Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Episode 77_Cruel Summer

The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 55m·analyzed·Jul 29, 2025
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

California Extreme recap with Harry Potter pinball hands-on impressions and arcade gaming anecdotes.

Summary

The hosts of Special When Lit Pinball Podcast (Spencer, Dan, Mark) discuss their experience at California Extreme arcade show, with extended coverage of playing Harry Potter pinball at the event, Mark Ritchie's history seminar, WPC game maintenance, and a memorable Warlords tournament experience. The episode opens with a tribute to Rob Anthony, a community member who recently passed.

Key Claims

  • Harry Potter pinball's staircase mechanism diverts the ball approximately 16 different ways and acts as a pseudo-lock.

    medium confidence · Dan discussing the grand staircase feature at California Extreme

  • Harry Potter pinball is one of the fastest JJP games, with comparable speed to Elton John.

    medium confidence · Mark discussing the game's speed characteristics at the show

  • Mark Ritchie was involved in a documented high-speed car chase (Porsche 944) that ended with a police pullover near Lodi, CA, which inspired the Highway Sign spinners on High Speed.

    high confidence · Dan recounting Mark Ritchie's seminar story at California Extreme; verified as Mark Ritchie legend

  • Bridge rectifier failures are rare; most reset issues attributed to bridge rectifiers are actually caused by reseating connectors.

    medium confidence · Pinball Pirate and T.J. Bayer's WPC maintenance seminar

  • Harry Potter pinball's Sorting Hat voice actor was a good choice and blended well with the universe, avoiding the typical 'sore thumb' effect of poor impersonations.

    medium confidence · Dan's assessment of voice work on the game

  • Atari Warlords cocktail cabinets sell for approximately $5,000 in the secondary market.

    medium confidence · Dan discussing cocktail machine pricing

  • Kyle Reinhart placed 4th in the B division of the California Extreme pinball tournament.

    high confidence · Spencer reporting tournament results from his Sunday Pinball League teammate

  • California Extreme moved venues at some point, relocating to Santa Clara, which changed the event's vibe.

    high confidence · Dan discussing historical California Extreme venue and atmosphere changes

Notable Quotes

  • “The shot layout is really fun, and it is a very flowy game and fast, probably one of the fastest JJPs.”

    Mark @ ~11:00 — Assessment of Harry Potter pinball's core gameplay characteristics

  • “It looks like what it is, which is a chunk of staircase that turns around.”

    Spencer @ ~15:00 — Critical aesthetic observation about Potter's staircase mechanism despite acknowledging strong gameplay

  • “The guy has forgotten about pinball than most of us have ever known.”

    Dan @ ~35:00 — Compliment to Pinball Pirate's expertise during WPC maintenance seminar

  • “It's like the most fun four people can have with their clothes on.”

    Spencer @ ~42:00 — Humorous description of Warlords' multiplayer appeal

  • “Well, come on, boy, you got to pony up.”

    Father figure at Warlords game @ ~50:00 — Unexpected parental support for casual gambling among arcade players, key moment in Warlords story

  • “You want to talk about inflation? You want to talk about geopolitical politics? And that fucking pulled pork sandwich out there cost $11.”

    Young child playing Warlords @ ~58:00 — Memorable comedic moment demonstrating the child's wit and sharp tongue during friendly competition

  • “In-person competition is still super fun in its own way, as opposed to, you know, playing somebody a game on the Internet.”

    Mark @ ~65:00 — Commentary on the enduring appeal of local multiplayer arcade gaming

  • “I don't think California Extreme is a pinball show. I think of it as an arcade show.”

    Dan @ ~90:00 — Clarification of event categorization and personal framing of California Extreme's identity

Entities

Harry PottergameCalifornia ExtremeeventMark RitchiepersonEric MeunierpersonSpencerpersonDanpersonMarkperson

Signals

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Harry Potter pinball features highly complex shot layout with 7,000+ diverters and wire forms creating unpredictable ball paths; noted as 'very flowy' and 'fast' with satisfying, makeable shots; grand staircase mechanism acts as central hub diverting ball 16 different ways

    high · Direct hands-on gameplay observations from Dan and Mark at California Extreme

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Eric Meunier's design approach on Harry Potter shows maturation and possible influence from Mark Ritchie; emphasis on ball movement, flowy gameplay, and satisfying shot feel across complex layout

    medium · Dan's assessment: 'maybe he lent him some advice, or maybe he's just maturing as a designer'; comparison to previous Meunier games

  • ?

    product_concern: Harry Potter show machine exhibited minor issues typical of early run demo units: ball search delays on grand staircase, slight misalignment, sticky Quidditch flipper

    high · Dan: 'There was a couple hang-ups... some foibles, because honestly I think that that game is going to make a lot of people really happy'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Harry Potter pinball features high difficulty in tournament play due to unpredictable ball paths and complex diverter system; hard to establish repeatable shot patterns

    high · Mark: 'It's difficult for a tournament game... hard to predict where the ball is going to come from'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Harry Potter's staircase mechanism represents significant mechanical innovation; enables 16-way ball diversion and pseudo-locking functionality in single mechanical element

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.346

0:00
Today's episode is dedicated to Rob Anthony, a friend to all in the pinball community. Welcome to the Spinner's Lit Pinball Podcast, episode 77, Cruel Summer. I'm your host, Spencer. And with me tonight are my co-hosts, Dan. Hey, everyone. How we doing? And Mark. Hey, everyone. It's been a cruel summer. Had a lot going on. It has been a rough summer in the last week or so. It has. We've lost a lot of people we care about.
1:15
Yeah. By now, unless you've been living in a mayonnaise jar or a Tibetan monastery, You know, some of the people in the jar, you know, you know, so we're not going to get into it more. You know, if it was a musician, play a record. If it was I remember their music. If it was, you know, an actor, a comedian.
1:41
If it was somebody else that tonight's episode is dedicated to them. It's absolutely time to tell Stern to make an Aussie pinball machine. Damn right. Yeah. Hogan's already on a couple pinball machines, but we need an Aussie pinball machine. We do. That would definitely be a cool machine.
2:02
And you would end up seeing that machine at cool shows like CAAX or California Extreme, which, Dan, you win. Yes, yes. I go to California Extreme pretty much every year.
2:16
And a lot of it at this point isn't even for games anymore, right? because California Extreme, for those who haven't been to it or go infrequently, is pretty much the leading arcade machine show on the West Coast. And a lot of that is just because of California's kind of traditional, like the Atari, it was like the power base of Atari. So people here have a lot of like crazy prototype, one-off kind of games. and one of the coolest things is that pinball is, of course, a big, big part of any arcade machine show, even though California is not the home of pinball.
Pinball Pirate
person
T.J. Bayerperson
Rob Anthonyperson
Christopher Franchiperson
Ron Tanperson
Kyle Reinhartperson
Jeffperson
Steve Bowdenperson
Adamperson
Travisperson
Jamieperson
Warlordsgame
Elton Johngame
High Speedgame
Al Alcornperson
Pinball Wizardevent
Northwest Pinball and Arcade Showevent
Godfathergame
Pirates of the Caribbeangame

high · Dan's extended discussion of how staircase mechanism creates varied ball paths and shot options

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community showing pattern of praising Harry Potter gameplay while expressing reservations about cabinet aesthetics; collectors prioritize art appeal while functional enthusiasts focus on play

    medium · Spencer: game doesn't look good aesthetically but is 'pretty well designed'; CE art preferred by theme enthusiasts; functional players value gameplay over cabinet appearance

  • ?

    product_strategy: Harry Potter offers three cabinet editions (Pro/Wizard, Arcade, LE/Collector's Edition) with distinct art styles; CE uses wispy, hand-drawn book-inspired art; movie editions use more corporate movie stills

    high · Dan's detailed comparison of cabinet appearances across editions; CE priced $5,000 higher; different art targets different customer segments

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Harry Potter pinball audio includes official Harry Potter themes, real voice call-outs, and custom Sorting Hat voice work; voice acting blends well with universe rather than sounding out of place

    high · Dan's assessment of voice work quality and thematic fit; praise for avoiding typical impersonation issues

  • ?

    event_signal: California Extreme continues as major West Coast arcade gaming event drawing serious players, collectors, and arcade enthusiasts; features new pinball, classic arcade, tournament play, seminars, and vendor shopping

    high · Detailed coverage of show attendance, tournament participation, seminars, and vendor activity; crowd observed around Harry Potter machine

  • ?

    community_signal: California Extreme hosts recurring Warlords tournament tradition where players gather annually for multiplayer competition; tradition attracts returning community members including children who participate in subsequent years

    high · Multi-year recurring tradition with same players returning; children remembered and returning across years ('Slippy and Jumpy'); dollar competition format

  • ?

    historical_signal: Mark Ritchie's car chase story (Porsche 944 pursuit ending near Lodi) is documented community legend; inspired High Speed spinners featuring I-5 highway signs; shared in official seminar setting

    high · Mark Ritchie presented story in California Extreme seminar; verifiable I-5 highway sign spinners on High Speed; specific location references (Lodi, Galt, Manteca, Rockland)

  • ?

    operational_signal: WPC games maintenance seminar debunked common myths (bridge rectifier failures rare; reseating connectors more likely cause); revealed many operators misdiagnose problems and make unnecessary repairs

    medium · Pinball Pirate and T.J. Bayer seminar; Adam's anecdote about learning through mistakes; common misconceptions being addressed

    • 3:01
    But when it comes down to it, you've got the pinball pirate, usually brings the hottest, newest titles, and this year my pinball mission was to play Harry Potter, which everybody's pinball mission I think this year was to play Harry Potter, But I did manage to get a game on the hottest, newest JJP. And you've played it, right, Mark? I have played it, yep. You haven't gotten your hands on one yet, Spencer? No, not yet. So maybe you guys are kind of on the same page as me. Like, when you look at Harry Potter in pictures, that layout is really hard to make sense of. it looks like it has like wire forms that kind of start nowhere and they kind of end nowhere and it's it looks really wild from from overhead and it's a wild layout in person but everything is connected because of that uh grand staircase mechanism that's right so yeah that ends up diverting the ball like what 16 different ways or it can act as like a little pseudo lock it moves a lot and it's shot really nice like I've got to give Eric Meunier credit you know I've always thought his game shot pretty good you know Guns and Roses is probably like his simplest Pirates you know is pretty straightforward it's got a lot of mechanisms and what not on it I think Godfather was a little on the wild side this is definitely on the wild side but I feel like maybe Steve Ritchie being there, like, you know, maybe he, like, lent him some advice, or maybe he's just maturing as a designer. The shots all feel very makeable, and they're pretty satisfying to hit, and there is just a lot of stuff going on in that game. The ball goes a lot of different ways, and, you know, I'm not the biggest Harry Potter fan in the world, so the theme doesn't do a lot for me. But as far as, like, the game itself, it's pretty well designed. Like, the play field is cool, and I think you get the kinetic satisfaction of making good shots. You get the ball travel. Like, you get to watch the ball whip around and do fun things. The upper play field with the Quidditch shot is fun to make. It's got, you know, a cauldron that balls will drop into from a kicker, and it's got that staircase which just, you know, flings the ball everywhere. This machine was obviously, you know, a new machine, and it was at the show. So there were a couple hang-ups, like you had to wait for the ball search to clear off on the grand staircase. There was a little bit of a misalignment. and the Quidditch flipper was a little bit sticky. But, you know, I can kind of forgive a show game, probably an earlier run show game, you know, some foibles, because honestly I think that that game is going to make a lot of people really happy. Yeah, I totally agree with you, Dan. The shot layout is really fun, and it is a very flowy game and fast, probably one of the fastest JJPs. I mean, Elton John has good speed too, but this one really moves. And the flippers felt great as far as the strength goes and being able to make the shots like you said. It's very satisfying, and it's kind of a thrill to play. I really enjoyed it as far as the ball paths go. And it was difficult for a tournament game, if it ever would be. It's hard to predict where the ball is going to come from. So you don't have that pattern where you can have that repeatable shot all the time. Yeah, it's hard to, like, look at that game and just sort of go, okay, this is going to do this and this is going to do that because it's got, like, 7,000 diverters and wire forms and paths and up kickers and down kickers and side kickers. And, yeah, it's got a lot of ball movement, which I think is kind of a JJP, definitely kind of an Eric Meunier thing. and really the only thing for me that like kind of ruins Harry Potter is that I don't think that aesthetically it's a good looking game. Okay. I think if you like Harry Potter, it looks like it's supposed to look, right? It's got pictures of characters, but like the staircase mechanism, you know, it's not like you look at that and you go, oh, wow, that looks really cool, like the swaying ship on Pirates or the guy with the Tommy gun on Godfather.
    8:01
    It looks like what it is, which is a chunk of staircase that turns around. Yeah, I agree with that. The Dementor thing looks kind of cool. You got little figurines on broomsticks sort of floating around on the play field. You've got a car and a tree. It's all Harry Potter stuff. The art looks good. The art looks corporate. That's kind of the nicest thing I can say about the art. I've said it before and I'll say it again, man. If you have a theme like that, Christopher Franchi is worth whatever he costs.
    8:34
    Because he manages to take corporate art and make it look artistic. Look at his Guardians of the Galaxy or look at his monsters.
    8:43
    But I think the art is perfectly serviceable. I don't think that it's ugly. you know I know that there was that big debacle with the AI you know I gave I didn't have the time to like sit there and hyperanalyze but nothing jumped out to me as like oh man that's ugly right yeah you really have to look for it you don't look at it and not think that it's Harry Potter right like it looks like Harry Potter is supposed to look it's got the characters that you want to see they all look like like the Harry Potter characters the art packages on the cabinet, obviously, that LE cabinet, you know, is a little bit fancier, and it looks great. You know, the Pro and the Arcade, or not the Pro, the Arcade and the Wizard Edition. Yeah. Wizard.
    9:32
    I hate when they change things. I know. Look good. The sound is great. It's got everything in it, sound-wise, that I think you could want as a Harry Potter fan. You know, I'm sure by now people have heard it, but it's got the Harry Potter themes. It's got real voice call-outs. It's got custom call-outs by someone who's supposed to be the sorting hat.
    9:56
    One of the things that I think you run into with these themed machines is often when you don't get the real voice, if you don't have a really good impersonator, it sticks out like a sore thumb. this guy blended in you know he sounded he sounded to me like he belonged in the universe i think it would have been better if they would have got someone to do like hagrid doing the calls or dumbledore but you know the sorting hat guy was a good choice and uh you know i think they're gonna sell a lot of them the lines on it were extreme everybody who played it seemed happy the little thing where you can scan a qr code and put it into easy mode like i thought that was kind of, the guy in front of me in line, like, he put it in easy mode and then proceeded to, like, GC it. Like, he beat the shit out of that game. Uh-huh. Yeah. And I was just like, you know, I'd start giving him a hard time. And he's just like, well, you know, I had to wait a long time to play something else. I'm like, yeah, but nobody cares about that game. Look, let's go over there right now. I'll throw somebody off of Toy Story and you can play it.
    11:00
    But I think that we were all having fun. We all had a good conversation. And it let me, you know, take a good long look at the game in motion and see all the tricks. Like, he got to one of the wizard modes for one of the books. Or one of the movies. I guess it's really based more on the movies. But, yeah, so I got to see a lot of gameplay. And I put a pretty meaningful game on it. And so, yeah, it's a game that, you know, I would love to spend some more time on. and if I was a Harry Potter affectionato, I can see why people would want this game to be in their life. So it's a cool machine. Now, was it a CE that you played? I played the Wizard. You played the Wizard Edition? I played the Wizard Edition, yeah, not the Wizard Mode. Right next to me was an arcade, so I went and took some looks at the arcade. And you know what, man? It looks 100% there. I don't think that there would be much of any surface-level compromise if you went for the quote-unquote cheap edition, which is still 10K. And on the other side of me was a CE. And, yeah, you could see that the cabinet was, you know, a little bit more, like if you're, like, how to describe this? It looks kind of wispier. Like the art's very wispy. Hmm. It looks more hand-drawn, and there's like, you know, things are going into other things, like smoke. It looks cool. It's not for me, but again, I think if you're like a real Harry Potter nut, like you look at that and you go like, oh, I know what this is supposed to represent. It's more like bookie. It looks more like the artwork in the books. Okay, I got you. Yeah, yeah. And the other editions look more like the artwork in the movie. Now, historically, I'm kind of one of those guys who, like, looks at the limited edition and goes, like, yeah, I mean, that looks all right, but I think the pro cabinet's fine. I just want the name on the side of the game. You know, I don't need a bunch of art on my machine. So it looks cool, though. Like, we have a friend who's getting it, and, of course, they're going to get the CE, and one of her big reasons is, like, she just loves the art. And I'm like, great, hey, wonderful, more power to you. But, you know, when it comes down to it, you don't play the cabinet. So whatever, you know, if that's worth $5,000 to you, you know, great, you get it. The art alone is beautiful as an art piece that you can have in your house. It is really nice to see. And I agree. Yeah. Like, yeah, if the game doesn't look good, it needs to be super good at other things, you know, to make up for the fact that, you know, maybe it's not the best-looking game. You know, at the end of the day, though, it's still a pinball machine, so it's still pretty cool. Yeah. Beyond that, I went to a seminar with Steve Ritchie.
    13:50
    It was kind of the history of Steve Ritchie. He went from Atari up through his time at Williams, up to his time at Stern, up to his time at JJP. And Steve Ritchie, he's very, you know, he's not very rehearsed. He's very conversational. He can't hear you, so that's always super hilarious.
    14:09
    He's like, what'd you say? What'd you say? Hey, you, tell me what he said. Um, so yeah, it was nice to hear from Steve and, and, you know, he's, he's looking real good. Uh, I, uh, I got a kick out of, uh, Ron, Ron, uh, Tan, a good friend of ours took him some water.
    14:29
    So, so that was pretty cool. And, uh, he told the high speed story. Oh, cool. Yeah. The high speed story is like a Steve Ritchie show legend, which is, uh, that he was involved in a car chase, which ended, like, right around Lodi or Galt when he got pulled over. Oh, it was by Lodi? How ironic. Yeah, he was driving on the 5 or something. They were going to pick up parts from someplace in Rockland or Manteca or something. I don't know. And, yeah, he decided to, you know, unwind his Porsche 944 and see what it would do. And he ended up getting pulled over by the Popo, and he said it, you know, was right around Lodi. I always pictured it kind of more down in the Central Valley, but, you know, it's good to hear that high speed. We got a local connection. Yeah. That's super, super cool, right? Do you guys know that if you look at the spinners on high speed, they're the highway signs for Interstate 5 for that reason? Right. Yeah. so and then uh i went to another seminar and this is with the pirate and tj bayer who's a big collector up here in northern california and uh it was wpc games are getting old and so are we so first of all i'm like man i feel attacked by that but for the most part it was just sort of a tech walkthrough of, you know, troubleshooting on WPC. And I think most of it for WPC owners was pretty common knowledge. I was watching that with Adam, and we were kind of talking about it. And it was funny because they were talking about mistakes. He's like, yeah, but nobody would ever do that. I'm like, yeah, I've done that.
    16:17
    He's like, you know, unless you just happen to send, you know, coil power through your switch matrix. And I'm just like, yeah, I've done that, you know.
    16:26
    Learn from your mistakes. Yeah, no, for sure, right? And it was useful. And, of course, you know, the pirate, the guy has forgotten about pinball than most of us have ever known. You know, like the dude is obviously just like super, super, super, super heavy on the pinball knowledge. And, you know, I like the fact that, you know, they go to kind of set a – to kind of unprove some of, like, the long-term, you know, like, oh, if you're getting resets, it's your bridge rectifiers. And they're like, it's never your bridge rectifiers. I've never seen bridge rectifiers fail. If you change your bridge rectifiers and it, you know, fixed the problem, it was probably because reseating the connector when you took the board out, you know, you got a better connection the second time. so you know that was that was a pretty fun one and uh then after that uh we went to dinner uh with with some friends and with my wife because jamie loves california extreme she insists on going she's got friends in the arcade community more on the dancing game side so they spend a lot of time fooling with that stuff and so we went out and then when we came back i met with some guys from the pinball league and we played several hours of warlords for dollars oh warlords yeah is that the one where you have the the paddle and you have to it's like breakout but four way warlords is like a four-player breakout yeah person has a corner of the screen each corner of the screen has a castle and you have a you know basically a shield and a dragon spits a fireball out onto the field and you know you guys bounce it at each other and you're trying to break down each other's walls and destroy the castles. So we do it more or less as a competition, right, because it is a great competitive game. It's like the most fun four people can have with their clothes on. Yeah. And so we're each throwing down a dollar. And if somebody else wants to get in, like, great, they can get in. They don't have to throw down a dollar unless they want to. And then if they win, we just, you know, we just let the dollars ride and we just swap in and out. and it was hilarious because we sit down to start playing. And, you know, we're talking trash, but we're trying to be friendly. And this, like, 10, 11-year-old kid jumps in and starts playing with us, right? And at this point, people aren't really waiting. So it's, you know, me and Adam and Travis and this kid, and we're hammering on the game and we're playing over and over. And, you know, me and the other guys are swapping around dollars. And the dad walks up and he looks down at us and he goes, well, come on, boy, you got to pony up. and so we're like oh that's funny because we know we didn't know how this dad would respond and uh adam gives gives the kid a steak and so then we win you know like i think i won so i took i picked the kid's money and so adam gives the kid another steak and then travis won so we took the kid's money and i'm like it's so hilarious that we got a kid to start gambling and then we just started taking his money and uh we're terrible people but it was super super fun And finally, the kids started talking trash with us, too. And, man, this little bastard was profane. Oh, it was great. I was like, well, it looks like we don't have to worry about watching our language, boys.
    19:39
    No, we figured out, or I figured out, quote, unquote, figured out that, like, it would mess with Travis if I complimented him. So, you know, because the kid said he liked his shirt or something, and Travis lost. So I started, oh, Travis, you know, I think that you're smart and I think that you're funny and I think you have a wonderful grasp of geopolitical politics. And the kid starts going, you want to talk about geopolitical politics? You want to talk about inflation? And that fucking pulled pork sandwich out there cost $11. Oh, my God, man. We fell over laughing. It was the funniest thing that you'd ever heard. Oh, my gosh. Was he good at the game? No. No? He was terrible? He was a kid. But he was down, man. Like, he was in there with a bunch of, like, you know, 30- and 40-year-olds just talking shit. It was great. That's a really funny story. The funny thing is we seem to have, like, kids that we adopt playing warlords, like, every year. And I didn't see them on Saturday. And we were only there for Saturday. But apparently on Sunday, the kids who we were playing with last year showed up. And the year before. And, of course, they remember me and Adam and Shannon. And so Shannon got a picture with them. I saw that. We don't even know their names. we called them Slippy and Jumpy.
    20:53
    But yeah, so yeah, it's just that show is such a fun experience. I mean, if you just love arcade games, it's crowded, but there's a lot of cool stuff to see. Oh, yeah. It's definitely not Golden State, but there's a lot of pinball, you know, and the new stuff's there. And there's a lot of shopping to do. And there's shows. Oh, and you know, there's a console room upstairs with all kinds of weird consoles and live music and rock band and there's dealers and there's a tournament.
    21:24
    So, yeah, it's a great show if you haven't been to California Extreme. It's not the cheapest show. You know, it's like 50 bucks for a day or more for the weekend. But, you know, you'll get your money's worth if you hang out all day. And if you do have some buddies and you can get on a game like, you know, Killer Queen or Warlords, like, man, you know, It kind of shows you that old, you know, kind of like multiplayer pinball. It kind of shows you that, like, in-person competition is still super fun in its own way, as opposed to, you know, playing somebody a game on the Internet. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, California Extreme, another good year. I wish they'd find a new venue. You know, I think that that Santa Clara venue is, you know, it has so many times where, like, there's also an event at the stadium or something, and so the parking is just janked. But this year the parking wasn't too bad. It was hard at first, but we found a spot in the garage, and then we found a wonderful spot after dinner. And, yeah, man, fun show. Wish you guys were there just to play two or three hours of Warlords. Yeah, no kidding. That's a cocktail, right? The Warlords is only a cocktail, right? So you can get Warlords as a stand-up. It's only two players or a cocktail. And it strikes me as something that our buddy Mike in Reno might actually have one of. You want the cocktail. You know, it's got this dinky little screen. It's got four paddles and one button per player. But it's the experience of, like, huddling around that table. basically not even like just figuratively head-to-head, but like literally head-to-head. Sure. You know, because you're trying to look down and see what's going on, you know, that makes that fun. There's also like a really good Atari version of that game. Like you can play, because, you know, the paddle controller is on the Atari 2600. You can play a basically perfect version of Warlords on the Atari 2600. But, yeah, I think, you know, there's even an arcade one up of it. But I think at the end of the day, like, yeah, there's a reason that, like, real Atari Warlords cocktails sell for, like, five grand. Okay. Yeah. And, you know, we've talked about, like, hey, you know, we're pinball guys. Five grand is not a lot of money. Why don't we get one of these? And I do think that, like, it would be a cool thing to own, but I don't think that it would be as special if we weren't having this, like, once a year Lord of War competition that we look forward to doing at this specific show. Yeah, he started a tradition. That's cool. Yeah. That's really cool. The My Arcade Atari, you know, retro console. Rusty got that for the family as a family gift last Christmas. And it has 2,600 games, 5,200 arcade, and it has Warlords on there. Cool. It's not a bad port. I've played it a couple times.
    24:30
    Yeah. Warlords is just one of those things that, like, you can't play it by yourself. like you need honestly you need at least three people i would say for it to be really good it is funny to have a computer player in there especially when the computer player beats everybody um because you know then you get to make fun of your friends for sucking even though you died too but you know just forget about that right i'm like why didn't you take him out it's your fault but yeah it really is just like one of those games that you know just it was it was that indicator of like why 80s Atari was just so good. Yep. Because it's so simple, right? You know, there's just nothing to it.
    25:14
    But with the way that they designed the cabinet and with the environment that you play it in, like, it's just fun, you know, and the instructions, you know, just couldn't be more simple, you know, just block, block, you know, block your shots. Don't get hit. Yeah, exactly. There is some strategy to it, but, I mean, really, at the end of the day, it's more about, it's almost like poker where it's almost more about playing your friends rather than, you know, having a special combo move or something that you do. Like, if you can catch the ball and find that moment where your buddy's distracted and then, you know, take a big chunk of his fort out, I mean, and then laugh at him, like, that's just always, always super fun. That sounds fun. That's cool.
    25:58
    That is cool. did you at all I know you didn't play in the tournament but did you go up there at all and visit people or did you stay away from it you know I walked by the tournament room a couple times they're pretty strict about if you're not playing in the tournament don't come in okay and I don't really know if anybody maybe Shannon was playing it or playing in classics but I didn't really follow the tournament this year. I usually follow it pretty close if like Alex or someone's playing in it. But yeah, I've never actually played in the California Extreme Tournament. Okay. Yeah. The only thing I know is I know that my teammate from our Sunday Pinball League, Kyle Reinhart, got in the top four in the B division, which was really cool. He ended up in fourth place, but he played really well. And that was really cool to see him make it that far. I think they do get some serious players, too. Oh, yeah, there's some serious players there. I mean, yeah, they're top of the world right there, some of them.
    27:05
    But, yeah, he had a good time with the tournament. And then his son, Jeff, he just missed the cutoff for the A division. And then, of course, he couldn't qualify for the B division because he had too high of a ranking.
    27:17
    But, yeah, he just missed it by one spot. And, of course, it was right at the very end of the last hour, which I can know how that feels because when I went to Texas Pinball Festival, I got knocked out too right before, like literally like a half hour before by Steve Bowden. He knocked me down, and I was out. And I think that was best game. I don't think that was a card format, but it's just interesting how those people can sneak in right at the last minute when they have a really good card. But, yeah, that was a lot of fun for both of them. No shame in losing to Steve Bowden by the way, that dude is great Well, it was for qualifying I almost had it and then I was like, darn it he got me and knocked me down two spots and I was out of the finals but yeah, it was fun but yeah, they had a good time and they said the tournament was very organized this year and I forgot who ran it but she did a good job so, yeah and I will go next year. I will definitely go to California Extreme next year. It's always really close to when school starts and there's always something going on but next year I plan on going for sure. Yeah, summer shows are hard. Yep. I think a lot of us, like for me and Jamie we started going to California Extreme when I think it might even have been before pinball Like just because we were into arcade games before I started buying and collecting pinball machines And it was you know a big damn deal Like this is I don know if it the largest show on the West Coast anymore Like, maybe InDisc is bigger, but it was certainly bigger than, like, Pinnagogo. And probably at least on par with what they're doing up in Tacoma. Right. Like, you know, it was a big, big show. And, you know, you could go there and you could see because of, again, you know, we are in, like, the Atari cradle. And a lot of those guys still live around here. And a lot of them are younger than you think they're going to be because they were working at Atari in the 70s when they were, like, 20. Right. And they're still coming and they're telling you, you know, the memories of, you know, what it was like to make, you know, major havoc, you know, when Ruben would be there or the guy who did Pac-Man for Atari, Todd Fry, would be there. In fact, it was funny. It was a big panel one year and I actually took my little brother and he was probably 12 or 13 at the time.
    29:55
    And it was like the history of Atari and I mean it really was a who's who and he kind of turns to me and goes, wow, they're all younger than I expect. And I go, well, yeah, these guys, when they were working at Atari, when guys like Steve Jobs and Wozniak were working at Atari, they were kids. You know, so yeah, it was, you know, it was their first job. It was, you know, in this industry. And he goes, well, what about that old guy at the end? Did he found Atari? And then right at the end, and I think he might've even heard it because right at the end, it's just like, hi, I'm Al Alcorn. I'm the co-founder of Atari. And Mason's like, oh, everybody in the room fell out because he was trying to whisper, but he had, you know, the voice control of a 13 year old boy who's related to me. So, yeah, it was a pretty good moment. But yeah, it's very, very fascinating. And they used to do a trivia contest that I would enter, and I never won, but I got up to second a couple few times. And yeah, it was, you know, and it was a good excuse to have lunch at a restaurant down in San Jose, you know, when they first opened. And if you stayed late enough, you know, they turned down the lights, and they used to have this big like, it was like the 80s projection wall with like all the little TVs. and they'd play like 80s music videos on it and there'd be like a dude with like the, I don't know if it was the dulcimer, but it was like one of the big complicated instruments and he'd play like 80s covers on it. The vibe was so good at the early California extremes and it changed a little bit when they moved to Santa Clara, but they didn't entirely lose it. They just broke it up a little bit more. Like there's one room that's kind of the big room, then there's a smaller side room. That's where all the cocktails are where I usually hang out. Then there's the upstairs room and that's where the music ends up being. But, yeah, it's still, you know, it's still a really good time, especially if you're a student or an aficionado of arcade history. But there's something there for everybody. There's the newest stuff, there's the oldest stuff, and there's console stuff. So, yeah, you know, once again, it's a show that I definitely recommend spending a day at and, you know, checking it out. California Extreme. Not great, but not bad. And evidently, California Extreme is my first pinball show I ever attended, just to let you know. And it was my first pinball tournament I ever entered. So it was definitely a staple in my history of going to pinball shows that started it all. I don't think California Extreme is a pinball show. I think of it as an arcade show. No, you're right. You're right. Well, it had pinball there. You're right. It is a pinball show. Like, it has a ton of pinball. It's just there's this schism in my mind where I view California Extreme as a video game show.
    32:36
    With pinball added. Have you ever been to Northwest, right? Northwest, it's like the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show, the Tacoma Show. It's kind of half and half. Half and half, yeah. It's got a ton of pinball, but it's also got a ton of arcades. And I look at it as a pinball show. But, yeah, for whatever reason, and I think it's just because when I started going to it, I started going for arcade games, and then as I got into pinball, like, I started going more for pinball reasons. But I still always viewed, like, the pinball shows need to be, like, freaking pinball shows, right? Like, there might be one or two arcade games that show up at Pinnagogo or Golden State, but, like, that shows, like, 99.8% pinball. Right, right. Well, like you said, it's an arcade show. That covers all areas, right?
    33:32
    So, yeah. It's a great show, though. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. And like I said, that started the whole arcade convention. I guess that's the way I could put it. And, yeah, that's what got me going. And then my next one, of course, was Pinnagogo, and that's because I was looking for something a little closer to home. And sure enough, Dixon was only two and a half hours away. So I was like, yeah, I'm going to check that place out in October. So, yeah.
    33:59
    Dixon, good show. Dixon, yeah. Good show. That's the next one, I think, on our radar, right? Yeah, I'm hoping I can go to that one this year. Another one in October? Yeah, no, I'm not going to Chicago Expo next year. Or this year, sorry. This year I'm not going.
    34:17
    But I did enjoy the 40th. That was cool. But that's awesome. I'm glad you had a great time at California Extreme. Awesome.
    34:26
    So how was Alice in Wonderland? Oh, yeah, that's right. I got to play Alice in Wonderland a couple weeks ago, and it's a gorgeous game in person. I'll have to say that. The artwork, same as what I saw at the show when I was at Chicago Expo. But I have to say that seeing it in person again and seeing the sculpts, it was really impressive to see the level of detail in the play field. as far as shot layout goes. It was pretty simple. It really reminded me of a 90s type game where it was very self-explanatory. The modes weren't that deep.
    35:06
    Definitely things have changed in the assets and the call-outs. It seems like they hired brand new voice actors because I didn't see the annoying, I think it was the Mad Hatter who really had a terrible voice originally. and there still is the get out you know kind of thing that with the when you hit the stand-up target in the middle of the play field but um as far as the the the play it was really enjoyable it shot really well they definitely adjusted the magnetic uh the magnetic um uh upper play field so that you could hit the captive balls a lot better than it was before The show game was awful. It, like, had hardly any power. And the ball would, like, move, like, literally, like, one centimeter where the magnets were located. So that was cool. And it wasn't used all the time, so you didn't get bored with that particular mode. It was, like, one of the modes.
    36:09
    And, yeah, I really enjoyed it. The lighting was beautiful on it. The display looked nice. There was no topper because the toppers are kind of on a delay right now because they're waiting for some kind of part. So those are going to be shipped later. But I think the thing that really standed out, which I saw before when I was at Chicago Expo, was the side rails of how they light up. That looks really cool. Even though it's LED lighting, which we've seen before, seeing it underneath a laser etched lettering really makes it stand out as a unique game. So that was really cool to be able to play that and I had a lot of games on it. I played at least like 10 to 12 games on it and I didn't get to the wizard mode. I was close. I had like, I think there were like 7 or 8 modes. I can't remember exactly. What's the wizard mode called? um honestly i can't remember exactly what it was but i was just making sure in alice in wonderland that you could call a wizard mode yeah that's true taking the roses red we're all mad here yeah i don't know hey of course those are probably more diviny terms but i should probably do my research and find out what that is but um you're playing casually you're playing for fun so yeah yeah but it sounds like they made advances. A lot of improvements. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of improvements. Um, so just in terms of the game, right? Like, does it feel true to its extended origins of the J-pop game or, or do you think that that J-pop connection is a little overstated? It does feel a little bit like a J-pop game. It does. Um, obviously the, the, the curvy aspect of it, you know, not, it's a lot more organic looking. I know with all the sculpts and everything that they, when I was at the show, there was no plastic shield over it, I guess you could say. But on the production game, they actually put plastic over all the sculpts so you wouldn't bash them with a ball and break them apart or whatever. That sounds like lessons learned. Yeah, lessons learned. Absolutely. There were no air balls. It was smooth, and the shots were fun. There were a couple that were satisfying and some that were pretty easy, like going up the middle ramp was not too hard.
    38:41
    But it was enjoyable. I kept playing it over and over again just because it was – it didn't – I didn't have to go and, you know, take a book out and study the rules. I could just play it and kind of felt that 90s vibe of, okay, I can come up to this pinball machine and play it without having to understand all the rules thoroughly. It's like, oh, I can figure this out. Okay, shoot here. And it was very, very obvious what you had to shoot for. And it was challenging to start a multiball. It took a lot of work to get to a multiball, which was good, which is similar to the 90s games where you really had to, you know, earn it. and yeah, I really enjoyed it. Or just hit all three and hit one shot. Yeah, exactly. Did they address the underuse of the upper play field? Like, you know, so apparently there was like only one way into the upper play field at Expo, and so people never got to see it in action. Was the upper play field more accessible now, and you got to play on it more? Well, actually, it's probably the same because when I got up there, it was only through one mode that was on there, and if I could go look through and look at the play feed, I could tell you what it is. But yeah, it wasn't utilized as much. Let's just say it wasn't overutilized, but it probably was underutilized at the same time. So they maybe have to combine it with some other modes or something to make it more useful. But when it was there, it was satisfying to try it out. I think if I went up there all the time, I'd probably get bored just because there's really not much to shoot for except cap the balls and being able to do it. Yeah, but the power field never gets old on Twilight Zone. That's true. You have a good point there. All you're trying to do is get the ball in a hole. But I get it. You know, it's like you don't want something to overstay its welcome. You want it to be special when you hit it.
    40:35
    So the moral of the story with this game is, do you think that it's worth what it costs? Like, as a collector's piece, I mean, Obviously, to pinball collectors, whether you're, you know, you just want something unusual, whether you want something beautiful, or whether you want something that has a history, there's a lot of dimensions to why you would own this game. Do you see the value in, was it 15?
    41:07
    That's a little steep for me, for what I saw. But the artwork definitely is unique as far as very, very detailed and beautiful to look at. I mean, it kind of had that same sense of awe as, like, the Magic Girl pinball machine. It's beautiful in person. And, yeah, that's definitely part of this game's allure, right? Yes. It's a project that was never, that was supposed to happen and never did happen that's happening. You know, to kind of, you know, maybe that was a little bit of a open question, but to kind of put into perspective, like I was saying about Harry Potter, like, maybe I didn't verbalize this, but, like, I can see why it's expensive.
    41:54
    Yes. Like, you feel the engineering, you feel the amount of mechanisms, you feel the work that went into it. So, like, you know, at $10,000, like, I would look at that game and go, like, this game makes sense for $10K. You know, for $12K if you're a big enough fan and you like the extra stuff, or for $15K if you're a maniac, an elite collector. So, is there an aspect to where, like, you know, obviously we have a friend, you know, who, you know, very generously invited us to come over and check it out. I was unable to partake this time, but, you know, I'm not trying to say, was he dumb for buying it, you know? And if you listen, we don't think you are. Thanks, buddy.
    42:36
    No, not at all. You know, do you see the value in, you know, all of the trouble and then, you know, the final product, you know, that it took to get, you know, DPX's Alice in Wonderland out into the world? I'll tell you this, Dan, that not only just on the playfield, but just the construction, it is really well built.
    43:06
    Everything is really solidly constructed, especially the plywood that they used. It was like 10-ply plywood that was put together for the cabinet alone. It was very thick, very high-quality materials. Under the playfield, it wasn't like a bunch of mess of wires. It was really nice and organized and well laid out.
    43:30
    As far as any issues that arise, you know how it is with new pinball machines, we only had one issue where it wasn't having the upper kicker wasn't recognizing it, but then when we reset the game, it was fine, and it was able to work fine after that. These new computerized games, man. Yeah. It has a lot to do with it, just rebooting it, and it worked fine, and we didn't have any issues after that. So to answer your question as far as art, I would say yes. If you want to buy this machine for the art and you like the theme, then yes, I would say that it is worth the money. But if you're looking for it for unique toys and stuff like that, I mean, probably the only thing that was kind of cool was the spinning discs on the outlanes instead of magnets. That was kind of cool to try to save the ball, and it did work pretty well when you used the extra buttons to do that. But there wasn't really any wow mechs that I saw that really made it unique as far as having the value that you stated.
    44:35
    But as far as art carries the load. And I think the art carries the load. To an extent, like the story behind the game, right? The story behind the game is unusual and different. And it's polarizing because, of course, you got the people who are just like, well, you know, it shouldn't exist because people lost money on it. And then you got the other people who are just like, hey, to me, this is a dream theme. I love J-pop games. You know, it looks really, really, really, really cool. I have to have something different that no one else has. So it's worth it to them. Yeah, for the uniqueness? Absolutely. Go through the trouble. It's like when you buy a Big Bang Bar. You know, can you get a better pinball machine? Sure. But is it a Big Bang Bar? No.
    45:23
    Right, exactly. And the other thing, too, and this is what kind of threw me off. When I first watched the video of the trailer, I was thinking, okay, these are trashy women. But then when you see it in person, you don't feel that, and you make them, it almost looks like they're badass women. Like they're ready to kick some ass. Even though they're voluptuous, but it's not pornographic, if that makes sense. I'm going to go on record as saying this. Everybody who had that problem just needs to shut the fuck up. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
    45:56
    Pinball is built on, you know, love it or hate it. Pinball is built on, you know, racy pictures of girls. I'm not talking about naked, but, you know, they're drawn to be sexy. And, you know, it's a little naughty, you know, go back to the 70s, strikes and spares and wizard. And, you know, even before that, you know, you always had women, you know, who were painted on these games as being desirable and sexy. So just like I get it, you know, we were talking about this with American Pinball, right? Apparently, the story came out that American Pinball, who made, you know, Galactic Tank Force, which is, in my opinion, the most unfairly slammed pinball machine ever made, the lady who played the Empress, Carrie Hoskins, offered to have her shirt more unzipped. They were very much like, no, keep that shit zipped up. Because they got in big trouble for the handsy monkey on Oktoberfest. Remember Oktoberfest? It was Oktoberfest. And I'm just like, come on, guys. You screwed up what could have been a good thing. Yeah. Because, I mean, it's not like I'm like, oh, man, I need this machine to get my rocks off. But I'm just like, come on, guys. Isn't it more fun when things are fun to look at? You know, you want dudes to be jacked. You want chicks to be sexy. Like, you know, you want that stuff to happen. But, yeah, I never, like, I remember looking at Alice in Wonderland in the pictures. And, I mean, yeah, you know, it is kind of like, quote, unquote, slutty Alice. But, yeah, it certainly wasn't gratuitous. You know, she was a little bit older. She was definitely attractive. if her clothes were a little, you know, torn up. The Wicked Witch was definitely, or the Queen, right? Wicked Witch is the right thing. Queen of Hearts. The Queen was definitely looking a little bit hotter these days. Yeah. But, yeah, like, come on, guys. You know, it's nothing that you couldn't have anybody look at. One of the biggest surprises in my life ever was the fact that when I brought home an ACDC Lucy, my wife didn't make me throw it out of the house, you know. Even ladies can appreciate hot ladies. Yeah, absolutely. And, like I said, it was the art style that worked. And they don't have that in the display, of course, in the animations. It's just only on the cabinet art. And it is Yeti-ish art, right? Absolutely. Like, it's a little Yeti work, but, like, it was reworked by somebody else, and he kind of, like, said, hey, I'm over it. Do what you want. Right. Yeah. If you like that early zombie Yeti, that Ghostbusters style before, I feel like he's getting a little formulaic now, but it's definitely a gorgeous game. It is really gorgeous in person. Nobody's going to look at J-Pop and go, like, that dude makes some ugly-ass games. Yeah. I mean, if I went over to Jason's again, I would probably go play that one right away. I really enjoyed the play. I liked it because, like I said, it wasn't complex. It was easy to play. And, you know, there were some modes that were tougher than others, but it wasn't hard to understand. And that's my takeaway from it. And, like I said, if I had a chance to play it again, I would. Yeah, I need to get up there and spend some time on it. Yeah. Get a chance to play it because they're only making, what, 500 of them? Yeah, there's not many. There's not many. They're very rare now for today's. Very rare. Yeah.
    49:22
    Good deal, man. That sounds awesome. What about you, Spencer? What's going on in your pinball world? You know, not a lot new. I haven't been traveling because we just all of us have had so much going on. you know, boys and Rusty and me all working and doing stuff. So, you know, just been playing my games at home and trying to promote pinball. But so when I first got the new Dungeons & Dragons game, I immediately shot pictures over to a fellow pinball collector in town. He's got one game. He's got a high speed. He played in college a lot. And so I said, hey, man, look what I got. Come over. So he came over and he played it, and he played it at, like, because I got the game that was, the game shipped with, like, .086 code. So I think we were, like, .087 when he got here, maybe .08. But, like, he got here within the first week I got it. And he played it. So, and then he's been, you know, his kids are home from college and, you know, but, like, his father-in-law just passed away a few months ago, and they're dealing with all that. So he's like, hey, hit me up about three weeks ago. I was like, hey, man, that's where I put, you know, me and my daughter come work. She wants to see the game. She's over at University of Wyoming. I'm like, yeah, absolutely. Because she'd been over before and played the other games. And she's a huge Dungeons and Dragons fan. She has a group she plays with at her college. So it was really cool talking with her because she got really excited. And because, like, she knew, like, all the characters and all the mythology and, like, all the voice actors. I forget the guy's name that's the narrator. He's like the ultimate dungeon master of the universe. He's done movies and TV and animation and all that. Was it Critical Role or Critical Hit he's on? I guess it's like an internet show or something. I'm not privy to all this, but you guys get the idea. So I'm trying to just coordinate because I had her over, and then a few weeks before I had a coworker over who's a longtime dungeon master. He plays every Saturday night, and I got kind of a similar reaction from him. He's a casual player also But like he's Both of them are casual players and they really enjoy the game But getting back to the college student She really got it again She was just like It was cool to see her excitement And me and her and her dad were just playing for a couple hours And it was really fun Because it was like you were talking about earlier Dan With Warlords We had that whole you know it's more fun to compete thing going on And we were cheering each other on It was just a good time And so I'm trying to get just coordinating before she goes back to school and then the other, the Dungeon Master co-worker guy, have them both do like a five or ten minute little interview segment which we can plug and play on our show in a future episode. So I'm working on that right now, just coordinating it. But yeah, it was just really cool because you know, it was cool to see somebody's reaction who plays pinball and who is a casual player. They're not on the internet, on pinball forums, they don't go to shows but they see a game, they'll put a buck in they'll play. But to see the reaction to that game and knowing the source material and say, man, these guys really knocked this out of the park. And to see their excitement when stuff would happen, like first time she got gelatinous cube multiball, you know, saw me get it. That was just like, what the hell is that? It's like, what's gelatinous cube multiball? I locked a ball that's a magnet. I'll lock another one down below and And then we'll get a third one going. And then if I can hold this for a bit, it'll kick out a fourth ball. You know, when she got a dragon multiball for the first time. You know, cool stuff like that, little things, you know. And Kevin, I said, no, that's Kevin Smith's voice in that character. And she was like, oh, my God, Silent Bob. You know, so it's just all real cool stuff. And that's about all I've been doing, man, is just doing that. And then literally like an hour before we went to record today, Rusty's working today. It's a Sunday, so it's a long shift. And she takes an iced coffee with her. She makes it home. But with Sundays being a long shift, I always hit her up and go, you need an extra iced coffee. And she just, I went and grabbed her one. I'm in line over at the little coffee place and just talking with her. I was like, oh, the young lady's serving me. She's in the drive-thru. He goes, oh, what are you doing today? I'm like, well, I'm just grabbing this coffee for my wife. She's working, you know, right now. I said, then I got to run home and start a podcast. She goes, oh, what are you podcasting? So I told her. So she wrote down the information and put it on her phone. She goes, oh, my dad loves pinball. I'm like, that's awesome. And she goes, well, what games do you have? So I told her, you know, pinball and flash board. And I said, and I have a Dungeons and Dragons brand new. Like, it's like six months old. Dungeons and Dragons pinball. She goes, oh, my God, that sounds sick. I'm like, yeah, Kevin Smith does voices. and, you know, there's other D&D people and, you know, Michael Dorn. And she goes, oh, my God, like from Star Trek? I'm like, yeah, he's the voice of the dragon. So she got really interested, so she's going to listen to this show. And so it's just really cool. Like I'm promoting pinball, but at the same time, I'm getting this really interesting, unique feedback from hardcore Dungeons & Dragons people, and I just find it really fascinating. Like, oh, okay. So just to, you know, kind of to tell Stern, hey, man, keep doing what you're doing because people that aren't hardcore pinball people are really digging what you're doing, you know, and maybe that'll make them more hardcore pinball people because, you know, the source material is really, really well done in that game.
    54:59
    Well, you know, Dungeons & Dragons, man, I think that we had talked about this even before there was a Dungeons & Dragons game, but, like, how perfect of a theme is Dungeons & Dragons? Because it's timeless. it's 50 years old you know so people grew up with it people remember it from when they were young you know there's been all kinds of different media for it like it's just it is all things to all people and I think yeah you know Dungeons and Dragons you know it will always be a cultural touchstone that you know you just say oh yeah I've got you know a pinball machine? Oh, what pinball machine do you have? You go, oh, you know, I have The Shadow. People are like, oh, what is The Shadow? Oh, it was a shitty movie from the 90s. You know, or you go, I have Dungeons and Dragons. Everyone's like, oh, dude, Dungeons and Dragons, right on. Like, I know Dungeons and Dragons.
    55:57
    Yeah, exactly. You know, you might have watched the cartoon from the 80s. You played it with friends in high school or college or even junior high. You know, or now, you know. Or you've seen it showcased in Stranger Things. Yeah, exactly. Stranger Things is a huge, it has helped have a huge resurgence with Dungeons and Dragons and a lot of other stuff too. Arcades and, you know, music and fashion and, yeah, no, it's all good stuff, man. But it's just like pinball, like you said, Dan, it's timeless, you know. And they may not be hardcore pinball people like us, but they're like, oh, I love pinball. God, I wish there were more around, you know. And so, you know, I just keep raising the banner, man, slowly but surely, chipping away and trying to get pinball, you know, more relevant here in the Cowboys state.
    56:48
    How far along is the code now? We're at .092, and we've had that code for about a month or so, so it should be updating again pretty soon, I would say. Did you guys see that code drop they just did for John Wick? I did, yeah. And you got to play it. No, I haven't. Oh, you haven't. I just told Adam about it. That thing is a novel. I'm wondering if, like, you guys are still in line for, you know, it seems like most Stern games, like the code drops are generally like little thing, little thing, little thing, big old code drop, little thing, little thing. Okay, we're pretty much done. Have you guys seen the big old code drop yet? No. The one that kind of changes the whole world? No. How long ago did this code come out?
    57:36
    For John Wick? Yeah for John Wick Thursday A couple days No I have not I seen the newest code that was released a couple weeks ago Thursday Code Drop Day So every Thursday they drop code for something Oh, okay. It's a huge, I mean, you should probably be getting emails from Stern, right? Because you have a Stern and a Stern Insider. Yeah. Like, yeah, it was a few, it was like, yeah, last week they sent this out. Yeah, check out this. I mean, it goes, like, I kept reading it. I'm just like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. It was like that giant one they did for Bond, though. Like, as a Bond owner, like, you were late. That took Bond from, like, oh, this game's okay. It's got a lot of potential. They're like, this game actually kicks ass. Yeah. You know, they put in everything that they promised that they would put in. Really? Oh, that sounds exciting. I know we had one at Press Start, and then Jim took it out. So hopefully he'll put it back in. I think he was fixing it or something. There was something going on with it. But, yeah, I hope it comes back to press start because I really enjoyed the little code that they did add to it. It did definitely help out with the game. But is it like a total game changer now, Dan? I mean, is it? I don't know. You don't know. You know what I know if you read the description. You don't know. Okay. I haven't played it, but it is a large code update. Really? They dropped several code updates. It's not just, they dropped that one for John Wick, but a new one for Jaws with a new 50th anniversary special thing going on.
    59:06
    X-Men got more code, I think. There was a couple other games, so they got code updates. The point is that Dungeons & Dragons, for everything, the code updates that they're doing now are just small enhancements and fixes. is. So I wonder if you guys are going to get your turn with like that super expansive code update. I mean, I don't know. Every time I play that game, I have a really good time. I love that game. You know, Spencer, you, I remember you were just coming home like, oh, what game should I get? Dude, you made the right choice. That game is so fun. I know that I love how you can continue where you left off. And it feels so much like a video game where it's like, damn, this level is hard. I got to beat this level. You know, it's just really cool to try to advance through it. I have not got to the wizard mill yet. I'm getting close. I mean, my map is starting to fill out. But, um... I just haven't beaten it yet. It's hard. It's hard to get up to that. It's really hard. Oh my god. When I get to that last level, it's like, oh, you like have to shoot the shots, but then there's like a hurry up to hit another shot. Otherwise, they respawn. So it's like, oh, crap. I got to kill these guys quick. I got a great I'm lazy and didn't pay attention. I didn't do my homework story. So, you know, you have the thing where you get the arrow and you hold the button down and it blinks. You know, why arrow then onto the red shot. Well, if you look down on the apron, it says, like, anytime, and Mickey showed me this, he goes, I'm like, how did you figure this out? He goes, it's on the apron, Dad. Jesus. So you look down at the apron, it's like when it's blinking blue, just hit the button and hold it, and you can shoot arrows. And anything red, let go when it's on the red and shoot. So I'm like, how in the hell is he? So, yeah, that arrow's there quite a bit. So anytime, if you didn't know, just look down at the apron because it tells you that, and I'm just that lazy. It's like, you do own this game, right? I'm like, yeah, I do. So, yeah, I just never fucking looked. And there we are. Yeah, I think you have to ignore the action button when you don't know what it does. It blinks. It's a blinking light. When you push the button, it does shit. So it's blue. When it's blue, then it spots a shot if you let go at the right time to hit the shot. Yeah, yeah. That's so cool. So it'll be a blinking light arrow, and then above it, there'll be other colors. And so you want to hit on the red one. So sometimes you might have two shots that are red and two yellow, and you let go and hopefully hit on the red shot. And that gives you extra, you know, like that, and then, you know, hitting the captive ball and you get a, you know, a roll of 20 and critical hit. And, yeah, it's, I'm still learning the game, and I'm still, there's a lot of stuff I've figured out. Like, I've figured out, you know, now, okay, I know exactly how to get all the multi balls that I'm aware of.
    61:59
    One thing they did do, because it was super too easy, like, you just, like, look at it and just flail the ball anywhere, and you get dragon multi ball. and then they made it where it was damn near impossible to get me and then they dialed it back so you can get it but it's a little harder to beat each level up until you get more armor so they're making it more fair so yeah like I said Dan that's what Dan just kind of I'm going to reiterate what he just said was the codes come a long way but there's still a ton of stuff to do you know like if you beat the wizard mode there's a whole new adventure awaiting for you a whole new adventure. This is so cool. I mean, that just seems like a game that will last a long time in your collection. And that's the thing. When I only have three games, I want something that's going to have great last ability. And I think... It's a good family scene. Everybody in the house is having fun with it. When they have friends over, the friends are like, this is so cool. Because a lot of the friends are playing Dungeons & Dragons. So I've got those two people lined up in the next week or two. I'm going to get a little 10-minute interview, and then we'll put it on the show and um so you can just get more you can hear it from their own voice like you know their impression of the game and the way that they've integrated you know the theme and the mythology if you will the you know the source material because everybody the people i've had over that have played their hardcore dungeon and dragons people are just really blown away i mean like we're like you know it's like taking a kid to disneyland for the first time when they see it and they play it and they're like, that is so freaking cool. And it's neat to see. It's real encouraging. It's like, oh, man, I'm really glad that you're enjoying this so much because I wanted to share this with you because I figured, oh, you'll get a kick out of it.
    63:50
    That is so cool. Yeah, I know when I spoke with Cody, he said a lot of people started playing pinball when Dungeons & Dragons came out because, as we know, if you haven't had a chance to go there, Comic Kingdom is really awesome now. They have 40 games, all different classics, and he does have a Dungeons & Dragons Premium Edition.
    64:12
    Or maybe it's a Pro. I can't remember. I think it's a Premium. Does the dragon move a lot, or does he just move up and down? He moves back and forth, I think. So I think it's Premium.
    64:23
    But he had a lot of people that were gamers there that came and did the board games. Is it called Warhammer? Is that the name of the game? Yeah. So they all come in there. And he said that a lot of people are playing pinball because of D&D now that were gamers. So it definitely is, you know, Stern definitely does their research and does a great job coming out with themes that appeal to everybody. How many comic shops really have pinball machines in them? How many? Yeah. My company is definitely, like, in the perfect spot. Yeah. For a Dungeons & Dragons pinball machine. Right, right. It was like it would be a sin for him not to get that. It was made. Like somebody went to his store and said, you know what this fucking place needs? Yeah. Dungeons and Dragons pinball. All right, well, here's the deal. We've been going for an hour. Yep. And we have a really cool conversation topic today. We do. What is it? And I'll tell you why I suggested this one, and I'll tell you why I suggested it, because I feel like it's definitely, you know, conspiracy theory time. This question showed up on the Stern Facebook.
    65:33
    Okay. And, of course, you know, everyone's always, you know, what's the next turn, what's the next turn, and I think that we all have our theories. But the question they asked, I thought it was a really interesting one, is which video game do you think, let me make sure I'm saying this right, I think that Spencer articulated it correctly in our show notes, but which video game franchise needs a pinball machine? Because I literally wrote down what you sent to me via our group test.
    66:01
    I'm not a smart man. But I like the question because I think that for a lot of folks and people that I know, you know, a lot of us were video gamers, you know, and then pinball kind of came later and sort of took over. Right. And we've seen every movie made into a pinball machine. There's a couple outstanding legacy movies, nostalgia movies. we've seen, you know, a lot of bands you know, we've seen sports we've seen, you know, all aspects of entertainment we've seen unique, you know, we've seen cows in space, you know we've seen total nuclear annihilation but like, we're not seeing many video games being adapted And video games are kind of the biggest entertainment media on earth.
    67:03
    Just to put too fine a point on it, you know, video games outperform the movies. They outperform the music. So which video game franchise do you think needs a pinball machine? And let's start with Mark.
    67:21
    My first, okay. All right. If I'm looking at markability and I'm looking at how it appealed most to the general public, just like what Dungeons & Dragons has done for D&D players, I would say, because I know you're probably going to say the one I'm going to say, so I'm going to think of something different. You've got a perspective, right, because you work with kids too. Yep. I would say. You see what might bring them in. I would say GTA, Grand Theft Auto. Absolutely was going to be my answer. No way. Are you serious? Yes. I was going to say Grand Theft Auto.
    68:02
    Yeah, that's just because the new game is coming out. I'm 100% for sure you were going to say Pokemon. No, no. I just, when I look at the demographics and everything. Yeah, yeah. Because you have more of the kid perspective. That's too funny. I mean, I was thinking of something that, oh, that's great. Well, anyway, yeah, that's, I mean, my son plays that nonstop. and it definitely appeals to people who played it the first time when it came out, you know, on the PlayStation and stuff like that. And they could do a lot with it. I don't know exactly how they would put the play field together because there's so many different aspects to that game, but you definitely could make really cool modes for the different missions that you have to do with pinball. So here's what I was envisioning and picturing for Grand Theft Auto. First of all, you know, Grand Theft Auto kind of historically focuses on one of three different cities, right? You got Liberty City, which is New York. You got Vice City, which is Miami, and it's about to be Grand Theft Auto 6 is going back to Vice City. It is. And you've got San Andreas, which sort of represents California and the Vegas area kind of as a whole. Yep. And San Andreas was what they did for Grand Theft Auto 5. So I think if you really want to do it right and it's the first Grand Theft Auto pinball machine, you go to Liberty City, right? You do like a New York-based play field with, you know, buildings and roads, you know, because a lot of it is driving. And, you know, you're shooting the ball around on roads and doing missions. And, of course, you know, you have characters, whether you want to take the characters from a game or whether you want to make somebody new. kind of like if you've ever spent any time on heist. Yes. You have a crew of characters, you know, and so, like, yeah, you know, you're doing things and characters are getting captured and you're breaking them out and you're hitting shots to do missions where, you know, you're robbing and killing. Maybe put the killing down a little bit. It is still pinball, but, I mean, that's definitely part of Grand Theft Auto. It is. So, yeah, I just think that that would bring in, like, Grand Theft Auto as a pinball is a thing that, much like Dungeons & Dragons, will bring people who don't play pinball into pinball to check that out. Absolutely. And, as you know, I teach fourth graders, and even though they really are young to play it, it doesn't matter. It's one of those themes that everybody who plays, you know, at least third grade and up, it's kind of sad in the same way. It's scary to think. It really is, but it's true that it is definitely a game that kids and adults play alike, and it would definitely be a great theme for it. I mean, I was thinking, like, you could make shots to reach your destination, and there's so many things you could do with it. It would be way beyond my ability to come up with rules for that because it's just so deep of a game. But to be able to have that as a theme, I think it would do really well. Yeah, it's funny you mention that because, you know, Malcolm, it wasn't five, I don't know. How long has five been out for? About eight, ten years, right? Oh, dude, five has been out forever. And people are still playing it. My son is on there online all the time. Yeah, Malcolm came out the day that Grand Theft Auto online. Yeah, yeah. The Grand Theft Auto Online has new missions every time. I just crossed three console generations. Yep. It started on, like, PS3, and then it went on PS4, and now it's on PS5. Yeah. And it's an active, you know, it's an active game that's currently selling, you know. Yeah, it's just that game has been a phenomenon. And Grand Theft Auto 6, like, I don't know if you guys have been watching. I've seen the trailers and stuff for it. It looks absolutely spectacular, amazing. It's going to be the biggest selling video game of all time when that comes out. Yeah, the free sales are wild. Yeah, people are counting the minutes until that game comes out, right? Like, honestly, that is the game that will sell me my next generation of game system. Yep. Because I'll buy what I need to buy, whether it's, you know, a PlayStation whatever or the, you know, whatever, whatever, Nintendo Switch 3 or, you know, upgrading computer hardware or what because, yeah, that's, you know, that's a game that I know I'll spend 100 hours playing. But, you know, Grand Theft Auto fans, you know, they marry that game. So it wouldn't surprise me to think that, like, Grand Theft Auto would be a franchise, would be a series of, you know, not just a game but a franchise. that people will buy a pinball machine platform for, like maybe if it was, you know, because you're going to buy it, and much like Dungeons & Dragons or something, like the adventure never has the end. They can always drop some more missions into it, you know. And just think what they could do with Insider Connect. Like you could just kind of like you play as characters in D&D, you could do the same thing with that and level up. And, oh, my gosh, yeah, the possibilities are endless with that, to fit with that. Turn jackpots into heists and, you know, you've got crews that are competing online for the biggest heist. Like, there's so much opportunity. There's so much untapped potential in that franchise. Yeah. And if there was a person that would code it, it would probably be Dwight would be the one that would be able to pull it off. I don't know. Yeah, if that's his thing. If that's his thing, of course. Why is the kind of guy who, like, if it's his thing. He's in. Yeah, he's in. You know, he's got a million good ideas. If it's not his thing, maybe not.
    73:59
    Yeah. He's going to do it and move on with his life. So, Dan, what was your second choice if that was not picked? So my second choice is the easy one, which is Pokemon. Yeah.
    74:13
    I'm not a huge Pokemon aficionado. I mean, I've played the Pokemon games. I think I bought almost every single one of them for my wife. I worked in the games industry most of Pokemon's life, at least the early generations, and I know exactly how fanatic people are. But the crazy thing about Pokemon is Pokemon has endured and grown. like Pokemon cards are still incredibly popular. And that was a thing that came out in like the late nineties when I was working, you know, at Funko land Pokemon games are still, you know, industry defining events. You know, that Pokemon go phenomenon from a couple of years ago. Oh my gosh. Yeah. You know, millions of people out there, out there playing, walking around with their phones, capturing all these characters. Yeah. I know demographically, Demographically, like, Pokemon is hitting, like, the people who are just coming into their ability to, you know, they've sent the kids off on their own for the most part, or they're getting ready to, or they're earning as much money as they're going to earn, they're well-established, they're buying their houses, they'll buy an expensive toy that lets them relive the simpler times. And it's even something that, you know, like you were saying earlier, Spencer, it's family friendly that they can share with their kids. Yeah. Or grandkids. You know, it's just, yeah, it really is. You know, now that Harry Potter is out in the world and Star Wars is out in the world and Indiana Jones is in the pinball world, like there aren't very many bigger franchises. And I think that people don't even understand how huge Pokemon is. like Pokemon from what I've heard is the world's most valuable media franchise like because of the games because of the cards because of the tv shows and and the movies and whatnot like it's it's apparently ridiculously ridiculously popular and it's got that generational popularity to where like you know people in their 40s like it you know people in their 30s they have their their specific part of the fandom. People in their 20s still like it, and kids still like it. Everybody knows who Pikachu is. It's another one of those iconic characters where everybody from 8 to 50 or 8 to 60, oh, that's Pikachu. They made a Pikachu movie, like, what, a year or two ago? Yeah, yeah.
    76:51
    You know, and Pikachu was, what, Ryan Reynolds or something? Like, yeah, Pikachu is huge, and I mean, don't get me wrong, Nintendo's got an arsenal of characters. I spent a few hours last night hanging out with our friend Jeff playing that new Donkey Kong game. Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. And you know what? It's a super cute game. It's got that Nintendo magic. At the same time, it has rock solid, you know, gameplay mechanics. But, like, as iconic as Donkey Kong is, and maybe you could, like, say, okay, well, we're going to make a Donkey Kong movie next year, and there's a Donkey Kong land at this new Nintendo theme park. So, yeah, maybe Donkey Kong could, like, float a pinball machine, right? But I don't think it would be a giant seller. I think people would be kind of amused by it. You know, Super Mario would be better. Oh, yeah, Super Mario. Zelda would be pretty good. You know, Metroid would have its fans. You know, those big Nintendo franchises, Kirby, Animal Crossing, you know, those would all do okay. But I think Pokemon is the smash hit. And it's also, I think, the whole reason that Stern asked this question. Like, if they're not gearing towards Pokemon, I would be shocked. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. You know, because there's been a lot of smoke to that fire for a long time, a lot of rumors about, you know, will it be Pokemon? Maybe not as long as there were rumors for King Kong, you know, or Jaws. You know, those games were rumored for like 10 years. But, yeah, everybody's felt like Pokemon's coming for a long time, whether it would be a Jack Danger joint, whether it would be Elwynn. I think Elwynn would be kind of wasted on Pokemon. I think that that kind of screams Jack Danger. It does. I think that if you were going to make a game franchise into a pinball machine for a community that would spend stupid money to own it, Pokemon is probably even above GTA. I just was going to say GTA because GTA is the one that would sell me. I probably wouldn't buy a Pokemon machine. Jamie would probably want it. Yeah. Like, I probably wouldn't buy a Pokemon machine unless it was really, really good. But, like, GTA, oh, yeah, I'd be like, here is my money. You know, now that they're making Portal, so, you know, like, you got to get GTA in there. So Spencer I'm going to drive way off in the weeds here I didn't have either one of those Okay Fucking duck hunt You know what I was Considering that Just because of the dog man Just because of the dog Every time you drink it will pop out of the play field I'll give you my back at where my secondary was Zelda Because that's a pretty universally loved theme as well My daughter and son-in-law have literally bought every system ever created that has a Zelda game just so they can play that Zelda game. And they've got all kinds of swag and, you know, like that. So I know Zelda's pretty hot, but this is not my main choice. My first choice, my main choice is Halo.
    80:08
    Oh, okay. Okay. It's, again, it's got a pretty good reach. It's had some, you know, like, I don't know if it, Did it have a full-length feature movie make? I remember seeing a movie a few years ago, but I think it was like a direct-to-video or direct-to-streaming. There's not like a movie, like a Hollywood movie. I'm sure there's some direct-to-video stuff. There is. There was a TV series. Yeah, there you go. That came out like a couple years ago that took some liberties with the franchise, but I thought it was good. Yeah. Halo was definitely a name that came to mind for me as well. Because I think that Halo has the aesthetic that would look really, really cool. Like kind of total nuclear annihilation-y or kind of final resistance-y. Yep. And it certainly has the people who, at least, you know, a few years ago, Halo was like such a banger that people knew it. I don't know if Halo is as big as it was. It probably isn't as big as it was. There was a moment where, yeah, oh, my God, how could you not do a Halo? But you walk into a bowling alley or a bar or an arcade or, you know, any place where you see one of these on location and you see a Halo pinball and you see that display with the graphics and you have, you know, you could have with, if it's a stern, we'll just go with it's a stern, okay, just, you know, hypothetically. And you have the Insider Connect, and you can play Red vs. Blue, you know. You can get badges. Think about it, you know. Think about that. No, no, that's genius, Spencer, because think about head-to-head, you know, if they ever finally did it where, like, you could do Metallica for real and you could link two machines together. How great would Red vs. Blue be? Do you have any familiarity with the Red vs. Blue web series? Yeah, yeah. Malcolm and I would watch it endlessly, and the boys don't. People don't. Like, there was a web series that ran forever where these guys used Halo as their animation medium, and it was just this absurdist comedic take on these two teams of soldiers. It started off, they were in, like, Blood Gulch. They were in the canyon. And they were just there, and they were just fighting because they were there. but it was really just very, very, very funny. Like part of me would even just rather than have it be Halo would be like, if you made a red versus blue machine, it would be me and probably two other people in the whole world would be like, I got to have one of those. But it's just like you could not stop me from having that because me and the people that I know who would get it would be endlessly amused. Hey, Griff, choo-pah-thingy. I like it. It's got a ring to it. I want you to poison Griff's next meal oh I'd do it too I know you would son good man you've got that, you've got the spaceships you've got the vehicles, you've got the warthog you've got the weapons both, you know the yeah, you've got all that you're right, there's so much about Halo that was iconic and there's so much about Halo that was just super super great Yeah, just the multiplayer aspect. Like, if you could figure out how to get people playing multiplayer pinball, Halo would be such a good medium. God, that would be super cool. Yeah, you can even run it. They just made a big super, like a few years ago, they made a big super deluxe Halo arcade machine, like a $50,000 arcade machine. So you know arcade operators would be willing to give something like that a chance, especially, again, if there's a competitive aspect to it That's not just three or four people standing around a pinball machine taking turns, right? You know, imagine you have death matches. You know, you have three or four machines linked together, and guys are trying to hit shots and not drain to kill each other. I just can't help but thinking that that thing would print money, and what a perfect, like, versus Grand Theft Auto might be really good, too. But, yeah, Halo, like, immediately you understand what you're supposed to do. Exactly. Well, and, you know, talking about stuff that, like, we'll just go with Insider Connect for sake of argument. I'll backtrack a second because you guys were talking about with Pokemon. You can collect the cards just like you collect badges, you know. And you can do that. You can collect weapons like, oh, I got the shotgun. Oh, I got the grenade launcher. Oh, I got the sniper rifle. So you can collect that stuff and then toggle it and use it at various, you know, intervals. Like the arrows in Dungeons & Dragons, like, oh, man, I got the shotgun. Oh, I got the arrow button. It's blue. Hit it, Spence. You know, because now I know when it's blinking blue, I know what that means because I read the apron finally. Actually, I did. Mickey told me, and then I looked down and went, oh, it's been there the whole time. For the record, action buttons are bad enough. Multi-function action buttons suck. I remember when that came on the scene with Mandalorian. Yeah. And I was so annoyed by it. I'm like, look, if it's orange, it's going to do this. But if it's red, it's going to do that. And if you tap it, it does this. But if you hold it, it does that. And I'm like, that sucks. That's too much. And all designers, I get what you're trying to do. I appreciate it. Knock it off. Like I hate it With all that stuff Like Marcus said And I think you did too Is just the visual aesthetic Of the Halo universe Halo would be A good looking game It would be a good looking game man And you know with the video screen With you know the video assets You could obtain And already with all the games And the audio assets if you could obtain those and just you know the master chief mythology there's just a lot you could do with that and i think it would really pop i mean that's just like with when you talked about that that arcade game that came out there one or was one at a local bar here um they do concert stuff and they have food so you know all ages can go in up to like 8 o at night And Malcolm one day went in there and we went in there and had like a lunch Actually, it happened to be a St. Patrick's Day. So Rusty and I are having a beer, and Malcolm and the kids are playing games. And Malcolm dropped easily $30, $40 into the Halo game. I got a free play card at, like, a corporate event, and I played all the way through it. Yeah. It's pretty cool. It was a great adventure. And, like, you know, again, you could feel that they spent a ton of money on that game. Big Super Deluxe machine, great graphics. Yeah. So does anybody have any honorable mentions? I mean, me and Mark kind of used each other's. Did you have an honorable mention, Mark? An honorable mention? I kind of agree with Spencer that Zelda would be good. Definitely Mario. In fact, I have a friend of mine, actually my son's friend who he played tennis with, he's working on a homebrew Mario game. Cool. It looks really freaking cool.
    87:40
    He's going to have like a lower play field in it and stuff like that, and he's got the knowledge of the code kind of thing and the design. I've got to go and check it out, but it looks really cool. It looks really cool. Of course, it's going to be hobby only because I know how Nintendo is with licenses, but Nintendo might see you anyway. Yeah, I know. Like Nintendo's just like, knock it off. You're like, I'm not selling it or distributing it. Yeah. You can't make that. Yeah. It's not Mario. It's Mario. Season desist. I can see it coming. Yeah. No. Terrible. Yep. So I have, I have two, right. And I think one is something that you'd obviously expect. And it's the same as the Mario. It's just like, how do we live in a world where Sega made pinball machines and they did Sonic the Hedgehog. Yeah. Sonic the Hedgehog has like several I mean you know there's a Mario pinball land game right there's Kirby's pinball land there's Pac-Man pinball you know Sonic was made for pinball he has pinball in just his regular games and he has a pinball title the crossover between Sonic and pinball is so intrinsic that it's insane to me and I know that there's been a homebrew but like how has like a Jersey Jack or especially Stern. It really feels like a Stern title. You know, how have they not, you know, grabbed a license for Sonic? There's a successful movie franchise around Sonic. They're continuing to make Sonic games. I know the Sonic games are hit and miss. There's comic books and TV shows. Like, Sonic would sell some pinball machines. But in the 90s, Sonic pinball would have been outrageous. Would have destroyed the competition. It would be a game that I would own unless it sucked, and even then I'd probably still have bought it and had it for a while. Yeah, yeah. And then the other one, and this one's a little bit more kind of back to what we were talking about earlier, which is like making a good competition pinball machine, and it's been a long time since they've done the pinball machine, even based on this activity, let alone tied it into a video game, but it's probably the biggest video game franchise on earth.
    89:53
    How have they never made Madden? pinball would be outrageous, right? They made a Madden NFL arcade game and it was super successful.
    90:06
    Pinball would be, you know, you could get crossover from, you know, you put it in a bar where they go to watch football. People, you know, just like Dungeons and Dragons at Cody's place, you know, people will give it a chance. You put Madden on it. Like there's, if you ever worked in the video game industry, Madden Day is its own particular brand of insanity. It's its own Black Friday. Right. You know? You're going to take trade-ins for, like, 50 copies of last year's Madden, and you're going to sell 100 copies of this year's Madden. Yep.
    90:42
    You know, like, yeah. Madden, that's a good one. Really, there should be a sports-themed pinball machine coming out eventually from one of the companies. But like you said, it should be, obviously, it needs to be licensed because that would definitely help with sales. Maybe a great topic for another day, but like what is the last sports-themed pinball machine that you can think of? Was it like Stern NBA? I think so. Yeah, Stern NBA was the last one. That's a lot I can think of. Yeah, I can't think of anything more recently, that's for sure.
    91:16
    Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, Sonic. Why did that even cross my mind? Yeah. I mean, the homebrew is so good, though. I mean, I would take that face value. Because it's so obvious that, like, the first thing you think is, well, obviously they've done a Sonic machine. Then you're just like, no. No, they haven't. How have they not done a Sonic? Come on. I know. Like you said, they have a Sonic spinball game that's out for, let's say. I still don't think that, like, Sonic would really sell people games. Like, I think that people would play it. You know, I think that people like Sonic, but, like, there are very few, like, I don't know if there's any Sonic fans that are that cracked where they're just like, I will spend seven to ten or more thousands of dollars to have this at home in my home collection. You might get some quarter drop off of it. Like, you know, you could put it in your arcade. You can put it in your game room and people will be like, oh, shoot, Sonic. But, yeah, you know, these days Stern has to design and J.J.P. has to design only half, if less, for that, like, oh, operators are going to love this. They have to design it for, like, maniacs are going to spend $15,000 to have this in their life. Right. Yeah.
    92:34
    And at the end of the day, I think that we were both right, Mark. I think Grand Theft Auto, maniacs will spend ridiculous money on Grand Theft Auto. They will.
    92:45
    I'm hard. I mean, I'm still trying to talk Don, and if he's listening, hey, what's up, Don, into just biting the bullet and buying a P3 so he can have Portal. Oh, absolutely. Like he complains about it so much on his Facebook page and on his show. And I was like, dude, just suck it up and buy a P3 and be one of us. And he's like, oh, but I won't be able to resell it. I'm like, you're not supposed to resell it. You're supposed to keep it and buy next year's module when it's time for a new game. Quit thinking with your wallet and think with your heart. Buy the game that you want because you love it. And Portal kicks ass. It totally kicks ass, and the code will just get better. Like I said, Jason finally crumbled, and he got one. No, I know he did. He's been talking to me about it a lot. He loves it. He loves the final resistance. Oh, the final resistance is so good. Exactly. Oh, good. It hurts me to not have final resistance in my P3, but it's Weird Al season so I'm having a really good time with having Weird Al back in. Sure. Although I do need to finally swap my CMOS battery because my P3 wouldn't turn on the other day and I'm just like that's so P3. Yeah. I finally got the topper working and now the game doesn't turn on. I did the troubleshooting and it's the CMOS battery. Unfortunately, if it's a CMOS battery, you gotta take out the back glass. You gotta take out the display and I think you might have to take out the graphics card. And I'm just going to send this out to my good folks at Multimorphic who I know that they're listening. I love you. Thank you for the machine. It's great. What the fuck were you thinking? Yeah. Yeah. It's easier to do. I know we can do it. I know we just have to turn a few screws. I know you guys are all engineers and it's nothing to you. But for us users, we just want things to work. Because we want to play right away. I know. When my game doesn't work, I just turn it off and I play something else until I feel like fixing it. The other night I turned on Weird Al and it didn't work, and I did a little research online, and it said it's the seam loss, and I said, okay, I'll fix that. Then I'll probably have to plug in a keyboard and do a bunch of bullshit to get it to turn on again. But at the same time, it's just like, you know, if you have to change the seam loss battery in your computer, it's a pain in the ass. Like, I get it, right? It happens. You know, if you have to change the batteries in, like, your Bally Williams for your memory, it sucks. You know, you just have to get back there and do it. But, like, you don't have to disassemble half the machine. You just have to open it up and find the battery and swap it. And just swap it. Yep. Yeah, Portal's awesome. So good job by you guys. Are you getting your module, or do you have it now? Or no? Oh, I need this thing. What's it called? Money. Oh, okay, money. Okay, got it. So if somebody wants to kick me down like $5,000 just to waste on a P3 module, I will buy it immediately. There you go. Other than that, I have to do this thing that I really suck at. It's called selling games. Yeah, yeah. And I don't like to sell games because I love my games. Yeah. I don't have any games right now that suck bad enough that I want to sell them. You don't have money? I'm just sort of like I'm not as married to it as I could be, and it's worth a lot of money. and I probably would let Tank Force go to somebody who wanted it bad enough, but, like, I really don't want to sell it because I don't, I think it sells for less than it's worth as a game. And it's not really about the value. It's just, like, I don't want to sell something cheap that I like, right? If I sell for a lot of money like Pirates, it'd be one thing. Speaking of, like, value, man, I saw $6,700 new in box Guns N' Roses LEs. Holy crap. Wow. New in box? Wow. New in box. There was a guy on Pinside who's like, I guess he's a distributor who's going out of business. I'm like, dude, that's such a good deal. I know everyone hates Guns N' Roses, but that game's awesome. I don't hate it. I just am cheap and don't have the money. And if I did, I was going to say this because this is an absolute truism. I know this for a fact. Dan, you're like, you need money for games and you just, you know. But if I threw up a good deal on my flash cord right now, you'd be like, Let me V-mo you the money, sir. Look, if you threw up a good deal on your flash score, and I would do what I'm doing to other Dan, I would come and take it and say, I'll give you some money someday.
    97:11
    Actually, for you, I could just buy your game, because your game is going to be like $800. Yeah, well, for you, because grow price, but yeah, but no. Because I was there when you bought it, and I know what you're into. You know what I'm into, of course, so yeah. The problem would be coming out to Wyoming to pick it up. Yeah, well, I'll cook you a good steak. But my new work car is a little SUV, so I might be able to line that up. Get over and see Devil's Tower and hang out with the aliens, and I'll cook you a real good steak. Cool. I could drive the Viper truck out there, but then I would need $5,000 for gas. You would definitely need $5,000 for gas, man. And gas is cheap here, too, comparatively. Yeah, but that truck's a guzzler. I know it is. So, but, yeah, man. It's over $100 just to drive back and forth to Reno. Oh, yeah. Oh, my. Wow.
    98:03
    So I think we've covered, we've pretty much covered some good ideas on, and, you know, Stern's already got designs on this, man. If they're asking the question, I think they already know the answer, but they're just getting, you know, it's free feedback, man. It's free, what do we call it? It's Pikachu.
    98:19
    It's Pikachu. Yeah, we all know this. And that's cool. I'm looking forward to it. Like, I played it with the kids and stuff. Like, Dad, you got to get it on your phone. When it first came out, you know, we were still living in Rancho, and the boys were pretty little because they didn't have phones yet. Put it on your phone, Dad, so I can play it. It was constantly. So I'd play it a little bit. Like, Dad, Dad, go get that monster or whatever. I'm like, okay, this is kind of cool because there's an old shack over on Folsom Boulevard near my old house. Dan, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. And in the scrimmage, it's just an old shacky building. and there was a monster there, like a Pikachu, you know, not a Pikachu, but a Pokemon you grab. And it gave you a lesson. And it was a hobo. No, no, it was so cool. What it was was that building had once been right on the railroad tracks on Folsom Boulevard. And before the Highway 50, Folsom Boulevard was the highway to get up to Nevada and up, you know, up that area and up to Placerville and all that. And this building had once been a rest stop from Reno for the Pony Express. Oh, wow. I know exactly what you're talking about, too. Yeah, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I know exactly the building you're talking about. And I learned that by playing the stupid Pokemon game. Because, by the way, did you know this building right here where the monsters you just got, and they gave a little history lesson on it? I had no idea. I would not go to that building to play Pokemon Go, by the way.
    99:47
    Yeah. So, yeah, Dan knows exactly what I'm talking about. He's like, oh, you know what I'm talking about. Falls on Boulevard, a little too sketchy these days for that. I haven't been down there in a while. Well, no, actually, when we were in town for the show in May, we drove by the old house.
    100:01
    Because Mickey's like, I want to drive by the old house. I'm like, all right. So we did. You drive him by a way nicer house and see if he notices. Yeah, right.
    100:12
    So, yeah. We didn't live in Granite Bay. You're like, of course we did, son. So, I mean, we're kind of in that limbo period of end of summer. So, like, and there's new games around the corner on the horizon, and we got Expo in a couple of months and like that. But for now, we're just kind of – I'm still waiting on dates for the Rocky Mountains show. They haven't put up information yet on their website. Oh, interesting. Really quick, just to wrap up, let's just say something about this. I know to everybody in the pinball community, they're probably aware by now that, you know, we did lose a good friend.
    100:52
    Mr. Rob Anthony passed on. And there is a GoFundMe. Thank you. You can find to help, you know, support his final arrangements and to help figure out a solution for his dog, Antar. It's being put on by our good friend, JJ, at Game Exchange of Colorado. So if you have not had an opportunity to contribute, please do.
    101:17
    And for those who have contributed, you know, thank you. And, you know, let's all remember, you know, what a good friend and a fixture at the shows that Rob was and that he was always quick to lend a hand or sell you a part or make fun of you when you did something stupid. So, you know, we'll miss you, Rob. Yeah. That was actually going to be in my shout-outs, but no, thank you. No, you're good. No, no, no, you did great. You did great because I was going to bring it up anyway. So I'm going to repost. It's been posted to our Facebook page. I'm actually going to pull that up and repost it right now to our Facebook page. So if you go to Facebook, the spinner's lit, you'll be able to find a link to the GoFundMe. The listeners out there, you can look at that. And if you feel so inclined, leave a buck or three and help also with, you know, not just Antar's care and feeding, but also your final expenses for Rob. So people have asked, like, do you have any family? And my answer is yes, us, the pinball community. We were his family Yeah And I want to add one more thing to that Is if you got to know him You know a little bit or saw him on the show And just kind of talked briefly or said hi Or bought some you know a part or something From him some pinballs or You know rubber rings or whatever His smile lit up a room man He really was you know A he was just A pinball personality and just At the end of the day a wonderful human being and he's going to be sorely missed at all the shows this next season.
    103:03
    Yeah, it's already, you know, the loss of him just, you know, being in the world is rough, but, yeah, especially come showtime. Yeah, it's going to be really, really weird to look in that corner and not see Rob surrounded by all of his junk holding court. Yep.
    103:24
    Yeah. so speaking of shout outs who wants to lead us off me okay go for it dan uh well first of all as always thank you guys you know uh i wouldn't do this without you guys here to do it with and i thank you to everyone who listens and everyone who comments it's it's always uh it's always crazy to me how many comments i get both on this and on doing uh commentary uh with rick on Elk Grove Pinball, our good friend Rick at Elk Grove Pinball, who took 12th in the B division at Pinberg this weekend. Yeah, he's beaten himself up. And I'm like, that's a lot better than I would have done. Wow. 12th in B. And that's still good. Hey, you know. That's really good. Pretty awesome. I don't know if you guys watched any of that Pinberg final, but it was all the usual suspects. You know, it was the Zach McCrackens and the Zach McCarthy and was it Flyguard? Oh, yeah. Arvid. Arvid, yeah. And a couple of the other young'uns. One guy who looked a little bit older, but like, God, they're good. They're so darn good and young. Yeah, they're young players. So good, so young. But, yeah, it was really, really just astonishing gameplay. But, yeah, good to see Rick going out there and, you know, fighting the good fight for all of us oldies.
    104:54
    Way to go, Rick. That's awesome, man. You know, big thanks to Rick, big thanks to the whole CCPL crew, to Rory and Juan and, you know, the Hozier boys for having started it and Cheddar and even myself and all of our hosts. And, you know, thanks to my wife for putting up with all this bullshit, you know.
    105:14
    So, yep, that's me. who's next go ahead i'll go next uh i got a few shout outs um number one of course you guys it's great to still continue doing these podcasts and talking about how we're doing and the pinball world and everything like that it's always a joy and uh the other shout i want to make is out to my son uh my son nathan he has gone to me over the summer now to 15 pinball tournaments which is remarkable because trying to get him to go to at least one of them was a chore, and he had no desire. And now it's like he looks forward to that Tuesday night to go to press start. How many has he beat you in? He did not beat me in any of them yet, but we are really close. Like he is getting much better at playing than he originally was like a year ago. I mean, he's really done much better in his skills. And a couple of times we are like, there was one time when we went and when my wife came to see us and watch us, which was another shocker, she gives me a lot of great success and luck because every time she came to watch me, I was able to pull it off and win first place. But it was really cool because she was there to witness that Nathan and I made it in the finals for the top eight, which was really cool. And Jim only cuts it off to eight, so it's really tough to get in that top spot to be able to go into the playoffs, if you want to call it that, or the finals. And it was really awesome to see him enjoy being there, socializing with people, and not just being in front of a video game all day long. It was really nice to see that, that he was getting out there. And he has some people that he has as friends that are his age, maybe a little, you know, like one year older, but pretty much that same age bracket. And he's just having genuine fun.
    107:20
    So I'm really proud of him, and I really am always excited to go with him to tournaments and play pinball, which is awesome. And he actually played a couple of games of Bond just yesterday after he saw me playing with my friend. So he's definitely getting an interest in it. He's not at all addicted like I am, which is probably a good thing. But he definitely enjoys it. And then the other shout-out goes to Joe Abate. I had a chance to go check out his location that he opened up a couple weeks ago, Playfield Sports and Games. Yeah, Playfield Sports and Games. And it's awesome. He really did a really nice job. The games are playing really well. We have tournaments every Wednesday night. And I just wanted to give a huge shout-out. If you ever come to Reno, make sure you get a chance to go to Playfield Sports and Games. That's in downtown right off of Lake Street. You can't miss it because it's really close to the Aces Stadium. It really is a great place to go and visit. And he's got some great games that you've never seen before, like a Lost in Space or a Godzilla Sega version. Sega Godzilla. Yeah, you won't see those often. So definitely come out there and visit. And he's also got a Dialed In, which is hard to find on location, which I still love that game. So shout out to you, Joe. Thanks for offering another great spot to play pinball, and we just want to see that continue to grow and have as many people come and visit your location.
    108:44
    And the next time I come to Reno, it will be to go to play field sports and games. Awesome. I know there's a few people from Sacramento that came just a couple days ago. I'm still dying to get up there. I tell you, people keep making trips, and it's always when I have something else that I have to be involved in. But I want to get up there. I want to see Joe's new place real, real bad. It's awesome. Yeah. Just to make the first. Also, Spencer, this tells us something funny about Mark.
    109:11
    So he plays good when Heidi's watching. So, you know, as a kid, we would have been able to dare Mike to do stupid things.
    109:18
    And when he said, no, I don't think I'm going to do that, we could be like, there's girls watching. That's right. I'm in.
    109:25
    There you go. I'm in. You got me. Hey, and I didn't tell you this, but Heidi played in a pinball tournament over at Elbow Room this summer, too. Nice. Yeah, and she wants to go again. She wants to play again. We have a ladies league starting down here. It's being started by Jen Jarrett, and that's kind of adjacent. It's not part of CCPL, but if she's ever interested in getting down here, even in just guesting, Have you been to Jack and Jen's new place out there? No, but I want to check it out. It's awesome, and I know they're going to be hosting there a lot. So if she ever did decide to make the trip down here to play with the ladies of the Upper Central Valley, you know, you could go along with it and pour the wine. Cool. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We're apparently not allowed to play, but we're allowed to just come and, you know, support. Cool. That's awesome. Jamie won't go. I tried to get her to go. She's like, eh, I don't think so.
    110:29
    I saw that. I'm really glad you brought that up because that's a really cool agenda to get the ball rolling. It's been too long coming that Sacramento area should have a women's only league.
    110:43
    Yeah. We had one here in Reno, and then it kind of fizzled and died, but we're bringing it back. We do have women's tournaments up in Incline. Right on. So, yeah. It's awesome. The pinball scene is incredible here, and it just keeps getting better. Right on.
    111:00
    How about you, Spencer? Yeah, my shout-outs, of course, to you too, man, my co-host, my friends, my brothers. I always love telling stories about how we all met, and people are like, oh, that's so cool. And it's like, yeah. Prison. Yeah, prison, yeah.
    111:17
    I gave Dan half a chili dog and he shaked a dude for me. Yeah, it was great. No, but, you know, people love the stories. And that's what I love. I love the stories of pinball, meeting friends, how, you know, met a spouse. They're always great stories, but it's always to you too, man. And I still look forward to every month like, ooh, today's recording day, man. We're getting in the studio and we're going to put together a new episode and we're going to give people some free content about pinball to listen to and have a few laughs and have a good time. So to you two. It's free? It's free. That's why my checks keep bouncing. Yeah, free. I'm telling you. That's why I can't afford a portal module. Yeah, that's why. So because we're not monetized. Yeah. We just do this for fun. You know, we're really still enjoying it. We could be 100 errors. We could be. But you know what, man? We're having a good time. At the end of the day, that's what pinball is all about is, you know, good times and friendship. I will not have a no sponsor unless they want to give me stuff. There you go. Yeah. I want to shout out to J.J. Babbage. I guess he's the proprietor of Game Exchange in Colorado. He's gone and is going above and beyond to work, you know, out the final wishes of Rob Anthony, making sure Antar has a stable home, making sure that the final arrangements for Rob has been made. And, you know, he's put not just a lot of his own money and hours, but I was a little over three and a half hours from where Rob lived, and I was making plans to go visit Rob as soon as he got out of the hospital and just kind of help him out, empty his trash, that kind of thing. And then, unfortunately, he passed. But we were communicating that I was going to do it because I'm only three and a half hours away. And JJ is like, it's like eight, nine hours from Colorado all the way out to, because this is nearly four hours from my house to Colorado, to Denver.
    113:30
    And so, you know, he made like a 17-hour, 16-hour round trip to go get Antar. And he really has gone above and beyond to help out a friend and make sure his last wishes are met. So shout out to you, JJ. and shout out to all our wonderful listeners the people who tune in and listen to our podcast and keep coming back and occasionally send us an email or when we see them in a show or a tournament they respond with nothing but positive that they enjoy the show and they enjoy just the simple fun vibe because at the end of the day we're just having a good time doing this so that's my shout outs and thank yous You guys got anything else? No, I don't. Okay. So real quick. You look good. Yep. Okay. So real quick, you can shop around and find us where all the finer podcasts are sold. Our home, our flagship at SoundCloud. We're on iTunes. We've even been popping up on Spotify. And I think Podbean maybe. I mean, check it out. So you just Google us. Check us out on our Facebook page. I'm going to go ahead and get that posted real quick Of the GoFundMe for Rob Anthony And Antar the dog You can email us at TheSpinnerIsLit at gmail.com So from all of us To all of you, you guys know what to say Play pinball Keep America Strong
    115:09
    Bye.