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BDYETP 73: Scooby Doo and Drained Revealed, Stern Relocates, Zidware Case Resolved? + Nick Baldridge Interview

Bro, Do you Even Talk Pinball·podcast_episode·1h 54m·analyzed·Dec 11, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Four Amusement-Only Games founder details Drained P3 module development and manufacturing startup.

Summary

Nick Lane and Kevin Manning interview Nick Baldridge of Four Amusement-Only Games about manufacturing Drained, a P3 pinball module. They discuss game design complexity, business setup challenges, manufacturing logistics, and Baldridge's IT background. The episode also previews Spooky's Scooby-Doo announcement and includes discussion of community tensions around criticism.

Key Claims

  • Nick Baldridge secured a Small Business Administration loan to pre-purchase parts and fund manufacturing without relying on customer deposits.

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge directly states he took out an SBA small business loan and pre-purchased inventory to avoid using customer money for manufacturing funding.

  • Drained playfield modules take approximately 24 hours to assemble, with expected improvement as manufacturing efficiency increases.

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge states 'an estimate that I have right now for the early ones is about 24 hours but that should improve with some time.'

  • Local zoning regulations initially prohibited home assembly; Baldridge resolved this by partnering with Build RVA makerspace in Richmond.

    high confidence · Nick describes being told by locality 'no way, you can't assemble those in your house' and requiring industrial-zoned building, then obtaining space at Build RVA incubator.

  • Drained modules contain approximately 100 discrete parts designed for ease of maintenance by end-users and operators.

    high confidence · Nick states 'it takes about 100 discrete parts, a little over' and discusses intentionally using similar parts for maintenance simplicity.

  • Four Amusement-Only Games launched Drained on November 20-21, with production modules already in assembly.

    high confidence · Nick confirms 'November 21st is when the game launched' and notes he is 'finishing up the assembly of the second production module.'

  • Spooky Pinball has announced a Scooby-Doo themed pinball machine.

    high confidence · Hosts explicitly state 'Spooky Pinball has announced Scooby-Doo' in news segment intro.

  • Nick Baldridge maintains full-time IT employment while running Four Amusement-Only Games as a secondary full-time commitment.

    high confidence · Nick states 'I'm in IT, and I've been a professional IT person for a long time now. And, no, this is not my full-time gig. This is my second full-time gig after my day job.'

Notable Quotes

  • “Everything has to work together to elicit whatever emotion or just feeling of fun that you're looking to get from the player. And it takes a lot of time to get that balance just right.”

    Nick Baldridge @ ~08:30 — Core design philosophy emphasizing integrated approach to game feel beyond physical playfield.

  • “My money is on the line to make these games and deliver them to people. So I have skin in the game, I guess you'd say.”

    Nick Baldridge @ ~28:45 — Explains personal financial risk and motivation for quality control in manufacturing.

  • “I wanted to use as many parts that were similar to make maintenance easy. So there's the assembly part. There's also the maintenance part.”

    Nick Baldridge @ ~42:30 — Design constraint prioritizing operator/customer maintainability alongside manufacturing efficiency.

  • “I don't want to overload myself or my manufacturing process by taking on too many different tasks. So everything outside of manufacturing is on hold.”

    Nick Baldridge @ ~51:15 — Strategic focus on production capacity before expanding product line.

  • “If you cannot stand for us to not say anything but good things about spooky pinball, you probably want to skip ahead to maybe when we're bashing like Stern or something else.”

    Nick Lane @ ~59:00 — Community tension indicator regarding Spooky Pinball criticism sensitivity.

Entities

Nick BaldridgepersonFour Amusement-Only GamescompanyDrainedgameBuild RVAorganizationSpooky PinballcompanyMultimorphiccompanyBuffalo PinballorganizationNick LanepersonKevin Manning

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Four Amusement-Only Games successfully secured SBA small business loan and pre-purchased inventory to fund manufacturing without relying on customer deposits, indicating viable micro-manufacturer business model.

    high · Nick Baldridge details SBA loan process, financial protection structure, and inventory pre-purchase strategy to avoid customer funding dependency.

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Spooky Pinball community exhibits defensive sensitivity to any criticism; hosts must issue warning before discussing Scooby-Doo to preempt negative community reaction to any non-entirely-positive commentary.

    medium · Nick Lane explicitly warns viewers: 'if you cannot stand for us to not say anything but good things about spooky pinball, you probably want to skip ahead.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Nick Baldridge prioritizes holistic game experience design: physical playfield + software + audio + visuals + artwork integration required to elicit specific player emotions; distinguishes from competitors who may focus only on playfield mechanics.

    high · Nick explains detailed coordination of art direction, sound direction, music direction, software simultaneously; emphasizes 'everything has to work together to elicit whatever emotion.'

  • $

    market_signal: Commercial real estate market barriers to entry for micro-manufacturers: brokers unwilling to lease sub-500 sq ft industrial spaces to startups with unproven revenue, forcing Baldridge toward makerspace incubation model.

    high · Nick describes difficulty getting real estate calls when requesting small spaces and eventual pivot to Build RVA makerspace partnership for business incubation.

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.342

0:00
Coming up on this episode of Bro, Do You Even Talk Pinball, Kevin and I are going to interview Nick Baldridge from Four Amusement Games to talk about his newest creation for the P3. So you've got two Nicks, one Bro. And then, of course, we've got Spooky's reveal of Scooby-Doo. And Kevin and I will answer, are there more than one Dicks on the play field? All that and more coming right up.
0:30
I need a ramp. I need a loop. I walk hard and talk to men. I need to scoot. I need to go. This is the first jackpot in my life.
0:53
That's right. And now, the Hall and Oates of pinball podcasting, Nick Lane and Kevin Manning of Buffalo Pinball. Whoop-boom-shakalaka!
1:08
Thank you, Nick Lane, for that beautiful intro. What's going on, everybody? Happy December. It's almost the end of another wonderful year here of pinball news. Nick Lane, what's going on? So we didn't do a podcast in November for Bro, but we were on a podcast last month. Yeah, well, I guess we missed us. No, we didn't. It was like November 4th we put out the podcast. Oh, God, that feels like a year ago at this point.
1:35
But there's been a lot of good things then. Yeah, we should probably give a plug to Pinball Party. So thank you for Pinball Party for having us on that podcast. You can go check out the episode. I heard it's their best episode ever. You know, I'm hearing it. People are saying it's the greatest episode ever. My mom says it's the best episode ever of Pinball Party.
person
Molly Baldridgeperson
Charles Wolfeperson
Scooby-Doogame
Playdateproduct
Pinsideorganization

community_signal: Nick Baldridge demonstrates deliberate pacing strategy; holding back Playdate game development and future pinball titles until Drained reaches market saturation to avoid overcommitting manufacturing capacity.

high · Nick states 'I don't want to overload myself or my manufacturing process by taking on too many different tasks. So everything outside of manufacturing is on hold.'

  • ?

    product_concern: New startup manufacturer (Nick Baldridge/Four Amusement-Only) chose in-house assembly to avoid contract manufacturer quality issues that would impact warranty support, indicating awareness of quality-control challenges in manufacturing sector.

    high · Nick states 'I wanted to avoid as many of those as possible, by bringing them in-house' and emphasizes needing to 'stand behind the warranty.'

    • 1:54
    Check it out. Episode 11 if you're looking for it in the feed. He puts it on a lot. So, yeah. You want to jump right into some partners?
    2:03
    Let's jump right into some partners. All right. Here we go. Partner number one, premier partner, Pin Stadium and Pin Stadium Lights is a lighting kit for your pinball machines. Illuminated award-winning mod for your pinball machines. It's kind of a no-brainer in this day and age in terms of mods. Save 10% when you use coupon code BUFFALO, controlled by iOS or Android. You can make any color combination you want. Highly recommend it. Then pinwoofer.com. Pinwoofer.com. You can check out our interview if you want to learn more about that system from last month's podcast. It's an upgrade kit for your pinball machine. And let me tell you, he got a lot of orders from that episode, which was great to hear. and I also had good feedback from people who purchased it, and they're really happy with their pin woofer. So, again, I don't mess around, man. If I take the time to bring somebody on a podcast or we have a sponsor, we definitely believe in the product. So I'm glad everybody's happy with that. Flippin' Out Pinball, especially talk about believing in products, talk about good people. FlippinOutPinball.com, Zach Menne, and now his partner in crime, Greg Bone, who will take care of you for customer service, best customer service in the industry. Why anybody would buy a pinball machine elsewhere is beyond me. They're really good people, and they basically have every pinball machine imaginable. And you can also get, if you want to be cool, you can get a big buck on it reloaded like me and, you know, pay $40 a month for a subscription. I highly recommend throwing your money away on it. It's great.
    3:28
    TitanPinball, titanpinball.com. Use coupon code BUFFALO to save 10% on silicone rings. Pinballs, the most comfortable mat in the industry, flipper button protectors, and much more. I sell them short by just rattling off a couple, but those are my favorite products that they have. PinballRaffle.org. over there for a chance to win a pinball machine almost every month and also donate to charity. Talk about winning. Pinside.com. Got a nice Pinside.com story about people wanting to punch me. We'll talk about that later in the podcast. Great place to rile people up and set off the mentally unhinged. Pinside.com. My favorite place to talk pinball and upset people unintentionally. All right. Come at pinball. Come at pinball.com. LEDs, the OG in illuminating the pinball machine. Come at pinball.com. And then last but not least, Jersey Jack Pinball. still making the most beautiful pinball machines on the planet. Check them out. All right, let's go, Kev. Let's go. All right, let's bring in, let's kick it off with the one and only Nick Baldridge. You saw him as part of the Drained Reveal stream right here on Buffalo Pinball.
    4:28
    He was dressed up as a vampire. He's not dressed up as a vampire today, but he's joining us from his pinball workshop.
    4:37
    Nick Baldridge, what's going on from Four Amusement Only Games? Hey, guys. Thanks for having me. And, yeah, I'm dressed as a normal human today. But, you know. You know, it's daytime, so the vampire comes out at night, right?
    4:50
    Perfectly normal human. That's exactly what a normal human would say. Thank you. Before the show, I thank Nick for having the same name as Nick, so I do not have to change the name underneath the video screen. So you just get Nick no matter who's talking. So two Nicks, one show. Here we go. So Nick Baldridge, if you didn't know, he is the founder, creator, mastermind behind Four Amusement-Only Games, He's the latest pinball manufacturer on the planet. And I say that because he is actually manufacturing pinball machines. He's not just saying he's going to. As you can tell, if you're watching the video feed, you can see some of the action behind him there, the pinball construction action. So he did an interview with the Slippin' Podcast where he talked about Drained, the rules, the art, the music, all the, like, details behind the game. So if you want to know more about Drained, definitely go check out the Slippin' Podcast. I love those guys. Tommy and Taylor are great, and they did a great job with an overview of the game. Also, you can check out the reveals on our YouTube channel if you want to see the game in action. But I wanted to personally bring in Nick because I was part of the testers of Drained, and we had a channel on Discord where kind of behind the scenes Nick was sharing the trials and tribulations of becoming a pinball manufacturer. And I was like, this is fascinating. I'd love to share this with our audience, especially in light of other quote-unquote manufacturers who promise big things and never are able to quite bring things to fruition. So with that, let's kick it off with the first question. So when people think about designing a pinball machine, they tend to think about the physical play field, right? I'm going to take some ramps, I'm going to slap them on the play field, put some targets. It's going to be fun to shoot. It's going to be great. But what else goes into the design of a pinball game, and what might most people not consider when they take on a project like this?
    6:39
    Well, aside from the actual physical layout, you know, one of the things I like to consider is the feeling that the different shots elicit from the player. And those feelings can change based on the mode or the software.
    6:57
    So everything has to kind of go hand in hand. You've got the physical layout, the software, the audio, the entire experience, the visuals, the artwork, the static artwork, and the dynamic artwork on the P3. Everything has to work together to elicit whatever emotion or just feeling of fun that you're looking to get from the player. And it takes a lot of time to get that balance just right. I've had some experience doing that now on a commercial basis with other games that I've made that were software only for the P3, games like Ranger in the Ruins, Silver Falls, and Flipper Fox Trot Rhythm Explosion.
    7:44
    But this was my first foray into the physical playfield layout for the P3 as well. So, yeah, it's just a matter of taking all those elements and combining them in a way that is satisfying and fun to shoot or is tense or intense.
    8:10
    And, you know, it's tricky just to strike the right balance. Yeah, for sure. So, you know, you think about, like, sure, you can get music written for a game. You can, you know, connect with a, you know, you had Charles Wolfe do your music and he does amazing work. But if you don't, I guess you have to become, like, a creative art director, a music director, a project manager. Like, all those different skill sets, you need, like, all of this to bring this all together, right? Yeah, so that's how I operate. But obviously you can hire out for any of those different situations. So if you know your strong suit is not art direction or you don't have a particular concept for the way the music should sound, you know, then you can have somebody else do that work for you. But the trick is coordinating it all at the end. So on my side, I had a really strong concept for how I wanted this game to behave. And so I was able to coordinate the art direction, the sound direction, music direction, everything, along with the software at the same time, which I was also writing. So, you know, I had complete creative control. But obviously you can farm that out just depending on how you do it. And the bigger companies, that's how they do it. They have different people that handle those different departments or different aspects.
    9:34
    Yeah, for sure. You know, when you're a startup, though, you've got to kind of take more under your own wing until you can build up to that point, right? Right. So beyond the play field design, what would you say was the most time-consuming part of the project and what skills are needed beyond play field design? We touched on that a little bit.
    9:56
    Yeah. You know, programming is probably the most time-consuming just because you're taking assets that are being generated or you're generating assets and then you're pulling them in and making them appear or disappear or animate or whatever at a given time. On the P3, you're helped in that fashion both with the SDK but also with Unity, the game engine that runs the different displays.
    10:27
    So the job is a little easier. Everything's a little easier on the P3, but it's still a tremendous amount of work. Tremendous amount of work. So making any game is a tremendous amount of work, and the software side is really where the rubber hits the road, so to speak, because making a target score points, relatively straightforward, but making it score points, start a light show, do all these things with the proper overrides. So this light show doesn't override another light show. It's more important. This audio overrides other audio, ducks out, call outs, starts call outs, whatever the case may be. There's a ton of layering that goes into the software creation aspect. And it's hard to overstate how difficult that is and how time-consuming it is to make something that feels polished.
    11:30
    Yeah, I find that's something new pinball companies tend to lack on their first few games, like that choreography, like you said, the tension. There's so much that goes into making a game exciting and interesting and fun that it's easy to overlook. Like, oh, you just turn the GI on and you make some whites blink and that's it, right?
    11:52
    Yeah, much more. Yeah, exactly. So why did you decide to start up for amusement-only LLC, and what was involved with bringing your company online?
    12:03
    So early on in the process, you know, I was talking with Multimorphic, and they've been fantastic partners throughout this entire process, and they always have been on the software side as well as on this third-party module side. And there's a bunch of different options that they gave for how to create the modules, actually bring them into being.
    12:29
    And I could hire Multimorphic to do it. I could hire a contract manufacturer to do it, or I could do it myself. And so I started looking into what was involved with doing it myself. And, of course, the company part is financial. It's financial protection for my family, but it's also financial protection for the customer. You know, funds are separate because they're with the company. They're not intermingled with my own personal funds or anything like that.
    13:00
    But I'm also able to get business insurance. There's a ton of different things that had to be thought through as far as how I want things structured, how I want to provide the best possible service and product for the customers. This is something that took a lot of thought and required a lot of discussion with my wife, Molly, who did all the artwork for Drain, but also is my wife. So these are big, important decisions that we needed to make as far as, you know, is this going to be possible? if I were to do it, what's involved? Like this is a big chunk of my life is doing pinball-related stuff and making software, making games is such a fun thing and sharing them with others is such a fun thing. So I wanted to be able to provide a quality product that I knew was manufactured to the specification that I had for it.
    14:11
    And any contract manufacturer, it doesn't matter who it is, you're going to run into situations where something either doesn't get assembled correctly or a target doesn't operate or, you know, some kind of funky thing will happen during manufacture, artwork issues, whatever the case is. And so I wanted to avoid as many of those as possible, by bringing them in-house. That way there's not a work stoppage if I need to go and adjust something in the manufacturing process or retool or replace parts if parts go in and out of availability, which they do all the time.
    14:54
    Really, the inventory tracking is a huge part of this too. And, of course, the accounting and marketing, all the stuff goes together as far as making a company. But the real driver behind it was just being able to present what I felt would be the best quality product built to the standard that I wanted it to be built to without the need to involve other parties and create additional headache to fix problems when they occur. Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. and you're kind of, like, trading off, like, do I want to, you know, do I want to build all these myself versus, you know. Yes. Yeah, and then, like, when it comes from you that you know, like, okay, I put this together so I know, like, this module inside and out. And so if there's anything weird with it, then I know where to look. It's way easier to stand behind the warranty that I'm providing when I know, you know, I turned all the screws. So if I screwed something up, it's, you know, the onus is on me to fix it. Everything is my fault or, you know, my good work. So, you know, everything is a tradeoff, absolutely everything. And the same goes for all parts of pinball creation, be it design or software, everything. You know, everything's a tradeoff. So you have to make decisions along the way to what you think will produce the best outcome, the best product. Yeah, that makes sense. The plus side for you, especially as a new startup pinball company, making a module for the P3, you're making like a three-by-three play field, and the rest of the cabinet is already there. So that removes some of that complexity for you. That is huge. So, yeah, the big difference, one of the big differences between making a full-size cabinet and play field is just this immense amount of space that it takes up.
    17:01
    As Kevin mentioned, you know, it's actually like a two-by-two product. So, you know, much smaller, easier to move around, lighter weight, all those things. takes up less space to store until you're ready to assemble.
    17:20
    So all good things. You don't have to buy as much wood to build cabinets. You don't have to maintain as much inventory. I can't imagine trying to do this with the whole cabinet and everything like some of these startups are trying to do.
    17:35
    Awesome. All right. So on this podcast, you mentioned that you took out a small business loan to get your company off the ground. What went into that, and did you run into any challenges along the way with that?
    17:49
    So, yeah, I mean, just more on the financial side, I've been thinking about this for a long time, obviously, and part of that was, okay, how do I want to structure the company? How do I want customers to be treated when they order this product? Will they receive it in a timely fashion? Obviously, I'm doing all the assembly and manufacture myself. So, you know, everything from soldering to crimping connectors to screwing targets to the play field, all that stuff is on me. And so how did I want to come out of the gate with this? And the solution that I came to was that I wanted to pre-purchase a lot of parts to be able to assemble as many games as I could practically and kind of come out of the gate running. So rather than taking people's money and then using that to fund an allotment of parts and then using that to build machines, I'm using my own money, putting my own collateral at stake in order to do this. And I felt like that was the right move. So in order to get the loan, it's through the Small Business Administration. The U.S. has a lot of different financial products to help small businesses, just depending on what you're doing. I was lucky to qualify for one in my area, and I got this loan. It is a loan, so, you know, I have to pay it back. But that was all part of the financial planning aspect. And so, as I say, my money is on the line to make these games and deliver them to people. So I have skin in the game, I guess you'd say. And that makes me very interested in delivering a product, making sure I'm doing it the right way. but also the way that all the finances are structured, I don't have to use people's money that they're putting down for deposits or for the completed games in order to get manufacturing started. It's already happening.
    20:19
    Yeah, so you're already up and building the first few modules, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. So what was the date? So it was like November 20th? November 21st is when the game launched, yeah. Okay, yeah. So, you know, we're only a few weeks out from that. And for a sole proprietor like you to be kicking them off and rolling them out that quick, that's awesome.
    20:44
    So tell us about your adventures in finding a place to assemble the games. This is one of the things, behind-the-scenes things I found so fascinating. So I know you're working with a makerspace now. What was that like, and how does that compare to trying to assemble the games somewhere else? Yeah, so I'll go through the trials and tribulations and then tell you where I've ended up, which I'm really thrilled with and very happy to have that partner. But when I first started looking into this, of course, the federal government, you know, great, go for it. Small business administration, you know, cool. But my locality was not cool with it. So I applied for my business license here in my locality, and they said, no way, you can't assemble those in your house, which is where I started to do it, or, you know, where I told them I was going to start doing it. This is months before I actually started manufacturer.
    21:40
    And they came back and said, no way, you need to have a industrial zoned building that you're assembling these things. And so I explained it's all hand tools, there's no power tools, there's no air tools.
    21:55
    They didn't care. So I ended up looking around at different localities near me and then talking to commercial real estate people and all this. And I will tell you it's very hard to get commercial real estate people to call you back when you're telling them, you know, here is the size of my brand new company and I just need, you know, whatever the smallest chew box you can fit me into. It just has to be zoned appropriately. So if I can have 300 square feet, I would be thrilled, you know, just give me something.
    22:32
    But no, nobody wants to do that. They want to sign the lease on these giant factory spaces. And, you know, that's just not in the cards, not realistic. So I started looking around at kind of business incubators in my area, and I have a friend that's on the board for this makerspace, and I hadn't joined the makerspace to my great shame. It's called Build RVA, and, you know, we'd been talking about it for years since the makerspace started up, and I just didn't have the time to devote to learning these different tools that they have, and they have a great variety of different tools that can be used for manufacture. So everything from CNC's, plastic laser cutters, all those kind of things are in-house there and give me a lot of flexibility as far as moving forward with another game in the future.
    23:39
    But one of the things they do is business incubation. And so I gave them a call and my friend got me connected with the person in charge over there. And we had a long talk about what my goals were, what I planned to do, how I planned to do it. And, yeah, so I have partnered with them. It's Build RVA, and they're in the city proper, and so that required a different business license than my locality, which is near the city.
    24:13
    But, thankfully, the rules were the same. Of course, that's an industrial-zoned building. Everything's good. And so I had to get super organized. and everything has to be assembled over there. And then I bring it back to check my work late at night and just make sure everything, this light that's on here, I can't overstate how powerful it is. It's extremely bright. This is a very dark room normally, but this light shines directly on a work table that I have that I use to double-check everything at night and then set my goals for the next day. And so I have just a giant number of these kind of U-line containers that are all labeled with the different components that are used in assembly, screws, etc. And a big storage container that contains the very tiny parts like washers and so forth. And I just load up the vehicle and bring it over there, put everything together, bring it back. and so that's how I'm doing it. You know, as the company grows, if I, you know, sell a whole bunch of these, then I'll look into other commercial real estate and, of course, I'll have more of a bargaining chip with the commercial real estate agents in order to qualify for different space because I'll have, you know, a big chunk of income that I didn't have when I was first looking. So that's the other block. It's like, well, you know, I might sell one of these. You know, who knows how it's going to go. I would love to sell a ton of them, but realistically, you just don't know how a game's going to hit. And what I think is a fun game, what you think, Kevin, is a fun game, might not be a fun game for everybody. So I just had to make realistic decisions and as educated a decision as I could make with my own money on the line and all that. Yeah, that's amazing.
    26:26
    So beyond, like, the U-line totes and things like that, have you had to buy, like, tools or fixtures or anything like that that help facilitate the construction of these modules? So because the modules are two-by-two, I don't use a traditional rotisserie. So to check my work, I actually, I showed Kevin this, but I have a giant concrete Lazy Susan. And the construction of my module is such that it can stand upside down and right side up without damage to the module. So I can flip it upside down, spin it around, check everything, 360 degrees. And that's really helpful. Yeah, but other than the totes, I haven't had to buy much else I already had all the tools that were needed for assembly Because I've been assembling these I've been, aside from being an in-home repair tech for many, many years I also built a number of whitewoods and samples So I had all the stuff that I needed All the wrenches and so forth at hand. Yeah, no, that's good.
    27:39
    So how many hours did it take to build a playfield module? So that's a little tough to say because there were a few changes from sample to production at each step of the way. There have been some minor changes. So I'm finishing up the assembly of the second production module at the moment. And so I've done some tasks in parallel with the first one and some that are not based on the changes that needed to be made. But I do as many tasks in parallel as possible, and that way I'm as efficient as possible. So if I installing targets I make sure that I have targets for all the current orders that I think I can handle or transport safely you know all that stuff kind of goes into it So an estimate that I have right now for the early ones is about 24 hours but that should improve with some time So as I get more experience with the new production processes under my belt, you know, that should go down a couple of hours, I would imagine. Yeah, that makes sense. And 24 hours seems like a lot, but it's like, you know, a couple working days worth of time to build a module. It's really not that bad. But you have to split it up so, like, the electrical happens on basically one day or two days, and then, you know, the mechanical happens on another day. So not everything happens in a straight line, in other words. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.
    29:17
    So how many parts does it take to make a Playfield module drained? So it takes about 100 discrete parts, a little over, but thereabouts. And that was a big part of the thought process. So, I mean, it's kind of hard to describe because if you haven't done it or tried to assemble your own whitewood that is intended to go for production, there's a very different thought process involved than if you're building a one-off, which I've also done, or if you're just maintaining a game. So I wanted to use as many parts that were similar to make maintenance easy. So there's the assembly part. There's also the maintenance part. And, you know, the intent is to make it simple for everybody. but I'm willing to put up with some tougher manufacturing or assembly processes than I would expect an operator or a homeowner or any customer to put up with on the maintenance side. So, yeah, that's – I'm pretty sure that's the answer to the question.
    30:40
    Yeah, that makes sense. So you've always got a number of projects in the works. So what's next for amusement only? So the next thing that I'm going to do, and I've already started pre-production on this, but it's very early and it's put way on the back burner while I assemble these games. But the next game that I'm going to make is actually for a console called the Playdate, which is this little handheld console with a crank.
    31:06
    And I do a little podcast about that as well with a couple of friends. But it's a fun little system. It's got all these different constraints. It's black and white. It's, you know, one-bit graphics. But it is very interesting from a game design perspective. So I have other games planned as well, a computer game and then other pinball games as well. But the main thing is that I don't want to overload myself or my manufacturing process by taking on too many different tasks. So everything outside of manufacturing is on hold. Any other pinball games that I have planned are way on hold until I feel like the markets reach saturation with Drained, you know. Yeah, no, that's good. I know you're always tinkering. I've seen the play date, it looks really cool I'm like, hmm, maybe I should get one of those maybe when new games comes out I'll grab one there we go, awesome so thanks for joining us Nick this has been awesome, like I said if you want to see Drained in Action, check out the reveal stream we did on the Buffalo Pinball YouTube channel you can learn more about the game there check out the This Flippin' podcast to get more behind the scenes or even Nick's own podcast the For Amusement Only podcast where he's shared some personal insights on how to make a game and bringing Drain to market. So let folks know where they can learn more about you and For Amusement Only and Drain. Yeah, so ForAmusementOnlyGames.com is my company website. I also list out different personal projects and so forth there. But DrainedPinball.com is the main hub of Drained Pinball. So check it out. And if you like it, shoot me an email and we'll go from there. Quick question, Nick. And I'm sorry if I missed this earlier, but what's your background? What's your professional background, and do you do this full-time now? So I'm in IT, and I've been a professional IT person for a long time now.
    33:18
    And, no, this is not my full-time gig. This is my second full-time gig after my day job, which is still IT. So that thought process went into it as well How do I balance the two and make sure that everybody is satisfied and excited about what I'm getting them But also making sure that I'm able to address issues like big server meltdown or whatever In the day job, can I balance those two? and I came to a reasonable, I think, balance between them.
    34:02
    Awesome. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for sharing that. Thank you both for having me. Yeah, have a great day and good luck with Drain. We look forward to seeing what's next. Thank you. All right. All right, Nick Lane, let's do some news. And before we do that, let's have our proper news intro. Here's the tip. It's the latest pinball news. Show hunt, it's on fire. All right. Now we can do news. It's official. We can do the news. So let's kick it off with Spooky Pinball has announced Scooby-Doo. So let's look at Scooby-Doo. Okay.
    34:38
    Was there something else you wanted to start off with? Yeah. I hate that we have to do this, Kevin, but we've got to put a trigger warning for spooky customers because I didn't realize this until we did our podcast last month, but there's some unstable people over there in that group, and I think we've got to address that first. All right, well, kick it off. Do the honors. Yeah.
    35:00
    Listen, if you cannot stand for us to not say anything but good things about spooky pinball, you probably want to skip ahead to maybe when we're bashing like Stern or something else, all right? I am nothing against spooky pinball.
    35:16
    I give my reasons why I might have issues with certain games. But, and like normal people, normal well-adjusted people are like, what the fuck is Nick talking about? So, you know, the nice thing is about being this hobby is you put yourself out there. And there's a nice Halloween thread in Pinside. And we probably should address a couple of these things. Number one, I don't go into that thread. People send me stuff. I mean, I would be an asshole if I went into like a fan club thread and said bad things about their game. I don't do that. This is Manny Kevin's podcast, and people can voluntarily come and listen to our opinions because that's what we do. We talk about games. We give opinions on games. That's it. We're super passionate about pinball. Well, apparently, we have not been saying nice things about Halloween, which is not unfounded. I think we back up our reasons. I'm not like, I hate Halloween. Spooky sucks. And then we're like, all right, let's move on to this topic, Kevin. We're like, no, no, here's the why. Here's the issues. Anyways, what are you talking about, Nick? Well, number one, we got called. We'll start in, like, order of severity. Are you starting low and going high? Is that what you're doing? I think so. You can help me reorder it. I was told that I'm unhappy. Nick looks really like an unhappy person. Okay. So is Nick Lane an unhappy person, yes or no?
    36:39
    Here's the justification. Maybe they got it. Maybe they nailed it. No, I'm not. I'm passionate about pinball. This is not minding your full-time jobs, and yet we, on a Saturday morning, we bring our equipment together and we talk about it and we try to help people and give opinions. So I was called unhappy because I don't like Halloween. That's it. That's this man's criteria. He seems unhappy. You know what's wonderful, though? I'm a little jealous, though. I wish, part of me wishes, and life would be much easier, if, like, every pinball machine I played just brought unbridled joy to me. Like, I couldn't discriminate between a quote-unquote good game or bad game. Just everything. It doesn't matter if the game resets in the middle of the game and carries over a score from player two or the score is nonsensical or if the powder coat is rubbing off of my hands. I just fucking love it every moment. Because that sounds like the ideal spooky customer, right? But that's not how I am, unfortunately, right? Like, this is like, I had to imagine that mentality, because there are people that are just happy with pinball, and that's great. I mean, it's kind of a nice way to go through life. It's like every piece of music you hear, wonderful. You just hear music, it doesn't matter, complex, simple, terrible, whatever, like, well, maybe other people who think call it terrible. You just hear music, and you're just happy and joy. All right? My mind doesn't work that way. The only way my mind works that way is, like, if I drink wine, I've purposely not put any effort into discerning between good or bad wine because I don't want to introduce that to my life. Right? I just, I'm like, I'm like a spooky customer of wine. You just give me wine. I'm happy. Gets me buzzed. Gets me drunk. That's it. I don't want to know anymore. I don't want to discern. So I get it, sir. But that doesn't mean I'm unhappy. I'm just discerning. All right. That's quite a low one. Okay. You got, see, this is mostly on me. You got dragged into the other comment in there. Oh, shit, let's go. I don't think I heard this one. Oh, you heard it. You got called douchebags.
    38:42
    So they also took issue that during the stream when we, people love this shit. I'm going off. I'm having fun. People, we got called douchebags because on the, when we streamed Halloween pinball, We were over at our friend's Patrick, who we talk about this motherfucker on every podcast. We love Patrick. Good guy. All right. Patrick's watched the show. Patrick's invited us over. Patrick's our friend. Talk to him nearly every day. So we're on the show, and we're kind of like, we were actually kind of pretty good. Well, that's what I'm going to say. Like, we were like, you said that was like one of your favorite shooting spooky games. Like, you were saying nice things about it. Yeah. I was pretty good. I said, like, it was fun, but, like, it doesn't keep me coming back. Like, I don't want to keep hitting the start button. Like, I've had enough. That was when people were asking me what I liked. Yeah, I was like, sorry.
    39:34
    No. Dude, like, so, like, overall, I was negative on it, but I was also like, it doesn't shoot. You know, I was trying to be fair, right? But we were called douchebags because, like, these guys are douchebags. They go over to their supposed friend's house and shit on his game. It's like, dude, first of all, what kind of friends do you have in life? Here's the deal. So, like, my ideal relationship is where my friends can be honest. They can express their opinions honestly. Like, if you have friends that everything they say is negative to you, then you probably want to get new friends. But if you have friends that are just honest, giving their honest opinion, you know, like there's positives, there's negatives. Also, Patrick knows what he's getting into of having this over. We'd be worse if we were like, oh, Patrick, this game's the greatest thing ever. And then we're, like, getting back on our pack. I'd just be like, hey, fucking idiot Patrick buying Halloween. You know, like, by the way, Patrick hates that game. He is, like, not going to be a spooky customer ever again. He said losing $2,000 on the thing was he's happy he just lost the $2,000 just to be done with that game. Okay? All right. So, and as Patrick's okay, he's gone to therapy since we went over and made fun of his game. Okay, he went to a therapist. Therapist gave him some drugs, so now he can move on with his life. He had to sell his spooky games, though, because we heard him. We damaged him so bad. This 40-some-year-old man was so traumatized by us not going over there and validating his game purchase that he had to sell it, lost $2,000. But he's working through it, okay? And now he's bought an alien. So I'm seeing progress on him, all right? We'll probably go over there and make one of his alien at some point, and then it's going to repeat the cycle. We've got to go to therapy again, get some more drugs, and then sell that at a loss. But listen, that's what good friends do, okay?
    41:19
    Patrick was the one that actually sent us the screenshot of that comment, wasn't he? Hell yeah. We're friends. Or Patrick is an adult who doesn't need people to validate his pinball purchases and his self-esteem doesn't rely on what Nick and Kevin fucking think.
    41:38
    Holy shit. We're not just having a good time in chat. Good. This is for you, my friend. Let's go. All right, what's next? All right. What's next? And then the next is somebody saying that I have what they call a punchy face. They see my face, they want to punch me. This is the level of like – so here's the interesting thing. We talk about Halloween. We're like, oh, I don't like it because I don't like this aspect. And it's not like they're over there and saying, hey, you know, I think maybe Nick and Kevin haven't spent much time or maybe, you know, what they value in a pinball machine is different than what I value. It's just straight to like violence and name calling, which just tells me we're right.
    42:16
    We're 100% right about that game. That's it. That game is indefensible. Let me give you guys a good – first of all, shame on you, Pinside, for not – they moderated that comment that they wanted to punch me, but it's still up there, and nobody's saying, hey, maybe you need to get some help if the idea that somebody doesn't like your pinball machine and saying they don't like it makes you want to punch them. Like, dude, what the fuck, man? Get some help.
    42:43
    Giant boxes of lights, grown man toys, like, let's just have fun, all right? Yeah, or don't listen to our podcast. I don't know what to tell you, dude, but, like, look in the mirror.
    42:55
    It'd be nice if we can just, I know it's a guy on the Internet, but look, it's a niche hobby, we go to shows, right? Like, isn't that talking about what game you like and don't like? And I'll say a nice thing to you. I appreciate that you're so passionate about pinball. I'm passionate about pinball. You're so passionate you're willing to commit a felony or a misdemeanor or whatever and try to punch me. Like, that's amazing. Okay? But I would just say maybe tone it down and reexamine it. You disagree with me, okay? I'm glad you like your game. Let me help you guys defend Halloween. Here's what I would say. All right? Here's, like, a rational thought I'll answer. Listen, like, I understand, you know, what Nick and Kevin are saying about the game. What I like about that game is, like, I'm just happy that Spooky has – they make a lot of titles that other manufacturers won't make, and Halloween happens to be one of my favorite themes. I don't nerd out on games so much that I care about, you know, the scoring balance or the depth in it. And, yeah, maybe it doesn't have the level of polish of, like, a Jerzy Jack, but I am so thrilled to have a Halloween pinball machine in my collection that I'm willing to tolerate some of these things that they bring up. And I would say to that, dude, I'm happy that Spooky is making games that other manufacturers wouldn't make. I'm happy they made a game that you like and brings you joy, and I'm happy that you're in the hobby. That's great. Not I want to punch you in the face and these guys are douchebags. Yeah.
    44:18
    But, you know. All right, so that's a really long trigger warning because we're going to get into Scooby-Doo. I don't know if all of you guys can. Shout out to all the spooky owners who are mentally well-adjusted and do that kind of like internal thinking and don't have to say that out loud and still appreciate us and listen to our opinion. We can talk about that. Anyways, all right, let's go. Go ahead, Kevin. Well, the guys that are like, oh, there's boobs in Halloween, and that's why I bought it.
    44:47
    We've been talking about games since 2016, and this is the first time violence has been brought up against us, and an excessive name-calling. So I don't know what that says about their customer base, but it's not good. They're also calling for an adult mode on a Scooby-Doo pinball machine. So, you know, I can't help you. All right, Scooby-Doo, ladies and gentlemen. Let's go. So, Spooky Pinball, who, you know, I don't know if this is confirmed or not, but it seems like Charlie is, like, not even part of the company anymore, and the kids are running the show now. But they announced Scooby-Doo, where are you, based on the 60s and 70s. Scooby-Doo looks really good. The art's good. we'll talk about certain points of the art later but here's the who's who so game design is by Spooky Luke and Corwin quote unquote Bug Emery software by Spooky DJ rules by Luke Peters art by Matt Frank and Jeff Zornow animations by Bill Rude and Brady Duke music by Matt quote unquote Counting Montgomery and voice acting by Frank Welker, Matthew Lillard Kate Minucci I think I nailed that and Greg Griffin so there's the who's who let's start there Nick how do you feel about that design team not good the only thing that I read on there that's like good is I fucking love Matthew Lillard dude like SLC Punk is one of my favorite movies of all time he's great he's uh Matthew Lillard was one of the bad guys in spoiler alert Scream 1 if you don't know who Matthew Lillard and of course from Spooky Dew he does um Shaggy, right? Or does he do Scooby? He does Scooby. He does Shaggy. He doesn't do Scooby? Okay. I don't know. He's legit from the movie, so good job, Lanny. Matthew Lillard, love him.
    46:46
    But, yeah, I mean, this is, I think we know the Spooky's business model. Listen, American Pinball should be still in this playbook. Get a fucking license that people can't say no to. There's people who just cannot say no to a license. And if you can make a box of wood that lights up and put some art on it, no matter what, they'll buy it. Period. Yeah. I've seen comments where people are like, oh, I swore off Spooky Pinball, but I've got to have a Scooby-Doo game. So that's why you get a license that hits the nostalgia button, right? I mean, this might be I lack the information to make this judgment call on this, but none of those people mentioned. and I don't know a good track record or anything like that. I mean, so, yeah, that does nothing for me, the design team. Yeah, it's a big question mark for, like, game design software rules.
    47:39
    Art is really good. Animation, to be determined, because they haven't shown any of that. Music, also to be determined with the voice acting. It's awesome that they got the folks on board from the series and the movies. And, yeah, I think the theme is really good. Like, I watched Scooby-Doo. My son was a Scooby-Doo fan growing up, so if this was from a company that I trusted to build a quality product that would be well-supported and manufactured, then I might consider a game like this. But spoiler alert, I'm not buying a Scooby-Doo. Sorry.
    48:12
    All right. Let's continue down the road of what's going on. So here's the price and production. So the pricing is really good, I got to say, relative to other pins that have come to the market lately. So standard edition, $77.69.
    48:27
    Do you think they did that at the 69 on purpose? Oh, it's 1969, I think, is the year it came out. So it's innuendo, but also conveniently the year it came out.
    48:38
    Bloodsucker edition, $87.69. And collector's edition, $97.69. And it's limited to 1969 units. So that's pretty good, right? The pricing's pretty good?
    48:53
    Yeah, what's their lowest model? What's the Stern Bond Pro sell for? I'm just curious what their new – I was looking that up while you asked. Oh, yeah, I think it's in the ballpark, right? $69.99. So, I mean, still, their base model is more than that. And you can argue, it's like, well, I mean, I'm sure the quick arguments can be, oh, you know, the standard still has more kind of skulls, things going on on the play field. So it's like, okay, yeah, well, let's see where the game is at. when both games have been out a year, let's then compare it in terms of build quality, sound, art, rules, and stuff, because it's not just shit on the play field. Yeah, that is a thing to know, though. There's no play field differences between the two models, right? It's all cosmetic stuff like, you know, say, Hobbit or Wizard of Oz. Like, those are all the same no matter what trim level you got. So I don't know how to reconcile the price, right? Like, is that price good or bad? I mean, again, Stern pros are still cheaper.
    50:01
    So it's not like – I don't know. It remains to be seen, right? Like, you can really only judge it after you see the build quality, the game in totality. And we don't know that yet. Right. And, you know, the fact that they came out with the new TNA and that didn't sell out, they may have bumped them to keep the prices lower.
    50:23
    I think everybody's just happy that there's not a model over $10,000, right, because that tends to be where they – on the high end, like, Spooky – or Therns, like, the high end wasn't 007. That was, like, 11 or 12 grand for the LE, right?
    50:41
    So if you look at the high end, that's where the big difference is, I think. Donnie says we should get Patrick to buy it so then we can go and trash talk it. See, you know, the problem is that Patrick is so traumatized, and I think James is also in the – like, James and Patrick were the guys buying these games, and I think even, like, they've both called a quit on Spooky, allegedly. No, no, no. James is getting it? Not both of them. James.
    51:10
    James. James, we're going to come over and make fun of your game, all right? Yeah, I already told them we were going to do that. It's because we love you. All right? We'll bring our equipment. We'll do it live. Live bullying from Buffalo Pinball. And anybody else, if you're interested in having Buffalo Pinball come over and bully you about your game, just reach out to us, and we'll be happy to come and do that. You've got to make sure you can handle it first, though.
    51:37
    All right, so let's check out some of the features. It's a wide body, which I was surprised. Well, it's a wide body, but with an asterisk. We'll get into that in a little bit. five color I forgot how ridiculous this quote unquote deep dice is on this weekend pinball it's got five wire forms and they're colored after the people great and triple double triple drop targets okay so two banks of three drop targets it's got the bookcase upper playfield diverter captain cutler bash coat of magna hands 5 ball mystery machine lock 2 metallic green ramps 2 spinners Under playfield secret passage Because it's got a subway Ball save RGB drop So it's got the diamond girl Hold on Kevin's got stuff on the screen And he's not If you've got children You might want to step away for a few minutes Jesus Kevin You've got to put a not suitable for work up there Should I do this one instead? Oh, God, there it is. Kevin has a knack for finding dicks on a play field. Let's just get into it. This wasn't me. This was the Internet. Look at that. They did it. And it's like, look at it. What's that, Daphne on the left? Look at where that is in relation to her wide open. I mean, come on. Come on. Dude, this is how it went down. Stern has that giant dildo on Bond game and Spooky's like, hold my beer you've got one dick, we've got two and our dicks flop around don't those move, Kev? no, not only are they purple palaces but they're also ball locks the ball shoots out of the dick, right? yeah, and the ball the hand pushes it out there you go So that's like anybody on that. Yeah. Now I can't unsee it. So we've just done that for everybody watching. This is not even on us. I don't want this show to devolve into like dick humor, but like they keep on doing this.
    53:53
    How do you not talk about the elephant or the dick in the room? You know, I don't know. You can't. All right. Well, moving on. Let's you know, you can have the kids listen again.
    54:04
    It's got an RGD action button. I think that's supposed to be RGB. You don't know that, Kevin. It's RDG. Red, green, and what color starts with D? I don't know. I don't think there is a color that starts with D. We got in trouble last time because people were upset that we gave Spooky a hard time for their post on Facebook. Oh. That was hard to interpret. But, again, I think this is like it comes down to this is why you pick on them for the RDG. It's attention to detail, right? Yeah. It's an attention to detail issue that I think that we call out. This one could be this week in pinball, to be fair. That could be this week in pinball. All right. Fair enough. I want to be fair. I want to address the Facebook post because that was another thing they called us out on. Was that, oh, they misinterpreted it like we were intentionally spinning that Facebook post to make it seem bad. Yeah. I read what they wrote. And what they wrote was bad. That's bad communication. Did you know when you were, so you show me things live, so you didn't know that that's what they meant. You literally thought that that's what they were saying. Right. Because that's what they were, and I just want to say, yeah, I mean, I'm glad I brought that up. Kevin is like an award-winning, he's a writer, he does communications, he does PR, social media. Like, Kevin's not an idiot. Okay, and Kevin misinterpreted that. and then Kevin showed me on the screen and I'm in a business of communication and I read it exactly what they wrote it's bad intention to detail we're not you can look at things in their totality it's not just one bad post is spooky this goes along with an attention to detail thing they just kind of rush and put things out there and problems ensue and to their credit I think somebody from Spooky wrote on the YouTube clip they're like no this is what was meant And it's like, okay, and they did it in a polite way, and they weren't like, you guys are – like, that's fair. Still, it's 100% understandable why it was interpreted that way. Right. You got to – you could totally avoid that situation by, like, having somebody who has no knowledge of Halloween. Like, I'm not a Halloween owner, so I don't know that they were promising a code update on Halloween that, by the way, also never came out. that was supposed to be some big, like, amazing code update, and then they end up firing their coder or whatever, the coder left. I don't know exactly what happened. They brought this other guy on that wasn't going to be able to get it done in time. You know, you could say it in a way that makes it more obvious to people who aren't on the inside, right? And you should always, you know, as a communicator, as a writer, always have somebody else review what you put up before you put it up because you can't pull it back down. And again it not like we going to jump on every mistake somebody makes This is in a larger discussion right about mistakes and issues and things that are just kind of frustrating with this company So their new software guy is not working on this game He's spending his time on making Halloween playable. Is that what's going on? A functioning machine? I think so. I don't want to say anything wrong because somebody might want to punch me in the face. Well, you know, if you're hanging out with me at a pinball show, your life's in danger. Well, maybe it's good because they'll punch you instead of punching me.
    57:27
    Yeah, it's good for something. Or am I guilty by association and they'll punch us both? I don't know. Hopefully there's no punching. Don't punch anybody. We've got to get a mental wellness sponsor for the show.
    57:42
    There's got to be some, like... Dude, your audio just went into, like... Is it a crazy time? There we go. You're good.
    58:04
    There we go. There it is. Okay. Are we going to run out of Zoom time, too? No. No, we're good. We're good.
    58:12
    Okay. Back to Scooby-Doo. Bloodsucker edition. So there's three editions. Bloodsucker, you get... the clear plastic protectors, interior graphics, knocker, shaker, interactive RGB speaker lights, metallic flake powder coat, laser-cut speaker grill. So a bunch of trim stuff to make it look fancy. The collector's edition, you get a custom art package by Matt Frank and Jeff Zornow, ghoulish green plastic protectors, custom zombie-chasing Scooby speaker grills, ghoulish green powder coat, RGB LED multi-layer villain topper. Topper. I think we're going to hear more about that in Topper Talk.
    58:54
    Custom Creeper armor, Scooby-Doo Dog Take Launch Button. Oh, you don't get that launch button on the other games? That's kind of lame. I like that.
    59:02
    Mine-Era 49ers, Scooby-Doo Mine Car Sculpts, and a bunch of extra sculpts. So you get a bunch of extra toys on your play field. Topper looks pretty cool. It's a bunch of lit-up booty rape. I don't think it moves or anything, so you got that. This is my favorite part of the deep dive. Can I just say real quick? I think the game looks great. Absolutely. Aesthetically, it looks great. And a lot of times that's what they do well. It probably looks great to have in your game room. It's when you hit start, things start falling apart, both literally and figuratively. Well, yeah. Spooky definitely has that part now. They know they've got to get a good theme and good art and limit the number of production, and they're going to sell out. And they're just doing it over and over again. Although they haven't yet, as far as I know, sold out of this one. And I wonder why. Maybe because they fucked people over on Halloween. But anyways, this is my speculation. But they know, like, people are going to get the FOMO, and they're going to get their wallets out, and they're going to throw their $2,000 over, and then they're going to wait for a year and a half to get their game.
    60:05
    And then, you know, hopefully by the time it gets here, or maybe there's some code in it, but maybe not.
    60:11
    All right, so the rules and code. Are you ready? So this is an action-packed, wide-body game based around solving original series mysteries, collecting Scooby Snacks, having the ultimate Scooby pinball experience. Five-player gameplay. So you can play five players, which kind of makes sense because there's the five gang members. All members of the gang are selectable, and there's a bravery meter.
    60:33
    Cool. Again, cool. Sounds fine. We're okay so far. Here we go. Yeah. This is about right.
    60:42
    Here's the deep dive rules they've provided. Start a case. Collect the white clue shots, then start a case at the Mystery Machine.
    60:49
    Character modes. Complete character orbit shots. Captain Cutler multiball. Bash pack Cutler's dive helmet. Mystery Machine multiball. Rip spinners to qualify locks at the Mystery Machine.
    61:03
    Really? Well, like you said, people have been saying rules are too complicated, right? So let's keep it real simple. you know it's a real to me this shows that there's like the real minimal code and there's got to be minimal code in this game otherwise there'd be a lot deeper dive into these rules because you know these five word descriptions of yeah what the what the rules are complete we would have gotten away with a wizard mode complete all cases that's all you get that's all you get there's a super wizard mode. Alright. Are you hyped for those rules? I mean, it's whatever. Small town saying, look, there's more to it. Of course there is more to it. Again, it's Spooky's ability to deliver a complete rule set in a reasonable period of time.
    61:54
    Their ability to deliver a code that is not riddled with bugs. That's where we're highly skeptical because of past experiences with their games. They have a terrible track record, I would say. So that's why you get kind of this, a lot of skepticism, a lot of negativity surrounding it. And maybe, you know, you could say, oh, you guys are being overly harsh. That's just what's written up there. But it's like, yeah, but there's a reason why. And I want Spooky to put out a good game. I want Spooky to be successful. I want American Pinball to be successful and put out good games. That's why we criticize, because we know that they can do better. So I would love to see this be, like, an amazing game where, like, all the past things that we've complained about are not present on this. I mean, I want people who buy games because they're excited their theme got made, I want them to get a great product. Like, I'm on your side. I'm on the consumer side at the end of the day, which is why I'm harsh on the manufacturers when they don't deliver. So, yeah, prove us wrong, man. The best way to silence the critics is by actually addressing these issues and producing a good product. So I think at the end of the day, that's what we all want. Yeah.
    63:15
    So they put out a gameplay video, but the gameplay video literally only shows the ball rolling around the play field and making shots. You don't see anything about rules. You don't see the display at all. You don't hear any of the sounds. so you don't know what's there. And even, like, the lighting effects that you see are pretty basic. There's not a lot going on choreography-wise so far from what we can tell.
    63:40
    The game, overall impressions of the game, it looks great. The theme is really good. The shots, the layout reminds me of Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle. I don't know, Spooky has an obsession with upper playfields, so if you play Popeye and you're like, I love how I can never see the ball, I want more pinball like that. This game reminds me of a mix of Popeye and Al Scooper's Nightmare Castle kind of mixed together.
    64:13
    It also reminds me a little bit of Demolition Man in the fact that So the shooter lane is not all the way to the right of the cabinet. There's actually like an inch and a half of the play field that's not accessible to the player. It's just got like these lights on it. That's the spooky meter or whatever they were calling it earlier.
    64:36
    So it's kind of a standard body game and a wide body cabinet. But that's what reminds me of Demoman. because then my man's got that left-hand side that doesn't really do much. So here's the right-hand side. So, yeah, it's a wide body. That probably lets them widen out the shots at the top a little bit. So maybe they took everyone's advice and they made Alice Cooper except you can actually make the shots now because they're a little wider. Hopefully that's what's going on here.
    65:05
    But I don't know. There's so many questions. The other thing that concerns me about this is they're introducing yet another board set. So they've, they've launched with the pin hack boards. So that was in their first few games. So America's most haunted Rob zombie dominoes, and maybe, maybe Jetsons were all on pin hack. Then they switched to P rock, which we, we got a couple of games on P rock. I think the first TNA was P rock. Actually the new one is too, I think. And then there's the Rick and Morty was P-Rock. And there might have been one more in there. But then for Halloween and Ultraman, they went to the Pinzilla, whatever the heck it was. Pinotaur, that was it.
    66:01
    Went back to Ben Hackey, designed an all-new board set that, you know, you've seen pictures of the board starting on fire on PinzRide. So maybe they're like, oh, let's not.
    66:11
    Actually, I've heard Ben Hackey is not working with them anymore, So maybe they had a falling out. I don't know.
    66:18
    And now they're on to a fourth iteration of a board set. So, you know, they've got to develop a whole new operating system, like pinball operating system on this platform. They've got to bring everything up to speed. They also have to, like, think about the previous owners. So if I have a pin hack board in an America's Most Haunted and it dies, what are the odds that they have spares laying around when they've gone through three other iterations of boards and driver boards behind their systems. It's got to be so hard. You know, and we've heard of that from our local friend who repairs Spooky Games. You know, getting replacement parts for those older games is really hard. So that introduces some skepticism from my perspective for, you know, if I were to jump in and buy this game, am I going to be able to get the parts I need down the line to keep this game running and keep it going. So it doesn't instill a lot of confidence in me. I'll say that.
    67:22
    Nick, what are your overall thoughts on Scooby? No, I mean, first of all, good points that you brought up, right? And, again, this is the issues, the manufacturing issues that they have in terms of just the quality, right, is below. So let's say Stern is an A in quality just because maybe they're the highest, even though they have a lot of problems. They kind of fix it and stuff. Spooky would be like a C-, right, like in my book. So I am, like I said, I think the game looks aesthetically great, right? Like it just looks visually nice.
    68:01
    I'm pretty impressed that they didn't sell out immediately because isn't this, like, the total units that they're making for this, isn't this less than their last release when they came out with both Halloween and whatever the other thing is? I think it's about the same when you add the two. Maybe it's a little less. Okay, I thought it was less for some reason. I can't remember. But I'm encouraged that people are, like, not blindly ordering it like they were other games. And, you know, that might seem like a dickish thing to say, but, like, again, going back to what we were talking about Spooky earlier, me and Kevin are not spooky customers. This is not to say that we won't one day. I mean, if the company turns around and addresses the things that we complain about, maybe we would be. What you need to be concerned about is not what Nick and Kevin think about spooky game, but what former spooky owners are done with spooky because of all the issues that they've had from years of buying spookies and getting burned by it. You need to be more concerned about the Patricks who are walking away from spooky. And there's a lot of them that won't buy another one because of Spooky letting them down with these issues. And that's why we care about this stuff, and that's why we bring that up. So I hope that they listen and do better and not just spit out games because, hey, it doesn't matter. They can make 1,900 games, and they're going to sell out in the first hour because these people keep on buying it no matter what's thrown at them. Maybe we're starting to see that turn. And they maybe, you know, I know that they've definitely lost customers that will not buy another Spooky anytime soon because they got burned. That's what you've got to be concerned with. And the question to us is always how long can you operate where you're delivering a game where a year later the code's a disaster and the quality control is just really bad. How long can you do that before you start getting burned by it?
    69:50
    Yeah, here's, like, we, so we had League last weekend. at our friend Mark's house, and he has a Rick and Morty. And a few of us ended up playing Rick and Morty after league night. And I was laughing my ass off. I was having a blast. I know Nick doesn't like that game, but I happen to really like it. If anybody else made that game, well, not anybody else, but if like JJP or Stern made that game, I would absolutely own it. But I just don't have the confidence that the game is going to hold up and keep working based on experiences of others. And, you know, Patrick again and a few of our other friends own one of those games. And they had issues. And it's like I just don't want to deal with that for the price of that game commands. No way would I buy it. So I said I'm happy to have friends who have that game so I can go over there and enjoy it and then just go home and play my games. I don't have to worry about all the mechanical issues. So, yeah, Rick and Morty love it. Would absolutely own it. But Spooky needs to step up their game. And hopefully they will. Well, hopefully this is the game that does it, and, you know, they turn a corner.
    70:55
    But they have to prove it. All right. Is that enough spooky pinball and Scooby-Doo? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Okay. We can touch briefly on Drained because, you know, we talked to Nick about it, but we got two pinball announcements this month, so it would be unfair to not at least mention Drained got officially released to market by Four Amusement Only Games. It's the first third-party P3 module for the MultiMarket's P3 system.
    71:29
    So Nick Baldridge is the designer and developer. Molly Baldridge is the artist. It's her first time doing pinball art. And Charles Wolfe did the sound.
    71:41
    Anthony Swan did the CAD. And Coleman Martin did the CNC. So price and production, it's $3,500 for the kit with all the art and all that good stuff. purchase instructions visit DrainPinball.com of course you have to have a P3 already to play it you got 15 vampires to battle a whole bunch of RGB LEDs what's cool, what I like, two things I really like that it brings back a physical bell and it has a physical knocker attached to the module itself so even if your P3 doesn't have a knocker in it you can just, if you drop in the drain module that it's got it all built in, which is cool. So it brings some of that old school feel with the new school features of the P3. So it's got stuff like Bluetooth updates, Wi-Fi updates, Bluetooth headphones support, profile support so you can have your own profile, and the rules and code. You've seen me play this on the stream, so if you have questions about the rules and stuff, but look at how many more rules there are. there's so much more description of rules it's almost like he thought through a lot of his rules and provided a lot of that detail here for you to help you make your decision before you buy the game so I really like the art it's got a black and white art style kind of like centaur it reminds me of that from an aesthetic point of view it's got a gobble hole which we haven't seen since 1964 so again bringing back a lot of classic pinball features that we haven't seen in implementing them in a cool new way. It has art like less centaur to me, more Edward Gorey, if you know that artist. Yeah, it is. They have said Edward Gorey was absolutely the inspiration for the art. Oh, see? Look at that. There you go. Then I had no idea. Yep. So there you go. Apparently they nailed it because they got that response from you, so that's good. But, yeah, I just meant, like, from the black and white feel of the game overall, I think other pinball players will recognize Centaur more than they will Edward Gorey.
    73:51
    But, yeah, really cool stuff. So check it out, dreampinball.com. Congrats to Nick for the launch of the first third-party P3 game.
    74:01
    What else? Oh, Stern's moving. Actually, let's go to Zidware first. Zidware. Remember Zidware? The original. pinball scam that we started talking about after the podcast? Maybe.
    74:16
    But this was John Papaduke, Magic Girl. Remember, oh my god, it's so amazing. Look how beautiful the game is. I gotta have it. Let me throw $10,000 at J-Pop because he made Tales of the Arabian Nights and he made Theater of Magic and World Cup Soccer and those were great 90s games and I wanted that level of detail back in my game. He started up a, you know, the The CliffsNotes version is he started up a quote-unquote boutique pinball manufacturer, and he was going to make limited runs of these games like Magic Girl and Alice in Wonderland, things like that. This is actually how we got Zombie Yeti into pinball because he's actually the one who found Zombie Yeti. So we did get something good out of John Papaduke and Zidware. But, yeah, so basically he promised a lot and didn't deliver more than a few prototype machines. and Whitewoods and mock-up play fields. Here's the original Houdini layout.
    75:14
    Again, his games look amazing. There's no doubt about it. And they have a lot of creativity in the aesthetics of them. Whether or not they play great is to be determined. That was one of the things, like, back in the day, the Williams days, apparently a lot of other people took his games and brought them into a playable, fun state and into a state that's easily manufactured. he's got that creative vision but not necessarily to bring it to production for pinball so they made 25 magic girl machines to buyers but they were not complete you know the rules were jank and there's areas of the playfield you couldn't get to and here's a mock of a vales in wonderland looks really cool yeah but this is like foam core and paper and cardboard and stuff, you know. So it's just to give an idea of what the game could be like.
    76:09
    So basically, they went to court. The people who didn't get their games or submitted money in and never got a product took J-Pop to court, and they came to a settlement.
    76:21
    And one of the – this is a massive article, so go to pinballnews.com if you want to read this whole thing. But one of the more interesting things was that they actually discovered that John was hiding a studio with all of these assets in it that he was not revealing to the court. Like, somebody tracked this down.
    76:41
    And so, finally, the people who gave J-Pop money are going to be able to get some money out of this by selling all of these assets. That's the nut graph right there. So, there's a bunch of prototype Magic Girl stuff. there's a ton of pinball parts there's you know here's three half working cabinets probably they're all in a storage area some artwork zombie atomic venture land or whatever that is that went to Deep Root and if you remember I was talking about Turner Pinball a couple months ago the guy who launched his company via deeproot.com some concepts on DeepRoot.com, but also wants us to think that he's not DeepRoot 2.0. He bought some of these assets.
    77:37
    He's interconnecting himself even more with DeepRoot, even though we're not supposed to think about him being part of DeepRoot.
    77:45
    But here's all that John stuff in storage now. Like, it's all in storage. They're going to take it to auction, I think, is what the next step is. So, you know, this is the end of the road for that. pinball saga, I guess, Sam. Again, buy pinball machines that exist.
    78:06
    Don't put all your money into it, hopes and dreams. Play a game. If you like it, buy it once it's in a box and ready to ship. Right? Right. Amen.
    78:16
    Okay. All right, now we can move on to Stern. So Stern Pinball is relocating. This took me by surprise. I did not see this coming. So this is a news article behind a paywall, so somebody copied and pasted it onto Pinside.
    78:33
    So Elk Grove Village has awarded a pinball machine manufacturer up to $2 million in tax increment financing funds to expand and relocate its operations a few blocks away from its current location in the village business park. Under an agreement approved by the village board this week, Stern Pinball will get the funds in installments over at least the next six years as part of a move to a 163,000-square-foot warehouse at 1001 Bus Road, B-U-S-S-E Road. So if you want to go stock-stern, that's where they're going to be.
    79:07
    So they had moved to – as the company official said, the cost to expand and move from its smaller 110-square-foot building are prohibitive, and that's why they had considered leaving Elk Grove. So officials decided to give them some incentives to stay. So I think the last time they moved was in 2014 or 2015, something like that. Yeah. CERN moved to Elk Grove from Melrose in 2015, so they've been in their current spot less than seven years, or probably about seven years, seven, eight years.
    79:44
    So it's not a lot of time to move all that stuff, but at least they're getting a bigger facility. Hopefully that'll help them scale in production even more and get caught up on this backlog because they're still not all caught up on like Elvira's House of Horrors and things like that that they promised people a couple years ago.
    80:01
    Hopefully it gets them moving and less flooding. That's right. Less flooding. Yeah, so any thoughts on Stern moving? Oh, I got some pictures here while you talk to you.
    80:15
    Not good on them. That's a positive sign, right? More room for more manufacturing and get through their backlog of games. Like I said, Stern's been crushing it. Stern is just – I think this is maybe the best period of pinball ever. I know like heyday in many ways was like the early 90s, but I think just the level of talent that Stern has right now, the number of pinball manufacturers in existence. There's something to be said about the games and what's happening right now in pinball.
    80:51
    Yeah, we are definitely spoiled with good games right now. It's a great time. Oh, yeah, I didn't actually show the pictures. Here's the pictures. So that's the building.
    81:03
    It's a cool-looking building. I like all the windows and stuff in the front. These are from NAB Arcade. you track these down. So yeah, this might be a little locale, yeah. That's good for pinball.
    81:19
    Pinball Brothers, speaking of janky manufacturers, Pinball Brothers. They are putting Queen into production. Everybody already forgot about Queen. Nobody cares already. But the Queen pinball machines are in production. At least a few are. This comes from Nav Arcade as well.
    81:36
    Pinball Brothers, the maker of the well-received Alien pinball machine, shared pictures of their next game, Queen being built. Pinball Brothers added the message, stay tuned for more, to their post. All right. Okay. That's great.
    81:48
    Hopefully, Queens will begin shipping to customers in the near future. Okay. Yeah. Always stay tuned for more. So, there's a spinner.
    81:57
    And there's a ramp, a wire form. And there's some ladies with their tops off from behind in the pop bumpers. There you go. You got that going. And, yeah. they're putting them together whether or not there's any software to make them go to be determined stay tuned for rules yep so there you go that's Queen they're making them Nick you ready for yet another new pinball manufacturer are you ready no but I understand how the world works so let's go back to the beginning of the show and remember what we said with Nick Baldridge and all the, you know, he had to get a business license. He created a company, business loans, had to find a place to manufacture these. All right. Enter Pinball Eternal.
    82:49
    All right. So this is a Pinball Eternal announcement 24 days ago. It says, hello, Pinside. Today I released the first alpha gameplay trailer of a game I've been working on. I will be maintaining this thread.
    83:02
    See, he got into Pinball four years ago. It worked for a video game company. They had a lost world. Blah, blah, blah.
    83:11
    The product has been in development for several years. Nearly all parts and electronics are built in-house. And I'm still finalizing and testing various parts. I have built an entire production and software platform to expand our product line to multiple titles going forward. I spent over 1,000 hours designing, researching, licensing music, and so many other tasks one by one. And still more to go. Final price for this mobile machine, $2,100.
    83:37
    We'll be manufacturing a small first batch of 5 to 10 games at an early discount of $1,800. Wow, sign me up. A pinball machine for $1,800. We'll be here in the final edition. He's got a time traveling to where he can manufacture that. You got a time machine that takes him to the 1950s, and then he transports these pinball machines back? Yep.
    83:58
    We just want to make sure that everything from shipping to quality control is bulletproof before scaling. If you're interested in pre-ordering, get in touch. Shoot him an email. Sign up. Here we go. We will accept deposits starting January 1, 2023, so soon, like a couple weeks from this recording. Don't give that money to this guy.
    84:17
    Sorry, Kevin. Deposits are contractually 100% refundable if we do not ship you a game. In my journey, I've learned of more than one company taking large amounts of money to play with as they wish and never ship a single game. We will build the product first. Okay, so that's good. All right, you ready to see Pinball Eternal? You want to see it? it's uh yeah it's gonna be what's it called you know the Papa Duke shit right here we go shut up Nick here we go there is licensed music so I don't want to play the sound but yeah so uh yeah there's yeah have you seen this before no it's got a lower dungeon play field realistic fire effects Look how janky the corners are. Oh, this is the alpha. They're saying, okay, fine. Engage wishes to electrify demons. Oh, look at the demon. Oh, it's the death head boss. Oh, look at those parts. Look at those parts.
    85:20
    Dual shaker motors. Wow. How much did you want for this? Dude why don you just double the price You still going to be cheaper than everything else and make it This looks super jank But he got like allegedly he got licensed music from all of those heavy metal bands. This guy's delusional. There's no market for this.
    85:43
    What was the games, the Pirates of the Caribbean? I can't think of it right now. Papa Duke's thing. Oh, the Zizzles. Yeah, this is the Zizzle. This is the modern day equivalent of Zizzle. And was Zizzle a hit? I don't think so. It wasn't profitable. It's not around anymore. So why is somebody going with the Zizzle model but then charging, like, you know, three times as much?
    86:05
    BorgDex says, get to the part where it's 60 pounds and designed to go in your car's back seat. I should say, there are pictures of this game. Let me find it. Let me go to the gallery for this.
    86:20
    Oh, man. I can't find it. There's, like, pictures of my cabinet. I guess he took this to Freeplay Florida, and it's, yeah, it's not. It, like, never worked when it was there. So, yeah, and he's got, like, well, like this. Here, this is really tough. He's, like, making his own coils, like 3D printed parts, and actually, like, physically winding the wire around the coil itself. Because that's what we need in pinball is more janky parts. I mean, if Kevin and I had said one thing, we want cheaper garbage parts than a pinball machine. That's what we want.
    86:59
    Dude, if you want a cheap pinball machine, I guess do a video game pinball machine, right? Like, I don't, it's not for me, but whatever. I think there's no, the only middle ground on it that I can see is that somebody can bring to market, like, you know, a $4,500, like, single-level, kind of like, you know, classic ballet, late 70s pinball-style machine. If you could do that somehow, and do it well and have it be quality, I think you've got something in today's market. I think you can pull that off if done right. The trouble is, to get it to that price, you have to have the scale of a Stern. You know, Stern does the home versions, and they're kind of around that price. But I don't know. Devin, you're right. And this is why you just don't do it. This is why it's not a real thing. Yeah. Mr. Nervtastic says, an $1,800 fire hazard? Sign me up.
    88:02
    Grilla Biscuits. Oh, I know who that is. He got into Pinball almost four years ago, so he knows what he's doing. Buy with confidence.
    88:10
    Look, dude, if somehow he hears this and he's like, oh, God, these guys are assholes, It's like, dude, we've seen this. We've been around for almost three times the amount of time that you have been. You've seen every story. Like, I appreciate that you want to bring your talents or something to pinball. I think you probably should have done market research and talked to people because this is like getting ahead of yourself, right? This is like not really thinking, is this something that is going to do well or sell well, versus like maybe doing a more legit homebrew style game and, you know, just kind of working out your chops and, you know, maybe doing something on the P3 like Nick Baldrige did, right? Like you might have something here, not in this model, but it might be a way that you can contribute to pinball and bring something to market. I think the P3 is a great platform for bringing something to market. How much was the drained, Kevin?
    89:08
    $3,500, I think. Yeah, I mean, look at that. I mean, that's more than what you're doing, but that's a better design thing, higher quality parts. Like, I don't know. That would be my advice to this guy, but I don't think he's interested in anybody's advice. He wants to go full steam ahead. And a lot of times people who actually have the ability to build something aren't good at business. Typically, you know, you want to partner up with somebody who can't like me. I can't build shit, guys. I can't do anything. But I have a good intuition around this, right? Like I know the business side of things enough to know that this is a poorly executed idea.
    89:47
    Prove me wrong. Yeah, everybody in the thread is telling him that. Like, you might have something here, but it's too early to be taking pre-orders and trying to bring this to market. It's not there yet. Even in the thread, he says the game is not fun. Like, the person making the game says, oh, the game's not fun yet.
    90:07
    So it's like, why would you even consider bringing it to market if you don't consider it fun yet? Yeah, just deep side there. You know, Nick Baldridge was saying a lot of things during our interview, which is just like very refreshing about like, you know, quality and not getting in over his skis in terms of growth or doing this, like taking unnecessary risks. Like it's a smart guy. Nick Baldrige is an example of a guy who can actually make something and, and make pretty sound business decisions. So if you can do that, there's a low bar in the pinball industry. Like there's just some of the shit that people buy when it comes to the market. Like you might be able to actually do pretty good in this, but that's, that's rare. Also, if you want to do it like Nick, you need to never need any sleep. You just stay awake 24 hours a day. And those type of people are rare, but he can pull it off. All right, Kev, I see the next notes section. Why don't you take it from here? I'm going to go do my bathroom break. I almost made it. I made it an hour and a half after having coffee and water, so I'll be right back. All right, so it's time for game room updates. So Nick doesn't want to see me share my Target Jiver game, so he's going to go to the bathroom. But you at home, so I haven't added any new arcade or pinball machines or anything to my game room. But I've been doing a lot of gaming and share some of those with you today. So I got some new, you know, you all know my favorite classic video game console is the Atari Jaguar, the legendary Atari Jaguar, a much beloved Atari Jaguar. And I've got three new games from Atari age. The first one is the Chaos Engine. Look at that. I've got the box effector on it, so it's super shiny.
    91:46
    These boxes are awesome. They look really good. So the first two are ports of old Bitmap Brothers games brought to the Jaguar, so they look really good and are cool to have in the collection. So Chaos Engine, two-player top-down shooter game. I've not played this one much yet. I tried it, and I like it a lot so far, but it's not the one I decided to dig into first. The one I decided to dig into first is a game called Gods, another Bitmap Brothers game. again look at that really Will Thorup I think is the artist on the boxes does a great job so super fun this is why I've been playing this one the most I remembered playing this one I had rented it on Super Nintendo when I was a kid so I had some memory of playing that but I wanted to dig into it more so that's what I've been working on there's also one called Stormbringer this is another Atari ST game port not the best graphics but the gameplay is interesting it's basically a graphical version of a text adventure game so pretty cool it's going to take some trial and error to figure out what to do in that game but looking forward to digging into that as a genre that's not very well represented on the Jaguar and it is yeah the plastic case is basically the butter cab equivalent for your classic video games. So get yourself a plastic case and put it on your game. And last, certainly not least, is a new release for the Nuon. So this is a, the Nuon was a very short-lived DVD platform that played video games in the early 2000s. And Freefall 3050 AD was the game that came out for it. It was actually part of the, like, seven games that ever got produced for this Nuon. Nuon was the spiritual successor to the Jaguar. A lot of folks who worked on a Jaguar also worked on Nuon. And so Songbird Productions did a re-release of Freefall. This is the signature edition signed by the game's creator, Tony Takushi.
    93:51
    And, yeah, so I supported this release even though I already had it. I kind of thought it would be cool to get the signature edition. It's got a poster and all sorts of cool little goodies inside. So there you go. If you have a new one, you probably don't have a new one. But if you do, you should check out Songbird Productions. If you've got a Jaguar, check out Atari Age. and get yourself some new games for your old video game systems. All right, let's see if Nick Lane is back. He's back. Oh, my God, he made it back. All right, that's what's happening in my game room. Oh, a few more games I want to talk about real quick.
    94:20
    On Game Pass, I've been playing Return to Monkey Island. Did you ever play the Monkey Island games back in the day, Nick? Dude, did I fucking play Monkey Island? I remember as a proud owner of an Amiga growing up because I had a good dad who didn't fuck around and he made sure it was an Amiga, no Nintendo. He calls them Mickey Mouse games. Yeah dude I remember Going to the video game store Computer store buying Monkey Island I remember Monkey Island is like One of my all time favorite games Playing it on the Amiga amazing So yeah I picked up I got Monkey Island 3 The real Monkey Island So this is What's the name Ron Gilbert is that it Yeah I think that's right Ron Gilbert this is actually He made Monkey Island 1 and 2 the third and fourth and like the tales of Monkey Island and all that shit wasn't him so this is kind of like the real Monkey Island 3 so I've been playing that a little bit slowly I didn't want to like beat it too quickly you've been playing Return to Monkey Island 2? yeah I've been playing that as well yeah it's super fun like I haven't I actually never played the original ones I played a lot of adventure games but I never played the Monkey Island games like I played Indiana Jones and King's Quest and Space Quest and all those games, but for some reason, Monkey Island was one I never played, but I love that style of game, so I wanted to check it out. And the new one does a good job of... It totally feels like a classic game, but it's got some modern sensibilities, too. So, like, if you need a hint, you can get a hint.
    95:52
    It's got, like, a checklist of things you need to... I don't know if the checklist feature was in the old Monkey Island games, but I like that. It kind of keeps you on track. If you jump out of the game and come back, it's like, what was I doing? You can go into the checklist and it keeps you on track. No, I mean, I beat that game when I was 10 years old and it came out. And I didn't fucking cheat at all. And I think I was smarter then. But that's all you do is throw so much time at it, you know. Like, I don't have time. So I already asked for a hint and I feel dirty because I was like, of course I knew that. But, dude, if you're enjoying that, I would stop immediately and go back. And they remastered both Monkey Island 1 and 2. I would 100% play those first because a lot of the appreciation for this game, I think, is understanding the jokes and the story and the characters. I think you're chipping yourself with that. So if you are having fun, I highly recommend doing that. The remakes of 1 and 2 are solid. Like, they're good. Yeah, I did already. I finished this one already, but I did feel like I was missing out because there's a lot of references to the old games. I went through, there's a little, like, refresher that you can go through. He's got, like, a scrapbook you can flip through to kind of get the backstory. So I had done that. But it's not the same as having played through it. But you're right. Like, I remember playing those adventure games for hours and just, like, being stuck on those, like, trying to figure out what to do next and trying stuff. And with the passage of time and the realization of how little time you have left ahead of you, it's like, all right, I'm not going to spend eight hours today trying to figure out this one puzzle. Give me a hint so I can move on and check out the nice thing, which I appreciated.
    97:29
    All right. So the other game I played that was really cool was Arcade Paradise. It's a sim game where you build an arcade. So if you want to build a virtual version of your own game room. But what's cool about Arcade Paradise is you can actually play. So you buy a new arcade game, put it in your arcade, which you start out as a laundromat. You can actually play them all, and they're all pretty fun.
    97:55
    And it had been a long time since I played a sim game, so I had won some, like, Xbox raffle, and they gave me 25 free Xbox dollars, and they were like, it's expiring, you need to spend it by the end of the month. I was like, all right, let me try this out, because I had been kind of keeping an eye on it. And I was like, this is actually really fun. So I played it all the way through, highly support Arcade Paradise. Check it out. All right. What's new in your game room?
    98:24
    So I did a little video a couple days ago. So I picked up iArcade. And I don't know. Kevin, you can bring it up and maybe show it. Yeah, I'll play the video while you're talking.
    98:37
    Or even just show, like, the website with the cabinets and how they look, whatever is easier for you.
    98:43
    Yeah, so I'm not an arcade guy. I'm not a meme guy. You know, it's just, like, all pinball machines. But, excuse me. I picked up the Big Buck Hunter Reloaded, and I put it in a space in my game room where I never thought something could go, like a pinball machine can't go. So then I thought, oh, this is fun.
    99:02
    I have another space in my game room, and I can put kind of one of these, like, mini arcades or three-fourth size arcade thing. And, like, you know, I saw, like, the one-up arcade stuff before, and to be honest, that kind of stuff, like, I get it for people who love nostalgia. and I understand why somebody might buy a 1UP Arcade, but it just looks kind of like cheap junk to me. Sorry. Oh, no, they are. They're total junk. Okay. And I know you and I are, and I stumbled over my words in my video that I filmed of this unit. You and I, and probably everybody listening, are about commercially operated games that we put in our room, like real, legit games that would be out in the wild, like some of them have history to them or even the ones we buy new, coined or, like, just built for that. So, you know, I was looking at space. I'm like, I got space to put something like that. And the iArcade I like because everyone in the community was saying, like, these are, like, a premium quality product compared to 1UP Arcade, which is a low bar. You know, this is still, like, a home unit. This is not a commercial thing. It's smaller than a real arcade game. Like, Kevin, you have, obviously, real arcade games. you assemble it, put together. But it's got a lot of nice things on it. Like the artwork is like, I think, almost like what Radicals are, if I understand Radicals. It's got like a plastic protector where it's really glossy.
    100:30
    There's a number of different cabinet styles. I got, which I go back and forth if I like the one I picked out, but I got Retro Mania Wrestling because I like that game. They have like a generic cabinet that looks kind of like a Tron-inspired version, which I like that as well. And then they have these gold cabs, which look more like traditional U.S. arcade cabinets. This is I think a Japanese style look to it, the arcade cabinet. But it was $500 on sale, and they're still running the sale at iArcade. So the cabinet style that I have, they have a Dragon Slayer version, they have a Double Dragon version, and then they have gold. their gold cabinets are like $300. But like for $500, like I had like a drink stand there, like a TV stand. I was like, well, that's going to go. No matter what, like this is a better use of that space. But I'm actually enjoying it a lot more than I even thought I would. I go down, I play it a lot. What's cool about it, it's almost like a console because you download games to it. So it's a multi-cade. It comes with 10 games on it, which is already a better value than 1UP Arcade, because 1UP Arcade's are like $500, and it's just like one game. 1UP Arcade's have that stupid riser. This is like, it sits higher. It's just better quality overall. You get more games.
    101:53
    And you download games. You go to their website, and games are like, I don't know, $6 to $10 most of them. There's a couple $30 games. But not only does it play, you can get retro games for it. You get also modern retro games. I guess Dead Cells is a big game. I'm going to pick that up when it's on sale. Retro Mania Wrestling just came out a year or two ago on Steam. It's a fun game. It's on Switch and stuff. So it's got a nice blend, right? It offers, like, kind of best of both worlds, and they keep on coming out with games. There's a few hundred on there now. I think the downside of that is they don't have licenses from, like, Konami and Capcom because that's tied up, I think, with, unfortunately, 1UP Arcade, which are just building kind of junk, as Kevin said. I'm glad you said that first. They're building that junk. I have no problem calling those junk. They're junk. It's kind of funny, man. I feel like a dick saying this when people show their game rooms and I look at it. It's like, dude, you've got these kind of junky things. You'd be better off. And I understand. They're pulling at the nostalgia string, which I don't really have that, so I'm able to resist it. But you'd be better off buying one arcade game or one pinball machine and just building up over time because it's going to hold their value better. Do what you want. Do what makes you happy. I'm glad you're getting into it. That's like a gateway drug, I think, to real arcade games. Oh, totally. Yeah, it is. So we'll talk to you guys in a few years. Welcome aboard. You'll agree with us. She'll get there, but it's cool. Yep. So, yeah, anyways, I like this. I think I honestly didn't really know that this thing existed. I remember, Kevin, because I'm a fan of Mutant Football League, you know, Tim Kisrow and, you know, like the remake. Oh, yeah. They, iArcade, had, like, a cabinet that was themed with Mutant Football League, and that game was supposed to come out there, but it never did because, I guess, there was a game-breaking bug that, like, the team from Mutant Football League didn't want to dedicate to solving it, so it never happened. They only made 100 cabinets. Yeah. That would be my dream. If they came out with that, I would sell that cabinet and buy the Mutant Football League and get the Mutant Football League. Yeah, because I remember when I first saw these, it was a Mutant Football League version of this. And I was like, that's weird that Nick didn't get the Mutant Football League version. Yeah, dude, 100%. And this is maybe my ignorance. When I saw that advertised, I thought it was like, that's cool, but why would you pay $500 or whatever for just Mutant Football League and an arcade cabinet? I didn't realize that this plays, like, hundreds of games potentially.
    104:11
    And the other thing is, like, you know, maybe one day if I had more space in main camera, it would be good. But, you know, with main camera, you should get, like, 3,000 games and, you know, it becomes a little overwhelming. So I don't know. It fits my scenario. Like, for what I'm looking for, it's a good fit. I don't know. What do you think of it? Were you aware of this product? Did you know much about it? Yeah. So, you know, because I like arcade stuff, obviously they started targeting me on Facebook with ads. and they always look neat.
    104:38
    I had never played one until I played yours. It's a good middle ground between an arcade one-up and the real thing. Obviously, I'm into the classics. I enjoy collecting, repairing, restoring the original 80s arcade games. That's what I'm into. Not everybody has the desire, interest, or skill set to keep these things running because they're not easy to keep running. So something like an IA Arcade is a great spot to be if you want to play some of these games without all the hassles of maintaining an old game. You know, what I thought was cool was Martha was like, oh, have you ever played Magical Drop 3? Because that's one of these games that's on there. I was like, yeah, dude, that's one of the games in my Neo Geo. You know, the Neo Geo is great because it's got hundreds of games in it that you can play. And so seeing somebody who had no idea this game existed really now fall in love with this classic video game, it's great. You know, and now the next time we're together, we can play this game and have a good time, right? Yeah, it's awesome, man. Like, I think it's cool that you have, like, real arcade games, right? Like, even though I'm not into it, like, to me, that takes up a lot of space. It's just one game.
    105:46
    So it's not my thing. I like the idea of, like, if I'm going to take up some space, I could play a ton. And, you know, my attention for these older style games are pretty limited, right? I play and then I kind of move on. Have you ever thought about doing a, like, I'm curious, Have you ever thought about doing a MAME cabinet, and if so, why not? Yeah, it's just not, like, if I want to play those games, I can play them on MAME on my computer, right? Like, I don't see the benefit, or I've got it. I have a modded Wii U that I have all those games on. I have access to all those games. So if I'm going to have a game take enough space in my game room, I want it to be an authentic game. Neo Geo is probably the closest thing I would ever get to a MAME cabinet because I have the SD card in there with every Neo Geo game ever released so I can play the whole library of games. So that's kind of my – and then the other games I have are games that I love. But something like Tempest, I've added a board to it where I can play like five different games in that one cabinet. So I get you on the wanting to get the most out of the real estate that these games take up because they are – they're big and, you know, you can only fit so many, so you want to get as much gameplay out of them as you can. Yeah, no, that makes total sense, and I appreciate where you're coming from. The other thing I should mention is that they have online on these old games. Yeah, that's cool. I didn't realize that either, so that's awesome. Yeah, so if anybody's got one of these and wants to play some old school arcade games, that would be fun. But, yeah, they have a ton of Neo Geo games, so it's helping me appreciate, like, Windjammers and Magical Trap. Dude, Windjammers is the best. It's so good. Dude, what's cool is, like, now I'm excited to play, like, these arcade games. I've probably never played your D.O.G.O. maybe once, but now it's got me there to appreciate it. And, of course, I remember going to Aladdin's Castle as a kid, and I'm in my 40s, so I wasn't playing Pac-Man. I was playing more Final Fight and maybe Street Fighter and Turtles and Simpsons and all that stuff. But it's cool, man. It's cool. I love this. I really want to champion this company because I like this. They're hitting my sweet spot. and I made that video for other people kind of like me who didn't know it existed so hopefully it's helpful awesome well I look forward to battling you and some windjammers the next time you're over I gotta get good you're gonna kick my ass awesome alright well that's gonna do it for this episode of Brody Eaves and Talk Pinball if you haven't yet be sure to follow us on all our social media channels if you're watching you can see them at the bottom of your screen Twitter, Instagram well I'm still on Twitter for now we'll see how long that lasts Instagram, YouTube Facebook, we've got a group. And Discord, if you want to chat and you want to have people show you all the phallic things on the new pinball machines, that's where you go for that.
    108:29
    Send us an email, talkpinball at gmail.com. Subscribe on Twitch if you want to support us. If you've got an Amazon Prime account, you get a free sub every month. You can throw that our way. We also have a PayPal account if you want to send us a little donation. And a free way to support the channel is to leave us a review on your favorite podcast listening platform of choice. Uh, before we throw it to you, Topper's talking with you on episode 15. Nick Lane, anything to say to the folks? Yeah. Um, seek mental help. Get a therapist. If, uh, our opinion differs than your opinion on a pinball machine and you want to push you to violence against us, get some help. Um, I mean, I mean that. And, uh, just happy holidays. Thanks for listening. I want to, you know, when we do a stream, Kevin, and I see like somebody re-upping their, They're subs at Switch, and they've been there since, like, you know, 2016, I remember when we started, 2015. Like, that's amazing. It means a lot to us, and it's nice feedback that we're providing value. And, of course, I don't, you know, that's the goal, right, to provide value and entertainment to people to help them. So I'm really grateful. Whether you're subscribing for the first month or your 80th month or whatever we're at now, thank you it's appreciated yeah thanks y'all have a great holiday season we will see you in 2023 oh and don't forget to tune in for the bad girls holiday special very important so we'll see you soon on Birdie Even Pinball bye
    110:17
    and buy one now. There's a topper here and a topper there. Here a topper, there a topper, everywhere a topper. It's critical to the gameplay experience. You must buy one now. It's your monthly fill of toppers right now. Topper Talk with Goran.
    110:35
    Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Topper Talk with Goran, the part of the podcast where Kevin and Nick give me about three to five minutes to talk about everything happening in the very active and profitable topper community. Now at Topper Talk, we like to stay on top of the abundance of pinball topper news. So today we're going to be talking about the new Scooby-Doo topper revealed for Spooky Pinball's new Scooby-Doo pinball machine. So let's head into the office to talk about it now. Okay, here we are in the office. So let's jump right into this topper. So there aren't a whole lot of videos or images released fully of this topper yet, but I did managed to get this nice freeze frame from the Scooby-Doo official reveal trailer from Spooky Pinball. This is the custom villain LED topper. It features a bunch of the game's villains on top of the game, and below it, it says the classic line, would have gotten away with it from Scooby-Doo. It is multi-dimensional, so it's multiple pieces of plexi, so it's not just one flat piece of plexi. Now, it doesn't have a whole lot of sculpts or 3D pieces to it, but hey, I'm never going to complain about a topper that is thrown into the game as part of the overall package. It does have color changing abilities, as we'll see here. So it does nicely change the color, and we see it pan down on the back glass. Now here is a photo of it on the overall game, and although there's not a whole lot of interactivity going on with it, you know, it does have an LED strip or two that change color, but, you know, there's the different characters don't necessarily change state or colors themselves. It does flow nicely with the overall artwork of the game. You know, it's not the typical situation of seeing the name of the game repeated above the game. We have, you know, the Scooby-Doo cast down here, the name of the game, Scooby-Doo, where are you? and I do like how the overall villains of the game are slowly looking over, or creepily looking over, the Scooby-Doo gang. So it does flow together as one cohesive piece, so I applaud Spooky and the art team for that.
    112:49
    One thing that would have been nice with a little more interactivity is if we look on the playfield, we have all the different villains that I believe that are modes are part of the game laid out on the playfield. They'll change color, they'll blink. it would have been nice if that corresponded to the topper, and I don't believe they do. But still, overall, I think it's a nice topper, something that you don't have to pay extra for on top of the already collector's edition package. So it's certainly a plus. It does seem to be pretty high. So for games going into basements, I'm not quite sure that you'll be able to fit it onto the game. But overall, I think it's a nice cohesive art package that anyone who has the game will enjoy looking at. Now, before we end this podcast, Topper Talk, I'd like to quickly show off the official Topper Talk topper that was graciously gifted to me for the holidays by my friend Sam. So thank you, Sam, for the topper. It will live on top of old Chicago. And that's going to do it for this episode of Topper Talk with Goran. Tune into the next podcast for another episode. And as always, get out there and buy a topper. Thank you for coming to my Topper Talk.
    113:59
    you