one in Sunday fun is the donster. Thanks for tuning in everybody. Been having some conversations in the chat in the warm-up. Hopefully you loved that dragon fix. Gets me every time. I love it. I've got an updated intro video. I don't even want to use it yet cuz like I I the dragon fix is so great, man. So great. Everyone's in chat. As you can see, I'm decked out in my Blaze Orange from the quick trip because deer season opened yesterday. I have not hunted any deers. I I hunt with my F-150 basically and so far I've been lucky to avoid them, but I must have been the only one. Loads of accents last night. Work was busy. I didn't even know I was going to do a live stream today, but I said, "Heck, man. I'mma do it." I got my homie Scott and Russ coming by. They're picking out my Black Knight Sword of Rage. That game that I picked up back before they reran them when they were hard as f to find. I managed to find one. My homie Danny out in Virginia Beach and his lovely wife hooked up a connection. I was able to get a game from the original build. Um, it had been routed though, so I'd been on the lookout for a pristine version of Black Knight Sword of Rage because I'm thinking of bolting that guy and my boy came through, Dan Donahghue. So, I'll be going down to Indiana to pick up a pristine Black Knight Sword Rage Pro. Scott's picking up this one for a homie and it's all good, man. Small little cash payment and I can upgrade to a machine with much lower plays. Super excited about that. What's up, everybody? Charles missed IPA this year. As did I. I was in Florida for 10 days with the Berries, with the Australian Contingent. We slammed through Universal Studios, three days. Hard Rock Hotel. We hit everything. Epic Universe. Had the greatest time. Did Donkey Kong Road Ministry of Magic twice. It was just like a mind-blowing day. We did seven days at Disney. It was amazing. Grand Fian, Riviera. Amazing trip. Amazing trip. But I had to come back and work and miss Ayappa. I had to miss Iappa. Happens sometimes. I'm going to miss a couple days of Expo next year. I'll be there Thursday and Friday, but Saturday I got I got something planned. So, I'm going to cut Expo a little short. But that beginning of Expo is the best time because crowds are the lowest they're going to be. You get to play the new games before they break. You have a chance on playing Blues Brothers before it's down for the whole weekend. Hard Rock Hotel is awesome, man. It's the closest one to the Studios Park. Normally we stay Royal Pacific, but this time we did Hard Rock. It was nice. It was cool, man. It's cool. It's a cool place. Portoino Bay. It looks nice, but it's a farther walk. Just saw Kimba's pics from your trip, dude. It was amazing. You get your hotel room for pinball at the beach or for expo? Yes, for expo. I did actually booked it for the whole time, but I'm going to have to give up my Saturday and Sunday nights because I'm not going to be there. Um, but yeah, Thursday, Friday we'll be there. So, I'll probably go down Wednesday, start hanging out. Uh, I'll do the Carrie Hardy thing where I get on the show floor early and fly a drone. I don't have a drone, but um, it was fun being there. That's when I got to play Winchester Mystery Castle. It's coming out soon. Super excited for that. Uh, I guess they're starting to train right now and build them, so it's not like a wait till January, which is cool. So, Winchesterers will be going out and then we'll see what's next, man. We'll see what's next. I had a thought of something that would have been perfect for them to do it. It's either perfect for them or perfect for American Pinball. We'll go ahead and float this idea. Let's see what you guys think. Giving up Saturday. Who's getting married? No, I got to go. I got a a leadership conference I'm going to because I got this new job with promotion. And so part of that deal, they got to fly me out and we we do some party and training in the Rockies, so it'll be fun, but it just happens to always be on the weekend of expo. They wanted me to go this last time, but like I was running the topper contest, man. I couldn't cut that short. So I'm obligated here next year. I start the new job tomorrow. Excited about that. My hometown of London, Ontario, most boring town ever, has a hard rock cafe. Cool. Cool. All right. So this may be just a rumor I'm manifesting, right? But we know American Pinball had a game essentially ready to go and then had some sort of licensing problem and whatever happened whatever. So I don't know unless they're being super secretive. I don't know that they have a design team right now cuz like Bowen's not there anymore. Uh Ryan Mcuade's not there anymore. Uh their programmer's not there anymore. He's down he's down at the pinball barn in Benton. So, they have a game that's designed, fun layout, cool mechanisms, they have a game that's designed, uh, but they're not going to release it for reasons. It would stand to reason then that you could rethe and then, you know, hire some programmers that maybe don't understand pinball necessarily, but they already have a template to work off of and just, you know, keep the modes essentially the same as far as like this mode you hit these shots and this mode you hit these shots. You battle this guy, you battle this guy, you battle this guy and all that business. And then it occurred to me, what theme could you drop into Cuphead, right? Which was a game where you're essentially just battling bosses. Like each mode is a different boss, right? And then there was like a cool little uh casino miniame in there. You can't use the dice. So, what other video gamey kind of property is out there that's still kind of hot? Um, it's got a nostalgia tinge and essentially it's like battling different character bosses and then it it occurred to me. It occurred to me. It occurred to me I think and Masters of Universe I think would work too. But what about what about Shovel Knight, right? Shovel Knight. Yach Club Games came out with this ode this love poem to uh 8bit action adventure Contra type games. Ducttales playability like old NES games refreshed a bit but kept that solid gameplay mechanic. And it's essentially each stage is is or each each world. It's kind of like Super Mario Brothers 3. Each world leads up to battling like a boss character. Um and they're all different types of knights. King knight, plague knight, spectre knight or whatever, like all these different knights. And so maybe you could replace the Cuphead boss battles with the Shovel freaking Knight bosses and then you know walking through Expo not knowing anybody better, you see a Shovel Knight game, you're going to go over to it and play it, man. Shovel Knight has a virtual pinball machine already. I'm not saying this is the killer theme that everybody wants. I'm not saying this is the theme that I want. This is just something I could see them doing. I could see them doing. Plus, Yach Club Games is kind of like a boutique video game company. They designed this. That's kind of like their love child. So, they would be able to provide all the assets, the music, the sound effects, the art. It's like it's already there. Similar to Cuphead. Metroid is coming out. I would love that. Um, yeah, like I would prefer Spongebob personally. Um, but would they do Shovel Knight? So, two things. Is the American Pinball game going to be a rethe Cuphead? Probably. would make sense to me unless they had another project like in parallel development this whole time with a secret team. But I think if you were to just go and like hire some freelance uh programmers, you know, let's say let's say you had a network or an in to I don't know a region like the Indian subcontinent just full of programmers looking for work and then you could put them to work. Hey, just just take this and just kind of swap everything over. keep the same gameplay mechanics the same, but just kind of go through and we'll make that. We'll see. We'll see. Uh we'll see if that happens. Uh is Shovel Knight. That's a kind of off-the-wall property. I would expect to see like barrels of fun drop on us. Like we weren't expecting it. We didn't ask for it, but here it is. And I think they did moderately okay with Labyrinth selling 900 of them or whatever. Dune missed a little bit. I I think it's the greatest Dune pinball machine ever made. Um, I just don't I it's hard to get excited about it. Winchester I got excited about. I knew the property. They dropped it on us. Brad Albbright did a great art package job. Um, I had a lot of buzz with Carl D'Angelo who people know he's like a known entity coming out and making a game. Is he the next Keith Elwin? So all that just kind of and 500 games perfect blew up. So, we'll see what happens, but I don't have any insight into it other than it wouldn't surprise me to see Cuphead becoming Shovel Knight. What if someone over there is like, "Curses, you figured it out." Shovel Knight, I'd rather see Goodies for Life. I I want I can't I heard somebody's got it. I heard somebody's got it, but it's never been confirmed who it was. I know Barrels has been hinting at it. I could see them having it. Um, I don't think it's something necessarily Stern would pick up. Maybe CGC will surprise us. I don't know. Mickey Mouse Castle of Illusion. It's a fun game. Um, I mean, I'd like to see more of like that era. Um, I know we've seen a lot of 80s nostalgia. It's worked, but I'd like to move into more of like early 90s now. We saw Foo Fighters work. Um, I'd like to see like, dude, Sonic. Can we talk about Sonic for a second? this game right from JJP with a video game license from the 90s. Everybody knows it. They're still making films. It's relevant. The game is all about speed and flow. And who they get to design this game, but the king of flow himself, Steve Richard, will be doing it. Sir Steve Richard, he's over at the uh the Dutch Pinball Open right now. Um, so like if this is like a killer flowing game where you're ripping spinners, remember Sonic was a game that at the end of every stage featured a spinner. Like you would run through a spinner to finish the game. That was the flag pole, right? Like for Mario, you ended the stage by running through a vertical spinner. Um, so yeah, like that's got to be part of it. So ripping spinners, ripping flow, going through loops, collecting rings, battling things, music. Now question, if it is Sonic, do they do movies, which would be a let down. Do they do game which would be awesome or do they do movie with game assets? Morning, Monica. You have to have like the gaming bits in there. You got to have the gaming bits in there. Got to have 16- bit stuff. Look how cool Deadpool was. Like it was aping like uh like Fatal Fury and Street Fighter 2 kind of sprite graphics. So, 16- bit sprite graphics with Sonic, fast, flowy, like faster than Elton John. I don't care. Put two Put two of those warp ramps and make it a four flipper game and we can hit the warp ramp from either side and put a loop there somewhere. What if that had like an incline loop? Uh like another Steve Richie game, Star Trek the Next Generation, where it launched into that incline loop. Um yeah, I mean there you go. Take take that launch from Star Wars. Uh take the layout from Star Trek. I mean Star Trek. Just rethe Star Trek with better shots, better flow, a couple more ramps, more spinners. Load the things with spinners. The guy did No Fear, man. That ramp up top. Super fun with that upper flipper. Bam. And you can run through the plastic. It's going to be awesome. What's up, Franchie? I want Mark Seiden's next game. I don't know what it is. Um Charles, slide to my DMs. hook a brother up. I won't I won't say nothing. Um I talked to Mark um a few months ago when I was at JJ touring around um when Stern wouldn't let me come in for the dealer day even though they let other content people into the dealer day. They didn't let me in. But regardless of that, I hung out at JJP. Had a great time. Hung out with Mark. We walked the show floor. Played around with avatars a little bit. Google oodled at all the uh Harry Potters. I got to walk into the Harry Potter set before they struck it and moved it out like where they filmed the featurette, the castle walls and stuff. It was all right next to the breakroom area at JJP. That was awesome. I got to be there like like they came in the next day and it was gone. So like I just made it. It was awesome. They should have kept it there. You look tired. Need sleep? Of course I need sleep. I've been up all night. It was opening a hunting season and I work in emergency room. So of course I was up all night. Truck stop. Um, so anyway, I was hanging out with Mark and he was working on his new game and I said, 'Look, I don't I don't want to know what your theme is. I'm going to ask you that. Are you excited about it? You know, was it something that you picked and then brought in or was it something that was assigned? He said it was a theme that he was assigned, but he said he's really into it. So, so I'm excited to see what that is. Going to be a year until we see it. So, I'm not going to get like super hype on it. What I am going to get super hype on right now is 2026. 2026. We already saw the first big hitter out of the shoot. Freaking Beetlejuice. Um, Walking Dead. Who? Beetleju. Beetleju. Beetleju. Beetleju juice. And all year is going to be like, "Where's my Beetlejuice? I'm number 368. What number are they on? Has anybody got their invoice yet? I'm 297. When's my invoice coming? Do you guys know about how long it takes from when you get your invoice until your game shipping? It's going to be another year of that. Unless Unless Spooky can decide to like, you know, make 2500 games a year in the same clip. We're going to see that. We'll see Evil Dead conclude probably the most successful title they've run so far, followed by the next more successful title. Um, I guess Rick and Morty was super successful, too. But like of the new era, this is like this is like spooky 3.0 now. So, we got that heavy hitter coming. Halo is supposed to be a TPF from CGC Raw Thrills. Kind of excited about that. I know Spooky Luke was a huge fan of Mark Richie's last game, Pulp Fiction. Said, "My god, I can't believe it took me this long to play this game. Um, Don, all I want to do is play this game more. Can I still get one?" And I'm like, "It's okay, guy. I got you. Just just come by. Play whenever you want. have as much time on Pulp Fiction. I know it's mind-blowing, but you know, by all accounts, he was having the most amazing pinball time on Pulp Fiction. So, Mark Richie's follow-up Halo contemporary title, early 2000s, um title that like I have non-pinball friends that were like, I would love a Halo pinball machine. And they're not pinball people, but they would buy this game. So, I'm hype on that. So, we got Beetlejuice, we got Halo, we got Sonic coming. probably won't be a TPF. I'm not expecting that until the fall. There'll probably be a release like Elton John was, but we got that to look forward to. And then, uh, what else? Uh, Cuphead's supposed to make an appearance at some point. Um, I think they said Expo next year for like their whatever they turned Cuphead into. Hopefully Turner has a new game. He's been quiet over there with his Merlin arcades, but I think he's got something they're cooking and TPF would be a great time to debut that. Hopefully that's in the plans. I need to reach out to my boy. I'm sure he won't tell me and I'm not going to pressure him, but like I'd love to see his followup. This is going to be his third game. That first game is like proof of concept. Let's get it out. We know the evolution that it took to get to where it is. Loved by the community now. Merlin's Arcade. Simple on layout. Um, not a lot of game for the money, though. I do like the build. As far as the game itself, it's bright, cheery, it will offend nobody at all. So, if like you're a household where like Alvivra is too spicy, Merlin's Arcade is perfect for you. It's just for the money I had like other things get in the way of it. Plus, I want the good one, too. I want the good one. So, his tertiary game that'll be coming out. His the the the final the penultimate trilogy game. I don't know what it is. Maybe he got like nailed a license. Maybe he still has back inventory of playfields that were designed 10 years ago and he's going to bring those out. Cuphead will not be released. I know it. I know it. It's whatever the spiritual successor of it is, I'm expecting it to be the same layout. Unless they've been hiding a design team this whole time. I'm very excited to see what they have coming out because whly ball did not excite me. Did not tickle the cockals. Right. So, we got that. Um, didn't didn't DPX release something or are they releasing something? Oh, yeah. They talked about Raza. I put my logo on my hand. They talked about Raza 333 units. Kind of weird that they went ahead and revealed that and they still haven't even reached the end of the year with the Alyses. Alice production won't be done at the end of the year. I don't even think everybody's going to get their toppers. They're going to make all the games and the toppers are still going to need to be delivered. Um, but Roz is out there somewhere and hopefully that's going to float the Dutch team until Back to the Future can come out in 2037 or whenever it is. Franchie Cresyard on Beetlejuice. So good. I want to know if Franchie did an art package for the new Dutch game, but I don't sign it. I love my baby. I love my baby Beetleju NECA. I want Beetleju 888 signed right between the flips by Franchie. I mean, I don't know if anybody's claimed 888 yet. What am I talking about? Of course, someone did. The game sold out. So, I mean, I have fun playing Merlin. I have fun playing a lot of games. Um, I like the design of the cabinet and stuff. It's just gameplay-wise, I don't know if it has the longevity for me at at home. You know, my keepers here are Star Wars and Stranger Things. Dn D, I'm loving Black Knight Sort of Rage. I'm about to trade in for an upgraded version. Like, those games just the music is great, the gameplay is great, the atmosphere is there. I have no nostalgia for Merlin's arcade. So, you got to sell me on the assets and stuff and it looks like at least looks like a bunch of teenagers at the Wisconsin Dells at an indoor arcade and but there's magic involved. It's kind of I don't know what's happening. What's up, Pinball Studio? How you doing? Uh Raza I have zero interest in. I'll play it at a show. I I don't I don't want to get one. I don't care if the game's going to triple in value. I just I don't I'm just not into that. Like Yeah. No. Yeah. Nah. Yeah. Nah. Nah, mate. Skip that one. Don, will your Beetleju spooky plaque? We'll say. Don, what will your Beetleju spooky plaque? We'll say probably. This guy's a dick. I don't know. Luke will probably print something obscene. Dune slaps. Like I don't mind I don't mind playing it, but again like I don't have the nostalgia cookies for it and it's a lot of money. So you gota remember this Dune's $11,500, man. And right now with with what's coming on the horizon that I'm like really excited about, it's hard for me to wholeheartedly embrace like something like Dune now. $7,500 Dune in a year. Yeah. Tell you what, I was actually looking at Godfather CES last night. You can get Ellies for $7500. I don't want that. A Godfather CE. I could finally get those gold lions and the games like 8,500 $9,500 like right in there. It's getting down to where it'd be kind of reasonable just to have it for six months and play through it and just oo those lions and then the gold lions will get lost and I'll sell the game at a loss but I'll keep those damn gold lions. I think one of the loser kids said Merland is Great Wolf Lodgeesque. Yep. Yep. 100%. Merlin's Arcade would fit in perfectly at a Great Wolf Lodge. Yes. Absolutely. Enzo, get the sand out of your mouth, man. Quit licking Dune. I think Dune's fun. Um, I want to play it more with the updated code now, but it just there it's like there's 10 other things I got in the way. I wasn't I wasn't harnessed by the spice. Winchester's layout looks amazing compared to Dune. Dune looks like a surface level game with some ramps. I know there's a lot of trickery that's up there in the back. I know there's some cool little things that happen with spinners and popup uh drop targets, locking balls back in areas for multiballs. I've been able to do the pain box thing and make the shot and save my ball, but just work an extra shift. Right. Right. Oh, listen. And so once I get on the other side of owning three homes and I'm down to one and it's paid off, it's going to be a lot easier to just f around, pick up a couple shifts, and grab something. Winchester is the only other game I really have interested in the moment. Yeah, man. Rad chat with Don Duter. Oh, okay. I'm trying to trying to read and think at the same time. Don, when is your Walking Dead Reduxle LE coming? uh when it's $8,500. That's when it's coming. Here's my problem. Okay, everybody's telling me the Pro shoots better. I think I'll probably play the Pro more. So, I don't really understand the nuances of the premium LE because I I don't have a ton of time on it. Um I want the good version, but the good version is $13,000. And I just don't I just don't want the game that much to pay that much. So, that's a no. Normally what I do is I'll pick up a premium because for $3,000 the upgrade you're getting invisaglass shaker motor um powder coated armor uh mirrored back glass foil decals. Walking Dead Elite doesn't have the foil decals. It's got the upgraded speakers. I can do the speakers, the the glass, the shaker motor. I put a knocker in my games. I'll powder coat it. Um and I'll throw expression lights in there. But if I got a premium right now, I can't even get the whole package. I the the speakers aren't for sale. The speaker light kit is not for sale for Spike 3. I can't get the lights for the cabinet. I don't know when I'm going to get them. I don't want to buy a Walking Dead uh premium for 10 grand and then have to wait two years maybe until they decide to release the lighting packages for them. In the meantime, I can get the armor made, but then I'm sitting there like, what am I doing? It's got the downgraded cabinet. Yeah. And I don't like the hinges. They're all skinny now. That's stupid. Um, it's two bolts to take off and then you can let the the hinges swing down. You can fully access the armor. Um, I like having those hinges with where I can put, you know, laser cut images in them and and stuff. I can't do that with these skinny ones. I don't like it. I don't like it. I don't like it. I like those nice big round ones that give me a lot of room to work with. And you know, I can't get like I bought uh I bought Star Wars Follow the Empire to make over and it had expression lights and I'm like, you know what? I got a set of Foo Fighter expression lights. I'll throw them in the cabinet. No problem. Well, come to find out like they don't work. They changed something about the programming. I need another board. But I don't know when those lights are coming out from Stern. I don't know when I can get them. I'm supposed to make this game over in like another six weeks and deliver it to an arcade and I don't even know if I can finish the damn thing. Like, how can I operate this system that allows me to like have games and play them and stream them and make them over and then get them to the arcade where they can enjoy them when I don't know when I can get the damn accessories? I I took the expression lights apart. It's an RGB light bar, right? And like just just a LED LED light strip, an RGB LED light strip in an aluminum channel and then a plastic a plastic that hopefully they're cutting and printing on site. Um, but like where are they, man? Where are they? I could I could screw together 80 of them in an afternoon just by myself. Aluminum light strip. Throw it down. Screw the plastic onto it. There you go. Next. You know, I I could churn them out, man. Um I know they're making they made LE, right? So, they have them in stock. They're not making LE anymore. Um these expression lights are different from the ones that are in The Walking Dead. So, like just where are they, man? There's no reason why you should have to wait this long for expression lights. Um, if they need, they could just make a bunch of the aluminum channels with the lights and then you know what? If they need to stock up on Foo Fighter ones, you just print the plastics. Led Zeppelin print the plastics. Uh, Metallica, print the plastics. You know, like we don't know when these things are coming out and like I've got six weeks to finish this game and get it delivered and I might have to deliver it without the lights. So that's that's stupid. then I got to discount the game so that they can then buy them and put them in later. It's just like it ruins like my margins. I can't do any future planning. Um I know I'm not a distributor or a subdistro. Like I'm I'm like a little boutique hobbyist, but like it sucks, man. It sucks having you know I've got to make big financial decisions and I can't plan right. Thanks, Albert. Don is all right. Oh, I appreciate it. I appreciate it. If you can find a Walking Dead OG Pro for 5K in decent conditions, seems like a smart play. I mean, yeah, but like I'm not going to lie. I want the speaker lights. I want the bigger speakers. Um, I don't mind getting a premium LE just so I can have the extra features. I love what they did with the lights. Um, the armor doesn't bother me. You know, at least there's more cutouts in it. I don't like the new hinges, but I don't think complaining about that is going to change it. Um, I'll just have to, you know, design some aftermarket ones and get them cut. Um, but it's just like, yeah, it just sucks, you know? I want to get I want to get the upgraded game. Uh like and so we got to wait a year and we're gonna get AC/DC remastered. It'll probably have lights. AC/DC is a cool game. I think it would benefit from the bigger screen. I'm actually a little excited about it. Um but it's a game that I don't think it's necessarily necessary as the next one to do because AC/DC's are out there and available. We'll see. Um, all of this is to say a lot of good games coming in 2026 and then we still don't know what Stern's even doing. Fallout might be really interesting. Pokemon. Oh, Pokemon's good. If it's like if it's a lunchbox and like like a Fall of the Empire level game and they're just thinking, well, we don't have to put a ton of interesting mix or sculpts into this because it's a huge license. Maybe that's what maybe that's what the locations want, you know, because Fall the Empire is earning on location. If a game doesn't sell very good to home buyers, it does well on location because we all go there and play it. So maybe Pokemon is like like a love letter to the physical arcade and u maybe that's why we're hearing reports that like temper your expectations. Don won't finish the Godfather in three months and franchise art and it's gorgeous. That's true. That's true. The CE Godfather is one of the best looking games of the modern era, I think. Um, the lighting, the art, the CE with the the sparkle and Don Cornelius right there, whoever. Um, I like the the stained glass thing they did. It's just I don't like the the gameplay and the theme and the layout, but other than that, like it's a great looking game. Love the topper, the little knockers in there. Uh, little animatronic guys. Kind of cool. I dig that. I love the lions. We haven't seen them bring that back at all yet. It's been two games. There could have been gold snitch lions on Harry Potter. They didn't do it, but they dressed up Godfather. I don't like the shooter rod with the horse head. It feels weird in the hand. Um, I don't like the Avatar CE arrow shooter rod. Feels weird in the hand. Golden Snitch felt good. You got to have like like rounded or barrel-shaped shooters so like it feels good holding on to it. Not like you have this like weird horse in your hand.