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The Great British Pinball Podcast Episode 31: Beetlejuice is here!

The Great British Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 22m·analyzed·Nov 15, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

British pinball hosts react to Spooky's Beetlejuice reveal while discussing Winchester and Star Wars acquisitions.

Summary

Neil McRae and Scott Rundell discuss their experiences with new pinball releases, particularly focusing on Stern's Star Wars LE (which Neil acquired internationally), Barrels of Fun's Winchester Mystery House (which they played at Chicago Expo), and Spooky's newly revealed Beetlejuice machine. The episode captures a live reaction to the Beetlejuice trailer and explores themes of game quality, value proposition, manufacturer differentiation, and distribution challenges in the UK market.

Key Claims

  • Neil acquired a Star Wars LE from a US seller before payment, discovering a bank account number error that delayed the transfer for 3-4 weeks and saved him approximately £3,000 versus UK retail pricing

    high confidence · Neil McRae describing personal Star Wars LE acquisition story in opening segment

  • Winchester Mystery House is Barrels of Fun's most challenging game to date with difficult shot placement

    high confidence · Neil McRae describing Winchester gameplay after playing it 4-5 times at Chicago Expo

  • Carl D'Angelo was working on Winchester; Neil's sources informed him in April 2024, and he confirmed by D'Angelo's denial response

    medium confidence · Neil McRae recounting how he discovered Winchester through industry intelligence before official announcement

  • Spooky's Evil Dead is taking over a year to deliver to UK customers; Neil paid deposit in August and full balance in August but game still hasn't arrived

    high confidence · Neil McRae discussing delivery delays for Evil Dead LE in UK distribution context

  • The UK government shutdown (TSA strike and customs delays) affected delivery timelines for pinball machines arriving from the US

    high confidence · Neil McRae explaining June delivery delays tied to government shutdown impacts on air freight and customs

  • Keith Elwin's game design (implied to be Godzilla based on context) represents the best all-time selling game and kick-started the modern pinball renaissance

    medium confidence · Scott Rundell discussing great game designers and their impact on the industry

  • Lyman Sheets designed or was lead coder on multiple Chicago Gaming remasters including Monster Bash, Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, Metallica, and Walking Dead

    high confidence · Neil McRae discussing Lyman Sheets' legacy and involvement in remastered games

  • Beetlejuice uses a narrow body cabinet, not wide body, partly because Evil Dead's wide body design with extended playfield taxed Spooky's resources

Notable Quotes

  • “The world thinks I've bought a Beetlejuice. I don't know where this news is coming from because I have not bought a Beetlejuice. The theme does zero for me.”

    Scott Rundell @ Early in episode — Sets up Scott's skepticism about Beetlejuice despite eventual acknowledgment of the game's quality

  • “I'm like the little old lady in Looney Tunes. He's just shoveling 10 quid notes into the fire. That's JGP buyers.”

    Scott Rundell (joking about Neil) @ Money transfer story — Humorous aside about high-value international pinball purchases

  • “It's like there's a kind of... You know that EL glow that you get on the EL paper glow thing? This game looks like it glows when you see it. The sides are shiny as hell.”

    Neil McRae @ Winchester description — Vivid description of Winchester's visual presentation at Expo

  • “I am buying this game because I know how good Carl is in terms of his knowledge of pinball in terms of his pinball skill but also in terms of his personal attitude to doing things the right way don't cut corners, do it the right way”

    Neil McRae @ Winchester buying decision discussion — Explains decision-making rationale based on designer reputation

  • “I am done with waiting for games. I am going to go the fastest way. If I want one, I'm getting one. So right now, I'm thinking, I might just phone Spooky and give him my credit card.”

    Neil McRae @ Evil Dead delivery frustration — Expresses frustration with UK distribution delays and willingness to import directly

  • “It shouldn't take what, August, September, October, it shouldn't take four freaking months to get a game.”

    Neil McRae @ Distribution complaint section — Critiques UK distributor efficiency and timeline expectations

  • “Stern are a bigger organisation they've got to serve locations when Stern announce a new game the businesses of about 300-400 venues across the US are dependent upon getting that game within a few days”

    Scott Rundell — Articulates fundamental difference between Stern's venue-focused business and boutique manufacturers

Entities

Neil McRaepersonScott RundellpersonCarl D'AngelopersonDavid Van NesspersonKeith ElwinpersonLyman SheetspersonJeff 'Dirty Paul'personChris Franchiperson

Signals

  • ?

    announcement: Spooky Pinball's Beetlejuice machine officially revealed via trailer during episode; hosts capture live reaction to never-before-seen footage showing mechanics, artwork, topper design, and playfield layout

    high · Live trailer reaction segment with detailed mechanical observations (sandworm mech, chair lock, three flippers, topper design)

  • ?

    product_launch: Beetlejuice production imminent; Spooky indicated approximately 1 hour away from some unspecified reveal/availability update during recording

    high · Neil and Scott note 'Spooky is an hour away' and mention potentially jumping live to event

  • ?

    leak_detection: Neil's sources informed him of Carl D'Angelo's involvement with Winchester project in April 2024, before official announcement in May at Chicago Expo; Neil confirmed by D'Angelo's evasive denial

    medium · Neil recounts: 'my internet spies told me that um mr d'angelo was working on a pinball project this was in april of this year and i pinged him... carl's response was who told you that'

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: US government shutdown affected air freight, customs clearance, and TSA operations, creating delays in pinball machine shipments to UK and other international destinations; Neil notes government shutdown 'has just been lifted' as affecting June delivery timelines

    high · Neil McRae: 'the government shutdown, which has just been lifted, has affected air freight, it's affected customs, all of those things. because when I was in Miami, I nearly got stuck there because the air traffic controllers and the security people in TSA downed tools'

  • $

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.248

0:00
Welcome to the Great British Pinball Podcast, and here are your hosts, Scott Rundell and Neil McRae.
0:18
Scott, I'm not in Miami anymore. He's not. The mystical episode. So welcome, everybody. I'm Neil McRae. I'm Scott Rundell. So we did record an episode And it mysteriously disappeared I don't know if it was Basically our legal department Deciding that we'd Taken the piss out of too many people But for some reason Our podcaster, it seems like they had some sort of problem And we lost an episode Actually, annoyingly A really good episode So we've got to You'll have to take our word for that folks But Scott, today It's new pinball day It is new pinball day, yep. Very exciting. Yeah, it's very exciting. Beetlejuice, by the way. The world thinks I've bought a Beetlejuice. I don't know where this news is coming from because I have not bought a Beetlejuice. The theme does zero for me. The game would have to be out of this world for me to want to buy it. And Spooky are getting better at games, but I wouldn't say that they're in the top echelon of game design quite yet. They're getting there. But look, we wish Spooky luck. Actually, we may jump live.
1:27
We think that something might be happening in about 15 minutes. If not an hour. In 15 minutes. If not an hour. Yeah. So we'll try and at least capture our first thoughts. We can fake the reaction.
1:40
For those of you on YouTube, I just, for a moment, look like a dick. We can do it together. You ready? Three, two, one.
1:49

medium confidence · Scott Rundell speculating on Spooky's cabinet choice based on Evil Dead production experience

  • Winchester has an aura-like quality and glowing appearance despite being prototype machines at Expo

    high confidence · Neil McRae describing visual impression of Winchester prototypes at Chicago Expo

  • Stern must serve 300-400 US venues that expect new game availability within days, whereas Spooky can focus on niche audiences like Beetlejuice fans

    high confidence · Scott Rundell explaining business model differences between Stern and boutique manufacturers

    • @ Business model comparison

  • “That topper makes me go, wow, I thought Black Knight was good, but that's nuts. That's like Black Knight on steroids.”

    Scott Rundell @ Beetlejuice trailer reaction — Enthusiastic response to Beetlejuice's mechanical features during live reaction

  • “If you are a Beetlejuice fan and you haven't bought it, I think you've done yourself a disservice.”

    Neil McRae @ Beetlejuice assessment — Strong endorsement of Spooky's game despite thematic skepticism from Scott

  • “I wish there was as many Beetlejuice fans as there are Star Wars fans.”

    Scott Rundell @ Theme availability discussion — Identifies IP popularity as limiting factor for boutique manufacturer market reach

    • Tom Graff
    person
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Barrels of Funcompany
    Chicago Gaming Companycompany
    Star Wars LEgame
    Winchester Mystery Housegame
    Beetlejuicegame
    Evil Deadgame
    Chicago Expoevent
    Pinball Republicvenue
    Medieval Madnessgame
    Walking Deadgame
    Alice Coopergame
    Elvira's House of Horrorsgame
    Black Knightgame
    Fifth Elementgame

    market_signal: International acquisition of Stern LE (Star Wars) produces ~£3,000 savings versus UK retail pricing; direct US import costs nearly equivalent to UK distributor container shipping on per-unit basis, changing Neil's sourcing strategy

    high · Neil: 'I did pay less than the retail price... I reckon I saved three grand on a normal LE buy. So if Star Wars came to the UK, they'd save me three grand. You can get it shipped from the U.S. to my house for almost the same price as putting it on a boat'

  • ?

    product_concern: Spooky Evil Dead LE experiencing extreme UK delivery delays; Neil paid deposit in August and full balance in August but game has not arrived as of recording date (appears to be late 2024), resulting in 1+ year total wait

    high · Neil: 'Literally, on Monday, I paid the deposit for my Evil Dead. In August, I paid for the balance. The game still isn't here yet... Yeah, so everyone listening to this in the UK, hey, hope you like it. You've got a whole freaking year to wait for it.'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Beetlejuice features innovative mechanical topper described as 'Black Knight on steroids,' smooth servo-based operation, sandworm mech with complex movement, chair lock mechanism (inspired by Evil Dead), and three-flipper layout with upper playfield; narrow body cabinet choice likely influenced by Evil Dead's wide-body production challenges

    high · Scott on topper: 'That topper makes me go, wow, I thought Black Knight was good, but that's nuts. That's like Black Knight on steroids... looks like it's running a servo right... very smooth mechanism'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Winchester Mystery House features exceptional visual quality and finish described as having 'aura' or 'glow' effect; all-sculpted playfield with no flat plastic elements; prototypes at Expo showed production-quality finish surprising for pre-release units

    high · Neil: 'It's like there's a kind of... You know that EL glow that you get on the EL paper glow thing? This game looks like it glows when you see it. The sides are shiny as hell... everything's sculpted i mean that's just nuts'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Carl D'Angelo's reputation for skilled gameplay, streaming quality, and methodical design approach directly influenced Neil's purchasing decision for Winchester; personality and streaming presence act as marketing force equivalent to traditional advertising

    high · Neil: 'I am buying this game because I know how good Carl is... in terms of his personal attitude to doing things the right way don't cut corners... Genuinely. I am buying this game because I know how good Carl is'

  • ?

    business_signal: Fundamental business model difference between Stern (serving 300-400 US venues requiring fast delivery within days) and boutique manufacturers like Spooky/Barrels of Fun (serving niche collectors with longer production timelines); Stern's venue dependency creates different design and production constraints versus boutique focus on feature-rich, thematic depth

    high · Scott: 'Stern are a bigger organisation they've got to serve locations when Stern announce a new game the businesses of about 300-400 venues across the US are dependent upon getting that game within a few days'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Neil questions Stern's value proposition at £13,000 LE pricing when Spooky delivers feature-complete games at £10,000 with superior sculpted playfields, innovative mechs, and thematic completeness; growing perception that boutique manufacturers offer better value despite smaller IP portfolios

    medium · Neil: 'when i look at like an le costing 13 000 and this costing 10 where is the value proposition from buying a stern at an le at the moment like it's flat plastic sometimes it's missing assets'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Fifth Element rumored as next Barrels of Fun announcement; described as 'the big rumor' with apparent community anticipation; Scott's wife cited as major advocate for Barrels of Fun releases

    medium · Neil: 'she praises Fifth Element. Fifth Element, that's the big rumor, isn't it? It is.'

    • There you go. Right. So a lot's happened. So I was at Expo, a lot of new games there. I mean, personally speaking, I think I mentioned this in the last podcast, Star Wars Arrives, before I went to Expo.
    2:07
    Actually, there's a funny story with paying the guy. Let me just tell you the story very quickly. I don't know if I told you it, actually.
    2:15
    So there's a really good guy in the U.S. I'm not going to say who it is, but I bought this off someone. I didn't buy it off a distributor or a dealer, so none of them can get in trouble. Stern, if you're listening. But someone pinged me saying, I know you went to Star Wars. I can get you an LE if you want. And I was like, yep, thank you very much. They got it to me. It arrived. They actually shipped it before I paid for it. So hats off to this guy. He's a glorious, glorious friend.
    2:42
    And then I sent him the money. And in the process of sending money, we discovered one thing. He had told me the wrong bank account number. to which I was like, that's not going to be good. Now, here's the thing, right? In the past, when I'm buying a game from where I require I have to do an international money transfer, I usually transfer like 50 bucks to test it. No, this time, the full whack, right? I'm like... You just don't care, mate. You're just pulling those 50s out of your wallet. That's it, man. I'm like the little old lady in Looney Tunes He's just shoveling 10 quid notes into the fire.
    3:24
    That's JGP buyers. But look, so I put a query on it with my bank. He put a query on it with his bank. Luckily, his bank was quite like a local regional kind of bank, whereas mine's is, well, it's a bank, right, a big bank. and anyway the long and short of it was they bounced it for a few reasons, one of them being the account number wasn't right but when they bounced it instead of sending it back to me they sent it to a place in the twilight zone of their bank a holding area I imagine this was going on for like three or four weeks So I'm shitting myself thinking, holy shit, I've pissed 10 grand up the wall. And he's like, I'm 10 grand down. And although in some respects I was kind of relieved that it was him that told me the wrong number as opposed to me. You entering the wrong number, yeah, would be a lot worse. Yes. So anyway, the good news is his bank found the money, sent it to the right place. and when I went out to Chicago we met up and had a long cold one to celebrate the fact that banks are shit and it was it's weird actually when you live in the day of like PayPal and Revolut and all that other stuff right where money can be just sent to an email address it's far easier and then you've got the shit show of the regular banks but I mean to be honest this was a sizable chunk of cash as you might expect for a but I did pay less than the retail price. So, you know, I got a good deal, and it was incredibly cheap to ship over. And I reckon I saved three grand on a normal LE buy. So if Star Wars came to the UK, they'd save me three grand. Anyway, that'll probably go down super well with all the distributors in the UK. I haven't seen your stream yet on that. You can play it? No, I'm going to do one. To be honest with you, Scott, I've been out flat out of work. I was, like, in Chicago. Then the following week, I was in Miami. This week I'm here, but I had a bunch of meetings with partners and suppliers. Next week I'm in Saudi Arabia. Honestly, I actually played a game of Bond and Black Knight yesterday, and the dust on the glass is like thick. It's bad, isn't it? It's ridiculous.
    5:53
    I feel horrendous given there's like 25 games in here and they're not getting played. Anyway, so the good news is it's here. Actually, right now, for a few days, you can play it in Pinball Republic. So if you want to go down to Pinball Republic this weekend, you can play it. It won't be there forever, but it'll be there for a little bit.
    6:12
    And the feedback, so I put it there yesterday. The guys played it in the league last night, and the feedback's very positive. Despite the negativity of the game, this is actually a very good game. I know it's not got, like, some massive Death Star mech or, you know, the Yoda doesn't fly out of the middle as a 3D hologram, but it's a fun game and I expect the more people play it the more people will be interested in it of course assuming it ever comes to Europe which it might not so I see you've been working on a few games despite your tired state I'm just trying to funnel the money to get some cash ready for this Winchester that's going to be obviously arriving sooner or later um yeah it's it's good i've been kept busy i've been offered to do more but i'll be honest with you i think i'll take a break over christmas you know it's space is a problem and in all honesty anybody who knows british weather you can't get anything done outside when you start hitting the winter months it's just yeah it's awful i know the weather's been horrific this week um here in the uk so look um although probably not the the kind of storms that they've seen in the Caribbean recently. That's true.
    7:30
    But so, yeah, so not really a lot of movement in our collections in that respect. No, I have got June hopefully arriving. Oof. I mean, it's supposed to be imminent. There are apparently some delays, unfortunately, I think, if I'm honest with you, as to do with the tariffs. Well, actually, I know that it's not. It's to do with the government shutdown. Ah, okay. Because I heard it was part shortages that were there, but maybe not then.
    8:02
    So there should be no tariff issue on the way in. So if you were sending it there, then you would get tariff issues. But no, the government shutdown, which has just been lifted, has affected air freight, it's affected customs, all of those things. because when I was in Miami, I nearly got stuck there because the air traffic controllers and the security people in TSA downed tools. Oh, right.
    8:30
    And that's obviously a problem. Well, they're not getting paid, so would you work if you're not getting paid? No, I've heard the story of some people not being paid for months, right? It's pretty crazy in this day and age. Nevertheless, it's sorted now, so hopefully it'll get sorted. but yeah so look June interesting hopefully I mean we mentioned Winchester so I was at Chicago Expo and I think the last podcast we did was just before that we had Rob on, last minute guest who again put on a great show thank you Rob, thank you for looking after us all the Brits actually and the surprise of the show, literally a couple of days before we went I was in the US when it got announced is Winchester. The Winchester, what was it called? The Winchester Horned House. Winchester Mystery, I want to say Mystery Mansion or is it Mystery House? Mystery House. Yeah, WMH, yeah.
    9:28
    And let me tell you my quick story of WMH. So, Scott's heard this before so he's going to have to fake it because we lost an episode. But my internet spies told me that um mr d'angelo was working on a pinball project this was in april of this year and i pinged him i said hey carl here you're working on a pinball project and carl's response was who told you that which made me immediately say oh it's true then carl then denied it which of course he would and uh and i you know i understand that and carl i love carl he's one of the best people i've ever met in my life amazing guy um uh he uh you know he said no i'm not working anything busy at work blah blah blah and then on the morning that it got announced tom graff of um triple drain fame and fox city's pinball fame one of my best buddies he pings me and he says oh have you seen carl's new game and I replied to him and I said I replied to him and said who's the manufacturer and he replied barrels of fun I literally phoned David and said David I want the new game David at Retro who's the dealer for yeah the UK distributor for barrels and David said what do you mean and he goes Winchester I was like yeah that must be it and then I sent him money for the deposit and hung up.
    11:06
    And then I went to look for what the game was like. I remember you messaging me going, have you got Winchester? Are you buying it? Cancel Dune. Get Winchester. I was like, I'll do one better, Neil. I just spoke to Holly. She says I can have both.
    11:21
    You're the bowels of fun shell, man. Do you know what? We need to talk about this later, but have you noticed the Frenchie Christopher Fry's Spooky Shill t-shirt. I'll get you a Stern shill and I'll have the Battles of Fun shill. How's that? I'm no shill, man.
    11:40
    It amazes me that people the shit people don't realise the shit that I give Stern is equally as bad as the shit I give him. What I don't allow though is nonsense where people say, oh, Spooky are going to make a thousand games and they're so good, Stern's finished. A thousand games is literally a rounding error. for Stern.
    12:03
    That nonsense just makes me chuckle. Anyway... Let's talk about Winchester. So I got to play it about four or five times at Expo and the thing, Scott,
    12:16
    that really... I don't know how to explain it, but it's like there's a kind of... You know that EL glow that you get on the EL paper glow thing? that you used to get. This game looks like it glows when you see it. The sides are shiny as hell. Yeah, it's got that kind of spiritual look to it, hasn't it? Yeah, and it just feels like there's an aura around it. It's really hard to explain until you see it. And these were obviously prototypes, kind of first, I think they had four games there that were off the line.
    12:53
    just the finish and quality of it looked fantastic. same cabinet that they use, nothing different there so yeah I got to play it and I would say it's probably their most challenging game yeah I've heard it's difficult to shoot it's got some challenging shots it's not difficult, you just have to it's just the shots just aren't an uneasy fan, they're kind of, there's a couple on the far side, there's a couple there and then there's another flipper that's pretty tricky, it's got some wonderful mechs, this thing that spins round this kind of weird lift thing.
    13:34
    And the music, I mean it was hard to hear it but what I did hear of it was very impressive. The display is fantastic. They hadn't quite done the work on the back box, you know the backboard display that all barrels of fun games have got. I've got to talk to Carl, I've got to talk to David Van Ness, who has agreed to come on the show, even though we don't do guests. Yeah. Because I said to him, Luke, Scott is your biggest shill.
    14:07
    I'm not going to lie. I've said this to you on our unfortunately lost recording, but my wife is a massive Barrels of Fun fan. Yeah. She cannot wait for them to announce the next title, which she praises Fifth Element. Fifth Element, that's the big rumor, isn't it? It is. but I mean from my point of view it's great because every time they release a game I go can we get it and she says yes I really could care less if I'm a shiel for it they need to buy Stern and you get all the Stern games yeah I mean look and actually interesting I had a good chat with David he's such a good guy and yeah he's such a good guy and makes time for everybody I had a great conversation with him and And he said, you know, Jim, some things we should have done slightly differently, but we learned from it. And I say you learn from it quickly because on this launch, you've totally smashed it. This is what I'm finding with these boutiques, right? They have the ability to take and learn and iterate and innovate really quickly. Like every release is becoming that much better than the last. And I feel like, you know, at least when I looked at Winchester, my, I suppose, four patterns were different to yours. One was I like Carl a lot. I do watch his streams a lot. I eat pimples, how I know him.
    15:28
    And his gameplay just makes every game look easy. I hate it how good he is sometimes. But from my point of view, when he did the relaunch, if I were to call it, of Dune, that's what changed my mind to buy Dune. His gameplay, his capture. He has such good camera work. He's got such a personality that helps you engage you with what he's doing. he talks you through everything i just feel like when i'm watching him play i'm watching someone who's an ambassador of pinball i really do feel that he's a he's a person i feel like there are far and few between that are good on camera and good at playing pinball and he does both well so yeah i mean he's the kind of gold standard for streaming yeah um and you know we've we've we've Carl and I have done tech stuff, the wireless stuff that we use for streaming on the rig. So Carl was one of the guys that designed the kind of movable rig. Oh, right.
    16:26
    And he was using this wireless equipment. I've bought loads of stuff because I get to borrow it because at the time I was working for, I was involved with BT Sports. We got the broadcast gear to test. and I've been on I've commentated for Indisc a few times and he runs a really I mean just the effort he puts in is on another level and I'm just hitting reload on the old web browser there in case this comes up we might have to pause the Winchester talk but yeah I mean Carl's a great player and that you know i kind of put them in the kind of view that great i believe great players can make great games and and the evidence speaks for itself you know you've got lineman sheets multiple world champion building the best rule sets there ever is and obviously walking dead remasters just hit as well which we'll try and cover yeah um you've got keith ellen who has just changed pinball forever, in my view, with probably the best all-time selling game ever. I feel like he definitely kick-started the new renaissance of pinball, without a doubt. Yeah, I think, well, again, it kind of just depends on when you came in, but for me, the Walking Dead and the rule set that it has was a step change in how pinball was. Okay. And I put it at them for kind of starting this whole – hold on, I'm just seeing that there's a pinball. Oh, okay. So Spooky is an hour away, mate. It's an hour away. Yeah, I've just gone to the website. Sorry, just talking about distraction. we're going to jump live to it we might squeeze that in at the end so yeah and he did it with ACDC added stuff to a bunch of other games and in Pinside you'd hear about a new game and the first question everybody asked was who's on code and the minute it was Lyman everyone phoned the distributor and bought a game I didn't realise Lyman was on it from the get go I thought he came in to fix the code, but maybe I was wrong with that then. Walking Dead. No, no. So, yeah, I mean, it's kind of weird. There's some story about some other guy being involved on the making of Walking Dead, but apparently he was always involved from the start. Lyman kind of shied away from the limelight, unfortunately, because he deserved it. but yeah it's kind of how do you say I missed the guy I was lucky to meet him a number of times every single game that's been remade is a Lyman game Monster Bash Attack from Mars Medieval Madness Metallica is a Lyman game Walking Dead and I even think he might have had some involvement in Roadshow not Roadshow what's the game with Rudy in it? Funhouse I think he might have been a junior coder he dates back to the Williams years there's lots of stuff on a couple of pinball movies super talented guy let's face it amazing and we miss him dearly so I genuinely think that's where this kind of started So someone like Carl who's good at pinball, he does these pinball challenges. In fact, he's doing one right now on World Poker Tour. If you've been tuning in, he was streaming last week. Actually last Sunday I think during the day or it might be another day It was at a time where it was easy for me to watch And he you know well he picks the hardest games to get to the wizard mode and he does these wizard mode challenges And if you go look at his YouTube, he was, he was doing one on big buck hunter where he was drinking this Japanese booze and was getting thoroughly, thoroughly hammered. And I think I'm a bit ill at the same time. So, but great guy. And then, so I just kind of knew this is going to translate into a brilliant game, which is why I didn't even need to know anything about it. Genuinely. I am buying this game because I know how good Carl is in terms of his knowledge of pinball in terms of his pinball skill but also in terms of his personal attitude to doing things the right way don't cut corners, do it the right way and taking time and thinking methodically I thought this game is going to kick ass so I played it four or five times the queues were pretty long candidly. There was four games there and it was the kind of big show of the show.
    21:43
    There was a couple of other things there, but that was the big thing. And literally the game is phenomenal. It's a bit tougher. It's not a Steve Ritchie type flow game. There is flow there on some of the shots.
    22:00
    And the thing I definitely like about it there's this kind of rule set with the haunted house. So it kind of reminded me a little bit of Alice Cooper, a little bit of Elvira, House of Horrors, as you might expect, because both of them, you're in a house, right? Sure. No shit, Sherlock, right? But, and the thing I'm really looking forward to, it wasn't in the code at this time, but they're going to have these kind of ghosts moving around on the back glass, very much like what it reminded me of was Luigi Mansion. Yeah. On the old GameCube. similar kind of vibe to it. The call-out sounded great.
    22:40
    And, you know, the great thing about this theme is, I mean, people, it's kind of a public domain theme in that it's something that is there, not a lot of people have heard of it. The mansion's actually in kind of San Jose, Santa Clara, actually right next door to where I normally stay when I'm in Silicon Valley. so when I'm next door there I'm going to go visit the place apparently it's got I didn't even know that the Winchester had this big you know what started off as a farmhouse I think it was and then it got orchestrated into this giant conglomerate of like 147 rooms because she was the wife of the Winchester estate lost her husband very early on, lost her son very early on, then obviously got approached by or she went to, I'm not sure how it went, to this medium and the medium said, you are being cursed by everybody who's died by the Winchester rifle. Because obviously that was the rifle that everybody had the rifle that won the war. So as a result she was told, you know, you need to go to this place, you need to buy a house and you need to change the room you sleep in every night to appease the spirits or confuse the spirits. And she took that very seriously because then to the day she died, that house was extended and staircases lead to nowhere. And you've got doors that lead out into the open that if you walk through, you'd fall flat into the cement floor. Like it's crazy. It's a house I definitely want to see just to experience personally. Yeah. I mean, so Winchester is obviously the shotgun rifle manufacturer. and of course all the people this is the history of America with guns which let's not go into for sake of our lunacy or sorry our sanity but yeah it kind of dates back to that I think it's got a good background story and obviously they've probably taken it in some directions that apparently there's a film or a TV show on it or something as well. Documentaries galore that you can watch yeah I mean for me I like I mean I came from a different angle to you I mean yes Carl was definitely an influence in buying it but I also watch Jeff quite a lot so Dirty Paul as most people know and found out obviously he's on sound design he obviously did a lot of work for Dune and then he was the lead sound designer for this game and I think I just like the way he does stuff and I'm very in line with his thoughts and views on things when he said he based a lot of the inspiration based on Seventh Guest. I'm going to stop you. Because the trailer is here. The trailer is here. Oh, we're going to go live, boys. Let's jump to sharing this. Hold on, let me... Because last time I did this... Hold on.
    25:37
    Let me just pause it. And then let me share screen window. Right, here we go. It's about as live as it gets, boys. We haven't seen this. This will be a complete, genuine reaction.
    25:59
    Okay, how are we doing? Okay, here we go. Let's hit the play button. Let's wait until the end and we'll talk. Sure.
    26:20
    Thank you. Wow. I'm sorry, Neil. That's phenomenal. Phenomenal. That makes me jealous. I'm not going to lie. I mean, don't get me wrong. I love Barrels of Fun. I love Winchester. but going back through that, I mean, I don't know if you saw, like, it's got the magnet that captures the ball and throws it back into play, a bit like the inspiration from Fall of the Empire, right?
    27:58
    Well, actually from GoldenEye is the first guy. Oh, so GoldenEye did it, okay. GoldenEye did it then. That sandworm mech as well, the way it moves, and the topper, that's insane. Yeah, I mean. That really does take, like, everything to 11 there. So, look, here's a few things. First of all, the colors are super bright, which suits the theme, right? The theme, yeah. It's in keeping with the theme. And I'm not a BOJ's fan. Here's what I took of it. It's like a fan layer with an upper flipper. Sure. So it's going to be easy to shoot. People will like that. Yeah.
    28:33
    I like that kind of like upper play field that isn't an upper play field. Well, sorry, not an upper play field. You're right. It's like a top flipper. Yeah. With this kind of upper play field. You're right. Upper play field that isn't an upper play field. Yeah, it's weird, right? there's obviously, it looks like there's something underneath that big, and this is the thing, I don't know Beodew, so I don't know what this thing's called, but that big mech that moved it looked like there was something underneath there I think it's just called a sandworm, but yeah Sandworm, is that what it is? Well that's what it looked like, I guess and then you've got the chair lock which is kind of a bit of a take on the ED, the evil dead lock. Sure, yeah, I agree But look, in terms of, and also the other thing is a narrow body Which I'm kind of surprised about I honestly thought it would be a wide body But yeah Spooky said it was a narrow body Quite some time ago And I think One of the things And I again read between the lines I think Evil Dead really taxed them on There's so much on it Just lifting the play field up Almost a two man job on that game But the artwork Looked amazing Then again, Chris Franchi smashing out of the park. Can't fault his work.
    29:49
    There's a couple of things I didn't like about it. First impression. I wasn't sure about the wire frames. Oh, the wire forms, you mean? Yeah. The colours.
    30:02
    I mean, that's in keeping with the theme again, because he is very, like, you know, you watch Beetlejuice, he's very eclectic colours. I just, I kind of like silver gold. I mean, I know Evil Dead's kind of dark blue, so you don't notice it so much. Love the armor.
    30:19
    It looked like it had video mode as well. Video mode where the skills look fun. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a huge thumbs up. For me, a huge thumbs up. That topper makes me go, wow, I thought Black Knight was good, but that's nuts. That's like Black Knight on steroids. That looks really good. Have you seen the Evil Dead topper? Yeah, of course. Yeah. I'll be honest with you. I think that one looks better. yeah very smooth mechanism looks like it's running a servo right yeah I mean it definitely looks interesting very well lit as well very Tim Burton when I think about it yeah I mean if you hid if there's a way you could hide the things that make it Beetlejuice you would think Tim Burton and it's got that kind of feel to it.
    31:15
    Very bright, very crazy, lots of different colours. I mean, if you're a Beetlejuice fan and you haven't bought it, I think you've done yourself a disservice. Yeah, I mean, if you do like Beetlejuice, I mean, for me, I'm going to wait until I play it because I'm not a fan of Beetlejuice. I mean, being a thousand of them, at least it's more likely that you might get someone that's in some way. I'll get a game, no problem. If I want one, I'll get one. I'm not worried about getting a game.
    31:48
    I mean, the thing is, though, here's what I don't want to do. Literally, on Monday, I paid the deposit for my Evil Dead.
    32:00
    In August, I paid for the balance. The game still isn't here yet. But is that a victim of what happened, as you said, with the earlier, the TSA stuff and the strikes and everything? No, no, no, no, no, no. It's just a year to get the freaking game. Oh, you're talking about the production run. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so everyone listening to this in the UK, hey, hope you like it. You've got a whole freaking year to wait for it.
    32:24
    To me, I am done with waiting for games. I am going to go the fastest way. If I win the game, I'm going the fastest way of getting one, right? Sure. And then I'm getting one. So right now, I'm thinking, I might just phone Spooky and give him my credit card. and just get it shipped over myself rather than wait for whenever Phil wants to get them. Because I'm not – it's not a criticism of Phil. Well, I guess it is a little bit. But, you know, he's got a bunch of Harry Powers coming. He's got Evil Dead coming. He's got a few – you know, for me, I can get a game shipped from the U.S. to my house for almost the same price as putting it on a boat, right? And that's one game which is different to a container. Containers, you know, if you amortise it, it's a lot cheaper. But the reality is, is in this day and age, it shouldn't take what, August, September, October, it shouldn't take four freaking months to get a game. I'm sorry, Pinball World, I am no longer waiting for a show like that. But, going back to the game, so the three flippers, obviously He took the bomb, that one at the top, with a little kind of roundabout thing, kind of reminds me of the underplay field of Evil Dead.
    33:45
    Feels like on this side, there was a bit of influence from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the ramp. You need to specify what side, by the way, for the podcast. Sorry, yeah, for people, so the, actually, and obviously those listening, all you heard was the music. Yes. Apologies for that, not a lot we can do about that. but on the left side it does feel like there's a bit of influence from Texas Chainsaw Massacre and actually that's not a bad thing because that ramp shot if it is the same I need to watch it again was actually a very fun shot so look congratulations to the whole spooky team I think they're right someone said this before I can't remember who said it but the modders are going to have a hard time putting anything on that because nothing's flat plastic everything's sculpted i mean that's just nuts when you think for the money this is why i know you like stern right and we're not saying you're a shill but when i look at like an le costing 13 000 and this costing 10 where is the value proposition from buying a stern at an le at the moment like it's flat plastic sometimes it's missing assets and sometimes it's like, you know, you feel like, okay, they couldn't get this done, couldn't get that done on the IP, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is everything. You've got, if you are a Beetlejuice fan, I can't see something that's missing from this IP.
    35:13
    Yeah, I mean, this is kind of the downside for Stern, which is I wish there was as many Beetlejuice fans as there are Star Wars fans. Yeah.
    35:22
    Because, you know, the star reality is, so Spooky serves, you know, they're in a luxurious place to some extent which is there's a thousand buyers out there that will take a game like Beetlejuice whereas Stern are a bigger organisation they've got to serve locations when Stern announce a new game the businesses of about 300-400 venues across the US are dependent upon getting that game within a few days yep um don't get me wrong stern know how to pump a game out and if you want a game as you said to your point rather than waiting a year for it you can get it in three months like in three weeks for my star wars so yeah it's true you know i just personally that i look at like you know the powder coating okay you're not a fan of the wire forms get that but i'm looking at a still of it at the moment i'm just like flabbergasted by the amount of color and mechs and stuff on this playfield. Like, that's from a proposition of 10 grand. Okay, 10 grand is a lot of money, but in the world of pinball, that's the price of a premium, and it's got everything. It's got everything on it. Like, you know, I mean, I want to see personally, if Stern are going to maintain this price quota of 13K for an Ellie, I want it to, like, knock the socks off of Beetlejuice at that money. Yeah, I mean, what's the U.S. price for Beetlejuice? 10,000 US so it's the same so Stan's what 13,000 LE 13,000 US so it's 3 grand difference and is it would you say there's 3 grand of extra value no there's not probably right not at the moment it doesn't take them like I guess it depends on the game because if I look at Metallica I would say yes yeah that's the thing right it's not every game but yeah there's i think there's challenge look at kong there's not fit there's not 13 grand's worth of value well three grand's worth of value there um above i think there is what we're doing no no no no we're not talking about gameplay we're talking about between the gameplay is all about no no no you're missing the point between premium and the le yeah where's the free grand gameplay no you're again you're not understanding me Kong premium Kong LE 3 grand justify for me oh ok well there's a bunch of stuff that you get it's probably not 3 grand's worth but we've started it never has been so the gap between the LE and the premium you've always been able to get the premium with the LE stuff on it for way cheaper than 3 grand that's never been an issue right yeah so i mean and i get it so you know i think the better better conversion comparison from what we've just seen is premium from sterling which is the same price sure uh and and then you're clearly there's clearly a gap there right yeah um i think in my mind um again when you're spooky and you've got you know you're serving a thousand games and you've got a much smaller manufacturing facility, it's in the middle of nowhere, Benton, where the cost to run will be even much cheaper than what Stern have got today, or JGP for that matter.
    39:00
    They're not a million miles away, but then I go to the pro level, right? So I can buy a pro from Stern for three grand cheaper than what Spooky are selling. For some people, that's a big deal, right? Oh, absolutely, but I don't think there's... But the gameplay, this is the point, the con gameplay, right so kong versus evil dead kong pisses all over it for gameplay but i'm absolutely miles jaws jaws has got like five games in it it's got the original game it's got the jaws 3d thing it's got the shark is broken it's got all these modes yeah right you buy jaws you will be playing that for a lot longer than you're playing evil dead and it's not to say that evil Dead's a bad game, it's a great game but for me, the gameplay is everything, that's why I have to play something like Beetlejuice to know whether it's a game that works for me Yeah, I was going to say, but this is the thing, right if this does play well your argument around gameplay falls flat on its face because this then has the whole package obviously time will tell, we'll have to see what happens right, from what I can see from the consensus of people it's at the moment it's living up to the hype that's a very glorious looking game I mean I think they've done a great job here's my example right Alice right it looks great it plays like a fucking dog I mean it is an awful game oh yeah but let's temper our expectations here we just have to wait and see we can't judge the game until you've played it right but visually this is a 10 it looks great I think it looks great I'd visually give it a 9 because I don't like the theme. Yeah, I get that. The thing is, right, I'm like you. I'm not a massive Beetlejuice fan, but that is giving me FOMO. I'm not going to lie. That is giving me FOMO. I was like, what can I sell?
    40:58
    It looks great. I think, like, I'm so glad that Spooky are stepping up because obviously in the history, right, Scooby-Doo was a bit of a letdown. Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Stroke Looney Tunes was an average game I just feel like they are learning and they really are now stepping up to become effectively like JJP right now they becoming more of a I think they overtaken J You think Okay Oh 100 Okay. 100%. I mean, I think Evil Dead – I mean, look, I think you make a valid point, right? Yeah.
    41:36
    Up till – and this is the argument I have with some of my Texas buddies on our little WhatsApp chat as well as laughing at Marvelous on the forum.
    41:48
    The great thing about this situation is, literally, if you said, Neil, you can have any spooky pinball game that you want,
    42:04
    it'd be easy for me. I don't want any more than the two that I've got. I've got Evil Dead and TNA and the rest are shit right they're not good games Alice Cooper was close but when you're playing a game and you then have to go dig two balls out the back box out the cabinet that's an issue when you kick the ball into a scoop and it suddenly adds 40 million points it's one of the early games though isn't it they've come a long way in four years for me right at the moment I like the fact that if they had an IP that I loved and cherished, if you asked me four years ago, I would have said... Yeah, so if they had an IP four years ago that I really loved and cherished, I'd have been like, oh god, it's going to be a bit ropey and mediocre, right? Now I'm just excited.
    42:57
    They're good. At least at the moment, visually, this game ticks the boxes. I feel like I can't wait to see the next release. This is an exciting time. The thing that I like about Spooky is, and it's kind of unfortunate, so they have the last two games, so I think up to probably including Looney Tunes and TCM.
    43:25
    And I think they've realised that doing those double skins is too hard. Yeah, it doesn't work. yeah right they feel like one game is made for another it's a bit like family guy and shrek right oh yeah but that's no that's entirely different that was that was basically a cheap move from stern but when no i mean i get why they do the two mode the two games because you've got texas chainsaw massacre which isn't a kids theme so okay for kids we'll do looney tunes and it makes that makes a huge amount of sense right it hasn't let's be let's be honest it hasn't worked i mean they've done that a couple of times now um ultraman and um halloween halloween and both those games all those four games have suffered because of that in my view the code has taken longer the code's not as good although i would say that the code on uh tcm starting to get interesting but ultimately i think that they suffer from that and then he has the ability to ramp up production no so their current factory is basically at limitations already well they've i think they've moved like three or four times right um and i think the thing is is i think if they do ramp up i think their product suffers that's my fear so look why don't you have a solid business that sticks out you know maybe they can you know speed up a little bit but they're literally you can stick out i'm gonna guess roughly about 1250 games a year it pays the bills yeah you get a decent amount of money out of it um you know do they you know unless they're
    45:05
    unless they're super ambitious to to really go big because because this is the point you can stay boutique or you can go massive what you can't do is sit in the middle yeah because you need to keep the factory running you need to keep designs coming off and that's why Stern's got six pinball designers because they need to keep that factory moving right but they suffer you know I mean I've had a couple of issues with Evil Dead recently now that have been frustrating to fix thankfully I've got there in the end but the thing is they make up for on service this is the thing Spooky this is the thing that they listen to they got to the end of Halloween was a disaster for them because and actually Fair Play Spooky showed the game before they put it on sale which is I think the first time they've done that they normally put the game on sale then show it and to me that's always a bit sketch and Evil Dead it really pissed me off when they did that because that's a massive theme for me right so anyway the they learned from Halloween that reliability and serviceability and dependability was important and they didn't get it right in Scooby-Doo, in fact they went even worse on Scooby-Doo yeah, it did have plagues with issues right, shoot a coil and stuff like that loads of issues, ball stuck was the big one any time I was playing Spooky in a tournament, the tournament director who literally stood next to the game to unstick the ball every five minutes. I think, like, for me, I just didn't like the fact that three-quarters of the playfield, because of that massive upper playfield, you couldn't really see what was going on half the time. Yeah, there were some things up there, like the weird flipper, I can't remember what it was. Yeah, the bookcase. That was quite innovative. I don't get it wrong. They're nice, innovative ideas, absolutely. And I like the code they did, like with the oxygen and stuff like that. Yeah, I think the code. I think they used the assets well. And this is the thing that, like you said, Scott, when they get the assets, they get them all, right? Yeah, that's good. so, you know, and then they went through Looney Tunes and TCM and that, I know from a few folks that was painful reliability-wise. Oh, really? Yeah, I mean, they've also been through, they've had a lot of different board sets, they've now settled on the Warden one, which I think, they hired a proper electronics guy, as I understand it. It's not quite at the level it needs to be, but it's a hell of a lot better than it used to be. Let me put it that way. That's what I mean, In four years, they've really come a long way. I feel like they've made a big improvement. Why do you say four years? I look at, like, Evil Dead. Well, Scooby-Doo is when things started to change for me, in my opinion of them. I felt like they were very cliquey, kind of, like, you know, bit janky, is probably the word I'd use, for their games. And then when Scooby-Doo came out, things started to, like, pick up. The art would look better, more polished, look more professional. The game looked more professional. and then after that Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes again they looked better, the artwork looked better I thought TCM looked awful depends on your point of view right I think if you're a TCM fan you probably would have liked the colour scheme themes but you know it's not for everybody but my point is that it felt like, well we'll speak about orange later shall we, but yeah from my point of view it just feels like they've had a trajectory of just going up and improving each time now and Jamie felt like No, I'm sorry. I challenge you. 100% no. Okay. They have improved once with Evil Dead. That is not a trend. I'd argue that the artwork, the sound, and the code has improved.
    48:52
    No. So Alice Cooper is still one of their best, best coded games. Rick and Molly is one of their best coded games. Code on it is good, but the geometry is terrible. Yeah, but that's deliberate though That's what people don't get It's the Rick and Morty thing You've got one guy that's stable, the other guy that's crazy So one half of the game is crazy And the other half of the game is stable Scott designed it like that By the way, in Chicago, I beat Scott at TNA We had a $5 bet And I beat him I'll retire early with that All the guys at Pinball Life Terry, Maggie, the whole team there They showed us around phenomenal place. It's amazing. Actually, pinball life are really more in pinball than everybody realises. They're a bigger player than everybody realises. Anyway, back to Beetlejuice. I think what I want to see, this is what I want to see from Beetlejuice.
    49:50
    I'm going to put my operator hat on. I want to see a reliable game that builds on the great progress they've made in Evil Dead. Number one. Number two, I want to see the code move quickly certain aspects of Evil Dead that I think have gone a bit slow I want to see them move quickly on the code I want them to put more things into the code to help debug issues like debugging I had this weird thing where the ball wouldn't eject out of the right scoop on Evil Dead and the diagnostics that the game gives you even a Barry Williams game I would have been able to debug it quicker right and also I'd like to see them do something online they should phone Scorbet because I know Jay and the team would love to work with them I'd agree with you there I'd like to see something with online capability from these boutiques we're missing that at the moment and then the key thing is so again they took a big step forward on the playability of Evil Dead and it's you know I honestly think all their games until TNA before that play-wise are awful.
    51:00
    Alice Cooper, if it wasn't so unreliable, they were close to it on that. They went downhill for sure. Halloween was just horrific in my view.
    51:10
    So they've now stepped this man, and look, here's the difference between Scooby-Doo, sorry, Scooby-Doo, you know, the pre-Evil Dead games to the post-Evil Dead. Pre-Evil Dead, what was it, how many they made? 800 or something? Yeah, about 850, something like that. 800, right? They didn't sell them out on day one. No, because people were, I suppose, spooked, if you want to excuse the pun, over potential loss of value, right? Because spooky games in the past have really degraded in value. Yeah, they've tanked. No, Evil Dead has not happened. No, it's not the opposite.
    51:47
    Looking at Beetlejuice, I don't think that will happen either, right? No, I don't think so. At least it will hold its value, probably. yeah and a thousand though when there's a thousand or something it's hard right, it's not as limited you're going to get somebody out there that buys it, gets bored of it quickly and then flips it yeah there'll be loads of people with three games can only have three games, gets to the wizard mode gets bored of it although I think this is an advantage of the collector focus that Spooky have got some of the Texas guys Paul, he's a big Beetlejuice fan. Sure. So, literally, if this game was Beetlejuice sitting on a toilet having a dump, he would have bought it, right? Right. At least it's better than that. Yeah, it's definitely better than that. So, and then, you know, looking at the layout, it's a fan layout. Safe layout, isn't it? It's hard to go wrong with that. Yeah. Actually, we took Star Wars to the club last night, the new Star Wars. Do you know what, I'm getting a bit of scared stiff vibes from this, looking at it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That left ramp looks like the snake shot if you know i mean yeah and and look it's um i mean to some extent people might argue with us it's there's a kind of fan-ish layout on scared stuff um basically so but actually it's interesting oh here we go i can't find um have you got i can't find pictures of of it of what sorry of beetlejuice oh i've just got it paused so i've got like a frame paused a good shot is uh nine seconds in like you can get like a good view of the play field of the shots of the ramp you can see pretty much the other thing it wasn't obvious what the sound was like um basically i think that's because again it's typical youtube video right they haven't put anything copyright on there because they don't want the game to get flagged.
    53:49
    But it's not obvious what the sound is. They even stern up that problem. They really says gaming. Yeah, no, absolutely.
    53:59
    Absolutely. I think it's interesting. They seem to have two links. Went down Artblade route as well. It's interesting. Interior Artblades. Sculpts everywhere.
    54:11
    Like three I would say three stand-up targets that become like a motorized drop like the uh monster bash right with the yeah yes yeah exactly exactly so i'm looking at it now yeah i mean you've got the coffin that's very um very uh what's the word i just scared if like yeah scared stiff stroke house of horrors theme on this for me and i think if you had any of those games and you like them this game's gonna fit nicely in that i mean if you a horror game, you're going to love this, I think. Yeah, it's great. I'm loving the colours on that sandworm. It looks crazy.
    54:50
    I'm struggling to see from the flipper, though. Yeah, you have to be quick with your pause button, is all I can say, Neil.
    54:59
    Is there another flipper in Evil Dead? As far as I can see, there's nothing in the slingshots. If that's what you're referring to. That's good, because I think that's awful. Do you know that's one thing I didn't really get used to on Evil Dead was the fact it was a bit of a dead bounce when you expected it to kick and of course it doesn't because it's not it's a flipper I mean this literally is like it's kind of far distant fan layout and yeah the ramp with the guy with the mask actually it looks like Rob Cutler after a few beers I mean they've got Winona Ryder on there do you know what I mean from the slingshots I mean literally there isn't a minute of the movie that isn't in the game and I think they're to be applauded for that they've rammed it I don't know if there's as much on this as there is on Evil Dead it's an unfair comparison right as a stand body game I applaud them for squeezing so much stuff in there four ramps. What's annoying is I can't see where two of those ramps return to.
    56:15
    I see what you're saying. Really, two of them... Actually, no, I can't. They both return to the same flipper area, one before the switch and one after the switch. I've just found another thing. Have you noticed they've got an LED in the top left corner in the back board area rather than the back box area? Yeah, there's a mystery scoop on the right-hand side. And then there's a bunch of modes across.
    56:41
    I just noticed the Beetlejuice sign as well. It's spelled badly like he used to. Yeah. That's quite funny. I like that. The side armor looks good. I mean, actually, and it's not. It's interesting because everyone was saying it was a light purple color, but it just looks more dark. Do you know, a quick random tangent, by the way. Did you see the USS Enterprise Lego collector's thing that came out? did you see they had on the plaque it said to bold ego rather than boldly go really yeah terrible print mistake i couldn't believe they added that in there i think if anyone ends up with it with saying to bold ego instead of to boldly go um they probably got a more rare piece right so i imagine they'll correct it in production well i don't know if they will because they've been making that they've been so i've i've gotten into lego um my friend did the design for the apollo rocket for Lego. All right. I don't know if you saw that, but I mean, I'd be amazed if they made that mistake. It definitely has it on the plaque.
    57:49
    Yeah, normally. So NCC 1701-D, and then it has the statement that says, to boldly go where no one has gone before, and it has to boldly go, which is quite funny. Anyway, back on the game. Yeah. I mean, like, do you know what I haven't seen? I can't tell if this game has got a shooter plunger or if it's just an auto plunger button. I don't know if there's a shot. I'm going to go with an auto plunge. Oh, it's auto plunge. I just caught it. Yeah. So it's a typical, like, feels like a WPC 95 game in that respect, but never mind. Yeah. Yeah, so basically the ramp on the, at least on the right side, goes to the same place. Again, before the switch and after the switch, so it kind of knows where it is. and it looks like the outline's got a way of whacking the ball on that side if it is the outline it's hard to tell it looks like you can nudge it into the in lane and then on the other side let's see if we can see it yeah again it looks like it's the same thing before and after oh no it isn't, yeah it is the outline because that's the shooter lane, yeah that looks interesting I don't know if I like the apron is probably the only thing I can say but hold on let me just go back there for a sec I love the way it's got a mini Polaroid camera in there as well it's again it's got a lot of Polaroid on it though interestingly they've got let's play charades they've got singing in the stairwell they've got D-Day Party Planet Extra Bowl Sugar and Seen on TV All You Know's Seance I don't know the movies that well I watched it years ago It's got sandworm battle Sandworm multiple I'm trying to see what's under the sandworm though There's a bunch of targets It looks like there's something down there Yeah I think it's a subway system so probably what happens is the mouth lifts up and I've noticed at the back of it's mouth there are two targets you need to hit and then it seems to drop down probably into a subway system And then you've got this kind of number thing on the back which I can't see the text above it to tell what it is on the backboard yeah okay yeah there's a target thing yeah you're right just looking at it that looks interesting it does basically that's almost like a bash toy right that's quite cool it's called Baraloid oh yeah the camera yeah yeah I genuinely I'm trying to think back have you ever seen a playfield where it's not an upper playfield and it has that kind of like cordoned off section that is basically uh in itself a small uh play field in a way on a level with the play field itself the answer is yes but i can't think of the game okay but i've definitely seen something like that before um yeah i mean they've got a long they squeeze three pop bumpers in there as well i didn't even notice that they've got a long rail at the back oh yes now serving so it's a ticket thing um at the back um there's a couple of spinners.
    61:02
    I mean, yeah, it looks, I have to say, in terms of stuff on the playfield, it looks fantastic. They've totally smashed that. Definitely, I think, you know, Stan, Josie, Jack, they'll be looking at and even your shield department. They'll be looking at us thinking, wow.
    61:21
    Do you know what? This is what I love about pinball at the moment. I say this with the utmost enthusiasm. I'm really happy that we living in the day and age of pinball world that we are now i i was listening back to like you know i was a city i i because we hadn't our podcast obviously got deleted and i was listening to one of the other ones because i'm sad like that and and and i was like god we are so lucky to be alive right now to be like playing all these games and have all this choice and fight over what we think is best i i love it i just i i love the fact that pinball has come back and it's at the moment it an exciting time to be talking about games and experiencing them all It really great Yeah I mean 990 people are going to be very happy when they get their game, no question about it. So Luke, conscious of time, we've been yakking on for an hour.
    62:16
    Let me just check what time I have to be somewhere yet. 4 o'clock, so we'll need to calculate. So Luke, So there was a bunch of other things that came out Predator Yeah have you seen they adjusted their quantities down to 300 trophy editions now? Is that it? Yeah so I don't think they've got a limit on their standard version but they've limited their upper tier option to 300. Yeah but there's no difference in the games though is there? It's just think of it this way it's like adding in powder coating and stuff like that Yeah basically bollocks Trimmings. I played the game and I really wanted... I love the Predator theme. Arnie is one of my heroes.
    63:01
    It was guff to coin a Glaswegian phrase. There's two shots on it. The two outer shots were great. The middle of the game was just like a blind guy designed it and hit the button. The bit over... Don't hold back, Neil. the left there's this left I'm going to call it the predator swamp that isn't what it is but that's what it felt like because you hit your ball in there you've got no fucking idea what was going on with it and then the flippers were dire it's weird though because I've seen underneath the hood now they're actually Bally Williams mechs yeah so but I mean this is the thing Bally Williams mechs there's different you can get different types of Bally Williams mechs. They look the same but they're not made the same. They're made with different thicknesses of steel. Actually you go to Pinball Life and tell you there, you know, you'll say you know, here's one of our call stops and it doesn't break whereas another you know, Stern's call stops, they break. They could fix that easy. But it costs money, right? Although I do think Stern have fixed that now. But nevertheless it's, you know, it felt cheap.
    64:21
    The playfield felt like wallpaper. I think they're going to really struggle to shift the units now when you've got something like... Isn't it in the US? It costs like 13 grand anyway. Yeah.
    64:37
    They're not. I mean, you compare it to what we've just seen and it's laughable. They've got no assets. The playfield looks like there was literally a run-on jungle wallpaper. I mean, let this be a lesson to any manufacturer out there, honestly. If you can't get all the assets, and some of the assets are key, do not do it. It's just not worth it. Exactly. This is why there's a couple of games Stern have dropped, because they weren't able to get all the assets they wanted to. Smart move, yeah. You know, and it's frustrating when that happens, but I mean, the other thing is Pinball Brothers, hire a designer. Yeah. Because you know, the notion... They've obviously got the financial backing to do something they just need the right talent right that's all it is talent is money if you've got talent money comes easy yeah and i may i'm sorry queen abba i mean this is better than abba don't get me wrong but it's it's just uh it's like and and you know you got all the folks that love alien buying it and then suddenly realizing it's nowhere near alien and let's not forget they didn't design alien no andrew highlighted right yeah a pro designer designed uh alien they should hire someone you know there's plenty of them around in retirement but they'll do a game for you um no question about it please and please don't get any more themes i like um because i've this year blues brothers and predator my dreams have been trashed yeah and actually i I thought it was going to be three for three because I wasn't convinced Evil Dead would be as good as it is. It's fair to say. Happy to be proven wrong, right? Oh, and that one massively. That's why I've got two of them, right? Amazing. So, yeah. And then what else? Walking Dead. Let's quickly cover that. Walking Dead gate. Everyone hates the colours. I think the artwork is stunning. I mean, you say too orange of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but why Walking Dead? I mean I'm sorry look we said this before unfortunately on the recording that was lost but for me if you're a theme fan of Walking Dead you know what the colour palette is and you know it's desaturated you know it's gritty you know it's a world which is apocalyptic I know you argued with me and I'll let you speak about it in a moment on your thoughts on that but for me it does not fit the theme I get it fits pinball because you want something to be colourful I just don't think it fits Walking Dead and there's plenty of people out there who agree with me. No, no, no, absolutely.
    67:15
    But look, just because there's plenty of people who agree with you doesn't make them right. So, look, I think this is definitely going to be one of those cases where when you see it in person, you will have a different view. I'll be honest with you, though, Neil. Go back to that value proposition. I'd rather buy an LE original at 7K than I already would. like and and yeah absolutely it's half the money i'd rather spend the other half buying money towards a beetlejuice which at this point is probably going to be more than double than what people have paid for because i just yeah the hype on that thing's gonna go nuts the thing is i would actually buy this game for 30 grand because it's got the best code ever designed in a pinball machine walking dead okay yeah i mean like yeah i see what you're saying though I do like the code on it and I loved Horde mode and anybody that says the extra action buttons not needed is on crack, I'm sorry it's just nuts like why did they do it for a good damn reason the premium the big difference with Metallica Remastered is there's a lot less Metallicas around sure and the uplift yeah because they were going for good money right you could still sell an LE OG for like good money about six and a half seven um i thought people were offering 10 at one point right but maybe in the u.s we're talking here um dollars nah i can't well people are paying 10 grand for a new one they're they're mental um i mean i've got a premium and the le and actually the topper i got the topper for the le um finally finally found one cost me a small fortune but that's okay not David Bishop money though but yeah I think the gameplay is going to be it for me I think I wish there was in some respects I wish there was a bit more in it than what's there but in other respects I don't want to wreck the game I don't think if I was at Stern would I have picked Walking Dead to remaster probably not I'll be honest with you stop making remakes I'm not interested No one wants to play a game that, unless it's super rare and you can't get it anymore, I mean, I can pick up Walking Dead today without any hassle. Yeah, I know, but this goes back to the whole factory thing. So, Luke Stern does three Cornerstones, but they always did two boutique games, right? Forever. So, you know, Elvira was a boutique game. You know, they did Lornelli. They did Batman 66. They did Bond 60th. These are all boutique games. So, you know, obviously the interest in boutique, you know, them doing, and they did a couple of specials for, like they did a can crusher and stuff like that. So they've got a couple of slots in their build. And actually the rumour was that they were going to use one of those slots for Back to the Future, but couldn't get agreement with it. I was going to say it's a shame, right? Because, God, if Dutch have got it, we're complaining it takes a year to get a big release. I'm going to be retired by the time Back to the Future makes a big play. I'm going to make a bold prediction that that game never comes out from Dutch. I'm making that bold prediction. Well, to be fair, that happened with Cuphead, right? Apparently that's been axed. Yep, and they're working on another game entirely.
    70:47
    I think from what I understand, the license expired but that was a very bad call. David Ficks picking Barry's rather than Cuphead to release and it cost him his job frankly David fixed a mate but that was a bad choice I genuinely don't want to see American Pimple fail because I think Galactic Tank Force is a good game yeah it's ok I think there's potential there I just think they were close but no cigar they needed to just and again you talk about value you can pick one of them up for like i mean in the u.s you pick one up almost for six grand that's a bargain honestly yeah yeah but i don't think they're making any money on that that's the problem they're just inventory right at this point just trying to get rid of stuff so um and then the other thing uh obviously star wars we talked a little bit about that but um you know star wars this this is a game done very quickly because the story i heard about it was um they vaulted the old star wars which upset a lot of dealers because it's a game that sells incredibly well.
    71:59
    So they had to quickly come up with a replacement for it. I just wish that word quickly just makes me shudder. Styles and quickly should not go together. I don't know if that's the truth. That might be me BSing, but that's the sense I get. I mean, I just feel like I want Stern to kind of like go, I have this IP and we're going to balls to the wall on it i want to see like what they are definitely capable of doing it a hundred percent like i just want to see them go i hold my beer kind of thing like like when keith elwynn did that original like uh live demonstration of godzilla he drops the mic i want to see that again that's the stern i want to see so look they got this if if pokemon is the next ip uh i can't think of a bigger IP for them to... Massive title, yeah. Although I would have said Star Wars was the title they should have rolled out. I genuinely thought Star Wars, Spike-3, here we go, big bang. And let me tell you, right, I mean, I know it's not in the kind of mech land or sculpt land of what we've seen from Spooky, but as a game, the playability of it is outstanding.
    73:13
    I can't comment, so I try, I suppose, but yeah. Yeah, they've nailed it. It really feels like you're in a Star Wars thing. There's even this bit, one of the modes is hand versus, is it Guido? Who shoots first? Who shoots first, okay, yeah. It's fucking hilarious, man. Ray has smashed it.
    73:31
    Put it this way, I took it to the club last night and it got a thumbs up from just about everybody. And if you want to play it, it's in Pimble Republic for a little bit of time. It won't be there forever, but it'll be there for a while. The only game in Europe, I can guarantee that. The only one in Europe. well the only one that works you don't have to talk about it too much because it would get you in trouble I imagine anyway was it difficult did you find it challenging to make it work in our country considering the restrictions let's call it that he's having a think he has to be careful with his words I don't know I just plugged it in and turned it on sure okay that's fine we'll leave it at that I cannot tell her why I plugged it in, turned it on and played it I don't know you've either got it or you don't so yeah I hope they release it in Europe because I think it will sell well over here I think it is a good game and so again we're fast approaching the finish of clock I think this worked out nicely though we ended up watching a live reaction to Beetlejuice indeed so I'll try and get this out whilst people still care about live reactions hopefully Riverside won't delete it but yeah Luke I mean a lot going on at Pinball World you said it earlier Scott and actually I meant to agree with you people talk about the golden age of pinball you're in it it's not don't get me wrong Monster Bash and Attack from Mars and that WPC 95 era World Cup soccer and Judge... They're okay. But they're not what we've got today. They're not even close. The choice we have now and the competition is just wonderful to be in. I love it. Indeed.
    75:33
    I'm looking forward to hopefully get in Winchester soon hopefully my Evil Dead because I'd like to so my Evil Dead's literally been on tour because I'm such a nice guy apparently, you know, I was reading something on the forum that made me chuckle which was there was a debate about the whole number of games sold that came up from some of that postage which, you know, I'm pleased to confirm they're the right numbers so I must have upset a lot of them because they love watching you fail now yep but the fact is you know what's great about it is no matter what they do I'm always funnier than them at gags I think just living rent free in their mind is more beneficial glorious every time Kaneda posts about me he does talk about you a lot I know it's glorious it's fucking glorious man it makes me laugh I get everyone pigging me because I'm actually banned I was banned from his channel because I kept asking him hard questions that he couldn't answer and you know what I never had asked you why you got banned was that it one day I just couldn't so I was asking him tough questions I kept telling him to stop banging on about price because I'd fucking heard enough of it talk about the game and the game features but he can't do that because he doesn't play pinball right anyone who's got a Guns N' Roses is like an on-patch to pinball deserves to be carried out and put in a concrete galosh and never seen again so him and my fan club on Pinball Info they always make me chuckle and actually on Pinball Info this is where I was going I loved it I loved being told that I do nothing for the community it is a strange thing to say that made my day when i heard that um nothing for the community so you know my uk my pin site my my pin fest t-shirt is for next year i do nothing for the community um i'm actually going to print out the quote on the uh on you know the pinball info i think you need to know you need to have it so you said i got the room but I didn't donate. Ah yeah, that as well.
    78:03
    Yeah, so when I, you know, imagine this go right, I'm going to pinball at the beach. I reckon there'll be maybe four or five, maybe even six Beetlejuices there. Cool. Who knows, I might get drunk and buy one. Oh yeah, because they're technically doing showroom machines aren't they? Yeah, and I could ship it home and then I could like do nothing for the community and take get to pin fest um no i just that just cracked me up i am genuinely like i think i can't think of anybody i actually know that's getting one in the uk i think is ant getting one i can't remember he doesn't like he doesn't like no paul's getting one okay yeah captain polaroid's getting one um and it's texas shooting dave bishop getting one no he's stupidly bought he's stupidly bought an Alice.
    78:58
    He's an absolute banana for buying that game. When are those arriving in the UK? It must be soon, right? They're almost finished. I think they'll hit... Well, it depends on which Phil puts them on a boat round fucking Azerbaijan.
    79:14
    But they're imminently about to arrive is what I'm hearing. Christmas presents for everybody. Here's hoping. I'm kind of hoping that Walking Dead might be shippable over air freight. I'm sure you'll find a way, Neil. I think this is the thing, I kind of wish I hadn't, but I'm buying this through Phil and Electrocoin.
    79:39
    And I know I could get it quicker than them. And literally next year... I genuinely don't think you would have struggled to pick up an LE at the moment. They're not selling out. Oh, I don't think you might want to say that, mate. I think they're selling better than people realise. It's like Star Wars. some dealers are sold out because they get out on the phone and they sell them others have got a few but I know of three dealers that sold out of their Star Wars sold out of their Walking Dead LE and are trying to get the games out of other dealers that they can't sell maybe it's like you though, they genuinely love that game and they're just buying it because they love what they had in the original and the other thing is the number of pros and premiums that are selling right now I mean honestly I was in the factory seeing these games getting shipped out and also the Costco games they can't make enough of those games Costco one's doing well is it the Star Wars one? seems to be don't want to see that fail in all fairness no and now they're talking about actually I can't say that I nearly said something there I'd be shot for saying that I'm going to shut up there Right, okay, we're run over.
    80:56
    We'll be back before Christmas with our Christmas jumper special. Indeed. And if we can't, we might try and get, let's try and see if we can get David Van Ness on next time. Let's pick a date, put a date in the diary and we'll try and get him on. Yeah.
    81:13
    And try to persuade him to ship a Winchester at early doors. I've been negotiating that, let's say. Okay, great. keep it going anyway Luke, everyone congrats to Spooky for a great launch, congrats to 10 out of 10 for their launch the game looks fantastic if you're a Beetlejuice fan you must be doing whatever Beetlejuice does hot diggity or something I'm sure I've got no fucking idea I'm literally although I'm Gen X people say this guy He's a boomer.
    81:54
    Anyway, with that, it's goodbye from me. Oh, and Scott. Yes. I have fixed the titles. Oh, yes, yes. You said in the last recording. I have fixed the titles. Yeah, yeah. So Scott's name, after only doing this for two years, Scott's name is finally spelt right.
    82:12
    You can thank me later. You're progressing. Yes. You can thank me later. Yeah, so we'll be back in December with a Christmas special.
    82:19
    If you want us to talk about anything, feel free to ping us. on our Facebook page or Messenger. Scott and I are both on Facebook. Look for us there. And all that remains is for us to wish you a great run up to December. We'll see you then. It's goodbye from me. Goodbye from me. Goodbye.