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Episode 100 – Lyman Laments

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Jul 18, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Lyman Sheets discusses his pinball design career and philosophy on rules, scoring, and game development.

Summary

Episode 100 of Slam Tilt Podcast features guests Greg Waparelli and Lyman Sheets discussing Sheets' career spanning Data East, Williams, Midway, and Stern. Sheets recounts his journey from competitive player to game programmer, highlights from designing Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, and Monster Bash, and reflects on game design philosophy emphasizing humor, player skill progression, and iterative development.

Key Claims

  • Lyman Sheets was ranked number one at one time and has approximately 20 tournament wins, with roughly 5 being major championships

    high confidence · Ron Hallett cites Sheets' tournament record while referencing his IFPA card

  • Sheets worked at Data East as a display programmer before being promoted to game programming

    high confidence · Lyman Sheets directly states he did display programming at Data East and later transitioned to game programming

  • Sheets called Larry DeMar at Williams after being offered a job back at MITRE, and DeMar immediately re-offered him the position

    high confidence · Lyman Sheets recounts the phone call at a McDonald's over the Kennedy Expressway near Stern's location

  • Attack from Mars originally had Congo as the project Sheets was assigned to, working under Bill Grupp, before being pulled to work with Brian Eddy

    high confidence · Lyman Sheets describes Congo as a two-level game redesign that was abandoned, leading to his reassignment

  • Slash from Guns N' Roses was directly involved in the development of the Guns N' Roses pinball game at Data East, requesting Jack Daniels during meetings

    high confidence · Lyman Sheets recounts Slash's presence in engineering meetings and his specific input on game design

  • Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars remakes did not require significant changes to layout, rules, or code from the original games

    high confidence · Lyman Sheets expresses pride that remakes preserved the original design without major alterations

  • Sheets worked at Midway Games from approximately 2000 to 2003 making video games, which he found less creatively fulfilling than pinball work

    high confidence · Lyman Sheets describes Midway's structure separating game designers from programmers, limiting his creative input

  • Roger Sharp gave Sheets early game design advice that influenced his scoring philosophy: 'if I do it a second time, just make it worth more'

Notable Quotes

  • “I think probably that is just being able to hit the shots that I want to hit.”

    Lyman Sheets — Describes his core strength as a competitive player—shot accuracy and ball control

  • “I think humor is like one of the most important things you can have in a game. I mean our lives are all like we're all stressed out we have all kinds of you know serious things we have to deal with during the day and it's like if you can get to the end of the day and just be able to laugh and escape that way. It's great.”

    Lyman Sheets — Core philosophy on game design emphasizing entertainment and emotional escape

  • “I spent a couple days talking with Brian obviously and Mike Boone and a couple other people went back to Larry and said Like, hey, I know Brian started some code on the game. Like, I want to do the code. Have him be the designer and let me be the code guy.”

    Lyman Sheets — Shows how Sheets negotiated his role with Brian Eddy on Attack from Mars, establishing the designer/programmer split

  • “You know, all these years later, the billion-point hurry-up to start Total Annihilation is the most fulfilling moment in pinball for me. Nothing feels better than booming that billion-start.”

    Lyman Sheets — Personal reflection on Attack from Mars' most satisfying mechanic and design achievement

  • “I really felt like he had a good kind of middle-of-the-road take on how to structure a game so that it's kind of fun for people not a great player or not a casual player, but people kind of in the middle.”

    Lyman Sheets — Describes Slash's design philosophy for Guns N' Roses—balancing accessibility with depth

  • “I think Brian was really good at, you know, like entertainment value and big picture stuff, you know, about like, okay, here's the game structure and here's the pacing and being able to see different things at different times throughout, you know, the course of the game. And then I was more of like a rules guy, presentation guy, and scoring guy.”

    Lyman Sheets — Explains complementary skill division with Brian Eddy that made their collaboration effective

  • “After Adam's Family and Twilight Zone and all the wide-body games and everything it's when those games were made I mean people I hate to say it but people just didn't they didn't really want pinball”

Entities

Lyman SheetspersonRon HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonGreg WaparellipersonBrian EddypersonLarry DeMarpersonJoe CamicopersonGeorge GomezpersonRoger Sharp

Signals

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Lyman Sheets transitioned from display programmer at Data East to game programmer at Williams, demonstrating career growth within pinball industry

    high · Sheets explicitly describes asking for and negotiating the transition from display work to game programming, then doing the same at Williams

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Roger Sharp's advice to Sheets ('make it worth more') became foundational to Attack from Mars' exponential scoring design with escalating hurry-ups

    high · Sheets recounts the conversation and directly credits it with shaping Attack from Mars' billion-point start mechanic and overall scoring philosophy

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Sheets articulates that humor is a core design principle; unlicensed games allowed creative freedom, licensed games provide story leverage

    high · Extended discussion of humor in games, watching bad 60s sci-fi movies for inspiration, Monty Python as Medieval Madness model

  • ?

    historical_signal: Sheets notes that after Adam's Family and Twilight Zone era, pinball lost mainstream appeal, providing context for why remakes are valuable to market

    high · Direct statement: 'people just didn't they didn't really want pinball' after golden era wide-body games

  • ?

    product_strategy: Medieval Madness, Attack from Mars, and Monster Bash remakes preserved original design without major rule or layout changes, suggesting fidelity to legacy designs

    high · Sheets expresses pride that remakes 'didn't have a desire or a need to change too much' and 'didn't really change the layout,' 'didn't change the rules or the code'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.560

0:00
So, um, what do you think makes it happen? Uh, I don't know. That's why we're doing this, dumbass. Um, cause I was thinking like, maybe there's like a morning wood fairy? You know, like the tooth fairy?
0:16
Come on, Steve, let's quit screwing around. We've got scientific work to do. Besides, there's no such thing as fairies. Fairies are for dill holes. Well, that fairy in Peter Pan had a pretty nice butt.
0:32
Gave me a boner. Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Tilt Podcast, the show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. Is it really 100? It's 100 episodes, Bruce. Holy fuck. 100 episodes. Two years of this. Well, guess what? I have to first say I am so sorry for what I've put you through for the past two years. Sure you are, Bruce. Sure you are. You're right. I'm not. And this is episode 100, or 100, Thor the Dark World. Eh, we're Thor. Worst Thor? Okay. So we'll just skip it. Skip it. This is a very special episode, Bruce, because we are not alone. We're not alone. We have two guests with us today. And who may they be? First, it's our Tim Balls version 2.0. It is our own Greg Waparelli. I missed you guys. I know. We missed you, too. Welcome back. It feels good to be back, gentlemen. Welcome back, sir. And I'm honored for the 100th honor. You are always welcome. He helped us get number 100 episode guest. He is the master of the rules. We have praised him so many times on this show. You should now know who it is. He's a great player, a great rule maker, Lyman Sheets. Thank you for coming on, Lyman. Hey, thanks for having me. If you don't know, Lyman works for Stern right now, but he has worked in the past for Williams and Data East. And maybe you can tell us who else he's worked for. Williams and Data East. I guess I work for, I guess, Midway Games in between my time at Williams and Stern, around 2000 to 2003. Okay. Yeah, making video games. Did you enjoy that more or less, or was it just a different challenge? You know, I think I enjoyed it less mainly because at Midway, they had more of a kind of a structure to making games. They had game designers and people who actually made the creative part of the game, and then they had just programmers who implemented the technical details of the game, and that's pretty much what I did or what all the programmers did. Not too many of them actually contributed game ideas or content or whatever. So, yeah, after about three years, I was, I don't know, I was kind of looking for more based on, I felt we were pretty lucky at Data East and at Williams where we could contribute to the game creatively, contribute ideas, rule ideas, for better or for worse, we were sort of the people who either made the game or broke the game.

high confidence · Lyman Sheets recalls this specific conversation about exponential scoring that shaped Attack from Mars design

Lyman Sheets — Historical observation on pinball market decline after golden era, context for why remakes were valuable

person
Bill Gruppperson
Slashperson
Lonnie Roppperson
Kevin Martinperson
Tedperson
Attack from Marsgame
Medieval Madnessgame
Monster Bashgame
Guns N' Rosesgame
Tommygame
Congogame
Data Eastcompany
Williamscompany
Sterncompany
Midway Gamescompany
MITREcompany
  • ?

    design_innovation: Sheets and Brian Eddy developed complementary skill division: Eddy focused on entertainment/pacing, Sheets on rules/scoring/presentation

    high · Sheets explicitly describes this division: 'Brian was really good at... entertainment value and big picture stuff' while he was 'more of a rules guy, presentation guy, and scoring guy'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Slash's involvement in Guns N' Roses pinball game at Data East demonstrated value of artist input on licensed titles; Slash provided specific design direction and thematic insight

    high · Sheets recounts Slash's multiple visits to engineering, design meetings, and his specific requests ('I want this, I want that'); notes this made game better

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Guns N' Roses has unbalanced skill shot where shooting super pops + band member shot dominates strategy; late games added wire form to upper flipper to increase challenge

    medium · Sheets describes skill shot balance issue and what changes could improve it; notes early vs late game iterations had different feeding patterns

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Sheets recently competed in Toronto championships, beating Josh and taking Kaylee to 9 frames; still competitive despite reduced tournament participation

    high · Greg Waparelli references Toronto tournament results; Sheets confirms playing in IFPA tournaments and upcoming Pinberg event

  • ?

    content_signal: Slam Tilt Podcast reaches Episode 100 with special guest lineup (Greg Waparelli and Lyman Sheets), signaling show's longevity and community importance

    high · Opening discussion of reaching 100 episodes, guests present for milestone episode, hosts emphasizing significance of the episode number

    • 3:55
    Literally, sometimes. So you actually started at Data East. How did you get this job at Data East to start off your career? Well, at the time, I was pretty serious about playing in tournaments except back then instead of having, you know, four tournaments a week, there were four tournaments a year. But it allowed me to meet several of the people in the pinball industry because they would also go to tournaments. I met Larry DeMar almost immediately, Roger Sharps, Pat Waller, Steve Ritchie, Joe Camico, several people. and once I started talking with them, you know, he'd talk about what do you do for work and all this and that and have a degree in computer science. And then so it just sort of seemed like, hey, you know, that's what you guys do too. You have people who have degrees in computer science or engineering work on the games. And then so I just, you know, started pestering people about maybe working in the pinball business as a program. That sounded like the Pinball Hall of Fame that you listed off there for a second.
    5:09
    Yeah, back in the day, you know, I guess it was. You know, pinball isn't for everybody. I kind of like them, or I guess I suppose software engineering or engineering or whatever happens to be game development isn't for everybody. For a lot of people, it's a lot of long hours, a lot of crunch time, and a lot of hard work. and now we're back into being not so much leading edge, cutting edge tech, but there's a lot more technology in the games today than there was maybe even five years ago. So it's not for everybody. Well, you know, I think you're pretty humble overall, but as we can all agree, you're one of the best designers, but obviously one of the best players also. I'm looking at your card right now, and not only were you ranked number one at one time, but out of only, what, 20 all-time wins, I think like five of them are majors or something like that. So like, what is that, 20% of your wins are major championships? That's crazy. I don't know. I wish I could kind of take it seriously again. I took it very seriously when I was younger, and these days I'm pretty happy if I can, you know, maybe make it to three or four tournaments a year. But, you know, it's just a lot of, it's a big commitment for me to go to a tournament. It's a lot of time. It's a lot of effort. I guess, you know, after maybe doing it earlier in my career, it just, I don't want to say like the excitement has worn off or, I don't know. It feels a little more like work for me today. But I still do enjoy it. I keep coming back for more. And it's certainly a lot harder for me now, being older, and then the competition being so much harder. I can relate to the sentiment of it feeling like work. But when we hung out in Toronto at the championships a couple weeks ago, I got to say, retired lineman has felt pretty deadly. Well, you beat Josh, and then you took Kaylee to nine. I mean, is that you laying back and hardly playing? I think you're a force to be reckoned with still, buddy. I appreciate that. I hope to still be playing, hopefully, for, I don't know, as long as I can. I guess I'll say that. But that was a great tournament. I really enjoy playing at the IFPA and Pinberg, too, which is coming up. It just really requires, which I didn't have early on when I played, that was all about, you know, dot games like Adam's Family and Attack from Mars and all the fast playing new games and competition these days is you have to have a more balanced set of skills and be able to play on a lot of different machines. It was funny playing against Kaylee. He sort of reminded me of me when I was younger because he was like super crazy good on, you know, like mousing around and attack from Mars and whatever else, and then I could take him over to, you know, like Viking or Dracula and beat him on those games. So I guess it, like, kind of comes around at some point. So I enjoy that tournament a lot.
    8:28
    It's always a lot of fun. I was super glad that we ended up in the Airbnb together with, you know, Bowden and everybody hanging out at Tilt across the street. Jason Werdrick was there. and that place, Tilt, got to give a big shout out to them. They were great to us. It was really fun in Toronto. Great hosts over there. And I'd definitely go back. It was a fun city. Yeah, I would totally go back. It was awesome.
    8:55
    Normally, I'm glad I got a chance to stay there too because I was, you know, looking at, well, okay, I'll take the hotel that's, you know, like whatever, 10 minutes away from Adam's place. And it was a lot of fun even though, I mean, We had some time the last night, obviously, after the tournament was over and whatnot, for all intents and purposes. But, you know, the other nights, even just getting out for an hour and being able to walk around a little bit and see everything was great.
    9:25
    So what would you say your best strengths are as a player? Well, I think it used to probably be understanding game rules and then just being able to hit everything. that I aim at. And now as I get a little older, it's not so easy to hit all of the things that I aim at. But I think probably that is just being able to hit the shots that I want to hit.
    9:52
    A skill I wish I had. Unfortunately, I do not. I don't know about that. We've played a couple times, and I think you do pretty well. I'm only just getting there. I think I realized that accuracy for me was much more timing than anything. And I think when you're first starting to get better at it, you look too much at the flippers. And for me, at least, as my accuracy has improved, it's been completely based off of natural reaction and timing. I don't think about the shot. If I'm going to be accurate, I'm usually just shooting. Yeah, I tried early on when I was practicing and learning how to play competitively, whatever. always like get control of the ball. It's just so much easier to hit a shot if you have control versus not. And I don't know. It just seemed like over time the shot making is a little more difficult for me. But I guess it just comes with, you know, getting older and probably just getting older. You still got the stance, though. Yeah. Well, the stance. I don't know, for some reason I always, it's a lot harder for me personally to play the game when I'm standing over it and I have to keep adjusting my eyes from like flippers to up the play field and back and forth. And it's just too much, I guess, like eyeball moving around for me. So I just, you know, this dance is what it is. It's just for me just trying to get a good view and not have to really move too much with my eyes and where I'm looking at. Is it still comfortable or is it harder to stand up afterwards? Actually, no. After all these years, it's still fine. I mean, I actually exercise a lot. I go and ride my bike to work sometimes. I go for walks. And so being able to stand up or even like that or whatever else for 12 hours a day, you know, for five sessions or six sessions of IFPA and five sessions of Pinberg is not that much of an issue. So it's not really a problem. So what you're saying is good rules, good beers, and the stance, all timeless.
    12:15
    Could be. so you started at data east so why don't you tell us how you got started there well i was uh competing in tournaments and then i talked with again larry demar and joe camico about maybe working in the uh in the pinball industry and uh i sent him my resume and said i'd really like to you know work and program games and make game rolls and make pinball machines for living and Joe Camico offered me a job. Larry and the folks at Williams did not because at the time I was working at MITRE in Bedford in Massachusetts and I think Larry's impression of working there was like that it was like kind of an easy job you know it was a nine to five and you work five days a week and whatever and I think the first three years I was there before I moved to Chicago to work for Data East. That couldn't, for me personally, that couldn't be further from the truth. I was very excited about what I was doing there. And I often worked 10 hours a day, sometimes more. I would go in on weekends too. And I think, again, as I was trying to say earlier, working on games, I'm not just single out pinball, but games in general, it's pretty demanding work. and their schedules and deadlines, and there were a lot of consequences for missing the schedules and the deadlines. But Joe offered me a job, and I started doing display programming when I was at Data East. And one of the first projects I worked on there was with Lonnie Ropp. We worked on Tommy together with Kevin Martin. He contributed to game rules also. And it was, you know, it was a lot of work, but it was a hell of a lot of fun. It was just so, pinball back then was just very exciting, and there were new things happening, kind of like right now, actually. Pinball's very exciting right now. All the different companies and all the different games and all the different new technology, and not to mention the whole tournament scene and collectors and everything, it's amazing. I enjoy making the games And I wish I could You know do maybe a little bit better job Of getting them right You know when they come out the door But I always You know for me because I'm a player All of the games that I make I play Over and over and over and over again And I don't know for me If you're going to make games That's something you probably need to do Because there'll be someone in the world who buys your game and they're going to play it hundreds of times, thousands of times. And actually going to tournaments, watching people play the games, going out to location, watching people play the games, getting feedback from people, it's great and it helps make them better. So what would you say some of your highlights It's a day to Eastward. I got the IPDB page up here, and it's saying it's got Tommy. It's got Royal Rumble on here. It has Guns N' Roses. Yeah. How many of these? A lot of these were in Canada. Don't forget Maverick. No, I won't forget Maverick. How can you forget Maverick? I can't.
    15:46
    No. Well, that game was interesting because it started out as a wide-body game with the small dot matrix display, and it ended up being a narrow-body game with a large dot matrix display.
    16:02
    But I don't know. I mean, obviously the games I enjoy the most were the games that I felt like I had, you know, the most input on with game rules, and I guess that would be probably, you know, all of the games except wrestling. But Guns N' Roses was a lot of fun to work on. I enjoyed the theme and the game. We got to work with Slash. He came into engineering and the factory several times to work on it. And that was just a lot of fun to just get out of sort of that kind of engineering model of here's how we make games and to just have somebody come in and say, hey, I'm a pinball guy and I want this, I want that, I want this, I want that, and to give us some insight into the band that we didn't have, I thought made the game a lot better because these were things we never would have come up with on our own.
    17:04
    Didn't Slash have, like, there had to be booze present or something like that rule? Yeah. Well, yeah, one of the first meetings, we were all upstairs in the mechanical engineering area around this conference table, And it was back when you could, you know, smoke in the building and the room was filled with cigarette smoke. And I was the new guy at the time. And so, you know, Slash wanted some. Jack Daniels and Joe sent me out to the liquor store to get, you know, a bottle of Jack Daniels. But, you know, it was a great collaborative effort for everybody. And I think that's part of the reason why it ended up being one of Data East's better games back then Was because, I mean, everybody just kind of wanted to listen to what Slash had to say And, I mean, especially Joe, he was out at his house and Slash was way into pinball He had, I don't know how many games and played them all the time and could describe game rules and when he was talking about the Guns N' Roses game, he was describing things like, you know, I don't want it too easy for casual players and I don't want it too hard for people, you know, who are you and only you are going to be able to see what's in the game and what's happening.
    18:28
    I really felt like he had a good kind of middle-of-the-road take on how to structure a game so that it's kind of fun for people not a great player or not a casual player, but people kind of in the middle. And he definitely succeeded in that. You guys hit a home run with that. I mean, Night King's awesome. It could use a few couple minor tweaks. I guess people, you know, they can't tweak the software, so they tweak, you know, the post on it, make the band member shot a little harder. You know, the pop scoring could probably be adjusted a little bit. I mean, there are a few scoring changes that probably could be made to that game to make it a little more balanced. But overall, you know, it's a pretty fun game to play. What would you balance? What would you change? I mean, for me, I think I would, you know, try to balance out the skill shot a little bit because, you know, I guess it depends on what game you get on. The early games had the plunger serving the ball up into the lanes. And so for me, I would always just take the super pops and then just shoot the band member shot. And that for me is pretty much the whole game. In a tournament setting, if I'm playing against somebody else or I want to just do some of the other things in the game, then maybe I'll play some of the modes. But yeah, as far as tournament goes I think I would probably just take the super pops And shoot the band member shot On the later games though The wire form that comes out of the shooter lane Instead of going up to the lanes It would feed around to the upper flipper And that makes it a little bit more You know, I guess challenging or whatever, but not by much. I mean, you miss out on like one ball to the lanes and then you're still shooting the band member shot. So I guess those couple of things I would start with and then see what happens. All right. And then after this period, you go to Williams. Now, do they call you? Do you call them? How did that come about? No, actually I called them And I was contemplating Going back to Miner To work there because I At Data East I really wanted to be A game programmer I was a display programmer And I was able to Contribute to rules and everything By working With Lonnie Tommy a little bit, well mostly Tommy and a little bit on Guns N' Roses, but I explained to Joe, I said I wanted to be a game programmer and make game rolls, and there wasn't really a position open for me at the time. And then so I sort of felt like, well, you know, I guess I'm going to move back and work for MITRE because I wasn't able to do what I wanted to do in pinball. And then just after they had offered me a job back to work there, I called up Larry and Ted and asked them, said, hey, you know, do you guys have an opening or whatever? and I had a real interview with Ted. It was at the McDonald's that isn't there anymore that was over the Kennedy Expressway, over actually pretty close to where Stern is now. And we had an interview, and the next day they said, we'd like you to come work for us. And then I thought about it, and then I said, I said no because I had accepted this job at MITRE back on the East Coast. And then I was getting ready to go back, and I felt like I got to give it one more shot. I can't, you know, I can't just have another opportunity. I have to give it a shot. And so one day in December, just at lunch, I went and left my desk at Data East, or Sega actually at the time, went to the phone and called up Ted, asked him if the offer was still on the table. He said yes, and then I went to work with James.
    23:03
    And the first game you worked on was Attack from Mars? No, it was actually No Fear. No Fear? No Fear. I did some display work on No Fear for about six weeks, and the actual first game I was assigned to after that, was Congo. Oh, man, one of my favorites. I love Congo. Bill Grupp was the lead programmer, and I was the support programmer on it. So, yeah, I like Congo. I mean, the Congo I started working on wasn't the Congo that everybody else has played. The original Congo at Williams was a two-level game, and during one of the design reviews,
    23:49
    it was kind of decided that, like, you know, maybe this isn't the best direction for the game and whatever else, and then so it sort of went into this kind of redesign phase, and that's when I ended up with Brian, because both Bill and I were kind of not taken off the project, but we were just sort of in limbo because the play field was going through redesign, and then Larry put me with Brian on Attack from Mars. So you're saying it was originally like a two-level game, like a Black Knight 2000 or something, or like a Whitewater? Yeah, originally it was a two-level game. It had four flippers, and yeah, probably like Black Knight. Well, actually, more like the original Black Knight, I guess. It was a little smaller play field up top, and it had two big flippers and kind of a tight space, a couple targets and a couple shots. And it was just very crowded up there, a little claustrophobic. And, yeah, interesting layout. But I don't know. It ended up being redesigned. So you get pulled from that, and you get put with Brian Eddy with Attack from Mars. So this is your first lead. Yeah, and I was really happy about that because that's what I wanted to do. You know, I felt like I kind of paid my dues at Data East doing display work, and I certainly felt like I could do the work. And then it was a little tiny disappointing to me to go to Williams and then be like, okay, you're a support programmer on, you know, like, I'm not like, just give me the keyboard. That's what I wanted. And in a strange sort of way, it all worked out in the end, okay. but when things started with Brian he had a play field already and a white wood and he had started basically getting the play field up and flipping with everything, the devices working and everything and then when Larry said hey I'd like you to work with Brian on this I spent a couple days talking with Brian obviously and Mike Boone and a couple other people went back to Larry and said Like, hey, I know Brian started some code on the game. Like, I want to do the code. Have him be the designer and let me be the code guy. You know, I'm not going to let you down. I'm going to do it. You know, he went to bat for me. I was very thankful for that.
    26:24
    I know it required for Brian to put the keyboard down. Because Brian was the programmer. Yeah, he was a programmer. I mean, he did Shadow, but he also did, he was a programmer on a bunch of other games. I mean, he's the cow man, if I recall. He's the reason the cows are everywhere.
    26:45
    And everywhere in Attack from Mars. You know, all these years later, the billion-point hurry-up to start Total Annihilation is the most fulfilling moment in pinball for me. Nothing feels better than booming that billion-start. It's pretty sweet when you get it. And I also like one of the things I learned. I was pretty good friends with Roger Sharp, I suppose, at that point going into working at Williams. And I just remember like the first time he came into my office and I had the Attack from Mars play field, Whitewood, in there. He had a big smile on his face and he was like, OK, just do this for me. whatever you do in the game, if I do it a second time, just make it worth more. And, you know, not too much to ask, but it ended up being sort of what I sort of feel is like really important, you know, for games to do. And I put it all over probably Attack from Mars, those kind of things where if you do something, then the next time it's worth more, you know, something else to look forward to. I mean, I guess for me, like, as much as I like, you know, say, Scared Stiff or Circus Voltaire and stuff like that, the scoring, you know, where I, you know, I have to hit the crate like 80 times to get the multi-ball, and then I get it and I'm getting, you know, 250,000 jackpots or whatever else. It's like that's one of the things like that I remember that really stuck with me probably throughout the whole time working on games was this Roger Sharp coming into my office and saying something very simple, you know, like, hey, you know, if I do something again, just make it worth more than the last time I did it. And I don't know, I just feel like it's a pretty important thing to do. So when you say about the billion hurry up, it's like, okay, it's worth more, but it's also worth like not linearly more. You know, it's not like 100, 200, 300, 400. You know, it's just right. And that is sort of I don't know. That was more interesting to me, I think, is a scoring rule is to have more of like an exponential kind of score thing with a little more risk and then a lot more reward. and there's a lot of humor in Attack from Mars is that something you were consciously going for there your roll call of games at Williams there's a lot of humor in them I think humor is like one of the most important things you can have in a game I mean our lives are all like we're all stressed out we have all kinds of you know serious things we have to deal with during the day and it's like if you can get to the end of the day and just be able to laugh and escape that way. It's great. And the themes we had, I mean, these are, with the exception of Monster Bash, these are all unlicensed games that we worked on there predominantly, and it gave us a lot of freedom. That's good and bad. I mean, I think one of the things licenses do from a game development standpoint, it sort of saves the designers from having to tell, say, a bad story. You know, like everybody loves, like, say, Ghostbusters as a story, and there's lots of humor in it, whatever, and everybody kind of knows what it is. And it's pretty powerful to just be able to leverage that. If somebody had to make up some generic, like, okay, we're catching ghost story with humor, whatever, I don't know even if you had really talented people working on it if it would turn out. you know, so great. But for the games that Brian and I worked on together and even the stuff we did, George and I did in Monster Bash, you know, we had some models we could we could work from, even though they were unlicensed. They were kind of licensed because Brian and I spent, you know, days watching these bad 60s sci-fi movies and like laughing at them because they were so cheesy and bad. And I mean, that's sort of some of, you know, the humor we tried to put into the game.
    31:11
    So they must have liked your work with Attack because you're right back with Brian Eddy again for the next game, Medieval Madness, which is on a lot of people's all-time favorite list. Yeah, both of those are on my favorite list. I think as a player, Attack from Mars is probably like my favorite of the games I worked on at Williams, my favorite game to play. It's a little faster than medieval. The ball isn't tied up as much. And it's a little more in your face with the Martians and the saucers, explosions and everything. And, you know, but I think like entertainment-wise, humor-wise, entertainment value-wise, medieval is probably a little bit better.
    32:00
    It's kind of like the Monty Python game. Yeah, it kind of is. I mean, that was kind of our model for it, kind of. I'm just glad that you and Brian working at the same company again, of course, create things to come eventually, like just exciting stuff.
    32:17
    Yeah, I really enjoyed working with Brian because I felt like we had, we had like complimentary skills. Like Brian was really good at, you know, like entertainment value and big picture stuff, you know, about like, okay, here's the game structure and here's the pacing and being able to see different things at different times throughout, you know, the course of the game. And then I was more of like a rules guy, presentation guy, and scoring guy. And I think just, you know, between the two of us, we covered most of the bases pretty well. So it was a lot of fun to work with him. And it was pretty hands-off, too. We obviously had a big picture at the beginning of the game, but then Brian would come in and play the game every day before he would go home. And we'd talk about, like, okay, this is what we're doing, and we like this, and we like that, and this takes too long, or this could be better, or the score needs to be a little higher, or whatever. And it was, I mean, that's, I guess, game development is just iteration and just playing and playing and playing and playing. And unfortunately, those games, once I finally bought them and brought them home, I had lived them so much I didn't want to play anymore. So now I'm at least able to, and they're a lot of fun. I have a lot of fun playing those games. One question I have, just going a little future. Now you see the remake of Medieval Madness and the remake of Attack from Mars and now eventually the remake of Monster Bash coming out. Do you take pride in that all three games that they pick is your programming games?
    34:10
    I think so. I mean, I think the biggest pride I take in that they remake those games is that they didn't have a desire or a need to change too much in the games. They didn't really change the layout They didn't really fix a lot of stuff They didn't change the rules or the code Or, you know, whatever else I mean, I guess it's just a supply and demand issue, right? Back in the day, I think we all knew They were decent games But pinball just wasn't getting any love at the time After Adam's Family and Twilight Zone And all the wide-body games and everything it's when those games were made I mean people I hate to say it but people just didn't they didn't really want pinball now just remake a next gen and my dreams come true right sure George Gomez you got to work with him on your next game Monster Bash yeah that was pretty fun too George and I were Brian left for video at the time and then we had of downsizing at Williams. Some designers were let go. Some programmers were shuffled around into different departments. Some other people got, you know, like I say, shuffled around. Some pinball guys got shuffled over into gaming. And yeah, it was a pretty difficult time all around. We were all very excited about the things we were doing, just that nobody else was. working with George, again, it was one of those things like Larry was always very conscious of putting together people who could work well together. And then so he didn't say like, hey, you're working with George. It was like, hey, I want you and George to work together. What do you think? And I was sort of like, well, yeah, if we could decide on a theme we both like, you know, great. And I was really pushing this sort of in the same realm of Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness. I wanted to do like a monster game where the monsters are sort of generic monsters that are wreaking havoc everywhere in the world. Not a zombie game, but more like a you know, I guess like a monster game. And George had a couple other ideas for games, and we were, I mean, I guess the big sticking point was he wanted to do a licensed game, and I was sort of like, hey, you know, we've had some success with, you know, doing like the sort of soft licensed 60s sci-fi or Monty Python, whatever you call it, and then I guess sort of what I was thinking in my mind for this game was sort of, you know, make fun of like old bad horror movies kind of thing, and then And we eventually settled on Monster Bash, and it was Kevin O'Connor who came up with the idea of the monsters playing rock and roll, which I really liked. At first, when he pitched it, I was like, okay, maybe. But once we started to see some of the things, it was like, okay, I think this is going to work. And those guys actually, when I think I went to Universal down in Florida, and they actually play on a stage back then in the 90s, the Monsters. Was it originally going to be Monster Mash? Like they were actually going to use the song, but they were just getting the rights or something? Like the guy wanted... Monster Mash. Yeah, I think the story I heard was that he wanted a lot of money for it. And we were, you know, we have a budget for things, and we're like, well, you know, we can't pay that much and have it in the game. And he's like, well, okay, you won't have it in the game. I mean, that's just what I heard. I didn't speak to him or whatever else, but I think that's just the conversation that, you know, that I had with Roger about it when I asked, was that you wanted too much money. It never even got to the stage where, like, you'd have to put it in the game or anything like that. It just never even got that far. No. Hold on, hold on. Can I say, Mike? I want one question. Bruce first. Lyman's layman. That's what I was going to do. You got it, baby. I've been waiting for this all day. I think I remember how many shots it is. I'm not big of a nerd.
    38:45
    It's just so cool. 44? Yeah, it might be 44. So George put the list, or maybe it was Kevin, I don't know. I think it was George. And then it was just meant to be like a paper joke, like here are the songs in the game, and then here's this other song because I don't know, I guess. People think I complain about stuff too much. Not that I have a bad attitude, but most people's scales go from 1 to 10, and I think mine maybe goes from minus 5 to plus 5. You know, George felt like I never really got excited about things in the game. And I think it was just a function of maybe we were all excited about the things we were doing again in pinball, but a lot of other people weren't. You know, it's pretty tough to come into work every day and work so hard at stuff and, you know, work 12 or 14 hours a day. and then just kind of feel like the people who you're doing the work for just don't really care about what you're doing. It's kind of tough. But he put the songs that were in the game, he named all the songs, and the last one just as a joke, he was like, yeah, and this one's called Lyman's Lament. I'm like, well, what's that? He's like, I don't know. And it says you complaining about stuff or you whatever it is. Like, okay. And then, so it stayed on the play field And somebody, it might have been George too, I don't know But somebody was like, well, we've got to put the song in the game And I'm like, you know, I've got to get the rest of the game done first I can't, you know, I can't be putting stupid stuff in the game That, you know, isn't part of the game But, you know, in the end we had We managed some time to do it We didn't have a lot of space left to To put the song in the ROMs because we had fixed space for music and speech and sound effects and stuff like that. But we had a little bit of space left. And then, you know, whatever, George is like, yeah, it's just you complaining. So go in the studio with Vince and, you know, just complain about stuff. And then so I guess that's what I did.
    40:58
    Not my idea, but it's there. It's classic. I love it. How about the Phantom Flip? Whose idea was that? That was my idea. I'll take credit for it. I really like thing flips on Adam's family. And then I just, you know, you do what human beings do. You take an idea and you build on it. And, yeah, I mean, I wish I, knowing what I know now about it, I think I would only do something like that again if I knew it would work 100% of the time. Because, I don't know, players, human beings being who they are, what they are, they don't remember the ten times it hits the shot or whatever else they remember the one time it hits the target and it drains down the side and you know like they lose the ball and they get mad or whatever else so but yeah it was an experiment it's kind of a one and done I don't think I've ever gotten linings on that because I'm no I don't know the flipper codes but if I remember correctly the flipper code disables the bonus that you get, even though it might have been like a joke, if you do actually activate linemen's lament 44 shots, I'm pretty sure you blow the game up because it gives you like super scoring, right? Yeah, it gives you a whole bunch of bonus multipliers and a bunch of bonus. So if you can actually, if you've either had a really good ball up to the point that you get it, or if you just get it like say at the start or the middle of a ball and then you have a really long ball after that, you're going to get some good points in it. But then somebody mentioned there was, like, I had some bug in my Easter egg where I don't know, if you enter the code, or there's a multiplayer thing, or I don't know what it is, like, there's some bug with doing the code, I think. I don't know how people figure out these Easter eggs anyway, but...
    42:54
    I remember one time Zen was playing Attack from Mars, and he made the cow came up for the first time, and I was like, what the hell is that? Yeah. Like, that was great, because the cow comes up randomly, like in Attack and Medieval, you could not even do anything or know how to get it deterministically and have it come up and be like, what the hell is that? You know, and it's just like this fun, goofy thing. Because it's just fun to do fun, goofy things. Is there a code out there that no one knows about? Oh, for sure. There's a code I think you can do to bring the cows up on Attack and there's one on Medieval to get the cows to come up, you know, like all the time for the video mode. Is there a code out there like nobody knew about the Michigan J Frog on Indiana Jones until like 3 or 4 years ago and that kind of stuff Is there a hidden one that you've done that no one knows about still? Maybe I think most of the people know about the ones that I've done. Maybe the only couple that might be a possibility would be the ones that bring up the cows for the video mode I mean I think everybody knows there's one for the design team credits and there's one for the cows in Attack and Medieval, and then there's one for the Linus Lament in Monster Bash, but I'm pretty sure those are the only ones. Okay. Give you something to think about later on. Yeah.
    44:20
    So we get through with Monster Bash, and then we have the Pinball 2000 edict from management. Yeah. And how involved were the – I assume you were very involved in that, being that the first game was Revenge for Mars. Sure. Well, after Monster Bash, it was funny, too, because, you know, after Monster Bash, I was feeling a little kind of like, what's the word I'm looking for? I guess a little frustrated, or when I was working on Monster Bash, I was feeling like it was time for a change. Maybe not Pinball 2000 change, but those three games were kind of similar in design, layout. They play differently, but the insert layout and sort of the structure of the games were similar. And I was sort of feeling like, well, I want to do something different after this. Sort of like how Brian and I, when we went into Attack from Mars, we just had a diet of mode games since Adam's family from 92 up until, I guess it was 95, summer of 95, when I started working on the code for Attack. We were all just, our minds were numb from playing mode games for three years, and we wanted to do something different. And when Revenge from Mars, the idea for that came about, there were still internally at Williams people trying to figure out, like, well, okay, what is it we're going to do to get pinball, people interested in pinball again? And, you know, George and Pat came up with Pinball 2000 as it eventually came out. And, you know, again, Larry was like, well, I want you to work on this project. and I mean I'm not going to say no it was a very different project for me because there was a lot of pressure to just get that game out to see what the reaction would be would it be the platform that would bring pinball back again was the big question that everybody in the company wanted answered and it was my first experience with working with another programmer all of those other games I just worked on by myself The Code Revenge for Mars was Keith Johnson worked on it Dwight Sullivan worked on it. And Graham West worked on it. And that's just on the game side. And I think we probably worked on it for a good, probably like a good year and a half, all of us. So it was more long days and nights. what were your thoughts on you know pinball 2000 uh when i was working on it i was just too focused on what i was doing to really kind of you know make a good judgment on it i was excited about what was happening with it and i was excited about some of the things we were doing with it but still i felt like there were a couple problems i didn't like how dark the game was For me, it's like rule number one of game design is the player wants to see the ball. Like, oh, I've got to see the ball. And it was really hard. Some of the things we were doing with the game with the video screen on the play field, and in order to see the stuff on there, it has to be dark. You can't have all kinds of lights. And it seemed like just from an engineering standpoint and just from working with it, we needed a little bit more time to figure that out. And then for me, working on Attack from Mars and really enjoying that game a lot, the humor and everything in it, Revenge from Mars, I sort of felt like, okay, it almost felt like it was a little too soon to make a sequel, I guess. and after the fact, it took a couple years after making the game that I could play it and enjoy it and laugh and really appreciate it. But really working on the game, it was, I think we worked a little bit more with the technology than maybe we did with the game, I think. And the game I felt, because there were a lot of programmers working on it, we didn't really meet together as a programming team and say, I mean, we all sort of had our things to do and people would just say, yeah, I want to work on this mode, I want to work on that mode and whatever. And everybody was just sort of like, okay, I'm going to make it how I want to make it. And in that respect, I felt like it was a little disjointed just in the presentation and everything else. But, you know, overall, I think I'm happy with the game in the end. I feel like we needed a little more time to work with the platform to really kind of figure it out. One of the things I thought that would work pretty well maybe is, you know, to use the screen a little more in trying to enhance some of the mechanical things on the game. I don't want to replace mechanical things on the game with video elements. I'd rather have both. And I think, like, kind of revenge for Mars, I felt like it could have had a little more mechanical things on the game.
    49:55
    Alright. And then soon after that we had Episode 1. And then I believe in, I think it was October of 99, where Williams pulled the plug. I think it was right after Expo. Yeah, it was right after Expo because Tom Euban and I, Tom, you've been with the systems engineer for Pinball 2000 and probably about six weeks before Expo. We were working on the tournament system, the network tournament system. He wrote, like, all of the back ends, TCP, IP stack, and protocol stuff. And then I wrote the server and came up with the player cards and the ID numbers and the database stuff and all of that. And then we ran the tournament at Pinball Expo in 1999 just over a LAN, you know, with a server and a database and everything. It was actually, you know, it had a few bugs in it and needed a little bit more work. But, you know, for the amount of time we put into it, it was pretty cool to see that all happen. And then, yeah, you know, I think actually that day when they let us all go from Williams and they closed Pinball, I think actually I slept in because we were at Expo like all weekends doing the tournament stuff. So, but, yeah, it was a sad day.
    51:20
    And they gave like what certain employees like you could go to Midway if you wanted to. I think some went to Midway, some went to what would be called WMS Industries or the Smart Division. WMS Gaming. and, well, at the time, WMS was basically slots and pinball, and Midway was a separate company. They had spun off a few years earlier. But, no, we all had to interview. I mean, I had to interview at gaming, and I had to interview over at Midway.
    51:57
    And then, you know, there were obviously two different things. I mean, for me personally, I think I had worked on a slot machine while I was in the pinball division. In between, I think it was Medieval and Monster Bash. I spent, I don't know, two or three months and I worked on a slot machine. And then they were still sort of had some growing pains, the slot division, like trying to find their way into that market and develop some decent product and stuff. but that's why I ended up wanting to work on video games. It just felt like it was newer. I got to work with cooler technologies, and that's why I ended up going over there. What did you guys think of Pinball 2000? I like those games. They're fun, but I kind of don't get that much time on them.
    52:52
    Pinball 2000, I would have liked to have seen Wizard Blocks. Me too. That was the one I think would have changed everything. Because the one thing about Pinball 2000, it's like you're hitting the center constantly, hitting the center over and over. You know, the ramp comes up, ball hits something.
    53:10
    And I got to play some wizard blocks. It was very interesting what they were going to do with that game. At least it looked interesting. Yeah, I agree. kind of what I was trying to say earlier is that I don't feel like we were given enough time to work with that platform to really make, you know, a great or compelling game. And probably in the next two or three after that, somebody would have made, you know, you work on stuff and you make mistakes and then you learn from them and then you make something better. So I think probably a couple more games, two, three more games down the road, you probably would have seen something really good. Well, what I like about the platform of Pinball 2000 is you guys were very innovative back in 99, 98, 97 with that engineering thing with fuses that actually had LEDs on them, a menu system that is very detailed. Back in 99, this was remarkable. Upgrading software. Yeah, upgrading software, everything. You guys were way ahead of the curve. When you actually work on a pinball tool, you go, wow, there's some great ideas, and they're still now being used today by all the manufacturers. That's kudos to everyone back in Williams. Yeah, it was a really great opportunity to kind of clean up the engineering on the game. You know, one of the things, like both, I know the Stern games today, the Spike games and the Spike 2 games, you know, it's like a couple of plugs you have to unplug and you can take the whole play field out of the game if you want. You know, and back then Pinball 2000 was, you know, was the same thing. And the biggest thing for me about providing the operator with some tools to be able to diagnose the game, just the screen real estate to be able to convey information. And the dot matrix was a great step up from alphanumerics, but then just having more real estate to show information. For me, that was probably the biggest thing. So you go to Midway for a little while. Yeah. What gets you too stern? You know, I think what gets me to Stern is because after Williams closed the pinball division, I had some conversations with Lonnie Rock at Stern. I don't know, was it Stern yet or not? It might have still been Sega back then. I can't exactly remember. But then he was like, hey, you know, you guys are done, blah, blah, blah. And then there were some conversations about, like, do you want to come over here and make pinball machines? It was just, I mean, I was still kind of, I don't want to say devastated, but really disappointed. And, like, I felt like Williams, they just sort of gave up on it. And I guess it's what you do, maybe. I don't want to speak for anybody, but I guess it's sort of the decisions you have to make when you're a public company. and you're saying like, well, okay, I'm in pinball and it's not a growth business and I'm going to be flat, you know, whatever, 10,000 games sold every year and my shareholders aren't going to be happy because they're, whatever, the stock price isn't going to go up at all. But at the end, when they closed it, there was a lot of disappointment. And for me, I had a couple conversations with Lonnie and I said, I basically said, no, I'm going to take a break from it for a while. And he asked me, well, you know, who do you think over, you know, from Williams, you know, who do you think, you know, would be a good fit for us? And for me, I recommended Dwight and Keith because I felt like as far as game programmers go, like the best asset you could have is somebody who, you know, has good creative skills. They are able to make games that are fun. And for me, I guess, you know, technical ability probably comes second. I always feel like, you know, you can either get help or if there's a bug, you can always fix it later or whatever else. So I mentioned Alani. It's like, yeah, talk to Dwight and talk to Keith. and they ended up going there.
    57:45
    When do you arrive? It was around 2003. I had about, I guess like three years is probably about my limit for stuff like that. But I just really wanted to, I loved being able to contribute creatively at Williams, at Data East. And it was something that was missing at Midway. and as much as I appreciated working on new technology and everything else, I really missed the creative aspect of working on pinball machines.
    58:21
    And then so, you know, I called them up and I said, Hey, are you guys looking for anybody? And they said, No, not right now. But they were working on some new hardware system. And they said, Well, you know, we need somebody to make a custom OS for us for this hardware and asked me if I was interested. And I was like, well, if it could eventually lead to being able to work on games, then yeah, sure. And that's how it all started. So was that OS, is that what ended up being SAM? Yeah, that's what ended up being SAM. I was very actually, at first I was like, well, okay, I really want to work on games. Right now, I don't want to put in another two years or whatever of doing just technical work again. But it was pretty fun to be around just in the environment where everybody is talking about games and playing games and talking about rules and how to make the games better and what's fun and what's not and trying to improve everything. And, I mean, once I got over there, it was, you know, it was okay. But, yeah, the actual work, read through data sheets and write device drivers and build an OS,
    59:45
    the White Star system was all written in assembly language. So I moved everything over to C and C++ for the SAM system. So would you say SAM was like your baby or more of a team effort?
    60:02
    I mean, as far as the operating system and everything else, yeah, probably. But, again, a lot of the concepts were based on the things that existed already, you know, certainly at Data East and Sega. And, I mean, as far as the pinball system goes, it doesn't have to do, like, too, too a lot of basic stuff, drivers for lamps and solenoids. And the SAM system had a few extra things that didn't exist in the old system, like the flash memory and the USB. And having to write it all basically from scratch is kind of hard. I mean, these days I think people leverage Linux systems and kernels and don't have to go and write a device driver for a piece of hardware reading the data sheet. People, I don't know, they just use sort of off-the-shelf stuff and configure kernels and drivers and stuff, and away you go. So what were some of the first games you ended up working on at Stern? The first game I worked on was Sokranos. It was actually supposed to be a Sam game, and due to, you know, hardware things and software things and delays with the operating system, it ended up not being the first game. The first game was a redemption game called Simpsons Kooky Carnival. It's a little bit better way to ease into a new platform than to just go, you know, wham, here's the pinball machine and here's the new system and everybody has to come up to speed on, you know, how to troubleshoot it and how it's different and everything else. But in that game, that was a weird game to work on because George Gomez did the design, but he wasn't an employee at Stern. He was a contractor, and he worked outside the building. So he would do the layout, and he would come in every once in a while, but it wasn't like an everyday thing collaborating with George. And then I was still working on the operating system, and then Dwight Sullivan took over doing the software for the White Star system, which is what the game ended up being released with.
    62:28
    That's actually the first game I ever played. Sopranos? I'd never seen pinball, and I was like 16 years old maybe, local arcade. I walk in, there's a pinball machine. It was Sopranos. I loved it, and I still love that game.
    62:45
    Probably was hungry to go back and put another high score up a couple weeks later, and unfortunately the operator pulled it, and then I probably didn't play pin again until I was 21 a couple years later. Wow. But I remember that.
    62:59
    Yeah, I enjoyed Sopranos a lot. That was a tough one, too. on paper it's sort of like alright what are we going to do Sopranos because Gary was ah we got to do Sopranos and George and I were just sort of scratching our heads going like what are we going to do in this game you know you're going to sit around a table eat food and talk psychiatry or whatever and then you know we just ended up making it you know like a gangster game you're doing gangster stuff and that all worked out pretty well And the licensing for that game was fantastic. The guys at HBO, we met with a couple people in New York and got them up to speed on, like, what we're doing with pinball machines and whatever. And all of the people on the show, they were like, they all did custom speech for the game. They were like, they were just happy to be a part of it. And it was amazing. I wish those days would come back. I was going to say, that's one of the last games I could think of where that many people that were actually on the show participated. I mean, they all just were, like, happy to do it. And all just, I guess, you know, they were just happy to do it. You know, they wanted to be a part of it, and it was great. So it was great having all of the custom stuff in the game. Like, it feels like the Sopranos game. So the next game you worked on, was it Spider-Man? Yeah, after Sopranos, I worked on Spider-Man with Steve. Steve had, he kind of ran the circuit through the programmers. You know, he worked with Dwight on T2, and then he worked with Lonnie on Elvis, and then he worked with Keith on World Poker Tour.
    64:52
    And then Steve and I got to work on Spider-Man. And I don't know, I'm pretty happy with that game in the end. We had a couple of rough spots, especially towards the end of it, because the way the license was structured, we were allowed to use all three movies, but we couldn't actually get any of the footage from the third movie until the DVD came out. They wouldn't give it to us ahead of time or while the film was out and the DVD was not out. They would not release any of the footage to us. And they were, I mean, they just said, like, once this comes out, you can use it and you can have it, whatever. So once it came out, we got it. And, you know, I put all that stuff into the game. And, you know, like I say, in the end, you know, I'm happy with it in the end. I think most people are happy with it. I probably made a few mistakes with it, but I don't know. It's still one of my favorite games that I worked on. Was that the first one you were the lead software on, sir?
    66:07
    Yeah, probably, because Dwight, you know, Dwight worked on Soprano. So, yeah, I guess I was lead and I was, I guess, the only guy on it. Yeah, what are the mistakes? You know, for me, I think it was the time when I was learning. The market was changing at the time when that game, around the time that game came out. There were a lot of people, a lot of people came out and bought Simpsons as a home game. and a lot of people bought Lord of the Rings as a home game, not out in arcades to play, but to have in their basements to play. And for me, that game has, I would say, quite a bit more content than the stuff I did at Williams. And it was sort of like this, okay, we're putting more content into the game because, well, we have more space with the SAM system, we have 32 megabytes of memory instead of like 8 megabytes of memory or whatever. More for sound, more for dots, more for game rolls. And I mean, that's fine. The space is there. You don't have to fill it up. But then once you start seeing people really embracing the sort of more complex rules, more game strategy, more content thing, and it's kind of like, well, okay, this is maybe the path I have to go down. And the other is, you know, having to wait to put the rest of the content in the game. That I think a lot of people were upset, you know, when the game came out. It's like, hey, where's all the Venom stuff? Where's the Sandman stuff? Where's, you know, where's the rest of the stuff that got kind of, you know, rushed out? You know, I'm glad people are happy with it in the end. You know, Steve and I working on it, we had kind of a falling out at the end of it.
    68:08
    What's the matter, Lyman? You don't like working with me? Yeah, no, exactly. It's good. Steve's great. I enjoy working with him. And, you know, Spider-Man, ACDC, we have a lot of fun working on stuff together. I'm glad I worked out in the end because, you know, Steve's in the same boat. Like, he goes to every game, and it's like, I'm going to make the best game I've ever made. And like I said, it doesn't always work out that way for whatever particular reason. But, you know, the effort's always there.
    68:41
    So after that, we have, I'm looking at your list on IPDB again. There's a lot of games that you're on I think that you worked on, but not necessarily as the lead. I mean, it's got games like Wheel of Fortune on here. Yeah, I don't, you know, I'm going to talk about that just for a second. I don't even know why I'm listed on Wheel of Fortune because I didn't write any of the game rules. I didn't write any of the game stuff. The only thing I really did for that game was I wrote an extension in the system so that Keith could hook in the LED lights on the wheel into the test. So you could, even though it was on like a separate board and driven completely differently or whatever else, that you could go into like the lamp matrix test and you could test those lamps without having to like be like, why do I have to go to this other thing to test these things? It's just a lamp. And I think what happened was like when I was doing that, Jim Shelberg was in the building. And I think he used to just come into engineering with this camera and start taking pictures and stuff. Because I remember there was some picture of like Keith and I looking at something on my monitor. And Jim Shelberg like took a picture of us, you know, whatever for his magazine. And then maybe just from that, I don't know how these things happen. But, like, people assume that I worked on that game, but I didn't really have anything to do with that one other than some behind-the-scenes system code. That would be Jim Shelberg of Pinball. What's it called? Help me, Bruce.
    70:20
    No help from Bruce. I can't remember either. Pin Game Journal? Pin Game Journal. Thank you. Wow. We are so knowledgeable here.
    70:30
    Yes, got you down for Indiana Jones. Yeah, I didn't really work on any game stuff on that. I wrote some system support for that game. I guess they put eight balls into it, but it only had, I think, like a four-ball trough that got extended to a fifth switch. And then I had to write some software to basically load the arc with a couple of balls so it just wouldn't have eight balls in the trough all the time and not know what it's doing. But I didn't. Balls. Yeah, balls. Yeah. Eight of them. But we know Batman is the next game you did work on. Ah, yes. Dark Knight. Actually, Spider-Man I did all by myself, and Batman I had some help from. I know Keith Johnson did some display work on it, and Lonnie Rott did some display work and some game code, too. So that was around the time, you know, things were like kind of slowing down a little bit. Once we got into late 07, early 08, the economy was kind of on shaky ground. And pinball being at the, I don't know, what do you say, the top of the food chain, the bottom of the food chain, as far as things that people are going to spend their money on when, you know, times get a little tough. The game sales slowed down a little bit around that time. So we all started just naturally working more together on games around that time. Because that was the, so I remember that was Expo 2008. I believe they had Dark Knight there. That was the game out. Yeah. And I think the banquet, I think it was you and George going over the game. That was part of one of the presentations. Okay. I think right after Expo is when Stern let a bunch of people go.
    72:33
    Always with the Expo. Yeah, exactly. I think it was just, it might have been you and Lonnie still there. Yeah, it was just Lonnie and I. Yeah, and I think Bork was the only in-house designer. So it must have been pretty dark days at Stern at that point, I would assume. Yeah, it was, you know, it was kind of tumbleweeds in the office. You know, we'd walk down the hall And, you know, that's tough To go down the hall and it's like You know, your friends used to be In the office next door And now they're not there anymore And it's even harder just At the time We were, I think we were doing You know, maybe a game about every Three months, starting with I think we had CSI out And then 24 And NBA and Big Buck Hunter and Iron Man. I think all of those games we spent maybe about, I'd say Lottie and I, you know, maybe about three months on. I think Buck Hunter we actually spent six months on, though, because for whatever reason at the end we had a little extra time before we could get it into production. But that one definitely needed the extra time. That was a difficult game to work into something that was, you know, that was kind of fun. Yeah, those were the era of the, well they had 24 Which was kind of the last, I guess you would say, game with lots of stuff on it Before they went to NBA and then Ironman It's funny, everyone loves Ironman now, but when that came out it was seen as like Well, what is this? There's the Ironmonger and that's it, really? Now it's considered one of the greatest tournament games and everyone loves playing it Yeah, the Ironmonger and the Playfield Packs Yeah. Best tournament game ever. And I want to bring up how it was awesome that Lyman and Penny came to the New York City Pinball Championships. And I remember a couple hours where me and Lyman were just taking turns on Ironman back and forth trying to beat $25 million. And at one point, me and him looked at each other and were just like, all right, all right, monger all day, monger all day, monger all day. And, you know, he was playing better than me, but we were both playing pretty good and just falling a little bit short. But there's just something about that game that makes you want to play it more. It's so fun to keep battling it, and it's a grind. But then, like, at the same time, there's so many different approaches. Like, at one point we were talking about bogey and how you can bring that into it and make the game explode. And I won't hold into it, but, you know, Limey did say if he ever updates anything on bogey, I get some initials maybe. We'll see. I could do that probably. So I wouldn't I mean I wouldn't say that there wouldn't ever be You know another Iron Man update I enjoy playing that game a lot And you know it's funny It's kind of like I guess like Revenge for Mars A little bit When your nose is down to the keyboard And you're trying to make All of this stuff happen And it's every three months Or whatever Because literally like Lonnie and I made that game And the software for that game In a little less than three months I think it was about two months and maybe three weeks, and it was do more with less. You know, it all just worked, like the music and the short ball times and the mean game and the villains battling back at you. And, you know, I think part of what really makes that game work is you can sort of see, because there aren't 50,000 rules in it, you can sort of see where you're at in the game. Like, oh, I was only this far away from getting this, or whatever it happens to be. To me, that's part of what really makes that game work, that and that. It does play kind of mean, but for me, I like variety. I like short, long-time games. I like long, big, epic journey quest games, whatever, and everything in between.
    76:37
    That's a game that, I mean, like you and I were playing at a tournament. That to me, it's like when it's set up like that, any two people can just come up to it and play it and be engaged, you know, in the game and not have somebody play it for half an hour and the other person, you know, walk off and be bored. Yeah, it was like a bonding experience, even though it took us two hours to get our scores. So much fun going back and forth. And like, meanwhile, there wasn't anything too fancy going on, just some live catching and accuracy on the left orbit and getting frustrated when you don't boom that jackpot the third time to beat your score. But like you said, like the game being brutal, but having like a good end game is nice too because when you survive that progress that you see, if you actually end up do or die and that boom, it just is such a nice feeling to finally get cashed out. But meanwhile, usually you just grind some multiballs and 25, 35 million. I think Keith had the lead before the last entry. Like, I think he was in the lead with 32, and we were just fighting for 25. Right. I know. The first game I played on it, it was, like, right at the very beginning of the tournament. And then, like, I had everything except the war machine shot, and then I would have had everything, and then the power went out. Oh, man. Yeah. So, but, yeah, it's just a game. I mean, I love games like that where, you know, you feel like you get close to something and you just didn't quite get it. You know, it's no fun if you get it every time. Like, you get bored of it. Right. You know, just got to have that balance of, like, yeah, I got it, or nah, I didn't. And I don't know. It's part of the magic, I guess. Before we move on from NYC PC, I have one thing I promised Levy I would do. Levy's going to Finland. He wants to know if you're going to Finland and if you're going to be on Team USA by his side. we are going to Finland and what's Team USA? I don't know evidently they're going to do some kind of Epstein-esque mock-up tournament where I believe it would be by the looks of it, you, Levy, and Colin at the front of that if that ends up being a thing sounds good to me hey Greg, what is this you're talking about? Finland? Oh, I'm sorry the European Pinball Championship, a major that Mr. Lyman and so she tears actually one. Okay. Sounds like the first year is almost doing a Bruce to you. Sorry about that, guys. Well, I'm there, like, I'm thinking IMPA. It's like, wait a minute, it's not in Finland next year. It's in Italy. What is he talking about? Did they move it? Yeah. I've never been. It's an expensive trip, but I look forward to it one day. I believe Levy's trying to book it. He tried to convince me that I should go further into debt to make it happen, but maybe next year.
    79:24
    So after that phase, Was there a brief period where you left Stern, like right before ACDC? Yeah, right after Ironman, actually, because, you know, it's kind of like the opposite of where I was at Midway. You know, at Midway I was like, I want to work on pinball machines. And then after the layoffs in 2008 and then Lonnie and I are, you know, we're making a game like every three months, I was like, okay, I wanted to make games, but not like this many so fast. You know, I just wanted to get back into the, you know, kind of where I was with Steve. Like, let's make a good, solid quality game that has a little bit more in it. I sort of felt like at that time I understood a little bit about what people wanted out of the game. I mean, at least the people that I would see in the pinball community, because I was still going to tournaments, still very much going to Papa and IPA tournaments and EPC, as you mentioned. And the people I talked to, the games they wanted, they start talking about like, yeah, you know, I haven't bought a game since, you know, Spider-Man, or I haven't bought a game since Family Guy or whatever it happens to be. It's like okay what about You know these new games They're like well it's not for me You know they're a little too simple A little too shallow not enough Whether it's the theme or the content Or whatever it is And I wanted to I don't know I wanted to make great stuff I guess And then so I was getting a little burned out Just okay every three months We got to do a game every three months Yeah so I just I took a break I guess is the best way to say it. Was it back to Midway? Was it doing video games? You know, I went to WMS to work on slot machines. I think I was there for maybe like eight months or whatever. And I was in a group working on a poker game, actually. And, again, I was back over there. They have game design positions, which was not what I was doing. one of the artists there at WMS Gaming. You know, they had an attack from Mars or whatever slot machine that they had done. And this artist in the department, he brought up the artwork for Medieval Madness. And it's like, hey, we're going to make a slot machine out of this. I'm like, I helped make that game. Like, why am I not doing game design? And then, you know, like at that time, Steve was, they were looking at hiring Steve again and I was like well, you know, maybe I can work with Steve on a game and you know, I talked to him again and they were like, yeah, you know like, hey, you know, they're bringing Steve in and he's gonna get to make a game or whatever like on Steve Ritchie terms and whatever I'm like, alright, you know maybe we can make another game like Spider-Man and be really happy with it and be really proud of it. And we did. It was ACDC. Yeah, I remember it was Texas Pinball Festival 2011 when Steve Ritchie basically, because he's there every year anyway, but he did a seminar where he said, I'm Steve Ritchie and I make pinball games. I'm going to be making one. I'm starting at Stern. And then he said, Lyman is also starting at Stern right on Monday and we're going to start working on our new game. And I think it was a year later. Yeah, it was a year later that the LEs were there at Texas. Yeah. The game went into production in January, the pros, and the LEs hit the line in early March. So I think Steve started. I know I started, like, at the end of March in 2011, and Steve, I think, started in February. And, yeah, and so I went there, and I'm like, yeah, I'm working with Steve. This is going to be great. And then they're like, hey, we need you to help out on Tron.
    83:50
    So I'm like, but I'm working with Steve, right? And, yeah, so we worked on Tron, actually. And, yeah, it wasn't kind of rough day. Tron was. We got on into shape. One of my favorites. Yeah, I enjoyed it, too. I love the theme. Actually the guy who was on it Tom Euban Who worked with George Gomez a lot At Williams Pinball He worked on I think he did code on Corvette And Fastbreak and Johnny Mnemonic And also did the Pinball 2000 OS He was doing The Tron code And I think somewhere either Like early on Or in the middle He was just like I can't work on this anymore and he just sort of like quit the project and then Lonnie and I kind of took it over as far as doing the game rules and doing everything I mean we were both kind of working on it but Tom was the lead and we were sort of I know every day I would come in I'd be like what do you want me to work on today and then uh he quit the project you know I'll say maybe halfway through I'm just guessing, but probably about that. And then Lonnie and I sort of took it over, and then we were all kind of, John Borg and myself and Lonnie, were collaborating together to, you know, finish up the game and stuff. And then even after that, because I love the theme and I really like the game, you know, afterwards, like, I just kept working on it. And I think a lot of people, too, a lot of my friends were like, you're going to keep working on it, right? Like you could make it better Even after it came out And then so I really enjoy that game I love the theme I like how it turned out That whole movie and the whole I never got into like the first one But when I watched the second one and everything Like I was you know I really really liked it And you know I like the whole What Borg did with the disc I felt like you know With that whole disc thing the first sort of version of the multiball, like, it was sort of over before it started, and I felt like that whole sequence, it's like the whole game was about, not the whole game, but, like, the big focus of the game was, you know, that disc, and it ended up being just such a short, brief moment in the game, and then, you know, it was like, well, okay, I'm going to rework it so that the multiball is a little different, and if you don't get the super, you get a restart, and then, you know, you're probably going to restart it and whatever. So then the whole choreography of that whole thing, just instead of it being over in, like, 30 seconds, you know, you could probably play it out for, like, a couple minutes. So I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Super lucrative, too, if you blow up discs. I think one thing about the rules on the Tron that some people, most people probably know about it, but I feel like some people don't, is see a simulation being a very challenging one-ball mode that can be very lucrative. Obviously, your points come in bonus. But some of the shots, like jam or getting through whatever difficult ones, it's good to know that you shoot that right orbit to relight the scoop and collect the awards. And just like small little nuances like that are rules that I truly appreciate very much as a player. Yeah, that rule wasn't The orbit with the mystery wasn't in Or wasn't in Whatever original version That went out with the game And after playing it so many times I mean, to me, I just get back to Like, you gotta play it After playing it so many times And be like, I mean, how many people Most people are just happy that they start Gem so they can get to the simulation And then, you know, to actually Complete it by making one of the shots when it's running is pretty hard to do too. And then so, but after playing it so many times and it's like, oh God, I'm on gem. And I just got like, I got this really cool mode, this mini wizard mode or whatever it is. And then like, I spend the whole thing breaking the ball around, not really scoring anything because I didn't get gem. And that was when it's like, well, okay, I'm going to put in the mystery for Sia Stimulation so that, like, you could actually spot, you know, something and not feel like you're, you know, you're up against the brick wall.
    88:30
    Enough of Tron. How about my game? AC-DC. Come on. Yeah. You know, that one, the break for me, you know, away from making a game every three months to, like, having, I don't know what it was, like I say, eight, nine, ten months off to really think about like doing something a little different because I mean realistically I don't know how many times I've been given uh what do they call it like a fan layout you know if you count them all up I don't know how many fan layouts I've made games out of like Attack from Mars and Medieval Monster Dash and dot dot dot dot dot dot dot and then we get to you know um ACDC it's uh you know I just want it to play different I want the game to be different I want to have a different experience and then you know all that stuck out in my head was playing in the tournaments and playing at Papa and seeing the games that came before it or having people just play the game for like one thing and then that's when I was thinking like well maybe I make a game where you choose something and then like different things are lit on the game I mean, kind of a little like Doctor Who, but more like most of the game. I don't know. It was that game when I started to work on it, because he was pretty laid back with it. He's like, just go make some fun rules. He's pretty hands-off when it comes to making game rules.
    90:01
    It just sort of came out like it was pretty easy to, I already had it in my mind to do, and so it just sort of came out and I just like the dynamic of the game being able to choose and then building up some points while the song builds and intensity and energy and being able to cash out and know where your points come from. Thank you for the song, Jackpot. Yeah. One of my favorite things in pinball. And does Steve have some kind of rule that like every one of his games has to have at least one no fear quote in it? Well, yeah, the one would have to be play better. Play better. And I did get a kick out of the Black Knight 2000 reference. You get a high score. One of the things he says is, you are champions. You are champions. Yeah. And there's also, does he say second place is the first loser? Yes, he does. He might, actually. Yeah. And there's an F-bomb in there somewhere. One of the groups. Yeah, there's actually, you know, there's some more speech in there that could probably go in. When we started working on the game, everybody just wanted to hear the music. And there was all this speech everywhere and stuff. And everybody was like, you know, I just want to hear the music. And so I toned down the speech a little bit. And, you know, there's probably a little bit more that could go in, maybe on a setting or something like that. But I don't know. Do you guys like, I don't know, when you get heckled while you're playing? Yes. Because it's humor. It's the humor. You said it. You said it yourself. It's the humor that keeps you coming back. And once you enjoy this game, you're hitting it every time when you do that stuff. I mean, like the one thing that's really missing from the Spider-Man Vault Edition is the fact there's no Jameson. Yeah, because he is kind of like, he's your adversary with everybody else, even though he's a human being and not, like, you know, a monster or whatever. So, all right. So, thumbs up on the heckling speed. Oh, yes. Definitely. I mean, sometimes I have to pump myself up by being like, stop sucking, shoot better. You know, sometimes it just takes, like, hearing that to remember you've got to calm down for a second if the game's going to do it for you. Personalized heckling. Play better, Greg. now your next game which you're also lead on if IPDB is correct would be Metallica uh sure that's what it says yeah we know some background that I know what's the guy's name James Hetfield did I get that right yeah James Hetfield is pinhead to the point where he had a Earthshaker custom modified by Journey Donnie, artwork from Journey Donnie, and a couple other people to make, like, the Metallica pinball machine. So did they, like, approach you guys? You know, I don't know how it happened because, you know, Steve and I, we did ACDC, and there were still some things I wanted to do with the game, and then the next game I was supposed to work on was Star Trek because I was like you know Steve and I we going to we just going to work together and have fun and and make make cool stuff And that's going to be it. And then, you know, we did ACDC and then Jody Dankberg, director of licensing. And back then, I guess like marketing and, you know, he had a lot of jobs back then, a lot of responsibility. He was like, Lyman, I need you to work on Metallica. And I was like, I don't know, I'm working with Steve on this one over here. And somehow he convinced me to work on it. I don't know.
    94:01
    What do you guys think of Metallica as a band? I know for me, like, ACDC music, when I play that game, there's nothing that gets, like, my blood pumping and my adrenaline going than listening to pretty much any of the ACDC songs in that game. Metallica, it's a little different, I think, for me, because, like, they're a little more dark and maybe a little depressing, like high energy, but the music's a little different. I like their music. I mean, I prefer their older stuff. But that's the thing, most of the older stuff's in the game. So that was a good decision.
    94:41
    ACDC is probably my top two or three favorite band, to the point where when I heard Steve Ritchie was doing, you know, he's doing ACDC, it's like my favorite designer is doing one of my favorite bands. And then I played the game at Texas, and it was probably the only time I could think this happened. Within the third game, I said to myself, I'm probably getting one of these. Yeah, Metallica, I obviously like it enough because I have one downstairs also. It's right next to the ACDC, so I have the Beavis and Butthead sat, as I like to say.
    95:12
    Me too, me too. It is. Yeah, mine are next to each other too, actually. All we need is Beavis and Butthead toppers on them, and it would be perfect.
    95:21
    I always forget which one's ACDC and which one's Metallica. Butthead is ACDC, Beavis is Metallica. Okay. I was trying to get John Borg to go out to you know, Pintastic or some show where we could do a talk and I could wear the ACDC shirt and he could wear the Metallica shirt and we could do a skit about like him trying to get me to work on a game or something, like, I don't know but we'd have to talk in Beavis and Butthead talk yeah well you know, Metallica's one of my favorite games Thanks, Hank. Yes. Well, I'm Anderson. Get it right. I'm sorry. Yeah. Sorry, Hank. It's hard to distinguish. You're so good at it, though. I know. It's the same voice anyway. Exactly. He didn't change the voice when he did Hank Hill. He pretty much did the same thing. It's just context. It's pure context. So with ACDC, like, you got the okay. I assume things like Rock and Roll Train they said you had to use because it was on their newest album that was out at the time. I'm assuming they give you at least some of like because there's some tracks from the new album and then most of the rest of the stuff would be you would say their greatest hits yeah so when we first started you know Steve and I were like yeah we're going to get Shoot to Thrill and we're going to get like all the you know the hits that people want to hear and then you know when we talked with Jody was like yeah well you know the band doesn't want you to use like all their hits and stuff you know if you're going to do that, he said, like, you can have four of the hits. And Steve and I were like, what are you talking about? Like, this was a deal breaker. And then we went online and we dug up an Angus Young interview where he's talking, I don't know who he's talking with, but he's doing some interview and he's like, you know, he's like, yeah, you know, if I go to see the Rolling Stones, they better play, you know, all of their hit songs or like, or I don't even want to go see them or something like that. And so we sent that back to Jody And then we got to pick I think we got to pick like maybe Ten hit songs And we had a couple You know from the newer album I actually really like Rock and Roll Train Oh yeah It was another good prop You could put in the game, the train Yeah for sure I think if I could do it over again I'd maybe I mean I like the song War Machine But maybe I would replace it with like Shoot to Thrill maybe. Big Balls. Oh, stop.
    97:56
    My wife says that's the one you should have on there. Yeah, that one we get a lot of requests for that one. What's the other one? Big Balls and Shoot to Thrill. There was one other one I can't remember. I think it's a pretty good representation of the band from songs all over the place. And not too many people Complain about We obviously Bon Scott, we couldn't have him In the back last Or on the play field or wherever But obviously the songs that He helped make Those songs are in the game Which is to me pretty cool Because I like both of those guys Some people, I don't know what it is about Rock and roll people, it's got to be like A or B It's got to be like Ozzy or Ronnie James Dio You know, it's got to be like Bon Scott or Brian Johnson. It's got to be like, why can't you like both of them, you know? Why has everything got to be like, you know, one or the other? I don't know. You got to love Dio, but Ozzy all day, and when is Black Sabbath pinball coming up? For God's sake. Please, someone make Black Sabbath pinball. I know. Well, not that I can talk super a lot about themes, but, you know, I'm a person. Like, I think about themes and what I'd like to work on and whatever else, but what about an Ozzy pinball machine? There you go. I like that. You can have a mode where you try to figure out what he says.
    99:30
    Having seen him about eight times in the last five years or so, he's about 60% awesome and 40% confused. Oh, great. What is going on about fucking asshole? There you go. There's Ozzy. There's your voiceover. Yeah. His voice has got like he, you know, I don't know what he did from the time when he was in Black Sabbath to when maybe up to like when he started doing No More Tears. But his voice has improved tremendously since I think like when he was in Black Sabbath originally. I mean, it's definitely like kind of different, the singing, but like I just feel like he's worked on his voice and it's got a great voice. So now he has a team of people that's literally dedicated to searching every hotel room for cocaine before he gets there. I'm pretty sure. God. Oh, my. That might be a levy myth. Oh, my. But he could have the truth to the voice increasing. It sounds like a levy myth, actually. Sabbath crushed it, though. I mean, they're done now, probably. But on the tour, they're definitely my favorite, like, old school rock band. But out of the pinball ones, I think ACDC was my favorite band for the actual music. Even if I like Metallica a little bit more as a player, only as like a slight, slight preference, I really appreciate the songs and the different modes that go with playing those songs in ACDC, where there's a lot of strategy and everything building up, and the reward that you get from the song jackpot, the way you play the mode. And, you know, obviously Metallica and some other great games, the mode that, I mean, the song that you pick doesn't matter, you just rock out to it. I love that about ACDC where there's no one standard way to play it especially now after the newest update like you could blow up War Machine you could blow up a whole lot of Rosie before you get into Hell's Bells but now you put in all that other stuff and it's I'm still learning something new every time I pick a new song it's sweet you nerfed Hell's Bells you took away my strategy you nerfed yeah it could have been nerfed like a year ago or whatever I don't know I know for me baby a whole lot of ropes Yeah Well you know there's a song for everybody I suppose That's the great thing about that game Thunderstruck the song for people who can't hit The ramps it's perfect Thunderstruck is a great one to play Back in Black is now worthwhile To play like I play that one quite a bit Hell's Bells The cannon mode is pretty lucrative Now if you can you know survive it So yeah That's the thing surviving it Yeah. I still really like that game, though, how, you know, people complain. I'll probably fix it. I know Steve has asked me several times and it's a work in progress. But, you know, the song starts over from the beginning. But when I was thinking about the game and making the game with the different shots on the different parts of the play field based on the song or whatever, it's like, OK, so as you're building the jackpot, but like the song is also progressing to the point where by the time you have it built up, you know, like I say, to a decent amount. But it's like the song's in the really good, high-energy part of the song. I don't know. It just all kind of goes pretty well together. And that music is great music for pinball. For me, it just really gets my energy going.
    103:00
    Agreed. So we go from ACDC to Metallica, who are obviously very involved in the game as all four of them are on it. Yeah. How was it like working with them? I don't know, actually, because I didn't, we never really didn't, we never really didn't, we never really got to work with them. Early on in the project, I mean, I think I got all of the speech just before, I want to say I had all of the speech before I even had a play field. It was all recorded because I wasn't originally on the project. And then when I agreed to work on it, some development had already, not software development, but John Borg was working on the playfields. And then Jody was negotiating with the band, you know, about like, OK, how many songs, what songs, when can you do speech? And for those guys, I guess it was just like, well, we're going to do speech now. Send us a script. And, you know, John and Jody, they had to get the script together, like, almost immediately before they even knew, like, okay, what are we going to put in the game? What are we going to have in the game? What's the game going to be about? And then, you know, so there was a lot of swearing, a lot of F-bombs and stuff that's beeped out. I don't know if people like that or not like it or I don't know. What do you guys think? Do you guys like swearing in games? Fuck yeah! Yeah, right. I always feel like for families, it's... For families, no. For locations, no. Yes, it is a great location. But I have it online. Like Demoman, I love the profanity roms because that's what's in the movie. Yeah. When you think of Metallica, I mean, if you've ever seen a concert, they swear a lot. Right. Like Sopranos. How could you do Sopranos without F-bombs? I mean, that's, you know. No, I know. That one's got the most, right? I mean, you go to, if you put it on super-square mode, it's like, fuck, fuck, fuck. Yeah, that has to have the most.
    105:12
    Yeah, it actually, yeah, it has the fuck mode in it, right? Yeah. As the most Italian person in this podcast, I can confirm that's exactly what we're like.
    105:22
    Oh, my. Okay. So that's interesting. So I wonder, because I know it's one thing about Metallica that always, a little, my OCD, it's like, it's called a casket in some places and it's called a coffin in other places. Yeah. That was because of the speech. So there was speech that said casket and there was speech that said coffin and for whatever reason, I don't know, because I'm stupid or whatever, but for all the multi balls in the game, when you start cross or electric chair or snake, it's just this multiball and then for whatever reason when you start the coffin casket multiball it would say like coffin multiball or whatever and then he would say casket and then you know everybody just had a fit like oh it doesn't match or whatever it was and I was like yeah I'm an idiot I said whatever it was instead of just saying like multiball in the font you know in the in the cough and casket font. So, yeah. It's because, you know, he called it out a couple different ways in the script, in the speech. There was some back and forth with Jody and John on Metallica to kind of see where they were at with the game and what was going on. And after, you know, kind of looking at it and everything else, I decided to do it. And Metallica is a little different kind of music for me because after ACDC, it's just like really high energy, kind of make you feel good music. And Metallica, it's a little darker kind of music. I mean, it probably feels really good playing it and getting that all out. But, you know, to listen to it a little bit sometimes, you know, you have to be in the right mood for it, or at least I have to be in the right mood for it. And John wanted to do a little bit different game. John wanted to do a game more like, a little bit more like Guns N' Roses, where there were songs, remotes type of songs. And so, you know, I think maybe some of the sales guys wanted us, you know, they were kind of like, well, just make another ACDC and just do that. And I think, you know, eventually for me, I was kind of like, you know, I don't want to make the same game again. I don't think I ever want to make the same game again just because, you know, I think people just get bored of that after a while, and they always look for something different. But, I mean, John was suggesting, okay, I have a cross, and I'm going to have Master of Puppets play during that, and that's a multiball, and I have Sparky, and I have Creeping Death, and that's going to play during that multiball. and the game started to go along sort of that direction. And then, you know, originally, I guess there was, you know, just end of the line for the wizard mode. And then when I was looking at sort of what was going on with the game and the songs and everything else, I was kind of like, well, you know, we should make modes out of all of these songs. And that's kind of where the crank it up stuff came from. There were four other songs that didn't really have a place in the game, and so I just was sort of like, well, okay, I'm going to turn these into modes. I guess they ended up being more like wizard modes than regular modes like people think about, say, in Adam's Family or whatever other kind of game. For standalone wizard modes, though, like for one ball mini wizards, So the crank it up is so much fun to crush, and especially when you set everything up right with the double scoring. Something about Metallica, that's one of my favorite parts, is when you get things going and the good crank it up. Yeah, they were pretty exciting once you got there. And, you know, then some people really focus on that, like they kind of have to work through the other part of the game to get to that point. And then it's like, okay, that's like where the really exciting stuff in the game is. because, you know, I love one-ball modes where there's a lot at stake. To me, that's where a lot of the excitement, you know, comes from in the game where, you know, you're at risk of losing the ball and losing all these points that, you know, you're going to get. You know, also I had fun with some of the modes, like the fade-to-black mode with the GI on the premiums and the LEs. You know, it's just like kind of a natural sort of fun thing to work on. yeah that's that's cool about Metallica too is when you're playing the pro and the premium uh usually people tend to have a different choice with the crank it up and the scoring differences with the spinners and the and everything and uh for me I know I've gotten to the third I've never gotten to the fourth one but I hope to get to the end of the line one day yeah I think that's you know it ends up being a little kind of hard to get through all of that I know for me, because all of the stuff I have at home, including Metallica, like it's set up without extra balls. And I think, you know, the best I've done so far at home has been to get to a third, crank it up. And so, you know, it might just be a little a little too hard maybe to I like to be able to as a decent player, be able to get like kind of to the end of the game without extra balls. and, you know, Metallica, like, in that respect right there, might be just, like, a little tiny bit too hard to get there.
    111:00
    There's definitely a trend in tournaments, especially, where they have made to crank it up easier so people just aren't, like, hitting Sparky 30 zillion times.
    111:13
    And, I mean, I like that. Yeah, to get some save points. Yeah, I like it that way because I like one-ball wizard modes or mini wizard modes because there's more. That's where the real risk is and where the real excitement comes in for me is, like, not during multi-ball when it's, like, extra ball, but, like, when I have one ball on the play field. Like, that's when there's risk, you know. Yep. And you can cash out or you don't cash out or you keep going. That's why the crank it up to me is the best, my favorite part of the game. Yeah. And that's why. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, no, I was going to say, do you think people would get upset if I lowered all the stuff? You know, like from, if I were to, you know, put out an update or whatever, if I lowered it like from 15 to 10, do you think I would, like a lot of people would be upset? If you mean an update that made it more like people are already setting it up for tournaments? Yeah. Probably not? Probably not. I don't think people would mind it.
    112:11
    I definitely like it both ways. My only thing is when it's in a tournament, and we saw it in Texas, and Carl D'Angelo put on the display that day with that Metallica, but it was also an IFPA setup that way where Sparky was harder and Crank It Up was easier. I don't know if it was down those 10. I feel like at Texas it was like an 8. I think at IFPA it was 6. Yeah, I mean. Yeah, and then I was getting like two or three of them, which is like, you know, I don't know. But then the problem with that is like you're not getting enough points in the rest of the game, you know, to balance out like you're just instantly in this thing that you can get like 200 million from instead of you know like scoring 30 or 50 million points to get to that point so it probably requires some more like score tweaking or whatever yeah it needs balance if it's going to go low I just want everybody to know about it because if it's not up like on a post-it note like hey by the way crank it up and set to 8 I'm going to shoot Sparky expecting it's going to be a grind to get there as long as it's as long as it's public knowledge that everybody's playing it that way, I think it ends up being a lot more fun in a sense, but also different. And I think both ways work. The game is so freaking great. I think the first time I played one in a tournament that was set up that way, there was nothing on it. I was confused when I was like, whoa, crank it up ready already? Holy crap. Man, I lost them. What did I do? Yeah. You played one short multiball and hit a few different shots. Crank it up ready.
    113:43
    It's ready. So after Metallica, another, I'm sure most collectors would say, rousing success, we go to The Walking Dead, which had an interesting path, I would say. It had the initial release, and then it had all the code later that made it, like a lot of people say, the greatest thing ever.
    114:07
    Why don't you walk us through that experience? So let me think about this. Okay, Metallica, and then at the end of Metallica, Walking Dead. So there was another effort at the time that Walking Dead was in progress after Metallica, Walking Dead. The Spike system was being developed by some people outside of Stern, and Walking Dead was going to be like the first Spike game. and there was still a lot of work, software work that needed to be done to kind of get Spike ready for production and everything. And then so I was working on Spike version of Walking Dead and Daniel Kleiss was working on the Stan version of Walking Dead. While we were working on the game, we didn't have a super lot of time to work on it. Yeah, we had to kind of go in a different direction after the game was released. You know, like I say, for me, it's my life into it, and I don't want to let people down. I want to be proud of the things that I do. I kept working on it, and unfortunately, I got myself into a situation that I'd rather not be in again, I guess. In the end, I'll just look at the result, and I will say that what happened happened. And I was happy I was able to finish up the game. And as far as rules go and strategy and scoring and everything, I don't know. I think it's probably one of the best games I've made at Stern.
    115:57
    Yep, it's epic. Epic as all hell. That game rocks. The theme for me is, you know, I guess that's like whatever people say my dream theme or whatever it happens to be. Love zombie games. I also know that, like, that theme isn't for everybody. It's not very family-friendly. I love it, but I don't know. It's kind of a tough sell, you know, to a family. So many people I talk to say, you know, like, oh, I really like the game, but I'm going to wait until my kid's a little older. Or like, oh, I really like the game, but my wife won't let me have it. I got a question for you, Lyman. How do you feel about having to program two different types of games, a pro and then a premium slash LE?
    116:45
    I don't mind, actually, at all. I mean, it's certainly more work. Yeah. But I also see from all sides the different perspectives of, like, okay, I just want the pro game because it's a little simpler. It has less stuff on it. it has everything I want out of a game versus somebody who wants all of the stuff. I don't, you know, for all of the people who say, like, just give me one version of the game, I understand that, but I've also seen from the other side the two different models. Like, there are really two different customers.
    117:27
    There's certainly a lot of analysis that goes on when the games come out and the value proposition of, like, do I get the pro, do I get the premium? whatever it happens to be. I mean, I don't know. What do you think about, is it annoying that, like, okay, I have to think about which one I want to buy or get or whatever it is, or what do you think about it? On most games, I don't mind it. I will say one game that bothers me a little bit is truly The Walking Dead with the walker bombs. Oh, I see. That is just, you know, it just kills me because I can do without the crossbow. Yeah. I can do without the up-and-down ramp. Yeah. That freaking walker bomb. It's so nice to have when you have one shot left. Oh, the ball's going straight down the middle. I got two warnings. Hey, and it's ball three. Let me hit that center. Let the walker bomb. I get right in the multi-ball and let's go. Right. And then I walk up to the front and I'm going, I got nothing. You're like, where's my button? Exactly, man. The one time I want a button.
    118:39
    Those are the old days of the button before you had to jam them endlessly. I actually think that Walking Dead Premium is my favorite premium of all of them. And the rule set with the walker bombs and knowing the prison stack and the right way to save it for the timing, everything makes that like a nice ball in hand or an advantage to someone that knows that. and it just feels like it's a great rule to have in your back pocket.
    119:06
    Yeah, I enjoy it. I mean, it really is just, I mean, it's my fault because really the only reason the button is on the game is because of the crossbow. I mean, I suppose we could have used, you know, a flipper button to fire the crossbow or whatever, but John was like, well, now we're going to have a button and you're going to hit it because it's right there by where it is and whatever. And then for me, it's like, I'm like, is that all the button does? Like, can't we have the button do something else? And then, you know, I did the, with the three different, you know, the food and the weapons and the whatever that other thing is. Come on, help him out here. Food, weapons, tools?
    119:50
    Yes, tools. It's tools. No, it's not tools. A weapon? No, a weapons tool. What is it? I don't even know. I can go run upstairs I could just be messing with you guys what's it called oh man I will admit that I know that I shoot for the bottom target to get the prison bomb and I don't even know what the hell it says on the bottom target that's how little I retain the rules and nothing food, weapons, and first aid first aid, who needs first aid anyways alright clicked on that play field picture on the IP you got it real fast yeah so yeah i you know it probably goes back to stuff you know like martian bombs right kill martians with the button and just you know a little bit more a little bit different but uh yeah i i like stuff like that is it cool for you as the guy that designed the rules and obviously one of the best players of all time but then to watch keith ellen put out a video because I remember watching a video where Keith rolled The Walking Dead, and I'm just watching, like, what the hell's happening. He's scoring, like, so many points all at once. Obviously, you know, it takes a certain level of accuracy to pull anything like that off, but when I got to watch that, I was like, holy shit, there's so much scoring going on right now. The modes are so deep. Yeah, I've never seen, I mean, Keith just has, like, some way he just figures out, like, how to get the most points out of a game. You know, it's kind of crazy. But, yeah, I mean, he had, I don't know, whatever, billions of points. And I never thought, I mean, I play the game and I always go like, well, okay, I got a billion whatever. And then, okay, double that or triple it or whatever. And, okay, three billion. And then he's like rolling the game. And now all of a sudden the score doesn't end in a zero anymore and breaking all kinds of stuff on it. And it's like, I don't know.
    121:48
    It's fun to watch, you know. Keith's fun to watch. And now he's at the couple offices away. Yeah. Hi, Timmy. We missed you. Tim. Tim's across the hall, too, so, yeah. So now we go to Batman 66.
    122:07
    All right. Did you ever think you would spend a year or two on software? Yeah, two years. yeah that was a tough one for me because I grew up watching the show and after it was kind of like okay we're we're going to do this I wanted to be involved and there's just so much material to go through and then once I said okay I'll do this I want to do it and I knew it was going to be on a pretty tight schedule once I saw sort of like well okay here are all the people we can have as part of a license and here are all the things we can do and this and that it was like oh what did I sign myself up for it was really a lot I mean there's so much material that we ended up being able to use and you know I was a little overwhelmed because you know I'm a big fan of the show and I wanted to do the theme justice. I mean, the thing about doing the license game is most of the time you only get one shot at doing the license. And, you know, a little later on, I wasn't really sure what was happening with the game. And I found out a little later that the company was wanting to do like a little more expensive games. The Super LEs and the LEs were a little more expensive than normal. And then it just sort of became like this self-fulfilling prophecy of like, well, I have to really make this game like a big game and utilize all of the material that we're able to use. and so it's been some days a lot of fun and some days, you know, not so fun, I guess. And in the end, I really, you know, I get one shot at doing it. So I want to make sure that I do the best I can. I mean, so far, Batman 66 is super sweet. I mean, I obviously did not grow up watching it as a kid since it predated Waparelli. But as a huge Batman fan, gotta love Adam West and that game just has a certain like loving atmosphere to it when you're playing it just like the vibe that it gives and the rules just keep getting better and better as you keep coming out with more updates and the explosive nature of the scoring all the different things it makes you do shooting the modes and I know that each time I play it I find another strat that I can employ and I've really loved it so far I definitely like Dark Knight a lot too but I'm loving 66 even more. I certainly enjoy the game. I know, you know, like I say, it's been a challenge, you know, kind of when I first started, just because of the play field of Dark Knight. And again, I don't want to make another Dark Knight. I want to make something different and also hopefully decent and good and fun. And so it was a little tough for me, too, because I think when the game was announced, everybody was saying, like, oh, it's just going to have, like, the same rules and it's going to be the same game and blah. And, you know, people were being pretty negative about it from the start. And for me, it's not the same game. It plays differently. It's physically different. and for me it took a little bit of time to kind of work through how or what I felt were the important parts of the show to work into the game because a lot of the episodes are kind of, what do I want to say, formulaic a little bit. You know, they start out with sort of the same intro sequence and they all end up in the commissioner's office and then there's lots of big fight scenes and everything And, you know, I guess I could have made the game just a big, you know, just a big bunch of fight scenes or whatever else. But I try to do a few things different with the rules. Once I sort of decided on, like, okay, I'm going to, because the thing for me, it's like when I saw those episodes and I watched them again, and I was like, you know, oh, yeah, you know, there's Batman and Joker on the surfboards and all this other stuff. It's like I wanted to, that was the stuff I really wanted to see. Those were the moments in the show that got all the emotion out of me, you know, that just triggered whatever part of my brain to say, like, yeah, that was the fun stuff I remember seeing when I was a kid. And then so I just started making modes out of the storylines in the show. And it was kind of hard to do that, to tell a linear story and not have the rule for the story be, you know, like pretty long. So what I try to do is break out parts of the story into different sort of parallel rules that you could play in the game, you know, alongside the main rule, which is the main storyline. You know, like, for example, if you start the penguin mode, like, you can go into the penguin hole and start the whole Batcave sequence for just a quick, you know, like, kind of two-way combo, one shot, and just have, you know, like, better scoring in the mode, you know, things like that, to just try to make the story bigger, but without having it necessarily be longer all the time. and it was only longer necessarily maybe by choice. And those are some of the things, like, I guess I, you know, I struggled with a little bit in the beginning to try to figure that out. So what's left for Batman 66? I'm sure people want to know.
    128:07
    There's still a lot left. You know, there's still the rest of the minor villain modes and two more wizard modes alongside of Batusi. So once you qualify what now is just Batusi, you'll be able to pick from three wizard modes total from the minor villain select to say, you know, which one you want to play. And then, obviously, after that, you know, a few other tweets and polish for the game. There's still a lot of what I feel I need to score balance a little bit and some more light shows and more sort of stuff that I normally do, like towards the end of a game. I guess when I work on a game, I try and do rules first and display sort of together, and then after that, sounds, and then light shows. So, but there's still quite a bit of score balancing and polish and rule tweaking that I'd like to do.
    129:19
    Well, we're super lucky that we're getting so much in terms of code updates, but I could say for sure that I've played a bunch of it. It's at Pioneer's Bar, the Super LE in Manhattan, and I find myself getting more and more addicted to chasing the depths of the modes. I love that how it's unique that you can play a character mode and then instead of catching in the super jackpot, go deeper into the next level. And as that scoring gets explosive, it just becomes so much fun to keep chasing those big shots.
    129:50
    Yeah, I've always enjoyed games where the scoring is, you know, not to name games. Well, okay, I'll name, you know, like say Johnny Mnemonic is the kind of game where I get frustrated with sometimes because of the scoring where I have to play it a certain way. And for me, I guess as I get a little older and I don't know if I'd say wiser or hopefully wiser, but I enjoy games where if I'm playing a competition, like I still want to feel like I have a chance, you know, to beat everybody, even if it's I'm on my last ball. And so the sort of like nonlinear scoring that is in, say, ACDC or Metallica or Walking Dead and Batman, those are sort of the more like the structure for the scoring that I enjoy more just because I like to be able to blow it up. Just like, I don't know, that's the fun part of pinball, is not having to work a super long time to rack up a score.
    131:02
    All right. So, Lyman, what games do you own right now in your collection? People probably would like to know what your collection consists of as a designer and where you get maybe some of your ideas from or you're proud of. Or do you own all your games you designed?
    131:20
    I pretty much own all the games that I worked on. I mean, all the way back to, you know, Williams. You know, I guess I started buying games when I started playing, you know, in the early 90s competitively because I wanted to practice and get better. But then, like, I would go out on location and be like, well, these games are all broken and they don't play right. And, you know, I want to play a fast game that's set up hard, no extra balls, and, you know, make it as hard as possible and get some practice and whatever, and that's when I started buying games. But, yeah, I mean, like I say, I play all my stuff that I've worked on because I don't know, somebody else is going to play it 500 times. I better play it 500 times, you know, just so I know it's like if I could make something better or if I could balance some scoring, if I could, you know, make some light show better or something. But, yeah. Okay, one more question for me, and I'll – oh, I have two questions, actually. So Ryan from Head to Head asked me to ask you one question. In your past games, is there a prototype part that was taken out that you wish they never took out?
    132:37
    Oh, boy. Wow. You know, there has to be one. I was thinking about the obvious first thing that popped into my head was the one on Monster Dash. Frank. Yeah, there was a little lip ramp on the Frankenstein. Actually, the game that I ended up getting, because I got the prototype game when I was at Williams that I had in my office that I was programming, I ended up with that one, you know, taking it home. And it still has the little flap in front of Frankenstein. So what happened was there was a little flap in front of Frankenstein. It sort of raised up like the ramp on Revenge for Mars, you know, that raises up so you can shoot into the little deflector shield to blow up the saucer. But, you know, obviously not to that degree on Monster Bash with the Frankenstein. And then we took it out because it was just most of the time you shot it, it would just blow the ball into the back and hit some plastics or a flasher or whatever or cause a ball trap and what. and it wouldn't really do what it was designed to do, so we took it out. But for some reason, people go crazy over prototype stuff that never made it into a game, even if it's bad. Even if we took it out for good reasons, they'll still be like, oh, you guys should have left this in the game. It's like, well, no, not really. We took it out because it just didn't work out. But that's probably the one that just sticks out in my head, You know, it'd be kind of cool to show people, but I wouldn't want to have my game, you know, like run like that. It just didn't really work out. My last question, favorite old Stern pinball machine? Wow, that's a tough one, too. Oh, yeah.
    134:29
    You know, it's probably a toss up for me. I really like Sea Witch, and I also like Galaxy, but I wish the scoring on the Galaxy were a little lower because I feel like it's too easy to roll over. Okay. I am done with Mr. Lyman. Your questions, boys.
    134:53
    I'll throw one in there just for timing purposes. Obviously, the next time we all get to see each other and grow out and chill, it's Pinberg. Looking forward to that. I just found out that they're actually changing all the banks this year. Doug just said that on Facebook. They're all new banks, which is new to Pinnberg, because I think the last couple of years they kept them based off time testing purposes. The amazing people in Pittsburgh that dedicate all that time to make the banks flow. Supposedly this year we're getting new banks. And I don't know, Lyman, I think we've heard this question on the show before, but just what's your four-game perfect bank? old solid state, new solid state, EM, DMD, go. Oh, wow. It actually came pretty close one year. The new was the Theater of Magic. I'll have to figure out what the old one was. You know, I'll say an old would be like a Wizard.
    135:50
    A newer solid state would be like a High Speed. And then like an older solid state would be maybe like a Ape All Deluxe. So we replaced the theater with Adam's family, even though it's probably an old game at this point.
    136:09
    So Swansfield Special, you guys would have loved at Becker's Place in Toronto. They had not just a stargazer, but a dragon fist. We both have a dragon fist, sir. I know. That's what I knew. I know you've been talking about that. I have one and a half for some reason. Yeah, you do. You have one and a half. I only have a half. Yeah. At one point, Levy turned to me. He's like, what do I do on Dragon Fist? I was like, that's definitely a Bruce question. Give me two seconds. You survive. Yeah, besides surviving. It's a hybrid of Sea Witch and Quicksilver. That's the best explanation for it. Meanwhile, Lyman earlier in the interview or the podcast was saying that against Kaylee, when he took him to nine fighting for that final spot in the top eight, he was using some of the older games against them and he mentioned Dracula. I think Lyman just figured out that you could shat the special up and down 100,000 on that old Dracula game that nobody knew. It was just a super cool way to blow it up like that. I remember one night, you mentioned that you rolled it or something like that in qualifying and everybody else was just like, oh, I got 200,000. I saw Yorian do it in our match because I mean, I was like, okay. I mean, if anybody knows how to play a game, it's probably him. And then I saw him, as soon as he, like, lit it, and then he started shooting for it, I was like, okay, that's how you play the game. And, you know, like, I just got, I guess I got a little luckier or whatever.
    137:42
    Do you know your IFPA number? I do, actually. It's seven. Yeah, here's the deal with that. And Josh Sharp told me, I think she said it was the order. There was the first tournament that counted for IFPA points. That's how the players finished. So I finished seventh in the first locker tournament. So we are giving you the now lucky number seven. And may we bring you gush wishes to Pinberg. Oh, thanks. No problem, man. Well, thank you, Lyman, for appearing on the show. Thanks, guys. It's definitely worth the wait. we used to say all the time we were going to get Lyman on almost like Keith well yeah, Keith we thought might actually be able to get on Lyman we kind of thought like we'll just keep saying that but he'll never come on our show and lo and behold there it is yeah, thanks for asking and thanks for having me thank you love you guys, it was awesome to Greg, we'll see you both at Pinberg Pinberg, alright alright, thanks everyone Have a great night, and we'll continue on the backside, me and Ron, on Monday. Oh, my. Who's that me? Oh, my. And that's when Lyman and Greg suddenly leave the conversation. Yes, they run out. Goodbye, Greg and Lyman. Good night. Thanks, guys. See you guys. So, continuing on the backside. Oh, my. Yeah. On the backside. Thank you to Lyman. That was a very nice interview. very intuitive interview. We learned a lot. Intuitive. I think you mean insightful interview. Intuitive means he was, like, guessing all our questions before we said them. Well, he was sometimes, because he knew we were going to go all throughout his history of his machines.
    139:34
    All right. Of course. Intuitive. We got our first Bruce-ism within the first five seconds of the... Of Monday. It's Monday now. We recorded Lyman earlier. yes we did so we made sure we had a great show started and now we're going to finish the show we're going to finish it off news of the week piece of news there really isn't much that I can see went to this week in pinball and looks like I don see any new news items Fail Fail I mean I think we talked enough I don know how long this podcast is at this point because I haven edited yet but I'm guessing it's pretty long. Fail. We want the longest one ever. We want the longest one ever? No. No, I don't want the longest one ever. Everyone loves longer. Better. Stronger. So, Steve Bowden got to play every Pinberg game.
    140:30
    288. 288, and I was wondering how the hell they were going to do this. Basically, he got to play one ball in every game.
    140:38
    I guess if it was a total house ball, he'd get to replay that ball. And then they just had one mobile rig with all the cameras on it, and they would just roll it around to each different game. So he started, about what time did he start? I think it was 10 or 11. A.M.? Yes. Do you know when he finished, Bruce? I think I heard like one or two. Yep, 1 a.m. Please. Finished at 1 a.m. That's beyond 12 hours of stop. That is 15. Yeah. That's a lot of pinball.
    141:12
    So hopefully he has recovered in time for pinburn. That was streamed on Papa's YouTube channel. Once again, their YouTube channel. Congratulations to Steve for making it through it and doing a great job.
    141:25
    Sponsored by Deep Root. So he was his first experience in deep rooting Yes Oh my So guess what Bruce I had an event Yes which I missed Yes you did Because I didn't have a bartender Oh first it was the cook now it's the bartender Yep no bartender showed up Friday So I didn't know if he was going to show up Saturday Well that's not good Nope so I had to stay there And then by the time he got there at 5 o'clock when we finally got a response from him, had to deal with him. Yeah, it was too late to come.
    142:02
    So, needless to say, I missed out on the OCPC. But Ron will tell us all about it right now. Yes, he'll tell you about how you weren't the only one who missed out on it. Uh-oh.
    142:15
    Well, first things first, the Galaga was going to be making its way back, but Bruce couldn't do it. So what did Bruce do? The tag team, Zach. Um, huh? Okay. I tagged in Zach, and Zach took the machine out in his dad's truck. So what I did, I talked to my coworker.
    142:41
    Said, you know, someone else is going to be bringing it. Would you like it, like, you could do probably Friday night or Saturday, early Saturday. So originally he said, like, early Saturday was fine. Like, cool. Then about, I'm trying to remember what time Friday this was. Probably Friday around 8, 7 or 8 o'clock. I can't remember what it was. I get a call from my coworker, and he's like, I'm by the grocery store, and a white Nissan just pulled into the parking lot with a Galaga in the back of it.
    143:14
    I'm guessing that might be mine. You guessed correctly. So I called Zach, and we made a quick little change of plan, and he was able to deliver the Galaga. Nice. So that has been delivered. So the next day was my little event, the Orange County Pinball Club Invades Level Zero.
    143:37
    Zach came up. He actually came up first. Then Steph came up. Then everyone started arriving around 2 o'clock. And I got my usual comments. Steph brought a cake, and it's like, got a knife? Yeah, you got a knife you can cut it with? Like, I don't know. Yeah. Looked through all my stuff. It's like, I guess I don't. Yikes. And we had someone bring watermelon in. Oh, you got a knife?
    144:06
    No, I don't think so. It's like, are you kidding? It's like, Ron doesn't cook. It's like, really? Yep. Yep, I don't. I'm sorry. Yikes. He's out there for all those women out there that want a good pinball guy.
    144:21
    Zach was there, can I use your oven? It's like, sure, I've never used it. So there you go. You've never used your oven? No, I've never used my oven. How long have you lived there?
    144:34
    Three years. Okay, good. All right. That's over a thousand days that you've not used your oven. Well, my old house, I never used it either. Oh, God. So, come on. Man, there was so much food being brought in. It was insane. All kinds of really bad stuff for me. A lot of chocolate. It was quite great. So Howard arrives. He's the tournament director. And about 15 minutes before we're ready to start, I get a call from work.
    145:03
    Oh, no. Yeah. Whole phone system's down. I had to come in. Fuck. Yeah. So I got to miss my own tournament. That's a first, I think. Isn't that great? Yeah. Yeah, I had to go in and had no clue what the fuck I was looking at, because I don't usually deal with the phone system, but after about 20 minutes of acclimating myself, I was able to figure out what the issue was. We got it fixed. Drove back. The tournament ended up being 10 rounds. I missed six of them. Oh. So I got to play the last, like, four rounds in last place, and I ended up last place in my own tournament. But guess what? It didn't count. Yeah, but it didn't count because we didn't get 16 people. Well, the first thing, it doesn't get 16 people. Second is you only played less than half the tournament. Oh, okay. So you would have never counted. All right. You know how I am with those rules.
    146:01
    So unfortunately, yeah, I kind of missed out. But then today when I went to work, I found out something absolutely hilarious. You know what it was? What was it? I wasn't on call. Oh, no. My coworker, the one who got the Galaga, he was actually the one on call. And why didn't he answer the call? Because no one ever called him.
    146:24
    They called me. And being I'm not, before my coworkers started at my company, I was always on call every week. Yeah. So that's still in my brain. I didn't even think to look. and neither did the person who called. Do you have a schedule? Oh, yeah, we have a schedule, yeah. Yeah. Neither of us looked at it. So isn't that wonderful? I guess he owes you one if you're on call for a... Yeah, I was supposed to do some maintenance this Saturday. He's doing it now. So I'm not coming. So, yep. And honestly, it wasn't that big of a deal. I didn't really want to have any possibility of winning my own tournament anyway. since you have before in the past. Yeah. So to no one's surprise, Jerry, Jerry Bernard, won the tournament. Sav. Sav, the all-powerful, mighty Sav. He got to hold up the Jack Daniels fire hydrant. He did. And my father actually brought some actual Jack Daniels. Nice. So he got to have that, too. So congratulations.
    147:25
    The games held up fairly well. We had a dragon fist. I don't know if I mentioned it on the podcast, But, like, I think I did, where I had, like, a plastic that was on the play field, and I couldn't figure out where it went, where it broke off of. Yeah, it broke off of the flipper is actually where it broke off of. Hmm? Steph noticed it immediately. It was actually the back of the flipper. Oh, the back of the flipper. Where it hits the alignment thing. Yeah. So you're down a flipper. No, the flipper still works. It's not a big enough chunk where it doesn't work. I just, I got to adjust the flipper, obviously. It's a little down too far at this point.
    148:05
    Stargazer, left flipper is binding, so I've got to fix that. Other than that... Quicksilver was a champ, wasn't it? Quicksilver was a champ. I had to do some fixing on that. Uh-oh. The left flipper bat is definitely larger than the right flipper bat. Sounds like a personal problem. So I pulled it out. It's swelling, I guess. I pulled it out. Oh, my. I pulled it out, and I took one of the Dragon Fist flipper bats, the ones I took out when I replaced those. And wouldn't you know, that was smaller. It matched the right flipper bat. There you go. So I put that in, got that all adjusted. Then occasionally when I would hit the right flipper button, the flipper would stick up. And I could tell it was an issue with the button. And I figured it was the switch sticking. No, the button was actually coming out because the screw, the left screw was blown out. It blows out all the time. So we filled up the hole, put the screw in, got that rectified.
    149:05
    And what else did I do? Might have been all I had to do. Yeah. And I could shaft the inlanes again now with the correct flipper. Or a smaller flipper bat. I could do that again. Spinners were spinning. Did you fix the linkage so it hits the switch better? The linkage so it hits the switch better. You said that, remember how they're going too far up the flippers? Going too far up the flippers. You said mechanically, remember? Last week you mentioned this. Oh, yes, I did. Yes, it has the new plates in it, which are wrong. They have the ones, the tab, the holes are not in the right spot. So using my cheetah as a guide, which is becoming the thing now, because it's one of the few ones that has the original plate still in there, I adjusted that. so now the flippers are not up too far. There's still, it's because the game isn't playing at full speed, because it kind of needs to be probably cleaned and waxed at this point, and it's Mylar'd, that doesn't help. No. All that Mylar. If it was playing at, like, you know, full speed, you'd be able to lift the flipper up and have it do, like, a flipper pass every time. So that'll come eventually.
    150:19
    Other than that, that was a champ. Had no issues. I turned the background sound back on. It looks like you turned that off. I did. Yeah. It must have been annoying your patrons. It was. How dare they not appreciate the awesomeness of the sound. But what I also did is I made sure I went through all the old Stern games. If anything was, like, a special, I made sure it was points, because a lot of them I still had for special, which is stupid, because who cares.
    150:44
    And other than that, everything went great. Way too much food, way too much snacks. There was streaming. You played later afterwards. I saw that. Zach did streaming on his channel through... And what channel would that be? Z-A-C-A-J. Zach AJ.
    151:04
    And he had his rig there. So he has like a two-camera rig. So it's basically like the score and the play field. And they would move it around. So I got to watch this as I'm at work, you know, trying to figure out this issue. I see, you know, Twitch channel go live. And it's like, oh, look, all my games that I can't play. Yay. Yay! That sucked. So after the tournament was over, it ended up being, I think it was me, Zach, Steph, and Chris Point were there. And we started doing just four-person games on my rig, on the Slam Tilt channel, from like a four-hour stream. We were on for a while. So I think it was like maybe 8 or 9 o'clock we started. And we didn't stop until like 2. No, 1. 1 in the morning. No, 2 in the morning. What am I saying? No, it was 2 in the morning. Because I remember about to finish at like 1 and we were still going. It was some entertaining stuff, I have to say. Check out our stream, the Slam Tilt stream on Twitch. The link is available via our website, www.slamtiltpodcast.com. Or you just go to twitch.tv slash slamtiltpodcast. It was some entertaining stuff. we had a situation where we played dialed in.
    152:19
    Zach, he's kind of picky with some food items. Like the cake that was brought wasn't, you know, he prefers ice cream. So Steph decided to be accommodating and said, like, I'll go get some ice cream. Because there's like a Cumberland Farms, like, right behind you. Right around the corner, yeah. Yeah. So we started a game of dialed in, and we put her as player four. Like maybe she'll get back by the time, you know, we get to player four. But she didn't. And so me and Jack said, you know, we're going to play split flipper Steph mode, which that was us basically kneeling down. Oh, God. To be as short as possible and playing split flipper. Yikes. Points. Yeah.
    153:01
    And soon after that, she came back, and when we got to player four, it's like, okay, you're up. And it's like, oh, did he just plunge my first ball? And it's like, no, he played split flipper Steph mode. It's like, what the hell does that mean? And we told her, I hate you guys. She must have not been happy with you. It was hilarious. Okay. To me, that was the most fun I had. It was like pretty much after everyone left, they were just doing the stream.
    153:26
    So other than that, I'd say it was a rousing success. I mean, we didn't get, I mean, Howard wanted to get at least 16 people there, and it didn't happen, but. How many did you get? I think it was 13 or 14. So my one wouldn't have counted. No, no. No. I had a fun time. Everyone there seemed to like the games. That's good. And I had several people asking me about Stomp. Two. Pinball Boogaloo. Where do I send my money? We will be posting this Friday on where to send your money. 36 people limited. It will be on the Slam Tilt Facebook page. It will be $20. First 36 people are in. If anyone wants to come in after 36, we'll have a standby list, and we shall go from there. Depending on how many people we get will depend on how many we have in the finals.
    154:22
    Come one, come all. Play the best games. Play stars head-to-head. Yeah. Yes. Play stars head-to-head. There'll be stars head-to-head. There will be a third stars. Huh? Yeah. There'll be a third stars. There's going to be a head-to-head, but we're going to have a third stars. Scott's going to bring his stars. Oh, wow. Oh, my. So, because, you know, two stars are in the head-to-head, that means they can't be in the match play. And we can't have that. We have to have maximum starage. People need to know how great a game stars is. So, it'll be three stars. Three stars. As far as filming it, I have to ask a question.
    155:01
    We were coming up with some of the goals. Do any of the goals involve score? We could. Well, here's the thing. If you involve score, now that forces me to have to film the score.
    155:12
    If you're doing all goal-based, I can get by with less cameras. How many goals do we have? Well, we had the 7,000 target, the one you made fun of me because I didn't even know it existed. Now you do, right? Yeah. It hit the two outer targets, and then the center targets left for 7,000. Right after we finished recording the podcast, I went downstairs and tried it. I got it on the second ball. See? And then I couldn't do it again for another five games. Excellent. Then we had the special. Get the special. Yep. Any which way, right? Any which way. We can do all five stars. We can do triple bonus. Well, five stars is the special. No, it's not. What do you mean, actually? You can actually get it by taking the drop target sound once, twice, and then three times. That's also special. Please know your stars. Oh, bite me. When I say special, is that, okay, getting the five stars and then getting the roving special. There. Okay. That's one way, but you can also say just getting special. which would be either way then there's actually a way of doing it one or two ways then triple bonus so if anyone has any other ideas please send them in to our email address at slamtillpodcasts at gmail.com we can max out the bonus that was one we were also talking about but I'd like to thank Carl D'Angelo who did respond I was there like please Carl help me The thing is, Carl, he uses all HDMI stuff. He doesn't use, like, USB for his stuff. I'm using USB cameras. I mean, he's using, like, just straight HDMI. He's got all those switchers. He's got all that cool stuff going on. That's why he's in the big leagues. That's why he's in the big leagues and I'm in the little shit leagues. So I might see if I can just get by with one more camera and just have two Playfield cameras and two player cams and see if I can get by with that. And it's going to be on my laptop, too, It's not like it's going to be a super powerful device. Okay. But what I would like to do, it got me thinking, ambitiously. Wouldn't it be cool if somehow I could stream every single game in my collection easily?
    157:16
    Now, having a camera on every game is just not practical. No. It would be ridiculously expensive. Yep. But if to say if I was going to go more for Carl Light type setup. A rail system over games?
    157:34
    See, I don't want all... I want a mobile rig. I don't want all kinds of stuff. Especially if I need to work on the games, I don't want rigging all over the place. Well, you bolt it to your 2x4s above, and you make a rail. Yeah, but then the games can move around, and also Chuck Webster. You know Chuck Webster? He's got a sliding camera thing. He slides it across like a cable. Yeah. I was thinking more along the lines, It's like I have a rig that I can move around, but at like each different game I have, I can just plug in. Like the cabling is there to just plug all the stuff in. Oh, my God. Because the biggest pain in the ass about doing the mobile rig is you've got to move the mobile rig out, and you've got to move it somewhere and move all the cables with it. Wouldn't it be cooler if I just had a central station? I had some kind of, I guess. Yeah. Or you with the hub. Switchers. Yeah, switch hub. Yeah, it's just switch in between. Yeah, 30 switch hub. Yeah, and maybe I could, you know, have more than one game on at once, that kind of thing. And I'm talking, like, instead of the laptop, maybe I get, like, a dedicated, like, a tower, like a super powerful, you know, PC to run this crap. Mm-hmm. So, and maybe go all HDMI, like Carl. I'm throwing it out there. Maybe Carl has any advice on that.
    158:52
    Because putting rigging everywhere, I don't know. I don't want to be bolting cameras to all the 2x4s and all that stuff. I'd rather have something that can move easily. Actually, what I was thinking for your house. Oh, God. Okay, what were you thinking for my house? Almost like a clamp system to clamping it to your 2x4 above. So it's mounted. You clamp it to the 2x4 above, a strong clamp, and then you can point it down and do the angles of each way. Yeah, you can do the play field, but how are you going to get all the other stuff? You do a two system on the same rigging. You point one towards the back glass and one towards the player. Or one towards the player. Exactly. Then where's the player?
    159:31
    You do a three-camera system. You do a three-camera clamp. I can make a three-camera. It's going to be a ridiculously strong clamp. And somehow it's going to be awesome. Of course. Yeah. You're assuming the two-by-fours and everything kind of match up where it'll be easy to do that.
    159:47
    It doesn't. You can have a slide. I can make anything. I have a metal man. Yeah. I don't want to do that. I'd rather have just a rig I can move easily. And I could just plug it in at each station. Boom. Yeah, no fun. Okay. All right. Just throwing it out there. Thinking of being a little more ambitious, because that'd be kind of cool. I mean, it still, it does bring up the issue, you still have to move the rig around, so you can't just switch. But, I mean, in a typical tournament, they just got one row of games, and they have, like, dedicated rigging they're putting across. Mm-hmm. I mean, the amount of rigging I would need to have to do my game room is insane. Insane. Yeah. And if I'm putting cameras on each game, there's like 24, 25, however many games I have now. It'd be insane.
    160:32
    Insane. Yeah. All right. We're going to finish up the podcast. No, we're not. We're not done yet. What are you doing in one week from now? When are you releasing the podcast next week?
    160:45
    Uh-huh. Oh, you didn't think about that, did you? No. I thought about the fact that it's going to be a bitch to do the next podcast because I'm going to be gone on the 24th. I know, exactly. So maybe we have to record the 22nd, huh? Or maybe we just skip. No. Yes, I think we did that one here. No, that means the head-to-head guys catch up to us one more time. What do you mean the head-to-head guys catch up to us one more time? They're so far behind. Nope, they're going to catch up to us. I know they will. They're dedicated frickin' Austrians. Yeah, okay. If we miss one a year, then maybe in ten years they'll catch up to us. See? Come on. No, I have no problem missing a week. What about our fans driving and flying to Pinburg? they will be so upset not being able to listen to any content from us. And you know they do listen. You know what? They need to not listen. They need to wait and keep this awesome three-hour episode that will probably end up being that we're doing right now for their trip. So you've got to put that in the show notes. Do not listen. I'll put that in the show notes. Till Pinberg.
    161:47
    That's a great idea. I totally am going to do that. Yep. So I'm going to put that in there like... So since Ron's lazy and doesn't want to do any work, you people are not going to have a show next week. Yep, and you're going to love it. Okay.
    162:02
    So on the Wednesday before Pimberg, they're going to have an early Pimberg check-in at the Harris Grill on 4th Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh, where you can pick your tickets up between 1 p.m. and 11 p.m. I highly recommend for anybody to do this so they don't have to go in so early on Thursday morning. Oh, and our TTI invitation was confirmed? It was. Wow. So we are now officially in. We're officially in. We have our ringer, and we are ready to kick ass. Are you bringing your disco outfit with you? Of course I am. It's already getting re-cleaned. Re-cleaned. Okay. Because, you know, I did a lot of dancing with it that night, you know. Re-cleaned. So technically, any time you wash your clothes, you're being re-cleaned. Yes. All right. Aren't they? Yeah, sure. That's a very common term, recleaned. I hear it all the time. About time. All right.
    162:57
    So let's finish this up here, folks. We're going to end with the mail ball bag. Actually, I have one other thing. What?
    163:06
    I have would you or would you not buy that, but I guess you don't want to do that this week. And there's some good deals in here. Are you serious? I swear to God. I scoured half an hour today. So if I were to skip this, it would, like, hurt you tremendously. It would actually hurt my personality and feelings, since now we can't use them even next week. Your personality and feelings. Wow, you are on fire today with the... Way to go, baby. Okay.
    163:31
    Okay, we'll do it. Would you not buy that? This is going to be quick, folks. No, it's not. Yeah, it is. Go. I got a lot of them. What do you mean you got a lot? How many do you have? Oh, six. Fucking six? Are you serious, dude? We just recorded like fucking three hours, and we're going to do more of this. Your language hurts me. Oh, man, come on. Don't worry, it's not my editing job I have to worry about. Yeah, yeah, dickhole. All right, let's go.
    163:59
    163-151-184-720. Now, somebody's going to like this one. Eight ball champ. Woo-hoo. That's in California. Yes, it is. $600.
    164:16
    Yep, or buy it now for $800. Hmm. 100% positive feedback. So it has 90 hits. Let's see. Only 1,500 made.
    164:27
    Silkscreen is damaged but does not affect the operation of the machine. What does that mean, silkscreen is damaged? Does he mean the art? If you look at the art in the back box, you know, the back glass is pretty beat up and also the upper play field. It looks like nobody ever whacked this thing. All right. Number one, effect. I don't believe it's correct. I believe it's supposed to be effect.
    164:51
    And it's done wrong twice. And then only seen where, and they spell it W-A-R-E, which seems to be a very common misspell.
    165:01
    Only seen where on the plane surface is under the rail foes not appear to effect play. You know, the grammar level is bad. Yes, it is. Oh, yeah. Okay.
    165:18
    Broken plastic. No need to take the glass off. Back glass is horrible, but, I mean, it's a terrible back glass anyway. Yep, so you can make your own. Cabinet looks shit. Yep. I don't know. $800, though. Buy it now. And is a post broken? I'd wait. Post broken on the front. I'd wait and try to get it to 600. There you go.
    165:43
    Bent wire form on the top. So would you buy it? I'd buy it for 600. For 600, yeah. Yes, sir. All right. Next. Here we go. Ticket number 232850473796.
    166:02
    Bobby Orr's Power Play. Working. That's always good. Current bid is $459. There's already 20 bids on it. Local pickup in Delaware.
    166:15
    1,491 sales from this seller. 100% positive feedback. An awesome pinball game this 1978. Bobby Orr Power Play Hockey Team. Works great. Had this in my arcade for 20 years. It's time to change it up a bit.
    166:29
    He even says he'll make a video of the game playing. See the pictures. Here's Mr. Bobby Orr, unfortunately not playing for the Bruins like he should have been. Hmm. What are you going to do?
    166:41
    Lots of wonderful pictures with the glass on. I don't know. A little wear spot up top, that's about it, and a couple wear spots to them by the inserts. Not that bad. It's only $459. Exactly. And obviously with 20 bids, there's a lot of people who would buy that. 34 watchers. So there you go, folks. I'd buy that. Up to what price? Probably $800. The back glass is really nice also.
    167:05
    Next, ticket number 253-705-085-975. Ooh. See? Sonic Pinball Machine, Mars Trek. It's in Connecticut, Ron. It's sci-fi. It's ultra-rare Star Trek. Okay, it has nothing to do with Star Trek. 100% positive feedback with 1,686 items amazing pinball machine Mars Trek 4 player pinball machine if you're a Star Trek Y-O-U-R contractions people you are if you are a Star Trek or sci-fi fan then this is the game for you game, playfield, and back glass is in superior condition showing very little wear He spelled wear right. That's good. And in like new condition. Game is clean and new rubber kit installed less than a month ago. Very fast-paced game with tons of targets. Sideway ramps. Poopers.
    168:11
    That's spelled wrong. I think it's spelled wrong. No, it's bumpers. Yeah, it is spelled wrong. Bumpers, gates. The graphics on this playfield are amazing. Straight out of the 70s. Coded playfield is practically flawless by Sonic.
    168:25
    You know the playfield is going to look good. and the cabinet's probably going to suck. Let's see. Well, the one side of the cabinet looks better than the other side. Mm-hmm. Glass on. Good. No need to take that off.
    168:39
    I mean, the play field looks like a sonic play field. Yep. And the black glass is nice, too. Yeah. $875 or make an offer. Make an offer. In Connecticut. So Bruce would do that. Make an offer. Ron's always thinking about an EM now, he said. Prospector, baby. Prospector. Prospector, okay. So you would buy this to a point. I would buy that. I'd buy that. So we're getting a lot of buy-thats, man. Yes, I would. Where's the shitty one? Hold on. It's coming.
    169:09
    It's coming. Next. Ticket number 173-411-300-873. A favorite of the Pinball Princess, but then again, maybe not. the Bally Black Pyramid pinball machine, which he kicked ass at at the New York City Pinball Championships, which still has not been posted. They already have the full Steve Bowden thing up on there, but they do not have the New York City Pinball Championships, the women's final. I'll keep bringing it up. What do we got for the description? Here's the description. Black Pyramid is a nice example. It works perfect. Nice game.
    169:50
    Okay. So how's the pictures? some of the worst pictures I have ever seen in my life. It is in full glaucoma vision. If you want to simulate glaucoma, this is the game for you. You literally cannot see a single thing. It is, oh, my goodness.
    170:11
    LED with, like, seemingly no GI lighting. No GI. And the worst camera. some people will get this, but even Francesco would not take pictures this bad.
    170:27
    Oh my God. This is why I kept this one. All right, but I'm sure the price is reasonable, right? Oh, $12.95. No. No, it is not. No. I mean, how can you even want to sell this when your pictures are that bad?
    170:44
    Maybe he doesn't want to sell it. No, maybe he doesn't. Maybe he's keeping it. Okay. Next. We would not buy this, by the way. We would not buy this. Not at all.
    170:56
    We are done. Okay. So can we actually get to the mail ball bag now? We can get to your mail ball bag. We can fondle your mail ball bag and make sure we can empty it. Oh, God. Because we're going to finish up with this. Yes, we are. So before I even start it, I'll just say check us out, Slam Tilt Podcast, at the slamtiltpodcast.com, our website. All the links are there. You can send correspondence to us at slamtiltpodcast.gmail.com. We get all that out of the way because we're ending with the mailbag. I want to say thank you to every listener we have. Without you guys, we would be nothing, which we are nothing.
    171:36
    We are nothing, okay. We are nothing. But without you guys listening, you know, we'd just be two bored guys talking to each other. One bored guy. I'm not bored. How can I be bored? I'm talking to you. Oh, well, we'll just say if we didn't have the podcast, you'd be bored. Oh, yeah. There you go. But thank you guys for listening and supporting us. And say hi to us at Pimberg. Ron loves it when you come up to Ron and hug him. Yeah, say hi to Bruce. And hug Ron. Say hi to Bruce and pretend Ron isn't there. And hug Ron. Just give him – he loves bear hugs. Yes, yes. I'm an extremely social person, too. Yes, yes.
    172:14
    Well, thanks to all our listeners. Hopefully you've enjoyed this marathon podcast. If you do want to look for us at Pembroke, we're probably going to be in the middle, like they did last year. There was tables in the middle in front of the stage. We're probably at one of those tables hanging out waiting for it to start.
    172:31
    Oh, my. All right. First mail from the ball bag. We have, oh, this is from John Cosson. Dr. John. What up, Doc? Who was in, he was in Japan while we were doing 12 Hours of Stomp. the same time as Ryan C. Yep. At the same hotel as Ryan C. Really? And not planned.
    172:54
    That's weird. That's got to be an Australian thing. Yeah. But he sent me a picture of, I'm trying to figure out what this is. I think it's some kind of candy dispenser with Beavis and Butthead on it. There you go. It's incredible. I love it. He actually posted a thing on my Facebook page of the times of the bar that he was looking at. they stopped drinking at 4 o'clock in the bar until 5 o'clock in the morning. Mm-hmm. I would kill myself.
    173:21
    All right, then we have an email from Scott Larson. Hello, Scott. Your reference to rip, rip, to rip and destroy makes me think that I'm not the only one who watched the turd fest that was Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park. It was Kiss's attempt to replicate the Beatles' Hard Day's Night, except it didn't even rise to the level of So Bad It's Good. Instead, it's just horrible on every level.
    173:47
    I disagree completely, Scott. I have to disagree also, Scott. I feel that that movie embodies the awesomeness that is Kiss.
    173:55
    Don't you agree, Bruce? Uh, how many Grammys did you win from that, Gene? Grammys? Do you mean Emmys, Bruce? Well, Grammys, because the music was different, so you probably got Grammys also. I mean, you obviously saw the brilliance of Rip, Rip, Destroy. Yes, because it's going to be my crop dusting song. Yes, that's what I hear. Did you know we dubbed Peter Chris's voice during that? Well, it else is no. Yes, yes. Was he a cocaine doll up and hanging out? Probably, probably. You know, me and Paul are the only ones who are professional. Of course. Of course, of course.
    174:30
    Let's see. We have, this one's from Alex. Project candidate. Yeah, one of your terms. Actually, no, that was the term from one of the auctions, wasn't it? It's a good project candidate. Yes, it was. He has the meaning. It means it's in a contest to be the biggest piece of shit. Yes, it is. And it was.
    174:51
    Oh, then we have an email from Austin. Hi, Austin. A question about Flight 2000 settings alternate ROM. Hi, guys. I'm about to pick up my first classic stern of Flight 2000. Good boy. And I was wondering if you had a recommendation for game settings. You often talk about alternate ROMs and scoring adjustments on these games. Is there a preferred setup on this one? Love the show, Austin. Thank you, Austin. Do you know of a preferred setup?
    175:20
    Not really, actually. Because I've never owned one. I've never owned one either. All I have is the Gamertron, not the Flight 2000. Maybe Mr. Scott can fill us in, since Scott is the master of ROMs. I know Scott did some kind of alternate ROM for that, so multiball was easier. Mm-hmm. All right, I got Scott's software modification here. He had a ROM that says the bonus ladder goes to 19K, lock two balls, subsequent shots to lock areas, spot a letter in blast off, making multi-ball easier to achieve. Which is needed in that game because it's so hard. So as far as settings, I don't know how much real settings there are, other than three-ball, five-ball, background sound, no background sound. What does a special give you? Does it give you points? Does it actually give you a special? and there's probably things for like alternating or not alternating stuff so play around and enjoy your new game you've got one of the bad new sterns and it's you know it'll depend on skill level you can either break it easier or you can crank it hard and if you think it's too hard dial it back or actually old stern not new stern yeah okay this is from E E.P. the geek he's emailed us before listening to Outlash on the way to work today and I need some help and what the hell went on during Bruce's cavalcade of eBay treasures. When discussing the secretive item that Bruce had to verify dibs on before reading out the number, he reads the full number, and then you all play coy about what it is, as if any listener didn't already have the number to look up the listing. But more importantly, your show isn't live. It's not like if saying, oh, it's a Star's Backlass, would have caused it to be magically bought out from under Bruce, because listeners don't get the podcast until several days later. Okay, here is the deal. He read it. Then we talked about it. And if he was going to actually wait, I was going to cut the whole thing.
    177:12
    As it turns out, he was going to like, no, I'm actually going to buy it. So, okay. I didn't want Ron to buy it. Well, yes. Yeah.
    177:19
    But it turns out like he was going to buy it. Like, okay. So we went through with it and I left the whole thing in. But if he was not going to buy it or if he was going to try to buy it later, I would have just cut the whole thing out. That's why it's kind of bizarre like that where he actually says the number. And Scott actually wants my old back glass if the new one's perfect. Okay. See, so it's a win-win. It's a win-win. All right. Now we have two audio emails, if you will. Mm-hmm. So I'm going to splice these in, but for now I'm going to play these for Bruce because he hasn't heard either of these. I haven't heard either. I was trying to be very PC and trying to wait for Rhonda. Wait a minute. So you're being politically correct by not listening to emails. That doesn't make any sense. Penis chopper. Oh, God. All right, the first email is from Mrs. Penn. Mrs. and Dr. Penn. Let's see what they have to say.
    178:14
    Hi, Bruce and Ron. This is Mrs. Penn. And Dr. Penn. We just wanted to congratulate you on making it to 100 episodes. That's no small feat. It's pretty incredible, in fact. We love your podcast. Keep up the good work. We can't wait for 100 more. 100 more? That's scary. Better not tell Pinside PD. We love you guys. Congratulations. Congratulations, guys. Bye.
    178:38
    That was very nice. Very nice. Thank you. Very nice. That was actually, you know, I can't, Ron, can you imagine 100 more with me?
    178:46
    Let's go on to the next email, Bruce. Okay. Okay, now. This is from the Head to Head podcast. Uh-oh, are we getting sued from them now? So hopefully not. Hopefully not. Let's see what they have to say. Here we go.
    179:02
    Welcome to the Slam Tilt Podcast, Episode 100. I'm Martin, and with me... It's Ryan C. And Martin, we love the Slam Tilt, guys, but after 100 episodes, we just want to give the people out there something a little bit extra. You know, just like Pimple 2000, you know, the next generation of pimple podcasting, where, like holograms, you want to see inside the podcaster's head when they're thinking and about to say what they're about to say. All right, well, shall we give it a go? Sure. Let's try it out on the Lyman Sheet interview they just did. The software is in beta, so unfortunately we can't get their voices, so I'll be playing the role of Bruce's conscience, and you'll be playing Ron's. Okay, let's go. Let's go. Thanks, everyone. Have a great night, and we'll... Ah, how do I say it? Is it catch you on the flip side or catch you on the backside. Flipside, backside, flipside, backside. Toy and Cars, boing. Backside.
    180:01
    We'll continue on the backside, me and Ron, on Monday. What the fuck has Bruce just said? Every episode, if he isn't yawning, ugh. I wonder if backside is a reference to anal sex or if it's just another Bruce-ism. Is it too late to get a new host? oh my what does that mean oh my congratulations guys on the 100 episodes well done guys really appreciate what you do and here's to many more things that we'll probably steal from you so hurry up and create some new content guys we're running out of time seriously see ya see you soon holy fuck that was fucking funny because I can imagine you actually saying what Martin said, like, what the fuck did he say? Yeah. Is it too late to forget a new host? Yeah, that's pretty much it. It got my mind. Yeah. I have no idea what the hell he said there. See you on the back side. I'm perfectly down. It's like, backslide. You know, yeah, that's all right. I always go for the vulgar. Yes. This choice is going right for the vulgar. All right. So this is the last email of the ball bag. And this is a fitting one. Yes. This is from the Pinball Princess. Hi, Steph. Subject is happy rollover anniversary, or happy rollover slash anniversary. Dear Ron and Bruce, I just checked my podcast feeds, and not only are you approaching two years of podcasts, you are doing it simultaneously with hitting 100 episodes. It's amazing how much difference two years can make. Two years ago, there was a podcast that I followed because I was starting to really, really get into pinball. And the guys hosting it were people I sort of knew. Some guy named Ron, who had come by Rock Fantasy a few times, and some other guy named Bruce, who had also come by Rock Fantasy, and to whose house I'd been once, even though it was really far away, like Binghamton. These guys are pretty funny together, and boy, did they know a lot about pinball. So I kept listening and listening. Through every twist and turn, I loved every episode. Even through some of my major podcast purges, the slam-tilt feed persisted. Eventually, I decided to voice a select few of the thoughts that popped into my head while listening and laughing, sending a mere few thousand words over to be read across the pod waves. A questionable decision, really. How Ron's vocal cords have survived is beyond me. I still remember the day I listened to my first letter read out. I had to pause a few times to keep my heart from beating out of my chest, particularly at the end when Bruce said, I want her on. The moment I joined the Slam Tilt crew was a happy one, even if it took me a year to listen to my own episode.
    182:54
    Slam Tilt has shaped how I interact with the community. I know a lot of people because I was that girl who, ironically, didn't know how to be short. It isn't just me, though, who has been affected by Slam Tilt. There's a whole crew of people for whom Slam Tilt has been an instrumental part of their pinball lives. Every week, listeners get their takes on the latest news, imbibe the wisdom of competitive play and repairs alike, and frequently meet new people from around the pinball community. Machines have been bought and sold, advice given, and opinions argued. This is the point where everyone turns pointedly to Zach. Hi, Zach. Hi, Steve Bowden. Podcasts have been spawned through Slam Tilt. I mean, hell, you're sort of responsible for the generation of head-to-head. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I would say that's an impact.
    183:43
    The two of you have done the unthinkable, taken a ton of goofing around and turned it into something incredible. The Slamville podcast is a mainstay in many a podcast feed, and your ability to reach people and knit the community together is, while likely not unparalleled, certainly impressive. Shaky example, Clusterbuck. That was good. The witty rapport that almost never fails to ring true, the bottomless wells of pinball knowledge and trivia that spans nearly every aspect of the hobby, the seemingly endless supply of jaw-dropping Bruce-isms. Woo-hoo! Every week is a cornucopia of entertainment. Few feelings are akin to seeing a new episode dropped in one's feed, bright yellow icon and all. Thank you so much for throwing together a podcast for the sake of talking all things pinball, beautiful upstate New York and beyond. I hope to be able to listen to the Slam Tilt Podcast for many, many episodes to come. Congratulations.
    184:41
    So sappy, it sure would be embarrassed. Player 31915. Thank you, Steph. And thanks, everybody. Yes. We'll see you in two weeks. Two weeks! Don't forget, come by to say hi to Ron. Big hug. You can even kiss him on the cheek like French people do.
    185:02
    Say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Pimberg players. All my life, all my life, can you move it, can you fly? All my life, all my life, you can move it if you fly. All my life, all my life, there is you to keep you alive.
    185:36
    Oh my. And congrats to the Slam Tilt Podcast on your 100th episode. Thank you. Congrats. I'm proud to say I've been part of six of them. Wow, six, even six episodes. I haven't counted, but you guys are the absolute. You guys are the absolute.
    186:26
    You guys are the absolute. Jesus. Okay. What are we, Craig? You guys are the absolute best in pinball podcast. Jeff Teolis and everybody else tailing after you guys. But you've come a long way, and I'm really proud of you guys.