Ep 39: One Shot in the Mouth

Pinball Party Podcast·podcast_episode·36m 42s·analyzed·Oct 4, 2023

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Jason analyzes creative pinball design, highlighting Stranger Things and Lord of the Rings innovations.

Summary

Jason from Pinball Party Podcast discusses creative design innovations in pinball, focusing heavily on Stranger Things as an exemplary creative achievement. He examines specific mechanical and software features (projector integration, UV light kit, 'Bullshit Mode', Demogorgon bash toy with mouth shot mechanic) and compares them to Lord of the Rings' narrative-driven design choices. He solicits listener examples of creative pinball moments.

Key Claims

Stranger Things is one of the most creative pinball machines in a very long time
high confidence · Jason, speaking directly about Stranger Things as exemplar of creativity
The projector in Stranger Things uses white screens instead of black for brightness/contrast trade-offs in a compact space
high confidence · Jason provides detailed technical explanation of projector screen design and light reflection principles
Stranger Things did not sell well initially because of rules design, but improved after ~6 months of updates
medium confidence · Jason states 'the game didn't sell well in the beginning because of the rules' and notes improvement after code updates
The TK lock (telekinesis ball lock) on Stranger Things did not work reliably and Jason disabled it
high confidence · Jason directly states 'The TK lock and mine didn work that great I disabled it'
Lord of the Rings features narrative congruence between physical playfield action and video screen storytelling
high confidence · Jason describes Orthanc destruction leading to Path of Dead ball sequence mirroring movie plot progression
Brian Eddy designed Stranger Things with mechanics by Robert Blakeman and animation by Chuck Ernst
high confidence · Jason states design credits: 'Brian Eddie designed it Mechanics were Robert Blakeman... animation Chuck Ernst'
Mike Vinacore contributed to Stranger Things design/code work
high confidence · Jason mentions Vinacore as contributor: 'Vinacore, yeah yeah Vinacore I should have known that'
Stranger Things has a hidden 'Bullshit Mode' with humorous callouts that made Jason laugh while playing alone
high confidence · Jason describes discovering and laughing at the 'Bullshit Mode' feature unprompted

Notable Quotes

“Stranger Things, on the other hand, I would argue... the first of the two pinball machines to come out in a very long time [that is truly creative]”
Jason @ ~2:30 — Core thesis: Stranger Things represents creative apex in recent pinball
“I'm a plasma boy, an OLED boy, a projector boy with deep blacks. Let's get them inky. Let's get those shits inky.”
Jason @ ~5:45 — Jason's personal technical philosophy and passion for visual quality in home theater/pinball
“One shot in the mouth kills it... One shot kills it. So you can either bash it and hit it... but if you have one shot in the mouth You'll destroy it.”
Jason @ ~15:20 — Describes the Demogorgon mouth shot mechanic as creatively compelling dual-strategy feature
“The Creativity of Stranger Things I'm gonna say this before Jaws comes out... I just commend them for taking a leap of faith taking chances”
Jason @ ~12:45 — Expresses admiration for Stern's willingness to innovate with Stranger Things before Jaws release
“The projector and the UV kit and then a little sprinkle on top is the bullshit mode. Bullshit! For those who don't know, there is a mode where once you hit it... Hilarious.”
Jason @ ~16:00 — Highlights multiple innovation layers in Stranger Things design
“I got to the bullshit mode and I start laughing because I had no idea it was in there... I laughed one of them you know... that's legit funny”
Jason @ ~17:15 — Personal anecdote demonstrating how small design choices create memorable player moments
“When you destroy a ring... you hit the center shot... the ball hovers in the middle of the magnet. It just hovers there. And what you're trying to do is knock that son of a bitch into Mount Doom.”
Jason @ ~38:00 — Describes Lord of the Rings' most compelling mechanical moment and its narrative significance
“The pinball machine for destroy the ring mode... what matters to me is that... the ball hovers in the middle of the magnet... And that, my friend, is when your heart starts a-pumpin'.”

Entities

Jasonperson Brian EddypersonRobert BlakemanpersonChuck Ernstperson Mike Vinacoreperson Stranger Thingsgame Lord of the RingsgameStern Pinballcompany

Signals

?
design_philosophy: Jason establishes framework for evaluating pinball creativity: mechanical innovations, thematic storytelling integration, audio design, and hidden/surprising moments. Values genuine originality over 'paint by numbers' design.
high · Discussion of projector, UV kit, bullshit mode, mouth shot mechanic, and Lord of the Rings narrative congruence as exemplars of creativity
?
product_concern: Stranger Things TK lock mechanism has reliability issues; Jason disabled it on his machine. Suggests design concept is sound but execution/tuning needs work.
high · Direct statement: 'The TK lock and mine didn work that great I disabled it'
?
code_update: Stranger Things rules received significant updates/improvements ~6 months after initial release. Game reception shifted from poor to positive after code maturation.
medium · Jason: 'the game didn't sell well in the beginning because of the rules... six months in once it started to get like, oh shit, no, this is pretty good'
~
sentiment_shift: Stranger Things experienced reputation recovery after initial negative reception. Jason notes initial poor sales due to rules, but praises game after code updates and extended play.
high · Initial poor sales transformed to Jason calling it 'one of the most creative pinball machines in a very long time'
?
design_philosophy: Lord of the Rings exemplifies thematic coherence: game mechanics mirror movie plot progression (Orthanc destruction → Path of Dead souls → Return of the King multiball). Suggests intentional design linking storytelling to mechanics.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.110

0:00

Hello again, everyone. This is Jason from the Pinball Party Podcast. We are going to talk about pinball. More specifically, creative pinball. As those who are long-time listeners of the show or maybe new-time listeners of the show, I take creativity very seriously. As in, I find creative things in this world tantalizing. It's what drives me. Knapp, I'm creating this podcast and talking about creating. But yeah, I'm really driven to all things creative. I used to think of that as a negative connotation, but I think it's the shitbags that do that, you know, in middle school, high school. I'm an artist. I'm like a creative. The people who aren't are usually the ones that say it. It's their identity. Nothing against identity. You know, we can get into the whole psychoanalysis of identity in high school. and so forth, but it's all just bad. Anyone miss it? If you do, I don't know what kind of life you grew up in. Hats off to you. Actually a lot of private school people I've heard like high school. Let's not talk about that. Let's talk about pinball. Yes, Stranger Things was just announced as a vault, no surprise, but that got me thinking of the creative stuff in pinball. I feel like probably not alone when I think of the movie landscape as like an MCU Marvel Cinematic Universe cookie cutter trash heap. It's gone downhill as of late. Just like in pinball or anything creative as a creative myself. Again, my creative hat on. Listen to me. I'm a creative. I sound so fucking stupid. You know, it's nothing against people. In the hard work they're doing. Loki season2, you know, kind of getting panned or pick something recently. It's dogshit. That doesn't mean the people that made it are bad at what they do or anything. It's just the nature of the beast. Pinball can sometimes get that way where it's paint by numbers, another pinballmachine, another day, another dollar, but multiple thousands of dollars. But Stranger Things, on the other hand, I would argue and I don't think Knapp, the first of the two pinball machines to come out in a very long time. Now I'm not the encyclopedia or the end-all be-all on all the quote facts or the opinions I have because I've only been doing this hardcore. I say this pinball, pinball? I'll say it that way instead of pinball. Pinball? For let's say six years where I'm like, all right, I'm obsessively on pin side and pin side. Had ebenyez Knapp, Solinrichten Positionati g ead, 장attakalić, lanonanzakalić Last, dovuchognaet Clearly sandyto. Sastardza, Ka Molinana, fiššafst Johns Roja, Dorj firatka, Nickyragocенс Islandza, Teki Agoodi, Ravelukino, hareod البن 넣기 جمع PROTSCHUG b одного z 즉مک追 얼마 Aue bragdža, væ kartč��ریdyč, mast læ Bhav kommiert koje if logo se and start going. So yeah. But getting back to Stranger Things, one of the most creative pinball machines I can think of in a very long time, the projector alone is, I don't know the right word. I personally, I don't want to say the word genius because that is just overly used. It's a great, the escalation The creation of the vocabulary over the last 20 years has been nuts. People saying genius all the time or literally all the time. I think those words have basically the desensitization of words like cool or awesome or no that happened. No, no, no, literally like you have to say it. And genius as well. It's like oh that idea is good. In the creation of words, long thousands, millions of years ago, CC Geek Insidering Hospitable рук addressed WPPRIN as categoryesc節目ander arma tier R Scalabriggly IF Partners Details indoorsركzinsaamuuuu grandmotheraAsyega-oomio-ukdkeka-nopan excuses δ besivghiif stop sure. I'm a plasma boy, an OLED boy, a projector boy with deep blacks. Let's get them inky. Let's get those shits inky. Audio as well. Soundproof the room, sound panels, two inch, four inch, bass traps. What are we doing here? You know. So the projector, when I first saw it, I was kind of blown away that they were able to fit that in there. Now, of course, you look at the The white screens and the contrast is not great because it's the white screens. Well, no, it's not. It's the light output. If we want to get into projector and why is the screens white? Let's say that in Stranger Things for those uninitiated in the world of home theater and black levels of projection and screens and all that. Why wouldn't they make, you know, if we want a good contrast, why wouldn't we make those things black? Well, black does not reflect color well, right? So if you jam, if you, if you If you shine a flashlight on black, you're not going to get a lot of light in return, especially velvet. Where is it? If you want to see the light back, aka a projector, you need white. Oh, it reflects. A poor man's projector screen is your white wall at home. Stranger things, it's white because you're not going to be able to jam a super high lumen projector in a pinball machine and keep that thing at cost, so you got to make sacrifices. The screen is white so that when you're playing, you can see the most amount of dailycast, the screen is turned on your not going to see it that well now if you replace those white things as the screens and stranger things of black and you put the highest level projector you can in there that shoots laser beams as bright as the sun it will look amazing conversely if you play stranger things in the dark we'll say all the lights are off and you you have never turn on the machine yet and you don't even see the white anymore right it's so dark in the room you don't see the projector screens in stranger things Lewen Reminenstein, The reason it's white so that you know the it's the same way a home theater be set up if a lot of people out there know that but you don't want if you care about the visuals of a projector in a room you would cover the walls in triple black velvet and the only thing with reflectiveness would be the screen so you can maximize the contrast minimize the light reflectiveness and maximize actually the light absorption of the walls etc. So you've seen in Stranger Things people who've gone down the, well, the high contrast gray material or really digging into that. And those forms are fucking awesome. I love those. And hopefully some of that tech, I'll say tech, gets used. Go check it out in the Pinside forums if you want to increase the contrast and maybe take the, make those white screens on Stranger Things less of an eyesore in the light, which they can be. But once the lights are off, I mean, The Creativity of Stranger Things I'm gonna say this before Jaws comes out. Quickly. Email in, you know, creative thing. Nay, ten years. Back to Sam. Yeah. And I legit want to know about it because I thinking in my head of all the creative things in the last 10 years and stranger things It just I commend them for taking you know a leap of faith taking chances Them let me just pull up I don always memorize who makes all the games you know you think you should know every little creator of everything I know Eddie was on it But yeah Brian Brian Eddie designed it Mechanics were Robert Blakeman Edi, Rob, Vinacore, yeah yeah Vinacore I should have known that animation Chuck Ernst Robert Blakemanmechanics I wonder if he did the projector where he had anything in that or Brian Eddy if anyone knows please I'd like to really talk more about the projector aspect of all this it really intrigues me or mods that can be done I mean if you look at the projector underneath the playfield it's small it's like a little tiny thing that you would use I don't even know when you would use it I and the other, I know too many Zachs, yeah. I was texting with him about projectors and stuff. I'm like, let's toss in specifically a JVC790R in that Stranger Things, which is a nice home theater projector from a few years back. I was like, I think I might buy this because I'm rebuilding a home theater in the basement. Going between the 77 inch OLED and a JVC790R, The

11:05

I think I want to see it happen or take the video output into that projector and just put it on the wall I just want to see like what it actually looks like what the resolution is and all that because they probably don't need it that high but yes super creative in that game my god that's only the projector UV light kit now UV light kit essentially is a UV set of lights on each ramp that in certain modes the upside down mode those things turn on everything else well you and the pinball machine puts you there. I mean, seriously, so cool. And, you know, the The game didn't sell well in the beginning because of the rules and I won't say why because I didn't play it much in the beginning. I played it, I would say, six months in once it started to get like, oh shit, no, this is pretty good and I had a premium for a while. And the UV kit, the sound with it, like it, man, it does it. Ken Hale, sound. Eh, I got the sheet pulled up so I'm looking at this. The sound with the UV light kit really dominates the game. oblique中共打음, defender, en abre master, Aussieналan,'e- And the five secondary of list for the first set up has results shows your 16 cards in total. um.... That last one, I was thinking of a movie or genres, blockbuster or titanic movie genre bending world popculture reference huge movies, that you just think Movies Stranger Things I don't think of Movies, I think of an updated goonies thats a little darker, tries to be all eighties at once and in a lot of ways it succeeds. But it worked well in there, it worked well in there because of the mood. and the way that it kind of brought the mysteriousness of the whole world into it. So the projector and the UV kit and then a little sprinkle on top is the bullshit mode. Bullshit! For those who don't know, there is a mode where once you hit it, I think it's every switch. Let me Google it because it's been a while because it's an expensive game. For those who don't know, bullshit mode. Yeah, is it bullshit? I think it's bullshit. Yeah, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. It's all these different callouts when they hit it. Hilarious. One of the only times ever I've been playing a game by my lonely self as most of us do in our quote collection. Here's my expensive thing I'm staring at and playing with. I'm in a room by myself. Lights are out because the projector is aforementioned. I get to the bullshit mode and I start laughing because I had no idea it was in there. So you go from this very moody the darkness has you. Oh my God. and bullshit bullshit bullshit I I laughed one of them you know if any of you have a when you were by yourself moment that a game made you laugh or exclaim let's say in any sort of in any way negative or positive but by yourself where you know when you laugh by yourself you know like that's legit funny in stranger things I I really appreciated that UV light kit projector bullshit mode Demogorgon, BASH toys in the middle up the center is nothing new. Brian Eddy, Attack from Mars, Medieval Manus, this is not something new but it's like a, it's akin to like a jump button in a platformer video game. Like, okay, I know what I'm doing. Cool. This is a common language in pinball. So putting a bash toy up there is really cool. I think the, oh, now I We're talking about escalating words. The genius thing of the Demogorgon, the monster in the middle, the bash target in the center, the ramp is cool, right? It gets you up there like, oh, that's kind of neat. But that if you hit it in the mouth, that's what she said with your ball or balls. That's what she said. It's at least the first one. I don't remember if the subsequent it damages it tenfold. Basically, one shot in the mouth kills one shot. The One shot in the mouth is the name of this podcast

19:07

may Jur. pension newspaper. N the It got me to think what other creative whirlwind we can think of that. But what is another very like, oh, you don't see that every day in a pinball machine. I really would love if you emailed in an example or two or five that really stuck out to you as these are innovations to me or what really keeps me in the game, whether the rules are shit, the game is shit, but this little thing, it keeps me going. I'll say creative that out of all of it all pinball that I've played that has stuck with me as another that is Mmm, that is again. I'm not saying the word genius, but is very in that realm of you tickled on something For me was a very specific aspect of Lord of the Rings Yeah, it's my favorite theme of any pinball machine and could arguably be my favorite pinball machine, but it's that's not weird The game is a great game. The rules are great. The theme is second to none for a lot of us. And all that aside, does it have as many innovations as Stranger Things? Maybe at the time, I wasn't doing it nuts back then. But when I got it, and I, you know, I got the machine at home, I love the theme. I love, I love, you know, cleaning the game. I love, it's one of those games where you like to kind of just like, oh, I'll change it to LEDs. I'll change it back to incandescent. I think it's just War of the Ents. So the modes in that game are when you get three elf rings or just a new ball will qualify you a mode. So there's these modes on the back ring. A lot of you know what I'm talking about, but for those who don't, it's just the modes in the game. They all have something to do with something that happened in the movie. The wargs or battles of Sauron or whatever. They're all in there and you beat them all and it's there and back again. It's great little mini wizard mode. The War of the Ents And then on the screen you see one of the ends, one of the big tree dudes take a big rock, looks like a pinball, you know, and throw it at Orthonk. So the video is doing exactly what you're doing kind of in the game. You're hitting a ball into Orthonk, the building, and then on the screen the End is grabbing a rock and throwing it at it. Oh, that's very kind of clever. And that happens in the movie. But the other part that really made this..oh, alright. For those who know..I'll say the movies cause the books split this a little differently. At the end, well..so at the beginning of Return of the King is when this happens in the movies in the extended edition where you see, well okay.. It happens at the end of Two Towers and finishes at the beginning of Return of the King is what I'm getting at. It's for that little storyline of destroying Salraman's castle. The Ents kick the shit out of it with rocks and do all sorts of stuff. But in the game, you hit the ball in the hole. It hits Orthonk, right? And then you see it on the video screen. Then the ball in the game literally pops up into the path of the dead and comes down and you get path of the dead souls. 500, you know, you get up to 5000 souls. a return to the king multiball. So you see that it's actually narratively congruent, it's, it's in line with how the story progresses. In the pinball machine, you hit orthanc, and then it goes in the path of dead and you build up the souls for return to the king. Just like in the movie. Before you can progress to that part of the story, you have to destroy orthanc. And I don't know if that was a happy accident, or not. I want to say not. Also how you start Return of the King Multiball is to take that same path into that gobble hole. So I think they linked it specifically and if not, I mean hats off to that accident. One of the most creative through lines in a pinball machine and I think a lot of people who either don't know the movies or books obsessively miss that kind of like, oh, look what you did. The other part of it which I don't think is as strong but is equally as like man this game just really really ties the room together is how you qualify fellowship multiball. Two towers, whatever. But fellowship multiball it's nothing you know to use this word ingenious or whatever but it's just like oh that that's just nice how that works. Fellowship of the Ring the movie right you have nothing bar씨llä lump

26:34

Sham, the threeźing görs of this, who reveals he did an order with guzum, 爱이ä½ţ¸ä½¬ä½ä½ä½ä½äŽä½åŽä¹ä½ä³ä½ä¶ä½ä½ä¸ä½ä½ explicitly is in fetal. ої�FranczSean Jonya Krinsky, four Ultraυτica, Hansson in the pinball world What a what a question that is like huh I mean, it's simple, but like starting like I don't know. Seems like a fool's errand. You could take the cheap way out and do like Star Wars Stern Star Wars, like fucking whatever. I don't know. Just put something in it. Put the hyper loop. Yeah, sure. Because hyper drives are so much more important than the force in the game. Instead of doing force stuff, let's do now. No. The Lord of the Rings took that question of how can we make Lord of the Rings into a pinball machine very similar to how they took it seriously in the movies. They Peter Jackson and team had this decree of we're acting like this really happened in history. We're taking it that serious and I think it comes across in the movies very similar to how the books came across. It started as a language and then it grew from The Hobbit and it grew back story similar early in Tolkien some other time. The pinball machine for destroy the ring mode again qualifyingifying it who cares it's not why this matters but once it starts your and you have to hit the four shots again that doesn't really matter to me what matters to me is that when you destroy a ring or how you destroy the ring is well if you set it up correctly in the settings I think by default it's not this right correct me if I'm wrong but the in my opinion the correct way is it's either the two ball or one ball I forget which setting actually does what I'm about to say, but it's where you hit the center shot as your second to last shot and the ball hovers in the middle of the magnet. It just hovers there. And what you're trying to do is knock that son of a bitch into Mount Doom. And that, my friend, is when your heart starts a-pumpin'. Because two things, three things. Do my flippers have enough power to hit that fucking shot? And which flipper am I going to do to hit it? because sometimes people will be like, oh, well, it's the left flipper is the easiest way. Nah nah nah. It's the right flipper that technically has the most power to kind of hit that, but it's a narrower shot. And it's a son of a bitch when your flipper fades going, you've done all this shit, you've chopped all the wood in the world, you've chopped down all the redwoods, you've hit the four shots, you hit the ball, so now the ring is just dangling there. You see him, golem on the edge, and you're like, oh, I'm gonna kill you, you bitch. and I think I've said this multiple times the amount of the how many times I've been like Dana like I got it there it's floating I just want her to see it because for those who destroy the ring knows what happens I won't say for those who don't I would encourage especially new players or people who haven't done that quote wizard mode which is relatively easy to get to to do it and then see what happens when you do it I want her to see it because it's one of those moments like fuck so you get the ball it's hovering there and you know What do you do to knock something in? You literally knock something in. So the next shot ball hits that ball out of the magnet and then you destroy the ring and things happen. And I mean that. It's not just like, here's points. You'll see. But I've gotten there so many, I've destroyed the ring countless times, but I can never get Dana to see it. Every time. It's relatively easy to get there for people that play the game enough. But every goddamn time I get it there and I'll trap the ball up and get in here. Hey, I just want to see it. and she knows at this point like yeah it's not gonna happen cuz I'm just cursed the flipper power will just be dogshit and I just won't be able to hit it and just like whatever eventually I mean Dana has seen seven to eight pinball seven to eight Lord of the Rings machines coming out of this house from beat-up routed ones to normal versions with literally 40 plays which was pretty nice to an Ellie to mod it every mod known to man Caller DMD, Palantir, Mount Doom, PinSound, Multiple speakers, it's all been done. It's all been done in these parts. She's seen the dickbeard and the Ellie, she's seen all that but she hasn't seen me destroy the ring. God damn it. Those are the ones that came to mind when I tried to come up with what even touches Stranger Things creativity. And I know there's more. There's other sound examples I have in my head of creativity with sound which it always, it's not always It's not always a mech. It's not always a story through-line with modes. So please write in. Tell me what you think of what some of the most creative moments in pinball have been. I want to hear examples. And for those out there who are having a good time preordering your Stranger Things premium, whatever it would be, do you know where to buy it? Because if you don't, I know exactly where you should go. And that's flipping out pinball. ball n ga top pos