Yeah. And the ramps are swirly and swoopy and lots of magnets in that game. I will tell you for when I started Bells and I always did Bells as a casual like meet up and not a competitive kind of thing. So it was community, not competition, teaching moments, like just getting people together to have a nice time. And a lot of newer players absolutely fall in love with doggy soccer because it's very affirming. Like it's very positive. There's clear things that you want to go for. Yeah, it's great to walk up to. It's easy to approach. But if you're a great player, you can also work different strategies on it. So it goes, it runs the gamut from people who are just coming into the game to people who've been playing it for a long time. So it's really versatile and it's fun and it's not telling you to play better or how terrible you are, which is a lot of call outs now. I'm like, oh my God, I'm a horrible person for playing this game. I'm kind of a Steve Ritchie guy. So it's like, I kind of like that. That's why doggy soccer is not my thing. I like, I like Rudy. I like the Black Knight. Like, tell me I suck. It's going to motivate me to play better. Alan's got daddy issues. yeah i just i will not argue that we're not going to argue that dog soccer is a bad game people love it so it's like it's just not for me that's that's just it like we're not here to trash dog soccer that's not what i'm here to do at all but i feel like i need to be honest i'm not going to lie to my friend so it's like most people love it most people are in in jessica's camp i just personally it's not it's not my game but it's it's a well-made machine we can get back on the rails now I'll stop. Okay. What's this Medusa ball kicker is next on the list. Have you played that? Have you played Medusa? Once or twice when you guys had it on the floor, but it was there and gone. Okay. So there's like a little post that has some rubbers around it, like some little short ring rubbers around it. And if you press the button on the side of the cabinet near your flipper button, it'll punch, like it'll kind of punch forward. It's in between below your flippers of the center drain. and so you can kind of punch it back up. Dude, that's so good. That's a good gimmick. Fireball 2 also has one. Yes. They call it the Little Demon. Yes. And it's the same thing. It's like below your right flipper button, and it just like punches it back up. It's very funny. I like those mechs a lot. Like, I like the Medusa ball. I think that's like what a lot is going for that game. It's got cool art. Yeah. The game is pretty fun to play for a little while, but what I remember about that game is always trying to punch that ball backup with the flipper like the extra button on the side of the cabinet and i think that's super fun how often are you hoping for a center drain that's it right like that's the best sign of these the gimmicks and that's kind of what a gimmick i guess is it's when you walk up to a game and you go what does that do yes that can be like sometimes i mean starting with the lamest examples of the action button and sometimes it's like something like that and you're like that's what i want yeah i would and we also have a game on the floor right now that has another extra flipper button it it's called nip it it's an old em which is probably one of the first to have like a crazy gimmick like that with the extra button but it has a little gator on the side of the cabinet and it has it's like jaw will come out and kind of grab and swallow a ball yeah and you have to control that using an extra flipper button and i think that is super fun it makes the game yeah it's super cool you can eat the ball or if you time it you can bump the ball yeah so like you can use the get or like snap to kind of hit it away yeah you can try to hit it into that kick on the left or whatever um yeah you can try to you can try to hit one of the stand-up targets that'll release one of the balls for a multi-ball or you just throw it into the lit pops and just collect hundreds if you have them lit but i think that's a super fun game and a cool gimmick and it's a game that we have on the floor now at wedgehead so any local listeners you can come in and try that fun quick story about nippet yes please i tied someone in one of my groups at enberg one year on nip it like exact same score wow and we had to replay the same game and we tied again no holy shit that seemed twice in a row on nip it that seems like you know i'd like to do the actual odds on it wow that's nuts the exact same score twice in a row yeah and we're just like can we just split the points and they're like no that's not how this works you have to play it again what are the chances come on did you win or lose do you remember i won the third one yeah heck yeah but that's notice how that's not even in my story because the most exciting part oh oh yeah hey we just tied twice on it's true it's way more interesting that you tied once at all to do it twice i mean that's crazy that is but i i want to talk about another one is the shifter knob on getaway high speed getaway the sequel that is a game that's like you know well regarded pretty famous you'll run into them on location but instead of a plunger you have like a little shifter knob because it's a car game and you have to you use that to plunge but then also while you're in the game you get your rpms up which you see on inserts on the play field and the callouts will tell you shift gears and it wants you to shift gears to progress in the game literally shift gears what do you guys think about that one i like it i think it's super fun i think it's fun too it's a different like interactive element it makes it challenging like if you're in a place where you can't hear the game very well sometimes you just throw that shifter a couple times just in case yeah you're like am i close yeah or some of the lights are burned out on the play field or whatever it's very embarrassing short shifting it you know what are you doing there buddy you didn't hit red line like if your friend watches you try to go for gear when you wasn ready they will give you shit which i love yeah i think that probably my favorite alternate launch mechanism you know like of all of the i guess it the only one that interactive because it like like indiana jones has the pistol grip and like yeah there's skills that have real yeah but it's like the shifter's cool because you actually you're like shifting gears is cool everyone wants to slam gears and uh like it actually does something it's just it's fun there are a few of the like there are so many of the gimmicky launch like tales from the crypt that has the you know door handle yeah oh yeah there are some that are actually functional though like the data east star wars where you have that weird like the shifting it doesn't do anything but the button on it launches yes so it times like your skill shot with something on the screen but then like when stormtroopers pop up you jam the button and then it knocks a row of them down but if you're not paying attention then you're toast so things like that where it actually matters i think are really interesting yeah i think that's always cool if you're going to give me a gimmicky you know plunger or shooter rod it's like make it interactive with the game and shifting the gears on getaway is just so cool yeah and yeah it's fun and it does the same thing where it's like it wants you to quickly pull your hand off of a flipper button and shift gears but i do see people sometimes use their knee you know or something else or are really awkward if you're from behind somebody their friend next to them reaching over and kind of flipping the thing for them and it looks very uh suspicious or it's suggestive um as to what exactly they're doing but uh i think that makes the game fun i love a good like multi-ball like guardians of the galaxy or whatever if you've got hadron collider lit and you've got balls on both flippers be like do i use my knee or my nose to hit this button how are we going and i do love that and that's like that's the fun part about the action button right like alan was saying forcing you to take your hands off the flippers or making you do something weird to hit it like with your belly or your knee or yeah when i'm in a situation like that yep but if you're shorter that probably doesn't work as well that is cool yeah but if you're really short you can use your chest you know like you just got true i've used my chest to do it before oh yeah another one that i think is a big one is the diverters on the shadow. So the shadow pinball has these diverters on each of the ramps, and there's an extra button on each side of the cabinet to swing the diverter so your ball path will go either left or right on each ramp. Yep. And you control them. And you're collecting these rings for each shot, each different ball path. So you have to kind of manage those and then shoot all the shots and collect all your rings and that stuff. And I think that's super fun, too. Those Furbos are crazy, too. But those shots are so cool. And it has a sound associated with it. So you're not just doing it and it just moves. Like, the sound effects in the game, it's like a funk sound. Like, you hear it happening as it's flipping over. So it makes it a big feature part of the game. Yep. And those diverters themselves are just beefy compared to most diverters. They all weigh, like, five pounds. They're cool. And they break a lot, too. But they're cool. Yeah, they do. They do break a lot. Yeah, as the person that doesn't have to fix the games, I love them. I don't think they were, I don't think they were, like, bad. Like, at a different episode, it might be fun to talk about just, like, famous mechs and pinball and talk about which ones are, you know, like, famously unreliable and what operators hate. Power and Associates, like, rank all of the pinball games, the classics, you know, ones that have kind of proven, not new stuff. I don't think that the Divers, while you do have to maintain them and work on them, I don't think they're the worst. defenders by any means honestly the upper play field is worse it's so sick the first time so the kind of guy back in the midwest that got me into pinball had a shadow in his basement and the first time i played it and managed to hit like a combo of where you're changing the diverters and feeding the other ramps and just keep going it's like the best feeling in pinball you're like oh wow because it's it's even better than hitting a normal combo because you're like i did that like you're manually doing like more shit it gives you control in the flow of the game too it doesn't interrupt the flow which is really cool it is cool i want to talk about this one i don't i'm sure jessica's played it because she's been in pinball forever i you probably haven't played this one alex no but there's a game gotley volcano it's a relatively rare game but it has the left out lane like where steve richie used to put you know the kickback yeah coils it has that there just like that but it gives you a button where you have to make it you don't roll over the switch and automatically fires the ball back into play you have to press the extra button to fire it in time to kick it back up onto the play field i bet you can get some good air balls with that you know i don't remember the air balls we have one and it's a fun weird game and that's cool though it's really cool it's really cool yeah i think we're seeing kind of a theme here all the gimmicks we like it's like the more manual it is like the more we're into this you're like we all like having control over aspects of the games that we wouldn't normally have that's kind of the fun part about like pinball yeah that's you're physically getting involved with it so of course you feel like more invested and more involved because you have to do the thing yeah so the other one i want to say is we don't have one of these but i know the pops guys in boston have one it's a dungeons and dragons um have you guys played much dungeons and dragons the pinball machine no not much my friend dave in Brisbane has one so I played it when I've been over there mostly I don't know if I've ever played it in the states it has awesome music it's a it's a weird game it's a very weird game I think it's fun it does have like a magic save where if you hit the buttons it'll switch your in lanes and out lanes oh that's cool I like so yeah like it's they call it a magic save and it's cool Again, it's something you control, which I think the common theme is we all like that. Yeah. The other one I remember a lot is Hardbody and the flex saves. Do you remember Hardbody? Yes. I think Hardbody has maybe my favorite of all of these gimmicks. Hardbody also has my favorite of any intro sound effects with like the grunting or whatever. Oh, yes. dude i have a hard body is a phenomenal game for anyone listening it's a bally midway right it's got to be early 80s yes and it's a split level game i don't know the designer i'm just kind of doing this all the time i think it's ward pemberton that would make sense and it's like 80s body builder themed with like muscular women and i guess some dudes on it yeah so cheesy and so I love the theme in the same way that I love No Fear. Yeah. The arcade, like, the place I kind of, like, started playing pinball at as an adult, he got one, and I just loved that thing. The flex saves are so good, though. Yeah, basically, the flex saves are, it has, like, from that era, it has the inlanes that go kind of straight down into the outlane. Like, it just goes straight down, and you usually have the swoop on the outlanes that sort of swoop over, and those are, like, technically your inlanes. They sort of have them swapped. But in that gap where you would train, there's these hidden diverters that if you hit the button, it'll slam closed and it'll create like a lane guide for the ball to roll down to your flipper like you would normally think about. And it's just really funny. It's really loud. It's just so much fun. I love those so much. Yeah. Talk about giving people you're playing with a hard time when they're playing hard body and they're trying to do the flex save. and it's always awkwardly timed. Yes. You've always hit it a little bit too soon or a little bit too late. Yeah, because it only pops in for like a second, right? It's quick. Yes. And so it's very easy to mistime it and then just lose the ball, which I think is really funny. It's just fun. It just makes it really fun. And I think it's thematic. It's called flex save. I love it. It's so good. That game is just good in general. We could just do a whole episode about Hardbody. We should. Sometime in the future. I love when a game makes draining your ball into something that's not frustrating so like yes okay you messed that up but it's hilarious that you've done it so I don't know it somehow takes the sting away I can definitely agree with that and it feels like you're in more control even when you lose it's like something you could do better next time especially when you're just kind of getting going in the hobby that feels good be like oh I could have done that to save it we have another couple saves like that i think of the freddy claw save from nightmare on elm street oh that's cool yeah not one of my favorite games but very cool theme and well integrated they got like a little hand claw flipper too but you just use the regular button on that but there's claws that come up through freddy's claw glove comes up in between your flippers and like will grab do they stop the ball from draining down the center and you have to use a button to do that if those blades aren't all broken i was gonna say and those blades definitely never break yeah they never break because they weren't just made out of cheap plastic but if they they're not broken because they never do uh it's a very cool effect and then we get into some other stuff like there's some other ones that i want to talk about before we get off this episode but it's like there's the extra buttons that are for Johnny Mnemonic that... For video mode, for Snarf. Yeah, for Snarf. Oh, yeah. So that's kind of... Oh my gosh. Extra buttons that exist just for video modes is kind of its own thing. Yes, for video modes. I think, don't you move the glove with that too? Those extra buttons too? Because you need to go X, Y. Yeah, you move the glove with it also. Yeah. You got a four-way coordinator. Which again, that's another really cool mech that's almost always broken. Yeah, you guys probably hate that thing, but I love it. I think it super fun when you play it man I love those 90s Bally Williams games because they really swung for the fences They just did stuff that people don do anymore Because you know they proved to be unreliable or whatever in the field or just a pain to shop out and fix things But back then they were just they were swinging for the fences and it was cool Well, and then you have stuff like Judge Dredd and Revenge from Mars where you have your mode selector buttons are on the side by your flippers. Yeah. So you're like deciding which modes you're going to play. And sometimes like the ball launch on Dredd is on the side too. So sometimes you have someone who's trying to select a mode and they accidentally launch the ball. So that's always funny. But yeah, like just stuff that you wouldn't think. It seems almost like bad design. Like you're like, do we need these extra buttons? Like horrible idea, but it would just love the image. Yeah. It forces you to pay attention or read something. I don't know. But I love those. My, okay, other extra button things that we haven't talked about yet. What about using the extra ball button for things like the cheat on jackpot? Oh, yeah, that's cool. Good one. That's a good one. Your troll bombs on medieval or your garlic cloves on Monster Bash. Sure, yeah. Recycled, well, yeah, because those ones are like recycling the launch button for kind of like a hidden feature, right? Yeah, yeah, having the extra button on the front, yeah. Those are a lot of fun, and I have to imagine that really fucked with people like back in the 90s before common, you know, knowledge was just shared on the internet or whatever. because that's the kind of thing that your friend would tell you that you'd be like no way like that's gotta be made up it sounds like a cheat code there's somewhere in between a fun easter egg or infuriating to lose in a tournament if you don't know that like i think all those features are like now those games are really old and if you're a serious tournament player you probably already know those things but i can't imagine how aggro some people get at tournaments anyway imagine like losing because you don't know how to use the cheat button on jackpot you know or like yeah or how to use your garlic cloves you know or your troll bombs like yeah i could see that i love the first time like the moment you see someone who is watching jackpot for the first time and seeing someone just jamming because yeah it has to be fast you have this like super fast awkward like hooking the finger motion to the extra ball button under the start yeah they're just going for you just like what is happening right now and you see people like what are they doing like what are the animations are so cool when it's like you know he hits the table and then the dice turn from like snake eyes to double sixes extra card comes out of the sleeve yeah the ace comes out of the sleeve or when you're in casino run and you can avoid those bombs yes yeah it's so creatively used and so thematic i agree the integration of the theme is so cool and it's is such an easy thing for them to put in and you know you can disable it if you uh have you know no soul but do it i agree why would people do that the last thing i want to mention is because we talked about it sort of in the super pins episode but i want to get jessica's take on these because i'm a fan of demolition man the pinball machine demolition man the movie a movie yes and i love using the big handles that stick up on the side and because they have triggers and they have little buttons on top so they're like little like kind of yes for bombs yes and much missiles they're so fun i like i feel like i have great control of the game i know there's a lot of players that hate it and they're like i can't nudge the ball or i don't have i can't make my you know my tap pass or by whatever i don't have my drop catch or whatever skill that they feel like they're losing but i'm just like i love that they did that thing and actually it's ergonomically fun like i i can nudge the game i play better with the handles like i really do like you get a bonus for only using the handle yes i love that they reward you for it because it did nothing it would i mean i would use them but it would be really dumb you know like yeah yeah you're like It kind of forces you to use them. It is funny. I have two funny Judge Dredd things. Or Demoman things. Hello.