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The Spinner Is Lit - Episode 59 Fall Is Here (1)

The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 20m·analyzed·Nov 12, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Pentagogo recap and pinball content/games discussion with community focus.

Summary

The Spinner Is Lit hosts Spencer, Dan, and Mark discuss their experience at Pentagogo, a Northern California pinball show featuring 200+ machines spanning from 1930s wood rails to modern releases like Venom. They cover gameplay impressions of notable machines (Godfather, Queen, Venom, Valley Blackjack, classic Gottlieb titles), the show's social atmosphere, and reflections on content creation in the pinball community, including Mark Musler's return to pinball reviews with Classic Game Room.

Key Claims

  • Mark Musler with Classic Game Room is returning to pinball reviews after approximately 10 years without pinball video content

    high confidence · Spencer and Dan discuss Mark Musler's return, noting his last pinball review was Stern Star Trek and he's now produced 5-6 new pinball reviews

  • The Spinner Is Lit podcast has been running for nearly seven years (March 2023 mark approaching)

    high confidence · Spencer states 'we've been doing our podcast now March will be seven years'

  • Pentagogo 2023 featured approximately 200 machines spanning from 1930s wood rails to Venom

    medium confidence · Dan and Mark estimate game count and oldest/newest titles; Mark notes 'probably a dozen, couple dozen EMs' in side room

  • Queen pinball has build quality concerns including non-functional locks and a weak up-kicker mechanism

    medium confidence · Dan reports locks 'never worked during the whole show' and up-kicker 'would miss a lot'; both hosts note it needs 'more time in the oven'

  • Godfather JJP is well-designed but feels 'subdued' compared to other JJP titles like Guns N' Roses and Willy Wonka

    medium confidence · Dan states 'it does feel a little bit, like, subdued. Yes. For a JJP' and acknowledges it has cool playfield layout but is JJP-priced

  • Sega Maverick is criminally underrated with a complex ruleset, but suffers from a slow paddle wheel animation

    medium confidence · Dan and Mark discuss Maverick's strength but note the paddle wheel is 'slow as crap' requiring players to 'go get ice cream'

  • All Gottlieb DMD-era games are 'universally bad' in design quality

    low confidence · Dan makes a broad claim: 'I think we've established that DMD Gottliebs are universally bad' without detailed evidence

  • Mark Musler's only owned pinball machine (or primary one historically) is Black Hole

    medium confidence · Spencer recalls 'he had a review of the Black Hole pinball, and it was one he owned. I think that's the only one at the time'

Notable Quotes

  • “It's just a big room full of pinball machines and a big room full of your buddies.”

    Dan @ ~12:30 — Captures the essence of Pentagogo's appeal as a no-distraction social pinball event

  • “The fact is he is a total casual, too. Like, he's not a pinball collector... it's a really interesting perspective when you're surrounded by hardcore pinheads probably all the time.”

    Spencer @ ~3:15 — Highlights Mark Musler's unique position as a casual reviewer in a hardcore community

  • “if you get two balls in there, it couldn't keep up, and it would just eject one with, like, ridiculous force.”

    Dan @ ~21:00 — Describes a memorable playfield quirk on the Getaway machine's supercharger

  • “like, it was super cool... And then it's like, oh, man, this is a takeaway. My time is done. I'll be fine. I'm going to call my dentist.”

    Dan @ ~43:30 — Humorously critiques Sega Maverick's tediously slow paddle wheel animation

  • “it felt like maybe, like, it needed a little more time in the oven to be perfectly done.”

    Mark @ ~24:50 — Assessment that Queen pinball, despite being production-ready, feels unfinished mechanically

  • “Every game deserves to be loved by somebody. But I'm going to say this... That game sucks.”

    Dan @ ~46:30 — Diplomatic yet critical assessment of My Golden Cue, acknowledging niche appeal while expressing overall judgment

  • “It's not just, okay, well, they got a Medieval and an Attack from Mars... you're going to see games that, you know, other than GSPF, you don't see much of anywhere.”

    Dan @ ~28:30 — Highlights Pentagogo's value proposition: rare, unusual machines alongside classics

  • “it was a really interesting perspective when, you know, you're surrounded by hardcore pinheads probably all the time, and you watch his content.”

    Spencer — Contextualizes Mark Musler's casual approach as refreshing in the hardcore pinball community

Entities

Mark MuslerpersonSpencerpersonDanpersonMarkpersonChrispersonJack DangerpersonJack HuntsmanpersonMark BeershingpersonClassic Game Roomcontent_creator

Signals

  • ?

    content_signal: Mark Musler and Classic Game Room returning to pinball video content after ~10-year absence; produced 5-6 new reviews; positioned as pioneering YouTube game reviewer

    high · Spencer: 'Classic Game Room pinball reviews on YouTube, man. They took a hiatus for, oh, my God, like 10 years.' Noted Mark has legitimate claim to first online game review show.

  • ?

    event_signal: Pentagogo 2023 (Dixon Fairgrounds, October) featured 200+ playable machines, strong condition, new Stern/JJP releases, and rare EMs; successful social gathering with minimal distractions

    high · Detailed multi-segment discussion of game selection, condition, pricing, and social experience across Friday and Saturday

  • ?

    product_concern: Queen (Pinball Brothers) exhibits mechanical issues: non-functional locks, weak up-kicker, frequent downtime; hosts assess it needs additional refinement despite production-ready status

    medium · Dan: 'locks were not working... never was able to get multi-ball'; Mark: 'felt like it was a little off... it needed a little more time in the oven'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Queen and Guns N' Roses share imbalanced scoring architecture: final shot is worth disproportionately high value (50M+) after mid-game play worth 2M; simplified song selection vs. qualification

    medium · Dan: 'it was a lot like Guns N' Roses because you were like playing during the song... that shot's everything. Like you'll have like 2 million points and you'll hit that shot and it's worth like 50 million'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Hosts reassess Godfather favorably during extended play despite JJP pricing concerns; initial skepticism shifts to recognition of 'cool' playfield design and engaging mechanics

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.420

0:00
This episode is dedicated to all the men and women who fought for our freedom, for our country. Thank you to all the veterans.
0:27
Hey, welcome to the Spinner's Lift Pinball Podcast. Episode 59, Fall is Here. It's October 2023. I'm your host, Spencer. And also here is our other two hosts, Dan.
0:40
Hey. And Mark. Hello. So what's going on, guys? I think this is effectively going to be our November show. It will, but we're recording at the end of October. By the time you're listening to it, it'll probably be our first November. It's just about Halloween. Because Dan has to be a contrarian. I'm not an actuarian. I'm an actuarian. I'm telling you how it is. Dan Durant, actuarian. I'm telling you how it's going to be, not how it is. You'll hear it in a little bit. I'm a future. I'm like a Tony Stark. Why are you going into a diabetic coma eating your kid's Halloween candy? All your own.
1:19
And you can enjoy the show and then call 911 and go, I knew I shouldn't have ate 17 Hershey bars. You own the kids. You bought the candy. It's yours. There you go.
1:31
You know what's returned is Classic Game Room. Classic Game Room pinball reviews on YouTube, man. They took a hiatus for, oh, my God, like 10 years. Because the last one I remember them doing was like Stern Star Trek, you know. And I love the guys, Mark. Mark Musler. Yeah. He has a legitimate claim to having the first online game review show. Nice. Like, it goes back a long, long way. And he's come and gone from YouTube a few times. I don't think he ever really went away, but he was on Amazon. Right. But, I mean, he didn't do any pinball reviews for, like, you know, videos for years. and he's back and he's got, what, about five or six reviews.

  • Pentagogo saw a Godfather Premium sell at an unexpectedly low price

    low confidence · Dan mentions 'a Premium there that sold for like a price that I almost couldn't believe' but does not specify the price or confirm the machine

  • There was no Willy Wonka, Dialed In, or Hobbit at Pentagogo 2023

    high confidence · Hosts explicitly state 'There was no Wonka there' and 'I don't think there was a Hobbit or Dialed In'

    • @ ~3:15
    Pentagogo
    event
    The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcastorganization
    Godfathergame
    Queengame
    Venomgame
    Valley Blackjackgame
    Sega Maverickgame
    Hot Wheelsgame
    Freddy Kruegergame
    Guns N' Rosesgame
    Pinball Pirateorganization

    medium · Mark: 'I don't understand the haters'; Dan: 'it was really fun. It had a super interesting playfield layout. Fighting the gangsters was cool. Like, that's a neat game, man'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Gottlieb design quality correlation: alphanumeric-era games described as 'super cool'; DMD-era games universally criticized as poor quality; theory attributes shift to designer departure

    low · Dan: 'all their alphanumeric games are super cool, and all their dot matrix games kind of suck... My theory is that a certain designer that they had there left'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Sega Maverick's paddle wheel animation is notoriously slow, creating downtime that undermines otherwise strong ruleset and color DMD; users resort to leaving machine during animation

    high · Dan: 'that long wait with the paddle wheel... I just go get ice cream. It's slow as crap.' Mark: 'The first time you shoot it, it's cool... And then it's like, oh, man, this is a takeaway.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball podcast ecosystem shows attrition: multiple shows have slowed or become inactive; The Spinner Is Lit approaching 7 years positions it as sustained player; Mark Musler return signals content demand

    medium · Spencer: 'in that seven years, like, all these podcasts, you know, who have come and gone or people aren't doing them as much now... you know, they've slowed down'

  • ?

    product_strategy: JJP pricing strategy cited as limiting appeal despite strong game design; Godfather described as 'shame that it's JJP priced'; market segmentation tension between design merit and accessibility

    medium · Dan: 'it's a shame that it's JJP priced, but, you know, I see what they were going for with it'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Pentagogo serves dual function: playable show and sales venue; machines sold at show with variable pricing; noted good deals on used/vintage titles; Premium Godfather sold at exceptionally low price

    medium · Dan: 'there were some good deals... Premium there that sold for like a price that I almost couldn't believe... how could I have come up with that money real quick'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Pentagogo offers access to rarely-seen machines unavailable at GSPF or regular locations (Freddy Krueger, Valley Blackjack, Surfing Safari, My Golden Cue); collectors and casual players value machine rarity and condition

    high · Dan: 'you're going to see games that, you know, other than GSPF, you don't see much of anywhere. Just really offbeat, crazy stuff'

    • 2:24
    He's got an Indian. He's in Pittsburgh. So I think he has access to Papa. Right, because he would do all, yeah, he would do all his game videos, his pinball review videos at Papa. Now, since Papa's no longer, you know, they no longer have a physical location with, you know, four or 500 games, he's hitting other local arcades. It's really funny. In one of the reviews, I forget which one it was, He has his wife filming the game.
    2:51
    But I've seen him do Venom and Avengers and a couple other games. So it's just good to have him back, man. I always really enjoy his videos. He makes it fun. You know, I'll still quote stuff like, you know, it's like waffles and a flamethrower, you know, from one of the – or a couple of his videos. I think it was Solar Fire or TXX. It's like a flamethrower that makes waffles. On the disco pinball dimension I always wanted one of those shirts And I never bought one But it's good to have them back man It's a welcome back mark In classic game room Because you know what man we need more content We can always use more content Because a lot of the guys that are doing content You know like I was thinking about it the other day We've been doing our podcast now March will be seven years Wow Yeah And it's just funny because, like, in that seven years, like, all these podcasts, you know, who have come and gone or people aren't doing them as much now, you know, they've slowed down. So, you know, it's funny about Mark and Classic Game Room. The fact is he is a total casual, too. Like, he's not a pinball collector. He collects a lot of stuff, but he doesn't have any pinball machines, I don't think. So it's a really interesting perspective when, you know, you're surrounded by hardcore pinheads probably all the time, and you watch his content. And, you know, pinball reviews are something he sort of does as a sideline, you know, when he doesn't have Atari or Sega Genesis or Truxton to talk about. Right. If they made a Truxton pinball machine, it would probably just blow his mind. I recall years and years ago that he had, because he did a review of the Black Hole pinball, and it was one he owned. I think that's the only one at the time, anyway. I don't know. Still owns it. But, yeah, he's not like a hardcore. He loves to play. He loves to review. But he's more of a casual guy. He never played games.
    5:01
    Does he do a review, then, on public location on the games? Yeah. Because if he doesn't have them, so that's kind of cool. So he's given an honest opinion or a review of something on the field instead of home game. Yeah, he's doing with Papa, and now he's doing it in a local barcade. I think it might be private collections, stuff like that, like guys that he knows. Oh, okay. The dude just kind of reviews things. Like it was mostly classic video games, but he sometimes dips into modern,
    5:30
    and then, you know, occasionally there's pinball and then sometimes snacks. Like, if you go back and you watch his content, like, there's a ton of it because he's been doing it for 20 years. But he's got, you know, a real – he's got a real personality, and he was definitely – he's definitely the OG granddaddy YouTube online game reviewer. And I agree with you because his older videos are 4-3 ratio, so you know they're older. Yeah. They're not, you know, 1080p. I wouldn't have known that, but he could have done my tech guy, so that's cool. I think his job, like his day job, is he's like a video editor. Oh, okay. So I think that, yeah, he's always been, weirdly enough, he's always been kind of on the forefront of, like, his videos will look as good as they can look for the era that they're in. Cool. So, you know, support him, man. Check out his videos. Check out his old videos. Check out, he even managed to make Star Wars Episode I look fun, Because it's really not that bad of a game. But anyway. Everyone loves Jedi musical chairs. There we go. Yeah. Yeah, that classic mode, of course. So while I've been having one vehicle after the other in the shop, having my daughter and son-in-law come and visit and playing with the chickens and just shuttling kids and being dad, you guys, because I missed because of having one vehicle at a time in the shop. I missed out on the Denver show. So you guys went to Pentagogo.
    7:10
    Yeah, see, you missed out on Pentagogo because you moved to Wyoming. I did, yeah. Wyoming is too far away for Pentagogo. You needed to be closer. You know, it's like when you did your little announcement, your little Halloween open house, I was like, I want to get on a plane and go so bad. But I'm going to be here climbing pumpkins and handing out full-size candy bars, as always.
    7:35
    The cool dad in the neighborhood was like, that's the neat little short guy. He looks like a hobbit. He hands out full-size candy bars. Oh, that person's giving out big candy bars. Cool. I remember that as a kid. Yeah. But it was a truck trying to get to the house because the driveway was like a quarter mile long. Oh, heck. But, yeah. You worked for it. So I'll let you guys fight over who wants to go first on the tag reveal. Oh, Mark, why don't you tell us about your Pinnagogo adventure? All right. I really enjoyed it. It was a lot of pinball and no other distractions, no tournaments.
    8:12
    The social atmosphere was great, but it wasn't a campground kind of atmosphere like GSPF. But I'll tell you something. I really enjoyed all the games that were there to play. They were in great condition. They were leveled properly.
    8:28
    And Pinball Pirate brought a lot of new ones, such as Venom, brought some Bonds, brought some other things. And I had a great time playing them. I was always trying to get the highest score just because that's, like, my objective when I go to shows is just to see how well I can play. And it's just a fun, fun way to get together, play a lot of games. and just have a great old time. And the day goes so fast before you know it, it's 10 o'clock, and they're shutting the games down. I wish it went until 11. I wish it went a little later, but, you know, it is what it is, and those games need a rest. I'm just impressed you shut the show down. Yeah. I was like, 10 o'clock, I'm turning into a pumpkin. How many games do you think that they had this year? 200? I'm trying to think as far as the number in a row there was about, was there about 25 in each row or was there more, was there 30? I don't know like maybe, so they had, for people who've been there before like they have a traditional sort of layout that they do of two big ovals and they run the length of this entire multipurpose room, fairground, fairground auditorium. I mean, I don't know what you'd call it, the Dixon Fairgrounds. The Dixon Mayfair in Dixon, California. But it's quite a few games. There were some gaps. And then there's a side room for EMs, which was a little bit lighter this year than it has been in the past. But it had, you know, probably a dozen, couple dozen EMs. and there were a lot of games and a lot of cool stuff to check out that sort of spanned the entire realm of pinball from what was the oldest game there? Oh wow there was a wood rail in the 30s and then it went right up to Venom which I think was the newest title we had Venom, we had Godfather, there was a Queen we got to play some Queen Oh, yeah, Queen was surprisingly good. I really enjoyed playing that. A lot of WPCs, a lot of weird stuff. Almost every American pinball game, except for I don't think there was a Houdini. There was no Houdini. You are correct. And there was a Galactic Tank Force, which I honestly, what's kind of funny is I wanted to play their Galactic Tank Force, and I never did, to see how it compared to mine. I think most folks were saying that one of the flippers felt like it didn't have the power that it should have had. Correct. And there was a Hot Wheels there that played really nice that Mark just beat me mercilessly at. They had two of them, didn't they, on each side? They had two Hot Wheels. Did they have two? I know they had the one that we played, and I know that there was one that was still soldiered up. It was off to the side. Yeah, there must have been three because they just didn't need that many Hot Wheels.
    11:34
    Right, right. But, you know, I think that, you know, the coolest thing was we kind of started the day before. You know, Mark came into town. We met up. We grabbed lunch, sort of talked about our plan of attack. And I was actually working, so I was slacking a little bit. And then we went our separate ways. And he went off to hang out with some folks, and I went off to do league night.
    11:59
    And then the next day, you know, we started off. We met bright and early. and I had a buddy come with me. Jeff came with me. Did Rick ride in with me the first day too? I think so. I don't remember. I know that if Rick comes with you anywhere, you're playing a lot of pinball. Yep. And you're waiting a long time for the next person.
    12:21
    And then, you know, we all, you know, I think that we sort of just, we wandered around and, you know, there was a lot of multiplayer opportunity, but there was a lot of single player opportunity because there's just so many, so many things to see and so many different groups to play with. But, you know, the great thing about Pinnagogo is I think, like you said, there's no real distractions, right? Like it's just a big room full of pinball machines and a big room full of your buddies. Yeah, and it still had the cool vibe of, you know, having a social atmosphere, yet it wasn't crowded, and that was the best part about Pinnagogo. Friday it wasn't. Yeah, Friday it wasn't. It got a little busier, but we sort of snuck out, I think, during the busiest of it. That's when we cut out to go grab our traditional Pentagogo steak dinner,
    13:15
    which we brought Mark into this year. That was awesome, by the way. That was awesome. That was so good. I would make that a tradition every year now for myself to go with you guys. Well, this was our third year that we've done it. and it started off with Mike, you know, with Micah Hosier from the league, and, you know, we all went out. And then the next year, I don't know if it was the next year, I think it was the next show because I think the pandemic messed it up. He couldn't make it, so it was me and Adam and Jim and a bunch of other guys came. And then this year it was me, you, Adam, Rick, Jeff. Jeff was there. Yeah, Jeff. Right. And, you know, we ate too much food and hung out and had good times and talked about pinball and then went right back to the show and started hammering on those games again until closing time. Yep. And the place we went to was called Cattleman's, which is a steakhouse that is only found in California that I found out from you, Dan. And it is a great place. I thought Cattleman's was a national chain. Oh, is it a national chain? Maybe it is. So because we have cattlemen, like just here in NorCal, I know of at least three cattlemen. Right, right. We've got one in Roseville, we've got one in Folsom, and we got one in Dixon. And it was funny, too, because when we got there, I was thinking, oh, my gosh, we're here like a half hour before the doors open. Is that really necessary? It was necessary because by the time we got in and succeeded, that place was packed within 20 minutes. You know, the irony is if you go to almost any other Cattleman's, they're not quite that busy. But in Dixon, Cattleman's is like the restaurant. Yeah. Like it's the whole freaking show. It's the whole Colorado. Yeah, yeah. You said I know that there's Cattleman's. I know it's a national chain or at least it's a multiple state chain. Yeah. It's kind of, you know, one of the last real, like, steakhouse restaurants that I can think of, right? I mean, you got, like, the Outback Steakhouse. You got, like, Texas Roadhouse, which I think are a step below what Cattleman's is. Like, they're fine. They're good places to eat. But I think at Cattleman's, like, it's one of the last places, almost like a Black Angus, right? That's what I was going to say. Is there a Black Angus anymore?
    15:48
    Yeah, I think there's still Black Angus. The only restaurant I had at first date was Black Angus. Yeah, Black Angus was always like, you know, like they advertised, though, right? They were a little bit more serious about, like, being a chain, where Cattleman's, I think, was very word of mouth. I don't think I've ever seen a Cattleman's commercial. Yeah, me neither. But, you know, I actually, you know, when we got back to the show, you know, which, of course, you know, all stuff with food is harder to focus on pinball, you know, we really got in there. And like I said, that's when we started playing some serious multiplayer stuff. And I just, you know, I really, really enjoyed, you know, just going around with the guys and just, you know, playing pinball machines, you know, that, you know, even though we've all got piles of them at home, it's stuff that, you know, you're not going to play because you don't have at home. Like I played a ton of Hot Wheels, which I don't have. Of course, Mark does.
    16:42
    I played Taxi, like just over and over and over. Every time I walked by that taxi and somebody wasn't playing it, I just couldn't help diving onto it. It played really well. They had a couple getaways, Spencer. One was really, really nice. Oh, yeah. One was nice. Oh, that one in the back where the queen was, it had the best supercharger. That thing just ripped. It was almost too good. Yeah. Like, if you got two balls in there, it couldn't keep up, and it would just eject one with, like, ridiculous force. Yes. And, you know, the two-ball supercharger thing is, like, one of the ultimate, like, oh, man, you get two balls in the supercharger.
    17:23
    Yeah, it's so good. It's so awesome. What were we talking about before the show? Oh, Valley Blackjack, a buddy of ours. Oh, I did not play Valley Blackjack. I missed that one. I was blown away by just how cool that game was. like the whole idea is that you have you have your your hand and you can see it on the playfield right so it'll say like dealers got 17 and you've got 18 and when you know you're ahead there's a saucer that you can hit that will cash out the hand and you'll win but if if if you don't have the winning hand and you hit that saucer you don't bonus and apparently i was talking to jack He said there's even a rules revision for that game where you can lose points. You'll lose the bonus if you have a losing hand, which I'm like, oh, that would be brutal.
    18:24
    And it does that or no? No. I guess you can get a ROM for it where it does do that, but the game itself's standard doesn't do that. You just don't get the bonus. And it's got a really satisfying spinner rip when the spinner is lit. And, hey-o! Yeah.
    18:41
    Product placement. Hello. Get the name of the show in there. Absolutely. And then, you know, what else did we play that was really, really cool? I mean, obviously, we played a lot of Venom, and that's a good game. You know, I think that the more that I played it, the more that I kind of got into its vibe.
    19:00
    Super fast, flowy, and just nonstop action. Oh, I finally got to spend some real time on Godfather. Oh, good. Man, that's a cool game. It is a cool game. Agreed. Like, I don't understand the haters. I mean, I will say that it is, especially when you see what they've just done, it does feel a little bit, like, subdued. Yes. For a JJP, like, it's not going off as hard as, like, a Guns N' Roses or a Willy Wonka or the game we're going to talk about later goes off. But, like, it was really fun. It had a super interesting play field layout. Fighting the gangsters was cool. Like, that's a neat game, man. Like, it's a shame that it's JJP priced, but, you know, I see what they were going for with it. And, you know, and Queen, right? Queen is a really, really interesting game. I mean, it's definitely a legit machine. like it it it played well it was weird it played i don't know maybe i'm just putting something into it but to me it like it played well and i mean it's all there but it just felt and maybe it was just this one it just felt like it was a little off like yeah like there was something with the locks that were not working and and i don't think they ever worked during the whole show but there was a smart word that said Wembley Lock and it was lit and when I went in there it just kept going around and it came back to the flipper and I didn't know if it was a virtual lock or if it was just a fluke but I never was able to get multi-ball in that game never, I never got multi-ball did you get multi-ball on it or no? no, there was also that weird up-kicker where it kicks onto a ramp yes but that thing would miss a lot and just, like, it feels like it needs a little more time in the oven, which apparently this is a production game, so it's not going to get it, but it felt like maybe, like, it needed a little more time in the oven to be perfectly done. Yeah, I agree. The code was better than it was when it was at the first showing,
    21:15
    but I found that the shots were fun on it, and I was drawn to it many times. I kind of like, oh, let me go back and see if anybody's waiting in line for Queen. I was like, man, I want to play this again. Yeah, someone was always waiting in line for Queen. Yeah. See, I kind of disagree. I didn't think the shots were that good. Okay. I thought, you know, actually, it felt like nothing was quite where you wanted it to be. It was pittable, but it was like it wasn't natural. But it was really, really well done use of the assets. Like it had a ton of music. Yeah, it had live performances, which was cool. Yeah, and it had a ton of Queen references.
    21:56
    And honestly, to me, and I think I was kind of mentioning this, it felt like it was sort of like a really simplified version of how Guns N' Roses works. Yes. Where instead of qualifying a song, you just choose a song, and then if you play through the whole song at the end, that one scoop shot just starts lighting up and going crazy. and if you hit it, you got a ridiculous jackpot. Like the scoring was just as broken as it is in Guns N' Roses. I was thinking that too, that it was a lot like Guns N' Roses because you were like playing during the song and like you said, then you go for that killer shot at the end. And that shot's everything. Like you'll have like 2 million points and you'll hit that shot and it's worth like 50 million. Yeah, exactly. It's not real balanced scoring at all. Right. So it definitely, like, if you're a fan of Queen and you're a fan of music games, and especially if you're a fan of, you know, the Pinball Brothers and, you know, you want something that's not like anything else out there, yeah, Queen's probably worth a look.
    23:00
    What did you think of the artwork? I thought the artwork was gorgeous on it. I thought it looked really nice on the other side. I don't know. I think it was a little ugly. Really? I liked it. I thought it was kind of cool with the yellows and the oranges in it. Yeah, I didn't think it was an especially good-looking game. I think if there's one weakness of that game, it's the artwork. And, of course, it's also maybe the build quality is a little sus because it was spending a lot of time down. It was. Even the alien that they had went down a couple times, you know. But a show environment, you know, I think they were both brand-new games. A show environment is a really tough place to break in a new game. That's so true. So I didn't get to play Alien. I missed that one. Yeah. But I kept playing Queen. I played it once, and the shooter couldn't get the ball onto the play field.
    23:52
    And so I just turned it off, and I told the guys, the owners, I said, hey, I turned it off for this reason. I didn't want it to sit there and burn out that shooter coil. And they were like, oh, great, thanks. And then I saw them working on it, and then it was back up. But, you know, I've got a couple Aliens pretty local, you know, a couple league members on Aliens, so I can always dive into that and play that one at home so it didn't get a lot of attention. I was looking for more stuff that, like, I couldn't play at home, but I think that over the course of the couple days, I probably played darn near every game in that hall at least twice if it wasn't something I could play at home. Yep, I was thinking the same thing. were just so spoiled, Sacramento or Reno area. So many people have those games around the show floor. However, one I did play wasn't the best game, but it's rarely seen, was Freddy Krueger. I played that one. I played that too. It was kind of cool with the claws coming out in the middle where you could kick it back. That was kind of a neat little mech. That was super trash. Yeah. Yeah, it's just very interesting, but it's terrible. No, it played terrible. Don't get me wrong. It was a terrible game. It's just, it's this super wide open game. Yeah, there's like nothing to shoot at. With like three things to shoot at. Yeah, I know. But all three of the things are cool, right? Like you had that furnace, which by the standard of the day was a pretty cool mechanism with the lights and stuff. Yeah. you got that Freddy head on a platform that you can kind of shoot it behind, and then the ball would shoot out his mouth. Yep, like this. And then you had the way to get it up on the ramp. I think it was an up kicker, and then you could use the claws to swipe it off the ramp. That was the coolest part. Well, yeah, it was like the hand that you could knock it off, and then there was the thing between the flippers that was like a grate that kicked the ball back, which was the claws. that is just oh really I don't think I even saw that yeah that is just a super example of like all theme yeah it was really well done with theme but yeah gameplay sucks horribly on that game because you love Freddy and you love horror movies especially that late 80s early 90s Nightmare on Elm Street era slasher flick yeah and it It definitely did that, but I don't know what happened to Gottlieb between, because, you know, what was the other game they had there? Was it 1812?
    26:39
    Yes, they had 1812. Their processor would have been crappy. I don't know what happened to Gottlieb between, like, that alphanumeric era and the dot matrix era. My theory is that a certain designer that they had there left, but, like, all their, like, alphanumeric games are super cool. and all their dot matrix games kind of suck. Yeah. I mean, they're not the worst thing to ever happen. They're better than no pinball at all, but I don't think that anybody would argue that TX Sector isn't a million times better than Freddy. So true. You know, another one I played from Gottlieb or Premiere or whatever you want to call it was Bone Busters. Oh, Bone Busters. That's what I was thinking of was Bone Busters. Like, that's a terrible game, but I have to say that it was kind of fun playing it. That game was fun as hell. Yeah, it was fun to play. Like, it had all these locks. Yeah. And you'd hit the ball from the locks, and then it had, like, that weird center shot.
    27:46
    And it sort of launched into a little basket. Yeah. And it would start, like, the world's shortest multiball. Yeah. Like, that game was fun. That game, they had a surfing safari there. Which isn't a bad game. I love Surf and Safari. I wish we had more of those on location. Those are great. Those are so fun. Yeah, that was one of Mark Beershing's games. He brought it. And that game was super, super fun. I don't know why it's so much fun, but it is. It's, like, so simple, but it's challenging to get all the lights lit up, you know, for each of the shots. Crazy multicolor ramps. Yeah. Like there's just something about crazy multicolor ramps. Like I don't know why, but that game just gets it done. Yeah. It's a great one, and it shoots fun. But the cool thing is like that's the stuff that you see when you go to Pentagoga, right? It's not just, okay, well, they got a medieval and an attack from Mars and an Addams Family and a Twilight Zone, you know, all the stuff that you hope that you'll see and that you'd love to play again, especially if you don't have steady access to. But you're going to see games that, you know, other than GSPF, you don't see much of anywhere. Just really offbeat, crazy stuff, usually very, very playable. You know, some good buys on older stuff, especially if you were trying to buy some games.
    29:13
    Yeah, there were some good deals. Oh, dude, there was a premium there that sold for like a price that I almost couldn't believe when I heard what it actually went for. Really? Oh, wow. It was low enough that I was like, oh, man, how could I have come up with that money real quick? Yeah, yeah. They were in great condition, though. I mean, they all played really well. And thanks to Chris from Pinball Pirate, man, he brought a slew of new sterns and, of course, some Jersey Jack. There was no Wonka there, though, right? I didn't see a Wonka. There really wasn't much JJP stuff. Yeah, there was a Pirate. There was guns. There was Pirates. And that played great. That was really tuned in as well.
    29:56
    There was Guns, there was Pirates, there was Godfather. Mm-hmm. And I can't really remember. No dialed in. There was no dialed in there. I don't think there was a Hobbit or dialed in. I don't think there was much of anything else by JJP. Yeah. At least they had Sega Maverick, though. Like, who needs JJP when you got Sega Maverick? Oh, yeah, Maverick. Yeah, that actually is a good game if you know how to play it. That's a criminally underrated game for which unit and the rule set. And that giant color DMV is so good.
    30:28
    Yeah. And Huntsman would be the person to talk to. He knows those rules really well. Oh, on Sega Maverick? He used to have one. Yeah, and then he sold it. But the way that you have to pick your cards and the chips and everything, there's so much to it. It's so much fun. The only complaint that people have is that long weight with the paddle wheel. I just go get ice cream. It's slow as crap. It is. That's the only thing. If they, like, revved it up or something, like, get a different motor and just have that thing fly up there, it would be awesome. The first time you shoot it, it's cool because you're like, oh, this is really cool. It's going around the paddle wheel on the riverboat. Yeah. And then it's like, oh, man, this is a takeaway. My tax is done. I'll be fine.
    31:15
    I'm going to call my dentist. It's weird, right? Because it's kind of got that weird place in history where it's like both the last Data East and the first Sega at the same time.
    31:26
    Right. It was like right at that crossover moment, just like, what was it, South Park? Or one of those other ones was like the very last Sega, but it was kind of the first Stern. Yeah, I think it was South Park. South Park or, oh, Sharky Shootout. No, Sharky Shootout was definitely just a Stern, even though it was made earlier.
    31:47
    Yeah. That game was something called, it was like a... Like cue ball or something. Ellie Acker's Golden Cue, and it was like a golden golf. My Golden Cue. I think it was by Incredible Technologies, and it failed on test or something. They said, okay, we're not going to go forward with this. So they mothballed it, and then when Stern came out, they were like, we need a game, and they're like, well, we got this one done. So they rethemed it. I think that's also a very underrated and fun game that if you can find one, you can always pick one up at a pretty good price. Because it sucks. I don't think it sucks. I really don't. I've played it. I'm glad. Every game deserves to be loved by somebody. But I'm going to say this. Not only have I played that game, but I've shot that game. That game sucks. It's an awkward game From an awkward place In pinball history It's interesting because you never see it And if you like billiards games And I know that at one point Billiards was a super popular Pinball theme It's one of the last billiards games Right?
    32:58
    Yeah I think it's the last billiards game Because they had cue ball wizard Not before though That was the last.
    33:09
    That was probably the last. I think we've established that DMD Gottliebs are universally bad. Okay. I like that, Dan. It's good, Dan. You're for sure being critical today. Wait, so are you saying it was golden because it's called Cuball Wizard, right? No, no. Cuball Wizard's a Gottlieb. Yeah, okay. The premier. Is that the one that sucks too? It was called Golden Cube. I just said earlier that all DMD Gottliebs suck. I got you. It was like a prototype, and then it became Sharky's Shootout. It became Sharky's Shootout. Okay, got it. If you go back a little ways, there's like LaserQ, and there's, you know, the whole... Pinball Pool. That was the first game I ever bought. Yeah, Pinball Pool. That game's awesome. I remember that one. And the artwork on it is superb. Yeah, that's a fun one, because it has the rollovers, right? The whole 8-Ball series was huge. Yeah. Yeah, or not roll-overs. What were those called? Buttons? What do you call those things that you, like, roll over but they're not? Well, no, the pinball pole just had two banks of drop targets. I think you're thinking of a pocket pole. Yeah, or, oh, wait, what's the other one? It's the EM. It's the EM one, and it's fun because it has, like, the rack in the middle, and then you, like, go over these little, I don't know what you call them. I don't know what the technical term is, but Hudson had one. It's not a ball. Rack them up. It wasn't rack them up. It was an EM. Those are all. Rack them up's a great game, too. Something pinball. I'll look it up. It's just like completely off topic, but I'll throw out what was the last. Oh, we haven't been on topic for like five minutes. What was the last poker or gambling-themed pinball machine? We don't need to go off that tangent. We're already talking about a whole lot of billiards machines. You're killing me, Spencer. World poker tour Anyway Do you think it was WPT Yeah it was because Steve Ritchie never wanted to make it He like look He goes you know there a reason they don make fucking card pinball machines anymore And so they did. There hasn't been any other card-based game since then, huh? No. There hasn't. But you've got to admit, those drop targets are fun. It's a fun game. I love the drop targets. I had one. Yep, I had one. These games were you playing cards, though, right? Like, what am I thinking of? No. Nothing recent. I can't think of any card-themed game that's modern. I got something in my head where I'm like, there's been a card game, hasn't there? I guess not. Okay, so back on topic, what was the most interesting and rare game you guys saw at Pinnagogo?
    35:43
    Ooh, let's see. I think you're going to have to go on that one. They had any of, like, the crazy, like, I mean, I'm sure there were some rare games there, but they didn't have any like that. Well, I think 12 is pretty rare. You don't see that many ever. Yeah. Class of 1812 is a good one. That's not one you don't see anywhere. Did anybody bring a teed off? Because that's a gnarly DMV game I really enjoy. No teed off. I know that for a fact. You don't see that very often either. Right. It's not a great game, but it's... What was the one that was rare? They had a joust. Joust was there. There were 700 jousts. And 341 of them were in Northern California because they show up at every show, at least once in their life. Yeah, they're always there. And 340 of those have been owned by Mike Huntsman. Yeah, that's correct.
    36:32
    And the rest were owned by... The master of cocktail pinball machines. Yeah. The rest were owned by people we know, too. Did anybody bring a Capcom?
    36:46
    No. No, no, no. You guys don't know what I'm thinking. A Brakeshot. Nope, there was no Brakeshot. That's another pool-based team. That's a really good game. That's one of my all-time favorites. That's my top pick. We just completely ruined it. I know.
    37:04
    That's a pinball machine based on billiards. Okay, here we go. There we go. At Pinnagogo. Okay, here's a Pinnagogo question. Who showed up to the show that you were glad to see that you haven't seen in forever?
    37:15
    Steve Faith. It was great to see Steve Faith there. I'm so glad he's doing better. Yeah, he looked a lot better, and it was great to see him because I was like, oh, Steve, I haven't seen you forever. And it was good to see him walking around and having a good time and getting himself. He still got his beard.
    37:33
    Yeah, he did still have it, didn't he? I can't remember now. I saw pictures of him at the volunteer party, and I commented, hey, man, you're looking good. Good to see you up and around. You look good with the beard. And he did. I mean, a lot of the usual suspects were there. Yeah. You know, Steve, Ron.
    37:55
    It was great to see John. I'm sorry. Steve, Greg, Greg Ong. Yeah, Greg was awesome. I didn't see a few of the OG guys, but by and large, I think a lot of the people were there that you would want to see. It would have been nice if Spencer would have showed up. Yeah, that would have been nice. James from Seattle was there. Oh, nice. My daughter said I wanted to visit.
    38:20
    His beard was supreme. If you need beards. I'm trying to think who. That's really what it's all about. For a while. People anyway. Yeah. That's the one I can think of is Steve Faith and Greg Ong. It was good to see them.
    38:35
    Oh, and you know who also was there was, and it was great to see him, was Brad. Brad Grant. Yeah. Brad texted me and asked me if I was coming. And I told him no because I have my daughter and son-in-law in town. You know, and... And then Brad was like, you disappoint me. No, he's really cool. And I called him back. When he texted me, I called him a couple days after they left to say hi. I got his voicemail. I've been meaning to call Greg, too. I just, you know, it's been crazy busy lately. You know, there's so much going on, so... And I'll tell you, the game that I kept going back to all the time was Bond Pro. So I kept going back and forth to that game because it's just like there was something about it that it shot so well. And I got convinced that that is the next game. So I really had fun with that one a lot. Yeah, it was good. It was a good one. It really, the rules are so good on it now. And I was very captivated by all the cool modes and the new clips that they added and the new sound and new songs and everything. It turned out to be a solid game. So I kept going to that one. And then I played the premium. And I don't know, it was just something about the bond on the wand. It just kind of slows it down. And I like the virtual lock. I like when it just whips around and boom. You know, before you know it, you're into bird one multi-ball. The pro's fine, man. I think the pro's good. I mean, the premium's neat. The pro's good. With the pro, you get the car. And, you know, you get the Aston Martin with the ejector seat. Cool thing. And that's. You get that on the pro, too. Yeah, you get that on a pro. So, I mean, the most important toy, you know, the one you're going, that's really cool. They included that. Yeah. And most importantly, you get the missile dildo. You get the missile. Yeah. And it doesn't do any different. It just wobbles around. Yeah, it just wobbles around. It just does its thing. It just, just, brrrr.
    40:28
    No, that is, I think that that is Gomez's best game. Like, I think that it takes all the stuff that I was just like, I don't know why people are so hyper about Deadpool and reminded me, like, Gomez can make a really good shooter with some really interesting shots. It's so good. It's so flowy. I mean, you like Steve Ritchie flowy? This thing is. If you think about it too, right, you know, Steve Ritchie flowy, you know, there is like that lost version of it. Like, I wonder what the Steve Ritchie bond would have looked like. I know. I wonder too. You know, I wonder what the JT Deadpool would have looked like. Like, I'm always curious as to what the designs would have turned out to be. But, you know, the ones that came out because Gomez handled it, and Gomez makes a great pinball machine, you know. And you have Lonnie Ropp and you have Mike Vinicore that are doing coding together. And I'm telling you, they work great as a team, and they really add a lot of stuff to that game. I mean, now they have the mini wizard mode, Bond James Bond, which is super fun. It's kind of like a mini version of Cherry Bomb, but only with two balls. But it's fun. I think that, honestly, everybody was shitting on this game when, you know, it was Rob doing the code. Everyone's like, oh, man, it's the death knell for this game. And I think he's really proven himself with this title. And I think that, you know, I think a lot of it is the fact of the matter is that he has more time to work on the stuff now because they've got more coders. And with each team, with each design, basically each game seems to have, or each designer seems to have a team now. Right. I think that that works because you get that coder and you get that designer and you get that artist and they all work together and they're all kind of in sync. And I think it's a lot better than it was just like, okay, well, we got, you know, three designers and we got Lyman Sheets doing code for everything because we've only got one coder.
    42:33
    And, you know, we've got... Frere's doing the art for everything because we've only got one artist. And it gives the games, even though they all have that same stern-y quality, you know, you can tell that they come from stern, it does give each of the games its own identity and its own personality. I liked the row of games that had all of the solid states, like Dolly. They were all together. I think what I really liked is the show was pretty organized, having all the modern games together. And then they had all, you know, the solid states all in one area in the back. Like the early solid states. Yeah.
    43:08
    Was that all Jack? Yeah, that was awesome. Big shout out to Jack for bringing game. Yeah, that was fun. It was that whole like J at the end from basically from that Gilligan's was Izzy's, and then that black Jack was Jack's, and that whole end cap, and like a couple titles up the next row, up until probably almost that getaway. Right. all Jack's games. You know, they did have also the 2.0 versions of, they had the Funhouse Rudy's Nightmare, they had Chaos, what is it called?
    43:43
    Something. Yeah, we're one total chaos, which doesn't do it for me. Mainly because that darn target still wasn't working with the extra ball. The same exact issue that was on at GSPF, it's the same thing. I think it was the same exact game. It was. It had to be. And I'm sorry to say, but we're in that level. The Black Rose 2.0, to me, that game's incredible. That was good. Because it literally takes Black Rose, which has the ugliest trans light ever, and gives it an uglier trans light.
    44:18
    This isn't nearly as... Hey, hey, hey, no. Like, I don't know, and I don't like to bet on any artist, because I've got no artistic talent at all. I'm not a good artist. I'm not an art critic. Like, if you can draw, I'm impressed by you. But, wow, whoever did that translate was painting the pencil track. Terrible. Can somebody please, like a listener that's good, that can actually do, has an artistic ability, can you please, like, just put on our Facebook page a – I'll have my fourth graders do it. Yeah, stick – How do your fourth graders do it? Stick – That's a fake figure. Seriously, a black and white pencil sketch stick figure black knight trans light. It'll be better.
    45:04
    I talked to Brian Allen about it. I said, Brian, and I was talking online, so it wasn't like face-to-face. We weren't like homies, but I said, if anybody needs, if any game needs your help, if any owners group needs your help, it's Black Rose Owners. And he goes, that game is on my radar. Good. But, I mean, this was years ago, so nothing ever happened to it. But, yeah, that Black Rose, Skull and Crossbones or whatever they call it, like, yeah, it's pretty savage. Did you play the game? Did you like the game or no? It was fine. You know, I... It's just not cooked enough, like you said, in another game. It's easier to jump from a DMD game to an LCD game than from those alphanumeric games to an LCD game. Right. It's definitely the most jarring with Whirlwind. Whirlwind didn't need to be fixed. None of them needed to be fixed. They were fine. But with Whirlwind, you're going from that System 11 simplicity to like, it's almost too complicated. Off the rails. Almost too off the rails. Like, it's just, it's basically, they had to come up with content, and it was kind of weird. With Rudy, I don't think it's as bad, or with Funhaus, I don't think it's as bad because they sort of stick to that Funhaus formula. I just don't think that the artistic direction, which, again, I'm not an art critic, and the voicing was as good as it could have been. But, you know, the idea is solid. And with Black Rose, I just think that whoever was doing it, like they just had an artistic sensibility that I can't agree with. I guess I'll put it that way, to not be a complete tool. Like I'm better than they are. I'm not better than they are. Whatever they did is a million times better than whatever I would have done. But, yeah, wow. You know, it just aesthetically was not for me. You know, it just came to my mind about, Spencer, when you asked about the rarest game that was there.
    47:13
    I wish I could remember the name, but it was an EM that was in the EM room, and it was off kind of in its own space.
    47:21
    Oh, the one at the end of the row. Yeah, what was that called? I don't know, but they had, like, a special, like, display for it. Yeah, it was, like, it was kind of a layout of, like, Centigrade or Atlantis, and it was supposedly a home-type pin, home pin type of thing, where it was for the home market, and it was really cool. I got to play it, too. Obviously not during the seminar, but it shot really well, and it did have kind of the feel of a home game. But the layout was really fun, and it was kind of like a mashup between Centigrade and Atlantis put together. I don't know. I forgot what it was called. Something – oh, shoot, what was it called? Something cowboy or – Yeah, it was something like that. I wish I had a better memory. Shoot, yeah. Have you ever played an EM, though, called Blue Chip?
    48:17
    Yeah. It's about stocks. Yeah, I know. I saw that one, too. It was so fun. Like, what a good machine. Super fun. I played in a tournament one time when I was at Cal Extreme. They had it. Cal X. They had it for a tournament, and I'd never heard of it in my life. Extremely, extremely satisfying spinner rips. Yeah. You know what was also satisfying? was that soccer game that added balls in the back glass. That was cool for the goals. Yeah, soccer. Yeah, that was a cool game. Yeah, that was cool. For an EM, that was really fun to play. I played that with, actually, I played that with Steve. Our friend of the show, Eric, used to own one of those. I don't know if he still does or not.
    49:02
    Yeah, that's fun. It was a good one. I played a lot of the EMS. I had fun going down the row and trying every single one out. and some are things you've seen before, but it's always nice for the Pacific Pinball Museum to bring a couple of games and have people shoot some EMs. I wish there were more games in there, but, you know, it is what it is. You know, we used to have a guy who brought like a million of them. Yeah.
    49:26
    And he doesn't bring them to that show anymore. He brings them to Golden State. Larry, right? Yes. Yep, yep. yeah those are yeah I gotta play more EMs when I go to Golden State I did not do enough of that but that's about it 30 bucks for a weekend that's the other thing the cost was amazing yeah it was really good over 100 machines yeah I'd say there's 120 is my guess super laid back environment you know no pressure no stress no strain in a nice little small town, northern California. You know, they even had a snack bar. It was funny because we were kind of, they didn't have the big tent show up with, like, the tri-tip sandwiches and whatnot. Yeah. And we were kind of snickering behind our backs. We're like, oh, wow, is that what their snack bar is going to be this year? But they had a hot dog roller, and I saw somebody's one of those hot dogs, and I was like, dude, those hot dogs look hella legit. And they were good. I liked them. Oh, yeah, you had one. I saw you with one. That's right. I had one. Me? No, we were on our way to Cattleman's. Yeah, that's right. There's something about those hot dogs on the roller, man. Like, you used to get them at the movie theater. Yeah, they're good. It's a way to cook them. Yeah. The night that we did League. Whatever.
    50:49
    The night that we did League when Mark showed up, but he couldn't make it because he was visiting with some other friends, we had the hot dog roller. Oh, cool. Nice. Yeah, we had Mike's hot dog roller, and we set it up at Mike Garcia's house. Yeah. Hot dog rollers, like, that's a legit way to make a hot dog. It is. I agree.
    51:08
    We're talking about a while back missing the drive-in over the summer. Because, you know, there's one drive-in in Wyoming. It's over in Powell. So it's about a four-and-a-half, five-hour drive. And we're going to try to get over there next summer. But we're talking about the old drive-in at Rancho.
    51:24
    They had the best hot dogs. And they have, what's the New York ones? Nathan's. Nathan's hot dogs. Damn, those are good hot dogs. And one thing, spend about three weeks on that roller that's never been cleaned. Yep. That gives them the right flavor. That proper drive-in flavor. Yeah, man. No, good hot dogs. But, you know, something. And the reason that the hot dogs taste the same as they did in the 50s. Yep. Because they never cleaned the rollers. You guys all both keyed on something. This is something I've always said about, you know, Golden State still does have a lot of that appeal, but it's a much bigger show. Right. Pinnagogo invented, I believe, invented this, and they still hold it. It's just part of the charm. Going to Pinnagogo is like an old R-Gang cartoon, or not cartoon, but, you know, episode where just a bunch of kids got together and cleaned out, swept up the barn, threw a bunch of pinball machines, and put on a show. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yep. That nails it right there. Yeah. And when I tell everybody that, they're like, oh, God, that's it. You know, it's got that feeling. You show up, you see old friends and make new ones, you hang out and bullshit, you have a hot dog off the roller and a cold drink and a talk story and find someone to trade games and have a few laughs. God, I can't wait to do this next year. I miss that show, man. I need to seriously reprioritize myself and try to get there next year. Well, the games were really good condition, and they were all level. They all played great, and they actually lasted really well through the show too. There were hardly any that were down. It was a good show. I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it, too.
    53:06
    Yeah, I really enjoyed it. It was fun, and I'm glad I went. Old games and new, guys. Old games and new. So, there's, well, you know, as always, there's, hey, new games coming out. You know, we didn't see them at that show, but we see them on. Wait, you mean to tell me that there was another show besides Pinnagogo? There's a bunch of other shows besides Pinnagogo. There was a Denver show, which I did not make due to I had family coming into town. I had to put one car in the shop. As soon as family left, I had to put the other car in the shop. It's always something, man. But anyway.
    53:41
    Wasn't there a very specific show? No, it's film. Yeah, yeah. Oh, nice, Paul. How did we miss that? Well, there was also, again, there was also the Denver show, and there was also the very first show up in Canada. Spencer, man, you completely ruined my segue. I did the segue already. We're talking about thoughts on new games. We're supposed to be talking about Expo. Talking about Expo and new games. What happened at Expo? Well, we saw Elton John.
    54:12
    And we saw Labyrinth. And we saw Elvira with new artwork. And we saw Alien with new artwork and added. I think it's got some added code. and Ninja Eclipse and Elements. Okay, Elements. Okay, you know, all right, you guys are going to drive it off the cliff, aren't you, Mark? I'm pretty excited about Ninja Eclipse. Does anyone have $9,700 I could borrow?
    54:38
    So you can use your debit or your Visa card. I have to buy it? I'm not going to use my debit or Visa card to buy that game. You can start a game. So you can start a game. It's an old game. Yeah, you can start a game on it. So, that's right. You need to have a brand new app-based way that you credit up, right?
    55:02
    Just, please. I think we physically caused Spencer pain. All right, we'll go to the games so we don't give him a heart attack. I want to talk about Turner pinball. All right, let's talk about Turner pinball. Let's do it. No, it's not. They don't deserve my attention. They really don't. They're talking about me on the Internet. What was that other stupid pinball? They totally ripped that little thing off from Time Zone or whatever, the old Valley game. Okay. The officer thing? The white show thing. You know what's amazing to me is that so many people are so, like, impressed by those directional scoops. And I was like, I can tell that those people don't play old pinball machines because they love to throw the ball between scoop to scoop to scoop. Isn't that a surf champ thing where you shoot it into one scoop and it passes it down the row? No. But you know what game did that?
    56:00
    It's one of my favorite EMs, actually. Hollywood or cinema. Chicago Coin has that, where it has, like, four saucers and they kick it from one to the other. Yeah, that is so dope. It is dope. It is cool. Yeah. So, no, Valley Time Zone in the middle has a light show thing, and it's random. It has points. So it looks like a time tunnel, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. I know what you're talking about. It was at the show, actually. Okay. It was that. Okay, what's the new game that just whatever came out, the... Elements. Has something similar to that? And it's like, yeah, it's been done. You know, it's... Well, it's an infinity mirror, so that's a little different. Yeah, exactly. But anyway, so there's a... Yeah, yeah. It doesn't do anything. What was the review of that game, Spencer? Not as bad as you think it's going to be?
    56:50
    Oh, no, that was Punny Factory. Not as bad as you think. Oh, yeah, well, how does it shoot? Not as bad as you think it would. How does it look? Not as bad as you think it would. Kind of like Kevin Stennessy says, you know, somebody's... It's better than you... No, it's better than you expect. What are your thoughts on Turner? What do you think?
    57:08
    Oh, God, they're out of their minds. Yeah, I agree. The game itself, I mean, it looks amateur hour. Yeah. Right? You know, it's called Ninja Eclipse, which just doesn't seem to be, you know, any sort of theme that anyone's going to be like, oh, ninjas. It's like, okay, if it was 1987, sure.
    57:31
    Half-size cabinet looks like a... Cheap. Looks like a toy. It looks like a Sears home pin from 1977. It does. Which I'm into Sears home pins from 1977. To be honest, even though I couldn't even tell you I've ever really played one, like if I wanted to do a weird subset of pinball collecting, it would be weird 70s home pins. The Brunswick Astor. Yeah, exactly, right? Like I'm fascinated by it. What was the other one that had like the Tom Jones Elvis looking dude? It was called Alive. Alive, thank you. It put up like a cross between Tom Jones and Elvis. because they didn't want to pay the artist, so they just kind of – Well, I'm sure they didn't even have the opportunity to. Right. Like, Tom Jones probably would have signed on, but, you know, Elvis wouldn't have. But at the end of it all, it's just like you look at that Turner pinball, you look at Ninja Eclipse, and it looks to me like one of those Sears pinball machines because it doesn't have a coin door and it's got a weird half-size cab. And it shakes a lot. It's very light, so it doesn't have that steady feeling. But the play field looks fine. Like, it looks like it was a decent design, and it looks like it plays well. But it does not look like it plays better than a Stern Premium or a Galactic Tank Force. Right. Or any of these other machines are a labyrinth that you can get for $1,000 more. Or any of these other super legitimate machines. It's clunky. It's very clunky. Yep. It's clunky, bottom line. And on top of that, I saw a video where they were playing a multi-ball, and then the flippers just went dead.
    59:12
    My Star Trek Premium did that, and everybody loved that game. Okay. Did the play field wrinkle? No. Okay, not that I'm aware of. Do you remember the very first Magic Girl showing at the Seattle show? It was like a vinyl overlay, and it was wrinkling while they were playing because it was coming detached from the wood play field. Oh, gosh. You can go back and look at the video. And around the flipper area and the lower play field, it was literally wrinkling. It's like, wow. And it was at that point where at the time it was Pentasia. So Bill Brandes and the crew from Pentasia just said, there's not enough here to even work with. You know, after they spent two or three straight days with no sleep transporting it because, you know, they picked up the game from Chicago, drove it out to Tacoma, worked on it, had a guy do an emergency build of an actual ramp. You know, and there was this chowder head on Penn State. Oh, it's a team to game. Oh, please, 95% done. The weekend of that show, that guy closed his account and disappeared from the team completely. Yeah, I've got a long memory for dickheads, okay? So, you know, and there's no mercy or forgiveness from this kid. Anyways, it legitimately doesn't seem that bad. Like, it seems like these guys are sincere enough,
    60:40
    and they're probably legitimately trying to make a good pinball machine, and they're trying to do the right thing. They're just about $4,000 too expensive.
    60:52
    Yeah, the price is great. And it's not even glass, right? Isn't it? It's a plexiglass. But the plexiglass thing I don't think is because they don't want to use glass. I think it's because they kind of have this thing in their head where to get the game open, you, like, remove this whole frame. Right, right. And it's got life. What I think is cool about that is it's got life built into it. So it's got, like, built-in stadium lighting.
    61:17
    And then it connects when it attaches, right? Like a contact, when you seat it together, which, of course, we all know how all those contacts work in the really real world, but when you seat it together, it makes contact so you don't have any cables or wires to disconnect. That's kind of cool. It's not like there's bad ideas there. It's just, again, it's just you're trying to Kool-Aid man into the industry at a price point that I don't think you can get away with unless your game is just mind-blowing, which is what Labyrinth did, right?
    61:55
    Oh. Yeah. We all went to Labyrinth and said, $9,600, these fuckers are high, but then they actually brought this game that looks great and plays super well and it's been all over the place, and it's basically proving that Barrels of Fun is for real, where Turner just proved that they're nuts. Okay. This is a great counterpoint of what to do and what not to do. Okay.
    62:24
    Let's go with what to do. Okay. Hey, it's a bunch of guys who have experience in the industry of 10 or more years in one fashion or around there, one fashion or another. Programming, you know, something, you know. They got something going for them. You know, GMD programming, video programming, something. They work in the industry. They know what a good pinball game is. They secured a good license. The only place I got an issue with these guys at all is pre-order money. That shit pissed me off. They sold out every one of their allotment of games. If the game's good enough, it will sell itself. Stop asking for pre-order money. Put up or shut up. You're going to do this?
    63:07
    No other product out there that I know of asks you to pay before the game or before the product is ready. And that's, well, because it's gone bad so many times in pinball that I just like stopped doing that. But other than that, they had a successful launch. They had a successful launch and a major show. They had games in a box ready to sell. Not a beta. I mean, ready, boom, here we go. We got them ready. Would you like to take one home today? You know, and they're legit. They did everything else right. So, you know, that's how you do a game. That's how you not only release your first A game, but release your first game and really introduce yourself to the world. Well, they were smart, Spencer. They had a theme. They had a license to start off their company. They had people in the industry. They had industry experience that actually know what they're doing. I'm going to stand out. I have no experience in pinball. I was an accountant for a pseudo-not- Apparently what the guy did was he was the guy who was making the boards for Deep Root. Right. Was that what he was doing? He was programming the boards. Yeah. Or was he programming it, writing the programming? No, he was making the boards. He was the guy who was making their boards. And so he bought patents. And basically that's like 90% of the battle, right, is if he got a board set. So he bought the patents and decided, hey, we're going to make a game. And who knows if the game, I don't think the game was supposed to be any existing deep root design. Like it's something that him and his cohorts designed and decided to bring out in a unique theme and unique art. They didn't use any of that stuff because I'm sure the rights to that were long since expired. But, you know, I don't, so I don't completely agree with, hey, you got to be experienced, right? Like, you know, everybody looked at David Van Ness and, you know, before we really realized that, you know, Bowen Cairns was involved before I really realized that Scott Denisey was involved with Labyrinth. They sort of looked at him and just sort of said, well, this guy worked for Spooky, and I think he might have worked for American, but, like, what does he really prove? And he's still, right, like you said, they took preorder money. They didn't sell all of the games. They sold what they were going to sell direct, which might have been 100. Right, right. And the rest, you know, are in the hands of distributors and whatnot. So, like, you can still get them if you want to order one. Right. because right now in pinball, $10,000 for $1,000, it was at 1,100 units, something like that is what they're going to make. So, like, you know, that's a pretty tall order. But I think that, you know, they've proven that price point. Because when I heard it was $10,600 and I looked at how complicated the game looked and I was kind of like, oh, man, like I don't know if I trust these guys that much. But they did a lot to foster that trust with this really good expo showing. I don't think Ninja Eclipse did anything but prove that these guys are like a little off. Maybe a year ago or two years ago when people were just desperate for new games, they could have got away with this. But I think that now if you're trying to charge more than a Stern Pro for Ninja Eclipse, even with its app-based payment system and its half-size cabinet, like these guys need to drink a tall cold glass of reality. Nobody's going to put that on location. No one. No one's going to buy that and put it on location. Zero. Well someone will because some people are crazy. Well maybe.
    66:45
    And you come out of the gate associated with deep root not condemning them. Nobody cares about the deep root thing on it. We do. I do. Because we know And you know what? Honestly, when I heard about Labyrinth, that was my first thought. You know, and I found out those guys were coming out of Texas. I was like, oh, this is a Deep Root thing. Deep Root thing, yep. And it might be. Yeah. Hopefully not. Well, I don't think so because, again, these guys are all legitimate. They've got, you know, a level of respect in the community. I don't think they want to do anything else. Oh, plenty of legitimate guys worked for Deep Root. Costler worked there. Nordman worked there. Nordman got out fast. Who was the other dude? The guy who, he works for American now. He's been going to Tank Force. Bowden worked there. Yeah. Like a lot of legit people worked for D-True. Just the guy who owned the company wasn't legit. Well, there's some other people in there that were legit too. But anyway. Well, I'm sure it's not, you know. Okay, so let's get back to me just bringing the hammer of Thor down on Turner.
    67:51
    Okay, you start out not. You're ordering one, huh? Yeah, right. They didn't start out like hey we're going to start We're going to design and build our own games We're not doing anything deeper No they started out with a year or so Of oh we'll send out all these cryptic messages The same You know three card Monty Shell game Oh you know bulls**t J-pop pulled And you know Bobby Pinball from deeper And all these like Third rate dime store You know Huckster Just you know third-rate crooks, okay? I mean, and it's the same bulls**t over and over. Don't just, make this guy go away. Make him go away. Their game sucks. They suck. They got no business in pinball. 10-5 or whatever, and, well, $150 deposit, but it's not a deposit. You still got to pay the whole thing. What does that get you? And, like, oh, we're not going to let you put quarters in it, but you can give us your credit card information, because you can trust us. Wink, wink. Yeah, good point. Really? Good point. You know, f*** you, Turner. F*** you right in your ear. Jam it in your ass. Get out of here. You got no business in pinball. You got no business showing up at shows. Okay? If you're going to show up at Expo, especially Expo, you better have a working game in a box ready to sell or you got no business showing up there. It's a trade show. You're homebrew bulls***.
    69:19
    You know? Those guys have actually got really good homebrews that show up, and their stuff actually works, and it actually takes quarters, and they're not asking you for money up front. They're like, well, I just built up my basement. Isn't it cool? Those guys are legit. F*** you. Go away. Get out of here. You're a loser.
    69:36
    Anyway, let's go on to positive things, okay? Labyrinth, good for a showing, guys. Don't f*** it up. Yeah. We know we said a lot about it already, but I just have to say I really like how they brought the magic back with the mechs. Yeah, they're just popping up here and there. But it just cool how they cleverly integrated into the game to really make it a world under glass I really like the artwork is really awesome I crap did a really good job He really nailed it out of the park to really get the feel of being inside of a labyrinth and the utilization of the clips, the artwork for the, for the animations. And of course the, the artwork on the actual cabinet, just stellar, stellar job for an opening game for a first game from a new company. I'm pretty impressed with what they did. And I really want to see one. Probably we'll see it at a show somewhere eventually because I know somebody's going to get it, but we'll have a chance to shoot it. But overall, from my first impressions, they hit it out of the park. They really did a good job, and I wish them the best of success. Well, we all know who's going to buy one, right? because we've got crazy friends. I'm sure we're all going to get to play it. Right. But I think that the thing that really blows me away about this is that, you know, these guys, you know, like we kind of brought up earlier, they are guys who've worked in pinball. They are guys who've worked for other companies.
    71:18
    You know, they're coming onto the scene with something that doesn't look like what Jersey Jack is doing. and it doesn't look like what Stern is doing. They're doing their own thing.
    71:31
    And, like, I think you said it the best, Mark. It really is capturing the world of Labyrinth, you know, better than anything else. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't look like it's going to shoot like an Elwynn. It looks like it's going to shoot like a Labyrinth. That little doohickey where it's like a target and a spinner and the forks, and it'll turn the ball into a captive ball that then you can hit and through the spinner, and it can all go down, and it becomes a straight orbit. Like, that's cool. Agree, agree. And then how the characters pop out on the side when you drain. That's cool, too. The choreography of it, right? Like, it's absolutely all when dudes will dance around. and there's sculpts and there's lit up little buildings and nothing in there. Like when you look at that machine, nothing in there looks like a pinball machine. Right. Like it all – you know, one of my favorite games, even though I'm not going to ever argue that it's one of the best shooting games, but it's Escape from the Lost World.
    72:44
    Okay. Shane has one. You probably have to check it out when you're at his house. I played it, yeah. Because that game doesn't look like a pinball machine at all. It looks like a playset. So original. It's all molded plastics and it's all, it's super deep and it's got that bridge and the balls flying around in this world. And you're, you know, when you're trying to get into the tunnels, they don't look like tunnels. They don't look like lanes. They look like caves. Right. You know, that's what Labyrinth is making me think of. Like, like the little, like the little trails, they look like streets and, and, you know, the displays, the pop-upers, they look like buildings. Right. You know, everything looks, it doesn't look like plastic ramps and wire forms and pinball, pinball, pinball. It looks like this world. Like an attraction. Right, which is really neat. And then it uses that backboard graphic, that graphic backboard thing that I think has become popular, but it uses it to, you know, great effect because it changes the attitude of the game. You know, it'll put you in different places or it'll show you how far in the spelling labyrinth you are. Right, and they're going to develop that a lot more, obviously, because it's in its infancy. But imagine what they could do with backgrounds, you know, change the backgrounds of the different things.
    74:00
    I don't know if it's going to be a great game, but I know that, you know, kind of like I felt about Guns N' Roses, especially at first. Like, I feel like it's going to be a great experience. Right.
    74:10
    And I'm, you know. And I think people will be drawn to it. Yeah, I saw the movie. Yeah, my wife's a giant fan of the movie. I love that movie. I'm sure I've seen it. Yeah. But I don't remember it, you know, having this huge impact on me. But I really want to see guys like this make a game that really works. And, you know, I do kind of feel like for 10-6, it would have been really cool if they would have included some of those goodies, you know, because they have that, you know, the factory add-ons has become the new thing. Right. They've got a really cool-looking topper. The topper is pretty awesome. Yeah, they've got a mirrored back glass, which I actually think looks less good than the Translight, and they've got a shooter rod. I think that for $10.60, you know, on your first game, maybe throw some of that in to get you a value add, or go for that $9.50 price point, you know, beat Stern to the premium price point. But, you know, so far it seems like everyone who shot this game loves it, and it looks like a million bucks. And, you know, it sounds okay. You know, if you like David Bowie music and really, really sedate main gameplay music, it's there. And the other thing, too, Dan, is it ran the whole weekend. I mean, it ran during the whole show. There were very few times where it was down based on the feedback that I saw on Pinside and other places. That's a testament. You can keep the game going in a show. Yeah. A new prototype kind of game or new. Yeah. That's when the rubber meets the road. The only game that I heard just like flat out wasn't working was Elements. Yeah. What a surprise. Like I heard that. Yeah, there are other ones that do go by now. I heard that their first game is a lot less bad than you expect it to be. Yeah. It's not actually. Actually, yeah.
    76:02
    That's a lot. Not. Yeah. No, elements, there's not much to talk about because nothing worked on it. So, moving on. I think it looks cool. It looks cool. Yeah. It looks cool in kind of that Valhalla kind of way. Right. Which, yeah, Valhalla, I still think that's a great and underrated game. Though it started out as basically a homebrew.
    76:27
    So, you know, there's a lot of great homebrewers out there. A few of them are actually getting their games run into production now, which is, I mean, And that's how TNA started because it's a good game. So I want these guys, I want the new people to come in. I just want new legit people to come in.
    76:44
    There was a smoking deal on the Valhalla Standard at Pinnagogo. Oh, man. I know I saw that. Wasn't it like $6,500? $6,500. What's the price on those new?
    76:57
    It depends on if you want the Standard, which is what this was, or if you want the limited or all the sculpts. Right. And I don't think it looked much worse. I thought it actually looked just as good. It looked good. Yeah. I think the rules on that game are good. I think the shots are great. That's a good game. I think it needs some massaging before the shots are great. But when it works, it works. Well, you know, it's a good game.
    77:25
    And the visual, man, kind of janky. Elton John. Ooh, yeah. Okay, I'll tell you something about that since you brought it up.
    77:35
    When I first saw the reveal trailer, it was a hell of a trailer. I mean, production value was off the charts. I don't know how much it cost to have them produce that, but it was pretty awesome how they did it. It was interesting how they chose all 20-somethings playing it, which I think was kind of interesting with the market because you know most people that are going to buy it are going to be in their 50s or older. but it was cool to see them represented. And Elton John is a classic. I mean, every song, I mean, everybody heard of Elton John and heard his songs. But when I saw the lack of mechs, I was disappointed. I was like, wait a minute, Richie left Stern to be able to put everything in the kitchen sink if he got hired at Jersey's Jack. And he didn't add a lot of stuff. however I've been watching the videos and I'm starting to think damn that game does look fun to shoot and the light show is taking it even a step further beyond Guns and Roses it's crazy um so beautiful yeah I'm wondering what you're talking about because there's a piano that you can lock balls in that has an animated piano player and it has a screen on it yeah Well, see, that's what I mean. At first I was disappointed, but now it's, like, starting to grow on me. I love it. Because it's got the mechanical. My reaction was kind of the opposite of yours, Mark. Okay. I saw still pictures of it first, and I said, man, that is an ugly fucking game. Yeah. I don't know what they were on, and I knew that, you know, I knew that Franchi had had a part in the art, and I was all like, oh, man, I can't believe that they did this. And then I watched the trailer and I saw the game in motion and I said, okay, I was 100% wrong. This is spectacular. And it's 100% true to the artist. Like, it is over the top, you know, glitter and glitz and everything. Flamboyant all the way. Flamboyant. Thank you. That's the word I was looking for. Flamboyant all the way. And then when I saw the piano that you could lock balls in, it was kind of like a little animated piano player. His head moves and his arms move because he's hammering on the keys. And it had a screen on the side. I was just like, aw. A lot of people are too young to remember Elton John when he was really, you know, full of the glitter and flamboyant and the costume. Oh, yeah, this is 100% 70s Elton John. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 70s Elton John. I remember watching him on TV as a kid where, you know, he's like, I forget what he was dressed up like Donald Duck one time. Yeah, he was. I remember those shows. With the square microphone. Yeah, I remember that. I still remember junior high at the roller rink, and I'm batting on my microphone, junior high at the roller rink.
    80:32
    And so we're talking like 78. And they had a captain fan test. So 77, really. So 77, so it was like 77, 78. So they still had EM games, man, and they had Captain Fantastic, and they had Williams Space Mission. I remember playing the hell out of both of those, and Elton John was getting played at the rink, and, you know, I don't know, Bay City Rollers, right, and Shoot Trick and Styx, Renegade. So we're like 77, 78 maybe, yeah. So, and, you know, he did Tommy. So he has a real connection to pinball already. Well, he's had pinball machines already. Yeah, exactly. And he's, you know, and I think it captures the essence of that theme. I think they've done, you know, I was going to put it up, but it looks great. Like I said, the piano, you know, the little tiny dancer.
    81:36
    God, what else is on there? The crocodile. Thank you. The crocodile for Crocodile Rock. Yeah. Kind of like the one, it kind of looks similar to the one from Surf and Safari. It does. It does look a little silly. But I think they've done a nice job on it. It looks good, I think. You know, I think people, too, are going to enjoy it.
    81:53
    Let's talk about what's more important here, right? It's Steve Ritchie. So when you look at that playfield layout, it looks like it shoots like a Steve Ritchie. He didn't go crazy. It's the standard Steve Ritchie three playfield. It's got the cross shot, which is the one everybody loves to make into the piano. Plus, it's got, like, a shot under there where it goes into that crazy wire form. You can just see that game in action, and you can see easily, and this is no dig on Pat Lawler or Eric Meunier or whoever designed the earlier games. I think it was, God, I forgot his name, Balser. But, like, you can see that this is the best shooting JJP.
    82:34
    Oh, hands down. Hands down, like, you can just see, like, this is going to out-shoot Guns N' Roses. This is going to out-shoot Pirates. It's going to out-shoot Willy Wonka and Dialed In. Like, this is going to be the best shooting J.J.P., which this is what I think that they brought Steve Ritchie in for. Like, they wanted a game that shot like a world-class playing game to go with their world-class, you know, world-building, and I think that that's what they've accomplished. Whether I love the theme or not, and I will admit I'm not a super huge Elton John fan, I am a super huge Steve Ritchie fan, so I cannot wait to put hands on this thing. Yeah, me too. You know, and that's the thing. And to go off what you said, Dan, I was on the fence. I really was. And, you know, I have not had a chance to play it, so I really shouldn't judge it. But I was just like, you know how when you get those expectations, you're like, oh, man, what is he going to put in it? He's going to have a really cool Mac. But then when I think about it long and hard, that piano lock is cool. I mean, yeah, it's a lock, but having it lock inside the piano and then have that, like you said, the LED display going on the side of the piano, I mean, that's something you would see at his concert.
    83:52
    The other thing I like about it too, and I don't know why, but just this little part of detail is where he has it spelled out Elton John and he has lights, you know, like names in lights. there's something about that that just makes that game stand out just with that little title in the middle. You know what I'm talking about? And then it changes colors. It's so cool. I do like that. Oh, the lighting on JJP's games is basically second to none. Right. Like they've definitely next leveled that shit. Yep. Dan, I'll validate your point on the shooting and shootability and playability of Steve Ritchie. You guys know I'm not a big Led Zeppelin fan at all, but I really like playing that game. and every time I, when we were at Golden State I, because I never played the pro because the only one near me is in L.E.
    84:39
    at Flipper's Arcade over in Cheyenne they got an L.E. and it's really beautiful in person and that game shoots great and it's fun to shoot again, I don't hate Led Zeppelin I'm just not, you know when I was in high school it was like, Led Zeppelin or die, I was like, nah, man, I'm healing but okay, you know yeah, right No, I get it. I'm with you. Like, you know, it was a little bit like, you know, that 70s rock versus the 80s rock, you know. And for me, you know, I think that, honestly, Led Zeppelin is one of those games that it just, it got savaged by Pennside. Everybody was ready to, everybody was shitting on Steve Ritchie. You know, he's lost his touch. He's not Keith Elwin. And admittedly, the pro's a little bit empty, but what's theirs shoots really, really nice. Yeah. And on the premium, that magnetic spinner that rises out of the playfield thing, that's a super cool, crazy mech.
    85:43
    The piano mech, you know what it reminds me of, Mark, is it reminds me of the Borg ship in Next Generation.
    85:50
    Yeah. You kind of do a shot up into it and the ball locks inside of it. I don't think it shoots it back at you, which would have been really, really cool. Uh-huh. You know, it's kind of my game's central feature. You don't really interact with it directly, but it's the centerpiece of the game. The whole thing reminds me a lot of, like, Star Trek Next Generation. It does. You're right. And the other thing, too, as far as lighting effects go, is when you shoot it up that spiral ramp, it, like, follows along the ball, right? It, like, isn't that right? Yeah. They did that in Star Trek Premium and LE as well. They did. And I don't know if it's, like, literally it tracks the ball or if it's just, like, they time it to, like, the average speed of the ball.
    86:35
    Super cool. But it's a really cool game. It's like a roller coaster is what it reminds me of. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, it's good. Yeah, the price, of course, I get it. I mean, they probably had a ton of money to pay for licensing for this game.
    86:50
    But I hope we see this somewhere because I really want to play it. I'm hoping it comes to. Well, we've got some crazy friends. Yeah. So we've got to hope that one of our crazy friends decides to do their usual crazy thing and pick up an LE.
    87:07
    Or what's it? It's platinum or collectors on this one. There's no LE. So they can make as many as they want. They're no longer saying they're only going to make 5,000. Right. It's about time they finally realized that. I don't think they're going to make 5,000 of anything. I mean, maybe Guns N' Roses, they came close. I know they made a crap load of Guns N' Roses. Yeah. Well, they might make a crap load of these. You never know. There's a lot of Elton John fans out there. I know Pinside is just totally dogging on it, but, you know, that's Pinside for you.
    87:35
    But I was kind of feeling in that same camp, and then the more I watch these videos, the more and more I see this game looks super fun. And I do like the drop targets where it has that risk factor, but it's cool how it's like almost like a pin bot kind of, you know, with drop targets. More people own Fords than Ferraris, right? Yeah, right. But, you know, what Ferrari does is what captures the imagination of the industry. You know, it's the same thing with JJP and Stern. You know, don't get me wrong. Stern makes a great machine, a solid machine. Everyone owns tons of machines or tons of Sterns. But, you know, when JJP releases a game, it's a freaking event. Right. And, you know, that's all there is to it. Like, you know, whether you love the theme or you hate the theme, whether you love Steve Ritchie or you hate Steve Ritchie, like, very rarely, you know, even with Toy Story where everybody was like, well, I don't know, it wasn't the Toy Story I wanted, but it's the Toy Story I got.
    88:38
    You know, their games make you sit up and take notice. And I do really think that, like, you know, they probably took the kind of meh reaction to Toy Story, the heart, and they wanted to make sure that this release was big and this release was splashy and that, you know, obviously, you know, you weren't going to go soft on Elton John, you know, as a theme with the lights and the flamboyancy. And then it's an expo release, right? You know, you did it at the biggest show of the year, the biggest stage in pinball. They pulled it off. And, you know, they pulled it off with a plum. So, you know, I really hope that they see a lot of success, and I really can't wait to get my hands on this game because, yeah, I just, you know, I've made no secret I like JJP games. I own a couple JJP games. I would like to own more JJP games.
    89:35
    You know, I think that they, I think that, you know, whether you love them or you hate them, they drive the industry. You know, they're the ones who put Stern back in the game. They showed Stern that it could be done. That's true. Yep. to kind of go back to something I talked about the other day that DeMar interview that Loser Kid did you know he brought up that like JJP is the best thing that happened to Stern because it showed Stern that you could get margin you know Gary was still selling games and making 500 bucks Jack showed him that you could sell games and make thousands of bucks that's true and I think that that's their goal right when they say hey we're going to charge 12,000 for our games it's because our games are worth it right And they are gorgeous. They are gorgeous. Except for Toy Story. I think that's their message. Toy Story is fun, dude. Like, it's fun. It shoots great. It's got bright lights. It's a good game. And it comes with the iPad.
    90:27
    Yeah. Like, you can't beat that. Yeah. I would prefer Elton John as a theme over even Toy Story as a franchise, to be honest. I know that everyone's like, ah, Toy Story 4. Like, I mean, I like Toy Story. I've seen all the Toy Story movies. I've got some of the DVDs. But, like, to me, Toy Story is still like a CGI movie from 1995. Right. Where Elton John is a cultural touchstone that deserves a pinball machine. And, you know, he was the champ, for God's sakes. And Tommy. Is there any regular media stuff about it? Because you think people would just be all over that. Probably. I haven't, you know. It's been so easy to get stuff from, you know, the other podcasts and the Expos games and all that.
    91:15
    But I'm talking like the news. I'm talking like national news. Yeah. It's a good game. It looks good. Well, there was other good-looking stuff there, too, that has been out for a while, but they've kind of changed things and added things. So Alien, there's a new Pinball Brothers, there's a new version of it. I mean, it's the same game, basically, but they've got an Ellen Ripley version, apparently. Yeah, I didn't see much of that. It's got different artwork. Well, at least the backlash with Translight's different. Yeah, there's a different art package all around. Yeah, okay. In Playfield, though. Okay.
    91:56
    They've repainted the sculpts. They're not new sculpts. I think that there are two new sculpts. Oh, they repainted them. They changed the screen, the bezel on the screen, and I think Lior redid that. And I think he did another one. But they repainted, like, the xenomorph head, and Leor did all that. So it's all hand-painted and better looking. And Ripley's been inserted into the software. So it's not new modes, but I think that she's in all the old school modes. Wow, that's cool. They have a license to use Sigourney Weaver's image. Which apparently, like, they could have had from the beginning. Yeah, but somebody didn't know what the fuck they were doing. you know what they're doing with Price if they don't get it right I'm also trying to know what they're doing you know and maybe to an extent like they wanted you to be Ripley right like they wanted you to put yourself into those shoes like I don't think Jennifer Connelly's a labyrinth because the idea is that you're supposed to be in that role and also nobody cares about Jennifer Connelly they care about the Muppets and David Bowie so I hear about Jennifer Connelly I don't know about that when I was a kid she was definitely like you know Especially that princess scene Yeah Okay, the one thing you can't do That you can do with Toy Story You want a new mod port You just head down to the KFC franchise And pick up a bucket of coleslaw And you're good to go Thank you for everyone Who got that reference Damn So, Price, what about Price? The Price was good for Alien AK AK. Still good. And pinball players have proven themselves. Their stuff seems to actually work. They're battered up. Flippers need to be better, though. I know. We were talking a little bit of trash earlier about Queen. Yeah.
    93:47
    Flippers need to be adjusted. Here's the thing. I like Queen as a band. I don't. The pinball isn't catching my interest, but, you know, I haven't played one. I was looking super hard at that Ripley edition. I was like, man, that's a lot of machine for $8,000. Yep. It's, again, I think it kind of falls into that labyrinth category, right, where it doesn't feel like a stern. It's not a tournament player's dream game, but it does a really good job at putting you into that alien world and giving you the experience. And I think that for a game with its legacy, right, you know, the whole highway thing and then the Pinball Brothers thing, it's got really good software. It does. And the music. Yeah. Being able to be aliens and all the call outs and all the graphics and the rules are good, too. Yeah. Now, the quality of that experience is one of the best pinball machines, you know, ever for a game that came out of, you know, a failed company and then through a startup. Yeah. You know, I think, honestly, it looks a lot better than Labyrinth does in terms of, like, its on-screen displays and stuff. Like, it looks like it's got, you know, it has really good software. And I'm excited about the fact that all of our alien buddies, because I got a couple, I'm sure you got a couple, they gift the Ellen Ripley software. Yeah, that's cool. That's cool that they didn't limit it. You can even buy all the enhanced sculpt shooter rods. They released a new topper with some animation.
    95:33
    So you can buy all that and you can, you know. They got kind of Royal Edition, but they didn't get Royal Edition too bad because, you know, you can upgrade your originals. And to be honest, I think the art on the original games looks better. Right. Where it's more straight the alien rather than, like, a little Timmy Ripley and the Power Loader kind of fighting the alien queen, and there's, like, flames on the sides. It looks a little bit, like, it's a little brighter, which I don't think works as well for Alien. That black and green and the logo and the alien, and, you know, was kind of cool. Yeah, it kind of got that vibe of Space Invaders with that same, you know, alien right on the front of it, on the back glass. Speaking of shameless rip-offs, Space Invaders, which was definitely just alien with the title Space Invaders. Pretty much. I think they did it. Didn't Ballet actually get sued over that? I think they did.
    96:27
    I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. They only made about $10,000 of those games. No, I know, but I think they ended up having to pay royalty to... They didn't accomplish anything. to 20th Century Fox. I believe they did. I could have wrong. They would have walked out with the title and renamed it Alien. I mean, don't get me wrong. Space Invaders is a legendary game, right? Right. If that game had been called Alien, it would have been more legendary.
    96:50
    Correct. Probably. It would have been the earliest example of a licensed pinball machine because it would have predated Meteor. Oh, yeah. There we go. Oh, yeah. Valley was kind of like, Valley was the first company to have licensed themes. Yeah, but they were bands, right? And then they got, I think Meteor was the first movie that got a pinball machine.
    97:14
    Yeah, well, I think you have Valley stuff. Well, TV shows and movies. Oh, no, they had Kiss. Well, yeah, it was a band. Okay. They had Six Million Dollar Man, Evel Knievel. It was just pop culture stuff that was popular during the day, you know. Which is like today. Like today, Bobby Orr Power Play. Pay for the theme. Pay for the theme, yeah. Theme was big back then, too. You know, I'm looking at, I'm actually looking at Stern Pinball's website right now, and I'm getting some nice close-up pics of the Blood Red Kiss edition of Elvira. Oh, speaking of getting Royal edition, Elvira owners got Royal edition. Oh, my goodness, yeah. Yeah. They got royally screwed. Yeah, because you bought the signature or whatever.
    98:03
    I don't know. So it is like, what, $15,000, right? The new one, the Blood Red Kiss Edition, $12,995. So it's $13,000. So it's not like it's cheaper. $12,999. I'm sorry. Yeah, it's not like it's cheaper than, I mean, unless you bought the, what was it, the signature edition or the 40th anniversary. Right. Those were both like get-what-you-can editions. This is like an LE price. So the LE owners are kind of getting it. I want to see this in person. Even the photos look good. It looks really cool how they accented it with red and white, black and white. What a genius idea. I think that that worked really well for Munsters. It did. And I think that it worked really well for Twilight Zone. And I guess they did an Addams Family like that for some reason. But, like, I don't know. Like, I think that they're really running the risk of, like, taking the monochrome thing and just overdoing it. And I think that the original Elvira looked great.
    99:07
    Yeah. So, I don't know. Maybe it's not that big a deal. With the red accents, though. If you're looking to get into an Elvira and you want something super unique, they're making 500 of these. Yeah.
    99:20
    You think they're going to sell 500 of them? I mean, there's plenty of House of Horrors out there. You can go out and get a House of Horrors for $9,000 or less all day.
    99:30
    Yeah, true. But if somebody wants that for that, you know, originality of black and white and then the red accents. And it is a pain in the ass game. Like, I don't know how much time you have on it.
    99:45
    Like, it's fun, but it doesn't do anything. I mean, the house is cool. The house is a cool toy. I don't think it's one of Stern's better games. That Elvira license just pays dividends because everybody loves Elvira. Right. So, I don't know. It's cool looking. It's expensive. Yep. I'd rather have an Elton John. It's pretty. For $1,000 less. Yep.
    100:12
    Yep. Good point. It's the worst Nordman. I'll say that. Maybe not the worst Nordman, but it's the worst recent Nordman.
    100:21
    I like it. Honestly, I love it. I don't think it's a terrible game. I had it for a month. Oh, you haven't. That's right. And I had my fill of it. I just, you know, I don't understand.
    100:33
    I mean, I did have it with the latest software. You know, maybe some software has come around. But, I mean, actually, no, no software, right, because Lyman passed. I guess if someone else had started working on the software, it just wouldn't be the same. Yeah, it's pretty much done, though. I mean, they got all the clips and everything, and, yeah. I think there's more clips and more modes than when I had it, though. Yeah. So, you know, somebody must be working on it. Yeah. But, yeah, it's a good game. The theme carries it a long way. It's got new art, less color, more money. Well, not the most money, though. Right. Are you going to get one, Spencer?
    101:13
    No. No, you know what? Of all the new games, which one would you take? Considering the price, too, right? Like, you got to spend out of your own pocket.
    101:28
    Of all the new games that are out now. Of all the Expo ones that we just talked about. I know. You don't have to say it out loud. Ninja Eclipse. Yeah, of course, yeah. You know, honestly, I would probably go with Aliens. Or Alien. Oh, yeah. I probably would. And I would probably just get the other version, not the Ripley version. I don't know. I'm with you, man. That Ripley edition for 8K, like, dude, that is the smoking deal for a brand new game. That's proven. Plays great. It's reliable. It's got good code. It's got mods you could add to it. You know, that topper for $1,400 is ridiculous, but it is cool. Right. Like, I would have a hard time saying no to Alien. Second would probably be Elton John by just a little bit over Labyrinth. I don't know. That game looks fun. It just, yeah. We'll see. We'll see when we get to play it eventually. Yeah. Yeah, I'd have to play the other stuff. But because I played the Alien, I'm sure it's not made changes. And I just, I really like that game. I like the way it shoots. I like everything about it. Mark's getting Bond, right? That's your pick? Yeah. Yep, my pick is Bond. I really like the code on it, and I like how they're adding the classic songs from the movies now. So when you get those different modes started, you get to hear like Diamonds Are Forever. I'm thinking I heard Goldfinger too, but it's cool to have that. And then I love the sound of that beginning part of the 007 James Bond theme when you get the jackpots. That's just so cool.
    103:16
    Dun, dun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Dun, dun, dun. Dun, dun. Yeah, it's cool. I think it is kind of a weird cop-out that they used the Moby song for the Bond James Bond theme. Yeah, that's true. Completely take it out of that Connery era, but that Moby version in the Bond theme is pretty great. Yeah, that's true. I did notice that. It had that, you're right, the Moby version. Mm-hmm. Yeah, because it's so good. There's one example on here that I really liked, and it was how if you skip through the clips, it's kind of like Elvira. When you skip through the clips, it keeps going while you're playing, and it still keeps track of the progress. But it doesn't just cut out the clip. It just lets you get the ball ejects or whatever, and you get right to it. But there's one where you collect the gadgets for the Austin Martin. I always forget what number it is. I should know that. What about the DB5? Yeah, is that what it is? What is it? DB5?
    104:13
    DB5. Be like David. Be like. DB5. Yeah, that's it. And there's a part where you get all the features of the DB5. So Q is doing the tour, basically, of all the features. And he walks around. And as you're making the shots, it continues the clip seamlessly. It's so cool when you collect it, when you make the shots. And I love the complexity. The rules are easy to understand. But at the same time, they are super fun because all the shots are unique. And there is one difficult shot, and that's the Bond Women, which I really like to get the multiplier up. And there a lot of multiballs but you really have to earn them except Bird know bird one is pretty easy and jetpack is pretty easy as well The first couple multiballs aren very hard but I didn't realize that I was just setting you up to totally Spencer us. Oh, yeah. You're like, I just went down the Spencer path. I'm just going.
    105:17
    Anyway, yes, I'm getting a bond. But did you get the game from Expo? I didn't remember your Expo pick.
    105:24
    From Expo? Oh, yeah. Because we both had Alien. Oh, for me, for buying? I know. I would say Alien 2 just because I like the music from Alien, and it's really an energetic game, and I don't know if I could handle having a year-long game of Labyrinth. Exactly. So you heard it here first. Of all those great new games, everyone on Spinner Unlit would choose the old one. Pretty much. Yeah. All brothers aren't proven yet. You know, none of us are about to play them, you know, except Elvira, and we like it. But my favorite Elvira game is honestly still Scared Stuff. Yeah, that's a good one. I like the new one.
    106:10
    It's a classic for a reason. Yeah, I was just looking at the Expo. Actually, I was looking at our Facebook page. Actually, I looked at it a couple of days, and it turns out that Galactic Tank Force won Best in Show at Expo. Good for them. Holy crap. I totally forgot about that one. That game is good, too. Yeah, it is. And I could see you all played it and saw it at Golden State. So I didn't think, oh, yeah, okay, it didn't come out last year. It's still new. Good, I bought it. You bought one, yeah. I paid for it. You got it. You got one. And that's a great game, too. I love that game, to be honest with you. I do. If the code was more deep and it was more fleshed out, I would have considered that, but the price kind of took it out of the equation for me. I like where the code is rules-wise. I just want them to, like, fix all the glitches. Right. Okay. Because it's very glitchy. It's super fun to shoot, though. But I will say, do not go in and try to edit your own BIOS. No, don't do that. Don't do it. Don't do that. Just put me on this. It's a bad idea. Yeah. How smart you think you are, and I think I'm an idiot. Don't do it. Yeah, exactly.
    107:29
    Oh, yeah. I'm happy for you that you got one of those because I have a feeling that's going to be a sleeper hit. Once all this negativity goes away, people are going to want this game. I really feel that because it seems like one of those games, like I said before, that would do well on location. I really think so. It would be like the Attack from Mars vibe.
    107:51
    Yeah, I just want him to finish up the code. And it has a coin door. Hey! It has a coin door, yeah. You know what doesn't have a coin door, though? Before I set up Expo, Ninja Eclipse. There you go. Yeah. Which probably is just as bad as you think it is. I wonder if we'll get it. Unlike the pinball adventure games, which are not as bad as you think they're going to be. That's kind of like when people go up to Kevin Smith and go, I saw Ju-Zu Girl. It wasn't that bad.
    108:21
    He gets that a lot, apparently. I wonder if, because our last show's topic of our top five favorite toys in pinball, toys or gizmos, we got a lot of really positive feedback on our Facebook page.
    108:39
    And Dan here is going to, I'm going to segue this. Dan's going to open our mailbag and share that with us. I'm wondering how much negative shit we're going to get from my little tirade about how much I don't like Turner Pinball. Anyway. I think people are going to agree with you. I think so. It won't be a problem. Our dozen of fans will get behind it. Damn. In fairness, ever since I got home, I've done nothing but drink coffee and eat Reese's peanut butter cups preparing for this show. For like two and a half hours. I've literally got a pot and a half of coffee and like 14 fucking peanut butter cups in me. That's no shit. And a bowl of spaghetti.
    109:17
    Because I've got a ton of work to do when I get done here before the next storm comes in. So, yeah. I'm sitting here just floating. Anyway, so let's open the mailbag, man. So mailbag is probably not a misnomer. But here's Spencer loves to use old terms. So, first of all, you know, thanks to everybody who's interacting with us on Facebook. We're trying real, real hard to build our social media presence. We've had a lot of people join. You know, if you listen to the podcast, and God knows why, but if you listen to the podcast and you enjoy it, you know, let your friends know, and, you know, especially trying to steer them towards the Facebook. But I asked a question, and I said, hey, give us an answer to the question we'll talk about on the next episode about our last topic, which was our favorite mix. and I just said, hey, why didn't you guys tell us what your favorite mechs are? We'll discuss that on the next episode. So we got some really good responses. We got Don from Don's Pinball Podcast jumped in, and I don't know if he was sincere or not, but I'm going to assume he is. He said that he loves the TIE Fighter on a spring for sure. It's very satisfying to hit. He also loves Elvira's Jumping Gargoyles. Those are cool. And every sculpt on Scooby-Doo, Captain Cutler's head is life. But I did have to get behind it That I think those hopping gargoyles On Scared Stiff and House of Horrors Actually they're on They're on the original Elvira too right Party Monsters They're a little different they're like the little rubber finger puppet Gargoyle monsters Like the bar Yeah The bar The beer on Cactus Canyon But those are great free play field motion, right? You hit the target and they spring up. Yeah. And it bounces the target hit. And I know it's really fun because it's something mechanical. It's simple, but you're like, oh, I made it do that. So Jake Danzig, who is a prolific builder of custom machines, sent us some pictures of his Dukes of Hazzard and wants us to know that his General Lee is his favorite toy on a pinball machine.
    111:26
    Cool. Now isn't that a Paragon that he took? I don't know what he turned into that, but it is. I love the Dukes of Hazzard. You know, when I was a kid, the Dukes of Hazzard was my life. I just had to get behind them and say that them Duke boys were at it again. He did a beautiful job on that. He really did. Yeah. Oh, dude, it's gorgeous. And I think he took some best in shows on it, too. So he deserved it. He's a good dude.
    111:50
    Awesome. Eric S., Eric Seifert, friend of the show. He's been on an episode with us. He got behind us. He said Rudy and Funhouse, Getaway Supercharger, Little Deadpool. Which I don't know about Little Deadpool, but I think he recently picked up a Deadpool, so I'll give it to him. He did. The Girls on Poles and Sopranos. That's a good one. Oh, that's a good one. The Electric Chair Guy in Metallica, so that would be Sparky. Oh, of course. Yeah, that's a good one. And Sparky is a good one.
    112:22
    Kendra, she plays in our league. You know, congratulations to her. She took second last week. There you go, Kendra. You can't go wrong bashing Martians on Attack from Mars. Oh, yeah.
    112:35
    And there is a trick to that. There is. Get those rubbery ones, and then they jiggle more. Especially if you get a remake, right? Like you want the original style ones where they have the original motion. You know, a lot of folks might kind of laugh about that, but it does add a lot of life to the game, and there's some really interesting programming in there. if you have one of your Martians, you know, up by the gate, I think it's the right one, if you miss him while he's still active and you hit the Stroke of Luck scoop, he'll actually taunt you and say, ha-ha, missed me. Yes, that's right. So that's a surprisingly good feature. That's cool. Friend of the show, Brian, also one of our co-hosts, He said he's surprised nobody mentioned the tube dancer and Big Bang Bar. That was a good one. Oh, yeah. That's a good choice. That's an amazing one. I hear that they all melted. They all melt, yeah. Yeah, I was talking about that, too. There's an issue with that. I haven't seen a Big Bang Bar in a long time, but I hear that, yeah, just by the course of time, just those rubber dancers. They don't laugh. They probably all look like the guy from RoboCop when he comes out of the toxic waste. It's a great analogy. So that's a good one. And then Ty Justice, he jumped in and said the Godzilla bridge and building, Slimer and Ghostbusters, the Batman 66 rotating carousel of fun, and the JP T-Rex. I assume he probably means the new JP T-Rex, although we all know that the Data East JP T-Rex is a little bit cooler. but no thanks to everybody who interacts with us you know on the Facebooks you know we absolutely love the fact that you guys listen you know I've had people come up to me at the shows I've had people come up to me at pinball get togethers and just you know let me know that they've been listening since the beginning and I always ask why we were pretty bad there for a while And they just say, you know, it's that confidence that really gets us over the top. We're better than you expect. Yep. I look up to your show. What's it that bad?
    115:07
    It's like, man, if you guys would just fire Dan. No, man, you make the show great. It's on you. I'm not getting paid. Hey, man.
    115:15
    Exactly. But, no, we really appreciate all the interaction, and it does show us that, you know, we're doing something right, you know. And even a broken clock is right twice a day, unless it's digital.
    115:29
    Thanks to everybody who jumped on into the topic, and I'm sure that will ask more questions in the future. Maybe we'll even come up with some prizes or something. Cool. That would be a good thing, come up with a prize, more like a random prize thing. So we had a top three favorite, but I want to save that for another episode because we don't want to go too long. Do you guys want to do it?
    115:55
    Do you guys want to just – Dan, do you want to just do it? I'm ready to go. You want to do it? It's not like we're going to run out of time. All right, let's do it. Yeah, exactly. Okay, I didn't know if you guys had – This will be a long show. I didn't know if you guys had all this stuff going. We'll just edit it out. All right, let's do it. Let's do it. So if we were headed for two hours, we were perfect, Spencer. We were perfect. And you just screwed it up. I know, but I'm just like. Your $159, we could have went right into the sum up and it would have been just beautiful. Boom. But now we've got to do it because we can't tell someone that we have it and not give it to them. Yeah, I know. That's right. We've got to give it to them. They want it. You know they want it. They really want it. Give it to them. And then we'll have more mailbag stuff. And then we can ask you what your top three live shows are. So it's the top three favorite lighting effects in a game. So light show, lighting effects, whatever you want to call it. I'll start, as always. And then Dan and Mark, you guys. Okay, so my number three is the Whirlwind Jackpot. When you hit the – you got multi-ball, you hit the upper right flipper, you hit the ramp, and it's just red flashers, but it has a little music thing, and it just weaves well, man. It makes this little lightning and little rain sound. It's just really cool. And you get to hear the call out of, feel the power. And it just all works together. But the light show on it is really, it really goes, you go, ooh, that was neat. You know, that's it. Feel the power of the wind is pretty dope. Feel the power of the wind, yes. And you got to, and it couples it with everything. But the light show they did on that is really nice, the lighting effect. That's my number three. Who's going next, me or Mark? You, Dan. Mark, get him. Oh, Mark? Okay, go, Mark. So my third in the top three is Game of Thrones' blinding effect with winter is coming.
    117:45
    All right. Well, I think that is so cool because it's just like you're in a winter storm. You can't see the freaking balls anywhere, and it blinds you, but it's cool. They call that blinded by the Dwight. Blinded by the Dwight. That is cool. Yep, but it is cool, and it definitely flashes like crazy like you're in a storm, and it adds so much to the game. But it's frustrating because you can't see a damn thing. Like you're going through a winter storm, so it fits. It's cool. Good choice. Mine is kind of like Spencer's, right? I'm going back to System 11, and it's when you start up F-14 Tomcat and you hear the engine spooling up, the music kicks in, the engine spooling up. It also brings up the lights. Okay. So it's a really cool effect. It doesn't work quite as well when you're all LED'd out. You know, it's sort of a little more flickery when you're all LED'd out.
    118:38
    But I just absolutely love the fact that, again, that game, when you start it up, it's kicking into gear. It's spooling up, and it's getting ready to launch. So it's a little effect. It's not over the top. They didn't have to add any special features or anything for it. It's just a really, really cool lighting effect. Great choice.
    119:02
    Which also has a blinded by the Dwight moment, although I don't think it's Dwight, when, you know, you hit the center and now those flashes go off and it tries to murder your face. Correct.
    119:13
    That's a really good choice. And, again, like the Whirlwind one, it's not over the top, but with the music and the gameplay and the sound effects and everything else, it just all creates this really cool little stew that makes you go, oh, that's neat. Yeah. All right. Okay. Yeah. My number two is total nuclear annihilation, destroying the reactor. When you destroy the reactor, same kind of thing. You get the music. You get the sound effects. You get the little visual stimulation of the light kind of doing the little circle thing and flashing. It's kind of hard to explain because there's a lot going on with lighting, you know, because Denise is kind of really taking it up a notch with what he can do with lighting and the visual effects and the programming. But I just like it. I just go, oh, man, that looks really cool. That's a good one, Spencer. TNA was absolutely ahead of its time. I was going to say that. When it came to lighting, wasn't it? It was ahead of time. Yep. Especially for a game that was essentially, I mean, I don't know if the Whitewood version, the show version did all that, but, like, that game has really good lighting.
    120:26
    Yep. Yeah? Yeah, that's a good one, and it kind of paved the path for people to do better light shows in modern games, too, because he really utilized the RGB lighting in it.
    120:40
    Yeah, that's good. That's a good one. Mine is also spooky. I don't know why, but it always fascinates me. I love the searchlight feature in Rick and Morty when it does that multiball and it starts and how the lights just cascade across back and forth. I swear it looks like a spotlight going across the play field. It's so cool. You know, Mark, I was debating on putting that instead of the TNA. Me too. Yeah. Me too. I was trying to debate. I was also debating around the TNA. Good choice. Yep. Because it's really something where it's, you look at that and go, That is really cool. Yeah, it is cool. And I'm like, how did he do that? And it's like he just has it timed perfectly that the lights just, you know, flicker all the way from left to right and back and forth. But it looks like a searchlight. It's crazy how he did that. Mine's kind of a cop-out because this is almost like three-in-one, but it's Creature from the Black Lagoon. Oh, that's a good one. So you have the ramp lights, the chase lights on the ramp, which are awesome. You know, no other game, especially at the moment, really did anything like that. Right.
    121:51
    You have the flashers that are the projectors when you have multiball ready, and they do the whole strobe-y thing. Right. And you have the hologram.
    122:05
    Those are good. Like, that game, just especially for a game, and it also, you know, again, you lose a lot of it because of modern LEDs. but that game also did a lot of light fading and just really smart use of the lights. Uh, when you're in a track mode, especially with incandescence, it does a really beautiful like wave effect that goes over the back glass. You know, you got the creature letters that, that like flash and sequence, which reminds me that my tea is out. I need to go in there and get that work again.
    122:38
    it's just, you know, I think that, you know, for a game from the nineties, you know, that, you know, again, no special, you know, no special color changing bulbs, no special light boards, anything like that. It just really used that technology and gave us the best of what it had.
    122:57
    And it really helped set a mood. Yeah, I know, for sure. Like I said, it was completely and totally like, yeah, it does every job. Yeah, that's a great idea. And like you said, Dan, with that flashing of when the film is all spelled out, it's like a projector running. Right. No, exactly. That's what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be like a projector, and it's playing the film projector sound. It's such a smart thing. It's so cool. And that was my first thought, but I was like, oh, what about the ramps? Oh, what about the hologram? Oh, what about the track lighting? Like, that game just does it all. Like, Creature from the Black Lagoon. Like, it's a bit of a copy-out answer because it does so much well, but it's definitely one of my favorite 90s light shows. Cool. That's a good one. All good. Yeah. Spencer, show us what you got. What's your number one? What's your number one, Spencer? Before we went on the air, Dan and I were talking about it. He brought up a good point, and I had thought about this a little bit. So I'm going to kind of – okay. So my number one was actually started out in Wizard Box, and they did use it in Iron Maiden, but only the premium in L.E. And that's the rotating beacon flashers.
    124:13
    Those are dumb. Okay. So, yeah, think about it. If you've ever seen Roadblocks, I'm sorry, the Wizard Blocks, Pinball 2000 Pat Waller game, he used that. He had those put in the game. I don't know if he designed them or what or who did, but they looked so cool. And then Iron Maiden used those, but it's only in their premium and elite model. I've never noticed that. I've got to look at that carefully now. They rotate and they change colors. I think the Wizard Blocks ones were actually mechanical. I think so. And that's that. And the Iron Maiden ones are, you know, a little bit more stately art.
    124:50
    Yeah. That's why I like the Wizard. I bring up the Wizard Blocks ones first because, I mean, before Iron Maiden, and I look at those and go, that is the coolest lighting feature I've ever seen. And I say it all the time. You can go back to old episodes where I bring it up and go, why didn't somebody put this in a game? And it's starting to deal with Iron Maiden, but I think you're right, Dan. I think theirs is all just like color change in effects.
    125:13
    I'm not sure. Where I think the ones in Wizard Blast, someone could be wrong about this, were mechanical. Like they had a little rotating thing in them, like a rotating beacon. Like a mini, like a beacon, like a high speed or something. It's like a multifaceted bulb. Like it's a bulb of like four sides and it goes in sequence. When you get a chance, Mark, look at the video. Listener, look at the video of the lights on Wizard Blast and look at it. They look really cool. That's talking about a rare game. There's like one of them, right?
    125:42
    Yeah. And there's something I think Southern California has it, owns it, I've heard. That would be cool to see. Nice.
    125:50
    Cool. Yeah, I heard years ago somebody was trying to develop. Pinball 2000 is kind of, it's kind of gone. You know, people have them and still play them and enjoy them. But I think that's one where it's just kind of like, you know, it's just kind of like a part of pinball history now and people just kind of, you know, but it was a really neat system. But that lighting effect was really cool.
    126:13
    Cool. Well, my number one, it might be yours, Dan. I don't know. I was blown away by the light show from Guns N' Roses. I'm after it. It's a given. Come on. I mean, that is the coolest thing. Now, I'll have it a tie with Elton John because Elton John I haven't seen in person, but Guns N' Roses for seeing in person and Elton John, it's almost a tie to see it on the video to see like how the, how the lights light up when it goes up the ramp and stuff like that. But the light rails, the light rails, as far as the feature goes, incredible. And I'm sorry, they blow away expression lighting, blow it away because it seems like the lights are blended in and there's more colors that it, it, I know it has the same amount of colors, but it looks like it just blends in better and the choreography is better on the light rails than on it's there's no comparison i mean yeah it it's so cool and uh it's a given that's the best light feature that i've seen that wowed me uh was guns and roses no that's exactly mine too like i was again i was gonna kind of cop out it's hard to pick any one aspect of guns and roses you know where you know the moving spotlights, the hot rails, the, you know, completely addressable color changing LEDs everywhere, you know, and just when you start a song, especially when you start something like Night Train and it's got like a little lead in them and it just explodes. It's so cool. And it's just unbelievable. Like, yeah, Guns N' Roses is definitely my number one pick for lighting, just since, you know. And it goes back to, you know, with Guns N' Roses. Like, when I first played Guns N' Roses, I walked away from the machine, and I was like, I don't really get how it works. Like, I don't really get the rules set. I don't know if it's fun to play, but, man, it's fun to look at.
    128:16
    It's an experience. It is a concert like you would not believe. 100% fun to look at. And then luckily within my first few gameplay sessions, I kind of, I got a feel for the rules for the risk versus reward for the qualifying of the songs and how it all works. But I think that like the first song I played was It's So Easy.
    128:37
    And the light show just knocked me out of my socks. Yep. And, you know, every song has like its own unique light show and, you know, its own unique color scheme. and, you know, it's all super specialized. But, yeah, you know, like some of those songs, especially, again, the ones you don't really think of as, like, their big songs, the Night Trains, the It's So Easy, Rocket Queen. Like, you know, I dare you to look at those light shows. And, you know, again, short of maybe Elton John, you know, tell me any game that does anything quite as cool. I mean, I got an ACDC, too, and it puts on a good light show for its era. Right. Yeah, as far as the music game goes, you know, Guns N' Roses just kicks ass. And come on, that Live and Let Die, when it goes... Oh, yeah, right. Exactly, perfect. Perfect example. But the only thing is, the shaker is not in with the timing of the music, but I get it. Why? Because they didn't code it to go a little sooner to let it to rev up. It needs, yeah, it needs the... I wish that was in tune. I wish they fixed that in the code to get it right spot on with the choreography. oh that would be so good and they might you know I know JJP is slow with code but they did do a recent update and you know there's always you know updates never go away especially when you have those direct downloads but so yeah Guns N' Roses I agree with you it's a good choice I mean Guns N' Roses is an amazing game it's a good one yeah it's incredible it's revolutionary compared to what was before that. Yeah, it changed the game. It changed the game. Well, I'm also now curious to see what our listeners are going to say. Spencer, stop cursing so much. Anyway.
    130:31
    Come on, Spencer. An ancient cliff isn't that bad. All I can say is Dan, you missed it when you were away because it's going to be very entertaining when you listen to it. Oh, no. I heard it from the other room. Oh, you heard it. Okay. He was going off the whole time. I don't think I can edit that out. It's just too far away. I heard him going to 100% Spencer. I was like, man, this was a good time to step away on mute.
    130:54
    Here's the thing, and I'll explain this so people kind of get it. Pinball is about pinball. I mean, it's about pinball. Don't explain yourself, Spencer. Well, no, it's – We got it. You guys know me. You guys know. It's just, you know, it's about the people, and I like good people in pinball, and almost all the people in pinball are good people, and I just don't want anybody mucking up the water. That's it. Anyway, enough said about that. We've gone a little longer than I always like to, but, you know, we've covered some good stuff. So I'm sorry I couldn't make it to Pinagogo this year. It would have been amazing to have had you there. You know what? It would have been amazing. I miss you guys a lot, you know. Luckily, how many days is it to go on the State Pinball Festival? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I believe, you know what, I posted today, too. You just posted it. We're like 203. Yeah, 203, I think.
    131:46
    So we only got 203 days left and we're all together again. Yep, yep, yep. So we're almost into the 190s, you know. So, yeah. So almost under 200 days. So, oh, well, let's do some shout-outs and thank yous, gentlemen.
    132:01
    So. Cool. I guess I'll start. I'm going to give my first shout-out because, Dan, you brought it up. Vino, long time listener friend of the show who's listened since the very first episode, I owe you a drink and maybe lunch man next time I see you so make sure you come and grab me next time you see me at a show and drink some food around me thanks for listening he knows more about the spinner than I do I'm on the god damn show Vino's a righteous dude man he's just been a picture of the NorCal pinball machine per machine. He's like, I've been listening since the beginning, and I'm like, why? Why didn't you ever try a little bass again? It was so bad.
    132:47
    Which, to be fair, like, you know, let me rephrase that. You guys started off, you know, especially with Seth there and everything. You guys were really good, really solid. Yeah. And it got a little rough there in the middle when we lost Seth. Yeah. And it picked up again when we gained Mark. It sure did. It's a rollercoaster ride. I knew that Dan and Spencer are good at talking, but we need somebody to put all the pieces. Yeah, we got to get some people back on. There's a few people I want to have as guest hosts. I'd love to have Eric again. There's other people that are on my list to reach out to and get them on in upcoming episodes, especially now that the weather's changed and, you know, everything's slowing down.
    133:27
    Oh, yeah. If you've got something to say, hit us up. Hit us up on the Facebooks. Definitely. I'd love to have you on the show. Speaking of Facebooks, you know, don't hesitate to tell us, you know, what you think, as long as it's good. We don't like negative.
    133:43
    As long as you don't have to tell us what you think. Yeah, we know we suck. Just help us out. Help us out, man. Yeah, Bino, shout out to you, brother. Thank you so much for all your support over the years, and keep listening. And to the Loser Kid podcast, that latest episode with Larry DeMar, it harkens back to the days for me. You did an amazing – Larry's great, but you really drove the bus on that and made an amazing episode. So kudos to you, sir.
    134:20
    Yeah, check out – Loser Kid has great interviews. He does. They really are great podcasts for interviews. And I guess that DeMar thing was like two years in the making. So just like, you know, what kind of mind-blowing, like, patience and stick-to-it-ness is that? Yeah. Well, that's what I was going to say. It harkens back to the days of Clay's old podcast when he had all the – and you can – you know, and that's the thing. I'm going to shout out to Clay Harrell, too. If you want – definitely listen to the latest Loser Kid podcast. We'll see you later, DeMar, interview listeners. Also, go back, especially if you're newer to the hobby, or even if you're not and just want to review or if you've never heard them, go back and you can still listen to all of Top Cast, this old pinball. And that guy interviewed all the designers and the artists and the marketing people and some really amazing interviews and really great shows in that era.
    135:17
    The other great podcaster who's not doing podcasts anymore, Nate Shivers. Coast to Coast. Nate Shivers. Oh, yeah. Nate was another, like. It was a podcast. It was a commentary. And he was a man. Man of the quarters. And he really raised the bar. Him and Clay. And then, what's the guy's name from Loser Kid? Josh Rupp and Scott Larson. Okay, two guys, yeah.
    135:40
    You're good at this, Mark. You are good at this. I listen to them a lot. Hats off and kudos to you. Shout out to you guys. Loser Kid Podcast is a good show overall anyway. But their Larry DeMar, the latest episode of the Larry DeMar interview, really knocked it out of the park. You guys did an amazing job. And thank you to Larry for, you know, coming out of hiding. I mean, he's always working. But, you know, he's another one of the pioneers of pinball, modern pinball, who really changed the game. So shout out to them and give that a listen. And, yeah, that's what I got. Who wants to go next? I'll go next. Shout out to Dan for getting to see you in SAC. I know we spent a little time playing games over at Pinnagogo, but it was great to have lunch with you and catch up and see how you're doing. I'm really sorry that we didn't manage to get you over here. Yeah, I know. Maybe next time you're in town. Yeah, it was tough. It was tough. There was too much going on. There was too much going on, and I was trying to see everybody, and, you know, it is what it is. But it was great to see you. It was great to see Jim, too. Shout out to him for having me over and catching up on times. That was cool. And then shout out to Don for listening to our episode and giving us a little mail or whatever about Favorite Max. And speaking of Nate Shivers, you are the next solo person that really I like listening to. So I'm giving you a shout out, Don. You really do a great job on your solo podcast. They're very positive. And then there's the other one that is negative. So you pick which one you like, but I really like listening to Don. Don is great. Thank you. I'm the negative one.
    137:24
    Yeah. No. You're the funny one. You know, I'm going to kind of, you know, horn in on you guys since you guys stole my usual answers. You know, first of all, of course, to you guys, it was great to see you. To all the crew that made it out to Pentagogo, to all the organizers of Pentagogo, thank you guys for putting that show on every year. I know I don't, you know, bring games or anything like I used to. It's just, you know, I try to just enjoy that show as what it is and just hanging out with my buddies and playing pinball. But I'm happy to come and give you guys some money and, you know, support you like that and talk about you guys on the show. So, you know, to Don and Jack and to all the guys who work on that show, organizing it and promoting it, you know, I thank you guys for making it happen to everyone who brings games. You guys are all mind-blowing. you know to everyone who listens to the show and to all the pinball content creators who are interacting with us it feels like you know we've heard from a few of you guys now from Don from Loser Kid you know not because of anything we did but mostly just reactions to the fact that I you know will call you guys out when I think you do something good so you know I appreciate the fact that you know we you know we're part of the pinball content family even though we're We're just kind of hanging out here on a little corner of Northern California,
    138:49
    Reno, Wyoming. So, you know, and of course, you know, as always, thanks to the CCPL, Mike, David, you know, everyone who runs the league, you know, that's why we do it.
    139:01
    Hear, hear. Well said, sir. Well said. Yeah, man, that's what it's always all about. And, you know, the games are just the magnet that draws everybody together. It's always about the people, and the people are the best. So I think that wraps it up, gentlemen. Issue, issue. I have issues. I have lots of issues. This exciting new issue of the Pinball Magazine Quarterly. There you go. Episode 59 is in the can. So play pinball. Keep America strong.
    139:45
    Thank you.