Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Ep 83: Canadian Round Pinball Podcast

Final Round Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·53m 58s·analyzed·Dec 11, 2024
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Final Round Podcast Canadian cottage episode celebrates 2024 pinball releases and discusses design philosophy.

Summary

Jeff Robbins and Ed Robertson record a casual pinball podcast episode from a cottage in Ontario, Canada, discussing 2024 as an exceptional year for pinball releases including Jaws, Uncanny X-Men, John Wick, Evil Dead (newly announced by Spooky), Avatar (Jersey Jack), and remastered Metallica. They explore game design philosophy, the importance of rule depth over flashy layouts, and discuss personal favorites like Rush, with Ed revealing his involvement in the Rush game as voice talent. The episode concludes with discussion of Taylor Swift as a cultural phenomenon and the lack of a Taylor Swift pinball machine.

Key Claims

  • 2024 has been an exceptional pinball year with major releases from multiple manufacturers

    high confidence · Jeff Robbins opening statement during podcast recording

  • Spooky Pinball announced Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 (based on first two movies, no Army of Darkness)

    high confidence · Jeff states 'Just as we drove up here, Spooky announced their Evil Dead. Incredible looking Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2.' Recording date: Saturday, November 23

  • Keith Alwyn has found his niche with Jaws and subsequent Stern designs

    high confidence · Jeff: 'Keith Alwyn, I think he's found his niche. He's pretty good at this design.' Discussion of Jaws growth and code improvements

  • Tim Sexton designed code for John Wick and will continue improving it

    high confidence · Jeff: 'Tim Sexton is going to make that game great. He's done with his other one, so why wouldn't he with this for sure'

  • Mark Seiden created Avatar pinball for Jersey Jack after previously designing Metroid homebrew

    high confidence · Jeff: 'Mark Seiden with Jersey Jack. Finally nice to see what he's done. I remember playing his Metroid game years ago at Pintastic, and now he's come out with Avatar'

  • Ed Robertson provided voice work for Rush pinball as 'Federation Pilot' character

    high confidence · Ed discusses recording voice work for Rush: 'I ended up doing kind of the voice of the game. So I'm what we were calling the Federation pilot, which is the closing of side one of 2112'

  • Metallica Remastered has been in development for 18 months under John Borg

    high confidence · Ed: 'Borg was so excited about it. He's been working on it for 18 months'

  • Walking Dead rule redesign by Lyman transformed the game from underperformer to favorite

    high confidence · Ed: 'The Walking Dead. Like that game was a dog when it came out... And Lyman's rule sheet transformed that game'

Notable Quotes

  • “2024 has been an exceptional pinball year, wouldn't you think?”

    Jeff Robbins @ early in episode — Sets the tone for the episode discussing the strength of recent releases

  • “The second coming of Jack Danger with Uncanny X-Men. Totally non-conventional layout. A load of fun.”

    Jeff Robbins @ opening discussion — Highlights Jack Danger's return to design with innovative layouts

  • “Rush is funny. You don't get it... Rush is funny. He's like, no, they're a serious band.”

    Ed Robertson @ Rush game development discussion — Reveals creative tension in Rush pinball design between serious music and humorous game design

  • “Free Will... it's the only thing I was super specific about, and then Tim didn't just execute on what I was hoping. He made it ten times better.”

    Ed Robertson @ Rush design discussion — Demonstrates trust in designer Tim Sexton's ability to exceed expectations

  • “I think the greatest Stern game ever made was Metallica.”

    Ed Robertson @ Metallica discussion — Strong endorsement of original Metallica game design philosophy

  • “How are there not machines for women being done? There are so many women players that and women with money and women with daughters and I'd buy a T-Swift machine in a heartbeat.”

    Jeff Robbins @ Taylor Swift licensing discussion — Highlights market gap for female-oriented IP in pinball and licensing challenges

  • “I would guess the licensing fees that pinball companies are capable of paying are not even in the league of what would get her interest these days.”

    Jeff Robbins @ licensing discussion — Explains economic barrier to obtaining high-profile celebrity IP

  • “When I look at games, I really want to see the rules be something that's special.”

    Jeff Robbins @ design philosophy discussion — Core principle for evaluating modern pinball game quality

Entities

Jeff RobbinspersonEd RobertsonpersonDave SmithpersonJack DangerpersonKeith AlwynpersonTim SextonpersonMark SeidenpersonJohn Borgperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Spooky Pinball officially announced Evil Dead pinball game based on first two Evil Dead films (not Army of Darkness) featuring Bruce Campbell voice work

    high · Jeff: 'Just as we drove up here, Spooky announced their Evil Dead... first two movies. No Army of Darkness'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: 2024 confirmed as exceptional year for pinball with multiple strong releases across manufacturers generating enthusiast excitement

    high · Jeff opening: '2024 has been an exceptional pinball year, wouldn't you think?' followed by discussion of Jaws, X-Men, John Wick, Evil Dead all in single year

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Hosts emphasize that code depth and rule implementation matter more than initial layout or theme, with game growth tied to post-release updates

    high · Jeff: 'When a game comes out, I'm very careful not to review it too much... give it time to breathe, give time for the code to get there' and discussion of Jaws, Walking Dead code transformation

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Ed Robertson revealed as voice actor and creative contributor to Rush pinball, involved in conceptual development discussions with John Borg and Tim Sexton

    high · Ed: 'I ended up doing kind of the voice of the game... the Federation pilot... And it was really fun, like a huge honor just to work with those guys'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Spooky Pinball praised for accurate production queue tracking and customer satisfaction with delivery commitments

    medium · Jeff: 'You can rest assured when you buy a Spooky game, you know you're going to get it. They're pretty accurate when it comes to here's where you are in the queue'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.162

0:00
In true Great White North fashion, I'm in the Great White North right now. I'm at Good Friend. Dave Smith has a wonderful cottage here with, I don't know, 60 games or so. And I thought we would record a little podcast here. It's not Final Round, it's Canadian Round. And joining me right now is a man who you might know, he's been on the program before. Ed Robertson's here. It's the Canadian Round. Hey, Ed. Always nice to hang out with you, Jeff. I feel, I don't know how many games we have played. You've won them all. I know where you're going. Thus far today. But I'm feeling pretty undefeated so far. It's funny because I was going to, I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to record with Ed maybe this week. I'm going to see him on the weekend. This will be kind of fun. Catch up. And I thought, you know, the last time we played, he got lucky on Jurassic Park and he beat me. Badly. I know. You beat me in the game. I won the tournament. I do want to bring that up, but that didn't matter to you. Yeah. No, it didn't matter at all. Head to head. So I thought, oh, I'm going to get that guy this time. Nope. He's beat me on at least three games so far, and there's probably another few coming up, but we'll find out how that goes. Anyway, here in a place called, what, Parry Sound? Is that where we're at? We're not far from Parry Sound, yeah. We're in what is known as the Muskokas area.
1:13
It's really, us Southern Ontarians call it Northern Ontario, but it is so far from Northern Ontario, it's ridiculous. Well, here's the thing. Everybody listening south of our border thinks everything is, you know, we're in the igloos right now and the frozen tundra. It is a little chilly. It's a little chilly. It's winter is coming, as they say. That was another game you beat me on. Yeah, fantastic Game of Thrones. Destroyed you on that one. All right. So we're walking into the cabin right now, just getting ready to do an amazing race playoffs. But I did want to talk to Ed because he's a big pinball fan. We all are. We're listening to this program. I'm out of breath. 2024 has been an exceptional pinball year, wouldn't you think? Yeah. I mean, we got the second coming of Jack Danger with Uncanny X-Men. Totally non-conventional layout. A load of fun. Just as we drove up here, Spooky announced their... Evil Dead. Incredible looking Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2. Oh, yeah, I guess it's based on the first two movies. No Army of Darkness. Correct. First two movies. Those are the only two you need. Yeah, and it's Ash, and it's the call-outs, and it's what you expected from Spooky. We'll get to that in a bit. But the year started with Jaws, and again, Elwin, I think he's found his niche. He's pretty good at this design. Yeah, he seems to know a thing or two about the game we call pinball. Jaws took a while to grow on me, and now it's one of my favorite modern Stearns. I had it on the road with me all summer in my pinball road case. Never got tired of it. And it was a huge hit with my crew and any guests that stopped by backstage, too. Yeah, it was a slow growth for me, too. I certainly love the game. And pretty much anything Elwin puts out, I'm on board because I like his competitive nature, obviously. And he puts in enough there for the casual people to enjoy this, you know, whether it's the easy multi-ball or whatever. but it gets so deep for the experienced players. And the code just keeps getting better and better and better. Jaws is the winner. Yeah. Elwynn has this dry, kind of wry sense of humor. I think that he includes in his game approach and in the kind of Easter eggs and fun little moments in his code. I'm assuming that comes from him because it sure seems like him. I mean, the whole 8-bit little mode that he did. I mean, it's great. But again, Stern, we mentioned X-Men. We're forgetting John Wick, which I think is going to go down years later. It's like, that game is pretty underrated. It's pretty punishing from a layout standpoint. And you can really see the passion that Tim Sexton has for that franchise. And it made me excited about where the code will eventually end up on Wick. because Tim Sexton is going to make that game great. He's done with his other one, so why wouldn't he with this for sure? I think he's great when it comes to code. And another competitive player, so he gets it too. When a game comes out, I'm very careful not to review it too much or say certainly anything negative because give it time to breathe, give time for the code to get there, the kinks to work out, you know. And that's the case with most of these games. But in almost every single game we're going to be talking about here is 2024. I'm excited from the get-go to play it. I'm not waiting for anything. I want to play it now. Yeah, that's been my experience too. It's a good time. It's a good time to be into pinball. Mark Seiden with Jersey Jack. Finally nice to see what he's done. I remember playing his Metroid game years ago at Pintastic, and now he's come out with Avatar, and it is a beauty. I've only got to play it once. I was at, oh, what's it called? IO Arcade in Madison, Wisconsin. Great location spot. Weren't you just recently there with the tour? Yeah, I was just there maybe a week and a half or two weeks ago. They have an incredible collection there. One of the nicest curated bar locations. Just a remarkable collection. I think most of those games are Hilton Jones games.

Licensing fees for high-profile IP like Taylor Swift are prohibitively expensive for pinball manufacturers

medium confidence · Jeff speculates: 'I would guess the licensing fees that pinball companies are capable of paying are not even in the league of what would get her interest these days'

  • Taylor Swift's Eras Tour surpasses historical concert phenomena like Beatles' Shea Stadium

    medium confidence · Ed: 'Tour like we've lived through the Zoo TV tour, U2, the Madonna tours, the Michael Jackson tours, all of them are fully eclipsed by Eras tour now'

  • “It's what we did when we first started playing pinball, and it's not always about the competition.”

    Ed Robertson @ tournament discussion — Reflects on origins of pinball enthusiasm beyond competitive play

  • “She's changed the business. She's changed the touring business. She's changed what an artist is capable of.”

    Ed Robertson @ Taylor Swift discussion — Assessment of Taylor Swift's industry paradigm shift beyond musical talent

    • Ray Davidson
    person
    Lymanperson
    Michael Barnardperson
    Dirty Donnieperson
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Charlie Emeryperson
    Jawsgame
    Uncanny X-Mengame
    Evil Deadgame
    Rushgame
    Metallica Remasteredgame
    Avatargame
    Black Knightgame
    Walking Deadgame
    Swords of Vengeancegame
  • ?

    licensing_signal: Taylor Swift pinball identified as commercially desirable but economically infeasible due to prohibitive licensing costs relative to pinball manufacturer budgets

    medium · Jeff: 'I would guess the licensing fees that pinball companies are capable of paying are not even in the league of what would get her interest these days'

  • ?

    community_signal: Casual tournament formats (Pin Golf, Amazing Race, round robin) gaining popularity as community building activity beyond competitive IFPA play

    medium · Ed: 'I'm having a ball playing all these different formats with friends and stuff. It's what we did when we first started playing pinball'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Jack Danger's Uncanny X-Men praised for non-conventional playfield layout design approach

    medium · Jeff: 'The second coming of Jack Danger with Uncanny X-Men. Totally non-conventional layout. A load of fun.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Metallica Remastered demonstrates viability of enhancing classic games with expanded music licensing, improved visuals, and refined rule implementation

    medium · Discussion of Metallica Remastered adding music and visual assets while maintaining core game design principles

  • $

    market_signal: Identified market gap for female-oriented IP pinball machines despite strong female player base and purchasing power

    medium · Jeff: 'How are there not machines for women being done? There are so many women players... and women with daughters and I'd buy a T-Swift machine'

    • 5:46
    And he looks after them there. They play great. And it's just a really nice variety of games there. Very cool. Wisconsin, there's a lot of great places to play pinball for sure. And they certainly love it. We were talking about Evil Dead just being announced recently. And again, we're recording this on Saturday, the 23rd of November. And when I first look at Evil Dead, I'm like, there's a lot of stuff in there. First of all, I love the Franchi art. I left him a message. I said, as much as I love all your other games, I think this is your best art package yet. And I'm not even a big Evil Dead 1 or 2 fan. I've seen the movies, but it's been 20, 30 years, so I know what it is. But watching the game and watching the trailer, I'm like, I remember that. I remember the hand. I remember the things popping out. And I'm dying to play this game. It was actually a really big movie for me in high school, Evil Dead 2. Yeah. Never loved. The Necromancer, isn't that it? Yeah. The Necronomicon. Sorry, pardon me. The Book of the Dead. I was never really into the first movie. And the second movie is kind of just a funny remake of the first movie. But Sam Raimi directing who, you know, he made Spider-Man. Yeah. And he did that amazing sort of satirical horror movie called. It was about Miss Janusz was denied a loan. And what's his name? Justin Long was in it. It's so good. And the name is escaping me right now. It's cold in Canada. The brain's frozen, so it's okay. But Sam Raimi's done a lot of neat things. He did the last Doctor Strange movie, too. Yeah. Multiverse. Yeah, incredible director. And Evil Dead 2 made me a Sam Raimi fan for life. I'll see anything he makes because that movie is so good. But do you see all the stuff that they put in that spooky game? And I think that's a title that if ever Spooky was going to have a game, Evil Dead had to be part of the thing. But there was, who knows what was true or what wasn't, but maybe Bruce Campbell wanted this amount of money for voicing. And you've got to have Bruce in there as Ash, and they've got it. And again, just seeing, I don't even know what you want to call it. Again, I've seen the trailer for five seconds, but I watched these things kind of pop up from the floor, and it reminded me of the trolls from Medieval Madness. And I'm like, oh, that's pretty cool. The rocking chair, how the ball kind of locks on the cabin, the moving hand back and forth. The topper with this thing is a masterpiece. Well, it made me excited for the game because the game looks great, but it also just made me really happy for Spooky. Yeah. Who doesn't root for Spooky? Who is not rooting for that company? Dave Smith and I played a couple of rounds of America's Most Haunted last night. That game is still great.
    8:30
    You know, I was one of the original buyers. buyers i got one of the last of i think they made 100 or 150 of the original amh and uh i've bought just about every spooky game uh and the the only couple that i've missed zombie uh no i had rob zombie uh i i missed uh looney tunes and i bought ultra man instead of uh halloween and otherwise I don't think I've missed any. So I just love them. They're such great people and I'm just really happy for them. I hope this game comes together in the way that it certainly looks like it's coming together. It looks like they really are firing on all cylinders now. So I hope this isn't an out-of-the-park home run for Spooky because they deserve it. I like the Emery family. I like what they've done for that community, how they really employ a lot of people there. And, again, their business model, it's not what everyone would do, but it works. And you can rest assured when you buy a Spooky game, you know you're going to get it. They're pretty accurate when it comes to here's where you are in the queue and here's when you're going to get it. And, again, like Dave Smith, like other Spooky owners, they're very satisfied with their games. Yeah, and listen, Charlie is nice to the point where he's almost Canadian. He is. He's kind of an honorary Canadian, right? Yeah, for sure. Your involvement in pinball, certainly as a fan, but we were just playing Black Knight, and yes, he won Sword of Rage. It was the premium edition. It was. In fact, it was the limited edition.
    10:16
    I will say this, that game can be an ass-kicker, but my God, the voice work is incredible. Yeah, yeah. That Bernie, he's something. Give me, just for old time's sakes, let's give some of your best lines. Fire! Wow. I'm going to watch it all burn! There you go here on Canadian Round. Bernie lives on. That's good. Kind of a little Pinside Petey in that voice, but that's fine. I might have peaked your meter a bit there.
    10:44
    Fun game, and I like ass-kicking games. You know, we were talking about John Wick. I like that because this could beat you up a little bit. I find Black Knight one of my favorite games. Some people give it a bad rap, but I just like how tough it plays. You've got to be on your toes. Well, and especially Dave's tilt is so tight. You can't get away with much on the game. And it's so sad to watch that right out lane drain as you're reaching for your Magnus save. But yeah, it's a great game. One out of 10% maybe on Magnus save for me on that game. But the other game that he has here in his collection, and you have and I have, he has the Rush LE here. And obviously, that is very important in any Canadian's DNA. But it is a wonderful game. I'm glad to see you actually went back on the line, I think, for a little bit, too. Yeah. It's a game that I think when you walk up to it for the first time, you're like, what the hell is going on here? Other than I'm enjoying playing it. It's fun shots, great layout. But what do you do? It really took me a long time to figure out how to play that game. And then I said, I kind of don't care. I'm just having fun. Maybe I'm just going to do one, two, three combos. There's a lot of different things there. Back to the Tim Sexton code. That game, you saw it from the development. Did you ever imagine it would get to where it is right now as really a tournament darling and just a great home-owned game? Well, the team that we assembled on that game really became passionate about the project. You know, Tim really didn't know Rush when we started talking about the game. Or Ray Davidson. Yeah. Or Ray Day. They both, though, I sort of gave them, you know, I gave them homework. I was like, watch Beyond the Lighted Stage. Listen to this record. Watch Rush in Rio. You know, I gave them some homework. And it's funny, like, and Borg was the biggest Rush fan in the world. Like, he could not have been more excited going in. But John Borg is like a 2112 and prior Rush fan. Maybe he goes as late as Farewell to Kings or Hemispheres. No Power Windows. But he called me very early on in the process. He was like, I'm not sure about all this humor you're suggesting because Rush is not funny. Rush is serious. And I was like, John, Rush is funny. You don't get it. Rush is funny. He's like, no, they're a serious band. I don't want to upset them. I don't want to upset Rush fans. And I was like, you have to trust me on this one, John. The band is funny. Then I started sending him all their interstitial clips from the tour Yeah Rash the rotisserie chicken machines the laundry machines on stage i was like john what you need to understand is they are very serious musicians but they are very unserious people and they like to laugh they like to make fun of themselves they like to be in on the joke and uh it was like an 11th hour thing john was still swinging like i need a mode in this game with no humor that's just all serious and i was like well you have fun with that borg you will be the only one playing it yeah and it's funny because i heard about all the different call outs and when the game first came out i'm like that's some good stuff and they've since added more that obviously recorded at the time you were probably there when that happened and i know you're on the recordings as well too yeah you're hearing the humors or whatever the humor about the the lyrics and la villa or um the four quarters is big money or all these little things. It's really good. Did you have something to do with the writing in that too? A little bit? Very little. Very, very little. It was mostly done by the same guy that did the writing in Maiden. And his name is escaping me. He's involved in the Seth Meyers show. Okay. But he did most of the script. Now, both Geddy and Alex did a ton of improv-ing too. I did way less improv-ing because it was a long day and I wanted to get those guys done. But I ended up doing kind of the voice of the game. So I'm what we were calling the Federation pilot, which is the closing of side one of 2112. Originally Neil's voice. So it was a very daunting thing at first. I felt very nervous about doing it and how people would react. It's a lot of weight. It's a lot of weight, but the sheer support and excitement from Ged and Alex that I should do it, it gave me kind of the courage to just go for it. And it was really fun, like a huge honor just to work with those guys at all and then have the game be successful. And every once in a while, like I get an email or, you know, bump into those guys at whatever, some sort of event. And they always say, man, thank you. We get so many compliments on that game. And you just made it really cool. And we just had to sit back and watch it happen. Because the way that project started was, you know, Getty asked me, will you do this? Can you just make sure it's cool? We don't know anything about pinball. If you said no, the game would not have been made. And you won't say that because you're humble. But they trusted you. They knew your pinball loyalty and your passion. And you weren't going to let Rush fail. You weren't going to put a stain on their brand, really. Yeah. I mean, they knew that I knew a lot about pinball and that I could. And I don't want to give myself an enormous amount of credit for this project. I'm giving it to you. I'll give it to you. It's all Stern. It's John Borg. It's Rudy Dankberg. Yeah. It's Ray Day and Tim Sexton that made this game great. Michael Barnard did a great job with the art. And I was really just kind of at a high level trying to facilitate getting all the music and all the video into the game and very early on giving Tim some very basic ideas of what I would like to see. And Tim ran with it in a way that just blew my mind. And it's really different because as a pinball player, pinball fan, you can think of rules that you love or modes that you love. It's another thing entirely to envision a rule set and balance a rule set and make a mode that's interesting. And they just blew me away with the game. I had notions of what I would like to see, and they were pretty vague, honestly. And Tim and Ray just kind of got the band and the intricacy of some of the lyrics and the songs and realized this has to be a really nerdy rule set to hang with this body of work. It's got to be very nuanced. and I just think they really knocked it out of the park. Like I'm so proud of the game and I still love to play it. Yeah, I think we're about to play it in a few minutes. But the games that I gravitate to are the ones that the rules are everything. And it doesn't have to be, I'm speaking modern games because one of our friends that are playing this upstairs with us asked me, do you like the older games or do you like the newer games? I said, well, what I like about the older games are there's not a lot of rules. Usually the longer you play, the more you'll score. But it's easier to explain to somebody, okay, here are the three things you need to do. I can't do that with a lot of modern games. That's not a negative thing because as you own these games, you want it to be deeper. You want to find new things. Rush has several of them. All these games do. But when I look at games, I really want to see the rules be something that's special. So when a game first comes out and the rules aren't there, if the shots are great, I know the rules will eventually get there. But is there something when you play a game, Ed, that you want the shots to be fun or are the rules just as important?
    19:08
    I think the rules are more important. And the example I always give, and we've probably talked about it before, but is The Walking Dead. Like that game was a dog when it came out. And it was, I mean, the layout has some serious clunk to it. And Lyman's rule sheet transformed that game. And it kind of changed the layout because it changed your focus in the game. And that's the Bloodbath rule set is one of my favorite rule mechanics of any modern game. And that's one thing I said to Tim. I love Bloodbath so much. I love the way you have to set it up by collecting the three items, and then you can pull that bloodbath mode into another mode or a multi-ball. And if you drop that bank again, it's an atta ball. So I really like it. I really like it as just an element of the game that you can pursue or not. And Tim took that and made free will in Rush. which is like bloodbath on stun.
    20:22
    And he just took it so beyond my expectations, and he did it with my absolute favorite Rush song of all time, Free Will. And so that, to me, is the thing I'm most, not proud of, because it's Tim's work, but it's the thing to me that that's the heart of the game for me, because it's the only thing I was super specific about, and then Tim didn't just execute on what I was hoping. He made it ten times better. Nice. And he did it with my favorite song, which I don't even know if he knew Free Will was my favorite song. I thought I heard a story once, and I don't know whether it was Barenaked Ladies or not, but did you not play that in maybe high school? Was that not a song that you covered? It's one of the only Rush songs that I love that I never played. Oh. I still don't know how to play it. It's a pretty tricky one. I think my high school band played 27 Rush songs, but Free Will wasn't one of them. You know, we didn't even mention, and Ray Day's listening to the show going, how can you not mention it? We talk about the great Lyman Sheets and what he did with kind of a crazy, clunky play field in Walking Dead. Well, I've said this before, so I'm repeating myself. I think the greatest Stern game ever made was Metallica. I like the wizard mode being a single ball and the risk-reward aspect of it. I've now played Metallica Remastered. I think you have one on order. And I don't know how you're going to make a game better, but they did. And Raymond Davidson has certainly expanded beyond what Lyman did and some little tweaks here and there to the play field. Obviously, it's a beautiful look at the visual assets that you can see if you're a big Metallica fan. Here's a ton of live songs. holy cow is that game great yeah i can't wait to play it um borg was so excited about it he you know he's been working on it for 18 months okay and uh we've been chatting about it uh all the way through and uh he was just so excited uh because i think this is what he always envisioned and to have the extra music in the game and to really you know i think this really fleshed out his vision for what he wanted that game to be and as much as everybody loves the original this version is you know like bork joking and not joking about rush needing to be serious this is a serious looking metallica game you know it's got a little less of the dirty donnie and i love donnie yeah he's another canadian he's a good pal but that you know sort of skater um monster art His style, yeah. Yeah, his style is, this is a little more hard rock looking. And I think it's more Borg. Okay, if you haven't played it, you're going to love it when you do. Metallica Remastered is wonderful. And again, just how do you take a perfect game and make it better? They found a way to do it, and you'll enjoy it when you play it. I can hear them playing upstairs, so we should probably get going soon. But I do want to talk to you about, since I've got a musician here, you and I have loved ones that here in Toronto just watched Taylor Swift play one of six shows. And you and I were talking before I turned on the microphone here to record this just about the wow factor of Taylor Swift. And I don't think in my lifetime we're the same age. You know, we weren't around when the Beatles did Shea Stadium, Beatlemania and all that excitement of the Ed Sullivan show and coming to America. And she's been around for a while, and we've seen her grow, gone from country music to pop to doing this to doing movies and everything. And a great entrepreneur, businesswoman, songwriter. I don't know if I've ever seen this in the music industry. And I can't name five Taylor songs. I would go to that concert in a heartbeat. I am just in such awe of the phenomenon that is Taylor Swift. I bring this up to you to get your thoughts on it. And then, quite honestly, why is there not a Taylor Swift pinball machine that is a no-brainer? Yeah. Somebody should be on it right away. My wife saw the Heiress tour four times and my daughter saw it three times. I saw the movie. I've met a lot of people and worked with a lot of people that have worked with Taylor. I've never worked with her. But every single person I've ever talked about Taylor Swift with, who's worked with her, has said she's the first person there. She suggests great ideas all day and she's the last person to leave. And she's the real deal. She's super talented. She writes her own songs. She is in charge of her own career and destiny. And she has she is now well into what is a business paradigm shifting tour. tour like we've lived through the zoo tv tour you to the madonna tours the michael jackson tours all of them are fully eclipsed by eras tour now i don't think you can compare it to you know like you said like the beatles because i think the beatles changed modern songwriting you know they kind of wrote the alphabet of modern pop songs yeah i had said to you stuff coming out of the England was the Dave Clark Five kind of stuff where the Beatles were like, no, it's not that. Yeah, they changed songwriting. And I think Taylor has changed the business. She's changed the touring business. She's changed what an artist is capable of, the way she re-recorded all of her masters to get control of them, harnessed the power of her fan base to put a big middle finger to Scooter Braun and all the rights owners. Scooter's a big fan of this podcast but you know I have nothing but respect for her I'm not going to put on a Taylor Swift album but who gives a shit everybody else is again when I think of the pinball aspect somebody's got to I'm sure Jody and some of these other people in marketing are like how do we get this done if it even possible and I wonder how these things are possible remember when Barbie was a big thing thing last year like how is that not being done how are there not machines for women being done there are so many women players that and women with money and women with daughters and i'd buy a t-swizzle machine in a heartbeat exactly yeah i just i buy the le sign me up what is the difficulty of getting that on board with taylor's publishers or whatever the case She probably needs the money.
    27:21
    Well, is that what it just comes down to? It's just not approachable, just not interested? It's wanting to be in control of the brand? What is it? I would guess the licensing fees that pinball companies are capable of playing are not even in the league of what would get her interest these days. So you hear about the Harry Potter one, and if that ever came out, it would cost a lot of money if that ever did. And the fan base says, we'll pay for it, whatever it is. Yeah. Were they for Taylor Swift? I kind of think after seeing this Arrows tour and people lining up at the Rogers Centre in Toronto the day before just for merch. Yeah. And the concert isn't even until the next day. Like, lineups. Ridiculous. Yeah. I'm sure this is like this in every city. It's crazy. I know people, again, we're in the GTA area. I know people that flew to Amsterdam to go see Taylor in concert because it was cheaper than seeing Taylor in concert in Toronto. Yeah. Oh, yeah. My wife saw the tour in Detroit, L.A., Miami, and Toronto. And Toronto was probably the most expensive. No, we got lucky and actually got face value tickets in Toronto. What do you know?
    28:30
    Yeah, yeah. We've been waived. You might hear some pinball in the background, but we'll continue this conversation.
    28:38
    You can hear a little maiden in the background. Great. We're going to be turfed off of Spotify. That's all right. We're going to do an amazing race tournament. You've never done one of these. I've never done most tournaments. Last night was my first pin golf experience, and I loved it. You won, didn't you? Oh, yeah, I did win. I wasn't here for that. I did win. You're a good player. I joked with you before, like, why don't you do tournaments? And you just, you're like, I want to play. I don't want to sit around and wait. Well, it's mostly because I don't have room for more trophies.
    29:12
    You know, we try to tell the truth here on this Canadian round version of Final Round. and you are pretty good, but I got to tell you, we're not playing for IFPA. We're not playing for money here. Are we playing for money? We're playing for a little bit of money. Okay. Loonies and toonies. Yes. But I'm having a ball playing all these different formats with friends and stuff. It's what we did when we first started playing pinball, and it's not always about the competition. So when I talk competition, some people are like, oh, I don't want to hear it. I get it. This is fun. Yeah. We did two pin golf tournaments last night. We did a round robin, double round robin tournament, followed by a classics tournament. And now we're doing, what did you call it? Amazing Race. It's kind of a last person standing. So eight of us will play Iron Maiden. Whoever the lowest score is, they're gone. And then the seven of us will go to Foo Fighters. Then we go to Venom and Godzilla until the last person standing. All right. Well, I'll see you at the end. I do have to thank Ed, and it pains me to do this, but he actually got me onto my favorite podcast. And sorry to my friends in the pinball community. You know I love you. I listen to you religiously. Slam, tilt, loser kid. I finally gave you the loser kid hat that Josh gave me a year ago at Expo. I haven't seen you in a year, so thanks, loser kid. Yeah, thanks for the hat. I listen to your podcast, trust me, but the one that I get a kick of, and you know this because when you listen to Final Round, we talk movies a lot, and it was Ed who got me on The Rewatchables, a Bill Simmons podcast. Oh, it's so good. Yeah, if you like movies, you will love this podcast.
    30:55
    It's kind of like a sports version of a movie podcast because Bill Simmons is such a sports nerd. He talks about movies in mostly sports metaphors, but it's so nerdy and so inside, and he has such a deep knowledge of film. He's obviously been a huge movie fan his whole life, and if you want to go into that extra level of crazy minutia depth in some of the classic movies of all time, what they deem as a rewatchable, which is kind of a loosey-goosey, it's whatever they want to talk about, basically. But I would just encourage anybody, if there's a movie you love, search rewatchables and the title of the movie you love, whether that's Jaws or Alien or Big Lebowski, Pulp Fiction. A lot of pinball music. Listen to the rewatchables podcast of the movie you love and you will become a huge fan of the Rewatchables podcast. Guaranteed, for sure. You know, Kaylee George is one of the best competitive players, a world champion, and he and I both have, I don't even know if I've asked you this, one of my favorite movies of all time is a movie called Boogie Nights. Oh, yeah. And Boogie Nights is a Paul Thomas Anderson masterpiece that is just, PTA?
    32:17
    It's a comedy, but if you haven't seen it, I'm not going to tell you what it's about. And he did a four-hour podcast on this movie that is just, it makes me cry. It makes me want to watch the movie again and again. And again, when I see, in some of the movies I haven't even seen, I'll watch the movie because they did a podcast on it, and it makes the movie that much better. So thank you, Ed, for that. Oh, yeah. But I'm bringing this up because of the movies thing. You love documentaries. I love documentaries. Yeah. You told me a story a long time ago, and I asked before we recorded this, Is it okay if I bring this up? It's a name drop thing, but it's pretty cool because we all love Star Wars and a lot of us do the Leia mode. Carrie Fisher herself is somebody you were in touch with and shared a love for documentaries. Do you want to share that? Yeah, well, we were talking earlier about the band Fastball. I love that band. And McG, the director, did their incredible video for The Way. and that's why we hired him to make our video for one week. So we became good pals with McG. A couple years later, he was directing the first Charlie's Angels movie and he called me at my cottage and he said, Ed, do you want to play a sheriff in Charlie's Angels? He said, you're going to be on screen for eight seconds maximum. I'm there. But your scene is with Carrie Fisher. Oh my God. So I thought you'd want to do it. and I go, yeah, that's awesome. When do I have to be in L.A.? And he goes, day after tomorrow. You did it. And I did it. I had been on the road for months and months and months, and I had just gotten home, and I said to my wife, I got to do this. Yeah. So I went to L.A., spent the day hanging out on set with Carrie Fisher, who is hilarious.
    34:13
    We had an absolute blast. Then we exchanged information. We had talked about some of our favorite docs and talked about she's a huge, was a huge documentary film fan. And we started sending stuff back and forth. And so I'd send her one of my favorites. Then she'd send me one of hers. And for years we sent documentary films back and forth to each other. And then concurrently to all of this happening, somebody was sending me the raunchiest not safe for work emails. Uh-oh. All kinds of like way over the line jokes and images. And I finally responded and said, look, I don't know who this is or how you got my email. But fuck off, Teal. But you've got to stop sending this stuff. And the response was, Ed, it's Carrie. Oh, my God. You know, Princess Leia.
    35:18
    I was shocked and delighted. I regret never seeing her for kind of a one-person Broadway show. Yeah, I didn't see that either. I was in Chicago when she was playing, and I didn't go, and a big regret. Her books are outstanding. she's so funny and so smart and I'm really lucky that I knew her a little bit I don't know if you remember this but shocker you and I were taking jabs at each other about the movie The Last Jedi on Pinball Profile you loved it, I thought it killed Star Wars whatever, nobody's right nobody's wrong yeah, because I like entertaining things and you're a fucking nerd the gloves are off, alright At least I wasn't named after an erectile dysfunction. Anyway, the point is, here we go. Carrie Fisher, what was something about that movie is we knew she passed. And I think there were some scenes when she was in outer space that they did digitally after she passed as a touching. I don't know what changed after she passed, but whatever it was, as much as I didn't like that movie, it still hit the heart big time. Just seeing Carrie one last time is huge. Princess Leia. Yeah, it was very emotional. Yeah. Okay, we'll take a pause. We're going to play a game. We'll be back. All right. Okay, it was noisy before. It's quiet right now because this is a celebration for Ed winning the amazing. Oh, that didn't happen, so that's why it's quiet. You've had a couple of amazing race goes now. What do you think of this thing? It's a fun way to play. It is. I'd never even heard of this style of tournament play before, but I'm quite enjoying it. And it's amazing how you can walk up to a game with a high level of confidence that the score you need to beat is so easy. And then you shit the bed in such a spectacular manner.
    37:20
    I'm trying to think what game she lost on. Zeppelin, maybe, was it, or Avengers? I think I did lose on Zeppelin. That's as far as I made it. And I own that game. And I have put up many billion scores and ended with a high 30 millions, I think. It's tough, Ed, here in competition when the glass is on. So you're probably not used to that. But anyway. I could have put some glasses on. That might have helped me, actually. We've been playing since early this morning. Not since last night, too. Yeah. It's been a long couple days of pinball. Actually, my arms are quite sore. Okay. Any more excuses you got? I was still playing right now. We were talking before about Carrie Fisher and stuff, and that was a neat little anecdote. You were explaining that good little relationship and the funny emails and stuff. Humor is so important in pinball. You talked about Rush and things like that. When I think of games like Medieval Madness and even Attack from Mars, those are great games and great code and everything else, but the humor is the one thing in there that just really has that kind of charm that, you know, it's not necessarily a toy. It's just, it's Kalo. It's special. Yeah. I mean, it adds one more layer to the experience, right? There's the kinetic experience of the pinball. There's the excitement. There's the flashing lights. There's the sounds. And then there's this other kind of bonus layer of silly humor. And it can serve to remove some of the tension of those moments, right? So it's just another layer that makes pinball cool and fun. So we were playing a game of Farrakora. And not that that's a humorous game by any means, although how you put two R's on one drop market, whatever, it doesn't matter. The point is we were playing at a great game, and I thought, well, I'm going to give Roger Sharper a call. Now, he was at IAAPA and stuff, so I got his voicemail. But he called back, and you and I had a good little chat with Roger. And again, with the humor, I don't know if I was trying to be funny, or maybe it's a good business opportunity. They just came out with this Roger Sharp action figure that sold out. $130 for this little wonderful thing. There were 100 made. Sold out quickly. So I said, Roger, that's child's play. I would like to do, with your permission, the Roger Sharp sex doll. And he laughed. And I thought that would be a great product. I'd buy one. Who wouldn't? Now, I want to stress, I would keep it in the box. It would be a display item only. just in case Josh or Zach are concerned. Don't be. I think I would bring it out when Josh and Zach are around too. I mean, just a little dig in there. But anyway, it was nice to hear from Roger earlier in the day. And I love seeing, and I even saw it just in September. We're all over the place here. It's late at night. In Chicago, they were still showing Pinball, the man who saved the game. You see it now on Amazon and all these streaming things. That is an important movie. We take things for granted because we know Roger and we know the pinball community, but that a movie that going to stand the test of time and really maybe introduce people to pinball And if you not into pinball it a great story Yeah that the thing I thought that would be a for nerds only movie And I knew I was going to enjoy it but I didn't expect it to have such a sweet and broad appeal. They did a really nice job. They got all of the things that us hardcore pinballers would want to see in that movie. but they also made a really interesting story about a interesting guy so i loved it i like the aspect obviously of ellen and of course seth as well i like that they left out josh and zach i think that was really smart too yeah uh the sequel actually is being made right now you know that right i did not it's about josh and and zach uh pinball the guys who killed the game that's what it's called in production perfect perfect but it's called pinball npcs we did mention some of the games earlier and again we're kind of all over the place and we're in between pinball games um we did not mention and we should the princess bride i have always been a multi-morphic huge fan of that platform and what they can do and then people creating their own games or my friend uh ian harrow has done it with this bird watcher and and i'm going I scrubbed the name Blood Bank Billiards. I hope I didn't screw it up. But other games too, Drained. And that platform's great. But then they come up with a great title like Princess Bride. And they put everything in there. Good on Jerry and the team. Jerry's such a nice guy. And, yeah, that's a platform. I never got one. I never adopted the P3 platform. But I've always really liked it. And it's great to see. I mean, Weird Al looked amazing. and yeah, Princess Bride looks like it'll be a really fun game. Well, that's the thing, right? Maybe you didn't get in at Lexi Lightspeed or as some of these come out, but now you're like, holy cow, look at all the titles they have. I think that's 21 maybe out of seven different modules. Those numbers could be off, but it's close to those numbers. The point is it's a pretty good investment. If you only have one pinball machine, boy. Yeah, it could certainly be a way to go. and let's put the flipper controversy to bed once and for all. Good. Flippers feel great. Yes. And every pinball game you step to feels slightly different from a perspective of how the flippers feel. Yeah. And it's no different. They feel great. They are their own thing, and they work great. I know you were busy with a fall tour, so I don't even know if you had a chance to see this yet, but we got to see Alice in Wonderland. I got to see it, play it. I hope they can deliver on it because it's a beautiful machine and we'll see how they do. What are your thoughts? I can't ever utter another sentence about Alice in Wonderland. I just don't care. Okay, okay. I was never excited about a new anything from John Papaduke. And when that went down in flames, I just wanted to never talk about anything that had anything to do with it ever again. I don't know why people are so bent on resurrecting all of that. Oh, fuck. My next plan here on Canadian Round was to do a Canadian Files, the greatest Canadians in pinball ever. We were going to exclude us because we want others to have a chance. But Papaduke, I thought, might have made it. When you think of great Canadians in pinball, who do you think of?
    43:53
    Oh, you're so self-centered. You're just thinking about yourself, aren't you? No, I'm not. I'm not thinking about myself at all. I'm just the Papaduke thing.
    44:02
    It's painful for a lot of people. I know it is. But you were one of them. No, I didn't get burnt, but I told everyone who would listen, you're going to get burnt and nobody listened. People have been burned on games before. Yours truly has been.
    44:21
    The dream is still alive. The shiny prototype brings that particular flipper-powered milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. but do you not ever take a chance on something like when i saw uh barrels of fun make that great game i'm like oh my god like that do you have one it plays like a charm it is spectacular i don't well such a good game have you played it i have yeah okay fun game and and i'm glad they're selling out and they're they're doing a great job i have faith in companies like this You want to support new companies that are doing great things, but I never want to be in the camp of like, you know, we need,
    45:07
    like pinball needs this revolution and we need magic in pinball. We have magic in pinball. We do. It's all over the place, and Stern is putting out amazing stuff all the time. I'm very excited about my new Elton John from Jersey Jack. You know, Spooky's got Evil Dead coming. everybody's very excited about that you know i think i'm not saying like that's enough but there's a lot of uh there's a lot of promise and not a lot of deliver and we've seen it happen way too many times so yeah i think what i want to see is not an amazing prototype that makes you drool i want to see a path to production that's i guess the key right um designing a pinball machine i'm not gonna say it's easy but it's the easier part when it comes to manufacturing as much work as it is like any of the incredible homebrew people who have actually completed something that works that looks great that shoots great has interesting code like that's an enormous amount to work. But once you get there, you're 5% of the way to production. That's it. And to make a game at scale, to not just make one, but make dozens or hundreds, it's a different thing entirely. I have a lot of hope. And I also have a lot of hope for you. It looks like you're up on a game here. What's he on, Walt? He is on Earthshaker. Earthshaker, and the score to beat is 1.6. Okay. Ed, we'll come back a little later and wrap this thing up. 3.6. On Earthshaker. You know what? I'm going to do a play-by-play while he does this.
    46:50
    It'll fuck up his game. I'm going to follow him right now. What's your path on Earthshaker? I don't have a path. I don't know this game at all. Well, posts are worth a million.
    47:01
    Good. Yeah, here he goes. Play-by-play. It's never been done. I've done radio play-by-play for football, for baseball. I'm going to try it now without you seeing the game on Earthshaker. Heads on the upper flipper. Miss the side. shot hits the post to go up the side ramp and funny enough i didn't think that angle was possible it came straight down the middle ball two now 230 completely missed the skill shot 50 000 doesn't have any progress has no idea okay hits the saucer he's about to mash match up and 100 000 points okay that old adage rather be lucky than good the ed robertson story here we go He got a ramp. Can he do it again? Consecutive ramps. We've got miles, folks. Third time. He's going to ramp out. That is four in a row. If you could only see this. Call it five in a row. I don't say six. And I was right. He missed six. And now trying to struggle to survive. Comes back. He's back on the ramp.
    48:04
    He is only a few shots away. From victory or an agonizing defeat. 1.6. He's got... He's dialed in this ramp shot. He didn't know what he was going to do, but he just figured it out. Ramp all day.
    48:24
    Thus is Earth Shitter. Did I say Shitter? Earth Shaker. You're almost there. One more or two more shots. You probably got it in bonus.
    48:32
    He's there. 1.7. Ed, in... I don't know. Was that a minute? You're on play-by-play duty. I got to do it. I got to get 1.6. All right. Here we go. It's not as easy as it looks, Jeff. When somebody's barking in your ear. Okay. Here we go. Teolis is up on Earthshaker. Oh, big, big skill shot.
    48:52
    And look at the side ramp. Nails the side ramp. Sitting at 150,000. He's hitting the ramps. Uh-oh, that's gone. First time I met Keith Elwin was at one of the Papa events just outside of Pittsburgh. And I asked him if he'd like to join me on what was a new game at the time, Ghostbusters. I put up what I thought was an extremely impressive first ball. And naive me, I thought Keith Elwin's going to think, boy, this Ed Robertson knows a thing or two about pinball. Keith Elwin, ball one, lit the super jackpot and then hit it approximately 38 times in a row to my astonishment.
    49:43
    Okay, Jeff's going into ball two with 704,000. 1.6 million is the number to stay alive. He's only halfway there. wants to repeat the Robertson strategy of the multiple ramp out, but he's timed himself out, so he's not getting good value for his ramps. But he has hit three in a row, four in a row. Make it five. Hey, who's doing the commentary here? You're supposed to be playing. Pardon me? Okay, you're on the doorstep. I'm going to play it one-handed.
    50:19
    No, I'm not. There you go. That's got to be it. An extra ball was my matchup. What a bunch of bullshit.
    50:29
    What? It drained. It came out of there and drained. Bullshit it did. I watched it. I'm at 1-7 anyway. 1-7. Good work. Okay, we both did it there. Live. Earth Shaker. Play-by-play. All right, we've got to go find our next game. We'll wrap this up after our final game of Amazing Race. Will it be Ed? Will it be Jeff? Will it be somebody else? And we won't give them the acknowledgement. We'll find out.
    50:52
    A little foreshadowing. We're back here. We're now on Ghostbusters. Did you restart it? Oh, there we go. An LE here, like many LEs at Dave Smith's wonderful place. Ed just talked about blowing this game up. Folks, he missed the skill shot. Oh, he made a great save, though. I do want to point that out on the right out lane.
    51:14
    The only reason I missed the skill shot is because I don't know what it is. Okay. It doesn't matter. Ed, you're doing well. and I don't want to, I'm not going to be braggadocious on this one because I suck at Ghostbusters. Anybody, I once played this in a tournament. I'm not even lying. It was a match play tournament, and I said to my competitors, I go, you win. They said, what? I go, yeah, I'm not playing. You're good.
    51:37
    So I will let you play. We'll let you know who wins. Ed, I just want to point out that yours truly is defeated on Ghostbusters with a 23 million score. Oh, my God. Yeah. All right, Shadow. You got a chance of winning this. I'm on it all. $97 million. Good luck. Thank you.
    51:59
    You know, everyone says Canadians are great. I'm going to prove you wrong here. Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the amazing race, it's Ed Robertson here to gloat. Congratulations, champ. Oh, I was just discussing the prizes. I get to go to bed. It's two in the morning. We're bagged. Yeah, it's ten after two. We just finished up on JJP's Godfather. a game that features several multiballs. I don't know if you know that about the game. There were seven. Yeah, there were several multiballs. I put up probably a shockingly poor 8.6 million, but it was enough to win the day. I think everybody's tired. Oh, yeah. Big Lasagna Dinner did that too, right? Yeah, which is a great game by Dutch Pinball, the Big Lasagna. Just incredible theme integration. yeah we had we had an amazing uh night and day of pinball here and it's time to go to bed dave smith wonderful location and uh if you get a chance to him he goes to texas pinball festival i know uh our good friend todd mcculloch uh enjoys spending time with dave but real passionate pinball guy and big supporter of the community and mods and all that stuff so ed good to see you again my friend happy holidays if i don't see you i know you're busy and uh flying again i like watching the videos on instagram so fun it transformed my last tour i flew to 25 i think of the 32 dates on the last tour and uh really enjoyed it and i'm sure you took the rest of the band right they weren't in a bus or they they spent a lot of time on a tour bus and i was pretty insufferable about it i must admit and uh now late in the tour i i have a little problem with my plane and it's grounded and karma is an unsavory partner, as they say. All right, good night, good talking to you. Thanks for listening to Canadian Round here on the Pinball Network. Live from the Muskokas.