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#39 Black Knight - The Classic Pinball Podcast

The Classic Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·56m 56s·analyzed·Oct 20, 2020
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Classic Pinball Podcast deep-dive on Williams' Black Knight (1980), covering design, features, and gameplay.

Summary

George and Dave discuss Williams' Black Knight (1980), a classic pinball machine designed by Steve Ritchie with software by Larry DeMar. They explore the game's technical features including its level-shifter playfield, MagnaSave flippers, timed drop targets, and sound design borrowed from arcade games Defender and Robotron. The hosts play multiple games, discuss the machine's history and cultural references, and examine Dave's recently restored example.

Key Claims

  • Black Knight was released in November 1980

    high confidence · Dave stating the release date at the beginning of the episode

  • Steve Ritchie's voice is featured in Black Knight with software effects

    high confidence · Dave explicitly states this as a notable factoid about the game

  • Black Knight is one of four split-level (level shifter) games Williams made at that time

    high confidence · Dave mentions this design classification, correcting the term 'ramp game' to 'level shifter'

  • Sound effects in Black Knight come from video games Defender and Robotron

    high confidence · Dave identifies the sounds and credits Larry DeMar's work on both arcade and pinball titles

  • Williams Black Knight made 15,000 units

    medium confidence · Dave mentions this production number while discussing early vs. late production variants

  • Early Black Knight production had cutouts for rebound switches behind drop targets that were never populated

    medium confidence · Dave speculates on why later productions removed the cutout, using gameplay mechanics as reasoning

  • Black Knight uses plasma displays at ~190 volts, similar to other Williams games of the era

    high confidence · Dave compares to Bally plasma displays and notes Gottlieb used lower-voltage Futuba displays

  • The game has a bell instead of a knocker, which arcade operators often disconnect

    high confidence · Dave explains the bell mechanism and notes he finds many machines with the bell unhook

  • Steve Ritchie insisted on jeweled inserts for the first time on a pinball game with Black Knight

    medium confidence · George mentions this as a factoid at the very end of the episode

  • Dave has owned this particular Black Knight for four months and recently restored it

Notable Quotes

  • “Steve Ritchie's voice is the voice that you hear in Black Knight. Probably with a little bit of software effects in there, but that is his voice.”

    Dave @ Early in episode — Establishes Steve Ritchie's direct involvement in the game beyond design, adding personality to the title

  • “These are level shifters. You go up to a level and then you're up at a different part of the play field. These aren't your classic ramp game.”

    Dave @ Mid-introduction — Clarifies technical terminology and design classification that the community debates

  • “I think it's funny how segmented... Dave, go ahead and plunge the ball.”

    George @ During gameplay — Marks the transition into live gameplay testing, a signature segment of the podcast

  • “That's from all those video games. Defender, and what's the other one there?”

    Dave @ During gameplay discussion — Identifies the iconic Robotron/Defender sound reuse, linking arcade and pinball design lineage

  • “You don't have to be quick to it. You can kind of let it, even if you space it, you can kind of bring it back. And you can be... Rescue it?”

    Dave and George @ Strategy discussion — Explains the nuanced MagnaSave mechanic and introduces the concept of 'MagnaSave economy'

  • “What are you going to do, bleed on me? I'm invincible!”

    George @ Lore discussion — References the Monty Python Black Knight scene, showing how pop culture context shapes the game's themes

  • “This is definitely if you want to own a solid state game from you know 80ish time frame this is a great game to own”

    George @ Post-gameplay assessment — Endorsement of the game's collectability and quality as a representative of the era

  • “Most games, for a week of play, the coin box would be almost full with quarters.”

    George @ Operator economics discussion — Illustrates the commercial viability of Black Knight in arcade venues during the 1980s

Entities

Steve RitchiepersonLarry DeMarpersonTony RamunipersonJohn KotlerichpersonBlack KnightgameWilliamscompanyBallycompany

Signals

  • ?

    historical_signal: Black Knight represents the first multi-level pinball machine with upper playfield and establishes design precedent for level shifters vs. ramps

    high · Dave explains the technical distinction between level shifters and ramp games, positioning Black Knight as foundational design innovation

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Steve Ritchie introduced jeweled inserts for the first time on a pinball game in Black Knight

    medium · George mentions this as a factoid at episode end: 'Steve Ritchie insisted on doing jeweled inserts for the first time on a game'

  • ?

    design_innovation: MagnaSave flippers introduced in Black Knight with dual-button control and timing-based hold mechanics, differing from other games like Addams Family

    high · Extensive discussion of MagnaSave mechanics, how they differ from pulse-based systems, and the concept of 'MagnaSave economy'

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Dave recently restored a mint condition Black Knight example with LED conversion for inserts and GI, retaining stock back glass and playfield

    high · Dave states 'I owned this game for four months' and describes cleaning lenses, LED installation, and upcoming transfer to new owner

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Early Black Knight production included physical cutouts for rebound switches behind drop targets that were never populated; later production removed cutouts entirely

    medium · Dave explains early/late production differences and speculates on software/gameplay reasons for design change

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.171

0:00
Oh Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George and today I'm joined by my co-host Dave. Hello Dave. Hello George.
0:50
Today again we're down in Dave's basement. Down in the basement. Yeah. With another Steve Ritchie game, Williams' Black Knight. Long time no see, Dave. Seems like just yesterday. Oh wait, I think it was yesterday.
1:10
Dave, can you please start us off today with some background on Williams' Black Knight. Alright, Black Knight, another Steve Ritchie game as you said. 1980, right at the end of 1980, November is when it came out. But an interesting factoid from Black Knight is Steve Ritchie's voice is the voice that you hear in Black Knight. Probably with a little bit of software effects in there, but that is his voice. Larry DeMar did the software. Tony Ramuni did the art. And John Kotlerich did sound, but not the speech. He did the other sounds and so forth.
1:45
This is one of the four split-level games that Williams made at the time. Yeah, but you don't call them split level games Well, no, they're split level You call them level shifters These are level shifters, yes These aren't your classic ramp game You corrected me in one of our other episodes Other people say, no, no, that's a ramp game It's got a ramp No, an official ramp game has to go up a ramp And feed the flipper These are level shifters You go up to a level And then you're up at a different part of the play field So, like Flash Gordon And some other games Vector Vector. Yeah, but you just don't want them to be called ramp games. Right, because they aren't ramp games. They're level shifters. So you spoke of Tony Ramuni. He does two games artwork that I like, one that I own, Embryon and Electra from Bally. Yes, Bally. Bally in the Valley. Yes.

high confidence · Dave states 'I owned this game for four months' and describes recent cosmetic and gameplay work

  • “I put a lot of quarters in this game. And it was 50 cents back in the day, so.”

    Dave @ Personal history — Establishes the game's cultural presence and accessibility for recreational players

  • “That game was perfect. I mean, I thought it was a brand new game because I had been out of the pinball game for, you know, a number of years.”

    George @ Operator testimonial — Confirms the machine's reliability and maintenance quality in commercial venue settings

    • Gottlieb
    company
    Georgeperson
    Daveperson
    Monty Pythoncontent
    Defendergame
    Robotrongame
    Funhousegame
    High Speedgame
    Nitro Ground Shakergame
    John's Arcadecontent
    Louis Sr.person
    Louis Jr.person
    Vinny Bobadperson
  • ?

    operational_signal: Bell mechanisms in Black Knight often unhooked by arcade operators due to perceived annoyance; alternative to knocker

    high · Dave notes 'when I take them in, mysteriously, they've unhooked the bell' and George confirms this at episode end

  • ?

    community_signal: Interest in Black Knight restoration and preservation evident; machine represents canonical solid-state era title for collectors

    high · Dave's recent restoration work, George's endorsement as must-own era representative, discussion of cosmetic and gameplay condition

  • $

    market_signal: Black Knight demonstrated strong commercial viability in 1980s arcades, generating full coin boxes weekly and maintaining operator loyalty

    high · George recalls coin box being 'almost full with quarters' weekly; machine remained in his bar for extended period; Louis Sr. maintained it perfectly

  • ?

    content_signal: The Classic Pinball Podcast format includes live gameplay segments with unedited play, allowing listeners to experience game mechanics and sounds firsthand

    high · Extended gameplay section with in-game commentary and reactions; hosts play 1-2 full games rather than editing highlights

    • 2:42
    And don't forget the Alien Poker. He did some wacky artwork there. uh not a game i'm familiar with unfortunately i have that game too that'll be coming up at some point um what else did they do he did uh hmm not a lot of faves here eight ball champ did a decent job with that um but otherwise right it's pretty pretty slim pick let's uh let's focus on first steve richie this is the second steve richie game we've done yes our last one two episodes ago high speed well received people like it unfortunately not so much for nitro ground shaker no poor nitro ground shaker we we knew you well but uh i know people just are on to other more colorful things right now right and we kind of got wounded by the fact that there was a big pinball machine announcement recently we might talk about it a little bit later um let's talk about larry demar for a minute because he and steve richie did two games together and you own the other game yeah can you guess funhouse ah yes funhouse yes larry also worked on the adams family twilight zone and world cup soccer so he's got a a pretty decent pedigree if you look at his body of work and bonsai run okay another great uh brown groundbreaking game that's uh what a what a heavy bastard that thing is to move so so let's talk a little bit about steve Richie, and I don't have... Bite down, Steve. We're trying to talk here. Speaking of, he did a game, I guess, in the same time frame as the... No, actually, no, later. Roller Games, one of your favorites. But he also did a lot of Stern games. That's one of my favorites? Yeah.
    4:52
    That corporate-sponsored whatever that thing is? Anyway, Roller Games. but he's done a lot of Stern games, which I didn't really realize.
    5:03
    Star Trek, Star Wars, ACDC, Game of Thrones, Spider-Man, and Terminator 2. I understand why he has such a big following. And again, this is not my ballywick, my games of choice, so I'm learning as we go. It's pretty amazing. I mean, a lot of big-selling games. I also remember one of the first games we did from Steve Ritchie was his first game with Superman. we did a while back. That's his game too. I forgot about that and thank you for mentioning that. Actually, yes, you know what? It's in my notes. It's episode 18. There you go. So you can go back and listen to our first Steve Ritchie game. Anything else that you want to talk about regarding the game? I got some other things if you don't. It's a really neat three ball, multi-ball game.
    5:55
    It has some interesting things that they were going to incorporate into the game like other games do. Behind the drop targets, typically, you have a rebound switch behind there where they give you 10 points or 50 points or maybe 100 points, typically, on any of these games. Bally, Stern, Gottlieb, whatever.
    6:15
    And Williams. But on this one, there's cutouts for those switches behind the drop targets. Looks like there's a space for it. Some early production because they made 15,000 of these. So some, I think, later or early productions, I forget, maybe early productions had the cutout. Later productions just had, like, an artwork cutout for it that they were going to put a rebound switch there, but they never did for whatever reason. Maybe they ran out of switch spots or parts on the MPU. I don't know. But they didn't do it. And it's strange because when you get the drop targets down... Well, actually, no, I think I know why they did it. I think maybe because on this particular game, I'm thinking from the software standpoint and gameplay. On this game, there's time drop targets, so it's a hurry-up thing. So once you get one target down, the little blue jewel round insert starts flashing quicker, quickly, quickly, quickly, and the sound kind of goes with it, too, to hurry up. And if you don't get the rest of the drop targets down in time, they reset, and you've got to go again. when you get each bank of drop targets down, it corresponds to light up the MagnaSave on the left side or the right side. It qualifies that. So maybe that's why, because they know that typically you wouldn't have all those drop targets down to even hit the rebound, because the rebound would never get hit because drop targets come right back up. So that's probably why, now I'm thinking why they never put the rebound in there. I have a question.
    7:39
    You kind of jumped ahead a little bit, but that's okay. with the targets does it matter which target bank you knock down first in order to get a magna save in other words is the top target on the right does that target bank correspond to the magna save on the right or the left on the right so the target bank on the upper left corresponds to the MagnaSave on the left. Right. Correct, not right. That is correct, yes. So then the other two target banks at the bottom of the play field, same thing. Left side, left MagnaSave, one in the center, I'm guessing, goes to the right MagnaSave. Would that be correct? That is correct. And also each three bank, all you need is one of the three banks to get down to make the MagnaSave light. You don't have to get both left side banks to make it light, just one or the other. Can we kind of go back in time for a second and go back to the sounds for a minute?
    8:42
    I'm not an arcade player, i.e. video player, but the sounds in this game... That's his laugh. That's definitely his laugh. We'll get that closer the next time. Some of the sounds in this game are from video games, Robotron and Defender. Did you know that? It sounds about right because the sounds are the same. Well, it ties back to Larry DeMar, I guess, who worked on those games. So I'm kind of rehashing probably information people already know, but there's a lineage in this game to people who later went on to other things. Basically, that sound from Defender and Robotron, you'll hear it. I think it's when you get a bank of drop targets down, it makes that sound, that kind of vibrating electronic sound, and that's what the, you know, familiar with the Robotron Defender.
    9:39
    Fight against me, the Black Knight. The displays, they look very familiar. Are they close to what Bally was making back in the day? the uh the display itself is it high voltage i guess oh yeah no it's plasma no they okay all the games use plasma except for gottlieb use futuba displays which is like low more of a low voltage display i think it's like 60 volts these use like 190 volts or so because these look very similar to the games that i own very similar oh it's the same display itself the glass is the same you can swap it over to a belly but but the mount for it is different so it has to be mounted to a Williams or mounted to a Bally. Yeah. Okay.
    10:26
    Anything else that you want to... Sure. This game also has no knocker. They decided to put a bell in the game, which some people refer to as the annoying bell, like a school bell going off. And I find lots of these games, when I take them in, mysteriously, they've unhooked the bell because... You mean like a regular school bell? Yeah. Like a five or six, seven, eight inch bell of some sort? Mm-hmm. single ding no no no a whole bunch of ding like a like a vibrating ding okay no i didn't know that either so will we hear that in this game oh yeah especially on a another cool thing with this game you'll hear it on a two-player game at the end of the two-player game the highest score gets to play a bonus ball for i believe it's 30 seconds i think it's software adjustable but i haven't gone through the software all the way and that brings up another question that i had i watched a video and it wasn't our neighbor this time because our neighbor's video had no sound so i couldn't really why no sound i don't know it must be an old one or so i watched this other gay guy uh i'll give him a shout john's arcade oh yeah yeah he's out western mass oh you know who that is yeah oh okay well he did a good job i mean it was only like a three or four minute segment but he talked about how the game operates. So the first question I have is, you were talking about the timed drop targets. You knock one of the target banks of three down, you have a timed amount to hit the other two targets. Can you set that timing sequence? No. So that's a fix? Fixed. Okay. Okay. I mean, it's generous enough from what I could see. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, That's generous. And the other thing, when you go down the left flipper in lane, it lights some mystery quick shots. There's a lot of timing in this. You've got a lot of hurry-ups in this game. So it lights the middle ramp or the middle level shifter ramp, whatever you want to call it, for mystery shot. And going up there, it'll score mystery for you. But you have to get in a certain amount of time to hit the shot. So it's going to be precise in your shooting skill. I believe it's the same thing too when you go down the right in flipper in lane it lights the spinner shot it does and it goes the other way as well for is there some kind of rollover or switch on the right hand Steve's laughing at us again is there a I can't see the the level shift is there a switch on the top of that this one yeah no nope that's just uh it's a free ride this little little slide over there okay now i'm perplexed because on the video the way i understood it because of the flow if it comes down that right ramp or level shift and hits the right flipper you would then as you said to collect hit the left ramp or shift where the spinner is to collect the points it likes that but i was under the impression that if it came down onto the left flipper you could do something similar on the right hand side of the play field but that doesn't be that seemed to be the case so yeah there's nothing over here in this right ramp again i must have misunderstood so if there isn't anything else we should probably as we always do play a game and see how well or poor we do. We usually do not edit this and play 19 games. We play one or two games and the way it falls is the way it falls. And one other thing too this game has just like in Fathom it has double and triple scoring So if you do a two multi double scoring while two balls are out in play Three multi while three balls are out in play triple scoring So if you were to explain this game to someone who never played it before and were to give them a tip or two, what would you tell them that they want to do most of? I would basically try to keep the ball up the top play field and keep shooting those locks. So the locks are lit right away. Just keep shooting around, all around the horn there, getting it to lock. And then you definitely would like to get, while you're up there, get those left and right draw targets down to qualify your Magna Save. And the Magna Save is kind of neat because you can actually, you don't have to be too hot on the trigger for Magna Save. You can actually let it sort of go out the out lane, and it'll suck it back into the play field. You don't have to be quick to it. Yeah, you don't have to be quick to it. You can kind of let it, even if you space it, you can. You can kind of let it. You can kind of bring it back. And you can be, what's the word? Rescue it? Yeah, I know, but you want to be economical with it. Like you don't want to just blow your MagnaSafe away for no reason. You can kind of be a little late on the factor in, I don't know, MagnaSafe economy. And that's cool, too, that you have the extra button for the MagnaSafe on each side of the cabinet. The other games, I think Pharaoh, I think, and maybe some of the other ones there, Jungle Lord, one of the other ones. I know that this game here, once you hit Magnus Save, it's locked on and you've got to wait for the ball to settle down and it'll drop down. It's timed, I don't know how many seconds. Right, I've noticed that. The other games, you can just touch the Magnus Save button and almost like another flipper, it'll just turn the magnet on for a second. It'll suck the ball out and throw it around. So it's not as pronounced. Not as pronounced, but it's like an Addams Family. When those things turn off and on, when the power's on in the middle, it kind of throws the ball around. It's like pulsing. The same thing, you're pulsing it and you can just like... So you can be with the economy there that way, you know, economize your magnus save kind of thing. And you can just use it here and there. You don't have to use it all up at once. Or you can hold the ball, hold it down and let it sit there and do what you want to do with it. Interesting. It's funny that you said that as the number one tip because when I was doing some homework on this game and everybody's heard it a million times, this was in the bar I owned and did very well. As soon as you said, keep the ball in the upper play field, it brought back memories of, oh, the ball's now down below. I got to get the ball back up top because it gives you a lot more time in the game. And that right upper flipper shot to lock the ball in the upper left, that is the shot. The right flipper to shoot it in a little corner there? Yes. Yeah, I like around the horn. I like taking a left flip and going around the scoop there, going around the back of the drop target.
    17:07
    I will play you my enemy. Go for it. Okay, let's hit this thing. I will play you. I think it's funny how segmented Dave, go ahead and plunge the ball.
    17:33
    That's a horse galloping. See that? So you don't think that sound is the video sound? Might be, but once I get a bank down, you'll see the sound. It's from, like, Defender and all the other games. So Dave has just knocked down the center target and activated the right Magna-Save. And he's back up top again. And he has no balls locked as of yet. Two balls locked. Oh, no he does. Two balls. Okay, missed the first one. Round the horn, maybe. Not enough. Uh-oh. Someone call a tech. Uh-oh. Stuck ball. This is the maiden voyage of this game.
    18:24
    And I committed the first foul. You did. I'm a choker. You didn't use it. Oh, a multiplier for you. Oh, that's a good backhand shot off the right ramp there. Very nice.
    18:36
    Spin it. No. No, you get more multipliers. Second run. There we go. He's downstairs again. Trying to make the spinner shot. Didn't make it. No bang to say his lid off. out she goes $39,000 $19,000 both doing wonderful George come on there we go ok Dave has got it on the upper flipper and he's got nothing he just locked the ball so why does it do that you locked one yet one comes out why doesn't it go back down because I got all the balls in there right now so it has to re-qualify Oh, so it saves the balls from... Yeah, well, I got them before, but it had to re-qualify. Now, do I get to take advantage of that as well? No, you've got to work on your own.
    19:26
    Oh. So the machine's smart enough to know that. Oh, yeah, it's smart. Oh, no MagnaSafe for me. Out she goes. We're doing... We're brilliant at this, aren't we? We're doing crapola. Okay, now... I'm not fast enough with that flipper. I'm lame. No, it's downstairs again for George.
    19:46
    downstairs. He's trying to go for some drop target action. Nope. They did not make it in time. Oh, she goes again. Oh, man. Wow. Not very good, dude.
    19:58
    I'm going to want a rematch, I have a feeling. I think so. Oh, I made it around the horn. Sweet. There we go. That's the sound. So that's from one of those video games? Yes, that's from all those video games. Defender, and what's the other one there? Whatever that one is. Robotron. Yeah, I don't know either one of those. I used to play those back in the day. Get the spinner shot. I'm too old.
    20:24
    Night save. Oh, there you go. Oh, yeah, that takes a long... Look how long that... Oh, wow. Can you see the spinner's lit now? And the mystery's lit? I can go to mystery. I missed the mystery. Where's the mystery? That middle ramp. Get the spinner shot.
    20:41
    Lock the ball. Ball one locks. Oh, you piece of crap. I was doing pretty well there. Better, but not great. I have a chance.
    20:54
    Okay, let's see if I can be fast enough. Wow. God, I'm horrible. There you go. Oh, mystery. You got the mystery. You got 75,000 points for that shot. Very nice.
    21:07
    All right, downstairs again. Downstairs. One drop target down. Pulse and roll. There you go. Oh yes, he's got the Magnus save qualified on the right. Mystery score again, 78,000 points. Oh, another qualified. Both Magnus saves are qualified. And he got a... I'm gonna help George with that one here. A little assistance to George. There you go. Okay. I like that you can... Oh, come on!
    21:40
    George beat me, look at that. Oh, now you're going to get a bonus ball. Wait for it. That's an annoying bell. The school bell. School's on. So is that the idiot bell? Yeah. Hey, dummy. Hey, dummy, you got a ball in your shooter lane? Yeah, exactly. Like, pay attention. Don't leave the game yet. You have 30 seconds to play. Oh, and then you get multiball, too. You get three-ball multiball. I don't know what you're doing. For 30 seconds. Why didn't you do that? So in the arcade, right now you'd be trying to get high scores to get a free game. And you'd have like 30 seconds to do so.
    22:15
    But you only have one time scoring. So that's what that was. Free game. He's got four seconds, five seconds left. Ball is falling. It's live on board. Now it's going to, there you go. Oh, come on. And the game goes dead.
    22:34
    That wasn't bad for a first time. Now you're going to match. That's your free game right there for matching 20. Go ahead, show us how it's done. Ding. We'll do round two. Round two.
    22:51
    How many, uh... Do you know how many different phrases there are in this game? Uh... I don't know. I've never encountered them.
    23:03
    One ball locked. So while you're playing, I'll distract you. All right. How long have you owned this game?
    23:11
    I owned this game for four months. Oh, so this is new. New, yep. Oh, I don't remember you. You probably did tell us. This is a customer's game that I recently did work on. He bought it. I think he bought it brand new. It was basically a home-use only game. It's gorgeous. And then I just took it to the next level when I had it recently. and now it's going to be off to its new owner very soon.
    23:41
    So he should be liking this. I'm going to playtest a bunch more in this game to work on any bugs that I find. I already found a couple little bugs I've got to fix on it, but they're minor. Well, I don't have to tell everybody, but I will anyway, that it's another beautiful game and Dave has done a nice job with the cosmetics so far. got to do a couple of things with gameplay but he was rushing it so we could do this today and it brings back a lot of memories for me this is definitely if you want to own a solid state game from you know 80ish time frame this is a great game to own oh that's pretty good too look at that flashing lights wow I don't remember that Dave's got multiball going Wow, go Dave, go!
    24:38
    That's good. Yeah, he's doing real well. Keep going. Cradle in one, magna save on the other. Yeah, that magna save takes quite a... Oh, look at that, a double magna save. And I think you just got the multiplier, maybe? I don't know what you got going, but you got crap going here. Magnus saves lit again. Oh, back in that. Didn't work out too well.
    25:08
    Oh, okay. Oh, now it's going in. I like the insane sound. It gets you all pumped up. Oh, this has one that keeps increasing in pace. Increasing in pace, yep.
    25:22
    Oh, extra ball lit. You know, I always thought it was like a baseball sound. It's saying, that's when you get the extra ball lit now. Oh, that's what you thought it was? I thought it sounded like somebody tuning in the radio. I always thought it was like listening to a baseball game, and it's like the crowd whistling. I don't think there was a lot of baseball back in the day of the Black Knight. No, probably not.
    25:46
    Dave's got a good ball going here. I don't know what a good score is, but you seem to have it going. Oh, I got it just in time It was too strong Not bad, I'll take that for ball one About half a million Half a million on ball one Take that, Georgie Come get me Okay Here we go, let's see if I can do this Nope, I suck at that shot You gotta leave that flipper up when you, when you, there you go, nice, nice finish shot. Not the easiest shot in the world to get. Very nice. There you go. And I locked the ball. There we go. You got the upper targets down. There you go. Now you keep it upstairs like you're supposed to.
    26:39
    And down the finish shot it goes. Downstairs again. Mystery shot lit. You got two on multi-ball. You got the lower scoop for two on multi-ball now.
    26:50
    Two enemies. There you go. Oh, wrong flipper. Wrong flipper, dummy. Left and right. Oh, off the shot. Just finish that again he gets. And out she goes. Didn't break a hundred. Not great, but a little better improvement. Not great, but not poor. My extra ball shot is still lit, if I can get that. Almost got it that time. So what would you consider a good shot? I think it's a good shot. Almost got it that time.
    27:21
    So what would you consider, not that you've owned this game for a long period of time and or played it, what do you think is a good score on this game? A couple million? A couple million, I think. Yeah.
    27:34
    Oh, you're on your way. I just blew a magnus save for no reason. I think your customer is going to like this game.
    27:48
    I'll wait till I alright you can a little bit oh no let's see I'm getting mesmerized oh Dave's got the mag to save it's very pretty colors I cleaned all the lenses I did put incandescent for all the inserts and for GI I gave it warm retro LEDs it's sharp it's a sharp looking game so it looks nice it looks kind of stock back glass is real nice too back glass is mint everything's mint on this game cabinets mint, playfields mint, back glass. It's a real nice example of a black knight Okay so that the multiplier right That two yep so I get two enemies so two ball multi now Oh there a free game I think Dude that is That get your attention Dude, that school's out.
    28:37
    Oh, that's a free game. That's fight me again. All right, we'll take that. We'll take that, Mr. Black Knight.
    28:47
    Ugh. Boy, that... See, I was almost out. I sucked it back in. to that Magna Save. That's pretty good with the Magna Save.
    28:57
    I got the mystery score. Yeah, Dave, rockin' it. Keep going, man. Okay, locked another ball. I'm heading towards a million points here, I think. No, you're doing well.
    29:12
    Obviously, you've got a little bit of experience with this game. The experience is from back in the day. Not anything recently. It's like riding a bike. that's over 30 years ago for me.
    29:27
    Ooh, multi-ball again. Three-ball multi-ball. So, I want to talk about the, I guess, lore of Black Knight.
    29:37
    What is it, what do you think, oh, I'm going to let you score here. Go ahead. What do you think of when you think of Black Knight?
    29:46
    Hmm, what do I think of? Kind of bad guy, Kind of like a white knight's a good guy and a black knight's a bad guy.
    29:56
    Right, so like an outlaw or gangster type. Gangster type or, you know. Right, somebody who's not doing good. A ne'er-do-well. Right, okay.
    30:08
    That would be my definition as well, but that's not the first thing I think of. And again, I might be showing my age. Okay. Oh, here we go. Did you ever watch the Monty Python movie with the Black Knight in it? What are you going to do, bleed on me?
    30:27
    I can't remember all the lines, but that was the first thing I thought of. I'm like, this is funny. You have no limbs, what are you going to do, bleed on me? You have no limbs, what are you going to do?
    30:39
    Come back, challenge me, come back. I will insert that, or some line from there. Yes, that'd be great.
    30:49
    But that's kind of what I think of when I think of Black Knight. What are you going to do, bleed on me? I'm invincible! You're a loony. Obviously, again, you know, games that didn't have, you know, property themes. Yeah, they had a lot more freedom back then because they didn't have to do any kind of copyright thing. King Arthur and the Round Table, it doesn't go to that extent. but, you know, it's like medieval madness. Here's that bonus count.
    31:26
    Wow, look at you, 1.3 million. Very good, Dave. And we're only on ball, too, so I really suck. Yeah, you've got to really step up your game. Yeah, well.
    31:40
    Ooh, down the spinner goes. Our listeners are pretty well aware of my game, Oh, this is George's chance. Okay, here's my chance to... Can I ask you to turn that down a little? Yeah, sure.
    31:54
    I'm just wondering... I'm wondering how much of our voice is coming across. Because we yell. All right, here we go. Okay, now we won't yell.
    32:04
    Okay, so can I do this with... So I have almost 1.4 mil. George has 78,000 going into ball two. He's upstairs, takes a shot at the lock, did not make the lock, trying to make the drop targets before the timeout, he's downstairs now. Probably going for the spin shot maybe, yes he is, spin shot back upstairs. And he's got a little bit of a run here. Going in there George, there we go. And he's blocked a ball. Ball comes out of there, gonna try to lock another ball I think. It's so funny playing this game, man. It's like, I haven't played it in 30 years. But, well, I put a lot of quarters in this game. And it was 50 cents back in the day, so. And you also took a lot of quarters on this game when you were collecting. Well, unfortunately, I didn't get to open the machine. That was the op. Oh. The op. Okay. Yeah, the op. Vinny. What was his name? Vinny? Vinny. Vinny Bobad. Louis Bag of Donuts? No, it was Lou. It was Lou. Louis Bag of Donuts. It was Louis Sr. and Louis Jr. Ah, yes. I met Louis Sr. once, and he scared the bejesus out of me. I bet he did.
    33:19
    Louis Jr. was a young kid, and I'll never forget. He came by in, what's that? Did they have a concrete company? No.
    33:32
    He had that high-end Porsche. You know, the four-passenger one. 928? Was that it? It was more of a family sedan than a sports car. A risky business? Not that one.
    33:47
    I'm not a Porsche guy, but whatever. He was only like in his early 20s, and he's driving around in a $60,000 car back at that time. I was like, wow, arcade business must be good. Back then. Oh, that's 1987, 1988? Most games, for a week of play, the coin box would be almost full with quarters. And I don't know how many quarters are in a coin box when you fill it up. I will say one good thing about Louis. They fixed the machines and they kept them running well. And this game, again, I said the bar was open in 1987. And this was the pinball machine that stayed for a long, long time. That game was perfect. I mean, I thought it was a brand new game because I had been out of the pinball game for, you know, a number of years. College and a little bit when I first got married. But after that, I really didn't keep up with, you know, going to arcades and whatever else. So it was pretty, you know, I was none the wiser, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. But he did a nice job. I didn't do very well. I'm going to get this bonus ball here. Okay, so David cleaned my clock.
    35:01
    School's in. School's in session. Shut up, everybody. Oh, no, no. I'll have to say that.
    35:07
    Shut up, everybody. Nice. Nice, George. Isn't that what happened in the homeroom? The homeroom teacher would go, okay, settle down, class. Class.
    35:21
    Wow. What are you doing? I don't know. I must be getting something. I don't know what I'm doing. What, an earache? An earache, yeah, from the bell. Hence why the bell is not hooked up. Is there a reason why you're twitching? Bringing back bad memories from high school?
    35:39
    Very good, David. Will you challenge the Black Knight again? I will not challenge the Black Knight again. I really suck bad.
    35:54
    Williams aren't your thing. I put a lot of quarters in and you would never know it. It looks like I played for the first time. You know what? They could re-theme this game into Small Wonder, that wonderful show from the 80s. I have no idea what that is. Oh, well, bring that up. Put that as a sound clip in this. You'll see. Small Wonder. Yeah, it's pretty bad, George. As bad as Thunderbirds? I'd say it's worse everybody likes that show they just don't like the pinball Small Wonder is a little robot girl that's horrible acting really just you just cringe as a factoid Steve Ritchie insisted on doing jeweled inserts for the first time on a game this is the game he did the jeweled inserts instead of like a flat colored plastic for inserts where the insert lighting is and feature lights and so forth. He made them all like jewel, like they're faceted. And this was the year they did that. See the little faceted? Yeah, oh, look at that. Even the round ones and all of them. So how unobtainium are those?
    37:06
    I don't know. They're round still, and I think they started using them again. Actually, they use them a lot now, but a different kind of them, more like ribbed underneath instead of a jewel insert. So I don't know. That's why I haven't really tried to source them. So I'm not sure on that one if they're around or not. So for those who don't know, which would be me, do they make a lot of replacement parts for this game? Did they reproduce plastics, back glass, play field? Yes. Yep. Black Knight back glass, yes, they did a nice job. Planetary pinball, nice mirroring back glass they did. They did it? Direct? Yep, they did a nice one, did the original Justice. CPR, I believe, did the play field for this and the plastics a while back. I don't think they're still available. I think there are a handful. They're out there, I'm sure. How about the caps, bumper cap? No, I don't think so. Those are tough. So a lot of these Williams games, the high speeds you can't really get and the black night you really can't get, not that I know of. So a lot of people are taking like a color printer or whatever and getting a clear plastic or whatever and putting it on that and slapping it onto a red bumper cap and calling it done. And it works okay.
    38:24
    But I don't know. Well, if you're in a pinch, I mean, you can't reproduce everything. Here's something that caught my ear when he talked about it, and I don't think he was referring to it the correct way.
    38:38
    John was saying that he thought these cabinets were silkscreened. Now, I guess my question would be, how would you do that?
    38:54
    So was he interchanging silkscreen for... I don't think they were silkscreened. I don't know. I'm just saying. That would make no sense. I mean, unless he has other info. How would you put the cat... Well, back in the day, these were on their side on a conveyor belt, and you'd have people with a big brass plate, throw it down, one color, off to the next guy, plate, next color. I understand that. That's why I'm just wondering. It looks really nice. It would be a lot more time-intensive project to do it that way.
    39:31
    I think he kind of misspoke. I think he misspoke on what it was. He used it interchangeably, I guess. Yeah, because versus the today stuff with the stickers, it's a different product today on a modern cabinet. It's more of a sticker situation. No, I understand. Yeah. Versus back in the day, it's... Right, when it was two, three, maybe four colors, most of these cabinets don't go much beyond that. Yeah.
    39:57
    No, the process is totally different. We've talked about it in other shows. And you can tell in this game, it has overspray, like you would find if you throw down copper. No, it's not an exact line. It's feathered. I understand. And if it was silk screen, you'd have nice sharp lines and everything, and it's not. It's a beautiful, I'm looking at the cabinet, and the cabinet is gorgeous. Oh, it's gorgeous. I mean, it's only three color, but it's sharp looking. This is the best black knight I've seen, and I've worked on a couple of them, and this thing is, customers will be pretty happy when he gets it. See, I have no reference point because I thought about this on the way down here. All right, well, typically the magna saves, the big green circles, those are usually worn to crap and worn down to the wood because the ball just sits there and goes around and just kind of wears the cap off. So if you have a dirty play field and a ball that hasn't been replaced, it's like razor blades on it. Razor blades. So those are worn to cap. Choose it all up. The bonus ladder, that's all usually worn to wood. The top's worn to wood. So this is like a really nice survivor that had low plays. Well, it plays to the fact that they were played a lot. Mm-hmm. Oh, oh, I see. Running away. You yellow bastards. Come back here and take what's coming to you! I'll bite your legs off!
    41:35
    Thank you. We have, you know, Guns N' Roses, Jersey Jack hit out of the park with that, and you wonder, okay, if you're a manufacturer like Stern, okay, oh boy, what are we going to do? We have to punch back, and we hit it with our A-game, and maybe with the Retooler A game to go to meet that expectation of what Guns N Roses is Well if you go back in time Williams put out this Black Knight when everything else didn even compare to it It had three ball multi it had a two level game it had speech of course, had a lot of firsts in it. And so when they put this out in November of 1980, all that Bally, Bally was a big competitor to them, all they had to put out, they followed up with Frontier the same month in November and Xenon. Xenon, I think, was its top competitor to Black Knight because it had speech. I think one of Bally's first games was speech. And it had a ramp. It had a ramp with a two-shot. No, now you call it a ramp. That's not a level shifter. That's actually a ramp. I understand.
    43:19
    I know you are. It's sort of an in-between level shifter and ramp game. But people, you know, there was no second play field to go to on Xenon. So, Bally's really answer to Black Knight was, okay, we have Xenon. And that was their thing. And they even had Suzanne, and whatever, whatever, that one, working on the synthesizer and so forth on that. So they put a lot of time and effort into that, and they used the Xenon figure, of course, was that same bald-headed girl from the same, from Star Trek, with the V'ger. They're competitive, I would say that, because I own a Xenon. Yeah. Obviously, we did a show on it not too long ago. Right. But I never gave it much thought. that somebody comes out with a game, now the competitor's time to answer it. It has to, because you've got to figure, they're selling these games. Back in the day, they weren't selling it to us, to collectors. They were selling to distributors and to locations. And they always had this magazine called Coin Meter, or I think it's called Play Meter, or Coin something, I think it's Play Meter. And it's all about, they put advertisements for the games would be inside there. It's like, this is going to be a real good quarter maker for you. It's going to bring all the quarters in. This is the latest thing. And, you know, they pump it up. So Black Knight, I'm sure they did that with that. And so Xenon had to, or Bally had to say, well, what are we going to do to say, hey, we're going to get quarters in our game, too. And here's why you don't need Black Knight. You need a Xenon or a Frontier. I don't think Frontier was as big a seller. I think Xenon would be the one to compete because Frontier had no speech. Well, a science fiction type of game versus an outdoorsy theme. With annoying cricket sound.
    45:20
    Well, I happen to like the game but we differ in that. I had two minty ones in those games and I had to get rid of them pretty quick because it's just like, great game to visit not a great game to own. Frontier. I think it's a cool game, but I want to tell a little story. Sure.
    45:35
    About you. Okay. The release of Guns N' Roses, Dave and I spoke, I don't know, a day or two later, and he said, can I ask you a question? I go, go ahead. What do you think about buying a Guns N' Roses? I said, excuse me? he goes well what do you think about buying a guns and roses i said you and he said yes i was flabbergasted to say the least but i agreed i said wait it's going to be out there for a while you missed the ce that's a whole story and go listen to the 19 other podcasts that i listened to but the long and short of it is dave was interested in that audience tells me a lot about the game if dave is looking to buy one at some point in time that says a whole lot about that game but i also wanted to ask you and i don't know if you paid close enough attention to this did you look at the plunger shot and how that works and did it remind you of any game i did not look at the plunger shot so tell me so the plunger shot from what i understand has four or five uh light bezels and there's a sensor and an rgb light in each one of those cutouts and i think they're four or five as you run over them you collect you know the skill shot and i think it if i saw it correctly i think like one time it might be just the first one the next time it might be all four and whatever combination thereof does it remind you of any game sort of i looked at it and i said wow that's kind of like that's kind of like twilight zone okay i'm not real familiar with that i said medusa oh that's true the gorgons yep you know you have to time the shot so i don't really know oh yeah yeah that's true but everybody's complaining out of the whole game because it's just this they didn't have enough real estate on the top of the machine they only wanted to use the bottom third for the skill shot so it's kind of compact and it's kind of been glossed over a little bit okay but i just thought it was it's interesting i mean if there's a sensor in that that's pretty cool yeah it is However that works. Yep. So you'll find out. I'm sure you're going to see a lot of these at some point in time. All right. I can't wait to try one. Well, that brings up a whole other thing, and we'll end with this.
    48:20
    Again, I was having thoughts in my head coming down here. Our first show, June of 19, was fantastic, and it's still our most listened to show. but it kind of got me back into playing new games because i hadn't been to allentown and or because of other commitments fantastic so it had been five years could be even longer than that that i had been to a show i just kind of burned out on it and stopped going and this kind of got me back into it doing the podcast and whatever think about all the games and i went back in january to a show. But think about all the games that have come out that we haven't played yet. Haven't played Turtles.
    49:09
    Haven't played Avengers. Haven't played the new Guns and Roses. I played Stranger Things. Haven't played Rick and Morty. Right, I played Stranger Things as well. Right, I don't like that. No, no, no. And now when you compare people are going to have a tough time with that one. Is there a whole bunch of TraderThings on sale right now. Are people trying to unload those?
    49:34
    I see a lot more activity of games being sold, and I think people are raising money to buy this game. But that's just my perception. Would you say they own newer Sterns that they're unloading, they're trying to? No, it's across the board. I think if you have something that's got value or something that you're mildly interested still in your collection, it's up for sale because you're trying to aggregate enough money to buy one of these things. Because the LE is what? Nine? nine five that's i mean yeah that's a big number man so i've seen some monsters is just taking a beating and i'm a monsters fan from but i i wouldn't own the game but those things are starting to go for like four grand wow right yeah people are it's not the mayor you do the comparison i get it i know this isn't our audience right and this has been hashed out over every other but we have to i guess at least comment a little bit about it well i think the commentary basically because it reflects back from back in the day when george and i were in the arcades and you had bally and stern going head to head and gottlieb and and williams but pretty much it was bally and williams going head to head all the time they were the two and what they would do this guy this company would put out this this company would put out this an answer to it they always were fighting for the quarter fighting for real estate fighting for the space to put out in a mom and pop pizza shop or whatever and so translate that to fast forward to today same kind of thing except now they're vying for the collector market pretty much and what do people want who's going to you know how many units are they going to sell to the collector market and what kind of doodads they got and the audience for the newer games is you know typically lots of flashlights doodads deep rule set something that's not going to get boring too quick and that kind of thing. And so if you can do that, you're going to sell a lot, and the other games aren't going to sell as much, and they're going to be, you know. So that's what the... I'm not smart enough for the newer games. I want to go up, be almost mindless, tell me the top three things I need to do, and I'll learn as I go. This is why I've always said that the old school games, like the ones we collect mostly, is a short story. You can get in there, get out of there before work, get a quick game in and go. It's ringing in my head since you said it on our show. And I start playing a game, but I tend to play, because I'm not so great a player as we demonstrated yet again today, I get to play a lot of games. So I find that more valuable than trying to get deeper and remembering, oh, do I have to start this mode? How many other five things do I have to do? It's like, I just want to do some mindless entertainment. I think enough during the day. I just want to, like, you know, turn the brain off. But that doesn't mean I don't want to play it. Oh, I'll play it. I'll put money in them. But it's just like I don't want a novel all the time. Because I just, I can just see, you know, trying to get a quick game of, say, Lord of the Rings or something. And it's like, there ain't no real quick game unless you're not a good player. That would be big. Okay. So, but otherwise, you're going to sit there and learn this whole, you know, story. And it's like, oh, well, the dinner bell's calling. Well, I can't leave the game now. Can you heat dinner up again later in about an hour when I'm done? You know, so not really, I'll play the stuff, but not really totally my cup of tea. I think I'm more relatable to this Guns N' Roses game because it's a concert experience. You can kind of relate to the albums and the singles and the songs. It kind of makes more sense where some of these games, I look at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That's after my time, so I have, there's no connection there. Here's another thing, too. And that's okay. It's probably a fun game to play, but it's just, there's no connection. At least with GNR, you have good music playing in the background, and you get the whole depth of their whole catalog of stuff, which is great. But again, with an old-school game, you can put on whatever music you want, and it blends in nicely with whatever sounds, chimes, whatever coming out of the old-school game because they blend together. It's not a Chinese opera. If you play a modern game with its own music, you're stuck with it because you can't play your own music along with it because it clashes. It's not going to work out. So you've got to turn your own stereo off and turn the game. Guns and Roses is the new jukebox. It's a jukebox. It even has, what? 21 songs. And it has a nice, powerful amplifier inside, I heard, and powerful speakers. It has a little power. And the topper has a sound bar in it that supposedly increases the sound 50% or 60% on top of the regular sound system. So, I get it. I mean, if I'm a Guns N' Roses fan, and I'm going to just leave it at this. If I'm a Guns N' Roses fan, this is opening up a market that they never had before.
    54:16
    If you weren't a pinball player and you saw that game and you were a super Guns N' Roses fan, you're cobbling every last nickel together because now you've got a game that's the concert experience. It's got all the music that you like in it.
    54:29
    And it's your favorite band. I get it. And they're going to use their illusion, too. Oh, boy. god stop stop stop I can't even get close enough to shut this thing off you're done Night Black Defender Challenge the will you I again play cannot self-enemy run Night Black Defenders challenge thee, will you? I, again, play, cannot, self-enemy, one.
    55:31
    Oh, you know, when you've got it. But you don't know where from It hurts to talk And I can't even breathe I need drugs Something that I choose from I don't know Should I go to the doctor Or stay right here And watch the two Like a fool I feel down Down to the bone You guys make garbage sound good.