Welcome back, Pinball Nerds. on the Formist Pod Network. We're going to get more listeners for the Pinball Nerds Podcast. And on today's show, we're going to be doing the top five rad, anything, of not only King Kong by Keith Elwin and his incredible team over there at Stern, but also Barrels of Fun's Dune. Now, I'm not going to lie, I am a little bit less excited about Dune than I normally would be if it was released on its own, but of course it was released on the exact same day, exact same time. almost the exact same minute as King Kong. And you know what? I'm going to try to overlook that. There's been much to do about people saying this is a poor decision. I would agree it's not the best time, especially since watching the video, it looks like they're nowhere even close on the code. The code is preliminary, preliminary, preliminary, like .0001. There's hardly any call-outs. The entire trailer only had one or two call-outs. I kept watching and waiting and listening, And I was like, whoa, like there's, you only have two, if you have any more than two callouts in the game, put them in the trailer. And then over and above that, you know, we're going to get into it. We're going to get all into it. I'm excited for Dune, but I'm way more excited for King Kong. So before I get into that, I just wanted to thank each and every one of you who donated. The main reason I try to collect donations for the show is just so I can tell my wonderful, beautiful, ever-patient wife, Drop Target Danielle, that I'm not just wasting my time. For instance, just so I can tell you guys, I started working on this podcast one hour and 43 minutes ago. So it's almost two hours, and by the time I'm done recording and uploading, it'll be very close to two and a half, almost three hours. So it does take quite a bit of time to do this. Mind you, Dune dropping right over top of Elwynn meant that this was going to take a bit longer. And I did actually go over there and listen to the Loser Kid interview. I was very busy with my family last night. I was dealing with some regular normal stuff. Nothing horrible is happening, but I was just very busy with the family. Couldn't upload last night. So here I am. I usually like to be the first person out there with my first impressions. But instead, I've already listened to Retro Ralph. Retro Ralph hated the giant spider. He's not a fan. Most people don't like spiders, Retro Ralph. It's totally okay if you don't love the spider. I know he's a little scary. Me as a tournament player, I know Retro Ralph actually plays tournaments, so I shouldn't say that, but maybe just as a tournament player for a little longer than Retro Ralph. I have a bit different feelings about the giant spider, but we'll get into that in a minute. First, I wanted to thank Anthony Verdesco. I did not end up getting another dono, So Anthony, that Phantom Tilt pinball t-shirt is yours, as well as another t-shirt, I believe it's from Cabin Fever, that I may have used once, if that, back during COVID. I think I just tried to help out a lot of pinball bars and pinball places by buying pinball t-shirts. And frankly, you know, you can't wear them all. And sometimes you order a large and it's like almost like a shmedium. And then other times you order a large and you're like swimming in it. And this particular large was very, very big on me. So even at my biggest at like 240 pounds, I couldn't quite really fill it out. I do wear, you know, t-shirts on the tighter side. But anyways, Anthony, please email me, pinballnerds at gmail.com or Facebook message me. Again, it can be under Albert Agar or Pinball Nerds Podcast Facebook page. And let me know your address because I can't fire you off these. And if I don't hear from you, I guess I'll go to like the, there was three or four people who donated $50. So I'll just go to them next on the list. But I'm going to give you a week, buddy. Today is the 16th. If someone knows how to reach this gentleman, let me know if you have his Facebook information or his email. Yeah, so Anthony, thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And everybody else, don't worry. I'm doing a song to thank you, and I will even include your messages. I'm not going to muddy the waters doing that today. I have to sit down and actually copy and paste every message from every dono, because I know some were skipped when I was just doing the shout-outs there when they were coming in hot and heavy. So I want to make sure I individually thank each person and give their message out because that's part of it. But that's not for today. For today it is Elwynn's Day. It is the day of the Kong, the King Kong. And even though we all had these huge expectations for King Kong, I think we can all be open and honest and say, it still knocked my socks off. I mean, it's an Elwynn. I was expecting nothing short of incredible, and it was. So let's just get into the most. I'm going to try to go in order for how rad I personally felt they were. OK, so fifth on the list is that art package. Now, listen, some say, you know, what is it? Two to wait. No, fool me twice. Fool me three times. Menage a trois are incredible. I don't know what they say. They say something. But it apparently when you take three incredible artists, I should have written them down. But when you take three incredible artists and you combine them together, you get what I actually truly believe this with my heart and soul. This is the best art package I've ever seen in my life. I love both back glasses, but I think the premium back glass is just a smidge better. Das Kuntier better, okay? A little tiny, tiny, tiny bit. But I love the Pro Cab slightly better. The colors maybe pop a little bit better on the premium cab, but on the right-hand side of the cab, if you're looking at it from the front, that alligator croc, that crocodile hunter, okay? The crocodile that's like, we're never going to get a crocodile hunter pinball machine. This is as close to a crocodile fighting like a giant King Kong ape on the side. It's so cool. He's like holding his mouth open while he's trying to swallow him and eat him. So everyone was worried, will King Kong eat the ball? No. but the croc might eat King Kong like that's a pretty big croc uh but anyways wow I love the art design I love the style honestly when I saw Godzilla I thought we'll never see a better art package than this and I will say this is even better and maybe what it kind of does is maybe they took is it Kevin O'Connell maybe it takes the best of like Zombie Eddie's and Kevin's and and the other awesome artist who illustrates and maybe they I don't know how it's so cohesive it looks like it's one artist to me if I had to guess but it's incredible and it's like it actually looks very close to and I remember uh I did buy I think the first two or three comics when the new King Kong came out maybe two years ago three years ago just at the tail end of COVID and it actually reminds me if you look up that modern tried you know I haven't typed it into Google yet but if you look at the most recent if you type uh um Godzilla did incredible was there King Kong 2 wait maybe I'm confusing with Godzilla anyways it reminds me of like a comic book style like like not even it kind of has these 90s vibes retro vibes uh which Elowen did say they were trying to kind of replicate uh you know the King Kong style there was a King Kong made that there was only 10 ever of and one of them ended up uh getting burnt down or something but the art package is just incredible I absolutely love this art package I think hands down people are going to say this is the coolest, best, most, just think about what, I don't mean to be rude to other, you know, I want to say this cautiously, but think right now about road tripping, okay, or as I called it, Garbage Panda Deluxe, think about that, and then think, like, that's like a three or a four out of ten, maybe a four is being generous, it's maybe like a 2.9, okay, it's a C minus at best, then think about the art package right now, even that came out for portal and i loved portal i thought porter was a solid seven maybe even an eight for the art okay it's a little more muted a little more minimalistic a little more calm but so is the game it's a little more dystopian it's you know it's not filled up it doesn't have as vibrant colors because the game doesn't so it made sense but if you're trying to do like i can't imagine in a million years that any three artists on planet earth i don't even maybe if you got like van gogh together and uh You know, I'm trying to, I can't even think of any old school artists other than him right now. Da Vinci? But he was also an inventor. I don't know. If you took like the three best artists of all time, yes, they would make the 16th chapel. Okay? 16th? They say it really weird. But this is their chapel. These three visual artists, these three incredible illustrators have knocked it so mother freaking gosh darn out of the park. I will say this. I'm sorry Franchi, don't be mad at me I think this art package is even better than the Munsters Black and White it might even be better than the Glittertastic Elton John it might be, it is incredible it's gorgeous, it's beautiful, it draws you in it pops, it's got like this purpley yellow color scheme it is very busy but for someone like myself with ADHD who also has hyper aphasia um i get bored very easily i like things that are are bright and colorful and pop okay um wow it's this art package is to die for i i really thought there would be a zero percent chance that i wanted to get king kong not because i i knew the code would be great i knew the layout would be incredible we knew all these things coming from the team over there and i will say team i'll try to say team as many times again because it's not just elwynn it's everyone elwynn chooses to surround himself with it's how he probably helps with the art direction and says hey i'd like it to look like this this and this it's how he surrounds himself with other tournament players who understand how rules should work to be balanced but be fun and be deep enough for tournament players but also shallow enough for just a newbie walking over playing out of nowhere like this i'm sorry anyone who wants to debate me I am doing interviews now again. I'm going to start soon, don't worry. But anybody, in fact, for the thank you show to thank everybody for donating, I do want to have Drop Target Danielle on. Even though she might leave the room when I do the singing, she doesn't want to listen to me sing any more than you do. But hey, if you donate to me, you're going to have to hear me sing your voice. I'm sorry. It's going to happen. I might even use an Alanis Morissette song for it, I'll just tell you that. But the art package is absolutely slamming. It's cooking. It's hot. It's fire. I'm sorry for the pinball pun, but that art package is lit. That art package is to expression lights what expression lights are to expressing yourself. I don't know. I'm almost without words, and it takes a long time for that to happen. this art package I might have it at number five rad but it really could be number one but can an art package ever be number one I don't think so so let's move on to number four that's right it is this cool little mini area and I'm glad that I got to listen to loser kid talk uh to Elwin about it because he explains he considers it to be almost its own little mini play field I forget what the area is called but it's the area with the tiny little mini flipper it's got the the three sweepable drop targets. And back there behind the little drop targets, this is the only time I'm okay with you having a stand-up target because, you know, you're not going to have three drop targets with three drop targets with, you know, you can't have nine drop targets altogether, or could you? But that actually would be kind of cool, like a whole bingo thing of... Anyways, there's three drop targets, and underneath there is the cutest little stand-up target with Gary Stern smiling golden face on it. And it's like, man, you almost make me regret the upper decker joke, Gary. That is so cutesy-tootsy. It's so fun. You're going to enjoy bashing Gary in the face. And when was the last time we saw any game with sweepable drop targets? I thought maybe like Led Zeppelin kind of had them or something or Rush. No, not Rush. Led Zeppelin or I don't know. But for those of you who don't understand what I'm talking about, I'm not talking about you know sweeping up making this town clean okay no I'm talking about if you hit them just right the first drop target the ball will ricochet into the second one which will ricochet ricochet or ricochet ricochet ricochet it will go into the third one and then if you can hit them all correctly Elwin even said you can go up into another shot so you could not only knock down the three stand-ups but you can hit one more thing behind it and that whole little area there is really cool because it has this strange little flipper that sometimes can work and sometimes doesn't I don't really understand and that's what's so great about Elowen Machines you can't understand it even if you've listened to an hour podcast even if you've watched the five minute little mini doc they did on it like 10 times with George Gomez that was great by the way I'm so glad that they do that they release the whole gameplay video like the one and a half minute just the sizzle reel the quick the highlights and they also uh release on the same day at the like like i'm too quick sometimes to like judge other marketing departments for pinball companies just because that's kind of what i've done as a career for the last 30 years however however 25 25 however the point is okay they nailed it you had i would say so far we haven't seen the live stream a really good live stream would mean that you're hitting on all you know if this was an eight cylinder car we love the carguments these guys are firing on all eight cylinders because wow it's like you got this little tiny mini area that has sweepable drops it has a mini flipper that can and can't come out and the coolest part about the mini flipper isn't just bashing Gary Stern face uh after you've hit the sweepable drops to get your jackpot it's the shot that's just above that actually loops around the middle of the playfield somehow some way I don know how but it hits nothing it goes right across the middle of the playfield near the top and you actually get a shot from the upper right flipper Is there any pinball machine that allows you to shoot it from upper left flipper to upper right flipper and vice versa Not that I know of, and I've been in pinball almost a decade now doing content. So, wow, that is incredible. Cheers to you, Elowen. I love that little mini area. I mean, it kind of reminds me, it's not the same, of course, but it kind of reminds me of what Jack Danger did, and he called the danger room to the bottom left. He kind of thought of it as his own little mini playfield. This is kind of Elwin's version of that, a bit higher up and with less risk, because when the ball goes down, you still got a shot at it in the in lane as opposed to, you know, the ball going down through the drain. So let's get into number three. damn you elwynn lay me down this freaking layout is bonkers you thought there was a lot of shot paths okay inside you thought there was a lot of shot paths in Eric Meunier's uh uh godfather i i lost track i was at like 35 shot paths and i was i was like losing my mind i'm like but wait sometimes when you hit the upper right orbit if you want to call it that the furthest right shot that goes up that looks like an orbit sometimes you hit it hard enough it will actually hit a kickback that's that goes right past a hole when was the last time we saw a gobble hole like man this man is bringing back making gobble holes great again making gobble holes great again since 2025. Keith Elwin, end team. And I always say end team because Elwin himself is humble enough and intelligent enough to make sure he mentions that team because no man upon himself is good enough to make a game this incredible. In fact, I'll just say it right here, not even Zombie Yeti himself could make an art package this gorgeous. This took three of the best pinball illustrators on planet Earth. Hell, maybe if we had, you know, added in, maybe someday we'll get to see, you know, a zombie Yeti and, oh, that's great for a pop-up in the middle of my podcast. Maybe someday we'll get to see a zombie Yeti and Christopher Franchi. That would be incredible. That would be great. I would love to see that. And while I'm talking about that, I did want to send a huge congratulations to zombie Yeti. He's now taken over as, like, the head of art for Stern. I forget what the actual name is, but congratulations sorry let me move that mic a little closer here I've got to lean forward to get rid of these effing pop-ups in the middle of my pinball podcast I have ADHD I don't need to be thrown off track any further all right so we got rid of the pop-ups and we're ready to pop back in to talking about this layout so tons of ball paths um that helix loop that's so cool I'm shocked like that was apparently that was George Gomez idea again that was mentioned over on Losercood make sure you go listen to that. But so like, there's this really cool helix that comes down off this incredible ramp. And there's something about a super duper steep ramp that just gets me fired up. The idea that maybe the ramp is so like the steeper the ramp, the harder it is to get up it, the more I would say the more exhilarating it is when you actually do hit it. And this, it's called like the biplane ramp or whatever. It's super steep. It looks like you can, well, definitely you can only hit it from that upper right flipper and wow you probably that is the thing five six ten years from now on location if the locations have it too steep or they haven't done good maintenance on their flippers that is going to be a tough ramp to hit but you know stern makes a hell of a freaking flipper so i think it's fine for now and i wouldn't let it stop me from doing it what else did i have here um yeah and this freaking machine has more flow than like Daft Punk dancers. I'm serious. Like this has more flow than me at a rave on E in 2001. Okay. This thing has more flow than Niagara Falls after it froze over in 1979 and then thawed in 1980. Okay. If this has so much flow, it looks incredible. Now there is some stop and go areas. Will I say it's Elowen's pin with the most flow? Absolutely not. But is this the best balance, perhaps ever, between fun moments that pause? I would argue Jurassic Park probably has too many stop-and-go moments. At least it seems that way now that I've got a thousand or so games into it. Every time it stops, I'm like, ugh, can we keep her moving a little bit more? This seems to be the perfect mixture of stop-and-go and we got flow, don't you know? I said so. Okay, no singing. There is no singing. You hit your fundraising goals. Let's just get back into it. Anyways, it's got that beautiful up kicker that makes it look really cool when the ball shoots up in the air and does that 180 ramp. It's just got every single wire form. Is there anybody else with wire forms better than Elwynn? I don't think so. So now I'll just come out here and I'll say this. I think it's the most beautiful art package I've ever seen in my life, by far the coolest, most rad, and I know it's not like a huge thing, but Elwin makes it a huge thing, I didn't know it was a huge thing, but he makes the most beautiful, most fun, most interesting wire forms, and it just adds so much to that ball coming back when you see it go, or like do a loop-de-loop, or just something fun, it just, it makes it, it makes it more like a fantasy, right, and that's what we all want, we all want escapism from real life, because real life, especially really especially recently politically has been a little bit of a dumpster fire can we get the pandemic back that seemed less chaotic than this no I'm just joking sorry somewhere out there Ian's yelling at me I don't know which one still but one of them is mad if I or anyone on any pinball podcast and speaking of pinball podcast where the hell where the hell is the final round like ryan say ryan say and jeffrey taolis jeffrey uh probably don't like being called i'm sorry jeff i'll call you jeff but mr taolis and ryan c told us that even though i was number five no wait was that number three in the rankings and then i think pinside pity pinside pity freaking beat me for number two how the hell did pinside pity beat me that's suffering suck a tash uh no Pinside Petey beat me out somehow, and yet they announced they were going to bring back final round. We've never had another final round, but with TPN being done, is final round done? Who knows? Maybe I'll go over and ask our fearless leader, Drew, if there's any way him and Ian would allow final round to come over here. I don't know. I don't know. The Poor Man's Pinball Network is the only one left. I did want to really quickly give some feedback. Thank you to Johnny Pinball on YouTube. for giving me a bit of a shout-out there. Even though he disagreed, I felt like it was a little bit of a shout-out. Thank you for listening, Johnny. He said, I have to disagree with Orville Auburn when he said that Jersey Jack's announcement of Harry Potter in such a lackluster, boring way cost them $14 million. I think the company's just too big to fail. The title's just too big. It couldn't do any better. Well, I'm really sorry, not only Johnny Pinball, but also my boy, Glenda Skateboarder. We had a heated debate. It wasn't quite arguing, but it was getting very close. And he said, I'm 100% wrong. He said the same thing. Too big to fail. And remember, whenever you say something's too big to fail, it's not just the Christian religion, but it's almost every religion has some type of ethical lesson to be learned about pride comes before the fall. The bigger the ego, we smush them all. I know they do it in Buddhism. obviously as an ordained dudist priest dudism we talk about the ego being the biggest issue in life so whenever you say anything like Harry Potter it's too big give me a break if Stern had done Harry Potter and Elwyn had done Harry Potter and these three incredible pinball illustrators had all done the artwork for Harry Potter it would sell way better than JJP doing it we all know that so if one company doing it differently means you could change the numbers it means they're not too big to fail What Johnny Pinball said is that I said that the company could lose up to $14 potentially. And that's not true, Johnny. I said that I thought they could lose between $2 to $4 million. Chat GDP, the AI, I mean, the smartest AI expert we have on planet Earth currently, truly believed, after doing more research than I could do in 10 lifetimes, that they lost between $14.2 and $18.7. and that's with us guessing they're only going to sell 10,000 of those they sell 20,000 of those bad boys they're out between four to eight million on my sliding scale they're out 28 million to 36 million on chat scale okay the most powerful ai on planet earth and even glenn at the end of our argument he said i could totally mention this even glenn at the end of our argument about how much it cost them he was willing to concede it may have cost them one percent in sales he said but he doesn't think much more than that so even if glenn is correct i did the math that's how even if it would just affects one percent in sales from having every pinball comment commentator out there not excited about harry potter anymore even if glenn was right and it only affects one percent of the sales that's still a half million dollar mistake now switch and think about this the opposite way had they given everybody at tpf a funny silly little like five dollar wand that said uh watch out for Jersey Jack pinball magically coming into your games or magically coming in summer of 2025 or if everyone had been given a little funny hat or even a pin even a little pin like they all get in Harry Potter if they just got a pin and they had like the four houses there and hovel puff or if they had like a sorting hat where everyone could come over and they decide you know there's like a million different ways as a marketer this is a marketer's freaking wet dream okay I don't that's okay I've taken that too far it's it's it's a moist dream it's a moist dream for a marketer to get Harry Potter in pinball and it was just ruined just ruined and it doesn't matter if I cover JJP for the next 20 years I'm never gonna let them forget about that massive marketing mistake which not only yes maybe Glenn's right it only cost him a half million in sales but on the flip side of that now to be fair I did say something to Glenn that was a little bit rude and a little bit mean but we've been buddies for a long time. I did say to him, Glenn, that would be like me coming to your job. And for those of you who don't know, I think Glenn's been open and honest about it on our show. He does a great job installing, like, super high-end, like, blinds. I think even the automated ones and, like, the little moon ones. He installs, like, really high-end blinds and maybe curtains for, like, basically at millionaires' houses. Okay? That's what he does for a living. Of course, he also does sound engineering, but his, my argument was, but Glenn, imagine if my very first day, if I came to hang out with you, and you said, I'm really sorry, Orby, I got to work today, I can't afford to take the day off, but why don't you come with me and help me out today, and you can kind of be like my assistant, you can go get my coffee, you can go get my, whatever, Chipotle, we don't want to get Carrie Hardy upset, let's get him Chipotle, let's get me Chipotle, let's get Glenn Chipotle, and day one, I was like, Glenn, you're installing these blinds incorrectly, I think it'd actually be better if you did this this and this and he did concede to me yes he doesn't have an honors degree in marketing from one of the top business schools in Canada so yeah he probably doesn't have a huge grasp on how much money it could have cost them but to the everyday pinball nerd out there to most consumers of pinball content and Glenn is one of the ones who listens to almost every pinball podcast when he says something hey Orby you're wrong about this I listen and I did listen to him maybe I'm wrong it's just a guess everything in marketing is just a guess did Jersey Jack lose half a million like Glenn thinks? Was chat GDP right and they lost 18 million in potential future sales? Was I correct and they lost two to four million? We're not even talking about how much extra potential and how much extra sales they could have made by instead of doing a lackluster one but by doing a positive one. We haven't even, we're just talking about ruined and lost potential sales. We're not even talking about potential sales they could have done by having like to having every pinball commentator still to this day talk about how incredible the rollout, the announcement just the announcement of Harry Potter pinball was at TPF that is worth its weight in gold so I am glad to see though that they did uh they did take my advice you're welcome JJP you're welcome Ken okay everyone over there you did take my advice and you put out something else they put out the golden snitch with the the plunger okay they put that out they got us at least kind of not thinking about how bad the the announcement was so they kind of got us thinking about talking about other stuff other than that which that brought back a little bit of hype but why should I be even sitting here saying oh it brought back a little bit of hype why couldn't we just be excited and hyped up about Harry Potter as it is why do we have to go to being depressed and upset about it and okay I've gone off topic for too long maybe Glenn was right maybe I was right Glenn the next time I have you on the show we are going to debate that and let's maybe debate it after the full rollout is done who knows Harry Potter might not come out to the fall save your money to the fall don't spend a penny to the fall don't buy godzilla the best machine on planet earth let's get in to number what are we on number three in the rad list um yes here we go okay so number three on the list i already talked all about was how incredible the layout was okay how there's more shots than jordan playing for the bulls in the 90s okay we already talked about that the layout is incredible I think it will go down in history as maybe the maybe the I don't know like until Elwynn's next pin like I thought the layout I really did think the layout for Jurassic Park was near perfect other than a little bit too much stop and go Jaws I thought was even slightly better but this is just this is blowing my freaking mind like I think wow if I was ever going to buy a new box it feels like it would have to be this one and I know I've said that in the past but wow and if I could afford the LE or the Super LE I would do that in a heartbeat because I can't imagine probably what will be for years to come maybe Godzilla will be number one I could I might be wrong I haven't played this I always say play before you pay this is the way but I would be shocked if for years and years and years this didn even kick out Godzilla for number one Now five to ten years down the road it might be the newest Elowen that number one or it could be Godzilla or it could be King Kong but Godzilla and King Kong are going to be fighting it out for the number one spot on the pin side top 100, and in our hearts, and in our minds, for the rest of our pinball lives. You know it's true. I know it's true. Wow, this is such a game. Let's get on to number two. Number two on the list is all the custom mechs and sculpts, especially the ones that interact with the game. Now, I'm going to start with the one that does not interact with the game, kind of, kind of doesn't interact with the ball. It is the biplane ramp that has the mech at the top of it of that cool plane. And I say kind of because no. Does the ball actually ever physically touch the plane? No. And should it? Probably not because it's got that really cool, every time you hit that ramp, the plane starts spinning and like the gravitational pull of that machine is one percent less so while the the actual biplane propeller is spinning you can actually nudge slightly more during that period of time and I don't know if Elwin meant to do that on purpose or not okay I've gone too far I'm sure it doesn't actually help it lift off the ground in fact it's not even vertical it's not a helicopter but wow just seeing it spin every time you already hit probably the most fulfilling ramp I've ever seen so sharp up like that like a water slide watch out goonies here it comes hey you guys okay that was pretty bad i have to watch the movie first to do it right baby ruth uh baby ruth isn't that good i had it the other day it's not that good they don't have it usually up here i went to those really expensive uh candy stores shout out by the way to owen who got to regionals he got past his local, like our county championships, not only for Babington in singles on team day, but also for doubles. So he's actually playing today for doubles. I can't wait to hear that pop-up that you heard on Facebook was most likely Owen letting me know if he won his first game or not. So congratulations. Good luck to Owen. If I wasn't here with Draco Franchi and Luna Tuna, Elowen Agar, plus the chickens, the maple syrup is done, guys. My day just got a lot easier. Mind you, it's time. I don't know if you guys have these stupid ladybugs. They're driving me nuts. I can hear them in the background. Hopefully you guys can't. They're coming out of the woodwork. It is that time. It is 13 or 14 degrees today with sun, which for us here in Canada, I don't know what that is in US degrees. It's like 80 or something. It's warm. It's very warm. I have shorts on only for the second day this year. It didn't go under zero. We took out all the maple syrup buckets. let's get back into this though all these mechs so not only the biplane one but that little spider and I kind of get where retro elf was coming from retro ralph obviously doesn't like spiders most people don't like spiders don't worry retro ralph this one is non-venomous okay uh it's not like venom venom this is a non-venomous spider in fact he's cutesy he's fun he looks like he might even glow in the dark who knows maybe maybe that someone throw a uv light on that one and check um but he not only has a really cool magnet under there which can be coated really excellently and really might i think in multiball this would be very important because especially when you're in five ball or six ball multiball to have anything that slows the ball down and will pause it there and give you a brief second where you have one less ball it just makes it so much easier to shoot everything else. So this particular spider is really cool. It looks really fun. I get it kind of looks tacky. Like I don't really like things that just sit near the thing and don't do it, but it actually attacks the ball and looks like its legs or arms come down. Maybe there's, maybe there's a magnet underneath it and a magnet on the ground. I'm not really sure. But again, this is like the fifth thing in, in Elwynn's masterpiece machine that is King Kong that I can't describe to you how it works or what's going on. And honestly, I think Elwynn kind of likes it that way like where did this ball go where's it going to come out is it going to go down the gobble hole is it going to hit the pushback is it going to go up through that loop over there i hit an orbit but it didn't come out here oh you hit a thing like you could potentially hit the left orbit and somehow or will the right one and somehow get it to the left flipper then get it back to the right flipper and then get it up that crazy ramp and then get it to go by the bipedal whatever plane and then you know if there's so many options on this layout like my you can hear it my brain is is I oh I probably watched the one minute video 20 times in the five minute video like 15 and I'm gonna go watch it after this I'm not as excited to go watch Dune I'm sorry but we'll get into Dune in a second I want to give Dune its day okay I don't want to doom Dune but I'll be honest you'd get to hear me do this whole show about Dune had you released it not on the exact same day as King Kong that was a gigantic and I'm sorry for the pun this was a monstrous marketing mistake. Not as big as Jersey Jack's marketing mistake, but arguably maybe up there. All right, let's keep going. Number five on the list is, oh, oh, and I didn't even finish number four. Sorry, there's not just the spider, there's not just the biplane, there's not just the big gong with the cool arch housing. They're all custom in-house sculpts. Okay, this is the most sculpts I've ever seen on any pinball machine since the 90s, let's be honest. Other than maybe like the lost world or something like it's incredible and all of them except for the biplane like they f with the ball like they move with it they do stuff with it they touch it then there's the subway car oh my god i i love riding trains okay i don't know if it's part of my touch of the tism or it's a little bit of my adhd my bipolar i i just i don't know maybe it's just i'm a dude who loves trains can it just be that okay but i love riding trains i love riding subway trains. I love going on the subway when I'm in Toronto. And if any of you have been to Montreal and you've rode on the subway there, it's really wild. They run on bus tires. It sounds totally different. It's a different feeling being on it. It's really neat. I love going on the Via Rail here in Canada. I went on the Santa Claus train in good old Port Stanley every single year of my life, including bringing my kids there until we moved out here. So I absolutely love trains. But the only thing cooler than a train, unlike the train in Cactus Canyon that doesn't F with the ball or touch a ball but looks cool the balls go into the train and it's one of the coolest multiball starts I've ever seen in my life when King Kong comes down and King Kong smash and he smashes it into there and I didn't even talk about this wait let's I don't want to get ahead of myself I'm going to King Kong too much but number four is how many mechs interact with the ball including that gong which is going to be super satisfying the biplane where the the airplane thing turns on when you hit the ramp the uh like like everything okay everything on this is just incredible I I don't know how they did it I you've outdone yourselves take a freaking bow go for a two-week holiday you and your entire team you deserve to be like on some island in the sun I don't want to quote Weezer here I won't start singing they crushed it at Coachella uh now Lady Gaga was if you did not see Lady Gaga that was a hell of a performance it was like you're had a theater watching like a whole two-hour like um performance like a theatrical performance watching Lady Gaga at um Coachella but Weezer still did a great job and the fact that the bass player's wife just got shot by the police in LA a couple days ago and then the man still went on stage like shout out to you bro like that is commitment Rivers was probably like I'm sorry dude you can't have the day off he's like but my wife got shot and he's like I we're Weezer We're playing. Weezer needs a pinball machine. Lady Gaga needs a pinball machine. Enough with the movies. We don't need any more movies. We've had way too many movies and not enough. Enough with the movies and the rock bands. Let's get some, wait, Weezer's a rock band. Fine. Let's get more modern rock bands and some pop music and maybe some rap and some hip hop. We need more variety in our pinball machines. It can't just be movies all the time. All right, let's get back into it number one on the list as you might have heard me gushing about it is perhaps the most beautiful most elegant most cool most rad most fun and by far the most interactive pinball mech on planet earth and that is the king kong he not only moves around he moves his arms his one arm can stop the ball and if that wasn't enough elwynn himself just announced that when you get a free game he goes Hulk smash and he smashes the glass so not only do you hear like the knocker which is kind of cool but when you get a free game no matter what's happening in the game King Kong will stop and go boom and everybody in the arcade all those mofos all those other pinball nerds that you're playing a tournament with will be like yo this dude is blowing up King Kong because this guy just got a free game and it's like you could not make King Kong better I I've sat here and tried creatively not with a million dollars could I have made King Kong better the sculpt looks gorgeous they did not cheap out on this sculpt then he moves not one but both of his arms then his arms f with the ball and actually it's not just his arms moving around like on that whatever the Knight's Tale, the pinball machine from, I don't even remember, see, they're that unmemorable, I don't remember them, he's a really nice guy, but they have something about a Knight's pinball machine in an arcade, and the people move around, but they don't F with the ball, it's great that they move around, but if your mech can do things to the ball, like stopping the ball, and doing what I think is perhaps, not only is this the best art package I've ever seen in pinball, call me a Stern Schill. But Stern has never bought me anything. Stern has never paid for anything. I will say this, thank you to Zach Sharp and the entire marketing team over there at Stern. They were kind enough to invite me to go to the show on the 17th with Media Day. Haven't heard from anything from Barrels of Fun. Haven't heard anything from JJP, which I don't expect to at this point. But maybe they'll surprise me and maybe they'll make up for their major marketing mistake and actually invite Orby, even though I probably can't really afford to go unless they offer to pay for me, which I assume they won't do that. But somehow, someway, if one of these pinball companies had reached out to me and offered to pay for me, I'm half Dutch, half Texan. I'd have to go. The Texans, you've seen how their income tax rates, they are the cheapest. And I'm sorry, Texas, but y'all are the cheapest. And remember, so many of you, I'm half Dutch if you ain't Dutch ain't much wouldn't you rather be Dutch all right those dad jokes are cut off what am I Ian and Drew here on the poor man's pinball podcast uh didn't uh didn't try ball didn't try ball with Johnny pinball didn't they copy the dad jokes we see you over there no I'm just kidding y'all can have the dad jokes I don't need a bell for dad jokes they just pop into my little schmed so i will say number one on the most rad list for king kong is that big king kong neck which includes the best multiball start i have ever in my life seen the balls stack up inside this subway car they get a little snack i like to think they're having a beer in there they're chilling out and they're not looking up who looks up when you're in a train or car you don't there's no sunroof in a subway car and all of a sudden they're not watching they're having a nice little day they're just they're they're trying not to get blue in there rubbing each other hanging out and boom king kong's hand comes down and knocks these freaking balls so far out of the subway car they just gush at you like opening the damn walls and here comes liquid pleasure in the form of two of these balls coming at you and maybe more like maybe more because i think they might stack up behind the car like to go in the ball and I don't know but that multiball start is hands down in my 10 years of covering pinball I've never seen I'm trying to think of a cooler multiball start the only cooler multiball start ever maybe is that BMX games multiball start where all three balls like come down at once but like come on come on that game's kind of a little bit hokey it's not a great tournament game this looks like it's going to be an incredible tournament game incredible location game everybody knows King Kong even if you don't like it even if you don't watch it you know what King Kong is and now you're seeing this and it's like yeah I don't think it's going to draw in as many people like uh as you know like maybe Toy Story would just from seeing it right but when they walk by it and they see that giant King Kong and you better believe they have the best attraction modes in all pinball Stern's going to have this King Kong guy probably smashing the glass probably like grabbing balls smashing so let's just see here this King Kong is the coolest mech I've ever seen in pinball it interacts with the balls not only one way by pausing them and stopping them but also by smashing the subway car for the coolest multiball start I've ever seen he also smashes the glass when you get an extra game and I and to make it even cooler my favorite of all the impractical jokers and I used to watch that show all the time especially back when I only had a few channels and one of them was like true tv or whatever or we didn't even have cable and i watched it on youtube i think but i will say this i saw oompa oompa ville most you don't know who that is it doesn't matter but a youtuber just did a thing on how two of the four impractical jokers are most likely i'll say in minecraft perverts or creepers especially the one guy who bit the girl's bum uh and i don't mean like gently nibbled it but apparently like took a bite out like a horsefly anyways not the point it wasn't Q. Q is the good one. The short, creepy, bald guy and the tall, langley guy, probably don't hang out with them or let your wives chill with them at a party. That's all I'm going to say, okay? But we don't know. None of this has came out in a court of law, but the good news is, is Q is in the clear. This man, as far as we know, has never done anything wrong. He's absolutely my Quinn, I believe. He's my hands-down favorite of all the impractical jokers, especially with what we've heard now, and he always has been anyways, but his voice, think about his voice. His voice is like, don't get mad at me Quinn I'm sure you don't listen but it's kind of dopey it's kind of like like it's it is what you would think King Kong voice would be okay we know King Kong strong King Kong not smart right am I right but King Kong strong and King Kong big and King Kong scary and King Kong Hulk smash the subway car what a moment what a pinball moment think right now in your head, what's a bigger pinball moment than starting a Keith Elwin multiball with the coolest mech in pinball smashing down on the subway car I ask you is there better And the answer is probably not Now I have to do Kong pretty I have to do Dune pretty fast because I know one of these two dogs is going to start bugging me soon or FedEx is going to pull in the driveway and they're going to wake up or something will happen. So let's just get into it. Oh, I have to give you the one bad. The one bad thing when I was looking at this and I was really, really, really trying to pick it apart. We didn't see prices go through the roof, which was great. I guess the one bad thing, and I don't want to say it like this because it seems negative or rude, but the one bad thing is just, and I feel bad for Stern and Elowen's entire team, and just everybody who works at Stern for this, it's kind of coming out a tumultuous moment. If this came out six months ago before all the tariffs BS, and don't worry, I'm not going on a political rant today, I'll try to keep those to a minimum. I humbly apologize. I had to get it all out, so I did. insanity now and it's something later i don't know i got it out okay but this particular time that it's coming out and is you're gonna see people who love eloine and who love this design who are tepid they are afraid they are lukewarm about putting it in order because they don't know if the man if we knew the tariffs were just going to be 10 i don't think we'd see much of a difference in orders but if the tariffs could be 30 50 45 plus the vat that they play in europe plus they're talking about doing extra tariffs to Australia and Canada so it's like Australia Canada Europe they we know Stern has said 50 to 60 percent of all of their sales are overseas like that's going to be a real hit and it's such a shame because this is such a cool fun machine and there might be some locations who are hesitant about getting it because you add on 30 or 40 percent maybe you're a multi-millionaire you go oh 30 or 40 percent I don't care I need this Keith Elwin fine that argument could be there I don't believe it but it could be there most millionaires are millionaires for a reason. They didn't just wake up and were given the money from mom and dad. Most millionaires had to get there slow and had to work their butts off and do the types of things that can have that millionaire mind to get you to being able to save up that amount of money, right? And so they don't want to waste weeks, months, hell, even years of money just buying pinball machines for more than they cost. So that is the one bad. And I guess that bad could be also for Mr. Timotai Shamalai, who we're going to talk about here in a moment. But let's just get into Dune. I've got to do it quickly. I cannot. I'm respecting your time and mine. I'm sorry, Dune. You released at a bad time. I'm so hyped about King Kong. It's hard for me to get hyped about Dune, but it won't just be me. It will be every YouTuber. It will be every podcaster. It will be everybody. If there's one rule in pinball marketing, it's don't drop the same week as Elowen. That's it. You can drop the same week as John Board. You can definitely drop the same week is American Pinball, are we ever going to see Cuphead? Could y'all just at least show us Cuphead to get us excited and say like, hey guys, if we sell another 30 pinball machines from our back catalog, we'll start working on Cuphead. Like, use something to draw people in to let us, like if we see how incredible Cuphead is and we want Cuphead to have, what is happening at American Pinball in Minecraft? Sorry, I forgot. Let's go back to it. Okay. So number five, for Dune, and I do want to congratulate the entire team over there. I know they don't have any like pinball designers that work there which honestly is is evident by the one bad thing but they do have like Bo and Karen's who knows rules very well so I would assume the coding won't be an issue um you know David David Van Es worked for American Pinball before so maybe he learned a little bit even though let's be fair when David David Van Es worked for American Pinball that's when all the worst shooters from AP came out so he probably doesn't know a whole about much about making it have good flow and stuff but anyways number five is the minimalistic art now some people may not like how calm it is, how mellow it is. I like the artwork, and maybe I'm the only one, I like the artwork on the playfield. There's not a lot there, it's very simple, it's very minimalistic, it's not chaotic. It kind of reminds me of like maybe Frontier or Sea Witch, and that it's calm, it's mellow, it's got like earthy vibes to it. I mean, and Dune is supposed to be that way. It's not King Kong smashing things in a big, bright, bold city like New York City. it's not meant to, Dune's not meant to look the same. I do like some of the color use. I'm not going to give the art package like a 10 out of 10 or even a 7. I guess I'll give it like a 6. I do like it. It's number 5 on the most rad. The back glass though, that back glass. Timothy Chamolet, look I'm man crushing on you. I saw you in the Bob Dylan biopic. It was incredible. He's an incredible actor. You can even tell it's Timothy Chamolet even when he's got on that headdress where you can only see his eyes like he is an incredible actor but I'm sorry I don't want to see Timothy Chamelet just like it kind of it now the artwork is better than photoshopped because there's shading and such but it's not really heavily illustrated it looks very very close if you look at it and then you look at the Game of Thrones by Stern you know the Game of Thrones I've been very critical saying it's too photoshoppy we need more hand-drawn illustration in there it's all hand-drawn illustration on the playfield and the cabs but the back glass feels just a little bit dated to me a little bit old school i'm not going to complain they didn't pull a jennifer connelly on us and forget to put in timothy chamelet the most important character okay thankfully up here but i just yeah the i like the artwork i do i like the artwork i don't love it, but I don't like that back glass. The back glass should have, could have be, it just could be so much more fun. It could have so much more going on. It's literally just a whole bunch of faces in a row. Like it's literally just like, did, did we, did someone fall asleep at the wheel? Or like art is the easiest part guys. You got to nail the art. And I think you did good, but not great. I'll give you a good old straight down the middle B plus for the art. How about that all right number four world under glass is decently on point and I will say this the whole back of the cab especially the back right with the sand dunes and the ball going in and out of the sand dunes it really is a good world under glass the only thing that would have helped immerse me more especially during the trailer was there was no call outs there was like two call outs or one call out like there was no call outs there's kind of some slow elevator-y style music in the background which is fine because that's what it is it's a slow kind of slow long drawn out movie right so it makes sense that you have that slow kind of dull elevator music-y music that's fine but like can we just maybe amp it up a little bit possibly I don't know just to like amp up that world under glass and there is I did watch like the first 20 minutes of the new movie with Timothee and I can say for Chamolay or not, like it's a slow movie, but during the action parts, the music gets slightly more upbeat. Could you try it? I hopefully they code that in. It's not there yet. I know the coding was very, very, very new. I don't even know why they had people there to see it. Like make sure you have call outs in the game before you show it. Make sure your code's a lot further ahead than this. And probably most importantly, don't release on the same week as Elwynn. If we've learned one thing, that's how you ruin your pinball sales worse than Jack Guarnieri launching a pinball machine like this hey we all know we got harry potter so don't be spending any coins in your wallet and your puss until you see harry potter okay all right that was a really bad i need my wife on to do a good jersey accent but number four was the world under glass it's decently on point like they did a they did better than they did with labyrinth i will say this is a step up to me labyrinth was a c plus this pin overall is a B-. So that's good. That's what we want to see. I will say this. Labyrinth is still better than anything. Don't get mad at me, Steven Bowden. Labyrinth is still better than anything we've ever seen from American Pinball in Minecraft. It's still better than anything we've seen... Well, I mean, I've got to be careful what I say. But it's better than, I would say, everything we've seen from Spooky Pinball until Evil Dead. I hope they don't get mad by me saying this. I do think it's probably a better pinball machine overall than Looney Tunes, even though I haven't played it, so I don't know, but I think it'd be right up there. I think it is even better than Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and that's saying something. If the code gets done, if they have way more callouts, okay? So callouts and code, that's what y'all got to work on. The layout seems fine. The world under glass is decent, but could be better with more music, better music, faster paced music, more music for the different codes okay number three is that captive ball area now i know what you're thinking how could a captive ball be top three rad i don't know ask barrels of fun because it seems more like barrels of mid no i'm just kidding that was rude but like kind of guys kind of i don't know if you're gonna release a pinball machine this lukewarm you gotta release it not on ellen week or else you have pinball podcasters like me just not super stoked about it but anyways there's a captive ball area that has these two forks. So you shoot the ball up into there, kind of like the two forks like you see in Foo Fighters. These two forks are usually down, but once you hit the ball in there, if you hit enough somethings, then the forks come up. Then the ball acts as like a captive ball that you have to hit, and there's like some weird stuff going on in there. Looks like there's some targets. It looks neat. It looks interesting. It looks like a cool, fun little area. Like, if you will, its own little kind of mini play field with whatever happening there. So that's pretty cool. All right, number two on the list. This is really neat. This is probably the most unique thing from a coding standpoint that I've seen so far, and this is the move your hand and die. I love this. This is probably replicating something in one of the Dune movies that I didn't watch or didn't see, but I like to think it has something to do with, like, uh, MacGruber. Remember when he always has, like, MacGruber, you have to stop this or it's going to explode in 30 seconds, and then he always dies. Man, that was such a good SNL skit. It's bad for a movie, good for a skit. Bad for a movie, good for a skit. Bad for a pinball theme, good for a skit. MacGruber! I probably would have got more stoked about Barrows of Fun doing MacGruber than Dune. That's just me personally, because there's not enough comedy in pinball. There's too many slow, boring, old movies. But let's get back into number two on this list. So number two on the list is Move Your Hand and You Die. So Jeff Teolis is known for not loving the action button. But now, more action button, Jeff. Maybe Jeff's not going to like doing either. You put your hand down on the action button, and then you have to go left and right, hit left and right flippers with only one hand. Now, in the video, they were using their right hand. Me being right-handed, I would be using my left hand to put on the action button so I could use my more dominant hand to be hitting the flippers back and forth. And I'm actually pretty decent at it. I have fun doing that. I've done it before. I've played one-handed many times. I've had to shoot video one-handed in live streams and content. So I have done it before. And hell, sometimes you have a freaking awesome ball one-handed that you wouldn't have had two-handed. So who knows? All right. Excusie. Number one on the list is, and I'm not just saying this because us here at the Poor Men's Pinball Network, we kind of, yeah, we kind of know each other as buttholes. Okay. It's kind of a term of endearment here at the network all right but the number one moment and this is the coolest mech we've seen from barrels of fun bar none okay is the flying butthole oh my lord so it it let's be honest let's call a butthole what a butthole is it looks like a starfish sphincter right in the middle of the playfield and if you do something enough the ball pauses on the magnet in the middle of the butthole and slowly the butthole rises talk about a pinball moment this is a pinball moment I will give Dune its due okay Dune gets its due that sounds weird but its due is right on that butthole that dewy moist butthole that grabs the ball it's got the magnet it's gorgeous it's you know I'm not much of a butt guy but wow this could change it for me because that's a cool mech it isn't as cool as the Kong obviously not but it is really cool it kind of reminds me of the Cirque the Circus Voltaire where you know the thing comes out of the the playfield It's very much like that. And then eventually it spins it around and tosses it onto a wire form. That is a pinball moment. That is the most rad thing. Sorry, Timothy Chamelet. I wonder if that's, is that Tim's butt? Probably. I mean, it's a cute one. It probably is. Anyways, that's probably my favorite part of the most rad thing. The least rad thing isn't when they marketed it. It isn't the fact that they released it with, like, the most junior code I've ever seen. it isn't the fact that there's hardly any call outs it isn't the fact that i don't know what's going on on the lcd screen not much or like nothing impressive oh i will say this it didn't make the top five but the king kong animations were pretty fire as well as the music the music was also really good not quite in the top five but wow the music and the call outs were stunning the music and the call outs for this is like yeah yeah you know what this would be when i was streaming, I would always stream like Skateball or like Solar Ride or like a slow EM or something on a Sunday morning. You know, you've got a hangover, you had one too many craft beers and juicy cheeseburgers the night before, you got a little gut rot, you don't, you know, your senses aren't firing on all, on all eight cylinders, okay? This is, this would be a good, calm, relaxing game to play during that time because Dune looks very slow and very floaty and I will say this it's got hard shots and they're really far back it's very open it reminded me of like Avatar like that the whole middle of the playfield doesn't really make use of the playfield and there's hardly any inserts there's hardly any art so it looks very barren now I get it's supposed to look like a desert and barren and nothing going on, but wow, there's nothing happening. So I think it's a hard shooter. I watched, uh, shout out, um, I did watch Jamie Burchill. Shout out to his new show. I think it's called the Just Bullshit Show. No, I know it's the Jamie Burchill Show. Shout out to Jamie. I'll try to leave a link there. He did have Don and Jenga's on there on the show. He didn't really tell us why you left Wormhole. I think we're all still curious. Anyways, Pinball Nerds, I love you. I'm in love with you until next time pinball nerds remember to eat sleep and breathe king kong pinball because mark my words it will become number one