oh what's up america i'm back into your ear holes don's pinball podcast here once again and whether you're in rudolph wisconsin or santa claus indiana it's still the holidays everywhere it's frozen outside anyway i've got tournament news i'm freshly back and i want to go around the horn talking about pinball news kind of hit each company give stern a break here all right Warm up that coffee. Hope you're driving to work. This Monday morning is going better than mine. And that is the fire we bring to each episode we do. We're up four deep here now. Hey, other news coming up. We do have another pinball awards show or the same pinball awards show, but in a different format. Sounds like those crazy guys in southern Indiana are doing hosting duties. and yesterday or the 7th of january 23 that was the last day to sign up to be a member of the voting public or a judge so i did look at the requirements to actually be a judge to vote in these pinball awards and wouldn't you know it podcaster was listed as a eligibility criteria category so when i looked at it though the cutoff that got me was you have to have had seven pinball podcasts in the last year and here i am at episode four though i did do a live stream i don't think i quite fit the cutoff so i didn't want to lie on the application or anything like that so i went ahead and submitted as a member of the voting public so that's something fun to look forward to and it's happening this month it'll be the end of this month so we'll see who gets recognized really i think i'm looking at game of the year i mean it's got to go to rush right i mean what else came out toy story 4 well built a lot of Great lights, overpriced, fun to play, flippy ramp. You know, I rescued Forgy. I flipped the ramp. We'll see. I think, you know, for me, you know, rush just kind of hits harder. I do like the band, so that has a lot to do with it. Anyway, regardless, let me jump in to where I just was tonight. I was at District 1 at the kind of brewery, pin bar, slash bring your own food kind of place that has 15 pinball games and an IFPA-sanctioned tournament and also bond release party. So that was my first foray into that. Hitherto now, I haven't really been interested in the whole tournament side of pinball just because, I mean, I'm not really a competitive pinball player. I'm not a competitive bowler. I'm not a competitive skateboarder. But I do like to play, so I thought, heck it, I've got today off. I've got $20 jingling in my pocket. so I went off down there and boy I'm glad I did met a lot of great people down there shout out to District 1 just for hosting it within its confines and shout out to Pinball Mayhem for putting in all the nuts and bolts and technology and IFPA sanctioned oversight necessary to have an official event like this so thank you Scott, thank you Jeremy I think there was a guy named Ed I met there was like three other Scotts, man it was great I know I'm going to forget some names but this I mean, going into this, I was totally green. Like I said, man, I'm new at this, right? So registered, gave my 20 bucks, and then it broke out into seven rounds where you were in groups of four people, and the computer would just kind of randomly assign you, like here you are in this group of four people for this round. You're playing this game. Here's your order. Go at it. Prizes are basically awarded on overall points earned. However, you're only competing within your group of four at each round, and then whoever finishes first in that round gets seven points. Second place is five points, then three, then one. And then whoever has the most at the end, winner take all. There was a Translight given away and some other goodies. But sprinkled throughout there, they were giving out gift cards. And wouldn't you know it, on my round, I think it was the third or fourth round, there was $20 riding on the game between the four of us. Whoever won it got the $20, which just so happens to be the entrance fee. And wouldn't you know it, your boy managed to pull it together during Stranger Things, and about 36 million points was just enough to snag that 20. So, hey, I broke even in my first tournament. That blew my mind. I had no expectations of that happening. I had a great evening. It would have been worth the 20 bucks if I came in dead last. And then here I do. I go home with something. I had something in my pocket to take to Culver's down the street and get me some of those pretzel bites with the cheese dipping sauce. Don't you know how your boy likes to live? All right, air horn. So, yeah, so great tournament. A lot of fun people. I happen to kind of mention and drop that your boys also got a podcast over here in central Wisconsin where it's currently frozen. And I got some good traction. You know, I got a couple of new followers. People are going to listen. Hopefully they stick around. Like what I like to tell them is, you know, please go to Don's Pinball Podcast at Facebook if you want to connect, if you want to follow, if you want to get some news, some behind-the-scenes photos. I have already posted some photos on the Facebook page from the tournament tonight, including yours truly in his spooky pinball shirt. So also I have a website. No, I don't have a website. I've got a Gmail address. Don's pinball. I guess gmail.com. I do forget to mention that sometimes when I'm signing off. So there it is. All right So tournament play I won 20 bucks I finished in 16th place out of about 30 people And so that not bad This apparently is something that they want to do every Wednesday They're affiliated with the Stern Army. And so one of the requirements for that in order to maintain the prize flow is to have a tournament every month. So, hey, Wednesdays, I mean, I'm down. I'll do it again. Maybe I'll even get better at it. even though you know i played about you know seven different pinball machines in tournament play um it hits a little different you know i mean so far i'm usually just playing solo or maybe my wife and i'll play each other um you know or i'll sit on my own machines and just kind of go over and over and just try to incrementally you know build up you know always keep trying to go for that multiball always keep trying to kill ebora in godzilla premium hitting all the spinners i like to do that but in tournament you actually have a different strategy i mean you don't always want to go for that um you know kind of grindy uh accomplishment that you only get maybe once every 10 games you know put the points on the board and so that's what i did with stranger things instead of starting to look for you know just trying to shoot the ramps hit the modes and everything and work up to a multiball with high risk shots against drop targets your boy was like now i'm gonna hit those pops i'm gonna hit those inlanes i'm gonna get some multipliers going first and then i'm just gonna kind of play and try to stick to ramps and save shots and yeah you know it was like a whole different way to play you know these games so i would do another tournament i'd encourage other people if you haven't done one you don't be intimidated throw your money in there and just go through and have fun you know it was good for me now what i've been wanting to do now that i've done a couple episodes here it's just kind of go around to recap any kind of news um or rumors or events or something that's bubbling on with all the different pinball companies so i know i've on stern kind of pretty heavily i mean they have the newest game that's out so uh but i'm going to take a turn and just kind of run around the horn here so let's start with our boys down there now and down in chicago jersey jack pinball what's this 220 date floating around i see i've seen it a couple of different times basically only went from one place but it would seem to make sense for me uh basically the rumors that they're gonna have a game announced february 20th and i did hear from another source, a non-podcast-y source, that this game may actually be in production right now down in Chicago on the line. What? I mean, so not incredibly surprising. I mean, we're in a little void here now. There's a good release window, and if you've got a game that's kind of built, done, in box, and you can release it now, I think you would beat out the inevitable March release from Big Boy Stern, and you're far enough away from spooky Scooby-Doo that anybody that passed on that was waiting for the next big thing. I mean, this is kind of an open opportunity for it. So still the rumor I keep hearing is Godfather. I've heard that from multiple people, people that I've brushed with that seem to be the type that would have some actual inside information were just giving me no comments. So, I mean, I'm excited. Let's see what Eric's bringing. I want to flip it. I want to know about it. I want to look about it. If it's ready to ship, I live near Chicago, in the Midwest region of the country, the pinball epicenter of America. So, I mean, if this game does come out, it would be released locally here, and I'd be able to go play it. And I will cover it all for you on the next episode, or probably six episodes from now. So, yeah, Godfather, JJP, 220. I mean, JJP number eight. Let's hit it. Love me some air horns. All right, moving on. American pinball, makers of such games such as Legends of Valhalla and... Oh, God. Octoberfest. I want to love this game so much. The German character creeps me out. The dude up there with the smiley grin. I think he's made of nightmares. I do play it when I see it. I don't know that I would own one. I will say it's built well. If you order it, it'll show up. So kudos to them. What have they got going on? First, before I get into maybe what their next game is, can I just make a comment? I did play a little Hot Wheels tonight. And for the most part, it's a single-level game, but it is those two plastic ramps. It does have a spinning mechanism. And I was kind of hit like, huh, this game, the way it be hitting, the way it be busting at this moment, does this have more going on in it than Bond's 60th? Hmm? You know, I don't know. Somewhat of a fan layout. It's got a lot of targets. It's got a lot of lights. But it's got two ramps and Bond don't because it's single level, is all I'm saying. but uh they're rumored galactic space mustache force tank battle whatever it is uh you know heard the rumors all i have is names i've got no art to go on uh no other rumors good bad ugly nothing but when are we gonna see it they've been silent like completely silent on it um i know they were you know teasing they're gonna do more runs of alhalla they have weird tears that I don't fully understand. This was deluxe, now it's classic, now it's super deluxe plus. I don't know, American Pinball Plus is like Disney Plus. Do I have to subscribe? How do I update? I don't know. But yeah, whatever their new sci-fi based theme machine that comes out, we'll still have to wait and see on that. What's Chicago Gaming Company doing? I guess they're still trying to get Cactus Canyons out. I don know if they need to start working on the remake of the remakes since it been so long but the strong rumor there is Twilight Zone that old wide body Please guys if you do it if you doing it black and white option black and white edition I think that would be fire I think that thing with some sparkly lights, a low-lit room with some Rod Serling in my earphones, in my Bluetooth earphones, that's a good Twilight Zone. um i do have a rec room world ultra vp virtual pinball machine which i want to do a whole episode on really dive into because i think it's really set it apart from a lot of other options in the virtual pinball field it has a twilight zone on it so i think i might go knock that around later today moving on door boy spooky down a little south for me in wisconsin um uh this is the month that they were supposed to have retooled returned from the holiday and should be in production on their next game of which man I went in and got in on one now I've heard people make some very salient points you know about maybe wait and see you know this isn't a 750 edition size of like a Rick and Morty tier level where it's going to sell out in a day in fact it appears that it hasn't sold out there's nearly 2,000 of them if you wanted to wait on it and get some more information before getting one you would be able to I've seen one person that due to you know financial obligations that come up, you know, divorce, kids sick, change a job, whatever it is, has been selling his pre-order spot. I think he's down to the 400s. I may have mentioned this on my last show. But I went in on it and I will say that I went in on it based on the art, based on the layout, based on the video, and then my confidence in spooky pinball. I'm a happy owner of a Halloween. I like it. I'm not looking to get rid of it. I do understand that people were concerned. I think how much of that was flippers looking to pocket some money on Ultraman, pocket some money on Halloween. Sure. Maybe some of that, uh, Halloween was available below MSRP there for a time. Ultraman, I believe is still down there. Um, you know, it's a game that you like or you don't like, and whatever your opinion is, that's the right opinion for you. Um, I like my game. Um, will Scooby have the same issue? Maybe, but what's really setting this apart is that, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? by Spooky Pinball, hopefully being manufactured right now, is not being sold for $15,000. It's not being sold for $20,000. The CE edition, $9,750. Under $10,000 is the take home. Now, if you do want to have that nice glossy finish, you do have to upgrade for that. Butter edition, that's what they call it. I'm on the fence. I haven't decided and I don't have to decide until they're ready to build my game. But I think for the price point given today's market under $10,000 it was an okay decision for me to go ahead and put down my non-refundable deposit and I'll plan on paying the other seven in about five to six months when it's ready to put together and then I'll get it and I'll see how it plays. You know I can see myself hanging on to it for at least a year before resale and upgrade and then you know if $500 or $1,000 is lost in the meantime, that was my price for playing. Either way, what you will definitely get is my honest review when I unbox that guy and I'll be putting my photos up on the Facebook page and communicating all of my thoughts to you. Would you guys like to hear that? Can do! Well, you got it. That's what I provide, buddy. Alright, what else do I got? Pinball Brothers. So, currently they've got Alien Out. I've played it. It's a wide body. It's impressive. I didn't buy one. I play them. Eh? I heard it was a design from this guy, Andrew Highway. I haven't dug into what kind of bespeckled cave of labyrinthine drama was evolved there. I don't know if it's more or less than Deep Root. Can anything be more labyrinthine than Deep Root? But it looks like the boys that have Queen coming out now have merged with the Italian company that was producing and building their games and forming a new company even, Euro Pinball Corporation. Great. How's that a bad thing for pinball? More mines, more manufacturing. You know, if these guys are designers or have access to designers and they have access to manufacturers, I mean, those are the two sides of the onion that you need to put together to be able to successfully produce games, right? Because we've seen some great designers, great design teams that have fallen apart because of production issues or people that have production issues, but their barrel of ideas is empty and they'd done be scraping. So to put these two guys together, if they got some resources and they got some manufacturing and they can avoid having their factory burst into flames, I think we may have something. Were these the guys? No, no, I'm getting to that. I'm getting to that. I'm going to run through Home Pin as one should. I don't even know if Spinal Tap's even released. I've only seen one video that was shot on a cell phone. I'm just going to skip past that for now. Uh, Haggis, what's going on with them? I don't know. What are they making a couple of games a week? I've seen, they've been arriving in the U S uh, the remake of fathom, a game that looks, it's a beautiful game that, uh, that blue and green color scheme, the mermaids that are taking the uh 1960s skin divers down to their doom It pretty I dig it Um the game a bit simple for me I me I don think I would get one but I did play one of the ones they made It looked reasonably well-made to me, but I only played it at the expo show floor. I don't know how these things are holding up. I don't know if anybody knows how these things are holding up. How many people have gotten them even? I guess they have Centaur up next. Also, aesthetically, it's a pretty game. I've got it on my virtual. I've got Fathom on my virtual. I play them occasionally. I don't think I would you know if I was looking for a game to add to my collection I don't think it would be these but I don't have the nostalgic ties that some people do I don't this isn't the play style that I'm into uh you know enough to own one but like anyone else man if they can get the manufacturing together uh you know I think they could have something maybe they should merge with Pendretti in Italy uh or you know or somebody else that has some manufacturing problem is they're also in Australia, which is going to make it easier for them to get games, you know, domestically produced and shipped. But then, you know, if you're sitting over here in one of the States and you want one of these things, you either have to pay what? 750, $1,500 or something air freight to put this thing on an airplane and fly it to you. Um, or I guess you have to wait until they have 50 or 60 of them ready to go to put in a shipping container on the slow boat, uh, from the bottom of the world. Um, you know, wish them luck. All I can say about Haggis Pinball is I played the fathom. I looked it over. Man, it was shiny. It was pretty. And it seemed to play just fine for what it is. So I'll limit my comments there. Wish the guys well. Wish everybody well. Who wouldn't? All right, one last piece of news here. This company, Quetzal, are they Spanish? And are they also Bitronic? And is Quetzal a pinball designer and Bitronic is the manufacturer? Anyway, Super Hoop, right? The basketball-themed pinball machine that was released, was released, is released. Has anybody seen one of these? Has anyone played one of these? I did some internet sleuthing, and I was able to find the page of the manufacturer. I found some Nap Arcade goodies. I found some other pinball news stories dated January 2022, one year ago, saying that 100 of these had been made, and the plans were to have another 300 in production for the U.S. market. but again i've been to three large pinball expos and last year i ain't seen this game i ain't heard much talked about it so i thought you know what let me take a look around and i did find two distributors nitro pinball and then also those crazy guys down in southern indiana listed as distributors so i did fire off an email to the evansville boys um i'll see what they they they send me back, the website had a price of to be announced. So I just had two questions I emailed about, I was just saying, is there a price on this? And have these sold? You know, have these been imported? Are they anywhere? Because I haven't seen to find them. I do have the pinball map app on my phone. So I could look it up there. I could also look it up on pin side and see if there are actually any of these machines in the region. And if they are, can I go play one and, you know, give my thoughts? It's got an interesting layout. It's not the worst thing I've ever seen. It looks like the basketball hoop it has in the back of the play field actually has a magnet on the backboard. And it also has a ramp that jumps across the hoop. So it looks like you can hit an orbit up the ramp and have it jump across the hoop. And then when activated, the magnet can probably grab it and then drop it down on the hoop. So that's fun. Sports-themed pinball games, they're not in my top five themes for me personally. though I will say that World Cup 94, which is a theme that would hold zero interest for me in any other context, plays fun. I've got it at the local pizza place. I threw some quarters in it. It's a pretty fun game. It's got ramps. It's got the big spinning ball. It's got the goal in the back. I like it, and I'm not even a big, like, organized watching sports fan kind of dude. I did find this guy, or a post from what I'm assuming is a guy, on Pinside regarding Super Hoop. It goes by the name of Mud Flaps. on pin side there. And his comment was just, it was so sweet. It said, finally, somebody has decided to produce a Spanish basketball game. Make a pinball based on Spanish basketball. And yeah, that was just, that's it. That's funny. I liked it. I chuckled. All right. So today was fun. I went, I competed in my first tournament. I did not leave empty handed. I had a good time. I met some bros. I maybe got some followers. So here's looking forward to having some more adventures in the realm of pinball in the upper Midwest. If you like what you're hearing, holler at your boy. Don's Pinball Podcast on Facebook. Like, leave a comment. Check out the pictures. Check out the images. Also, Don's Pinball Podcast at gmail.com. Big ups and thanks to Pinball Mayhem and my new homie Scott. So have yourselves a good evening. Did you arrive at work? Did you get that frosty parking spot? That's only three spots away from the door. I ready to bust open that Diet Coke like I am in the morning. Woo. I'll see you next time.