the one thing that's still done by a third party. so they're building them as fast as they can get them, but there is that little bottleneck. So just keep that in mind. If you're kind of early on in ordering, you can go ahead and put that upgrade. You're still at the front of the pack, but if you're already six months down the road, it might be another few months by the time they get out there. I will say every time you look at your machine, you're going to be happy it's there. It's going to be happy it's there. Now, saying that, Don, do you have butter on these two? No, I do not. I have it on Scooby-Doo. I don't have it on these two. I was probably going to get whatever their next game was just because of the pedigree and how they've been improving, and probably I was going to get a better upgrade on it. And then at their announcement, now it's all of a sudden two games. So instead of looking at a $1,500 upgrade, I'm looking at a $9,600 upgrade just to add another machine, and then it would be $3,000 on top of that for both of them. So I had to take a step back there. I was trying to budget engineer myself into how I'm going to afford these two games to begin with. so that's kind of why I didn't go for that I will say I've talked to a friend who's already planning on getting Butter TCM fantastic way to go man the art on it is great right out of the movie all the characters are represented they're just going to sparkle they're going to sparkle sir Looney Tunes also not bad a little bit more oranges mostly the characters you can tell it wasn't like you know reimagined basically because you have to use the licensed characters but you know it's still going to look fantastic if you do get it. So if you get one, it's going to look great. It looks like there's going to be a butter version of Looney Tunes at TCM, a TPF in a couple of weeks, so you can go see one in person if you want to check it out, but that's kind of where I come down on that. So in a sense, it's going to be a personal decision. You don't have to decide until they're ready to build your game, and so they'll reach out to you, or your distributor will reach out and say, okay, it's time for you to cough up the rest of the money. Your game is now in production. This is the time. Do you want butter? Do you not want butter? So if you get the money paid off, and then you get the email, and then you happen to have a couple of extra ducats, and you want to go for that baller upgrade. You know, we all love to fly business class when we can, so treat yourself if you want. It is a treat, and you're going to love it every time you look at it, for sure. But, you know, it is pricey. So what else? How are the games holding up? Like I said before, games are doing fine. Knock on the wood. Nothing has gone wrong with them at all yet. You know, a couple of bugs have come up. It wasn't that the whole system crashed and rebooted. It was just that it was waiting for a sensor that probably that line of code wasn't quite connected yet, and that's going to get repaired. But it's been few and far between. We've been putting games and games and games, playing multiplayer on there. Had some friends over last night. We were down in the game room until like midnight, just raging. It was great having no issues at all. What else do we got? The shooter mech is different. I talked about that. Code-wise, Don, where's the code at? Where's the code at these games? So TCM is definitely three steps down the lane past where Looney Tunes is as far as code. Now, modes are in there for both games. So, you know, I'm playing Looney Tunes and, you know, it's, you know, I put like five or six games through there before I start seeing modes really repeating themselves. The modes start Rick and Morty style. They're random, you know, so sometimes you'll get rabbit in the hair a little quicker. But I'm getting a good mix of things through there.
    12:38
    You know, there's, you know, I haven't been able to get as far as any wizard mode. but I've gotten to some multiballs with the anvil, multiballs with the rocket. There's even a rocket skate multiball. I haven't quite made it that far yet. But there's serviceable code in there. The game is there. What I think we're going to see even more of is things like more call-outs, more clips. I was really shocked going from playing really that preliminary code at the factory, at the announcement, to where the code is now. There's a lot of extra scenes when you lock a ball, when you put a ball into the spaceship there. They're playing more scenes and things. So a lot more Wile E. Coyote's in this game than what I remember seeing when I was there initially. So I love that. And it sounds like these boys really got the assets, the license to use the assets, and they love to use them. So I'm hoping that we see just even more of that. I want more cartoon clips, more call-outs. I will say I'm very impressed, especially after playing some of the other newer games that I have. that the code call-outs in Looney Tunes are superb at telling you what you need to do as far as when a multi-ball is qualified, when the anvils are ready to drop, when to hit the left ramp, shoot the right ramp, Doc, or you hit some loops and it says hitting loops increases the Roadrunner's speed. It's telling me, as I'm playing the game, audio cues of what I'm doing. And for a brand-new game where I'm still learning the layout, still learning what the under-flipper shots do and all that, it's cool to hear that. And the fact that we're still so early and there's so much more that's going to come, I'm just super excited about it. When it comes to TCM, it's even more of that. The modes feel even more fleshed out. There's more going on. There's characters to select. That game is just a wild and wacky experience. And I'll get down to my breakdown of which one of these things. Personally, if I had to put $5 down today and say this is the one that is better, I have picked one, and I'll tell you why in a second here. but let's talk about the value of these games and as we do that let me tell you where you can go to order this game and that is with jeffandmadpinball.com northern eastern ohio's acclaimed arcade superstore let's play that jingle man I want to hear the robot here it comes baby lost my ball I'm so bad flippers stuck now I'm sad play pinball with my dad Peter Pan called Matt Pippo Top of Spots and got a ball Call 1-800-MATT-PIPPO 8 more words that rhyme with all Peter Pan called Matt Pippo
    15:33
    I love the robot voice at the end of that. So thanks to Jeff and the whole team at madpimple.com for believing in me and for that continued support. Really appreciate it. Helps put all this thing together, man. This costs a lot of time, money, and effort to put together, and the feedback I'm getting from everybody is so great that I want to keep it going, and that's how I'm doing it. So give a shout-out to Matt. Email Jeff. Tell him what you had for dinner last night. It doesn't matter. Just send him a message and say hi. Heard about you from Don. Just want to connect. Put me on a list for the next Indiana Jones pinball machine or some such. Now, let's talk about value for a moment. These games, the collector's edition, which, I mean, come on, probably the edition you should get. These are the ones that are built first. If you go ahead and cheap out and get the standard edition, you're still going to get a great game, same play field and everything. But first off, you're going to have to wait until the end of the production line, and then you're just going to miss out a lot of the embellishments. So take a look. where we are at with the collector's edition from spooky pinball without those butter cabinet 96.99 or or some such right about there basically right on par with what a stern premium would put you back right not the pro but the the premium rate you know and maybe you know depending on how many games you bought before from your dealer how well you are negotiating maybe you can come up or down 100 bucks or so um but that's where we're at 96.99 now what are you getting for that there's the best direct comparison is right to a stern premium so with this game you know right off the bat you get things like plastic protectors of course all throughout underneath all the plastics some but with looney tunes there's fluorescent green plastic protectors already installed there um you get yourself powder coated everything okay not just powder coated armor not just powder coated lockdown bar speaker panel coin door all four legs um but also uh every ramp and every wire form in the game also an apron they're all they're all powder coated okay None of that plastic pro apron stuff. You don't have a black wrinkle powder coat. And the side armor does have extra embellishments on it. It's lollipop style. In the case of TCM, you get a chainsaw that runs up the length of the machine with teeth that can be kind of sharp before they're powder coated. And with Looney Tunes, you get the Bugs Bunny there cut out on the panel. You get lighted flipper buttons, like all these cool little embellishments, like things that you would add to the game are already in there. The character sculpts are in there. They doing magnet graphics now similar to the Wizard or Wismod panels that you can get aftermarket where there a pre graphic magnet panel that goes on the speaker panel that goes on the apron Those are included now They doing that now You get speaker lights installed You get custom cut speaker grills. All these tiny little things that most people, you would have to go out and add on, they come with it. You get laser cut hinges as well with the spooky logo on the side. Those are powder coated as well. You get a topper. You get a three-dimensional, four-dimensional plastic acrylic cut topper on the top too, included with the CE. So it's like everything, everything you would want is there. When I buy a Stern and mainly I get the Stern premiums, you know, I have to have a shaker, a knocker. I've got to go get my armor powder coated, get some lollipop rails ordered. Like I have this whole laundry list of things that I need to get, you know, for when the game hits the door so I can then kind of start making it over. And that's not even getting to like shooter rods and those other kinds of accessories. But spooky, you're getting, you're getting art blades already installed too from the factory. You're getting, wow, Like, there's so much. Shaker, knocker, they're already in there. Like, everything, telling you, is, like, already there. Like, the only other thing they really could add to the factory would be, like, under cabinet and back box lighting, like, for the walls or something. You know, but, like, everything is there. For $96.99, for the price that Scooby-Doo was, essentially, for the same price as Stern Premium, they've been putting more and more into their games. The game itself is loaded. Look at the play field. Four ramps, four wire forms, under flipper shots, locking pins,
    19:32
    the spiral worm gear driven mechanism of the Agmi rocket and the meat grinder. It's all in there. So it's ridiculous to me, and I don't want to put any ideas in their head, but if this game was $11,000 MSRP, I kind of would be like, all right, yeah, I kind of see it. It's a little pricey, but I can see that. But it's not. It's not. It's $96.99. And they're committed to that price now. they can't raise it now so there's only let me get 888 of each version of these man if you get a butter cabinet and then these things sell out they're never going to be made again however many butters have been made that's how many are in existence right so like as far as like machines go and the cost and the value and what you get i mean these guys are gloating this game even if the game didn't shoot well you're still getting a ton with it there's nothing you have to do with that everybody's going to have the best version of the game possible. But on top of that, the game's layout is good. I want to talk about that for a second. I've mentioned it before. First time I played it, loved it. The flow monster. These guys understood the assignment. The assignment was go make the flowiest game you can imagine, and that is what they've done. And I've seen it in the faces of everybody that's come over and played it. When they hit the upper orbit shot off the upper right flipper, and it loops around, goes through into the subway system, into the VUX, shoots around the outer orbit and comes back to that same flipper, and then you can repeat it and you get rewards for doing that. You do that a couple times on TCM, it then locks your bonus for you. I managed to hit it eight times in a row. Fantabulous. So incredible value, great fun layout, engaging themes. I mean, look at like if you've got 10 Gs to spend on a printable machine right now and you want a new in-box one, it's hard to make an argument that this is a bad way to go. They're making them right now. And I think I'm going to get more of that solidified from other folks after TCM, after TPF, when we get more people to go and actually play these games hands-on. So that's where I'm at with it. Drawbacks to the game. The only thing I could really see is, especially from higher-level players, I could hear kind of the same thing we heard about Scooby-Doo. This game has long ball times, right? Because there are four flippers, because there's not an upper play field, but there's an upper half of the play field. You can use your lower flippers to kind of kick the ball up midfield and then grab it with the other flippers and start looping around up at the top. So if you're a good player, you probably will have long ball times. You know, this game plays longer than Black Knight Sword of Rage does. It plays longer than TNA does. That's just the type of game that it is. To me, that's not a drawback because I'm having a blast playing it. And for me, you know, the world's most averagest player, I have no problems with that, like having a game that actually plays well. Like I don't have to put it on five ball while I'm learning the game. Like three is, is plenty. I have a lot of fun and then I get that like, okay, let me play another game. I want to start putting balls back in that rocket. I love that worm screw. So, uh, that I could see as a drawback. Uh, my boy Russ was over here. Fantabulous pinball player. You know, he's always placing high in our local tournaments and things. And he was playing for quite a bit. Uh, but you know, he's got, he's got those skills to actually make the shots that he's aiming to. Right. So I like this game. If Labyrinth plays as kind of like a medium, this one probably plays a little bit longer, but not quite as long as Scooby. I put it kind of in between there. So that's where it's falling. So we'll see how all that shakes out again once more people get to play them. Let's get to the good part. Don, which game is your favorite?
    22:59
    This is a two-part thing. There's which one is my favorite, and the other question, Don, which one should I buy? I can't answer which one you've got to buy. That's up to your own particular situation. This isn't a case where, you know, they designed this game for one theme, and then they went ahead and picked, you know, a family-friendly theme or an adult theme and tacked it on. Like, they're two completely different games that are both completely great. But one of them has edged out the other one, and that one is TCM, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, for me. And I'm going to tell you why. I'm going to tell you why Texas Chainsaw Massacre, for me, is the more favorite of the two games. Now, again, they both play well. I love the code in both. I go back and forth playing them both. I'm not looking to get rid of one. But the reason that TCM places just edges out Looney Tunes for me is because of the emotional responses that you get. Okay, Looney Tunes is fun. Looney Tunes is exciting. Looney Tunes is funny. There's humor. There's good times. There's action. It's got all that. TCM has that. But it also has horror. It also has fear. It also has trepidation. It also has, like, excitements. It has anxiety-inducing segments. There's a mode in here where you're tormenting Pam, and that little door, that meat locker door there, you can see it being budged. She's trapped behind it trying to get out, and you're hitting switches, and Leatherface tormenting this poor teenager, or preteen, not preteen, not preteen. Young adult, young adult. Young adult. Like, holy crap. You're feeling all the cycle of emotions as you're playing this game. You know, it's not like it's a dark game as far as like the theme is really heavy on you like you know brom stoker's dracula just takes you into like that dracula you know dark moody gothic let's sip wine and and sit in the dark and smoke cigarettes and listen to typo negative it's not quite like that it's like you know we're in a freaking massacre that's going on right now this family ain't right uh these people are being unwittingly led to their doom and i'm taking an active role in it what the hell is happening plus I'm also playing pinball. Plus, that shot was so satisfying to hit. Plus, look, the ball got stuck on the magnet, and I hit the ball and knocked it off, and now I've got a two-by-multi-ball. This is fun. So you just go from, you know, pinball excitement to, oh, my God, what's happening to Pam? Or there's a girl in the freezer to I'm Leatherface to there's some, you know, honky-tonk music coming from an old jukebox radio at this gas station, and I'm trying to ring myself up and cash out some bonuses. It's so much in so many different directions all at the same time that just for the emotional response and involvement you get from that game, it's exhilarating. It's almost like a workout mentally as you're juggling all that stuff and shooting an awesome shooting machine at the same time. So for that reason, just because of that emotional response and roller coaster, spin the wheel, see where you land, everything everywhere all at once, that just edges it out. Because as good as Looney Tunes is, as fun as the code is, as humorous as the scenes are in watching them, I'm not there panicking for Porky Pig's life or something. The barbecued pig in the other one, we're there. We're not slathering anything in barbecue sauce over on Looney Tunes. So for that reason, I would say it has the edge. But it's not like if I would have gotten just Looney Tunes and missed out on TCM, I would have felt like I was severely missing something. I would have been perfectly happy with Looney Tunes. So which one should you get? Should you get one at all? You know, it used to be that, you know, the Spooky game was the game that you got after you had two Sterns and a JJP, then you'd put a Spooky there, just so you have, like, that variety. You know, if Ultraman was your only game, you know, that layout doesn't have the best flow, the best ramps. It's just upper playfields cascading and terracing on each other. You know, it's hard to have, like, a lot of that variety. You know, whereas if you would have just got yourself, you know, a Godzilla or an Avengers Infinity Quest there's just like so much going on in traditional pinball that you're not feel like you're missing anything here though you know this is different if you only had one machine and that one machine was looney tunes or that one machine was tcm i i think you you you find the longevity there like Like I having difficulty really differentiating from like you know should you go out and you know two years ago it would have been like oh, yeah, you should go get Jaws Premium right now. Well, don't even think about it. Now it's like, think about it, dude. Think about it. These games, I'm having fun with them. You heard where I came down on it. I do think TCM edges it out. Looney Tunes is great. Should you get one? Yeah. The one that you should get if you've got family and kids at home that are going to be terrified from TCM, then maybe Looney Tunes is the way to go, and you won't even feel bad about it. Maybe you want to get both like I did and put one up in the adult area or by your tiki bar, and then Looney Tunes goes in the family room. However you want to do it.
    27:46
    I want to go over there and play them again right now, and I think I'm going to as soon as I'm done here. Tonight I'll be streaming them. I'm very excited about that. Right now we're ranking by comments.
    27:57
    Which game should I do? Should I do TCM? Should I do Looney Tunes? Should I do both? And it's pretty much neck and neck. Last time I checked, I think TCM was even edging out Looney Tunes a bit, so we might start to stream that here in a little bit. So that will be up on YouTube if you want to watch it back again. I'm going to keep streaming these things, keep playing them, because I'm down here playing anyway. I might as well jump on and entertain everybody else. There's a couple of other news items due for the end of the week, going into the weekend, courtesy of Nap Arcade. He's shedding some light on what the next Stern Cornerstone is going to be. So I've been waiting to hear, you know, rumors coming back. I mean, the rumors have been all over the place. Everything from Dungeons & Dragons to Dial of Destiny to, you know, it's not really Dungeons & Dragons. D&D was Dial of Destiny. There's a code name for it. You know, to John Wick, Pokemon, you know, all that business. It's been, like, everywhere. So generally the pattern that I see is once you start hearing a more consistent rumor come out, that tends to be the one that's coming up next. You know, we were here in Venom, you know, back before Foo Fighters came out. that could bend him was the next one. And maybe at one point in time it was. But as things get a little more solidified, you tend to hear him with a little bit more of a repeating. So lately, the latest thing that I've heard is now from Jason Knapp that it's John Wick that's coming out next, Keanu Reeves. Somebody kills his dog so he murders the world to try to get revenge. I haven't seen the movie. That's my gist of what I've been able to put together. So that may be what's coming out next from there. I don't know. It's just a rumor. But if I start hearing that consistently from more and more people, You know, people slide into my DMs with, like, you know, people I've never recognized before. Like, hey, this is coming out for certain. You know, if it starts coming from multiple sources like that, then maybe we can feel like, okay, maybe that is it. So regardless, when is it coming out? I would guess by June for sure we should have, you know, games and boxes out on locations. Which means announcement May, maybe April. Well, Jason Knapp is saying that by MGC, which is April 4th, 5th, 6th, somewhere right around there. end of the first week of April, that the game is going to be at MGC, which means that the game is probably going to be revealed a week or two before that, or maybe it gets revealed at the show. Who knows? But it sounds like we'll probably be seeing something new from Stern as early as April, if this rumor holds true. We'll see if that gets more substantiated as the month goes on. I'm sure when we get to the other side of TPF, and after everybody's had the alcohol libations to loosen the lips a bit, we might hear a little bit more solidified about that. But yeah, so there's another Stern Cornerstone coming. We know that. We know we're anticipating two more games this year. And so the next one I would expect would be here by June so they could have another one by Expo and then be ready for another release in January. So it all lines up that we're going to see something. So I'm excited. Now, what would I want to see in a John Wick game? I don't know. Just fast action, movie scenes, movie clips, fun little modes, maybe an interesting mechanism, some magnets or something. I don't know. I just want to be surprised and see what we get. I don't even want to speculate or postulate on what we'll see. It'll probably be a single-level play field, probably no upper play fields, maybe a premium upper play field. I don't know. I don't think we'll see a John Wick on a rod. We probably won't see that. There probably won't be a shaky rocket in the back. Somebody, some bad lad was talking about them reusing the design from Bond 60th for another machine, like taking that layout from Bond 60th that Elwin did and applying another theme to it. Ooh, man, I think some people would be upset about that if that happened. But, yeah, I would grab some popcorn and watch how that goes down. And I'd probably get it because that layout is amazing, but that's fun. What's going on over here at the Don's Pinball Podcast Worldwide Headquarters? Well, we got the new T-shirts in with the new Don-inspired Wonka logo. I'm calling it Donka. That might be crazy, whatever. I've got T-shirts in, everything from medium to extra, extra large is currently in stock, $30 delivered directly to you. People are ordering them right now in anticipation of TPF. I'll be bringing some to TPF. I'll have them at the booths. You can get them there as well. And you can still win them by watching live streams and doing things like that. I'm very excited about that. I'm so amazingly excited, the fact that I have a banner now, a full-length, stern-sized banner of myself, my big, gorgeous face, dressed up in a walkout outfit with a microphone scepter and then all of my social links and everything on it and a QR code. Michael Barnard, a stern artist for pinball machines such as Rush and this one called Jaws, which is just out. I was able to hire him to do my graphics for me, and he just absolutely nailed it to the wall. I've got banners for sale. I've got them in stock right now, a small amount still left remaining, for $99 delivered to you in the U.S. If you want to get one of those, check out the Facebook page and look at the pictures of it. It's blowing my socks off, man. I got about a life-size version of me in a banner. It's amazing. It's larger than I am myself. This thing's bigger than me. Holy crap. Love it. So I'm going to be bringing that to TPF, but I will have some for sale now. If you really want to get one, if you're a super fan, you want to get it, and if you want an autograph, let me know. I'll be sure to do that for you. We can personalize it, or we can keep it general if you want to sit on it until it doubles in value. That's all yours from Don.
    33:11
    TPF is coming up. We got some TPF news. I did get the layout of the show floor sent to me, and it is massive. I was going to say magnificent, but it's that, too. It's that, too. So your boy, Don, and Balls of Steel Sterling from the Georgia Pinball League are going to be sharing a booth, and we're going to be right next to Rocket City Pinball, maker of the finest pinball start buttons and other mods and such. And I think we're going to be right around the corner from Multimorphic as well. We'll see how all that shakes out. But kind of down there in one of the corner layouts, we'll be back in there on the show floor. I am so excited. My plan for that is to have some raffle giveaways. We'll do them from the booth. Come by for meet and greet. Get your stuff signed. Pick up a poster if you want. Pick up some stickers and some other merchandise. If you want to get a shirt, come by, get a shirt. If you want to just say what up. If you want to say you suck, I hate you, you need to stop, go ahead and do it. That's all fine. I'll be doing photo ops. I may be in costume from time to time. I'll also be bringing my recording equipment so I can do recaps from the show floor, and I can also more easily get interviews with folks to come back and just sit down, we'll record real quick, and then we'll put it out each day of the show. So you won't miss anything as long as you're following along. We'll post links on the Facebook page, so be sure you're following there. It's going to be fantastic. One person who apparently is not going to be there is our homeboys from Australia, Haggis Pinball. Apparently the announcement is out that they have, even though they were featured to be on site at TPF, with their current restructuring, they've decided to bow out and not travel to the United States in order to attend this conference and instead use those funds to get the fathoms out. So there's some news for you. What else do we have? I'm going to be there right next to Rocket City Pinball. I'm excited about that. It's going to be fun in Texas. It's coming up in just a couple of weeks. We're going to see all kinds of new information. We're going to get to play Multimorphic's brand new game. see what those swords feel like. I hope they bring one of those collector's edition machines. There's going to be at least a dozen spooky machines there. People are going to be, I'm telling you man, the lines of TPF are probably going to be longest for Looney Tunes and TCM. The only other thing that might compete with that will be Princess Bride, but from looking at the layout, it looks like they're going to have a dozen machines as well. So then that leaves possibly the new game from American Pinball. I'm not sure how many they're bringing, but if their booth is as big as the one it was at Expo, there should be no problem getting on those machines either. So the labyrinth of TPF is probably going to be Looney Tunes. Later, everybody. I'll talk to you soon.
    35:43
    As always, email me at donaldspinballpodcastgmail.com. I love the messages. Keep them coming. We love the dialogue. Follow on the Facebook page and keep an eye on the YouTube page. Hit like and subscribe because when I go live, you'll get a ding and you can pop up there and interact in person. Maybe win yourself a t-shirt tonight. I can't wait. I'm going to go set up the equipment. I'm going to play some Looney Tunes again. And I'm going to embroil myself in TCM. Later.