Stern launches the O'Callie X-Men. Again. J.J.P. teases their Avatar reveal. Again. New Jurassic Park Home Edition. Again. Again. Hi, my name is Jonathan Houston. I'm the editor of Pinball Magazine, and I'm joined by... Hi, I'm Martin there, if I was there for a minute. I'm the editor of Pinball News, and Jonathan and I are here in this August look-back edition of our Pinball Industry News Pincast. And we are a little bit later than normally. We would generally be about the first day of the following month, But we delayed this particular one by a few days so we could bring you all the latest news about our first headline, Stern's uncanny X-Men game. But besides that, there's also been quite a lot of news across the pinball industry. It's been a very busy month. Yes, yes, very busy month indeed. So, well, let's dive in. Starting with our first headline. Stern launched today after a couple of days of teasing already the Uncanny X-Man, a new cornerstone title designed by Jack Danger. And the review was today. It looks like a very interesting game with a non-Italian bottom. So flippers are not in the standard position. So it's a three flipper game with the two regular flippers that you usually have at the bottom slightly positioned to the right. and a small third flipper at the left of the lower playfield for an interactive danger room, as it is called. Yes, it's basically the left out lane has turned into a feature, and the right out lane has pretty much disappeared, and everything has been shifted. The shooter lane is now the right out lane, which you need to see the pictures I think to understand it fully if you haven't seen them already oh right we should be going to video that's it we talked about that yes well I'm sure you'll be able to I'm sure you've probably already seen pictures of the game by now but we are recording this on the day that the game has been announced and rather surprisingly yeah I revealed and rather surprisingly there were no leak pictures either this time Oh my God, they finally got the stuff in order. That's right, no awful low-resolution pictures. And I think it was, I think it's fair to say that the uncanny X-Men was not generally seen as the next title that Stern was going to be producing. I think it came as a bit of a surprise to many people. Well, I heard a rumor of X-Men. X-Men 97 was rumored. And the uncanny X-Men, okay. Same X-Men, different angle, I suppose. So, anyway, talking about the games, of course there's the traditional three models that we get with the Cornerstone games, the Pro, Premium and the Limited Edition. The last one being limited to 811 units, and serial number 811, which apparently is very significant for the X-Men universe, I suppose, will be randomly distributed among an all-access Stern Insider subscriber. So if you're a paid Stern Insider member, and you happen to be buying a limited edition of the Uncanny X-Men, you might end up with serial number 811. That's if you're buying it through Stern's website. Yes. Which they had a small number available. I think the rumor was they had about 40 limited editions available. And which one will be number 811? Yes, so there's a chance of one in 40 that you actually get that special number. Yes, although that does mean, I suppose, that you don't know what number you are going to get if you go through that route. It's not like if you go to a distributor and they say, well, we've got machines number 347, 48, 49, and 50, and you go, oh, 350, yes, that's my lucky number. No, I think if you buy it through the website, you get whatever number it is, which might be 811. And 811 ties in with the timeline of the Marvel Universe for the uncanny X-Men storyline, which they're doing, and that is the year which it's meant to be taking place, Earth 811, which doesn't mean much to me, and hopefully it means something to you. Well, I don't recall being around then, but, oh well. No, I do know a little bit more about the pricing of the game. The Pro, which is the base model, basic model, is available at an MSRP of 6,999. 6,999 that is. The Premium Edition goes for 9,699. And the Limited Edition that we just discussed, merely yours for 12,999. So basically $13,000. But then again, if you make a couple of calls, maybe you can get them a little cheaper, as usually is the case with Stern games and distributors. So, yeah, I think it will depend on demand for the game. I don't think there was that kind of demand for the previous title. So I think for that they had like 1,000 limited editions, and I think you can still get them if you want. Cern may have sold out of them, but there are plenty of distributors. This one we don't know. We have to wait for reports to come in from distributors about how well Limited Edition is selling for the uncanny X-Men. Right, okay. Are we touching now on the situation in the pinball industry or the distributor market where we hear rumors, so to speak, that resellers are currently overstocking with pinball machines, not necessarily from Stern Pinball, but from many brands that they might be selling and that there is more games coming out than there is demand, or are we not touching on that? Oh, I think it's reasonably well known. I don't think it's so much a rumor. There's reports, don't we, that there is a lot of overstock in the market and sales have slowed significantly recently due to a combination of high prices of games, something of a flood of games from multiple manufacturers now, rather than just being the single manufacturer there was back in 2000. And also the people are starting to feel a bit of a pinch on the cost of living. prices are going up, shopping is going up people don't have the same kind of money necessarily around and also we are seeing something I've seen for quite a while where game prices are dropping on the second hand market you can get a limited edition that's probably only got 60-70 games on it and you can save yourself a couple of thousand dollars on that off the new in box price and by that stage any issues with the game will have been sorted out by the previous owner. So it's becoming a slightly more attractive proposition to buy a pre-owned game with just a few plays on it. Which of course doesn't help distributors or manufacturers because they're not selling a game. Right. Now in the meantime, if distributors or retailers are stuck with games, that also means they have most likely less money to buy other games coming out or newer games coming out. Or if they do, eventually they might go bankrupt if they don't sell these games if the market is that slow. You need new markets, don't you, to get these games out too, which is something we will touch on in a minute. Yes, exactly. I was going with that. Anyway, getting back to the Uncanny X-Men, I have a little text in front of me describing the game, which I thought, well, this summarizes it pretty well, so let's just read it out loud so that people can get an idea of what the game is about. It's about $13,000, right? That's right. Go ahead. Right. So from the feature matrix, it says, Stern Primal presents Marvel's The Uncanny X-Men Game based on the acclaimed comic stories Days of Future Past and Mind Out of Time. The world of X-Men is brought to life with an extensive cast of iconic characters, devices, and locations featuring Wolverine, Professor X-Magneto, Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, Beast, Rogue, Gambit, Cerebro, Sentinels, Mystique, The Danger Room, X-Mansion, Genosha, and many classic X-Men 80s and throws. I don't think you can ever criticize me now about the boring code. Well, sorry again. Okay, you've got a point there. So, battle a three-dimensional sculptured mechanically animated sentinel embedded in the playfield that changes states based on players' actions. Okay, for people who didn't understand that, think of the head in Circus Voltaire coming out of the playfield, but this is something similar. It doesn't have the ball with the magnet on top, but you can bash it. Yeah, and it doesn't move on the probe. It's static. Right, okay. The Sentinel also features mechanical hands that physically interact with the ramps and affect ball trajectory. Experience an innovative new playfield layout from designer Jack Danger that features several new crossing shots and ramps designed, and an all-new interpretation of the conventional flipper array with a new playable area themed Danger Room. Stunning hand-drawn comic book style art by Zombie Yeti accompanied with an original custom X-Men soundtrack from Charlie Bonanza of Anthrax and Pantera fame. Players can extend the fund with Stern's award-winning inside... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, okay. If you've listened to all that, congratulations. You deserve some kind of a prize. Or at least an achievement badge. Okay, yeah. So if there would be an award for exaggerating, then I think this is... Well, I guess it's from the press release, really, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Well, okay, yeah, okay. And I get it that they are trying to sell something, but seriously like this? Okay. Anyway. It's a soft press rule. The non-pinball familiar press rule. I'd say if you want to touch base with more people, get a little bit more down to earth and not so full of yourself. Anyway. But the game looks very, very interesting, I have to say. I can't wait to play it, even though I have no clue what it's about. But I'm sure we'll figure it out as soon as we start playing. And in the meantime, I'm sure we'll get the usual gameplay videos with Jet Danger and the design team. Indeed, yes. So, Martin, what's your take on the game? Well, a couple of things. first of all, I love the playfield shots. I think it's Jack's car, some really innovative and interesting ways to move the ball around. I'm a little concerned that everything looks a bit shifted over to the right, because you've got the action button on the lock bar, which is in the middle, and it's normally sitting about between the two flippers, and it's now way over to the side, but hey. But if the game plays well, I don't really worry about it too much. There is a very interesting area on the left-hand side with this danger room, and the way that the ball arrives there as well is also interesting. And I think the actual mechs themselves are, for the first time actually, sort of quite interactive with the ball. The central mechanism, which rises up on the limited edition and on the premium models, also has an activating jaw which you can hear the jaw lowers and inside is a kicking target if you remember on Foo Fighters as a kicking stand up target which shoots the ball well there's one of those inside the jaw inside the mouth of the Sentinel so that's a nice feature very interesting with what's done with the ramps on here so I think where as some I've known Jack's design games before but he's only done a couple before this and I think he's really showing that he's not taking the easy or safe route here he's going all out and doing some really interesting things with the ball including some of the types of ramp ball movement that we haven't really seen before so I think that's really great Zombietti of course does amazing artwork all over the cabinet I do personally have an issue with the intensity, I suppose, of the artwork on the playfield. In that looking at it, and I'm looking at the limited edition playfield right now, I can't make out any shots on there, where they are. I can't even see where the ramps are or where the targets are. There's just so much artwork all over it, and very little in the way of guidance as to where to shoot. like three inserts in front of a ramp and that's it it's just so packed full of detail which is the way that artwork is going more is more but I do feel that sometimes it can be toned down a little made a little less intense so you can see what you're shooting at but very highly detailed very much in keeping with the X-Men comics and like you, I'm not really an X-Men well, I'm not at all an X-Men comic aficionado, I don't know anything about them really my entire exposure to them has been through a couple of movies and and the earlier games yeah, exactly yes the first time you started on the X-Men no I do worry a little bit sometimes that when companies, and this is not just a concern, when companies make games about themes which not everybody knows, they get so into the theme themselves that they kind of lose sight of what it means to people who don't know the theme. Yeah. You know, they're telling you about the Danger Room and Cerebra and the Beast's lab. And I have no idea what those are. No, me neither. So, although they're sort of playing on that as being iconic, and they're not to me, and they're not to anybody, I don't think, who doesn't really follow X-Men. And if they do follow X-Men, they probably know the actors who play, the characters, and they don't know anything about the comics. All those storylines, you know, the days of future past and mind out of time, mean nothing to lots of people. Right. But the movies are a chance to learn. Well, the X-Men movies are very successful and they make a lot of money. So I suppose, not to be negative or anything like that, but I can understand from a marketing perspective, like, hey, if these movies are doing well, an X-Men pinball machine or a new X-Men pinball machine might be something that gets orders from people on location. Yeah. But then again, there's a difference between buying a movie ticket and a pinball machine. Yeah, well, playing a pinball machine, I suppose, is probably a closer comparison. But I think, yeah, the X-Men thing itself will bring in a certain amount of recognition. the comic book side of it, less so. People who are playing it might expect to see actors and things like that in it, which obviously there aren't because it's all based on the comics. But, hey, at the end of the day, it's a pinball game. There's some amazing shots and some very interesting features on it, and anybody can have fun playing that and be wowed by some of the features in it, which I think all credit to Jack. I think he's done an amazing job with it, and I think CERN have done an amazing thing in hiring him as a designer. Yeah, well spotted. Kudos to George Gomez for that, and not tying Jack's hands, so to speak, but giving him, as it looks, free reign to try something quite unconventional with this design. Absolutely. Yeah, you can definitely see that Jack has studied other pinball machines from the past and taking ideas from them, trying to incorporate these into this design. And like you said, the way the ball travels is very unique. And I can't wait to get my hands on a game. Yep. Well, we will next month, I believe, if not sooner. Yeah. So, oh, well. Anyway, so I suppose that rounds it up for Scrum's big review of today. But there's lots of other Scrum people news. Yes, because it's not even their only game announcement this month. No, they also announced a new Jurassic Park Home Edition Plus game. And the plus indicates that this game, the new version, will have a wooden playfield, still an MDF cabinet and a plastic lock bar, a cosmetic coin door, but it's also featured with Insider Connected. and if you're interested in buying one of those games, well, you could buy it at the Stern website, but you'd be stupid to do so because the game is intended to be sold at 150 Costco stores in the United States with an MSRP of 4,999 US dollars. And if you think that's a little steep, it's already been seen to be priced at $47.99 at Costco. So if you were impressed with the Jurassic Park Home Edition game design, which is also by Jack Daniels, it is, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So there's basically an upgraded version available now with a, like we said earlier, a wooden playfield. head over to Costco and I'm not even sure, I'm sure they have show models available, I'm not sure whether they can be played I don't know I wouldn't have thought so given they're $5,000 machines they're probably just there as examples of what the game looks like but you mentioned earlier that you'd be mad to buy it from the CERN website rather than buying it from Costco that is because Stern are offering the game at $1,000 more than the Costco official price. So they were $5,999 on the Stern website, and still are if you go there. $4,999 officially from Costco, and as you said, they've been seen with $200 lower price tag than that in store. So that's the place to go. And of course you get some kind of long warranty as well with Costco products, and if anything goes wrong with it, they take it back and replace it rather than try and fix it. Right. Do people have any ideas of basically returning that game after a couple of years? Yeah, I'm not sure what the situation would be if there was any warranty issues with it. I don't suppose Costco are in a position to go to these games. So I think it would be a return to the store and get a replacement at that point. But it'll be interesting to see whether it does take off. This is certainly not the first time that Stern have tried a home edition, and it's not the first time they've tried it through Costco either. And I don't think it was a success before. I think it ended up with a lot of them coming back to the factory that hadn't sold. Right. So what happened to them after that, we don't know. Well, we hear stories of a warehouse somewhere in the Chicago area with lots of unsold games or returned games, if you want to. Yeah, I think the first time they worked together with Costco was with the Batman Home Edition in 2007 or so. Oh, very good. And, yeah, I have seen with some collectors other attempts for home edition games. The Batman one I don't think I've ever seen in person. So it's a pretty rare one if you happen to come across one. Since Spider-Man. Yeah. So now the question, of course, we know that CERN has been flirting with the home market, and so far it's never been a success, at least as far as we can see. We don't see the numbers, of course. But does this look like a desperation move to you? I don't think so. They're always trying to do this, aren't they? and I'm sure it doesn't cost them a huge amount of money they've already got the design for the home edition of Jurassic Park which they've tried before and adding Insider Connected onto it and calling it the Plus version and slightly upgrading a couple of the other aspects of it seems like an easy win for them and it's next to no development time involved except on the software side Right. So, no, not to sprit, but hopeful. Let's put it that way. Right, okay. So, other stern news, not related to any of the previous games. Well, maybe it is. There's speaker lighting system kits, and I believe these are for limited editions, which cost $199. No? No, they're not. They're for the non-limited editions. Limited editions come with the speaker kits, speaker lights, I should say, with them. But these are being added to the pro and premium models. They're upgrades to those models, and they're available for a limited number of games because they need to be tied in with the game software. So it's for a couple of, it's for four recent games, which are John Wick, Jaws, Godzilla, and James Bond 007, more titles are expected to be added soon. The next one is the lighting system. I do have a question about that, and I know we don't have the answer, but more titles being added soon, yeah, of course. How about the Uncanny X-Men? But does it also go further back, in the sense, Do we get them to see for, what did we have before, James Bond, Venom, or Foo Fighters, that kind of stuff, those type of games. Do we get them to see for those games as well? Yes, I don't know whether they've already got that code in. I suspect not, or they would have advertised it. So I can't answer that. As you said, I would expect them to add it as the next software release comes out. Right. Okay. So anyway, so those are available for $199 if you want to enhance your pro or premium game. Yeah. Interestingly, Stan, I'll call them the speaker lighting system, which is not exactly the most exciting name in the world. But looking at the box that one of them arrived in, it was called expression speaker lights um the expression lighting system is of course the the add-on that you can install on on several models which was included in the le version such as um led zeppelin for instance and i think um trying to think some of the more recent ones that had it on, but it's the very impressive multicolored strip lights down the side. And that's the expression lighting system, and these have been called expression speaker lights. But they do tie in with the game software and do require support for it in the software. So, yeah, check to see whether your game is supported before going out and buying one. Right. Oh, well. And then there's still more Oh, there is. Yes. Yes. So, because Fern also announced a level up your office corporate campaign offering pinball machines for rent to businesses to increase productivity. Yeah, you heard that right. And think about that. Increase their productivity not the office's. Increase productivity by having your employees play pinball instead of being at work, or play pinball at work but not doing what they are actually paid for to do. Pricing starts at 4.99 a month. Now, there are a couple of ways you can look at this, and I did a little bit of reasoning because it's a dangerous area for a manufacturer to get into, I would say. You can wonder who is going to set up these games, who is going to do maintenance Let say a company rents a pinball machine for a couple of months and then they done with it who is going to pick it up I think it's worth saying that the details of how this works are not there yet. We haven't seen any information about who's operating it, the scheme, other than Cerner offering it or Cerner promoting it, to put it that way. to me Stern are not an operator so I can't imagine they are the ones who are operating it, they must be working with a distributor and or operator but there are already distributors who are offering games for rent to businesses so that would be competing with that business well maybe or it could be maybe Stern do a deal with a distributor who operates and gives them a special price on the model that's part of this program. And on the understanding that they'll get it back again in six months or a year's time. Right. And then, okay, so you collected X amount of dollars during the rental period and after that you can still sell it in the second-hand market if you want to. And probably make more money than when you sold the game new in box in the first place. Well, possibly, yes. Yeah, so I do understand the reasoning from Stern, like, hey, this is a good way to increase income. So, but, oh well. Anyway, the program is being offered. There's an email, I think the email address is corporate at sternpinball.com if you want more info. I'd love to be well that's it would be interesting to see a rental agreement for one of those games yeah to understand a bit more about how they think it's going to work but maybe we can ask I don't know someone from Stern if they were to be coming over in say to the Netherlands any time soon well I'll have to see if anyone is actually so anyway Yeah, we'll get to that. Anyway, so then my favorite part of the CERN monthly update is, of course, the new software code. I'm not allowed to say anything negative about it. Martin, knock yourself out. Oh, all right. No, I won't do that. I'll read the code and say it's probably slightly less painful to knock yourself out. But, okay, only, well, only, I say, in addition to these two new games being launched, one version of a previous game, Stern have been producing software updates for five of their previous titles. Jaws had a version 0.95, which was just a couple of bug fixes and some rules or scoring changes. John Wick had version 0.88 which was actually quite a big update with more music added rule changes, some new perks added and lots of bug fixes because apparently there were lots of bugs that needed fixing in John Wick Venom got version 1.02 with some rule changes, new speech and a system update to include things like the knocker volume that we were talking about I think last month if not the month before Godzilla got version 1.11 which added support for the speaker light system we were just talking about. Ta-da, there it is. There we go. And finally, James Bond 007 got version 1.03, which was, again, quite another big update with lots of lighting effects and support for the new speaker lighting system. A few rule changes, and that is the software, and that's all I'm going to say about any of those at the moment. Right, and that rounds it up for us during the board. Yes, I think it does, yes. So finally we can move on to our second headline of this month, which is covering August and a little bit of September, because some of this story has evolved just today. In fact, I'm recording this on the 4th of September. We started on the 4th and it's now the 5th. Yes. So it's been that long. Yes, so Jersey Jack Pinball, they've been teasing pictures of their upcoming Avatar game. Yes, that's right. You may not have been expecting an Avatar game from Jersey Jack Pinball, and many people weren't, including myself. I don't know about Jonathan, and Jonathan may have known about it. It was not a title that was being rumoured. No. As far as I know. I don't think many people were expecting Avatar, but one person who was expecting it was Mark Seiden, who is the designer of this. This is his first full game for Jersey Jack Pinball, having collaborated on some earlier games and being quite instrumental in Elton John game, I think. Yes. As well. Now, I'm saying you've got some interesting information, which comes from the man himself, Jersey Jack. Yeah. Jack Guarnieri was actually in the Netherlands for a couple of days. and he asked me to take him to the Dutch Pinball Museum in Rotterdam, which I did. We traveled by train and gave us, of course, hanging out with Jack for a day, gave us lots of time to talk and so on. So he mentioned a couple of things. But, of course, that was all off the record and I can't repeat any of that. But he did tell me that I could reveal a few details that we don't know yet. Although one of those details was just revealed in a teaser video that was released a couple of hours ago. And that is the official full title for the game being Avatar The Battle for Pandora. So that's the official title for the new Jersey Jack game. and basically Jack told me, you're going to want and wait to see what Jersey Jack is about to reveal to the world. It's a game three years in the making, a very special game. There are multiple lower playfields, the sky, the sea, it's a multi-billion dollar franchise with more movies coming. Maybe the most beautiful game created. The game introduces first time ever features from Jersey Jack Pinball. First time ever features in Pinball. Period. Just wait and see. The game will have six flippers. I don't think that's out there yet. Six flippers in Avatar The Battle for Pandora. The game is loaded. Sounds good. Yeah. And a new video, Tease, was just released a couple of hours ago. It shows more of the playfield with other playfield areas and a glimpse of some of the credits. You did this piece, but I'm reading it anyway. That's all right. You can take the credit for it. No, no, it's your credit. I'm just reading it. We're talking about credits. The artist for the artwork on the game is Leah Feske. not a familiar name to me but I'm sure she's very good at what she does software is by Keith P. Johnson Taylor Schneider and Jason Allen scopes are by Todd Hone display graphics are by Jean-Paul de Win who is I believe also the art director for this game Mark Molitor and Olaf Gremi which is the same team as Elton John, although Jean-Paul was less active I believe on Elton John as he was already working on Avatar and he left Olaf more to deal with the Elton John game at that time. And last but not least the game will be revealed on the 12th of September. Right, so one week today. Yes. Exactly. And on top of that, like I said, well, Jack was in the Netherlands, not only the Netherlands. He came to Amsterdam because he was actually doing a little holiday with his wife, Joanne, in Europe. They took a river Antonio Cruz and that was up the river from Amsterdam into Germany. And, well, while in Europe, Jack visited Christophe Lienard of Pinball, what's it called, Pinball Pleasure in Luxembourg, distributor for France and Benelux of Jersey Jack games. he also visited Paris and last but not least he also visited the Italian distributor Luxury Games in Sicily Jack was in Amsterdam for two days and the second day the first day he was sort of under my wing and we went to the Dutch Pinball Museum which was I have to really mention if you've ever been to the Dutch Pinball Museum but not recently you have to go again it's unbelievably unbelievable what Gerard the owner of the museum has done to the place he has now added a couple of floors that were not being used before the way the museum looked completely changed and it's very impressive. It's seriously probably the most decorative pinball museum on the entire planet. The most educational, I think, as well. You actually learn stuff about the history of the game just by being there. Yeah, so anyway, the second day that Jack was in Amsterdam, And then Jean-Paul de Wynne, who also lives in the Netherlands, of course, took Jack and Joanne to the Van Gogh Museum. So they watched a couple of sunflowers and paint dry, I suppose. Hopefully dry one, eh? Yeah, I suppose it is for some time now. Anyway, it was very nice of Jack to reach out to me. It was a very last minute thing. and I appreciate a heads up a little bit more ahead of time the next time, but you're very welcome, Jack. And in closing, here's a little scoop for something that I want to address later on as well, but Jack is also coming over to the Dutch Pinball Open, which is held the first weekend of November this year in Valshoven again. So Jack is coming back to the Netherlands. he must like it here yeah I look forward to seeing him there as well as at Pinball Expo next month so and then round good okay we'll talk more yeah I was going to say talking of company heads coming over to Europe that takes us very neatly on to our next company American Pinball because the the head of American Pinball the executive vice president David Fix was a guest at the UK Pinfest show that was held in the middle of August at Daventry, our annual main UK pinball show. And a fantastic show it was. Congratulations to Phil, the organiser of that, and all the people who worked on that. It was a huge team. And it would be pointless to try and mention half of the people who worked on it because we'd be here all day. but great show it's returning next year at the end of August I was going to say book your hotel room now but unfortunately all the rooms have already sold out so there is a waiting list though if you want to get on the list for next year's UK Pen Best Show or book adjacent accommodation at a nearby hotel, well a nearby B&B I don't think there are any hotels that close but it's going to be a big show it's getting bigger and better every year and David Fix as I said was a guest at this year's show he he was there with nearly all the American Pinball Games lined up there was only one missing that was Oktoberfest and he was obviously talking to everybody about the Barry Ousler game Barry O's BBQ Challenge and and talking about the business, and he had a question and answer session with an audience, which I was honoured to host and ask some of the questions to David. It's meant to, I think, last about an hour. We ended up talking for one and three-quarter hours, and basically only stopped then because we had another seminar coming up very shortly afterwards. Lots of interesting topics covered, going all the way back to the very start of his involvement in the coin mop business, bringing us all the way up to date, talking about the current titles and some of the future titles, both from Rake and Pimble and from some other companies as well. So there's a lot of interesting topics covered there. If you want to know more details about that or wish you had been there and missed it or were busy at the show playing in the tournaments or whatever, fortunately the whole talk is now available on YouTube. so if you just go there and search for David Fix Pinfest you will find it or I'm sure Jonathan will provide a link in his Pinball Magazine monthly newsletter when that comes out and as I say the whole show report together with David's talk the video of David's talk is available as usual on Pinball News at pinballnews.com and click on the UK Pinfest link and you'll be able to see all about the show and watch the video. Right. Okay. Well, that's great to hear. Sorry I couldn't be at the UK Pinfest. I know it's a... I always love to go, but unfortunately, I happen to be DJing during the weekends, so I wasn't able to make it because I had to make money. Yeah, I know. Outrageous, eh? Yeah. Oh, well. Never mind. One of the things that David did mention when he was at Pinfest, and you will see in the video, he was talking about their new Aura LED lighting system, which they built for games, not their own games, this is. This is a retrofit for older, other manufacturers' games that use fluorescent tubes or use even incandescent lamps. Remember some of those that actually have a light bulb in the back. Well now you can get the Aura LED strips which are basically three strips that go on three sides of the backbox inside and provide even illumination across the back glass or translight. And it comes with the cables to connect it all up and a power supply so you can plug it into either a regular mains outlet or the service outlet on the game if it has one. and the cost on the American Bimble website when I checked a little earlier is a mere, well it seems to cost it up in UK currency which was just £62 but that converts to about 81 US dollars or 74 euros 74? I don't know yeah, well 73.60, there you go that makes a whole lot of difference Yeah. Yeah. Well, there you are. It's a nice way of, a nice, relatively inexpensive way of getting a kit to provide all this lighting in your backbox and keep down the amount of heat generated and electrical interference from a fluorescent tube. And, well, they're pretty nasty things anyway, especially if you break one. So LEDs, yeah, that's a product that American Pinball is now selling for other manufacturers' games. Right. One of the other things that David had that we didn't actually play at the show, we had it lined up and we decided it was probably going to be a bit too long for the seminar, was a new video by Steven Bowden, who we know is a game designer there, or game designer, or rules designer. And helping out in many other aspects of the earth. Yes, that's right. As well as, of course, a world-class tournament player. But he's done this video where he reveals many of the secret features that are included in Barry O's BBQ Challenge and how the game references many of the features that are found in Barry's earlier games, such as Doctor Who, Space Shuttle, Space Station, and so on. Obviously, Barry's got a long history in pinball game creation, and lots of features which have become standard that he initiated. So Steve goes through them and points out how they are incorporated into Barry's Barry-O BBQ Challenge, and it gives you much more of a background to how and why the game is built the way it is. So that was interesting. Yeah, I think that's a little bit out of the board, but oh well. Yeah, there's a lot in there. And that's available on the American People website and also on their YouTube channel as well. Right. Now, speaking of Barry O's Barbecue Challenge, I believe there was a special $500 Labor Day discount on the game, which ended on September 2nd. price was reduced to 6495 while the the regular MSRP is the 6995 but you missed out if you just heard about it. Well yes and no but we've got more news on that in a moment. We mentioned before that they ran this $500 discount on all the titles in the American pinball range except Barrio's BBQ Challenge. That was the previous promotion. And I said, hang on and there may be something coming along soon. Well, sure enough, there was. And this was only on Barrio's BBQ Challenge. So, hopefully that pushed themselves of that game as well. But I don't know, it's a bit of a slippery slope, isn't it, when you start offering discounts on your games. People attempted to hang on and not purchase it straight away and wait for the next discount to come along. Right. Well, of course, we are currently in September. Anybody who looks at the calendar knows what's coming up next month. So I'm not saying there will be any discounts, but, well, it seems that time of year, discounts are sort of in order. Black Friday and that kind of stuff Cyber Monday Yeah that's true Yeah so We have Halloween holiday Coming up Not sure whether that's a reason for a discount But who knows Yeah Well one of the other things that went down at UK Pinfest was a bit of a Cuff-off all about American people Distributing and who the distributor in the UK was because when David was there he basically signed up Retro Arcade Specialists as a UK distributor alongside Pimble Heaven who had been the distributor up until that point had been the exclusive distributor Pimble Heaven owner Phil was not happy about this Phil Palmer not the organiser of the show that's different Phil Phil Murphy Phil Murphy yeah yeah so Pimble have not happy about having their distributorship shared and basically dumped American Pimble as a as a brand so they resigned as distributors leaving Retro Arcade Specialists as the sole UK distributor yeah the interesting thing about this is that the whole rent from Phil Phil was posted on the Pinball Heaven Facebook page and other social media, I suppose as well, announcing that he's no longer distributing American Pinball and the reasoning behind it. And also, if you're looking for a cheap game, that he will be having an American Pinball clearance end of the line still shortly, so keep your eyes open for great deals apparently. Well, I haven't seen any yet, but I'm not really in the market, so they may be out there. But meanwhile, the new UK distributor, Retro Arcade Specialist, we were talking about just now, Retro Arcade Specialist have been promoting their new American Pinball product line, all over the social media, and are extending the Labor Day discount to not just $500, but actually £500, which is nearer, well, be nearer $620 off, and they're running it until the 9th of September. So another four days from the date that we're recording this. So if you're in the UK and wanted to get the Barrios Barbecue Challenge, you can get £500 off the price until the 9th of September from the new UK distributor. Right, yeah, okay. So, and then it remains to be seen whether that will beat the price that Pinball Heaven will be offering the game for, if any. Yeah, I don't know whether they've got any or... I think that might be it. No, no. Well, anyway, let's not speculate on that. I think that wraps it up for our American People news. Unless you can think of anything? No, I think that's it. The next couple of companies should be relatively short in the way we discuss them. So hang on, we're almost there. On the home stretch. Right, so Multimorphic from Round Rock in Texas. They informed us that the first Princess Bride playfield modules and entire games should be shipping by now. They're being produced in batches and, well, basically the first batch is currently in production. And they also announced that the side target and slingshot artwork will now be magnetic and therefore quicker to form. I thought it was magnetic before, they must have switched from that. No, that's the cabinet art was, was bag of sink. But the targets and slingshots were always plastic, pretty plastic. Right, okay, get it. So some machines will need new metallic slingshots, and side target cover plates may also be required, but just to make sure that the new magnetic artwork can attach. That will also mean that slingshot plastics will not, well, it makes no sense to light them from underneath. And it will be very dark. I don't know. I don't know whether they're solid or whether they have a mesh or what. what the design is but um or whether they just have no magnetic edges to them or something like that you know so there's something that could be couldn't be yeah it's fine didn't think of them so okay but that's all the um yeah yeah okay so then they're moving uh a little bit north there's spooky pimble from benton in wisconsin yep they've been showing pictures of the the move that they're currently taking to a new building moving the production line or the production facility in there while they're leaving keeping the old building and so but they are expanding in other words so their production is moving to the new building uh various aspects of their q a and uh design is raining the old building so they've been showing uh the move they're not set up in there yet or this they weren't as of earlier today when i was checking this out um however in the meantime they have uh been able to put uh game manuals for their luni tunes and the texas change or massacre games on their website where so you can you can have a look and see how the game is put together and if you've got those uh those games then that's a reference for uh the uh the settings the rules configurations and all the hardware that goes into the game, all the board sets, the power supplies, that kind of stuff, that's all in there. It's a little bit rudimentary, generally just sort of showing pictures of boards used and lists of components without too much explanation about how they work. They're certainly not the kind of manual that Booked Appeal used to produce and still does, you know, for, he did for Jersey Jack and then for Chicago Gaming. Which are, yeah, which are works of art themselves. The key information is there. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like a book. Yes. I've never heard that before. It's like a phone book. Yes. Thick as a phone book. So anyway. Yeah, so those three manuals are there. A couple of new code updates as well. Looney Tunes got some more music added and some gameplay rule tweaks, a couple of bug fixes, some new menu items. Texas Chainsaw Massacre had a new Grave Rob mode added and also changed how some of the items on the playfield are driven in the software. And Scooby-Doo Where Are You also got an update on the 20th of the month and I didn't make a note of what the update was about. Which was... I was so confused. Yeah, so disappointed. That was remiss of me, but... I know, it's... We're all disappointed, yes. But anyway, that's the software update for Spooky Pinball, and I think that wraps up our news from Benton Right okay So moving down south again Houston Texas Barrels of Fun voice actor Marc Silk, who did many of the voices, including the Topper Goblins for Labyrinth, was actually in the UK, at the UK Pinterest show. So you met him. I did, I met him. I took a picture of him. I took a picture of him for himself, which he then, on his own phone, which he then, he was one of the ones he used for social media. Yes, he did voices for Labyrinth, as you said, but also did voices for Funhouse, Rudy's Nightmare, and Whirlwind, Total Chaos. And apparently he's working on more pinball voices, but no details to share on exactly what that game or those games might be just yet. But Barrels of Fun have also had some new code. Ooh, tell me more. Yeah, two updates actually this month. Well, one last, one this month, this month that we're talking about being August. There were some rule changes in version 24.08.06 and some additional game settings and a few bug fixes, but the most recent one, which actually came out two days ago, on the 3rd of September. Yeah, it was so on top of the news. Indeed. That had some new code from the Fast Pinball team to improve the flipper control on the game, which apparently gives it a much better recovery should the flipper be knocked down by a fast travelling ball hitting a raised flipper. So that's some new code, which I guess will apply to all fast board-based games in due course. So that's good to know. They're still working on that. There's also a change to the way the coil test handles the flipper hold coils, if that's been concerning you, as well as a few bug fixes as well. We've got a few more bug fixes. So that is the Labyrinth code from Bowser Fun for this month. and I do have some additional news. Little, little scoop. It looks like David Sennas of Barrels of Fun will be a special guest at the Dutch Pinball Open Expo. Ooh, everyone's going to be there. Yeah, it's worth mentioning that Barry Driessen of Dutch Pinball bought a Labyrinth game last year at Pinball Expo, and took it with him to the Dutch Pinball Open Expo last year, November. There was a huge line for that game all weekend long. Yes, I remember. Yeah, a very popular game to play and made a very good impression. As you might expect from David Van Ass's last name, he has family living in the Netherlands. So he's taking the opportunity to come over and attend the Dutch Pimple Open Expo first week of November and then visit some relatives as well. Right. I should probably know this, but is he in any way related to the Van S, who's a huge operator in the Amsterdam area? We don't know. Oh, okay. Well, that's question number one. for Willie Roy. So, I make that connection as well. David will be visiting the Dutch Pinball Museum, which we mentioned earlier in Rotterdam, and Gerard immediately suggested that Dieter Van Esch should be present so we can find out whether they are related, other than that they both have a passion for pinball. And the same certainly, yes. Yeah, exactly. Oh, that would be fantastic. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, sure. Anyway, moving along. Barrels of Fun. Yeah, that's all we have from them. Pinball Brothers in Sweden. Yes. What do we have? Well, they've released a 10-page rule sheet for their other pinball game, which, as you might gather from the number of pages involved, is quite detailed in explaining all the modes, the multiples, the features, and how you reach the Medallion of Power wizard mode. There's a nice chart as well, if you prefer it in graphical form, which is actually quite useful. Originally, I thought, I don't understand this, but then a little bit of browsing, of browsing, oh yeah, you complete this and it does that and it all basically feeds into this central learning of power so you need to complete all these challenges or you can read it in text form which is all available on the ABBA page of the Pinball Brothers website it's a bit hard to find if you go to pinballbrothers.com slash ABBA dash pinball then it is right at the very very bottom where it says rule set so click on that link and you'll get the 10 page full sheet and not only that but there is a first ABBA pinball live stream available as well which is available on YouTube yeah did you ever watch the link I haven't watched it yet no yes I did well I watched a part of it I didn't notice the software was definitely further developed than when we got to play it on the launch of the game a couple of months ago. Okay, good. I still think it could use some more voice calls directing the player into what exactly to do and I still don't get any of the link within the Italian that has nothing to do with AVA whatsoever so I really don't understand why they stuck to that. Because for the average ABBA fan who hasn't been to the London show, the medallion makes absolutely no sense. But other than that, it was a very nice game. I also have to say that when we got to play the game during the launch event, the helicopter was having difficulty locking the balls. It was unreliable. Yeah, it was unreliable. The balls could drop from the helicopter, and it would basically have two balls on the playfield without the game realizing that you got into a secret hidden multiball feature or whatever. From what I've seen in the new video, that mechanism has been made more reliable, and I didn't see any balls falling from the helicopter when they weren't supposed to. Good. Well, yeah, Daniel did say that redesign that bit, and obviously it's been an effective redesign, So good. Okay, well I think that's about it for Pinball Brothers then. And we can move on to, well, all the way over the other side of the world pretty much. Yeah, for the other brothers. Yes, indeed. Yes, and we're talking about the Blues Brothers. Their newest pinball title. Two prototypes have been shipped to Australia to be shown at the by now sold out Newcastle Pinfest show which will be held on September 14th and 15th. On social media we saw pictures of the game being packed, not in cardboard but in just a plastic wrap on pallets, which might be a good thing. Yeah, but for the regular games, I suppose, they will probably be boxed up normally. But it might prevent forklift damage if the driver can actually see the product, which is something that you wrote, and it makes sense, or read it out loud. Okay, well, I was just thinking that because these are the two prototypes that are going to the show in Australia, the last thing you want is for those to have a forklift jammed or rammed through them. and end up being completely useless, which, you know, this is effectively the premiere of the game. So they need to see it intact, at least, without a forklift through it. There will be special show pricing on the first ten production games. So these are games which you purchase at the Newcastle Pinfest show on the 14th or 15th of this month, September. Yes. I'm not sure pricing has necessarily been announced. I think it was going to be announced at the show. It was going to be. Okay. Go on. There was a price listed on the flyer. Let me see if I can quickly bring that image up. Okay. Like we're saying, it's going to be very attractive pricing and a price not seen on a new bimbo game for many years. Okay, the pricing on the flyer, and that necessarily doesn't, I think this is the regular price and not the special show price. Ah, right. But the regular price will be Australian dollars 69.50. So 6,950. Australian dollars is far less worth than the American dollars so it is a very good price 69, so it's about 7,000 in UK pricing that would be about 3,500 pounds plus tax of course and that includes GSP and shipping oh, includes tax, ok and shipping and shipping, yes Okay. So, yeah, that's a very competitive price. Now, one of the reasons that it can be so competitive is because of the way that the game doesn't really license very much in the way of Blues Brothers assets. It's basically just the images of the characters and the name. Really? Now, he has licensed three songs, apparently, from the Blues Brothers... Is this the Blues Brothers soundtrack? I don't know if that's the Blues Brothers movie soundtrack. No, I think it is, yes. Okay, so three songs from the Blues Brothers movie, because there isn't really any other reference to the movie in the game. It's not based on the movie. It's based on the characters as created for the Saturday Night Live show. Yes. Originally. which then turned into the movie. So by not licensing movies, you don't need to get all the actors, all the other actors, and all the other music from that. So that's kept the cost way down. So he has got three songs, but as we said before, this is a game which will have open source software, which means that you if you have the technical know-how would be able to add more songs or more features to the game or rewrite the code to add new modes if that's something which you are interested in doing but of course to do that you have to get a good user base out there the game's got to be in the hands of people who are going to write the code and I'm pretty sure that's why those first 10 games are being discounted so heavily, so there is at least a user base of 10 games, some of which will hopefully go to people who want to write code. Right, so we address code and we address the license. Mike can elaborate on that. Yeah, what's he say? of Homepin explained on Facebook the reasoning behind the budget design of the game and not licensing the movie. So, in quotes, the problem is here, there are too many players all wanting a separate contract and a piece of the pie. With our new open source software, it's very, very easy to add your features for the home use, of course. End of quote. So basically you can add any songs to the game if you know how, and I'm sure it shouldn't be that difficult to figure it out. Or if someone else figures it out, all you have to do is upload someone else's code. Yeah, as far as the instructions that they provided. Right. Now, speaking of the code, and this actually, the following news actually helped in giving this open source concept a little bit more credibility, is that the open source software and game rules have been developed by Dick Dick Hamill from the United States, who is known for his rewritten code for classic Bentley and Stern electronics games. He also developed a new MPU or something like that, a new board to control such game, I think, which includes an Arduino computer or something like that, so it's easy to program. So, yeah, that seems to help in giving Home Queen at least a bit more credibility in the sense of that it should be possible to actually make something out of this game. and let me express by saying that Mike Kalinowski also expressed earlier on that the game will be completely coded when it starts shipping. If you can't code, no problem, you can play the game, you get the three songs in there and so on. But if you want more movie references, then you're entirely free to add them yourself. Great. On top of that, I agree. Go on. Yeah, sorry. I can say I agree that having a really good coder who understands rewriting code on board right from the very start does make it a much more realistic proposition to be able to modify it and add your own rules and sounds and music tracks to it. Yeah, good call there. Yeah, and the last bit of news from Homepin that I found is that Mike also announced who did the artwork for the Blues Brothers game, and that's actually Neil Neil Fraser-Krevitz from the United Kingdom. Okay, it's a new name to me. but I will check them out and see but I did check them out before and looked to see if there was any reference to anything that Blues Brothers related on their website and I couldn't see anything wasn't it any good? well yeah talented talented graphics but it's just in the past we sometimes be able to get a few leaks of upcoming artwork or games from the designer's website, haven't we? Right. It wouldn't be the first time that's happened. Right. So, oh well. So that rounds it up for Home Pin in Australia, and of course there will be more news, I suppose, on the Blues Brothers game in our next episode, as we have the Newcastle Pin Fest coming up in a little over two weeks. and we'll be reporting any news that comes in from that event. Okay. Yes, so let's move back to the U.S. and back down to Texas again for our next bit of news, which comes from Turner Pinball. And I say Chris Turner, the head of the company, was interviewed in the In Before the Lock podcast, video podcast, which was very interesting. That's available on YouTube. If you search In Before the Lock on YouTube, you'll see a list of their multiple recordings. And the most recent one was with Chris. In the meantime, the company's been showing pictures of parts arriving for the manufacturer of their first game, Ninja Eclipse, which was first launched back in Texas Pinball Festival just 18 months ago, I think. Yeah, at the Whitewood. Yeah. And then, of course, last year at Pinball Expo they showed what they thought was going to be the final production version and then got a lot of feedback on that. Not all of it positive, which caused them to redesign various parts of it. And then we saw it again this year's Texas Pinball Festival where it was in a much better condition, a much more saleable product. And, yes, they are taking orders for their first run, limited run, of 100 first edition machines. Now, if they do make any more beyond that, if there's a demand there, those will not be the first edition machines. They will be arcade editions, which won't have all the same features that the first edition ones have. There's only one level of this, so it's a bit easier for them to start off, and all the games are going to be the same. So we've been seeing pictures of wire forms and chromed legs, for instance, which are destined for a local San Antonio powder coat company. We're going to make them all bright purple. now the first deliveries of production games are expected to take place very close to Pinball Explode slightly before and an interesting thing that Chris mentioned in the before the lock podcast I'll call it that for now was that although there's only one version of Ninja Eclipse, there's future games will do the same kind of thing that Stern do now with their cornerstones and have three different tiers like a Pro Preview and LE. So obviously they're going to be looking to make large numbers of them, although Chris did say that they can't, they're not in a facility, they don't have the means to make large numbers of games yet. They're still going to be in the few hundred. So it could be a bit like Spooky did, where they say, you know, okay, there are 300 and you can pick either the low tier, the medium tier, or the high-end tier. And we make however many are ordered from those 300. But that's me speculating. That's not what Chris was saying. But he did say that they could possibly just about make 500 at a push in their current facility. But, yeah, it's going to be the low hundreds, I think, to start off with. Yeah. So now you just mentioned that the first deliveries of Ninja Eclipse will take place hopefully before Pinball Expo. I also understood that if you order the game at this year's Texas Pinball Festival, you're likely to receive that game early January 2025. Right. If all goes well, of course. I mean, you still have to start manufacturing and so on. God knows that's a beast on its own, so what could go wrong well, we'll probably find out. Yes, how long will we go? Yeah. Okay. Well, we wish them well with producing the first games, and hopefully you get those games out in a smooth way. Hopefully, yes. So, well, speaking of getting games out, Cargo Gaming have been shipping Pulp Fiction games, but not the limited edition models yet. Those are expected to start shipping in late September, and they will continue to ship them throughout October and November as well. Those are the games that basically have the topper on top. I don't think there's any other major differences. Yeah Not mistaken So And If you're looking for A Medieval Madness Remake game Rumour has it That A new run Of Medieval Madness Remake games Is scheduled For the first quarter Of 2025 Right So not too long To wait for that No Exactly Although You'd expect Them to be busy Building pop fiction But maybe We can Run two line up at the same time. Yeah, well, you might be able to see their operation yourself if you go to this year's Pinball Expo, because there is a factory tour of Chicago Gaming amongst the four factory tours that are taking place. Chicago Gaming, American Pinball, Jersey Jack Pinball, and of course Stern Pinball. Right, so, which reminds me, actually, thank you for bringing that up. Earlier we talked about Jersey Jack Pinball upcoming Avatar game. That game will be on the line during the Pinball Expo factory tour. Makes sense. They're launching it 12th of September. Yeah. By one month later, they will be building it. Yeah. Still building it, I suppose. So, anyway. You did some digging on Haggis Finball in a friend's work. Well, there isn't a huge amount of news, I'm afraid, from Haggis. All I could really get this month was that the liquidators are still dealing with claims and seeing if there's any value, and still trying to see if there's any value in the remaining assets. And we'll be going over the company's books they were looking for and received approval by the creditors of the company for their expenses. They need to be signed off, I think, although it looks like these expenses, because there's no money left at the moment, looks like these will be met by a government-backed scheme rather than out of any funds that they're able to recover from liquidation. In the note for that filing for their expenses, there was an interesting note that referred to an internal meeting about the status of litigation and meeting with solicitors to prepare for litigation. Not entirely sure who's litigating against whom, but it looks like there might be court action to be taken, presumably civil action at this stage to try and, well, I won't speculate on what it might be for. But it's interesting to see that being mentioned in there and the fact that the liquidators are basically charging for their time in preparation for that litigation. So I will certainly keep a close eye on what's going on there and whether that leads to anything. Right, okay. So then we have HexaPimble from France, who you may know from their Space game which so far as I can tell only a couple of units have been built and distributed in France where the company is based. If I'm not mistaken, and I really hope I'm not, the company will be present at the upcoming Dutch Pinball Open Expo in the first weekend of November and of course they're expected to bring at least one or more space hunt games so that will be your chance to play it if you haven't yet and I believe most of us haven't so here's your chance. Yeah and in the other news from Hacks of Pinball they announced a a 10-week online quiz, which will start next week. Every week, one question needs to be answered on Hexa's social media. I'm not sure how that will work, because if everybody has to reply in the comments, you can see the responses by other people. So once the right answer is out there, everybody has the right answer. But anyway, if you answer all ten questions correctly, you may win a prize. I'm just not sure what. Because that wasn't mentioned. But anyway, it's a good way to come. Yeah, well, they got ten weeks for more details and prizes, but I can imagine it's probably something Space Hunt related, so you might win, I don't know, a back class or something, or a play field, something like that. And maybe they have something completely different in mind, a new car or I don't know. But, oh well, something fun to look forward to, I suppose, if you're into quizzes. I also have no idea what the questions will be about. Will it be general pinball questions or space hunt related questions or Hexapinball related questions? Right. And this starts next week, you say? Yeah, I believe so, yeah. Well, keep an eye on that and good luck if you enter the quiz. Right, yeah. And, of course, you have to follow Hexapinball on your Facebook or Instagram to at least be notified of a new question. because if you miss one, then you're not eligible to win. Oh, that would be a disaster. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I know. I wouldn't be able to sleep. Well, I'll give you some more code updates. That will help. Excellent, yeah. Now, let's move back to Australia then because we were talking about Haggis earlier and we were talking about Hopin, who are not Australian but will be exhibiting in Australia. And we have another Australian company we're following Vector Pinball and I understand you have some news from them yes, they on their website I noticed a I was looking for news regarding the 8 ball jury game they are exhibiting that and I assume they will be bringing that game to the Newcastle Pinfest which we already talked about which will take place in less than two weeks And then I stumbled upon another a new game based on apparently a well race driver that I never heard of, Peter Brock, nicknamed the King of the Mountain. so I mentioned that in the Pinball Magazine newsletter that went out I think two weeks ago which was interesting to see that other after that other news websites also picked up on that news not necessarily yeah exactly so oh well anyway what I found even more interesting is after I sent out my newsletter I'll get back to the game in a second I received an email from a pinball distributor in Australia who openly was wondering whether Vector Pinball actually has the license for such a game because he could have mentioned the Peter Brock estate apparently this man is no longer alive the brokerage would allow them to make such a game now the website yeah but then again yeah just following what you were saying about not being licensed and I think you were about to mention about what it said on the back to people website I don't recall exactly what it says, but I find it, let's put it like this, I would find it rather odd if there would not be some sort of agreement with the Peter Brock estate, as it looks like this is, the layout of the game is an original design. So, I can't imagine, although I have to be careful what I say here, because we have seen this in the past from really large manufacturers, designing a game without having the license. Yeah, especially when on the Vector website it does say, Peter Brock, King of the Mountain, licensed pinball games. Right. I think there are two versions. I think it's got his signature on it. Not to say you couldn't get that elsewhere. but it would be I think it would be madness to do that without having it having them signed up yeah so apparently hopefully for them Peter Brock is very big in Australia and he can sell some games so apparently he was very popular in the late 70s early 80s if I'm not mistaken right okay well not anyone that I've ever heard of but then I'm not really into Australian car racing so it probably wouldn't but nice to see some original design work going on there and maybe that design will end up in another title as well right yeah so so that's the news from Vector in Australia and I'm really curious to see whether they will bring the Peter Brock pinball game as well to the Pinfest in Newcastle later this month. So, and, oh well, we'll just, we'll see. The last thing, I think you already mentioned, there's two versions available of the game. Yes. I think he drove different types of cars, and one is for the one type of car, and the other is for the other. Yeah, one's a 1984 Holden Commodore, and the other one is a Holden Toronto. Right. And thank you for mentioning Holden because there's another pinball game announced on the Vector Pinball website which is actually a Holden pinball machine which features various car models. So I'm personally not familiar with that brand. It's an Australian brand, if I'm not mistaken. But that game is still in development and the current images of that game do show a back glass but the playfield looks like a firepower playfield which is just a re-team I suppose. So we'll have to see what that game will look like. Yeah, it could just be a one off or it could be a short run, you never know. Yeah. Okay, anyway, finding some good news from Australia, because Vector Pinball seems to be very active. Yeah, indeed, yeah. They've been going for a long time, so they've got a good history of making games, albeit in small quantities. Anyway, moving on, let's go back to... Europe. Yeah, back to Europe and Italy and Pedretti. No particular news from them, but they did bring out a code update for their Funhouse remake game, one of which was at the UK Pinfest show and received a lot of very positive comments about the artwork and the feel of it and how similar it was to the original. In fact, somebody said they thought it originally was just a different back glass on an original Funhouse game and it wasn't later until they realised that it was actually a brand new remake. Anyway, we've actually brought out some new code for that and it has new code. Of course, the game has two sets of code in it, or three sets of code in a way. It's got the original code, it's got the enhanced code, and it's got the 2.0 code, all of which get updates for various features, which I won't go into at the moment because there's quite a lot of them. But that version came out on 13th of August, version 1.09. So if you haven't updated your Funhouse remake yet, make sure you do because there's some good stuff in there right and I may have a little bit of additional news from Pedretti can't confirm it yet but we're looking to invite Andrea Pedretti the owner of the company as a special guest for the Dutch People Open Expo which is going to be held the first weekend of November in the Netherlands of course indeed Got my ticket booked Yeah So it looks like A very busy seminar Program for that weekend And we will also have Dutch Pinball Probably discussing their Alice in Wonderland Game Alice in Wonderland Game Yeah exactly so and David okay so yes speaking of which well what a nice bridge thank you so much yes well of course we know that Dutch Pimble is working on or DP actually should say the side business that they are running together with Melvin Brouwer Williams they have started teasing Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with full rhymes. Rhymes that refer to items on the playfield, and they revealed a couple of images. One included a clock that's sitting on the playfield, which has an LCD display in it, So that display can portray anything, basically. And most recently they shared a video of a player-controlled outlane spinning disc, I believe in the left outlane, which is player-controlled. So with the touch of the button you can change the direction. I think we've actually seen that on Magic Girl as well, of course. And the video also showed highly detailed sculpted plastics on the game and mirror blades, which made me wonder, those sculpted plastics that are really 3D with flowers on them and so on, Yeah. Could that be ball traps? Yeah, because there's a reason. Yeah. Because there's a reason those plastics are usually flat, because else if you trap a ball in there you won't be able to get it out of there. So, um, yeah, so anyway, so um, uh, the idea of uh using a uh a poem or a rhyme uh for a pinball machine is not new of course, Python And Python Anghelo invented that with several games. Brider Pinball comes to mind, but also Pinball and a few others. But good luck to Dutch Pinball keeping it up with the rhymes and the pieces up until they will reveal the game. We still don't know when that will be. but we're still set for the third quarter of this year, which means it should be somewhere this month. Well, yes. We've got some news about some of the games which they've already produced. Yeah, I suppose so. Well, they have a new distributor for Australia and New Zealand, don't they? Yes. They're called Acme Pinball, and they actually have a shipment of games on the way to them. Yes. From what we could see, those were all the Big Tobowski games. But who knows what else they put in that same shipment. Oh, right. Okay. So this is a distributor for Dutch Pinball, not a distributor for TPX. I think it's potato, potato. So I'm sure they will be distributing both brands. Right. On a slightly different topic, but nevertheless still very interesting, Dutch Pimble also publicly announced that they switched for their playfield manufacturer. Oh. That used to be Mirco, the big Lebowski. and for whatever reason, and I won't go into detail, they decided to switch to Bud Hamburg for their playfields for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. And hopefully that will be a smart choice and I'm personally not familiar with the quality of the playfields of Bud Hamburg, but I'm sure it must be good. I'm sure I've seen some other manufacturer using their playfields. I'm trying to remember who it was. But we'll come back to that. But, yeah, interesting to see there's some competition now there for smaller runs of games, not the third size. Yeah. That's an important thing, I mean, yeah. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So then there is quite a bunch of companies with hardly any news. So let's quickly go over them. No news from Cardona Pinball. No news from Pinball Adventures either. We already discussed last month that they're taking things at a leisure pace, I would say. And they're currently on a Antonio Cruz. I don't understand why you would share that on your company website, but still, okay. Or your company Instagram, but still. No news from Tilbov in the US regarding their road trip game, but usually they don't have monthly updates. And who knows, maybe we get to see that game at Pinball Expo. I don't know. Yeah, you could see. No news from the three companies from Spain, Bitfranc, SDR Pinball and Quetzal Pinball. And no news from Circus Maximus either. Although there is a little bit of other news that is slightly related. Circus Maximus was of course involved in the remake of Kingpin, which is, as it seems, very unlikely to ever happen. But the artwork for that game was created by Stan Fukuoka, who we also know of the artwork for Big Bang Bar and Capcom's Break Shots. And unfortunately, we received the sad news that Stan Fukuoka died at the age of 69. Yeah, I'm afraid so. That was last weekend, I believe. Yeah. You wrote an article about that. I did, indeed, yes. He'd been taken into hospital suddenly and basically didn't survive, unfortunately. So, yes, very sad news there. Very talented guy, producing very, hard to use the word, iconic too often. but his work was easily identifiable and incredibly appreciated, I think, by the pinball community. So you say he only did three games and a lot of people were hoping that his talents would be brought back into the pinball fold, but unfortunately that's not going to happen now. But anyway, his artwork lives on and will be enjoyed by future generations as we did. So make your stand. Yeah, absolutely. So then, well, we've mentioned Pinball Expo already a couple of times, but do we have any news from Pinball Expo? Well, there is a schedule up, as you pointed out to me a little earlier, of seminars as well, which there are so many seminars planned that they may have to run in parallel in adjacent rooms. So that should provide some interesting technical challenges for those poor souls who have to deal with all that. Yeah, that's us. Oh, crap. Oh, yes, that's us, yes. No, okay, no, no. So let it be clear, we're only taking care of one seminar room. Yes. The main seminar room, that is. Unfortunately it may mean that not all the seminars get recorded, or at least certainly not in video form, because we have a video set up to do one room of seminars for about three days, and the addition of a second one is problematic, but hopefully problematic in several ways, including getting the technical facilities available for that other room up. standards that a speaker, a presenter, would reasonably expect. So, anyway, work is going on on that to try and make that happen. And, anyway, it's going to be packed, this show. So packed that it's been extended by a day, as you know. And we mentioned the four factory tours this year. There'll be many, many, many more games, more floor space. and you should be there if you can. Yeah, so speaking of, well, of course, there is the extra day that has been added. Surprisingly, at least to me, the Tuesday is mostly being used for a factory tour in Chicago Gaming and the Glepping Ghost Arcade and two movies that night, no seminars whatsoever. so all the seminars are still being crammed into the Thursday, Friday, Saturday which sort of makes no sense to me but we'll discuss that probably with Rob Burke, the organizer of the event yeah, because what's the point of adding another day if it's more factory to it I think yeah, so, oh well anyway in other news There is, as you may know, the IEFA show in Florida in November every year. Yes. But there's also a European edition, and as it appears, Gary Stern will be going to that edition, and this year's edition will be held in Amsterdam. So that looks like I have an appointment to go there. and getting back to the Dutch Pinball Museum that we already mentioned earlier as I took Jack there and David David Van Es will be going there. Well, Gary Stern is going to be visiting that as well the Monday before the IAPA show in Amsterdam takes off. And that will be a special evening with Gary Stern. which means he's going to talk I believe he's going to talk for three hours or so so he'll answer one question yeah exactly so tickets for this event tickets are available and they are priced at 30 euros but if you want to hear more from Gary than you usually hear here during a, well, a one-hour seminar, then I suggest you make sure you be at the Dutch Pinball Museum to hear what he has to say. Yeah, I think also a ticket also includes opportunity to play some pinball in the museum after Gary's talk. Yeah, so and the museum includes a couple of unique games such as The Matrix and a few others, I believe, but that's the first one that comes to mind. Yeah, it's interesting that IAPA Europe is held so close to IAPA, in terms of timing, so close to IAPA in Florida. Because that is, what, the end of September? Yes, middle of November. Middle of November, yeah. Okay, I thought I would space them out a bit. Maybe these days they have IAPA Asia, IAPA Australia, IAPA all over the place. Yes. Anyway, so Gareth Stern, special evening at the Dutch Trimble Museum. Last week of September on the Monday, I believe that is. Right, but he's not coming to the Dutch Trimble Open Expo there. As far as I know right now, no, not yet. I did invite him to come over to the clubhouse of the Dutch Fimo Association on the Friday after Europa closes. But it appears to be a travelling day for Gary, so he won't be able to make that unless he changes his plans. I did ask whether he wants to make the trip again I haven't heard back from him yet Right, so Gary may not be there himself But his games will be Yes, oh absolutely, yes I have been involved in Connecting some people From the organisation of the Dutch Pinball Open Expo With Stern Pinball and their European representative, Lord de Taon. And I believe there's been a meeting this week. And it looks like certain people have a big presence at the event, hopefully bringing, well, I don't want to sound too optimistic, but let's say 10 plus games, and who knows how many that plus will indicate of recent games. and we're still trying to see whether we can get a special guest from Stern to come over, whether that is Gary or a designer or a coder or someone who's just a secretary, someone who works in the cafeteria. Someone who spills the beans. Exactly, yeah. But, well, we mentioned the event earlier on. So Jack Guarnieri is confirmed to be a special guest at the event. Other special guests include, of course, Barry Driessen and Melton Brower-Williams from Dutch Pimble slash DPX. We're still talking to Andrea Pedretti, who is busy, but he is definitely interested in coming over. We still have to arrange flight tickets for David David Van Es, but he's supposed to be there, so we'll get that going as well. And we're also talking to, actually, I'm talking to Daniel Jensen of Pinball Brothers tomorrow, who is also interested in coming over and hosting a seminar and hopefully bringing a couple of games, including, well, Ant-Man Queen and Alien. Well, that's all of them. So, yeah, it looks like it's going to be a packed seminar full of special guests at the event. Yeah, there will be a couple of idiots there doing some kind of quiz as well, apparently. Yeah, those idiots, last year they ruined the whole show by doing the quiz two times, also on a Sunday. Yeah, I know. That would be a quiet day, but yeah. And there's actually going to be quite a few distributors also at the event, which makes us believe we can, we hope to expect Pulp Fiction, President Cho Kek's Canyon remake, Funhouse remake, hopefully also Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and maybe and just a big maybe hopefully also Avatar so yeah if you're looking for a pinball event in Europe I think the Dutch Pinball Open Expo this year which happens to be the 25th edition of the event is one not to miss so be sure to get there right okay and we're still not done no, talking about shows this past couple of weeks the 2025 Texas Pinball Festival rooms were opened up for booking at the Embassy Suites Hotel which is adjacent to the Convention Centre in Frisco and as always used to happen these days for that event, all the hotel rooms sold out really, really quickly. This time it was like in under three minutes. People sort of thought they had it on their browser, had the room in this room, they picked it, they went to go and check it out and it was already gone. So you had to be really quick. But fortunately, you don't have to stay at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Frisco. Plenty of hotels in the neighbourhood with lots of rooms I would say. Yes, one or two actually, probably even closer to the convention centre than the embassy suites is. So, I think it's a Hilton across the road or Home Style or something like that, Home Suites. Just across the parking lot anyway, that's really really close. And if you don't get to that, there are loads and loads of other ones along the very short walk. So, another show not to be missed, the Texas Pinball Festival 2025, taking place next March. I haven't got the date, so. Right, so, there's one more item on my list, which I found interesting to mention. And that has to do with Nitro Pinball in Canada. Now we may know Nitro Pinball, the company is run by Tommy Floyd, who used to be a famous rock singer in Canada, I think somewhere in the 80s. And he's been running Nitro Pinball for quite a few years, also running his own show for a couple of years in Vancouver. But lately, Night for Pinball has been expanding in Canada with offices in Toronto, Quebec, and Calgary. And according to their website, they also have offices coming soon in Regina and Winnipeg. So that's a big expansion. Yes, because they're already based near Vancouver and they have offices across the border as well in Washington State in the US. So, I think we mentioned a couple of months ago about the major pinball distributor in Canada, which was being, I think it was sold to another party or whatever. Apparently, from what I hear, one of their main buyers in the pinball section left the company after that takeover. and it looks like Tommy's basically jumping in the gap that they left. So, well done, Tommy. Yeah, good luck. Yeah, absolutely. And I figured it would be a very nice positive note to end this spin cast. Very good. Very thoughtful of you. So let's do exactly that then and just remind you that Jonathan and I will be back at the start of October. My goodness, can you imagine October? This is not that far away now, unfortunately. But we'll be back then with our very first, well, our next Pincast, I should say, looking back at all the events in the pinball world throughout this month that we're in at the moment, which is September. So we look forward to seeing you then and hope you have a fantastic rest of September. We look forward to joining you next month for the very latest edition of our regular Pinball Industry News Pincast. So, yeah, from me, Marcel Hebb of Pinball News, and me, Jonathan Houston of Pinball Magazine, we wish you a happy month, and we'll see you next time. Okay, thanks. Bye-bye.