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This Flippin' Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 15m·analyzed·Sep 7, 2020
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Pinball podcast host announces hiatus; co-hosts deep-dive Stern's new Avengers: Infinity Quest by Keith Elwin.

Summary

This Flippin' Podcast hosts a wide-ranging discussion between two long-time pinball enthusiasts about their evolving relationship with the hobby. One host announces a hiatus from regular podcasting due to burnout from the hobby's explosive growth, toxic community dynamics on Pinside, and life pressures. The bulk of the episode focuses on enthusiastic analysis of the newly announced Stern Avengers: Infinity Quest pinball game designed by Keith Elwin, with detailed discussion of playfield layout, the Captain Marvel ramp innovation, and Elwin's design legacy. The hosts reflect on pinball's growth from niche to more visible, but still tiny, market presence.

Key Claims

  • One host is taking a break from the podcast due to lack of drive and excitement about discussing pinball hobby developments.

    high confidence · Direct statement from one host: 'I have to take a break from the podcast... I still love pinball... but I just don't feel like I have the drive and the excitement to talk about what's going on in the hobby.'

  • Keith Elwin's first three games (Iron Maiden, Jurassic The Park, Avengers: Infinity Quest) are all likely game-of-the-year contenders.

    medium confidence · Host speculation: 'It's likely that we're looking at a third potential game of the year for the pinball industry... just based on sort of the buzz and talking to operators and collectors, it seems like everyone I know is ordering this game.'

  • The Captain Marvel ramp on Avengers Premium/LE is exclusive to those versions and not on the Pro model.

    high confidence · Host observation: 'That Captain Marvel ramp... has me so excited... it like reignited some passion for pinball... sadly it's not on the Pro, which is what I think has convinced more people than I've ever heard talk about getting a premium.'

  • Stern Avengers (2013) had Hulk mechanical issues causing ball jams and stuck balls, leading to typical arm removal repairs.

    high confidence · Host reflection on old Avengers: 'Hulk caused a lot of ball jams, ball sticks on that game. So that's a typical repair.'

  • The new Avengers game uses comic book licensing rather than film assets to reduce costs while maintaining pop culture relevance.

    medium confidence · Host analysis: 'They take what I assume is most likely the cheaper route by licensing the comics versus the film... saves you money while still tying into something that's very pop culture relevant.'

  • Stern Avengers: Infinity Quest YouTube videos have garnered only ~31,000 total views across main trailer and feature videos.

    high confidence · Host detailed count: 'Avengers Infinity Arcade Quest trailer has 14,000 views. The premium LE features has 12,000 views. Pro has 5,000 views.'

  • The Avengers Premium/LE playfield has at least four to five ramps, including an Avengers Tower magnet-lock feature.

Notable Quotes

  • “I still love pinball. Like, I play every day, you know I get excited for new games and stuff but I just don't feel like I have the drive and the excitement to talk about what's going on in the hobby.”

    Tommy (host announcing hiatus) @ Early in episode — Core motivation for co-host departure; captures burnout from hobby growth and toxicity

  • “And with that, it's brought a lot of unpleasant humans is how I'll phrase it. Yeah. And a lot of just not fun aspects to that side of the hobby.”

    Host discussing hobby growth @ Mid-episode — Reflects community sentiment about toxicity and hostile personalities entering pinball space

  • “I basically said, if Keith Elwin is releasing a game, I'd line up to buy it regardless of what the theme was because of how impressed I was with Maiden and Jurassic The Park.”

    Host (Johanna Taylor) @ Mid-episode Avengers discussion — Demonstrates extraordinary designer trust; indicates Elwin's exceptional status in modern pinball

  • “That shot alone said to me, like, I need to play this game. Now, sadly, it's not on the Pro, which is what I think has convinced more people than I've ever heard talk about getting a premium.”

    Host describing Captain Marvel ramp impact @ Avengers analysis section — Shows how single mechanical innovation is driving collectors toward premium pricing tier

  • “I watched it back at .25 speed the other day. So I could really, like, because, I mean, realistically, the ball is moving fast, and they're following a lot of the shot paths.”

    Host describing obsessive engagement with Avengers videos @ Late episode — Illustrates deep engagement with new game previews in micro-community

  • “There are more people who believe in QAnon than give a shit about pinball.”

    Host (dark humor observation) @ Discussing pinball's tiny market share — Emphasizes scale disparity between pinball niche and broader cultural phenomena

  • “It's like seeing his progression from Maiden to Jurassic The Park makes me want to play and own his next title, which is Avengers. It's like seeing like his growth of being a designer just in his first two games is like, dude, OK, I trust you.”

Entities

Keith ElwinpersonJohanna TaylorpersonTommypersonStern Pinball Inc.companyAvengers: Infinity QuestgameIron MaidengameJurassic The Parkgame

Signals

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Significant community sentiment shift noted regarding influx of hostile/toxic individuals as pinball grows; hosts attribute this to platform overexposure and vocal minority dynamics on Pinside forum

    high · Host: 'And with that, it's brought a lot of unpleasant humans is how I'll phrase it... a lot of douchebags... the volume of Pinside is so massive that it's just out of control... toxic members... are just posting incessantly'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Captain Marvel ramp on Avengers Premium/LE represents novel mechanical path that 'defies gravity' and is unique in modern pinball; single innovation credited with reigniting player passion

    high · Host: 'That Captain Marvel ramp... sending this ball in a new uncharted path that pinballs have not traveled before on a play field... it looks fucking awesome... reignited some passion for pinball'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Modern pinball market increasingly driven by designer reputation rather than theme or specific mechanics; Keith Elwin's name alone sufficient for major purchasing commitment without prior knowledge of game details

    high · Host: 'I basically said, if Keith Elwin is releasing a game, I'd line up to buy it regardless of what the theme was... I reached out to my distributor... I want to put my deposit on it. You know, without knowing for sure what it would be... I just had faith in what Elwin was designing.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Avengers strategy of placing major innovation (Captain Marvel ramp) exclusively on Premium/LE versions is driving unprecedented collector interest in premium models over standard Pro version

    high · Host: 'That Captain Marvel ramp... like reignited some passion for pinball... sadly it's not on the Pro, which is what I think has convinced more people than I've ever heard talk about getting a premium'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.407

0:00
Thank you for watching. Thank you. cases in your school? They're saying it's against the law because it's like a HIPAA thing. I'd have to actually read my school emails for that to matter. I'm pretty checked out on the year, I won't lie.
1:16
You've been in school a week. A month. You've already been in a month? Yeah. My kids go back Monday. Or Tuesday.
1:28
Virginia is, I think, maybe all Virginia, at least central Virginia. We've been going, but we'll go back the day after Labor Day. But I think next year. Yeah, a lot of states. I know Michigan and Illinois are like that, too. I mean, it's all right.
1:43
I certainly, I'm ready for my kids to go back to school. But they won't be. They won't be the only one. They won't be. But actually, our school system is interesting because they are, the school board is meeting every two weeks to decide if they should go back to school.
2:02
And then at that point, they are going to give them like a week or two weeks to go back to school. But not all students will go back to school because some people have opted out of going back, even if the school board decides to open schools because people don't agree with what they're doing to protect teachers and kids. Yeah, that's how our school is. We have, like, about 100 kids across the corporation that are doing remote learning. So they're technically still registered in our school and stuff. They're doing everything online. And you're doing some of that as well, right? Yeah, I have to oversee all those kids now. So my roster went from like maximum 30 kids to roughly like 120. Good times. Yeah, it's awesome.

high confidence · Host layout analysis: 'We technically have at least four, maybe five ramps, depending on how you want to look at it... the Avengers Tower very target slash magnet lock... magnet grabs it... gets dropped back down to that upper flipper.'

  • The host deposited on Avengers without knowing the theme, trusting Keith Elwin's name alone based on Maiden and Jurassic The Park's quality.

    high confidence · Host statement: 'I reached out to my distributor... I want to put my deposit on it. You know, without knowing for sure what it would be... I just had faith in what Elwin was designing.'

  • Pinball viewership on YouTube is minuscule compared to mainstream entertainment—a botched AEW wrestling spot received 20,000+ views in 13 hours versus 31,000 for entire Avengers campaign.

    high confidence · Host comparative observation: 'A botched spot... has 20-plus thousand views already... as pinball, as much as it is a big part of our lives... it's a tiny decimal point of society.'

  • The podcast's listenership is highly self-selected and core—not accidental discovery—because pinball is such a niche hobby.

    high confidence · Host statement: 'Anyone who's listening to this, you probably didn't just randomly stumble upon our podcast. It's probably a big part of your life.'

    • Host analyzing Keith Elwin's design arc @ Avengers discussion — Explains why designer reputation now drives purchasing decisions over theme or mechanics

  • “Everything just became an echo chamber. And I'm sure, like, I'm sure people have released tons of episodes this week over Avengers, which is, you know, I want to talk to you about Avengers because we're friends and I think we both really appreciate the designs from Keith Elwin specifically.”

    Host explaining podcast fatigue @ Mid-episode — Reflects broader podcast ecosystem burnout; addresses repetitive coverage phenomenon

  • “It's like if Lyman is on a game, it was always like, you know, it'll get there. It'll get there. It'll get there. And I think with Elwin, it's the same thing. But Elwin is like represents the entire package for me.”

    Host comparing designer trust to legendary Lyman Sheets @ Designer analysis — Positions Elwin in historical context of legendary pinball designers; establishes designer-driven market

  • “And if you took all of Stern Pinball Inc. videos right here, which let's be realistic, I've watched all of them, so I'm at least one view on each of those. You're at least 1,000 views. You're looking at roughly 20,000 views for something that we have this much excitement about.”

    Host on YouTube engagement metrics @ Market analysis section — Quantifies disconnect between insider enthusiasm and mainstream visibility

    • Pinside
    organization
    Zombie Yetiperson
    Steve Ritchieperson
    Pat Lawlorperson
    John Borgperson
    George Gomezperson
    Dwight Sullivanperson
    Lyman Sheetsperson
    Nateperson
    This Flippin' Podcastorganization
    Stern Avengers (2013)game
    X-Mengame
    TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)game
  • ?

    licensing_signal: New Avengers game uses comic book IP licensing rather than film assets to reduce production costs while maintaining pop culture relevance; avoids need for actor likenesses and film-based voice callouts

    medium · Host: 'They take what I assume is most likely the cheaper route by licensing the comics versus the film... saves you money while still tying into something that's very pop culture relevant'

  • $

    market_signal: Stark disconnect between insider enthusiasm for major pinball release and mainstream market visibility; Avengers YouTube videos garnered only ~31,000 views total despite major collector hype

    high · Host: 'Avengers trailer has 14,000 views... premium LE features has 12,000 views... Pro has 5,000 views... roughly 20,000 views for something that we have this much excitement about... a tiny, tiny, tiny niche hobby'

  • ?

    content_signal: Podcast ecosystem experiencing saturation and echo-chamber effect; multiple shows covering same topics (Avengers) simultaneously creating redundant content and listener fatigue

    high · Host: 'Everything just became an echo chamber... I'm sure people have released tons of episodes this week over Avengers... I quit listening to every other pinball podcast... it's just all, it's nonstop'

  • ?

    product_concern: Historical parallel drawn to X-Men (7-8 years ago) where heavy LE production caused Pro model scarcity; similar concern raised for Avengers Pro availability given premium exclusivity driving demand

    medium · Host: 'I'm very curious if this will kind of turn out like X-Men from whatever that was 7 or 8 years ago now when that came out and very few pros of that game seem to exist because they released so many LEs back then'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Shift in purchasing behavior away from theme-driven selection toward designer-reputation-driven purchasing; Keith Elwin's track record now primary decision factor

    high · Host: 'Even when I knew what Turtles was, and I knew John Borg was behind it... I was apprehensive about it... Because I owned other Dwight Sullivan-coded games... I wasn't willing to commit... but then to see that I waited... I'm really happy that I did that'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Keith Elwin's mechanical engineer (name not recalled by host) involved in rapid iteration of Captain Marvel ramp; collaborative design process yielded novel mechanism

    medium · Host referencing Stern Pinball Inc. Insider podcast: 'His mechanical engineer, whose name is escaping me at the moment, jumped, chimed in with like, dude, what are you doing? Give it to me. And the way that they came up with that ramp specifically itself'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Avengers game was designed and produced very rapidly; whitewood prototype completed within roughly one month of Jurassic The Park release

    high · Host: 'They were saying, like, they had their first Whitewood within, like, a month of Jurassic The Park being released. Like, they're moving that fast over there. It's really impressive.'

    • 2:52
    We're not here to talk about it. So I have to ask you, Tommy. Yeah. I think I have to take a break from the podcast. Okay. I mean, I just, so, I mean, we don't, I know that our thing has always been, and I'm recording this, but I don't know that I'll use it. But, I mean, we've always said, like, we can just do whatever we want. It doesn't really matter when we record. Like, obviously, we've taken long breaks. But, you know, we've, like, lived our lives and shit happens. And sometimes it's not always a priority to record our conversations. So my feeling, though, is that I'm like, like, I still love pinball. Like, I play every day. you know I get excited for new games and stuff but I just don't feel like I have the drive and the excitement to talk about what's going on in the hobby I get that and I and I feel like I feel like you do like I really like I because Tommy and I are on it like we were in a chat group with a couple people and we're like I I will say like I do have that group on mute because it's like just all, it's like, it's nonstop. Like there were nights where I was like up at 2am and my phone was just like bling, bling, bling, bling. I was like, oh man, I got to dial it back. Um, but like, I feel like we, I feel like I know what's going on in your life and I feel like I can keep up with you, but I feel like, I feel like you have a lot of like really good stuff to share about pinball. And I, I would hope that you would continue to podcast. I just don't think that I'm like the best partner for you. You know what I mean well you are my partner so i but i get it i support whatever you want to do uh yeah i i share many of those sentiments yeah i think the hobby has changed quite a bit since we started doing this um as far as the games go much for the better oh yeah absolutely uh largely what we'll talk about today i'm sure as avengers and at least i am very excited for that i am very excited about it as well i am i am yeah but i'd say the the increase in popularity of pinball much like anything you know you like a band before they get signed to a major label or a if you're me a pro wrestler who's wrestling on the indies before they get signed by wwe or ew yeah you're like part of something that's almost secret and it's awesome to share in that that secret enjoyment yeah and Now it's, like, by no means mainstream because I'll talk about something I noticed specifically with Avengers later in the episode.
    5:35
    But compared to what pinball was when we started recording this, it has blown up. And with that, it's brought a lot of unpleasant humans is how I'll phrase it. Yeah. And a lot of just not fun aspects to that side of the hobby. Whereas, like, you and me could sit and talk pinball or you and me can go play in our collections or with our locals and things are still cool. but yeah by and large a lot of douchebags like that's how I look at it I mean there was definitely I mean I've been in the hobby I I've been in the hobby a little bit longer than you have is that right oh yeah quite a bit I'm like I'm on like year nine so there were definitely douchebags when I got in the hobby um I think and I'm sure there's people out there who think we're douchebags as well there are definitely people who can think we're I think the big difference is just that, I mean, when I got into it, it took me like two years to even find RGP, which at that time was like, which is Rec Games Pinball, which is kind of Pinside before it was Pinside.
    6:35
    And then, and I'm not, and this is not against Pinside, because I do think that Pinside is an amazing thing. It's just that the volume of Pinside is so massive that it's just out of control. So as a person who I do use Pinside, like I use Pinside for my resales and I do my donations and stuff like that. But I think it's just the fact that like you see so many people, right? Like it's just the volume of post is so high. Overexposure. But it's also like if you, you know, it's that vocal minority. Like, I do think, like, if you go and you look at Pinside and you see, like, who a lot of times are the toxic members, a lot of times those are the ones who are just posting incessantly. So, I mean, I know, like, I would start a post and all of a sudden it would, like, derail into something where I'm like, this is not helpful at all. I'm trying to figure out a problem and it goes down some weird rabbit hole. And but, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know, man. It's weird. I mean, I feel like I've – yeah, it's one of those things that's, like, really tough. I mean, I think a lot of it is, like, with Avengers coming out, I knew that you were really excited about it. I'm really excited about it. I think it looks amazing.
    7:58
    But it was also, like, I just – I've been working on these landscaping projects at my house that have just been, like, kicking my ass, right? So, and so it's like, I want to talk to, I want to talk to you, but at the same time, I'm like, dude, I'm so, I'm so wiped out. That's why I was like, let's do it like in the middle of the day on Sunday where I'm probably not wiped out, but I woke up at 6 a.m. this morning and prepped my yard for sod and laid sod by noon. I wish 1992 Punk Rock Taylor could meet 2020 Taylor and be like, oh, you've got to get your guard ready for Sod. Awesome, dude.
    8:37
    Yeah, I know. I mean, that's the other thing. I'm 48. It's like I think I'm 48. My kids, like I have a high schooler now, which is mind-boggling.
    8:54
    Yeah, I don't know. I just think, I think part of, I don't know. I just think that pinball has become such a, it's a part of my life. Like it's a part of who I am, but it's not like I don't have that passion like I did. And you have to have that. I mean, it's like to talk about it without going off topic. I mean, I feel like our last episode, it was just like shitting on Trump people or, you know.
    9:23
    That's who we are. We did get, I think, like surprisingly more supportive messages about that episode than like anything we've done in a while. Yeah, which kind of totally interested me. I was like, that's weird. But most people were just like, thanks for, you know, like we said when we recorded. Like, yeah, we're going to talk about Pinball We Will today too. But like the reality is there's just more important things going on in the world. And we took the time to address them. And similarly to where some of the passion that you seem to have lost, like, I quit listening to pretty much every other pinball podcast because everything just became an echo chamber. And I'm sure, like, I'm sure people have released tons of episodes this week over Avengers, which is, you know, I want to talk to you about Avengers because we're friends and I think we both really appreciate the designs from Keith Allen specifically. So that makes me excited. But I'm sure we're going to echo what a lot of other people have probably said. And that's just the reality of what podcasts become. I've gotten really into pro wrestling podcasts and true crime podcasts. And I've realized, like, specifically through the true crime ones, because most are dealing with past events. Yeah. Like, oh, this show is now covering the murder that this show did. And I'm like, I already know this story now, and it's not as interesting. So there's just burnout at all sorts of levels of that. And that's part of, I think, podcasting and our society in general. But I do, I will say, like, I do, yeah, yeah, I'm right. But, yeah, that's where I'm at. Yeah. And if you're not down to do it, I don't know for sure that I'll continue. I may. I may not. But as always, if I do, you're always welcome back, man. Got to shoot the show here and there. I appreciate that. Yeah, I really just want you to feel like if you want to – I feel like you have a lot more – you have a lot more contacts than I do in the hobby. Like, I really do feel like if you could reach out to people and get interviews, I just don't feel like I'm in that world. I don't feel like I want to do that. Yeah, but I mean, but you know what I mean? Like, I feel like you know a lot of people that are really passionate about it that you could have on. Like, I think that that's one of the things, like, as having a co-host, that's always, like, a weird balance, right? Because it's like you want to include, you want to bring people on, but at the same time, it's like I just want to talk to you.
    11:49
    You know, like I feel like we kind of got out of the interview thing a while back where it was just like it almost became too difficult to try to hold interviews like with three people. So like I'll do a one-on-one or you do a one-on-one. But that's the thing is, like, I think that you could reach out to somebody who is really into Avengers and get really, you know, really do a deep dive into it. That's where I'm like, like, I want to play it. Like, it looks amazing. I want to buy one and put it in my lineup and just camp on it.
    12:22
    But that's where I'm like, that's, you know what I mean? Like. Oh, I get it. All right. Enough about me and more about Keith Elwin.
    12:33
    Yeah. Yeah, so I had a whole idea for this episode that I was just going to bring up while we were doing it, like we usually do since we don't do any sort of planning. I did roughly four minutes of prep work before we started recording here. So I put a lot of time and effort into this. Nice job. But one, like, we'll clearly, we'll discuss Avengers. We're both excited about it. We'll talk about what we're excited about on the title itself. but I thought it was kind of a good time to take a perspective look at this will be Keith Elwin's third release and so far we got game of the year, game of the year on Maiden and Jurassic Park and just obviously off of appearances and I did take the time less yesterday to listen to the Stern Insider podcast and hear Keith's discussing the rules to the game, which sound also amazing.
    13:31
    It's likely that we're looking at a third potential game of the year for the pinball industry. And just based on sort of the buzz and talking to operators and collectors, it seems like everyone I know is ordering this game.
    13:45
    And usually, like, I have a couple close-knit group of friends that all live very close to each other, and usually only one of them will get a game because they know they can all hang out and play it. And this time it's like even that whole group, everyone wants to order one. It's just that impressive looking. So there's that. But what I thought we could potentially do would be to take a long look at or a brief look at some of pinball's greatest modern designers. And I think that list would include people like Steve Ritchie, Pat Lawler, John Borg, George Gomez, and probably controversially Trudeau, who for all reasons, he's a terrible human being. but he did design some amazing machines at one point in time and basically compared their first three releases to Elwynn's. Oh.
    14:30
    Basically to give us perspective on how amazing of a time period it is that we're living in and being graced with Maiden, Jurassic Park, and now most likely and potentially Avengers, the Infinity Quest. All right. I thought that may be something a little bit interesting to look at. But for starters, what, looking at this game as it released this week, Taylor, got you excited to want to stand on it, camp on it, play it, and learn it? One, because I own Iron Maiden and I own Jurassic Park, and I know how good those games are,
    15:00
    I know that the game is going to have the depth that's going to keep me interested, right? So, like, right there, I'm excited. so just by knowing that it's Keith's game which says a lot I think has me really really interested I was really interested in Jurassic Park but it took me a year before actually getting one in my house so I'm not rushing to throw down money but the premium I don't know man the premium looks great The wireforms, the flow on the wireforms look incredible.
    15:46
    Yeah, it just looks like it's a really fun shooter, and I have no doubt that the code is going to be phenomenal again.
    15:54
    Yeah, it's amazing to say it, but the reality is, I know I've mentioned on the podcast before, because somebody else quoted us on a website or a podcast, that I basically said, if Keith Allen is releasing a game, I'd line up to buy it regardless of what the theme was because of how impressed I was with Maiden and Jurassic Park.
    16:16
    That, I mean, absolutely rings true. I got word that it was going to be Avengers just shortly before it was formally announced and assumed it was going to take the Deadpool comic book route, which I thought was also a good idea to get away from the film assets while keeping something that is still familiar in pop culture. But just that reality of having Elwin associated with it, I trust that he's not going to make a game. he doesn't want to play, and everything he's made so far was impressive enough to where I think today is September 6th, by the way, Sunday, and we recorded August 5th. So that's like two episodes within a month almost. That's pretty good for us. I know.
    16:52
    I'm bailing. I'm like, we're too consistent. Yeah, two in a month. I'm done. I've got to retire. Shortly after we recorded that last one, I did reach out to my distributor and basically said, like, I've heard the next game that's coming is Keith Elwin's. If it's true, I want to put my deposit on it. You know, without knowing for sure what it would be, when it would be out, I did that, you know, roughly a month ago. And they didn't confirm or deny anything. They just said, if you want to put your deposit down, you know, send me this much here. So I took that as confirmation that, yeah, it's Elwin. I didn't ask any other questions, but I didn't really care. I just had faith in what Elwin was designing. that being said and I posted this to our Instagram just that Captain Marvel ramp on the premium and limited edition version of the game like it has me so excited to hit that one shot on the playfield that it like reignited some passion for pinball that had like I dwelled a little bit during the coronavirus pandemic and the new form of life that we are all living in the United States, where it's like, yeah, I still play pinball. I still enjoy it. But a lot of times it just becomes, like, repetitious for me, like I'm playing, so that I stay in pinball shape for, like, tournaments and leagues and stuff. But I wasn't getting a ton of joy from it. That being said, I did try to do some stuff on Jurassic Park after our last episode when you were telling me about how you'd gotten to those mini-wizard modes. I had to go focus and try that. And you did. I succeeded. I got to the computer room wizard mode. I still have not got to the truck the T-Rex Wizard you haven't gotten it there?
    18:34
    see you're way better than you think Taylor tell me I know but like I wrote this little thing and then I got liked a bunch of people some people shared it and it's just the reality I literally look at that ramp and I felt re-energized about pinball and then to listen to the Stern Insider podcast which is free after the first 72 hours so if you didn't know you can go and do that go join for your free insider account and then after 72 hours when they release a podcast you can listen to it but to hear uh keith describe basically how they started to design that ramp it was really cool because although keith is i think he's he's actually an old dude like you he's pretty old oh man but not old but you guys are a little older than me but to hear like the excitement in his voice as like he just kind of randomly cobbled some parts that were on drastic part to try to form this new ramp. And then his mechanical engineer, whose name is invading me at the moment, jumped, chimed in with like, dude, what are you doing? Give it to me. And the way that they came up with that ramp specifically itself, hearing the story behind that was really cool. So a lot of credit to them for doing that podcast, sharing a little bit of the creative process.
    19:45
    Nate did a great job hosting it and asking those questions. And it's just really fun to hear the design team talk about what went into this game and really how quickly it was produced. Because basically they were saying, like, they had their first Whitewood within, like, a month of Jurassic Park being released. Like, they're moving that fast over there. It's really impressive. But that shot alone said to me, like, I need to play this game. Now, sadly, it's not on the Pro, which is what I think has convinced more people than I've ever heard talk about getting a premium.
    20:16
    Myself included. And that's been interesting as well. I'm very curious if this will kind of turn out like X-Men from whatever that was 7 or 8 years ago now when that came out and very few pros of that game seem to exist because they released so many LEs back then that'll be interesting as well but yeah for me looking at that ramp I was just like fuck I want to shoot that now just to be clear this is the ramp that does like basically the loop over twist right the looping twist yeah it looks to me like it's defying gravity and having seen Captain Marvel uh the film with Brie Larson which I really really enjoyed um and looking at that ramp it looked to me like the ball is traveling on the path a superhero would fly essentially yeah like it's defying gravity it's sending this ball in a new uncharted path that pinballs have not traveled before on a play field and it looks fucking awesome. Like, that's what got me pretty psyched about. I want to go, I want to literally step up to that game and I want to hit that shot. I want to know what it feels like. I want to hear the sound of the ball hitting the metal, traveling down the habit trail, dropping back into an in lane so I can try and do it again. Now, don't you,
    21:32
    the fact that you know that you're going to, the fact that you feel like you know what the shot is going to feel like, do you get that because you own Elwynn Games? Because I, But that's it. I don't know what it's going to feel like. I think I have, like, an idea, but I don't know. That's what intrigues me so much. Right, but you are putting it like you were saying that you feel like it's going to be a satisfying shot.
    21:57
    Oh, yeah, absolutely. But that's what I mean. Like, I think that that's, like, owning Maiden. We both own Iron Maiden. We both own Jurassic Park. I think, like, playing Maiden and then going to Jurassic Park, those are – I'm trying to think. I think that those are my last two games I've added to my collection other than, like, Firepower or something.
    22:20
    Right? Yeah. Probably, yeah. So, like, playing Jurassic Park, like, some of those shots just do not seem like they should make it. but it's so satisfying that they do. You know what I mean? Like the T-Rex ramp, now I have a pro. The T-Rex ramp is like you can, there's some times where it just makes the top of that ramp, and I'm like I have no idea how the ball carried it up. Or hitting the left loop from the upper right flipper where you're like, oh, that's not going around. And then you're like, how is it still going up the play field? And my game is not shallow.
    23:06
    Yeah, I don't know. There's just something about the geometry on Jurassic Park, even more so than Maiden. I mean, I think that that's another thing. It's like seeing his progression from Maiden to Jurassic Park makes me want to play and own his next title, which is Avengers. It's like seeing like his growth of being a designer just in his first two games is like, dude, OK, I trust you. I trust you that you're going to give me a solid game with solid rules that make sense, that aren't like, you know, convoluted or out of balance. I mean, it's just like, you know, that you're going to end up with something. I mean, it's kind of like think about Lyman Sheets rules, right? It's like if Lyman is on a game, it was always like, you know, it'll get there. It'll get there. And I think with Elwin, it's the same thing. But Elwin is like represents the entire package for me. You know, it's like, yeah.
    24:12
    It's, yeah, I fully agree. I don't think there's really any better way to express it than in Q3 Trust. But, I mean, when we're talking about literally for us, you know, spending thousands of dollars on, What is basically a toy, and for me to not be worried about that weeks in advance of ever seeing anything or hearing any details about it, to where I'm willing to commit financially to it, it's impressive. Because even when I knew what Turtles was, and I knew John Borg was behind it, who's somebody whose layouts I typically like, and I saw Zombie Yeti's artwork on it, it was amazing. But because I owned other Dwight Sullivan-coded games, I was apprehensive about it, and I didn't want to rush out to buy it. And Dwight has done some amazing things. There's no doubt about that. But I've also had games of his that I didn't enjoy, so I wasn't willing to commit the money for something like Turtles and then to see that I waited and this is what came next. I'm really happy that I did that, so I have my money for it when it was there and ready, and I can add it into my collection.
    25:18
    That I'm all excited about. What do you think of the title Avengers vs. one? Really surprising to have a new Avengers game out, right? Like, that's a title that has been done in the modern Stern era. Yeah, I think 2013 was when the other one came out. So you're looking at, like, seven years ago. And just like we started, as we talked about, as we started the show, think about how much pinball has changed in seven years. Yeah. Um, I can't tell you the last time I actually saw an Avengers machine anywhere. Oh, man. Um, I know I went to a minor league baseball game in Joliet, Illinois, specifically because my friend owned an arcade right down the street, and he had an Avengers on location at the baseball stadium. I feel like... That was the last time I remember playing it. I feel like I saw one somewhere, and it had, um, Hulk had its arms removed. Yeah, Hulk caused a lot of ball jams, ball sticks on that game. So that's a typical repair.
    26:24
    But I haven't seen it much. It wasn't super highly regarded. It's based on the first film of a, what, there's four films in that series, I think at least, that went on to become, what, the greatest earning film ever.
    26:40
    And that just culminated, what, was that last summer? Like, everything in time has worked for me right now. I think it was last summer. I think that was like, yeah, so that's like a year ago, which is when this would have been starting to design.
    26:52
    And then they take what I assume is most likely the cheaper route by licensing the comics versus the film. And then you're not as expected either to have voice call-outs from or likeness of the actors and actresses from the film series, which again saves you money while still tying into something that's very pop culture relevant. I imagine that's just really smart business decisions. and just personally speaking, if you look at the artwork on the two play fields, obviously when they use the likeness on the first game, it is what it is. You're getting like Photoshop clip art looking stuff. When you give an artist like Zombie Yeti access to decades worth of comic books and say pick out what you want, what area you want to use on the game and go to town, like you end up with this game. I look at the play field, man, and the colors and just the palette that he chose. It's stunning. I'm looking at it right now.
    27:49
    Yeah. So, like, self-confess, I can't even tell you how many times I have watched the Premium LE Features video on YouTube this week. Like, probably 20 of them, 20 times. I watched it back at .25 speed the other day. So I could really, like, because, I mean, realistically, the ball is moving fast, and they're following a lot of the shot paths. And when I slowed it down, I could watch and actually look at, like, the artwork as the ball is there and stuff. it was cool that YouTube had that feature. But as I was talking to you before about how we're still like, even with a big title like this and everything seeming like pinball is so much bigger and busier than it was, I'm looking right now at YouTube and specifically Stern's channel and the Avengers Infinity Quest pinball game trailer has a whopping 14,000 views.
    28:39
    The premium LE features has 12,000 views. and the Pro has 5,000 views. That's like a million views altogether.
    28:52
    But it's not. No, I know. That's under... So if you took all of the Stern videos right here, which let's be realistic, I've watched all of them, so I'm at least one view on each of those. You're at least 1,000 views. You're looking at roughly 20,000 views for something that we have this much excitement about. Like, we are a tiny, tiny, tiny niche hobby. Like, absolutely.
    29:17
    It's just not a big deal. People get more views, like, squirting toothpaste up their butts. Like, if you did it on YouTube. It's sad, but true. A million views easily.
    29:30
    AEW Wrestling had one of their big pay-per-views last night that I watched. AEW, American West. All Elite Wrestling. What is it? But there was a spot, a botched spot, where some wrestlers went off of a scissor lift and were supposed to land on a table, and they missed and hit the concrete. Oh, no. Yeah, right? So that was 13 hours ago, and just, like, the first YouTube video that comes up of it, just a replay of the video, has 20-plus thousand views already. Are you watching it right now? Yeah, it's awful. I'm not watching it. I'll wait. Don't watch it. It looks bad. They shouldn't have let the match continue. It was rough. That's crazy. But anyway, that's my point. As pinball, as much as it is a big part of our lives, and anyone who's listening to this, you probably didn't just randomly stumble upon our podcast. It's probably a big part of your life. In the big scheme of things, we are like a tiny decimal point of society. It's just really small and not that big of a deal. There are more people who believe in QAnon than give a shit about pinball. There's more members of QAnon. Come on, man. That shit's real. Wait, what? All right, let's talk Avengers.
    30:43
    I watched the trailer. I did watch the trailer a couple of times, so I am a couple of those views. Let's go over the layout, right? Let's do it. Which one are we doing? Are we doing the Pro or are we doing the LE? Are we comparing the two? Let's do the Premium LE just because that's what everybody's buying. And I'm personally more interested in that because I do think that, yeah, I mean, I think it. It's innovative as well. Yeah. All right, let's do it, man. I am looking at a picture of the premium play field. I am as well.
    31:22
    Okay. So. So to start with, we technically have at least four, maybe five ramps, depending on how you want to look at it.
    31:31
    Okay. That's amazing. It depends on, in my mind, if you count the Avengers Tower very target slash magnet lock as ramp.
    31:43
    I don't quite understand. So is that kind of like Baywatch where eventually the ball can pass through it? No. Okay. There is a magnet at the top. And basically you shoot the ball up that ramp and the magnet grabs it. Okay. I saw that. But there's nothing. It doesn't.
    32:01
    But it can come out from behind. Oh, no, it can't. It cannot. Nope. It goes to the top, and it gets dropped back down to that upper flipper.
    32:10
    So, like, if I were to picture this, like, you know how the tower ramp on Jurassic Park is? Yes. That's basically the tower ramp. Instead of feeding into a wire form ramp, it just feeds to a magnet that catches the ball. It just goes straight up and sticks. Straight up, sticks, and then it gets dropped. Keith did explain on the Stern Insider podcast that there is some rules to that. There's a Hawkeye mode, specifically where you shoot that, and it's like the Hawkeye Challenge. It will pulsate and release the ball and have a specific shot that you must hit within, like, anywhere from two to six seconds. It's part of the Hawkeye Challenge for, like, some big hurry-up points.
    32:51
    And as you advance through levels of that mode, it gets to where there's less shot split and a shorter amount of time that you have to hit it and stuff like that. But it also serves as the locks for the Ironman multiball. But it's just a virtual lock.
    33:04
    It is a virtual lock, yes. So the ball never goes up there and stays. Like it goes up there. It stays, magnet holds it. You have three green lights to the left of it. Those are your lock one, two, and three for the Ironman multiball. And then it drops that ball back down.
    33:19
    There is a up post below that but above the upper flipper that could potentially stop the ball at times as well. I saw that on one of the videos. It does that. Yes, it does. It's almost like a setup shot. It seems like it's a setup shot for the Dr. Strangelove or that ramp. Or that Gauntlet ramp. Yeah, which is crazy.
    33:41
    It is. Yeah, that's a crazy shot. So, again, I don't know if you consider that a ramp or not. In my mind, I do. It's made of metal. It sends the ball vertical I don think that a ramp I think a ramp has to deliver a ball from one place to another Fair enough So there debate Stern only considers there to be four ramps I do believe So you're probably right. You're on Stern's side. Did you know that? To me, that's sending a ball vertical. It's a ramp. But, yeah. Yeah, like looking at the picture, it looks like there's a vertical up kicker behind that. but that's actually coming from another area. Yeah, that's the ramp that's at the back of the playfield. That's like the right orbit shot feeds into that ramp.
    34:27
    Right? Yes, correct. You can plunge that ramp or you can shoot that ramp, and that one actually feeds to across the playfield. Now, does that have an uplift ramp where that actually feeds all the way? So if you shoot the left orbit, which goes through that hawk spinner, Correct. The ball actually comes out through that pop bumper path on the Captain America shot. Oh, wow. Man. So that actually travels underneath that ramp and comes back at you that way. And that's the only orbit on the game, right? On the Perineum LE, correct. Well, because the right orbit sends it up that ramp and back to the right end lane. That's cool. Yeah, I don't know why. I was thinking it was kind of like, yeah, I was thinking that there was a lift ramp back there so you could feed it all the way around. Maybe they could go in and do that.
    35:21
    Maybe, maybe. I'm not going to ask for anything extra on this game at this point. So you go right up the middle, and they did a really interesting job describing that center ramp. I was almost wondering if you'd listened to the Stern Insider podcast. No, I haven't yet. Because the way you described how the ball will frequently hit those ramps on Jurassic Park and you just don't quite understand how it continues to travel upward and around and complete the path, that's literally what they said George Gomez described when he saw this ramp on the game. It is the steepest ramp that Stern has ever built. It's at 43 degrees, which I thought was really interesting that they went into that sort of detail about the ramp itself, actually. and Gomez's comment when he first saw the whitewood was like why are we shooting at a wall at the back of the playfield because the ramp looks like so vertical and they were like just trust us it works and which I think is really cool to see like literally as a designer keeps pushing boundaries taking ramps where they haven't gone before now what so this is steeper than the Ghostbusters premium LE ramp yep that's literally what they said it's steeper than the Ghostbusters ramp it's steeper than the Walking Dead ramp did they mention the ridiculous air balls that people got off the Ghostbusters ramp?
    36:36
    See, based on the one that I played at Dan's, I haven't had air ball problems with the ramp so much as I have had with the two stand-up targets directly in front of the ramp. Yes, the stand-up targets are, yeah, but... But, yeah, they did not mention that. It's hard to tell from photos. Maybe it has a plastic air ball cover on it. Yeah, I don't see anything. That's why I was... I don't either. But I'm just going to trust that it works. And as you were describing the ball paths on Jesse Clark, all I could think was, like, this is literally what they were talking about on their show yesterday about how they made their path work. And I didn't even listen. You didn't? You were just able to pick it up? Look at that. So that's cool, though. I like, you know, it's a similar return. It looks like similar positioning to where the Iron Maiden center ramp is that shoots the ball into the target. This time it feeds to a wire form that returns the ball to the left in lane.
    37:32
    And I'm assuming that shot could potentially become repeatable as well. I don't know if that's officially the Black Widow ramp or not, but I suspect it may be. Wait. That ramp, hold on. That ramp. Yep, so that ramp goes right up the middle. It feeds through the backboard of the play field. That goes to the left in lane? And that comes back to that wire form that feeds to the left in lane. Okay, I'm confused now because where on the right orbit shot feeds to that ramp, and it's on the lower wire form there, and it comes back, and it's the one that crosses the middle of the play field and feeds the right in lane.
    38:11
    Oh, got you. Oh. Yep, so they're basically stacked on top of each other. Oh, okay. It's hard to discern where they separate exactly. Yeah, man, that looks so good. I mean, like in multi-ball, like. You're going to have balls crisscrossing all over that play field. So good. Like the beautiful wire forms. And wire forms are just really pretty. They feel higher quality. I don't worry about them crashing or breaking. They do. The metal on metal ball traveling sound. Well, think about like in Jurassic Park, the right ramp shot is so satisfying because it's timed so well for that upper right flipper. Like, it gives you enough time to, like, line up a shot, you know? Oh, yeah. It's like, yeah, like that sound where it's just like, that, like, scratching, like, oh, it's so good. And I've been playing the crap out of Jurassic Park. I have over 2,000 games played.
    39:14
    On Jurassic Park? Yeah. So, like, not even joking, my game that's been on location for a full year, it doesn't have that many plays on it. I played.
    39:28
    That is insane. No wonder you've seen the thing giving me shit. Oh, you haven't got there? Yeah, man, I've played that game like 100 times probably. Oh, man. So the other day I. I am so envious of the fact that you have time to play 2,000 games. No wonder you're tired. I play a lot of pinball. I mean, that's a – I don't have time to podcast. I'm trying to play Jurassic Park. Yeah. I'm trying to get my money's worth, man. You're getting your money's worth, man. Holy shit. But so I came downstairs, and all of, like, my high scores had been reset. Or I played a game, and I got, like – Because you crossed the rescore. Yeah, and I hadn't gone into settings because I usually go into settings, and I'll kill that or whatever, so I just keep whatever.
    40:14
    And, yeah, I'm like, dude, what's up with that? And so, yeah, I went into the, what's it called, the operator thing.
    40:22
    Just the adjustments menu. No, no, but what's it called? The, you know, where you go to see the data, the audits. The audits. So, yeah, I went into audits, and I was like 2,003 games. So, I was like, man. That is absolute insanity, man. But good, good for you. I wonder how many games I've played on Maiden. I'm curious, man. That's insane. I'm going to go turn it on. I'll be right back. Hold on one second. Okay. While Taylor does that, I'm just going to continue moving across the play field to where we hit the next ramp coming to the right, which is the gauntlet ramp, which has an industry-first bowed entrance, so the ball can essentially be hit in from any flipper on the game. and thanks to the curved design of the walls, will complete that gauntlet ramp. It has been described to me as similar to the loop ramp on Doctor Who because it feeds instantly back to that upper flipper, and there seems to be some combo rewards in hitting that repeatedly. So that will be very interesting to see how that works. Oh, yeah. Oh, and it will drop it above the up post. Yeah. And that's what I'm curious about, too, is, like, does the up post always pop up to stop it, or is that only for specific things? So it'll be just interesting how that's integrated. That's the one thing I think Keith has done really well in interesting ways compared to designers is he uses those up posts essentially as diverters to change the ball's path or alter the timing of how the ball is moving. And I think it's a much cheaper mechanism than actual diverters, which is one of the reasons I think he's been able to include so many features into his machines while still remaining sort of on budget as well. So that'll be interesting. I'd say the only negative thing that people have widely discussed about this game is near that ramp in the sculpture of the Infinity Gauntlet, which appears to, I've seen it compared several times to a kitchen glove, but the reality is if you look at the comic books, that glove looks very much like the Infinity Gauntlet from the comic books, but as part of the Avengers movie sequences from Marvel and Disney, that gauntlet was heavily redesigned to look much more like armor, and that's kind of what people expect to see, even though the rest of the game would match the comic book style. So to me it fits. I don't care. I'm sure that mod companies are going to invent mods for that, that with people out there custom painting them, etc. I couldn't give less of a shit about what the plastic glove sculpture looks like. I am way more excited about the design of the ramp right next to it than I'm going to be able to shoot from all three flippers.
    43:08
    I agree. I also think that somebody's going to come out with a mod. Oh, yeah, it'll be there. If you want to dump more money into the machine, you go right ahead. All right, so Iron Maiden has total plays 5,814. Now, mind you. How often do you clean and wax these games, man? I will say that the game was, because I got it at the Allentown show, it was. So it had like 400 plays on it. Yeah.
    43:39
    Don't try to pass off like, oh, but 8% of these plays came from a show I got it at. Yeah. So I've got, so my two Keith Owen games, I have around 8,000 plays on them.
    43:53
    That's crazy. Which, so, like, it is crazy, because if you look at just Maiden, I mean, realistically, if you were playing that on location at Dollar Play, you have, like, literally gotten your money's worth. Yeah. That's, I mean, if I take nothing else from this episode, it's going to be that Taylor plays way more pinball than I realized. Holy shit. I play a lot of pinball.
    44:15
    And let's, like, let's be real secure, just so, you know, to remind listeners, these aren't the only two games in Taylor's collection. Taylor has, like, what, 12, 13 games? I have 11 games set up, and I have one game in my shop. That's – I'm selling. Yeah.
    44:34
    Wow. So that's just mind-blowing to me. But I play – oh, you know what? I should check the credits on Attack from Mars because I'm trying to think, like, what game I have. I mean, with the older games, it's tough because I may have changed the ROMs or something, but I'm trying to think if I changed the – I don't think I've changed the ROMs on Attack from Mars.
    44:57
    I can't even imagine how many games that has on it. Like, I've owned that game for – I've owned my Attack from Mars for 15 years.
    45:06
    Wow. And – Just keep this in mind. If me and Taylor are both ever selling the same machine, but mine was on location, it's going to have way less fucking plays than Taylor's. My – okay, I will – You're going to get that home use only price, and I'm going to lose like $500 because I was in a bar for a year. So I don't know. I can't remember if we talked about it on the podcast, but I hurt my shoulder in January. Yeah, we talked about you being old for sure. Yeah, so I hurt my shoulder in January. I hurt my shoulder in January, and what I figured out was the way that I play, the way that I was playing Iron Maiden, I was playing it so physically. and like my tilt is relatively tight, but I was playing it so physically that like I was hurting my shoulder.
    45:54
    Like my game, yes. So I do want Hermes only price, but be aware that it has basically been played like a routed game.
    46:04
    And realistically though, like joking aside, you said you've got one game out there to sell. Like, has it remotely crossed your mind to ever sell Maiden or Jurassic Park at this point?
    46:17
    No. Same here. No. But, I mean, it's also, I mean, you know, I'm not playing Maiden. I'm playing Jurassic Park right now. I'm not playing a ton of Maiden.
    46:29
    I think with Maiden, I feel, so I think what's difficult is with Maiden, even in all my games, I hold onto my games for a really long time, and I think I'm at a point, I get to a point where I'm like, I am probably never going to have a better game than I've already had on this game.
    46:46
    And Maiden, when I had like early on in owning Maiden, like I got to the Battle of the Beast or whatever, like a couple times. And then there was a code change and I just like have never gotten nearly as close. And so I got a little frustrated with it because I was just like, man, what is it like? It wasn't that I wasn't making shots. It wasn't that I wasn't putting up scores. It was just like some level of difficulty was ratcheted up to where it just made me plateau as a player.
    47:20
    So I kind of – yeah, so that's like – yeah, so I'm on Jurassic Park, and I'm getting to – I feel like I'm getting to that point as well.
    47:33
    But then I see something like what Carl D'Angelo does with the Pteranodon score, and I'm like – I still don't understand that damn move. I got to figure that out. I got to message Carl. So basically, Pteranodon, you can stack, like, it carries over. So, and I believe it switch hits. I think it switch hits. I don't know that it's spinner specifically, but I know that Carl said to shoot the spinner, which I would assume it's a switch hit thing. Yeah, plus if it gets a soft shot through there, it feeds their pops for more switch hits. So it makes sense. Yeah, but honestly, like, if you can hit the spinner, like, hit the spinner, solid, hit the tower shot, ball comes down to the left flipper, let it hop past your right flipper, and then refeed the spinner. If you do that like four times on the first pteranodon, you have pretty solid base, right? And then there's also one of the paddocks, I believe, I believe there's a mode or there's a way to double, I want to say there's a way to double your Pteranodon score, and then if you have... Probably capturing one of the specific dinosaurs. Yeah, I want to say that, but I could be wrong. And then, you know, it's like in your two-times play field, and, I mean, I've had a Pteranodon score of over 70 million. But, I mean, that's not great, but it's like I'm not great. So, like, seeing what Carl did, it was just like that was mind-boggling.
    49:01
    But if you can dial it, yeah, it's, I don't know. Like, looking at, like, breaking the game down like that is, that's where I'm at with Jurassic Park. I'm like, how do I want to play this efficiently? Like, how do I want to play it safely?
    49:18
    Yeah, I'm like, I'm at, like, a really sweet spot with it. But I feel like after I get through the sweet spot, I'm going to hit that plateau where it's like, you know, I get to Visitor Center, like, maybe once every ten games, and that's it. you know, but that's not bad.
    49:37
    No, that's, you're playing way better than I am, man. That game is so good. But how great is the light show audio and video package for when visitor center starts? Visitor center is pretty awesome. Um, like every time I do get to it, which hasn't been many, I just like stand there and I watch the whole thing. I don't want to skip through. I want to see all those points pile up. I want to watch the light go. It's me. I'm always, I'm always depressed because I want more points. Like I'm like, because when they start, when they start counting your paddocks, like, so when they show the paddocks, they show the number and I think it's like two X and then it shows a value. And I'm always like, oh, when I come out of this, I'm getting like four times that value they're showing, but that's not really what's happening. So then I'm like, ah, 200 million. It's not bad, but, um, I'm, I'm also obsessed with getting perfect paddocks. Oh yeah. You have to get a perfect paddock. You can't, dude. I just want to make sure that wasn't just me. I love getting the perfect paddock. It feels so good. You have to get the perfect paddock. You cannot pass it through a paddock. You cannot start your next paddock. That's the big thing is like avoiding, hoping. Yeah, you've got to avoid that left ramp when you've got somebody hanging out there on the power spot. You need to rescue it. Yeah, getting perfect paddocks is awesome. So here's my one complaint about Jurassic Park. And I know Keith's going to be listening to this. times. Yeah, definitely. So when you get a super jackpot, oh, sorry, I just hit my mic. If you get a super jackpot on the T-Rex feed T-Rex event, you should get a fossil for that. Like, why don't you get a fossil for doing that? And then the call out. So when you, you know, you know, so T-Rex event starts feed T-Rex, you hit, you know, you start with your jackpot shots, you start on the left side so you can like build up the value um i've done it like i've done it like every shot left or right and then i've made my super jackpot shot and it's like not a lot of fanfare like i feel like you should get when one when super jackpot is qualified the game should let you know like it is not it's just like shoot the left ramp you know and then that woman who does a call out where it's just like, good job, or something like that. Great job. There's a call-out in the game, and I'm like, whenever I hear her, and she's just like, great job. And I'm like, you don't mean that. Like, you don't think I did great. Like, you're just, I don't know. You're just a paid voice. Yeah, those are the two things at Jurassic Park. I kind of like the call-out. I will say I love the, I love, hello, what's the DNA guy? What's the call-out? Mr. DNA. Yeah, what's the call-out? Dude, I don't know, man. I can't hear my mind's on location. Oh, my God. It's like Mr. DNA. That's always great. Like I'm trying to get – that's the other thing I'm trying to do. I'm trying to figure out how to get all the combos.
    52:34
    Because I think if you get seven combos, you get an extra ball. Ah. Yeah. So I think it's seven combos. It might be less, but I think it's seven.
    52:44
    And that's just one of those very similar to the Tomb Awards. on Maiden, Keith does this great job of putting these little extra hidden challenges in there. Yeah. Not even hidden. These little challenges that allow you to progress further and see more of the game. So you're always kind of working towards something. When I look at this Avengers layout, I can only imagine what those are going to be. I know he referenced, specifically, there's awards for hitting X amount of combos in this game. He already mentioned that. It's part of how you unlock your awards. It's your combo, like your total combos. So that's cool. that's going to be in there too. That's, I think about it, have you ever gotten the combo multiball on Spider-Man?
    53:26
    Nope. So I think I got it one time, and at some point you hit a certain amount of combos and it just starts a multiball. And it's not like, I don't think it's anywhere, like on the, you know, it's not on the play field or anything like that. I don't think they really talk about it in the game, but it's like one of those things where it's, I don't know. I was talking combos, but the combos on so like combos on Maiden.
    53:51
    You know, it's like you've got your six way, six way combo. I think it's six way and you get your two more on Jurassic Park. There's a symbol similar. You get I can't remember how many combo shots it is. It's like seven and you get a fossil.
    54:10
    But I for the life of me cannot get that. I cannot do that. So that's something that I'm completely stumped on, drafts in part.
    54:19
    Like, it's like the ball is moving too fast for me to even go, okay, what have I not hit? You know what I mean? Like, where you're like, you've got to line it up.
    54:28
    I think that this Avengers, I think the flow on Avengers, and one of the reasons I was really excited about seeing the premium is like, I mean, even like now you're deciphering it for me, the flow is going to be really good. It looks like you can hit an infinite number of combos on this game if you have amazing accuracy.
    54:59
    Because your right orbit feeds your right flipper, which you can send up to the center ramp, which feeds your left flipper, which can hit the gauntlet ramp, which feeds your upper flipper, which can hit the loop, which hits back to your right flipper. and it looks like you can just go around and around with combos on here, which is amazing.
    55:18
    Everything is pretty pushed back on the game, right? I mean, is that... I did hear one operator state, like, he thinks it looks bad, but he's a, I'd call it a, like, full-time mod. What he does, he operates games. And he looked at it and that was exactly what he said, that all the shots and targets that you need to hit seem to be way back on the play field. And he doesn't think that appeals to casual players. That's tough.
    55:46
    And that, like, his Stranger Things is his best-earning game by, like, almost twice over whatever else he has out there. And after that, it's Beatles.
    55:54
    That's interesting. Yeah, I found that very interesting. But that's, again, I fully take his word for it. That's what this person does. Whereas I look at this, Phil, although I have games on location, very much a passion hobby of what do I want to own and would I want it if I one day had the space in my house to have in my house and Avengers hits all that for me but I still think it would earn really well I don't know but I do also understand like having Maiden and Jurassic Park on location what seemed like relatively not simple but like games we can comprehend and then we still get the depth from can absolutely be like really difficult to explain to someone you have to spell Eddie on Maiden without seeing it on the play field anywhere. And map on Jurassic Park just to start your modes. So there's those things like that, too. I get them. Like my family, when they've played it, they don't understand what's going on.
    56:46
    Yeah. I tell them to hit the Jeep and then hit the left ramp. You know, hopefully, you know. And then it's like you have to hit the left ramp again before you lose your balls to start the multi-ball. I do think that the knock I would have on both those games I think the knock I have on a lot of modern Stern games is it doesn't really give you a lot of information on the play field to know how to play if you're not really dialed in on rules. I'd agree, but I'd say Jersey Jack is just as bad about that, if not worse. Their stuff is insanely complex to me still.
    57:29
    That's part of modern pinball. They say that dates back to the Twilight Zone, where things kind of jumped the shark on as far as complexity went. I mean, think about Twilight Zone now, though, rule-wise. Doesn't it seem like... Oh, today it seems like simple. So simple. It's like EM. But Adam Sandler was also amazingly advanced when it came out, and realistically now Adam Sandler's like, ramp, scoop, repeat, ramp, scoop, repeat. Tour the mansion! What's your strategy for this game? oh, I just tore the mansion. Yeah, I just go to the wizard mode as soon as I can. But don't you think that that is also, with so much competitive pinball, like games are played differently?
    58:07
    Games are played differently. We have more instruction thanks to all the tutorial videos out there and all the people who stream now. Like literally if we went and just opened up Twitch right now, someone is streaming pinball. Yeah. Like that was not the case a couple years ago. Like when you and I started streaming, we were still one of the first people to do it. I mean, Deadflip was like the big one out there. And then Buffalo, and then we were streaming, and there wasn't a ton of other people. OG, man.
    58:33
    OGs have we apparently every day, but we try. I streamed not that long ago. Yeah, and again, I enjoy it when I do it, but it does actually take, like, passion and dedication to those that do it on a regular basis. I give them a lot of credit. Buffalo Pinball, those guys, I mean. Oh, yeah.
    58:49
    Jack literally streams, like, every day. Now, here's the one thing I'm going to say is that Jack does stream every day, but that's his job, right? I mean, he's a professional pinball person. It is now. But he was doing it when it wasn't his job until he was able to, like, make it his job. Like, he took something he loved doing and he was able to make a career out of it, which is awesome. And I'm not taking away anything. I'm just saying, like, I look at, like, the Buffalo pinball. Because, I mean, we're friends with them. I've known, you know, I feel like I've known Kevin for years especially. But I, yeah, the amount of time that it takes to do what they're doing while also having other things going on, like a full-time job and stuff like that that is not pinball related is, like, it's crazy. I mean, yeah, like, kudos to those guys. And they've been doing it forever.
    59:43
    Oh, yeah. They started streaming, like, basically when we started podcasting. Yeah. And eventually they got into podcasting, too. I think they just hit their 50th episode recently, so congrats to them on that. They streamed Nick Baldrige's game for Multimorphic. Ranger in the Ruins. I was literally watching that when I texted you to make sure we were still recording it for him. I played that game. I think that's the same game I played at Nick's house.
    60:09
    I mean, probably. He's been working on it for like two months, so I don't know when you were last there. No, no, no, no. You played his Quest for Glory. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I got a new one. so yes so Quest for Glory is a licensed game that he doesn't actually have a license for so it's technically homebrew and he just has it at his house that he built Rangers in the Ruins is a real game it's a real game that he has developed for the P3 platform that is a roguelike game where you can set it anywhere from one to nine balls depending on how many balls you set it to it impacts the scoring but the idea is like you're essentially running through ruins collecting items and making your character stronger so you can get further the next time you play it's totally inventive, something that's really popular in video games, but hasn't been done in a pinball machine. And he developed it in, I think he said, 72 days from start to finish before it was released with the launch on Friday night of Kevin from Buffalo streaming it and it being available to buy for like 150 bucks on P3's website, which is amazing. Nick is easily the smartest person I know that I can say I know in the hobby. he yeah i find that easily he is amazing he's yeah he's amazing an asset to the community and he's if if he wants which i have no idea what he actually wants like if he wants full-time employment somewhere in the pinball industry i think you could find it quite easily oh man that's my guess yeah i think yeah but it might interfere with all like the cool fun projects that he likes to do so who knows if i'll ever actually do that he's he's a he's an amazing person i have to i I mean, that's, I think that's one of the things that's like, I guess it's bittersweet about the podcasting thing. Like, I don't know. I mean, I'm not dying. I'm just, you know, whatever. But it's, but it's like through, through podcasting and not necessarily Nick because I, you know, Nick is local to me. But I've met like so many amazing people, like friends, like people I call friends through the podcast. It's because it's like, I don't know if there's like an ease of going up to somebody because you hear them, hear their voice. So you like feel like you know them or I will just go up to anybody and say hello at shows and talk to them. But yeah, I don't know. I feel like I give I give credit part of it to being on a podcast, but I don't know why I would do that. I think you're just a friendly person, whereas like I am not going to go up to talk to anybody. so now if you come and talk to me I'll absolutely talk to you oh yeah it's just not my personality I'm not very outgoing people are always like where's Tommy I'm like well one pinberg people are like dude where's Tommy are you hanging out I'm like I have not seen him I was like I haven't seen him the entire I was like and then yeah I can't it was just like I don't know where this is why now that I realize you put like 5,000 players on a game like by the time you get to the show you're ready to socialize whereas like I get to a show and I'm probably like oh my god thank god I'm not at work for 80 hours this weekend.
    63:13
    I'm going to play pinball. Exactly. I want to socialize. I want to hang out. That's what's great about those shows, which I'm looking very forward to in 2021. Hopefully we have shows again and we can do our thing.
    63:28
    Looking back at Avengers... Go. We don't stay on track. We are on track. We've talked more pinball this show than we have the last four shows combined. That's probably true. Hey, fuck Trump, go out and vote, and don't vote twice if you live in North Carolina. I did hear a thing that I think is, it's like somewhat political, but somewhat just like smart and common sense. Wear a mask? Like, well, yeah, that too. But pertaining specifically to the election, obviously absentee voting and voting by mail is, you know, being encouraged, less discouraged, depending on where you live. But the reality is, like, the post offices are going to be really busy. Yeah. So, like, for those of us that do a lot of shopping online, say, like, I don't know, through Amazon or whatever else, maybe, like, for the month of October, just, like, don't order shit online. Like, make sure the Postal Service is able to, like, successfully, in a timely manner, transport ballots and have them delivered so your vote counts. That, I think, is a relatively smart idea. So, like, if you order shit all the time online, like, get all that shit done this month so, like, when October comes, you don't have to order shit online. First of all, that is stupid bullshit. it because think about Christmas time. Think about if if think about all the people who send Christmas cards and Christmas gifts and all those people can get that crap by Christmas.
    64:49
    What you need to do is you need to vote. And when you get your ballot in the mail, fill it out. If you're undecided at this point, I don't know what's wrong with you. Fill out your ballot and put it back in the mail. You will get a confirmation that your vote was received. Or if you don't like that because you don't like the mail, you can take it to a registrar's office and drop it off in Virginia, where I live. You can start turning in ballots as of September 18th. So in 10 days, you can start turning in ballots. But and for those of us that get a math, it's 12 days, though. Oh, did I say 10 days? Oh, sorry. I was thinking like my kid's school starts on the 8th. But here's the thing. OK, Christmas, Christmas cards, Christmas gifts. you cannot tell me that the post office cannot deliver ballots. The amount of people who vote in the United States is pathetic. The actual percentage of voters. Can we get back to Avengers, Tommy? You are totally throwing me off. Okay. Sorry. So let's talk. So we've got the ramp, which we've already discussed the Captain Marvel ramp. Sorry about that. And then what threw me off is in the video and on the Stern Matrix, they call it the lower left ramp. But it's actually that ramp that's off the right orbit shot.
    66:08
    So I don't know what you would technically call that. But that is your fourth ramp on the game. Right. Which is the Black Panther shot is the right orbit. You shoot that. It feeds that ramp, follows the wire form, and travels all the way back down to the right end lane.
    66:25
    Some cool stuff that I was able to pick up on listening to the CERN podcast yesterday. Okay, so if you spell iron, which is on the in lane, out lanes, that's what lights your Iron Man locks at the tower shop. I really need to buy this game. You do, but here's something interesting, Taylor. How would you suspect that you spell iron? I would suspect that you spell it by eating all of your spinach. No, I would, how would you spell iron? yeah like it's across the in lanes it's your in lane out lanes right so you got irom so normally i would say you would cycle that with your flippers and then it's like a there you go that's what i wanted you to say okay yeah that's what i would have thought too that's not how you do it by basically keith said that's just too easy and he hates having those lane change features uh for the for the in lanes like that so i actually have to change it by using the spinner that's what will move what's lit and what's not lit on your ion so it's really going to take some thoughts where like oh shit I already spelled the R and the O so I've got to move the lights off of those you're going to have to hit spinner and then hope it lands in the right spot and if it does then shoot one of the ramps to complete the letter you need it's just a really unique change that I think is awesome where the spinner the left orbit or it might have been the Dr Strange spinning disc I can remember which it is I think it the spinner though The left orbit is the Hulk shot
    67:58
    Oh, okay, yeah, okay. I can't remember if it's that spinner specifically or if it's the Doctor Strange spinning disc, but one of those will be able to rotate your letters in iron.
    68:08
    I thought that was a very intriguing feature. yeah that's that's really interesting right like but see that's also something that if you walked up and you were and you didn't know that i wonder how obvious that is yeah i'm i'm guessing it's probably going to be included somewhere in the display yeah i found i was i was playing um teenage mutant ninja turtles yesterday with a friend when i dropped a game off to him and it really did help just to be kind of like casually hanging out with another human for one yeah but while we were playing one of us was looking at the screen and kind of relaying that info to another person uh to the other person so they had a better idea of what they were shooting and what its value was because the turtle the code's still pretty confusing on there to me um but that really helped and that's one of those things like it's hard to remember because And personally, I don't look up at the screen a ton while I play.
    69:10
    But when you are playing with others, there was a lot more information about what to shoot and why you were shooting it than I thought, than I was used to seeing on Turtles when I'm watching the screen for him. So I imagine some of that information is conveyed that way on games like Maiden and Jurassic Park. I just never see it because I'm not looking. Yeah. But hopefully, with that in mind, I'll try to take the time to do that on Avengers. So going back to that, so to spell iron, you have to obviously hit the spinner. But to get the I and the N, you would have to go through the outlanes. Well, no, because you'll – so, like, say you land in the right inlane. So you've collected your O, right? Now you shoot the spinner, and that lit insert moves. It'll move over to the end. So the spinner is moving what you've completed. Got you. Okay, okay, okay, okay. So you're essentially hitting a shot. Like, if you completed the R and the O, you know, how you have the outlanes that are lit or unlit, but you have to hit something else to get them to be back to the O and the R, so you hit a shot to complete it. Versus, like, hey, if you do drain an outlane and it was unlit, you collected that letter. Are there multiple modes per, like, so Iron Man multiball. Yes. Like, if you start Iron Man multiball a second time, is it, like, a different story or is it just the same multiball? You know what I mean? It sounded like there's different levels to it, yes. Because I could see that, like, if they have, like, the color-changing LEDs in there, like, you could do different. I mean, that just seems like a key thing where you have, like, different levels of. Like, so the first time you spell iron. Now, I'm just making shit up. Don't look in the matrix for this. But if you, yeah, like, say the first time it's, like, iron. So it's, like, you know, it just is, like, a normal insert. And then the next time it's red, you know. You know, like you progress through the suits. So that's – why am I not hired by Stern to tweak Keith's code? Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly what they need.
    71:17
    I do strongly recommend for you as well as everyone else out there to check out that podcast and hear the exact way things are working from Keith to get a better understanding. Can we just put that – can we just add that? I'll just put that entire podcast at the end of our podcast. It's like 45 minutes. It made my drive go very fast yesterday. Do you think I'd get in trouble for that? I'd probably get something. I don't know. Probably.
    71:41
    We'll put a link to it on our Facebook page. It's there. If you are interested in rule sets, it's the way to go. Minus, like, once this starts streaming, we'll have a better idea of it or when we get our games.
    71:52
    The spinning Doctor Strange disc. Yes. Are you a fan of that mechanism? I am a fan of that mechanism.
    72:05
    I mean, I don't think it's bad. I think that, like, that spinner, I mean, it's similar to, I mean, there's a lot of games that have it. I had it. You know, my safecracker had it. Yeah, that had it. It's similar, but, like, you know, EM games, like, there are a bunch of games that have that feature.
    72:24
    I mean, I think it's cool. I you know the fact that it could end up it doesn't really block a shot I guess there's a target behind it that that post could block yeah it could block your Captain America shot yeah it could definitely impact shots but I think of that similar to the way the truck works on T-Rex to where it makes you strategically shoot that to clear away for certain shots at times I do worry about so you know it lifts up kind of similar at first when I saw it lift up I thought it was going to be like the boom balloon on Cirque du Soleil.
    72:59
    And then when I saw it was more like the Cirque du Soleil Riddler, whatever he is. Ringmaster. The Ringmaster, the most annoying. God, that is such an annoying mech.
    73:14
    When I saw that, you know, it's going to get – I worry that it's going to get beat up. hopefully like somebody will do a cliffy for it or something. I know like that. If you look, so if you're looking at a picture of that premium,
    73:32
    the black that's outlining that is actually a built-in cliff. Oh, look at that. Yeah, it appears, it honestly appears to be a plastic material, which I think is kind of smart, but it's got screws in there. So do you take out the place? Okay. That's what it would be if you compare it to the pro. The pro has artwork. See, I felt like I saw a picture from the side, and it looked like there was, like, exposed wood in there. But I guess there is, like, that little, I mean, it's not a Cliffy. Cliffy is a trademark thing because Cliff Renear has saved all of our machines. Yeah, and actually, even on the Pro, it does appear to have that wood in, or that plastic sort of Cliffy in there. Okay, well, there you go. So it's got that. Yeah, I still, it's another Mac that's, you know, whenever there's a Mac, there's the potential for breakage. How about this? How about how many times does it take to bash the rod that's holding that mech to where it doesn't go down correctly?
    74:27
    Yeah, that intrigued me. The disc itself, just those posts, like, I don't know. When I look at that, I'm like, oh, man, shooting a post, that post is going to break eventually. But it's whatever. It's going to be fun until it breaks. Then when it breaks, you fix it. Now, what do you think is going to break on it?
    74:42
    Excuse me. Just the post itself? I guess because it's not – so, like, I just had a post break on Iron Maiden. Okay. That's just in the play field just because it gets shot. It's the one just to the right of the center ramp on that game just because it gets hit when you miss that shot a lot, and it gets hit from the upper flipper, and literally the metal post just snaps. So, like, that's what I picture here. Oh, okay. But that post doesn't have any give, whereas, like, this post is meant to be hit, so all that force gets directed into a spin when you hit it. So it's probably not likely to break. So it's just my mind trying to grasp that concept. I hear you. What is really interesting is they explained a little bit of, obviously, that spins, it spells strange, and then when it does actually lift up and allow you to shoot a ball into there for the portal lock, that is actually a way to make some of the modes in the game that would be a standard one-ball mode actually a multi-ball mode, and you can lock up to two or three balls, and that multiplies the spring for that mode then. so like the way my mind worked was just like strategy like oh man so instead of just going in and starting a mode now I've got to make sure I open up my portal and lock a ball so I can make it a multiplied mode and it just made me want to play it more but I thought that was really ingenious and Keith basically talking about like how he talked Gary into including all the stuff in the game is he's using a lot of features Keith the big fan of Stern Electronics like the early solid state Stern games and And he's got the bingo card with the drop targets, which comes from, like, big games specifically, but also free fall, catacomb, and I think he listed another certain game. But that was one of the ways he got to, like, you know, excitement about that's going to be included on all the models. That's how he's able to get drop targets on a pro. And then the actual portal mechanism is really similar to the Flight 2K and free fall ball locking mechanism. And it's actually really similar to the Valley Mad World one. Wait, wait, wait. Which one?
    76:43
    The subway locking mechanism. Oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, so he's including things that have, you know, they've been done before, but not for a very long time, and he obviously uses them in new and unique ways.
    76:55
    It just makes me so excited, man. Let's talk about the drop targets. Drop targets, I'm right at them. Okay, so exactly how does this work? How does this work? So, it's a combination of the walking dead.
    77:16
    So, like, the target will be moving, right? Or the inserts will be flashing, right? Yeah. I believe on a timed pattern of some sort. And then, say you drop the top drop target. It's going to lock in whichever inserts lit on that row. Yep. And you're going to get that award, right? Right. Once you complete all three drop targets.
    77:42
    So whichever one you hit first, that locks in that award. Boom. Now what he said is integrated. Actually, I got this from a Facebook post directly from Keith in that when you complete a bingo, right? So three in a row or three up and down or three across, whatever. There's other awards for that. And those are not on the play field, but they're actually on the display. And that includes, there's modes that are tied into the bingo card specifically, as well as some other things. I think you said there's like six or seven modes just from the bingo card.
    78:16
    Yes. So you have modes there. You have modes that go with your Doctor Strange. And then your wizard modes, which are, I think, there in the center of the play field.
    78:26
    That's not a good enough picture to read the inserts. Trying to find a detailed one. So this is what I want Cern to do next. So Soul Gem and Black Order are wizard modes that come from collecting all your Avengers, which are basically the shots spread across the whole play field, which makes you shoot everything, which is something that I love in a game.
    78:47
    Yeah. What do you want Stern to do next? I want Stern to integrate a display in the apron that is specific to the apron. so I wanted to like give you like so that bingo thing like I want that to show up so I'm looking down at the play field and I can see like what my bingo would be like what the awards are so separate from the main back separate from the main back box because I like which is something that I think we know they can do because they've done it with Batman and Wrestlemania they've had separate displays integrated to the play field. Yes. So it couldn't possibly be that hard to move it and integrate it to the apron. Yeah. I mean, I think that that would help with this idea of rule confusion or rule overload. Like, if you walked up and somebody, I mean, if you watch a newbie go up to a pinball machine, the first thing they do is they look down at the apron, right? Or they look down, like, where the flippers are. And if there was a video screen right there that's like telling you something, right? Like, I don't know. I just think that it's – I think it's time with the depth that these games have, there's got to be a way to convey more information. Even if like – I mean, because another thing is like, so you've got the rule card. Why not have the rule card now be a digital rule card? so it has more information than is just going to be printed by the manufacturer when it before it gets delivered right i mean like do you look at rule cards almost at all on modern games or do you go into it right so you don't but if you went if you look down and it like tells you like i don't know it's just it's just another way to like i just think that the rules the rules are really in depth, which is great. I appreciate the depth as a person who will put 2,000 games on a machine at my home. But I'm also... That's seriously still blowing my mind right now. Like, I need to tell Alyssa to just fucking leave me alone when I come home. I got to play 100 games a day for the next couple weeks to catch up to Taylor. I play... Okay, well, okay. See how that goes. Try that. But yeah, I mean, I think that's the thing is instead of instead of doing a rules card have a digital display i mean it costs like 25 bucks if you buy them in bulk and if you're stern that means you can charge an extra thousand dollars yeah put i mean like on a premium on a premium or le have a digital display that'd be great and then when you update the code if the rules change because they do then boom it's like it's right there. Or you could even have like, you could have it like, like, look at like Scott Denise's games. He's got a timer on the playfield. Like you could have a timer there or something like that. You know, I mean, there's a ton of things you could do. It's like, why not? The apron is a space on the playfield that is used for telling you what the game is. You already know that. It's telling you rules, which you probably aren't going to look at. And then it's telling you the cost of the game. Put two displays down there. So when you walk up and it's telling you how much to put in the coin door, once you do that, it is now an integrated part of the system.
    82:23
    I mean, it's smart. Thank you. I just worry about what that cost is going to jump to. $50 a game. Yeah, you're dreaming, bud. Okay. Well, people have created them.
    82:38
    They have. I know Rob Zombie had one as an official mod, but it was like a $300 to $400 mod. Wizard of Oz, people were making them. But what people were doing is people were taking the screen that is the play and putting it on the apron. But I just don't see why you couldn't take some of the information that you have on the screen, but then at other times you could have specific information to where the player is in the game. If anybody wants to take that idea, that's cool. give me royalties, and then call it square.
    83:12
    Ooh. So one thing I noticed looking at this play field picture again, and you probably know this having played literally thousands of games on Jurassic Park and Iron Maiden, but on the lower right side, there is a flasher dome, and on Avengers, it appears to be yellow. On Maiden, I think it's blue. Jurassic Park, it's red. Yeah. Did you know that if that's flashing, it means you currently have a combo running? Yes.
    83:38
    Okay. That's a Keith staple that I think has been integrated. I literally learned that, like, within the last few months. Oh, really? Yeah, I was unaware of that. On Maiden. Yeah, because on Maiden, that's one of the important things is, like, so the one thing that I'm not sure about Jurassic Park, because it seems very different than Maiden, the way that the combos count on Maiden is it's considered a combo as long as you have not hit that shot before. so it's not necessarily like you have to it's not necessarily a time combo it's just a different shot so you have to essentially do them in a certain order though to enable like that yeah I think that's how Jurassic Park works as well I don't think it does because I feel like I've hit like three consecutive shots that are all new shots and I haven't gotten like a three times combo and then I'll hit two shots, yeah, I don't feel like it counts at the same. And that's one of the things that's confusing me as to how to get a seven-way combo or whatever it is if you don't have the consecutive shot thing. Like, I don't know if it's a specific combo or I don't know.
    84:53
    Maybe I'm resetting it. I don't know. But, like, on Maiden. I'm not certain either. Yeah, on Maiden I have, like, I'll get that combo all the time. six-way or whatever.
    85:06
    Not all the time, but one out of three games. I made up. I made that up. I've also still never gotten that. Really? Yeah, man. But you have been on the stage at Pembroke in the finals.
    85:23
    Apparently, I got real dumb lucky one time, yeah. Man, dude, shut up. You're so good, man. Alright, so, So, yeah, the bingo card, super cool. I love the fact that we have a subway in the game. The fact that you can see the balls locked, you know, the balls under the play field, I think is awesome.
    85:45
    And they did explain on the pro play field, even though it doesn't have the subway there, it still has the clear window to look into it as if it was a subway. And it's hard to see from the pictures in the pro. But instead of just leaving, like, a clear window, they actually installed plastics underneath the inserts. So apparently they have, like, this cool 3D effect, and they're lit with RGB lights, and they still have, like, virtual locks for that essential increasing, like, the modes to multi-ball modes. So it's totally still possible to use that aspect of the game on the Pro just in a virtual way, which is probably, again, great for location as it's less mechanical failure, and you still get that integrated rule aspect into the code. Can you lock eight balls into the subway? No, I believe it's just three. Okay. Because I think it's only a six-ball game, so yeah. But I understand what you're saying about the windows. I think one window has the actual physical arm that holds the ball. If you're able to look in detail. And the second window is where you'll be able to see the ball. But you can see the ball travel by all the windows. Correct. So it just settles into the one and two. Yeah, I didn't know because, like, one of the inserts is blue and one is red. So I didn't know if it was, like, once you locked a certain amount of balls there, something would happen and then.
    87:10
    Yeah, I don't know. We'll have to find out when we play it. But I do think it's because of three-ball lock, physical ball lock, essentially. So that's. Okay, so here's the other thing. So make it a nine-ball game.
    87:23
    No, make it an eight-ball game. And then when you're in the wizard mode, you have to lock all the balls under the play field by doing whatever.
    87:37
    And then that is like, and then the game shuts down, like Twilight Zone, and it fires back up and all those games come out. All the balls come out and that is your wizard mode. And then it's you battling Thanos to save the world. to rip his glove off his hand.
    87:57
    So that's, again, sorry, I listened to all this shit. And again, this is secondhand. If you want the detailed rules, go to the CERN podcast. But that's part of the whole wizard mode. So you're trying to collect the gems as you play through the game, right? Yeah. But if you don't collect them in time, Thanos gets them. Yeah. And then when you get to the wizard mode, the gems that you don't get, they actually like are they help Thanos out against you so but the ones you get actually help you like double value with certain shots or extend time on certain shots etc so it sounded like the the rules are really interestingly integrated into collecting the stones and how you'll actually use them in the mode which again is something I really appreciate about Keith Gaines is like you're always building towards something bigger by hitting all the different shots um so So as far as the heroes go, as far as the Avenger inserts, we have the Hulk, Iron Man, Captain, Black Widow, Thor, and Black Panther. And are these characters locked in like the Eddies?
    89:04
    Yes, essentially. Well, each one ties into a shot, and their shot is basically the order they're in on the play field kind of tells you where their shot is at on the play field. Okay. So, like, the Hulk is the far left Avenger insert. He's the far left orbit shot. Iron Man is the next, and he's the tower shot. So there's kind of a fan layout of the Avengers across the shot, and each one, like, to collect Hulk, you have to hit X amount of spins on the spinner. Oh, gotcha. Okay. To collect Captain America, who's through the pop bumper shot, it's not just hitting that shot. It's collecting, like, X amount of pop bumper hits. That's how you collect him. So you actually want to hit the pop bumpers.
    89:44
    Um, some of them, I think like Black Widow and I think Black Panther are just like hitting those shots three times each. So that's the right orbit and the center ramp. Thor is based on, I think, playing Thor multiball, which you get by hitting the capture ball and spelling Thor. Um, those sort of things. So each character is collected by hitting some unique way and collecting each character. Very nice. Um, yeah. Yeah.
    90:08
    What about, um, what do you think about the art package? Uh, Zombie Yeti is the best thing to happen to pinball art since... I don't fucking know. But he's fucking been awesome. Like, the dude just kills it. And he talked about, like, how busy he was because he went straight from Turtles to this. Yep. And, like, time restraints. But I think it's interesting because he came from a dude who wasn't into pinball. And, you know, we've talked before about his history of just randomly getting sought out by J-Pop. because of J-Pop's Google search for zombie artwork or something.
    90:49
    And, like, to think about, like, how much pinball has been part of his life now because, well, we've got Iron Maiden, right? You've got Deadpool, Ghostbusters, Turtles, Avengers, and he also did the Primus art package.
    91:05
    I'm not sure if there's anything else I'm forgetting or not. I apologize if I am. but he's crushed it on everything now Primus was also done by Zoltron we have to give Zoltron credit oh sorry my apologies it's okay just wanted to say he's done some really cool stuff he specifically mentioned like yeah he kind of wanted to design this so it would be like aesthetically pleasing to sit next to his Deadpool because he really likes his Deadpool which I totally get Deadpool, I think, is a really fun game. He is a... And it looks awesome to me. Yeah, it looks great. I think his use of... So, Ghostbusters, I think, that was his first game. I mean, that was his first release game. I think the palette in Ghostbusters, like the blues and stuff,
    92:05
    like the blues and the purples all really work well. I think that Maiden, while I think it fits the game, I think it fits the theme, I just don't think it works as well palette-wise because it's just like darker colors, right?
    92:25
    See, that's funny because I think of that game as a really lightly colored game because the dirt shows up on it way quicker than a lot of my other machines. Oh, that's interesting. I have a protector on it. I've had a protector on it since I got it. So maybe that's – yeah, I don't know. It's just like, yeah, it's just darker to me. Like you have that lower, that yellow in the lower play field. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. I like the sand. But once you get past the sand color, it's like it's kind of gets a little bit muddled, in my opinion.
    92:55
    It's not, it's not, I don't dislike it. But I think what I like about this, the Avengers, it's bright, right? even turtles it's like bright vibrant colors and it's just really pleasing you know it's like you got that cartoon aesthetic but also just the way that like the way that like different shots or different colors like the the light blue I mean and I'm just talking like artistically like I just really love like the oranges and the blues work really well together I think that the way that the inserts are laid out, like, look really well, look really nice. You know, I don't understand why they can't make an apron so it works symmetrically with the play field. I don't know what's up with that, but you know what I'm talking about? Like, if you look at it. I think the apron works symmetrically. The problem is you forget about the shooter gauge, so you don't count the shooter gauge as part of the play field. Right, but I think that the apron, so when they redesign the apron so that it can have the screens in it. Do it so that the actual, the decal that's in the middle is lined up with the play field art.
    94:10
    Okay, fair enough. I'm just saying. But yeah, I think like the green of the Incredible Hulk, I just think like, he nailed it with the color palette on this. I just think it like, everything, it pops, and it's got like, it's sectioned off, so like you have that Thanos area in the middle. It's just very, yeah, it looks good, man. It's pleasing to the eye, for sure. It's pleasing to the eye, but it's not like, I don't know, it's interesting because when I first look at it, when I first look at play-throughs, my first reaction is always like, oh, it's just way too busy.
    94:46
    If you, again, it is busy, but I agree, this looks great. If you don't already follow Zombie Yeti on Instagram, and he probably posted it to Facebook too, I don't know, But on Instagram, he posted a video a couple days ago of him, like, scrolling through his tablet showing the artwork. And it's just really, really cool to see, you know, what he came up with. And you see a lot of the details that are on the assembled game are harder to see when you've got ramps and wire forms covering things. And it just looks awesome to me. I don't know. I really enjoy it.
    95:23
    Yeah, I think that the artwork on Deadpool worked really well. So, yeah, I just think it works really well.
    95:33
    And I think all the art packages, I'm not sure I have them to pull up, but. There's just the two this time. Apparently, the word is that they just ran out of time to create a full separate premium art package so that the art package between the premium and the LE is actually the same this time, minus the powder coating and the LEs with the real mirrored glass. I'm looking at the I'm looking at cabinet art oh yeah the cabinet art is good yeah I honestly like it on both editions I mean it just looks good yeah it looks good I'm going to start moving games around when are they supposed to start shipping this month it's been interesting because typically they'll run pros first and get those to locations for the most part and then you get your le's for the le buyers then you get more pros and then premiums the rumor going around right now is basically they're only doing like a tiny run of pros and again just rumor i don't know this is facts or anything to essentially get distributors like their game but because there aren't shows right now there's a lot of locations not open They don't seem as worried about getting those pros out. So they're supposed to be jumping to, like, LE should be jumping by the end of the month to everyone, or within, like, two to three weeks. And then they'll do some more pros and then the premiums. But I've heard late October for premiums, which is, you know, two months away. But isn't that interesting, though, like, thinking about, like, the model? The pinball model has always been distributor or location, location, location. You know, Gary always banged that home, like, the homeowner. is buying that game. The humor is not like who we're making games for. And now, that's who you're making games for. Yeah. It's just the reality.
    97:34
    Because so many locations have closed recently. And then so many more are restricted. I know our buddy AJ was just able in Colorado to finally get pinball machines turned back on in the last week or so. It's crazy.
    97:47
    And I know here in Michigan, arcades are still technically supposed to be closed. So it's... It's definitely interesting to see what is open, what isn't, where it's going, and how do you appease everyone. Like, as an operator, like, I really want to get my Avengers ASAP because I want it on location so people will come and play and I can make money on it.
    98:06
    Now, at the same time, I realize they may not try to get me a pro right away. So it's like, do I order a pro and then upgrade, or do I just order the premium knowing it's going to be, like, the same time frame this time? So it makes it a little bit tougher. So your location in Indiana is open?
    98:21
    Yes. Okay. It's local. Once Purdue students came back, so since the last time we recorded, Purdue students came back like the week after that, I think. And at that point, our county health passed a bunch of harsher restrictions on specifically bars and restaurants. So we went from being like 75% capacity, and we could actually serve at the bar top in restaurants, back to 50% capacity. Bar tops could not be open, and basically no businesses are allowed to be open past midnight in our county, thanks to the Purdue students coming back because they're so worried about people having an outbreak at Purdue. And Purdue students have basically been told, like, essentially they're on lockdown.
    99:03
    Last weekend, the bowling alley had a reservation for roughly 50 students to come and spread out. They have 34 bowling lanes. Right. So it's not like you couldn't have spread those people out. But when they checked with Purdue, Purdue threatened all the students with expulsion if they were to go out in a group of 50 to an establishment, even if they followed the, like, wearing the mask and closing at midnight thing. So it's been really hard. There's actually been several businesses that have closed down in Lafayette in the last couple weeks. And just this week, the largest bar slash dance club slash piano bar that's been right on basically Purdue's campus for almost 30 years announced that they're closing because they just can't afford to stay open. It's a scary time for stuff like that right now.
    99:42
    Yeah, it's tough, too, because I know that like a couple arcades I follow on Instagram, you know, there's a lot of locations where it's kind of like, why is this business able to be open, but I cannot? Yeah, I've seen that with a lot of them. Yeah, and it really doesn't, I mean, going back to like when lockdowns first happened, and I certainly am, I can appreciate why they did. but when you're you know when you look at it you go wait so home depot and lowe's and grocery stores can be open but mom and pop stores can't like that doesn't make any sense yeah and i just think about it and the fact that you're telling me the bar i work at which i think our max capacity say like 130 160 and now it's 50 but we can't use the bar side of the restaurant so probably closer to like 40 to 60 people is our max capacity. But I can be in a building at school where there's 1,500 people in the same building or at Trafford's area just for lunch, there's 200 plus people. It just doesn't make a lot of sense. Well, you know, schools are just being used as daycare facilities. I'm well aware. I'm a very underpaid babysitter. I get it. Oh, man. Yeah. So it's interesting. Yeah, it's interesting. But yeah, it's like seeing these places close. It's really unfortunate. yeah and at the same time like i'm fortunate that this is just a hobby for me and not something i've turned into a full-time career thankfully and i'm able to when a game like this comes out no i want it i'll offer a few games and make room for it they'll get it and yeah i hope i make some money on it but if i don't i'm just happy i have a place to put it and play it yeah yeah yeah it's tough man i don't like with my rails i i was able to get like some material over the summer like i shut down during the summer just because it too humid and I you know doing yard labor work But really I mean I really shut down because it too too humid so i just cannot make rails and um but the company that i get wood from as soon as the pandemic hit like they just don't have material and i called them last week and i'm like i you know like i was able to get like one shipment of material so like 20 pieces and that's it like they're like we don't We don't have people coming in.
    102:09
    Like, they just cannot, you know, it's like what I need is not top of the priority. So that's just not being produced. So I just don't have material. I don't know when I'll get material. So I'm, like, trying to figure out, like, normally rail-wise I would be, like, this week because my kids go back to school is when I would start cranking out rails. And I don't know what to do because I can basically make 20 sets of rails and then that's it. Like, that's all the material I have. And so I don't know what to do. Like I've got – You're about to go on like real, real unemployment. Damn. Yeah. And, yeah, so, yeah, I don't know. It's tough. I mean, it's – we're in the middle of a pandemic.
    102:53
    It sucks. It does, man. It sucks, man. But I will say that for all of its suckiness of life in general right now, based on all sorts of things. The day Avengers was announced, I felt really good and, like, felt real excitement. It was fun.
    103:12
    Like, me and my friends talked about that, like, because I don't, like, do drugs and I never have. But I was like, is this what drugs are like? Like, where you just feel good and happy about something for a day? And I'll keep their answers disclosed. Yeah, you know, turns out. I, when I saw, when I saw Avengers, I, you know, maybe it was because I knew that I wouldn't be playing it anytime soon.
    103:36
    Because, you know, I'm not going out of location or anything like that. But, yeah, I've watched the trailer a couple times. And, yeah, I was like, man, this is, this is pretty good. I felt like Stern did a decent job in, did they do a good job in, like, maintaining the surprise? I mean, we knew about it. I thought they did a better job than they have in the past. I had been told, I don't know, maybe a month to two months ago that it was going to be Black Panther. Yeah.
    104:09
    Which I thought would have been awesome. Yeah. Honestly. Like, I would have loved that. and then somebody told me, I don't know, maybe two weeks before that it definitely wasn't Black Panther and they wouldn't tell me what it was. That's like when I got really like actually excited about it, like in a weird way because I was like, man, I don't know what this is, but I know it's coming soon, like what is it going to be? And then anyway, I figured out it was actually Avengers. I was told that by a distributor who's not my distributor, but I didn't really, it's not a person I'm super familiar with or anything like that. I just thought that was kind of odd.
    104:45
    And I posted it in, like, the Pinside Keith Ellens Next Game thread, like, asking, like, hey, has anybody else heard Avengers? Because I just heard that. And everyone just, like, shit on it and was like, ah, maybe that dude's just wrong. That was kind of, like, funny. And then, like, two days later, they announced it. And I was like, oh, take that. There's your shit. Yeah. Well, I just thought it was interesting because, I mean, I didn't know for sure. You know? And it did. Again, I got it. It seemed odd, especially when there are so many different Marvel licenses that could be because I saw how well Black Panther did as far as, like, box office gross, the same with Captain Marvel. Like, it made sense to me that it could just be a Marvel game and it's getting confused with whatever it might be. And then, anyway, it turned out it is Avengers and it's done very well. So I had my excitement about it. Do you think Avengers came out quicker because of COVID?
    105:38
    They actually talked about that a bit in the podcast. Go listen to the other podcast before you listen to ours, and then I should have done that. They said it was a different style of designing, but they had actually just finished building the first couple prototypes, like right when the Stern factory had to close. So they had a couple of them built, and that's when they all had to start doing the finishing process of the game, essentially remotely, and it kind of changed things, but it didn't come out any faster. They did say it did help with the fact that the accessories are ready to go right here at launch. Like that design time was easier to come by since they were all working remotely. But I'm wondering more so did it as far as like a new title? Because it seemed like it came really close on the tails of Turtles. It does seem that way, but I think that's just because time has moved differently for all of us. It's still actually like the three-month or so, three- to four-month time span that's her and Waits. um see i wondered because if you only have so many home buyers right and you figured that your home buyers i mean how are sales driven right like your sales are driven by hype and once those games once you get that initial hype sale then you have to wait because then it's like word of mouth or location play is going to, or you go to a show and that is going to sell games. Now with, without any of that, you just have the hype. And once the hype is gone, it's like maybe your sales tank on that title. Now it's not that they won't pick back up once people actually get a chance to play it in person, but I think most people are not going to go full Tommy and order it like you did.
    107:33
    You know what I mean? Probably not. Like, I could see, like, they're... But it's Keith Ellin, man. Right, but I could see them saying, look, we're going to release, like, the expectation would be, like, we will sell more Turtles down the line once it gets to go to shows and stuff like that. But as of now, it's like, we just need to have the... We have to have the line going.
    107:53
    Yeah, and it's totally possible. I think they just have a schedule and they stuck to it. that's my guess. I would, I would really be interested to know like what, I still think we're going to see another certain title before the end of this year. I wouldn't be surprised either, but because of that same reason where I think you are, you're looking at like your sales aren't, your sales aren't being driven by shows. They're only being driven by this hype, the hype right now. So it's like, even if you, even if you release two new titles between now and Christmas, like you could still produce those titles you know like like them doing premiums now like down the road like say we're we get back to normal next summer and then it's like all of a sudden it's like hey which model pro do you want we have like all these we you know we've got turtles we've got avengers we've got whatever i mean you know i mean so it's like they'll just have more in their library that they'll be selling i don't know it's gonna be interesting oh yeah i don't know say this week, Expo was officially canceled, and Pinball at Disney were both shows that were supposed to take place in October, and they were both officially done. I think the York show, I think, was canceled. Yeah. I suspect we're not going to have any shows or competitive pinball play until probably March of next year. That's my guess, like another six months. I think it'll be longer than that. Longer than that? Yeah. I struggle to see tests is canceling back-to-back years. I think we will.
    109:31
    Yeah, I don't know. I think it's going to be tough because even if we get a vaccine, you've got to get it distributed.
    109:38
    And you have to get it distributed in a timely manner because it's like if the vaccine only lasts for like two months,
    109:45
    you've got to, you know, I don't know. Hopefully there's a plan. Hopefully there's people who are paid more than I am. I'm not paid anything. To come up with a plan on how to distribute that. Because. We'll see. But we'll get there. We will. And we'll play Avengers, roughly 10,000 plays if you're Taylor. And that time will pass very quickly. And we'll be there before you know it.
    110:11
    Again, I know you said you had about an hour and a half, two hours, Taylor. And we're already hitting that. We are. Here's my thing, man. Are you going to, just based off of the initial hype here this week, are you thinking about what to sell to get in Avengers?
    110:25
    Yeah. I would sell Ghostbusters and I would sell roller games. And would you be looking at a pro or premium? Premium.
    110:33
    Okay. Do you think you're going to do that? I think I will do that eventually, but I'm not in a rush.
    110:40
    Gotcha. Fair enough. I still have like 4,000 games to put on Jurassic Park. Yeah. Dude, I'm seriously so mind-blown by that. I am. That's what I figure. Do you know of anyone in your area who is for sure already getting one? I do not. I assume now we have an operator that usually gets like the newest game. So I assume that he will get one. Location is Bingo Beer.
    111:05
    And then my friend Dan, who operates at Center of the Universe Brewery, he got a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But I don't know that they are.
    111:15
    I don't know that the games are being played yet. Yeah, I remember him mentioning that. Yeah, so I don't know if he would get one just because, like I said, he's got a Turtles, and he has not been able to. I don't think he's put on location, so I think that he would want to get that out first.
    111:37
    Yeah, it's tough. I mean, yeah, it's tough, and especially if they're only doing premiums at the beginning. I don't foresee a premium landing anywhere. I'm sure some local players will probably pick one up like we have a couple we have several collectors who usually get like the some premium models but I'm not necessarily going over to people's homes and playing pinball right now either so somebody wants to buy somebody wants to trade me a Avengers premium for a Ghostbusters pro and a roller games hit me up I feel like you're going to need to like throw something else in with that man I hate to break it to you I will throw a I will throw in a I'll throw in some Dirty Donnie art oh there we go couple sets of Reese rails I got a Discipline Podcast hat those are very limited by the way very limited but yeah man I think, yeah. And you said you ordered a premium?
    112:52
    I ordered a pro for my location with a deposit on a premium, and I already have a buyer lined up for my pro for once my premium is ready. Dude, you are a player.
    113:07
    Hustler. Yeah, well, I have never done that route. I know there's no place to have. Typically, I can't justify the premium, but this one just seems to have a little bit too much more for me to not want the premium. Yeah. But I still want that.
    113:24
    You might not read as many as the operator threads or Facebook groups as I do, but the reality is getting one of the early pro models and getting it on location, people travel to play, and that is when it makes its most money is that first month or two. Yeah, I can see that. So it's worth doing it. now granted again my location is smaller not as busy etc yes they make more money than my other game shows first month or two they don't make them that time more so I don't really know if it's justifiable for me to try that but because of that I posted it in a local local pinball group and I basically said like this is what I want to do would anyone be interested in my pro you know knowing ahead of time that I know I have it sold and I have two people that both said yes So I made a deal with the first one, let the second one know he's the backup plan, and agreed upon a price based on what I was paying, et cetera. And it seemed like a smart way to do it for me. That way I know I've got it on location. He knows I maintain my games while on location, clean them regularly, et cetera. And I can eventually upgrade to that premium. Now, the reality is, like, people at my location who are playing, for the most part, aren't going to have any clue that there's differences. I can put the pro there and leave it there, and they wouldn't know, you know, that there's a different thing out there. But the reality is I just really want that premium. So I'm going to find a way to get it. So what's the one feature on the premium that you feel like you could not do without? For me, it's that Captain Marvel ramp. Okay, okay. The fact that, again, I worry about rules, but the fact that that's the portal multiball for the modes rule is still integrated into the pro with virtual locks.
    114:59
    I can live with that, and it would be easier maintenance. But when you add a whole extra ramp into a game, and it's such a cool looking ramp I really want to shoot that ramp like that ramp sold me now that ramp is like let's say on the expensive excuse me expensive side what $200 let's say in metal somehow yeah it's like $25 in metal yeah I'm being on the expensive side does that justify the extra $15 to $1800 it is for the premium no but I fucking want to shoot it so I So this is the one thing about the game that I think is interesting, is that it doesn't really have any toys, right? But keeps games usually down. Right. But I think that a lot of times that is where you're looking at the value in bumping up from a premium.
    115:55
    Oh, Jurassic Park, you had the T-Rex. The T-Rex would... That's true, yeah. I mean, that's a big toy. But so you don't have anything like that. So, like, the big thing is the difference, at least between premium and pro, taking LE out of the equation because it's our package. Yeah. Or it's not even our package. It's trim. It's trim and whatnot. Back glass or a strand, right?
    116:19
    Which is cool. You like back glasses. But, yeah, I mean, it's just kind of – I mean, I guess you have the pop-up mech, right? You have a pop-up. Yeah, and also you have a scoop and a vertical up kicker on the far right instead of a stand-up target. Right. That's a pretty big difference mechanically. The Subway and the Ram. Yeah, but that's like for $1,500, that seems like a lot. It is. Okay. It is. I get it. But same thing, you said you want the premium. So, like, it worked. They did it this time. They convinced us.
    116:50
    And I still think the Pro is going to be an awesome game. Best value you can get, like, even though Stern did raise prices, like, it's still really hard to beat for new games. Like, Stern Pros are still the cheapest thing out there. buy a decent amount. You could spend $12,000 and buy a Rick and Morty.
    117:09
    $7,000? $12,000. Well, is that what they're selling for or something? Yeah. So he posted one for $12,000, Rick and Morty. I saw one just sell for $10,000 in Atlanta this week. That's crazy.
    117:23
    It is? It is. Holy shit. Spooky's getting $7,000. That's all I'm saying. Oh, well. $7,500 for the blood sucker. You want to talk about Deep Root? I'm just kidding. No, no. I was going to do quick. I'm running through my list based on my idea I had right before. Oh, yeah. What about that? When you ever did that? So, Elwin. Elwin, you have, we're going to compare his first three. Okay. So, you got Maiden, Jurassic Park, and then Avengers. Okay. All right. Steve Ritchie, you have Airborne, Avenger, Flash, and Stellar Wars. Whose collection would you rather have?
    117:54
    Keys. Pat Lawler, Banzai Run, Earl Shaker, Whirlwind. keys trudeau rocky spirit striker i'll go with keys gomez corvette johnny mnemonic nba fast break oh now i think that i think it's really interesting because i do think that gomez is coming because he was a toy maker coming from being a toy maker like you can really see it like hearing those first three titles you're like, ah, yeah, I totally get it. I think that those three games are really fun games. Wait, what was the first one? What was his first game? Corvette. Yeah, I mean, even Corvette. Yeah, I think Corvette shoots really well. I had a monster game at Pemburg on Corvette. Like, walk away, like, just killed it.
    118:52
    So I do have an affinity for that game. But I would go with Elwin. All right, and then Borg. You have Star Wars, The Data East, Jurassic Park, The Data East, and Last Action Hero. Okay. I would go with Keith.
    119:11
    Fair. I would do the same. Who do you think has the next best first three games out of those designers?
    119:20
    So, like, you got Elwynn. Obviously, we picked Elwynn over all of those. But if you had to go with your next designer, like your collection, those three first games they made. What were Lawlors? It was Bonsai Run.
    119:31
    Earthshaker and Whirlwind. Bonsai Run was his first game? That was, yeah. Originally Wrecking Ball, the one he built at his home, became Bonsai Run. So Bonsai Run, I do have an affinity for that game because when I first got into the hobby, the guy I bought my Adam Schelling from had a Bonsai Run. And he had gotten a Playfield clear-coded. and I was over there and I played it. It was like the first time I played it and I beat the king of the hill or whatever. And I put my initials in his game and he was so pissed. And he was such a dick. Like he sucked. Like he was like a total scumbag, total scumbag, like just rip-off guy. So like basically as soon as you left, you probably erased the ice. Oh, totally, totally. But he would buy like – he would buy containers. I mean, this was, like, back when, like, people would buy container games, and they would flip them, and, like, they'd be missing mechs, and, like, it was just a mess. And so that's who I bought my first game from, and it, like, worked for two weeks, you know. It, like, sucked, and then I had to learn how to fix machines immediately. But because of that, I really love Banzai Run. I do think it's a really innovative game. It's super fun. I agree. I think Banzai Run, I don't want to pay what it goes for, but I always have fun when I play that game. But that's a $4,000 game. I mean, that's like. Oh, dude. If you're lucky. Oh, no, no, no. I'm saying, like, that's what I would pay for. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I got you. I know of one that someone has had for over 25 years, and it's been broken since I've known they've had it, which is like six years. I just can't get them to sell it to me. The lift mechanism? That's the one that always breaks. I'm guessing everything is probably broken on it at this point, but that lift mechanism has been redesigned by our boy Swings, and is available on State Parks. It does. Swings. um um i yeah lawler's games i like lawler's games um i like earthshaker a lot too yeah whirlwind i don't care for now impressively in 1990 he does release both whirlwind and funhouse just 10 months apart if you did okay so okay so i'm obviously taking a break from the podcast let's wait and then when keith does his fifth game i'll come back because that will mean that Lawler will also have Adams Family. So he would go Bonsai Run, Earthshaker, Whirlwind, Funhouse. Oh, wait, let's get rid of one of those.
    122:02
    Let's get rid of Whirlwind. Six games. Let's wait for Keith. When Keith does his sixth game, I'll come back. So we got like a three, four-year win.
    122:12
    Bonsai Run, Earthshaker. He does follow up Funhouse with Adams Family and Twilight Zone. Yeah. I mean, like, talk about. That is an impressive first six games. First six games. Now, so, if Keith's games grow exponentially like Lawler's did, dude, I take my money. Take my money right now. I'm putting my deposit right now on Keith's fifth game. Because Twilight Zone was a little too much.
    122:43
    A little too stop and go, wide body, didn't need to do that. I don't want Keith starting to design a wide body. I don't want his head to get too big and be like, I need more space. I don't think Stern will be doing wide bodies, so I think you're safe. Do you think Stern will ever do another wide body? No. No? Okay.
    123:04
    Nope. Not a chance. All right, man. Yeah, that's it. That's it. I think it's impressive. If you just look at, to me, what Keith's been able to develop in his first three games versus what a lot of historical designers released in their first three games, it's an impressive start to a hopefully long career in pinball design. And the guy came out of nowhere. It was like, who is this guy, Keith Elwin, designer? How did he get a job as a designer? What has he done?
    123:33
    Archer, homebrew. So I have to call. I still hope he gets to do an Archer game one day. That would make me so happy. I'm just saying because he's not only now considered one of the best pinball designers.
    123:44
    I mean, that's crazy, right? Yeah. He's designed three games, and he's already like, we're talking about him. We're talking about him with Pat Lawler. Yeah. And the guy just is an animal as a competitive pinball player. The Michael Jordan of pinball. I'd say it's still hard to not consider him the best player in the world. Oh, yeah, easily the best pinball player in the world. And they did also have Raymond Davidson, who's, I think, still most likely ranked number one or right up there, helping with rules on this game, too. Yeah, which is right there. He's got, like, those brains just working on the rules, and it's a lot of excitement. I'm looking forward to it, man. Where Stern is, Stern, if Stern can get out of COVID, right, if they can get through this pandemic, the people that they have lined up to work for the next 20 years in their company is going to be like the it could be like the evolution of pinball like like we will see a breakthrough of some kind in pinball where it's just like i don't know i just think Like, it's, like, going back to, like, looking at, like, where Pat Lawler was and where he ended up on game five. Like, if they have the time to allow, like, an Elwin, a Davidson, who else is there now? Who's doing code? Tim Sexton. Zach Sharp. I mean, they have some of the greatest minds in playing pinball. They're working now through the design process. And I think the reality is to, like, have a great competitive pinball mind, you just really have to appreciate every little aspect of pinball because you know what mechs break on location when you're trying to play a game or in a competitive settings. You know what makes for a good rule set. Well, Keith was an operator. I mean, like, the guy is, like, comfortable. I mean, that's the one thing I think, like, looking at, like, Pat Lawler and what he's done with Jersey Jack, I think that seeing like what Keith has done versus what Pat has done, like I think that that's where you see the difference between one of the greatest pinball players ever, who is now a great designer, to somebody who is just a great designer. Because you just, like, I don't know, it's like it just, it's missing something. And I think that so many people play 2,000 games at home. But I think that you have so many people who are playing so much pinball, it's like you need that polish. And I think that having somebody like Keith who has that rule set mentality, that is what takes his games to the next level.
    126:37
    Yeah, I can't argue with it, man. Well, I think we summed up Avengers well. We won it. As always, man, enjoy recording with you. If this is the last time we hear from you for a while, so be it.
    126:53
    I don't know, man. We'll see what happens in the future. But if this is the end of the run, dude, I've enjoyed that a lot. Man, I, yeah, I don't know what to say. I just, you know, I mean, we've become friends. Oh, absolutely. I think it's funny. I think it was literally because someone was like, hey, you two should record together. Because we did, like, independent shows. We were doing the one and done multiple times, and people were like, you guys should just record one together. And then Nate from Coast to Coast made some comment about, I think I said this before. I think I actually talked to Nate about it, and he denied it. But I think he said something like, I think he said something about, he mentioned the one and done and was like, I don't know. You know, he's just like, I don't understand it because people are doing multiple podcasts. So it's not really one and done.
    127:43
    And I was like, oh, well, then we shouldn't do the one at Don. And that's how I think we did our own thing.
    127:50
    Yeah. Hey, man, it's been fun. I will likely be back in some way, shape, or form with the show because there's all sorts of rumors of other things getting unveiled this month. And I'm sure I'll have excitement about those as well. And we'll bring you back when you feel like coming back. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. And I've had a great time. And to everybody who has listened or will listen to this, yeah. And I will say, like, I have had people reach out to me recently after a couple shows asking me if I'm okay,
    128:19
    which I think is really great. Like, people care. Well, after they realize you've played 7,000 games of just Jurassic Park and Iron Maiden, they're going to reach back out. But I'm good. Like, I'm in a good place. Like, I'm, like, I am in a good place, and I'm enjoying my life, and I'm doing a lot of things. And I think, like, with the podcast, like, I've enjoyed it immensely. And it really, for me, it's more like I really want you, Tommy, to, like, not have to worry about trying to reach out to me and, like, us getting together. Like, I look forward to listening to you and whomever you have on the show or just you talking about pinball, but I definitely don't want you to like – I hope you don't kill off the This Flippin' Podcast.
    129:12
    No, man. I like what we've done. I love it. We put it out here. Yeah, man. Whenever it's convenient, as we've always done, don't expect any, like, musical intros and be ready for the return of, like, the sound of tires on the highway as I record from the car. Yeah. But, yeah, man, I'm not going to – I won't disappear. Awesome. It's almost just become too much of a part of my life to not talk about it from time to time. Absolutely, man. All right, brother. Well, look, Tommy, take care. And thanks to everybody who listens. And I hope everybody, you guys take care of each other. Be safe. Go out and vote.
    129:45
    Your vote matters. Go out and vote. And we have to rid our country of a tyrant. Agreed. Tommy. I will I'll chat with you later yeah man sounds good alright man bye
    130:26
    Thank you. So many, many, many people Gathered to hear our words So many, many, many people Traveled one day or another Sticking from dust From cover to dark Treachery, they'll master Murdering of our hearts
    131:52
    For the table where she's chained For the people and the land For the land running wild I'm a dropout I need my own
    132:45
    No, Abraham lingers, buried in his grave. The apostate, the coward, no praise for you. The actor, the actor, no one loves you. From the temple He breaks his down What the people I'm a man Running for I'm a driver Oh!
    134:37
    Thank you.