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Spooky’s Beetlejuice Pinball
1.3k Plays11 days ago
Corwin "Bug" Emery joins us to talk about their latest creation, Beetlejuice!
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Transcript
Introduction and Excitement for Beetlejuice Pinball
00:00:07
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. We're on a very special episode today. For those keeping track, episode 181. With me, my co-captain. Scott Larson. And I am Josh Roop.
00:00:19
Speaker
And today is such a cool day because it is reveal day. Beetlejuice has just shown if you want to get on the waiting list, who you calling Scott ah calls that kind of cold mini at flipping out pinball ah sell all things spooky.
Experiences and Offers from Flipping Out Pinball
00:00:32
Speaker
I actually just had a great, a great experience with them because I did just receive my medieval madness.
00:00:40
Speaker
And I actually bought a game that I wasn't really planning on using, and I was trying to figure out what to do with it. And I asked, and they were interested. So they actually shipped out the the Medieval Madness in on a crate with a box.
00:00:55
Speaker
I took that box out, and I put my box in, and I shipped it right back to them. And so there's lots of options out there. If you're looking for and a new game, used game, if you're looking at possibly trading in there are options for you. So Zach and Colmini flipping out pinball.
00:01:10
Speaker
Legit, Josh knows I am such a pinball hoarder because I like i legit hate selling games. yeah This is going to change my pinball buying habits. Yeah, I can't believe you put a new in box Guardians of the Galaxy is what you ship because you never opened it. I never like game i had it for four years and it just I'm sorry. It just never connected with me. it never connected.
00:01:30
Speaker
that Well, you got to open the box first to figure out if it connects with you. I did play it. i did play it. I just didn't love the game. It's OK. OK, sorry. I'm i'm a tear I am a terrible pin owner.
00:01:41
Speaker
OK. And if you want that $500 off of the fun house, doesn't matter if it's Ellie or the classic, hit them up with the code loser kid when you check out at flipping out.com.
Guest Appearance: 'Bug' and Beetlejuice Pinball Insights
00:01:52
Speaker
All right. We've got the evil genius with us. I know he goes by bug, but he has grown into a monster. I don't think we can call him bug anymore. And after seeing the insanity that is this trailer, that Beetlejuice just taking a life of its own, selling out before it's even been shown.
00:02:07
Speaker
Today is almost like a day of celebration. And and ah it's just some days we hold our breath to see the new stuff. And it's just I'm I'm stoked. ah But welcome on the show. Welcome back. Was the third, fourth time? It's just it's great to always have young man.
00:02:21
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for having me on again, guys. And yeah, like third, fourth time. don't know. I just love that it's kind of a yearly thing. Come on here, hang out, talk some stuff. We spend more time talking before and after these interviews than we do during the usual interview, just about random things.
00:02:34
Speaker
ah what we We did wear spooky costumes today. we We asked for shirts a while ago. You'll see Josh and I are wearing our spooky shells and I have a hat that your dad sent me back in the day. Oh my goodness.
00:02:46
Speaker
I'm all spookied out here. You managed to retain hats for that long. I swear I can't i can't hold on to a hat for more than like a year before it just gets destroyed or vanishes or something. Yeah, I have so many because because I'm bald. And what happens is when you don't have hair on top that you have to protect your cranium from the sun.
00:03:05
Speaker
But yeah, I go through these, but I i legit have like 50 hats. And so I rotate through so many hats. it it's ah So my hats actually stay pretty good. But yeah, i I kept my spooky hat in honor of interviewing you guys.
00:03:20
Speaker
it's a good day for a spooky hat. It's fantastic. This game. Holy crap. Like there's just, okay, Josh, don't bury the lead. Okay. So what is the new lead? What is the new game coming out bug?
00:03:32
Speaker
Uh, right. Sorry. When, when is it coming out? What is the new game? Come on. Introduce the
Design and Features of Beetlejuice Pinball
00:03:38
Speaker
game. Sell the game to us. Come on. He's still celebrating the, the wreck of, uh, the, the wreck of Fitzgerald. It's November 10. My brain's on wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald, not on Beetlejuice.
00:03:51
Speaker
ah yeahlicit No. So, uh, it's our, our latest, greatest game, Beetlejuice pinball, the collector's edition. We still, there's only one edition. We still call it the collector's edition for some reason. i don't know why we do that, but we're not getting, we're, we're married to it. So it's the collector's edition, Beetlejuice, our latest game, uh, uh,
00:04:09
Speaker
Pretty poorly kept secret. Seemed like pretty much everybody knew for a long time that this was coming. I think they knew that that we were going to do Beetlejuice next before we knew that we were doing it next. And yeah, it's here. It's beautiful. It's loaded with all the assets. It plays really fast, flowy and smooth. And it's a fun freaking game. I'm excited to talk about it today.
00:04:28
Speaker
Excuse me. You say all the assets. You mean everything from the, but the first Beetlejuice movie? There's two movies. what What we got here? What we got here? So Beetlejuice pinball is all based in the the first movie, the 1988 film.
00:04:40
Speaker
ah So funny, cool thing was, um you know, didn't it seem like for like 15 years in a row on Facebook, you people would just be posting like, oh, Beetlejuice 2 is coming. And it was just fake.
00:04:51
Speaker
And then you'd see it again next year. Like, oh, Tim Burton's rumored to do a sequel. And it was fake. And it just never happened. And I started seeing more rumors online. And I was like, yeah I'm not believing that. And then Warner Brothers emailed me. And they were like, just so you know, there is a sequel coming.
00:05:04
Speaker
We're going to have a meeting to talk about it and let you in on a little bit of what's going on in that movie and whatnot. So I got to be a part of this cool Zoom meeting where they were showing off concepts of the second movie long before ah any of that stuff was out there on the internet and ah being spoken about. So that was a really cool experience. um We still ah ended up just using all just the first movie ah for everything. But I thought that second movie was fun. I saw it in theaters.
00:05:29
Speaker
A lot of people did it made a ton of money. But it was a really cool movie. So yeah, but this game's all movie one. Awesome. So one of the challenges that you can have with especially legacy movies that came out years ago, sometimes it can be hard to get all the assets, including, you know, all of the, all the main, all the main actors and actresses that are in this, like they're still alive and they're still around. So was it challenging to make sure that you can get everybody on board so you can do the, the pinball machine that includes everything that you love about the movie?
Unique Gameplay and Creative Design Elements
00:06:06
Speaker
Yeah, so i mean, we're pretty well known and regarded at this point for making sure that we get as many of the assets as humanly possible. And when it comes to to footage and audio ah in this movie, we we really are utilizing pretty much every single frame that there is in the whole movie's runtime. There's...
00:06:25
Speaker
basically not a scene that isn't going to be utilized in some sort of mode or a sequence of events in some form or another. And yeah, a lot of really, really big name actors and whatnot in this game.
00:06:39
Speaker
ah But we're fortunate enough that um having Franchi on art, because all those actors do have to approve their likeness. The game just yelled at me. Yeah. All the actors do have to approve, ah you know, the artwork in the game and how we're utilizing that stuff. But Franchi on art makes that an absolute dream.
00:06:59
Speaker
I think every actor in Hollywood, whether they know Franchi exists or not, loves his artwork because whenever they see it, they just go, yep, looks good. Yeah. And I think the other great part about Franchi too, is he already has like an in with WB and stuff like that.
00:07:14
Speaker
He's done a bunch of Batman stuff. And so, I mean, he, he does make you look really, really good. And I, I still say this, man, you guys were brilliant to lock him down and convince him to sell his soul to you guys. I saw the contract.
00:07:25
Speaker
ah It's pretty, it's pretty awesome. I want to talk about, the design theory and the shots on this, because it seems like the design theory is a little different than what we see from most pinball machines.
00:07:37
Speaker
And I like that a lot of the shots, um, it's not just one, one way in, like, it seems like there's multiple ways to attack this game. Can you kind of go through the brain process of that? Absolutely. So ah this is ah the first game that I got to take on more of like the lead design role.
00:07:52
Speaker
ah Spooky Luke trusted me ah with ah my love of this property. I'm um so one of the world's biggest Tim Burton fans, like three out of my top five favorite movies are Tim Burton movies.
00:08:03
Speaker
ah So I really had a particular taking to wanting to do the layout on this one. And I'm very grateful that he he let me kind of take over on that. When I say that he still did all the actual like hard work parts.
00:08:14
Speaker
I just got to say what I wanted for the shots of what I wanted to see. um But I what was really important to me is that. it being the first Tim Burton theme and Beetlejuice, nothing could be plain.
00:08:30
Speaker
Nothing could be just a standard, simple, functional thing. Everything had to have something unique and quirky about it, whether that's multiple entrances or being tied to something physical that interacts with how you're shooting it.
00:08:45
Speaker
And on top of that, too, ah the depth. I didn't want it to be just an outright fan of, like, the arch that you would normally have of the shots. I wanted the, if your shots are going like left to right, this one to be closer than this one further back than this one somewhere in the middle, then further back again, then closer. I wanted to have that kind of staggered feel to it.
00:09:06
Speaker
And also being a standard body helps make the game a lot faster as well. So the game really plays along with that Danny Elfman sound to the music. Like your ball is going to be flowing around at that really fast, fun tempo of the main theme and interacting with shots in weird, curving, bending ways that just, it it sells the entire experience of the Beetlejuice property in the way that I really wanted it to.
00:09:36
Speaker
A lot of these shots are, like you said, they're in like that, that lower two thirds. um I do like that the upper, that, that left orbit too. It's almost like a figure eight. And even the flipper is like its own shot too.
00:09:48
Speaker
um I just, where did some of that concept come from where you're like, you know what? I want to, want them to decide whether they lift up the flip flip flipper and it goes in a scoop or they can use the flipper to start locking balls and and kind of explain that area a little bit too.
00:10:01
Speaker
Yeah, so we we had the whole waiting room area ah set aside up there. the Oddly enough, for a guy, i so i don't typically like pop bumpers. I don't use them very often.
00:10:12
Speaker
And for some reason in this game, the pop bumpers is one of the first things I plop down because I love the feeling of like scoop shot that is kind of tucked in the back corner. and you can hit it right along this rail that's up close in the front, and then it skips in between all the pop bumpers across this open space and lands into that scoop.
00:10:31
Speaker
And that was one of the first shots that we we laid out on the game with the pops there shooting through that spinner up to that scoop, and we kind of designated that to become the waiting room area. So then we started saying like, OK, I love sectioned off portions of play fields.
00:10:44
Speaker
ah So like TNA, I love that you have the nuclear reactor and that feels like its own area. Now in that game, it takes up like a majority of the real estate. I didn't want to commit to it quite that hard because I realized that's not too realistic for the rest of the goals we had for the layout.
00:11:00
Speaker
But in that upper area, it would be really fun to have its own special waiting room spot. And then like you mentioned, like, oh, how did you get the the shot behind the flipper? So when we were doing that cool figure eight shot where you shoot the left orbit, it goes up past that flipper around back behind the couch, bumps out to the flipper.
00:11:17
Speaker
ah One of the Luke has a little bit slower reaction time when he plays, to throw him under the bus. i He kept holding his flipper up when he would shoot the left orbit.
00:11:28
Speaker
So the ball would go up and hit the backside of the flipper. And it would that that would be like a fail when we were doing the whitewood. We were like, well, we could make that go to something else instead. So we decided if you opened it up, it would also feed the backside of this lost soul scoop that we had in the front side ah towards the front of the layout. So it's a cool way to introduce it back from up there. And then on top of that, when you're shooting around in the loops, the ball gets caught in the pop bumpers and things like that. And that flipper is held up. There's so many cool occasions where it just pops under there and gives you a nice controlled feed back to that main flipper thing.
00:11:59
Speaker
So a million miles per hour tonight. I'm excited. You're fine. You're heavily caffeinated. We're good. ah Okay. So I'm, I'm coming up, I'm approaching the game. Walk me through the gameplay, the rule set, like what am I doing in this game and how do I progress?
Beetlejuice Pinball Rules and Gameplay
00:12:18
Speaker
Yeah, so we have a variety of different modes that start in different places. I always like in our games when you have modes that start in more places than just one scoop shot because that kind always feels a little uninspired.
00:12:31
Speaker
So um we have what is the Beetlejuice modes. We have the Juno modes. We have your Sandworm Battles. And then of course, we have all your multiballs as well.
00:12:42
Speaker
So your Beetlejuice modes... are primarily based around the things that beetlejuice is involved with so uh some of the names of those would be you know as seen on tv where he's doing the the rodeo sequence uh grave dig where you're digging him up uh out of his graveyard uh the the wedding sequence as a mode as well and then there's also others uh where he's a little bit less involved like you know the seance uh when otho is is bringing the maintenance back to life and kind of turning them into lost souls ah Later in the movie.
00:13:12
Speaker
So for those, you obviously, you say Beetlejuice three times to start those. So you're going to hit your purple shots. And then you shoot over to that Beetlejuice mechanism ah where he's hiding behind the tombstone.
00:13:23
Speaker
So you shoot up there. ah We stop the ball in that orbit. Catch it. Beetlejuice pops down with a magnet. He picks the ball up. And then he shoots it through the tombstone, down a habitrail, back to your flipper. And that's how we start.
00:13:37
Speaker
vallinia So I just started the game because I said his name three times. Here, just me just give me a second.
00:13:49
Speaker
um click What?
00:13:53
Speaker
What, bad guys? Wait, are you serious? On home play mode, it is listening to you, and if you said it three times, he comes to life? Yeah, I just started a game because I i was saying Beetlejuice so much.
00:14:06
Speaker
Does it have to be so many times in a row? Like, is there so many seconds apart? Like if you, if you say it three times within like so often, or is it just, you have it on and all of sudden your kids say it like three times throughout the day and sudden it kicks on. I must've said it enough times close together that it heard me. I didn't think I'm pretty far away from it. don't know if people can see it or not, but I'm pretty far away from the game. I'm surprised it was catching all that.
00:14:29
Speaker
Wow. You're surprising yourself tonight. Yeah, that's pretty cool. and the other cool part, too, is while you and I were talking and preparing to record, ah there was a moment there, too, where there's a fly zipping around. You're like, hold on, I got to go fly swap this.
00:14:46
Speaker
Because if I don't, it will drive us nuts for a little while. so Yeah, we need to change that. That'll be changed before people get this game in their homes. but yeah So cool. We're doing fun stuff. We're just hanging out and having a good time like pretty much all the time over here.
00:15:02
Speaker
So who wants to do this game the most? Because I know that Franchi has been banging this drum forever. Yeah, ah me and Franchi. I mean, for sure. Like it was a no brainer across the board um at Spooky. But Franchi and I share, like I said, a tremendous love for Tim Burton in general. Both of our favorite, my favorite movie and his favorite movie is Ed Wood, like of all time.
00:15:26
Speaker
ah So weve we've always really bonded over that as well as like a lot of his other projects and whatnot. And of course he had the trans light floating around. So it was just obviously like we knew it would look absolutely beautiful.
00:15:36
Speaker
ah Great working relationship with Warner Brothers over the last few years here doing a Scooby Doo and Looney Tunes. And now this. So stars aligned absolutely perfectly. Just made the most sense in the world.
00:15:48
Speaker
to To be doing this next. And I'm happy we did this once we became as capable and skilled as we've become. um Just in the sense of like everybody we've worked with at Spooky has we has been around the block.
00:16:01
Speaker
Like they've worked on a lot of titles and they've really honed in. their their talents i mean this is franchi's ninth maybe tenth art package i think it's his ninth art package you know and spooky luke's and i is like fifth game design uh spooky dj the programmer on it he did all of scooby-doo as well as designed the warden system that we've been using on all our games since scooby-doo matt from back alley you know worked on pretty much all of our games uh and the list goes on and on like everybody's Had a lot of practice. You know, like I keep joking with people. Yeah. After like 13 years of being a company, we're starting to get kind of good at it.
00:16:37
Speaker
Hey, what? 13 is your lucky number, I guess. I'm more late than never. So one feature that you cannot miss on this game is the sandworm.
00:16:49
Speaker
What made you guys decide that like the sandworm the bash toy? This is the upfront. This is the eye-catching moment for a Beetlejuice game. We, yeah there's there's kind of a thing in pinball. i don't know if people have noticed it.
00:17:04
Speaker
ah People want things to eat the ball. ah Whether the theme calls for it or not, they're like, something better eat a ball in this game. And yeah, pretty, pretty thinking early on, we were like, yeah, we're going to make a Sam Rameed a ball. There's no way we're not going to do that.
00:17:20
Speaker
we We didn't even know how we were going to do it at all. Like we had no idea if we could pull that off in any way. And ah we we were just committed to it no matter what. And I am honestly shocked how ah well it turned out as far as like, you know, shooting into mouths like, you know, say like the Demogorgon and like Stranger Things. Like sometimes it can be pretty spotty. It can be pretty tough to like get that to work consistently.
00:17:45
Speaker
And like ah some designers have even shied away from doing it. in cases because it's just like sometimes the juice just is not worth the squeeze trying to do that this thing gobbles balls all day long like it is really fantastic like the sandworm the motion on it is so cool because we can move him every direction up down left right ah So we have him doing all sorts of fun things besides eating the ball. Like we have him dancing to the Deo song and other music that plays in the game. And when you hit him, he like moves up and down. it Like it looks like he got just punched in the noggin and he's like bouncing up and down and left and right. And ah just really overall impressed with how that whole mechanism turned out. I'm shocked at the the team's capabilities there.
00:18:27
Speaker
It looks so good. And then you've also utilized the space underneath the sandworm. So is there anything special going on down there? is it just pretty much a spot to catch the ball? So I, I'm hoping this is a first cause I've been telling people it is. Um, so basically, ah in the back of the subway. So if the sandworm is up, uh, and you shoot underneath him, it is a subway underneath him that catches the ball. We put two targets at the back of that subway.
00:18:55
Speaker
So when you shoot underneath him and the ball falls in there, you're actually shooting at targets that is on a different level beneath the play field. I don't know if anybody's ever done that. I don't think anybody's ever done something like that where you shoot off a platform down into another at something.
00:19:10
Speaker
But it just... It would really suck if the when the sandworm was up. I mean, why would you even shoot in that direction if there was nothing you could be hitting or whatever? So it just made a lot of sense to try and put something down there too ah to to shoot for and go for. So you can keep doing damage and having different effects on him during the the multiple battles that we have in the game.
00:19:32
Speaker
Now, one thing you also have is you have a giant spooky topper on this. Oh, yeah. So tell me about the topper. Oh, yeah, we're we're getting known for these toppers. ah So Gary Tunicliffe, my favorite British person to work with, ah he did the Evil Dead topper, which was the just most ridiculously successful thing ever. for i couldn't I couldn't believe it. i We sold like well over 800 of those toppers out of 888 Evil Teds, which is just mind boggling. I never would have guessed impressive.
00:20:04
Speaker
That is awesome. So automatically, as soon as that thing started going off, we were like, yeah, we're bringing him back to do some more. And we had him work on ah the beetle snake topper. And the reason being is because we we didn't find a way. I wanted a beetle snake mech in the game really bad.
00:20:20
Speaker
But anything we came up with, it was like, we already have the sandworm. Like, they're two snakey, wormy-like things. I don't, it would be kind of too much to have, like, two mechanisms like that in there. So it made a lot of sense for us to work the snake into the topper.
00:20:33
Speaker
um And, oh, my gosh, the paint job is absolutely insane. Like, his eyes are just absolutely mesmerizing. to to stare into when I first sent it into Warner Brothers. My rep there was like, are you guys sure you could paint all these like hundreds of these? Because this thing is like insanely detailed.
00:20:51
Speaker
And yeah, fortunately for me, we work with one of the most talented freaking people in the the horror special makeup effects industry. Because yeah, that that thing is just absolutely gorgeous. And then of course, we also have ah the tail lighting up as well as the eyeballs. The eyeballs have a cool like blinking effect to it. Like actually looks like it's blinking at you and then head moving side to side. So he's really creepy and cool.
00:21:11
Speaker
And i'm I'm hoping people take to him as much as they took to Cheryl. So yeah, exceptionally happy with how Gary did on that. Here's how impressive the topper is. so um My wife is not a huge fan of pinball, don't have to worry about her running off and telling anyone. But we watched the video together and we're watching the video and you've got it interspersed between the topper and the actual footage of the movie.
00:21:36
Speaker
And she goes, that's really cool. They could get the lips to move like that. I was like, sure. Like I wasn't going to tell her it's the movie, but it's impressive enough that that it's such a perfect replica of the movie that people that my wife's like, oh, like, wow. Like that looks really, really realistic. and I'm like, yeah, yeah, it does. Yep.
00:21:59
Speaker
That's all us, honey. That's. Yeah.
00:22:04
Speaker
Oh, but no, I agree with you. I think, I think evil dead, like raise the bar and this is definitely up there. This is, this is really, really cool. Does it just articulate back and forth or does it go up and down? How does it work?
00:22:16
Speaker
articulates back and forth eyes glow tail glows um uh really cool like rattling effect on that too like like with with the flasher and it blinking and the sounds going off and then of course it's all rgb lit so like the backlighting behind it it looks like he's like on stage in 80s hair metal concert sometimes because like the lighting's going up behind his hair and it's all like frizzy and looking cool uh yeah and as well as like the spooky speak being integrated into that as well
00:22:43
Speaker
So now one thing that may be controversial is you guys sold out about these, like you, they're, they're all spoken for, right?
Production and Release Plans for Beetlejuice Pinball
00:22:52
Speaker
Is that, is that what I'm understanding?
00:22:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So like right now, pretty much all that's left on, on sales day itself, ah you know, Friday um is the 70, I think it's 70 games that we have to sell directly on our website.
00:23:08
Speaker
Okay. and That website is going to burn. It is going to crash so fast. That that website has absolutely... used to get mad. I would like defend it People would be like, Spooky's website's going to crash on sales day. And I'd be like, no, it's not.
00:23:22
Speaker
Like typing all angry in the comments. Like, no, it's not. It's going to hold up because like we upgraded it again. And then it always crashed anyway. And I was always like, dang it. And this year it it holds no chance. I'm just going to acknowledge it right away.
00:23:35
Speaker
I'm admitting defeat before it even happens. That website is going to die, which is why we have like 10 telephones. And I bring in a bunch of employees and you call the spooky pinball phone number and it sends it to to one of the phones. So they just the calls start flooding in and we're going to do everything we can to handle those 70 games. Wow.
00:23:55
Speaker
Do it old school. Go radio station style, huh? Caller number 10 gets a Beetlejuice. I know. Okay. ah Okay. So this kind of begs the question, like, are you, do do you wish you had made more? Like what, what was the, what was the philosophy on limiting it to this amount? Cause this seems like it's been, it's been a big hit for you even already while you are announcing it.
00:24:18
Speaker
I think we did the perfect amount, I really do. ah for For a multitude of reasons. We really actually care about protecting the game's value for our customers because we know how important that is to them in feeling confident in buying new in-box pinball ah from us.
00:24:34
Speaker
you know If we had an unlimited amount of these, we know that it would make people a lot more gun-shy because the game's potentially going to lose quite a bit of value. um So that's really important, as well as ah just manufacturing capabilities.
00:24:46
Speaker
Uh, we have a lot of games, uh, to build in a year and the, you know, in Benton, Wisconsin, there's, there's only so much we can do. Like we've scaled up to doing more units than this. You know, Halloween pinball was 1200 units with Ultraman alongside that another 500, uh,
00:25:04
Speaker
ah Quality really suffered when we tried to do that many games in a year. I think we could scale up to that again now and quality would be fine just because of the skill set that we have and the better designs that we do.
00:25:15
Speaker
But I think we're at the right amount. I think the demand is there. I think it protects customer value. i'm confident I can build the living daylights out of them every single day to the highest quality possible. um Something we proved with Evil Dead being the most notable QC game to come out of Spooky Pinwall.
00:25:32
Speaker
um So just a multitude of reasons why we feel confident in the numbers that we chose. Well, and I got to applaud you on that too, right? Because i mean, at the end of the day, it so it is, you know, some people are like, well, there's so much money left on the table they could have had. But it's like, if you guys are looking to do quality and meet a window, because I mean, usually we have this conversation in December.
00:25:52
Speaker
And part of me was wondering if because of the preemptive release a voice of your distributor saying, hey, I'm taking pre-orders now. I didn't know if you guys showing it now is because of that, or if it's you're just ready to start doing this. Yeah.
00:26:05
Speaker
Oh, we've been ready for months. or So fun me and Spooky Luke are probably two of the most impatient people in pinball, like hands down. Like we'll, we'll be like, okay, we're going to release it in December.
00:26:17
Speaker
So anyway, you got that trailer ready for mid November. How's the flyer material coming for early November? Like it just keeps moving up because we are so horribly impatient. um And ah you know, we also used to be a more, ah bit more weary of like,
00:26:31
Speaker
ah you know So like I still have quite a few Evil Deads to build as as the year wraps up here. um In years past, there was still people questioning like, oh, can Spooky get these built? Will they get these built?
00:26:43
Speaker
How long is it going to take? i think people know now that like we're going to get all of the games built in the timeframe that we always pretty much get them built in. So even if there is a little extra time before they start shipping out the door consistently,
00:26:57
Speaker
ah people understand and know that we're what we're doing and they have confidence that we're going to get them their game and everything so uh feeling good about that but um yeah luke and i are just like really excited and sometimes jump the gun on things but it's all cool so so i didn't catch it so are you planning production for january like you usually do Yeah, yeah. So we'll we'll start building them slowly ah in December, but you won't see us start to like mass release them until around January, which is exactly the same schedule we did for Evil Dead. Last year, we released Evil Dead um just a week later than what we're doing right now.
00:27:35
Speaker
but Perfect. There are a couple of features in this game that I want to point out. One, you have an interesting position for a magnet that's actually below the flippers, straight down the middle. And also, so you have a physical ball locked on the couch. So, so I want you to talk about those two things. And the question that a lot of people have is, are you going to have lock stealing?
00:27:59
Speaker
Oh, yeah. The programmers are fighting me on that right now because I love lock stealing. I think it's necessary and I think people should do it more often. And I like when friends fight, um and but ah right now the programmers have it so that it keeps track of the locks and it doesn't steal.
00:28:15
Speaker
I think I'm going to make them make that a setting because I'm vicious. ah But otherwise, yeah, we got to turn it on and off. I mean, that I think it's a fun thing, especially if you're playing competitive with your friends. i need Maybe a tournament setting, not so much, but.
00:28:29
Speaker
Our games have so many settings now. Like if you look through the settings on a Looney Tunes in the menu, the customization of the rules that you can do for your game is ridiculous. I still I find things in there that I didn't even know we did.
00:28:42
Speaker
And I'm like, wow, that is awesome. I'm never touching any of this. But wow, that's sort really great. ah But then, yeah, we also got the magnet between the flippers. So Beetlejuice tells you to use the force and then you throw it up and back into gameplay. It's really cool.
00:28:55
Speaker
No, ah we we had that in their way before we saw the Star Wars thing. I ripped it off from Alice Cooper, mostly because my dad ripped that off for me because I always told him when I designed Friday the 13th pinball someday, which I would tell him all the time when I was 14, I want to have a magnet between the flippers that ah throws the ball into play.
00:29:14
Speaker
And then he designed Alice Cooper and he was like, I saw him put a magnet there. I was like, Hey dude, what's that? was like, that's going in the game sucker. So now I get my chance to put it in one of my games and get back at him.
00:29:27
Speaker
That's awesome. So one other thing too, that um I feel like the video doesn't show super well, but we were discussing this is the barn actually dumps the ball in the out lane and the maggo magnet can catch it and throw it back in.
00:29:43
Speaker
Kind of explain that process and how that barn works as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So ah essentially, um Luke and I are always kind of bad at ah figuring out how we want to launch the ball into the... Like, we will design the whole game and then figure out the shooter lane in a lot of cases.
00:30:02
Speaker
And, you know, that remained true here. And we got to the shooter lane and we were trying to figure out where we wanted it to go. And I kept looking at it, like looping around right towards the outlane.
00:30:13
Speaker
And I was like, man, it would be really awesome if we just drained the ball immediately on people. So they were so confused and like, what, ah what just happened? Like this game is so stupid. Why did it just drain immediately?
00:30:25
Speaker
And then we catch the ball with the magnet between the flippers and throw it back into gameplay. Because in the movie, the movie literally starts with Adam and Barbara dying immediately. Like they they go to town, they get in the car, they drive back, they fall off the bridge and die.
00:30:39
Speaker
So we theme the shooter area around the bridge. So there is a diverter in the right out lane that lifts up and down. And when it's down, ah the right out lane is just closed, completely closed. And the ball just flows right through it into your flipper.
00:30:52
Speaker
And if you were to drain out the right out lane, it would just catch it and feed it to your flipper.
Thematic Elements and Design Inspiration
00:30:55
Speaker
but we can also raise that diverter and have it just be wide open. So when you're doing your skill shot, there is the an option, there's a chance in the timing that you'll hit it on the bridge out section, where it will drain immediately, right out the right out lane, and then get caught by the magnet and throw it back into play, just like that, because they die, and then they get brought back as ghosts right after.
00:31:17
Speaker
So it's like that specific theme integration that I'm really obsessed with when we do these things ah that it just made all the sense in the world in that area for us. Absolutely brilliant.
00:31:27
Speaker
I love it.
00:31:30
Speaker
So is that the only time it's used or are there ways of activating it like during gameplay is like a ball save? Or is it one of those where the ball draining out and you have to hit the button to save it? So yeah, ah the the save in between the flippers is tied to the action button.
00:31:46
Speaker
So you have a magnet save there. So if it drains out either of your outlanes or is coming down the center... you can hit that and it will grab onto that ball and then throw it back into play. um So you'll use that and then you have to do a lot of things to qualify that save for yourself again if you want to do it like more than once a ball.
00:32:03
Speaker
um My gameplay video shows that off really well because I drain out the left out lane early on and I catch it with that. So it's ah it's a really fun thing to utilize the action button. I love using additional buttons for for cool things in the game. So we use the action button in quite a few fun ways ah in this one that I think are really cool.
00:32:19
Speaker
So... So one thing that Scott had brought up earlier was the couch. And one thing I wanted to ask on it is how do you load this couch? Is there, is it like, is the right ramp? Is it, there's like a trap door or something?
00:32:31
Speaker
So we we do something, we're calling it ramp-ception. um So there's the right ramp. It's a 180 ramp. And it is the smoothest, fastest, butteriest ramp of all time. My God, it it feels so good when you crush that thing.
00:32:45
Speaker
ah so When you're in the waiting room area, there's a knock one, two, three insert on that upper flipper, that loop that we were talking about. It's right by the couch. When you knock that right ramp raises up and there is another ramp right underneath that ramp. So it raises up and you shoot another ramp that goes up, uh, feeds a habit trail that goes all the way across the back of the game, loops around and dumps it into the couch.
00:33:11
Speaker
So our right ramp is two ramps. So it's a lift ramp with two ramps. Uh, What I like about that is like, like we keep improving upon older stuff that we did. So like in Evil Dead, we had our first ever lift ramp.
00:33:25
Speaker
We'd never done a lift ramp before. And when it opens, you shoot into it and it's a scoop. And we used it for mode starts and things like that. And that's okay. Like that's kind of fun, but it's way cooler to lift a ramp up and you shoot another ramp underneath it that feeds a ball lock. That's just objectively cooler and So next time, because you guys got Warner Brothers and Legendary, you're going to have to do into Inception and you're going to have do a ramp toramp to ramp to ramp.
00:33:50
Speaker
Yeah. Inception. Yes. Yes. It's already foretold. It's happening. now Well, it's triple ramp. You can't triple ramp or double ramp. You can't triple ramp. Really good. Like there's, there's, there's not many ideas I can have anymore that he can't make onto these layouts. He's getting really damn good.
00:34:08
Speaker
Yeah, this this game is insane. like Just looking at this, you guys have just, yeah, you've killed it. ah yeah Tell me, that the one thing that I really have appreciated what spooky games have done is thematic integration. Now,
00:34:22
Speaker
This is really perfect up your alley because Tim Burton's style, it's it's whimsical. It's a little bit like a carnival diorama thing. And it feels that way when obviously with ah Back Alley Creations, Matt has been able to to bring that and miniaturize it.
00:34:41
Speaker
What I like about what you've done is a lot of times, a lot of times companies try to incorporate that with like a flat plastic. or Or something that is, you know, yes, it's a picture and it does help out because and to be to be fair, their their bill of materials is going to be spent elsewhere.
00:35:01
Speaker
But you guys have decided to spend this on but on everything. And ah really does bring you into the game when you have physically molded assets in there yeah versus having like a flat plastic stand up.
00:35:17
Speaker
Well, they've brought Dante's Inferno, the strip club, into the game. we Come on now. that's Yeah. yeah Funny story about that Dante's Inferno thing. We added that um like at the very tail end of everything.
00:35:33
Speaker
The game was pretty much done. like We'd submitted it like, hey, this is the final product. And they were like, yep, looks great. And then because we've gotten so much better at working ahead on these things and having our projects done further and further out,
00:35:45
Speaker
We got done and then ended up adding just a whole bunch of new features. We were like, what if we sculpted it? What if we turned it into a roulette wheel? What if we changed the color of that whole area and the powder coat? And like, it just kept going and going.
00:35:59
Speaker
And we just kept adding more and more stuff to this. um Yeah, Beetlejuice has a record number of sculpts in a spooky game. It's it's the most injection molded pieces ah that we've ever done in a game. Don't ask me the number because I forgot.
00:36:11
Speaker
But I know that's true. ah just Just trust me. we'll go Dr. Evil 1 million scopes. Oh, okay. But that, the motto in evil dead was f the BOM. Yeah. that That was the model in evil dead. And, uh,
00:36:25
Speaker
It turns out we're still effing the BOM. Yeah. you but youre You're still crushing it on exceeding your bill of material. But it now it does show that you actually have put forth some plan on this because each, if people are familiar with the, with manufacturing process, when you do an injection mold, you actually have to build the form and engineer it. And so it it takes a lot more planning to get that going than it is just to screen print a plastic thing and put it up there.
00:36:56
Speaker
So the fact that you are, you are actually budgeting for I'm just I'm glancing because I am watching the trailer as as we keep talking. And I'm seeing at least five injection molded things, at least.
00:37:09
Speaker
And when you look at that, that is an individual form. That's a cost that helps out. But it does, when you walk into an arcade or your home, you' you're going to notice that.
00:37:20
Speaker
Because getting back, I have i have Wizard of Oz. So I'm looking over here. Wizard of Oz. So how how many years old is Wizard of Oz? It's over 15 years old Yeah. Jeez. Don't say that. Got a date now, right?
00:37:35
Speaker
Okay. But when you look at it, that's the first thing that people see. They see that they went, they really went all in on the, the physical sculpts underneath there. And so when you think about that, a lot of the other games that I'm looking around, you do notice a big difference when there is a sculpt there versus a, versus a plastic thing. And when you're thinking of Tim Burton, you really are thinking of,
00:38:01
Speaker
ah I don't know of a better way of saying it, but kind of like a ah ah garage sale of eclectic misfit parts. Yeah. That's really how Tim Burton comes across.
00:38:13
Speaker
But it I don't think it would make the same statement if you had a picture versus actually the sculpts. Well, it's even down to like the lighting.
00:38:24
Speaker
like You know how much cooler... the lighting is on a physical sculpted feature versus a flat plastic, the way it shapes around it and cast shadows into the rest of the game. Like it just automatically adds so much more depth and everything. and like you said, ah with it being Tim Burton, like obviously his worlds love miniatures. They love ah stop motion animation characters and features. Like it just takes something out of that theme that perfectly makes sense.
00:38:54
Speaker
Yeah. evening Josh, I'll give it to you in one second. I just want to follow up on one question. So the lighting, how did you do the lighting? Because we see other manufacturers are doing, you know, kind of like a rope light up and down.
00:39:08
Speaker
ah You seem to have been able to accomplish more by avoiding that. But no that as but the the the speaker panel too, does that light up as well? the speaker so ah the The speaker grills do, yeah. So like our our speaker cutouts with ah the grills on it, those those light up.
00:39:26
Speaker
What we added in this game, and we're actually going to... I think we're going to be adding this to Evil Dead as well. It's like a mod. um So we we added apron lighting a few years ago, which was great. That added a ton of atmosphere and cool effects to the playfield. but We've also added it to the backboard panel.
00:39:42
Speaker
because one of the complaints with Evil Dead was that it was pretty dark in the back corner. And so we were looking into it and making sure, and Franchi gets on the phone and yells at me approximately four times a week about our games being too frickin' dark.
00:39:55
Speaker
So we wanted to make sure we didn't screw that up in this game. So we added another light strip to the backboard. We've got it in the apron. And on top of that, um when you add a boatload of GIs, a Spooky DJ as well has really perfected timing light shows to music.
00:40:11
Speaker
So when the Danny Elfman theme is playing that boom, boom, boom, the lights are timed with that perfectly. So whole game looks freaking cool.
00:40:23
Speaker
So one thing that you brought up that I felt like we kind of skipped over, don't i don't Blame forgive my ignorance, but I don't remember there being like a giant carnival will in the movie.
00:40:35
Speaker
And even in some of the code in the video that you show, there's like carnival games. So is that all is that all added in because you guys are doing it? Or is is there something in the movie that I'm I'm just spacing?
00:40:46
Speaker
So it's from the the Showtime sequence of the movie when he says it's Showtime and he comes out and he he comes out saying, test right up, step, tap test your strength. I messed that up. Step right up, test your strength.
00:40:58
Speaker
And he rolls his arms. out He comes out like this big, weird circus character and he rolls his arms out in these giant hammers and he smash the two guests they have there. He smashes like the test your strength bells and they get thrown through the ceiling.
00:41:12
Speaker
So and then he's got all these like dangly things hanging off of his hat at that time, too. So that whole carnival section and theme, we we utilize that in the Showtime multiball in this game quite a bit. So that's where that comes from.
00:41:26
Speaker
Gotcha. OK, because as I said, there's a lot of original animation there. And then I just didn't remember where the wheel had come from. i was like, it was cool to incorporate like a ah mystery theme. Well, I assume that's like your mystery award, right?
00:41:39
Speaker
ah So the the mystery award. ah oh you're thinking of the video mode. I apologize. ah Are you talking about like the cannon shooting? The cannon shooting. Yeah, the cannon shooting. And then it shows like the wheels spinning. And then like like, if I remember part of it, there's a part of it says like you die or something like that, you know? Oh, so that's the roulette wheel. That's that's themed around the Dante's Inferno room on the left ramp side. Because like, you know, strip club.
00:42:01
Speaker
Yeah. Gambling. because yeah don yeah yeah that just swing Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Beetlejuice activities. Yeah. Cool. So, I mean, it was just all kind of, it all incorporated well because that's what it is in the movie.
00:42:15
Speaker
Yeah. Cool. um One thing I think that's really cool that you guys are doing with this release, ah i don't think any other pinball company has ever done before. You've went old school GameStop and you're doing midnight release of Beetlejuice.
00:42:30
Speaker
ah Where did this concept come from? And i mean, why are you doing it? ah We are doing it because Don's Pinball Podcast bullied us into doing it. is dawn he He is persistent. No, he he he cooked up that whole thing. He made it a He really took the reins on that one and ran with it. And I'm very happy he did. for for those who So Don's Pinball Podcast bought my dad's house ah in Benton, Wisconsin.
00:42:56
Speaker
And so he lives here now. um They're like still getting moved in whatnot. But he he lives in Benton now. And he was joking that he really wanted to throw like a midnight party. And they're going to light torches and walk from his house to the spooky pinball factory.
00:43:10
Speaker
And we're going to open the door. And everybody's going to get to play of the game and put their deposit down ahead of everybody else at midnight. oh which I was very against at the start. I was like, no way, Jose, that sounds like a lot of work and really hard. We have a whole game to launch and stuff.
00:43:26
Speaker
And then we we talked about it a lot more. And I'm very happy that ah he got his way on that because I think it's going to be a lot of fun. and We're going to get the whole shop floor cleared out. And yeah, it's going to be really cool. I'm happy that Don, ah he he's really cool. He has a lot of really creative, fun ideas and his He's a very energetic guy. Like his energy and enthusiasm is just intoxicating.
00:43:48
Speaker
And it makes you want to get off the couch and be a part of the fun for sure. So we're we're very lucky that to have him around. yeah it's awesome. it dawn Don's great, man. We had him on. been a couple of years when he first was breaking. Well, I've actually called it. The funny thing is I actually, so I wasn't going to say anything, but I did know about him buying your house, buying your dad's house.
00:44:08
Speaker
Yeah. well I, I randomly called him and I was just checking in with him because and I, we're both, we're both physicians, but we do slightly different things. ah But, you know, just checking and just seeing how he's doing.
00:44:21
Speaker
And he's like, yeah, I just went down and checked out a ah place in Benton and, and, it really never clicked for a second. I was like, Benton, Benton. It's like, yeah you know where that is? I'm like, yeah, like I because my, my sister lives in Appleton, Wisconsin.
00:44:35
Speaker
So dog by Tom um and I'm like, yeah. And I know I've heard Benton, but it took me a second to figure out, like to make the connections. He's like, yeah, there's a house that has a downstairs. It's already like wired for pinball.
00:44:48
Speaker
And I'm like, oh, okay. That's really cool. He's like, yeah, it's, it's Charlie's house. I'm like, oh, oh, that, that Benton. Yeah. So yeah. have that's fun to have him involved. I Don, Don is a force unto himself.
00:45:01
Speaker
It's, ah it's amazing what he's been able to, he, he and I may have similar jobs, but we have definitely different energy levels. I'll, but I'll put it that way. Yeah. Yeah. He's unique.
00:45:12
Speaker
ah We love him. We love having around. Yeah. it It's a, it's great that he's been able to incorporate you. You guys have been able to find a mutual goal for what you're doing. So that's, that's pretty awesome.
00:45:25
Speaker
So ah I'm going to ask you other things. So now Tim Burton, it's it's not necessarily spooky, but it is definitely, if it fits with the physical thing. So are any other any other Tim Burton ones that you you're interested in doing? Because I know that my wife would love to have the Pee Wee Herman.
00:45:47
Speaker
And that's a that was actually Tim Burton's first movie, I believe, with Danny Elfman. No, I mean, I think the obvious next step is that we go Sweeney Todd. I think that's the one that. called Oh, yeah. OK, I can see that. one think it makes the most sense. ah yeah but Yeah, no, I genuinely there's a lot of Tim Burton movies I would love to do. Peewee, Nightmare, Mars Attacks, Sleepy Hollow.
00:46:10
Speaker
and oh I wish we could do i wish I could find a way to make Ed Wood work, because like I said, that's my favorite movie of all time. And Sweeney Todd's another one of my favorite movies of all time. It would make a killer game. I don't care what anybody says. That is guys that is a gory movie. There's still lot blood in there.
00:46:25
Speaker
um Oh my God. But the mechanism of like the chair would fold back and drop the ball down into the basement. You'd be making meat pies. Dude, it would be a killer game. I want to get people on this. People are going to agree with me someday. I swear.
00:46:38
Speaker
But as far as interest goes, yeah, I would make, I would make most of Tim Burton's movies into a pinball machine if I could. I just need his phone number so we can talk about it. I'll convince him.
00:46:50
Speaker
I'm betting that he's like Clinton Tarantino where you probably have to do it like old school, like ah a pony express or a telegraph or or a lu or ah postcard, an old school postcard. that That seems like on brand for how you'd be able to contact it. Doesn't he live in England too? Like you'd probably have to like use a Zeppelin to get over there.
00:47:09
Speaker
I'm not even, I'm not sure where he lives. I know John Carpenter has a Halloween and it's, he loves the heck out of that game. It's constantly in like all his photos and promo stuff that he does. So, I would love it if Tim got a ah game into his house. I think that'd be great.
00:47:22
Speaker
I think he would want us to do Nightmare Before Christmas if he if he saw that.
00:47:29
Speaker
So you' you've been talking about like you got to be cued in on the development of Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. So the question is, is like how long has this game actually been cooking then at Spooky?
00:47:40
Speaker
Quite a while. I always suck at answering these questions because it's really hard to remember what when you signed the contract. Cause like we, a lot of times you start working on stuff before the contracts even signed.
00:47:53
Speaker
In most cases, if you really want to get a jump on it and you just accept the fact that you might throw out everything you're working on in a handful of months, um, years though, definitely years where we're getting pushed out further
Development and Technological Innovations
00:48:04
Speaker
and further. i mean, I think in the office up to my left here, there's like five white woods going on with licenses attached to them.
00:48:12
Speaker
Uh, so it, it's tough for me to say exactly how long, but, um, We're getting good at getting these things developed further out and a lot more finished and refined to our liking before they come to market.
00:48:26
Speaker
Okay, so since you had since you bring up Whitewoods, let's let's talk about this Whitewood. And there are there are different ways that games can be developed. You can have a Whitewood, you can have a few options, and then you can get a theme and you can fit the theme to whatever Whitewood you have. Or i think the opposite is, hey, we have this theme.
00:48:46
Speaker
What do we want to do do with this theme? And you you engineer the Whitewood around that. How did this one evolve? Uh, originally, so what we normally do is we all get into an office together and, uh, stand around a blank board and start screwing in ball guides and ramps and, uh, uh, just seeing what we like, what's working for us. Uh, the way it went with this one was like, I knew it was going to be Beelgeuse.
00:49:16
Speaker
I took a blank TransLite home and a whole bunch of Sharpies and markers, and I doodled on it for a whole weekend, spent like hours and hours staring at it, drinking coffee. And then I came in on Monday, threw all of that out, and we just did what we normally did anyway and stood around a white wood screwing things in together and then working on it that way, because that's what works infinitely better.
00:49:38
Speaker
oh A big part of the reason of that is is Spooky Luke's metal fabricating. So like, He is able to just draw a ball guide or a ramp in his AutoCAD and then go ahead and take that over to the metal laser, cut it out, bend it, and screw it into the play field in under 30 minutes.
00:49:57
Speaker
So when I say, can we try this? He says, okay. And he walks over, he sits down, he does that, he brings it over, we screw it in, we try it. I don't like it that way. can we tweak it this way? Okay. Walks over, cuts it out, tweaks it, brings it over.
00:50:09
Speaker
And we just do that for countless hours and days until we're getting really happy with what we're going for. And like I said, because we knew this one was Beetlejuice from the start, ah that really helped because we just, it's always better to know the theme before you start a layout. It does work better typically that way.
00:50:29
Speaker
so yeah just ah another great process hanging out with him and and drawing up the layout and whatnot and like i said fortunately i got to have a bit more of my way on this one so one thing i don't feel like we fully just hit We've talked about a couple times here, but we just haven't hit it head on.
00:50:48
Speaker
Something that is a first in pinball is the spooky speak. yeah Where did this concept come from? How does it work with the game? just This is insane. I've got to know more about it.
00:51:01
Speaker
So yeah, Spooky Speak. ah to To be completely honest, the way it originally came about was when when the rumors were out there that Spooky Pinball might be doing Beetlejuice, Kaneda was out there saying, if you don't have the game turn on when you say Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, you shouldn't be designing Pinball.
00:51:20
Speaker
And for months, we were like, that's extremely difficult. There's no way that's going to happen. Oh, well. And we just kept our heads down and kept working. And then we we kept talking about it more and more.
00:51:31
Speaker
thinking about various technologies and we were like you know like we could probably find a way to like have a sequence in the game where you could do that uh because i mean you know like you have to turn the power switch on to get power to the freaking game like like you can't speak that into existence so when you turn the switch on we were like okay well we could do like a cool screen that says say my name three times and you have to say it and then the game will turn on and then we were talking about like okay well if you can say that like what else can you say to the game. Like if if it has the ability to identify Beetlejuice three times, it should have the ability to do other things.
00:52:04
Speaker
And like, well, if we can have it hear that, Who's to say we can't have light shows play after you say that sound effects or movie clips or make the mechanisms move? And the the idea just kept snowballing and snowballing until eventually we had ah a document pages and pages long of all the things that we wanted to do with Spooky Speak and ah including the name Spooky Speak.
00:52:27
Speaker
ah Patent pending, by the way, other companies keep your filthy mitts off it. um
00:52:33
Speaker
I don't want be seeing no stern static or Jersey jabber. I don't want to see any Jersey jab. That one's good. Yeah. yeah By the way, you just gave, you just gave Chris a huge dopamine head. Just, just so you know that. Yeah.
00:52:53
Speaker
Yeah. So, uh, I mean, credit is where credit's due. I mean, we, it steered us in the path ah of going down the road for spooky speaks. So, which is great. Cause I, if, if people don't like it, I'll just blame it on him.
00:53:04
Speaker
Perfect. Love it. The full plan. So what what else can you do with spooky speak though? Like is, is it integrated into the game? So like you can activate stuff as you're playing.
00:53:15
Speaker
Yeah, so we've, we've ah and I'll be fully honest, we've only been like integrating Spooky Speak over the last few recent months. Like this is very new, ah recent technology for us. So as of ah in the gameplay video, as people will see, um we do have it integrated into elements of the gameplay now.
00:53:33
Speaker
ah So like in the Showtime multiball sequence, you're going to say Beetlejuice three times to the game ah for it to start that multiball sequence. We are exploring other ways that we can use it.
00:53:46
Speaker
I don't really want to give away too much yet because I don't fully know what is going to be possible in the gameplay elements, but at least outside of gameplay, there's still so many cool things that we can do.
00:53:59
Speaker
And including like, I would love to get it to where you can utilize it in the menu because I've had countless times I've had both hands on either side of a play field. I'm working on something. How nice would it be if you could tell the game to go to this menu and start to fire or test this thing while your hands are occupied?
00:54:16
Speaker
Like that would be incredible. So we're we're still exploring all of the capabilities that Spooky Speak has. I'm very confident we'll get it integrated in gameplay in a lot more cool ways. But we what we have here now at the start, I think, is really entertaining and awesome. and and Just the fact that you can talk to a a game alone is going to be great. You know, a Walt Wood video on ah YouTube.
00:54:36
Speaker
I loved it. He said something like, I've been talking to games my whole life and they never said anything back before. Now they're going to talk back at me. i was just like, damn, that's a cool way of looking at it. Like, and I love the idea, too, of like, if you bring your kids in and they don't know, because this has never been done before. Nobody's had a game that you could talk to.
00:54:55
Speaker
bring your kids in and you say something to the game and it does something back, they're going to lose their mind. they're going to think that's the coolest thing. That might be like a core memory for them. I know for me as a kid, it would have been, you know, growing up around pinball and my love for it and all the things that stuck out to me from it as a kid. So I think it's going to be great. I think a lot of people are going to really love it.
00:55:14
Speaker
How cool would it be to shoot it into the scoop or shoot it into a spot where it stops the ball in your final wizard mode and you have to say the thing to either send Beetlejuice back? You know what I'm saying?
00:55:26
Speaker
There's always that moment, right? We always wrap those moments around the final wizard mode. It would just be cool to be like, you finally completed it and you get to say it to the game to make it happen. Yeah, but you can't reserve it just for that. and that That's only like 5% of the players who are going to get there. I get that, but it it is part of the game. like it Obviously, there's more you can add to it, but like to to be able to do that, it's it's just something cool. you know i think he needs to harass you.
00:55:50
Speaker
i think that's what ah he needs. yeah You need to be able to find a trigger voice to mock him, and he has to have a trigger, yeah ah you know, 100 things that he can say to you to to mock you back.
00:56:02
Speaker
Well, speaking of that, is there is i know you've got audio clips from the movie and stuff like that, but is there any original call-outs as well from any of the cast members? No. So, yeah. Unable to get like the original cast members on this one, they're just too grade A of like Right. It would be too costly. Yeah, it would be too costly. It's just a little busy, I think. no But we we do have original callouts in the game as like an original character, ah like a spirit guide voice that will be guiding you through things. um
00:56:34
Speaker
We actually have this defaulted to off on the game because it doesn't need it. ah You'll see in the gameplay video that I play that like the the direction of the things coming from him, ah it just doesn't need it. like We utilize the movie's call-outs and assets in such a way and the light shows and the sequences that we're walking you through it A-OK without it.
00:56:55
Speaker
And it's been ah it's worked really great for us. And I think a lot of people will be really surprised like when they play it just how like how much it does walk you through it without that stuff. So it's there if people want it because people might want that.
00:57:08
Speaker
But ah ultimately, like it's better off without it in this case. Honestly, is there anything we've missed? but Because I mean, this game is just it looks like it's got so many great Easter eggs and stuff.
00:57:19
Speaker
Is there something you're just like, guys, this you've got to know this about Beetlejuice. Man, it's there's so many things. ah Elements like the now serving sign, you know, being ah baked into the backboard back there, like the the numbers counting. That was actually a spooky DJ started designing the marquee Beetlejuice sign and the now serving sign before we even knew we had the license. So he was getting those boards drawn up. So there were there was no question in the layout that those were going in because he already made the freaking.
00:57:51
Speaker
led boards and everything before we had the license uh so like that's a really cool way to tie into rules as well of like you're given a number and you have to hit things to get that counter to count up to that number and then go meet with juno your caseworker uh on that so like that's another cool element of it but yeah i mean just a really fast, fun, bouncy game. Every shot does a million different things.
00:58:16
Speaker
Uh, our best mechanisms yet to date our best music ah in the game. Oh, there's, there's what I have to talk about. I knew I'd find it if I kept rambling, uh, day. Oh, so we have the Harry Belafonte day. Oh, song from the movie, the sequence where they all get possessed and taken over.
00:58:32
Speaker
They're doing the dance. And, it Much like ah Insanity mode in ah Evil Dead, basically you're going to hit shots in this mode and then those areas and elements of the playfield are going to get taken over and start dancing in time with the music. So you hit the Sandworm, now he's dancing with the music. The Beetlejuice mech, now he's dancing with the music. The couch dances with the music.
00:58:55
Speaker
ah But on top of that, the flippers get possessed too. And they start flipping in beat to various points of the song. And in the gameplay video, because I don't speak in it, I tried to like show that the flippers were flipping themselves. I like stuck my hands out in front of the camera to show you that they were like randomly flipping.
00:59:12
Speaker
And it's so ah hilarious watching people play it. And then all of a sudden, those get taken over. And they're like, wait, what? It confuses them like in the way in the movie that they get confused and they look confused while they're doing all the dances and everything.
00:59:26
Speaker
And it makes for a lot of really funny moments while you're playing it, along with the really catchy, awesome song. i mean, everybody absolutely loves that song. So super happy we were able to get it and give another extremely memorable pinball moment in that you You guys have definitely created pinball moments over these last few years.
00:59:48
Speaker
um Just like with Texas Chainsaw Massacre drinking the blood out of the LEDs. I mean, Evil Dead insanity mode. I mean, it's just game after game. I think Scott hit it on the head, man. You guys have definitely taken theme integration to the next level.
01:00:02
Speaker
And I've got to applaud you for that because I think it really shows in the product and what people are looking for. so So one other aspect of these games that you have, you have brought, ah you did a similar thing in, in Scooby-Doo where you had the different wire forms and you powder coated them.
01:00:17
Speaker
So this is just one more detail that you guys brought into it, that it feels very Tim Burton-y feels very carnival-y. And it feels like it's just one more thing to say, Hey, we're spooky.
01:00:30
Speaker
We are really trying to invest in you guys noticing our games. And so like, And that's an extra expense. So tell me about doing that. Yeah, ah every single game, we still just managed to find a couple more things to add to it. you know Originally, we we did have all the habit trails as purple.
01:00:49
Speaker
They were all the same purple color. And it was around the time we were adding in the Dante Inferno room left ramp, and that was all very red. We were like, can't have a purple habit trail coming off this red area, so we're going to change that to red.
01:01:01
Speaker
And then we were like, okay, well, there's just just one random habit trail that's a different color. Let's change another one. And we took the Beetlejuice habit trail where he he shoots it out of the tombstone down that way We're like, well, that would make sense to make that green because, you know he's got the green hair and everything.
01:01:14
Speaker
And then, ah yeah, boom, just immediately changed the whole look of the play field. It it made it look a lot more finished ah right away. But, you know, like I said, just random things that we find every game to keep adding to. The speaker grills. So,
01:01:27
Speaker
We've always done custom cut speaker grills. so I think it's kind of an underrated thing on our our speaker panels that people don't notice as much. Like, you know, in Halloween, we did the jack-o'-lantern cutout in the speaker grills and Evil Dead, it's ash with a chainsaw.
01:01:38
Speaker
And on this one, we did the sandworm, but instead of just cutting out that shape and powder coating the speaker grill, we cut out the shape and powder coat it, but we also do a sandworm artwork on top of that as well. So there's a custom plastic now included with that custom cut metal powder coated speaker grill.
01:01:56
Speaker
So, keep finding more ways to add things, change things and, uh, make everything look prettier. And like I said, ah F the BOM. Well, and you talk a lot about you're doing the cut and of the speaker rules and stuff like that.
01:02:10
Speaker
How much of this are you actually doing in house when it comes to it? how was that Yeah, most of it. That's why we, and that's the answer to a lot of questions. That's spooky pinballs. How do they do this? Why do they do that? It's because we do it in house.
01:02:23
Speaker
So like your wire forms and everything in the, in the everything really, yeah Yeah. Outside of me, like you're not wiring your own coils, right? You're not winding. No, no, no. It's like we get those from like pinball life and whatnot. So like pinball life is our our largest supplier outside of what the things that we do in house. But yeah, like our powder coat is done ah block away from us.
01:02:43
Speaker
Our wire forms are made in house. You know, our metal is done in house. We print everything in house. We do as much of it in house as humanly possible. It's proven to be extremely effective for us. That all came about like the COVID time.
01:02:56
Speaker
when there was one singular thing that held us up for a month and a half during COVID and it was getting the boards in. So we made sure our next game, we did our own boards in house because we weren't dealing with that ever again.
01:03:08
Speaker
So you even make your own boards too? Yep. The warden system is designed by spooky pinball and made in house. Holy crap. yeah du We work really hard. I swear.
01:03:21
Speaker
That's very, very hard. That's impressive. That is super impressive. That's actually the thing I wanted to bring up because a lot of games have, you know you'll see that, hey, this is running on this system, this is running on this system. And so tell me about Spooky's programming language and is it who is making your board set? and ah And tell me about, does it change with each game or is this like a consistent one that you've had for a few games now?
01:03:51
Speaker
So we Spooky DJ, who is the programmer on Scooby-Doo and Beetlejuice, he designed the Warden system for for Spooky Pinball. It's our system. on ah He introduced that with Scooby-Doo Pinball, and we have used it in every single game since then.
01:04:07
Speaker
There have been a lot of revisions to the the Warden system, but overall it is the same board set that we have been using for, how many games ago was Scooby-Doo? It feels like 20. I guess like four or something games ago, three three or four games ago.
01:04:21
Speaker
ah So it's our own system. We use it in-house, designed it in-house. I couldn't tell you anything about ah the programming side of it. ah C Sharp. i don't know. C Sharp and Unity. That's Spooky Pinball.
01:04:33
Speaker
I know a lot about how to find code bugs and tell them how to to change stuff, but I don't know the first thing about actually programming or like hardware design and that stuff. Yeah. Amazing.
01:04:44
Speaker
I did not know that about you guys. That is super awesome. And that's, I guess that also attributes to why you guys have, you like, we talked about this last time with evil dead, uh, with quality control and you've already spoke about like how it's went up.
01:04:57
Speaker
You can, you can do that because it's all in house now, you know? Yeah. And that's another thing that speaks to like our quality, like, We're aware of the things that sucked for a long time.
01:05:07
Speaker
Like we're we're aware of what people don't like. We stay very in tune with what the community is saying and feeling about us at all times. And swapping board set to new board to different system between a bunch of different games is just a mess. It's a disaster.
01:05:22
Speaker
It's horrible for your QC. It's expensive. it's It's confusing for customers because every single spooky game they were working on, like if you were routing them, is completely different than the last one.
01:05:34
Speaker
Like that just sucks. It's horrible to deal with. So having our own in-house was like a huge step forward in the right direction for our quality control. So you'll probably be on the warden system for quite some time moving forward because of those issues. plan on it forever.
01:05:48
Speaker
ah Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. And you're you're right. That is good because that you can get a little more consistency on the programming and to to keep the bugs down. So that's saying, obviously you don't want...
01:06:00
Speaker
spooky bug to go down, but the bugs, so to speak. so So what do you do for your older games then? So like for Alice Cooper or anything like that, if you need a new if someone needs a new board for it Yeah, so like you know the older games that like have the P-Rock system and whatnot, you know we still service those. I think we still have ah quite a big stash of like those boards sitting around, but otherwise like those are pretty accessible for other things. ah If it's a really old game, like somebody's got a Domino's and the board goes bad, you know our tech support team is pretty awesome. Our our lead guy, AJ, on it, he's been with us since like Rob Zombie Pinball, so pretty much anything people send in, he has been successful at getting fixed and sent back out to them.
01:06:40
Speaker
So we're still servicing the old games. I mean, we we still, you know, people call in for like issues on AMH and whatnot. We get them taken care of because AMH is our baby. We got to make sure that thing lives for the tens of thousands of plays that all of those have on them somehow by now.
01:06:55
Speaker
Yeah. Bug, is there is there a concluding thought that you that you want to share about your experience ah you know with this this? This seems like a great game. And i like the theme that it is something that is a little more accessible than something over the top blood.
01:07:13
Speaker
So I do like the Beetlejuice option and being able to have something that my family can appreciate and enjoy. Exactly. I think Beetlejuice Pinball is spooky pinball at its most capable and accessible that we've ever been.
Confidence and Community Engagement
01:07:31
Speaker
it's It's a title and a theme that the most amount of people will know and love and can safely put in their home from us compared to some other titles we've done. And it's also a game with ah the absolute best of everyone involveds involved ah capabilities.
01:07:49
Speaker
for the design, the manufacturing, every single step of the way. It is it is us at our absolute best. um There was a ton of pressure following Evil Dead.
01:08:00
Speaker
ah We had no idea how much of a success that game was going to be. and we could have been really scared going into this game launch, knowing that like, Oh, those are some big shoes to fill. We're really worried about that.
01:08:14
Speaker
And, uh, you know, speaking to, you know, usually in our game launches, it goes teaser trailer on Thursday, full game trailer, Friday sales are open. We put the teaser trailer out for this weeks ago because we weren't worried, you know,
01:08:28
Speaker
like in the time in between with the hype building up and everything, we weren't worried. We're confident that it's going to live up to the expectations and the hype that everybody has for it ah because we know it's a really great game and people are going to really like it. And we are all and insanely proud and honored and humbled ah to be doing something like this. I still feel like any day somebody's going to knock on the door and come in and be like, dude, you're not a real pinball person. Get out of here. like You don't know what you're doing.
01:08:56
Speaker
This isn't real. Come on. You thought this was happening to you? No way. like I always feel like we're you know pinch me and we'll wake up sort of deal. So it's been It's been really awesome.
01:09:07
Speaker
We're really proud of it. ah I'm excited to get building it. um The employees are all excited to get building it too. Everybody's got a lot of hype around it, you know, yeah even from that aspect. And it's going cool year.
01:09:19
Speaker
It's going to be a really fun year. We're having the best time that we have literally ever had at Spooky Pinball, like period. This is the most fun we've ever had. So. That's awesome. I do actually, it brings up one more question. Speaking of family friendly there, you know, Beeldeus obviously says some swears in the movie. yeah Can you, is that going to be sent? Can you censor that? Is that an option?
01:09:38
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Easy enough, man. Bug, I really appreciate you coming on. It's always great having you on. i like this yearly thing that we've set up now. Yeah, that's great. It's awesome.
01:09:50
Speaker
So if anyone, if you want anyone to get ahold of you, what's the best way to get ahold of you? Yeah, ah if you open the coin door inside your spooky machine, because I know you have one, except for these two. But if you open the coin door inside your spooky machine, there's phone number and an email in there. ah You can call.
01:10:06
Speaker
Those are for your service departments. Otherwise, there's the main shop phone number. I can't remember what it is. 815-541-0054. Is that the main one? Maybe that's the service one. I don't know. Sure. know That's a good question.
01:10:18
Speaker
Otherwise, ah Morgan at spooky pinball.com or squirrel at spooky pinball.com is great for your general questions. If you have a really cool license that you want me to sign and make 1000 units of email bug at spooky pinball.com and i'll I'll consider it.
01:10:30
Speaker
um but Otherwise, just general questions. You can always hit me up bug at spooky pinball.com. I live stream on YouTube every week, Thursday, 7pm central bug screaming stream.
01:10:41
Speaker
I just did five code update streams in a row for the month of October. That was really fun. Dang. nice I'm not sure what I'm doing this week. I guess this this will come out after it's already over, but um so yeah, that's a, that's us spooky. Luke at spooky pinball.com. You can always throw your questions or anger his way. he He's pretty good at fielding all things that there is under the sun at this point from people. So, but yeah, otherwise our discord channel to check out our discord. We're in there. We just got 400 members in there today.
01:11:13
Speaker
all nice People talk and chat and having fun. We, We meme out pretty hard in there. We make a lot of, that we have the most fun just hanging out in our Discord, talking stuff with people. So yeah. Nice.
01:11:25
Speaker
off to Off to add that, I didn't realize you guys had a Discord. Yeah, didn't know either. It's super great in there. It's a fun time. That's awesome. If you want to get a hold of us, we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com at loser kid pinball for all the socials and on all that jazz. Get some cerebral swag.
01:11:41
Speaker
ah We just dropped a brand new shirt of the loser kid American flag. So I i go check it out. See what you think. I'm pretty stoked about it. It may have drawn some inspirations from somewhere else. If you know what I'm talking about.
01:11:54
Speaker
You know, you know, um like I said, if you want to, if you fill up an out, if you want that 500 bucks, you could do that. Also, if you're looking to get like a portal or a P3, a thousand bucks as well, hit us up for that.
01:12:05
Speaker
Other than that, Scott, give us our last words. You know, what I did look it up. So spooky. If you want to give them a call, it's 815-541-0054. That's phone. to get those last 70 Beetlejuice. five four one zero zero five four and seriously get on the phone try to get those last seventy beetles juice Yeah.