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Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Ep 2: License To Shill

Triple Drain Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 18m·analyzed·Jun 10, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Triple Drain Ep2: Mando code review, Pin Clash prep, and pinball achievement systems.

Summary

Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Episode 2 features hosts Joel, Tom, and Travis discussing recent pinball news with guest Zach Manny. The episode covers The Mandalorian pinball machine's code design by Dwight Sullivan, tournament preparation for Pin Clash, and pinball game mechanics like Half Shell Challenge. The hosts debate game strategy, design philosophy, and online achievement systems for pinball.

Key Claims

  • The Mandalorian pinball's code by Dwight Sullivan is 'probably Dwight's best straight out of box'

    medium confidence · Travis speaking on show gameplay analysis; opinion based on stream observation

  • The Mandalorian has three multiballs that can be burned through quickly via center ramp abuse

    high confidence · Dwight Sullivan confirmed in Flippin' Out stream chat that there are only three multiballs and no way to relight them

  • The Pro model of The Mandalorian has superior ball flow and nudging mechanics compared to Premium/LE models

    medium confidence · Multiple hosts observed gameplay differences: wire forms with habit trails on Pro, movable upper playfield on Premium/LE

  • Pin Clash tournament is happening 'this Saturday' (June 12th)

    high confidence · Confirmed in conversation; Carl D'Angelo's Discord announcement mentioned

  • Travis deliberately avoided a bye in Pin Clash qualifying to face easier opponents early

    high confidence · Travis directly states his sandbagging strategy to 'just want to play as soon as possible'

  • Scoring bug was found during stream where ball reached 1.2 billion instead of 86 million points

    high confidence · Jack (Jack Danger) streaming gameplay; Dwight Sullivan confirmed the bug in chat

  • The Mandalorian mini playfield includes accuracy tracking during encounters

    medium confidence · Hosts observed accuracy metric displayed after encounters during stream gameplay

Notable Quotes

  • “I feel like with everything put together that the layout might be the weakest part of this pin. And that doesn't mean that the layout's bad. It just means that Dwight's done an excellent job with other parts.”

    Travis @ mid-episode — Key critique of Mando's design balance; acknowledges strengths in code and visuals over playfield layout

  • “There's only three multiples. So he basically was saying, sure, if you want to abuse it, you can burn through your three multiples, but that's it.”

    Joel @ mid-episode — Relaying Dwight Sullivan's design intention; addresses multiball balance concerns

  • “I think you're just going to repeat that process three times. Start a mission, start a multi-ball, stack an encounter on top of that, and then maybe get some multipliers going.”

    Zach Manny @ mid-episode — Describes emerging competitive strategy for The Mandalorian early meta

  • “I think the pro looks real good. I really like the nudge, you know, the fact that you have that post on that left side.”

    Zach Manny @ mid-episode — Advocates for Pro model design advantages over Premium/LE on playfield dynamics

  • “That would be a lot of fun if that type of award or trophy kind of thing was tracked. I think as long as they start doing achievements pretty soon, that's the one thing I hope shows up in pinball.”

    Tom (possibly Tom Graff) @ late-episode — Community wish-list for achievement systems in pinball, comparing to mobile gaming standards

  • “I purposely was trying to avoid a buy. My way of thinking was, is I just want to play as soon as possible.”

    Travis @ late-episode — Reveals strategic sandbagging in Pin Clash qualifying to face weaker opponents early

Entities

The Mandalorian (Stern Pinball)gameDwight SullivanpersonZach MannypersonJoel (Triple Drain host)personTom (Triple Drain host)personTravis (Triple Drain host)personPin ClasheventHalf Shell Challengegame

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Dwight Sullivan actively monitoring and engaging in Flippin' Out stream chat during The Mandalorian gameplay; responsive to player concerns about multiball balance and bugs

    high · Joel's catfish story: Dwight appeared in chat after title mismatch (Turtles); confirmed scoring bug in real-time

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Code quality of The Mandalorian receives strong praise from competitive players; called 'probably Dwight's best straight out of box'; everything has meaningful shot placement

    medium · Travis evaluation after stream analysis; multiple hosts concur on design cohesion

  • ?

    community_signal: Nick the Pensomniac launching new streaming challenge format: complete all high scores in a game (every character, multiball, song, wizard mode); demonstrates community innovation in gameplay challenges

    medium · Host mentions 'Nick the Pensomniac' starting new stream format; identifies completionist gameplay gap

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Travis intentionally sandbagged Pin Clash qualifying (23 flips vs. 12-16 flips achievable) to avoid bye and face lower-seed opponents early, hoping to catch elite players unprepared

    high · Travis direct statement: 'I purposely was trying to avoid a buy... I just want to play as soon as possible'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Emerging strategy for The Mandalorian: exploit center ramp multiball loop by stacking encounters and missions for maximum scoring before multiballs are exhausted

    medium · Travis and Zach Manny describe optimal play sequence: 'start a mission, start a multiball, stack an encounter, get multipliers'

Topics

The Mandalorian pinball machine design and codeprimaryPro vs Premium vs LE model differences and ball physicsprimaryPin Clash tournament preparation and strategyprimaryCompetitive pinball strategy and multiball abuse potentialprimaryAchievement systems and online connectivity in pinballsecondaryHalf Shell Challenge speedrun mechanicssecondaryPodcast branding and naming conventionssecondaryDwight Sullivan's design philosophy and light show integrationsecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.72)— Hosts are enthusiastic about The Mandalorian's code quality and design. Constructive criticism on playfield layout and multiball balancing. Excited about Pin Clash and Half Shell Challenge. Friendly banter and humor throughout. Some defensive reactions to competitive ranking but maintained collegial tone.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.234

the pinball network is online launching triple drain pinball podcast tom you hit the button yeah i think so oh good all right this is uh this is i don't even know how we start i think we're i think right now we've we've been debating we've had a lot of a lot of questions on the record, off the record, pinball podcast. It sounds great. And I know we all love it. We've, we've mixed reviews from, from people, but the, uh, the issue here with on the record is, uh, turns out NPR, NPR already has an on the record podcast. So we've been, we've been debating a lot of other podcast names and I think the one we, we almost settled on Joe Rogan experience, but that was also taken. Um, So I think the one we like right now is Triple Drain. So hello, this is Joel. This is Triple Drain Pinball Podcast. I'm here with Tom and Travis. Hello. What is up? That's a great intro. We crushed it. It's such a good intro. Crushed it. First minute. Done. It's just so unrehearsed. It's great. So what else do we have? We were really high on the Tom Graff Podcast. I know I really enjoyed that one. I also like Joel Travis and that other guy. Joel Travis and the other guy. That was good. TMJ. We almost went with TMJ. A pinball. Marv and Joel. We almost did a pinball podcast, too, also. I voted for that. Another pinball podcast would have been a good one. You know, not just another, but just. Well, one of the things we figured out, though, like we know automatically we already know we're the number one show on TPN. Like we've established this, right? But we're not on yet. But when we're right, we're the number one off the record podcast. Right. But once we're on the record, it's triple drain. OK. And so since we know that already, that's why that's why the number one TPN overlord has decided to join the show. Right. I think he he kind of told us he had to. He's the gatekeeper. He had to be on the show. So here's the here's the here's the catchy marketing term. So we're triple drain, right? There's three of us, three balls, pinball, three balls. You play with three balls, not five. You play with three, but we have a fourth person on today. So what is he? He's the extra ball. Isn't that so clever? So we have an extra ball here, and it's the one, the only, the shill mongol. Isn't that what we said? Zach many. Oh, the shill mongol, the shill mogol. I'd say cut and redo it, but that's not happening. You guys don't edit here. Shill mogol. Bye, bye, bye. Come on. What's happening, Triple Drain? What's incredible is Zach has a soundboard. This is not edited. So Zach's bye-bye-bye is literally there at the push of a button. It's primed and ready there, Engelbert. Do you have Ian's kids bye-bye-bye on a button, too? I don't have Ian's child on that. I like that one. For that, it's almost. I try, guys. I try. What else do you got in there? You got the X? X. No, X not going to give it to you. But whenever Travis says something ignorant, and that's going to happen a couple times in the next hour, I'll give him a little bit of this. Wrong. Yeah, a little bit of that. Sorry, Travis. I am never wrong. Like all eight people that listen to me know this. Have you done that to Dennis ever? No, I'm very careful with Dennis Creasel. At any point, Dennis Creasel's hand is on the headset ready to rip it off. So I've got to proceed with caution with my little DM DM. If you threw, if Dennis went on a rant about something and you literally ended it with wrong, he would hang up. It would be over. This podcast is over. Not only would he hang up, he wouldn't talk to me for a week. Maybe longer. Wrong. And he would be very, very angry. You got anything else on that soundboard that you want to roll through? What do you want? I mean, come on. I've listed like three X and you don't got it. You know, Ian's a wonderful kid. Those are deeper cuts. I mean, if at any point I want to jump into something like, ladies and gentlemen, it's your favorite pinball podcast segment here on Triple Drain Pinball Podcast. I like the other name better. Okay, for real. So on the record, like it's sad how in our Facebook conversation back here, the majority of it is just talking about what do we call ourselves so um maybe that's what i was gonna say listeners feel free to write in and tell us but we don't have an email so somebody calls us the three stooges i swear to god i will now that you threw it out there if you have any suggestions feel free to email zach at flipping out pinball or just another pinball.com i just thought it was a good name because that's how i play pinball yeah triple drain boom i've got the perfect name I just don't know how to spell it. Let's see if I can. How do you spell this? Oh, man. I can't take that from you. That is the goat of you. Well, you guys got the doctorates. You tell me. How do we spell that? All right. Well, this is going exactly as I planned. you know five and a half minutes in not a single conversation at all about podcasting or about pinball so what happens when friends talk yeah yeah what happens so everybody that's listening you know thank you for sticking sticking in this far um this is what she said what she said please all day episode two and we're seeing it seems like he's blushing look at him yeah i'm the one idiot that has this camera on everybody else It's bandwidth. Episode one, Zach, you look at the numbers. Episode one, I mean, people listened, right? Have you seen the numbers? They're fantastic. These numbers are huge. They're good numbers. I'll take numbers. Numbers don't lie, right? Best off the record, on the record. Set in records. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. Episode two is really going to define. If we see a big drop, then we'll see. I honestly don't even know why in the hell you've had me on here because, frankly, I think the listeners can attest to this. I'm tired of hearing myself. So thanks for letting me join. Let's start with this then. And thanks for the new in-box pin, Zach. We really appreciate that. Oh, yeah. And Tom is my favorite. I'm sorry, guys. Well, we'll lead with this then, Zach. I was going to look at the notes that we have planned and that, that page is blank. So Zach, you've been on a lot of podcasts recently. Is there a topic that you want to talk about that you haven't yet? Well, it sounds like topic, but it sounds more like toppers. I like toppers. We can talk about toppers. We can talk about a sexy little co-hosts that you want to put in your pocket. We can talk about what else is in the news right now. We've got Mando's rolling out. We have. Mando's are wait. Mando's are actually rolling out. Okay. Mando's are rolling out. The pros. Yeah. Pros are rolling out. Should be this week to all your favorite locations and dealer showroom floors. Nice. So you should have one in your abode in a week. That's what I'm hearing. Here's hoping. Here is hoping. We can talk about Mando's. We can talk about Multimorphic's been teasing some stuff with Denisey. We've got American Pinball. They've had a big old discussion on Pinball News. Pinball Magazine, Pinball Podcast, about their upcoming two games. Hell Spooky, Charlie's teasing some stuff. You take your pick. Throw a dart, baby, and we'll jump in. Well, we'll just go with the low-hanging fruit. So, Mando, since the last time that we talked, the three of us, we were geeking out about all we had was the teaser video. Travis looked at every single pixel. He was calculating shots. It was all about layout. Examined. Examined fully. Carefully. yes analyzed and enhance enhance yeah so and but we had no idea on the code but we were guessing at the code based on what we saw on inserts so hey let's go through travis what were your thoughts you saw a better stream what were your initial thoughts of the code you know to be honest with you i think the code is probably dwight's best like straight out of box it looks like That's a strong take. That's strong. I mean, why is that? Well, everything seems to make sense on doing it. The only thing that I'm worried about, and when I say it makes sense, meaning that there's no shots on there in which it doesn't, where it seems like you don't need to be shooting at that. You know what I'm talking about? It feels like everything actually has meaning to it. The only thing that I'm worried about is whether or not that middle ramp shot is just going to be abused. Since that's the easy multiball, it seems like you just keep hitting it over and over and over again it'll spit up you know another multiball eventually that's my only worry but everything else like i really like the ambush i like the encounters although i kind of wish it was a little bit different with that upper play field but i mean overall i feel like the rule set and the assets they seem to be going well together i mean dwight he does great light shows and it looks like that sucker's ready to go it doesn't It looks like it's lacking. We call those Dwight shows, actually. Yeah. Trademark. Yeah, it doesn't seem like it's lacking in that department. And that's why I had mentioned on another video that I feel like with everything put together that the layout might be the weakest part of this pin. And that doesn't mean that the layout's bad. It just means that Dwight's done an excellent job with other parts and the assets that are actually there. I mean, the pin seems like it's really coming together nicely. Yeah, definitely. And I know from the initial reveal stream, we really only heard Carl Carl Weathers' voice. But now we're hearing a lot of other voices. So I think it's clear, like, assets, I think they got a lot. Or there's probably going to be a lot more added in there. So there's, yeah, there's a lot of good there. And I like what you're – it's an interesting question about the center ramp. And I was actually streaming for Flip N Out Pinball. You've got to be ready. Bye, bye, bye. Let's try it. You ready, Zach? So I was streaming on Flip N Out Pinball. Bye, bye, bye. I was streaming on that channel and I forgot to change the title of my stream and I was streaming Deadpool, but my title still said Turtles and Dwight Sullivan hops into chat and he goes, oh man, I was expecting Turtles. I felt so bad, but I actually mentioned where, you know, there was a good conversation with chat and I actually said, I said, one of the concerns is, is, is multiball going to be too easy? And he actually, his answer was so, it was so simple. it was something like there's only three multiples. So he basically was saying, sure, if you want to abuse it, you can burn through your three multiples, but that's it. So it doesn't sound like there's a, there's any way to relight them or, I mean, but we have, we have two tournament players on here. I don't know. Is that, do you think that'll just be the go-to strat then? Just play all three multiples. Okay. While I really want to talk about the strategy, I really want to lean into you catfishing Dwight. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you stream, there's a title to the stream, which I did, but then there's another blank that that's the notification that goes out, and I forgot to change that. So I roped him right on in. You know, turtles, yeah, and then no. The breadcrumbs that led Dwight in. You have a turtles, though, don't you? I have a turtles, yeah. And you didn't even bother moving the rig over the turtles for Dwight? Right then? No, well, I had actually streamed turtles the week before, which he showed up. I mean, Dwight's been the man. he's awesome okay but yeah so i i mean i've heard this from multiple competitive players this fear that if you can just loop that center shot maybe i can't travis that you probably could tom probably can zach i can okay i can tom you want to i don't know what do you think yeah i don't know i mean it's it's hard to say not ever playing the game but yeah i mean if you burn through your multi balls does that mean you're not going to have multiball later on and in an important spot you know so that would be my assumption i don't see any reason without knowing the scoring though i don't see any reason not to do that because you hit those boba fett targets that'll add on to your multipliers anyways oh yeah and so while you're in multiball you can just keep doing that over and over and over again so i mean i think the whole meta is going to be start an episode or start what they call it on here a mode mission mission okay perfect i was going to get there eventually thank you zach perfect that's why i'm here so you start a mission right and then you'll just start a multiball i think you're just going to repeat that process three times three times yeah and then during the multiball you're going to hit your multipliers you're going to get your shots i mean i think that's going to be the whole meta early on so you're thinking wizard mode in first game you unbox it that'd be pretty sweet i would love to do that video yeah and travis you said that you said you would love to set up a camera and film from unboxing to wizard mode like if you could do it in one night yeah that'd be pretty sweet but i don't think i can do it i think there might be maybe three people in the entire planet that could actually pull that off Keith Elwin. Yeah, he's one of them. Zach is the other. Zach many? Probably. Yeah, probably Zach. Yeah, I was thinking Escher, Carl. And I don't know. It would be. What do you think could do it? Ray or Elwin? They're so good. Those are highly competitive players. You should have got those four for pin skins there, Tom. I'm not saying you. Wow. That hurts. I got a call coming in here. Travis hog-tied me into getting into that. No, I'm just kidding. I got a call. Just a minute. I got a call coming in from – hello? Yeah. Oh, okay. Strong take. I'll let him know. That was Johannes Ostermeyer, and he said, fuck you. Yeah, so. There's a lot of good pinball players out there. Yeah, I'm not – I don't know why. Yeah, even just Tom and Travis. you guys are in a whole nother league of compared to one thing i said but that's fine one thing i saw from the stream that that concerned me about scoring was the mini play field i thought whenever the ball went up there there was a lot of scoring going on up there yeah and there was a there was a time where he because i think it happens in bonus but it was like zach or um jack ended up with it was like 1.2 billion it was either i think it was in bonus or was the end of that in encounter or something it was no he hit an action button i think and yeah he got a 1.2 but i think that's just a bug well they'll wipe that out somebody said that in the stream and uh once again the flipping out stream too delayed there you gotta have the button you gotta have the finger on the button um but uh somebody asked that question and he said yes that was a bug it should have been 86 million points like this should have been 86 billion but he saw that i mean just immediately that's still a lot of points white like listen he's like well he hit this he hit this he had flamethrower and he hit this and yeah 86 million is a substantial amount of points because i think initially people thought this was going to be a low scoring game right yeah doesn't seem like it it seems like it might easy like the initial shots you're not going to get much but you lay in the flamethrower and all these other things you there's potential to blow this up for sure whenever i mean honestly all that stuff can be tweaked though i mean yeah yeah that's true whenever i play a game like this especially to see these clusters down on the play field you've got three multi balls razor crash you've got your three encounters before your mini wizard mode sorry sorry do i wizard mode not many and then you've got your five missions I don't know if points wise because I don't follow those but for me whenever I'm plunging this ball I'm trying to prime that first multiball then I'm starting a mission start the multiball hope like hell I can then stack an encounter on top of that and then maybe get some multipliers going on Boba Fett to the right and then each ball I mean if there's three multi-balls I've got three standard balls so my goal is to open up one mode and one multiball each ball that's how I'm progressing on this game i mean i think it makes sense i i mean i think it makes sense don't start a multiball unless you have an encounter going yeah i like to set goals like even as a non-competitive player i like to set goals to get through the rules and we know the only way to get to this is the way is to get through all of those multi balls all the missions and all the encounters joel yeah you know i just realized you're the worst player here in this chat right now i just realize that ouch i mean well okay overall yes when it comes to hitting the hermit target no all right you know what i realized you know what i realized just now fellas that prior to that last statement i made travis thought i was the worst pinball player in this chat but you explained it all out i think well yeah travis has watched me stream i don't have a defense dude joel you're like you're like my favorite streamer to watch it's easily yeah he's great yeah it's so much fun i mean if i watch tom tom's like oh i don't know but joel you're like happy go lucky and everything you're good to go i'm just enjoying it you know plus you downstairs and play some pinball well you talk trash too so i like that about you we got your trash talking skills it's it's on point nowadays well i just feel like i have i have one i have one thing that i can back up and i can't back it up anymore now that zeppelin's gone so we'll have to see but maybe there'll be what i can't wait for is uh there will be a moment at some point travis when you're going to need to hit the scoop on mando and you're going to try it from the right side i know i know but hey i watched jack stream like about five times in a row to figure out what was going on and he said clear his day it's an easy shot to hit the line is there all day the line is there for a forehand too yeah So I'm going to try. Yeah, but, Zach, you and I may take that shot. But Tom and Travis, they are patient and they are precise, and they will post and they will take the easy shot Oh no We do stupid stuff we always will definitely yeah trust me well if there something you do we do it was there anything that you guys seen during the pro game play that you thought was actually an advantage to that model over a premium le i know travis yeah the ball didn't fall off the wire forms the habit trails yeah that was the biggest thing i i noticed yeah i like the habit trails i actually like the uh the mini play field better than the movable upper play field i don't know it just felt like it had more flow like you didn't have to wait for it to go through all the song and dance of raising up i mean i it's just something that i'm just not into just seeing an upper play field move around i don't know like even when i saw it on jersey jack's pirates it wasn't really something that i was doing and over i mean i'm sure obviously you know it's a cool mech for a lot of people but for me i'm just like just give me the ball back or let me start doing whatever it is i'm going to do well it also looked like with the pro you there were a lot of times that uh i keep saying zach but jack would sneak the ball in and i don't know if that was purposeful or not but if you know if you have two balls going up the outer orbits or something they collide and all of a sudden it falls in there like i feel like you're actually capitalizing on a ball being in there and racking up points when that is true you weren't even needing to yeah it's more dynamic in that form and that's what i really like about it as well and i i really like the nudge you know the fact that you have that post on that left side like and you saw jack do that you know he'd nudge the machine to get that thing to bounce over while if you looked at the premium every single time they would just hold up the left flipper and the ball would just immediately like drop right into that left flipper like it was a perfectly safe entry to that mini play field every time and uh this one i feel like you actually do have to kind of nudge it at the right point to get it over to your right flipper to get it going so i'm i'm with you i think the pro um the pro looks real good um i think it looks really good so mr le that would be well the two le buyers on here that would be uh yeah tom let's let's what are your thoughts i mean are you i don't know which are you got that coming i still think the uh the mini playfield is going to be tough with it in a vertical position trying to aim at your targets and everything. And if it's moving at different times while you're flipping, I think that's going to be a difficult situation. But time will tell. Plus, didn't you guys see that when Jack was playing, there were designated targets to hit? And if you did not hit that, you get that Dwight show, that red saying, hey, you're playing turtles. You just jacked up that shot. So it's not like, hey, you just got to bang all six of them and let it exit. I think it's going to not only progressively get more difficult as the play field increases in slope. It's also going to get more difficult with reference to maybe roving targets rather than stationary static targets. There could be a lot up there that that there will be to do. Yeah. And every time you finished an encounter, it would tell you your score, but it also said accuracy. so it's like it's tracking so i'm really curious what that what i you know why why necessarily i don't know if that reflects with points or points yeah it's all related that would be i mean this is kind of a whole nother side tangent but we've talked about you know online connectivity and achievements or accomplishments you know that would be that would be an easy thing to be like well check it out i got through the first in corner with a hundred percent you know accuracy or something like those be those would be cool little competitions to have against your friends you know can you get through them with the best accuracy um i don't know that was i don't know if we'll ever get to that point with with online play or whatnot but that would be a lot of fun if that that type of award or trophy kind of thing was tracked i think as long as they start doing achievements pretty soon like that's the one thing i hope shows up in pinball because it would give you a reason to keep playing, you know, as opposed to just a wizard mode or a certain score, give you different things to do. I, you know, that's the one thing I feel like has really been missing from pinball that needs to catch up more than anything. I know everybody's thinking, comparing scores to each other through online, but to me, that's just, I don't know, that's something that doesn't interest me very much as compared to saying, well, I got to X amount of modes so many times or like you said i've achieved 100 accuracy on this like to me having your own profile across all of stern where you could upload it to all stern games and you do something like that that would be huge i think that would be huge for locations as well yeah it gives people oh go ahead why i kept playing peggle on my phone i got through the you all know what i'm talking about listener yeah that game is one of the coolest physics that game is awesome but uh you get through the the modes and the levels and that's fine but then you try to get those three stars in each level and that's that's akin to pretty much every addictive video game on the market right now you're not only trying to complete the journey of the campaign but you want to go back and get 100 on each of those levels yeah completionist kind of thing yeah that's what um I got to give a quick shout out to Nick, the Pensomniac. He's starting a new thing on his stream where he wants to basically complete a game. So it's get a high score in everything that's there. So like Deadpool, obviously every single character has a high score. And then every single multiball has a high score. So how do you get your initials on every single high score within a game? Led Zeppelin would be even more, you know, every single song, every single multiball, every single wizard mode. So how do you get that top high score for everything in a game? that's that's quite a challenge i think a lot of people just and i i gotta give you know props to stern because a lot of the modern games now have a ton of different like entries into the high score table which is pretty sick yeah completing stuff like that makes uh dennis creasel shiver he loves it oh man well zach speaking of like a side thing i know you i think i got you with half shell challenge huh oh man joel thank you you're welcome genuinely thank you yeah i have still yet to play it don't if you do it don't play it until well you're not practicing for pin Slash but i think you're i don't know if you're still focused on that or helping your son out or whatnot don't play it yeah i mean he dropped out because he realized i made it that's what it was yeah well we'll get to that but i will say tom i if you play you next friday addicted yeah you will be addicted to half shell challenge zach what's your best time right now you said you got below 100 i'm at 94 the the fun task for me was can i beat that sub 100 second threshold and i did it once yeah well now the the bar is set guys if you if either of you i think travis you said there's one on location near you but if you can play half shell challenge get below get below 100 but um but pin Slash we can roll into that pin Slash is coming up i know tom your son's in it and travis is in it i mean why are you saying it like that travis is in it you think i'm gonna lose no you think i'm gonna lose first round travis is knocked out in the first round travis what are you gonna do he had a tone i heard that i said tom's son is in it and travis is in it i think you're just defensive that's what i'm hearing yeah pretty yeah pretty salty right now i don't know why i like i was gonna root for travis little graph all day long you know ray day's in it though there's some good uh top row pinball i mean tpn is representing that's not travis yet but maybe we'll see well the rest of the there's a lot of tpn people in pin Slash i think technically he is this episode puts him in there you go boom i think that's look at joel's face joel's like crap what did i just do zach you gotta dangle the carrot i mean at this point he doesn't even he's not even trying right but i don't travis you practicing are you practicing for pin Slash um no i know i need to so i did like three weeks ago i got really into it and then all of a sudden other things happened like life you know just day by day kids and all that and then i didn't even realize that pin Slash was even coming up till like three days ago when i saw carl's discord update with everything i was like oh crap was it june 12th yeah it's this saturday oh wow yeah so two random things first off uh well wait tom it sounds like you had you were ready you're ready to go yeah i gotta i gotta tell you something about travis here with this pin Slash you know all during qualifying he was sending me photos he's like i did in 12 flips i did in 16 flips and i'm like what the hell why aren't you streaming this he's like no no i'll be fine he goes on streams it for a half hour and what did what did you put up for your flips uh 23 i think 23 you're like yeah i'm good yeah i well what a lot of people don't realize i purposely was trying to avoid a buy you're sandbagging well i wasn't sandbagging everybody's gonna be good joel except for tom because he dropped out, but yeah. So my way of thinking was, is I just want to play as soon as possible. And then if I make it through, then I can play somebody that's obviously going to most likely be world class and it's going to be their first match. Now, I don't know if that gives me an advantage. It probably doesn't, but at least maybe it can, I don't know, try to get me closer to where they're at. Because Escher would be my second round anyways, if I make it through my first round. my first round opponent is very difficult as well. So the odds of me getting to the second round, it's kind of just a coin flip anyways. But my line of thinking is, is maybe I can just catch Escher just like napping or sleeping, or I wish maybe he has summer school. I don't know. Maybe he has just like a ton of homework and he just stayed up late. I'm hoping for any advantage at this point. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I'm, I'm screwed. But aren't you worried a little because the first rounds though are quick. Like they're, they're, they're the easier tasks so the playing field is somewhat even like round three when it got last time when it got between like escher and raymond i mean like at that level it was these are tough tasks to accomplish so it's that's the thing i mean i feel like it it's a it's evens the playing field with the first round i mean anybody can not anybody but i think i don't know i that surprises me that you purposely wanted to avoid a buy because i i feel like these first rounds are dangerous it could be wrong what do i know well it's one of those things hey if i go out early i'll just crack open a beer and watch the rest of it so my two comments were one travis you said that the outlane posts you can put them wherever you want yeah i just now figured that out that excites me i'm gonna i had mine all the way up yeah or maybe i had mine midway up and i didn't have the rubbers on during qualifying so now i'm like we can put rubbers on and we can bring the outlaying post all the way down but what what's the lot why do you i mean is the the thought there that these games are going to be so fast that it doesn't matter i mean or is it why would why would that be allowed i don't know that might be maybe carl thinks we're all just so terrible that that's a way to make entertaining i don't know i don't know enough about the tasks but um are you able is it like an unlimited bowl drain yeah so well it's so there's no ball save but we get five balls per game and we're allowed to restart at any point so it's just all time-based it's basically one of those tournaments that you've talked about before zach that you would kind of like yeah i would just think to myself sometimes purposeful draining saves you more time than being out of control in the slings or whatnot yep yep well see it's it is interesting that you're pointing that out because i am actually actively debating whether or not to bring the outlanes all the way down for that purpose oh like i'm debating on not even putting rubbers on my outlanes because i'm used to playing without rubbers for the most part on that game well i mean at that point which would you prefer would you rather have would you rather be able to plunge a ball and get it in control or try to react to a ball that's potentially going to bounce weird off a rubber yeah and that's the thing because elwynn the way that he designed avengers that plunge typically goes to the right flipper if it gets all the way around. And so that's part of my line of thinking that I may actually open up my outlanes for that reason, that if it goes there, I don't want to have to worry about saving it or doing anything like that. I mean, I'm taking a chance by doing this, but it just means I have to be very accurate on ball one and ball two of any challenge. I mean, you're going to have to be anyways, because you need, I mean, there's no way I'm not going to win any of my rounds at all by not getting 50 points or above on any of my challenges which is basically it goes 60 55 50 so if i go below time right right so if i go below a it's like that across the board so if i go below 90 seconds on any one challenge i'm going to be against the wall yeah so i need that ball back to a flipper as fast as possible so i think it might be an actual advantage not to have your outlaying post all the way down and just have that ball just kind of going everywhere like you said see this is either really smart or you're playing the long con and you're hoping the other competitors are listening so my other random thought here is on the plunge how often out of the four people that are on here how often do you use the action button to plunge the ball because i'll tell you i do it all the time every time every time every time every time on avengers every time it's the only game i use the action button to plunge yep avengers yeah what about but what i'm saying like turtles zach you you physically plunge turtles yeah there's one you're gonna hold the left flipper and it's gonna go around like just slap the button what do you mean what are you serious if you hold the left flipper when you plunge on turtles it'll go past the diverter and it'll go straight to the upper flipper oh sorry you've got that pro oh wow that trap joel he's got a premium in the le joel uh it bypasses that on a ramp so you don't have to hold up to for that control gate it just flows right there for you it's pretty weak yeah and if i hit the button all the time i will say on the half shell challenge my 94 on a premium le is much more difficult than a pro all right dang i'm sensing we're gonna have our own pin Slash between joel and zach on after challenge bitches well bye bye bye yeah that leads me to my other question which is like zach like pin Slash is i mean this is like task-based competition this is what you have been preaching like why are you not all about pin Why did you not try to qualify for pin Slash? It's super simple because I'm not a good enough pinball player to win. So if you can't win, you don't even want to play. Yeah, what's the point? Right? I mean, I just – my mind doesn't work to understand the alternative there. I don't know. If I'm not going to be considered one of the best or fighting for what I think could be the best performance, then I need to get out of the way. Okay. You know, I used to think that way too until I started playing more in tournaments. And then what happened? Now I'm ranked in the top 100. See, there you go. I love Tom's delivery. Well, this is weird. No need to be embarrassed, Tom. One of the greatest in the world. Is this a trick question? No. What's your son rank, Tom? I'm not sure. I think he's top 200, somewhere in there. That's impressive. But Pin Slash, he ended up with better flips than you. Yes. The better graph won. Better graph won. And don't get me wrong, I love Pin Slash. I will watch probably all eight hours of it. I love it. I love the format. that last time the production was off the charts it's everything that i love uh pinball being represented by that's awesome it is an awesome event and and anybody that streams the technical aspect of what carl in that team are doing in the background is absurd absurd what they're doing getting all the different cameras remote cameras capturing that bringing it in transitioning unbelievable. I won a beautiful award last year for being their favorite streamer. I absolutely deserve, just even for that event. In my opinion, it should have won Best Live Event. I mean, I know Expo did, but that's awesome. I'm excited for Saturday. Travis, I will root for you. Oh, thank you. Unless you play somebody I would prefer to root for. I'll root for Travis, too. Hey, I just realized this. I just realized this when I was looking through the pin Slash stuff we're allowed to put like on the far left hand side whatever we want to put like on the stream like logos or whatever so I have the flipping out logo that's going to be on there I guess I can put the TPN logo on there now do I do that as long as flipping out's up there it's going to be on there hopefully I don't play like shit and I'll be in trouble yeah flip it out in tpn or i mean something tells me the rules might change from now to saturday are you serious you can put whatever insignia you want i'm pretty sure let me look at it here i'm i'm advertising the triple flip open well i was sitting here it's actually here wondering why or if pin Slash allowed player sponsorships yeah it's a player sponsorship it says your channel content can go here chat notifications anything anything so Joel 50 bucks I'll put up your podcast logo on there I'm offering it right now wow 500 people will be watching I need to start contacting some people I know Zach needs to I'm surprised Zach you haven't mailed out a shirt oh god I just opened up a can of worms I can rush order all of these things yeah wow you know how How many people would not take me up on that? Bye, bye, bye. I'm going to look like a race car driver with all my logos everywhere. Absolutely. Or you need to be like if anybody donates to you during chat you write their name on your face or something while you playing Really get it going Yeah I got a hot tub ready to go I going to put it on there well i excited top rope pinball he was in it last time and he had he had a different wrestler costume per round so i have no doubt he will he'll bring that to the table this time and then speaking of costume change i'm also really excited because jeff who does all the interviews he it looked like he went through his entire t-shirt collection last year because apparently he did different interviews on different days so every single time they did a player interview he was wearing a different shirt which is which is incredible so i'm looking forward to that but uh well cool well that's that's pin Slash what else we got man that's gonna be fun and i.e pinball hmm oh yeah pinball yeah yeah absolutely carl d'Python Anghelo's man you're welcome carl on saturday yeah um and carl please answer what are we doing with the outlane post I looked it up it says any position from the factory they're at the lowest position I would put them in the lowest position in the lowest you should just email Carl and say Carl what would you do Zach you got another do you ever have a topic that you put on tps and and dennis goes no we're not talking about that you know it's wild uh i people probably wouldn't even believe this but the full show preparation notes and everything like that is done by myself i unfortunately wait to last minute to get stuff done i'm a busy man and i will send them to dennis typically 10 to 30 minutes prior to us recording he reads through them and we do a pre-production meeting if he has any questions we discuss uh pre and then we discuss post if anything needs to be edited out but no he's he is a consummate professional he's he's always ready to go so he and i'll ask him do you want to add anything do you want me to stay away from anything just like i do any other guests that comes on but he and i work we work really well as a team uh which is hard to believe but he knows my triggers I know his, and then I know his to push them. He knows mine to stay away from them. Yeah. So no, we, no, not really. He's, he's fine. As long as I'm not singing that he's good. No, it sounds like that soundbite, man. You got to throw, I can't wait. We're going to get a TPS episode. That's about 20 minutes long. Cause you're going to throw the wrong, the Trump wrong. And after something he says, it's going to be over. Believe it or not, for a lot of people, this is airing prior to the pinball show dropping this week. But I'm going to give you a little teaser for those of you who haven't listened yet. First off, what are you doing? You're going to listen to this before my show? It's good. No, but he does end abruptly before we formally end this past episode. What? Yeah. I got him again. Oh, boy. I got him again. And it does involve singing. One of these days he's not going to come back, Zach. I don't know. He can't leave me. Zach, I do have to call you out. So your wife is We Are Friends on Facebook. And I think which one of your podcasts you got a hot tub. Congrats. But you said very clearly this is my hot tub. Dude, so many pictures of so many kids have been in your hot tub. So bullshit. it was you were like so adamant like no i will keep them out my wife this weekend alone i think there's been like 15 kids in your eyes 14 i shit you not 14 we had a birthday party and my wife she got on to me because she was like laughing and she was like zach you're you're acting like a jealous child because i was kind of just eyeing the kids because I knew what was going down uh in the a couple days prior to this birthday party hang in there audiences it's a decent story so uh I get this hot tub and I'm like oh my god we got electricians got to get out here so that we can wire this thing up and I can we get all that done and then it's not even up to the 104 that I enjoy 105 uh and the kids are like hey mom it's 90 can we get into the hot tub and so my ire starts and I start flaring up because I'm like, I get one gift. I get one gift, and you guys are going to get your little booger faces in there, and you're going to be kicking and splat. I don't want this. And she was like, thanks. You're kidding. Like, come on. Stop being an idiot. I was like, I'm just joking. It's fine. So they get in, and then the next day I get in, and it was really nice because I knew the next day following this birthday party, 14 kids, 14 of the little shitheads were all up in my hot tub. I seen them picking their nose. I seen them eating Doritos and shit. They had balls and balloons in there, and it's tainted. I want no – forever unclean. I want no part of this thing now. It's like a cesspool. I want nothing. So my wife, she just shook her head, and she was like, well, we will empty the hot tub. So that's what we did. Yesterday, we spent time draining the entire hot tub. I want this clean and disinfected. This will be clean before I touch my – yeah, that's what happened. that's such a not true story so does nobody use your above ground pool anymore i don't use that nasty i don't care about dude okay the hot tub was mine travis i got it you guys don't realize this but i got a picture with that pool in the background i was so proud of that picture you know i was not no no he doesn't know i took the picture i didn't even know that he doesn't know i just heard him say that on his podcast i was like this is hilarious been there done that you have been over and i'm i'm almost gonna sell my iron maiden that i got from you because because you said no he set up this game listener impossible this game is impossible to play it it angers me so much i hate it you could bring the training wheels back on it's fine iron maiden all the posts are all the way up all the rubbers are all the way off it feels it's so difficult it feels like it has a warped play field you can there it goes you know that though i just i didn't want andy rosa to think any less of me so i made my game as difficult as possible to play it's stupid difficult and i'm gonna get rid of it just because of it you play it as it lies you're getting rid of it because there's no topper when when the game comes out of the box i leave it i leave the post where they're right i leave everything give it back to me and then i'll put everything back on and i'll sell it back to you it's like my hot tub i know that you fucked with it i don't i know that you messed that's incredible you're draining your hot tub tom do you have a hot tub i do not no i know travis you're you're putting down bricks to get a hot tub aren't you no no no no that's for an above ground pool because there's why i shit you not We went up to Zach's. We were leaving there. In my wife's first words after we left. We need a pool. Yes, exactly. We need an above ground pool. So, yeah, we have the hookup for a hot tub and all that. When we built our house nearly a decade ago now, I got the 220 volt and everything for a hot tub. Never got put in. Ever. It just sits there. Wow. I don't even swim. I don't even swim. You're joining the above ground club? Yep. Wait, you don't know how to swim? No, I know how to swim. I just don't swim. Okay. But there was a time about three years ago I didn't know how to swim. Yes, that is correct. Zach, you sell pinball machines. You also sell arcade games. It sounds like you're also selling above ground pools. I mean, you need to get some commission on that. It may happen. I can tell you a little sneak peek that I do have an apparel collection that is being worked on right now as we speak. Is there an above ground pool t-shirt? May or may not be. Oh, that's great. Zach, if you had to take a bath using somebody else's bath water and you had to pick one person from TPN, who would you pick? Oh my gosh, what a question. I can let you think about it, you know. Okay. I will tell you Jordan, Jordan from Fliptronic, he takes a bath every day. He's a bath guy. Okay. So he lays in his own filth consistently. He will defend it. I haven't taken a bath since I was like in elementary school. I would feel creepy. Yeah. Don't you take a shower? Laying in a bath because the bathtubs aren't for it to hold water. It's probably not a large enclosed bathtub. So that'd be weird. They make different sized bathtubs. What are you going to cross your legs in there? Like how do you get all of yourself submerged? Listen to Joel over there. All high and mighty. He has a bathtub apparently he can lay down in. There's a jacuzzi tub in our house. I've taken a bath in it. Never, never. Because my wife, she thinks it's gross. She's like, why would I take a bath if I have to take a shower afterwards to wash off my own filth? So we've washed our dog in it. But it is big enough that I could fit in it. See, when we built, we got a big old jacuzzi tub. because the plan was, oh, we're out of our starter home. The wife was like, oh, we could take bath time together and all this and that, sexy time, and I'm like, okay, cool, yeah, whatever you want. We bought it. Yeah, that don't happen. We've got four kids. We don't have no time for that. It just sits there. I don't get it. It would have been better to have a bigger shower. Yeah, thank you. I think I've got my answer. I'm ready. My official answer is a tie, and I have justification as to why. It is either going to be George Fisher or it's going to be Mystery Pinball Theater's Manu. Manu. One of the two because I think that based on how clean and nice their stream overlays and streams are in general, one would assume they're that particular about their persons in a tub. So I'm going to go with one of those two. Either of them are listening to this. And they just heard their name pop up. I don't know how you'd feel. And you know what? Both of those individuals, I would happily let sit in my hot tub with me, and I would take a bath with them as well. I feel good about those two. Some of you bastards in TPN are dirty now. So you're saying it sounds like you need to make a list of how many people you'd allow in your hot tub versus how many people could be in it, but then you'd have to drain it. Not everybody can get in my hot tub now. Wait. yeah you're drain worthy drain worthy so and so could take a bath with me am i the only one that heard that yeah i'm good with that okay so who would be the one you wouldn't yeah who's the cousin eddie in the group um it's gotta be robert right gotta be yeah but not not for cleanliness reasons because he would drive me i would strangle him by the time we got done with shampoo Like that wouldn't work. He'd just be sitting across from you going, you can't see me. You can't see me. Jeez. He'd be throwing water in Zach's face. I think Jordan from Fliptronic and I would get into a fight at some point because we both love arguing with one another. I'm trying to think who would be the person out. I'll tell you right now, it's zero chance David Dennis is getting angry in your mouth. That guy is the worst. he is the worst doesn't give you a hard time i think the water swirls backwards in canada isn't that nah there's some good canadians out there david dennis is not one of them he's not one of them nah i thought about buying a silver ball swag shirt and crossing out his name and wearing it on stream just to see what he does i mean don't get me wrong i love picking on the guy and he picks on me back but if anybody wants to know david dennis is the worst i'm dying maybe uh maybe scoot he's a wild child i don't know if i want to be in a oh yeah mr scoot yeah he cracked i would be laughing too much i'd fart uh there'd be bubbles like it might be fun though it's we're 50 minutes in how many people do you think turn this off about 20 i bet we've gained we have gained at this point now what the hell else they're gonna listen to uh i don't know talk about news you know play field issues play field issues play field issues if you turned off by now you are wrong absolutely i mean come on oh man oh what else do we got what else can we talk about let's let's talk about play field issues okay all right tom you go you got all the le's go ahead you tell us tom yeah let's hear i want to hear you tom let's hear what's going on i i haven't seen any yet uh and in the few well then why did you want to talk about play field issues i've had them before hey tom calm down don't be so aggressive tom we're trying to get through this all right damn it i waited a year and a half for a fucking willy wonka play field but i finally got it oh did you do you have still yeah okay i still have it cool are you gonna do the play i do enjoy willy wonka you'll start i know a lot of people don't but i i do enjoy it what about um it's the best jjp game It really is. You just replaced your spinner, right, in Led Zeppelin? Yes. Oh, yeah. That little naked spinner of yours. No stickers, huh? No, I got the stickers on Friday. I haven't installed them yet because I've had a busy weekend. Did you really get them that quick? Yeah. Well, I haven't opened the package, but I'm assuming that's what it is. Yeah, well. Well. I've got to love Stern so much that you got the kit. I had them send you out a fix kit for that spinner. We had someone on the West Coast, Midwest. They received the same thing as you did, that spinner kit fix. They opened it up, looked at the instructions, okay, and then they looked back in the box. I shit you not, nothing else in there. Just the instructions. Oh, man. They sent the instructions. It's true. Did it say up your ass and to the left? Wow. it wasn't hard it wasn't hard all right sorry joel wants to be serious instructions were phenomenal uh sorry tom i'm laughing at you no that's okay i'm with you i'm with you now okay go ahead i'm good i'm gonna mute my mic go ahead tom i'm ready and okay you ready tom i'll say it again for the okay i'm ready let me let me mute my mic and go tom twippy awards are on the line here answer the question tom go the question tom was how hard was it to install your spinner kit i said it wasn't it wasn't hard at all great good answer all the 20 bucks for us now instructions were great stern did a phenomenal job except they forgot the decals which they now i think sent them to me nice can you guys make tech corner with tom a segment every week please yeah we should that wasn't too bad all right it was good thank you for uh thank you for that yeah well done tom appreciate you you do you do have to take the mac out to do it um you have to lift up the play field yes okay yes you have to take the glass off just talk us through this whole thing so far so good talking through i'm not explaining the whole procedure he said the instructions were good all right so it sounds but you're saying so tom you've bought a bunch again you you're saying play field wise you're all right but you had a mac issue there make sure they took care of you but i know travis At first, the spinner kept getting stuck basically parallel to the play field. So the ball would just roll underneath it. It wouldn't spin. So they suggested some adjustments to fix it, and then the spinner was just falling off. And I tried to fix that, and then it was still falling off. So yada, yada, yada. Sent me a new fix. Sounds like you have a great dealer, though. That's what I was about to say. You bought from what, Cointaker? Yes. No. Flippin' on pinball, man. Oh, he bought from Coingiver. Buy, buy, buy! Trademark. All rights reserved. No, that's good. I don't know. Playfield, I get it. I don't know. I mean, there's been some pretty nasty ones lately from Guns N' Roses owners, collector's editions. I mean, I feel for those people, man, because, you know, you get that stuff and you play it just a little bit. I expect wear and tear on a game, but, man, when you have it in the home environment and you put 100 plays on it and the artwork is ripping off the play field, I mean, come on. Yeah. I don't know. That should not happen. I mean I have a bunch of Bally Williams games and none of that shit ever happened Joel you hit a nerve here he's going now oh I know I mean I get it he's right I just I I mean I do printing for a living and I understand it's got to be something it sounds like the digital ink is adhering to the white really well but the white isn't adhering to the wood as well as it should And so when that clear is pulling that, it's pulling whatever bonds the weak is. So it's either the clear bonding to the digital print, the digital to the white, or the white to the wood. So the white wood's just not sticky enough, huh? Is that what you're saying there, Joe? I – yeah. White wood's not sticky. So I don't know. I mean, the reality is – so like Spooky, right? Spooky said they have yet to have to replace a single Rick and Morty play field which is great So they got it figured out Zach American have you run into this at all with any american play pinball playfields bader playfields again so somebody somebody got it figured out and is is the issue here that stern just makes so many games that they can't do whatever the magic sauce is to make a perfect play field or are they just using the wrong person i don't know if stern's doing them in-house or not or if they're contracting some of them out I don't – Stern's pretty hush-hush about that stuff. We know that Marco was doing it. But is Stern having a lot of issues with clear-code chipping lately? Lately? No, I don't think so. No, I didn't think so either. And when it comes to JJP, we've seen some of the horrific pictures, sure. Yeah. That's definitely – that's a problem. Now, some people are claiming that every machine is going to have issues. Here's my – how in the hell do they know that? How do we know that every machine is going to have issues? I think this is a topic that sure needs to be discussed, but it's a topic that gets kind of old because here's how it goes. If a playfield has an issue like chipping, you contact the person you bought the playfield from because that's not right that the playfield chips like that. What's the story? What's the story? That's I've been accused and I got in trouble because I was minimizing this. How is it minimization? Whenever I say, hey, when playfields chip, it's a problem that that is an issue. You should contact the person you bought it from to see how they can help. I don't know what else to say. You know, you got to wave your magic wand. Just make it right automatically. Yeah, but that's what's so I mean, a lot of people are saying, well, OK, JJP owners, right? Like, let us buy a new replacement play field. How do we know that that play field is any different? Is it worth it? Should they pursue it anyways? I don't know. I don't. I saw somebody post that they wanted to buy a new play field and Jersey Jack wouldn't sell that to them. Now, I don't know if that's true or not. So has Jersey Jack actually bought somebody's game back from them? Has that been confirmed that that's actually happened? I don't even know if that's a formal thing that they've said they've done. I don't know if that's a Ryan Policky in place either. I think the best way to fix this or best way to get some type of alleviation to this problem is to contact the distributor you bought it from. See what they can do to help because I know that flipping out pinball not to be a plug or anything. But we are here to help. So if somebody has an issue with their play field, damned if Nicole and I will not do everything that we can so that they get some compensation or they get some type of fix for it because that's our job as dealers. Now, if you purchase direct from the factories and these manufacturers sell direct, flipping out pinball can't help you. I don't know what other dealers are doing. All I can do is focus on me and making my customers continue to smile and play pinball. Yeah, that's a good point. I get it. You've talked about that on the other podcast. You are an advocate for – you're an in-between. You're an advocate. And I don't think that there's going to be a time where you can't buy these playfields. I've inquired about purchasing some GNR playfields, and I think I'm going to be able to purchase GNR playfields. Okay. So – Do you assume they're just not selling them right now because they need them for manufacturing? And that's how every manufacturer, Stern's going to be the same way. When people have to wait really long for like a replacement play field on some of the Stern stuff. Joel, you remember we had the TMNT issue. Yeah. It's not a fast thing. They're going to do. Six months. Yeah. Once we get closer to an end of the run, they've got some spares, you know, then they'll distribute those. And most people are okay with that. Zach, do you have anybody that when they buy a game brand new that they buy a play field as well? Like, is that an option? I've never had anybody do that, but I suppose that would be an option. But again, the availability of the play field may not be the same timing as the shipping in the machine. Yeah, makes sense. How long have you been a distributor now, Zach? Two and a half, right at two and a half years. Okay. Is this the first time where it's been just extremely difficult to get titles from manufacturers? Yes. It is probably the worst now since I've started. And even if I wasn't in this two and a half years ago or longer than that, I think you could venture to say that most distributors say that they've never seen this type of backlog and this type of log jam. And it's multifaceted why it's like that. But same thing with Mando. There's going to have to be some patience. Same thing with GNR. There's going to have to be some patience. It's part of pinball collecting nowadays. If you're liking the new shiny stuff like me, there is some patience that just goes into it. Unfortunately, there's no secret sauce that one dealer's got another dealer doesn't have. So I'm always honest with people because I know a production schedule. It's the same as every other dealer. So whenever people are like, well, this person said that they can get theirs. I'm like, they're not even running it then. So that person's just lying to you. I don't. So it's, it's a really stressful job, but it's very rewarding when people can see your honesty, they get a game that they really enjoy and they don't have to worry so much about what ifs, what happens if this, what if a ramp breaks, what if a, it's a game, it's a toy, it's a piece of art. And for the most part, everything is replaceable. It might be a pain in the ass to replace it, but everything can be, they're producing me. So everything can be replaced. that's a valid doesn't make you feel good yeah go play no i i get i i think it's tough i know i'm not a collector like i don't need persene every game that i've bought besides turtles was used like i just want to play a game and i understand when i get a used game it's weird it's like buying a used car you understand there's already door dings in it and you just play it or Somebody's had sex on it. Oh, yeah. Wow. That's why I don't buy used games. Everybody, 1-812-457-9711, Zach, Z-A-C-H, at flipletterinoutpinball.com. If you don't want to pick up a used game that could have been have sex on. Bye, bye, bye. Wow. I'm guessing Zach's enjoying the Iron Maiden about now, huh? You son of a bitch. first the pool sell the Iron Maiden oh man it's gotta get real weird if he doesn't sell it now I'm gonna go check Pinside and see if it's for sale now sold yeah well done Travis well done well guys we've been going at it a little over an hour I think if I look at our notes here I think we reviewed everything above ground pools We've got a little hot tub talk. We talked about Mando. Did you let Tom plug his upcoming tournament? No. If not, Tom, go for it. No. Plug away. Nobody lets me talk on this podcast. That's true. Mute yourself, Travis. Sorry. Sorry. Let me mute myself. And hey, Joel. Yeah. Joel, can we fire Tom and just get Zach full time? That's fine. We need three. We need three people. Okay. Am I still on the podcast? Is there going to be a vote at the end? Oh, shit. I'm still on the podcast. I'm voting for Tom because Tom's the reason I listen to this podcast. Yeah, Tom's the heart of this podcast. That's true. He brings the skill, the knowledge, the energy. He's got it all. That's true. Sorry, Tom. You were actually saying something. Well, thanks, Joel. You were actually talking about your tournament. Yeah, go for it. It's not my tournament. It's District 82 Pinball's tournament, but that's okay. Triple flip open June 18th and 19th, Friday, Saturday. Friday is a 10-strike progressive knockout. Saturday morning we're going to do classic target match play. 25 points, 3-2-1-0 scoring. And then on Saturday night is the double-up match play, which is seven rounds, two games in each round, so a total of 14 games. And then we're having 7-5-3-1 scoring. and that's all going to be on the Fox Cities Pinball streaming channel on the TPN network starting at Friday night about what is it 5-6 o'clock so follow us and we'll see you there man you sold that hard I know I should have had you do it no it's okay it's okay I think you did well maybe we need to get Zach to do it That could probably sell it a little bit better. Zach doesn't like tournaments. You should have invited Zach to play in this tournament, and he could play in his own tournament, so it guarantees victory. We need to have Zach up to announce on it. Oh, see, now you're talking. A little color commentary. I'm ready. Zach just buys the slot of a tournament and then doesn't go. Oh, come on. That was two years ago. Wait, what? Was it Pinberg? Pinberg. The last Pinburgh. Or was it the one before? It was the last Pinburgh. I dropped my mic on the last Pinburgh. I don't need this. Bought the ticket, though, yeah. I don't need this. Oh, boy. Now, what all players are going to be at your tournament, Tom? Well, there's going to be Escher and Leskov. It is his tournament. He's answering it. Oh, he knows. Yep, yep. All right, proceed, Tom. Sorry, I interrupted you again. I'm terrible at this. No, that's okay. five or six times it's okay last podcast so uh there's gonna be ash asher love cough uh luke nahorniak keith elwin Colin MacAlpine raymond davidson uh just to name a few there's a lot a lot more than that uh and i'm not going to mention travis is going to be an oh shoot well we got who else is going to be there tim sexton of course then there's excellent players Yeah, and then there's excellent players in Wisconsin with DeLuga. And I think Jordan, he's going to be there. Correct. Right. And then Cassidy, of course. Oh, yeah, Cassidy. And then Neil. Neil will be there. Neil, yeah. Yeah, I know that kid. And is there anybody else missing? Let's see. Tom, you're up. Oh, yeah, Tom's going to be there. There's 95 people signed up. Yeah. I'll bring it up and read everybody's name. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. We'll end the last 35 minutes. What about Monica's coming? Yep. Yep. Finally. Yeah. You don't mention her. I just ran into that. Yeah. She's going to be up there playing. She's only playing because she knows Elwynn's going to be there. Only reason. Yeah. Her favorite streamer. Yeah. Her favorite tournament player. Yep. Not you. It's great. No, it's sad. I'm reminded all the time. I did. Okay. I did accidentally get her really excited earlier tonight on the porch. I accidently, this is a children's program. I'm muting my headphones. So for a pin Slash, right? I saw that Carl had put up something on his discord. He's like, everybody get your spinners ready. Right. And he put a picture or Amazon link to some oil that's lube. Right. So we got, we got a package on the porch and I was like, oh, look the lube is here and monica's like oh wow you're actually thinking about us and i said yeah it's pinball lube and i opened it up and just the look on her face and i was like oh she was meaning that yeah whoops yeah that was embarrassing so well done not only four kids i've done my job you know four times exactly well i got twins so three times magically but yeah Well done. Well done. This podcast went exactly how I thought it would. And, yeah, for the three people that are still listening, which will be the three of us listening back to this just to make sure it sounds all right. Yeah, I enjoyed it. Zach, so we were talking, I mean, a three-ball game, obviously. There's three of us. We've talked about having guests on, and then we discussed whether or not, I don't know, would anybody ever be like a permanent? Probably not, because that would be a four-ball game. Who does that? but you know invited back i don't know so it's kind of a save it or drain it kind of situation i don't you know should we vote i don't i don't know guys i think that uh i think four works but you know what is a little bit better before we leave i think it's five five would almost i think would almost hit the hit the mark where am i where am i is this is this three balls tim saxton pinball podcast oh dr phil thank you for joining joel this ain't my first rodeo son you ever seen an armadillo pee on my moving car oh my goodness joel what did you just create i won't drain him drain him drain it i vote for dean and your bullshit this is an easy uh easy one oh don't don't don't go talking tommy graph and your broken spinner and your broken leg. Keep talking, Travis Monorail. How about this? Put your pants on. Get out of your above-ground pool. And stop flexing with your outlaying post strategies. No one cares. You know what? Screw you, Joe Harper, Dinkin', Tommy Graff, and Travis Monorail. Bullshit. Well, I think we're back down to three. Oh, yeah, yeah. That guy's the worst. Oh, man. Joel already established that David Dennis is the worst. David – yeah, yeah. Don't even jump around, guys. He thinks you've got a hard-on for him. No, David Dennis is – I don't even like talking about the guy. Anyways, so, yeah, I think we'll be looking for next time. Maybe we'll get another extra ball on here. Zach, I appreciate you, man. Thanks for hopping on. I'm never listening again, but thanks for the invite. Quick plugs. I'm Joel. I do Just Another Pinball podcast and Just Another Pinball stream. I stream Wednesday nights 10 to midnight, 10 a little later. I also stream for a flip-up every other week on Thursdays. Bye, bye, bye. There it is. Yeah. Perfect. That's me. Tom, you want to go ahead? No, I was going to have Zach. Because he's the guest. Oh, see, someone's courteous on this podcast. Okay. Well, crap. All right. Nice job. I thought we fired him, but okay. Go ahead. Thanks again for listening. Thanks again for all your support for TPN. You three are wonderful. I couldn't imagine a network without each and every one of you guys. So thank you so much. And you're ready to buy a brand-new pinball machine because, remember, do you want one off of Pennside Secondary that people have hats the X on? Buy, buy, buy! I don't think so. 812-457-9711. That's Zach, Z-A-C-H, at FlippinOutPinball.com. Or just go right on the website and hit buy now, FlippinOutPinball.com. And we've got some swag coming up here soon. I'm really excited about that. And if any of you sexy monsters that are playing in Pin Slash 2, return to the Slash. And you want to be sponsored by Flip N Out Pinball and earn some hot, hard, cold, cold cash. Buy, buy, buy! Then contact me, and we'll get you swagged out and money falling out of your pants so much. Thank you. Thank you, guys. And I'm serious. And I'm serious. Yeah. Travis, go ahead, man. We'll save Tom for last. I'm trying. I'm so trying. All right, Tom, mute your mic, please. Okay. Okay. Joel, can you tell? Is he muted? I think he's good. I can still hear you. Oh, that's true. I think it's good. That's true. Okay, okay, okay. And I'm Travis with Marv Loco on YouTube, and I also stream on Twitch under Marv, and I also host a pinball podcast. And I am proudly sponsored by Flip N Out Pinball. Bye, bye, bye! There you go. Perfect. And come check me out this weekend on Pin Slash, and hopefully I won't embarrass myself too much. Wrong. Oh, boy. And I am Tom Graff. I don't know what I do. That's the greatest. That's the best. That's the greatest. Damn, it's so good. Don't! Yeah, you're a man. Fox Cities Pinball Stream on Twitch and YouTube. Find us on Facebook and Instagram. You're such a fucking shill. Perfect. I know. I learned from the best. I think you did it, Travis. I think you've joined the club. Sweet. Sweet. The whole key is the Discord and I'll tell you right now the best channel on that Discord is Tom's Modeling I was going to hit the wrong button but it's so right Exactly what you think it is I look forward to seeing that Perfect Well listeners, thanks for sticking around if you're still here I think we're shooting what? Once a month? Is that the goal? Yeah, or every couple of weeks or every three weeks or whenever the hell we feel like it But yeah We're going to give Triple Drain a shot here And if there's any feedback, feel free to email me, justknowthepinball at gmail.com or email Zach at FlippinOutPinball. No, you're supposed to email Dennis. Or Dennis at Eccentric Gamers Podcast. Email Den Den. He'll love it. Eccentric Gamers. It's eclectic. I love it. No, it is eclectic. Eccentric is the competitor. Sounds like something I would say. Yeah, I love it. Whoops. Sorry, Dennis. All right. You guys don't even have an outro. You have no clue how to shut this damn thing down. We got nothing. I'm just going to hit Tom just hit the button
Jack Danger
person
Flippin' Out Pinballcompany
Carl D'Angeloperson
Triple Drain Pinball Podcastorganization
The Pinball Network (TPN)organization
Escherperson
Rayperson
Stern Pinballcompany
Nick the Pensomniacperson
Dennis Creaselperson
Johannes Ostermeyerperson
  • ?

    design_philosophy: Dwight Sullivan's design intentionally limits multiball count to three with no relighting mechanism, preventing infinite multiball exploitation; balances against rules complexity

    high · Dwight Sullivan direct statement in Flippin' Out stream chat: 'there's only three multiples'

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    event_signal: Pin Clash tournament happening June 12th with elite competitive players (Escher, Ray, Zach Manny, Tom's son); Half Shell Challenge used as qualifying task

    high · Confirmed multiple times in conversation; Carl D'Angelo Discord announcement referenced

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pro model demonstrates superior playfield mechanics and ball flow compared to Premium/LE: wire forms with habit trails, dynamic nudging, collision-based ball entry mechanics vs. safe Premium/LE flipper routes

    medium · Multiple hosts observed stream gameplay differences; Pro allows subtle nudging tactics, Premium/LE drops balls safely into left flipper

  • ?

    product_concern: Scoring bug found during gameplay stream: ball reached 1.2 billion instead of intended 86 million points; Dwight Sullivan confirmed as bug and indicated it will be fixed

    high · Jack Danger stream gameplay; Dwight Sullivan stream chat confirmation

  • ?

    technology_signal: Hosts discuss lack of achievement/accomplishment tracking systems in Stern pinball games; comparing unfavorably to mobile gaming standards (Peggle model); request for profile-based cross-game achievements

    medium · Extended discussion about missing online achievements; hosts identify completionist gameplay as retention driver