Journalist Tool

Kineticist

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

v0.1.0

← Back to items

BDYETP 67: Weird Al Pinball Revealed, Stern Slowdown, New Games, Non-Manufacturer Updates, PinBrew 2 Interview

Bro, Do you Even Talk Pinball·podcast_episode·2h 0m·analyzed·Mar 13, 2022
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Weird Al announced for P3; Pin Brew Fest preview; P3 licensing strategy vs. Stern positioning.

Summary

Nick Lane and Kevin Manning discuss the official announcement of Weird Al's Museum of Natural Hilarity from Multimorphic, a P3-based pinball game with significant mechanical depth. They preview Pin Brew Fest 2 (April 7-9 in Ohio), interview organizer Keith Campanelli, and explore how Multimorphic's licensed title strategy differs from their previous original-theme approach. The hosts contextualize P3 economics and market positioning against Stern's Pro tier pricing.

Key Claims

  • Weird Al's Museum of Natural Hilarity was sold out in limited edition variant within hours of announcement

    high confidence · Kevin states 'too late, they're all sold out' regarding LE packages during price discussion

  • Multimorphic has been developing pinball machines for almost 10 years

    high confidence · Kevin: 'Multimorphic has been around for almost 10 years now, and they have a ton of great games'

  • Weird Al's last album in 2015 was his best-selling album ever

    high confidence · Kevin: 'that last album he put out in 2015 was his best-selling album ever'

  • Pin Brew Fest sold approximately 700 gallons of beer in its first year

    high confidence · Keith: 'we did about I believe 700 gallons of beer so it's it went really well'

  • Stern Pro tier pricing is approximately $6,700 compared to P3 standard game kit at $3,000

    high confidence · Kevin: 'the next competition at that? A Stern Pro for like $6,700, right?'

  • Weird Al's Museum features five flippers (two bottom, two upper, one upper playfield)

    high confidence · Nick details the mechanical design: 'five flippers. So you have your standard two flippers at the bottom, and then you have the upper right flipper...upper left flipper...additional small flipper up there'

  • Weird Al has maintained multi-generational appeal and relevance beyond 1980s parody novelty

    high confidence · Kevin: 'if you're our age, you probably think of Weird Al from the 80s...But he's really, you know, he's remained relevant' and notes his son listens to his music

Notable Quotes

  • “for everybody who says, let's do original themes, this is why you get licensed themes. It brings that initial, like, rush of, oh, my God, I love XYZ, whatever the theme is.”

    Kevin Manning @ ~33:00 — Directly addresses the strategic value of IP licensing for P3 adoption and market expansion

  • “You got to get the install base up and then everybody goes back and buy the other game modules too...they weren't just buying Weird Al. they were like, well, I'm going to buy Heist, and I'm getting Cosmic Car Racing and Lexi all with it.”

    Kevin Manning @ ~47:00 — Core insight into P3 platform economics and how licensing drives catalog sales

  • “It's not like I talk about it every podcast, but I have weighed in on the P3 before...Stern is crushing it these days...they've got more talent under the roof than any other manufacturer, and it shows”

    Nick Lane @ ~39:00 — Establishes competitive positioning: P3 interesting but Stern perceived as superior talent density

  • “being able to buy a new pinball release for $3,000 in 2020 is pretty compelling once you have the machine.”

    Kevin Manning @ ~47:30 — Highlights P3's economic advantage for multi-game platform owners post-hardware investment

  • “Weird Al does absolutely zero for me, but it's awesome that you have a P3 and you're going to get it. So I'll get to spend some time on it. It's like a total win.”

    Nick Lane @ ~27:00 — Reflects community dynamic where licensed themes drive adoption regardless of personal preference

  • “They didn't – we'll talk about people who don't do it the right way later. But, you know, they've bootstrapped the company, self-funded, you know, slowly built the platform over time with non-licensed games.”

    Kevin Manning @ ~52:00 — Implicit criticism of competitors' scaling strategies; positions Multimorphic as disciplined vs reckless

Entities

MultimorphiccompanyWeird Al's Museum of Natural HilaritygameSteven SilverpersonJerry (Multimorphic founder/lead)personPin Brew FesteventKeith CampanellipersonButch PeelpersonNick LanepersonKevin Manning

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Implicit criticism of unnamed competitor(s) 'not doing it the right way' in scaling strategy; Multimorphic praised for bootstrapped, slow-growth approach

    medium · Kevin: 'They didn't – we'll talk about people who don't do it the right way later...they've bootstrapped the company, self-funded, you know, slowly built the platform over time'

  • ?

    event_signal: Pin Brew Fest 2 confirmed for April 7-9 in Girard, Ohio with 100+ machines, multiple breweries, IFPA tournaments, and new game previews

    high · Keith confirms attendance of Godzilla, Rush, all remakes (Medieval Madness, Attack from Mars, Monster Bash, Cactus Canyon), Alien; Weird Al confirmed present via vendor

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Kevin (Stern-focused) vs Nick (P3-open) divide reflects broader collector tension: Stern's perceived superior talent density vs P3's innovation and novelty appeal

    high · Kevin: 'Stern is crushing it these days...they've got more talent under the roof than any other manufacturer' vs Nick: 'I like new, interesting, different. And I think, obviously, P3 brings a lot of that'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: P3 playfield design evolution: Weird Al extends back-third action closer to flippers and slingshot area vs. earlier Heist crane design that came far forward

    high · Nick: 'on heist you had the crane that came way out which was cool and even on this module it doesn't have the crane that comes all the way down but you got things that are coming down further on the playfield'

  • ?

    event_signal: Buffalo Pinball hosting first P3 gameplay reveal stream for Weird Al on Twitch (March 19, 8pm ET) with Nick Lane playing machine for first time during broadcast

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.362

0:00
All right, coming up on this episode of Bro, to even talk pinball, we're going to talk about how Bala Rama's debut pinball machine is currently at number one on the pin side top 100. Just fucking kidding.
0:30
I want to talk to you. I need to go. I need to go. I'm just fine with my life. That's right. And now, the Hall and Oates of Pinball Podcasting, Nick Lane and Kevin Manning of Buffalo Pinball. Woo-boom-shakalaka! What's going on, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Bro, Do You Even Talk Pinball? I'm Nick Lane. Bald guy. Skinny guy. Is Kevin Manning. Oh, wait, no, I screwed everybody up. Do you know who your name is? No. Do you know what it is? No. Bald guy. Skinny guy. I just wanted to confuse people even more. We're going to, you know what we got to do? We got to get some t-shirts. So next time we go to a show, it'll say skinny guy and yours will be bald guy. How's that sound? That's right. And the bubble pinball logo on the back. That's right. That's all you need to do. It's gone. I love that guy. You can tell. Look down there. It's got my name. And then it's got Nick's name over there. But I also have Keith's name over there because Keith is going to be joining us in a minute. But before we get to all that, why don't we thank our partners.
1:38
I think you did the honors last month, so I'll go ahead and roll with it this month. Thank you to our partners, Penn Stadium Lights, the premier sponsor of Buffalo Pinball. Visit PennStadium.com and use coupon code BUFFALO to save 10% on lighting kits for your pinball machines. The coolest lighting out there for your pinball machines. It's going to give you sweet, even lighting all over your machine, make it look great. Flippin' Out Pinball, if you're looking to buy a pinball machine, check out Zach at Flippin' Out Pinball. Flip N out, the letter N, out to pinball.com. Comet Pinball, if you want to light up your pinball machine, put sweet new LEDs in your inserts and GI. Put spotlights on there to really light it up, make it look great. Check out cometpinball.com. Titan Pinball for your competition silicone rings. Titan mats, new balls for your pinball machine. They got these awesome static cling flipper button protectors. You don't have to stick them on there and ruin your side art like Nick did.
person
Bowen Kerinsperson
Colin McAlpineperson
Matt Andrewsperson
Stern Pinballcompany
Cactus Canyon Remakegame
Buffalo Pinballorganization
Heistgame

high · Nick: 'We're going to be doing the reveal stream...March 19th...right here on Buffalo Pinball on Twitch, 8 Eastern, 7 Central...I'm heading down there on the 18th, and then we're doing the stream on the 19th'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Multimorphic pivoting to licensed IP (Weird Al) after years of original-theme games to drive install base growth and catalog sales

    high · Kevin: 'Weird Al to share it on his social media accounts where he's got millions of followers. So the video gets hundreds of thousands of views...that's why you get licensed themes'

  • $

    market_signal: P3 standard game kit ($3,000) positioned as compelling alternative to Stern Pro ($6,700) for platform owners seeking new content

    high · Kevin: 'being able to buy a new pinball release for $3,000 in 2020 is pretty compelling once you have the machine...A Stern Pro for like $6,700'

  • $

    market_signal: Limited Edition Weird Al sold out immediately; standard kit $3,000, P3 system + kit $8,300, LE premium was $1,800 with exclusive topper and signed translite

    high · Kevin: 'LE packages all sold out...that was an extra $1,800 if you wanted one of those...none of which will be available separately'

  • ?

    announcement: Weird Al's Museum of Natural Hilarity officially announced by Multimorphic for P3 platform with sold-out LE variant

    high · Full game specs provided: 5 flippers, physical ball locks, crossing wire form, drop targets, 3 pop bumpers, artist and crew credits listed

  • ?

    product_strategy: P3 install base growth strategy requires licensed content to drive platform adoption and back-catalog sales of existing game modules

    high · Kevin: 'they weren't just buying Weird Al. they were like, well, I'm going to buy Heist, and I'm getting Cosmic Car Racing and Lexi all with it...being able to buy a new pinball release for $3,000...is pretty compelling once you have the machine'

    • 2:31
    They just stick with static cling, and they hold great. I got them on my GNR. Use coupon code BUFFALO to save 10% on your competition rings at Titan Pinball.
    2:39
    Pinside.com, if you want to, you know, go and talk about pinball, rate your top 100 pins. You can push that Punny Factory and Ballarama game all the way up to number one. You can do that on pinside.com. Check out PinballEDU if we want to try to win a pinball machine. Our good friend Joe Saeed with his inclusive pinball center, PinballEDU out in Frederick, Maryland. They support a great cause and gives you a chance to win a pinball machine every month. And Jersey Jack Pinball, makers of the most beautiful pinball machines on the planet. Check them out, jerseyjackpinball.com. And exclusive to this month, sponsoring this month's episode of Bro, Do You Even Talk Pinball, are our friends at the Ohio Pin Brew Fest. It's the biggest pinball and craft beer show. It's coming to the Northeast Pinball Ohio on April 7th, 8th, and 9th. Pin Brew Fest will feature over 100 pinball machines and arcades on free play and six different local craft breweries showcasing more than a dozen different styles of micro brews at just $5 a pint. Pin Brew will also feature an IFBA match play tournament and an IFBA women's tournament, a wide variety of pinball vendors, and even a free autograph session with artist Christopher Franchi. Bring a game, sell a game, buy a game, and play lots of games, including the new Cactus Canyon remake, the new Weird Al from Multimorbic, and all the latest releases from Stern and Jersey Jack Pinball. In addition to the great beer, multiple food options will be set up in the Expo Hall,
    4:06
    all at Pin Brew Fest, April 7th, 8th, and 9th. Pin Brew Fest is a family-friendly event. and will be held at the Metroplex Center in Girard, Ohio, near Youngstown, about an hour drive from Pittsburgh in Cleveland, and less than a three-hour drive from Buffalo. Single-day and three-day general admission and VIP tickets are available for purchase at pinbrewfest.com. So visit pinbrewfest.com for all hotel booking and discount info, daily event schedule, tournament schedule, instructor, game and vendor list, and much more. And here's a bonus that I like. So go over to buffalopinball.com and click on this merch tab, and you're going to see that we've got new shirts. Well, they're familiar styles, but they're back in stock. We have a new vendor carrying our shirts. If you get yourself one of these Brody Even Pinball shirts, the first three paid attendees who are wearing one of these Brody Even Pinball shirts each day at Pin Brew Fest will receive one free beer ticket. It's limited to attendees over 21 years of age, so you can't put them on your kids. Get a free beer ticket. But if you come, you're representing Bro. You're one of the first three that come into the show each day. You're going to get a ticket for a free beer. So there you go. That's Pin Brew Fest. And here to join us to talk more about Pin Brew Fest is Keith Campanelli. Keith, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me back, guys. Yeah. Thanks for giving away free beer. Dude, I love that promo. That's really good stuff. I think we're going to go to the first five every day. Let's do that. Oh, I like it. We're upping it. Yeah, sell some shirts. They have to come by me. I have to see them. I'll make sure that they get their free pint of beer. That's awesome. Very good.
    5:45
    Awesome. So tell us about Penn Brew Fest. This is your second year of doing this, right? Yeah, second year. You guys were kind of the first out of the gate after COVID hit to return to bring shows to us. So tell us about your experience last year. What was the show like this year? And what are you doing to level it up this year? so last year was really interesting being the first one out of the shoot like you said trying to handle things with everything that was going on back then the social distancing and things like that trying to keep everybody safe um so we learned a lot about that and we ended up with the whole venue for spacing well we decided to keep it that way because people are more comfortable they really like the layout we had the game spread all over the place over 30,000 square feet beer was flowing last year we did about I believe 700 gallons of beer so it's it went really well we got really great reception from people so they've been asking to do it again almost all of our vendors are returning so we're just pretty excited this year it's it's just you know it's open you know we're open we're going to have fun. Can't wait to see what it's like to have a normal pinball show.
    6:59
    So for the people who maybe didn't hear our show last year or weren't able to attend, give them a feel for what the pinball experience is like.
    7:09
    So it's in a really nice venue, very comfortable. You can come in, you pay one price to come in and you get to play all the games that are set up in there. We're going to have over hundred pinball machines and arcades and we're working on getting some unique stuff here and there. I'm trying to pull things out of my collection. My partner doing the same to give people an experience that they can play things that they haven't been able to play other places. As you walk around, you decide you want to have a beer. It's five dollars a pint and we're going from Pilsners all the way up to ales and heavier beers. I'm trying to think now. In fact, One of my breweries is releasing Motorhead Maple there at the show, so we're going to have a release there. This is an amber ale aged in a bourbon barrel that was then used to make maple syrup. So just some unique stuff there for everybody. We're bringing in seltzers this year for the people that the gluten-free is and the ones that really don't like beer. So we're giving options there along with, you know, regular soft drinks and things for people that are not into the craft brew scene or the beer scene. So walk around, have a pint in your hand, go play some pinball, get hungry. There's three options in there in the venue, anywhere from pierogies to Italian to Mexican cuisine. Smokeworks is going to be back again this year. They do an awesome brisket, so all kinds of really good food, and plenty of vendors. We have some new vendors coming in this year. So as we grow and expand, we're getting the whole opportunity for everybody. and I have different people helping this year, and we're just excited.
    8:52
    We've got a question from Chad. They want to know if you have birch beer. Birch beer. I think that's a no. That's a no. All right, all right. Just checking. You've got to bring your own.
    9:03
    So tell us about the – so you've got a couple tournaments happening there too, right? So tell us about the tournaments. Okay, so the tournaments, again, I think we talked about it last year. That's kind of not my forte, but they are IFPA tournaments, and you guys could probably explain it better than I could reading it, but basically it's more of a match play style, head-to-head.
    9:27
    I'm asking you, honestly. All right, so match play is when you're playing groups. Yeah. Versus, you know, think of like if you ever came to the Buffalo Pinball Summer Open, that was a pump-and-dump style tournament where everybody, you're just playing to try to put up your highest score possible. when you're doing match play or just trying to beat the people in your group and sort of get points in advance that way. So I know that they are IFPA. We have a men's A and B and a women's going on. We also have a kids' tournament going on I think on Saturday so we can get the kids involved in playing because that's kind of a fun day for them. Yeah, absolutely. So, Nick, I'll let you speak to the beer side. I know you've always said beer and pinball make a good combo, right? No, Keith knows what he's doing, man. I mean, that's a fun event. I like it. Marrying those two together, beer and pinball. Beer, pinball, and, like, rock and roll, if you want to add that other component. But those are things that seem to go really well together. You know, Keith, I can't win, man. Unfortunately, I'm going to be out of town for work, and I can't go. And this is not too far away from me, and I'm really bummed. We had friends that went from Buffalo last year, and they really liked it. And that worked in the chat. He usually has bad taste on things, but he loved it. and Nick Kaiser went, and a lot of people in chat are loving on it, said you guys ran a great event. So maybe next year for us, hopefully the stars align. Yeah, let's hope. Let's hope. So, yeah, you guys will be missed, but I did see some Buffalo people running through there, and I'm glad they were all having a good time. Yeah, thanks for doing these events. I mean, these events take a lot of work, take a lot of planning.
    11:04
    You know, we need people to continue to run events, and I'm glad that you also have a competitive component in there, even though that's not your thing, you recognize that's a big deal to a lot of people. So kudos to you guys for having a great first year. Second year I'm sure is going to be even better. And by the time Kevin and I go, you guys will have it down pat. You got it. Thanks.
    11:24
    All right. Keith, anything else? You got some discounted hotel rates going on right now. Why don't you talk about that? I know that's ending soon, so you got to jump on that if you want that, right? Yeah. The one thing about pinball people, you always know everything's last minute with us. But we have an excellent rate at our hotel, which is right across the street. You can literally walk there, and some probably will.
    11:48
    Beginning of this week, we lose that rate. So if you're planning on coming, you need to get on our website, go to Make Your Plans, and lock in the hotel rooms because they're $50 off each night. So we got a really great rate, and the hotel is filling up. So just want people to jump on it now so you get a better experience and save more money to buy pints. That's right. You'll have $50 more beer to buy every day, right?
    12:13
    We got a question in chat. Is there going to be a Weird Al at the show? There is. We have a new vendor coming in from Pennsylvania that's bringing several multi-market games, and I spoke with him, and he did say that we will have Weird Al there for everyone to see. So we're excited about that. Butch Peel is coming out. He's a very personal friend of mine. He's actually going to be helping me a few days before and a few days after getting games running. but he's going to be there with Cactus Canyon. So anybody that wants to ask any questions, the man is a wizard. He knows what he's doing.
    12:45
    Awesome. Yeah, so talk to us about some of the big new games. I mentioned it when I was doing the read-through of some of the highlights of the show that you're going to have Cactus Canyon and Weird Al. What are some of the other, like, games that people are going to want to come and check out? Well, I know a lot of people haven't had a chance to play some of the games. We don't know how messed up things are right now getting new sterns. We will have Godzilla there. We will have Rush there. We'll have all the newer Sterns there. We will have, I believe, all of the remakes are going to be there. So everything from Medieval, Attack, Monster Bash, and Cactus Canyon.
    13:22
    Alien is going to be there this year. We have Tilt Musings coming out. We have Cointakers coming. They're bringing a bunch of games, too.
    13:32
    So we're pretty excited. I mean, the selection we had last year was pretty awesome. Everybody that came and brought games just made it so much better, and that's one thing I want to thank everybody that does do that, because those are the people that help us make the show great. If you can bring a game, it just, you know, makes everybody's experience all the better. So is there a – do you guys give a discount or admission if you bring a game, or how does that work? Yeah, so we set it up pretty much like most other venues or most other shows. If you bring a game, you get in free. If you bring several games, we give you some extra prizes and gifts for doing that, especially anybody that brings several games and they're there all three days. We want to take care of the people that take care of us. Yeah, that's awesome. And, you know, it's no small task calling a game to a show, but it's also a critical part of putting together a show like this because the organizers can't provide enough games to fill these places unless your papa or Penberg or whatever. In very rare instances do people have a large enough collection to, you know, put on a show like this. So the community really coming out and putting it all together really makes it a success, right? Absolutely, absolutely. I am fortunate that my partner Marvin and I both are able to acquire and bring in a lot of games ourselves. So the first 50 games through the door will be ours, which is nice. And then we have a lot of great people around us that, you know, are excited to bring more games to the show. So that's where it just makes the show amazing. You walk around and there's stuff I haven't played that in forever.
    15:06
    So it is. It's a great thing. Pinball is an awesome, awesome hobby that we just enjoy, and we're glad people are going to come and enjoy the show. Awesome. Well, with that, be sure to check out pinbrewfest.com for all of your information about the show. and, yeah, get out there, Pin Brew Fest at the Metroplex in Girard, Ohio, April 7th to 9th. Just coming up real soon. You're going to be here before you know it. Keith, thanks so much for joining us, and good luck with the show. Thanks, guys. All right, take care.
    15:42
    All right, Nick, what do you say about doing some news? Yeah, let's do some news. That's what we do on this show. All right. We kind of, you know, last month was fun. We had some guests on the show, but we got some catching up to do. So let's get into that. Let me, I'll play our little friend, and then we'll get into it. All right. Here's the tip. It's the latest pinball news. Show hunt, it's on fire. All right. The big news of the month is Weird Al's Museum of Natural Clarity, announced from Multimorphic. comes in two styles. There's a limited and a standard package. The creative director was Steven Silver. Artwork by Matt Andrews. You know him from the art on Total Nuclear Annihilation. Software by Michael Ocean, Greg Goldie, and Jerry Stellenberg. Graphics by Rory Cernuta and Steven Silver. Mechanical engineering was T.J. Weaver. Scott Denisey did the sound. Rules advisors were Bowen Cairns and Colin McAlpine, and Content Advisors were Frank Serpas III and Will Beals. Pricing on this game for the kit only is $3,000, so nice price there if you already have a P3. If you need to buy a P3 system, it's $8,300 plus the $3,000 if you want the standard. If you want a limited edition, too late, they're all sold out, but that was an extra $1,800 if you wanted one of those. So the LE package contains the limited artwork pieces, an interactive moving topper, printed LE translate signed by Al, and some additional swag, none of which will be available separately. So if you wanted the LE, if you wanted the topper, too bad. You had to go ahead and grab the LE, but those are all sold out. So hopefully you grabbed one of those if you wanted it.
    17:37
    Nick, what are your first takes on Weird Al? What do you think of what you've seen so far? It seems like they're making enough for people who like Weird Al to get the machine, so that's cool. I didn't see this coming at all. No.
    17:53
    Looks like it's really packed in the area of the play field that they can work with. I mean, obviously, with the P3, you're really designing for less than half of the play field in many ways, right, because you've got the screen in the front. But, you know, what they did back there is that they've got a lot going on. So, I mean, the sentiment seems really positive around it. I mean, Weird Al does absolutely zero for me, but it's awesome that you have a P3 and you're going to get it. So I'll get to spend some time on it. It's like a total win. Yeah, so, you know, it's no surprise that, you know, I work closely with the folks over at P3, and I've been doing reveal streams for them. I think the first one we did was Cosmic Cart Racing back in 2018, I think, when Jerry came up and he was on the podcast and then we did the stream. But this was the first one that really seems to really capture everybody's attention. It just goes to show the power of a license, right?
    18:54
    Multimorphic has been around for almost 10 years now, and they have a ton of great games. Heist is really cool, and there's a ton of cool mechanical action in that, and the story's really fun. But, you know, for everybody who says, let's do original themes, this is why you get licensed themes. It brings that initial, like, rush of, oh, my God, I love XYZ, whatever the theme is. And then you get the people who are hardcore into the theme buying right in. You get Weird Al to share it on his social media accounts where he's got millions of followers. So the video gets hundreds of thousands of views. So there's like all of this extra bump that you get by having a license. Let's talk about some of the features of the game.
    19:40
    So it's got five flippers. So you have your standard two flippers at the bottom, and then you have the upper right flipper that was added on heist. And then there's an upper left flipper opposite that now that gets added in as part of this kit. And then there's also an upper play field in the back left of the game. So there's an additional small flipper up there. So five flipper game. It's got a physical ball lock in the camera, which is right here. If you're watching the stream, it's kind of the lower right section of the module in the back. There's a circular ramp. It kind of reminded me of Jurassic Park a little bit, the, like, spiral ramp.
    20:25
    There's a hamster wheel toy that the ball goes in and gets locked in. tons of diverters like every every shot like diverts this ramp on the right actually so you know we talked about designing for the back third of the playfield but this ramp actually extends down onto the um the walls and scoops on the right so they're they're starting to bring things in a little bit closer on heist you had the crane that came way out which was cool and even on this module it doesn't have the crane that comes all the way down but you got things that are coming down further on the playfield net the ramp is a it's a lift ramp so the the scoop and wall still works there, but you also have a ramp that lifts up and diverts. It's like all this cool stuff.
    21:06
    What else? Oh, it's got a crossing wire form now. That's a first for a P3 game. So the left wire form return can either return straight down to the left end lane or it can cross over and give it to you back on the right. So that's cool. Apparently there's like no tools required to install that. So when you're swapping play fields, you just pop it off, and it's not going to require a whole bunch of mechanical stuff to get off.
    21:34
    Let's see. What else we got on here? There's a drop target snuck in. There are three pop bumpers in there underneath all of this action, which is pretty crazy.
    21:44
    Turnaround loops. You got the supplies closet from UHF. I revisited UHF after this was announced because I hadn't seen that in probably 20 years, and that was a good time to see that. So the concept of the game is you're in Weird Al's Museum of Natural Hilarity, and that's how, like, all the different songs get tied together. You visit the different exhibits in the museum, and that's how you get into all the different songs. We have not seen gameplay of this yet because, surprise, surprise, we're going to be doing the reveal stream over here on March 19th, 19th right here on Buffalo Pinball on Twitch, 8 Eastern, 7 Central. Be sure to tune in for that. So I haven't seen gameplay of it. You haven't seen gameplay of it. I'm going to be playing it for the first time when I head down to Texas on Friday. I'm heading down there on the 18th, and then we're doing the stream on the 19th, so looking forward to that.
    22:43
    Yeah, this is like packed a ton into this back third of the game. So the camera that rotates and holds the ball, I was pretty stoked for this. So we were chatting, I think it was last summer, and they were working on this game. And Jerry was like, do you want me to tell you what it is? I was like, no, I don't. Because, one, I don't want to, like, have to not tell people what it is or, like, make stuff up until you're ready to launch this. And also I got the experience of seeing that reveal video and being like, man, I hope this is something I really like. and then I didn't recognize the song at first because I think it was Dare to be Stupid was playing in the first video.
    23:26
    And then I was like, oh, yeah, cool, Weird Al. So it is a theme I like. Obviously, it's not something I listen to all the time, but I had like Alapalooza was the album I had grown up, and then I had the one with the Nirvana cover on it too. Those are like the two albums I listen to the most from him. And then when Mandatory Fun, that tour, I took my son to go see him because we were into that album when it came out with Word Crimes and all that stuff on it. That was a fun album, too.
    24:02
    Does your son, I know you're his name, but does your son like Weird Al? He does, yeah. The kids like him? Yeah. He spans generations? He's a multi-generational thing. So, yeah, my son had the Weird Al, like, greatest hit CD, and he listened to it all the time. And so it's just, you know, Weird Al, you know, if you're our age, you probably think of Weird Al from the 80s, right, with Eat It and Fat and all that stuff. But he's really, you know, he's remained relevant. You know, that last album he put out in 2015 was his best-selling album ever. So he just keeps it going, man. And so it's great to see. It'll be cool to get some different musical styles in pinball, too, because, you know, Al does it all. He does hip-hop and rock and polka and everything. So maybe this is the gateway to get into some other genres of music and pinball.
    24:54
    All right. So Nick's going to come over and play mine. Any other thoughts on Weird Al and the P3? I know we had somebody in Discord ask, or it was on Facebook. They were like, Kevin talks a lot about the P3, but you haven't really talked about it. What do you think about it?
    25:11
    Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's not like I talk about it every podcast, but I have weighed in on the P3 before, and I'm happy to say it again because, you know, obviously you talk about it, like, you know, 99% of the time compared to me. And what I said in my response on Facebook is that, like, I think what Jerry and Multimorphic is doing is interesting, and, like, I'm totally supportive of them. And, you know, look, they've been able to pull off this launch a new pinball company that's doing things that nobody else is doing that's innovative in pushing the boundaries, and that's fantastic, and how could you not support that? It's just not for me. Like, you know, at least right now, it's just not for me. And what I said is that, to me, when I got to choose where my money goes, like Stern is crushing it these days. And, like, they just are – they've got more talent under the roof than any other manufacturer, and it shows, and they're doing such a great job that, you know, I'm going to get a Rush premium, I'm going to get a Godzilla premium, and my money is tied up with that. So I think it's great that you've got a P3. I'll play yours. Patrick, who's the local collector, he's getting one. Matt Taylor is getting one. There's going to be no shortage of these in there. But, yeah, I mean, the P3 is not for me. It just isn't. But at the same time, I can, like, give a nod of respect to that and understand why people like it. Yeah, for me, I like new, interesting, different. And I think, obviously, P3 brings a lot of that. The multimorphic team, I think it's cool to get some new talent, new creative minds in pinball. I think Steven Silver is doing a really good job with the creative direction on Heist. I really like what they did there. And to see him heading up this project too, he has me really excited to see what he's pulled out and assembled the team to do. So, yeah. So CERN is fun. I enjoy their games. You know, we'll talk more about Rush. We both got to play Rush on the stream, and I really enjoyed that. But those games I can kind of play everywhere, and especially if you're buying them. It's like the opposite. Like, I don't feel like I need to buy a lot of these games because a lot of other folks have them. So that's why I end up with, like, Jersey Jack games and multi-market games because those are the kind of games you can't get everywhere. So, yeah, so I think this is going to be – obviously, their install base is going up with this. They sold a lot of new machines, not just kits to folks. So, I mean, obviously they had a price rate because they sold out of their limited edition. So, you know, it's one of those things. I think, you know, you and I talked to Jerry when he was here about, like, you know, you got to get the install base up and then everybody goes back and buy the other game modules too. That's the only thing I was seeing, especially on the pin side thread. It was like they weren't just buying Weird Al. they were like, well, I'm going to buy Heist, and I'm getting Cosmic Car Racing and Lexi all with it. So as you add more machines out there, they're going to buy the back cataloging game, and they're also going to buy additional games going forward. And that, you know, being able to buy a new pinball release for $3,000 in 2020 is pretty compelling once you have the machine. You got to get over that initial investment. But I like their model, and I like that they're doing it to try to mix it up and bring some new things. Yeah, I mean, the price point is undeniable, right, when you have the P3 platform and then the game comes out and it's $3,000. And, you know, what's the next competition at that? A Stern Pro for like $6,700, right? So that's going to be like their ace up their sleeve these days when you've got the platform and they start pumping out additional games at $3,000, you start doing licensed games that people are just compelled to get. And that's what – I'm glad they're moving in that direction because that's what they need to do, right? Like, as you mentioned before, Kevin, they're getting exposure through Weird Al and Weird Al posting on his social media. It's getting more people interested in the P3. Once you get the P3 platform, you start selling more games. So, yeah, good for Jerry. They need to keep on doing these licensed things because that's what people are buying, and that's what will sell the system, in my opinion. Yeah. It's also – it's good, you know, they need to scale up slowly. So, obviously, they're going to need to, you know, scale up their production with the announcement of Weird Al. Lots of people are buying in. So, you know, seeing them – they've kind of slowly built – I feel like they've done it the right way. They didn't – we'll talk about people who don't do it the right way later. But, you know, they've bootstrapped the company, self-funded, you know, slowly built the platform over time with non-licensed games. And now that they're to a point where they're, like, ready to step it up and take it to the next level, they're like, all right, let's do a license, grow the company, grow the install base, and then go from there. And hopefully they can just keep it rolling.
    30:01
    All right. So, like I said, more to come from Multimorphic and the P3. Tune in for the live stream of the gameplay reveal here next Saturday And I can wait to get mine and show it off and stream it even more for you guys So stay tuned for that
    30:18
    Before we proceed, I would be remiss if we didn't mention we lost two greats in pinball. Since the last time we did a regular podcast, we lost Lima Sheets a few months back and then just more recently Barry Osler. So, you know, obviously two great folks who contributed a lot to pinball. Lyman Sheets, legendary rule designer, made some of the best games of all time. You know, Walking Dead is one of my favorite games ever. You know, we just played Elvira in that game where the code got to on that game. It's outstanding. Like all the different modes, so much detail in everything that he did. So that's a huge loss for pinball. And then Barry Osler. we haven't seen anything new from Barry in a long time because he was like bouncing from company to company he went to Highway and they folded and then he went to Deep Root and they folded and then he was getting started with American he had just joined American right before he passed and you know the tragedy of Barry's situation really is he was, I listened to the Pinball Profile episode with him they had just recorded it like four days before Barry passed and he was talking about how he was at Deep Root, and then they went under, and he didn't have insurance to get his treatments, his chemo treatments and things like that. So he had, you know, not been able to get the health care he needed because he didn't have the coverage. So, you know, the tragedy of Deep Root just keeps getting worse and worse. So I don't know if you've got anything you want to say about either of those guys, Nick. No, I mean, you know, my Barry Osler game is Jungle Lord, one of my all-time favorite classic pinball machine. I've got a number of Lyman games that he's worked on. I mean, you know, Ironman, Big Buck Hunter, Metallica, Walking Dead. I probably forgot one. It's like he's touched so many. I mean, he's my favorite rules designer. I think something that's special in pinball was, you know, Papa and Pinnberg tournaments, and I got to play against Lyman in a group at least one time, if not more. I can't remember. But, you know, I was sure to thank him for all the work he did because he's just somebody that puts a lot of care and attention into his games, and it showed. I mean, he really did a lot for Stern Pinball and pinball in general, and he helped elevate rules in the pinball machine, and he's pushed it to the next level. and people are still trying to emulate his rules and kind of take his rule philosophy. I was just watching Ray Day's pinball tutorial on Rush, and Rush has kind of that lock in your instruments by hitting the targets, which is from Walking Dead. So I don't know. It's really condolences to his family, his close friends, the people in the pinball community. what a loss for Barry as well.
    33:21
    What a bummer, but really grateful for everything that they did for pinball. Their work lives on and the amount of hours of enjoyment that they've given to people in the pinball community is just incalculable.
    33:36
    Speaking of tournaments, we used to see players walking around with those Lyman We Trust shirts and stuff like that. So, you know, I think I can imagine, like, being in his position, it was like, you know, we see it as, you know, people who do podcasts and stuff like that. You tend to get feedback, and a lot of it is great, and you get a little bit of negative, and the negative is what really stands out because that's what you're, I don't know, that's how humans are. Like, we focus on the negative. So he probably got a lot of amazing feedback and people telling him, you know, how much they love his work. But, yeah, I can only imagine the stress and the pressure that built up over the years because people had, you know, just they loved his rule sets. And, you know, they were putting, Cern was putting Lyman on the top dollar games and, you know, the Super L.E.s and things like that. So he had a ton of pressure on himself to put out these amazing games. And eventually the games got there. but he was such a craftsman that it took a while and all these revisions to get through and to break through into that amazing, like, I think a Batman 66 from what that went from to start with and what it ended up being. You know, you got all those different episodes in there and all the assets and things like that. It ended up being an all-time great game. So, you know, just, you know, what a loss. What a loss for their families. will ask for pinball and you know we're grateful that for everything uh they both revealed uh were able to do for us so thank you guys um all right let's uh let's move on we had another uh new game announced for the p3 which was um this is a one thing we didn't touch on when we were talking about pinball p3 in general was the uh the minigames and this is a minigame developed by Nick Baldridge for the Cannon Lagoon play field. Flipper Foxtrot Rhythm Explosion rolls off the tongue, but it's a rhythm game for your P3. So think like mashing up DDR or Rock Band slash Guitar Hero with Pinball, and that's what Flipper Foxtrot is. So if you're just jumping into the P3 now and you're grabbing a Cannon Lagoon play field, here's one to consider. It's $150 to add on to your Encanting Lagoon kit. Once you have that, you can get it at the Multimorphic website.
    35:58
    Nick Baldridge did it all. He did game design, graphics, sound design, and programming. 27 different songs, five difficulty options, and here's a look at what the play field screen looks like. It's got some Ranger in the Ruins songs in there, which are cool because a lot of folks really like the music that was in that game.
    36:17
    And then there's you're doing like flipper flipper uh flipper button rhythm stuff mixed in with pinball so i haven't played it yet because i don't have the canon lagoon playfield but i watched uh gamago did the reveal streamer for this and it looks it looks really cool if uh if i end up getting the canon lagoon playfield i'll definitely grab that because 150 bucks is uh kind of a no brainer when it comes to pinball stuff so um that's uh that's flipper foxtrot um what do we got next? Oh, here's another new game.
    36:49
    It's Super Hoop. Do you see anything about this, Nick? Just very, very minimal. Yeah. So this is by Bitronic and Quetzel. I think they're out of France. This is on Nav Arcade's website.
    37:06
    Here's a bunch of pics of the game courtesy of its French distributor. It looks great. The cityscape color-changing lighting on the sides is unique. That is pretty cool. But, yeah, the Quetzal did that, like, drift car game from, like, three or four years ago that we talked about it on the show. This is basketball-themed. It's got a LCD screen in the back glass, lots of LED lights. Let's take a look at the play field here. You can tell this game is made in Europe because there's a bunch of white dudes playing basketball.
    37:38
    White guys playing basketball. It's got a comic-style art. oh it does it does have a like a basketball hoop in it and the shot clock that kind of reminds me of like space jam or cern's nba a little bit um so some pretty cool stuff uh obviously not a game i would buy but it'd be fun to flip on if any of them make it over here into the u.s um so there you go just thought we'd mention that because you know you don't see a lot of third-party new release upstart games like that. So good luck to them. So it looks like there's a scoop in the bag. Trying to figure out how that all works. So there's some stand-up targets through this middle section, and there's the basketball hoop over the top. Pretty neat and cool to see some new ideas. I do like the art.
    38:26
    Oh, yeah, it's got the – that's over the swing shots, I think. Or, no, that's the part in the – okay, So that's by the basketball in the back. There's these hands that you can use to slap the ball into the net, I guess. I don't know. I wonder how blithely that would work, but it's an interesting idea.
    38:48
    There you go. That's Super Hoop. So that's it for new game releases. Another thing that got announced over the past month is that Stern is going to scale it back a little bit. they're going to – you're going to get no new cornerstone game from them until August 2022, which in pinball terms is still like, oh, my God, there's a new game coming in August. But for Stern, it's like, you know, we'd be having another game getting released here any minute now. And they've decided that they're going to take the foot off the accelerator a little bit and try to catch up with some of those back orders, which I think is a good idea because you've got folks waiting for years for some of these games. Like I know somebody said they were waiting like two years for Elvira and things like that. So they have a big backlog of games. I'll read the official statement here. It says, dear ladies and gentlemen, demand for Stern pinball machines has not just remained strong, demand has become stronger. I noticed a correlation between insider-connected adoption rate and increasing game orders. Well, that seems – It's pushing it. It seems like a – Correlation and causation, right? Yeah. It seems like a stretch, but okay. They're really trying to push that insider-connected. All right. In spite of supply chain disappointments requiring almost daily changes to our production schedule, we have been able to increase significantly the quantity of games we produce each day. We are paying higher material and freight costs necessary to maintain and grow production. We have been able to increase our labor force 25% over the last few months. That's all great.
    40:15
    We have made the difficult decision to deviate from our business model of three new cornerstone games each year in January, April, and August. we decided for this year only not to introduce a new game in april uh we will have only two new cornerstone games this year rush and then another one in august in the next months we will work toward fulfilling many of your orders for existing catalog of games especially concentrating on pro and premium models of rush godzilla mandalorian and deeproot adjustments to game allocations for north america have largely been made over the last weeks export market allocations will be completed today and tomorrow. So this was a couple weeks ago they put this announcement out.
    40:55
    Nick, what are your thoughts on Stern? Step things back for this year a little bit. Great move. Love it. You know, there's games I want. I want a Godzilla. So that will help speed that up. I want a Rush. You know, I'm waiting for that. And it just makes sense. I mean, this is one way to combat, you know, the skyrocketing pinball prices where they can start meeting the demand of this backlog of games. Why have another Cornerstone game come out? when you've got people waiting for games that came out a couple years ago that still can't get it. So great move on their part.
    41:26
    I really don't see a downside of that. There's so many people that want these great games. Look, I mean, Stern has really kind of crushed it in the last couple years. They've put out a lot of great games, which has increased the demand for them because they are really good games. So get caught up. Let's meet the demand out there so we can stop the bullshit of people buying games at MSRP and then selling them for thousands of dollars more. that's that's insane so this is a way to kind of combat that yeah i haven't i haven't heard a single negative thing about this move i think everybody thinks it's the right thing to do uh i agree if i said deep root before when it's turned apparently i said deep root um so yeah i think this is the right move it's you know they need to get caught up with these back orders they can't keep stringing people along with with uh deposits that are in and then increasing the price of games that they have deposits in on so um yeah get caught up uh we're doing okay we got we got enough uh certain releases per year the problem is uh that there's not enough machines after those releases i think of like gazella came out it was a massive hit and then they were just like before you knew it they were already moving on to their next game so give these give these games some time to breathe let the successes be huge successes and then if you have one that comes out that's not a huge commercial success out of the gate, you can maybe have one in your back pocket to go ahead and release.
    42:55
    All right. So the – let's see. What's next? Oh, all right. So that's the stern pause. Let's do some non-manufacturer updates. We've been talking about people who actually make games, and I know we got some feedback last month that we didn't provide a Ballarama update or a Deep Root update. So I know folks look forward to this segment. So we're going to get back to that for you guys. Let's start with Deep Root, okay? It's been a while. I feel like I'm over Deep Root. Yeah.
    43:26
    There's been some interesting things. So they had an interview. There was a phone call, I guess, that was part of the legal proceedings had started. and this is Satan Eats Cheese on Pinside. Shout out to him for summarizing the call here. So let's see, some key takeaways. He was able to listen to about half of the call. He says, there were over 85 people on the line when I dialed 65 at the end. During the break and after the call, before disconnect, there were tons of lawyers trying to ask questions. I left out at 147, plead the fifth. So Robert pleaded the fifth like 150 times throughout the course of this call.
    44:08
    Most of the questions seemed to be about establishing what assets DeBroot and Robert Mueller had over time. He said they had no accountant at any of his firms.
    44:18
    He used a contract accountant when needed. They used QuickBooks. Not just that the pinball plays at the $60 million investment firm. Robert Mueller sold some of these investments direct to clients. Did Deaver use any of the money from investors? He pled the fifth.
    44:35
    Do you know how much money was collected? I just want to point out that Buffalo Pinball has an accountant. We do.
    44:41
    And we do not collect $60 million of investments. Do you know how much money was collected? Do you know where the money went? Pleads the fifth. Here's a typical exchange. Is there a bookkeeper? No. Who put the stuff in QuickBooks? The bookkeeper. Who is that? name which the person transcribing left out for obvious reasons. How long did you use her services? What years, 2012 or 2013?
    45:08
    I assume she was paid, yes. Was she paid as an employee or as a contractor? As a contractor. How often would she perform services? They vary greatly from year to year. Would she reconcile the books monthly or quarterly? I don't know.
    45:21
    They spent a lot of time going over financial disclosure form he gave to investors in 2017. He pled the fifth on all questions about it to include what acronyms stood for.
    45:31
    He tried to get the hearing closed early due to child care issues. He's a caring dad. Wow. All of a sudden he's like, you know, I got to go. My kids need me.
    45:42
    Should we be looking for to understand your financial situation? What should we be looking for to understand your financial situation? He pled the fifth. How can we verify your salary of $192,000 here? Pled the fifth. someone ordered a burrito in the background robert's documents implied investors were buying into mueller's agriculture retail mining and sports investment led the fifth to that as to what they were uh he couldn't find the documents people were referencing that he had provided presumably so he made everyone wait while emails were sent were any of these individuals directly sold a part of a life insurance policy He pled the fifth.
    46:24
    Will we find any documents that will reflect the direct ownership in a policy? He pled the fifth. At the end, there were people who wanted to ask questions, including several people that sounded ancient, I presume were investors, that were shushed. Quote of the day goes to Trebo for Fifth Amendment Multiball. So there you go. Special clip here. Somebody clipped a voice of him pleading the fifth, so I'm happy to bring that to you guys here. It's a little quiet, so you're going to have to listen closely, but here you go. This is Robert. On the advice of counsel, I invoke my privilege against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. I respectfully decline to answer the question.
    47:03
    There you go. So there's Robert in his own voice. One of the 147-plus times he pled the Fifth on that phone call. So Robert being Robert.
    47:13
    The other thing going on with – well, before we move on, Nick, any hot takes on the proceedings from that? dude i'm i'm burnt out from deep root i just i don't know what can i say go ahead keep going all right so the other thing that's going on with deep root is uh they're selling off all their assets so if you want to do a little shopping uh for deeper you could do that that's through mtdoctions.com uh you can go there and i'm sure he bought like the most expensive of, like, office furniture equipment and dots and chairs possible, too, right? I'm sure you did. Nick, have you seen this at all yet or no? I have not. Okay. Well, that's what I was hoping. I figured we could do a little shopping together, okay? So let's take a look through here. One of my favorite things coming up is right here, and this is what I'm going to get for you, Nick. Is that Jesus? Oh, it sure is. Holy shit. All right. Let's talk. We'll see if we can get that nice framed picture of Jesus from Deep Roots office. We need that in your game room, I think. There you go. Oh, my God. That is amazing. Yep. That's great. Keep an eye on that one. I think the problem is by talking about this, we're going to put a spotlight on it. We fucked ourselves, yeah. It's all for the entertainment value for you guys. This is good. These are these Deep Root bottles. And I don't know if I can. Okay. And it says, okay, so it's a water bottle from Deep Root. One side, it's got the logo. On the other side, it says, why Deep Root? And it's just got a bulleted list of why you should invest with Deep Root. You get instant equity. It's non-leveraged. Investment replacement program. Multi-industry diversification. So I kind of want one of these water bottles. They diversify because there's 300 people that they scan from, so it's not just one person. See how that works? That's how they diversify.
    49:04
    Lots of office furniture, desks, coffee machines, some sweet office chairs. But there is, oh, there is some pinball stuff, too, here. So if you look, there's, like, Raza Playfields and Whitewoods of different games, artwork, just parts piled up.
    49:25
    The thing about this is it just gives you a look into, like, what a mess this place was. Who could have seen this coming, Kevin, though? Who could have possibly seen this coming? Just, like, so many different Whitewoods at various stages of development. here's some play fields in the back to who the heck knows what there's some food truck we had talked about the food truck game, there's some whitewoods of food truck in here here's an incomplete pinball machine here's one of the Razzas with the funky head on it there's the pinball it's got the pinball this is the pinball that will destroy your hands So if you want the one that gives you the stigmata in your palms, this is the one to bid on. We put that right next to the Jesus painting that you bought. Exactly. You get it all going together. Okay, here's some more. So this is, there's the innovative flip-up glass holder. Look at how high that goes. I have a little ceiling, but, like, who has a ceiling for that? That's the dumbest thing. Dude, I love Robert, solving problems that aren't really problems. there's like a giant hole in the side of the cabinet what's going on there it's like a Rasa back glass and I think a food truck side art on it it's just such a mess dude I think the theme is called dumpster fire the pinball machine let's see if we got any other good images in here you get some close up shots of what's going on here there it is with the glass strapped up there The display works on that, unless that's a placeholder image kind of thing. Look, this is like stuff dumped onto this play field. Yeah, that's Food Truck. There you go.
    51:19
    Food Truck. God, if only they got as far as Food Truck, it would really turn that company around. I know.
    51:25
    What's that? That's like Barry Osler's last design. Food Truck. What a sad fate. So this one here on the right is, you know, remember when they were talking about making a game out of the old Windows? pinball. Remember that one? Oh, yeah. That's this play field right here. It's got the three pop bumpers on the little raised part over here. Space Cadet, that's the one. They've got their quote-unquote rotisserie assembly carts over here. What a mess. They had all these designs in process and not a single game brought to production. All those employees.
    52:04
    It's a monumental waste of time of manpower, right? Like just a monumental waste of time of resources, human resources. Yep. Here's the revised Raza. I assume this is the more complete one because it's got the pin bar that won't kill your hands. Just make them very uncomfortable. Yeah, exactly. That's an improvement. you can get some of the Deep Root Theater where they presented to the quote unquote pinball media. You can own some of the theater seats from there. So if you want to build yourself a home theater. Again, revisiting this, they built a fucking theater for their bullshit pinball company where they didn't even release a pinball machine.
    52:49
    Somehow Stern's been able to exist all these years and they don't have a pinball theater at their factory. So is Jersey Jack. How could they have done it? It's weird. How do you have a pinball company without a theater? I don't know. And all this workout equipment. How many workout machines do you need in a pinball production facility? I've seen pinball people. They don't work out. Martha, I think, is the only one.
    53:13
    Pretty much. Oh, man. Look at all this. So many treadmills. You could give yourself America's Most Haunted or a Black Hole. They got those there. So they do have some working pinball machines there. Get yourself some safety stuff for all the stuff they want. Oh, here's a deep-root toaster and a curry machine.
    53:33
    You can get elementary school kitchen lunchroom tables. Man, they've got it all. The fridge, touchscreen.
    53:45
    You know this was in Robert's office. It's a big TV stand. What the hell do you need that for? I can only imagine how much that costs. Again, like I told you, he's way overspent on office furniture because why not? It's not his money. You need a wheelbarrow. No one's telling him no. No one's like, are you fucking kidding me?
    54:05
    It's just a wheelbarrow, a forklift, suites. You can see a bunch of never used manufacturing equipment for all your octo-assembly needs. Oh, here's another one with pinball play fields in it. Look at this. Like, what a trash pile. To quote Risu, look at this pile of shit. You know, when we looked at the Star Wars topper. Look at it. Look at this. Oh, my God. There's so much crap that you could own.
    54:33
    My question is, who's going to buy Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland and try to finish it for a third time? You know, somebody will. Somebody will. I promise you that much. Yeah, somebody will. Yeah. Parts bins. All right. So that's dropping with Uber. You got the idea. Here's like a drum sanding machine. Looks, you know, new in box. Never been, never been touched. Look at all this crap. Just keep an eye on that Jesus painting. And if anybody wants to donate that to Buffalo pinball, I won't say no. There you go. I like it. All right. So there you go. Shopping with, shopping with Deep Root. That was fun. So the bidding begins in one day, 20 hours. So just about two days from the recording of this podcast, so you can get yourself some Deep Root memorabilia. All right. Not to be outdone, our friends at Ballarama. We haven't checked in with them in a while, so let's check in with Ian and crew. So these are my two favorite, their two most recent Instagram posts. So here's Ballarama. There's their upcoming feature list. We are moving along. Our development process might seem slow, but good things take time. In an effort to bring you all something new, innovative, exciting, and challenging, we are taking time to make sure everything plays well. An interesting, exciting, and flowing playfield that lets anyone have fun scoring, but also has many challenges for the expert to discover and conquer. Very soon, we'll be publishing a feature list to give a peek at our game's content. Over time, we'll be showing snippets of the playfield.
    56:06
    Check out our webpage and join our waitlist to reserve your game order spot. On the webpage, you can select the time to chat by Zoom or simply send an email with questions or comments. For a more casual chat, but one others can share, join in our Facebook group. This is the best line. It's been there a while, but to be honest, not a single question is on it yet. Share some love. So somehow, somehow Bala Rama has like 6,000 people on their Facebook page. But they have this Bala Rama Pinball Enthusiast group, but not a single one of those 6,000 people thought to ask a question. He's got a real head scratcher right there. Well, listen, there's been a lot of questions asked about Ball Around, but it's just not happening there. It's happening on Pinside in this podcast, so plenty of questions.
    56:50
    They were answering questions on Pinside until they didn't like the questions they were getting, and then they disappeared. It's really weird. It's a smart move, though. I mean, like other people, like Home Pin had a meltdown on Pinside, which is like I feel like Ian's smart enough to walk away from that Pinside threat, so that's, you know, one point for Ian. I guess.
    57:11
    Alright, so let's look at the slides here. Sorry, things seem to be taking so long. This is another one? This is not the same thing we just looked at? This is the same thing. I'm just scrolling through the images in this. Oh, okay.
    57:24
    But please stay tuned. Very soon we'll be publishing a game feature list. Alright, very excited for the game feature list. How about you, Nick?
    57:33
    It pumps. So the next post, here comes the feature list. Alright, here it comes. Oh wait, it's coming? Oh, shit. Feature list. A small delay, but hang tight. We'll be back with the real stuff. You motherfuckers.
    57:47
    Their splash screen says upcoming feature list, and you're like, here we go. Here we go. And then they're like, no. Nope. I'm guessing after the list. What is wrong with them?
    57:57
    Sorry, my mic is probably clipping because I can't yell. Nick's getting fired up. You can't blame him.
    58:06
    Well, they lost their marketing person. Natalie's not there anymore. So obviously they need a top-tier marketer like Natalie. So we're still here to follow our page or join our group. Okay, whatever that means. I'm guessing after the list comes out, there will be lots of questions and discussion. Come be a part of it.
    58:24
    I like Joe. I can't wait. You were trolling him on Facebook too, Sandy. I can't wait to see what's next. I love it. It's true, though. I'm not lying. So let's see. Oh, here, you get more in the post. sorry for not launching the feature list as quickly as we have liked. Before I let out what we're up to, I've got to make sure we've got all the patents for new innovations are covered off. I haven't had a delay writing them, but the patent office has changed the format they require them in, and now the info I used a year ago has to be updated. Oh, it's the patent's office fault. Here comes the excuses on the manufacturer failure bingo card, right? Now there's a patent office. Yeah, this is like with the UL certification all over again. Remember that? Call me Nostradamus because next it's going to be supply chain issues. So here we go. So you should have heard me when I found out. The good side is I looked early to make sure I didn't miss anything, and lucky I did.
    59:22
    Anyways, stick with us. We'll be presenting soon. Thumbs up. Ballarama. We love you, Ballarama. Never stop being you. You know what I mean? I have to reinforce, we did a legit podcast last month with a good discussion because we were shitting on, you know, this has turned into a comedy hour with these manufacturers. But can you blame us? This is just too much. People look forward to this. It's too much. Again, it's like, you know, we've had this discussion I feel like a million times, but don't give your money to these companies. Give your money to companies. There's plenty of companies actually making pinball machines. Give your money to them. If these guys end up making a machine and you like it, then buy it. but everything we're seeing here does not give me a lot of confidence that this company is going to come out with a, with a pinball machine. All right. That's all I'm saying.
    60:12
    Speaking of companies that give me no confidence, it's pinball adventures. Pinball adventures So this is what used to be That whack Is now Volt Electric Volt Electrical Company One of the greatest pinball machines ever made. It says so right there.
    60:39
    Oh, God, you can't make this up. It doesn't even exist, first of all. That's the best part. It's one of the greatest machines ever made, but it doesn't exist. This guy's fucking trolling us, Kevin. This might be like Andy Kaufman-esque trolling. It might be.
    60:52
    But if you're looking for bad impersonations of celebrities, you've got a page full of them here. I don't know if, Nick, you're going to be able to hear these if I play them.
    61:02
    It's not going to stutter and crap out, right? Not that I know. I've got the stuttering. I'll play you a little bit. Yeah, hold on. I can play along. Yeah. Okay, here. I'll send you the link. because Nick's really got to appreciate this too uh where are you here you are okay I'm going to play Captain Kirk first so you guys at home get to hear it and Nick will play it here too love sometimes expresses itself in sacrifice it might look more like a spaceship than a residence but the Volt's electric company modern houses are the future of tomorrow. We all know they are boldly going where no man has gone before.
    61:54
    I think this guy just likes to do impressions, you know? I don't know. I don't know what his deal is.
    62:02
    Here's a, let's do the, this one. Doc Brown. Great Scott. The way I see it, if you're going to build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style? And when you know breakfast is the most important meal of the day, power your fridge and other appliances with the power of the Boltz Electric Company.
    62:28
    You know, you can visit the Pinball Adventures site and listen to even more of those on your own. Can you do the one, the Big Lebowski one? Okay. The dude. Okay. And I'm sorry for asking this, our listeners. Like, I'm going to regret this, but I can't help myself. Yeah. Fair. All right. Here you go.
    62:46
    I can't be worrying about that shit. Life goes on, man. The Volks Electric Company will take you where you want to be and back again, man. Their latest models bring you a slick new design and an abundance of trailblazing features that harness the latest technological breakthroughs to deliver you from point A to B in turbo speed smooth, man.
    63:21
    That's absolutely, that is an absolutely terrible fucking impression of the dude from Big Lebowski. Terrible, terrible. Like, they're all bad, right? But, like, that one has a special place in hell. so like on uh on punny factory they had their terrible don knots impression and now they're like kids love don knots though i mean i get they're trying to get the kids in the pinball so who better than don knots like can you can you just do that can you just be like i'm going to do an impression of don knots and put it in this come on machine and it's fine is it considered parody and that's fine like i don't understand how that works there's like all these celebrities it's like implied celebrity endorsement of these pinball machines that don't exist all right well wait i'm sorry it's the greatest one ever made so obviously it's the best one all right so after all that if you're like man i really you know these startup pinball companies nick and kevin have really convinced me that i i need i need to get get in on the ground floor of a pinball company we've got a brand new one for you here You can invest in the next pinball manufacturing company, everybody, okay?
    64:35
    This is Al Freud is organizing this fundraiser. He's been sitting on this idea for over 20 years. I was too busy working for somebody else as an electric sign fabricator. It didn't pay well, and I could not save money. But along with my hobby, collecting and repairing antique pinball machines, I acquired the knowledge and skills to bring this plan to fruition. Pinball is a hot item right now, and I believe my timing is perfect. My idea is a simple pinball machine, much less complicated than the conventional games. Very easy to manufacture, but no less fun to play. I've built a prototype, and now I need to develop better-looking examples. Five or six different cabinet styles vary in price depending on how much money the buyers want to spend, making it affordable to everyone.
    65:22
    There you go. He's got a $30,000 goal. on GoFundMe. He's raised $100. There you go. John says, good luck, brother. All the best with your dreams and hopes and goals. I hope this helps. So there you go.
    65:38
    Oof. You know, this guy's been thinking about this for 20 years and he's concluded that pinball's very easy to manufacture. It's very easy. Easy.
    65:49
    One thing we know about pinball is it's easy. It's one thing we've learned over and over. Super easy to manufacture games. So simple. There you go. Oh, my God.
    65:59
    That's your current outlook on the scene of people not actually producing pinball machines but talking about it. Who's this guy's in Canada? What viewers are in Canada right now? What kind of fucking drugs are legal up there these days? Because I want to know what's going on between that and Punny Factory and that bullshit. You guys got some good shit up there, don't you?
    66:18
    They sure do. All right. There you go. That was good. That felt good. All right. Let's get into some of the games we played. So we played Rush. Why don't you give your impressions of Rush? I know you're in love with Rush. You're buying Rush. What are your first thoughts on after playing the game? Yeah, well, I should say, so I'm out of Cactus Canyon. I was going to get that. I don't think I announced that I'm out of it. But, you know, with Lyman's passing, it was kind of like, okay, that's – I was kind of clinging to the idea of this, you know, the theme of Cactus Canyon and Lyman doing his magic. I'm just like, eh, no thank you. And, yeah, I think I talked about this before. I mean, X-Men is one of my favorite, like, pinball layouts. And I always said, like, look, if they do this layout again, I'm going to be very interested in whatever game it is.
    67:07
    You know, so Rush comes along, and it's even, to me, this layout's even more improved upon, right? I mean, Borg's had pretty much 10 years since X-Men came out to even make that layout even better. So I got to play it. I played the LE. We're going to go and play a premium today, not that there's any difference, you know, gameplay-wise. But as soon as I stepped up to it, it was just like, you know, I kind of knew I was going to like it because I knew how it would shoot. The shots felt very familiar to me. They felt really good. It's like, you know, for a board game, board games usually have, like, a lot of shots that are coming back at you. You've really got to be on the ball. You've got to be really good at nudging. This is, like, the flowiest game that he has. And it felt great. Like, it was really fun to shoot. It looked really good. The presentation of the game was really good.
    68:02
    The play field was kind of, like, just loaded with stuff. It had a good – for a Stern game, it had a good, like, rolled-under-glass vibe to it. I don't know. I just – I had a great time with it. I didn't totally understand all the rules at the time, but I have a lot of confidence in Raymond Davidson and Tim Saxton working as a team to do the rules for the games, especially after what they did for Zeppelin. And I actually just watched Ray Day's tutorial that he put out a day or two ago. Go to Ray Day Pinball on YouTube. He put out like a 36-minute tutorial on Rush. So I have a better understanding of what's going on. But, yeah, it just looks like a love at first sight, love at first play. It's a lot of fun. How does this game hold up in the long run? The long run to me, I'm still loving and playing Zep on a regular basis. Zep is like maybe my favorite game right now.
    69:01
    I just rush to the same thing. And there's some similarities between Rush and Zep in that they're both long playing games and they both hand out a lot of extra balls. So that's not necessarily a good or bad thing, right? It's just it is what it is, and I think that there's a lot of content in Rush to get through and play through, so you're going to need those extra balls. The one interesting thing that, you know, Kevin and I have been talking about, and I've talked to James about this, is that when James got his game, the outlaying posts were on the easiest setting possible, and he was just like, dude, he couldn't, like, lose a ball to save his life, right? and it's funny because we're seeing all these posts of people blowing up their le's and bragging about their scores it's like dude you got a fucking baby game like i looked at those posts and i'm like can a fucking pinball even fit through them like it is it's so interesting and weird because the um when the pros shipped they were like in the middle position which is is standard for most games like that's how it comes and that's how you play it and and it's interesting for a borg game because John Borg games like the slingshots that will kill you because they'll just go in the outlanes left and right, and there's usually a decent-sized outlane gap. This one is just like super baby mode. I'm not sure why they changed it on the LE and they're shipping like that. And then I was talking to Patrick, and I heard other people say this, like it's a pain in the ass to swap those posts and make it kind of to the middle setting. But I reached out to Raymond Davidson, and he's kind of like, yeah, I guess John Borg, for whatever reason, decided to change that. And he's like, yeah, if you're a good player, you're going to want to put that game back to the middle post for sure. So for everybody who's blown their game up, listen, you play your game how you want, but I'm going to look at that and just be like, you're playing a baby game. It's just way too easy. Baby game. Well, you know, we played on James' after he moved the post, and it was still pretty friendly. We had pretty long games, and I didn't feel like it was super mean. Some board games can be really mean, like Walking Dead and things like that. But even on the middle post, I felt like it was totally fair. And their shots are, like you said, it's a lot of flow. So it's a lot of return to flipper kind of play. It's got the time machine shot, but on the alley, that's even less dangerous because the ramp moves up.
    71:27
    So some of the times you're not even getting it right back to you. It's sending it back to come back. So I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know, Kev. Because, like you said, when I was playing James, who had edited his game, like, yeah, we were having long games in the middle post setting. They were pretty long at times. The game felt fair. So I have no idea why they would make it that easy. It's really weird. You've got to make the people dropping 15 grand on a pinball machine feel good, I guess, right? Like, oh, look how great I am at pinball. Maybe that's part of it. I don't know. So let's show this off I showed this to you yesterday The thing with Rush is the scoop Everybody's like oh my god the scoop protectors Are having problems And Stern's been putting out fixes And this came up on Pinsight I'm like what the hell is this Actually Gamigo posted it In the Buffalo Discord I thought somebody had just done this to their machine But apparently new machines are shipping Like this on the scoop No. Yeah. No. Kevin, don't tell me that. So what are your thoughts on this?
    72:40
    Don't. No. Tell me that's not what Stern's doing. That is a – what the fuck, dude? It's a scoop protector. We can fix – we can do this. This is not the answer. All people want is a good Cliffy. Make a good Cliffy. Dude, no. Tell me you're wrong. Nope. Tell me that's not what Stern's really doing. Nope. These are new machines that people were posting about yesterday that they were unboxing. That is a fucking monstrosity of a solution. Here, I can just go into the images in the thread. So this is what they were doing. They were putting these forks over the scoop protector to hold them in, and this is what James's LE had. And I felt like that was a fine solution. And it didn't fix the problem of the protector, but it made that protector more effective, I guess, right? Like, so it holds it down. It prevents it from coming up. Because what would happen is the balls would go in there, and after a couple dozen plays, it would start to bend, and then the balls would shoot out, or they'd shoot straight down the middle. And then people were taking their posts off, and that was resulting in play field damage because that scoop is super close to the flippers. And I'm trying to find a shot here. It was just getting – see, here's more pictures of the new solution. No fucking way. Yeah. Dude, you know, one thing I liked about that scoop – I'm not talking about the protector, but the scoop itself is that it felt really good to hit. Like, it just – I was hitting it with a regular consistency from when it would come off the ramp from the right flipper. It felt like a good shot. And, you know, that scoop is similar to, like, KISS, but it must be angled a little bit differently. It's just way better and more satisfying than it hit, like, any other scoop in that position. So, like, the nubs, man, the nubs must fucking ruin it. Like, really. Like, I don't – I really don't understand why they're struggling on something as basic as a scoop and, like, they came up with the nubs. I am – like, between that and moving the post, like, it's like they're flailing right now. Yeah, it's weird because it felt like they had that solution with the little forks that people liked. People are saying the Forks are still coming up a little bit. Oh, right. Okay. But how – I thought the problem with the Scoop was that you got, like, a bad batch or something from the initial runs. But I don't know, man. I'm glad I'm not getting mine for a while. So hopefully they figure this shit out. I want the nubs off and Clippy comes out with something good and it's battle tested. But, Jesus, nothing like buying a pinball machine and having to just do, like, so much work on it just to play it correctly. Yeah, and folks are just like, they're not playing their machine until a fix is out there, so how terrible is that to buy a machine and then just have it sit there and I'm waiting for a solution for the Scoop Protector because Scoop's just getting destroyed. Here's the PSA, man. You don't want to be somebody in the first batch of machines. There's always issues. There's always problems. And anyways, the code's not even going to be what the game really is at that point in time. I get LEs. I get having to buy it. Oh, you don't get it. But anything else, wait a while if you can. Like, I am excited to get a game that's, you know, after it's been out for six months and a lot of the problems have been solved and I can go to forums and see what tweaks need to be done. It's great. Like, and there's still sometimes things that you've got to work on, but it's just as an owner, after spending that much money, you have just a better experience in general. Yeah. We used to always say, wait, you know, play the game, see if you like it, then buy it. But the way the market is right now, like people are just buying these machines up because you either buy it now and hope you like it. And then if you don't like it, you can turn a profit on it when you sell it or you wait two or three years. And then maybe after you have a chance to play the game, you're going to have to wait a couple of years to actually get your machine. So it's kind of the current market has turned the whole pinball buying process on its head, I think, right? It's not what it used to be, that's for sure.
    76:56
    There you go. So that's Rush. So my impressions, I really liked Rush. Nick, you had asked me at the end of the stream what I thought of it or if I had any, you know, expectations going into it, and I really didn't. didn't like i knew i liked x-men and i like board games like i said walking dead is one of my favorite games of all time trying to um i really like x-men i had a blast playing rush it was a super fun um i'm not the biggest rush fan i don't i think you're you're not like a huge fan of the music either right well i mean i've never i didn't grow up listening to rush i never put a rush album on or really spent much time i wasn't friends with anybody listening to rush so like i'm coming at it like, really cold, and when I, you know, heard that they came out from the machine, I started listening to music, and I was just like, oh, I had a really tough time. I've watched, like, the documentary now. I've been listening to their albums, and, like, I've been, like, actively trying to, like, rush. I sort of, like, in my rush journey, I'm like, when they get to the 80s and Geddy Lee's voice is, like, kind of more under raps and stuff, and with the 80s kind of vibe to it, I'm digging that, and, you know, maybe past that, but I'm getting there, Kevin. And I've had Rush music stuck in my head after playing the game, so. I did, too. For better or for worse. I definitely went home singing Rush in my head, so it sticks with you.
    78:15
    We would always hear it on the radio, so, like, I knew the radio hits. Being close to Canada, probably Buffalo, New York, I assume we got more Rush than other parts of the United States maybe. But we, you know, Tom Sawyer, Spirit of Radio, Limelight, all those songs. So, like, I know their music. I think I had the Roll the Bones album that came out in the early 90s. That was the era where I was experimenting with music, trying new stuff. You're trying to find yourself. Yeah. Until I finally was like, oh, I'm a punk. That's where I'm going to end up. Roll the Bones is all right. So I was kind of bummed that that song is not on there.
    78:53
    But there are references to it on the game at least. But that's the thing with music, Benzie. You're never going to get to pick all the music that everybody wants. But I think they did a pretty good job. How many songs are in that one?
    79:05
    Sixteen, I believe. Yeah. And Rush songs are long. So you get plenty of music. Yeah. The call-outs were, you know, they were like band call-outs. So I feel like band members generally are not the best at doing. Like, as a fan of the band, you want the band in it, but they don't always do the best call-outs. so I like that they got a lot of integration from the band it reminds me of GNR in that way they worked very closely with the band they got the call outs lots of assets really true to the band so that's good to see but the call outs some of them made me laugh some of them were cheesy you know so it was a mix kind of like Metallica too and GNR too the call outs are not great on GNR but Melissa does the best ones out of all of them and she's barely a member of the band right she's she's pretty recent and she's done like voiceover work for video games and stuff like that so she's kind of a pro so she's a little out of the usual of most band members yeah like i my understanding is that there's a lot of call outs that were recorded for the game but you know the code that you and i played and so early code a lot of that is missing it hasn't been put in there yet so on some of the modes because i'm hearing like kind of the same call outs and you know they're not i maybe like rush fans or certain fans will find them super hilarious and they're fine but when you hear them like repeated they kind of get annoying like so there's like some call about oh some monopoly money or something like that and it kept on coming up i'm like all right jesus you know i'm starting to roll my eyes so that's the thing with like a joke right like you if you hear it once in a long while it's it's fine if you hear it over and over again but i'm guessing that you know it just will get better with code and the other thing is that I think there's some sound balancing issues in that. Some songs are louder than other ones, and I understand the loudness factor in music, and when you're playing a song that was recorded in the 70s might be different than one that was recorded in the 90s or 2000s. But people are going into their machine and trying to play with the EQ to get the sound right and the balance, and I kind of roll my eyes at that. I was like, this is why you have an audio engineer at Stern. What the fuck? Why does the consumer have to do that on a stock game? Yeah. Yeah, so that's all stuff that I'm sure will get polished in future code updates. And, you know, like you said, adding in more call-outs will hopefully make the jokes less cringy and more funny when you hear them, you know, the fewer times that they come up, the better. Yeah, so in chat, Donkey Clunk says and makes a good point that Rush has a dedicated setting for how often joke call-outs are played. So there you go. That's smart. You can control it. Dial it up to however much you want. What did you think of the art looking at it in person?
    81:55
    What's that, Kev? What did you think of looking at the art in person? What did you think of it? I thought it looked fantastic. You know, like I remember looking at the game as like a whole, and this is like the LA, we'll see the premium today. I thought it looked really good. I actually liked that the lockdown was kind of a matte finish because I think I'm Team Matt Finish on powder coating. That's what I did on my game.
    82:20
    I think I'm getting the Rush Premium, and I might go with some white powder coating on it. That's Matt, so I'm debating that.
    82:29
    But, yeah, I think the game is beautiful. It looks great. The expression lining really adds to it, in my opinion. It's something that I'm – it sucks that I've got to buy it for the premium. It really does, not just the cost, but also just now I've got to just do more work on the pinball machine. I just want to play it at some point, right? Like, I am like, when I think of pinball, it's not doing work on it. It's like, it's hard for me to play and get away from work, right? Not do more work. But, yeah, I mean, I'm definitely going to buy the expression lighting.
    82:59
    I thought it looked great. I thought the LED looked awesome. I think they, again, I think they knocked it out of the park with this game. We'll do a real review at some point, maybe when the code is more fleshed out and we spend more time with it. But I think, you know, generally speaking, you and I are very positive. I mean, I'm getting the game, so that tells you a lot. Yeah. Like, I like the overall look of the game. It's cool. It's got, like, I would say, like, a steampunk kind of vibe to it.
    83:21
    The color palette is neat. It's, like, purple and gold-ish is what I think of when I think of the color palette.
    83:28
    The band members in the center of the play field, that's the one thing that kind of stands out to a lot of folks that they don't like. In person, it didn't really bother me. there's so much going on in that game that it's one of those games like Avengers where there's just tons of wire forms over the top of it so it just looks super packed especially the LE when it's got that extra wire form returning to the right in lane so I think as a whole package it works and I like how it works yeah so I like the raising and lowering time machine thing I like how you've got the classic when it's low just comes right back at you, and then when it's up, it flows. Again, I always like when the geometry of a mobile machine can change a little bit, and it does that. I like the return. I'm premium all the way on this game, right? Or Alley, if you can get your hands on one. I think the Pro's fine. I haven't played it yet, but I do like the additions on there. There were a couple of questions in chat that I'll address, though. Chris the printer says, has Stern fixed chipping and pooling? Enough suggested via a new inbox? Given these scoop issues, or is the Crusade back on? Well, I think as far as I know, I've not heard any reports on Chipping and Pulling and Rush or any of their other recent games. I mean, my Let's Up One's been fine, and we've talked about this. I think they've solved the issue by where, like, posts are in the game or, you know, get a rail guide. Like, the solution for them is not printing artwork on those areas. So, like, you know, they'll take the artwork away, and it's just the wood and some clear, and that seems to have solved the issue. So it was like the artwork peeling off the game and pulling up. So, yeah, I think it's fine. I mean, obviously I'll be watching that before I buy the game, but I've not heard any reports on that.
    85:15
    Who have asked if stainless steel or matte just seems to attract fingerprints? I hate our fridge. I think it's not talking about stainless steel, but matte finish, that's quite the opposite. Like, good luck trying to put fingerprints on my matte finish on my Led Zeppelin versus my dialed in, which is gloss. Like everybody does kind of like the glossy powder coating. It's fingerprint city, and you can see scratches on it easier. So I think matte on a pinball machine makes a lot of sense just from like a usability standpoint.
    85:46
    Anyways, go ahead, Kevin. Yeah, I'm just looking for a photo here. Anything else on Rush, first impressions-wise? What are your thoughts on like the overall rule set? Would you say it seemed a little more mode-based than Zeppelin to me? Maybe that's why I like it a little bit more. What are your thoughts on the overall look and feel of the rules? Yeah, I mean, Zeppelin is a unique game in that it doesn't really have – I mean, you could argue that the songs are modes, but it's not really. And it's also not like Metallica, where Metallica kind of is not like a quote-unquote mode-based game. But that's different. So I think what I like about Zepp is it's really refreshing, and people love when I talk about Zeppelin. But, yeah, I mean, this is more of a traditional mode-based game for sure. There are modes in the game. You kick qualifying shots, and you start a mode, and you're in a mode, and you bring a multiball in a mode. So this is bread and butter pinball right here. And, you know, ultimately, ask me if I get the game, like, in June or something, and ask me, you know, in six months if I'm still playing and how I feel about it, right? Like, we'll see if that stands the test of time.
    87:04
    So I think what Chris was getting at was stuff like this, where you're getting this nasty wear by the scoops on brush. So you still get play field wear on a stern, but hopefully they're putting the washers and stuff in the right places. Yeah, scoop wear is – I would distinguish scoop wear from chipping and pooling issues, right that's not pooling that's scoop where i mean like any game you're going to need to put a metal protector on to have protect against scoop where yeah for sure i mean this is this is definitely like really bad accelerated scoop where you know like i know that really fast 100 yeah i mean like williams back in the day didn't have scoop protectors on there and their scoops that like you know many games are still held up but you know had that game has a good protector on it, you know, I think Stern has figured out the solution to their shipping and pooling issue.
    87:58
    Yeah. Pooling the airways definitely seems to have helped with stuff like that. All right. So I also played Hot Wheels. That was another game that I hadn't played. It came out right after that pandemic hit, and I hadn't had a chance to play it. And then Steve Bowden came on the Buffalo Pinball stream live from the TurboGrafx stream on Friday nights here.
    88:23
    He blew the game up and inspired me to go out and play it. So I went out. There's an arcade in Lockport, New York. Lowe's Arcade Mania. You can check it out if you want to play some Hot Wheels. He's got a couple other games there too. He's got Jurassic Park. The flippers were kind of weak on that though. And Ghostbusters were the other ones. But I mainly played Hot Wheels.
    88:46
    It's fine. It's a pinball machine. It falls into the it's a pinball machine category it's definitely my favorite american pinball game yet um not one i would own but i'm happy to throw some bucks in it on location um i got to the red line mania on it i played for about two hours all said and done um red line mania i did the thing where you you race from the 12th spot up to first place i did that uh played a bunch of the modes one thing i really like was that the shaker integration is really cool on it so um if i'm sure you've seen it by now but it's got the uh stop motion animation in the back glass and you uh stop uh when that when the t-rex comes stomping out and the machine shakes it's it it feels really good i was not expecting that so that was cool um the flippers got kind of weak as i was playing it and i was talking about it on my stream and somebody confirmed in chat that it does have uh some flipper fade action going on it so if i if i were to own one i would get like flipper fans or something on it to keep those those flippers strong but overall impressions fun game not one i would buy um oh yeah the the scoring if you want if you want to get the scoring going on it just smash into the rpm targets get your playfield multipliers up it kind of reminded me of uh star wars uh from cern in that way from a rules perspective uh but it seemed like there was a lot of different ways you can approach the game with it, which I appreciate. You don't want to be locked into playing one game the same way every time. At least I don't. So I like that from a rules perspective for Hot Wheels. So there you go. Finally got a chance to get out and play that one.
    90:27
    Game room updates. Nick what do you got going on in your game room What do I got going on in my game room Well you buying some new machines Where the hell are you going to put them I know Well all right So one update is I had my Pirates JGP Pirates of the Caribbean up for sale for about three days, and then I pulled it. Oh, yeah?
    90:48
    What happened? Well, see, it's like you know when you get yourself psyched up? like my rational mind was driving the ship for a good hot minute, and I was looking at the pricing, and I was like, I don't play this game. Like I never play this game.
    91:06
    It has been like my favorite game. It's an incredibly impressive game, but I don't play it. So I'm like, I've got a game that's like a $20,000 plus game that I'm not getting any value out of it, other than being sort of like flex, and like I've got a really cool game, and I know I like it enough. so I was like I should sell it it's just going for a ridiculous price and look if that game was like a $10,000 game I would never consider selling it but everybody has their price and I was like rationally it makes sense to get rid of this if I'm not getting value out of it so I put up for sale I actually had somebody local who was looking for one for a while and I was talking to him and it looked like he was going to buy it and honestly Kev I mean if it's Adam by the way but I mean obviously if he said he was going to take it I would have sold it to him I wouldn't have backed out of the deal so it was almost gone and then I made the mistake of playing it last weekend and I'm like god fucking damn it and then like emotion crept in right and like above all outs in that game the presentation is just unbelievable you know it's got a lot of rules so I'm keeping it but it's like I'm in such an uncomfortable position with that game and I've talked about it before like I don't like that the price is rising and I said this like two years ago I don't like that it's going up I don't like that there's people who want this game and they've got a you know it's out of the price point for a lot of people I think it's terrible like I don't love that I'm also really upset at this point that we're almost I've almost had the game for four years I've had it for three and a half years and still doesn't have a wizard mode like that fucking pisses me off like that is inexcusable I'm sorry. I don't, like, how does that game not have a wizard mode at this point? So it better be coming soon, and we're not getting any clarification on it. So Pirates is still one of my favorite games. You know, my favorite game right now is Zeppelin. But Pirates is still so up there. Every time I play it, I'm like, yeah, this game is fucking unbelievable in presentation and everything. So it remains, Kev. I mean, you know, at this rate, with everything going up, it's going to be like 30K by Christmas, and maybe it goes on the first sale block again. But it's tough. It's a tough place to be in with pinball prices. Yeah, you know, I would never pay $20,000 for a Pirates, but I'm happy to have it in my collection. I love the game. You know, when I look at my collection and I think about, you know, how much money is in it or whatever, you know, I didn't pay that much for it. So I get the benefit of having this amazing game that I got at a good price.
    93:50
    And, you know, it sucks that other people can't play it, but I'm going to keep it. You know, if it came down to it and there was some amazing new game that I really wanted, I would sell it or trade it to get something else. But other games are going to be on the chopping block before that. Because, honestly, there's nothing price-wise in that league right now. You were going to do a two-for-one, which is pretty cool. that you could get two new machines by selling one, which is pretty insane. Yeah, I mean, I can still afford and get those machines, so it's like, I'll just keep it. But I don't know, man.
    94:25
    So to share with the audience, your basement's full. What's going on? Where are the other games going? How are you making room for two more games? So Matt Taylor is going to probably borrow, you know, a couple games, right? Like, so probably Fireball 2 and Jungle Lord will move out. Like, basically the classic games are going to move out for Rush and Godzilla. And then, I don't know. Like, I would, I'd be tempted to sell Dialed In, but we've talked about this before. It's like Dialed In might be, it's a really good shooting game, right? It's got some flaws for sure, you know, and I think maybe Wonka shoots even better than that for no doubt or more interesting. But, like, it's a cool game. It's just it's not going for as much as it should, all things concerned, that game. So if that game was going for, like, $12,000, I probably would sell it, you know, to fund a purchase and then put a game in that slot. So that might be, like, the one that goes because Bad Girls is bolted to the floor. Can't get rid of that. And the other thing with Pirates is, like, if I wanted to sell, I don't even own this anymore, but if I wanted to sell Metallica because Martha bought it, like, you can get another Metallica. And as you were saying, Kev, like, you would never pay $20,000 for Pirates, but it's different than what we paid and then selling it. Like, if I sold it, like, forget about getting Pirates back, right? Like, it's just gone. Whereas, like, there's so many games in the collection that they're like, yeah, I'll sell it, and if I really miss it and want it back, I can just get it. There's enough of them, right? Pirates is just, like, just in this weird area, you know, area being, like, in general in pinball where it's like, what do you do with this game? Yeah, that is tough because a lot of the times when I sell games, you've got to mentally justify it. Like you were saying, you get yourself psyched up to sell it, and you're like, well, if I really miss it someday, I can buy it back or I can sell a game and get this. But it's not happening with me.
    96:25
    So you've got that. Martha also said, yeah, subwoofers. You're buying subwoofers. Is that what's happening? Oh, yeah. I bought a subwoofer because there's a subwoofer sale like Amazon got to me. that I've got another sub before coming. I've been playing a lot of Walking Dead lately.
    96:43
    And, yeah, it's getting back into some games like that. And I think maybe I'll move the Color DMD from Metallica over to Walking Dead. Because why not? I want to see what it looks like in that game. Sure. And I ordered a – because I know everybody on our Discord loves this. I ordered a Stern Insider Connected for probably going to put it on Black Knight. I'm a little worried about taking the – because I've got to take the stickers off the apron from Black Knight and put it on the apron, the replacement apron they sent us. But people are like, yeah, it's easier. It's fine. I'm skeptical of that because I have a problem with stickers. Can you just get a second set of stickers and put them on there or no? Well, Zach's like, I don't know how easy it is to get stickers. He's like, if you fuck it up, I've got you covered. So that's good. But that's what they should do, right? Like, they should have a second, like, even if you get to pay a little bit more, like, they should just sell it to you at cost. But I think James was saying, like, you can try to heat it up with, like, an iron, and allegedly they just come right off and you stick them on. I saw when I was at Swole Burger, I saw those games had, like, you know, retroactively had Stern Insider connected, and I guess Todd was able to take the stickers off and it looked good. So, you know, that would be a good live stream, Kevin, if me, like, trying to pull stickers off and just having a meltdown, like an anxiety OCD meltdown. I bet we could get that on the front page of Twitch. That would be amazing. Yeah, Neil, it's my Black Knight Pro. The chat room is saying you should do the coin door mount. Have you seen that, where you put it in the place of the dollar bill acceptor? Yeah, what do you think about that? Do you like it better there? I don't know if I like a light shooting out. You want to light up your crotch? Yes, exactly.
    98:34
    That's the thing, though, right? Obviously, you've got the star button and stuff, but that's a bright light right on my crotch aiming there.
    98:44
    I think I'll stick with the typical location, but it's nice that that exists. Speaking of crotches, we had a – I like this segue. Wait, let's see where this is going. Yeah, we had potentially a new sponsor lined up. I said fuck them, though. They pissed me off. But Manscaped reached out to us and wanted Kevin to talk about grooming our Master of Ceremonies to everybody in the pinball community.
    99:10
    And I was like, all right. I sent them our rates or something for sponsorship, and they're trying to play hardball, pun intended. And I just was like, fuck you, Manscaped. No. I'm going to make fun of Manscaped at every occasion now that I possibly can they're trying to talk me down from like my like incredibly reasonable sponsorship rates they basically wanted us to do it for free and then if they got yeah they're going to send us like their fucking piece of shit five dollar razor that they say is special for you know shaving your man bits but and then if we met their expectations they would consider actually giving us some money so you know what never mind Never mind. We would rarely sell you guys pinball parts and products from companies that we like. I mean, granted, our demographics is 99% men, so there's something there. And Nick's not kidding. If you look on our YouTube analytics, it's 99% men, 40% women. I think the only other thing out there that has a higher demographic of men who are their fans is Rush.
    100:15
    That's 100%. This is the best pinball team ever. Yeah, 100%. Great theme, great theme. All right, what's going on in my game room? So my original Tron arcade cabinet, I bought a kit for it that not only lets you play another game on it, you can play the game Satan's Hollow, which is a classic game with a similar kind of cabinet style. It's got that same joystick on it. And it's got Satan in it. Who doesn't love that? it also adds online leaderboards and high score saving lots of cool stuff unfortunately when I installed it I was getting some graphical issues with it so I had to send it back so he's going to try to diagnose that and figure out what's going on but when I put all my original ROMs back in it, it plays fine so it's definitely not something with my game so looking forward to getting that going this with Tron we didn't really talk about that We didn't do game room updates and stuff like that. That was my other winter project. So I've got that. The control panel overlay is new on it. The joystick is new. The glass bezel has got new T-molding on it. I took the janky old mirrors that were in there off the sides. I'm looking at it right over here. And painting it black, I've got to get new mirrors made for it. It needs a marquee up at the top. So a couple little things. I've got the boards back. and the game's working. The sound is almost all working. I have to get the speech going on it because that's the best part is you're going to start talk trash while you're trying to take them out. But it's coming along. So those are my two big projects. And then I feel like it's always book club with Kevin during these. So this is a book I got for my birthday. It's called The Games That Weren't. This is a big, big chonky boy book. This is all about video games that never got made. So it's pretty interesting. It goes all the way, it's by decade, all the way from the 70s up to the 2010s.
    102:15
    Yeah, so if you like reading about games that could have been, that's a cool one. I've been flipping through that, checking out different stuff. So that's what's new with me. All right, we did have one piece of feedback here. We got an email from Eric Russell about the last podcast with Zach and Ryan. We got a lot of good feedback about that show. People really liked it. I had folks say they listened to it twice, which is a great endorsement of the show. So if you haven't yet, go back and check out the show we did on the business of pinball with Zach Mennie and Ryan from Comet Pinball. So he says, one thing that Zach alluded to when talking about Insider Connected was more functionality to come in the future. You also talked about the use of pay range with Ryan while discussing the operations side. That made me wonder if there were any plans for Stern to provide a similar type of payment system, leveraging the Insider Connected tech. The idea of being able to load up some credits on my Insider Connected account and then use that to simultaneously pay for a game as I log in on location seems like it would be very convenient to me. Stern could get a small percentage fee for administering the service, and operators would have an ePay option without needing to pay for an additional device besides Insider Connect. It seems like it would be a win for everybody. So I was wondering if you guys think that might be one of the future capabilities Zach was referring to, or if not, why? So what do you think as an operator and an insider-connected owner or soon-to-be owner?
    103:44
    Yeah, maybe I think you just need to keep your QR code obviously private or it needs to maybe not be tied to your Stern insider-connected QR code. Because, I mean, if that got public, if somebody is able to get your QR code, you're fucked. and everybody can get that in terms of payment, so maybe it's different. I don't know. I think it gets – I think when you have, like, payments and credits, it gets a little dicey, and I can understand why Sturm might not want to just deal with that headache.
    104:16
    There's – like, certainly from a software side, I'm sure that's easy enough to do, like super easy to do from a software side. It's probably the financial logistics that are involved into it. So I don't know. Listen, I love pay range. I love the ease. I love the idea of paying for my phone, not worrying about how am I going to get quarters or do I have dollar bills. So, yeah, I think it's something that's worthwhile to work on and incorporate in there. So it would be nice if they did that and invested in that. Will they do it? I have no idea. I don't know where their mind is with that. And the benefit of pay range is it works on any machine. It's not just Stern's. So it's one payment ecosystem for all of your games. So think about going to an arcade, and I have money loaded on my Insider Connected account, and I can use it on LCD, Aerosterns, and that's it. I can't even use it on, like, if I wanted to play Walking Dead, Insider Connected doesn't work on that game, so if they have it in their arcade, I can't use that to pay for that. So it's not as convenient. It would be convenient for the games that it works on, but it would be annoying from the fact that I would have to like either maintain a second payment system like like uh like pay range or then also have cash or quarters or whatever else to play the other games if you have all lineup of modern spurs then fine go for it but um I think it's maybe not as as straightforward as as you might think it would be yeah I don't have any insight into what they're going to put on there I think it's more geared towards like you know the score bit functionality of maybe being able to play a game against somebody in a sense of, like, you know, sending them a challenge and trying to beat their scores. I would love to see, like, one of my favorite things, and I said this on the podcast before, is when I was getting into pinball, I was playing pinball FX, and I remember, I don't know if you ever played it on the Xbox way back in the day, things like pinball FX, too.
    106:11
    When you had friends playing that game, and, like, let's say, like, you set a high score, like, when I get close to your score, your, like, face would pop up, and it's like, oh, you're getting close to Kevin. And, like, there was a competitive thing, even though, like, we're not playing head-to-head at the time. Like, there was a way that I was competing against you, and that was cool, and it made it, like, really apparent at the time rather than me, like, going through a list or looking at your high score. So I think it would be cool to have that functionality show up on the screen somewhere where it showed that, hey, I just beat Kevin's high score or I'm getting close to Kevin's high score, some other friends. Like, I think that's the direction that they're going to go in, not necessarily that exactly, but what score it's doing in terms of being able to challenge and compete against people. Yeah. And also things for operators, like, you know, play five games of Mandalorian this week and get a free beer. That's the kind of thing from an operator I would really like. We're trying to do that implementation with one of our locations. that get driving people to play pinball. And, you know, right now trying to do that manually isn't easy. So having that functionality as an operator where you can, you know, use it as a marketing tool would be great. And I think that's what they're going to implement. Also, from the operator side, I imagine you'll be able to, like, check on your game and see if there are switches that are not working or is it not taking money or things like that, so you'll be able to remotely check and see if there are issues without running around and checking all your locations and stuff like that. Yeah, I think you could do that now. My certain insider connector is bricked because the micro SD card's bad with, like, an update messed up. So I'm trying to get another micro SD card, or I got to figure that out. But, yeah, I think the functionality is there at least to audit it right now. Cool. Yeah, and I'm sure they'll be building out more stuff like that too. So anything else before we wrap it up here, Nick?
    108:10
    No. I can show this. I don't know if you can see it on the stream. I got a Galaxy Watch 4. You don't have to go to the wire. Yeah, I know. No, I'm just kidding. Come on. Okay. Oh, yeah, look at that.
    108:22
    It's got the Buffalo Skull. Yeah, so if you go to the Facer app, it's on there. You can get the Buffalo Skull. It's been uploaded. So I think it might work. I didn't upload it in the iPhone format, I don't think, but it might work in there. So you can try that if you've got an iWatch or whatever the fuck it's called. Apple Watch. There you go. You can just put any photo as the backdrop so you can just see that by setting a picture to it. So we'll give one more plug here before we wrap it up. The live gameplay reveal of Weird Al's Museum of Natural Arity next Saturday, March 19th, 80s, 3 and 7 Central. If you listen to the podcast after that date, it'll be up on our YouTube channel for you to watch. Really looking forward to heading down to Texas, getting out of the house, flying for the first time in three years, and streaming that for you guys to check out. And like we said, merch is back. So visit buffalopinball.com slash merch, and that will take you over to the merch page or exclamation point merch in chat. If you're watching live, that will give you the link. We've got the Buffalo Pinball Skull shirt, which is just like Nick's watch, but in shirt form. we've got the bro shirt if you want to get a free beer at out at Pin Brew you can grab one of these and wear it to the show the first five people in the door will get a free beer every day at the Ohio Pin Brew Fest we've got some stickers if you want to slap a sticker on your laptop or your car you can grab one of those more stuff coming soon I know people want the hoodies which I have ready to go but they're out of extra larges right now and I know that's the size most people want so I'm not going to launch the hoodies and then they have people not be able to get them. So as soon as those are back in stock, I'll make those available. Yeah, Kev, you know what you didn't talk about? What's that? People putting blankets and towels on their pinball machines. There's a fucking epidemic. I've never seen this before.
    110:15
    All right, let's talk about it. It's not too late. Show's not over. Yeah, so people are putting blankets and towels on top of the pinball glass so the pinball glass doesn't get dust on it. And then, like, even Stern selling, like, this mat that goes over, like, your glass. I'm seeing so many pictures on Pinsight of people doing that. And, like, this didn't happen 10 years ago, right? Like, this is like a new, like, monkey see, monkey do phenomenon where, like, I don't – you know, Kevin, I'm like one of the most OCD, like, you know, pinball anxiety care maintenance person. And I look at that and say, this is fucking nuts. and uh like i i used to i used to have what martha calls like a dress to put on my pinball machine when i lived in like um uh my old place where like there's like windows in the pinball room and i get that like because there's there's a real thing of pinball fading cabinets and you know the stun can damage pinball machine so if you're in a scenario like that like that makes sense but a lot of people that's not why they're doing it and it just seems like such a pain in ass to like harder than like using windex or wiping down your your your glass like i'm more pain in the ass to take your towel off and like you gotta take them all off like i've got what 14 13 games in the basement i gotta take all my towels off and put the towels somewhere am i gonna put the fucking towels and i gotta put the towels back on like i don't know that's i just had it it was driving me nuts i was like what is going on with that so i nick and i had a high mind going because a couple couple i was looking at the thread about the uh funhouse 2.0 kit and there are pictures of people having to install them their machines and there's somebody playing it and behind them was a row of you know stern le's and there's like a pirates and they all had their towel their themed towel so there's a simpsons with a simpsons towel on it there's a pirates with a pirate towel and then he was in front of it playing uh funhouse 2.0 and it made When you think of people who, when the P3 came out, or even like when JJP started putting the big screens in their back last, people would be like, oh, well, that doesn't look cool when the game's off. So that's why I don't like that.
    112:23
    There's no art on the play field when you turn the machine off on the P3. There's nothing on the screen when you turn the game off on a JJP. But then I'm going to go and put a towel over my game, where I can't see it anyway. So let's, like, this is like the slice or the pot. So there's some questions in some ways like, look, I do it because you have cats and it's a must. Like, okay, I'll give you that, dude. Maybe if I had a cat who was going on the pins, I probably would do that 100%. So I'm going to let anybody who's got an animal that's jumping on their game is off the hook. Goran's saying he's going to go away for a super long period of time, like a month plus. Well, it's just when you fucking do Windex, dude, it's dust. It's dust on a $25 piece of glass. You're going to go out and buy a $40 mat from Stern or towel and throw it on there? Like, it's just dust. It's okay. It's all right. You're going to be okay. It's going to be okay. New event said he puts it on there when he puts his stream gear on, which that makes sense. That's fine. That's fine, too. We're not – anybody who's got like that, that's fine. But, yeah, it's really – I don't know. It's just like every picture I see now is everybody doing that. Next podcast, we're going to talk about all the stupid mods.
    113:30
    Dude, we got one collector who bought like some – who bought a couple games, and he just, like, was showing me the mods he's yanking off. Like, you know, this game is, like, he bought, like, an Elvira or something, and, like, every mod possible somebody can put on the game. And, like, even, like, these jank mods like that, like some, like, third-rate modder made, like, was going on this thing. And it just looks so tacky and terrible. Like, it's just hilarious. I just have this vision of people, like, getting in the hobby of, like, buying, like, these super expensive pinball machines, like, modding it. Like, it's an arts and crafts piece, like, to shit. And then you're like, oh, fuck, I can't mod it anymore. I guess it's time to sell it and then start new.
    114:11
    My favorite is the making Jurassic Park covered in trees. Putting tree well in your Jurassic Park. Every time I see a JP with trees, I got to save it and share it with my friends. Oh, jeez. We've not even gotten to the person who's people adding another ramp to Black Knight. Oh, God. Or TNA.
    114:33
    Oh, that's another podcast. There'll be a podcast where we can talk about that. Don't do it. Just don't. Don't. Your game, do whatever you want with it, but don't. Yeah. So Patrick bought a Walking Dead, and there was this terrible mod on the ramp, and he yanked it off, and it chipped the ramp. He's like, fuck, now I've got to get a new ramp. It was so bad. He's like, I'll just put the mod back on and cover the crack up. He's just joking. This thing is terrible. So it looks like somebody, like, made, like, tied it on there with, like, a Celtic knot.
    115:08
    All right, folks. That's going to do it for another episode of Brody Even Talk Pinball. Thanks for joining us. If you haven't yet, be sure to follow us on all the social media channels. We're on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook. We're in Discord if you want to chat throughout the month, discord.gg slash buffalopenball. You can follow us on Twitch if you want to watch us live. if you want to support us a great way to do it is by subscribing to the twitch channel if you have amazon prime you can do that at no extra charge with using your uh amazon twitch prime is that other prime gaming is what they're calling it now um you can subscribe for free every month with that uh there we have a paypal account if you want to drop a drop a donation that way great way to support the channels by reviewing us on your favorite podcast platform of choice to bring us on home. We've got a brand new episode of Topper Talk with Goran. Until next time, we'll see you on the Twitch stream, and we'll see you next month here on the podcast. See you. Bye, Nick.
    116:14
    It's Topper Talk with Goran right now. Let's all have some fun. This is about plastic on top of your pin. Go and buy one now. There's a topper here and a topper there. Here a topper, there a topper, everywhere a topper. It's critical to the gameplay experience. You must buy one now. It's your monthly bill of toppers right now. Topper Talk with Gorin. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Topper Talk with Gorin, the part of the podcast where Kevin and Nick give me about three to five minutes to talk about everything happening in the very active and profitable topper community. Now today we're going to be talking about the topper for Multimorphic Pinball's newest P3 module, Weird Al's Museum of Natural Hilarity. So let's head into the other room and get started. Okay, so let's jump into the topper for the Weird Al's Museum of Natural Hilarity module for the P3 pinball machine by Multimorphic. Now, the topper is exclusive to the limited edition kit. So this is a picture of the overall limited edition kit, and the limited number is 227 kits were sold. Now, if we zoom into the topper here, we see Weird Al in front of his Museum of Natural Hilarity holding an accordion, and then as well as the name of the game here. One thing I will commend right away by Multimorphic is that they did not fall into the classic topper mistake of where they put the name of the game right below the topper on the back glass. So I thought that was a nice touch from them to actually remove the name of the game from the back glass. You do have it down here on the panel, but I think it's far enough apart of where it doesn't look like it's repeated immediately. Now let's look at the topper function.
    118:04
    We can see that the Weird Al head moves back and forth, along with the accordion goes in and out as if he's playing it. And it really syncs up nicely the way that it's programmed to really make it seem like he's moving back and forth and playing it. I think it's a nice touch. It's a well-integrated topper. It's supposedly interactive with the gameplay. We'll have to wait for the gameplay reveal by Buffalo Pinball to see how that all works. But overall, I'm pretty happy with the overall integration and how it fits with the game. It looks really nice up there. It doesn't seem out of place, and it seems to really add to the overall wacky vibe. And also, if you look at the module, the amount of mechs that it has is insane. So it really builds on top of the overall zaniness of the game. Now let's talk about the cost. So this was exclusive to the limited edition package, which costs $1,800. So the way that Multimorphic's business model works with this release is that you have to have a base Multimorphic pinball machine, which costs $8,300, with no module. Then the Weird Al module costs about $3,000 on top of that. And then if you wanted the limited edition package, that was another $1,800 on top of it. So if you're looking, if you don't own a P3 and you are looking to get this as configured in this photo, that would cost you about $13,100, which is pretty steep.
    119:35
    Now, if you already had a P3, you'd just be looking at $4,300, $3,000 for the module plus the limited edition package. So, you know, no matter what, you're paying $1,800 for the topper and the side art and some other little bells and whistles. but I think it makes a little more sense to get if you are already a P3 owner. Now, at the time of recording this video, Multimorphic apparently on day one sold out of all 227 limited edition kits that they had. They could be found at a few distributors. I'm not sure of the current status on that, but long story short, it's going to be really hard to get now.
    120:12
    And there is a wait list available that you can join by reaching out to Multimorphic. But overall, I think this is a really strong topper. Yes, it's expensive, but if you're a Weird Al fan and you like this overall package that it comes with, I think it's a great buy for the game.
    120:28
    Thank you for tuning into this episode of Topper Talk with Goran. Tune in to the next podcast for another episode, and as always, get out there and buy a topper. Thank you for coming to my Topper Talk.