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TNA 9th Reactor Challenge!

Pintastic New England·video·1h 2m·analyzed·Jul 9, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.026

TL;DR

Bob Timm demonstrates Total Nuclear Annihilation with 500+ orders, explaining rules and strategy.

Summary

Bob Timm, head of rules and programming at Spooky Pinball (hired ~3 months prior), demonstrates Total Nuclear Annihilation—a game designed by Scott Danesi that Spooky began producing after its 2017 whitewood debut. The game has nearly 500 pre-orders. Bob plays through multiple reactors on factory settings without prior practice, explaining game mechanics, strategy, skill shots, and design decisions while navigating a machine with a known flipper lag issue that affects his gameplay.

Key Claims

  • Bob Timm was hired as head of rules and programming at Spooky Pinball approximately three months before this video

    high confidence · Bob Timm, speaking at event: 'I work at Spooky Pinball. I am the head of rules and programming there as of about three months ago.'

  • Total Nuclear Annihilation was designed and implemented by Scott Danesi

    high confidence · Bob Timm: 'Total Nuclear Annihilation as designed and implemented by Scott Danesi' (likely phonetic transcription of D'Anesio)

  • Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle will be released later this year

    high confidence · Bob Timm: 'I'm currently writing rules and implementing some of them for the Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle game. It will be out later this year.'

  • Total Nuclear Annihilation was announced for Spooky production at Texas Pinball Festival 2017

    high confidence · Bob Timm: 'at Texas Pinball Festival 2017, It was announced that Spooky would be producing his Whitewood as a full game.'

  • Total Nuclear Annihilation has approximately 500 pre-orders

    high confidence · Bob Timm: 'there's almost 500 orders of Nuclear Annihilation that have been purchased by people.'

  • The specific machine being played has a flipper lag issue where the right flipper stays up for a quarter to half second after button release

    high confidence · Bob Timm: 'the right flipper is staying up about a quarter to a half second after I release the button. This actually makes certain moves impossible.'

  • Total Nuclear Annihilation gets progressively harder as players progress through reactors

    high confidence · Bob Timm: 'it's a game that gets harder as you progress' and explanation of increased difficulty mechanics in higher reactors

  • Ball save time decreases as players progress through reactors in Total Nuclear Annihilation

    high confidence · Bob Timm discussing game mechanics: reactor destruction 'comes with a very short ball save' and 'you reduce your ball save time and start getting into the next grid immediately'

Notable Quotes

  • “This game is so freaking good that can I help you work on things? Or do you promote you? Or just say hi for a little while?”

    Bob Timm@ 0:44 — Explains his motivation for joining Spooky Pinball—he was so impressed by Total Nuclear Annihilation that he proactively approached the company about working opportunities

  • “It's through the support of the pinball community that such a company is even possible. And it's through the support of the community that I have the job I have and I'm really amazed to have the opportunity to do what I do.”

    Bob Timm@ 2:09 — Acknowledges community support for Spooky Pinball's success and the 500 pre-orders milestone

  • “Games are not always in the condition you expect them to be in when you want to play them for the first time. That's okay, but it means I'm going to also talk about the different choices I'm making, but with the caveat that it probably means I'm overall going to play worse than you expect tonight.”

    Bob Timm@ 13:33 — Demonstrates professional awareness of machine condition variability and sets appropriate expectations for gameplay demonstration given the flipper issue

  • “Because if the ball is coming hard at one of your flippers, don't flip. Let the ball bounce off the flipper to the other side, that's called a dead bounce.”

    Bob Timm@ 7:15 — Teaches intermediate skill technique for ball control in pinball

  • “I have not played a single game of practice on this particular annihilation. I've never played this machine before.”

    Bob Timm@ 2:50 — Establishes that he's performing a blind first play in front of audience with factory settings

Entities

Bob TimmpersonScott DanesipersonSpooky PinballcompanyTotal Nuclear AnnihilationgameAlice Cooper's Nightmare CastlegameTexas Pinball FestivaleventPintastic New EnglandeventKaylee Georgeperson

Signals

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Bob Terence hired as head of rules and programming at Spooky Pinball approximately 3 months prior; motivated by enthusiasm for Total Nuclear Annihilation

    high · Bob Terence explicitly states role and hiring timeline, and describes approaching Spooky about employment based on game quality

  • ?

    product_launch: Total Nuclear Annihilation achieved ~500 pre-orders following Texas Pinball Fest 2017 announcement; significantly exceeded initial uncertainty about demand

    high · Bob Terence: 'it was unknown how many people would be interested in that, whether 20 or 50 or 100. And to this point, there's almost 500 orders'

  • ?

    product_launch: Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle confirmed as upcoming Spooky Pinball release with scheduled delivery later in the year

    high · Bob Terence states he is writing rules and programming for the game and it 'will be out later this year'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Total Nuclear Annihilation designed with escalating difficulty across 9 reactors; each reactor introduces new shot requirements, reduced ball save time, and increased mechanical complexity

    high · Bob Terence demonstrates progression through reactors with explanations of changing mechanics and difficulty; 'it's a game that gets harder as you progress'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Total Nuclear Annihilation implements ball save stacking system (up to 6 layers), dynamic jackpot degradation, mystery awards, and conditional lock mechanics

    high · Bob Terence explains stacking white light ball saves, jackpot countdown system, and mystery award functionality during gameplay

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.188

0:00
Hi. Hi, Bob. Thanks. I'm Bob Terence. I work at Spooky Pinball. I am the head of rules and programming there as of about three months ago. So I'm currently writing rules and programming for the school. as of about three months ago. So I'm currently writing rules and implementing some of them for the Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle game. It will be out later this year. And basically, this game, it's caused me to want to work for Spooky Pinball. This game is so freaking good that can I help you work on things? Or do you promote you? Or just say hi for a little while? This is up? Oh, yeah, that's much better. There we go. Boom across the tire loop. So, yeah, I talked to Spooky and I was like, do you have a job? He was like, can I come help you guys with anything? And they were like, actually, we need someone to do this job. Here I am. Besides that, That's not why I speak. My jobs go around destroying reactors apparently.
1:28
And we've got the screen set up. Okay, that's low enough now. We can see the flippers. So, Total Nuclear Annihilation as designed and implemented by Scott Denisey. And it has a white wood about a year or two ago. Took it around to lots of different shows. And at Texas Pinball Fest 2017, It was announced that Spooky would be producing his Whitewood as a full game. And it was unknown how many people would be interested in that, whether 20 or 50 or 100. And to this point, there's almost 500 orders of Nuclear Annihilation that have been purchased by people. thank you. It's through the support of the pinball community that such a company is even possible. And it's through the support of the community that I have the job I have and I'm really amazed to have the opportunity to do what I do. So, annihilations are getting shipped all over the place and it's a very simple game. It's pain in the ass in the best way. And we'll talk through the different parts of the game as we go. It's also a game that gets harder as you progress, so we'll talk about that as well. And the different shot angles and different decisions you make. I want to just let you know that I have not played a single game of practice on this particular annihilation. I've never played this machine before. So I have no idea how the feeds behave. I have no idea what we're doing. and it was requested by the internet that I not set the game for five balls and make it too easy.
Creature from the Black Lagoon
game
Centaurgame
  • ?

    content_signal: Bob Terence provides detailed tutorial on intermediate and expert pinball technique including dead bounces, tip flips, flutter flips, and wall bumping during live demonstration

    high · Extensive in-game commentary teaching specific techniques and explaining decision-making for shot selection

  • ?

    product_concern: Specific Total Nuclear Annihilation machine exhibits flipper lag (right flipper remains activated ~0.25-0.5 seconds after button release), preventing drop catches and certain advanced techniques

    high · Bob Terence explicitly identifies and explains the issue: 'the right flipper is staying up about a quarter to a half second after I release the button. This actually makes certain moves impossible.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Total Nuclear Annihilation balances simple core mechanic (hitting reactors) with progressive complexity, allowing both casual play and expert technique development across 9 reactor levels

    high · Bob Terence describes game as 'simple' but 'pain in the ass in the best way' with escalating decisions and shot angles as player progresses

  • ?

    community_signal: Cross-regional pinball technique knowledge sharing evident; Bob credits Seattle player Kaylee George for flipper settling technique originally viewed skeptically but validated through practice

    medium · Bob Terence: 'I learned from the players of Seattle, Kaylee George especially... I did not believe this was true for at least a year'

    • 3:11
    So we've got it on factory settings as well. There are extra balls. And we'll talk about how and why those happen. But in the meantime, let's go.
    3:22
    Stand back here and let's play. All right. So we've got the sound jacked up, So we're going to have to decide if the sound is really appropriate.
    3:38
    Not loud enough. Okay. Sorry, that's as high as it goes without going in there and altering the subwoofer.
    3:50
    It actually can be made louder than this. But with the subwoofer the way it is, that's as good as we got.
    3:58
    All right. So let's talk skill set first. The main skill set is to plunge up into the top lane, C-O-R-E. If you can hand-free plunge into one of the letters, then you get the reactor lit for free. The goal at the beginning of the game is to complete this grid, and you're going to see me try to complete the grid as quickly as possible with the ball save time that I get. I get 12 seconds of ball save. And you use the ball save to do dangerous things. And then we do non-dangerous things when there's no ball save. So I'm going to try to plunge the O here.
    4:30
    And boom! We break this. So we still have... Oh, you can lower the ball save time, too. Great! That's going down.
    4:46
    Quick time! All right, so on a re-plunge, you want to plunge short, and then use that to do this. That's a line catch. And a lock catch is done by flipping your flipper the moment the ball arrives to density the momentum. I'm supposed to hit these targets on the grid, but that's dangerous. The non-dangerous thing to do is to shoot the lock. So, mainly in this game, if you're not in multiball, you can get into multiball. So this is how we start multi-ball, and during multi-ball we pass through the grid and start the reactor. So now the grid is finished, the reactor is started, and the shots to the reactor are around the loop. And multi-ball is over. And the goal is to make the reactor grow to 100% and then now, and then when the reactor And at this point this bumper will destroy reactor one and give me an award of 35,000 points. The other thing I can do is to go back and start multi-volts again because everything is double or triple in multi-volts depending on how many volts you have. Two volts double, three volts triple, and they can get four volts so we'll try to get that as we can but everything is multiplied during the multi-volts. And we're here to see the reactor be destroyed, so let's just blow it up. Or we can miss, you know, we'll just miss. Go up top, kick out there, you know, as you do.
    6:47
    Oh no! Woo! Alright, so we're back under control. That was fun. Let's concentrate on the locks. Maybe we'll destroy the reactor while we're waiting.
    7:04
    So there I did a movement set. If you're an intermediate player you really need to learn it if you haven't learned it yet. Because if the ball is coming hard at one of your flippers, don't flip. Let the ball bounce off the flipper to the other side, that's called a dead bounce. And it will dead the momentum of the ball and move it to the other side. You can even sometimes do a double dead bounce where it bounces over, bounces back again. Your goal is to deaden the momentum so that you can bring the ball to a complete stop. What you want to do, what you want to never do is just fire away at something. As soon as you fire away, you're in danger.
    7:42
    So there was the dead bounce again. Shooting through all those three targets, and then the lock. Lights the lock.
    7:55
    Now... What was that? Oh, sorry. That was disqualification. That was either a Lazarus or more probably a death save. The ball moved very fast down the right outline, and by bumping the machine forward, you can push it up through the center ground. It's not allowed in competition play. You lose. But we're not in competition play right now, so it's all right.
    8:26
    And I'm going to try to complete reactor one during the multi-ball that I'm about to start. Or, I can just get it about to the bumper! Here you go! Thank you! There we go, hit reactor one.
    8:45
    And destroying a reactor also comes with a very short ball save. Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. So you reduce your ball save time and start getting into the next grid immediately. Now let's get back into multi-ball.
    9:02
    That was another dead bounce. It looks really dangerous sometimes, but it's not actually that dangerous. And on flippers like these, where there's heavy bounces on the flippers, it's really not that big a deal.
    9:21
    All right, now this is our multi-ball. I'm going to go into reactor 2 and complete the grid. And we're basically going to go through that whole cycle again. Grid, hold, pop, destroy. You're going to do that 9 times, 8 times. It's a little harder than the one before it. So we're on reactor 2. Here we go, start it now.
    9:51
    Ohhhhh! Well that's it for that wall. Alright, so, wall two, we got the same options, We're going to go next to ball three at Reactor 3.
    10:46
    Alright, so I feel like we need a start back reactor. Probably do that by, uh, trying to work. Alright so when we start reactor 2 we're going to hit that one target now and finish the grid. Then we'll go in and start the reactor in the hole and then try to take it down.
    11:35
    You try to back in into that hole and then... Not an easy shot! One cool thing about the different reactors is that each one has different music. And they all have different number of shots also.
    12:16
    Alright, let's see if we can set this up this reactor by tuning the record to the loop. Oh yeah! Oh, that was it! Oh, thanks, Scott!
    12:34
    Shut up, motor. Yeah! There's the reactor to. Bye. That's right it is. So I just want to let you know something is happening here. You may be noticing that your extra player, you might already know what's going on.
    13:03
    Which is that the right flipper is staying up about a quarter to a half second after I release the button.
    13:11
    This actually makes certain moves impossible. So for example, the drop caps that I want to do when I fire it out of that kick out is not possible right now. During multi-ball, when you saw me lose ball one, but I had both balls go down, that was why that happened. And it's up to me to know that this is happening and do something about it and play better. Because games are not always in the condition you expect them to be in when you want to play them for the first time. That's okay, but it means, I'm going to also talk about the different choices I'm making, but with the caveat that it probably means I'm overall going to play worse than you expect tonight. Because drop catches on the right are out, live catches on the right are still in, but it's going to hit me, and the left flipper is behaving normally, so that's fine. Anyway, just making excuses for when I don't do the thing, unless you're like, well, come on, man. Alright, so we gotta get reactor 3 now and I can either shoot the dangerous stuff over and over again or I can get in the multiball. And to get in the multiball I have to hit down the inline drops 1, 2, 3, go into lock and then lock 3 balls. 7 shots to make compared to a larger number of more dangerous shots. So I'm gonna see if that can hit this mostly and then try to regain control. So because of that drop, because of this drop not being available, another move that's very common, at least in my own play, is either something that's called a tip flip or a flutter flip, where you see the ball rolling off a flipper, and you go, quick, hold. Now you would normally see the flipper unactivated and reactivated real quick there, but it's not. And again, I haven't been used to that, but I'll try to do it on the left flipper a couple of times to show you what that move is. It's a really valuable move if you're going from intermediate to expert. When the ball is rolling off your flipper slowly, a lot of people are just getting used to catching the ball. They're like, well, I don't know what to do about that. either flail away, I let it go sometimes by accident, or I just try not to track so often. And the right move is to quit tap flip at the end and back the ball up in the air a little bit either have it momentarily go to the other side or it have up straight stay on the same side so you can recapture So I try to do it from the left but I can't do it from the right on this right now.
    15:58
    I can catch it sometimes. That other move there is one that I learned from the players of Seattle, Kaylee George especially, flipping the opposite flipper while it's settling off flipper makes it settle faster. I did not believe this was true for at least a year.
    16:15
    And it did not seem like it made any sense, but it works, it actually does. So if it's like here to the edge, you can flip the other flipper, it'll kind of make it more likely to settle. You can make it a little more confident a little bit and recast on the rubber and it slows it down.
    16:33
    So there was a little bit of a flip there, but it was a failure. Alright, it's locked to loot now. Yeah, I just did that.
    16:52
    Oh god, that shot. Alright, on this game, this is really critical to play in Adelaide, but not every game. completing the letters and save plays a white light and that white light acts as a ball save so right now I can bring down the outlay and if I have this position correct I can save my ball the right time to use this ideally is during multi-balls because then you get an extra 10 seconds of ball save for all balls instead of just for one ball but it's totally up to you can learn a second one by completing the letters and save again and leaving the letters leaving the white light alone So you can earn these and stack them up to six steps. It probably won't happen, but the nicest happen is that you can do them more than once.
    17:41
    Oh God! So that lock is way easier for the right flipper at the backhand than it is for the left flipper at the forehand.
    17:58
    Okay. That was a little on the fly there, but it's worth it. And get this to go and settle. Now multi-ball is ready, I'll be able to start multi-ball, shoot this gun twice, go in there with our extra ball, and then we'll see if we can be reactive for you during this multi-ball. I actually just burned my, uh... Alright, I'm gonna ramp to three now.
    18:43
    What's the name of this song? I forget. Hold on. No. I'm just kidding, that's the... I'm just kidding, this is the heat, the heat load.
    19:04
    Go in there, come on, give me locks, give me locks. I don't want that. That was called heat exchanger. Heat exchanger, right? Yup. Ah, there we go. Just making sure, making sure we load well the soundtrack. Okay, reactor three has three targets to hit.
    19:24
    And again, I can either hit these targets myself. That was a move that I think a lot more players should be doing, which is when it's on a wall like this, you still have some control. You can push the game out and push the ball off the wall a little bit. On this game, if you don't push the ball off the wall, it's going to come into the slingshot. When you're in the slingshot, you get into trouble easily. So when it's on a sling, on these walls, you can bump it a little bit to the right or a little bit to the left on this wall and push it off the wall to avoid coming down into a slingshot. Creature of the Black Lagoon is the best example of a game that does this. Coming down out of the bumpers, bang, give the switch that, oh crap, and if you push across the wall, you can make that, make that four numbers. Alright, we're over here, we're going to start multi-wall again.
    20:14
    Or we can just hit that. Or that. Alright, you want me to destroy you? Okay, I'll destroy you. Nah, let's triple it up first. So what should we do? Destroy or triple? What? Triple. Triple? How many for triple? Triple. Alright, triple wins easily. Triple wins the next one easily. If I lose this ball because of you, I blame you. Really, I should blame my own crappy shooting. Yeah. I blame you, I blame you.
    20:52
    Really I should blame my own crappy shooting. Notice there, I made a different decision. I would normally have tip-flipped that onto the right flipper, but I know it's not going to work, so I bounce it over to the left flipper instead.
    21:08
    Look, it locks the flipper. It locks the flipper. Yeah, okay. That one I can grab with the live catch. and back at it. Once you're in this position, you're golden. You have to remember that the fourth one, when the wall comes out, kick off the wall and don't fail to catch the wall. Eww, that was close. Look at that. Look at that. Still trouble. Still trouble. Hit that destroyer. You weren't, right? That was a destroy. Oh! I was like, I could have stayed up, but I didn't. That was excellent timing. That did not destroy the reactor. All right. Let's get tripled.
    22:11
    Yeah, it would normally be like, easy candy for me here. It's really tough with that, uh, that flipper action. What? What? What? Come on, what? Come on, destroy! No, just destroy! It's like Centaur, you gotta destroy it. BOOM! Alright, let's go for it.
    22:50
    Okay, so during that time, what was I concentrating on? I was trying to complete the grid. And I did pretty good there. I got the end of the line for the grid. Some of them are lit automatically.
    23:08
    There we go, reactor 4 has begun. Alright, now we're going to generate some steam here. Okay, reactor 4 starts an increased level of difficulty. There's now two purple lights. One purple light on the right orbit, and one on the left orbit. Only the one that's lit will send me to the top. I can't just shoot any orbit now. I have to shoot the one that's lit. And so that means that right now, shoot one with the right flipper, I can't really do anything but try to separate one of them over the left. Creating separation is going to be really difficult right now because of the timing of that hook drop. I'll see what I can do.
    24:00
    Yes! Oh, get in there. Oh, good. So you still can work it. Oh. Oh, three. Oh, that's nice. Thanks, Josh. Great music.
    24:31
    Okay, so where am I now? I'm trying to either make the spinner or not make the spinner. Okay, the spinner is lift. So from here, I have two options now. I can either choose the lock shot to try to advance towards multivolt, or I can choose the right move and try to get into reactive progress. Now, so far in this game, I've learned that I'm crappy at I'm shooting a launch from the left flipper. I miss it like 80% of the time. So I'm going to shoot from the left to the right loop, even though it's not necessarily the most efficient shot. Because I don't trust myself to make the other one.
    25:15
    And instead I miss that one too. From here though, I'm basically 100% on making the long shot from this side. So even though that one's a flip, I'm going to take it. Lock the lid. And there's a lock. This will also allow you to plunge it into the top. Not too hard.
    25:39
    But if you can plunge it into the top, you can get percentage on the reactor for free. You have to feed it though. The ball will come out and it will instantly auto plunge. You have to be ready on the plunger every time.
    25:55
    Alright, that was good. Nooooo! Hey, come on, get a little better. Good now, grab some of the top. That's good. Oh, get it up, get it up, get it up, 66, 78, 92, 82, hike, hike.
    26:29
    Oh, yeah, thanks Scott. So if you drain on a kick out, either the kick out from here or the kick out from here, within two seconds you get the ball back because it says, well, that wasn't fair. And it does happen that the thing is fired in down the middle sometimes. So you can take advantage of that and give yourself a free ball that you wouldn't otherwise have. And it looks good in the crowd.
    26:57
    All right, we're going to get this out. We're going to start the act at four, and then we're going to try to go after five.
    27:16
    Oh! Oh, again? This is a set up. I'm sorry. That was pretty brutal, man. I had time of us. Where are we here? We are on ball three. We got one target left, we'll be here after four, and then we'll go from there.
    27:38
    Hey! I didn't want that. That was good. Considering the slipper, that was good. Alright, there we go. So now, this allows you to get triples. Instead of that.
    27:58
    Why is that? What's that? Freaking A, dude. Yeah. Alright, that's a good A. Another. Alright, it's time to talk about deckpots.
    28:14
    Because, why not? Alright, the way the deckpots work is you get like five seconds. That was good right there. You have to get both of those wolves back.
    28:28
    Still reacting to five, come on. Alright, I'm trying to travel here so I can talk to you about deckpots. There we go. Alright, the way jackpots work, and you saw a little of this, is that I have no jackpot slips anymore, the regular jackpot slips, but you go in, jackpot, double, triple, and then you don't guess the next one within five seconds, and send it back a step. It'll pop up the target again. So if I have no single, double, and triple, the super is lit, that's the hole, but five seconds later, boom, now the triple is lit, five seconds later, boom, now the double is lit, five seconds later, boom, now you're back to the start. So you either have to concentrate on going for the dashpots, or what I'm doing is going for reactors because I gotta add them, whatever. If I quit to go in for dashpots here, I'm gonna get more points, but I'm not gonna get much progress for the reactors. So either way, we still have one game to play. So Reactor 5 is ready, and there's an extra ball in Reactor 6, so let's get that. And the music in the multiple is pretty damn good. This isn't on the soundtrack.
    29:50
    Come on! Oh, that's better. So, how do I start the reactor now? And the answer is, what should I shoot for to start the reactor?
    30:14
    What? The scoop? No, you're wrong! How do I start the reactor? What? Shoot the lock! The reason you shoot the lock is to get the plunge. And then the ones that go into the thing. And then they go into the thing and you get the rock. Maybe. Or I swear. No. Whatever. Let's just do it.
    30:43
    Now we do it. Yeah, like that. And then you plug. It doesn't go in the top. You go, oh, whatever. But then it goes into the reactor hole anyway. The other way to do the reactor from normal play is to back in from the left. It's a really hard shot from the right flipper and in general cross field shots are more dangerous because there's more ways for the miss and more different angles for the ball to go when you miss. If I miss a backhand, it mostly comes right back where it came from. If you miss a forehand a cross field shot is going to go it wants to So let try to nap camp this Don do that
    31:31
    If you, like, not want me about that, okay, here we go. Let's try it one more time. Yay! Alright, and you get a nice little break, okay? Okay. All right, so at this point we've reached the turning point where we're at reactor 5. We're going to kick some ass here and get to reactor 6. Reactor 6 will get us a bowl. And then, yeah, that's it. That was a little long way. All right. But here's that decision again, she can lock or she can loop. I think the loop is a better decision for myself. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, 70, 77, 84, 91, 90, 90, wait, we've been 91, 96, oh no, 96, what are we going to do? We're going to put it into the top. Oh, you're the one.
    32:42
    Yeah, fine. We'll get it this way. Yeah, that's right. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah, that's right. Now we have 200%. Oh, I multiple target. Oh, no. That was awesome. That was badass.
    32:58
    One left. R, E, And here is the time to start using those ball saves. Alright, alright, let's go! Boom! Alright, we're already at the 6th down. I'm doing a lot of body play now instead of trying to trap them. Oh, God. Bad decision there. All right, so now we can go green here. We're one target only two shots away from an extra ball. The green target in the middle, dangerous as all hell. And then the hole that starts the reactor. Or, you can lock a bunch of times. Big bucks, no winnings. Big bucks? Alright. Big bucks. Big bucks and... Stop! Stop it! She's out there in the spin! Oh, it's a good thing there are ball saves in this game. And I got that because I had built them up. I saved them. Actually, during the other multi-ball save, when there was a ball save on, I moved the white light away from balls as the other balls were coming down. It keeps you from losing enough ball saves. I think I have like two ball saves left. Is there a fast, supportive way to tell me? I have no idea. Probably not. It is the 80s, right?
    34:49
    Alright, now what? Two? What was the point of the other one if not? Oh, you guys do it directly, so they will just report. Alright, and I also have no warning. That actually is a really important detail here because if I blow this and it comes down the middle, I can save it with a big shove. Can you hit the block from the left? Maybe. What am I to do? I think you can better at this. I've got a separate game that says extra ball on it. I'm over extra ball. Extra ball? Go. Go whammy. Oh!
    35:26
    You said 40. Oh, that's nice. Oh, Mr. Morrison! Get in there! Yeah! That was awesome. All right, let's go!
    35:57
    That was a mistake! And the reason that was a mistake was because I was going to get that ball back anyway from it kicking off of a hole. So I should have moved the light away from there. But I still have, I think, one left. From having like five built up before, or whatever. Alright, we ran out of the power grid, so it's good we're at six. We're at 6, we're ready here. Still got to make the lock. I find that if I'm shooting for this, I have to aim for the furthest back thing, at least from there. It helps me because I'm used to making further away shots in other games. Some of the shots in this game are really close to you, so if you think about it as being far away, you're more likely to make that shot, forehanded. I'm not saying it works all the time, but 60% of the time it works every time.
    37:03
    That's when I get back to the goal I was talking about last month right there. It's getting to the top and gets the percentage.
    37:14
    All of it. Not bad, not bad. Alright, so, it's counting down, but I want to talk to you about what happened earlier. Which is that I aimed the flip for the other in lane to try and get the ball under control when it was out of control. That's really valuable when you are developing your skill set. Let's wind up the top again. Get in there! Get in your hole! Yeah! Alright, we have your sixes critical. I have no balls saved, but I do have an extra friggin' ball now. We're gonna get ball now, and I have Hulky Ball over here. And the one, two, three, four, five, six destroying targets right after six. Hulky Ball. Hulky Ball, right? I'm the first to shoot this. Hulky shot. Should I shoot for the holes? No, it's not a good shot. It's not even a hit. Oh, here we go.
    38:10
    Fire in the heart. No. Come on, R! Hit it in your R! What? Oh, it's R! Aw, damn it! That was bad. That was bad. Let's do it, right? That's why you don't do that.
    38:53
    Do that. All right, we'll do that. Oh, come on. That's an R. Ooh. At least you can give me the D or something.
    39:08
    Come on, R. But there's the wall push. That is a super important thing to learn. Coming down on it, you've got the ball on the wall, you have control over how far off that wall it goes. If you can not do anything, sometimes that's the right choice. In this case, that's headed right for the top of the swing and it's going to be out of control. Push it off and you get the ball under control with no fuzz. There we go, that's a good shot. Boom! Yeah, okay. This is not good.
    39:38
    Alright, good. Alright, there we go. Two more. Seven more locks. So normally they are catching and then re-capping with a tip flip. I just can't do that now so I have to hope for the live catch to be correct the first time. Or a tip flip with a no-knock. Come on, arms! Come on! Woo!
    40:19
    We are broken. Maybe it is broken. No, it's not broken. I'm just bad at shooting it. I hit it too high. I hit it too low. It's been good though. It's been really exciting even for the R. We're two straight multivolts. You can completely grid after you've completely griddened the star reactor into a bonus. Fortunately that's good because I already got that bonus once and I'm almost about to get it a second time because of how much R I'm missing after doing it.
    40:49
    Should I ace with the R? No. How many of you want me to ace with the R? Oh, no that's not an R ace. I'm going to hit the R anyway, but that was nice. Oh crap!
    41:06
    Yeah! Hit me! Hey, that was an R! Ah! Jeez! Hit that R! Oh yeah! Where did you get enough switches to move? That's right, so after 20 misses to the R, the game says, I'm not going to let you are. I'm moving it. I was looking somewhere in the middle of the yard. . The future is now. The future of our missing is here. . No. No, that's all gone. . My main contribution is to put Super Ramps in the random order. Alright now, hit the R. I think the R just, that was the R, right? Yeah. Alright. Alright, we're out here. We got a target flip, we got a two-eats-a-doo, we got a fist ball there. That's not a great game at all. Come on! That's better. Legs fed off! Oh! I'm not going to dare play that! Who's got the most balls? I don't believe you! This is the part where I wish we'd set it with five balls. But this is it. This is the last ball. We're on reactor 7, which is alright. The choices to make here are use the ball save time to try and take that. We can also try to plunge to get the correct lane and if I do that it will give me the reactor for free. The mystery award can also give me the reactor start for free. There's a lot of options here. So I'm going to plunge to the top and see if I can use the ball save time to help me. That didn't work, so...
    43:47
    That's fine, I get that back. So, if I point at the top, it'll give me the mystery award. And here I just want to not do that.
    44:06
    Okay, let's not do that. That was pretty great. At this point, forget the mystery where I don't need that anymore. Just give me the ball.
    44:22
    Now here's the juggling that I'm doing because I can't do what I would normally do. So get it trapped on the right flipper. We'll start multiple. We've got one priority to start at seven. And we'll see how far we can go. Seven is hard because it's going to take even more hits up top to complete. But, yeah, we can do it.
    44:44
    That's good! Keep it up there! Woo! Woo! Woo! Oh yeah! Hit it! Oh, I can only hit that R though. Did I really just kill that off by moving it? Yeah, whatever. Get control, get control, get control. Alright, that was pretty good for a while. Mystery can give you lead locks. Also, every deck block you made down before the multiple ends makes the lock starting easier for the next one, because it's just down, so it's only a few shots down.
    45:34
    Good livecast there. Oh, nice! Good. So, we could have lost that. It was a terrible shot, but you know.
    45:49
    Alright, if you're in the mystery, we'll give you lane lock. I want lane lock here. That's okay. I forgive you, Scott.
    46:02
    So here, like, that would have been an easy catch on the right, but for the footwork condition. I may need these after the harder shopping we'll have here. Or post-transfer rally tests. I don't feel comfortable with any of that. So I'll just try to lock you up.
    46:21
    Same thing there. That was a weird choice, but it's a choice that works under the circumstances. No, this is bad. I wasn't trying for that.
    46:31
    Even though it's gonna raise the reactor value for when I do destroy this, I don't want this kick out. Yeah, that's fine. It's okay. I'm just going to give it back. There we go. Half big. Okay, four more times. We'll start multi-ball. Oh, that's too hard again. Okay, good. All right. A couple of destroy targets to go. And four more. Four more. Destroy it. Go, back, please. All right. All right All right All right All right All right All right All right All right All right I turning you A couple of Detroit targets to go The dead one for us And four more for us Destroy it No attacking No attacking. Run, Detroit target. Hit it. Oh, yeah! Woo! That was good. All right, that's ten more seconds of wall space time. We'll all come back. Take it out!
    47:31
    So good! So good! I wish I could have gotten the reactor started before that. Three still, two still. One still. Get that scoop! Scoop, scoop! And break. There's also a break to settle the shelf model.
    47:55
    I can't hear this bad ass music. Alright, so two blows left in the incendiary reactor. I'm going to try to separate, which means one blow will go out, wherever. This blow will try to stay in place.
    48:14
    There we go. That's it, that's what you wanted. Now two are there. I think if I hit that target anyway, I might as well take out a jackpot while I'm at it. Got it! Oh! Woohoo! Alright, so is our reactor or is she locked? How are we a reactor? Alright, good answer. Lock is the correct answer. So, is that a reactor or is she locked? Locked. How are you a reactor? Good answer. Locked is the correct answer.
    48:57
    However, in my game, apparently, Megan Silverwater is the correct answer. And get reactor started by having it bounce in. So here, I'm using that flipper up there to dead the ball. So it'll definitely go in and I'll pass. Reactor 8!
    49:17
    He's in his suit! Watch those buttons! He was! He was back! Oh, Garrett! I'm in a mercy ball! No, that didn't happen. Alright!
    49:39
    And now, the worst train of all, Steve Biddle. Alright, so, uh, questions? This is, uh, meant to be somewhat interactive, I guess, so what would you like to know? Yeah? Is flipper passing dangerous in this game? Flipper passing is very dangerous in this game. Let's do that anyway. Alright, so, the standard flipper pass is called a post-trap. So let's do that anyway. Let's go into the beach. I didn't see you. Yeah. All right. So the standard slipper pass is called a post transfer. Post transfer, you grab the ball into the corner right next to you, and then it rolls out hard enough to get to the other side. The problem is it's too hard on this team. So as we do it, here's what happens.
    50:32
    So we do it without any control. So again, I'll do it again. You gotta be really soft with this. It is possible that you gotta be super soft. Let's try to make it super soft.
    50:46
    Not gonna happen. So, post-treatment is just not gonna happen. I'm doing everything from the left because that's where I have any control over. All right, so the second type of major pass is called an alley pass, which is where you This one is more feasible on this game, because it's pretty much feasible on any game. There's nothing special about the geometry. Like, it works on Paragon. On Paragon you can shoot the opposite in lane even though there's another flipper there. It's just the timing of when the flip comes.
    51:48
    But, it's very small. It's a very small space. So it's kind of uncomfortable to get it to go in there. And I'm not really trying to do very well. I'm just trying to get the... So let's try the alley pass one more time. And that's pretty much the best I can do with an alley pass. But even that, that is positive if the ball was moving out of control. and you chose, when you came to your flipper, to flip it in the opposite way and it had a counter-round and a back-end flipper. That's totally fine. The goal when you're looking for controls is to get control onto any flipper. It doesn't matter which one. And then you worry about which side later. Well on this cam, because of what you said, it's really not quite true anymore. You can just easily get it from left to right. So, let's see how this goes one more time. And it is possible, but I'm just not getting it. The other major pass is called a tap-tap, which is not very feasible in this game, because you need to basically activate the flipper half-half to get it to pop over to the side. I'm going to try that, and probably lose the ball. Oh, it worked! Oh yeah? Yeah. To the right. That's much better. Let's do that again. It works. It friggin' works. I did not expect that.
    53:25
    Alright, we're gonna do it from this side. Nope. Alley bouncing would be the way I would go from the right. And then that too, to just bounce the bounce over. It's super, like that was what, four bounces? And so it's surprising how many times you can let it bounce over the flipper and still not have it die. It works until it does.
    53:51
    Well, other questions? Yes? Is there any sense for when you hit the target to get the action? Is there any sense for how this works? Sorry, I didn't hear your question. It was a little loud.
    54:07
    You know what you're gonna target with the active circle? Huh? Um, I'm not really good with aliens, so I'm not using it in a different way, like, stick some out. Okay, so the answer is don't hit it. Uh, really, that's the answer. The answer is, you saw me do this throughout the game. Get in a multi-ball, use the multi-ball to shoot anything you think is dangerous. And then when you get back out of multi-ball, and you look around and you don't see anything, the stupid entertainer, go back to multiball. You can use multiball at all times to help you. So lots of games have what's sometimes called a helper multiball. A multiball doesn't do very much by itself, but it gives you access to be able to do things you wouldn't do, like finish a round quickly or do something at double value, like you see here. So things are going to be doubled to triple value instead of multiple.
    55:02
    Sure. Sling is a big dissonance. How do I get him out of there? You have to physically remove the sling. Or remove the kickers and turn them into non-sling. Like Hulk. Or you could, well, the reality is that every game is different about this. So the general rule is that if the ball is hitting the bottom half of the slingshot, it's okay. If the ball is hitting the top half of the slingshot, it's in danger. Because the danger is it's going to go here, down. If it's here and it kicks this way, all it's going to do is hit the other slingshot. Or it goes so short that it comes out deep. Ideally, it's like, sling, sling, sling, oh, that's cool, that's fine. So when the ball is hitting the top half of the slingshot, we generally push the machine up to give the ball further influence to go higher than it would normally go and get it out of the danger area. But this is really a very general guideline. On this game I don't do it. On this game I spend most of my time when the ball is in the sling operating the save lane and making sure the save lane is going to be on the side that the ball eventually gets to so that I don't miss it if it's going to go down the outlet, because it will. And it uses your same waves really well. It gets tips as many as you can. That was really the main reason why I survived the one that I did.
    56:37
    Other questions? One more. The personal one. Do you know when the ball comes off the flipper and it's right in the moment, do you have to ask the other one? Do you see a sudden moment where the ball comes behind and kind of kicks the ball and you tip it over? Yeah, it's an incredibly useful skill. That would have most of the time. Do you do that at will? I guess yes. Pretty much, yeah. Especially with very responsive flippers like the one they normally have, we can do that like this. Kick up and try to induce a situation where it's going to happen. Like that.
    57:21
    That would be right there. So to get to the edge of your flipper, you're making a decision of where you're going to set that ball to get it back over here.
    57:32
    And if you flip, if you flip up again... There, I'm going to start playing harder, but this one can go either way. You have to go on the side, like you want to go over or you want to stay on your side. And mainly the momentum of the ball, but it can also be him only ball, which side you want the ball on. You actually can choose which one you want. A harder kickflip tends to keep the ball on the same side, and a lighter kickflip is just like a walk that pushes it over. But they're both valid.
    58:23
    Well, any other, what other questions do you have? Why isn't the Womblegaw song on the soundtrack? It was so good. Because there was only room for ten. On the 2018 one. No, it's not, it's 1984. You got me. It didn't fit on the cassette. I probably did. That is correct, it actually did not fit on the cassettes. Because they sold them on the cassette. Yeah. You just look at them on the zero. Yeah, they sold them. They're either sold through 3CE directly or through Double Danger.
    58:56
    So is this. What else? Yeah. What's the role of the Nostalgia team? I don't know anything more about them because I'm working on Cooper.
    59:13
    He had some kind of podcast where he talked about building a layout or something. . What do you mean? . I'm just asking you to charge the whole board of rules with this case? I challenge the right to rule, to be honest with you. I honestly, I haven't approached anyone about that. I don't know anything more than whatever from Scott in those announcements. I would guess he's probably just keeping the case private for himself for a bit. Because it certainly worked for him on annihilation to have his own vision and then work on that vision in isolation for a while. I expect that helped a little because I helped with some of the rules on this game. But in the end I suppose whatever you build is... I hope it's good.
    60:31
    Are you going to design the game? What? Are you going to design the game? I would be a terrible designer. I have no idea about talent creation.
    60:39
    even though I was a math teacher. I'm really bad with the manufacturing process. I'm not near any CNC machines where I can make a white wood and play it out. It would really be a very poor decision for any company to give me a chance to design my own table. But if someone gave me a design and said, here, could you make this a little better, I could do that. But I wouldn't dream of getting any kind of credit for the mind. The other is the mind of Charlie and Scott, who wasn't. He was way better than I ever was. And I fully expect that they'll continue to be way better than I ever was. And I get to enjoy the part that I'm good at. I just wanted to say, don't ever discredit yourself. That's all. Okay.
    61:34
    I think that one of the things about working with a team like that is that everybody has the things that they're really great at. And you can see that. Scott's really outstanding at getting a feel for the player experience and making even unusual or contradictory decisions. Like the decision to have that kick out fire immediately. I can't tell you how many people told him not to do that. People who work in industry, people who are very well respected are like, it seems pretty good, but you've got to fix that. And his answer is, nope. We want the game to feel fast and brutal and to force you to pay attention all the time in case there's a Lazarus. Or something. Great point. Let's pay back for the deaths anyway, I suppose. Well, I think that was a good last question we had there. So it's 10 o'clock after party for those of you who have the badge to go to the after party. So thanks very much, Paul, for showing us how to play.