Transcript
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in to the loser kid pinball podcast.
Speaker: I am Josh Roop with me.
Speaker: My co-captain is always Scott Larson and Scott.
Speaker: Uh, who's, who are we talking about this week with our sponsors?
Speaker: Uh, well, we're, uh, we're talking about flipping out pinball and guess what?
Speaker: I just received in a box, uh, last week that I have not been able to unbox.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: What did you receive?
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: I got my God.
Speaker: No, I know.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I got my Beatles.
Speaker: So I, I, I got my Beatles, uh, gold finally, and, uh, looking forward to bring that down.
Speaker: X-Men left the building.
Speaker: Uh, so I, I sold that and now I have room for Beatles.
Speaker: So I'm excited about that.
Speaker: I contacted a Zach and Nicole at flipping up pinball and they were able to hook me up with that.
Speaker: So if you have your pinball desires, go ahead and contact them and they'll be able to find,
Speaker: either your pinball machine or your accessories, or if you have a used machine you're trying to get ahold of, go ahead and get in, let them know and they'll see what they can do.
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: And if you need a Godzilla... You mean like the Sega Godzilla, right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: If you need a Sega Godzilla, Zach will probably even try to help you out with that.
Speaker: But if you want the new Stern Godzilla, give them a call as well.
Speaker: And speaking of Godzilla, who do we have on, Scott?
Speaker: We have a legend in his own time.
Speaker: This is Keith Elwin.
Speaker: So Keith is not only the world's best pinball player, but...
Speaker: rapidly becoming the world's most respected pinball designer, and he has sacrificed his Sunday to come and talk with us.
Speaker: How are you doing, Keith?
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: And also, I think we surpassed the Godzilla numbers in three days.
Speaker: You mean the Sega one?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, geez.
Speaker: That game was interesting, but not really awesomely fun.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's amazing how short some of the runs were back then.
Speaker: It's like,
Speaker: Imagine doing a game on the line for three days and then that's your entire run.
Speaker: That must have been pretty depressing.
Speaker: Well, just like we had Joe Cam account on a month or two ago.
Speaker: He's talking about how they had to do Back to the Future in like six weeks or something like that from start to finish.
Speaker: It doesn't show at all.
Speaker: It's a masterpiece.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Meanwhile.
Speaker: On to something completely different now.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So now here's... So we...
Speaker: I have two of your games and I actually have Iron Maiden still pending.
Speaker: So I will eventually have all four of your games.
Speaker: One, kind of tell me about the development of
Speaker: Of Godzilla.
Speaker: And also, I kind of want to go through each of your games and say, what are the take-home messages you learned from each of them?
Speaker: Because I'm sure there's something... It's like building a house.
Speaker: Every time you build it, you're like, you know what?
Speaker: I did it this way, but I think I would have done something differently next time.
Speaker: So let's go through this, the current game, Godzilla.
Speaker: And what was your thought process when you started designing it?
Speaker: And how did you approach that?
Speaker: I knew I wanted to do a...
Speaker: a game with heavy mechanical elements.
Speaker: I wanted to have a building and a bridge.
Speaker: I wasn't exactly sure what they were going to do.
Speaker: So I concepted many different designs of buildings, but none of them were very interesting.
Speaker: And so I actually had this idea of a multi-level diverter
Speaker: that has been kicking around.
Speaker: So I thought, well, maybe I can use, incorporate a building in this.
Speaker: So I sketched something up, handed it to my engineer, Harrison, and he was super excited about it and kind of did like this foam core mock-up.
Speaker: And then we 3D printed something with these different floors and we're like, Hey, this actually works pretty good.
Speaker: But he was like, I think we can go another story higher and have a ball lock on the roof.
Speaker: And so we tried that, we mocked that up and it was practically scraping the glass when the balls were in it.
Speaker: So we made a few tweaks, modifications, because that's a really tall neck.
Speaker: And we figured out exactly where to fit it on the play field so it doesn't hit anything in the bottom of the cabinet or the glass and the rest is history.
Speaker: As far as the bridge, early in the process, development, George gave me this Godzilla toy kit that had this little collapsing bridge on it.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, this is cool and simple.
Speaker: So I just kind of...
Speaker: design something based on this little toy that you destroy and just put it in the game.
Speaker: And actually it turned out pretty cool because we can animate when you hit it, you can animate it and shake it.
Speaker: And it's actually a pretty little interesting bridge.
Speaker: Okay, so I want to go through more.
Speaker: You have talked with us before about enjoying games and the things that make them different are diverters.
Speaker: So when you have states of change, so the ball path is not necessarily the same at every portion of the game.
Speaker: And I counted up three games.
Speaker: three major elements of that.
Speaker: You already brought up the building, but you also brought up the bridge, and you also have that mini turntable in the bottom right with EncanoGodzilla.
Speaker: And so you also have three flippers in this game.
Speaker: So how many paths are in this game?
Speaker: Typically with a fan layout, it's like nine paths or something, but I think that you kind of broke the bank on being able to have the ball go different ways.
Speaker: The magnet actually acts as a diverter too.
Speaker: It can go straight through or it can divert it to the upper flipper.
Speaker: Yeah, I love state-changing shots.
Speaker: I know George loves it too, so it's always an easy sell.
Speaker: We have to present the game and what our ideas are for the game.
Speaker: If whatever mech we have does something like that, then the brass is usually pretty sold on them.
Speaker: Looking at Godzilla, especially Showa era Godzilla, it's hard to find these movies.
Speaker: So do you walk into the billing department with a big old receipt for like a couple hundred bucks, finding like the collection of these movies?
Speaker: And then there's like a theater there at Stern and you guys just get the team together and sit down and watch nothing but Godzilla movies with notepads.
Speaker: Like how does this work when you're doing research for this?
Speaker: Well, funny story because Jody, when Jody got the license, he bought the whole box set.
Speaker: And originally I was supposed to do this game before Avengers.
Speaker: And so I sat through, watched all the movies, took some notes and then I got flip flop with Avengers.
Speaker: And then, so I worked on Avengers for, it was like almost a year and then, okay, now it's back to Godzilla and I'd kind of forgotten everything.
Speaker: So I basically had to rewatch the entire series again.
Speaker: to try to focus on what I was doing.
Speaker: So yeah, I've watched each movie probably four or five times English and actually some of them in the box that were dubbed in English, I'd say about 50-50 and others were just the straight Japanese version.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, I watched those a ton and I was like, I don't even remember watching these as a kid, really.
Speaker: I just remember knowing who Godzilla was.
Speaker: And yeah, obviously I saw a couple when I was a kid, but I haven't watched one in many, many years.
Speaker: And I was like, wow, these are so campy.
Speaker: I totally forgot about that.
Speaker: So my whole approach to the game was just like, well, I am just going to make something fun.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I was a little worried that the purists would not like the classic rock soundtrack that I wanted to do.
Speaker: But I'd already done two orchestral games in a row.
Speaker: I didn't want to do a third.
Speaker: And I was like, I just want this to be like, you're watching a music video.
Speaker: Guys in rubber suits are fighting.
Speaker: Let's just have some fun with this.
Speaker: Let's have some rock music and break away from the pure Toho music.
Speaker: Showa era movies a bit with jazz.
Speaker: And, you know, this is like, you know, I've just, I'm not a huge fan of jazz in pinball.
Speaker: So, uh, I made that call early and I was a little nervous when, when the game debuted, what people would think about the, uh, the music where everyone seems to like it.
Speaker: So, uh, I think it was the right call.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It really turned out well.
Speaker: And when you're sitting there watching those movies, did you have to make a decision?
Speaker: Because like you said, there's the Japanese style.
Speaker: And then when they brought them over to America, they Americanized and did they took like the original Godzilla and added characters to flesh out a different storyline that they thought Americans would love more in the, you know, because this movie was from the 50s.
Speaker: and so if you look a lot of those movies those godzilla movies have different storylines even though they're the same movie um so did you have to kind of pick and choose or was it just because you're using men fighting in rubber suits it just kind of those storylines didn't really matter at that point exactly we couldn't use any big name actors so that you know anything that was changed or added didn't really affect uh what i was doing or you know basically
Speaker: 90% of the footage is guys in rubber suits fighting.
Speaker: Obviously, if you watch the whole series like I did, you'll notice that
Speaker: almost 10, 15 minutes of each movie is just recycled footage of, you know, the toy tanks, the jets.
Speaker: I've never saw this egregious error where Megalon was fighting jets and he was swatting them out of the air.
Speaker: But if you look closer, you can tell it was Gigan's arms that were doing it.
Speaker: So it was, they just get shamelessly recycled so much footage that it was just like, Oh, this is pretty funny.
Speaker: That is awesome.
Speaker: At any point, did the Stern employees get dressed up in rubber suits and there's an Easter egg in there for you guys fighting in rubber suits?
Speaker: Please tell me, yes.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: We talked about making our own like civilians fleeing scenes of Stern employees running out the building.
Speaker: But since there's COVID, that became impossible to do.
Speaker: So we had to scrap that.
Speaker: That would have been awesome.
Speaker: I know that you have your little Easter eggs of where you're at in each game, but that would have been
Speaker: That would have been priceless.
Speaker: You and Gary Stern running away from Godzilla, you know?
Speaker: Either that or Gary is Godzilla.
Speaker: I'd love to see that.
Speaker: That's not me doing that.
Speaker: That's our guy, Danai, our animators.
Speaker: He likes putting goats in me, hiding them inside the games.
Speaker: I do love the soundtrack, though.
Speaker: The game that I'm playing the most right now, it's one of my newer games, is Deadpool.
Speaker: And I love the humor and the campiness of that game.
Speaker: And so I love that you brought that type of feeling toward Godzilla.
Speaker: And it makes it just fun.
Speaker: Like you said, it's not taking itself too seriously because it's kind of hard to take yourself seriously when you're watching 1950s special effects.
Speaker: And they are pretty bad.
Speaker: But yeah, I think you made the right call on the soundtrack.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah, it's been so long since I've seen the movies.
Speaker: I forgot how campy they were because, you know, we've been... What we see in America is totally different.
Speaker: We're seeing these dark, gritty, you know, action movies, whereas these were just like...
Speaker: After the first couple, I thought that the first movie was great.
Speaker: Then after that, you can tell they just slowly started tailoring towards kids.
Speaker: That's when a campiness kind of went off the charts.
Speaker: I was like, all right, yeah, we're just going to have fun with this.
Speaker: Well, I love that the double kick, was it the drop kick, the sliding along the tail made it in.
Speaker: That's a classic meme.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: Well, I also love the little kid Godzilla when he's dancing with Daddy Godzilla.
Speaker: I don't even know.
Speaker: I haven't seen the movies all the way.
Speaker: These were on Saturday afternoon.
Speaker: So usually when I was supposed to be turning off the TV and cleaning my room or something like that, that's when I would find these.
Speaker: Yeah, the Son of Godzilla, we actually have a whole sequence of videos that play.
Speaker: It hasn't been released yet, but it will be there soon.
Speaker: Every time the ball drains, you get a different video from the sequence where he's getting bullied.
Speaker: It's just something different to try.
Speaker: He's like, hey, we got all this footage of Manila that I don't know what to do with.
Speaker: So let's just have a storytelling through ball saves.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Well, and remind me again, you guys did, there's 10 or 13 Showa era films, if I can remember correctly.
Speaker: How many of those, which ones did you leave out?
Speaker: Because it seemed like you had more in there than what you left out.
Speaker: We couldn't use Hetera, Godzilla Raids Again, and Destroy All Monsters.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: I guess those rights don't currently belong to Toho, so we couldn't use those.
Speaker: But everything else was fair game.
Speaker: What about Kong?
Speaker: Godzilla vs. Kong.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: No, Kong.
Speaker: We couldn't use Kong either, but that movie is so bad.
Speaker: No lie.
Speaker: The new one or the old one?
Speaker: Because I watched the new one when I was flying over to Hawaii, and that was... I'm not sure if the ambient kicked in at that point, but that was interesting.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the Inner Earth Sun.
Speaker: Hey, I just thought it was interesting, but I may have had a less critical eye considering I saw it probably at 3 a.m.
Speaker: It's one of those movies that's better at 3 a.m.
Speaker: It probably is, yeah.
Speaker: You also put, and you put the UFO bumper down at the bottom.
Speaker: So looking at the different design things.
Speaker: So usually the pop bumpers are kind of like time.
Speaker: It's, they usually don't contribute much to the game as opposed to giving the player a feeling like, oh, I'm actually having more ball time, even though it's just a time waster.
Speaker: Yours is, is dangerous down below.
Speaker: What was your thought process on putting a single one down low?
Speaker: Just to be different.
Speaker: It originally started off as two with no scoop, but there was just so little action that I was like, I need a scoop.
Speaker: The second pop doesn't really do anything, but this bottom pop, I love how it interacts with the slingshots.
Speaker: There's actually a little shot that when you shoot between the pop and the scoop, there's a switch there,
Speaker: And what that does, it lights saucer attack.
Speaker: And so then you actually have to shoot the pop to get the saucer attack award.
Speaker: And that eventually leads to a mini wizard mode.
Speaker: So I try to incorporate it much into the design as I could.
Speaker: It's used on a couple of modes.
Speaker: You have to shoot it.
Speaker: So it's not just there to create chaos.
Speaker: You actually need to shoot it sometimes.
Speaker: So with the extra time that you had with this game, do you feel like it actually played to your advantage to help with Godzilla?
Speaker: Did you go back and rehash some stuff because of the Switch schedule with Avengers?
Speaker: It didn't really create more time other than I knew I was working on it longer.
Speaker: Sometimes we don't know what we're working on until...
Speaker: a couple of weeks before our current game goes out.
Speaker: But I knew what I was working on for a few years.
Speaker: So that did help.
Speaker: Ideas, theme-wise, rule-wise, it helped in that manner.
Speaker: But I didn't actually start physically laying it out, the design, until a couple of weeks before Avengers was announced.
Speaker: And then design was pretty much done a month after that.
Speaker: Now, this is the first game you've actually put a scoop in.
Speaker: You've talked about scoops not being a huge fan because it stops the action, but you did put one in on this one.
Speaker: So what's the thought process on that?
Speaker: I needed a place to stop the ball so you can select your battles.
Speaker: There's also a...
Speaker: an element of the game called Godzilla Power-Up, which isn't in yet, but it will be, which you need the scoop for.
Speaker: So it just came down to, I need a place that I can guarantee to stop the ball.
Speaker: The only other place where the ball stops is on the magnet, which isn't guaranteed to stop the ball.
Speaker: So scoop was necessary in this case.
Speaker: And I didn't have room to do like a shot in an up post.
Speaker: So begrudgingly, I put a scoop in, but I think it's fine.
Speaker: It's far enough out of the way and you're not shooting it all the time.
Speaker: So I'll break my own rule there.
Speaker: Always an exception to the rule, but it looks great.
Speaker: I've seen that they've started landing at different locations and people are out playing the pros so far, and I've heard nothing but good reviews so far.
Speaker: People say it's fun.
Speaker: Do you have to decide what you leave in on a pro versus a premium, or is that more of the higher-ups decide on that?
Speaker: It's generally a combination.
Speaker: When we pitch the game with all the devices, we have to propose what comes out on a Pro and then...
Speaker: It's up to management who's like, yes or no, this needs to stay.
Speaker: So it's kind of the whole design team plus the stern management that decides that whole process.
Speaker: I mean, if there's something that I really, really want, I can go to bat for it and fight for it.
Speaker: But usually it's just kind of a joint agreement.
Speaker: And I'm assuming typically that comes down to like you have a set budget.
Speaker: I mean, any game has a build material and
Speaker: what you can do and what you can't do depending on how much.
Speaker: Now you've been able to,
Speaker: creatively, I guess, utilize a build of material to really feel like the game is super packed.
Speaker: What are some things in a game that you're like, well, that would be expensive or that would be easy to be able to put in because it's cheaper.
Speaker: Are there things that you have to really debate on whether or not you put them in because of the cost of the material?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So right now with the, obviously the COVID slash,
Speaker: supply line stuff, the cost of everything is just all over the place right now.
Speaker: So, I mean, we would go from right on budget to $100 over to $50 over to $200 over back to, it was just, this whole project was just crazy.
Speaker: And eventually it just got to the point where we can't nail down a number on this.
Speaker: Let's just get what we think.
Speaker: get it to where we think will be fun, not strip too much out of it.
Speaker: On the pro, the pro is fine.
Speaker: We kind of have to ignore the numbers and just plow forward.
Speaker: We can't just keep constantly checking and looking.
Speaker: But mostly the, I can propose an idea
Speaker: And I can do some napkin drawings and CAD drawings, but it's, it's usually up to the engineer to actually get anything in budget.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: So in this case, it's like Harrison, I want to have this, you know, this building that diverts all these different places and do this.
Speaker: And he's like, wow, that sounds super expensive.
Speaker: I was like, okay, well let's, let's build it and see how much it is.
Speaker: And then,
Speaker: You'll take a look at it.
Speaker: Oh, you know, it's not as bad as I thought.
Speaker: And then a lot of the costs in these things are just the metal work.
Speaker: You know, the more bends you have, the more that's going to cost.
Speaker: So it's basically myself and the engineer working to figure out how to do it as...
Speaker: cheaply as possible, but still maintain what it needs to do.
Speaker: And it's just, it's just a back and forth of the engineer.
Speaker: I've worked with Harrison so many times now that, you know, he basically knows what I'm looking for and he just goes ahead and does it.
Speaker: And he's like, Oh, I saved us five bucks by, you know, taking up this mounting point.
Speaker: It's like, Oh, great.
Speaker: You know, I don't even need to bug him.
Speaker: Did, uh, removing two of the pot bumpers really help too?
Speaker: Cause I mean, that's, that's coils and stuff.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: They're such a common part that they actually don't save us that much.
Speaker: The price of coils has really shot up.
Speaker: So it definitely helps us there.
Speaker: But for the rest of the assembly, since they're used on every single game, obviously the costs on those are a bit lower.
Speaker: But every dollar helps.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, and do you feel like the, the pop bumper itself is kind of becoming not obsolete, but it's like Scott was saying earlier, it's either like in Avengers, it's there for pretty much the hits for captain America, but it also does create an interesting shot when you shoot through them.
Speaker: You, you did that also on Jurassic park because that was like your, your Amber shot for your chaos and whatnot.
Speaker: And on Iron Maiden, you're shooting through pops.
Speaker: But other than that, um,
Speaker: They don't really seem to interact with the ball except for to slow it down.
Speaker: So do you think we're starting to see a gravitation away from pop bumpers as we start to come up with these designs?
Speaker: Maybe pop up our nests.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Actually, I like pop bumpers, so I don't think I would really consider doing a game without them.
Speaker: But I think that the requirement to have three pop bumpers with lanes above them, I think people are starting to gravitate away from that.
Speaker: Just because it's pretty much every game from...
Speaker: the eighties through, you know, the two thousands kind of has that same configuration somewhere.
Speaker: So it's nice to, uh, break away from that a little bit, I think.
Speaker: But I, like I said, personally, I, I'm probably always going to want to have at least one, one pop bumper.
Speaker: I think they create a, some chaos that's always invited into a pinball game, but because if you have too much certainty, it becomes boring.
Speaker: You know, you get, you get in a Stern's Indiana Jones.
Speaker: Yeah, well, here's the thing.
Speaker: If you have three pop umbers, but only one place for the ball to exit, that's not creating chaos.
Speaker: It's like you said, it's just killing time.
Speaker: So, you know, of all my games that do have multiple pop umbers, I try to have multiple exits out of there.
Speaker: Jurassic Park was kind of an exception because I wanted to use that as a setup shot, but I intentionally did not put a spring gate in there.
Speaker: Uh, just to create that random chaos that sometimes it can come flying back through there.
Speaker: So you have to be on your toes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, and it's such a satisfying shot when you get, when it's, when you're squeezing past with a smart missile and you get in between those, that, that Newton ball and everything, and you finally hit that shot just feels so great.
Speaker: Every time you land.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That, that's like one of my favorite shots in pinball actually.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, it's good.
Speaker: Cause you are threading that needle.
Speaker: It's like Indiana Jones sliding under the doors.
Speaker: It's coming down and he reaches under and grabs his hat.
Speaker: Yeah, I've said it before.
Speaker: I think every game needs at least one hard shot.
Speaker: Otherwise, it just kind of feels samey.
Speaker: You don't get excited about hitting the left ramp on Jurassic, but you do get excited if you thread the needle and hit that shot.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Now, on Jurassic, I still have a hard time hitting the right ramp for some reason.
Speaker: It is a mind block on me.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Okay, so the wire form.
Speaker: I want to talk about your wire forms because you are known for having a lot of creative wire forms and a lot of good use of them.
Speaker: When you're designing a wire form, there is an art to it in that it's...
Speaker: You are simultaneously creating movement of the ball, which is fun to see, but you're also generating the speed of the ball too.
Speaker: Like you want to calculate how much it's coming in.
Speaker: Do you do much thoughts on that and on how much the speed is?
Speaker: For example, on Lord of the Rings, there's the shot that comes down the wavy wire form, which George obviously did to slow down the ball.
Speaker: How much of that goes into your wire forms?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: For, I mean, Godzilla was 100% to slow the ball down because you can lower the building to the lock position from a ramp shot.
Speaker: And so we had to make sure that the building was all the way down by that time that ball returns the flipper.
Speaker: So that's why they're, they're kind of dancing around, crossing the play field.
Speaker: Uh, so yeah, you're a hundred percent correct.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: say on Jurassic Park, that left ramp wire form kind of serpentines back to the left flipper.
Speaker: And it's the same thing.
Speaker: It gives you time to kind of breathe and set up your next shot.
Speaker: Yeah, it's just when I used to play pinball all the time in the 90s, I think that was Sega and Data East's way to, hey, instead of some fancy mech on a game, we're going to have these really intricate wire forms.
Speaker: And so if you play games like, uh, lethal weapon, you know, there's nothing on that game, but it's got that really cool double helix wire form on it.
Speaker: And you're like, Oh, okay.
Speaker: This is cool.
Speaker: Uh, well, you know, it's good.
Speaker: It's kind of take a page from that.
Speaker: It's fun.
Speaker: I think for the longest time, pinball, you know, during the cost cutting era, you shoot a left ramp, it would just hug the left side, return to the left flipper and same with the right side.
Speaker: I look at those ramps now and I was like, wow, those are boring.
Speaker: You know, we can do better than that.
Speaker: So that's kind of where I got the inspiration to kind of channel back to what was done early in the wire form ramp days.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And speaking of inspiration, this magna grab is insanely cool.
Speaker: Like watching this on the stream, how did you guys figure out?
Speaker: Cause watching it, like it grabs the ball, but then it will actually shift to one side as it's swinging back and forth.
Speaker: So that way it can set up that shot for that upper flipper.
Speaker: Who came up with this and, and what even, what made you even think of it?
Speaker: Well, I came up with it.
Speaker: Um, originally when I was, uh,
Speaker: started on Avengers, I was thinking, okay, I got this Thor captive ball.
Speaker: I want to do something cool with it.
Speaker: And I experimented with putting a magnet in that, but it didn't work that great.
Speaker: And it kept magnetizing the balls, the ball, you know, two balls will stick together.
Speaker: And then that was it.
Speaker: You had to pretty much tilt the game to get it off.
Speaker: So I kind of shelved that for Avengers.
Speaker: And then once Avengers was out the door and we started playing
Speaker: full steam on Godzilla, Harrison and I did some experimenting with some non-magnetic covers that we can stick on the magnet core to prevent the ball sticking to it.
Speaker: And we tried a few different materials and then we found this one little cap that goes over it and
Speaker: it'll grab the ball and it'll release, you know, a hundred percent of the time, right where it should, uh, with no, uh, residual magnetism.
Speaker: And so we, uh, yeah, we just kind of trial and error on that thing and we could bash it.
Speaker: Uh, it can fling the ball.
Speaker: It could grab the ball.
Speaker: So, uh, after, um, basically we basically took two hot wires and, you know, one of us would shoot the ball and the other one would,
Speaker: you know, short the wires together to grab the ball.
Speaker: And we would, we would do that and say, Oh, this, this works great.
Speaker: And we didn't cause a fire or anything.
Speaker: So we just kept moving forward on that.
Speaker: And that's what you have.
Speaker: I love that's the design process.
Speaker: We didn't cause a fire.
Speaker: So it's good.
Speaker: You got Rick Nagel saying, standing in the background with the fire extinguisher with you and Harrison Drake working with the wires on it.
Speaker: Well, it was the same thing for the T-Rex in Jurassic Park.
Speaker: We stuck a magnet in his mouth, but there were no drivers to actually drive this magnet.
Speaker: So one of us would shoot it and the other one would arc two wires together and, oh, it catches.
Speaker: Okay, let go.
Speaker: All right, it catches.
Speaker: Let go.
Speaker: Because we're full driving the magnet, which you never do on the game.
Speaker: You get initial quick pulse and a quick fire, then you pulse it so it doesn't melt the coil.
Speaker: So you have to be really careful how long you hold those wires together.
Speaker: So on the Godzilla multiball, you did put the physical ball lock on the top.
Speaker: So you have the three balls coming out.
Speaker: But you have six balls in the game.
Speaker: So you could have put, it's big enough, you could have put like Jackie from Aerosmith or the Ark on Stern.
Speaker: And you could have put a whole bunch of balls up there.
Speaker: What's the theory behind limiting it to three?
Speaker: Well, if you know that,
Speaker: how Aerosmith works.
Speaker: If you have five balls in the toy chest and then you start elevator multi-ball, then you got, it dumps all those balls out in the play field.
Speaker: Uh, it didn't really want that same situation.
Speaker: I wanted to be able to lock balls up there and then player two walks up, he can still get a three ball multi-ball, uh, and whatnot.
Speaker: So it just came down to not screwing up everything.
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: So player one locks five balls.
Speaker: uh, player two, if they start a different multi-ball, I guess where those balls are coming from.
Speaker: You can't kick out one or two.
Speaker: It has to kick all of them out.
Speaker: And we'd face the same problem.
Speaker: We can't control how many balls it kicks out.
Speaker: It's all or nothing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When do you, you, is there like an add a ball in Godzilla multi-ball or do you have other things where you're using all six balls?
Speaker: Is that, do you have six balls in there because of the physical ball lock, but you don't want to screw things up for other players?
Speaker: So the Godzilla multiball, there is an add-a-ball.
Speaker: You bash the three shield targets, the shield opens, and then you shoot Mecha for an add-a-ball.
Speaker: You always have an add-a-ball available if you have the ally Anguirus.
Speaker: So anytime you're in multiball, you hit the action button.
Speaker: It will add a ball.
Speaker: Right now, most you can get is five in play, but none of the wizard modes have been written yet.
Speaker: So those will for sure use six balls.
Speaker: So my thought, I just thought of this while we've been sitting here, though.
Speaker: Last time we had you on, we were talking about Avengers and the trophy system and how that was supposed to be kind of part of the online coming out.
Speaker: And now that we have online as connectivity came out two weeks before Godzilla and whatnot, is that the reason the achievement system was in there?
Speaker: Because you said that Avengers was originally supposed to come out now and Godzilla before.
Speaker: So I guess it's a chicken and egg situation.
Speaker: Was it connected supposed to come out last year along with Avengers?
Speaker: Or was it always supposed to come out now?
Speaker: And just because Avengers got switched around, that's what happened.
Speaker: Actually, I wasn't 100% sure, but I wanted to be ready.
Speaker: Actually, I discussed it with Raymond and he was fully on board for these little trophy system thing that we implemented on it.
Speaker: So yeah, at the time we were doing the rules, we weren't sure if Connected would be around, but we wanted to be ready.
Speaker: And it's like worst case scenario, if it's not, we'll have our own dedicated little trophy section in the game.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: I think Raymond just said he wanted the trophies because he knew he'd be able to get them all.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, he kept changing them and making them harder.
Speaker: Oh, I put it in a trophy extra hard mode.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, wow.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So let's talk about the plunge on this game.
Speaker: So this plunge goes across the field and that has had mixed reviews on previous games.
Speaker: So you're risking plunging into danger by crossing the field on the plunge.
Speaker: So what was the thought process on that one?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Live a little?
Speaker: It's just...
Speaker: We do have a multi-ball ball saver implemented.
Speaker: So you can't plunge an outlane or anything.
Speaker: So it's not as dangerous as it seems.
Speaker: Ball being out of control, yes, but you're not going to just plunge it one target and drain.
Speaker: It recognizes that and will give it back.
Speaker: So with modern games and software, it's not really a thing where someone's just going to plunge outlane three times and, wow, that was a ripoff and walk away.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Um, so I was comfortable doing it.
Speaker: So I know you love your skill shots as, as evident on Jurassic park and Avengers.
Speaker: How many skill shots do you have here on, on Godzilla?
Speaker: Um, as of lunch, there are three and I believe there are three or four more coming.
Speaker: Um, yeah, I don't want to spoil them, but there are more coming.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Well, I love that one that goes behind the flipper.
Speaker: That one behind the flipper kind of reminds me of Kongo when you shoot into the outlane.
Speaker: Even though it's not an outlane, but still.
Speaker: It's kind of a mini outlane up there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What made you decide to go with the floating flipper?
Speaker: Has this ever been done before where there's not a direct...
Speaker: uh lane to a flipper i mean how did was that a lot of trial and error trying to make sure that came down to the flipper from the upper spot without it hopping and and being kind of random yeah yeah that took me that actually probably took me longer than anything else in the game was to angle that uh ball guide you know right to that flipper and get it going in that that loop um it did take a lot of trial and error it wasn't really um
Speaker: Originally, my design was to have a shot that shot behind that upper flipper and was grabbed by like a normal magnet, like a normal magnet core.
Speaker: And we experimented with that a bit.
Speaker: Because that ball comes flying through there so quick.
Speaker: It didn't work the way I wanted it to.
Speaker: So I scrapped that idea, but I loved the shot after playing it like that.
Speaker: So I kept that.
Speaker: And then we went back to the drawing board on the magnetic Newton ball and was like, oh, this fits perfectly right here.
Speaker: So after we got that working,
Speaker: pretty good.
Speaker: And that shot, I had just become in love with that shot of shooting it behind a flipper.
Speaker: And a lot of times you can deflect it off the magnet core and it goes to that right lane, the Mechagodzilla lane on the right.
Speaker: And so kind of a full around the world orbit.
Speaker: And the first time I did that, I was like, oh yeah, I'm still keeping this floating upper flipper.
Speaker: It's just, like you said, something you don't see.
Speaker: I don't know if it...
Speaker: I don't know if it's a first, but it's probably been a very long time if it's been done ever.
Speaker: I'm like, the only thing I could really think of would be Monopoly, but that was like that weird spinning flipper, right?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, it gains like, I think Hot Doggin has a flipper built into the sling.
Speaker: But I don't think that really is aimed for anything.
Speaker: It's just for something for people to flip.
Speaker: So yeah, dialing in the lane to the flipper took some time.
Speaker: All right, so how many modes are in this game?
Speaker: I'll say there's seven battles, four city modes.
Speaker: There's like two or three micro wizard modes, too many wizard modes, and another wizard mode, so...
Speaker: Probably 12 to 14 when we're done, I'd say.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: And obviously nonlinear, you can kind of choose your own adventure and you don't have to hit all of them to get to the end.
Speaker: Is that fair?
Speaker: Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker: Right now, so we have cities.
Speaker: Upon release, they don't really do much, but the idea of the cities...
Speaker: it's kind of similar to Jurassic Park paddocks where you, you have objectives in each city.
Speaker: You want to destroy the power, destroy the bridge, destroy the, the tanks that are there and, um, uh, defeat the monster that's raiding, um,
Speaker: hasn't been fully implemented yet, but that's pretty much the idea of the cities.
Speaker: And then you can get as far as you want in each city.
Speaker: And the further you get, the more points you get for the Planet X wizard mode.
Speaker: Or you can just kind of blow through the cities just defeat the monster that's there and move on and not worry about knocking out the power or destroying the bridge.
Speaker: So yeah, there's a whole bunch of stuff missing as it launched.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: When you play it now, some stuff may not make sense, but it will at the end.
Speaker: So when you were making these games, was it kind of a combination because you were an operator for so long, you knew what worked and what didn't work in a game?
Speaker: Did you have a book of notes that you write this all down?
Speaker: Is this all just kind of coming to you as you start making these games?
Speaker: I mean, the operator in me is more like what annoys me about being an operator.
Speaker: And a lot of that was...
Speaker: Oh, Hey, this rubber broke and it's under six different ramps.
Speaker: Have fun.
Speaker: Uh, so I tried not to, uh, I try not to have, you know, rubbers in, in, inexplicably hard to get places.
Speaker: Um, so to combat that I'll do like, instead of two posts with a big rubber between them, I'll do, just do multiple posts with a single rubber, which greatly reduces the chance of that rubber breaking.
Speaker: You know, stuff like that.
Speaker: It's basic gameplay.
Speaker: My operator days don't really affect that at all.
Speaker: But it's mostly just like, hey, I can't get to this screw to take this mech off.
Speaker: This is bad.
Speaker: So, you know, Harrison will put a hole in the plastic or something so you can get a screwdriver in there.
Speaker: It's more stuff like that.
Speaker: Stuff that 99.9% of the people will never notice.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: Except for the people that operate and appreciate it.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Well, okay.
Speaker: Here's, here's a good example.
Speaker: I've saw stuff online where, Oh, this reminds me of the doctor who play field.
Speaker: That thing was a nightmare.
Speaker: It's like, yeah, you know why that was a nightmare?
Speaker: Cause it had bundles of wires inside of it.
Speaker: This building, all the wires are on the outside of the frame.
Speaker: So there's the wires aren't being stretched or moved.
Speaker: It's going to be fine.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So this is your fourth game in.
Speaker: So what are the take home messages that you have learned from each of your games?
Speaker: Oof, that's a tough one.
Speaker: You know, I haven't really thought about it.
Speaker: I know after Jurassic Park.
Speaker: I'm trying to, you know, I don't want to like to make the same game over and over again.
Speaker: So Jurassic Park, a lot of people said, wow, this thing is like hard to shoot.
Speaker: So I was like, oh, OK, so I made Avengers easier to shoot.
Speaker: And then for this game, I knew I wanted to have a bunch of mechanical devices.
Speaker: So I knew I'd be giving up flow in order to do that.
Speaker: So I kind of tried to design these shots where they'll interact with a mechanical device, yet still maintain some flow, which is actually a lot harder than it sounds.
Speaker: So it was kind of an experiment by me.
Speaker: Hey, can I have these four mechanical devices in a game and still have a bunch of shot flow going on?
Speaker: So I think it came out well.
Speaker: I don't have any complaints about how it shoots and how it interacts with the devices.
Speaker: So that was like really the challenge for me on this project.
Speaker: Iron Maiden.
Speaker: Wow, you go, because I worked on that Archer design for so long that
Speaker: George is like, yeah, okay, let's do this lab when he got, when I got hired and I was like, oh, great.
Speaker: So sick of this.
Speaker: Um, but, uh, yeah, we made some geometry changes on it, which actually really helped it.
Speaker: Um, and if anyone played Avenger, I mean, uh, Archer when it was at, um, expo, but yeah, you can tell it, you can totally tell the difference that geometry changes made were, uh,
Speaker: Archer is a bit slower and had a couple harder shots.
Speaker: And I think Maiden just came out perfect with the shot flow and the range of easy, medium and hard shots to make in that game.
Speaker: So like I said, if I try to take anything, I'll look at my previous games and it's like, OK, what do these all have in common?
Speaker: OK, well, for my next game, I'm not going to do that.
Speaker: And you guys brought up the point.
Speaker: all my games have a shot through the pops and none of my games have scoops.
Speaker: So I was actually fine for this game, having one pop and a scoop, you k now, no shot through the pops.
Speaker: So I knew I'd throw you guys all off with that one.
Speaker: And I can't wait to play this game because I think it'll be not a welcome change because all your games are welcome change.
Speaker: I feel like you've revamped the game from what it was even just a couple of years ago.
Speaker: It's definitely shaking things up.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Expo is coming up.
Speaker: So are you going to be doing a presentation on this at Expo?
Speaker: And what are your plans during Expo?
Speaker: Are you playing in the tournament?
Speaker: I am not.
Speaker: My brother's in town.
Speaker: So I'm going to be playing host.
Speaker: I have a I'm doing a make enough Godzilla seminar on Saturday.
Speaker: So I think that's going to be the only day I go there.
Speaker: But it should be fun.
Speaker: And since we completely did not do one on Avengers, there'll actually be some stuff to talk about.
Speaker: which is a lot more fun than when I was doing the making of Iron Maiden.
Speaker: It was my only game.
Speaker: So when we're done talking about Iron Maiden, I had to fill the air for another 20 minutes with pinball playing tips or whatnot because I only had one game to talk about.
Speaker: So this should be a lot more fun.
Speaker: People can ask whatever game I've done.
Speaker: So I no longer have to fill dead air with tournament questions.
Speaker: So we had someone submit a question.
Speaker: This is Josh S. from Chicago, Illinois.
Speaker: I don't know if you know him, but he wants to know, how do you feel to have only finished second place in majors three times while Josh Sharp has done it four times?
Speaker: And does it eat at you?
Speaker: Yeah, well, you know, we put a little tribute in all my games now.
Speaker: This Josh S. guy gets the default second place score.
Speaker: It's just an ode to him, the master.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and, uh, Greg Waparelli asked, how does it feel to be goatee?
Speaker: Oh, um, hi Greg.
Speaker: Uh, sure.
Speaker: So, so we're going to play segment still for a second.
Speaker: If you were on a boat with all four of your games, you could only save one.
Speaker: Which one would you save?
Speaker: Oh man.
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: I think, or I guess the, the first one to go over.
Speaker: That's what I want.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I can't, they're all my children.
Speaker: Um, I think Godzilla, I can throw one of my kids over.
Speaker: I think Godzilla has surpassed Jurassic park to me as my, my personal favorite.
Speaker: Um, wow.
Speaker: It's just, wow.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: It's just campy old fashioned fun.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: that's all you can ask for as a game designer is just to have creative freedom.
Speaker: He's like, Hey, I want to do this.
Speaker: And the license is like, cool, go nuts.
Speaker: It's just the greatest feeling in the world.
Speaker: And I think it benefits both, you know, both the licensor and the, the, the game maker and the game designer.
Speaker: It's just, you know, let me do my thing.
Speaker: And it's, this will be amazing project.
Speaker: And I think it shows in this game.
Speaker: I think it's just,
Speaker: It's super fun.
Speaker: I play it every day.
Speaker: And even though that the rules are maybe half, a little more than half done, it's still have a blast playing it.
Speaker: Well, and I love the campy too because it's like a throwback to the 90s.
Speaker: You know, this is what we, a lot of people love the 90s games because like Monster Bash was just campy fun.
Speaker: Same with, you know, Elvira's Scared Stiff.
Speaker: And Stern really hasn't been doing that lately, but with Elvira's House of Horrors, that seems like it went that way.
Speaker: But this just feels like it hits on those 90 notes as well.
Speaker: And a lot of those 80 games kind of, we grew up with those as well and they had the campy vibes.
Speaker: And I just, I really like that Godzilla's kind of a throwback to that as well.
Speaker: Yeah, like I said, after watching the movies for the first time in decades, I was like, oh, I forgot how campy these were because I'm so used to the new Godzilla, which is dark.
Speaker: Action, action, action.
Speaker: These things are masterpieces in their own right.
Speaker: This whole movie on anti-bullying, All Monsters Attack, it's just hilarious to watch now.
Speaker: And I was like, what am I going to do with these clips?
Speaker: And that's, that's when I came up with the whole ball save thing where Manila is getting bullied and just, so we took, we basically copied the subtitles as ball save, uh,
Speaker: ball save notes instead of, you know, ball saved or return to battle.
Speaker: We just copied whatever that section of the movie had to hang in there.
Speaker: You can do it.
Speaker: Focus.
Speaker: All these different ball save clips.
Speaker: So, yeah, it was I think we all had a fun time on this one.
Speaker: You also have the ability to play in Japanese mode or in English mode.
Speaker: So whose idea was that?
Speaker: It was actually the licensor.
Speaker: They're like,
Speaker: Oh, really cool.
Speaker: Because they're going to have it in Japan.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they were like, hey, really be cool if you guys can do this.
Speaker: And we're like, oh, yeah, I think we can.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Rick saw that and he's like, great, more work to do.
Speaker: And then it turned out to be it really wasn't that bad.
Speaker: You know, we just put a flag in there for which speech is in there.
Speaker: Obviously, when you get a bunch of.
Speaker: Japanese voice work and you had no idea what that call out is.
Speaker: So, you know, we had, we had to do a lot of Jerry Thompson to do a lot of work to set all this up, uh, to verify that this is the quote for, you know, for us written on the line because we have no way to verify it.
Speaker: And, uh, those guys did a great job.
Speaker: Just all the legwork necessary to make that happen.
Speaker: So did you have to have like a translator there to help or how did that work?
Speaker: So we sent English script to our VO guy and he sent it back with, and he, you know, he made the corrections.
Speaker: Hey, you know, this doesn't translate well.
Speaker: So I did the best I could.
Speaker: And, you know, some of it was, you know, slightly different.
Speaker: So we had to figure out, okay, this must be for this call out.
Speaker: This must be for this call out.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Like I said, it was a lot of work, Jerry Thompson, Rick Nagel to figure all that out and get everything in the right place.
Speaker: And hopefully it is.
Speaker: Like I said, we may have some totally wrong call outs in there and not know it.
Speaker: So hopefully someone will let us know if that's true.
Speaker: I'm sure it'd be hilarious, though.
Speaker: Like, have you ever gone to like when I travel and I go and I obviously I don't speak the the native language I'm going to, but it is interesting when I see when they try to to translate to to English.
Speaker: But I'm sure that it would probably give the Japanese people a chuckle when it looks like what Americans are trying to translate into Japanese.
Speaker: Yeah, it's our it's our our version of bad dubs back at them.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Okay, so what time is your seminar on Saturday?
Speaker: I think it's after dinner.
Speaker: I'm not sure.
Speaker: Yeah, I've been so busy.
Speaker: We'll get a crowd for you there.
Speaker: I've been so busy on the line.
Speaker: These past two days, I'm in my first two days off in a month, so it just feels great.
Speaker: Just kind of shut my brain off and not think about that stuff, but I believe we are the last talk Saturday night after dinner.
Speaker: Oh, you're the keynote talk.
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's probably like the month up to a release and a month after release is probably the busiest time you have in the whole development cycle, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, for me, I mean, my poor programmer, Rick, I don't think he's taken a vacation in years.
Speaker: So, uh,
Speaker: I think I have no right to complain because he's the one under the gun to, hey, this has to show while on the stream.
Speaker: Hey, this has to have no bugs when we're released.
Speaker: Hey, this, you know, I can't imagine that the stress he's under in sleepless nights.
Speaker: So for me, me waking up early and going to the factory, I can't complain because I know that's nothing compared to what he's going through.
Speaker: Well, and honestly, his work is amazing.
Speaker: Like I said, I've played plenty of Stern games.
Speaker: They're all fantastic.
Speaker: but I feel like Rick does a good job too.
Speaker: You don't find like a consistent bug.
Speaker: Um, there's some games that like I own turtles and I love turtles, but it always seems like, uh, there, there might be a bug or something after the update.
Speaker: Like the current one right now is final battle for some other reason.
Speaker: The audio is not there when you get there, but like, I haven't found that with, um, any, any of the Rick ankle games that he's done for you.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: I mean, next time you see him, tell him great job.
Speaker: I know you probably tell him enough as is, but I mean, like it's definitely showing in the work that he does too.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: He's as far as programmer goes, he's very competent.
Speaker: I can, Hey, I want this to do that and this.
Speaker: And then he'll like, okay, no problem.
Speaker: And then we'll eventually get implemented and he'll like, yeah, that was really hard to do, but it's working the way you want it to.
Speaker: And I was like, Oh, you should have said something.
Speaker: I could have done it differently.
Speaker: But yeah, no, he's, he's very good at figuring out what I want.
Speaker: how I want it done and, uh, making it happen.
Speaker: I mean, it's the same with Harrison too.
Speaker: I know the game designer gets all the credit, but, uh, it's a team effort for sure.
Speaker: Um, you know, Jerry got all this, all the great original music in there.
Speaker: Harrison got those mechs working perfectly.
Speaker: Rick's code obviously speaks for itself.
Speaker: So, um, it's a whole team effort.
Speaker: And I, I, zombie Eddie always knocks it out of the park.
Speaker: I know we love that saying, but,
Speaker: his artwork it astounds me i know i know this i don't know why but some people complain of colors and yada yada yada it's like i think it looks fantastic so i don't think what people keep in mind is um the licensor wanted you know what the licensor wants the licensor gets it's you know we're not going to tell them what to do so that's the direction they wanted for this and that's that's how it goes um
Speaker: It's funny to hear that.
Speaker: Oh, that's, this isn't that this isn't accurate.
Speaker: And I was like, well, it's what they want to, you know,
Speaker: Well, it certainly catches your eye when you see it.
Speaker: And that's certainly what you want, especially in pinball, where it's fighting for floor space from the Raw Thrills games that look like a Skittles explosion.
Speaker: And like I said, this whole thing, from the beginning, Toho's like, yeah, let's make this great campy game.
Speaker: And it's like, you don't have campy games with dark, gritty artwork.
Speaker: It doesn't make sense.
Speaker: So this direction we went, this is the direction they wanted us to go.
Speaker: And I would not change a thing.
Speaker: Well, and I think oftentimes people forget too, because I don't want to say I criticize, but I brought up the point on the last episode, like when you guys did the reveal trailers, typically you do like a reveal trailer and then you do like a pro premium features and stuff like that.
Speaker: I was like, where the whole is that?
Speaker: And someone had reached out and said, Josh, you realize like sometimes our hands are tied and we have to wait.
Speaker: And I think we forget that being on the outside is, is, as he had put to me is sometime, you know, you guys need the licensor and, and you never want to get that message saying like, like you didn't do what we asked you to.
Speaker: We don't want to deal with you guys again.
Speaker: And so it's, it's a fine balance of what to do as well.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Toho has been great to work with and, but there's, there's more than one entity making up Toho.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: You just don't sign off with one person.
Speaker: You're signing off with multiple people.
Speaker: So obviously that creates delays.
Speaker: That was what happened in this case.
Speaker: So that's all that was.
Speaker: I think it's good to wait until you get everything right, though, because it's clumsy when it seems like you announce something and then you have to walk it back.
Speaker: And we've seen other games that have announced too soon and then had to walk things back and it didn't.
Speaker: You know, it became awkward for them.
Speaker: And I like that you guys wait till it's dialed in before it's all set out.
Speaker: So if we're up to me, we would just blindly show the stream when it was ready to stream and then we'd release all the promotional stuff.
Speaker: So that's it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: It's over to me.
Speaker: Obviously, it's not.
Speaker: But it'd just be fun organically discover this game because that's how we used to do it.
Speaker: You know, 80s and 90s.
Speaker: We'd walk into an arcade.
Speaker: Oh, look, a whole new game.
Speaker: There's no Internet.
Speaker: So you didn't know this game was coming.
Speaker: You just discover it organically and you start pumping your money in it.
Speaker: And it's like, yeah, I think that's, that's kind of lost today in the, the internet age where you just, you know, what's coming.
Speaker: You've seen pictures, you've seen gameplay before you even play your mind's probably already made up.
Speaker: So, you know, kind of miss those days, but I know they're never coming back.
Speaker: Well, that's why I assume that's why you kind of keep some mystery to as well when you're streaming and stuff like that.
Speaker: I know that other developers and whatnot might actually go through the whole code set, but it's kind of like explore with us.
Speaker: We're not going to tell you everything because we want you to explore it for yourself.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think for for Iron Maiden, I think I took the glass off and, you know, started shooting shots and make making all the modes.
Speaker: I remember I went back and rewatched that and I was like, this is boring.
Speaker: I'd rather just play it, you know?
Speaker: So that's how I've approached my streams ever since.
Speaker: And I honestly haven't heard any complaints, so I'll probably continue to do that.
Speaker: Yeah, Zach told us that after the stream, the orders went up, which he said is a little unusual.
Speaker: And so I rewatched the stream today.
Speaker: And yes, it seemed like you guys were having fun.
Speaker: And my daughter walked up and she looked at the game and she's six and she said, that game looks fun.
Speaker: So, well, I'm just saying that's a good thing, right?
Speaker: You don't want someone to look like, I don't understand what's going on.
Speaker: She just said, that looks fun.
Speaker: So, Jack approached me and he's like, oh, what do you want to do for the stream?
Speaker: I was like, I want the music loud.
Speaker: we're not going to talk just put the music on loud so we can get some energy in the room because sometimes you know during the streams we had the volume turned either all the way down or it's direct audio where the people in the room can't hear it at all i was like i don't want that uh i don't want to look bored let's get some energy in the room um just don't capture the audio directly just put a microphone by us it'll pick up what it picks up and uh i think it works fine are you are you tired of hearing blue oyster coats godzilla now though
Speaker: Oh, no, but I think the line workers are because they have to they have to test the speakers in order to do that.
Speaker: They turn the volume all the way up.
Speaker: And of course, that's the default volume change song.
Speaker: So they're probably pretty sick of it.
Speaker: I'm not there yet, but well, ask me again in three months.
Speaker: So I did look at the schedule and on the schedule, you are set at seven o'clock and followed by Dwight with Family Feud.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: you are definitely in the evening on Saturday.
Speaker: So I guess I better eat first.
Speaker: Well, it's always a party with Dwight, right?
Speaker: So it'll be, it'll be interesting to do family.
Speaker: What's it called feud without the family, right?
Speaker: Feud without the family, which I don't even know if that's a feud.
Speaker: I mean, you got any recommendations.
Speaker: So this is my first time to expo.
Speaker: Keith, you got any recommendations for anyone that's going for their first time to expo?
Speaker: Well, you know, not really because it's in a whole new venue this year.
Speaker: I don't even know where it's at.
Speaker: So, uh,
Speaker: Before I could say, oh yeah, you know, there's these places to eat, these places to avoid, but I haven't even looked to see where this new venue's at.
Speaker: I think it's actually down by Stern's headquarters, if I'm correct.
Speaker: It's only a couple, I want to say maybe five, ten blocks away.
Speaker: I think it's in Schaumburg, which is actually a pretty populated suburb.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: There's definitely the mall.
Speaker: We've got a pretty big mall out there with an arcade, Antarium Arcade, which has a lot of new games.
Speaker: So that's definitely worth checking out if you're in the area.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm flying in Wednesday night, so I'm looking to do something on Wednesday night.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't spend a lot of time in Schaumburg, so I have no recommendations.
Speaker: But it's definitely much more convenient than the old location, that's for sure.
Speaker: I got to know, though, I don't think you talked about this on Final Round.
Speaker: If you did have to choose between Teolis and Martin, who would you be throwing over the boat?
Speaker: I kind of like Marty for his candor.
Speaker: He was just like, I'm not impressed with any of these mechs.
Speaker: I was like, okay, yeah, that's another industry guy talking.
Speaker: So I got to keep him.
Speaker: He's honest to me.
Speaker: I would toss Teolis over.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I'm just wondering what does it change with the level of gin that's going through Martin's veins?
Speaker: Cause I think the filter, the filter goes as the gin goes up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Tealus is Tealus no matter what, but yeah.
Speaker: Marty's the wild card.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, cool.
Speaker: I don't have any other questions.
Speaker: Do you have any more questions, Scott?
Speaker: No, I think that's good.
Speaker: We have taken an hour of Keith's time, and we appreciate him coming on.
Speaker: We do appreciate it.
Speaker: And the Bears are winning, so it's a win-win.
Speaker: Well, maybe Chuckle is, you know how many emails and messages we've received in the last month of, when's Keith Elwin coming on?
Speaker: Why haven't we heard a Keith Elwin interview yet?
Speaker: Like, guys, we don't usually have him on directly as soon as possible, but it just made me chuckle.
Speaker: Yeah, he's busy before and after.
Speaker: Yes, you've got to catch him at the right time.
Speaker: But even Raymond Davidson's like, where's Keith at?
Speaker: I'm surprised he's not on the show yet.
Speaker: Well, Keith is finally starting to get some days off again, and he can do these shows again.
Speaker: You've definitely deserved some days off.
Speaker: You've earned them.
Speaker: Wow, thank you.
Speaker: All right, Josh, you want to send us out?
Speaker: Yeah, I'll definitely do the send off.
Speaker: If you want to get ahold of us, we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: If you're looking for us on the socials, we are at loser kid pinball on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Speaker: We do have Twitch going on as well whenever I feel like it.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: I record like three times in one week and then nothing for a month.
Speaker: So whatever works.
Speaker: If you do want to get ahold of us, we do have some hats.
Speaker: We have a couple different, not designs, but different colors we're going to be bringing to Expo, but not a ton.
Speaker: So if you want a guaranteed hat or a shirt or a beanie, anything of that nature, you need to get the order in like today.
Speaker: And so if you want us to bring it to Expo, if not, we can ship it to you later.
Speaker: So other than that, what you got for me, Scott?
Speaker: Josh, what's your insider profile?
Speaker: Oh, it's just Loserkid.
Speaker: I stole it.
Speaker: Someone's like, that's not very nice.
Speaker: Did you guys arm wrestle for it?
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: He just grabbed on it.
Speaker: So I keep trying to sign up, but I forgot my login for Stern.
Speaker: So I've been trying to reset my password for three days.
Speaker: So I will be Loserkid2, the number two.
Speaker: And Keith, if people want to follow you, what is yours?
Speaker: KME Stern, I think?
Speaker: Wow, I don't remember.
Speaker: I don't think your profile is public because I found out that if you just typed in Stern and you looked under connections, it seemed like everyone at Stern was Stern-Rate-A or Stern-Rick.
Speaker: Yeah, the Stern employees had the designation of Stern and there's...
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's just Stern-KME, KME71, something like that.
Speaker: All right, well, check it out and let us know if you can find Keith.
Speaker: We can make it a whole challenge, find Keith.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Where's Keith?
Speaker: You can even unlock the achievement once you found Keith.
Speaker: Where in the world is Keith?
Speaker: Cool, Keith, we really appreciate having you on.
Speaker: It's always fun having you on.
Speaker: And we wish you well.
Speaker: Hopefully, we'll see you here in a couple weeks at Expo.
Speaker: Yeah, thanks, Keith.
Speaker: All right, good to talk to you.
Speaker: Shut up and sit down.
