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Kong Vs Dune - Are These 2 Great Games?

Dirtypool Pinball·video·35m 40s·analyzed·Apr 15, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Kong vs Dune: Comparing two major 2025 pinball releases on design, art, and value.

Summary

A detailed comparison of two recently announced premium pinball machines: King Kong Myth of Terror Island (Stern, designed by Keith Elwin) and Dune (Barrels of Fun). The host discusses playfield layout, mechanical design, art direction, voice-over quality, and value proposition, expressing mixed feelings about Kong's art style while being enthusiastic about Dune's features and pricing model.

Key Claims

  • King Kong features three artists: Zombie Yeti (lead creative director at Stern), Kevin O'Connor, and Greg Ferris

    high confidence · Direct statement from trailer credits shown and discussed by host

  • Kong's art style uses cell-shading because Stern lacks resources for fur rendering on character animations

    medium confidence · Host's speculation/interpretation of design choice

  • Dune's price of $11,600 includes shaker motor, side panels, Invisaglass, and Expression Lighting system—features that cost significantly more if purchased separately from Stern

    high confidence · Host direct price analysis comparing Dune's included features vs. Stern's standalone accessory pricing

  • Kong's Kong Gong bash toy functions differently on Pro (archway) vs. Premium/LE (rejects shots selectively)

    high confidence · Host detailed analysis of trailer footage showing mechanical differences

  • Brian Q. Quinn provided voice-over for Kong without professional voice-over direction, resulting in poor delivery quality

    medium confidence · Host criticism based on audio quality observed in trailer; Quinn's involvement stated in trailer credits

  • Voice-over direction is a widespread industry problem across all pinball manufacturers, not just Stern

    medium confidence · Host opinion citing examples from multiple manufacturers (Spooky's Evil Dead, others)

  • Kong is the most loaded Keith Elwin design to date in terms of mechanical detail density

    medium confidence · Host subjective assessment of playfield footage

  • Dune's playfield uses Expression Lighting system effectively, with cyan and blue coloring complementing the brown theme

    medium confidence · Host analysis of gameplay footage provided by Kineticist/Colin

Notable Quotes

  • “This is absolutely an assault on the senses... I'm extremely mixed.”

    Host (Jeff Dodson/Dirty Pool) @ Early in video — Sets tone for Kong art criticism—divisive aesthetic choice

  • “The spider is going to break... it just takes one leg to happen to slam down right on the ball and then you've got little bits of spider legs going around.”

    Host @ Mid-video during Kong mechanical analysis — Durability concern about Kong's spider toy design

  • “The only reason to get an LE, the only reason to get a Stern LE is because you don't want to put side panels in... all of this stuff comes standard on Dune.”

    Host @ During value comparison section — Stark critique of Stern's LE differentiation strategy vs. Barrels of Fun's approach

  • “Dune's price point is $11,000 and $600 others... For those two things alone [shaker motor and art panels], you're already paying more than the cost all four things that you get for Dune.”

    Host @ Dune value analysis section — Quantifies Dune's value proposition vs. typical Stern pricing

  • “Having a voice-over director is critical... when you have a guy in his house or a home studio trying to do voice-over and it doesn't have someone to give feedback... you get this lifeless bad voice-over.”

    Host (referencing own VO work experience) @ During voice-over critique section — Industry expertise-based criticism of Kong's VO quality

  • “I could not be more stoked for this, especially the giant worm that flies up in the air.”

    Host @ Dune section introduction — Strong enthusiasm for Dune's signature mechanical feature

  • “I think that Barrels of Fun's playfield artists are a masterclass in UI through the playfield.”

    Host @ Dune playfield analysis — Praise for Barrels of Fun's design philosophy vs. implicit Stern critique

  • “Stern's going to put the effort in to have an art director be involved... and then they're going to get a guy who's doing his voice-over at his home studio with zero direction.”

Entities

King Kong Myth of Terror IslandgameDunegameKeith ElwinpersonZombie YetipersonBrian Q. QuinnpersonGreg FerrispersonKevin O'ConnorpersonJeff Dodson / Dirty Poolperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern's LE pricing model criticized as extracting premium for minimal differentiation; host contrasts with Barrels of Fun's inclusive feature approach on single-tier pricing

    high · Host: 'The only reason to get an LE... is because you don't want to put side panels in... all of this stuff comes standard on Dune... they know how to be honest to their customers'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Kong's art style is explicitly divisive within community; host notes 'you either love or hate this artwork' with mixed reception to cell-shaded animation approach

    medium · Host: 'So, you either love or hate this artwork... I'm extremely mixed... there's going to be some pretty divisive stuff here'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Barrels of Fun positioning Dune as superior value proposition with standard Expression Lighting, Invisaglass, shaker motor at $11,600 vs. Stern's tiered model

    high · Host price analysis: Dune at $11,600 includes shaker ($400), art panels ($400), Invisaglass, Expression Lighting vs. Stern's separate purchases for equivalent features

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Kong's Kong Gong bash toy operates differently on Pro vs. Premium/LE: Pro uses archway (no blocking), Premium/LE selectively rejects shots, creating different play experiences across tiers

    high · Host footage analysis: 'The Kong Gong clearly rejects shots a certain amount of times... but on the Pro it's an archway... the play that's that's involving this element is totally different on the Pro versus the Premium'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: King Kong's art direction criticized as excessive colorization (neon pinks, purples) that clashes with expected 1930s aesthetic; divisive among community

Topics

Art direction and visual design philosophy (cell-shading, color palette, playfield composition)primaryMechanical design and durability concerns (spider toy fragility, arm toy functionality)primaryVoice-over and audio production quality across pinball industryprimaryPricing models: Stern LE vs. Barrels of Fun single-tier approach and feature differentiationprimaryPlayfield layout design philosophy: shot variety, ball routing, return pathsprimaryFeature packaging and customer value propositionsecondaryManufacturing quality control and pre-release testingsecondary

Sentiment

mixed(0.45)— Host is enthusiastic about Kong's playfield mechanics and shot design but heavily critical of art direction, voice-over quality, and Stern's LE pricing strategy. Very positive about Dune's value, features, and design philosophy. Overall tone reflects qualified optimism about both machines but stronger reservations about Kong's execution despite respecting its design depth.

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

man, let's talk about it. It's here. Look at this. What's going on everybody? Yeah, check it out. It's uh it's podcast time and we're going to talk about Dune. We're going to talk about Kong. Let me know if I screwed up anything because right now we're kind of weighing it. Evil ad incoming. Silver Ion, what's going on? How's it going? Hopefully not. I think that uh I think that there should be no more ads. They ran them. Anyways, we got a lot to talk about. We got some We got some uh Look at this. Look at this. It's Kong. You probably seen it. You probably You probably know. Can you not hear me? I think that's you. Yeah. Ha. Uh, okay. So, without further ado, we have two big launches, man. The Kongs Kong's released some footage and uh, you know, after the teaser that came out, it was uh, I was pretty stoked. And then the trailer came out and I'm pretty mixed on it. Shall we take a look? Let's take a look. For anybody who hasn't seen it already, this is this is the Kong trailer. So, you can tell they're showing off the LE already because you can see that uh the side armor on there. And the first thing the first thing that pops for sure is that they went wild with the color scheme. I mean, we're looking at like neon pinks, purples. Uh it's it's uh it's bright. Yeah, absolutely. silver. I have the same opinion that uh the proof's in the pudding to play it, but there are some undeniable things worth talking about. And that's and that's what we're going to get to. Yeah. And wait till we get to the chit chat about this is the trailer. Sorry, I thought this was the actual full introduction. We'll pull that up now. Uh, we'll jump through this because I feel like a lot of people have already seen this. And I have What's up, Christopher Tranchy? I can't even talk. What's up, Christopher? How's it going? Uh, I have footage of Dune being played. Look, we'll give a little preview. You ready? Look at that. That's some other short that's going to autoplay. We'll get back to that. We'll get back to that. That's right. Look at that. That's fine. We'll start with this. Check it out. This is Kineticist. Uh this is Colin over at Kineticist and they're playing they're playing some uh Dune and just kidding. We'll We'll get to that. Here to unleash an epic pinball adventure. First off, one of the most iconic actual presentation. These videos are so much better than their teasers. I really wish that they would improve the quality of their teasers. The hype trailers are are kind of garbage. However, here we are to celebrate King Kong's love. They do a good job of setting it up and actually giving a taste of what the actual game's going to be like. And whether you like that or not is a whole different story. What's up, Borg Dog? How's it going, man? Look at this. We're doing like we're doing a Chitty Chat podcast. It's Chitty Chat podcast time here. It's dirty. It's dirty. journey exploring the mysteries of terror. I don't I don't even know. Damn it, Borg Dog. Stop talking over my stream. That's a shout out there. Uh, that's right. Dirty Poo Cast. So, you either love or hate this artwork. And I based on the conged, I really thought that they were going to go more in the direction of like Indiana Jones. And they've gone like this is absolutely an assault on the senses. And I I'm I'm extremely mixed. There's three artists that are working on the art for this. You know, you've got uh Zombie Eddie, which is the now lead creative director over at Stern. Uh and you have two other artists who I can't remember their names. They talk about it. Uh who are we looking at? I'm sure it says it in here, but we'll get there. As he havoc across New York City. So, the first thing that pops out to me immediately is the layout. The layout looks awesome. Uh you can see that's definitely the premium here because the side panels do not have the decorative lines on them like they did earlier. If you notice in the in the opening uh teaser that we saw on the other one, uh there's like these Aztec gold highlights along them. And that's that's definitely the LE. But uh both these machines, this and and Dune, I feel like the external cabinet artwork is not is not great. Uh but the Playfield artwork does have its own thing going on. And look who it is. It's Ellen. What's up, Keith? Keith Ellen, lead game designer of our latest game, King Kong Myth of Terror Island. So, here you go. You're looking at the Pro on the left here and the premium on the right. This is not the Ellie. Again, as I mentioned, you can see that there's no expression lighting on here and that there's no uh, you know, side armor. That's That's fancy side armor. King Kong, we wanted to create an entirely new interpretation of the iconic story. Players will join and art style. All right. I get why they went cell-shaded, right? Stern doesn't have the money to do fur rendering on their characters, right? It would just be too much time. So, how do you make things cheaper but still go with animation? Look at tons of kids animation. You sell shade it. So, they've chosen to stylize this footage to be presentable because they didn't want to use footage from the movies, obviously. So, like this is both like a good decision and an unfortunate scenario because you just can't avoid the cell-shaded look. Like you either you either love it or you hate it. So, I think that there's going to be some pretty divisive stuff here. People really seem to be liking what they're seeing here. And I don't know, man. I'm just really mixed. Like, this isn't great, you know? Look at look at Jersey Jack stuff. And And we'll we'll get to the Dune stuff. There's no Dune video footage. Uh we'll have to look uh uh at the live footage that I have and see if we can actually see any of the video footage in the background. Animation software, but you know, you've got Oh man, this arm thing, we've talked about this. This arm is it just sounds like it's waiting to be a problem and break. Like they already pushed this concept on the on Uncanny X-Men. You know, the old finger old finger puppets there didn't do very well and now we've got another big old arm blocking balls that could be coming up too fast. You know, it's only a matter of time before that arm starts to get too beat up that it's not functioning correctly. I have the same same issue with the uh He doesn't need it. He grabs it. Yeah. Uh I have the same issue with the spider toy that's coming up in a second, too. So, you've got you've got Kong Gong here, which this is really wild. The Kong Gong clearly rejects shots a certain amount of times and then actually allows it to pass through on other ones. But, as you'll see on the Pro, it's a it's an archway. like there is nothing blocking it. So the the play that's that's involving this element of the game is totally different on the pro versus the premium. Oops. Come back on a decorated temple. Um Oh, whatever. Kong's cool. The reversing. There's a lot of like little details like the initial like playfield kind of looks like okay like whatever. But there's so much little stuff going on here. Um you know like you said you've got this this vug here. Let's slow it down. We'll play this in in super cool slow-mo. Yeah. All right. Kicking card. Yeah. Which launches balls back at the player or can drop into the secret entrance. So, that's cool. I mean, you're talking about And there's a diverter uh later on that they show uh with the uh what's the name of the shot? Help me out here. There's like a mini flipper that shoots into like these vertical standups. Wire return. I think it's coming up. Unlock the secret. Right. So, here. So, we have this forbank that comes off this small like thing. By the way, there's Gary Stern Easter egg right there. People have been pointing it out, but if you didn't know, now you know. What up, Gary? Four banks. Okay. So, you've got there's a diverter here that pops up and leads the ball down to a small flipper here, which then you can use to mash the these these drop targets. I loves drop targets. I love drop targets. I love that. There he is. If you couldn't if that was a hidden that wasn't such an obvious uh Gary Stern Easter egg. So, then you know Yeah. Then this train car dumps the balls in. So, I appreci This is This is the most loaded Keith Owen game that we've seen to date. I in my opinion, and I love the way they've crammed in a lot of little details in here without making it feel kind of like so overly populated that it starts to feel kind of like a Jersey Jack game. The pit on Terror Island. The spider is going to break. This This the sculpts are cool on this, but the stupid spider is going to shatter. Like look at this. Guarded by a custom. I mean, I don't Maybe the spider's not stupid. I'm being a little But look, the ball clearly is right on these thin little feet. And as soon as that slams down and pops onto it, even if it's rubber, I at some point it's going to break. I I just Right. Like as if it was rubber, you'd think that these legs would be flailing around. But look how stiff they are. Like this is popping hard up and down and there's no flexibility here. I think this is hard cast. That's fine for underneath it, but what about the tip of the leg? Like it just takes one leg to happen to slam down right on the ball as the magnet throws it against it and and then you've got, you know, little bits of spider legs going around. So like this is really nitpicky and I understand that. But if we're talking about small things that may be an issue later on in the game, like Stern doesn't, it seems like Stern hasn't been testing big picture with their games recently. So, do you think that they've put a thousand balls under the spider to make sure that its legs don't shatter off of it? Terrain by exploring the thrilling helix shaped biplane ramp, you know, and then you've got your kind of like Infinity Quest big ass ramps like in the middle. So, I mean, I think that that there's a lot to do from each flipper. And this is something that uh Get out of here, mouse. There's a lot to do from each flipper. And where are we? We're at 253. We're going to come back there. Let's look at the playfield here. Okay. So, as every flipper has a lot to do, and the way the returns happen are very interesting. And this is something that I love about Elwin's designs and something that I think is very lacking on certain other games. that we might be talking about. So, you've got at least three or four shots from each flipper and that gives choices to the game and that is to me absolutely critical and what's going to make a game longevity not boring, especially if they can make the rules go. So, we'll see what version the rules are. This is the other kind of stuff I'm talking about. This secret ball path they're talking about here. If Here, let's we'll slow it down again. You know, look over here on the left. Shut up, Dungeons and Dragons. Illuminated. Clearly, if this gate isn't up, so it's got a little bit of like uh El Dorado or uh what's what's another game that's got double flipper? Um Gold Trotters. You know, you've got that if you lift your flipper up and roll it you roll it down the uh diverter path here and it goes through the secret path underneath the plastic. That's cool. You got to love it. Favorite ball path return and then you got like a little Jaws pop out here or even like Fathom. It's not inverted, but right. So that we're talking like there's details on details here that I think that are going to make this game a lot more fun than the initial observation. But we're going to get to my biggest crux here. And this is something that I have been very critical of the Stern over the last like two games. And unfortunately, it's the same criticism. Here's the diverter. You can This is right at the top of the river that we just talked about. Um here, let's I have should have it set up so we can do a full frame. Let's try it. You know, you've got this fullsize diverter here. Setting up shots. Same diverter that's right here upper. So, that's that's pretty neat. I like that. I think that's that's a cool little addition. I want Dune over this and we're going to get to that. I think Dune is for me probably going to be a more interesting game cuz I don't know there's so much I'm probably going to get both. I just I this is a good time to get two pinball machine and that guy's going away. Bye-bye D and D. You're out. Dune and this is in taking place on terror. Right. So, the right choice, the right choice is to wait until the code is at a point where it's worth getting it. I'm going to commit to getting an LE with the re the reason for that being is that someone will always want to buy an LE. So, if the game is really bad, at some point it should be no problem to to part with it. Someone will buy it and then we get it on stream earlier for everybody. So, you know, Dune only has one version of the game in their battle against King Kong. So, all right. So then we've got the the Kong toy. Yeah. The only the only reason to get an LE, the only reason to get a Stern LE is because you don't want to put side panels in. You don't want to put a shaker motor in. You don't want to put art panels on it. You don't want to [ __ ] put Invisalass in. And all of this stuff comes standard on Dune. Like part of the reason that I am so stoked for Dune from Barrels is because they're they're they know how to be honest to their to their customers. Like I don't want to buy a premium which is supposed to be substantially a step up from, you know, the Pro and then have to do a [ __ ] ton of work on it. It sucks replacing the fans inside of it and all the other stuff. Labyrinth is a great game and you can see when I get to Dune how they've really popped it, too. It's awesome. I don't really care too much about the animatronic Kong to be perfectly like for me, but you know, Punchback is cool. You know, I think that they've got a lot of really neat to things going on. Ramp Return, something that uh has always been a Keith Ellen like I don't know, he's just always been amazing at that. He loves drop targets. Like I don't know, the more I see the playfield layout, the more that I think that this is going to be a fun game. I just personally don't like the art package. And this is the shitty part. This is where I think by three legendary pinball illustrator, not this, but here this is the other two people that are on it. I don't know. Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti) is Zombie Eddie. I don't know who Kevin Oconor and Greg Freres are. I'm guessing that they're comic book artists or responsible for this kind of uh you know, art style. Uh if anybody else knows in chat, please sound off. And also, I want to know what you guys think. I mean, this is kind of like a whole like let's let's shoot the [ __ ] and talk about it. Kevin Oconor, the legendary. Oh, interesting. Well, so that's I mean that's clearly why they're showing this. If you're if you're aware of, let me fix my hair. Fix my receding hairline. If you can see here, like this is the exact layout in the center here as the unreleased Kong that never made it. So, they did a really authentic like kind of shout out here to the original King Kong. And that's really cool. I mean, that's like kind of just an Easter egg for people that are just obsessed with the history of pinball. But like, come on. I mean, that's great. Greg Freres and Jerry Packer aka Revenge from Mars. The The pinball the pinball 2000 that sank pinball. All right, here we go. You can see the Ellie again here. Obviously, because of the side panel, you see the art blades here. They've got foil underneath it, which is kind of neat, giving that like futuristic Aztec vibe. But then, you know, you've really got to be into the the color scheme that they went down with. Yeti all contributed to this art package. King Kong comes with all new original animations. So, here we go with the animations. Yeah. So, they went with all original music. They didn't mention anybody who did this the music for it. Uh I'm curious who they hired. Says Brian "Q" Quinn did the with the did the VO and we're about to talk about that. It also features custom speech by com. Here we go. This is this is where I'm going to be critical of uh of Stern yet again. Um to give some insight here, for about 6 years, I cut dialogue for some of the biggest video game franchises and worked closely with Margaret Tang, you can go look her up, who is one of the biggest voiceover directors in the entire voiceover industry in video games and also in animation. What's up, Pink Ninja Man? How's it going? Purple's a great color, man. Purple and pink, just like Pink Ninja Man here. We'll let Pink Ninja Man talk over this because he's here. He's here chatting. We'll look at Keith Ellen nice and big while we do that. Oh, I guess we're done. Anyways, so I've worked cutting dialogue and listening to technical directors give their voiceover direct or give commentary to the performers that are that are acting. And this is everything from actual actors like Lawrence Fishburn. I remember, you know, I worked on uh Call of Duty, I worked on Shrek, like I cut a lot of dialogue for video games. And having a voiceover director is critical because when you have a guy in his house or a home studio trying to do voice over and it doesn't have someone to give feedback on what the like inflections are, you get this somebody allegedly Brian Q Quinn from Impractical Jokers. No, No, no. That ape's not keeping Huff along. We're going in. N keeping half for long. We're going in. This is one sound bite. Oh, I got to fix the frame there. Dang it. It's [ __ ] It's awful. And that's not because he's a bad voiceover actor. It's because nobody is there giving him direction so that there is like a cohesive art style. So Stern's going to put the effort in to have an art director be involved and make sure that their art package is cohesive and has like like they made sure that the art for the game is like big themed correctly feels like part of the entire package and then they're going to get a guy who's doing his voice over at his home studio with zero direction and you get this lifeless bad voice over and you can see it in certain like okay so you can tell that what's up how's it going Raymond you can tell Like Dungeons and Dragons definitely didn't have a voiceover director and it suffered from it. You can tell that Godzilla did or at least had somebody who was being hired to do a such a specific style like the announcer voice for it for like the talking about the the zillians coming in and everything like there was clearly a voiceover director involved and you get a real performance. You don't get this. Not keeping her for long. We're going in. So, I'm worried about that. That's just flat out. You look at games like Lord of the Rings, like even Ghostbusters, and and that's you can tell that they didn't have a voiceover director for that. And this isn't just Stern's fault, man. This is a problem currently in like all pinball industry stuff right now. Evil Dead. Holy moly. Spooky put together such an incredible, incredible pinball machine. And then just the line delivery for all of Ash is just awful. And I get it. He's done the character for so long, but it doesn't have any of the nuances and character that the original films had. And like that's what you want. And the call outs are such an important part of the pinball experience. It's like you're listening to these voice these voice snippets over and over and over again. So if they stand out and they're not good, it's just it's such a problem and I it's such a small amount of effort and it's such a small amount to have a voiceover director involved this. So for the amount of dialogue that they shot, so we would blow through when I was doing like Call of Duty and and Elder Scrolls, when we were doing cut and dialogue for that, a single day of voice over, they could record 30, 40, 50 pages of dialogue for a single character and they would do two or three characters a day. You could blow through all of the necessary dialogue that's needed in a single game in one or two days easily. easily. The rate for hiring a voice-over director to be involved in that is nothing. This is like a fraction of the cost of even like one pinball machine. It makes no sense not to go and find somebody who has some experience being a technical director or a voiceover director and have them involved during the recording process when they're doing production on that. It just makes absolutely no sense to me. I can't. It's just blow. Oh my god. I got to hear it again. by comedy legend Brian Q Quinn. Comedy legend. No, No, no. That ape's not keeping Huff along. We're going in. And through the power of Insider Connect. Get over here. What's going on? Get over here. It's like he's working on Sopranos. Maybe that's the remake. No. Uh, anyways. So, man, I don't know. You think Evil Dead sucks like the whole game or just the uh just the voiceover? Raymond, it is still working. Better modes in D and D also. I agree. H. Okay. Anyways, so explore Terror Island on an unforgettable treasure hunt. That those are the three things that I'm most worried about, right? Is just like how the art package uh I click around and ruin everything. No. Get out of here. Get back. Get back here. Get back to the correct thing. I also like Evil Dead Vman. I'm sorry. Uh, I mean, but he could be a good voiceover actor. I just the the snippet that they picked is just very tonedeaf. It's weird. Like, you know, they're going to set it up with like this production value and everything, and then they have this. It does. It really This the rug really ties the room together, too, if you know what I mean. Let's Let's see this to the end, then we'll jump over to Dune, and then I'll play some of the footage that we have of uh Dune being played live. Maybe like this. Oh, what's this? Wa, it's Dune being played. Unfortunately, you can see the camera has the HDR running so hot that the playfield is looks like it's I don't know, like light gray beyond belief. But anyways, check it out. We got secret footage. I'll show you. We'll play it later. All right, it does look like white water. People have mentioned that. White Water is a great game, though. Let's talk Dune. I could not be more stoked for this, especially the giant anus that flies up in the air. So, we don't have uh anything more than the trailer. Oh, no. The Photoshop is so terrible. But distributors have said that there's an alternate alternate back glass that comes with it that's not movie themed. And I'm very excited for that because didn't Labyrinth came with an alternate translate, right? Yeah. There you go. So, the exterior of the game is the only problem. Same Raymond, I could not be more stoked for this. I I have wanted to get into the barrels. uh kind of like pinball ecosystem. H get out of here, Wisebot. Yeah, I did stuff on YouTube. Go check it out or something. Anyways, uh there's a lot of really neat stuff in the briefs that I've read about this. So, there's this captive ball. Let's Let's get to it. Okay, so this captive ball here, you can shoot a ball in there that gets locked and then you use magnets to throw it through the spinner here, which is really neat. There's four ball locks. These drop targets happen. Uh hold on. So, yes, this rises up in the air. I'll have to pull up the uh still images of it. There's a ramp that you use to launch the ball here. Let's pull it up here. Let's see what we got. Let's find some foot Reno here. Okay, so this ramp here. Nope. Zoom in. Nope, that's not it. Nope. Son of a [ __ ] We'll do it live. [ __ ] it. Anyways, this ramp is an air launch ramp apparently, which you hit and then you slam into this as a bash toy. So, this is a bash toy. Dune's price point is $11,000 and $600 others. So, it's $11,600. Uh, and here's here's the thing about that though. Before you're like, "Oh [ __ ] that's $1,000 more than the Labyrinth." It is. However, you are getting a shaker motor. You are getting a side panels. You are getting invisal with it. And you are getting an expression lighting system in the sides. I I think it falls down onto the the ramp here, the the diverter that's or I'm sorry, the uh the wire form that's available here. Or it falls down and rolls into this area down here with the pits. So uh I'll pull up the the description of it. We'll I'll I'll show you. Um and we'll watch the video footage. Hopefully we can see that. Right. Exactly. So you're getting over $1,000 worth of things that are independently sold through Stern for way more than that. I mean their sacred order is like $400. Art panels are $400. I mean, for those two things alone, you're already you're already paying, you know, more than the cost all four things that you get for Dune. And it comes with the expression lighting system stock. So, for Barrels of Fun, you're getting all of this. Look, you get the topper, which I don't really care about. Where I put most of my pins, I don't have space for a topper, so I kind of don't give a [ __ ] But in this particular case, you get the topper, you get the expression system on the speakers, you get an expression lighting system on the playfield, which you'll see when I pull up the footage in a second. You get invisag glass, powdered armor, shaker motor, and side pan art side panels. I'm sure you can turn it off in the code. Who cares? It's also referred to as low profile, which is I think is good because the amount of like the I don't like stadium lighting for the most part on pins. I think it's just like too much. Um, but whatever. Like you have choices. I'm sure you could unplug it and or turn it off in code. Uh, the worst part about this game in my opinion is this back glass. This is horshit. What is this? Oh my god. Let me see if I can pull up a better shot this. Yeah. Like I don't want to look at Timothy Shalom's [ __ ] mug the entire time I'm playing. What's up, MLAN? Well, we're looking at my next purchase. I've already pre-ordered. So, this is uh this is Dune and I'm going to get one. All the people that are hating on it, I just they don't know what they're talking about. So, you get look at this. Like I think that barrel barrels of funds playfield artists are a masterclass in UI through the playfield, right? Like not only does the accent uh yeah, it does look sick on your tiny phone. Uh you've got the composition here with the worm already on the magnet co overlay here sets kind of a flow and then everything from like the flipper shape and the way they accent this like entire area here like you know that the inlanes are part of a system here that flow like this. You've got excellent laid out uh you know inserts that reflect these different areas of the shots. You've got an gradient. You don't have an unnecessary assault of the senses here you know and then it transitions into brown. And yes, there is a lot of brown on this playfield, but they've also tempered it with a lot of cyan and blue, which is like an absolute complimentary color to the brown. Like, I I don't know. Like, this doesn't bug me. And when you see what the expression lighting system does, like, yeah, it's [ __ ] Dune, man. It's going to be brown. It's brown. Code brown. They got this whole like the sculpts on this are amazing. Like, there are so many good sculpts in here. Let's take a look. Uh, here. Well, we we'll play some of this footage. Let me see if I can actually like frame this correctly because uh I I don't know why, but it it's shot vertical because people hate life. Uh all right, window capture. We'll We'll scale this down for now. All right, here we go. So, this is footage from Kineticus. This is from Colin. Colin shared this with us. And uh this is uh this is Dune. This is actual real footage of Dune. Here we go. So again, the expression lighting or I'm sorry, the uh the HDR is clearly Yeah. So there's you can't really see the uh you can't see the bash toy so much in the upper left, but here I think it's got good side to side motion. Uh, that ramp looks like it may be a problem to hit, but I could say that that's probably going to be a similar issue with the biplane, too. Well, what's up? The Illuminati ladies are attending, or at least one. What's up, scone? They do look like poo, but sometimes you just need some poo in your pants. Oh, hello. Look at that magic water. Look, water is life, man. It's like you got to get water when you're on do. So, more than anything here with Dune, I think that the way they've described a lot of their systems are super unique, and I'm really excited with that. Yeah, but sometimes you want floaty turds in your game. Uh, I really like the This is kind of like a a reference to these like or uh what's not Earth Shaker? What was the other uh what was the other pin that had the like like hash minus like uh LEDs back in the like late 90s, right? Early 2000s. Got to drink water, man. It's important to drink water. Get hydrated. Road show. Thank you very much. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. So, I I don't know. Like, I think the brownness is such an over like you've got an LCD inside there. You got expression lighting. There you go. You got your This is a giant the floating anus. Here it is. Boom. Look at that. The worm eats the ball. If you wanted to complain about how the worm didn't eat the ball, it does it. It absolutely does. Did the shark not eat the ball? No. Also, I don't mind the shark not eating the ball. Getting bashed is not a big deal. Uh, but yeah, there's all sorts of mechanics on here. I'm stoked for this game. You can put anything you want in a hole. That's like from experience. You can just do it. I know. Uh, all right. So, let's see. Let's do we're going to take a look at some of the documentation here and then uh that's going to be it cuz I got to go do some do some work today. Uh let's see. Was it NAP? I think had that's not NAP. I think NAP has uh the press release doc. Yeah, here it is. Oh my god, Lord. You can't read half that. Uh, oh my god. Yeah. So, it's got a 5 and a/4 inch speaker system stock, the 15-in display. It's got anti-reflective glass. It's got the uh side panels. It's got LED, I'm sorry. It's got their HAL system, which is atmospheric lighting. That's what they're calling their uh I know, right? This is unfortunately low res. I don't I thought that I don't think the Dune site had Let's take a look. I don't think that they had it available for download, but let's see. Maybe I'm wrong here. They still haven't updated their flyer section to have anything other than Labyrinth. Uh Canada put out a big article talking or I mean he went rampant talking about how terrible their launch was and I I don't know man. I don't I think that's a little over dramatization but uh you know there's some truth to what he's saying for sure. Um, anyways, uh, yeah, there's a multi-entry scoop. It says here, build your attack. Uh, they have the uppost that there's a there's a [ __ ] outline here that like returns the ball through the, uh, it shoots into the same wire form that is the return on the left rail, which is super cool. Then you've got this secret fork trap on the right over here. I guess I should probably scroll it up so you can actually see what I'm talking about. So, there's like a whole hidden pathway over here. Underneath this box here is a a kickback that launches it back up onto the wire form here. This is a bash toy. That's what I was saying here. This ramp launches it into the air to hit that. Um, where does it talk about that? See if we can if I zoom in on this, it's probably going to be even more horrendously pixelated. Uh, let's see. ball eating vertical sandworm thumper harone har uh harvester and something something palm box. Yeah, interactive uh harone and harvester. Shoot the jump ramp to damage and destroy ball lock the harvester with exploding something action. So the exploding cockpit action. So this cockpit apparently flops out. Pretty awesome. Pretty awesome. Anyways, uh thank you everybody for joining. I'm sorry to cut it a little short. Uh, but that's that's a good look at both Dune and uh and Kong right now and my thoughts on both of them. I've got to go deal with some house maintenance issues, which is what uh what the Illuminati ladies decided to come in and let me know about, which is good. Anyways, that's terrible. I can't wait to see what the alternate back glass is. Uh I'll be streaming later tonight. Uh we're probably we're going to do some more Ghostbusters before we have to swap that out. We're going to go back to Lord of the Rings, I think. Maybe some Attack from Mars. I don't know. All sorts of stuff going on. But uh anyways, yeah. Thanks for watching. I hope you had a good time uh and enjoyed seeing some of this footage. I'll uh yeah, I'm gonna go.

Host @ Voice-over section — Highlights contradiction in Stern's production priorities

Kineticist / Colin
person
Stern Pinballcompany
Barrels of Funcompany
Expression Lightingproduct
Gary Sternperson
Labyrinthgame
Uncanny X-Mengame

high · Host: 'They went wild with the color scheme... neon pinks, purples. It's bright... I really thought that they were going to go more in the direction of like Indiana Jones... this is absolutely an assault on the senses'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Barrels of Fun employs 'masterclass in UI through the playfield' with balanced color composition, gradient transitions, and intentional visual hierarchy vs. sensory overload approach

    medium · Host: 'Barrels of Fun's playfield artists are a masterclass in UI... you don't have an unnecessary assault of the senses... they've tempered it with cyan and blue which is complimentary to brown'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Host expresses concern about Stern's testing protocols; questions whether spike spider toy underwent durability testing with repeated ball impacts

    medium · Host: 'Stern doesn't seem like Stern hasn't been testing big picture with their games recently... do you think that they've put a thousand balls under the spider to make sure its legs don't shatter?'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Zombie Yeti confirmed as lead creative director at Stern Pinball with involvement in Kong art direction; raises questions about creative authority in design decisions

    high · Host: 'You've got uh Zombie Yeti, which is the now lead creative director over at Stern... Greg Ferris and Jeremy Packer aka Zombie Yeti all contributed to this art package'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Kong Pro/Premium/LE feature distribution affects gameplay: Kong Gong mechanics differ, side panels exclusive to LE, Expression Lighting absent from Pro, creating unequal play experiences

    high · Host: 'If you notice in the opening teaser... there's like these Aztec gold highlights... that's definitely the LE... side armor' on Premium/LE but not Pro

  • ?

    product_concern: Spider toy on Kong identified as durability risk; thin legs susceptible to breakage when ball contacts during magnet activation

    high · Host detailed analysis: 'The ball clearly is right on these thin little feet... it just takes one leg to happen to slam down right on the ball... and then you've got little bits of spider legs going around'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Industry-wide voice-over direction deficiency; Kong lacks professional VO director despite hiring celebrity voice actor (Brian Q. Quinn), resulting in flat delivery without character direction

    high · Host with VO industry background: 'Having a voice-over director is critical... when you have a guy in his house doing voice-over... you get this lifeless bad voice-over' citing examples from Stern, Spooky (Evil Dead)