pinball in lockdown new heist game revealed new hot wheels game revealed dennis nordman leaves deep root pinball hi my name is jonathan houston and i'm the editor of the two-time award-winning Pinball Magazine and I'm joined here today with Martin Ayer I'm editor of the no time winning Pinball News website and various other things that we do as well and we're here to look back on the wonderful month of March 2020 yes, it's no time award winning you said it incorrectly, let me point it out you won no awards whatsoever and i won two yes in fact i won two twice yes two twippies so for everybody who uh who missed out um yes pinball magazine won a second twippy and the first thing i did was actually in my acceptance speech which i recorded before the show uh because i didn't expect uh to win i announced that i would be giving my award away to ryan clater and Nicholas Baldridge who produced coin of carnival and i still stand by that and the reason for that is and i'll keep this very short um i did not publish a new magazine in 2019 instead brian uh ryan and nick uh did publish coin-op carnival so therefore i feel they deserve to win um and apparently i won for my newsletters but i think if it last year was the award for a favorite pinball publication uh i don't think the award the the category should be extended and allow more uh even single articles to be um uh, uh, qualifiable for, uh, to win the award. Um, I think that that just reduces the value of the award. So because Pinball Magazine did not publish a new issue in 2019, I figured it makes sense that I would give it to Ryan and Nick, um, of Coin Up Carnival. And, um, uh, I think they really deserve to win. So I'm more than happy to do so. So enough about that. Well, that's very magnanimous of you, and I'm sure, yeah, I mean, I think as a publication, they were the standout publication of the year. Absolutely, which is why I think we deserve the win. Which is what the category used to be, and it's obviously got expanded this year. But congratulations anyway to you for your victory, and in the category as it was redefined. and a very nice gesture to give that to Ryan and Nick for Coin-Op Carnival, which is a very worthy publication. Right, and not everybody appreciated my acceptance speech because some might feel that I was disrespectful to the people that voted for Pinball Magazine. That was not my intent. And I was trying to impersonate a running gag from the Alo Alo TV show, which might not be that familiar with that many people. So that probably did not get understood as being a joke. Sure, I most certainly respect the people that voted for Pinball Magazine, by all means. but as I explained I recorded it not even in the remotely assuming that I would be winning because I did not publish a new magazine last year, I figured the award would go to Coin Up Carnival anyway apparently it didn't but now they get it after all yeah, great, ok well let's move on and look at at the main I'll say, maybe it's the secondary news of this month which is Well, what an amazing month it has been. It has been, and it was a real unexpected month, I think. I don't think either of us, in the end of our last podcast, at the end of February, could possibly have imagined this is a situation we would be in at the end of March. Right. We were looking forward to an amazing trip coming up to visit the launch of Deep Root Pinball, the Texas Pinball Festival, and then a major road trip up to visit a few people on the way and end up at the Midwest Gaming Classic. Right. And none of that happened, quite disappointingly. Yeah, for those, well, the first thing that happened was that I was not able to fly to America. Because Europe got banned from flying into America. A few days later, that applied to the UK as well. So that was the first problem. And then the Texas Pinball Festival got cancelled. Midwest Gaming Classic got cancelled. Deepwood cancelled their launch event, and basically there was no reason to go, even if we could have. No, and then probably wouldn't have been able to get back again if we had gone. Right. So I was away for the weekend and checking my phone, and it's like, oh, the flights have been cancelled from Europe, so you can't go, but I can still go. But how's that going to work? And so I was trying to work out plans for that, And then the Texas Film Festival got cancelled. And it's like, well, I can't do that. Then is the Midwest Gaming Class still going to happen? So I could possibly do that. Then that got cancelled, and then I couldn't fly at all, and it's like everything's cancelled now. So our trip just gradually fell apart over the course of basically a day, really, from being this amazing journey to nothing at all. So here we are, both sitting at home, both in lockdown. Yeah, and the really disappointing part of this all is that, finally, this would have been the episode where we get to introduce Gary to our people and really give him a proper role in this podcast. Yeah, he was meant to be the star of this month's podcast, really. but we're hoping he'll call in a bit later anyway so we can at least hear from him even if he can't be with us in person. Well, let's hope that he's doing fine and hopefully we'll hear from him later on. I think we're both doing okay. We're virus-free at the moment, aren't we? Yes, we are, thankfully. Yes, although we're both keeping socially distanced the order of a couple of hundred miles. Yeah, I'm sitting 16 away from my laptop. Yeah, I'm way too close to this microphone, so I'm just going to stay two metres away and do the podcast from back here. Oh, okay. Maybe I won't. Let's hope it doesn't get transmitted that way. So, with that in mind, let's look at what's happened with the various closures and lockdowns and changes to manufacturing that happened to all the different pinball companies and see who's still going. Well, let's start with that because that's probably the oddest thing that nobody would ever have predicted if we, and I suggested we should have made it a headline, but I'm telling you right now, as a special extra headline, Dutch pinball, the only pinball manufacturer left actually cranking out games? Who would have thought that? One month ago. What? A year ago? Even a few weeks ago. Well, even a couple of weeks ago. But that's actually the case because Illinois has a stay-at-home Ryan Policky which means all factories are closed. and the same goes for certain areas in Texas where Multimorphic is operating and Deeproot isn't cranking out games yet. Homepin isn't making any games right now because they just moved to Taiwan. Haggis Pinball isn't manufacturing any games because they haven't even finished their design. So that basically leaves Dutch Pinball as the only manufacturer producing games right now. Yeah. How are they able to keep manufacturing? Do you know? I mean, there's presumably some kind of lockdown in the Netherlands, isn't there? It's not a lockdown. There is a stay-at-home Ryan Policky applicable, But in the case of Barry, he has his Dutch Pinball company unit, where the games are being manufactured, rather close to his home. And I think they're only working with a couple of people in there. And basically the rule is as long as you can keep like six feet distance from each other, then you're still allowed to work together. which is there's no limit on essential companies still going there well there is a limit on I think there's a maximum of three people allowed to be in the same room but with three people you can still manufacture games yeah that's true and I'm not even sure whether they are up to three people it could be just two but regardless they're still manufacturing games and that's something nobody saw coming so let's just go through um exactly what the other companies are up to at the moment right um spooky pinball um obviously in uh in wisconsin in benton um they have uh a 30-day statewide shutdown in in the state it would be because it's statewide and uh that that actually comes just as they've moved out of their second factory into their third. Right. So they've moved into bigger premises. But at the exact same time, this shutdown occurs. And Charlie posted on Facebook to say that they had been exposed to someone with the COVID-19 coronavirus infection and were therefore using the 30-day lockdown to self-isolate at home. so it doesn't look like there's any chance of any manufacturing going on there either. Well, it's Benton, so I mean, I don't know how close home is to their new facility, but I don't know how strict. Who knows? They might be setting up stuff in the new facility after all. I don't know, but it could be. Well, it could be, but there's certainly software development going on on their games from the coders at home. they're still working on it and maybe other people are working on future games as well in their own places but certainly nothing happening at the factory at their new place. Well there is no new factory at the new place because they still need to set up everything. Well they have the building and they have some stuff in there but I don't think there's anything, any sign of any manufacturing about to happen in there at least not until the shutdown is over. down in Illinois he said there's a stay at home order which took place on the 21st of March at 5pm and it's going to last until at least the 7th of April and it might have been extended now to the 30th I think I read that somewhere that would seem very reasonable to think or assume yeah Stern put out a press release well, Gary Stern did, saying that there's nothing basically coming in or going out of the factory at this time, although software development, sales, marketing, service calls, and accounting staff are all responding from home, basically all working at home. Right. So they were expected to launch a couple of new games. Right. Certainly one of the least at the Midwest Gaming Classic, but that didn't happen. So all that's put on hold for the moment. Of course, Jersey Jack Pinball are now neighbours to Stern Pinball in Elk Grove Village. At least their manufacturing is, and they're just moving up there and getting set up when all this kicked in. So they're not in the process, as far as we know, of actually building it. weren't in a position to build anything before the shutdown came along. Obviously, their design teams are still capable of working from home because I think that's what they do mostly anyway. Yeah, well, certainly, I guess Pat Lawler and the software guys can probably do that. Well, John Paul is working from home as well. He's obviously in the Netherlands. and he's also a Twippy winner. Congratulations to Jean-Paul. That was for which Jersey Jack game? Was that for Willy Wonka? For animations on Willy Wonka. Yeah, I thought it was. So nothing happening with Jersey Jack pinball either. American pinball also in Illinois so no manufacturing there. And they, of course, are also moving to their new, or the process of moving to their new place that they're sharing with Aintron in Palantime. Sorry, carry on. No, you're completely right. At least they got to reveal their Hot Wheels game. Yeah, we'll come to that. Let's not jump ahead. We're just looking at the coronavirus stories. Oh, sorry. we'll actually get on to I'm trying to get to the good news oh there's some good news yes we have to stay tuned for that it's coming up in just a minute after we got through all the stuff that's not happening at the moment yes as you said actually earlier about Multimorphic they they have a they don't have a statewide ban or a stay at home instruction it's been done on a local government basis but the counties around Round Rock where they are both issued stay at home orders until at least the 13th of April so there should be no manufacturing going on at least in the multimorphic factory they were due to launch their new game at the Texas Pinball Festival and in a moment we'll look at exactly how that went because they did launch it and we'll uh we'll discuss what that game was and um and give you some details all about it right uh so yeah deep room with pinball uh yeah due to do their launch event as you said that was cancelled uh then they they said without well originally they said they wouldn't be able to do it on the scale that they were intending because a lot of people couldn't make it you being one of them. So they said they'd do a smaller event. And then after I and other people couldn't make it, they said they'd do it as an online-only launch at the same time, which was the Wednesday before Tuesday. No, it was the Wednesday, wasn't it? Wednesday before the Pinball Festival. But then they decided that with the Texas Pinball Festival also being called off, then they wouldn't be able to do anything, so they basically postponed it indefinitely in their praise. So who knows? That must be Robert's worst nightmare coming true, because that's the second Texas Pinball Festival that he's not presenting his company. Yeah, I don't know whether it's a nightmare or quite a convenient reason to not launch at that point. It gives them an extra time for when they do actually launch, doesn't it, to come up with even more developed games. Right. So anyway, that... So it might be a blessing in disguise for them. It could be, yeah. You never know. And if they weren't able to show their best face at that time, and another three, four, six months might make them look a lot more impressive when they actually can launch. So that was going to be the press launch, anyway, at the San Antonio facility, but that was then going to be followed by the public launch at Texas Show, but Texas Pinball Festival, but that didn't happen either, so nothing happened there, basically, as far as the Deep Group Pinball launch goes. And, yeah, so as far as other shows go, as we mentioned earlier, Texas Pinball Festival was cancelled, Midwest Gaming Classic was cancelled, other shows that have been cancelled, Pinball at the Zoo, In April, that's been cancelled. Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show in June, that's been cancelled. The Ann Arbor Pinball Showcase, that was going to be in April. It's been postponed to later in the year, but they haven't actually announced exactly when it's going to be because they're still consulting with ticket holders what they're going to do and what format it's going to take. Tournament's been called off. UK Pinball Open postponed. German Pinball Open in May. It hasn't actually officially been cancelled, but it almost certainly is going to be. I'm just waiting for the official announcement on that. It's going to happen. Not cancelled yet. The Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown in Denver. That hasn't yet been cancelled. Pintastic in June. That hasn't been cancelled either yet. And ReplayFX in June. Pinberg in July. sorry I should say that hasn't been cancelled either at the moment so well let's hope the situation is better by then but from what I expect to happen is that sorry but it seems very likely that those shows might be cancelled after all because it doesn't look like this is going to be a two week thing and then it's over and back to normal yes I think you're right but at the moment that's where that's where we are at the time of recording which is right at the very end of March. So those shows are still scheduled, so there's no cancellation notice, but everything else pretty much up until about June is all off, pretty much all the way around the world, I'd say. Yeah. So, from that slightly depressing note, let's move on to something a bit more... Well, let's hope that everybody is safe because obviously our listeners are also affected by the whole coronavirus situation. So hopefully everybody is safe and stays safe. Keep your social distance from everybody and hopefully you stay healthy and we make it through this crisis and get back to normal as soon as possible Yeah absolutely and as soon as we are out of it and back again please give your support to all those companies who have been suffering from lack of business. Get out into the arcades and play pinball, buy pinball, buy parts, and let's get the pinball business back on its feet and up and running again. and make sure those companies who have been struggling can make it through. Because we don't want to lose any people and we don't want to lose any companies either. Right. It's going to be, well, we still have to see how big the impact of this whole situation will be. What I have understood from talking to Mike Kalinowski of Homepin, who used to be in China, but they actually moved to Taiwan. But the results of the virus in China is that a lot of people are still either quarantined, can't get back to work, and the factories that are running are lacking a lot of personnel or employees or whatever you want to call it. So they can't produce goods at the regular volume that they used to do, which might be causing all sorts of problems in supply chains. so that's why I think we're going to see the length of this crisis is far more going to be then even once the virus itself is gone we're still dealing with everything else the aftermath of the crisis so to speak in terms of industries trying to get back up on their feet, and not just pinball, but other industries as well. Yeah, true. It's not going to be a switch and everything to go back to normal. It's going to ramp up, hopefully. But there will be some changes, certainly, in the way things are done and the rate at which they're done. Right. On to happier news. Yes, yes. So new games, believe it or not, even in this rather gloomy climate where pinball manufacturing is not actually currently happening anywhere except in the Netherlands, two new games have been launched. And the first one of those comes from Multimorphic in Round Rock that we were just talking about. Yes, and first of all, my compliments to you because you did a very good article on that new game, Heist. which people can read on pinballnews.com Zero award winning. Sorry? Zero award winning. Yeah, exactly. But maybe this article will get you an award. Who knows? Oh, well, yes. So the Heist game. Yeah. I was very impressed. I think it's definitely the best multi-morphic playfield module that they've come up with so far and it addresses some of the criticisms I think of earlier games which is that everything is pushed up towards the very back of the playfield where the modules are and although that's actually true on a lot of games anyway a lot of conventional games that are not modular the heist game does have the well it introduces a couple of new things it adds an upper flipper to the right hand side which allows for more cross playfield shots to be included in future in heists and future games and also the crane is a big thing isn't it three axis of movement it can move left and right up and down and it can extend or retract as well and that extension allows it to move over the LCD part of the playfield. Remember the P3 has a big LCD panel on the lower two thirds of the playfield and then a bank of walls and scoops and then it comes to the upper playfield module. Well this crane crosses that divide and it basically extends the game down and interacts with what's happening on the LCD in a way that no previous games have. Right. So Heist is designed by the Multimorphic team, but the design lead on that was Stephen Silver who's been working for Multimorphic for a long time doing their videos. I think this is his first game design or at least first time you see a letter game design and yeah I think the reaction to the game was very positive what did you think when you first saw it? I was completely blown away with it I was like this is really going to put hopefully Multimorphic on the map as a very serious pinball making company which is ironic to say in these days but you catch my drift um no i think um just looking at the module it's it's packed it's got uh half a city built upon there with the grand station and um a big bank and a police station and what have you um and lots of shots lots of diverters um and that crane and um it's probably not a nice thing to say but i mean it in the most in the nicest way possible i think the previous games uh or playfield modules were um if i'm not mistaken designed by uh Gerry Stellenberg himself and in this case he um stepped aside and let stephen silver take the lead on this and although we probably he was involved in a certain way but he really let the design team do this by themselves and the result is a very um uh what's the word it's a game that i instantly got enthusiastic about and and after that i i've seen video streams of gameplay and I really think they nailed it. So it's a very good way... Even though it's not a license as such, so you do have to teach the player what the story is about, but the very title of it sort of gives you an awful lot of clues as to what the idea of the the game is it's a heist game with classic pinball where you have an original theme you still can walk up to the game and if the theme is usually something that is easy to understand and in this case that's absolutely the case um and it's not only the theme that is um appealing so to speak But I also think in terms of the artwork, that looks very good. It doesn't look intimidating. While that upper play field could look very intimidating, but it doesn't for some reason. So, sorry. No, that's nothing to worry about. It's just regular stuff. I'm all right. I think it has a low barrier a low entry level so to speak for new players to start playing which is a good thing yeah certainly it seems to have sold a fairly good number of the base P3 pinball platforms just on the basis of the Heist game alone. And it's worth mentioning that there are some offers available at the moment to buy the Heist game with the P3 base cabinet or base unit and also to buy all four games together as a package. If you look on either on the Multimorphic site or in the Pinball News article, There are details of the pricing offers and how long they're available for. This was all supposed to be launched to coincide with the Texas Pinball Festival, and the deals have run from then onwards, but I think the timing hasn't changed. So I think it's for like four weeks from the Texas show onwards, you'll be able to take advantage of these pricing deals. So check those out. but yeah it certainly looks the Ocean City playfield looks very attractive, there's lots of moulded buildings on there as you were saying the parking lot and the bank and the jail and all that kind of stuff and the addition of the side clipper I think adds in a whole bunch more shots and makes it a very different playing game to anything we might have seen before on the P3. Right, and then what's even more interesting is as this is P3 is a sort of open source platform, once people have the Ocean City or Heist playfield module, I think people are already working on different games to be played with that same module. So you get the module now but there will be more games to be played with that same module later on. Yes, when I first saw it, I thought, well, this is very definitely the heist of a playfield module, and I can't imagine anyone who would want to would be looking at writing other games for it like they have for the Lexi Lightspeed or the Canada Lagoon or any of those types of games that fit in with the other street playfield models that are available. But, yeah, now you mention it, I don't see any reason why I shouldn't have, and I certainly could do mini-games, you know, like I have with Jurassic Park. They have a wizard mode, well, that could just be a standalone game, couldn't it, that plays on the same playfield, and almost like a sub-story within the heist story. but you could even design a completely new I don't know like a tour the city type of game you just have to make some shots or a sequel or heist 2 right it's all up to the creativity of those able to program a new game and make sure that they have animations and so on to go with it yes because of course the whole look of it could be be very different on the follow-up game to the to the heist game and it's uh there's a lot of options there right and uh the way the way the toys are used can be different as well you know the crane could be could be operated in a very different way right so on ice i'd say congratulations to jerry and the entire multimorphic team i think they really have a um a killer game that they should be very proud of and I hope they will sell a lot of units of it yeah well I agree with that so but Heist wasn't the only game that was revealed in the past month a little further well quite a lot further north American Pinball released their third game the follow up to Houdini and Oktoberfest and I think we knew what it was we might even have mentioned it in last month yeah the rumoured title was Hot Wheels based on the collectible minicars and that was correct and that game got actually a soft launch I would say at the Amusement Expo which was held in New Orleans probably, I think it was around March 10th, just a week before the first lockdown situation started occurring. And there was a flyer present at the show. There was a game present. And I think they sent out a press release as well. initially um i had to look for uh good images um but i saw them after a couple of days they they became available there were more playful detailed photos um becoming available it's a very colorful uh game um two colored ramps one orange one and a blue one and um a spinning hot wheels car in the um in the center of the upper playfield or whatever you want to call it and as a pinball thirst first um which we don't get to talk about that often um they have a lenticular back panel so it's a sort of 3d back panel that if you move your head, then the image on the back panel changes. Mm-hmm. And, of course, the game is designed by Joe Balcer, and, well, at least they got to reveal it before everybody got to stay at home. Now it's just... Now we just have to wonder when will they be able to start shipping them. Yeah, it was... From my point of view, I thought it was a slightly chaotic launch because it seemed like they weren't really ready to reveal the game, but it just ended up being on the American Pinball stand at the amusement expo show, placed between an Oktoberfest and a Houdini. There was no press information sent out. There were no press pictures available. I actually contacted them at the time and said have you got pictures and they said we're not going to do anything until we come back from the show so for about three days all that was available were just camera phone sorry phone camera shots or poor quality video and with no information available from American Pinball at all and distributors didn't even know what the price was they were trying to find out but American people didn't really have that information available right well that might have to do with their new sales sales director I think it's Michael Grant just got hired a couple of days before the launch of the game so whatever was there is probably there was probably a sort of a transitional period and it was probably not the best timing. No, exactly. Okay. So, they will learn from that, hopefully, for the next game. I haven't received anything from them, even though I've asked them twice for information. I haven't received any press pictures or press release or anything. But I'm sure that is available out there. I've seen other pictures, which are much better quality than the original ones. Yes. Well, they did post some additional pictures on their Facebook. So by all means, check those out. Yes, I do have them. But it's a strange way to launch a brand new game, you know, the third game from a relatively new company, and it just sort of almost leaks out that the game is available. They should be out there publicising it with a big fanfare, and even if they're not actually in a position to make it at the moment, I don't think they saw that coming either. But anyway, as you say, it's a very attractive looking play field. It seems that it's aimed more at operators, which is generally not a good thing to be able to say, because it means that there's not a lot on the play field. But what is there is easily accessible. I'm not sure whether I agree with that. Actually, I thought it was quite refreshing to finally see on a flyer that they were actually addressing operators in that the game is easy to maintain and typical comments aiming at operators. Because I haven't seen those on flyers in like 20 years. well it does take it back to the premier, got the street level games at that point they were trying to cut the cost of the game and reduce the feature set on them and make it more easily serviceable by operators but that didn't go down very well with the operators all players so it would be interesting to see whether this particular game fares any better the street price of the game as it appears to be available now from various distributors is $6,295. So it's not exactly a cut-price game. But it doesn't look a cut-price game, I have to say that. But on the play field, as you say, the main toy is a spinning car, which doesn't seem to be interactive in any way other than the speed at which it rotates. Right. You don't hit it with a ball or anything like that. and the other thing is the sort of the up kicker which is kind of like the Spiderman web slinger thing that kicks it up over inside an arch onto a ramp and then back to the player yeah what I understood is a lot of people are disappointed that there is no loop in the game people were expecting a ramp to make a 360 looping, something like that. Especially as it's shown on the back glass, right at the area around the monitor. It's worth mentioning the monitor on this game is not in the middle of the back glass, not horizontally in the centre. It's actually off to the left-hand side to allow for the artwork on the right-hand side and the Hot Wheels logo. But there is a big loop of orange track in the background. and, yeah, as you say, that's not replicated inside the game anywhere, which you think would be a sort of a given that you'd be able to shoot a 360 loop. But anyway, it does look nice. It looks like that could have been like a super jackpot shot where you get the ball aligned on the flipper and then there is that one shot that opens up and you can make that loop, and if you make it, then super jackpot or something like that. But, yeah, that's not there. So I can see how some people would be disappointed by that not being there. But it is what it is, and we haven't still been able to play it or even seen proper video footage of it. So let's just hold our judgments until we actually played it. Yeah I not quite sure when that going to be What with American pinball probably not manufacturing them at the moment although I guess there be a few of them available for shows when they start up again Right. Even before they actually get into mass manufacturing. But, yeah, we're certainly looking forward to playing it. Yeah. Just looking forward to playing both the new games that came out in the past month. so that's um that's the news from uh oh actually before we move on should probably just pop back to multimorphic because um although heist was their their new release there was a there was something which we which we trailed last month which was the the new software that goes with the cosmic kart racing play field uh which is cosmic kart racing 2.0 which uh comes with a new career mode, but also adds in internet and LAN connectivity so you can play with other machines either in the same building or across the world. It was announced last month but it's now available to download in beta format if you have a machine and want to install it on your Cosmic Kart Racing upper playfield module, then you can try it out and connect with other people and use the new career mode and the arcade mode as well. It's not a finished release, it's still in beta, but it's available as a free download. So if you've got that module, you should certainly give it a go. And it's no longer time-based, it's a three-ball game now. So, yeah. yeah so that's Multimorphic an American pinball so we mentioned earlier about Stern pinball and what they might have launched but as it turned out they didn't so let's look at the game that is yet to come I guess right well there was a game announced for the 20th of March. That would have been the heavy metal contract game. Interestingly, I was sending out my newsletter, and I had contact with Stern Pinball, and they actually asked me not to mention that game, and I was like, you already announced it. I cannot pretend that didn't happen. So instead, as they probably realized, it was on their Facebook and so on. So they sent out a statement that the game is postponed due to the current situation. And that was just, I think, a day before actually the stay-at-home Ryan Policky was applied. So even if they wanted to take it into production, they can't right now. So, and, well, we're recording this podcast on the 31st of March, which is the Tuesday. which would have been the Tuesday after Texas Pinball Festival, and usually that is the day that Stern Pinball announces a new title, which has been widely rumored to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But that, well, so far I haven't seen any announcement of such new game. So that's also postponed, I suppose, until further notice and development of the situation where they can actually get back to working in the factory and actually building games and having them available to be sold. Yes, that's right. That's what they're all about, building and selling games. If you can't do that, there's not much point in launching a new title or two. Right. So, I don't know, do we still want to discuss the heavy metal contract game in the sense that it's a re-theme of the Spider-Man Home game that we've seen in various iterations, also as a Supreme-themed game and as the Star Wars Home Edition game? Yeah. yes I think it was available in two different versions wasn't it? well two different cabinet artwork packages yes yes okay and it's a tie in with a company called Incendium who are a sort of comic monster and metal collectible store so it's a contract game for them using the heavy metal brand which is was a movie and a magazine well first a magazine and later it was a movie and I think there's also some sort of heavy metal movie on Netflix which is a more recent production and what's interesting to notice is that the I forgot his name maybe you have it the owner or no the editor of heavy metal was actually also involved in the co-creation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. All right. Okay. No, I don't have that name, I'm afraid. Can't help you there. But so those two games were expected to be out now and aren't. The heavy metal game was originally priced at $8,200. which is a premium price. Yeah, rather premium especially if you consider that the Spider-Man home game was probably half of that. Yeah. Yes, and Stern was saying it would be built in limited quantities but no indication of how many they were expecting to build but I guess it was some kind of minimum quantity. I read that as sort of like made to order. yeah although you would think that you think with all these things there'll be a minimum number that would have to be built to make it worthwhile still developing the game at all yeah that's what you think but oh well yeah so let's say a minimum of 100 or something like that but beyond that yeah um built to order but since the playfield is essentially the same as supreme and the Supreme game is 25,000, then this is a bargain. It's all a matter of perspective, I guess. It is, yeah. You could re-theme the Heavy Metal into a Supreme and get it on cheap. Ooh, that's a good idea. That's a big point for that. You never know. Okay, so while those games are not being launched yet and to be covered when they are, Stern had been busy, though, doing quite a lot of social media and code updates. They released a video very recently of the making of their current title, I suppose it's still the current title, Stranger Things, where Brian Eddy talks about his return to pinball and the ideas that he came up with for the Stranger Things game, his first title for Stern. elsewhere Stern have been doing a lot of social media interaction they're doing a sort of plugging their game room of the week awards or competition pushing the digital versions of their games which are available obviously on multiple different platforms for people to play when they're at home and can't go out to an arcade or a bar or a barcade and play them there so keep people interested in playing certain games and yeah besides that they've also been as I said generating some new code for well the first one I suppose is probably the most surprising one of all which is the Iron Man both the original version and the Vault Edition have both received a code update version 1.85 which is generally believed to have come from Lyman Sheets when he's been working at home which has added a few new features like a new skill shot if you're familiar with Iron Man or not but you can press and hold the left button and the ball will go all the way around when you launch it and come back to the left flipper well now there is a skill shot available if you do that where if you plunge it gently and get it into the top rollover lanes, you can get a million plus points for doing that. Woo-hoo! Yeah, I know. And also there's a new mini bonus feature, which is available when you collect half of the marks, the mark suits. And then when you do, that's available at the spinner. And there's been some score balancing and new extra ball awards been added as well, which is nice. And some tweaks to some of the existing features of the game. So, nice to see Iron Man getting some love after all these years. You never quite know when Stern are going to bring out new code for some of their classic games. Although, they've rerun Iron Man not that long ago. I think last month they reran some of the Vault Edition games for, I think it was a small run, but still. So it sort of makes sense that it was back on their radar software-wise, I suppose. Yeah, but the fact that the new updates are also available for the very original model is a nice bonus for those people who own that game. Yes. And, well, obviously there were more code updates with Stern. Most notably, I would say, Elvira House of Horrors is currently at 0.93. I've seen some footage of the game. Jack Danger had a live stream last Saturday, which is recommended to watch, because, at least from what I noticed, there is a lot of new Elvira speech, which was lacking in earlier versions. So that makes the game a lot more fun, I suppose. Yeah, the new code adds new high score tables as well for the modes, along with the new speech, some new display effects and sounds, and some scoring tweaks, as always happens, along with some bug fixes. Right. So 0.93, so getting closer to the elusive 1.0. Right. So still some way to go yet before it can be considered complete. Right. And, well, strange of things, the current title also got a code update, but it was mostly bug fixes, the way I understood it. Yeah. Yeah, it had not been H6. Again, you know, quite a few updates before it gets to version 1.0, but not clear how much more is going to be added to that game, really. But as with Stern, other software updates, You never quite know what they're going to come up with. Right, okay. So, hold on. As you might hear in the background, I have a phone ringing, and this is finally the moment that we've been waiting for. It's been two years in the making, but we finally are going to get Gary Flower on the phone because he's calling in right now. So let's hurry up before he hangs up, what the user does. Okay. Gary, welcome to the show. Hey, Gary. That doesn't sound too good. Oh, Gary, you okay? Oh. Hmm. Perhaps we better hang up. We don't want to risk catching anything. Why don't you call us back when you get better, I suppose. Yes, I guess, if you get better. Well, let's hope so. Sorry about that. we were really anticipating and hoping for Gary Flower to come on the show, but as you can hear, apparently maybe he had a little frog in his throat or something like that. Now, also from Stern, George Gomez was a guest on the 80s Arcade podcast. Right. And he had something to say about, well, an existing game of theirs and a potential future game. Right. Well, what he basically said is, at Stern, they have been thinking about doing a sequel to The Beatles, and that would most likely be yellow submarine themed. Not yellow brick road. No. No, but that has nothing to do with The Beatles, of course. No, of course not, no. so um the question is uh obviously beatles was a very expensive um license for stern and they um well they paid a lot of money uh as joe kamenkow has expressed on multiple occasions to get that license um and only to build uh 1964 games um what i sort of read in between the lines and I don't want to go into the speculation area of things, but what I sort of understood is that while CERN was supposed to be running a new run of games last year in January, I don't think they actually did. So in theory, they might still be entitled to build, I don't know how many Beatles games, but if there's no demand for the current Beatles game, the best way to get to that number is re-theme the same playfield with another theme and see if Beatles fans are interested in that one. So if that were to happen, my guess, and let me make absolutely sure that this is just my guess, that we could be seeing a re-themed Beatles play field like Yellow Submarine, possibly with some additional songs in there, but otherwise, well, basically the same game with some different songs. well it would be interesting if it was a later version of the Beatles rather than the Beatlemania one which was the theme for the original Beatles pinball, it was a slightly later one that focused on some of their later works but would you if such scenarios I'm just sketching would be likely do you think Stern would design a new play field or would they re-theme the current existing Beatles play field? Good question. I would imagine it would be the same, but with some minor, maybe artwork, well, obviously artwork, but maybe some trim changes. You know, it could be a, well, I mentioned the yellow brick road earlier. Yes, maybe some glitter on the play field or some different artwork on the cabinet sides, but also some different trim levels to it as well. Different back glass and possibly also a different topper. But, oh well. So according to George, that was only discussed, and I don't think there's anything in development at the moment. So we might see that in the future, but it's definitely not going to be anytime soon, especially since it's just in development and then we have the current situation to take into account as well. Yes, and other games waiting to be launched. Right. Okay, so that's the Stern pinball situation. Who should we look at next? Well, we mentioned Deep Root not launching either their company or any of their games earlier this month, or earlier in March, I should say, as was intended. So it looks like with the shutdown of pinball manufacturing and pinball companies that one particular designer is no longer an employee of the company. Right, yeah. That was something that Canada, a three-time award-winning podcast, mentioned earlier in the month that Dennis Nordman would no longer be working at Deep Root and now be working for Chicago Gaming. so as good reporters do we check our facts and i reached out to ryan white of chicago gaming and i asked him about this rumor and according to ryan he knows nothing of dennis northman working for the company as an employee and um basically he um said it was a rumor and he's not very happy with such rumor because well as you know there's plenty of rumors going around of all the games that chicago gaming is supposed to be building like like alien and queen and playboy and and all sorts of titles that um have been associated with them and they know nothing about it so So that's a bit unfortunate, although it does appear that Dennis Nordman is indeed no longer working for Deep Blue Pinball. Yes, I think he's probably back as a freelance pinball designer again. Yeah, well, that means he can work for anybody. and well it could be interesting because obviously Dennis is a respected designer but he also has very good connections or relations I would say with other manufacturers I don't see him knocking on Stern's door anytime soon but what about Spooky Pinball? Yeah well I certainly got some history working there so that would make sense and Spooky of have been recently looking to branch out into designing other games, particularly with the Ben Heck design, which they're doing with Chicago Gaming. So here's the full circle. So that could be a construction that might be viable. But let's just wait and see how things develop. Well, you never know. But if Dennis is available for other manufacturers, then that certainly creates potential. It's also interesting to wonder why he's no longer with Deep Root. Well yes that the obvious question but that would just be purely speculation and we don know about that yeah and i i do have to say well i don have to say it but i am i have heard rumors and i i have to express these are rumors that there was around expo time already some friction between um dennis and deep root so it's for me it was not a complete surprise that dennis is no longer working there And that's all I'm going to say about it. Okay. Right, yes. Of course, Dennis didn't move down to San Antonio or the area. He was always based back in his home in Illinois, wasn't he? Yes. And for those of you wondering, like, who is this Dennis Nordman that they are talking about, I suggest to order a copy of Pinball Magazine No. 2, the award-winning pinball magazine that is. He has two-time award-winning because the cover story in pinball magazine number two, which recently has been reprinted, is about the entire career of Dennis Nordman up to where he was like, say, five years ago, something like that. And that's now available in the pinball magazine webshop. So if you want to know more about Dennis Nordman, then you know where to go. Absolutely. And that's everything pretty much about Dennis Alderman in there that you could possibly want to know up until that point. Yes. And anything beyond that we will probably hear about fairly soon when he starts to tell us more about what he's going to be doing in the future. Now he's not working for Deep Red Pinball anymore. Now, the interesting thing that we probably can address, you and I both, we visited Dennis Nordman at his home in Illinois a couple of years ago, where we actually got to see and play a whitewood that he developed that so far hasn't been taken into production. Now, we don't know whether that has been offered to Deep Root, which might have been the case. But obviously, Dennis is used to working from home and designing from home, and he's got Paul Reno as a sort of right hand to help him. together they did the the baseball game which was produced by what's their name a company in Texas yes I know who you mean yes I was going to say Liberty but it wasn't Liberty it was oh well amusement game company in Texas that made their pitch and bat game yes and so that was interesting but obviously Dennis and Paul have been working on other designs as well so who knows what they have been working on and what Deepwood wasn't interested in for whatever reason you never know yeah I think it's fair to say Dennis is always working on new designs albeit for his own amusement or potential ideas from other manufacturers. So I'm sure we'll be seeing plenty more coming out of his studio. Yeah, so what I remember from the game, the Whitewood that we saw and played, I think it had 13 different skill shots. Yeah, better recollection than I do of that aspect of it. Okay, so, well, that was very interesting. Oh, well. We just have to wait and see. It was certainly quite a large piece. I do remember that. Yeah. So, now you mentioned, what did we mention? You mentioned Haggis Pinball earlier, but, of course, they were also going to be at both Texas Pinball Festival and the Midwest Gaming Classic. Yeah. Didn't end up leaving Australia in order to go, or indeed ship their games, I don't think, either. They were very close to doing that. but they're sort of, as in the rest of the world, sort of hunkering down and getting on with developing their Celts game. Damien's gone from doing these daily updates to much more infrequent updates. In fact, I think the last one is probably about two weeks ago now. Yeah. So there's really nothing more to report on the progress of that game at the moment, It looks like they're just getting on and trying to push the design through to the finishing line. Yeah, well, that sort of goes for more companies than just Haggis Pimple. There is, for example, Circus Maximus. the only news that I recently read is that they are in the stage of scanning the playfield of Kingpin again because apparently previous scans weren't good enough and they're now going to try with a better scanner I think we actually covered that in last month's news Could be, yes. Well, that's the only thing that I recently remember. Yeah, I haven't heard any updates on that, as to whether they've actually ended up with a high-quality scan of the existing Kingpin playfield or not. Obviously, they were supposed to be at Texas as well, and MGC, I suppose, but at least Texas. Yeah, well, I think that would have been with the original Kingpin that they built, not any new version. so I don't think it would have shown much in the way of progress right who also would have been at the Texas show and we already talked about them so let me revisit Chicago Gaming briefly while we were expecting them to review a new game they have been experiencing supply chain issues as a result of the coronavirus situation um and you might think like what how is that possible but obviously um they get some of their part from china and in china the coronavirus situation has been a real crisis already since uh january and chinese new year causing hiccups in Chicago gaming supply chain so that explains why medieval madness royal editions have been delayed and that's too bad obviously hopefully now that things in China are sort of picking up again slowly things will move forward for them and obviously that has also its effect on the reveal of a new game. They are working on it, but they're not there yet to make any announcements, I'd say, at the moment. Yeah, especially as they already announced that they're working with Buki on the Ben Heck game. It's not like they're going to be short of work. no so and so well we covered Dutch Pinball who are just cranking out games as the only company yeah I think it was reported by Cointaker that they're getting around about 10 games a month from Dutch Pinball they were prior to the coronavirus issues whether that's whether that's reduced now, whether there are fewer people working on the games, I don't know, but that was kind of like their standard output. So it's 10 a month, you know, it's 120 a year. It's going to take a little while before they manage to fulfil all the pre-orders from the achievers and all the new orders as well. Slow and steady is good for me. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. As long as the game is not rushed. They did share an update yesterday in which they say that they're still up and running. So at least slow and steady. We'll win the race. Good. Hopefully. It's good to hear that there are still pinballs being made even in the current situation. Right. So we covered Jersey Jack pinball. No news from them. No new game. No. Yeah. They're busy relocating to Elk Grove Village. And I mentioned Mike from Homepin as well. I talked to him, I think, like two weeks ago. And first of all, I'm glad to report he's doing fine. He moved the company to Taiwan. And he's currently in the process of basically setting up a new factory. they have a location and so they are building offices and storage rooms and all that kind of stuff and everything that comes with it like sorting out massive amounts of different types of screws and butts and nuts and bolts and all that kind of stuff and they're still waiting for containers to arrive from China with more equipment and so on What will be interesting to notice is that he's planning on outsourcing more elements of building pinball machines in the sense that in the previous factory they used to create their own cabinets. They're now going to use a third party for that and also for the wiring of the game, cables and all that kind of stuff. That's also being sourced out so they don't have to do that in-house anymore. It's just waiting till they are being brought in. They will still do playfield assembly, but that's probably the majority of activities that they are planning to do. So build a playfield, drop it in a cabinet, and then move on. Not worry about building cabinets and wire harnesses and all that kind of stuff. So the China zombie game is a big success for them and does well in spreading pinball's reach across China. Right. It would be interesting to know whether or not the move to Taiwan in any way impacts on the access to the Chinese market for the China zombies game or whether it makes no difference at all. I have no idea. We have to wait and see, but I expect it will take them at least, I'd say probably at least one or two months before they even have the factory up and running. so in the meantime Mike is focusing on the replacement boards that he also is making for Bally Williams games and also Zakaria games and so on so it's not that he's completely out of work he can still focus on that and other stuff as well so good and he's okay and moving on with his new facility. Right. And I think that sums it up for this month, I think. You know what? I think you're right. I think we've covered pretty much everything. Not the month we were expecting to be reporting on, but an interesting month nonetheless. And the good news is that pretty much all the things which didn't happen this month will be happening later in the year or maybe next year, let's hope not. and we'll be able to bring you all the details of those as and when they are announced. And although we won't be going to the Texas show this year or the Midwest Gaming Classic, I'm sure we'll make next year's shows even more exciting and more anticipated. So let's look forward to 2021's events and we'll all be raring to go and even more eager to bring you more details from those shows and everything else, of course, once people back up. Obviously, it's a huge disappointment because I always look forward to meeting a lot of listeners and readers of the magazine at these shows. And obviously, we're very sorry that we couldn't make it and also that the shows are cancelled and that nobody could make it. But let's just try to stay safe, everybody, and hopefully we'll get to see you at another show soon. Yes, and also, if it's totally possible, reach out to those shows and buy some of their merchandise that they've got. You can buy it from their websites, certainly in the case of the Texas Pinball Festival and the Midwest Gaming Classic. those two websites texaspinball.com and midwestgamingclassic.com you can buy the t-shirts and the posters and all kinds of swag that will be especially memorable because they'll be for commemorating shows which didn't actually take place so they'll have a special value this year right so it helps the organisers in the planning for next year's show to get that income in the absence of ticket sales Right, okay. So last but not least, you and I both wrote an article for the Texas Pinball Festival program guide. You already published your article on pinballnews.com. I haven't published my article yet, but I will be publishing that soon on pinball-magazine.com. I'm looking forward to reading it, because I do know what it's about, but I haven't read it yet. It sounds like an interesting topic. Do you want to let the listeners in on exactly what it was you wrote about? Yes, I wrote about pinball flyer collectability. So collecting pinball flyers and what happened to the art of the pinball flyer. as they used to be very creative at certain points in time. And more recently, well, some companies tend to go with a certain template that they use over and over again and just change a couple of photos and text, but basically all the flyers look the same. So I was wondering about whether the art of creating interesting pinball flyers is lost, and I wrote an article about that, which I think is, well, I thought it was an interesting topic, and I think I came up with some interesting angles as well. Right. So I look forward to reading that on pinball-magazine.com. Any idea when you're going to be putting that out? Probably this week, yes. Hopefully by the time this podcast becomes available, the article will be available as well. Okay, great. And the article I wrote called 2020 Vision, looking back 20 years, back to the start of Pinball News and the start of the Texas Pinball Festival, is on the Pinball News site. and some interesting, I don't want to say revelations, but some details about what was happening back at the start of the century and how it's changed in those two decades. So you can read that as well. So are we going to see big celebrations for the 20th anniversary of Pimble News? It's already happened. And you didn't invite me. What? I didn't invite me. well that must have been rather boring now well probably do it once pinball is back up and running and we can have a proper celebration at a big event and we'll get maybe have a we were due to have a pinball news classic tournament as part of the UK pinball open but unfortunately we've had to postpone that but you know maybe that will happen later in the year in which case that would be a very good chance to hold a bit of a party. Right. Well, I think as soon as we are able to do pinball events again, that's reason enough for a party already. Absolutely, yeah. I think everyone would be desperate to get out of the house and get out onto the location and pinball clubs and bars and barcades and arcades arcades and basically try out all these new games and support your local operator and play with their friends on location which is what really needs to happen to help support them financially. Right, okay. So, that's it for this month. If you are a subscriber of the Pinball Magazine newsletter you might have noticed there is a slight shift in when the newsletter is coming out and well basically the idea is that at the beginning of the month i'll be sending out a newsletter with a link to this podcast and around the middle of the month i will be sending out the regular monthly update but now it's covering from mid-month to mid-month um so there will be two contact moments you'll be receiving two newsletters every uh every month um instead of um trying to put it all in one newsletter so um so if you're expecting waiting for the pinball magazine newsletter to arrive um with the with the full recap of the month then that's in due in about two weeks, I'd say. Great. I suppose that's it, so let's wrap this up, and hopefully we'll be back next month. Thank you for listening. I have no idea what the world will look like next month. No, I have a horrible feeling it's going to look very similar to this month. Hopefully we'll still be there, and our readers will still be there, so So please stay home, keep your distance, and hopefully until next month. Wash your hands. Yes. Okay. Stay home, take care, and be safe, and we'll see you next month for a look back on April 2020. Until then, from me, Martin Eyup, and from... Jonathan Houston, editor of the two-time Twippy Award-winning Pinball Magazine, we say... Goodbye. Bye-bye.