thanks for tuning in to loser kid pinball podcast we are on episode 146 i am josh roop with me my co-captain as always scott larson we got an awesome guest joining us today scott you've had quite the venture uh and there's a new game out we're focusing specifically on avatar today tell us about uh if you're gonna buy that magic where are you gonna buy it from scott no i'd contact Zach and Nicole Mini at Flip N Out Pinball. Actually, I know two people personally who have purchased the collector's edition from Flip N Out Pinball. So it's a great place. They have great customer service. So definitely reach out to them, and they'll be able to hook you up. Yep, definitely. Well, our guest kind of came onto the scene crashing in, kind of like blew us away back in May. And then he's just like part of the clan now. If you haven't checked out his site, his videos are fantastic. He loves Godfather. I mean, it's Vic VP. And I think you are a great example, Vic, of how having virtual pinball can transition you into buying actual pinball. And you just did a video on this. It was like your one-year owning pinball, which was a fantastic like 45-ish minute video. If you haven't checked this out, check out Vic. But we want to welcome on Vic VP. How are you doing, man? Thank you, guys. I'm just happy to be here. thank you guys so much for inviting me on this and again i can't thank you guys enough you guys were one of the two that messaged me after the whole whirlwind and fiasco media stuff and uh you guys are very welcoming and uh i'm very grateful that you you guys shot me an email and called my nerd so thank you for inviting me and i'm just excited to be here yeah man we're excited to have you on it's awesome well you got to hang out with scott and you guys went did a little field trip like class Thursday, Friday. Where'd you guys go? We went to Chicago. We flew into Chicago. So, so full disclaimer, we did get JJP, Jersey Jack Pinball. They had an event and they invited media people to come out. They did pay our expenses to come out. So we just want to make sure everybody's aware of that with the caveat that they, they had no restrictions on, on the content that we were going to talk about uh they basically said uh you know any anything that we talk about is uh without bias and it's our it's our impression so we're very grateful that jersey jack was able to do that so this is all about avatar this episode is we i i flew in the night before uh we went to jersey Jack starting about 10 o'clock and we were there until about three o'clock. So we started off, we got a little quick tour of Jersey Jack. They also took us back. Well, they talked about the game, talked a little bit about what was going on, went and took a tour around the factory. We got to see avatars that were on the line. We're able to see the mechs, able to see the the underplay fields, um, able to see the cabinets. And then we went and grabbed some lunch and we played avatar. So, and then after that, uh, we went to interior. They had a section in interior that had all of their games. Uh, well, okay. So the ones that they didn't have, they didn't have pirates and, um, they didn't have a was, yeah. So, But they had all the other games there. So this is actually a pretty monumental release for them. This is their 10th game. And they've really picked it up over the last couple of years where it used to be that they were taking years between games. So they were taking years to get another game out. They seem to have accelerated that. A few years ago, we heard Jack talk about wanting to release things more on an accelerated basis. He talked, it seemed like teasing out about every nine months or so. And they seem to have been following that for the last couple of releases. So that's actually been really good for them. So this is their 10th game. It's a new designer. So Josh, why don't you give us the rundown on who was involved in this? For sure. so um you gotta you gotta understand i was a little jealous because i start getting these notes i'm at work and also my phone just starts boop boop i'm like what is going on and scott's taking notes and because we obviously podcast together he doesn't want me to lose these notes so he's texting them over to me and i'm like what is what in the earth okay yeah yeah yeah they were they were quick little like hey this is what's going on so it was a stream of consciousness yes Yes. So I'm assuming this is who worked on the game or all involved. So Mark Seiden is the newest designer to JJP. This is his first release. If you haven't checked out Metroid, I'm assuming they're going to have it at Expo. Don't quote me on that, but it's a fantastic game. I was excited to see what he came out with with JJP just because I'm a huge Metroid fan and he did a great job with that. Metroid was a homebrew for those who didn't know. This was his own game that he just made himself. Then you've got on here Ken Cromwell, which is head of marketing, right? Is that his official title? Sorry, Ken, if I got that wrong. Eric Meunier, which got a new title. So he's just been a designer for a while, but now his new title is like the head of operations, isn't it, or something like that? He's like the George Gomez now of JJP. Yeah, he's basically like the – I didn't get his official title, but he is basically the chief engineer. Gotcha. tom capera who left stern uh is now the head over manufacturing and tom was over uh not manufacturing he was machining at stern he was one of the the head guys he also helped with cactus canyon and uh actually i think was the designer for cactus canyon as well um back in the in the 90s at bally williams and you've got brett abess okay that's the only person on here i don't know Yeah, Brett Abus, he is actually the – so they are the part owners of the company. Oh, okay. When they came in. Okay, and so I talked to Brett a little bit. He's super nice, super excited about being involved in pinball, wanting to bring it to the fans, try to make the best product. And he comes from a background where his dad has a lot of money. And so he's used to being in like a big business situation. And so he comes from that. He is over Jersey Jack. They are fans. They are personally fans. And so that's how they got involved. There were a couple that I didn't get on that list just because I didn't know at the time. And let's see if I can find those. Okay. So there was – there were also a couple other new ones. uh leah foskey uh she she did the art and she comes from the it was the video game background right vic yeah it was heartstone i believe it was yeah so she came from the video game background uh in mobile gaming too i don't know she's done actual like console game but it was yeah sure so definitely the video game it was interesting because when we she wasn't there but when we talked about uh getting the asset integration and being able to do the art package they said it was interesting because she actually had more freedom doing this than she typically does doing the video games and that's and i that did stand out to me because usually it's the other way around yeah usually when the artist is like ah i have all these constraints to work with so that was something that that really stood out um especially with the disney license that's interesting yeah also also on here is Keith P. Johnson you know Keith P. Johnson yeah Keith P. Johnson you love his code from lord of the rings and okay but even back in the day yes yeah lord of the rings but he's been doing the main code design architecture for all the jersey jack games yes and then you've got on animation the legendary john paul dewin yep uh and he's he's been there at jgp for a while working on their animations and there is um okay i'm trying not to get this wrong it was a rachel foskey that am i saying that correctly she's the head uh mechanical engineer oh yes i remember them announcing her yes yeah and that and so it was really nice to see that this game is bringing a lot of new and young blood into the pinball uh sphere that's in this and they really come from uh rachel uh is a she's a mechanical engineer she's she's certainly young and this is great because we are getting new people into pinball and casting the net wider uh it's it's it's nice just because a lot of you know for a long time pinball tends to be a little bit of a self-perpetuating machine and you get a lot of a lot of people who have been involved in pinball remaking and being re-involved in pinball so being able to bring in more talent certainly uh broadens the exposure and broadens the the demographic that that is involved in pinball which is only a good thing yeah i agree so what was your guys's first impressions walking into the factory why don't you tell me about that Vic uh I went to Ken and I was like how do you get work done like how do you get work done in this amazing facility it was the whole like it's it's it's like a very well bit built machine and when Eric was giving us the tour you could tell he's like passionate and he knew like where everything was it was just a it was a fine-tuned machine it was just from the beginning to the end and how organized and everything was i was like mind blown by the whole thing yeah that's awesome it is i would say that if you're looking at different factories um stern has an enormous factory okay yes so this is a smaller level but it's still a big factory okay yeah and so you could tell that they were able to uh to do a lot of stuff there um it it It is interesting because I did get this little tidbit that I was, we were trying to tease out. Okay. So how many games do they make? You know, of course they don't release the figures anymore. They used to release all these things, but I did get, let's see if they are running at full capacity, they could make 80 games a day. Nice. Okay. And I did specifically ask how many man hours does it take? to get from start to finish. 18 to 22. So roughly three to four days to get something from start to finish. That's if they don't drop the play field and scatter the bolts everywhere. That was a different tour. Okay. However, ironically, okay, Vic, do you remember this? They do a play field drop test. Yes. Apparently four feet off the floor. Four feet. What? Yeah. Wait, what? Yeah. They suspend a play field four feet off the ground. Fully populated. We're talking a full, everything's on it, all the mechs. Okay. And then they, I don't know if they just release the power or they cut the cord or whatever, but it's a full drop from four feet onto a cement ground. And he said it's loud. Yeah, Brett said that. Yeah. And what's the reasoning behind this play field drop? Okay, so this is the challenge because shipping, we all know crazy things happen when you're shipping. And shipping companies do not use kid gloves. No, they do not. So this is their way of trying to ensure that when it's put in a box and it ships out to a customer that they have done as much as reasonably possible to ensure that things aren't going to be broken or moving around or loose. Gotcha. So I thought that was interesting. Yeah. They even mentioned that they have a room with the flippers are just going for like days. Eric's like it's just a loud room and it's very hot in that room so they get they're doing their testing and that was interesting to hear so they must have moved that because when Scott and I went on the tour back in 2021 they had this like cage inside the like manufacturing area and it was going whatever they were testing was going off the whole time we're like yeah what's back there and like you can't see that like but what is it it's our next game we're testing a mech and it's like so yeah what would happen because it's just us and Ken like yeah what are you gonna do stop Obviously, we didn't peek behind the curtain. But they do have ways, just like any manufacturing company is going to have ways of continually testing machines. And so they have balls that are rolling around playfields, flippers activating, and just making sure that you're going to get hours and hours and hours of wear on the playfield from extensive testing to make sure that it's going to last the life of the game. Yeah. I want to point one thing out. So you brought the new artist, Leah Fowski. Is that what you said her name was? I like this because I feel like it differentiates in two different ways. So they brought on a new artist and that really differentiates JJP because we're not pulling from the same pool of artists that have already been in pinball. Right. And I get there's some that come and go. But for the most part, I think the second way it differentiates is this isn't like your stereotypical pinball art. she's definitely taken it it's cool because it's pinball art but it's in a new direction in my opinion uh she did a fantastic job like i want to applaud her and applaud jjp for taking a risk and not just doing the same old same old right so yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it definitely. Okay, so let's get into that there's other things that I'm going to talk about we want to talk about. but I want to get into, okay. So avatar let now, if you listened to us last time, we just had like a 10 second trailer to look at and we did talk about this. So let's talk about everybody avatar as a theme. Okay. And I did go out and say that this was what I would probably consider a B level theme in that it's very recognizable. Everybody knows avatar. Everybody has seen it, has some sort of exposure to it. They're going to recognize it when they come into an arcade. However, it's not – I would say – Freckis. I'm sorry. I just barely – I was making sure I got her so I could – so the mechanical engineers – I didn't say it correctly. Is it Freckis? I'm sorry, Rachel, if I'm saying it wrong. But it's a – it is a theme that you know. If you look at – oh, sorry, Frerichs. That's it. Rachel Frerichs. I'm sorry. I want to make sure that I was saying everybody's name correctly. It's that monkey on your back. I get you. I did. So I actually went back and I was pulling up in the background. I was watching the Avatar video that had everybody's name in it. Okay. A-list titles. Okay. What's an A-list title? Star Wars. Yeah, Star Wars. Star Wars is an A-list title. Harry Potter. Harry Potter is an A-list title. Pokemon. Pokemon is not an A-list title. Dude, it's the highest grossing franchise of all time. How is it not? Yeah. Well, okay. Do you want to go on with wind pinball machine? That's not even near the top 25 franchise. Actually, when you adjust for inflation, it actually is. Okay. Made movies, but not franchises. Okay. All right. Fine. Okay. So yeah, this is, this is a solid theme that is quite recognizable. And so in some ways though, I think this is good because people aren't fully immersed in the lore of this. They understand it. Okay. And there are super fans out there who are totally into it, but it doesn't have the handcuffs, I would say, that a Star Wars game would have and that like a Harry Potter game would have. Okay. Now, I'm going to throw it to Vic and ask your thoughts, and I'm going to throw it over to Josh. I mean, again, if we're talking about Avatar, I'm not in it. I don't like it. It's not for me. when it was in the movie theaters and people were talking about it i'm personally not into that like sci-fi i just it's not for me so when i heard that they were you recognize it you you knew no no i am you see blue and the ears and i knew i knew who and what it is but as far as me being a fan of the theme it's i it's i don't i'm not a fan of the movie so okay okay josh it does not do anything for me i'm not a huge avatar fan okay which is fine yeah it just isn't here's the problem with me i felt like i i don't like to go to movies to have a political message and i felt like every time i watch an avatar movie there's some kind of underlying political message that they're trying to push i'm like it's just not it's not for me i'm sorry yeah okay yes we all know what avatar is we know yes once you see the blue guy it's like all right avatar not a smart avatar okay yep okay uh now have either of you guys been able to go down to walt disney world and see the uh the world of pandora down there no okay it's really cool in that you're going through and you're walking through uh like an avatar for the pandora forest and it's it's really pretty a lot of bioluminescent stuff and when you're riding on i don't know if you're riding on the banshee because the banshee is the big one right the big bird and what's the small other one that you well yeah well no no not the well i'm talking like the other thing the other smaller bird there's like the the one that you connect your braid to and and meld somehow with um dude i i've watched this movie once and i just okay i haven't seen the sequel i don't i haven't okay you're speaking french to me okay so the the ride though is you're riding one of these creatures and you're flying around and so it's a it is a really cool ride down in disney world so my point is that it's still a super popular ride okay uh because the uh because the visuals of it especially at a theme park environment are very immersive gotcha okay and so that that's really what i was getting at with that um okay so now we're talking about the theme okay let's talk about the art vick you said it feels a little bit more like a comic book yard yeah i get the i don't like the word i don't like to use the word cartoony because people could take that differently but i would say comic book style yeah what pass off what passes off for cartoon artwork nowadays too is kind of it's like yeah yeah i get you there yeah i'm a 90s kid so if i say the word cartoony i automatically think like looney tunes and i think of like hey arnold and rugrats yeah you know old school scratch style kind of stuff like that if someone says cartoon i immediately default to like the el cheapo disney straight to video cartoons because i like i like when someone says cartoon i don't think oh this is like a high level release you know like aladdin beauty and the beast uh you know all that kind of stuff i don't think frozen what i think is uh like cheap that's really so i i appreciate the little mermaid too where she gets a daughter kind of thing like yeah seriously yeah okay i and and like all those garbage ones that i never saw so so i i appreciate that not using the cartoon i am a huge at least i growing up i was a huge comic book fan so saying comic book is is an artistic style in itself which is really big so i don't know josh what what what are your thoughts on the art on the art i think they did i think it was great i i feel like i i like the unique direction they've went with it um i think i it you know dennis creasel says this all the time on egps and pimal show like we've just gotten so used to like amping up the saturation to 10 and granted like you kind of are with this but it's more like it's not 10 this is like 15 exactly but this is spinal tap this one goes to 11 yeah well you got saturation then you've got like uv lighting in three different ways and like but but the thing is is i feel like the artwork is something you would see more like with what pinball's been lately it's it doesn't feel like pinball artwork but it it does does that make sense like we're not doing this like old stereotypical stuff but we're going in a new direction i think they've done a great job with it okay i there are two things that i will point out in the art and i'll see if you guys agree with me on this um there are some themes where the the oversaturation like it's you are being bombarded with a light show you're being bombarded with colors flights flashing all that kind of stuff sometimes it feels like it's off in that it doesn't feel thematically consistent okay and even though Godfather is a great presentation okay Vic you have it behind you like it's there right it's a great presentation the light show for Godfather it's a little distracting to me because it's not it's not what you would expect in a Godfather universe yes I hear you the Godfather universe it's in like the it's a story going from like the 1930s through the 1970s right and so that type of stuff was not present now i understand why you do it by the way i understand why uh you know eric chose when he when we did godfather to bring the pinball element because if you did something with muted tones and brown colors it's not going to bring people in yeah it's not approachable yeah it not approach it not going to work for a pinball theme so you have to pinball it up a little bit With Avatar you are I mean this is like a Skittles seizure Like you are being bombarded with colors, lights, sound, art, but it seems consistent with what Avatar is. I was just going to ask that. I was like because you said that you went into the world of Avatar at Disney, and I would assume like color. Yes. And I feel like that's – you get the color on that. And like bioluminescence is – or whatever, the glow-in-the-dark stuff, that is a huge deal with Avatar, with the world of Pandora, with that kind of stuff. And you see it a lot on here. So the one thing I want to point out about the art – and I'm sorry if I'm stealing this from you, Scott. Go ahead. But my understanding is, at the thing, I know that they said it in the video and whatnot, but also while you guys were there, they really, really stressed how much the Na'vi used their left arm. Right. The lore of it, right? Yeah. The lore of it, right. We had some discussions behind the scenes on this. Oh, yeah. No, go ahead. You can tell exactly what my question was to you when we were talking about the art. so scott takes it has a picture of the side art of one of the navis shooting a bow and arrow i can't remember her name but she's she's shooting it with her right hand it's like yes neftiri or uh yeah neftiri if you go on pin side yeah you can actually see it on pin side it's that thing right behind you vic yeah so look neftiri she is shooting with her so i don't know if that was reversed for some reason but okay it should have been on the opposite side of the cabinet or something like it yeah it's it's a nerd yeah okay i and i don't know and again if you're really gonna nitpick on something i that's a small thing the only reason why i brought it up to josh was because they made a big deal about being like immer immersive in the lore yeah like at the very end the match screen doesn't have numbers because navi don't have numbers so you have like the the dandelion uh seeds that go and like settle on you and they don't have like metal and they don't have straight edges and so even the inserts are creatively uh painted so it doesn't emphasize that okay that's a very small thing but like even the development video it's 18 minutes long and there's a good little chunk dedicated to them about the specific mode where you're playing left hand because you get like five times the points or something like that but since you use the right flipper yep you're out of those mode right yeah and so that's when you said that i was like that seems like a small oversight like and i get it like we're nitpicking here like we've knit absolutely like yeah it's it's it's not it's not a deal breaker it's like it's a poster it's a poster okay exactly and it could be that just got reversed because they were like oh it looks better this way yeah which like i said it's really not a big deal if you're out there and you're like well I'm not buying this game now because she's shooting with her. Maybe you need to reconsider your life options of like, if that's really what you're like nitpicking about, like maybe it's time. Like, okay. Okay. A little bit. One thing I will say, and this, okay. This seems to me, um, maybe this is a style vibe that I get from different, uh, themes though. Okay. Yeah. If you're going to do avatar, there seems to be some sort of intensity in the facial expressions that you would expect okay okay so if you look at like them shooting or in a battle scene or something like that and you know there there are times where they have a very aggressive hunter like focus in their face the one challenge that happens with a lot of art that they they sell for these different things is sometimes that emotion seems muted and if i look at the the art picture and again this is nitpicking but you know what we have an hour to talk about avatar so i'm going to that i you're welcome jjp yeah hey hey you're getting our full concept okay we paid attention we paid attention scott took pages and pages of notes i did we trust me i would have i would have liked to have a little more of an intense action poster and again this is probably way overthinking a poster but it seems you know it's it's like when you see a shirt that has uh that that has something it's like oh this is um it's a it's a family photo of the avatar okay and they're they're serenely trying to shoot an arrow that that that's different than hey i'm going into battle and i'm trying to shoot something with that arrow yeah okay and and enough about that now that that is totally a personal preference and a personal just evaluation that being said it is a great visual art presentation of things yes okay so i i feel like we've talked about art for like We have. I just ask Scott one question. Go for it. Only because you mentioned before how you are deep into comic. Yeah. Are you. Would you be upset at me because I said it was comic book style? No, I would not, because I think I also have a different interpretation of comic book style. And, you know, there's another release we are going to talk about later. You know, Stern has their comic book release, which is very comic booky, too. This feels a little different. This feels like comic book style, but also more of an art project. So I would not take any offense to say it's comic book style because there is a certain style that is associated with comic books. I like the way you said it. Yeah, I've got one more thing, too. So the thing I like about it is when you have a mobile game artist, sometimes they overdo the artwork to make up for the gameplay or stuff like that. And so I feel like you're treading a really fine line because you don't want it to come off of Shadow Legends or whatever that game is. You know what I'm saying? Okay, I have a better one. I have a better one. Okay, go for it. The art for Atari Centipede is amazing. Yes. Okay? The game, not so much. but the art is amazing like and that's how all 70s games were like the art was really cool because the game visual representation was not that cool yeah i agree all right so next okay when i first saw this when i saw the spec sheet before they even released avatar and it said had six flippers four like two under playfields there's like an upper play field uh did i say six flippers you didn't yes okay uh i mean it just has a lot of stuff right and like the first thing came to my mind was haunted house and i was like oh like haunted house like it's a fun game but like it's one i enjoy i it's one of those ones i any okay anyhow it is a terrible game no it's not bugs bunny bash but any okay it's not bugs bunny bad but it's it's not bad but it's one of those things Like you thought you could, but you never stopped to think should you. You know what I'm saying? It's the Jeff Goldblum Jurassic Park. Yeah. And so like when I started hearing this, I was like, oh, crap. Like JJP is throwing like as much as they can into the game to make up whether they feel like the price gap, whatever it may be. And I was like, how is this going to turn out? And then when it came out and I saw it, I was like, this is pretty fantastic. Yeah. You guys played hands-on. How did it play with all the stuff in it? Okay. You know, I'll let Vic go first. Go ahead. So I always – it's always crazy when you walk up first to a game because me personally, I'm just trying to keep the ball alive. You're looking at everything. You're looking at, like, all the amazingness. You're looking at the wire forms and all that. But I was very happy that we were able to at least play for, like, a good two hours. It played great. But if you asked me, like, what was I doing? I was just trying to keep the ball alive the whole time. And also trying to hit a couple of the unique shots. It was pretty cool. You hit a couple of shots and the ball would just randomly pop out, like, on the right orbit. It had its moments. But, again, it's like, you know, I walked up to it and I was like – and I see how, like, Scott walked up to it. I saw, like, Kale walked up to it. And you guys are, like, studying the machine. And I'm like – I'm like, I wouldn't – I'm not even at that level yet. I'm like, I'm just trying to keep the ball alive. and then i was mainly trying to get into the whole crapsuit battle because i wanted to see that on the play field but it was enjoyable i had a good time with it it was did i understand the game in two hours no but i had fun did you hear my game update it scared me just to give you guys a heads up because godfather after two hours of like a track mode the guns go off so oh that'd be awesome I think that's the first time I've heard the duck fart from the updates. Okay. Actually, I'm going to put a pin in exactly what you said, and I'm going to come around to it at the end. Okay, Vic? Okay. Okay. Going up to it. So six flippers. now it it didn't feel like you were adding flippers just to add flippers okay which is nice if you look at josh do you want me to just kind of go a little bit around the play field a little bit and if you want okay so so there are areas of the play field but it doesn't feel like it's chopped up into hey the it like linear like it's a it's a sharp demarcation between the the upper right and the upper left and the lower right and the middle right and middle left yeah it felt like everything organically flew together or flowed together okay uh the there are some some challenging shots and i'm looking mainly at the left upper side uh there is a there is a ramp that you can hit with all three flippers and i don't think you can hit it with the fourth one the the right upper one okay um the if i'm gonna nitpick i would argue it's a wide standard ramp whereas a similar concept was uh was done by elwynn in avengers infinity quest and it's a little bit more of a shaped ramp and so if you're hitting it from the the right flipper it has a little bit more of a trajectory that guides it up and so it it seemed like a slightly smoother shot i am not going to begrudge mark on that because keith has done you know so many games that he's used to doing that trajectory yeah uh the but it it is a fun game the the flow of it is a lot of fun the the shots i felt were makeable now um i did say joel did mention he's like scott actually there was one shot that i don't think that you did hit and i i was not aware that i missed that i didn't hit that shot and it's because you are a little overwhelmed there's a lot of stuff going on and uh and so i need to dial in about if their shots are super hard super easy but i felt that you could at least keep the game going right vick like yeah even even a professional average player which i am i could still keep things going oh by the way the the best uh the best burn i got over the weekend is i was playing a game with ron i was playing ron from slam tilt until yeah and i was playing elton john and i was i was really flipping uh just bad poorly and he turned to me and he said oh that's right josh is the player in your group and i was like that's that's accurate and hurts at the same time but it was really funny because he was trying to give me like all the rules and like ron i i've never played it was dialed in it was like i've never really played this game so i'm overwhelmed but now scott do you know what shot you couldn't hit like well okay i believe he was saying it was the the in the left upper area um on avatar yeah this is on avatar okay we were just talking about uh dialed in there for a second okay yeah no it was on avatar so no so i'm looking at it i'm trying to zoom in it was like the jungle area right well each each spot's kind of so the playfields divide into five different areas of the world. The upper left, I want to say it's... I see a lot of trees. It's not like where the ball locks. There's a vertical and there was another... There's a wire form that connects to another wire form. Maybe it was the ramp on the left. I don't know. I can't remember exactly which one because I thought I had actually hit all of them. but either way I I thought that it was it was fine it was fun there wasn't a shot that I felt that I was completely getting blocked from so it could have been that I wasn't actively trying to shoot that shot now again depending on how your play style is I don't I mean again I'm I would consider myself average beginner average I did notice and again I was watching all of you guys play me personally i had like a 25 minute game and i was i was mind blown by having that long of a game and i'm like does jersey jack have these set up like in a way to have the game go longer like what did you think scott were you playing longer than you normally played for a first time game maybe and they could have had them set up a little bit more of uh i don't want to say easier but more accessible just because they were trying to get us to experience the game flow. So getting into it now, we did talk about, they have two lower playfields in this, which I think is the first time two lower playfields have been done. I think so as well. This was nice though, because they were okay. There are going to be some people that criticize the first play field, the pop bumper, where you feel you pop down and the pop bumper goes off. However, I did notice sometimes the pop bumper wasn't actively activating. And so I didn't know, was I supposed to be doing the pop bumper or so? I think that's, that's probably more of an early code thing that they're going to fix. Probably just adjust the switch on the pop bumper. So either that or early jet, it could just be an early code because there was a little bit of a delay. You, you change the targets that the pop bumper is trying to hit with the flippers. Okay. And then it drops down and activates the second lower play field, which is the mini play field with the two flippers. The crab suit play field? That's the crab suit that you're fighting. So wait, you're telling me there's two playfields down the crab suit? Yeah. No. No. There's a play field above it that is just like the pop bumper one, and then you go down to the mech suit one, the crab suit. You have to hit enough targets to get to Crab Suit. Yeah. And the Crab Suit one, it is a three-quarter ball. So people wondering about the mini playfields. So my experience before was like Shrek, where it has like a half-inch ball. And it felt kind of unfulfilling just because you're flipping this ball and it's flying around. uh the nice thing about this that made it interesting is the lower play field is rotated maybe about 20 degrees or so okay and so you're not shooting straight up and down so it doesn't just feel like it feels challenging but not too challenging gotcha so you're still able you're still supposed to hit some hit first off you're supposed to hit the the targets uh it's like Yeah, there's three targets. Yeah, three targets that are aligned. Yeah, and then the second time you go down there, it's harder because you have to hit the orbits. But it was fun. It didn't feel like I was – a lot of lower playfields you get there, and you're just like, okay, just get this over with so I can get back up. Yeah, so luckily it was – it's like a timed mode for Crapsuit. You're only in there for like the first time for like – I think it's like 10 seconds. Yeah. So you're kind of like, am I just going to be here all day? But then your flippers kind of just die if you run out of time. Gotcha. Well, and also speaking of flipping out pinball, if you go to their Facebook, Zach did actually take a picture in his hand. Sure he did. The six balls and then the little one that goes in this play field. It's actually not too much smaller. I kind of had to be like. Well, so the standard balls are one inch balls. Okay. So it's a three quarter inch. So it's just slightly smaller. But it felt natural too, right? Like it didn't feel like you were like that, that Stewie pinball, you feel like you're slapping a BB around. Like it's not. It, you know, I kind of felt, I think it, I think it felt the the environment better because it was like forced perspective. It almost felt like lower play field was farther away. Yeah. That's what I think they, either they mentioned it or it's in the trailer where they said like that bowl is smaller on purpose to give you that visual look of it being like like underwater. It also allows it to, allows them to do more with the play field because if it's a standard size ball, they're, they're smaller things that you can do with the flippers. Like you would have to have something a lot bigger, such as like the, you know, the lower play field and ACDC, which isn't really that fun. It's, it's cool looking, but it's not that fun. Now in ACDC, I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I feel like that's, you're constantly in there until like you drain yeah it's yeah now real quick because scott mentioned about the pop bumper uh you're right like sometimes the ball would just sit and i felt like the popper was cool because you should i took the aspect of you should kind of nudge but now that i think of it maybe they should probably incorporate like the left flipper would actually activate the pop and then your right would change the target when you first get in there you don't realize that you have control of the target because i was trying to call out now in fairness it does say that on the other side like change the targets like change the target with the flippers so it that that would not be a long-term confusion that's like the first time you go down there like what am i doing uh considering that the first time you played so there were four games down there the first time you played on the third third one over and i played on the second one over and so if they if the ball both sat down there for a while that tells me it's a code issue because if it were a switch issue then then only one of us would have experienced them so gameplay was was pretty fun it sounds like it's uh did any of it feel unnatural because like there's some games you play and you're like things aren't feeling like they're in the right spot did this all feel like it flowed well and the shots were makeable and whatnot i i feel that this is and it could be that the flippers are much better on this machine because when i played elton the first time i played elton john was this weekend too where the flippers felt snappy they felt what i'm used to uh on uh on a standard stern really or a williams right so i i have uh i have a lot of the cgc remakes the standard the flippers have a very crisp feel and elton john felt that way actually elton john almost felt like the flippers were a little juiced which they could have been i was playing it at interium here the flippers felt really snappy which feels like an upgrade from what like guns and roses feels a little lag on the flippers uh in my in my playing experience wizard of oz is the same way they don't have that really crisp flip but this felt very similar to that so with that this felt like the most standard release that would be consistent with other high end manufacturers and i like the layout i thought was a lot of fun the shots were approachable the shots were reachable and it felt like the flippers were doing what I wanted them to do. Yeah. What are your thoughts, Vic? I, uh, so again, for me, for Godfather was the first time I ever experienced a JJP. So from my understanding and research, I believe Godfather is like when the new flippers came out for JJP. Um, they felt great. I don't really want to compare it to Godfather. I feel like it was much, you know, I would say the word snappier. I don't want to copy you, but it's, it felt good. i was that's the way it felt it felt it's like the flippers did what i expect them to do on other right manufacturers right now when the one mech i was concerned about because it's kind of like in godfather but the the droid slingshot um sometimes when yeah so you hit the left the far left ramp that will set you up on that top left flipper if you don't hit it it kind of just kind of travels down along the slingshot yeah and i visually i was like oh man this looks like a straight down the middle but it actually wouldn't do that i was actually surprised it wasn't but the slingshot off the the droid mech was very cool i was really trying to focus on the the shrimp i was trying to see like how that was uh the dive ramp was pretty cool and i'm a fan of the call out like when the girl said like dive i was like oh yeah i gotta go yeah like i gotta go like the one shot that i feel was difficult for me personally was the eclipse shot that like yeah okay i don't know why that right ramp it was just okay the challenge and it's a jump ramp that goes into a spinner right yeah however well okay um it uh it is well i'm gonna i'm gonna cut you off scott real quick so it's actually funny when we were looking at the actual mech in hand on the factory yeah in the in the pictures and in the trailer video that spinner it looks like it's such a far shot yeah and it looks like it travels but it's actually pretty close to the end of the ramp yeah okay but yeah it's a ramp to a spinner and then it brings it down to the right orbit the the challenge with the eclipse shot and uh so there is a mode that is pretty fun it's the eclipse mode where you start, uh, you know, you start the eclipse and it's a, it's a really cool effect because the play field kind of dims and starts going from the right side to the left side and you are building and building this jackpot And then the eclipse shot is you have built so there was one time where i i got like 130 million dollars in that mode okay or not dollars but no currency no currency i got 130 million points and if i had hit the eclipse shot i would have got double all of that and there is you know it's a pressure shot you feel like oh you know so so it's hitting a shot under pressure that that certainly was hard i don't know if that played into it but that definitely uh yeah that that was hard to hit at the right moment but the we'll get into the lights but that is that is well actually let's just get into it now that was a really cool effect as as it was going across because you had like the really bright lights. And then when the eclipse came, it really fit the mood. Yeah, I loved it. And when we were talking to like the whole team and all that, you don't really notice it off the bat on the first game. But as like the eclipse is leaving, the left side of the play field is starting to like lighten up. Yeah. I don't think you could get it good on a camera, but in person it was like mind-blowing. Okay, that's actually one of the problems with this game is trying to find a good way of capturing it on camera so you can see how it it plays i you're telling me rocky mountain pinball show didn't do a great job this weekend no no they didn't uh it was uh and that and that's the problem right when you get these games in the wild it's hard to to capture how they feel in person and okay we have seen this before we have seen this before when people talk about the art of games and you know we we you know we saw with john wick we saw all this kind of stuff and people are like it looks really good in person like the foil and the in the art show and everything like that but it's hard to capture that uh in a stream as a feature but it really is an impressive immersive element is getting the lights and the really they they did show some you know a prototype they haven't finalized the play field for the collector's edition that's going to have the 3d but go and look at their video because their video shows examples of the bioluminescent printing and it looks really cool in person yeah they had like the two flashlights going on it i'm like whoa yeah and now at interior I mean, you bring that up, but yeah. Yeah. So you've got three different UV inks in this. The red looks really cool. Can you really tell? Yeah. He did it on the side art blade with the flame. It was insane. I was like, whoa. When you think red, UV, that was red. It looked like a cut LCD trail that was illuminated. from underneath that's what it looked like kind of like like tron like the the bike trails off a tron kind of thing uh okay even just just think of like a you know what like a lightsaber like a like a thin thin wiggly thin wiggly lightsaber i know it was really glowing impressively yeah the one thing i because we're talking about the lighting on the the uv on this was amazing. The only thing I can compare to UV is Stranger Things. And I only play that on location. And I don't know exactly how Stranger Things is set up. But when Stranger Things goes into UV, it blinds me. Like, I can't see anything. But the UV on this, it's... They did it very clean. Because JJP is good with that. With their spotlights that they have, it's not blinding you. It doesn't hurt your eyes. And when you see the flippers glowing, it was mind-blowing. It was cool. And it did visually – this was a happy accident. The flippers looked like they changed colors when they did the – and that wasn't even intentional. They turned it on like, oh, that wasn't supposed to happen, but it looks really cool. I mean we meant to do that. Well, they were up front that it was like a happy accident, but yeah. I was just mentioning also the underplay fields, they are well illuminated. so a lot of under playfields they it's hard to see anything that's going on in there but they have so much illumination on the lower playfields so you could see so well underneath that i was impressed by that maybe maybe i maybe i'm the only one that was like it would look really cool no i like the the health bar on the crab suit it it just visually gave you that look of like wow you're deep underwater and it would just glow to be my only gripe with the crapsuit model is that it has like the has like the two eyes it looks like cars like a cars character i don't know what that's supposed to be like on top of on top of the crapsuit right maybe that's what the avatar crapsuit looks like though have you yeah because one point someone pointed this out too they sent us a picture like why is this like weird smiley face on top of the crapsuit i gotta look at it i I've seen it. I'm like, it looks like the – I looked at it as like, you know, because I have a three-year-old daughter, I'd look at it as like the cars, you know, like Disney cars with the eyes. That's like the only thing. I just visually would see that. But the lighting on it and what I really liked was J.J.P. did a good job that when you are in that bottom play field, the lighting on the table, it doesn't turn off, but at least it's like you know like, hey, your eyes have to go to the lower play field now. Yeah. Right. Let's see. I did take some pictures of that crab suit. So let me see if I can get some good. OK, while you're looking that up, the only other couple of questions I have. So custom speech by Stephen Stephen Lang. He's Colonel Quar, Quarich. Something like that. OK, the next suit that Stabby Stabs on the playfields, he's in that in the movie. so uh how was the call outs like obviously you guys kind of alluded to like the dive earlier but like overall how like how is the sound in the call outs is it immersive like how is it okay i don't really see the smiley face on the crab guy like he looks standard i just see two eyes a white white eyes and then two dots as for the eyeballs like the irises but yes as far as the as far as the call outs i don't i never seen avatar so take that i don't think there was enough of the gentlemen that you said okay i don't think there was enough of them this is early code so it might there might be more really early yeah now they did say they got quotes from the movie from uh from all the major care all the characters they wanted they didn't list them all off but they said from all they wanted okay so those will be incorporated this isn't a and that was one big drawback with pirates of the caribbean right is that oh you get a lot of sea scenes that don't yeah you get their pictures like and that's about it yeah yeah and so uh so they had that um and there were like 400 custom line like lines of call out um they also were able to get uh so they had 100 access so this is all of the assets so i guess let's transition to assets they had 100 access to all cgi stuff which a lot of stuff was cgi like you know so they they do have tons of stuff and the the lcd screen is well incorporated in this game like it is probably the it's the best part of the if you want to be thematically immersed in this the the lcd screen is the jjp does it the best 100 i thought you were going to say that to date i think it's the best i think it's just like everything that's on that screen the way they have it all laid out I think it's the best they've ever done. It's the best of JJP so far. Absolutely. And the movie clip integration, this has always been the challenge, right? How do you incorporate movie assets in when you're not taking away from the gameplay? And I'm looking at you, Munsters, when Grandpa walks over to the book and flips and you're just dying the fifth time it's happened. It's just so painful. um but no this is great because it just feels like it naturally just flows and the and the stuff up there gives everybody who's watching you something to see yeah it was visually it was amazing i was also trying to see like if there's much repetition videos like you know inside modes like on godfather's like you know you get like two or three scenes right not much repetition videos i mean you get your standard ball lock you know ball like one animations but again the the the lcd the my biggest i love the ui yeah that like i i honestly think that if the ui didn't look the way it did i think it would have done damage to the game but the ui is just it's beautiful it's like a chef kiss on that yeah so overall they've done 10 games now how do you feel about atar and where does it land in their 10 games is it towards the top is it more the middle or is it the bottom vick you owns i i have wizard of oz which is the the earliest jjp um that's actually the only one that i have right now so but you have you have at least two and you played the other ones too so what is your thought it's like i want to i want to say it's like yeah it's the best thing. It's just, for me, the theme, it's not a theme for me. As far as comparing it to other games, though, I would rate it. You don't want to say the word it's number one, but I would probably say I'm trying to keep everything in mind, though, like animations, callouts, the gameplay, and all that. I think it's top, dude. I would rate it as a one to two. Okay. It's number one, and I'll tell you why. People will – now, people got pushback. People pushed back. Other content creators that I was talking to pushed back, and they're like, what? No. Have you played Elton John? I'm like, yeah, I have played Elton John, and I owned Elton John when it was called Spider-Man because – I owned it when it was Star Trek. Yeah, I can – Okay, and by the way, Elton John is a fun game. I know you have Elton John too. Elton John felt like a blinged-up version of an older game. That's what it felt like. It's still really cool, really pretty. It is very Steve Ritchie, but it also just felt like it was nothing new that I saw with Elton John. OK, it felt like it felt like a hey, this is a bigger budget version of what he has done before. OK, so I think it's bad. It's just saying I have already seen it. So this is recency bias. Like I owned a similar game and Led Zeppelin to you and that as well. I own I own. I still own it. So and if you look at dialed in, OK, dialed in is definitely a Pat Lawler theme. okay it's a pat lawler game it feels like a newer version of a 90s game it feels like you know the stuff he did in the 90s still good but a a jersey jack style on an older um a jersey jack presentation on an older style game okay and you could and you could even argue the same so toy story toy story there's a lot of pat lawler and toy story and toy story felt like a like woody shootout at uh at paradise pier in disneyland you know it felt like it's in the world of disney and it's in the world of toy story but it still just felt like hey you're playing a game that's in the world of toy story yeah it's fine but i played i played toy story and I played Elton John and I thought, you know what? And I played Dialed In, I got more time on it. And I felt like these are games that I have felt like I've played before. They're still good, but I felt like I've played them before. Avatar was the first JJP where I felt it brought something new. It brought a fresh approach. It brought thematic immersion that didn't feel like a cereal box or a Walmart or a lunchbox, which I kind of felt Toy Story felt like that. And Elton John, again, I love the theme. I love the music. The layout is something that I'm quite used to. I knew where all the shots were. And considering this has the best flippers, it has the best theme immersion, it has the best light show by far. And by the way, we're an hour into this, and we haven't even talked about the topper on the CE. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. So, so, and that shows you just how much is in this game. So that's why I rate this as number one. I'm, I'm still going to come back to what you said before, because in my closing arguments, we're going to talk about who this game is for. Okay. So, so that that's why I rank this as their best game so far. And I even told them that I told Ken this, I told Brett this, I was like, this is your most complete game. game that you have done to date and yeah okay you could argue that uh guns and roses would fit into that category and i totally agree immersion light show music uh what brings guns and roses down for me is the the flippers just don't feel um flippy enough they don't feel snappy and i think that's just an evolution on jjp which is why the new version of the flippers are exactly what i expect across different genres of game i don't have to feel like oh these are jjp flippers yeah okay so i'm gonna give my perspective i did not play the game okay um but i have played every other jjp game except for godfather is actually the only game i have never played by jjp okay um I'm gonna I'm not running out to tell you to buy this game like you still should play it you should still make a form an opinion for yourself but I want to lean towards what Vic and Scott are saying I think this is at their top end and the reason I'm saying that is I feel like we're going into a new direction like when I think of JJP they've turned the page a couple times right like the first page was obviously Wizard of Oz and Hobbit and those were were like Wizard of Oz is good and hot but it was decent and it was like they brought in pat lawler and it brought something in with dialed in that was just was different and and now that i play after all these other games have come out it's still a good game but it definitely felt lacking a little bit because i say that because then pirates came out and eric kind of blew us all away there was so much innovation in pirates and i still love that little play the little rocking you know pirate play field and and people love it too obviously it's because there's not enough made you know there's you can go with all your theories and and obviously pirates is still like the highest uh the one you're gonna pay the most money for like i just looked for one like nineteen thousand dollars and it's the only one on pin oh it's coming down yeah yeah so i mean yeah it is what it is but then we get into like willy wonka and that was kind of underwhelming for me and the game plays all right but it's just there and guns and roses a really great experience but it just there's something missing there for me like it's really like i enjoy the gameplay and maybe it's the code i can't just pinpoint but i love the immersion i love the way that they did guns and roses but the interesting part to me too is i don't know if it's because guns and roses is one of their best-selling games of all time it is their best-selling it is yes jack did confirm that on our last show or the last time we interviewed him um guns and roses is the cheapest game you can buy right now on the used market okay that's a volume thing though it's got to be a volume line amount they have the most supply of those games yeah so like 5500 is is what you can buy a guns and roses se right now on pin side okay which is interesting because se was is like the super limited version yeah like Jack did tell us that they stopped making them because they basically weren't selling much of them because they didn't want them. But yeah. But then like with Toy Story, it felt like we took a step back, right? Like we got all this immersion and everything from Guns N' Roses. And Toy Story 4 just – I played it, and it's an enjoyable game. The problem is – and this is what I've always said for at least since Guns N' Roses. The problem is people aren't seeing the value for what you get in the game. And Toy Story was definitely that stumbling block, right? it also had the price jump too yes have the price jump and that was pat lawler's kind of like swan song and it just whatever it was it is what it is right and then godfather came out and it was really cool because it was like you could see they were trying to go a new direction but when elton john came out like i get what you're saying scott like it's it's we've seen this just it's a it's a different how to how did robert downey jr put it it's the same dancer but different leggings right That's the way he described comic book movies coming out. But the thing with Elton John was there was something different about it. And I think it's the light show, it's kind of the interaction with the mechs. It just felt like they were going more. And Avatar, it feels like it's a definite jump from what they've done in the past to close that gap between people saying, okay, is this what's in the game worth the value for what they're asking? and i feel like they're really closing that gap of we're trying to innovate in new areas to say hey guys like we're still the the the uh how did how did jack put it the the corvette or the Ferrari the Ferrari pinball we're still the Ferrari pinball and they are doing stuff stylistically that's different that does make it look a lot better this avatar to me from the outside looking in this is the first time i'm like yes this is a game that i say like you're still getting the most bang for your buck essentially the funny part about elton john though too is as i was looking it up elton john is their second highest like value it's still retaining value i had someone message me today i'm like i've been kind of waiting for elton john because i want the game but i want to pay the price and uh they're not going down in price right so that tells me one of two things they've hit a stride of like they're they're they're outputting the right amount of games versus what the demand is right like guns and roses shows like if you have way too many games out in the wild obviously it's going to bring that value down because then everyone can buy one but i i think they're on the right trajectory here i think they're finally getting their footing i don't know if it's that transition from where toy story was but overall whatever you're doing jjp this makes me intrigued just going forward if if harry potter is one of the licenses you guys hold i can't wait to see how you do that because let's be honest i just went through all the lists of jjp there's no one complaint i i could give you is there's no mech that i feel like has reinvent not reinvented pinball but there's it's not unique right like i look at other manufacturers and i feel like i'm just going to point out the sentinel head like the sentinel head it's it's a new take on an old thing right but it feels fresh whereas like when i look at avatar i don't see a mech that stands out to me there's you've got a lot of toys you've got the uh the robot with the stabby stab you've got the crab soup multiball with the grumpy smiley face um but i don't see an interactive toy and honestly looking back across all jjp stuff since pirates i don't feel like there is a mech that interacts with the ball that is unique and different than i can find from any other manufacturer so that's my thoughts on avatar and so yes it's top towards the top of this i would put avatar up there with granted i haven't played this yet but like elton john's definitely on top of my list it's a great game guns and roses is still a great game pirates is still a great game i think this contends and is up there with them uh dialed in uh i i guess i'm biased i enjoy hobbit i know it doesn't shoot the best there's an immersion there but i feel like they kind of lost they kind of lost going forward a little bit and then they gained it back so anyhow i've talked long enough for a man that has not played avatar to rate it as high as i have so i've always said guns and roses is the most immersive experience in pinball okay probably still is probably still is but when you have you have to have everything come together to bring it to the next level so uh you're talking theme immersion is one thing you're talking uh playfield layout another you're talking about snappy flippers So all of these things have been focused on at some point in all the previous nine games. This one feels like – when you're generating a character in a game, right? This one feels like they're all – another duck just clicked. They all kind of leveled up to a point where I don't see any obvious deficiencies. they this so that's why this is the best version of what uh what jersey jack is putting out okay yeah i totally understand what you're coming from with the mech and there are some people who that is a huge deal for them having like the mech that interacts with the ball or chucks you know this this is the the catapult going into jackie or you know stuff like that frankenstein grabbing the ball and throw it at you yeah yeah or the jurassic park head thing that you know the dinosaur that grabbed they eats the ball um so there are some people who that's a huge deal for i didn't notice that being missing in this game so if that's your thing then that is a line on your on your ranking list that you could argue is not as high as other ones but if you look if i look at my complete package what i'm really interested in i didn't care i didn't care that it wasn't there um so that that's why i would argue this is still the best complete package of the other ones i would be interested to see what other games would be like with the snappy flippers i'd love to see what uh what um um guns and roses is like with the snappier flippers because i think I think I would have a lot more fun with it Yeah If that were the case. Maybe Wizard of Oz, too. I don't even know. Maybe I could reach out and say, is there a way of upgrading the old games to the new flippers? Because that would really change the experience. I might be wrong on this, but I think they have a board. And apparently it's like a capacitor kit. Yeah. You've got to change the caps. I might be wrong. I don't know. I'm actually going to reach out. I'm going to reach out and just ask because that is something I would be interested in for previous games because that's always been how I've felt with the previous Jersey Jack games is the flippers have always felt inferior. And so having the really snappy, crisp flippers really does bring me more into the Jersey Jack. um i okay this is the first game where i've actually reached out and looked at availability and cost nice in jersey jack in a long time yeah that's impressive actually yeah and now this is a theme that my kids would go up and say dad i want to play that so i i know that my curated arcade is very specific to a family and and that's where guns and roses is absolutely beautiful game and you know it i i do enjoy the immersion but i have young kids it's not going into my home arcade you don't want to see skeletons doing it on your uh yeah okay again there's a family there's a family mode but there are other things that that would fit that thing And I would argue the same thing with like Godfather. It didn't fit the theme of my family arcade. Toy Story, Toy Story did feel like there was something lacking in it. And so that's why I didn't pursue that one. But this is the first one where I'm like, yeah, maybe I would. And Elton John is actually a pretty close. I still think it's fun. I would still buy it. But this is something that offers something different. Yeah. Now, remind me though, Scott, are you a fan of Avatar? Okay. Avatar is – it's fine. It's one of those themes that I thought was – it was enjoyable. I agree that the movies have a little bit of like typical Hollywood themes that feel kind of tired. I felt like the first one was definitely a commentary on like the Iraq War, which that wasn't a big leap to see that. and on the second one it felt like star trek 4 and titanic had a baby and they were trying to save a whale uh okay but okay if you're old enough then you will know exactly what i'm talking about and if not go and watch star trek 4 and you're like uh-huh scott's right yeah you're like scott's um and so which so i yeah it is pretty and it's pretty it's fun and i would argue that yeah it's not my top five themes but it's something that is a solid b theme that my kids would be really interested in and this is where i want well okay well you know we'll transition into this but i do want to get and talk to uh the topper but let's talk about who is this game for like who would buy avatar because we've had a lot of great games coming out in the last couple years and so what is going to purchase or move the the purchase price for this game who's going to buy it and why would you buy it you know honestly i've talked to many people lately that has been very much like we're not buying into jjp because of the price jump like it is what it is you know they just don't want to pay into that. And so speaking of that. Like for a home collection or for a routing? Yeah, for a home collection. This is the first time I've heard from collectors that are stingy with their money that they've considered buying a new JJP new in box because they felt like this is what they've been asking for from JJP. Yeah, this time. I think if you keep up this energy and this uniqueness, I say going forward, it's not going to be hard to get people on the boat. I do wonder because they do limit their, you know, there's a limited edition and there's a CE. And with Avatar, there's a total of 6,000 games. It makes you wonder, let's say they do bring out Harry Potter and it's just absolutely wild, right? It hits every expectation. do they bump that number like they have for for harry potter they'd have to it's an a-list like 6 000 units that's it becomes it's an instant evergreen title like you could you could do 10 000 you could do 15 000 units on that um okay tell me about this topper though tell me okay i want to hear about you keep teasing this topper i want to hear about the top okay so think of um the Mandalorian topper, but way better. Okay. So if you look at it, the topper uses a very similar technology. It uses the Pepper's Ghost effect that reflects up, and it's full body. It's the entire width of the backbox. It's quite tall too, and so it's visually impressive. You can see this all over. Now, this is where I would argue you probably want to consider getting the collector's edition because the topper comes with the collector's edition. yeah and when you're looking at a comparable topper in a mandalorian topper that's two thousand dollars and i would argue this is easily easily 1.5 to 2 times as cool as the mandalorian topper so that's where i would say you know what you're kind of looking at and okay you have to look at comparable markets right so a stern limited edition is in the 13.5 range right yeah and if you buy a topper for that with like the fancy things like the shooter rod and all that kind of stuff you're looking at 15 you really are you're looking pretty close to that okay and so would i rather have a stern le with all of the stuff or would i rather have an avatar collector's edition with all the stuff and i would argue i'd rather have an avatar collector's edition with all the stuff if you're going to be buying that because the topper is worth it that this could be one of those situations it's not quite as deal breaker as like the cactus canyon like with and without the topper i think you can still buy the standard one and have a great a great time with it if you are like no i really want the cool topper it's it's worth it uh in the in today's topper market to consider spending the extra three three thousand dollars and getting the topper this is definitely a game that a family would get into now this is where you have to look at what is the market for so is this game going to be a tournament type game and this is where you'll always get the the people who are really into pinball they're always going to talk about that right is that okay so who is who's going to do like high-end players i don't know if high-end players will really get into this layout just because competition players competition players are also looking for a very specific thing they're looking for a layout that has some some uh some risk rewards some high skill areas some easier areas but like that one shot that is super hard to get that only they can get or they're looking for like a rule set that's very tournament friendly okay jersey jack's never done that yeah and so in fairness i don't know of any like top 100 players who are thinking you know what i really want to compete on an elton john because it that doesn't seem to be their target audience which i don't think it has to be that this is like uh this is a game that would really target hey i'm a i have a home arcade and i want people to come down and i would guarantee waz does this when people come down they look over and they they see waz and how old is waz waz is over 10 years old and it still still looks like a new release people go over and they play waz and i guarantee if you had this downstairs with all of the other things it is immediately number one eye candy i want to go over and play that yeah i gotta agree with you on that i have to uh uh you know because we were talking about who's this aimed for i i every time every time i think jjp i i gotta say it i to me it's it's for the home arcade it is it is out for me out here in new york we don't have many arcades we have jack bar they have like an elton john i haven't been there yet there's not many arcades here number one and they have sunshine too they have sunshine yeah we do have sunshine too uh we have a guy in long island there's just not many arcades number one and then number two you know there's not many jjp machines on location and you know every time i look at my machines it's like to me i'm like that was meant for a home use yeah that's just i and in that in that realm though of being home use it comes the price tag that's where like you know people might be upset about the price of jjp i feel like i totally get my money's worth it's a beautiful machine not to mention they're built like tanks so to me this is definitely a home use kind of manufacturer company yeah this is the first one in a long time though where i feel that if you are on a fence as an operator you could easily take a risk on this one maybe maybe maybe not some of the other ones there's guns yeah uh maybe i i could i could understand on some of the other ones i can understand on toy story we're like no it's too much i don't want to put it on location yeah uh and i can understand with elton john saying well okay but it's similar to what we've had before godfather it's that's that's an invite you need immersion into the theme for environment this is the first one you're like you know actually this would fit into an arcade and not feel out of place yeah i i agree with both of what you're saying and uh i don't really feel like there's much to add to that as well i think you kind of hit the notes on that um i felt like we've we've wrap this up in a nice little bow now just real quick only because for me personally i do want to touch up on the one thing as me being a jjp owner the one thing that upset me number one the wizard modes are not coded in and number two i got the impression that insider connect is never coming to jjp so they never talked about so scorebit was originally with them right they're not they're not do anything like that anymore i know score but it was taken out it was talking it was talked about however i would argue it doesn't feel so if you're going to look at reasons why you would resist in buying and vick you just brought this up yeah like that's that you you wish there were an element of insider connected that other people that you know obviously that's a stern thing right and Stern has done a very good job of that. And it really has driven people to arcades with badges. And so if on your wish list of JJP things, you're saying that you wish you had an equivalent type of achievement score thing on JJP. And I think that's a fair criticism because we're a few years into Insider Connected. So it would be nice if they had something equivalent. Yeah, to me it's a revolutionary thing. People are like – I feel like – like I spoke to Kale. He's like people are lined up waiting to get these badges. Now, it doesn't have to be badges. I don't care. Give me something like a – me personally, I kind of wish there was a main high score leaderboard, and I'd be happy. Yeah. But the other thing I said, the biggest issue I have right now is that, you know, we didn't touch up on it. We were – at least for me while we were playing, I actually collected Pandora. I would have went into wizard mode and my game just like the backbox froze yeah oh okay so it's still early code and we and we know my big issue though is you're shipping the games out without the wizard mode yeah in and being a godfather and you hear I hear pirates right my biggest thing that hurts my heart right now is like how long and I asked it right and all they could say is soon it's well and that's always been a challenge with jersey jack to be to be fair it's always been a challenge the wizard mode's not even in godfather right now right the final so kiss kiss the ring kiss the ring's not in there and then i mean obviously toy story is but it's kind of it was it's like hey do it again yeah yeah uh so is his guns and roses final mode even in there I don't know actually I remember there was a recent update that like took like two or three whatever how old the guns are I don't know what it is though but I remember seeing the update for GNR and people like yeah like and then like sales went back up for GNR and now Vic you can't let let's since you are a recent Jersey Jack owner so updating the code is that a big deal for you Or is it very – no, no, sorry. Is it a hard thing? Is it a hard thing to do or is it an easy thing to do? Meaning like in a technical aspect? Is it technically difficult? Yeah. Do you just connect to Wi-Fi and it does it for you or you got to plug it in? Oh, you mean like an actual update? Yeah, like the process of updating the code. It sounds like it's easy. Yeah, I thought you were talking about like a development standpoint. I have to go and quote zero to ones. No, no, no. Like if you're like, oh, there's a new code, is it hard to put it on your machine? No. Okay, good. Now I will say I would also personally like to thank Jersey Jack because I am not really the best at updating my Wizard of Oz code. I heard you ask this question. You're like, is there a dongle? I'm like – Yeah. Yeah, because, okay, Wizard of Oz, it's also – this is a 12-year-old game. And so they said, yes, there is a way, and I'm not that – okay, I have a Mac, and people said it's kind of a pain to update it with a Mac. And so thankfully I actually talked them into it, and they were super nice about it. They actually ripped and did, like, the new code for me, and they got me some stuff there to help me out. And so I am going to update my Wizard of Oz to latest code. Nice. And there's like they even said, hey, this is how you hook it up, you know, Wi-Fi and all that kind of stuff. And they could not have been nicer about helping me out with modernizing my Ruby Red Wizard of Oz. And so I would like to give a special thanks to them and and to everything they did to help me out, because that's a huge deal to me that I felt like I was kind of stuck. we can't we can't deny it when jj when it comes to jjp and their like customer service yes nothing beats it that when you just told me that story i was like i'm surprised i'm one they did that but not like i'm like whoa like that's awesome for you but i'm like yeah i feel like so i feel like this is jason allen who was the software who's one of the software guys with keith over there he was super nice i'd like to personally thank him for everything and yes i and he he even sent mean email okay this is how you do it and this is what's going on so so if you guys i have an old uh jersey jack that you're interested in bringing up to the uh you know the the to modern now that go go ahead and reach out and they'll be able to help you out so that's super nice well cool uh yeah i like i said i think we're kind of you know it's almost midnight your time Vic. Like you're here all day. Don't worry. I'm, I'm probably, trust me. I got hours. Okay. So, so one thing I do want to do, I do want to give us a special thanks out to, um, to Jersey Jack for inviting us out, um, hosting us for Ken reaching out, inviting us. That was very nice. They, they were quite accommodating. We'd like to thank everybody at Jersey Jack who was there. Uh, you know, Tom Capera, all the team that was there, uh, the um you know brett abbas was there and it was it was just super nice that they took this seriously as we are trying to put the best pinball machine that they know how to make out there and inviting us into their home showing us the process and even like small things like the um the banshees there's six different we didn't even bring this up there's six different banshees and And so depending on – it's a random thing. Like the Banshee chooses you. So you get six different colored Banshees that could possibly come. So I thought that was a cool touch. But we just like to really appreciate everything they did to make this possible. This is the best way for me to get exposed to a new game so we can talk about it. So it was very kind of them to do that. And so I, again, just like to thank them. Again, they did not push us for any sort of editorial control over what we say. They were confident in their product to let it speak for itself. I think if you want to get your hands on this game, I know there's – well, obviously there's that Rocky Mountain Pinball show, but Expo. Expo is where it's going to be at. And if you've never been to Expo, get on it, man, because it's 40th year. It's 40th year this year, and there's going to be some really cool stuff there. Well, JJP always has an excellent booth too, and they usually have almost all their games there. It's worth your time to get to Chicago. We're less than a month away. One secret – I know a lot of people say it's a pain in the butt if you're not staying at the hotel. It's not that bad. It's not that bad, but one of the secrets – You can drive over. It's fine. Yeah, one of the secrets is the hotel actually has a shuttle. So just call up the shuttle, and they'll bring you over. No cost to you. Just tip the driver. That's all you got to do. Other than that, like I said, I think you guys did fantastic. And it's funny because it's like, oh, we missed this and missed that. You guys were there for hours, though. Yeah. Okay, Vic, push your show. Push or? Push your show. Promote yourself. Oh, I don't. Where can people find you? So you can find me on YouTube, Vic underscore VP, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. I got a whole Linktree link going on. I'm just very grateful for you guys to invite me. It was very great to meet everybody on Friday at Jersey Jack. Again, big thank you to Jersey Jack and Ken Cromwell for inviting me. I'm shocked that I was like invited. And apparently Ken Cromwell watches a couple of my videos. So I'm like, all right. Awesome. I was very, I said, I was like, I'm resisting trying to fanboy out and take selfies with Joel and Colin. and but yes i'm just grateful for you guys inviting me we had a lot of fun yeah that's that's all i don't i'm not gonna i'm not gonna just explain myself but yes thank you guys so much all right it's awesome thank you guys um if you want to get a hold of us we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com you can find us on facebook instagram x all the places twitch is youtube if you're not on here why are you not on there please subscribe we're like we're so close to hitting 500 I know it's a really small number on YouTube. And Josh is Hollywood pretty. I know. It's nowhere near our other numbers for, like, subscribers on, like, Apple and all that stuff. But I'm not even going to go into that. It's actually fun because you get to see us actually interact. And you see our collections, or at least part of it, in the background. And there's some unique content on there. Like, I know a lot of people were talking about Pinball Olympics. You can go on our YouTube and see the insane room that Scott Denisey built. that he put his TNA in, and it's just sensory overload when you step inside this room. Obviously, I didn't do a content creator last episode, and I feel bad about that, but I'm going to make this one pretty easy. Check out VicVP, and then check out his YouTube. It's great stuff. He's the content creator of our episode, so go check out his stuff. He's got an awesome New York accent. Thank you, guys. Thank you. SilverBallSwag.com slash LoserKid. If you're not buying our stuff, I don't know what else to tell you. We've got a bunch I had the shoes. I had the hockey jerseys. I had the Vans shoes. Yes. I had the hockey jersey and the Vans shoes. I wore the Vans shoes all weekend. They're really comfortable. I was surprised. They're really comfortable. People are gearing up for Expo. We've got a handful of jerseys that went out. Other thing, too, really quick about the hats because I've had a couple of questions about the hats. Yes, we are doing the hats. The pre-list is – I have it top pinned on Facebook. The way it works is you fill out a Google sheet, and it comes to me, and I'm holding on to all those Google sheets right now. and I will contact you once we've shut down that form, which is at the end of this month. You only got like two weeks left. If you really want that hat, you don't have to go to the expo. Just in case you're listening in the future. So you don't have to be like, I will ship it to you and we can make that arrangement. If you're not going to be at expo, but save yourself some shipping. If you're going to expo, I can bring it to you. That's, that's one of the main reasons I do a hat push this year is because I'm like, I'm going to be in Chicago. A lot of other people are going to be in Chicago. It's just easy to be like here, boom, save yourself like eight bucks or 10 bucks, whatever the shipping is nowadays. It's kind of out of control. And really, we're not making anything on these. It really is just a fun thing for us to get hats out. Yep. So there's all that. Did I miss anything, Scott? No. Just check us out. Josh does a really good job with our social media, all the typical locations. And we appreciate everybody listening, spending time with us. And if you see us at Expo, please come up and say hi and take a selfie with us. We'd love to do it. Definitely. Vic, give us our last word. Oh, man. You put me on the spot. Oh, man. I'm excited for Expo. I'm very grateful and happy I met you guys. Thank you again for inviting me. Flip on, my guys and gals. Flip on. you