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Episode 268 - 2026 Texas Pinball Festival Recap

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 31m·held·Mar 28, 2026
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.014

TL;DR

TPF 2026 recap: venue layout triumph, check-in chaos, and first impressions of Kong, Walking Dead, Star Wars Empire.

Summary

Dennis and Tony from Eclectic Gamers Podcast recap the 2026 Texas Pinball Festival (TPF), discussing venue logistics, layout improvements, and their hands-on impressions of new-to-them games including King Kong, Walking Dead Remaster, and Star Wars Empire. The episode highlights TPF's best-ever floor configuration with 500+ games distributed across multiple spaces, critiques operational challenges at check-in and band placement, and provides candid gameplay reactions to recently released titles.

Key Claims

  • Texas Pinball Festival 2026 had over 500 games distributed across the main hall, hallways, and multiple vendor areas

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony discussing the show layout and scale; Tony confirms 'They had over 500 games'

  • This was the best venue layout/configuration TPF has ever had

    high confidence · Tony: 'This was the best configuration I have ever seen for any pinball show.' Dennis agrees it was phenomenal.

  • Check-in operations were inefficient, described as 'the worst it's ever been' despite TPF's long history

    high confidence · Dennis: 'I think it's the worst it's ever been for that particular pickup.' Notes confusion over line organization and understaffing (one person with one tablet).

  • The band placement at the show front creates significant traffic congestion and accessibility issues

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony discuss the band's front-and-center positioning blocking access to food trucks, vendors, and game hall; Dennis: 'It creates quite a bit of traffic congestion.'

  • TPF replaced wristband verification for multi-day passes with badge-only system

    high confidence · Dennis praises the change: 'for the people that had multi-day passes, no more of those wristbands period. Yes. Just the bad.' Tony: 'That is so good.'

  • King Kong (Stern/Keith Elwin) is forgettable and underwhelming

    high confidence · Tony's assessment: 'Forgettable. Not a bad summary.' Dennis: 'It wasn't getting into it. Yeah. That was the same way.'

  • Walking Dead Remaster has improved skill shot mechanics (better star rollover detection) but minimal reason to upgrade from original

    high confidence · Dennis praises rollover improvements but concludes: 'I have, uh, almost zero idea why you would bother to replace your existing one with the remaster.'

  • Star Wars Empire (Stern) is a major disappointment and described as a 'cash grab' by comparison to Ritchie's original Star Wars

    high confidence · Dennis: 'wow. Well, this game was such a disappointment.' Tony references 'Bruce Nightingale cash grab' and notes sparse LE extras.

Notable Quotes

  • “This was the best configuration I have ever seen for any pinball show.”

    Tony @ ~42:00 — High praise for TPF's 2026 venue layout and game distribution strategy; signals successful operational scaling.

  • “I think it's the worst it's ever been for that particular pickup.”

    Dennis @ ~15:00 — Critical operational feedback on check-in process; indicates backsliding on a historically reliable show function.

  • “I had to do a double take over to Tony when I saw the LE plaque on it because I thought we were on a pro. It was so stripped.”

    Tony (discussing Star Wars Empire LE) @ ~95:00 — Signals perceived lack of differentiation/value in Star Wars Empire Limited Edition vs. Pro; reinforces 'cash grab' sentiment.

  • “Forgettable. Not a bad summary.”

    Tony (on King Kong) @ ~70:00 — Candid dismissal of Stern's King Kong; indicates the game fails to create memorable gameplay or emotional impact.

  • “I have, uh, almost zero idea why you would bother to replace your existing one with the remaster.”

    Dennis (on Walking Dead Remaster) @ ~82:00 — Suggests remaster fails to justify the upgrade cost/effort for existing owners; weak product positioning.

  • “It creates quite a bit of traffic congestion.”

    Dennis (on band placement) @ ~48:00 — Identifies a venue design friction point that impacts show flow and attendee experience.

  • “That is so good. I hate the wristbands.”

    Tony (on badge-only multi-day pass system) @ ~27:00 — Positive operational feedback; indicates successful quality-of-life improvement at the event.

  • “We were on the game floor for hours and that we did not run into a lot of people that we know and that were there demonstrates just how many people there really were turning through this place.”

    Dennis @ ~60:00 — Suggests strong attendance at 2026 TPF; contrasts with speculation about reduced attendance/games in some community comments.

Entities

Texas Pinball Festival (TPF)eventDennispersonTonypersonStern PinballcompanyKeith ElwinpersonSteve RitchiepersonKing KonggameWalking Dead Remastergame

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: TPF 2026 achieved best-ever venue configuration with 500+ games distributed across main hall, hallways, and external spaces; significantly reduced crowding and improved accessibility compared to prior years.

    high · Tony: 'This was the best configuration I have ever seen for any pinball show.' Dennis confirms major layout improvements since early TPF history.

  • ?

    operational_signal: TPF 2026 check-in operations deteriorated significantly despite multi-year history; understaffing (single tablet), line confusion, and organizational changes led to worse experience than historical baseline.

    high · Dennis: 'I think it's the worst it's ever been for that particular pickup.' Notes one person with one tablet and multiple conflicting line rules.

  • ?

    product_concern: Stern's Star Wars Empire perceived as severely stripped-down Limited Edition with minimal toy differentiation from Pro; hosts characterize it as cash grab relative to original Ritchie design.

    high · Tony: 'I had to do a double take...because I thought we were on a pro. It was so stripped.' Compares negatively to original with Hyperloop and large Death Star.

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Walking Dead Remaster's improved skill shot mechanics (star rollover detection) insufficient to justify upgrade for existing owners; minor art/animation improvements don't overcome high replacement cost.

    high · Dennis: 'I have, uh, almost zero idea why you would bother to replace your existing one with the remaster.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Stern's King Kong received dismissive reaction from experienced players; described as 'forgettable,' decent ball time but rules/theme fail to engage despite humor Easter eggs.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.275

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Saturday. What the what? I know. It's March 28th. Say what? It is. And it's episode 268. Tony- That's right. Dennis- I'm Tony. Tony- I'm Dennis. Post-TPF recap. Dennis- Recap episode a day early. Tony- It is early. It's pretty early. What's going on? Dennis- Not much. We're recording early because I'm taking one of my daughters up to meet her cosplay group at Planet Comic Con tomorrow. Tony- Which is huge. Planet Comic Con is huge. Dennis- It is. Tony- I've been seeing the ads for a month. Dennis- My gosh. I was a terrible person and I didn't pre-order tickets far enough in advance to get like discounts. For Sunday, the small day, the slower day, normally the cheaper day, it is still $80 a ticket. Okay. Or I'm sorry, it's $60 a ticket. Saturday was $80 a ticket. Oh, okay. So you say $20. It is $60 a ticket for Sunday. What did it used to be? I haven't been to a Planet Comic Con in like 15 years. I don't know, I actually might have been longer than that. I haven't been to Planet Comic Con since they moved to their current location. So it might be closer to 20 years. So money back then compared to money now has no meaning. Right. Yeah. So basically it's cheap. Yeah, it's super cheap. I was able to pre-purchase parking and that only cost me an extra $40. Yeah, that's how they get you is the parking. And it's four blocks away. It's not even close to parking. That's just how they do it out there. I am... It's different. It's different than TPF. But William Shatner wasn't at TPF. That's true. William Shatner was not at TPF. Was Sean Austin at TPF? No. PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! I don't know. But, um, well, I have only, I've been recovering from Texas. My You got, you got the con flu? No, no, I felt okay. I did too. My legs were, got really bad. Um, they, I noticed they were, it was weird. It was weird. Um, I finally, about a day after we got back, maybe two, no, it was the next day, finally realized it was like my medial gastroc was cramping. I just was having this like this mild leg pain, but I don't know. That's like with tennis leg. It was very weird. I don't know why that what I did that would have done that because- We walked a lot. Yeah, but that would normally be the shin splints like tibialis anterior muscle, not the side of the- It's true. The inside of the gastroc. What if it was how you were holding your leg in the car on the way back? Maybe. That was one possibility. I did have a lot of sitting there, especially that. The other thing for that, I had to look up what that muscle does because I'm like, well, why would I irritate it? Because I don't normally have gastroc pain. And it's like, the other thing is if you're trying to keep balance, so like walking on sand can do it. I also thought all my positioning and side to side jostling with the pinball machines, it may have been... Oh yeah, it was three days of bobbing and weaving. And it was more my right leg than my left and I don't stand even at the machine. I stand in a stance. You know, I stand one leg's further up than the other. Crane. Yeah, yeah, basically I did the crane, but badly. Iron hoof. Other than that, I have played a little bit of video games, but I've made basically no progress. I got a little bit further in Jedi. I've been playing Battlefield 6, Overwatch 2, Marvel Rivals. So I have been playing, but not much in my single player realm. I haven't done nothing of that kind of stuff. Yeah, well I had to get caught up at one point. You need one of those massage guns where it's got the big ball and it goes ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. It sounds like it would just make it really hurt. You would think I've got one and it's actually really good because I have a big issue with a lot of times, especially after working out, I'll get real bad muscle cramps overnight while I'm sleeping and it is wonderful for working out the bolt upright, my charley horse So, that's the first thing that sets me bolt upright in bed issue. Right. That makes sense. And then, when I started adding more potassium to my intake, those all went away. It's amazing. The other thing I thought is also could have been dehydration, because I don't drink as much when I'm at events like that. So I don't walk around with water, for example. You're not a hydro bro? No. It's just become, I think it's almost a meme at this point with the number of people who I still remember like watching things like Evo and they're opening their water bottles and taking a drink after every round. Oh, you're right. And it's like, guys, if you're that dependent, I mean, water is life. Don't get me wrong. But if you're that dependent, like it's an addiction at that point. I mean, I, I, I have seen I've seen people who go through just insane amounts of like they can't even talk for like more than two sentences without getting a drink of water. Yeah. It's like, okay. It's like, I remember back in my younger days. You had to get permission to go out to the drinking fountain. Yeah, well, right. Nowadays, the kids all have water in class with them at all times. Yep. I mean, I remember back in the day. Right next to their cell phone. We wouldn't even get a drink of water during the entirety of our wrestling practice. No. No, it was, well, I didn't know how the wrestling practice went, but no, water was almost like dune. It was a scarce resource. You can have that and you can have your pager because you were a drug dealer if you had a pager. Yeah. So that's how life was back then in the old days. In the olden days. So well then we'll start with pinball and then we'll do video games because there are some video game items. We do also have a couple emails but they were all in the video game segment. So I think we should go ahead and carve up TPF kind of in two chunks. I'd like to just talk about the show in general first and then we'll go over all the quote unquote new games that we played I'm so excited because there were a lot of games that came out last year that Tony and I had not had an opportunity to play around here. And so we finally got the chance to do so and give our thoughts on all of those. So I'll go ahead and denote here at this point though that Texas Pinball Festival was very kind and they did give us media passes. So we didn't have to pay to get into the show. We also were able to get in early, which helped a lot with some of these new games. Because that would have sucked a lot of time up trying to... The lines on Yukon Yeti were crazy. Yukon Yeti and Winchester both ended up with really bad lines. Yukon was the most obvious because of its positioning in the way they did the layout. But so anyway, thank you very much to Texas Pinball Festival for allowing us to do that. And of course, here's the coverage of the show because they allowed us to do that. So general show thoughts. Okay, so we mentioned... I'll start with the little dragon thing. What'd you think? They did a mascot. I thought the little thing, other than when it tried to eat my head, because I got too close to it while we were standing in line to pick stuff up, it looked cool. I kind of like the idea of having a mascot thing. Do you like the idea of it not having to be based off of any old pinball machine? Because historically they always did a theme around some old art package. Right. And this was, as far as I know, unique. Yeah. I have no problem with that. The dragon was like a Chinese dragon. Yeah. I mean, there's so many conventions anymore that have like mascot things that have nothing to do with anything, that are just something that they've created to have something to make stickers of or put a symbol on or whatever. I thought it was fine. Did I love it? No. Tony mentioned his head almost being consumed. We'll get to the check-in in a bit because that could have definitely been better. Tim Kitzrow, Director of Photography, The People were taking their picture in front of the animatronic dragon. It looked cool. Yeah. I didn't get any shirts or anything this year, so I don't know if it helped move merch better or worse or the same as any old pinball art thing. But I like the idea that it'll let them branch out to be a little more creative with the kind of theme that they want to do. I'd say outside of just being a mascot, though, to my knowledge, I couldn't really – didn't feel like there was a theme to the show. So, like, oh yeah, no, there's like going to be panels on dragons and like, all it is is a thing of art. That would have been cool. And it stands alone. The dragon panel. When I used to work, one of my nonprofits I used to work for, when we would do our annual conference, we were terrible about this too, quite frankly, but the idea is we would, you know, every conference had a theme. And so how do you tie the theme in? And that was the part we struggled with. So generally the idea is we don't have the like keynote presentations be in the realm of the theme, but anything else, all the workshops and stuff were completely irrelevant to it. Well, that would be too, it's too hard. We had to, we were governmental focused. So we're busy like telling you like, here's the new protocol for gravel roads and stuff, not, not and dragons. Like you couldn't just do and dragons. It's the governmental, this is the new governmental protocol dealing with dragon investations. L Action discrimination Scientist Stephen你要Ozandra

  • TPF shifted seminar room from back to front entrance, improving visibility and reducing accessibility friction

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony discuss visibility gains and ease of finding the room, though debate whether it creates traffic congestion.

    • Star Wars Empiregame
    Eugeneperson
    Georgeperson
    Nick Schellperson
    Planet Comic Conevent
    Eclectic Gamers Podcastorganization
    Marcoperson
    Tim Kitzrowperson
    Jakeperson
    Monster League Hockeygame
    Schmaugproduct
    Bruce Nightingaleperson

    high · Tony: 'Forgettable.' Dennis: 'I wasn't getting into it. Yeah. That was the same way.'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Band placement at show front entrance creates significant traffic congestion; blocks access to food trucks, vendors, and game hall; hosts debate whether alternative placement (outside with tents, or in seminar room) would improve flow.

    high · Dennis: 'It creates quite a bit of traffic congestion.' Notes 'very, very tight' navigation required Saturday night; suggests outdoor tents or seminar room relocation as solutions.

  • ?

    operational_signal: TPF replaced paper/plastic wristband system for multi-day passes with badge-only verification; hosts strongly approve of elimination of wristband friction.

    high · Dennis: 'I like that change.' Tony: 'That is so good. I hate the wristbands.' Dennis notes wristband swelling/chafing pain previously experienced.

  • ?

    event_signal: Despite some Pinside comments suggesting reduced attendance/games at TPF 2026, hosts' experience indicates strong attendance and successful space utilization; spent most time on show floor across multi-year visits.

    medium · Dennis: 'We...spent a really large amount of time overall at the show...the most we spent on the show floor in the last of the last three.' Notes difficulty finding known attendees despite hours on floor, indicating crowd size.

  • ?

    community_signal: Early media access at TPF 2026 allowed hosts to play new games before public hours, reducing wait times (especially for popular titles) and enabling comprehensive coverage.

    high · Dennis thanks TPF for media passes and early access; notes 'The lines on Yukon Yeti were crazy' for regular attendees after media window.

  • ?

    venue_signal: Moving seminar room from back to front entrance improved visibility and reduced need for attendees to navigate maze-like back area; increased traffic to educational programming.

    medium · Dennis: 'Being in the back, I think it was very easy for the seminar room to get lost.' Notes improved prominence and front-center visibility benefits.

  • $

    market_signal: Star Wars Empire LE perceived as insufficiently differentiated from Pro version; community beginning to question whether Stern's LE pricing justified by toy/cosmetic additions.

    medium · Tony's surprise at LE plaque despite thinking it was Pro; notes stripped accessories vs. Ritchie original (Hyperloop, large Death Star toys).

  • ?

    product_launch: King Kong, Walking Dead Remaster, and Star Wars Empire all available for play at TPF 2026, indicating active production/distribution to show venues.

    high · Hosts played all three games at TPF; no mention of limited availability or shortage.

    • 10:43
    They moved the seminar room up front. Right. Let's do an aside there. I didn't attend any of the seminars myself, but what did you think about the idea of putting it so close to the main entrance where the food trucks are? I think it makes sense because it makes it more visible. Being in the back, I think it was very easy for the seminar room to get lost so people don't notice it and don't think about it. And a lot of people come in and play and they don't even look at the schedule of events to see what or where. I think it makes it more prominent, more front and center. I think you're right. I think overall it was smart. I know you and I, because we stay at the Drury, usually come in through the back door, but there have been plenty of years where we've tried to go in and that door is locked and you'd have to go around. So you could actually not even ever be able to come into the show and see the seminar room. Yeah. Sometimes they just don't want you to have access through the back door. So that was the more... That was okay. I was like, you're too proud as you were saying that. I was like, okay, the listeners will appreciate it, I'm sure. So anyway, we didn't attend any of the seminars. Back to the check-in. I don't know what was going on at... Now, they had offered a new service this year to let people pick up their badges at the hotel if they pre-registered. We weren't able to do that, I believe, because we got media passes. The way that worked, it didn't offer that option, I think, unless it did and we just All these introspectives they had about golf history that the Avengers's most searched for changes in programs. Now, there's some everywhere that he's been caught up because he has worked in Agassiz Krestlov. In terms of just crystal practice, you can scheduled up to theseàn Yesterday I They one Со To imagine it's like he's in a So, it's already going to be the busier time. Yes. That's why I don't understand why there weren't enough volunteers. Like, it's always had a line, don't get me wrong. Tony and I have always stood in line. We almost always get the badges at this time and lots of people do. There was one person with one tablet handling check in. There was another person who was like helping, I think the idea was someone's going to look them up and someone's going to grab the stuff and that's going to, they're going to assembly line it and be efficient. But there were multiple lines. Yeah, yeah, and that was saying, and there, and not, there's multiple lines and they were kind of confused because originally it was everybody with pre-order badges are in the left line and everybody who needs to purchase a badge goes to the right line. And then they decided, well, everybody with pre-order badges where your name starts between Axiation clearlyument, Different people thought different things about the middle line. And I remember someone, I think it was someone with the show afterward when they had switched back to the get in the right lane if you're going to buy. And he was like, oh, okay, so everyone who wasn't responsible gets to get their stuff first. Because that one was going quick. Everyone else was stuck in the pre-order line because almost everyone pre-ordered. And I didn't think much of that one way or the other, but just going up through it, it was shockingly inefficient. Because they've done this for a really long time, I'm really surprised that it was that bad. I think it's the worst it's ever been for that particular pickup. I did like the change where for the people that had multi-day passes, no more of those wristbands period. Yes. Just the bad. That is so good. I hate the wristbands. The wristbands, and I remember the first year we started. With the paper ones? The paper wristbands. And it's like, oh good, we're at a convention and I can't shower because my wristband is paper. Yes. Yeah, no. The old ownership switched over to the plastic ones, which held up great. Yes. But I don't like wearing wristbands. They're annoying. They scratch. It's either keep them too loose or have them tight and... Yeah. I swell. So I can't have... I don't want them tight in the first place. When they went plastic, they're like cut into you. Now they still had wristbands for people that were going to do one day, but when you're done with the one day, you just cut it off and leave, and it's not a big deal. But I think that was a wonderful change. I like that change. I like that there wasn't a packet. I know, you know, historically, I'm sure people would sponsor and buy little flyers and stuff, but the program book, now they're just printing it on the back of the badge. I think that works great. QR codes to look at stuff online. Yeah, it's great. The website was pretty good too for being able to look at the schedule. So the website was a good improvement. I think it's easier now to find the cart and stuff again, because I went through that process before we had our media badges. So I was like, just terms of navigating in the old days, I found it kind of confusing to find, like, especially if you're trying to find the hotel codes to get the discount code, there'd be a hotel section. I don't know. It was just the way it was laid out didn't feel quite as intuitive. I'm a fan of that. I've been watching that. I think it felt a little mid-2000s to me. Not full on 90s style website. Right. But it's always just a little like, I feel like I'm scrolling more than I need to scroll just to make purchases. Anyway, so overall I thought that went pretty good. The band, what'd you think about the band? They've been doing the band for a couple of years now. I think grand total in the several years they've been doing the band, have we listened to maybe Video clip ofbag flexury tour, SARS retroflit ofart posrtex psjgdrcl I'm a fan of the band. I've been to a lot of conventions that have, you know, you know, band or a rave or a DJ or something at the end of the night or a lot of times at a, like in a back room area or a back area away from the main stuff. I still question putting it front and center. So the way they position the band is basically by the front door. So you have to go by the band and through everyone who's sitting and watching. And there were a lot of people who were watching the band to get to the food trucks or now to get to the seminar room or, as we'll discuss in a moment, to get down to some of the vendors. It's pretty cramped because it was so popular. So I think they need to keep the band because people clearly like it. I don't know about putting it in that position. I don't know if there's a better position. There probably isn't, is why I struggle to say that. Though, you know, they used to have where the old, again, it probably affects how they configure the ballroom, though. The old seminar room, they used to, one year, they had the band in there. Like, they had, I think it was Scott Danesi DJ'd, so it wasn't really a band, but they had the whole music, like, rave thing going on in there. So maybe the seminar room could become the band room? Maybe I could see that. I think it's one of those things that I wonder if it being pushed back in a room doesn't reduce the engagement because it's designed to be more of a kind of a social, like it's like a wide space in the line where people slow down even as just as they're passing by and kind of join in or become part of a social engagement. Put it outside. That would work. Buy the food trucks and then just use tents if it's going to be wet. That's a good idea. It's also, this is, old man yells at Cloud, it's really loud. It is super loud. I wonder, I wonder if putting it outside would require different permitting from the city. I don't know. But with the money they raise off of Schmaug, they could maybe do that. I don't know. It creates quite a bit of traffic congestion. Yeah, right there. I'm just setting me and my cloud aside. If you wanted to navigate to the food court, the interior stuff with the hotel selling stuff, or you wanted to try and get to the vendors down the hall, it becomes a bit of a challenge. Yeah, it was tight. We walked through there on, was that Saturday night? Yes. Saturday night when we went through that area. It was very, very tight trying to weave in and out and around. It's a high traffic area. The most concert setups that I have seen aren't really designed for traffic to constantly be flowing through it, especially traffic that's not interested in that. So, anyway, just a comment. I wonder if maybe having another set of open doors a little down the hallway so people could have access to the game floor without having to transit, that would help. I don't know. Again, the band's only really one time, so... Yeah. But, I mean, it was louder by the band than it ever was in the arcade hall. It was. So, I did bring my noise-canceling headphones. They helped. A lot. So, did you have any other general thoughts you wanted to do, or you wanted to jump into the new games? New-to-us games. Some of them were actually new. Yeah, I think overall, the changes in the interior layout... Oh, yes, the layout. The big thing. They were just phenomenal. I remember from when we first started going to TPF how tight and cramped everything was. They kept edging and working on the layout to make it a little bit better so it wasn't quite so, hi, I'm in continuous physical contact with every living creature around me. I feel like this year they had an incredibly large number of games, an incredibly large hudson Gladys Kozynes, kishan refused, ocol take aimee a Hed THERE This was the best configuration I have ever seen for any pinball show. Yeah, it was great. I mean, they had a lot of games out in the hallway. Yeah, so you could play those when you win the again, while we had early access with media passes, there were a lot of games outside. It wasn't like eight. They used to just like throw a little row out there where people could play some stuff when the show wasn't open. Right. This like there were a lot of the game. I think some people we even saw it in our discord. Some people felt like it was down, down in attendance and maybe down in games. They had over 500 games and it did feel like it if you, to me, as long as you took stock of where they all were, they weren't all in that one room. Right. Um, so that was huge. Very easy to walk around. I'd say they did still have some of those instances. I call it the wheel and spoke model and I criticized that in the past, like with Pulp Fiction where they had this time, the popular stuff like Yukon Yeti wasn't right by the entrance. So they could spoke that out and it didn't interrupt people being able to walk around the circle. Correct. The only really tight area in my view is Marco space And that because they kind of choose to do that circle setup with their games but they brought so many Yes That it really wasn that bad Most games didn have you wait more than behind two groups Usually it was just one. And they, and the other thing is that they did move a lot of the vendors into the halls too. Yeah. We didn't realize how many originally. Cause originally it was like, it was like, oh yeah, they moved a few more of the vendors out here. And then we went down the hall towards the embassy and it's like, oh wow, there are vendors like almost all the way down to the embassy at this point. Yeah. So that was, I'm sure it was on the map. It's just, I hadn't been looking at the map. Right. So, so realizing that there are a lot more vendors. Looking at a map, who uses maps? Who does? No, you just find your way. And so, uh, understanding that that also freed up a lot of space. When we first started going to TPF, they had the weirdest layout. It felt like a maze trying to navigate. Well, and remember that was when they had the tournament in the main room. Oh yeah. Right up front. So you have all that stuff, all that space given up to the tournament. They moved that out of there quite a while ago. Yes, but yeah, though, there's always been a bunch of, and then I've wondered if maybe the way they shifting the seminar from the back to the front didn't let them readjust.
    24:02
    I thought it felt good. I still saw I think on pin side some people commenting that TPF is too big for that for that facility. And I'm like, I think it was fine. Yeah, I think it's working just fine with how they've Yeah, they're having to shuffle things around. But there are other things they can do if there's even more demand for like putting more games in or whatever. This show has been produced using the Institute of Autism and Related Disorders få. Hi, I'm Andrew Folk. I'd like to give you this played together winning bonus of a Ballywins recommend star promo should be used mainly for us plans and so held just for Hy cacham. It did. I did. Again, I noted I brought my noise canceling earbuds this time. However, I think I'd have been okay without them in the game hall. It was... But there were a lot of people. It didn't feel like... We talked about a year or two ago where it felt like, wow, this almost feels dead. Yeah. I think that was two years ago. No, this... It felt like there were a lot of people. There were... At one point, Tony and I, I thought I had seen someone I knew. I thought it was Nick Schell. So, Nick, if you were there, I do think I saw you, but if you weren't there, I hallucinated. Tim Kitzrow, Mirco Playfields. We, we, uh, looking at the vendors, we ran into George, uh, on the hotel side. I hadn't seen him the entire time. We missed Eugene. Uh, Eugene messaged me after we got back, cause he saw the picture that Jake put of us playing, uh, monster league hockey. Um, but we knew they had a spot, so we were able to find monster league hockey. Uh, and we were right by where Eugene was. I don't know if he was there at the time, but he was in the homebrew section. We'd gone through there multiple times. So it was like, we were. We were on the game floor for hours and that we did not run into a lot of people that we know and that were there demonstrates just how many people there really were turning through this place. Yeah, I think that's a very good point because there have been some years where we've gone to the show, we've made the rounds, we've done our stuff and then we've gone and done other things for hours and then come back to the show for an hour or two and then go away. And this year, I feel like we actually spent a really large amount of time overall at the show. I think it was the most we spent on the show floor in the last of the last three. It was the most. I think so. I think it's pretty safe to say. Sometimes it's been, you know, it was so loud and so crowded and everything is just like it's like, well, I just want to get out of it. And quite bluntly, Tony and I use a lot of this time just as a vacation. So we went and saw our Hail Mary movie. Yeah, we went saw Hail Mary on Friday. We made that movie and wrote that book, basically. We genetically engineered Ryan Gosling to be Ryan Gosling and Rocky. That's what we do. That was just a fun little connection since we listened to Project Hail Mary. Yeah, it was actually tied in because I got to hear it as an audio book on a prior TPF trip. Now, of course, is Dungeon Crawler Karl, which I can now I'm done with book two. Yay! All right, new games. For us, there were a lot. I had to write these down when I got home because I was like, I'm going to forget. And then I'll get an email from someone going, why didn't you talk about King Kong? Stern won't email us, but someone with Stern, maybe a certain programmer with Stern would have said, why didn't you cover this game I worked on? I almost feel kind of bad about this because King Kong has been out for like a hot minute. And I know it's been in the area too, so I don't have a good excuse, but the bottom line is I hadn't played it before. No, me neither. And so anyway, these are not in the order we played them, but because we got through most of these on Friday and a couple of them on Saturday. But anyway, let's start with let's start with King Kong.
    28:27
    What are your thoughts? Forgettable. Not a bad summary. The one thing that stood out to me was I liked the humor. A lot of Easter eggs in it, a lot of quotes from other movies that aren't Kong related. Yeah, there was definitely some fun stuff in it. I'm trying to remember, we played Kong just after playing something else and I very much was like... I think it was right after Potter. Yeah, I think you're right. I think it was right after Potter because I was very much like, that was better. Yeah, I mean, it's an Elwin. Geometry felt good. Didn't play it enough to really get into the rules. FRANCIS KRAVITZ,
    29:35
    But it's not going to win awards. It didn't feel like a Newgrounds game. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, yeah, no, forgettable. I, you know, without knowing the rules, I can't say that it would go down as one of his less swell games, but just playing it... Well, I had a decent ball time on it, so it still had that kind of... You know, Elwin's games don't tend to be too brutal. As long as you don't set it up really hard, they usually have a moderate ball time. And I kind of felt that there. I just, I wasn't getting into it. Yeah. That was the same way. It was one of those games that we played it and it was like, eh. So now this is actually one of the last new games we played, but we did get over to Marco's area and play the Walking Dead remaster. Now Walking Dead is one of my favorite Borg games that was done. What'd you think of the remaster? We played the, either it was the premium or the LE version. And with Kong we played, I think it was premium. Yeah. So... I think it was a good remaster. I know you mentioned it originally when we were there, the changes to the rollovers in the shooting lane. Oh, for the skill shot. For the skill shot. And I like that. Yeah, those worked really well. Star rollovers were really hit or miss on like I had to work on my pro to get them to finally like detect properly. Yeah, they were they were not. They're just not consistent. These, at least again, it's just it's a single game at a single show, but they worked very well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Over overall, I mean, I already I enjoy walking in. I thought it was a good remaster. Yeah, it, it, it was, it played fine. It was fun. I have, uh, almost zero idea why you would bother to replace your existing one with the remaster. The art, okay, the art's better because the re, the old one has some of the worst art that was ever done. So I guess that might be motivation enough, but this art ain't great. It's, it's okay. It's like Kong art's okay to me. I don't, Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't see where this is a thing where you would want to replace your version. And the fact that they just sort of LCD-ified the dots, I knew that ahead of time, but I didn't get to anything new when I played it. So I was just like, this feels exactly, exactly like a vault, except with a better art package and the decision to animate dots. And I thought, OK, it's all right, but I see why it wasn't selling gangbusters too. Walking Dead was never as popular with the community as it was with a lot of hardcore enthusiasts. It's a hard game. It remains a hard game. Right. So there's that. But so it was okay. I was okay with it. Now, then there was Star Wars. I forget the subtitle of the Star Wars. Empire something or another. Yeah. Folly Empire or something like that. Yeah. So anyway, so we played, I think it was an L.E. It was an L.E. Okay.
    32:46
    This. Most of the games, most of my experience with games has been very, very good. Like the companies have really stepped it up from where we used to be, but wow. Well, this game was such a disappointment. It was. And I did not. I'm trying not to let my bias filter in because I was already, you know, we talked about the really another Star Wars based on the original trilogy. But set all that aside, what were your thoughts?
    33:13
    I. In no way, shape or form did I expect to know to have the thought that I enjoyed the previous Star Wars game more than this one. And I did. I thought this one shot more enjoyably than Richie's one did. But the first thing that stood out to me was I'm allowing me to channel the slam tail podcast Bruce Nightingale cash grab. I had to look and I did a double take over to Tony when I saw the LE plaque on it because I thought we were on a pro. It was so stripped. And you compare it to Richie's which had the Hyperloop and the big Death Star. This has like this little itty bitty adorable Death Star. And then it's got the little heads and they don't even bobble. We can't let them bobble because people got mad about the Tie Fighter on spring. We're on a spring, so we can't have bobbleheads because there'll be bobbleheads on a spring and the people say, why do you always use springs in Star Wars? So we can't have that, but wow. Bear in mind this is not in the order we played games. We have been playing game after game after game with stuff on it and I'm looking at this and I'm like, wow, this feels empty, just really empty. And I was like, I can't believe this is an LE. This was definitely, oh, it's Star Wars, they'll buy it anyway. That's how it felt. Well, it's true. I thought it shot good. I, you know, I enjoyed, I enjoyed flipping the ball around on it. I just was like, I don't know why, why one would buy an LE of this game. Yeah. But so that was really my big takeaway. Like the sounds were fine with what, you know, it's hard to hear the sounds of the show. So sounds were fine. Animation, of course, they had the clips. I hear it has more clips than the Richie version. It, I mean, that, that, the integration, the theme was all there. It's making the right beep beep beep boop sounds, all of that. But the whole time I'm just looking at it and I'm just like compared to, and not just compared to the other companies. I mean, like compared to Walking Dead Remaster and Kong and stuff, this just looks like there's just nothing. Yeah. The Kong we played actually was a pro. It didn't have the spider that went ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. Oh. But even that I thought looked more visually interesting than the L.E. Star Wars game. Yeah. Which is disappointing. Yeah. So this one was, this one was, uh, I won't say it was the biggest letdown cause it wasn't, but it was the biggest letdown of all the Sterns we played for me. And it wasn't even close. Yeah, no safe, safe bet. Uh, the last Stern that we played is the newest, but we got to play Pokemon. Pokemon's, Pokemon's. So what'd you think of Pokemon? I had a, it was fine, safe game. Uh, my ball times are really short, uh, which isn't unusual for fan layouts. You can make them hard pretty easy. Yeah, and I had the same thing. It didn't feel, but it didn't feel punishing. Right. It was just, I can definitely see where it's a game that is going to be extremely popular on location. Yes. Because the theme combined with the gameplay itself, I think works pretty well. Yeah, it felt very intuitive in terms of understanding the rules. It's really clear when they're like attack the Meowth balloon and all that like, yeah, and that's not a hard shot to make. No. And so with all of that going on, yeah, no, I think this would be a really good location game for especially for locations that allow kids to come in because I they're going to be gravitated towards that theme. Adults, a lot of them are going to know this seem to so just having you know, be in a general location, I think will will do very, very well. And so, hardcore Pokemon fans will probably like the game. The art looks great, the toys look great. I can't remember if we played a premium or an L.E., but I think it was a premium. But all those stuff, the Pikachu turning his head and stuff, it's all cool. It all looked really nice and stuff. And again, we played this one after Star Wars, and so it was like, okay. So Star Wars was just a cash grab because it's Star Wars, because Pokemon actually feels like they cared about the license and wanted stuff in there to make it really feel like you were in the world. Yeah, it felt real good in that way. It really did good theme immersion, I felt like. So, there was nothing about it that made me want it. No. But it was neat to play, and I'd like to put more time on it. And I had found out while we were heading for Texas that the Kansas City ones, at least one, I think actually three have arrived now. So we've got options. Now I just actually have to follow through like I didn't with King Kong and play them. How about Harry Potter? I will say, after playing Harry Potter, it's probably, I like it more than Elton John even. It might be my new favorite J.J.P. That's pretty high praise. That is pretty high praise. I felt, again, like the theme integration was good. The toys were more fun and interesting than I thought they were going to be, like the staircase and everything. It wasn't as just kind of gimmicky as I thought it would be. I thought I found it more enjoyable than that. Overall, I really enjoyed our time on it a lot. Yeah, we played an LE version. The CE was right beside us, which definitely was the better art package. Oh, see, best art package, period. It's $15,000, still it's the best art package. Yeah, but we play the LE version, so we had all the other fancy pantsiness of it.
    39:06
    Yeah, I don't know yet if I would say it's better than Elton John, but it played really well. I didn't know what I was doing role-wise. I wouldn't say I was as confused as I am with Avatar, because at least I knew the names of the stuff, but whereas with Avatar, it's like they're saying I've seen Avatar stuff and I don't know what these words mean. So with this, because I've seen the movies, I was able to understand like, oh yeah, you're doing this particular multiball or this hurry up or whatnot. And so yeah, the theme integration was great. The stairway works really quickly, which is nice because I don't like things that really hold up the ball for a long period of time. Yeah, the geometry was good. The integration with the clips from the movies worked well with all of it. So I was, when I looked at it and I was hearing feedback, I'd heard very good feedback about it. I just, you know, it's hard with, sorry y'all. It's hard with y'all in the pinball community because some of you are such, I'm gonna use the word shills. You're such shills for your themes that are bolted to the floor no matter how garbage the game is. I can't ever trust your opinion on anything. Fanboys. Yeah, fanboys. Thank you. It's like, oh, we're fanboying so we have to buy stuff. And we've had people in our Discord admit they bought things and then they're like, you know what, this game actually isn't good. Yeah. And hey, at least those are fanboys who can be honest with themselves. So anyway, but I was hearing so much positivity about this. I was confident it was at least a decent player. But yeah, it definitely, I don't know versus Elton John, it's displaced all of the Lawler stuff in my opinion. I personally feel like Wonka and Toy Story actually play decently. Story Story plays too long, but Wonka's I think a pretty good shooter and Dialed In has been one of my favorite JJPs and is still one of my favorites and it's a luller, but I would put this above Dialed In, which had been my number two game to Elton John. Right. And so, and that was after one game. I was just like, okay, no, this has got, this really has a lot of legs and I do think even if you're not a Harry Potter fan, this might be a game that you might want to go ahead and play and just see if you like it for the gameplay. Yeah, the gameplay, like, that's the big thing that really grabbed me was the gameplay was just so much better than anything I expected. Mm-hmm.
    41:28
    All right, let's jump over to Dune. Yeah, we actually... Beige. Yes, it was very brown. They had it in a nice little tent set up. They did. It really left the lighting... Yes. ...because they had Dune and Winchester were both inside one of those tents with a bunch of wall shields around, so it was very dark. So the lights really, really popped, which was nice. The downside of that is with a bunch of people standing in there, it got real stuffy. Yeah. Yeah, it did. They only had a couple dunes, I think, maybe three. Two Winchesters. Two Winchesters, yeah, two or three dunes, and then... A labyrinth, right? Two labyrinths, I think. Two labyrinths, okay. We'd already played a labyrinth before, so we didn't play it again. So dune. I didn't love how it shot. No. I had a real, I struggled. I was on, I was on the struggle bus with Dune. The worm is really cool though. It is. I was glad I got that going because. The, the, the music and the call outs are great. Yes. So. The light show's good. I would want more time on it to, to decide like if I really would like the game or not. I didn't dislike it, but I, again, when I'm struggling to do much of anything, it, it gets frustrating. Um, and again, that's common when you start a pinball machine, but the, you know, there So as you can see, it's a show and all of that. So I was like, Okay, I don't I don't love it, but like, I don't dislike it like Alien, which is a theme I love, but a game that I just I don't like how it plays, even though I like the rules of Alien in it, I don't like how it shoots this. It's like it shoots a little weird. It's got some very odd shots. And so if you're into that kind of different style layout, it does feel unique. Yeah, yeah. And it's and the lighting's cool. The lighting's great. Like I said, the sound is great. The shots are a little weird. It was fine. I enjoyed it well enough.
    43:24
    I'm caught on the thing is I think it was too brown. And I understand that, yes, I mean, it's Dune. Of course, it's going to be brown, Tony. It's Dune. Iron Maiden's premium edition was brown. But there are things that I feel like could have been done to break it up a little bit more than they did. kelvinclay جارو, Jessica Phombeer, ad AG, editor 's
    44:12
    Yeah, but thanks to the media pass, we actually were able to just wait behind one person. Yeah, we got in pretty good. And that game, I know nothing about the Winchester Mystery House. I'd never even heard of it before this game came out. Apparently, it's a big whatever. The game was fun. Mm-hmm. I really, it shot well and I really enjoyed it. Didn't understand the references for the most part for obvious reasons, having never heard of it before the game was announced. But I felt it shot well and I felt it was fun. Yes. I liked it better than Dune. Yeah. I don't care at all about this theme, don't really know anything about it. The Pepper's Ghost effect in the back is really prominent. So you're definitely, at least it is when you're in a giant dark tent. And so it really stood out like visually, which is probably good that it's constantly kind of moving back and forth because there's not a whole lot going on on the display animation wise because there's nothing to really feed off of from it. Right. Which is fine though. Like the sound effects seem to fit the theme well. The shots again, really unique geometry. I just felt like it seemed to play more naturally. Like it was more intuitive in terms of shots being where they should be for what you expect oga
    45:53
    I hate being predictable but it does It true It does So Human nature Anyway even though the layout itself is quite unique I found I just it worked for me better than it did for Winchester So I was like, oh, there are going to be a lot of people today who play this game and are going to be pissed that it's been sold. I don't even know why they brought it. I heard that a couple, those two games, obviously they have owners, so they got people to give permission to, to I guess, or they had, you know, anyway, someone had to give permission for a game that's not for sale to be there, which I very much appreciate because I don't know when I'd ever see this. Yeah, I don't know. It was fun. Oh, they could have, yeah. And they know this like two days after when it sold out. They could have sold a thousand of these. Easily. Yeah. It's good. It's a good player. So I enjoyed that. We also a little bit...
    46:55
    Real quick before we shift. Yeah, 100%. If Dune had shot as well as Tim Kitzrow, Mirco Playfields. The only other line that I feel was as bad as the Yukon Yeti lines was in the homebrew section, the Big Trouble in Little China. Yeah, there was a huge line at that. Every time I went past. I wanted to play it, but at the same time, I'm old and lazy and I don't want to sit and lie forever. I still remember when Pulp Fiction came out and we stood in line for an hour to play that game. Yeah. And I remember we played it again this year where there wasn't nearly so bad of a line. And I still didn't do well, but I did better than that first time and I was just like, I can't get through that line again. I do. Yeah. No, the line thing though, I do enjoy Pulp Fiction. Yeah. Well, you did really well at it too. I did too very well. You did really well. But not just for that reason. I liked how it shot. I really do. So, Yukon. What did you think of how Yukon shot? Between what I'd seen going into it and some of the early reactions from other folk, I was not expecting anything going into Yukon. It was a lot more fun than I expected. It wasn't perfect. It had issues. But I mean, I liked it more than Star Wars. I liked it more than Kong. It was definitely more fun than those. It was more enjoyable than I expected. Yeah. When we were heading down, the information about Yukon Yeti was now out. So there were already people, there was a lot of criticism of the sound package and there was criticism of the art were the two main things. I don't love either of those things. I didn't, again, it's a loud show. Judging the sound is very difficult. It didn't bother me. The art also didn't bother me. I acknowledge the art's not going to win any awards. No. But it's fine. It does feel very 90s and it looks very 90s. It's a spiritual successor to Whitewater. It's got the little adorable little Yeti up top and stuff. I heard while waiting, because there was still a line when we played it. It was just like only one person deep instead of 12. I did hear that the game before the show opened had already sold half of its run, so 250 of 500. I was like, yeah, no, they're not going to, in fact, it wouldn't have shocked me if by the end of TPF, they had commitments for all 500. Yeah. It, it was pretty fun. If you like that, again, it's some of the shots are, they're going to feel very Whitewater-esque. Whitewater is a very popular game. It's not my personal favorite game, but a lot of people really love Whitewater. All of these are great. My biggest criticism actually got quite, I felt, especially for my first time playing, I felt I got to see quite a bit of the game on my, none of my balls were really, really short, especially the first two went decently long. My biggest criticism is the escalator lift ramp for the ball. Okay. Sigh. Visually, it is incredibly cool. Yes. But we've gone straight up, uh, Steamboat, Wheel, Maverick, uh, Snatcher from Lost World, Jurassic Park. Like this is fun two times. And then you're sitting there watching the ball go up. Now, when you're like doing the multiball and you've got multi, that's the ball lock. So you've got watching them go up again, visually. It's like, that's cool. It's like, again, like watching the Godzilla building drop to put the balls out, but waiting for the, you know, Waiting is not something pinball people want to do once they get used to it. You know, they want to hit both flipper buttons and just like let it go. So yes, I don't know there's gonna wait like they need to like increase the speed of it Just like how the Tasmanian Devil on the spooky Looney Tunes need to have its speed increase So it actually spin like I don't know but it it's it's one of those things where I'm like This is gonna resonate great at a show in a home environment Unless you're showing a new person at some point. This is way too slow It is. And I wonder if it's not because you've got the option to add a ball instead of start the multiball. I wonder if it wouldn't feel better if you did that until it was fully loaded. I bet it would. I bet it'd feel great. But at a show, I has not taken that chance. Right. I was not going to do it. Yeah. So I was like, because Tony was like, what, you're not going to walk another ball? I'm like, no, I'm going to do multiball.
    52:07
    Multiball. I'm going to do my multiball. What, are you crazy? I'm going to do multiball, try and lock another one. Yeah, I did that once in a tournament on Aerosmith and I lost. So I don't do that anymore. I'll just play three ball. That's fine. So anyway, but like shooting wise, when I finally got my shots up into the, uh, in the top area and doing all that, it's like, yeah, it was neat. It felt a little bit because they're accommodating so many of these devices, the left side doesn't seem to have a whole lot to really do. But again, that's because there's all this stuff up top instead. So overall, yeah, I think a lot of people, especially if you're looking for kind of a new game, but it feels like a 90s style.
    52:45
    This is checking the box better than anything else that I played. Yeah. So I think it'll do really well. I think it will be their best, best performing game out of Turner Pinball. Yeah, I think so too. So there's that Beetlejuice again, like Winchester and Barrels. Wow, did they bring a lot of games that you can't buy? Right. They had like 40 of them there. It felt like there was just a whole section of just Beetlejuice. Is that the plural? Beetlejuice? Beetlejuice. Beetlejuicy. Yes. There were a lot, and it was a very popular section. So very kind of people to allow their games to be played on all weekend like that. So we got to get in there and work on a Beetlejuice.
    53:39
    Theme integration was really cool. I was hearing people play the DAO mode. I did not get DAO mode activated, but I was hearing other people play it, which was nice and catchy.
    53:51
    While the theme integration was great, the geometry, I didn't care for it. I didn't dislike it. It was kind of like Kong for me. I, now, unlike Kong, this felt a lot more, you know, feature rich in terms of gizmos and stuff. Right. But the, though I was playing a Kong pro, so let's bear that in mind. But, um. Prong. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, the shots were, were fine. I didn't like, I didn't love the feel of the geometry. It just, it wouldn't be a game I would buy. Uh-huh. Uh, just from shooting around, I was like, it's not doing anything geometrically that interests me. I don't love the theme myself. I like Beetlejuice, but I haven't revisited that movie in 20 years. Right. So the theme integration, while I recognize it's there and it's really well done, since I'm not big into the theme, it's just not clicking for me. So I was like, eh. I see why people like it, but from a gameplay alone perspective, I wouldn't go for this game. That's kind of was my like, I just it didn't I need more time on it to say that for sure. I have to, you know, copy on but like, Yukon Yeti geometrically interested me more than Beetlejuice did. Yeah, Dune and and Winchester both even though dunes geometry again, I didn't really get into the at least I recognize its uniqueness. Now I think the way spooky did Beetlejuice is the right move. They used to get super cute with the geometry. In fact, You and I, I don't know why we did it, probably because of course there was no line on it, but we played Halloween. Again. And it was like, yeah, this is not, like, this is too, this is too cute for its own good.
    55:40
    Like that geometry is doing way too much. And it's like, Michael Meyer pops around the hedge. Ooh, three of them, three of them, which the integration there is much more questionable. But, but I mean, it's like I'm trying to think of an analogy. It's like, let's imagine you were going to make cookies and you're like, I want to make, I love chocolate chip cookies. And then someone else is like, but I also like peanut butter. So you throw in chocolate chips and peanut butter and you throw in M&Ms. And the next thing you know, the cookie is, it's just like the individual elements. You might like all of them, but all combined, it doesn't come out to being a cookie that anyone wants to buy. Now, Beteljuice doesn't do that. Beteljuice is like we're a sugar cookie. Geometrically. We're still – you've run with me here with the analogy. You want to spice it up? Cinnamon. That's right. This is a – it's like – no, this is a snickerdoodle, which is just a glorified sugar cookie as you've noted. Yeah, it's like that except then like Michael Keaton signed to them. And so if you're into sugar cookies and the sugar cookie maestro has signed your sugar Right. You're gonna really want that sugar cookie. Yeah, this is the like, it's, this is a game that to me, felt like all of its sales can and probably should be driven by the fact that they looked at it. And they said, How can we integrate this theme as good as possible, and have a layout that people aren't going to criticize? And they did that it worked with Evil Dead to which is a nice light. Now, I think Evil Dead shoots a lot better than this. I think so. I think that's a fair assumption. But this is I'm not saying this doesn't shoot bad. I just mean Evil Dead actually impressed me geometrically. I liked how Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes shoot too. This felt more in that vein of those two games than Evil Dead. But the theme integration here, wow, did it look good. It looked great. And its lighting is really good too, by the way. We gave a lot of praise to Dune, but this one looked really good too. The sandworm, I activated it and it immediately drained so I couldn't partake of the worm. But, no, the integration and everything looks great. It's weird that we're simultaneously talking about sandworms in multiple games. Yes. Totally different games. It is. But that's just how life is. That's just life, but yeah. All right. I enjoyed it. Let's jump to some more negative stuff. We'll end on a positive note, though. So Alice, you know, Wonderland Alice, they had both games. So the first one we played was the big one, the Dutch DPX, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. They did not have the Virginia Slim Topper, so I knew it wasn't the ultimate edition. However, we did put a game on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. What were your thoughts? It's what we thought. It's garbage under glass. I want to say something redeeming. Okay. But I want you to start.
    58:45
    Because I don't know what... You want me to start saying something redeeming? Because I don't know that I can. I would like you to be the first one while I try and think up something. Oh, okay. If you want me to say something redeeming, the game ended and we got to go do something else? Mm-hmm. No, it, it did not.
    59:05
    It didn't shoot like terrible. No, no, it wasn't terrible. And here's, here's the thing. It was definitely, it wasn't rememberable, memorable in any way. It was very forgettable. Uh, at no point was I ever playing that game and had any desire to ever play that game again.
    59:25
    But it didn't have so many faults that I was, that I just have a list of, oh my God, this This is how terrible is this? It existed in a, I won't even say it was meh. It was, I was actively happy. I was done playing it.
    59:43
    It didn't take any boxes anywhere really. Yeah, forgettable is a good statement because I'm actually really struggling to, like there wasn't a shot I hated. There's not a shot I liked. The art, I definitely look at the art and I'm like, I don't get it. I don't know why they went with this style, this Trailer Park Alice style. Right. Because it does, in person, it feels like even more in your face about it. It is. It is so bad. Like this is the sort of thing you would buy at the rack at a gas station, but a bottom rack that hopefully children won't notice sort of thing. Like it was just, I don't get it. Nothing about it. I found nothing about it interesting or appealing. No. It wasn't like a hot mess of, oh my god, these shots don't work right, they don't go anywhere. It didn't feel like a Popaduke designed game where all of a sudden none of the geometry shoots. This also wasn't interesting to shoot. Now I actually remember better because I liked it even less when it came to play was the small game Alice Goes to Wonderland. And when I first started it, the first 30 seconds, I actually thought, this is kind of cool. And then it ended. No, it didn't end, Tony. It didn't end. I've talked about how like I didn't get a whole lot of time on Dune. Do you not like having 147 ball saves? You don't like a ball site activating every time you trip a switch? Tony, I want you to access your member berries. Do you remember the time we were at TPF?
    61:24
    We're going back in time. And Ron Hallett from Simp Podcast was there and we played Blues Brothers. Do you remember that? Do you remember how when I rolled it?
    61:34
    And do you remember how good of a player I am overall? I rolled it. Did the game glitch? I don't know. I rolled it. So who cares? Like this was, I didn't roll this, This, but this was not good. No. It was when you're right, ball saves, because you had the same ball saves. Oh, it was, it was, and that's the thing is I had ball saves and the, oh, ball save. And I'm like, no, let it end. Please let it be over. It seems to, I think, have modes, but it doesn't, there's no fanfare to it. So like you and I both at one point seemed to access a mode where I think we're supposed I did a game like that where I was supposed to defeat the Queen of Hearts, I think. Cause the display changed and there was a countdown, but it wasn't saying what to do. There was a flashing ramp, the left ramp, which I think is the Queen of Hearts ramp. So I thought, oh, I'm supposed to make that shot. And I couldn't make the shot by the time I noticed that and saw the timer and all of that. So I never did it. And then the rest of the time it's sort of like the static screen, just showing the score, which didn't shock me given the budget. Yeah. And so bearing that in mind, like the art and stuff I liked better than the Big Alice. I thought the little mushroom pop bumpers were cleverish. Yes. Again, it's very, very simple. And the thing I will give it credit for is unlike Stewie Pinball or Donkey Pinball or the bottom of Munster's Pinball, this is not a full-size pinball, but it does physically feel a lot closer than those real little ones did. I thought it actually played pretty well. I actually thought it shot pretty well as in pretty well like a full-size pinball would shoot. I was surprised that it shot like that. However, the game setup is way too easy. Yeah. Way too, like, I'm not sure if you can make it harder. I'm sure there is a way. Like someone's like, just pinball Olympics people are like, oh, just give me my hacksaw and some rubber bands. I'll make it real hard. But wow. Every time the ball save activates, it's going to spray pepper spray in your face. And they're now, apparently they're working on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles version. Yeah, I did see that announcement. I haven't read much on it, but this one I was like, no. Yeah. It was probably, overall, it's tough. The Big Alice was really forgettable, but just because of the torture of not knowing what What to do and how long it played. I will have to say the small one was probably my worst new game of the show. Hard to say. I could see it. I think I'm like right there. But again, being forgettable, I mean, even the other ones that didn't like I didn't love how Dune shot. It's not forgettable. No. Beetlejuice is not forgettable. King Kong is not forgettable. The most forgettable things are that Star Wars game. Yes. and the Big Alice. Yeah. And Star Wars at least was fun to shoot. And it was. And Star Wars. And it's Star Wars. Unfortunately, I still have to follow that back on. You know what? I do like the original trilogy. But I said I wanted to end on a happy note of our new games played. So Monster League Hockey. Now, I don't normally cover home brews because they're not commercial so people can't buy them. Right. But Monster League Hockey is getting produced. Like they're building them. So he had a booth. Yeah. Jake, and we know Jake. Yeah, yeah. No, definitely. He's come up here and visited. We've talked to him before, or been to the show. So what are your thoughts on Monster League Hockey? I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I've played the Alvin Gee head-to-head game, because that's what Monster League Hockey, you know, it's a head-to-head two player flipping balls back and forth at each other playing hockey. Unlike, I think it's the Joust one from Williams, you can't do this one single player. You would need another person. Yeah, you have to. It has to be two player. But it was really, it was a lot more fun. And the art done on it was great. The art package is good. The callouts are good. Like you do feel like you're playing hockey. They had it distanced enough from other games and turned up enough that I actually could hear it. Yeah. Yeah, no, I really enjoyed it. We had a lot of fun. It is one of those since you are playing against each other and there's like a goalie that you have to like drop and then get a shot in and there's a bunch of different things. It really requires a lot more thought and I enjoyed it. Yeah, and I was surprised to hear about just how much like visually it looks great but I was surprised to hear from Jake how much interest had already been expressed in terms Adam recognizes the un Joban Patrykista Boul, It'll also run up against the normal pinball problem of, what do you mean I can't stick it in the corner? Because you have to have somebody on both sides of it. So like, there's a layout and everything like, like, if I were to have a game like this, it couldn't be in my pinball room. No way. I would have to get rid of like three games. Right. To accommodate it so people could actually play it. But it was a lot of fun. Yeah. And I guess some people they are like, yeah, no, I have friends and I have a space that can accommodate this. I have friends and I have space. Get good. Get good, Newb. And so in a way it kind of reminds me a little bit, not gameplay wise, but reminds me of Winchester in that, okay, here are those totally original themes. Yeah, it's grounded in something a lot of people understand, hockey. But there is the community. Is there a resurgence in more original stuff? Yukon Yeti is original. Okay, spiritual successor to Whitewater. But plenty of people that I'm sure played that have never played Whitewater. I didn't see a whitewater at the show. I didn't see a whitewater at the show either. There are a lot of people in pinball that have not played that now. I also didn't see a gone fishin'. No, I didn't see gone fishin' either. There was... well, we'll get to it in the end. Anyway, so, yeah, I enjoyed doing Monster League. It was really interesting because it's so rare to encounter the multiplayer, like, head-to-head style pinball stuff in general. And so to actually see a new one produced is pretty interesting. Interesting. Yeah. And one of the interesting things that Jake was talking about there at the end is they're setting it up so you could like put in like a USB stick with MP3s on it. Yeah. And easy to import. So you can import and change the soundtrack to be your own... whatever songs you want. Right. Yeah. One of the issues, and I think he's working... I can't remember the name of it, so I apologize. I didn't look it up ahead of time. There's that. We talked about it. We've never played it. It was like this road trip themed game. They're the ones that are going to help with the manufacturing side of it. And yeah they basically going to have the sound import tool because as a homebrew Jake was able to put in whatever music he wanted but it would be a licensing nightmare especially if you see the list of his songs It would be a licensing nightmare to like like Any time Unexpected Nothing but the soundtrack to 1776 and then play hockey? More power to you. Salt Peter! Frankenstein! So I did have one last area just to sort of go over other thoughts about the show, mostly in the context of games and stuff. The only thing I wrote in our OneNote is, oh, poor Three Musketeers. Oh, I felt, I literally felt bad for them. I don't normally feel bad for companies because they're not human beings, but wow, did I... So they had prominent, prominent booth space, prime real estate near the front door. Right at the front door. And their game got stuck in customs. So they didn't have a game and they had this huge table. Someone gave them an EM, Three Musketeers, which I don't know that... I was like, aww. Really holy... bless their heart that someone tried. That was when I saw it, when I originally saw it, when we first walked in. There was this big prominent booth and there was nothing there! And then when I saw the thing where they had their little video, I'm like, they just have a video playing of their gameplay? And then I saw it had a marker on it, it's like Games, Cotton, Customs... And I'm like, oh no. Yeah, no, they, it looked like they were ready to do a big US push on this and oh, just because of stupid logistics, they got screwed. Yeah, I felt really, I did feel bad. I hope, well, you know, TBF, if you're listening, I hope you've refunded their booth cost or something for them or gave them a discount. They're like, dang it, Dennis, we got, we got bills to pay. We got dragons to build. I'm like, but I mean, come on guys, like they had to have paid for some real prime stuff and, and it's not your fault that the, This shows is the machine that you play from, and this things is the machine you roll around from. Tim Kitzrow, Mirco Playfields. In my mind, and this could just be me, but when it really you come down to it, there's TPF in the spring, Expo in the fall. Those are the biggies. All of the other things feel like stuff that is, oh yeah, this also exists. It's regional. Yeah. I just, it's, you know, now that the game is known, time is already ticking, because people start to, interest fades. People always, in pinball, people are always wanting to know what the next big thing is. It's tough for a little guy like Hexa, which doesn't have good US market penetration to get attention. So this could have been an excellent opportunity. They had the space for it. They looked like they were real serious about it. It reminds me of last year in a way, though much worse for the case of Hexa, where Barrels of Fun had their big booth and it was really clear that they had wanted to have Dune ready in time and they didn't. But at least they had labyrinths that they could throw in there. So while it looked like they had way more booths than they needed, at least they still got a lot of company attention. This, the only game that was playable they didn't even build. Right. And the company that built it is not even in business. So it's like, it's like, that was pretty tough. So I felt bad about that. Any other game highlights? We played a real minty taxi. We, that taxi was, I don't know if I've seen a prettier taxi. It was nice. It was and there was a lot of real I mean there was a bunch of games there for sale that looked real good there was a really nice looking vector. Mm-hmm there was a nice Street Fighter I didn't dare play it yeah I've had my fill of cheesy mashed potatoes but it looked nice. Yeah there there were a bunch of games there that there was uh several of them that there was just like wow that's just the back glass is immaculate on this machine. So, my final thoughts would just be, I think overall the shifts that have been made to TPF continue to have improved the show overall. I really, I want to stress it, I really appreciated how nice the layout was in the main game room. Oh, for sure. It was really nice. It was so good. And I didn't have to pull my normal thing where I'm squeezing between people saying, you know, And you know, excuse me, I'm not getting fresh, I'm just fat as I slip around people because there's just everything stacked up so bad. And even though we haven't been in years, it's probably safe to say that they're crushing Expo at this point in terms of configuration and layout. I heard Expo made a number of reforms, but that was just to get to tolerable status. Yes, TPF already has an advantage by the fact that the entire game room is carpeted, but... That is such an incredibly large advantage. But other TPF thoughts is, A, I really wanted to thank everybody who took the time out to talk to us and wave us down. We talked to a lot of fans, not just old friends, but people we've not met before and the like. And it's always just an absolute pleasure to get a chance to talk to people. And it's never in my life going to be weird or to be, it's never in my life going to not be weird to be walking around and have an absolute stranger, ah Tony Dennis, ah, and it's like, yeah, and it's great, it's awesome, but every time, I always have that split second where they say that, I'm like, do I know this person? We're glad you're joining us, and thanks for joining us for another edition of Boxing Brands for Lush and Lohse.
    75:12
    facebook.com.com.com.com.com. strategy.boxingbrands.com. 3-a-boy. The official smallest rights © 2014. Boxing before masterplatz.com. Wow. Davidнач takker a, spag嘟23'02 and Luis Nelinghoff, Scott Franks at, David hanker, Graham Hulio to, Charlie secondo, mayor, Rory Cre remains newppum You mentioned that video game companies seem to be laying off people between projects more rather than keeping them on to work on future games. While I'm in the broader tech world and not the game industry specifically, this doesn't sound quite right to me. The gaming industry has always existed as an awkward mix of Hollywood-style production, which hires people for individual projects, and the software industry, which hires people for longer term and 10 years have reflected that for a while. Jason Schreier's book Press Reset, published in 2021, discusses how this has been true for a while. The intro quotes a 2017 study that points to the high job mobility even then. I'm not sure if the rest of the book covers how this has changed over time. The recent layoffs seem more driven by a pandemic era over hiring. Companies assumed more of an increase in gaming than actually occurred. You can see this in the trends. Even with layoffs, EA has 1.6 times approximately the employees that are working in the industry. The employees it had five years ago. A lot of layoffs took place in 2024. 2025 and 2026 look to be more mild comparatively. Hopefully the trend continues to soften and we return to a more normal level of employment instability in the gaming sector. Thanks, Josh K. All right, Tony. So what do you think about Josh basically saying you because this was you were entirely wrong? He could be right. Could he? He also included links, but I didn't know them out because I didn't think people want I'm sorry, I didn't mean to go HTTPS slash slash publish dot obsidian dot MD slash VGA hyphen layoffs slash archives slash 2024, but now I did. He could very well be right. It could just be that it feels more harsh in the last few years because of the over hiring, because of how popular video gaming was when nobody could leave their houses. There have been still continuing huge layoffs. We just got the announcement Epic is cutting a thousand people because Fortnite's just crashing.
    77:45
    To the point that in their talk they literally say they are significantly spend or they are spending significantly more than they're making. Right. And they had to lay off a thousand people.
    77:54
    Also in a recent interview, John and Brenda Romero, John Romero of old school id fame and all of that,
    78:08
    In an interview, they were saying that having lived through the video game crash in the 80s, they think the current crash is worse than that. It might be affecting more quantity of people. I don't know if the crash is quote-unquote harder. The problem, well, maybe they're right. The problem, the difference is in the 80s crash, it was schlock. I know there's a lot of talk about AI slop right now, but most video games that are coming out are not full of AI slop yet. So it's not about the quality of the game, I don't think, which is what happened in 83. Like it was trash. It was trash upon trash. I own a lot of that trash for my 2600. Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. I think it is a combination of the overhiring and the cost of everything going up and just why keep people on the payroll and just rehire people later when you need them. Now, I will say, though, that your point that you made on the last episode, I did know of companies, I want to think like Activision did this for a long time with Call of Duty, where it was known that the team Tim would move on to another project once. Maybe they did some surge staffing or something, but like Infinity Ward didn't like get rid of like most of Infinity Ward. At least I didn't think once they were done with their Call of Duty, they would then work on their next one while Treyarchs was getting ready to come out. And so there would be a new project that they would, and there were often be people that were already doing the pre-planning sorts of stuff. So I'd heard about that with some maybe it's not as widespread as as what like Josh may be indicating that that's not the most common model. There were some companies that do that, but a lot of companies did not rely on that approach or they did. There were still lots of turnover that you just didn't notice. And I think that I think that's really possible. And a lot of that could also just be our specific view of things since I've always been more of a PC gamer. I know, especially back in the 90s and early 2000s, the big trend was a company would put out a game and then they would transition a portion of that game's people to making another game. But the portion that stayed on would make some DLCs and they would drop a couple of DLCs and then that would keep the fandom going and interest going until they shifted people around and then dropped a new game. So that was real, that was more common back in the day I feel than it is now. And then when we do see stuff like that now, a lot of times it's in that weird timed bracket where they want you to buy like a season pass. Oh, buy this season pass and you can get all of the DLCs as they come out. That some games companies have started doing as a, it's not a live game, but it's kind of the quasi way of doing that Richard A. also wrote in to give us a virtual pinball update, noting Pinball FX has releasing Williams Pinball Vol. 10 that will come out on April 30th. At least that's when it's currently planned to. It will have Diner, Fire, and Comet. And he said as an interesting aside, this is the first time official licensed virtual All of the possible editions of Fire and Comet have been produced for any company. I was thinking about that because when it's listed Fire, I'm like, man, I don't know if I've ever seen Fire anywhere except for in person. Yeah, that's all in place I've seen. I'm sure there's, you know, someone's done it for the virtual pin downloadable stuff, but that's unlicensed. All right, so you mentioned layoffs. Mentioned layoffs, like I said earlier, Epic just did a big round of layoffs. Tony has started doing layoffs. They've done a large number of layoffs at Blue Point Games, which is their studio that specifically does remakes and remasters. And then they have completely shut down Dark Outlaw Games, and they are pretty much shuttering their mobile game division. The only mobile game stuff that they're keeping up with is like license stuff where they're They're working with an outside person on a license, like their own internal stuff they're getting rid of. Honestly, normally on TPF wrap-ups, we normally don't have a video game section at all, but I felt the need because the drama is just so cloying and dripping. There's a lot of drama. With Subnautica 2. I've talked in the past about playing Subnautica and enjoying Subnautica. Unknown Worlds was the makers of Subnautica and they were bought out in a deal by the Korean gaming group Krafton. The deal, as I recall, was for $500 million was the buyout. But part of the deal, like inked into the contract, was a $250 million bonus payout to the original creators. So the three original creators of Unknown Worlds. F Subnautica 2 hit certain thresholds of earnings like when it went into early release. So I know I talked last year that there was a big shakeup and the CEO and most of the designers, upper level designers had gotten laid off and I never really talked about it that much because it just seemed like one of those things There's this other changing management. And then they, CEO and the other two co-creators had filed a suit for wrongful termination. And it's like, okay, they're whatever. No, no, no, this has turned into something else entirely. It has gotten crazy.
    84:19
    When the layoffs had happened, Krafton had claimed that the developers had abandoned their responsibilities.
    84:27
    And then so Krafton dumped them. and what did what amounted to a full takeover of unknown worlds and put a new ceo in charge and started making a bunch of changes
    84:44
    from the suit and the joys of discovery and all of the all everything else that goes along with it turns out that uh The CEO of Krafton had seen the initial numbers coming out that was showing that Subnautica 2 was going to blow well past the numbers to give out $250 million. Okay. It was like, they were like, oh, this is 100% going to happen. And he apparently reached out to their HR and this and that. They're like, okay, we need to fire these guys. And which they were informed, it's like, well, we can do that, but if we do that and it hits the benchmarks, we still have to pay the $250 million. And if we fire them, we open ourselves up to lawsuits. So apparently the CEO then got on ChatGPT and asked the same question and fed the contract in. And ChatGPT told him, no, you'll still have to pay. He was like, oh, what do I have to do so I don't have to pay? Chat GPT laid him out an action plan of things to do and moves to make to break up the popularity with the fandom, remove them and make other changes to push it so that it couldn't happen, so they wouldn't have to pay it out. And he did most of the things Chat GPT laid out exactly as Chat GPT laid out. See, AI is helping already. So, as this all came out in court and everything came forward, the judge ruled that Ted Gill, the original CEO of Unknown Worlds, had to be reinstated as CEO, giving full operating authority of the studio and full control of the early access release as part of the ruling. So, so they flat said, and then because they were past the, uh, the date for the rollout for the bonus, the judge demanded that the other two developers be rehired also, but also that the terms of the bonus was extended, uh, to cover the time that was lost due to this illegal termination and illegal takeover of Unknown Worlds. So what gets even bigger? Because you think that would be enough. They were ordered to reinstate the guy, give the guy full control, give all of this. They lost pretty hard. They lost real hard. The thing to remember is Krafton is one of the Korean studios that has for a while now been talking about how they're going all in on AI. They're an AI studio. They're walking the walk there. They're definitely walking the walk. Now, you think, okay, the drama's over. Yeah. And immediately after the judgments came down, Tim was reinstated, all the stuff was changing, like literally the next day, an early access release date for Subnautica 2 was leaked to the streets. Tim didn't put it out. He hasn't viewed the game in almost a year. He doesn't know the status of it. He doesn't know anything about it. He hasn't had a chance to review anything. Krafton intentionally put and dropped a date after being ordered by a judge that they can't do any of that, specifically to try and still have a chance to mess everything up so they can't hit the numbers they want to get the bonuses. So, uh, uh, they've gone back to court. And when I say this just happened, I'm talking, this happened like Wednesday this week. That all of that happened. So there's already been new stuff filed that they're violating the court order by putting this stuff out there. He hadn't even had time to move into the office. It's literally been, this all happened like the day after he was reinstated. So everything has just, it is just turning into like the most insane debacle that I have ever heard when it comes to something like this. Well, but, uh, just, just, you know, for, for all of those prominent CEOs that listen to us, you need to remember that, um, anything you put into AI is kept as a log. And when you ask it how to break the law and get away with it, that information doesn't go away just because you closed the It's your browser. Yeah. It still exists. It's like when people pull search histories after crimes happen and they're like, how do I dispose of this body is the question that you asked Google. It's like that's the best can be tracked. Right? But I had it in incognito mode. Okay. Good for you. Your cache was clear. That's great. That's wonderful. Your spouse couldn't accidentally find it before you killed them. Jordan ...Nivas
    91:02
    I'm Chad GPT. How do I get out of this contract without being in contract violation? They're like, well, try doing all these exact steps. Okay, I'll do that. Thank you, Chad GPT. They really are all in on AI. They are. So kudos to them for that. Well, if you want to give us kudos, you can email us at collectedgamerspodcast at gmail.com or go to facebook.com slash thecollectedgamerspodcast or even better, support us at patreon.com slash thecollectedgamerspodcast. And we'll see you next time. Bye. Eclectic underscore gamers. We have three tiers with one as low as a dollar a month. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as Eclectic underscore gamers. And we'll be back in two weeks and one day to do the next episode. But until then, my name is Dennis. I am Tony. Goodbye. See ya.