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BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 7m·analyzed·Feb 2, 2020
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

BlahCade hosts rank top 10 pinball machines they'd want in Pinball FX3, balancing licensed and unlicensed titles.

Summary

Chris and Jared discuss personal gaming interests, including Nintendo 3DS, then pivot to creating custom Zen Pinball backbox artwork for monitors. The bulk of the episode features Chris ranking his top 10 desired DMD and alphanumeric pinball machines for potential addition to Pinball FX3, comparing licensed titles already in The Pinball Arcade against unlicensed alternatives, emphasizing gameplay depth and fan preference over novelty.

Key Claims

  • Zen Pinball FX3 still needs to add Whodunit, Cactus Canyon, and Jackbot as final non-licensed DMDs

    high confidence · Chris Friebus discussing Pinball FX3 pipeline: 'Are they going to finally finish out the final three non-licensed DMDs, being Whodunit, Cactus Canyon, and Jackbot?'

  • Monster Bash plays and looks significantly better in Pinball FX3 than in Pinball Arcade

    medium confidence · Chris referencing community feedback: 'Monster Bash looks and plays so much better in this that it's like having gotten a new table and realizing you've just been playing with a knockoff the entire time.'

  • Many new pinball players have never accessed Williams tables from Pinball Arcade and would consider FX3 versions brand new

    medium confidence · Chris discussing new digital pinball audiences: 'there's plenty of people that have never downloaded any of the Williams, got a chance to download any of the Williams stuff from Pinball Arcade. So to them, this is all brand new.'

  • Fathom is essentially 8-Ball Deluxe reversed and therefore redundant

    medium confidence · Chris eliminating Fathom from consideration: 'I eliminated Fathom because it's essentially 8-Ball Deluxe reversed.'

  • Vector features a unique mechanic that measures pinball velocity based on drop target impacts

    high confidence · Jared confirming Vector mechanic: 'My favorite thing about it is it clocks how fast your pinball is moving. Yeah, based off of drop targets and points of contact.'

  • High Speed should not be added to FX3 because High Speed 2: Getaway is already available and superior

    high confidence · Chris: 'I crossed off High Speed because we already have High Speed 2, Getaway. And it's far better.'

  • Jackbot has the same layout as Pinbot but with superior rules

    high confidence · Chris: 'I crossed off Pinbot because if we get Jackbot, it's the exact same layout but better rules. Better rules. It's just better everything, really.'

  • Cyclone is superior to Comet among theme park pinball games

Notable Quotes

  • “I mean, I don't have OCD except for when I have OCD. This is one of those times. I like consistency in my visuals.”

    Chris Friebus @ early_segment — Reveals Chris's design philosophy prioritizing visual uniformity in custom backbox artwork

  • “Monster Bash looks and plays so much better in this that it's like having gotten a new table and realizing you've just been playing with a knockoff the entire time.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ mid_segment — Demonstrates quality improvement in Pinball FX3 vs Pinball Arcade implementations, justifying re-releases

  • “NBA Fastbreak has a really deep soft spot in me for it... Indiana Jones, for me, it's one of those tables where it beats me up a lot.”

    Chris Friebus @ ranking_segment — Shows personal gameplay experience influencing ranking decisions; acknowledges Indiana Jones difficulty factor

  • “Zen's not going for history. They're going for fun.”

    Jared Morgan @ alphanumeric_segment — Key insight into Zen Pinball's design philosophy vs Pinball Arcade's approach to historical significance

  • “It would be a perfect game to pair with Rollergames, because it literally is also people on rollerblades skating around the playfield. It's future Rollergames.”

    Jared Morgan @ vector_discussion — Creative thematic connection between Vector and Roller Games, highlighting game design relationships

  • “I swear, somebody better send me some Rollergames merch.”

    Chris Friebus @ new_alphanumerics_ranking — Humorous emphasis on Roller Games being Chris's #1 desired unlicensed alphanumeric title

  • “Comet is a sucky, slow game. It's boring.”

    Chris Friebus @ alphanumeric_elimination — Direct criticism of Comet's gameplay pacing and appeal

  • “Game Show really suffered from the amount of plastic ramps that's on it. It would have been so much cooler if it had had wireform trails.”

Entities

Chris FriebuspersonJared MorganpersonJay WillenpersonZen Pinballcompany[name withheld pending review]productPinball FX3productKeith ElwinpersonNorm WurzpersonFarsight StudioscompanyBudapest Pinball Museumvenue

Signals

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pinball FX3 still needs to complete final non-licensed DMD set (Whodunit, Cactus Canyon, Jackbot) before pivoting to new table additions; Cactus Canyon has documented licensing difficulties

    high · Chris: 'Are they going to finally finish out the final three non-licensed DMDs, being Whodunit, Cactus Canyon, and Jackbot? Are they having issues with... I mean, I know they were having a hard time fighting Cactus Canyon'

  • $

    market_signal: New cohort of digital pinball players has never accessed Williams Pinball Arcade library; re-releases of classic tables are perceived as new content to younger/newer audiences

    high · Chris: 'there's plenty of people that have never downloaded any of the Williams stuff from Pinball Arcade. So to them, this is all brand new.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Zen Pinball's design philosophy prioritizes fun and gameplay depth over historical preservation, contrasting with Pinball Arcade's archival approach

    high · Jared: 'Zen's not going for history. They're going for fun.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Pinball FX3's physics engine enables superior implementations of shot-aiming-dependent games (8-Ball Deluxe, Big Shot) compared to The Pinball Arcade

    medium · Chris: '8-Ball Deluxe... could use the physics so much to its advantage compared to what's in TPA' and comparison to Big Shot's success

  • ?

    content_signal: BlahCade hosts revived 'game list' format previously used for Pinball Arcade speculation; applying same methodology to FX3 table prioritization

    high · Chris: 'we haven't done one of these in a very long time, and that is a list of games... we used to do game lists all the time'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.204

0:00
blockade pinball podcast this is the blockade pinball podcast i am your host chris freebus aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway across the world jared morgan hello everybody you know i'm sitting here i never have solved the problem well i can't hear our opening logo anymore. It happened quite a while back where all of a sudden something happened with my sound issue. Remember there was that day where the sound was just a mess?
0:43
I remember those days when we first started with OBS. No, it wasn't when we first started with OBS. It was something switched with OBS. They updated it or whatever and everything was just a mess. Nobody could hear anything. We cancelled the podcast 10 minutes in, realizing nobody could hear us.
1:01
It was a hot mess. I have never been able to, since then, hear our logo anymore. Huh. Which, I mean, obviously it plays for everybody else, but it does not play for me. It's all right. You get the same experience as I do.
1:20
Utter silence. It's not OBS-y. Yeah, it's right. Yeah. Great. How's it going? It's been a little while. Yeah, it's going all right, actually. I haven't been playing a lot of pinball. I've actually instead been digging out an old Nintendo 3DS and realizing that's a really cool console. It is. It's a good platform. Yeah, it's a really good platform. And I've been playing Luigi's Mansion 2, which is a really, really fun game.
1:47
Really interesting game mechanic, platformer style. You're catching ghosts, so you feel like a ghostbuster walking around. You even have a vacuum cleaner that you use to suck up ghosts with. It's just a lot of fun to play. And being on the 3DS, you know, you can take it anywhere with you. Yeah. It's not leading to here, don't you? Yeah, my son has been playing or had been playing Luigi's Mansion 3 on the Switch. And my wife really loves it. And they're both sitting there going, you've got to play it, you've got to play it. And I'm just kind of like, I'll get to it. My kids are like on me every day. that I'm going to go, oh, so you're going to play more of Luigi's Mansion today? Can we watch it? But the thing that amazes me about the 3DS console, that it was obviously bought out when, or released when, you know, did 3D on televisions and everything, like classical 3D, was a massive deal. And boy, they have utilized that very well in that console. Like, it is amazing, the depth of field and the way they've actually, I remember when we were talking about 3D movies and stuff, you were always talking about how the director frames a shot and what you see through a lens through a 3D movie is sort of quite up to what the director wants you to see. Yes.

medium confidence · Chris: 'If you had to make a choice between Cyclone and Comet, you're going to clearly pick Cyclone. Every single time.'

  • Jay Willen created 4x3 backbox artwork adaptations in less than two hours

    high confidence · Chris crediting Jay Willen: 'he banged him out in less than two hours'

  • Budapest Pinball Museum is Zen's primary source for obtaining alphanumeric and classic pinball machines for licensing

    medium confidence · Jared suggesting: 'go and have a look at the Budapest Pinball Museum and see what games they have on their floor and then see if you can match those up because that's where they will be getting them from'

    • Jared Morgan @ game_show_critique — Technical analysis of Game Show's design limitations due to physical construction choices

  • “It's all about sharp shooting, essentially, taking your shots. So as much as people like Big Shot, the same would apply with 8-Ball Deluxe.”

    Chris Friebus @ 8ball_deluxe_analysis — Explains why 8-Ball Deluxe would benefit from Zen's physics improvements over TPA

  • “I think it's more just that instance of people, as easy it is for people to go, we just want something new. When you compare everything out there and you really ask yourself, what would you want to see first?”

    Chris Friebus @ closing_segment — Synthesizes episode's core theme: thoughtful curation beats reflexive novelty-chasing

    • Williams
    company
    [name withheld pending review]company
    Rollergamesgame
    Whirlwindgame
    Centaurgame
    The Addams Familygame
    NBA Fastbreakgame
    Indiana Jonesgame
    Vectorgame
    Medusagame
    Mousin' Around!game
    Game Showgame
    Monster Bashgame
    The Getaway: High Speed IIgame
    Jack·Botgame
    Cactus Canyongame
  • ?

    licensing_signal: Arcuda currently holds distribution rights to classic Williams/Bally tables; licensing remains available for platforms like Pinball FX3

    medium · Chris: 'games that are currently in TPA... you can still buy the license from Arcuda. Yeah, that's true. They just advertised.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Community member Jay Willen rapidly created adaptive backbox artwork (4x3 format) for Zen Pinball tables within 2 hours, demonstrating active fan ecosystem supporting digital implementations

    high · Chris: 'he banged him out in less than two hours' and 'blockadepinball.com slash zen-backboxes' public release

  • ?

    design_innovation: Vector features unique pinball velocity-tracking system using drop target contact points; identified as mechanically distinct and pairable with thematic Roller Games sequel concept

    high · Jared: 'it clocks how fast your pinball is moving... It would be a perfect game to pair with roller games, because it literally is also people on rollerblades skating around the playfield'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Budapest Pinball Museum identified as likely primary source for Zen Pinball's acquisition and licensing of alphanumeric and classic tables

    medium · Jared: 'go and have a look at the Budapest Pinball Museum and see what games they have on their floor and then see if you can match those up because that's where they will be getting them from'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community sentiment has shifted toward accepting classic table re-releases in new platforms due to quality improvements and new audience accessibility; Chris demonstrates balanced perspective on novelty vs. curation

    medium · Chris: 'Is it a bad thing that we get repeat stuff... So to them, this is all brand new' followed by deliberate 50/50 mix of new and re-released titles in final rankings

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pinball FX3 prioritizes visual zenification potential when evaluating classic alphanumeric candidates; potential for elaborate electrical effects (Whirlwind lightning, Centaur visuals) drives developer selection interest

    medium · Chris: 'I would kill to see what Zen would do with it' (Centaur) and 'the enhancements would be spectacular in Whirlwind. Yeah, it'd be awesome. Lightning bolts cracking onto the playfield.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Chris evaluates table prioritization based on personal gameplay experience and perceived rule depth; acknowledges incomplete mastery of some titles (Indiana Jones difficulty) influences preference ordering

    high · Chris: 'Indiana Jones, for me, it's one of those tables where it beats me up a lot, and so I've never really gotten deep into it' contrasted with 'NBA Fast Break has a really deep soft spot in me'

    • 3:05
    You can really see a lot of care and attention, particularly in Luigi's Mansion, has been given to the different layers of the 3D in there and everything's really consistent and it just feels really good to play through. And you never want to turn it off because it actually really enhances the game. So I really am quite enamored by the 3DS. I think it's a great little console. And I picked them up really cheap, like 70 bucks Australian. Oh yeah, no, you can pick them up for dirt cheap now and the games I'm sure are not terribly expensive anymore either. They're definitely not expensive when you use a Sky 3DS Plus. Ta-da!
    3:45
    That's right. So, yeah. Yeah, this week, this last week has been an odd one here, especially for somebody that's L.A.-based.
    3:56
    Obviously, the death of Kobe Bryant, I didn't expect that to hit me. Well, I shouldn't say I didn't expect it to hit me. I didn't enjoy being hit with the grief that I got hit with. And it was like, it's one of those things, you never know what, when certain famous people die, you never know how it's going to affect you because there's plenty where you're just like, oh, that's sad, that's a shame. And this one, man, it just hit me in the feels big time. And I think it has to do probably with the fact that his daughter was only a year younger than my son.
    4:30
    Right. So it's like I know where that is as a parent or whatever and that kind of stuff. So this whole, and then all the radio stations have been just like, it's all it was, wall-to-wall coverage and just, you know, dealing with the grief and everything, and then throw on top of that this lovely trial without witnesses that we've got going on right now for our impeachment.
    4:51
    What a three-ring circus. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I fortunately worked like eight days in a row at Disneyland, so that was taking my mind off of things. So, you know.
    5:04
    Being in the world of Disney, watching happy people do happy things. They could care less about what is going on in the rest of the world. Yes.
    5:12
    Exactly. That's kind of a good place to be, sort of isolate you in a happy place. Right. And even if people know what's going on in the world, they don't want to talk about what's going on in the world because they're at Disneyland. It's amazing. And they just want to have your photo taken in front of something cool.
    5:30
    Exactly. Speaking of things that are kind of cool. Something cool. So you might remember, all folks, last podcast, me putting out a plea for back glasses that fit my monitor and looked better and realizing that nobody was probably going to do that. But I pleaded anyway. And then it took all of about two days for me to go, I can probably do something myself.
    5:59
    So you finally did it. I remember the last podcast, you go, I don't really want to do it. Exactly. I didn't really want to do it. And here we are. Yeah. So here is the thought process, folks.
    6:16
    I had obviously, Jay Willen, who is sitting here watching us right now in our comment section, he had sent me two links at two different times of places to find the back glasses. And the first one that I was sent, everything was already pre-done. The file titles were already pre-done. so it was really easy to drop those in and that's when I had them pop up and it was just a back glass and then obviously I had the DMD in front of it and my big complaint was well the DMD is blocking the back glass so then the second link that I was sent was somebody that had put the grills the speaker grills and the DMD box with the artwork above it which was cool that was definitely what I was asking for except for the fact that that was only for the Williams tables and not for any of the Zen tables. The Zen tables, no speaker box, and it was just the full 16x9 back glass. Yeah, right. Okay. Which I didn't like. Because being a stickler for consistency, that would have been truing you at 9,000, wouldn't it? Exactly. I mean, I don't have OCD except for when I have OCD. This is one of those times. I like consistency in my visuals. I cannot deny it. I like a theme to kind of carry through. So it's one of the things that drove me nuts about visual pinball was how one author would make tables look a certain way and they would be in a certain angle and all that, and then you'd download another author's table and it would be all different and the lighting would be different. To me, it felt like a Frankenstein piece of games, which is why I always preferred it when Pinball Arcade came out. Because I was like, hey, this is fantastic. It's all uniform. I'll take the niggly things that I don't like because it's all at least uniform. Yeah, all the niggly things are at least consistent.
    8:20
    Exactly. So, in this second link, what was nice was... There was all the back glass art. There was another file that was all fan glass, or fan glass, fan-made alternates, you might say. There was another folder. I think we're going to run with fan glass. Fan glass? I think that works.
    8:43
    I like it. And then there was also other art elements that were basically like vector graphic or clear background kind of graphics.
    8:55
    Things that I was like, oh, I can kind of probably work with that. So I started tinkering around, and I started with using the, of all things, Champion Pub's grill, speaker grill and everything, and just placing images over the top of where the back glass would have been and shrinking them to size and kind of messing around with that. I get through every single table that Zen offers, and I get through that. I'm looking at it, and I'm like, eh, it's all right. It's still not quite what I wanted, but it's okay. And the one thing that's bugging me was I was like, I should have a Zen logo down at the bottom covering up the belly. So I put the Zen logo down there. It was all flat. I was like, I would like that to be metallic.
    9:47
    How can I do that? So then it was, well, let's see if I can drop out something and put in, like, Chrome or whatever. And I wound up with a little Chrome badge that I put the Zen logo on top of, and I was like, yeah, that looks cool. Okay, let's put this on top of one of the things. I put it on one of the machines, and I was like, yeah, that looks great. And then it hit me. I got to redo every single one of these because do you think I saved the files? No. No, I saved them just as JPEGs. I didn't save them as Photoshop files. Those are false. Or I'm not using Photoshop. I'm using Inkscape since it's nice and free. And no, see, I wasn't using Inkscape. I was using GIMP, which is also free. And so I was like, okay, I got to go back and do these all over again. So I start redoing. I started with like the Star Wars ones. And I realized I don't like the hyperspace that I used in the background. I got to find another hyperspace. And then I was like, there's got to be an easier way than me constantly, each time shrinking the images. I'm like, I've got to make this uniform. I've got to just crank through them. Right.
    10:56
    So I wound up making a template that I could just quickly throw the image in, move it around the background. It's already going to be matted off. Everything will work fine. So I went through, and I was doing that, and I was happy with what I did for Star Wars. And then I was like, well, what do I do attack next? and I'm like, oh, let's attack Zen. And I spent so much time trying to figure out what would be a good just backdrop for Zen because I wanted to use the little smaller logos because I liked those images better than the 16 by 9 images, which all looked low res and basically from pinball effects too.
    11:34
    And so I kind of came up with, well, it was half-assed backdrop and then I found a better backdrop image on Google and I wound up applying that. So I went through all that That was all great. And then I started realizing, well, something's wrong with the edges. They're too sharp dropping into the black. So then I realized, oh, I need to put a vignette filter over it. So I had to go back.
    11:59
    I wasn't too deep on it yet, but I had to go back. Put a vignette filter. I did it on all the Star Wars tables. I did it on all the Zen tables. And then I did it on the Marvel tables. And by the time I got done with the Marvel tables, I was like really flowing and going, I know what I'm doing now. This is great. And then all that was left was the tables that I liked the back glasses for and just kind of manipulating them into place. And so all of a sudden, done. I had them all done. It was like, I like them. They look good.
    12:28
    Posted them. And it was like, okay, this will work. And I started getting some positive feedback. And then Jay Willen popped on, and he was like, well, but do you have them for a 4x3 monitor? no and i just said jay if you want to create them for a 4x3 monitor here's the files and you can i'm sharing this file with you you can resubmit it and dude he banged him out in less than two hours um oh there you go what a legend yeah he so he put them up there so what is available are back glasses for a 16 by 9 monitor but with basically window boxed in almost a 4x3 size, or you can download the 4x3 versions that Jay was able to hammer out and make look good. If you are somebody that wants a 16x9 stretched with no window box, you're out of luck. Sorry.
    13:30
    Too bad. So sad. Too bad. So sad. But you can, yeah, the link, you can actually download it. Jared's got it in front of him. I just pushed it into the slot. He just pushed it into the slot. So it's blockadepinball.com slash zen-backboxes. Again, blockadepinball.com slash zen-backboxes. You guys are all free to download those, use those if you want to use them in a stream. I don't care. I did not create any of the artwork. That's my whole thing. I purely assembled what others had done. So I'm in debt to those that had already done all the hard work. I just rejiggered the pieces into something that made me happy. One thing we should probably do is put a credits file in that share to credit the people who actually did make them originally, if we can find out who they are. Yeah. Oh, Jay is saying that, yeah, Hercules does look odd, and he looked odd in both pieces of art that I actually had. So I blame Zen, because they're the ones that I believe created the initial art file. Oh, right. Well, you know, you share these on Twitter, and Zen went, ah, these are pretty good. Right? I'm like, hey, guys.
    14:46
    Yeah, exactly. So maybe Zen will get a good idea and maybe eventually put out back boxes. I just wish that they would do it for the Williams, make them animated like they should be, you know, with the light show.
    14:59
    Yeah, with the flat wheel, yeah. That would require interesting tech, wouldn't it, for the back blocks? But, yeah, you're right. That would be pretty cool. Yeah.
    15:07
    So anyway, those are out there. They're available. Have at them, if you will. I'm happy to share. Giving back what I can. Yeah. That's pretty good. That looked right. Yeah. I think so myself. And I'm happy now because now I can play them that way, the way it should be.
    15:26
    You're not triggered. No. Not triggered. Much. Pretty well, at least for a few more months. That's right. Let's move on.
    15:39
    I've got to get my file up here so I can actually read it. So we haven't done one of these in a very long time, and that is a list of games.
    15:50
    Yeah, the game lists. Yeah, I remember these. Yeah, we used to do game lists all the time, and this would be when we were speculating about what should be coming up, and it was always with Pinball Arcade. And then we kind of did it with, hey, here's what's available for Xen when we are figuring out all the unlicensed DMDs. Well, we're through that point where we don't know what is coming next to FX3. Are they going to finally finish out the final three non-licensed DMDs, being Whodunit, Cactus Canyon, and Jackbot?
    16:21
    Are they having issues with... I mean, I know they were having a hard time fighting Cactus Canyon, and is Jackbot going to be an issue with the gambling? and does anybody really care about whodunit?
    16:35
    Well, yeah. That's right. We at this show are not exactly fans of whodunit, so there you go. I'll piss on it all day long.
    16:45
    So then it becomes, well, okay, so what do they do next? Are they going to be doing license tables? Are they going to be doing alphanumerics? And the ever plea that everybody does which is please just give us something that we haven had before Yeah that fair enough too It is fair enough but then as I recently read one person they go I don't even hold the two in light with each other. Like, Monster Bash looks and plays so much better in this that it's like having gotten a new table and realizing you've just been playing with a knockoff the entire time. Yeah, well, that is true. So is it a bad thing that we get repeat stuff, especially considering how many people,
    17:34
    with the way pinball has been taking off lately in the digital market, and especially with all these now virtual cabinets coming out, there's plenty of people that have never downloaded any of the Williams, got a chance to download any of the Williams stuff from Pinball Arcade. So to them, this is all brand new. so with that being said i thought that we would uh take a look at uh what is what is available to us and uh maybe kind of figure out do we really want all the new stuff or would we be happier seeing some of the old stuff first that's right so let's kind of start with the dmd machines and I'm just going to rattle off this list. Here's what is left for licensed DMDs. You've got Brown Stickers Dracula, No Fear, Star Trek Next Generation, Terminator 2, Adam's Family, Doctor Who, Indianapolis 500, Judge Dredd, Scared Sif, Twilight Zone, and World Cup Soccer. That's what's left of the licensed... Oh, excuse me. What am I saying? Those are the things that were in TPA.
    18:50
    Right, okay. Got to get my bearings. That's what was in TVA. What is left is Congo, Demolition Man, Dirty Harry, Flintstones, Indiana Jones, Johnny Mnemonic, Corvette, Gilligan's Island, NBA Fast Break, Popeye, and The Shadow.
    19:05
    So I kind of decided I need to figure out, A, what are my, I mean, there's only 11 tables there on both ends, but what are my top 10? What order would I want to see them in most? and then and I did this basically for both what is already in TPA what are my top 10 and what would be new to us what are the top 10 and then kind of comparing the list figuring out well would I rather have this before this and kind of going down there and so this top 10 list is kind of funny because like I said there's only 11 tables but here's the order that I put them in so from Pinball Arcade my top 10 would be Addams Family, World Cup Soccer, Dracula, Twilight Zone, Indianapolis 500, Star Trek, Judge Dredd, T2, Scared Stiff, and No Fear in terms of the order that I'd want to... what I'd prefer to see first. Let's put it to you that way.
    20:04
    Obviously, not making that list then would be Doctor Who, which, I mean, it's alright, but I just never... I don't know. It just kind of fell off the list in terms of where I'd want it, and it was only top 10.
    20:17
    As far as the stuff that hasn't made it yet, obviously my number one is NBA Fast Break, and then Indiana Jones, Dirty Harry, The Shadow, Johnny Mnemonic at number five, Demolition Man, Corvette, Flintstones, Congo, and last would be Gilgan's Island, and not making the list would be Popeye's. Popeye's, Popeye. Popeye, yeah. I'd probably put Demolition Man a little higher than that, because I played a lot of it, and it's got a lot of depth to it. And that is part of the thing. Some of these tables I don't have a lot of experience on, so that's where it's gone. Johnny's a weird one.
    20:56
    It never really clicked with me, although that just may be my personal opinion about it. But definitely Demolition Man has got heaps of potential in it. So, yeah, it's a lot of fun, that game. So from there, I then basically went, okay, let's go down, let's compare these two lists. And let me ask myself, what would I want to see first come into Pinball FX3? And for me, real quickly, it became, well, I'd have NBA Fast Break as my number one. And then, yes, I would have it above Indiana Jones, which I have as my number two.
    21:33
    That's how much I like NBA Fast Break, folks. Indiana Jones, I mean... is not that deep compared to Indiana Jones from a modes perspective and from everything else. No, but it's incredibly fun.
    21:51
    Yeah, I mean, Indiana Jones, for me, it's one of those tables where it beats me up a lot, and so I've never really gotten deep into it. I appreciate it, and by all means... It's a hard table. It is a hard table. It's like mountains.
    22:05
    Yes. And by all means, I would love to be able to... It would be fun. Yeah, I'd love to be able to have an unlimited amount of time to just sit down and play with it. But NBA Fast Break has a really deep soft spot in me for it, so that's where that's at. So NBA Fast Break, Indiana Jones. And then, interestingly enough, the next four tables would all have been from TPA. So it goes Addams Family, World Cup Soccer, Dracula, and then Twilight Zone.
    22:31
    That would be up to number six. Number seven, I'd have Dirty Harry, and then Indianapolis 500, and then rounding out would be The Shadow and Johnny Mnemonic. So those would be my top ten. And, interestingly enough, it's five new ones, five old ones.
    22:47
    It's a good mix. Which I didn't plan. It wasn't like I was like, I have to have five and five of each. No, I literally went through the list and went, which would I rather have? And whoever won, then I went down to the next spot and went, okay, does this one beat out the other? And that's how I kind of formulated this. So that's my finalist for what I would want for DMD machines. Now, we get into the interesting part, which is alphanumerics.
    23:16
    And here's where the list is a little funky, because once you reach a certain point on the list, you go, really? Do I even need to include that table on the list? Because you know that you're not going to really want that table over a bunch of the others.
    23:33
    So here's the example. Well, I'll just real quickly rattle off. This is what is in TPA. Bonsai Run, Black Knight 2000, Black Knight, Bride of Pinbot, Centaur, Cyclone, Diner, Earthshaker, 8-Ball Deluxe, Elvira and the Party Monsters, Fathom, Firepower, Funhouse, F-14, Gorgar, Highspeed, Paragon, Pinbot, Sorcerer, Space Shuttle, Sword to Fury, Taxi, Whirlwind, and Xenon.
    23:58
    That's what's in TPA currently, and it would be going up against... It's kind of a short list. Bad Cats, Big Guns, Comet, Embryon, Fire, Flash, Grand Lizard, Jokers, Medusa, Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man, Police Force, Riverboat Gambler, Road Kings, Roller Games, Space Station, Vector, Radical, Pool Sharks, Bally Game Show, Mouse and Around, Strange Science. So basically what I did was I took pretty much all the System 11 tables, threw those into the mix, and then kind of hand-picked some of the earlier tables that are popular. But you'll notice I didn't put Future Spa in there. I didn't put... Transport of the Rescue. Exactly. Yeah. There's all sorts of... It's actually a fun game, that one.
    24:51
    It's very much like Flight 2000 in its locking mechanism. And it was kicking my butt at Netherworld. I've managed to play it. But I'm also trying to think of tables that would make sense for Zen to do and put graphics on, enhancements on. Yeah.
    25:07
    Transporter would be a weird one. Yeah. So that was kind of the thought process. And then what I went and did was I real quickly crossed off some tables that I was like, I think we can all agree that these are not going to make the cut right off the bat. So, like, for instance, I eliminated Fathom because it's essentially 8-Ball Deluxe reversed.
    25:27
    What about Big Guns, though? I crossed off Big Guns, and I crossed off Grand Lizard, because, I don't know, I don't really hear a lot of people ever clamor for either of those. I grew up with Big Guns. Did you? That was one of the first, yeah. And it's like any System 11, it's all about locking balls, but the fact that it's got two catapults on it, and they actually cross-shot, there's some interesting things going on in that game.
    25:53
    So it's a full flipper game, for one, so it's got lots of flippers. No pop bumpers. No pop-bombers, no. It's one that doesn't have pop-bombers, but it's got a lot of drop targets on it. So, I mean, granted, I'm personal bias. I'm crossing off things, too, that I don't have a lot of experience.
    26:11
    Like I crossed off Road Kings. Again, nobody clamors for it. Space Station. Well, would you rather have a space shuttle or a space station? The answer can be space shuttle.
    26:20
    No. Space Station, actually. Really? Space Station is a better game, yeah. Interesting. Well, yeah, it is. I had fun with it. I crossed off Pool Sharks.
    26:31
    Who even knows about Pool Sharks? I haven't played it. Although, I'm sure there's people out there going, Pool Sharks is the best game ever. Right? I crossed off Comet. Because, I'm sorry, Comet is a sucky, slow game. It's boring.
    26:45
    No, Hurricane is the pick of the theme park games. Well, I mean, I'm fine with Cyclone. I left Cyclone in.
    26:53
    But if you had to make a choice between Cyclone and Comet, you're going to clearly pick Cyclone. Every single time. Yeah, Cyclone's better. Yeah. I crossed off High Speed because we already have High Speed 2, The Getaway. And it's far better. Same reason I crossed off Pinbot because if we get Jackbot, it's the exact same layout but better rules. Better rules. It's just better everything, really. Yeah. I crossed off Gorgar just because I don't see it making sense as a Zen game. No, it was relevant with Pinball Arcade because it did have historical significance. Exactly, but Xen's not going for history. No, they're going for fun. Exactly. So based off that list, I created, once again, my top ten. And it goes a little something like this. So for games that are currently in TPA, or were currently in TPA back in the day, you can still buy the license from Arcuda. Yeah, that's true. They just advertised. We'll talk about that in a moment. So number one for me, Whirlwind, then Centaur, 8-Ball Deluxe, Funhaus, Bride of Pinbot at number five, F-14, Diner, Earthshaker, Space Shuttle, and Firepower. Those would be my top ten. And then of the games that haven't come out, I go number one, of course, Roller Games. What a surprise. Who would have guessed it?
    28:20
    I swear, somebody better send me some Roller Games merch. Number two, Mousing Around, which is such a better game than Bad Cats, so screw you all, you Bad Cats folks. Mousing Around for the win.
    28:34
    Vector, which is an odd one. I know most people have never played it, but it's really a lot of fun. Me and Norman at Farsight really had a fond love for Vector.
    28:45
    Maybe it's on YouTube. I almost had him convinced to put it into TPA, too. He was trying like mad. He really wanted it. My favorite thing about it is it clocks how fast your pinball is moving.
    29:01
    Oh, really? Yeah, based off of drop targets and points of contact. It's this whole... It would be a perfect game to pair with roller games, because it literally is also people on rollerblades skating around the playfield. It's future roller games. Future roller games, yes. Like Future Star. Yeah, all right. Alright, so where was I on that list? Okay, so yeah, Roller Games, Master Round, Vector, Medusa. Number five, Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man. This is not Baby Pac-Man. This is Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man.
    29:33
    So Baby Pac-Man has an actual... Mono-self. Yeah, it's got an actual video game portion to it. Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man does not. It just has a whole bunch of insert lights that kind of create the maze.
    29:45
    Which is kind of cool. Yes, yeah. I've had a lot of fun with that one. so that was number five, number six, Ballet Game Show I know you're a big fan of that one, Jared I do like Game Show, although I saw on Instagram the other day, somebody found a really, really nice specimen of it out there, and they go look, this is in such good condition, but I think that's because no one likes to play it It's one of those games that it really suffered from the amount of plastic ramps that's on it, it would have been so much cooler if it had had wireform trails. Yeah, yeah, it would have. And again, it's a very linear sort of System 11 style software set. Yes, absolutely. So I really am just playing for multiple and showcase Bonanza. But, you know, Keith McTeeth makes it for me. I love him. Number seven would be Radical, then Fire, Riverboat Gambler, and rounding them out, I put Embry on. You what's really funny with fire i my first taste of fire was in um visual pin maim and and for some reason there was a ramp or something in it that it just looked so wrong yes the way they did it and it it just completely put me off the game i couldn't play it because it was like what i don't find it to be a visual appealing game and it is a game also with little flow because it is nothing but shooting dead ends.
    31:14
    That being said, it's never been in anything. It's never been in anything. I know it's highly requested and I like it better than a lot of those other tables. Yeah, that's right.
    31:28
    It'll be good. Yeah, so from there I kind of paired it down again and so my finalists for all those. Number one, roller games. Duh. Number two, Whirlwind. That's my other absolute favorite table. Number three, Centaur because I would kill to see what Zen would do with it. Then number four, Likewise with Whirlwind. You can already imagine the hurricanes. Oh yeah, the enhancements would be spectacular in Whirlwind. Yeah, it'd be awesome.
    31:59
    Lightning bolts cracking onto the playfield. Yeah, wicked. It'd be cool. Number 4, Mouse and Around. Number 5, 8-Ball Deluxe. Then Funhaus, Brita Pinbot, Vector, Medusa, and Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man would be number 10. 8-Ball Deluxe would be an interesting one to Zenify. What would they do? They just have a dude playing pool?
    32:24
    That is a good question. I'm not sure what they would Zenify, but it's... that's one of those tables that it could use the physics so much to its advantage compared to what's in TPA. TPA didn't do a bad job with it, but we're talking about a table that is very heavy on the aiming.
    32:45
    Yeah, it's all about sharp shooting, essentially, taking your shots. Exactly. So as much as people like Big Shot, the same would apply with 8-Ball Deluxe. True. so anyway Zen if you're listening there's my top 10 of both DMDs licensed and for your alphanumeric selections I guess yeah alphanumerics because you know I think people all too readily say oh they're all anything that's alphanumeric is system 11 it's actually not correct there's a range of systems that were alphanumerics and they just get lumped into system 11 I should point out also and again without me trying it's 5 and 5 yeah it is too I didn't plan that now what you need to do is go and have a look at the Budapest Pinball Museum and see what games they have on their floor and then see if you can match those up because that's where they will be getting them from yes absolutely that is where they will be getting them from yeah um trying to think what else was the idea behind me kind of coming up with that list but it escaping me I think it's more just that instance of people, as easy it is for people to go, we just want something new. When you compare everything out there and you really ask yourself, what would you want to see first?
    34:18
    That's kind of what the impetus is. It starts to narrow things down a bit. It really does. Yeah. Because you do sit there and you go, well, do I really want to see, like I said, Gilligan's Island before we get Adam's Family? No.
    34:32
    No. Not just because it's new to digital? No. The thing is, though, I don't think this is going to be a problem, of course, with Xen, because I've already got a lot of the, both the graphical presentation and physics, let's call them ironed out. but if you had a really like a top a top 10 game come out this early with zen you know what would then happen to their ability to do like a full visual effects um suite on it compared to if they left it to one of the last tables that came out you know and they found their feet more and they worked out how to do even more cool digital effects would you prefer to have it now or wait and have it amazing potentially? You know, honestly, I think they've already found the sweet spot.
    35:24
    With Monster Bash, etc. Monster Bash, No Good Gophers, like I said, I think they nailed it on that without going too over the top. I think they've actually found a sweet spot and we're right there on the physics that is also a sweet spot. So I'm... It's worth considering, but I think you're probably right. Yeah, I'm kind of, like I said, here it goes again with the consistency. Lock it all down. Just crank out the rest of these. Yeah, that's right. You know, I'll be happy in that manner.
    36:01
    Just leave it at that. All right, let's move on to something else then. Okay. Jared... Oh, yeah. Well, let's talk about that. I just saw that. Oh, that one. But just in the comments, thank you for pointing this out. So somebody went and rewrote the entire code to No Good Gophers and created their own LCD screen, replacing the DMD. No Good Gophers 2.0, like product pinbot 2.0, basically. Right. Thing being, though, that since they replaced the entire code, replaced every single bit of audio and no DMD, it's all their own, it's basically they don't have to suffer with the license there's no copyright infringement going on correct no um so i was reading kind of the rules and what they were improving and all that and i went hey that's pretty interesting i like where they're going with this and then i clicked on the video showing it and my interest immediately waned because i realized how much i like no good gophers is directly related to how much I like the audio package and what goes on on the DVD.
    37:14
    You had the opposite reaction. Yeah, I went, I can take that audio and just chuck it in the bin. Like, it doesn't really... It's very repetitive. It's on a very short loop. And it just sounds like the... Well, I know why you like it, because it sounds like the Caddyshack music over and over and over again. Yeah, you know.
    37:33
    But, no, for me, if he's going to the effort of completely redoing the rules, completely redoing the story, then I don't want the old music in there. That ties it back, that anchors it to the previous version. Which, again, reading the story, which essentially winds up a bear wanders onto the golf course and Bud decides to convince the bear that he's a gopher.
    37:57
    So that plays into the whole fact that Buzz is still a little dim. A little screwy. Yeah. But when I look at the graphics, it's like, well, hey, this is homebrew. This is, you know, people that have some ability, clearly, to do CG graphics, but it's not of the quality that I would want.
    38:22
    It's not Stern, or any of the stuff they're pumping out. Right. Or like Jersey Jack or anything like that. It's not even, I mean, it's certainly not Pixar. It's certainly not DreamWorks. It's kind of like if you went to the Redbox, And instead of having a movie titled Frozen, they have a movie called Really Cold. And if you're silly enough to rent that, you're going to get some animation that is very there.
    38:52
    Yeah. But not exactly of the high-quality nature. And I felt the same thing with the music that was being used, the sound effects being used. Everything was – it wasn't terrible. it just wasn't anything that I could imagine wanting. And I'm directly comparing this to Cactus Canyon Continued, which nailed every single aspect of it for me in every single way. Right. Okay. But anyway, it's worth, if you guys want to see what we're talking about, it's worth looking up and seeing what that video is. I certainly applaud the effort, and I don't want to disparage. No, it couldn't have been easy. Putting it onto a P-Rock format. which is the board set they're using, and re-engineering the entire rule set. It's a massive undertaking. Yeah. I would not know how many hours this guy has put into it, but I'd imagine it will be a lot of hours. Yeah. So, again, I applaud the effort by all means. I don't think it was a bad thing, and hopefully they'll continue. Maybe this will get them attention, and we'll get other people to volunteer some work, and maybe smooth out some of those edges that don't work for me. I think this pattern, though, that this particular home enthusiast has used to develop the new ROM set is clearly the pattern that needs to continue. So the fact that he's gone, I'm not using any single copyrighted asset from the old game and I'm going completely brand new everything, that's the only way that you can actually sell and market these things consistently because you there's no there's no repercussions we can do it like this no and it's why the guy that do cactus can you continued can't sell it because he's using assets that were already in the game it's a shame that he can't redo cactus can you continue 2.1 and actually do it so it's completely copyright free yeah but that will be them very hard because of all the music and all the assets and it will probably, for you, it will probably destroy it. Yeah, exactly.
    41:04
    But it's one of those things where it reminds me of somebody had transformed a giant mnemonic into the Matrix completely. I mean, full DMV, music, play field, everything was converted to the Matrix. I never saw it in action, never heard it, but it certainly intrigued me. And so that's why this also intrigued me in the same fashion. I've seen a really nice I guess a reskin of the Getaway High Speed 2 into a black edition it looks amazing the work they've done on it so it's not changing anything with the playfield etc but it's like this black edition Getaway High Speed 2 and then there's another one that they've turned it into Mad Max Fury Road Edition and they've even custom modded the Shift Gear animations. It's like Kick It In The Guts or something like that. Very Australian.
    42:02
    And it's pretty cool. They've done some DMD hacks to it to make it a little bit more Mad Max-y. You know, right now, sitting here, I'm going to do what I never should normally do, but I'm just going to do it anyway. Sitting right here, above my computer monitor, is a Mad Max Fury Road poster. yeah right yeah you know i'm i'm a fan uh anyway focus what i do i screwed up things no it's fine oh well oh there it goes all right sort of sort of fun back to it here we go there it goes yay success victory gum um yeah if if anybody gets that reference bang on um i don't It's something that we say in our house all the time. Okay. Yeah. Is it – on the subject of things that you only say in your house, there's a thing. It's actually called familect. It's a family dialect where you only – where only you use it in your family. So, yeah, it's called a familect. Well, this is from a very popular show that would be popular among kids because it was animated. I'll give you one more hint. Okay. We'll give you one more hint. We just throw it out randomly. This is why it's a family thing. So apart from saying victory gum, we also do nostrils on the bus, which makes no sense to you. But again, if you get the reference, bang on you. Good. Okay. Jared shared a video with me.
    43:35
    This is fun. We're going to try and be not too catty. As nice as we can be. Not too mean. But it's going to be difficult.
    43:47
    Yeah, okay. So let me... Yeah, you set it up. I'll set it up. So as part of the Chalky Shock digital pinball fan page run by Patrick Walton, there was a community member who shared a link to a video in there, and the YouTuber goes by the name of Scararm Productions. was at CES and he sat down with a Mr. Robert King from Farsight Studios who we know as Bobby King and he got to talking about the current offerings, the future offerings and had a bit of discourse with Bobby for about 14 minutes in the video and about two minutes in I stopped the video and I copied the link and shared it with Chris and I said, have a guess what I'm finding amusing. So, yeah, watching this video, it's clear as a bell that whoever's doing this interview, the Scararm guy, he doesn't have a clue about digital video pinball. No, he really doesn't. Which is always a big thrill for me whenever I listen to an interview of that nature. And Bobby's being Bobby, which is, you know, just kind of... He's there in South by the way. Bobby's not necessarily the most talkative person. You really have to prompt him to get him to answer.
    45:26
    So his answers are usually quite short. But yeah, so he gets through about the two-minute mark. and Bobby, it's mentioned about, I think it was mentioned about the one-up booth or whatever and the other offerings are out there and Bobby says that essentially he thinks that they still have the best physics on the market.
    45:53
    Mm-hmm. Jesus. Yeah. Yeah, okay, maybe put the pipe down. But it's like, okay, you know what? I'm going to let it slide because what is he going to say? What is he going to say? Oh, yeah, our physics, our second rate. No, of course, you're there to promote your software. You're there to promote this brand. So, yes, you're going to continue on. It's going to be – I think it would be fair to say our physics probably represent the floatiness of got league tables. because that's true yeah like the if you set them at the correct pitch like the factory pitch they behave like they do in the toy shop pinball cabinet like they are flowsy as anything yes so there's just that unnatural speed jump that happens in a which almost never happens in an em uh where it gets towards one of the playfield yeah yeah yeah that that's the bit that's not quite right. It continues.
    46:59
    They're continuing the interview and they're talking about the product and the funny thing is that Bobby's not there. He's not a representative of Toy Shock. He's only purely talking about the software so he doesn't have much to say about the actual physical build.
    47:12
    Or know much about the roadmap for it, clearly in the video. But anyhow. He's commenting about that this is the Wave 1, or the first version, that the 2.0 version of it is coming out.
    47:32
    Mentions that they've got the physical buttons for nudging, but that they're looking into... Because that's apparently... But because he actually said that we're looking at putting an accelerometer in, which it's well known that that's what Toy Shock was doing. I think we covered that in a previous podcast. But the thing was he was saying, because it's a lot easier to tilt with buttons, Which was nice. Really? Sure. Okay. I don't know who you're talking to, but okay. You got it.
    48:06
    So then the interview kind of continues. And the funny thing is, and this is where I just was laughing because you can just see how visibly uncomfortable Bobby was with it. The guy keeps on bringing up 1UP and Zen. and at one point he goes, yeah, I really like Black Knight. And Bobby just goes, yeah, we used to have that.
    48:29
    And he was, you could just see the poor guy. He was like, can we please talk about Gottlieb and not about the license that we have not had for two years? Yeah, because it got taken off because we didn't have the competitive product anymore. Right, right. So I'm feeling bad for Bobby and just kind of like this. And again, this guy's interview techniques are lacking partly just because he doesn't have any tact and partly because he doesn't know the product that he's talking about.
    49:03
    And especially when he goes, he goes, so how many tables you got on here? And Bobby says, oh, there's 12. Oh, okay, okay. And literally like two minutes later he goes, okay, so you've got 10 tables on these. And Bobby's like, no, 12. and so it kind of keeps on going on and then this moment happens now keep in mind also the toy shock booth is literally maybe I don't know what would you say 15 20 feet wide a standard trade show booth size which is I don't know they usually you can get two sizes I think they've got a double-sized booth. Yeah, it seemed like about a double-sized booth.
    49:51
    Three walls, that's it. It's got the four cabinets inside of it. But right above Bobby's head is a poster, basically taped to the wall, of Wave 2, which would be the Gladiator table. It's actually Wave 3, because Wave 2 is the one where they've got the black bezel, and they've probably got a slightly increased processor and a better plunger and stuff like that. Well, when I say Wave 2, I mean in terms of table selections. So that's what I'm saying. Wave 1 is one point. There's wave 2.0, but I don't know. Anyway, not the point. The point being, this is the part that killed me.
    50:27
    So they're asking about the price point and basically how Toy Shock is competing with 1UP. Yeah. And now keep in mind that Bobby has already mentioned that oh this new version with the other 12 tables is going to be a slightly higher price point because it going to have adjustable legs and it going to have an accelerometer and it going to have an LCD screen on it Obviously it going to kick up the price right Currently the way that 1UP is the rumored price point that 1UP is offering is about $100 more.
    51:11
    So you figure that the Toy Shock 1 is going to probably come in right at that exact same price point. About $500, yeah. Yeah, considering what's going to be involved. and so Bobby goes well when comparing he's like well I really think that we've got great table selections and I really think that our physics are the best out there again the thing is that when he was the other thing that like about midway through that video he was explaining the table choices that were included in the Toy Shack product. And it comes out that, oh yeah, we include lights, camera, action, because it's not one of the most popular games, but I like it. But that's not the reason. It's the range of tables. But that's not the reason. That's the thing. It's not the reason. The reason why you picked that was you only had 24 tables to pick from, and you picked all the alphanumerics and didn't pick any of the DMDs for a very good reason, because you didn't have a DMD on the thing. So it's not so much that you picked it because you liked it. It's you picked it because these were what – You had to. Yeah, you had to. This is – we only had 24 to choose from. Yeah. So yeah, so he's sitting there saying that basically he's like, well, I think we have a better price point and our physics are better.
    52:38
    Oh, and here's the coup de grace. He goes, it's not just our physics are better. Excuse me. It's also that he thinks that the game runs better, that it's more efficient in running. He goes, because look, this is running on Android.
    52:51
    Yeah, it's running on Android at 30 frames per second. To which I'm like, have you not? I can pick up my phone and I can directly compare No Good Gophers between the TPA version and the Williams pinball version. Yes, which runs better.
    53:08
    Yeah, yeah. And we've said this for years. If you listen to us, there is what Jared fondly referred to as data debt, and it was slowing down. Technical debt is huge in the pinball arcade.
    53:25
    And I don't know. I don't think they've done anything. Because literally, if you've got to really listen carefully to the little nuggets that get dropped in this video, because Bobby said, oh, yeah, this is what we've been working on for the last year. The entire year, you've been working on this? This is it. Just this. I think it's been in their office on the whiteboard and has an individual or two working on it. But I wouldn't say they were nonstop devoted doing nothing but working on it.
    54:00
    So the other thing too is, you know, let's just circle back to the 30 frames a second. so folks who actually own a wave one version of toy shock and you're wondering why you have um flipper lag that's your reason it's designed to run at 60 frames per second that's that's the clock speed that pimple arcade is designed to run it because the the the physics and everything need to be at 60 frames per second for the physics engine to understand how to interpret them so you clock it at 30 you're gonna have a bad time i just can't believe that they released the product clocked at 30. Like, it boggles my mind that they thought that was a good idea. To which the interviewer in his summary later, he goes, I got a lot of hands-on time with it, and some of the tables play better than others in terms of the flipper lag. And he goes, and the ones that do have more severe flipper lag, he goes, you kind of get used to it and plan for it.
    54:54
    Which is not a good way to play pinball, folks. You're supposed to be reactionary. You're not supposed to be like, wait, is this the one that I have to account for the flipper lag on or not? I don't know. Oh, hang on. I mustn't flip just yet as I want to flip just yet because, you know, it's got to flip a leg. Yeah. And then the industry leading flip a leg. Yes. Industry leading flip a leg. And then the other nugget that was dropped, the interviewer asked, so what's next? What do you got in the works? to which Bobby responded that he mentioned that they had lost the Williams license, but they're going to pursue getting it back.
    55:34
    Oh, not only just that license, but all the licenses. Yes. So did you hear that? All the licenses. They've lost Stern as well. So, yeah. Bye-bye.
    55:45
    Because you had to listen to it very carefully. It was like, oh, yes, we'd like to get those licenses back again. It's like, yeah, well, I'm sorry. Pretty much, hello, Zen, for Stern. He pretty much gave it away. But I'm just like, really, you think that you're going to get this back from Zen?
    56:04
    How? No. It's a mystery. I'm lost for words. I just don't know. And again, I come back to what else do you expect him to do? He's there to promote a product. He's there to promote his company. He's not going to bash his own company. He's going to prop themselves up. But I also think that there's other words that can be used to kind of skirt around some of these things. And there is no harm. Like, for instance, in terms of with the question regarding how is this for competition, it's real simple. Hey, competition is great for everybody. It makes everybody elevate their game. That's what we're going to do, and we expect them to do the same.
    56:49
    Yeah. That's an answer. That's how you don't just put yourself out there and say, well, our physics are better, because we've got an entire digital pinball forum that would say differently.
    57:03
    Yeah. It's not just us saying this. It's literally everybody. Yeah. Hold on. What's the question here? Non-exclusive license for tables Zen doesn't want to make and Farsight already have. That would be the only other, and we've mentioned this before, That would be the only other thing is maybe Zen paid for exclusivity for launch and for X amount of years, and that after a certain point in time, then Farsight would be able to have it back in conjunction. Like, Zen wouldn't lose it, nor would Farsight. They'd both be able to put it out. Yeah, I don't know about that. It's possible. I mean, no, it's more than possible. And truth be told, I would be fine with that. I mean, I don't think that it would hurt Zen's sales one iota, especially if Farsight doesn't make any improvements. If they just reactivate the licenses for all their Belly Williams tables again because they've now got the license to do it and then start offering for sale again, yeah, no. No one's going to care. No. They're going to look at the two products and go, uh, no. How about that? Yeah. So, interestingly enough, there was one other question where they asked if this is the first time that a physical cabinet had been done. And Bobby says, oh, well, we worked with another company. Didn't name them.
    58:27
    And theirs was about $5,000, so significantly more. Yeah, with another company, not named. Which, again, I know I get why you wouldn't name the company as you're speaking with your partners inside your partner's booth. Yeah. But that being said, on Twitter, Arcuda has been dropping hints.
    58:46
    As a matter of fact, they're saying this Monday there is going to be the announcement about their next product. Here's what's weird. The picture that they showed actually had the T2 DMD displayed. They also went back and announced that, hey, you can still pick up the Arcuda Pinball Arcade, or you can pay for the entire license that would go into a cabinet.
    59:13
    Not just the Steam. So there was the Steam version that I think was $179 you recall? And then the other one was I think the $300 one that was for putting inside of a cabinet.
    59:27
    But so who knows? I'm dying to know what our cooters got up their sleeves. Like I said, when we saw the toy shock thing we went oh they can't be happy about that and then when we see the one-up announcement we're like oh and now they just all their thunder stolen because they still have not put the product out to market the akuta pinball arcade cabinet has has not been released and it's been what three years now three years yeah yeah that's a long time to sell a product and you know we kind of know why because it's been copied five times by chinese yes and that's that's really shitty that that's happened but it is what it is and i know that akuta put in the reason why they haven't literally said anything about the product is that's what they have to do to protect it like they can't put any single bit of information out because as soon as they do straight over the china and they produce it badly yeah um yeah and it tarnishes their name which is really crappy. But it's also the very market that they were targeting, which was licensed home use from the manufacturer game card games. So not MAME, not shady licensing, but fully licensing with the proper people. This is what Arcuda was basically touting, that they were going to be above and be better than everybody else, and then all of a sudden one-up comes onto the market. so I almost I feel bad for Arcuda because it seems like it's a one of these situations where it's like shit or get off the pot you know and they they're still on the pot so I'd love I'm excited to hear what they have to come up with I am too yeah I'm dying because it almost looked by the picture I almost got to say it looked like a vertical cabinet oh like a vertigo uh-huh yeah because it had a joystick and the screen was right there in front of it so I'm almost thinking that they went straight for vertigo but maybe we'll finally get an announcement regarding what the software will be that's running inside of it yeah well that's a very big question I don't know the thing is we were like ages ago talking with the owner of Aikuda but we've lost all contact with him so yeah we don't really know what's happening from that company so we will be with you on Monday waiting for this release of information. Yes, we will.
    62:04
    Alright. That's Monday Australia time too. That's not Monday US time. Oh. I didn't think about that. They're an Australian company. So it might come out for us in the States tomorrow on Sunday.
    62:21
    Potentially. And from the future here in Australia we'll see it first. While you guys are sleeping probably. unless they're smart and they time it for US daytime. So 3pm our time or something like that. Yeah, that would make sense. That does seem logical.
    62:39
    All right, well, that's about it. We saved up. We packed it in. Lots of information to digest. These fortnightly episodes seem to work better rather than doing weeklies. Well, yeah, when we don't have a lot of information coming in. I think the weeklies will basically, if there becomes one of those instances, where it's just like we keep on constantly getting hit with info, then we'll... We tend to just jump on and do it. Exactly. But otherwise, yeah, the biweekly is working mainly because my schedule keeps on... Sometimes I get Saturdays, sometimes I don't. Yeah, that's right. Hey, pop on over to the Williams Pinball app. There's another limited time challenges. Zen's been killing it with these. They've been dumping these limited time challenges, giving you every opportunity to earn table parts much quicker. uh than normal it's really good yeah um and there's even been some people that have popped on that are like hey i'm brand new to this which was like our big worry what happens when you got somebody new um and i've dispensed with pieces of advice as have a couple of other uh people and it's working for them they're like hey i've already gotten to this point on certain tables and you know being able to play so that's really good yeah it's it is a grind but it's it's more than doable and zen has really amped up the uh rate at which this stuff is coming out to try and help so i still haven't i still haven't maxed out these last five tables but i've also been slacking on uh how often i play so that's right there's also um j william points out rightfully that there's actually a reddit tournament happening as well um uh it's uh in week three at the moment and i know that um if you follow friend of the show pinstrat stan on twitter he's actually uh in that tournament as well, doing it.
    64:31
    And yeah, so go and check out Reddit for that. We'll put links in the show notes for that. Yeah, that reminds me. I've played the first two, but I didn't... The second one, I only entered like twice. It's usually a 10-entry tournament, which is nice. Yeah. That it's not unloaded tries. Yeah, I really don't think unlimited tries is good. It's just like a... When we were running the blockade weeklies, tournaments that was our format as well in fact we were pretty brutal it was like one go and that's it see you later yeah yeah and um like that's really how actual pimple tournaments run anyhow so it was pretty pretty accurate um well as i say i think it it separates the the men from the boys if you will there are those that can consistently no matter what always score good and then there's those like me who need quite a few tries to all of a sudden knock one out of the park but i can't knock it out of the park every single time. Exactly. Oh, yeah, good point, J. William.
    65:29
    Week three is just about to finish, so probably by the time this comes out, week three will be gone. But week four should be up and running by the time this podcast gets released. So, yeah, check it out. Get your pinball. Get some pinball going.
    65:44
    Pinball for everybody. All right. So, yeah, that's going to do it. Yeah, count on us not being on next week, and we'll be on the following week. I think that'll be a safe bet to go there, folks. As usual, if you have any topic that you would love for us to discuss, any suggestions, anything you want us to address, don't even hesitate to drop us a message on Twitter, at Blockade. It's been there at the corner of the screen the entire time. So make sure you follow us. Drop us a note. Let us know what you're interested in hearing about. Or you can always drop us an email. that is blah blah blah cade at gmail.com wait I did that wrong I always do it wrong blah blah blah cade at gmail.com for the email address that's right see it's been so long I'm rusty you're thinking blah blah cade pinball.com forward slash episodes for our website probably that too way to go Jared oh he's knocking them what else can you pitch Jared let's see go what about the links for all of our sexy See sexy back glasses. You can get those on blackapinball.com forward slash zen-blackboxes.
    66:54
    There you go. All right, folks. I think that's it. That's it. Unless you want to buy a T-shirt. That's it, Redbubble. Yeah, do that. But I should actually point out, this might have actually whizzed past us because it was at the beginning of the show, but we actually had a Twitch donation made to us today. What? Yeah, we did. Zarkots kindly donated some cash to the show through Twitch. Dude, thank you. So that's a shout-out to you, Zarkots. Thank you. really appreciate it especially since we just had to pay for our website yeah our domain perfect time so yeah thank you very much fantastic alright so until then I am done I am out of here and Jared you can of course tell us what is going to happen next time on the Blockade Pinball Podcast you're 100% guaranteed to hear more stuff and things there you are what more can you ask for bye bye folks see you later