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Ep 108: This is a Call with Raymond Davidson
113 Plays2 years ago
Raymond Davidson joins us to talk about Foo Fighters and the journey so far at Stern.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Episode 108
00:00:07
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
00:00:09
Speaker
We are on episode 108.
00:00:11
Speaker
I'm Josh Roop.
00:00:12
Speaker
With me, my co-captain, as always.
00:00:14
Speaker
Scott Larson.
00:00:15
Speaker
I almost blanked on our intro.
00:00:16
Speaker
We've done 108 episodes, and I've almost blanked on how to do this.
00:00:19
Speaker
Almost blanked.
00:00:20
Speaker
It's all good.
00:00:20
Speaker
It's all good.
00:00:21
Speaker
Holy crap.
Ordering Pinball Machines and Accessories
00:00:22
Speaker
And tonight, we're going to be talking about the magic of Foo Fighters.
00:00:26
Speaker
And Scott, I know you ordered one, right?
00:00:30
Speaker
I did.
00:00:30
Speaker
I ordered a premium and I ordered that through Zach and Nicole Manning at flipping out pinball.
00:00:35
Speaker
Uh, they've always been really good and I am super excited because I ordered the rush shooter rod that glows, which is the star man from 2112, which is awesome.
00:00:46
Speaker
And I also got the, or at least I, I placed an interest in getting the topper.
00:00:52
Speaker
So I'll have the gears grinding away and hopefully the cats won't jump up there and get smushed a little bit because they love walking around on the toppers.
00:00:59
Speaker
But yeah, contact Zach and Nicole.
00:01:00
Speaker
They've always been really great to work with and yeah, for all your pinball needs.
00:01:06
Speaker
You know it.
00:01:06
Speaker
And I got a pro on the way too, and it should be here in
00:01:09
Speaker
like two months.
00:01:10
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:01:10
Speaker
You're probably going to get yours sooner than mine.
00:01:11
Speaker
So, oh yeah.
00:01:12
Speaker
Mine was supposed to be in June.
00:01:14
Speaker
Uh, the production schedule got pushed back just a little bit by two weeks, but, uh, it sounds like we're looking still the beginning of June.
00:01:19
Speaker
So yeah, I, I'm still happy.
00:01:21
Speaker
So I may, I I'm okay with waiting a little bit, but enough of us talking about flipping
Guest Introduction: Raymond Davidson
00:01:27
Speaker
out.
00:01:27
Speaker
We have a special guest on tonight.
00:01:29
Speaker
The man that goes by number one, formerly number one in our hearts.
00:01:34
Speaker
No, he is currently number one in our hearts.
00:01:36
Speaker
Is he currently number one in our hearts?
00:01:38
Speaker
Well, he's number one in my heart.
00:01:42
Speaker
He's killing it with Foo Fighters code.
00:01:43
Speaker
He's killing it with Pin Clash.
00:01:45
Speaker
He's just killing it.
00:01:46
Speaker
So if you want to all welcome, we've got Mr. Raymond Davidson with us.
00:01:53
Speaker
Hello.
00:01:53
Speaker
Yeah.
Favorite Pinball Games and Their Depth
00:01:56
Speaker
See, I like having Ray on because he actually has a black rose also, and he loves black rose like I do.
00:02:02
Speaker
Yes.
00:02:02
Speaker
So we can always talk about all the magic of black rose and the depth of the code of black rose, which is non-existent.
00:02:09
Speaker
Hey, I was actually just going to say it's actually much deeper than people know.
00:02:14
Speaker
There's actually.
00:02:15
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:15
Speaker
That was one of the first games where I actually went online and read this rule sheet.
00:02:20
Speaker
It was pretty long and it details the like seven different canon awards.
00:02:25
Speaker
the multi balls, the hidden treasure, you know, there's the jackpot there.
00:02:29
Speaker
There's actually a lot more in there than you, than you think.
00:02:32
Speaker
And I don't know.
00:02:34
Speaker
I have a soft spot for it, especially for a 1992 game.
00:02:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:38
Speaker
It is exceptionally deep for something that was intended to be on location and really a coin drop game.
00:02:45
Speaker
Fun fact, Brian Eddy did the software on it.
00:02:48
Speaker
So yeah, currently at Stern Pinball.
00:02:52
Speaker
So yeah,
00:02:53
Speaker
over lunch, you know, me and him would talk and, and, and talk about, you know,
00:02:58
Speaker
man, I loved your work on Black Rose.
00:03:02
Speaker
Kind of hit him, like, you know, blindsided him, and he's like, oh, oh, yeah, yeah.
00:03:07
Speaker
That's hilarious, because he probably doesn't get that very often.
00:03:09
Speaker
It's like, I love your medieval madness, I love your attack for Mars, and it's, you know, he gets the occasional shadow, but I highly doubt he gets Black Rose.
00:03:18
Speaker
That's the playfield design, though.
00:03:20
Speaker
True.
00:03:20
Speaker
So what you're saying is he did the rules for it.
00:03:22
Speaker
Yes.
00:03:23
Speaker
Which is, I mean, that's a different thing.
00:03:25
Speaker
Now, the...
Passion for Pinball Rules
00:03:27
Speaker
The thing that I love talking about with you, Raymond, is that you have such enthusiasm for rules that I am still on the pro level.
00:03:38
Speaker
I'm not on the premium or LE level of understanding code.
00:03:42
Speaker
But every time I talk to you, I was like, I don't understand what this thing is doing.
00:03:45
Speaker
And I'll text you occasionally.
00:03:46
Speaker
I'm like, can you explain this to me a little bit?
00:03:48
Speaker
And he's like, oh, yeah, it's this.
00:03:50
Speaker
Oh, and by the way, if you do this, this, this, you can do that, that, that.
00:03:54
Speaker
Simple.
00:03:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:57
Speaker
It's just a cascading effect, right?
Victory at North American Pinball Championships
00:03:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:01
Speaker
Well, and you know, it's funny because like a lot of people like, oh, I'm hard up for cash.
00:04:05
Speaker
And, you know, sometimes budgets are a little tight.
00:04:08
Speaker
But if you want to, you could go the Raymond route.
00:04:11
Speaker
It sounds like you won your Foo Fighters recently, right?
00:04:13
Speaker
You got to tell us about this.
00:04:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:16
Speaker
The North American Pinball Championships, otherwise known as Nationals.
00:04:22
Speaker
happened at the district 82 and in De Pere a few months ago and I took it from Escher me and him battled in the finals yeah he had a couple of rough games but you know sometimes you just got to do a little bit better than your opponent and I I managed to hang in there and I got I won it so I won a stern pro of my choice and I chose Foo Fighters nice
00:04:48
Speaker
No bias at all, right?
00:04:49
Speaker
You're like, this game's probably the number one game.
00:04:51
Speaker
It's going to battle out Godzilla for the top spot.
00:04:55
Speaker
Well, at least rules-wise, right?
00:05:00
Speaker
So, Ray, when did you get pulled in on the rules on this game?
00:05:04
Speaker
And walk me through how you're going to approach a rule set and incorporating storyline, incorporating songs.
Developing Foo Fighters Rules
00:05:15
Speaker
How does that all work in your mind?
00:05:18
Speaker
Yeah, I think I basically just rolled right off of Rush, right on to Foo Fighters.
00:05:24
Speaker
And basically, the outline was kind of made of like, these are the modes.
00:05:33
Speaker
We kind of have an idea of what to do with
00:05:36
Speaker
But nothing set in stone, really.
00:05:38
Speaker
And then, like, the Overlord's going to have something.
00:05:41
Speaker
He has three different songs.
00:05:44
Speaker
So he's going to do something there.
00:05:45
Speaker
You know, Area 51, a multiball, the wizard mode.
00:05:49
Speaker
So all that was kind of already all laid out.
00:05:53
Speaker
And I just had to go and kind of fill in the gaps and actually, you know, implement all the different features.
00:06:00
Speaker
Kind of like how it was when I joined Rush and when I joined Zeppelin.
00:06:04
Speaker
where there's an outline and I just go in and just, you know, fill in all the details.
00:06:10
Speaker
Well, and I'm glad that you mentioned, you know, Rush, Zeppelin, Avengers.
00:06:15
Speaker
You've got your name attached to those four games.
00:06:17
Speaker
You have not worked for a consistent designer yet.
00:06:20
Speaker
You've been bouncing around.
00:06:21
Speaker
How was this process working with Jack Danger versus Richie or Borg or even Ellen?
00:06:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's been really fun working with Jack.
Collaborative Experience in Pinball Design
00:06:31
Speaker
He's really easy to just message and he'll also, you know, message me and, and Tanya will join in.
00:06:38
Speaker
We'll have little mini meetings of, you know, Hey, I was thinking this could be cool.
00:06:43
Speaker
You know, that sort of thing.
00:06:45
Speaker
When we have kind of like a problem that we need to solve, we just all huddle and we all throw our ideas out.
00:06:50
Speaker
You know, I'll throw my ideas, Jack for his Tanya will kind of, you know, wrangle them all together and maybe add one of his ideas.
00:06:58
Speaker
And, and we all just kind of blend together.
00:07:02
Speaker
And it kind of shows in the game because you see a very approachable game with some nuances, but not all the sophisticated complications thrown at you all
Making Pinball Rules Exciting
00:07:14
Speaker
up front.
00:07:14
Speaker
You kind of have to dive into it.
00:07:17
Speaker
And if you don't know any of that stuff, it doesn't really matter.
00:07:19
Speaker
You're still beating cities, starting multi-balls, getting Fubat parts.
00:07:25
Speaker
Whether you know how you got them or not, you're getting them.
00:07:27
Speaker
So that's exciting.
00:07:30
Speaker
And the game just kind of all flows together really well in a good package.
00:07:34
Speaker
So when you were approaching code, there is the danger of the, you know, it's been described as chopping wood.
00:07:42
Speaker
It's like, it's not really interesting.
00:07:44
Speaker
You just keep doing the same thing and you slowly get more and more points, but it's in a very methodical way.
00:07:50
Speaker
How do you avoid that sort of approach to a rule set and make it exciting so you can blow it up?
00:07:59
Speaker
Yeah, I'm always looking to avoid any sort of, you know, exploits that would be boring.
00:08:07
Speaker
Like, you never want the thing you should do to be the thing you don't want to do, right?
00:08:11
Speaker
If those two are in opposition with each other, your game's not going to have as much legs to stand on.
00:08:18
Speaker
You know, you're not going to be coming back to it as much.
00:08:21
Speaker
So, you know, things like examples in Foo are the modes...
00:08:26
Speaker
you have to beat them to qualify the wizard modes.
00:08:29
Speaker
Cause I didn't want people just shooting a shot and then trapping up and waiting for the timer to go down and then go on to the next mode and wait for the timer to go down.
00:08:38
Speaker
But that led to some conflicts of, well, the modes, you know, they're kind of
Balancing Gameplay Difficulty
00:08:43
Speaker
hard to beat.
00:08:43
Speaker
You know, how long should they be?
00:08:47
Speaker
We want people to be able to experience everything.
00:08:50
Speaker
So we ended up coming up with a nice compromise of your first mode, you're going to get five shots spotted.
00:08:56
Speaker
And then your second mode, you're going to get four shots spotted.
00:08:58
Speaker
And then three shots.
00:08:59
Speaker
So someone who plays a mode, the first mode they play, you can probably beat that mode.
00:09:07
Speaker
You might not get it your first try.
00:09:10
Speaker
But the modes all carry their progress as well.
00:09:13
Speaker
So you can just go right back in.
00:09:15
Speaker
And that was kind of a cool thing too, is it was challenging to build a rule set around a game where you can pick your modes.
00:09:23
Speaker
I know Avengers does that.
00:09:24
Speaker
And it's very challenging because you have to make sure there's not just one mode.
00:09:28
Speaker
Everyone's always going to want to pick.
00:09:31
Speaker
So to kind of counteract that, I like to have the modes...
00:09:36
Speaker
have different pros and cons depending on what game state you're in.
00:09:40
Speaker
So if you have a bunch of shot multipliers, this mode might be good.
00:09:43
Speaker
Or if you are about to start a multiple, this mode might be good.
00:09:46
Speaker
Or if you have nothing lit and your multiples are miles away, this might be the right mode for that.
00:09:53
Speaker
So that's kind of what you have to aim for and balance when you're designing the rules for the modes.
00:10:00
Speaker
Now with Insider connected,
00:10:02
Speaker
Do you get audits back for how many modes are started and how many modes are completed?
00:10:09
Speaker
And I guess what information do you get back?
00:10:13
Speaker
Because I could imagine that being amazingly valuable for you as the designer to say, oh, well, that mode is being played way differently than I thought it was going to be.
00:10:23
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely watch a lot of streams to make sure there's nothing out of whack.
00:10:30
Speaker
And if you just look on the game, you can view audits.
00:10:33
Speaker
And so anything you can view in the game audits is something that might get dumped after a show.
00:10:39
Speaker
And we can look at what everybody did.
00:10:42
Speaker
It's like, oh, nobody in the entire show started this mode.
00:10:47
Speaker
Maybe that's okay.
00:10:48
Speaker
Maybe it's too hard.
00:10:51
Speaker
That sort of thing.
Insights from Insider Connected
00:10:52
Speaker
And then another valuable thing is achievements.
00:10:55
Speaker
If there's an achievement nobody's getting, we can check on it or maybe make it a little easier.
00:11:01
Speaker
you know, that sort of thing.
00:11:03
Speaker
So do you get feedback?
00:11:05
Speaker
You brought up shows and audits, which is perfect because they're basically, you know, the games are roughly connected to you guys.
00:11:13
Speaker
You may have a distributor that brings them.
00:11:16
Speaker
But what about like a game that is put on Joe's bar in Cheyenne, Wyoming?
00:11:24
Speaker
Like, are you able to see how it's played at different locations with Insider Connected?
00:11:31
Speaker
Well, the achievements are all connected, so you can see people's achievements and stuff.
00:11:36
Speaker
I don't know about the game audits.
00:11:40
Speaker
I can't speak to that.
00:11:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:45
Speaker
So I noticed there, I mean, this has obviously got a lot of nuance from...
00:11:50
Speaker
From Deadpool, a little bit from Jurassic Park.
00:11:53
Speaker
Did you use some of that code structure from those games as well?
00:11:56
Speaker
Because I noticed with Van, it's kind of similar to map,
Inspiration from Other Pinball Games
00:11:59
Speaker
right?
00:11:59
Speaker
You shoot the white arrows and it spells out what you need to.
00:12:02
Speaker
Is there any kind of other similarities, I guess, to other codes and something that you tried to emulate?
00:12:07
Speaker
Or are you trying to... I don't know.
00:12:10
Speaker
I know that like... Yeah, I mean, the Van was definitely right out of Jurassic Park.
00:12:15
Speaker
That was actually my idea to spell Van.
00:12:18
Speaker
Cause I thought of Jurassic park and I'm like, huh, you know, that's the white arrows reminded me of Jurassic park.
00:12:25
Speaker
And then I was like, Oh, you're spelling map.
00:12:27
Speaker
What could you spell?
00:12:29
Speaker
Oh, duh, man, you're trying to light the van.
00:12:31
Speaker
So yeah, that was a good catch there.
00:12:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:35
Speaker
I'm trying to think if there's other things, but I, I kind of blend, you know, whenever I need inspiration for rules, I'll think of other games and kind of incorporate their progressions and things, ideas, ideas,
00:12:48
Speaker
I guess the Overlord is kind of like Rush time machine multiballs where there's three different multiballs from the same sort of device, but each one is different.
00:12:58
Speaker
So, you know, all of my life multiball and then Monkey Wrench multiball and then the Pretender multiball.
00:13:05
Speaker
So that kind of worked really well in Rush where you're in the time machine and you can do any of these things.
00:13:11
Speaker
you know, multi balls.
00:13:12
Speaker
It's a little different food because you always go in the same order, but also on food, each one is sort of better than the one before it.
00:13:19
Speaker
Like there's more jackpots, you get more balls in play, that sort of thing.
00:13:24
Speaker
Cool.
00:13:25
Speaker
Is there any throwback games that you use code for or like some idea?
00:13:29
Speaker
Because like it's one thing I love about Jurassic Park.
00:13:31
Speaker
I don't know if people realize it or not, but you hit the five shots and then the spinner's lit for those five shots and you hit it.
00:13:38
Speaker
It's just like in stars from Stern.
00:13:41
Speaker
You hit the five stars and you can hit the spinner for big points.
00:13:45
Speaker
I don't know if there's some kind of inspiration that you pull from what some of those older games too.
00:13:50
Speaker
I mean, you know, there's the in-lane targets that Jack came up with.
00:13:54
Speaker
I think he said he got those from Heavy Metal Meltdown or something.
00:13:58
Speaker
Okay, yeah.
00:14:00
Speaker
But rules-wise, you know, the older games are just, they're different than the modern games, so it's hard to just port rules directly from them.
00:14:14
Speaker
But, you know, there is a super spinner in the game, so when that's active, it's worth more.
00:14:22
Speaker
There's... Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
00:14:27
Speaker
It's hard to think of any direct parallels.
00:14:29
Speaker
No worries.
00:14:31
Speaker
Which mode do you usually like to start with?
00:14:37
Speaker
I usually like New Orleans just because kind of all the shots are available.
00:14:43
Speaker
It's kind of a nice one to get your feet wet.
00:14:46
Speaker
And it's good with multiball because of that.
00:14:49
Speaker
That or Seattle is kind of similar.
00:14:52
Speaker
but it really just depends on what I'm feeling.
00:14:54
Speaker
New York is fun.
00:14:55
Speaker
If you just want to rip spinners, like my favorite combo in the game is the center spinner to side ramp over and over again.
00:15:01
Speaker
So from really dialed into that, uh, New York can be good, but yeah, I mean, I like all the modes.
00:15:08
Speaker
Did you get to put any Easter eggs of yourself in from like Seattle or anything like that?
00:15:14
Speaker
No, I don't think, I don't think, uh, I have any, anything hiding.
00:15:18
Speaker
And the party pooper, um,
00:15:22
Speaker
It'd be cool though, just cause you know, that was your hometown and whatnot.
00:15:25
Speaker
And anyhow, you could have a Dave girl, give you a shout out.
00:15:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:30
Speaker
Only Seattle friends.
00:15:32
Speaker
It is cool that Seattle is on there though.
00:15:34
Speaker
As a city.
00:15:34
Speaker
I'm happy with that.
Differences Between Pro and Premium Models
00:15:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:38
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:39
Speaker
We, as typical, when we design games, we have the pro premium in LA and you have the, it's interesting because sometimes you,
00:15:51
Speaker
sometimes the pro kind of wins out as the preferred game.
00:15:54
Speaker
Sometimes the premium wins out in the preferred.
00:15:56
Speaker
And I'll, I'll use an older one like Metallica.
00:15:59
Speaker
I would say the, the vast majority of the people who get Metallica, they tend to get the pro, but there are other games where the premium far, far and away is the winner for popularity.
00:16:14
Speaker
So yeah,
00:16:15
Speaker
when you're designing a game, you don't know which one is going to win out.
00:16:19
Speaker
It sounds, sounds to me like it's kind of 50, 50 on this one, which is nice.
00:16:23
Speaker
I'm staring at a screen with two people and one, one is one has a pro order and one has a premium on.
00:16:28
Speaker
And you have a pro, but then again, you want it.
00:16:32
Speaker
So yeah, yeah.
00:16:34
Speaker
I'm sure they'd let you upgrade for, for, for an upcharge.
00:16:38
Speaker
So yeah,
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, so how does that affect your mindset for the rules and saying, well, I don't want it to drastically affect how we play the game, but there is something different with the premium that has the upper play field.
00:16:54
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's a great way to describe it.
00:16:57
Speaker
I like to have clear benefits and uniqueness to having the premium, but not have things that are
00:17:09
Speaker
totally different or you feel like you're missing half the game you know with a pro so for like the premium area 51 is in both both models but on the premium you know it all involves the upper play field so you got to hit the little targets and the orbit and the ramp and the stuff but on the pro uh we don't have an upper play field so we just kind of once you hit the ramp enough times it'll it'll start and so you're you're kind of missing out on the pro that that satisfaction of like
00:17:38
Speaker
lining it up and then hitting the upper target and you know, you're starting area 51.
00:17:43
Speaker
Cause on the pro it just sort of happens and you might not know when or why.
00:17:48
Speaker
So like as a premium owner, you can be like, yeah, I really liked that experience.
00:17:51
Speaker
I'm happy to get the premium and get that.
Unique Experiences with Premium Model
00:17:54
Speaker
But as a pro owner, you, once you've learned that you're like, well, I have the same opportunities as a premium player.
00:18:01
Speaker
It's just not quite as, as fancy and not, and you know, warm and fuzzy.
00:18:06
Speaker
But then also, in addition to just the way, kinetically, the premium will have different kind of scoring opportunities.
00:18:15
Speaker
Like in modes, you can shoot the upper play field to spot shots.
00:18:19
Speaker
So on the pro, you might hit the right ramp and then you're forced to immediately either choose the left ramp or the center.
00:18:26
Speaker
But maybe one of those aren't lit for what mode you're in.
00:18:28
Speaker
But on a premium, every mode, you can spot shots one time each on both of those.
00:18:34
Speaker
If you work the right ramp into your equation, you can kind of right ramp, upper loop, you know, then come down, hit some more things, go back up there, hit the other one and kind of changes the strategy.
00:18:45
Speaker
And then similarly in the area 51 multiball, the way you light your super jackpot is up there.
00:18:51
Speaker
So you can actually hold off on getting the super jackpot or just focus entirely on regular jackpots because on the pro, you
00:19:02
Speaker
Once, like on the premium, you can always build your super jackpot up top.
00:19:06
Speaker
And so therefore down below, you're always getting jackpots.
00:19:09
Speaker
But on the, sorry, did I say pro or premium?
00:19:11
Speaker
On the premium.
00:19:12
Speaker
On the pro, once you kind of get eight jackpots, then your super jackpot becomes available.
00:19:20
Speaker
And now you're building your super and you can't actually get regular jackpots.
00:19:24
Speaker
So that's actually a pretty big scoring change where,
00:19:28
Speaker
On the Pro, it's like jackpot, jackpot, jackpot.
00:19:30
Speaker
Okay, my Super's ready.
00:19:31
Speaker
Super.
00:19:32
Speaker
On the Premium, it's kind of chaos.
00:19:34
Speaker
It's like jackpots down here, Super up here, building up here.
00:19:37
Speaker
So that dynamic is totally different.
00:19:40
Speaker
But like I said, you're not really missing anything either way.
00:19:43
Speaker
It's just different.
00:19:45
Speaker
And yeah, I think that's the way to go.
00:19:48
Speaker
And then, of course, not from a software perspective, but from a design perspective, there's always...
00:19:54
Speaker
all the cool, you know, sculpts and things.
00:19:57
Speaker
And that little magnet under the Overlord is actually kind of fun too.
00:20:01
Speaker
It choreographs.
00:20:01
Speaker
We actually made it kind of synchronized with the video.
00:20:04
Speaker
So when you get captured and the tractor beam comes on, especially on the LE with the expression lights, it really looks like a tractor beam.
00:20:13
Speaker
And then it starts shaking and the ball starts going like with the video.
00:20:17
Speaker
It's pretty cool.
00:20:18
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:20:19
Speaker
There is a lot of cool, those little quirky just...
00:20:22
Speaker
Like with the pro, like there's no upper play field, like you said.
00:20:25
Speaker
And so the plastics are actually layered and they say like under construction, right?
00:20:31
Speaker
And just, it's cool that I feel like there's a lot with this game that you guys just took a little, just,
00:20:36
Speaker
took the material and just tweaked it a little bit and just made it just that that much better and and obviously it's shining through like it's just the automatic winner we've had several pinball machines released in the last three months if you didn't know that you might be under a rock right but crazy month for sure but it's crazy because it's like
Foo Fighters as a Pinball Theme
00:20:54
Speaker
what's everyone's favorites besides foo fighters because we know you're going to say foo fighters this game has been received very very well i i hope this is probably a
00:21:02
Speaker
made you pretty happy right right ray like you've have you had any negative feedback on this game so far not particularly no i mean everyone's been loving the heck out of it and uh it's cool to be part of something everyone's so excited about it like and and everyone's like asking me rules questions and i'm like yes i will answer them like yes what do you what do you want to know
00:21:27
Speaker
It's great.
00:21:28
Speaker
And I guess it's probably a little bit different than some of the previous projects you may have worked on.
00:21:33
Speaker
So, but I don't know.
00:21:36
Speaker
It's just great to see such a game that's, that's, it's loved.
00:21:39
Speaker
I did find it funny though.
00:21:40
Speaker
Like what was it?
00:21:41
Speaker
Dennis Creasel.
00:21:42
Speaker
It's like, finally a game, hand game that Ray's not on.
00:21:46
Speaker
And then they announced you on because everyone just assumed it was just going to be Tanya, but they never realized.
00:21:50
Speaker
So they're like, Oh, yep.
00:21:53
Speaker
Bray's on another band game.
00:21:55
Speaker
Are you going to throw your hat in for a game outside of a band anytime soon?
00:21:59
Speaker
Are you just happy with the bands?
00:22:01
Speaker
I don't know.
00:22:01
Speaker
It's just the way it's all been lining up so far.
00:22:04
Speaker
You never know what's next.
00:22:07
Speaker
So this is... I'm guessing here, this is probably the band that you have been most familiar with.
00:22:17
Speaker
Of all the bands that have been released, I guess.
00:22:19
Speaker
Actually, it's probably the one I was least familiar with.
00:22:22
Speaker
Really?
00:22:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:23
Speaker
Yeah, I never really listened to Foo Fighters before working on this.
00:22:28
Speaker
I mean, I had heard, I think Learn to Fly was kind of the only song I knew I knew.
00:22:33
Speaker
Oh, not the early Foo Fighters too.
00:22:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:36
Speaker
Oh, is it?
00:22:37
Speaker
I think that's off their first album, isn't it?
00:22:39
Speaker
That probably explains why I know it.
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:44
Speaker
It was a huge departure from Nirvana because it was kind of like, hey, this is a light, you know, a light
Intergenerational Appeal of Foo Fighters
00:22:50
Speaker
fun thing.
00:22:50
Speaker
And a lot of Nirvana songs were less fun.
00:22:55
Speaker
Yeah, I guess there's not as much girl screaming in in learn to fly as some of the later songs, right?
00:23:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:03
Speaker
Yeah, it kind of went for volume.
00:23:04
Speaker
So I, I would say that has the theme resonated with, I mean, I am solidly in the, the dad rock era, right?
00:23:14
Speaker
Like all the bands that you guys have released.
Popularity of Foo Fighters Pinball on Location
00:23:17
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, I'm, I'm slightly younger than the Led Zeppelin era, totally in the, the rush era.
00:23:25
Speaker
And, uh, and I have a friend who wants a Bon Jovi pinball machine.
00:23:29
Speaker
So if you want to do that next, he'd really appreciate that.
00:23:32
Speaker
But this is actually the, uh, of the band of the.
00:23:38
Speaker
Band pins that have been released.
00:23:40
Speaker
This is the one I'm, I'm least familiar with too.
00:23:43
Speaker
Uh, I, I actually don't know too much about Foo Fighters.
00:23:47
Speaker
but I do appreciate the energy they bring.
00:23:49
Speaker
So what kind of, what kind of feedback have you been receiving from, cause you talked to a lot of people playing pinball and there's a lot of people in their twenties now, as opposed to us, 40 year olds.
00:24:03
Speaker
What do they think about the theme?
00:24:06
Speaker
It seems to be a big hit, especially on location.
00:24:09
Speaker
People are playing the heck out of it.
00:24:10
Speaker
And so usually theme is, is one of the biggest thing that draws you to a game online.
00:24:15
Speaker
at a location.
00:24:16
Speaker
So the fact that people are playing, it means it's a theme people really resonate with in that crowd.
00:24:22
Speaker
So yeah.
00:24:24
Speaker
And, and I did know a lot of people that were, when I mentioned, I worked on the Foo Fighters pinball there, they immediately like there's a Foo Fighters pinball.
00:24:32
Speaker
I'm like, yeah.
00:24:34
Speaker
And then I, you know, go, go buy one or go play one.
00:24:39
Speaker
So it's yeah, it's been pretty good.
00:24:41
Speaker
More per preferably go buy one.
00:24:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:44
Speaker
And to answer your question, Scott, it was actually off their third album, Nothing Left to Lose.
00:24:49
Speaker
Their first one was self-titled, Foo Fighters.
00:24:51
Speaker
And the second one was The Color and the Shape.
00:24:54
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:24:55
Speaker
I actually really like Monkey Ranch, which is from their second album.
00:24:58
Speaker
I think that one's one of their better songs.
00:25:00
Speaker
It's so weird.
00:25:02
Speaker
Everyone had said that that was one of their favorite songs, and that was one that I had never heard before.
00:25:08
Speaker
And then I played the game, and I'm like, oh, this is pretty good.
00:25:10
Speaker
I can see...
00:25:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:13
Speaker
Such an upbeat kind of punk song.
00:25:15
Speaker
Just so good.
00:25:17
Speaker
I like upbeat when you activate the the bot frenzy and get the chiptune version.
00:25:22
Speaker
Chiptune version.
00:25:23
Speaker
Yes.
00:25:24
Speaker
This is what I'm talking about.
00:25:26
Speaker
Scott's just like, yep, uh-huh.
00:25:28
Speaker
Yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh.
00:25:29
Speaker
Yeah, Chip 2.
00:25:30
Speaker
Chip 2.
00:25:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:25:31
Speaker
Imagine rock and roll music mixed with video game music.
00:25:35
Speaker
Well, you know, it's not our fault.
00:25:36
Speaker
The Overlord took over and wanted to make everything all tech now.
00:25:40
Speaker
I love it.
00:25:41
Speaker
I can't wait for it.
00:25:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:43
Speaker
No, that's awesome.
00:25:45
Speaker
For those that aren't watching the YouTube, you just missed Scott's little dance to the- Yeah, I was doing the shoulder dance.
00:25:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:52
Speaker
Just in case you're wondering why I never became a professional dancer.
00:25:58
Speaker
Oh my goodness.
00:25:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:59
Speaker
So this is, this is your third game you've worked on, right?
00:26:03
Speaker
Or fourth?
00:26:05
Speaker
Fourth.
00:26:06
Speaker
So what, what have you learned incrementally through the process to go from, you know,
00:26:13
Speaker
Well, first of all, what was the biggest surprise that you had from being an enthusiast, being a like an elite, not even a high level, an elite level tournament player and understanding rules probably better than anyone else on the planet and then coming in and saying, oh, now I have to design it.
00:26:33
Speaker
What was the biggest surprise?
00:26:36
Speaker
That it's really hard.
00:26:39
Speaker
Like you run into a lot of what ifs and a lot of... Like when I'm playing and I think of an idea, I'm like, why didn't they just do this?
00:26:50
Speaker
Or why... You know what would be cool?
00:26:51
Speaker
If X, Y, and Z. Like when you don't have to actually implement it, you can come up with thousands of ideas a second.
00:26:57
Speaker
Like it's so easy to just...
00:27:00
Speaker
You know, oh, man, they should do something like this.
00:27:02
Speaker
But the problem is when you actually make the rule, you actually have to think of like every implication and execution of that rule.
00:27:11
Speaker
And how it interacts with the other rules and and and what it actually means, like, like, well, people understand that there's so much more to it.
00:27:23
Speaker
It's funny that you say that because it has to be like simplistic complexity, right?
00:27:27
Speaker
Because like look at, I think of the 90s games.
00:27:31
Speaker
Like I always kind of think of like giant mnemonic.
00:27:34
Speaker
That game does have some good depth to it and whatnot.
00:27:36
Speaker
But the problem is, is everything gets overridden because everyone lines up their grid and then they get the spinner lit for ridiculous amounts of points and then you just spin it all day long.
00:27:47
Speaker
And so it's like that.
00:27:48
Speaker
Like you're constantly have to balance like,
00:27:50
Speaker
Well, what do I do?
00:27:51
Speaker
So that way someone doesn't just focus solely on Overlord or, you know what I'm saying?
00:27:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:56
Speaker
Yep.
00:27:57
Speaker
Yep.
00:27:57
Speaker
You got to make sure there's nothing too.
00:28:00
Speaker
too crazy.
00:28:02
Speaker
I know on, on rush, I kind of went wild and was just like, yeah, you can boost things as high as you want and you can put multipliers on things and you can blow it up, do all this crazy stuff.
00:28:12
Speaker
And it was fun for a while.
00:28:13
Speaker
And then people started getting like hundreds of billions instead of just like a few building billions.
00:28:20
Speaker
I'm like, okay, this is starting to become meaningless, right?
00:28:22
Speaker
Like the scores have to mean something.
00:28:25
Speaker
And so we, we adjusted that in the latest update.
00:28:29
Speaker
to try to make it more balanced.
00:28:31
Speaker
And so when you actually get a good score, it's because you, you did something cool.
00:28:35
Speaker
You didn't just, you know, have the one thing lined up and, and did it a certain way or whatever.
00:28:42
Speaker
So that, that, that was kind of a lesson learned.
00:28:45
Speaker
And I'm foo, you know, there are crazy multipliers, so I'm a little worried people might find some crazy things, but so far I think I've kept it all sort of,
00:28:58
Speaker
balance where people are picking different cities.
00:29:02
Speaker
You can pick either wizard mode.
00:29:04
Speaker
People aren't just always in a play field multiplier because it gets harder to start
00:29:10
Speaker
You know, the in-lane targets, you're not always just shatzing because it's really freaking hard on that game to actually shoot into the in-lane targets.
00:29:19
Speaker
So you only do it when, like, the opportunity presents itself and you have, like, a big thing.
00:29:25
Speaker
It's not like Star Wars where you're just always, you know, make sure I'm multiplying everything.
00:29:31
Speaker
So all that stuff is stuff I've learned and I'm thinking about as I'm making rules.
00:29:37
Speaker
When you're playing it,
00:29:39
Speaker
What, what triggers for you wanting to try to shoot the shot shot, the, the standup targets, because for me, that looks almost like, you know, attack from our straight up the middle.
00:29:50
Speaker
It seems like it is a, a ricochet waiting to happen that will go right between your flippers.
00:29:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:58
Speaker
I mean, if you have like your last shot in a mode is always worth a lot.
00:30:02
Speaker
So I've seen people try to double that, you know, or,
00:30:08
Speaker
just double like in bot frenzy, you can actually double the spinner rip.
00:30:14
Speaker
Like when your spinner is lit for a lot, it'll actually multiply all the spins, not just like one.
00:30:18
Speaker
That was fun to implement to all the, all that logic of, you know, a shot multiplier seems so simple.
00:30:24
Speaker
And then you have to think like, wait, what is a shot?
00:30:26
Speaker
Like defined shot for me.
00:30:30
Speaker
So yeah.
00:30:32
Speaker
How many times do you break a game starting to code it?
00:30:35
Speaker
Like, do you just have moments where like you're, you're coding everything out?
00:30:38
Speaker
You guys are testing it out in the lab or whatever.
00:30:41
Speaker
And all of a sudden the game just like shuts itself off.
00:30:44
Speaker
I mean, I hope that doesn't happen.
00:30:48
Speaker
I didn't know.
00:30:49
Speaker
You're testing, not on location.
00:30:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:51
Speaker
I'm saying when you guys are creating the game, does that ever happen?
00:30:54
Speaker
Like you're like, this will be awesome.
00:30:56
Speaker
And then you put it all in and it just like breaks the game.
00:31:00
Speaker
I mean, when I'm developing, it's literally like writing code and then sending it to the game and then testing it.
00:31:05
Speaker
And I'm sure, yeah, sometimes you'll forget a semicolon and you'll be in an infinite loop like that stuff happens to everybody.
00:31:11
Speaker
And when that happens in pinball, everything just locks up and you're just like, wait, why is nothing happening?
00:31:16
Speaker
And you're like, oh, you know, oops.
00:31:20
Speaker
So, yeah, it's kind of it can have some crazy consequences if someone was just watching the game.
00:31:27
Speaker
But when I'm testing, I do it with glass off, you know, with my hand.
00:31:30
Speaker
So it's not like I'm physically like I'm going to play a game of Foo and then something bad happens.
00:31:36
Speaker
It's more like I implemented a new mode.
00:31:39
Speaker
I start the mode.
00:31:39
Speaker
I hit some shots and then it dies.
00:31:41
Speaker
And I'm like, oh, OK, I need to go look at this thing.
00:31:44
Speaker
Like that's sort of how that works.
00:31:46
Speaker
You should make that a silver ball swag shirt.
00:31:49
Speaker
Did I forget my semicolons?
00:31:53
Speaker
Actually, I'm just going to make one that says pro tip, play with the glass off.
00:31:58
Speaker
Play like the professionals.
00:32:00
Speaker
Now, your life before pinball was encoding, like you were in software, right?
00:32:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:10
Speaker
And so...
00:32:12
Speaker
Are you a unicorn that you actually have that background in actual coding, but also being an elite player too and coming over?
00:32:23
Speaker
Has that been any different?
00:32:25
Speaker
I first, I would say it's actually not as rare as you'd think.
00:32:29
Speaker
I think a people that find themselves good at pinball or at least very enthusiastic about pinball in my polling, it seems like there's a good amount of them that either have computer programming jobs or are in that, that field or just like math and stuff in general.
00:32:52
Speaker
It's not quite as unicorn coincidence as you'd think since it kind of aligns that way.
00:32:58
Speaker
But in my case, it worked out especially well because, yeah, I'm really passionate pinball and they needed somebody who could code and could move to Chicago on a whim.
00:33:15
Speaker
And I'm not, I mean, I do have a house in Washington, but I got it rented out.
00:33:19
Speaker
So that's still there.
00:33:21
Speaker
But I was basically able to take advantage of the opportunity and just dive in.
00:33:27
Speaker
How have you been liking Chicago?
00:33:28
Speaker
Is it definitely – like is it a change of pace from Seattle?
00:33:33
Speaker
Like are you enjoying the food more?
00:33:34
Speaker
What are your thoughts on Chicago?
00:33:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's I mean, it's similar in a lot of ways.
00:33:40
Speaker
You know, things are expensive and like this traffic on the 90 and, you know, it's it's very a lot of things are similar.
00:33:48
Speaker
But I will say it's nice where it's not always gray and raining.
00:33:53
Speaker
Like it's cool to see the sun when you step outside.
00:33:56
Speaker
The wind is annoying, but I think I'd trade the wind.
00:34:00
Speaker
But then you actually want the wind when it's hot outside.
00:34:02
Speaker
So that actually cancels out.
00:34:05
Speaker
And then in the winter, you just don't go outside.
00:34:07
Speaker
So that solves that problem.
00:34:08
Speaker
You hibernate.
00:34:13
Speaker
Duck, take the door shut.
00:34:14
Speaker
Remind me how this whole experience started.
00:34:18
Speaker
That you're a programmer in Seattle, an elite level player.
00:34:23
Speaker
And how did it end up that your job and your passion merged?
00:34:30
Speaker
This was...
00:34:32
Speaker
basically Tim Sexton's doing, he reached out to me because he had seen me at tournaments and he, I think he knew that I was in software and he had actually just had the same sort of crossroads in his life where he was working in software and was able to, had an opportunity to go to Stern and he had to make that decision, you know, do I want to leave
00:35:00
Speaker
what I know and try this new adventure.
00:35:02
Speaker
And so he did it and he loved it so much that he kind of recruited me thinking I'd be a good match.
00:35:10
Speaker
And I was like, well, I literally just closed on this house like a few months ago.
00:35:15
Speaker
Why don't you try in a year?
00:35:17
Speaker
And sure enough, next year he reached out and was like, Hey, we're still, you know, what do you think?
00:35:22
Speaker
Did you want to come give it a shot?
00:35:24
Speaker
And I
00:35:25
Speaker
And I was like, well, I do have a renter now.
00:35:30
Speaker
And I mean, what's the worst?
00:35:32
Speaker
Sure, I'll do an interview.
00:35:35
Speaker
Yeah, let's see where this goes.
00:35:37
Speaker
I mean, I didn't really believe that I would actually be able to work at Stern Pinball.
00:35:41
Speaker
That's pretty cool.
00:35:42
Speaker
But I was like, well, I don't want to pass this up.
00:35:45
Speaker
So I followed the interview.
00:35:48
Speaker
They flew me out to Chicago.
00:35:49
Speaker
I had to like...
00:35:51
Speaker
you know, not be at work on a, on a Friday randomly or whatever.
00:35:55
Speaker
Just be like, Oh, sorry.
00:35:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:57
Speaker
I'm not in today.
00:35:59
Speaker
I'm sick.
00:36:01
Speaker
So yeah, that was cool.
00:36:03
Speaker
They, they treated me well there, showed me some of the cool Chicago spots.
00:36:07
Speaker
They put me up in a nice, nice hotel downtown.
00:36:11
Speaker
It was really, really a cool experience.
00:36:13
Speaker
And, and then,
00:36:15
Speaker
And then they hit me with like the coding questions that, you know, very beginning of the day, like 9am.
00:36:21
Speaker
And I'm like, I've kind of froze up.
00:36:24
Speaker
And then I like, remember, it was like, remember, you know how to code.
00:36:27
Speaker
It's okay.
00:36:27
Speaker
Just, just do your thing.
00:36:29
Speaker
And so got on the whiteboard.
00:36:32
Speaker
So we're, you know, writing code in a marker and whatnot.
00:36:36
Speaker
And well, did, did, did well enough and then got an offer and,
00:36:41
Speaker
Pretty much, you know, I had to think about it a little bit and talk it over with my parents.
00:36:45
Speaker
You know, what should I do?
00:36:47
Speaker
Should I go to Chicago?
00:36:48
Speaker
I don't know.
00:36:49
Speaker
And my friends were like, well, yeah, I mean, it's pinball.
00:36:52
Speaker
You look, that's your thing, right?
00:36:56
Speaker
We still make those, right?
00:36:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:36:59
Speaker
So, yeah, that's kind of basically it.
00:37:01
Speaker
And just sort of Tim Sexton just kind of reached out.
00:37:05
Speaker
And yeah, that was it.
00:37:09
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:37:11
Speaker
It's not what you know, it's who you know, right?
00:37:12
Speaker
Well, in a little bit of what you know.
00:37:14
Speaker
And you end up in a boardroom.
00:37:16
Speaker
They're going to hire Ray over me because he can code and he can play and he knows rules.
00:37:22
Speaker
Just make sure you put your semicolon on the board when you're writing it in a marker.
00:37:27
Speaker
Is it a coding language that you use that you have been familiar with or did you have to learn a new language?
00:37:35
Speaker
So it's C++, which is...
00:37:39
Speaker
I had done it in college a lot.
00:37:42
Speaker
That was pretty much what you wrote.
00:37:45
Speaker
Well, when you first, when I first went to call it like your first year in college, you do like Java, which is kind of like the beginner's language to kind of get you the concept of programming.
00:37:55
Speaker
But then your later classes are all done in C++, which is like a more hardcore language where it doesn't do a lot of the stuff for you.
00:38:04
Speaker
You kind of have to be more particular meticulous with,
00:38:08
Speaker
spelling things out and learning how the computer memory works and algorithms and data management.
00:38:15
Speaker
And so all that kind of thing was all in my upper CS classes.
00:38:19
Speaker
And that's what they use at Stern.
00:38:20
Speaker
But I hadn't really used it in my jobs, except for like briefly touching on it.
00:38:28
Speaker
One of the jobs I worked at actually had a Mac and a Windows version of their program.
00:38:36
Speaker
But the program was more just a wrapper for a Flash application.
00:38:40
Speaker
So you'd actually download like a Windows or Mac thing and you'd run it.
00:38:45
Speaker
And then it would have a Flash window where you'd be able to do all your things in.
00:38:51
Speaker
And so at that job, I mostly did Flash programming.
00:38:54
Speaker
But I did every once in a while have to peek into the Windows code, which uses C++.
00:39:01
Speaker
So I didn't have zero experience, professional experience with it, but it was pretty low on the list of things that was fresh in my mind.
00:39:09
Speaker
But I did remember from my, I had to kind of remember my, my college, you know, remember your training and that, you know, came in handy.
00:39:19
Speaker
So I, my mind's blank.
00:39:22
Speaker
What do you got for me, Scott?
00:39:24
Speaker
I lost you in my code talk.
00:39:26
Speaker
I should have.
00:39:26
Speaker
No, no, it's no.
00:39:28
Speaker
We're so entranced by the code talk.
00:39:29
Speaker
We didn't know.
00:39:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:39:33
Speaker
So, so coming to Stern Pinball, it is your, it's, it's a dream job.
00:39:37
Speaker
And a lot of people like, were you concerned at all that some people say it's like, don't, don't meet your heroes.
00:39:43
Speaker
Right.
00:39:44
Speaker
Because in your mind, they're going to be someone different than they are.
00:39:48
Speaker
And they may or may not live up to your expectations.
00:39:50
Speaker
Right.
00:39:52
Speaker
How has that been merging your love with your job?
00:39:58
Speaker
It's been pretty great.
00:40:00
Speaker
I haven't really seen much downside to it.
00:40:02
Speaker
It's I mean, it can be a little, you know, you have to be a little more.
00:40:10
Speaker
Who you talk to about what and, you know, make sure you're not like you're super excited about everything, but you can't.
00:40:15
Speaker
you know, say what you're working on and, and you can't participate in the rumors and speculations, you know, part.
00:40:24
Speaker
But other than that, I mean, I still go to all the pinball tournaments.
00:40:28
Speaker
I can, I know, and still play games at my home and, and even play on location.
00:40:34
Speaker
And yet I still work on a game.
00:40:36
Speaker
It's code every day and I can't get enough of pinball.
00:40:40
Speaker
I don't know.
00:40:41
Speaker
I'm crazy.
00:40:42
Speaker
And we want to remind everyone after the show, we have the Patreon where Raymond's going to be opening up about all the rumors and secrets.
00:40:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:48
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:40:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:50
Speaker
Sorry.
00:40:51
Speaker
I apologize.
00:40:52
Speaker
It'll just be, you know, a million dollars a month or however many, you know, takes place of losing your job.
00:40:59
Speaker
And the lawsuit to follow with it.
00:41:00
Speaker
It reminds me of when Star Wars came out, then like the last episode,
00:41:08
Speaker
three terrible movies.
00:41:10
Speaker
Jay Abrams handed out like a sheet that said, this is everything you guys can discuss.
00:41:16
Speaker
And it was a blank piece of paper.
00:41:18
Speaker
That's funny.
00:41:21
Speaker
That's great.
00:41:22
Speaker
That's great.
00:41:22
Speaker
Now there are a crazy amount of talented pinball players in the Chicago area.
00:41:29
Speaker
How brutal is league?
00:41:33
Speaker
Do you have league guys or do you just do competition or how's that work?
00:41:38
Speaker
Yeah, I'm part of the Chicago Pinball League, which is, you know, it's pretty small, only 24 people, but we go to people's houses and play once a month.
00:41:47
Speaker
And you're kind of grouped with people who are doing as well as you in the league.
00:41:53
Speaker
So, yeah, I'll be facing all the top dogs.
00:41:57
Speaker
You know, Keith Johnson is in the league.
00:42:01
Speaker
Andy Bagwell is in the league.
00:42:05
Speaker
I mean, it's not quite as crazy as it used to be.
00:42:08
Speaker
You know, I don't think Josh or Zach Sharpe are in the league anymore.
00:42:12
Speaker
Roger Sharpe is, though.
00:42:13
Speaker
It's really fun playing with him.
00:42:14
Speaker
And he'll still kick your butt if you're not careful.
00:42:17
Speaker
You got to watch out.
00:42:18
Speaker
He can still play.
00:42:21
Speaker
And so it's cool because he is kind of like a hero, right?
00:42:25
Speaker
And you're just playing pinball with him, like, in the Chicago League.
00:42:28
Speaker
And same with...
00:42:32
Speaker
you know, a lot of industry people like Joe Katz, Keith Johnson, Mark Seiden, Jim, Jim Shearer.
00:42:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:41
Speaker
I think that's his name.
00:42:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:42
Speaker
Stern pinball.
00:42:43
Speaker
There's even, yeah, just all sorts of people that you, that you hang out with and play.
00:42:50
Speaker
It's pretty cool.
00:42:52
Speaker
I will have to admit if you ever get the opportunity to meet Roger Sharp, definitely do it.
00:42:55
Speaker
Cause we were, we always joke about like, don't meet your heroes, but like,
00:42:59
Speaker
Roger is like the most down to earth guy I know.
00:43:02
Speaker
Roger is one of those people that actually exceeds your expectations on meeting your heroes because he makes you feel like you're awesome as opposed to you going and saying, hey, you remember that shot you did?
00:43:13
Speaker
That was that was really cool.
00:43:15
Speaker
Yeah, he gives you such good praise when you do something cool.
00:43:19
Speaker
He's like genuinely impressed and it makes you feel really good.
00:43:23
Speaker
And he's very, very humble about his own playing.
00:43:26
Speaker
And I definitely did not expect the mustache to be as awesome as it is.
00:43:31
Speaker
It's an impressive.
00:43:33
Speaker
You remember when he shaved it off and people were like, whoa, whoa, what happened?
00:43:37
Speaker
Oh, he did?
00:43:39
Speaker
It was like for a week or something.
00:43:41
Speaker
And he posted a picture and people are like, no, no, no, no.
00:43:45
Speaker
You need to grow that.
00:43:47
Speaker
Came right back.
00:43:47
Speaker
Like nothing.
00:43:50
Speaker
He woke up the next morning and poof.
00:43:51
Speaker
It was the Santa Tim, Tim Allen and the Santa Claus.
00:43:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:55
Speaker
Yep.
00:43:57
Speaker
There's two people who are required to have mustaches, Roger Sharp and Tom Selleck.
00:44:01
Speaker
Yep.
00:44:02
Speaker
Definitely.
00:44:04
Speaker
Definitely.
00:44:09
Speaker
So what has kind of stood out to you in the Foo Fighters process versus some of the other stuff you've done in the past?
Storyline of the Overlord Character
00:44:17
Speaker
I mean, there was, there, there is this whole storyline and lore that I had to learn.
00:44:22
Speaker
And, you know, with the, the overlord.
00:44:26
Speaker
So describe this.
00:44:27
Speaker
I don't know the lore at all.
00:44:29
Speaker
So just tell me about it.
00:44:32
Speaker
I'm still kind of trying to figure it out too.
00:44:34
Speaker
I'm not the guy.
00:44:37
Speaker
Tanya could be able to tell you or Jack, but it's basically from what I gather that overlords like this,
00:44:46
Speaker
alien who grew up in area 51, kind of raised by scientists who like, you know, kind of treat him as like their kid.
00:44:54
Speaker
And so he kind of like the Sonic movie where he grew up on all the pop culture and stuff.
00:45:01
Speaker
But then at some point he kind of was like old enough.
00:45:06
Speaker
And Tanya described as his angsty teenage years where he wanted to, to go out and reformat everyone and everything to be,
00:45:16
Speaker
techno and digital um you can kind of that's kind of why on the game you'll see like the area 51 area those buildings you know area 51 is like a desert with like warehouses so you might be wondering why it looks all like purple neon sort of thing that's that's basically the overlord turning everything into his futuristic vision of
00:45:41
Speaker
of reality.
00:45:42
Speaker
And then also giving people these helmets that reformat their brain to just kind of rock out to the techno music.
00:45:49
Speaker
Kind of like, what was it?
00:45:51
Speaker
The Riddler in Batman forever.
00:45:53
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:45:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:56
Speaker
That's kind of what I gathered.
00:45:58
Speaker
And then the part that starts confusing me is when you get into the meta of the Saturday morning cartoon, where there's like the action figures that the overlord is,
00:46:08
Speaker
is collecting because I guess in this world, the Foo Fighters are a TV show and they all have their own action figures.
00:46:16
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:17
Speaker
And so the Overlord, that's kind of why in like the Matt sequence, he's like flipping channels on the TV because it's kind of like he was watching the Foo Fighters, I guess.
00:46:26
Speaker
But also the Foo Fighters are not only on the TV show, but then they're also real because they end up being the ones to stop the Overlord from his plan.
00:46:38
Speaker
And so...
00:46:41
Speaker
the Foo Fighters get in the van and they travel to these cities that he's reformatted and try to, you know, take the helmets away and save everybody.
00:46:53
Speaker
Or like in the Seattle mode, you know, this is a call.
00:46:58
Speaker
They're kind of going around everywhere, like, you know, helping everybody run is the Roswell mode where the Overlord actually is there and he's chasing you and you kind of have to run away from him and
00:47:11
Speaker
Chicago's, I know they all have like the helmets on, you're freeing the helmets.
00:47:15
Speaker
So all the modes have their own little storyline to it.
00:47:20
Speaker
And then the Area 51 storyline is you're going to Area 51 and you're actually digging through the old files of this Overlord.
00:47:28
Speaker
Because remember, they've had him since he crash landed as like a little baby over.
00:47:34
Speaker
alien.
00:47:36
Speaker
And so you're finding all these embarrassing facts about him.
00:47:39
Speaker
So if you're ever watching a stream and someone's playing Area 51, look at the display.
00:47:43
Speaker
There's all sorts of hilarious folders that they show and things.
00:47:49
Speaker
So there's a lot in the art in this game for sure and story and
00:47:55
Speaker
Yeah, that was a lot to kind of take in when I joined the project and learn.
00:48:01
Speaker
And it's cool, though.
00:48:03
Speaker
It's really cool.
00:48:04
Speaker
Okay, so they assemble to form.
00:48:07
Speaker
So when I was a kid, there was a show called Voltron.
00:48:09
Speaker
Oh, I forgot about that.
00:48:12
Speaker
Yes, that's how they planned to beat.
00:48:18
Speaker
Or that's...
00:48:19
Speaker
See, this is where I get confused again because... Is this the cartoon?
00:48:23
Speaker
Their Saturday morning cartoon?
00:48:24
Speaker
Or is this the actual Foo Fighters who are traveling around?
00:48:27
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not sure.
00:48:28
Speaker
But I just know that... Yeah, there's this big Foo Bot that you end up fighting the Overlord's big suit, you know, thing that he's in spaceship with legs.
00:48:42
Speaker
Kind of like, what was that?
00:48:43
Speaker
Avatar style?
00:48:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:45
Speaker
And so you build this Fubot, and now you can control the Fubot, and that gives you the extra power to kind of take him down.
00:48:54
Speaker
That's kind of like the late-game stuff, Fubot and Final Battle, after you've saved everybody and whatnot.
00:49:01
Speaker
So I was listening to Brody even talk pinball this week with Nick Lane and Kevin Manny, and they were talking about, like,
00:49:11
Speaker
pinball machines being scripted.
00:49:12
Speaker
They like the old Williams is be like second city.
00:49:15
Speaker
They pay to come in and like Tina Fey was part of medieval madness and whatnot.
00:49:19
Speaker
How much of it is Stern coming up with this content versus do you guys even pay people to do a script?
00:49:26
Speaker
Like, cause this, this seems all pretty off the wall.
00:49:29
Speaker
Like did this all come?
00:49:31
Speaker
I think this was all in house.
00:49:33
Speaker
I know zombie Yeti, Jeremy Packer came up with a lot of the art concepts that then we ended up
00:49:41
Speaker
building off of and uh yeah i don't i don't actually know how all that sort of happens because like i said when i join it's all done already and i just am jumping into the code so yeah it's pretty impressive though it's pretty cool do you usually see a completed play field or is it still whitewood when you're working on code
00:50:05
Speaker
It's always a white wood.
00:50:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:07
Speaker
But it has all the shots and lights and things so you can, you can code it.
00:50:12
Speaker
And then once you do see the final art, you're always blown away.
00:50:15
Speaker
Cause you're like, Oh wow, this is way better than just a blank play field.
00:50:20
Speaker
Like this is really cool.
00:50:22
Speaker
So what's your, go ahead.
00:50:25
Speaker
I was going to ask, what's your favorite game you've worked on so far?
00:50:28
Speaker
The current one.
00:50:30
Speaker
On the production line.
00:50:32
Speaker
Yeah, right?
00:50:34
Speaker
I mean, they have all been pretty cool.
00:50:38
Speaker
I guess I have a soft spot for Led Zeppelin because it was like my first one where I really got to just go ham and basically, you know, come up with the multiball rules.
00:50:50
Speaker
So I got to think of all the cool different
00:50:54
Speaker
of like this multiple is going to be based on shots.
00:50:57
Speaker
This one's ramps, this one switches, that sort of thing.
00:51:00
Speaker
And then, you know, it was your first, I mean, Avengers was like getting my toes wet and kind of just doing what Keith wanted.
00:51:10
Speaker
And that was cool too.
00:51:12
Speaker
That definitely was a great way to, to jump into it.
00:51:15
Speaker
But I think I have a soft spot for Led Zeppelin.
00:51:19
Speaker
But then after that rush was even better, like in terms of I got to that game had so much going on that I was it was like Led Zeppelin on steroids.
00:51:30
Speaker
And then Foo Fighters is kind of orthogonal to those games where it's it's
00:51:39
Speaker
Yeah, I get to do a lot of cool things, but I'm not coming up with everything on my own and just kind of going wild.
00:51:47
Speaker
It's been more of a work with Jack, work with Tanya, kind of collaborative kind of experience, I guess.
00:52:00
Speaker
And it's been...
00:52:02
Speaker
It's been fun.
00:52:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's really cool.
00:52:04
Speaker
And I'm really happy with how it came out.
00:52:08
Speaker
So I don't really have a favorite.
00:52:09
Speaker
They're all just kind of different experiences.
00:52:13
Speaker
What's your favorite shot in the game?
00:52:17
Speaker
Probably the side ramp.
00:52:18
Speaker
It's just like the smoothest, easiest side ramp in a long time.
00:52:23
Speaker
Like it just, you just hit it and it just flies around there.
00:52:27
Speaker
I feel like you don't really brick it.
00:52:29
Speaker
It's like if you get it
00:52:31
Speaker
in that vicinity, it just kind of sucks it up there and it just feels really good.
00:52:35
Speaker
And then, and then you can shoot the spinner afterwards.
00:52:37
Speaker
So like that combo is probably my favorite.
00:52:41
Speaker
That's all Ray does.
00:52:42
Speaker
He sits in the lab and just shoots that shot over and over.
00:52:46
Speaker
What's the, what's the most shot combo that you have planned for the code?
00:52:52
Speaker
Like an eight way combo, seven way?
00:52:55
Speaker
Well, I think it stops after about 12 or 13, which is when it gets to red.
00:53:00
Speaker
So every time you're hitting a combo, the color gets a little more up the spectrum.
00:53:07
Speaker
And you actually can see it like both on the play field with the lights, the little circle combatron lights, they'll start changing colors.
00:53:15
Speaker
And once you get it to red, that's like the max.
00:53:16
Speaker
And that's I think that's 13 or 14.
00:53:19
Speaker
After that, it doesn't go up any higher, but you're still getting like huge, you know, millions of points every time you keep it going.
00:53:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's the combos on that game are really fun.
00:53:30
Speaker
And if you just keep hitting combos, you'll you'll get good points.
00:53:34
Speaker
Like, don't underestimate the combos.
00:53:38
Speaker
Awesome.
00:53:40
Speaker
Or kind of coming up on to the hour mark.
00:53:42
Speaker
Is there anything that you haven't got to share about Foo Fighters that you want people to know?
00:53:46
Speaker
There's just something that's like, yeah, what what haven't we asked that we should have been asking?
00:53:55
Speaker
I mean, you haven't asked any rules questions, but I guess you guys don't have your games yet.
00:53:59
Speaker
So you don't really.
00:54:00
Speaker
It's true.
00:54:01
Speaker
Well, and like, so we did talk about the van, at least the lighting of the white.
00:54:06
Speaker
I do like the actual van shots.
00:54:08
Speaker
I've played, I've played a handful of times, but the drop targets, I like how you have that lined up to do, you know, your missile or your speaker or I can't remember what the third thing is on there.
00:54:19
Speaker
But that kind of roving shot with locking it in and boosting your van is really cool too.
00:54:26
Speaker
So yeah.
00:54:27
Speaker
Oh, go ahead.
00:54:29
Speaker
Before you start a mode, yeah, you hit those drops and then you hit the thing behind it.
00:54:32
Speaker
But the fun part is if you ever hit the, if you ever miss a drop, like you hit the behind paddle, it actually resets your drops.
00:54:40
Speaker
So it's actually challenging to try to pick those off without missing and resetting them.
00:54:47
Speaker
But yeah.
00:54:47
Speaker
You do get progress towards a bonus multiplier, so not all is lost if you miss those.
00:54:54
Speaker
You get rewarded pretty well if you get all three down without resetting them.
00:54:59
Speaker
Yeah, because then they stay down and you can hit the paddle behind them as many times as you can before the time runs out.
00:55:06
Speaker
And each time levels up your van another level.
00:55:10
Speaker
And so if you hit that thing like six times on the bomb, then the next time you start a mode, you'll have six shots already spotted.
00:55:17
Speaker
So you only need a couple more to beat it.
00:55:20
Speaker
Or like the engine will start your mode with 100 seconds instead of 50.
00:55:24
Speaker
Or the speakers will start your scoring instead of 2 million a shot.
00:55:28
Speaker
It'd be like 3 million a shot.
00:55:29
Speaker
So it's just depending on which mod you have, the next mode you play will be better.
00:55:38
Speaker
Nice.
00:55:39
Speaker
So I'm playing this in Logan's Arcade and you walk in and I turn to you and say, okay, so what am I supposed to be doing on this game?
00:55:49
Speaker
How are you going to describe it to me?
00:55:52
Speaker
Basically, I would say you...
00:55:56
Speaker
Honestly, for any game, I think I'm stealing this from Travis Miri.
00:56:01
Speaker
The three M's.
00:56:02
Speaker
Modes, multipliers, multiball.
00:56:04
Speaker
Actually, maybe not in that order.
00:56:05
Speaker
Multiball, modes, multiplier.
00:56:09
Speaker
Anyway, so I described those three things.
00:56:11
Speaker
Let's say your modes are hitting the white arrows to spell van and shooting the left ramp.
00:56:16
Speaker
Then just pick a mode.
00:56:17
Speaker
Whatever shots show up that you like, pick that mode because it'll actually show you the arrows as you're selecting the modes.
How to Play Foo Fighters and Key Strategies
00:56:24
Speaker
and then tell them where the multiballs are, which is hitting the overlord a bunch of times.
00:56:30
Speaker
He captures your ball and then you shoot the ball.
00:56:32
Speaker
That's a multiball or shooting the right ramp on a pro five times is a multiball.
00:56:37
Speaker
Um, or on the premium, you can go up there and each time you hit the ramp, it will actually spot you a shot the first time.
00:56:47
Speaker
And you just have to start it by hitting the, uh, the diverter opens up and you hit the back target.
00:56:52
Speaker
So I would describe those, and then I would describe the multipliers of shooting the right orbit three times builds the Rocco meter to start 2x scoring.
00:57:03
Speaker
So don't sleep on just shooting that right orbit and getting the ball to kind of figure eight into that little side lane, and that will start your play field multiplier.
00:57:13
Speaker
And that's kind of all you need to know.
00:57:15
Speaker
In the modes, you just follow the colored arrows and the multiballs.
00:57:19
Speaker
I guess I'd tell them about the add a ball, which is your radio targets on the left.
00:57:23
Speaker
If you hit both of those, then the big radio light will start flashing.
00:57:28
Speaker
And then you hit either of those to collect that radio.
00:57:30
Speaker
And that's your mystery award, which in multiball is always add a ball.
00:57:36
Speaker
And, uh, and then I'd tell them if you can beat three modes, you get a wizard mode.
00:57:42
Speaker
And that would be like my, my goal that I'd set for them.
00:57:44
Speaker
I'd be like, that should keep you busy for a while.
00:57:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:57:48
Speaker
Okay.
00:57:50
Speaker
Cool.
00:57:51
Speaker
Well, I'm excited.
00:57:52
Speaker
I can't wait to get my game.
00:57:54
Speaker
I've already sold my whitewater.
00:57:56
Speaker
There's a spot just waiting, glowing.
00:57:58
Speaker
Oh, you probably got a pretty penny for that.
00:58:00
Speaker
I remember that game shot up majorly.
00:58:03
Speaker
So it's been really interesting.
00:58:05
Speaker
I don't know if anyone has tried to sell a game recently.
00:58:09
Speaker
I did get a pretty penny off it.
00:58:11
Speaker
I can't complain.
00:58:13
Speaker
But it was really weird.
00:58:15
Speaker
Like, I don't know if you guys have ever had this problem.
00:58:18
Speaker
I posted on Pinside and someone messaged me.
00:58:22
Speaker
Can I convince you to give you a heady glass?
00:58:25
Speaker
I don't know what the heck that is.
00:58:27
Speaker
Apparently, it's a bong, a really, really nice bong.
00:58:31
Speaker
And I was like, so he was really, he was really familiar with your pastimes.
00:58:37
Speaker
Yes.
00:58:38
Speaker
And then the other weird part two is, is I don't know how deep I want.
00:58:41
Speaker
I know Scott knows about this.
00:58:42
Speaker
Uh, let's just say there was one that shared like a, an awkward, sad family situation and said,
00:58:51
Speaker
Because of this, I'm a little strapped for cash.
00:58:54
Speaker
Can you give me $500 off?
00:58:55
Speaker
No, $1,500 off.
00:58:57
Speaker
Oh, $1,500 off.
00:58:58
Speaker
They want $1,500 off for their... So it was like a family tragedy.
00:59:03
Speaker
And I just kind of jokingly said, hey, I've got this family tragedy.
00:59:09
Speaker
I still want to buy this luxury item.
00:59:11
Speaker
Can you give me... Can you cut me a deal on it?
00:59:13
Speaker
It just sounded so bizarre.
00:59:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:18
Speaker
I don't know.
00:59:18
Speaker
I haven't...
00:59:19
Speaker
I haven't tried to sell anything too recently, but I'm sure it's bizarre out there in the raw.
00:59:28
Speaker
You never know what kind of people you're going to run into.
00:59:30
Speaker
It doesn't help when games like Foo Fighters and six other games come out all at the same time, and everyone's like, we need to get rid of everything right now.
00:59:38
Speaker
Yeah, and everyone wants to.
00:59:40
Speaker
But no, it just made me chuckle because I've had more unique interactions that go around.
00:59:46
Speaker
And luckily, I ended up selling Whitewater locally to a gentleman.
00:59:49
Speaker
Shout out to Kyle.
00:59:51
Speaker
Thanks for buying my whitewater.
00:59:54
Speaker
He was in love with it.
00:59:56
Speaker
Got dropped off.
00:59:57
Speaker
Did it still have the topper?
00:59:59
Speaker
It did.
01:00:00
Speaker
I did the new ROMs that actually do the bonus hold on the third waterfall drop reward.
01:00:05
Speaker
Oh, nice.
01:00:06
Speaker
Yeah, that home ROM is nice.
01:00:08
Speaker
Oh, it's so good.
01:00:09
Speaker
And what's funny is I was selling it as like the motor was broken.
01:00:13
Speaker
And then I got to Kyle's house and we opened it up and I realized the set screw was loose on the Yeti head.
01:00:19
Speaker
So we just had to tighten down the set screw.
01:00:21
Speaker
The motor was fine.
01:00:22
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:24
Speaker
I had an issue on my Walking Dead I got where the drop targets would do this dance where they'd go like... And I'd be like, oh, I don't want to look at drop targets.
01:00:33
Speaker
And I look and it's literally just a screw that was like loose.
01:00:36
Speaker
And I just went... And then fixed it.
01:00:38
Speaker
Isn't it funny?
01:00:40
Speaker
Some of those...
01:00:41
Speaker
Every time I have to take off the glass, I'm like, please just be something.
01:00:45
Speaker
I actually, I had that with rush when I opened my alley and I'm like, there's a problem with the, with the drop target.
01:00:52
Speaker
Like, I can't remember exactly what was going on.
01:00:54
Speaker
And I looked in like the spring had fallen off.
01:00:57
Speaker
And so I just reattached the spring and it was fine.
01:01:00
Speaker
Nice.
01:01:00
Speaker
Like I was with my Godzilla, the, the magnet portion of the stomach, the metal stud fell out of me.
01:01:08
Speaker
mecha got stomach yeah yeah so i i texted zach benny because you know he does the warranty stuff and he was training greg bone at the time and they get on a conference call and we're there talking and i'm like oh a screw fell out of the back so he just slid the stud back in and screwed it in i actually now now that i finished my renovation i still need to get because greg pulled because my side scoop
01:01:36
Speaker
the opto was bad on mine.
01:01:38
Speaker
That was so Ray.
01:01:40
Speaker
And we talked about this a few times.
01:01:41
Speaker
That was the issue why I couldn't play because that side scoop, that was such a, a bad situation.
01:01:49
Speaker
And so finally he's like, you know, everything was backward because obviously this is the, the modern modern era.
01:01:57
Speaker
And so Greg like pulled his out and send it and then certain warranty to send it out to me, but my wife put it somewhere and I have no idea where it is.
01:02:05
Speaker
So now,
01:02:06
Speaker
that we have finished.
01:02:07
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:08
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:08
Speaker
So, so I, I need to find that and give it back to Greg bone.
01:02:11
Speaker
I, I've appreciated the patience he's had, but the it's, uh, I go into, um, anything this year or next year, uh, expo, Texas next time.
01:02:21
Speaker
Planning Expo, Texas is definitely on my list next year.
01:02:27
Speaker
I couldn't go this year because my wife was heading to a girls trip.
01:02:31
Speaker
So I had to be home with the kids and I was not interested in bringing my 12, 9 and 8 year old to TPF.
01:02:39
Speaker
And I think my 12 year old would have been fine, but I think my 9 year old and 8 year old would have just been like, Dad, this is boring.
01:02:46
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:47
Speaker
Except, except we went over to my friend's house who had a bond 60.
01:02:51
Speaker
And so we were playing that and they fell in love with sitting on a stool and playing pinball.
01:02:58
Speaker
And so my friend actually gave me a stool.
01:03:00
Speaker
And so my kids have actually been playing pinball more than they ever have since I've had pinball machines.
01:03:06
Speaker
Wow.
01:03:07
Speaker
And it was just the whole, they like sitting up so they can see a little better.
01:03:12
Speaker
So that's a pro tip for you guys.
01:03:14
Speaker
Yeah, I actually, I did that.
01:03:16
Speaker
I sat down on a chair while playing a Simpsons pinball party.
01:03:21
Speaker
And I was like, oh my gosh, how, how, if you're, if you're not tall enough to see, you cannot, the comic book guy's head is in the way of the entire upper play field.
01:03:31
Speaker
Absolutely.
01:03:31
Speaker
I'm like, this is a view that, that some, that like kids and some people have.
01:03:37
Speaker
Like it kind of, it was like, wow, okay.
01:03:39
Speaker
I'm going to stand up now so I can play, but it is comfy.
01:03:42
Speaker
You get to just kind of sit down and relax.
01:03:44
Speaker
Or if you're in the lineman position, cause he got, he got way down, you know?
01:03:49
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:49
Speaker
Well, when you're defending the ball towards your flippers, I feel like that would be helpful for sure.
01:03:55
Speaker
You get to see the angles in a different way, I guess.
01:03:59
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:00
Speaker
Yes, but I just booked our hotel for Chicago.
01:04:04
Speaker
So we should be there.
01:04:05
Speaker
I'm planning on it.
01:04:07
Speaker
Wait, why did you book the hotel?
01:04:09
Speaker
I thought we were staying at Ray's house.
01:04:11
Speaker
That's what I thought, too.
01:04:13
Speaker
See the pinball machines where furniture should be?
01:04:17
Speaker
There's not much room here.
01:04:19
Speaker
We'll just sleep under them.
01:04:21
Speaker
It'll be like when you had those little tents as a kid.
01:04:23
Speaker
And just be like sleep under them.
01:04:25
Speaker
And we can even put up like bed sheets on the side, you know, make a fort, a pinball.
01:04:28
Speaker
Well, cool.
01:04:31
Speaker
Ray, if you want someone to get ahold of you, what's the best way to get ahold of you?
01:04:36
Speaker
Well, Ray also has a discord.
01:04:37
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:39
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:39
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:39
Speaker
It's yeah.
01:04:40
Speaker
You just go to my Twitch chat like Rayday pinball twitch.tv slash Rayday pinball.
01:04:46
Speaker
Give me a follow there.
01:04:47
Speaker
And if you want the discord, you can type exclamation mark discord or you can just message me on Facebook.
01:04:54
Speaker
Messenger is probably the easiest way, I guess.
01:04:56
Speaker
And I've got to give you a shout out on that discord.
01:04:58
Speaker
It's one.
01:04:59
Speaker
Most of those discords kind of like.
01:05:01
Speaker
do great at the very beginning and then they just kind of putter out yours always seems to be active like there's always someone commenting on it and so yeah it's pretty pretty crazy yeah so it uh it blew up with the um discussion of all the ifpa changes for next year podcasts in itself you guys should get a have you already gotten josh on and and talked about that at all
01:05:23
Speaker
Actually, we haven't, but that's a great... We had him on for Pulp Fiction.
01:05:26
Speaker
Two episodes ago.
01:05:29
Speaker
We haven't been able to bring him back on, but that's actually a good point.
01:05:33
Speaker
It seems like there's a lot of rule changes, so it'll be interesting to get his view and perspective on that.
01:05:40
Speaker
Josh, the one guy that you could have on four episodes in a row and not have the same material discussed every single time.
01:05:47
Speaker
Seriously, because you could talk raw thrills on one, you could talk...
01:05:51
Speaker
you know, coding on another, and then you can talk IP on another.
01:05:54
Speaker
And I just, yeah.
01:05:55
Speaker
You could also have Roger on for four episodes, but they'd be four, four hour episodes.
01:06:02
Speaker
You'd get through five questions.
01:06:03
Speaker
So, you know it.
01:06:04
Speaker
Okay.
01:06:05
Speaker
A couple of things I want to point out.
01:06:08
Speaker
So we did, we did something fun.
01:06:11
Speaker
Silver bar swag.
01:06:12
Speaker
If you go and check out our stuff, we, we had a Brad Albright do the design for the,
01:06:19
Speaker
There's some awesome shoes and a backpack and you can choose your colors.
01:06:23
Speaker
And there's a Keith Elwin goat shirt.
01:06:25
Speaker
We're just having a little fun with this.
01:06:27
Speaker
It's, it's still, it's a lot of fun.
01:06:30
Speaker
And I know I, I love seeing pictures of people getting the shoes because they are really fun pinball shoes.
01:06:37
Speaker
And I've been talking with Josh about getting the 3.0 version of the Loser Kid hat made.
01:06:43
Speaker
So those are in the works.
01:06:46
Speaker
So as soon as we get those made, then Ray, we'll give you the 3.0 hat and get you leveled up.
01:06:54
Speaker
We'll have to bring it personally to you at Expo here in October.
01:06:57
Speaker
Hopefully we'll get them done before then.
01:06:59
Speaker
If you want to check out our swag, it's on silverballswag.com slash collections slash loser kid pinball podcast.
01:07:08
Speaker
And there's dashes in between the loser kid and pinball.
01:07:11
Speaker
And this is our second episode on YouTube.
01:07:13
Speaker
If you want to look at our beautiful faces, then that is definitely a way of checking us out.
01:07:18
Speaker
Happy for subscriptions and any sort of listening on whatever method you like.
01:07:25
Speaker
We are just grateful that you guys are able to spend an evening with us or an afternoon or a morning or whatever.
01:07:31
Speaker
I also want to do a quick shout out to Martin Gomez.
01:07:35
Speaker
If you did not check out our – I posted on all the socials this week.
01:07:40
Speaker
But they did – they originally did an episode about pinball on their podcast 99% Invisible.
01:07:47
Speaker
It is a huge podcast.
01:07:49
Speaker
And they did this pinball podcast like a decade ago.
01:07:53
Speaker
Well, at that time, pinball was –
01:07:55
Speaker
Was coming out a lot coming off life support.
01:07:58
Speaker
Yes.
01:07:59
Speaker
Yes.
01:07:59
Speaker
Let's put that away.
01:08:00
Speaker
I mean, really what they covered was is the 90s Williams stuff.
01:08:03
Speaker
They talked about pinball 2000 and then it kind of puttering out.
01:08:07
Speaker
And it's amazing how much has changed in the last decade for pinball and really having a renaissance.
01:08:12
Speaker
So it was cool because the first part was kind of a remix with Roger Sharp, them talking about the movie.
01:08:17
Speaker
And then the last half was them talking to Keith Elwin and Martine going and doing
01:08:24
Speaker
a tournament and just kind of recording that as a newbie and playing through it.
01:08:29
Speaker
Thanks for sharing pinball.
01:08:31
Speaker
I mean, it was crazy because I was looking up their subscribers just on podcast addict alone was 1.1 million subscribers.
01:08:38
Speaker
And that is amazing to have.
01:08:41
Speaker
Yeah, it was, it was crazy.
01:08:43
Speaker
And so it was really funny.
01:08:45
Speaker
A little sound clip from Josh and me.
01:08:48
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:48
Speaker
He said, he said, I couldn't get Keith to gloat about himself.
01:08:51
Speaker
He's not like that at all.
01:08:52
Speaker
Right.
01:08:52
Speaker
Right.
01:08:52
Speaker
Like he will, he,
01:08:54
Speaker
Anywho, he doesn't talk about himself.
01:08:56
Speaker
And so he ended up pulling clips from Scott, from me, and from our good friend Martin Robbins off of head-to-head talking about how Keith Elwin is pretty amazing at his job.
01:09:07
Speaker
And so it was cool to be on there.
01:09:10
Speaker
And also they gave a shout-out directly to me because I helped to get them connected to Keith and to Zach Sharp and whatnot.
01:09:17
Speaker
So that way they could get the episode all wrapped up.
01:09:19
Speaker
But it was really fun.
01:09:20
Speaker
It was really cool.
01:09:21
Speaker
It was really different to hear.
01:09:23
Speaker
hear that.
01:09:23
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, I just want to give out Martina a shout and I think he'll actually be at pinball expo as well, but that'd be great.
01:09:30
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:31
Speaker
We'd love to take them around.
01:09:33
Speaker
So, uh, other than that, uh, if you want to get ahold of us, we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com.
01:09:39
Speaker
You can get ahold of us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Twitch, all at loser kid pinball.
01:09:45
Speaker
like Scott said, if you want to buy some of our swag, easiest way right now is to go to silverbrowswag.com slash collection slash loser kid pinball podcast.
01:09:53
Speaker
And there's shirts, shoes, coffee mugs,
01:09:57
Speaker
There's even fabric.
01:10:00
Speaker
You can knit your own thing.
01:10:02
Speaker
Shout out to Jen Rupert for buying some fabric.
01:10:04
Speaker
I guess she's going to make a dress out of it.
01:10:06
Speaker
It's going to look amazing.
01:10:07
Speaker
I cannot wait to see it.
01:10:10
Speaker
Silverball Swag, I'm sporting my triple drain.
01:10:14
Speaker
I guess Travis has got his whole t-shirt collection paid for in the last couple months, and it's all double zeros.
01:10:20
Speaker
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:10:22
Speaker
Tell...
01:10:23
Speaker
Tell what you sent Travis, his, his special loser kid shirt.
01:10:29
Speaker
Ray, have you seen our shirt where it's kind of like the baseball shirt and then it has our loser kid logo on the front?
01:10:34
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:34
Speaker
So it has the hat that this guy on there and it's the red and red sleeves and black.
01:10:41
Speaker
So he got that and saw the logo and he's like, well, cool.
01:10:43
Speaker
Why are they sending this to me?
01:10:44
Speaker
He flipped it over.
01:10:45
Speaker
We got Muri on the back with the double zero.
01:10:49
Speaker
Nice.
01:10:50
Speaker
He will forever be a pinball tournament score.
01:10:52
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:54
Speaker
I got to plug, I also have Silver Ball Swag.
01:10:56
Speaker
If you want a coffee mug with my lovely face on it, it's pretty cool.
01:11:02
Speaker
You have some of the cool... I love your logo, though, because it's in the Crash.
01:11:08
Speaker
It's Banjo-Kazooie.
01:11:10
Speaker
Banjo-Kazooie, that's what it is.
01:11:12
Speaker
The font, yeah, it works pretty well.
01:11:14
Speaker
I was pretty happy with that.
01:11:16
Speaker
That's like the only thing I've ever done in a photo editing program ever, and I had to learn how to
01:11:22
Speaker
how to layer and resize text and stuff.
01:11:26
Speaker
And I did it just just for that.
01:11:28
Speaker
So yeah, it's pretty cool.
01:11:31
Speaker
It's iconic too.
01:11:31
Speaker
If you want a raid a hat, that is where to get raid a pinball.
01:11:35
Speaker
Yeah, Travis Mary's kid has one.
01:11:37
Speaker
He says he's where it makes him play better.
01:11:39
Speaker
It better.
01:11:40
Speaker
He also has a little kid hat too.
01:11:42
Speaker
And he had us sign it while we were at TPF last year.
01:11:46
Speaker
That was pretty cool too.
01:11:48
Speaker
And Ray, are you still streaming regularly or recording?
01:11:53
Speaker
I stream now and then.
01:11:55
Speaker
I will.
01:11:56
Speaker
Next time you'll catch me, I'll be streaming my pin clash finals May 13th, Saturday.
01:12:03
Speaker
I mean, you'll probably be watching on I pinball because that's where it's streamed.
01:12:08
Speaker
But I will technically be live on my channel doing that.
01:12:14
Speaker
nice nice so well cool i guess uh and ray has some of the best tutorials by the way if you really want to know um how to go deep dive play in his games uh look at look him up definitely well that wraps us wraps it up for us tonight thanks again for joining us raymond is always a pleasure having you on and uh to everyone else i guess we'll see you in two weeks