Anyway, okay, that's my number four. What's your number five, Alan? Okay, now this is another one. This is very – I've learned this is hyper-regional. Apparently, the city of Portland, where I grew up playing pinball, and now I own a pinball bar, it's The Sopranos, also designed by George Gomez. This is an extremely popular game in the city of Portland. uh there's a lot of them here lots of them on i think the last time i looked there was like 20 22 on location 25 of the sopranos they made ended up in portland it seems like it they've been operated since i started playing when they were you know just a couple years old when i first started playing you know based on the tv show at the time it's again it's kind of a hack shit show right we can all agree it's a bad show it changed tv and it changed pinball dude um again there's another gomez game fan layout super fun ramps like a little boat lock ramp a little uh stripper ramp the central mech with the safe that goes up and down that's a bear to keep running well but it's a very cool moment again the monster bash creature shot but now it has a little fish that talks a little talking fish yeah you're talking with the fishies it's got it's a pretty good combination of the two gomez games we had on here wraps up in kind of widely loved drama theme which is really an oddball theme for pinball but it's got so many great call outs it works moments and it makes you feel cool for doing the things again not a punishing game not a hard game just a fun game I particularly love the call out when you're in the pops and you get the beat down. And he goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, I got a family. Like, I just love this game where, like, this kid can fucking earn. This kid can fucking earn. We just quote that all the time. All the time. And this game just goes nuts. This game out-earns anything else. This game will out-earn a Godzilla in Portland. It is crazy. There are people in Portland that you would not suspect. They don't play pinball. They play Sopranos pinball. That's it. That's the only good one. It is a weird thing. It's something that it's never been fully explained to me, but they've always been around. And I see it, man. We have, uh, Rhodes has two Sopranos and we haven't had one on the floor at Wedge for a while. And I have a sweet lady that comes in and every time she gives me hell about it. I hear about this game when it's not on the floor, man. It is crazy. But then people want to rent it. Other businesses that Roadsy routes at, they always want a Sopranos. It's absolutely. This is the other game that Casey was like, Sopranos, Theater of Magic. And I was like, yep, way ahead of you. Yeah, it makes me think that Gomez should really do like a Breaking Bad or something just because it would somehow end up with the same magic combo. He's, yeah, we'll get to that. Okay, my last pick for the games, because I'm just kind of like trying to get some variety on here, and I was going to put two gateway games for Solid States, Bally specifically, and I put down Skateball or Centaur, which are just not really, they don't fit with any of this at all, basically. but they're just two friendly, cool-looking, solid-state games where if you're trying to get... It's not where you should bring someone for their first game of pinball ever, but if you're trying to get friends into old games, these are two that I highly recommend because they both look badass, so people want to play them. And they're both pretty friendly. They both just work like... I don't know what even it is about them specifically that makes them so friendly compared to other ballets. Like if you try to play Frontier with someone, they'll just be like, I hate this. I hate old games. But you can play Skateball or Centaur. In Centaur, you can obviously get multi-ball Skateball. There's no multi-ball, but it just kind of like works easy. The shots are fun to hit. Nothing's too punishing except for, I guess, the drops right in the middle. You just tell them to avoid those center drops. And so I just wanted to say like it's like those are two specifically. If you're trying to get people into solid states and you can hunt down one of these games, there are two games that we happen to have on location every once in a while. They pop up in Portland. And that's just kind of I just wanted to put them on there to say there are exceptions to all of these rules. There's niches among niches here in pinball. And so you can always kind of try to find ones like a good place to get people in, worm them into your niche of the hobby, I guess. Yeah. And I think we've talked about these people, these different designers. I think certain designers are better at this on average, just in general. We talk about Steve Ritchie a lot. He is not the guy, I think, as a great gateway game in the modern day. I do think that he does make some easy games, like I would say Spider-Man, Stern Trek, Stern Star Trek, not Star Trek The Next Generation. Even though that game I love to pieces. I love that game. But Stern Trek, I think, is pretty cool. It's got a cool central mech. It's not a fan because it's got the extra flipper, but you don't have to hit that warp ramp either. pretty wide shots and tells you what to do but we're talking about i think personally the king of the gateway games to me like we already said it's mr george gomez that guy has the juice man it's from a game we didn't talk about deadpool modern game he did deadpool everyone new players love that game and makes them feel cool glowing scoop they do a really good job illuminating and when you need that in that scoop for being a small scoop it's pretty easy to just kind of like get fall in there yep when they get to do the katana lock it makes them feel cool because that's a super cool shot yep um you can easily get into little deadpool it's got cool animations and sound and it's funny and again it's not particularly punishing by modern game standards it can be a long playing game and i think that that and everything he did from monster bash lord of the Rings, Sopranos, all games we already talked about on this episode. Like, to me, George Gomez is the king of Gateway Games. Yep. I agree personally, but for sake of conversation, I would say other big contender would be Brian Eddy. Yep. Especially his Sally Williams games. Yes. Although I think Stranger Things is right up there with them. Yeah. And it has a lot of the same ideas. I mean, it's kind of a recycled layout or version. And it's a modified version of Attack from Mars with a lot of the same kind of idea and all the good things about that game put into a new package with a theme that people will like. I will say, though, that a game of his that's great that I don't think is beginner-friendly, The Shadow. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. He has some that aren't. That's why I— Same thing with Gomez. Johnny Mnemonic? No. I think it's still pretty friendly to shoot. I just don't know what the rules and stuff— Corvette? Yeah, that's a hard one. It's like some, these games are fun. I actually really like those games, but they're like, those aren't, you know, but so even these, like no designer just stays in one box. Right. But yeah, John Papaduke kind of does. John Papaduke does. He's, he's a, I think he's, I think these other guys' best beginner games are better, but John Papaduke's games all kind of feel the same and they're all pretty good beginner games because they all have like fun ramps to shoot, big center bash toy or whatever. Tales of the Arabian Nights, which we didn't bring up, another great gateway game. I was playing that. I was taking my dad, who grew up in kind of the pinball golden era. In the 70s, he was just graduating high school, so he was going out and playing all the old classic games, but he hasn't been into pinball for three or four decades. and I took him to Ground Control when he was visiting years ago and we're upstairs and we're playing all these games and he comes to me excitedly as I'm playing Whitewater and he goes, Alan, Alan, Alan, have you played Arabian Nights? Have you played Arabian Nights? I was like, yeah, I've played Arabian Nights. He goes, this is the best one. He's like, oh. He's like, this is the best one. He's like, immediately, he's like, this one is the best. And, you know, it's a great game. My brother did that just recently. My brother that's not really into pinball at all was in town and we went to wedgehead and he did that with uh bond 007 yeah and he just came as game because he's like i don't know why you've been trying to avoid buying sterns man he's like these sterns are way better than everything else he's like i don't know he's like these are all faster and they're cooler and i was like i guess i think that game is a great i mean again it's a game so it's another one that there's not a center bash toy but you can kind of slop your way into a multi-ball by hitting it yeah hitting those drops and then hitting up the middle it's fun when you see like the little db5 ejection seat and stuff it's cool great sound light again cool very cool ball returns that like feel good when you hit those ramps hard hard shots maybe for a new player but not a punishing game right so i think that's a good balancing of that game so we talked a lot about what makes a good gateway game examples of our favorites what makes a bad gateway game alan okay games with close-in shots yeah like walking dead close to the figure yeah like walking dead that immediately comes to mind that's a hard game in general with some of the feeds but it's got close and bash toys it was a very popular show but that game is is it's hard for good players yeah and for new players man it's hard to find the fun in that game until you get your skills up uh and a lot of it that i point to is like close-in shots games with upper flippers like we talked about or lots of auxiliary flippers yeah the one that comes to mind is another great game twilight zone by pat lawler that's a game that i grew up i love the twilight zone grandpa loved it i love that show i still love that show it's one of my favorite pieces of any art or medium that's ever existed in the same way that alex loves godzilla i love the twilight zone it shaped me as a person so when i got into pinball i'm like oh there's a twilight zone pinball machine oh it's made by pat lawler who made the adams family oh like this is people think it's one of the best machines ever made and then i would go out and play it and be like i hate this like and now i don't feel that way right like me the first time i played tron legacy yeah and i was just like oh i'm so excited for this i love tron i love fucking daft punk i played it and i was like i have no idea what i'm doing i'm just getting fucked i just didn't get it non-standard non-fan layouts lots of extra flippers confusing where ball paths are going and coming out of not the best way to get somebody into the game yep likewise games with tight frustrating shots like uh the modern teenage mutant ninja turtles is very difficult for people that aren't good at pinball that one it's nuts to me how hard that thing can be to shoot sometimes the right side specifically like that right ramp right orbit our bitch and then uh like houdini you see this the some of boutique games don't have like the polish it's like they don't realize i guess and you see this with some of the spooky games too where it's like these shots are too tight and they will just be endlessly frustrating because the one thing that can really suck i mean these annoy me just on a like even when you're past being a beginner is if you can't make the shot and you just keep trying it's no longer fun and so that's yeah like if you're cradled up and you can't make that shot five times in a row the shot's too tight or i mean you might be really bad at shooting but that's usually not the problem when it comes to like something like that games without ball saves which is all classic solid states and ems we love them here we love them here that you hear it on the podcast you listen to this podcast you know us if this is the first time you're listening to an episode buckle up this is what we usually talk about this isn't we're not always talking about gateway games we i love games without ball saves but they're not the way because people feel oh i just flinch the ball and it's gone this is why i don't play pinball i'm terrible this is why ball saves began in the system 11 era and why they still persist today yep you know i think another one i put on this list is low scoring games are not great gateway games i say this because you see it on like the pinball subreddit or you see it people go i joined the billion club i did the whatever yeah people like seeing big scores and you get used to those scores because in modern pinball, we've gotten, Stern's good at, like, the game score pretty consistently across games. They're not supposed to. Like, that's not, like, an actual thing. Like, you're not supposed to be able to compare a score from one game to another, but they obviously do that so you kind of have, like, a metric of, like, okay, a good game is a billion points. No a very good game or a great game is a billion points Yeah like a GC game Right like but you know a good game just for an average person is 100 million or more right like it gives you those kind of like benchmarks and it scales yep and that's why when you go to like a jersey jack and you play a game and you get like 60 000 points you're like well what did i do like i've been stranger things and i got like you know 10 billion and now i played jersey jack or whatever i played hobby and i got like 30 000 like what the fuck yeah that can be really discouraging if you don't understand the difference in scoring across games yep i would also say games with like crazy randomizing features oh yeah like magnets or discs which uh pat lawler was fond of doing there's a thing in pinball where the ball moves crazy and it gets a lot of spin as it's moving new players don't realize their spin so every time they go look at what the ball just did it must be the magnets under the play field now there are some magnets famously in games but very usually it's very clear very visible the bag that will grab it stop it and then throw it yeah we're talking about like like when you have the power in the adams family he did it one time on the best-selling game of all time in the adams family and now everyone go oh there's probably magnets you hear people talk to their friends about it oh it's a magnet issue and you're like no the pulse is spitting but the games that do have magnets like that or like his other game whirlwind where it has the spinning discs and that upper ramp shot drops it right into those spinning discs. That's just frustrating for new players. I think it makes those games fucking awesome. Yeah, we love it, but it's not great for when you're starting out. And last thing on the list is complicated rules when they affect your scoring to a massive degree. And the biggest example would be like Star Wars, where you can be starting out and be like, hey, I feel like I had a pretty good game of Star Wars, and you look at your score and you get you know 50 million and you look at the high scores and someone has like 27 billion or something yeah i know how to fucking play star wars yeah and that shit is really discouraging and then you're like oh well how do i play this and you go to look up a tutorial and it's over an hour long and someone's like all right now you gotta do this and you're moving it this is the tatooine modes and this is you know like and it's just it's yeah it's not That's not a good gateway game. That's a hardcore game. So now I guess to kind of finish this up, what's a great game? I think we talked about some of them there as we ran down, but I wanted to each of us give a great game, like a top 50 pin side game that isn't a great gateway game. And mine is Iron Maiden by Stern. It's Keith Elwin's first game. It's my favorite Keith Elwin game. It has a few punishing shots, which I think he kind of eliminates from most of his later games. They're less punishing. He has some very tight shots on that game. Some very high risk, you know, lower play field shots close into the flippers. Yeah. And the left ramp through the pops, you know, you have to be a sniper. You have to be a good player to hit that shot reliably or when you need it. And the rule set is kind of like Metallica, another great pinball machine, but it doesn't do a great job of describing to the player all the things that you're building at the same time you're building lots of different things and it's definitely better suited for like advanced pinheads who will say the rule set i think it's keith's shortest playing game like the ball times are the shortest it's gotta be other than the bond 60th which was like a throwback layout i just think that like godzilla and jaws are much better entry points to like keith elwyn games like they're both they play longer they push the shots way back and they're just less punishing and they they still feel like intermediate games not like like super beginner games necessarily although Godzilla I agree with you you having it on your list like that makes sense to me yeah but it's like I can't teach my mom to play those games so they're not gateway games yeah for my pick of a good game that's a horrible gateway game I went with Rick and Morty a game I'm very familiar with and I love it it's it's got pretty simple rules it's got a pretty you know simple easy to understand layout does have an upper flipper but it's punishing enough it's hard enough that shots are hard most people aren't even going to flip it long enough to get into a mode or something if they're getting if they're new to pinball it's got good moments in it it's got really good you know light show it's got phenomenal light show and it's got good call out great call outs again you're not going to see those if you're new unless you somehow stumble into that multi-ball really fast on accident when you're new you're not going to see shit and you're going to be like well how is this even rick and morty i'm just looking at an empty garage on the screen there's no big toy in the middle there's nothing that you're like i gotta see this what happened yeah i want to do this like there is like there's like the pre-loaded ball i'm blanking on the name for having the the ball in the subway or whatever already there's a better stage ball stage ball yeah there's the stage ball portal which is cool but you're like no one sees that from like a casual perspective they don't even understand what's going on and i honestly makes it harder for them too because like the ball just shows up like yep and it's it doesn't have any crazy ramps it's uh it's hard for me because it's it's kind of a funny one because it's a theme that attracts a lot of casuals it gets a lot of people that aren't pinball people's interest just because they like the show it's a pretty out there theme for pinball it's not something based on an 80s ip but when you combine that like widespread appeal with a very difficult layout it really gets a lot of people upset there's a lot of people that are very new to pinball they learn there's a rick and morty pinball machine they go out of their way to play it and they think it's the worst fucking game of all time and to them i say like come back in five years when you've been playing for a while and i bet you love it yeah or even just a year or two like of playing regular pinball like just if it's not like you need to study like a fucking buddhist monk to play it but it's just one of those things that it's like i think you just need give it more of a shot than that yeah yeah and i'd be curious if anyone disagrees but it feels like a bad gateway game to me oh i would i would agree with that 100 but yeah tips for making their first experience fun so it's like you've you've dragged your friends your roommate your co-worker your mom your sister your dog to a place and how do you make sure you've one you choose a well-established gateway game yeah like we discussed a bunch pick one of those next i think just as important is choose a location that you know that they would like for reasons that are not pinball yeah i'd say that's like number one honestly is like don't make them go to some miserable spot because there's a pinball machine go find somewhere that's a good spot we're all degenerates right like we're all pinball degenerates like i'll go to a barn that has a bunch of pins just to play something weird don't make them don't subject other people to that don't do that don't do weird shit and even just like you don't want to go to a super loud arcade you don't want to be like an overwhelming experience if you can find a place that has some pins if it's like a pizza shop or if it's like a bar or something that's usually a better place yep for the for the first bite you know no wild kids yep my other big thing i always tell people this this is what i used to do all the time and it worked really well is pay for their games of pinball yeah do not let them pay for pinball yeah don't let them even think about it because it really you're not going to be spending tons and tons of money here like if you can get a new player through three games that's pretty like miraculous like if you have their interest for three games that person probably already likes pinball a bit yeah and you're like if you don't have three bucks to invest in like getting your friend to like pinball, then you probably shouldn't be out playing pinball. Yeah. I mean, it's just like buying your friend a drink. I'll, I'll float you five, six, seven, $10. Yep. If you're playing and enjoying yourself, that's all I care about. We might get a match. I'll get to go, Oh, look, you want a free game? Like we get those moments and it's like, it divorces people from the idea. Like, man, I put a buck in, I suck at this. I didn't do well. And then I saw you doing well. And then it made me even more self-conscious. and I'm like, why am I keep putting money into this? Maybe I shouldn't do this. And you go, don't worry about it. Yeah, don't even let the money part of it cross their minds. Yeah. Another thing is don't dump the entire rule set on them before you play the game. We kind of alluded to this earlier with like Zoe is very good at this. Give them one thing, maybe two things to do. Yes. And that's basically it. Past that, it's like show them that you can slow the ball down. Yeah. Like really basic stuff. when you're starting out with someone that's not played pinball much at all before and like you know the next time you're out you can explain like oh there's there's these like modes or something you could yeah you can elaborate on it later don't give them more than like 20 30 seconds of instruction i see this happen all the time at wedge i'll see someone who's like clearly jacked up and is so excited and they have the friend that's kind of like yeah i guess we're doing this like and they're trying to be like all right so now we're okay so now i gotta pick this house and um you know i gotta be lannister and because then i'm gonna do and they're just like their eyes are glazing over and it's easy it's easy to fall into that because it's it's our hobby we all love this shit we're passionate it's very interesting to us we wish someone had explained all this to us when we were new but you're looking at it through the eyes of someone that's already in the hobby you just gotta remember like how little is going to be retained you gotta put some bait out there you gotta chum the waters you know think about it like that you're not trying to reel in the biggest fish you've ever seen just you should just chum the waters a little bit okay and then i think this is super important it's celebrate their first moment whether it's their first multi-ball it's their first jackpot it's their first mode completion celebrate it like they just won the lottery and they've agreed to split it with you like that's how you should be celebrating you should be like damn this is the best day of our life make them feel cool yep Whether you've seen that a million times or whatever, and you're like, oh, whatever. I destroyed a castle, whatever. Who cares? Give me the ball back, right? You're like flipping both flippers. You just give me the ball back. I don't even want to see this animation. When they do it, make it seem like it's the coolest shit in the world. Yep. You know, that's an easy one, and it goes a long way. Yeah, I think that's very important. And last thing on our list is if it's someone's first time playing pinball, first time playing pinball as an adult whatever do not make their first experience a tournament or a league night even a howdy partner even a howdy partner please just let them experience pinball in its with their friends with their friend having like a drink or having some coffee or just hanging out just chilling don't make it a stressful thing full of people they don't know where everyone's going to be trying to overload them with stuff just take it easy take it easy if they have a good first experience or a good couple first experience, that's when you're like, hey, maybe you want to join me on a league night. If you live in Portland, you're like, Howdy Partner is the best for new players. But like I said, I wrote this outline and I wrote, do not make their first experience a tournament or league night, even if it's Howdy Partner, because it's much easier to get your friend to trust you to go out and for you to one-on-one play games with them and try to show them how cool pinball is rather than them getting paired up and having to play in groups of people they don't know. Yeah, having to wait around. Yeah, like it's just make sure that they get chum the water first before you start reeling in the fish. Yeah. I think that was a good episode. We just wanted to touch on this. It's something that we all want more people in the hobby, right? The hobby needs to grow. I want to see this thing mainstream. My goal in pinball is I want pinball to be popular like it was in the 70s. Yeah. Okay? I don't want this to be a niche nerd hobby anymore. I think it's cool that it still exists. I love nerds. I'm a nerd. But we need more people. We need more pinball on location. We need pinball to be everywhere like it was in the 1970s. And to do that, we all got to do our part. You got to go out there and you got to convert people. You got to grab people that currently do not play pinball, which is just an extraordinary amount of people. Almost everyone. I mean, we're the 1%, right? We're probably less than 1%. So we need to get more of that pie. And so do your part, you know, recruit more pinball players. Start a sleeper cell in your local community.