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Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Episode 65 - Strong takes on Harry Potter!!!
1.1k Plays13 days ago
Hosts: Joel Engelberth, Tom Graf and Travis Murie
We are back with another action packed episode where we tackle many of life’s tough questions like: Does Tom like his Kong Pro? Does he regret not getting an LE?! Are there things Tom thinks Keith Elwin did wrong that need fixed? Is Travis an idiot? Does Travis have one nonnegotiable rule that Harry Potter didn’t follow? Is Joel buying a Harry Potter? Does Joel actually understand the code in Harry Potter? Will Tom make it to Lumberjack Johnny’s today to play Harry Potter? Do the three hosts talk too much before getting to the meat and potatoes of the podcast? Is Travis really the face of Triple Drain? Is Joel actually terrible at pinball? Is Jared actually good at pinball? Is anyone reading this? Is Travis still an idiot?? These questions and much more are answered on this episode so buckle up and enjoy :)
Thanks again for all the support everyone:)
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Shoutout to Jackson Gee and his incredible artwork. jacksongee.com
Shoutout to Brad Johanson and his company Alter Creative Media for his intro video. Altercreativemedia.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Theme Song
00:00:04
Speaker
We're three guys who like the talking ball. Hey. The club. Hey. That's right. That's right. That's right.
00:00:22
Speaker
triple Triple drain. Triple drain. every podcast, I end up having to edit out, because I play the theme song live for us, and I end up editing that out and replacing it with a clean version of the audio. But why?
00:00:37
Speaker
ah But I don't think I'm doing that this episode. yeah because Because normally somebody burps or like says something, but ah no, you guys were singing along. Sometimes you have to pass gas, you know? We do.
Return from Hiatus
00:00:49
Speaker
um We'll start off with a huge shout to Raymond Davidson, who messaged us yesterday and said, where the heck is Triple Drain? we are. We've been on hiatus.
00:00:59
Speaker
here we are here we are but on hiatus We have. i you know This is where we do the first five minutes to where we apologize for not apologizing for nothing. Oh, Joel's finally learned. Hell yeah. um it This is the challenge when you create something like this because the moment, for example, Predator is going to be revealed in what, ah like a day or two? Yeah, and we've been pins and needles. That's why we haven't podcast yet. When you have the three sexiest men in pinball and they all...
00:01:31
Speaker
have things to do yeah like people just don't understand pinball fame like oh wow yeah yeah well we gotta talk to our agents we gotta get up the pencil it yeah yeah quote unquote pinball famous is what we are on box of wheaties yeah oh my god for the record for the record we're just like we're just kicking shit right now we we don't care anything about that except for joel he is a prima donna <unk>t know No light brown M&Ms. don't know.
00:02:02
Speaker
Rolling around in his golf cart and everything. Yep, yep, yep. We, yes, we shoot for, I don't know.
Podcast Purpose and Format
00:02:08
Speaker
I mean, when you release the episode and then there's something that happens the very next week and you're like, well, should we record again? It's like, it's been a week. It's been a week. We should probably leave it a little, so don't know.
00:02:17
Speaker
Three weeks, four weeks, we were waiting on Harry Potter. Harry Potter's here. Joel, we started this. well You remember why we started this podcast, right? Just to... Have we ever told people why we started It it was for the drugs.
00:02:29
Speaker
Of course, that too. Do you remember out of the three of us, one of us was talking about starting their own solo podcast. Tom. Tom, stole this from Tom. And I don't even talk, so... well He was like, I'm going to do my own podcast. And we were like, that sounds cool, Tom. You're like, Tom, do not do that. You're going to create career suicide by doing that. And I'm like, you're right. that that No, this was an excuse for the three of us to move our Facebook conversations into an audible form that we just happened to share with other people. And we're having blast doing it. right so why do we Why do we need news to talk then, Joel? like Have you gotten so big that you only talked to Tom and I? I mean, we do like talk every day, just not on podcast. Tom, do you remember what's happened here? Since we first and our good old boy Joel had like eight viewers on
Joel's Twitch Journey
00:03:24
Speaker
Twitch. And we we were there for him at the very beginning.
00:03:29
Speaker
He had more than that. Okay, sorry. Ten. I forgot. Ten. Sorry, I forgot. He probably logged his kids in. He just had the iPad just sitting there.
00:03:39
Speaker
then he's gone to where we're like, okay, I think there's going to be like 500 tonight watching him or something like that. And then he's gotten so big, Tom, that now we can talk in his chat. He doesn't say shit to us. He doesn't even realize we're there. Why why do I not say anything? Okay, just sitting just a thought. This is our time to talk.
00:03:58
Speaker
Why do you think I've said less in the chat recently? Is there any particular thing or naming that may have changed in our chat that's caused me to type in? Oh, I'm talking about the public stuff on Flippin' Out. I'm not talking about our Facebook. Oh, you're talking about Flippin' Out with Friends. We're doing less of that. Okay, fine. I'll tell everybody what your name is in the chat. I'll tell them.
00:04:22
Speaker
It's Ass Flames. Why? Why is that my name in the chat? Because you said it. don't think when did I say that? Search it up. it's You can see it. Just look up ass flames on our search history on the chat. You'll see it. i didn't just make this shit up. I thought you did. I need to figure that out because.
00:04:40
Speaker
I'm not that creative, Joel. All of it. That's what I deal with. Yeah. I'll make a random comment in Facebook or on the Facebook messenger. And then just Travis screenshots the notification or whatever. And he's like, man, really coming from ass flames. That's a bold statement or something. It's like, why is that my nickname? Why did that? Because I don't know. I don't know why that, but i'll i I already had to explain to my wife why my notification says ass flames has sent you a video. yeah And your name's been big Papa for a long time. long time
00:05:14
Speaker
long time when you call me big and uh also in that chat if we type tom it it displays a uh a cucumber not a cucumber an eggplant emoji across the whole it's great all right anyways this is uh this what people tune in for right so we got our five minutes of of nonsense in got the geez oh yeah serious part of the podcast now this what everybody skips through ah my voice Here we
Harry Potter Pinball Discussion
00:05:40
Speaker
are.
00:05:40
Speaker
Here we are. ah Let's talk about Harry Potter. we We went through our show notes right before. We're like, what going talk about? It's just Harry Potter. Harry Potter is the only thing we got. You got to talk about who contacted us. who did Oh, yes. Jack Guinary contacted us. ah we've never He messaged the Triple Drain ah Facebook messenger.
00:06:01
Speaker
Jack Guinary out of nowhere. He's never done that before. and He just said, ah we can talk about Harry Potter now. And we're like, no, he said, if you guys are still in the podcast business, we can talk about Harry Potter now.
00:06:14
Speaker
And we're like, what? And then he goes, we can talk about episode. I think it was 35. And we're like, we're 65, right? We're 65 now. So I looked it up. It was 37, 35. What did we talk about then? Just the title was Harry Potter. Holy crap.
00:06:28
Speaker
That's all it was. That was the title. So we're like, all right. So Jack Winnery's listened to one episode of our show. Yeah. and or maybe Maybe we just haven't talked about Jersey Jack enough.
00:06:40
Speaker
um Well, I don't think that's it. We've talked like we talked about everything. avat Everybody loved our Avatar takes. I don't know what you guys are talking about. But um so, yes, we had an opportunity to have Jack Winery on. I just don't think he knows what he would have signed up for if that was the case.
00:06:56
Speaker
And, um yeah, when it comes to interviews, we typically – Loser Kid does a great job with that. Yeah, it's not that we don't want anybody on. Obviously, all like, our dumbasses were at Stern for hours on end, like, talking to everybody. True, true.
00:07:10
Speaker
But at this point, you look on every podcast, it's nothing but JJP everywhere. And what are we going talk about anyway? That's what we're doing. I don't know what they're going to say to us that they haven't said to everybody else. Like Retro Ralph cornered the market completely. So I don't even know what we're going to talk can't talk about anything now. Yeah. Like what we One thing we can talk about.
King Kong Pinball Insights
00:07:29
Speaker
Um... Tom got his King Kong Pro. So just, I'm going to give you, you know what? Let me, let me cue this up. I would love to hear. Are we doing Tom talks? I think we're doing Tom talks. Tom, I would love to hear everything, all your initial impression, everything.
00:07:45
Speaker
Tell us everything you think of, of your King Kong. Here we go. Tom talks. He's got something to say. Tom talks. He's got nothing to say. Tom talks. Tom talks.
00:07:59
Speaker
I got nothing. Are we going to talk about my actual game or the hour-long stream I did of it with Zach McCarthy you've got and Andy Bagwell destroying it?
00:08:11
Speaker
You got the floor. Okay. Well... Where do I begin? I have 16 points to go through here. oh
00:08:25
Speaker
ah It's a great game. It shoots great. Obviously, it's early code. Joel, you know that. um i don't i I want to play Harry Potter, though.
00:08:41
Speaker
Keith Owen listens to this podcast. He's probably sitting there just, what? That's his... um Okay, here, let me let me feed you some questions here. First off, are you happy you got the pro and not the l LE?
00:08:54
Speaker
ah Yes. Why? Because I like money in my pocket, Joel. Okay, so you feel like the money would have cost for more LE, you don't feel like you're missing anything with the pro. Is that what I'm hearing? I really don't.
00:09:06
Speaker
I really don't. I mean, it would have been cool to have the gong and the, you know, King Kong in the back, like swinging his arms and flicking me off and hitting the glass. And i I did really contemplate for a long time.
00:09:23
Speaker
i was going to get the LE and I was just like, maybe I just go pro on this one. Yeah. Yeah. I think whoever's going to be the first to market to have a good gong mod and a good spider mod, I think it's going to, is going to do well. They're going to make bank. Um, because I do think, I mean, the way there's holes, there's spots in the play field for that mech that would fit perfectly.
00:09:46
Speaker
Do you like though, the way, let me, let me put it this way, Joel, this is the best game Stern has done since jaws. that's a, that's awesome.
00:09:56
Speaker
Yes. And I would agree. I would agree. Um, and it's point, it's like 0.81 code or something. And where's the WIC code? 0.82. 0.82. 0.82 code. point eight two point eight two code um That's a good point, Tom. ah Let me get back to it. ah Sorry, Abdul. I got the floor here.
00:10:13
Speaker
Oh, yes. This is the floor. I got to feed you the question. I got to feed you the question. Do you like how the difference between the LE and the Pro, the LE to start a mode, you hit the you have to hit the gong, I think, twice, and then the next time it goes under it. On the Pro, it's different, right? It's lit.
00:10:28
Speaker
How does that work on Pro? You have to hit ah that basically the lit arrows to light ear mode. i think I think it's... ah And then go to the gong shot. I think it's maybe a little easier on the pro because you're not fighting the gong.
00:10:45
Speaker
Yep. um But I don't know. I tend to enjoy that a little more, I guess. Yeah, but besides that, the gameplay is identical, right? I mean, it's...
00:10:56
Speaker
Pretty much. I mean, the King Kong multi ball is a little different. I think that's actually a little harder to start because you have to hit that, that right orbit that goes to the ah kicker.
00:11:06
Speaker
Oh, that's how you start it. You don't start it in the center ramp. That is correct. do You have to lock the balls on the center ramp. So you have to lock three balls and then you have to hit the shot on the right. It'll like all the air, like all the lights will kind of point you in that direction. Which is different. Also virtual locks too.
00:11:25
Speaker
Correct. Correct. So I think the other thing that's different too is the, um, the multi-ball King Kong multi-ball kind of how it works with the re-lock because I think that's virtual as well. So you get like the three green arrows on it to light the center ramp. And originally on the premium and l LE, it goes back into the train. It's like 15, 20 seconds of 2X scoring.
00:11:46
Speaker
Yeah, it holds it for you. Right. On this, I don't think it does. I think it's virtual. And I've said this before. Like, I'm not a huge fan of virtual lock. Or excuse me, I'm not a huge fan of, like, mechanical locks. So...
00:12:00
Speaker
Is that... I was going to ask that. So from a tournament standpoint, if you were to do a tournament on an Ellie right now... that shit off. you would You would turn virtual locks on for the train, right? I would.
00:12:11
Speaker
um Yeah. Usually in tournaments, you see virtual locks more times than not. Otherwise, you might get a situation like... um Oh, I don't know. 2023 Texas pinball festival finals on Godzilla. But yeah. Who did that happen to? there I don't, I don't remember. That real unfortunate.
00:12:28
Speaker
That was unfortunate. Super unfortunate. That was poor design, right? Isn't that what we came to? It was, uh. Yeah, it definitely wasn't my fault. I know that. Um. Eh, sucks to you, Travis. Uh, so.
00:12:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's i'm i'm glad I'm glad you like your phone call. I think it shoots amazing. Like I said, i think it i think it's an awesome game. yeah um I'm glad I got it.
00:12:54
Speaker
I think I'll definitely keep it for a long time. Awesome. I'm out looking forward to some code updates. Round out Tom talks. um You know, Keith Owen, he's considered probably the greatest designer, you know, current pinball designer. But we all know him he makes mistakes. He's flawed.
00:13:12
Speaker
um He's not perfect. Wow. So what's your, ah what is what did he do wrong or what does he need to change or fix in in King Kong, according to you? oh the The design of it? ah i don't I don't think anything.
00:13:26
Speaker
Okay. What about code? Yeah, that needs to change.
00:13:31
Speaker
I'm being serious.
00:13:43
Speaker
I just wanted to leave it on and what's wrong with the code and you say it needs to change. That's all I wanted. I just wanted that, but I couldn't find the button fast It's early code.
00:13:55
Speaker
I mean, for what's there, it's it's great, but you can, I mean, there's there's certain things like the New York City events. Yeah. So are you meaning it needs to change or it needs to be enhanced?
00:14:08
Speaker
It needs to be enhanced. Okay. I agree. Okay. There needs to be more. Tournament players dumping that mode because it was completely worthless to play.
00:14:20
Speaker
Or is it?
00:14:24
Speaker
Well, I mean, you could use it to like play other things, I guess. Like, yeah, do the to where yeah I got to where I was doing that and just spamming the drop targets the whole time because those are bonus X too.
00:14:39
Speaker
And you can like, and you've seen what some of the bonus can get up to if you're playing forever. Right, but when you come out of that mode, like you've hit 15 shots and you have 4 million points. It's like, why what did I just do for five minutes?
00:14:54
Speaker
I know, because that mode, I look at it as I play try to play the mode, but once you read you you hit different areas of the play field to like break his chains, but once he's out, it just starts over.
00:15:06
Speaker
So I was looking at it as like, want to play the mode. You can tell it's a placeholder at this point. Got it. Got it. I mean, to me anyways, if that's the intended. No, I think it pretty much is a placeholder because there's supposed to be other stuff that we know is coming down the line for the New York city events. And obviously you can talk to me if you you need any, you know, if you need to know what to do. yeah Yeah, you're good with the computers and typing in the ones in the zero. thing The only thing on Kong that I'm really waiting for outside of that is I want to know the power ups because I see those. But because it has a target for that, like a little stand up target. We were talking about that last night. I was at a tournament. I was a King Kong launch party, which I didn't do well.
00:15:54
Speaker
But did you do the strategy, Tom? I'm in the middle of editing that video and releasing it today or tomorrow, so I'm super don't know what the strategy It's the not-drained strategy. What was the first mode you picked? I do have one strategy, which I have not seen anybody do, I'm not going to share that here because need to use that at some launch parties. I might accidentally ruin his strategy, Joel. He might, but...
00:16:21
Speaker
Of course, I'm looking at it differently than Joel. Like, Joel's strategy is to experience the game. I want to fight the Rex, bro. But, you know, at a launch party, you got it you want to score points.
00:16:33
Speaker
ah yeah Experiencing the game doesn't equal a win, Joel. let's Let's just say Neil has done things that no human should be able to do on the game.
00:16:44
Speaker
Hmm. Neil McRae, right? Yeah. um Does it involve stopping a timer and hitting a combo over and over and over again?
00:16:56
Speaker
No. be no yeah I'm not saying what it is. He's got the Neil strat. Well, that's a tease.
00:17:06
Speaker
That's a tease. Okay. I can't wait for you to use that strat and blow it up. joe Joel, what's your strat? You did a tutorial on it. What's your strat? I am all about progression. All about progression all the time. I don't care. Multipliers don't care.
00:17:19
Speaker
Just progression. ah so your strategy Your strategy is just to play the game. Yeah. I want to get through the game. I want to see the game. I don't, I don't really try to ever live in a mode. I want to get through your, your two minute tutorials would be bad-ass to where you're just in front of the pen.
00:17:35
Speaker
And then somebody like somebody clicks on there. They're like, okay, what's Joel's quick strategy. And you just look at the camera and you're just like, play the game. but Yeah. bro Yeah. Well, roll credits. That becomes hard to do when you have a game like ah Harry Potter.
00:17:47
Speaker
you know like potter Yes, i do I do want to talk about Potter. I just want to make one side comment because i actually I actually played for points the other day. And what I mean by this... No, you didn't.
00:18:01
Speaker
I did. You tilted away 270 or 90 million. That happens. Life happens. That's not playing for points. Life happens. A few weeks back, i
Insider Connect Experience
00:18:11
Speaker
had to travel for work. I went to Europe and i was in i was in ah Belgium for work.
00:18:15
Speaker
And I just wanted to mention the power of Insider Connect. The power of Insider Connect for two reasons. One... I went to a pinball bar with some coworkers. They saw the display and they're like, wait, what's that? I was like, oh, it's tracks, the high scores. They're like, can you get on that board?
00:18:30
Speaker
I'll try. And that's all we did all night was I was playing games to try to get my name on the board. I will tell you, I successfully got my name on the board on every game I played. Was it number one?
00:18:40
Speaker
It was not number one. Shout out to Buck Rogers is his name. Buck Rogers. He was number one on every game, every game. Um, another weird thing, which you're going to have such a made up story, Tom. No, no, no. This is not. This is a porn name. I was in Belgium with coworkers and I'm putting up scores. This is real. roger Check it out. You can check it out because, comic sans Brussels, they actually took a picture of me and put it on Facebook. Anyways.
00:19:08
Speaker
Um, They, um, Buck Rogers, is they they won. Every game was five ball. That was weird. That was weird to me. Five ball. Okay. Now, now we're getting into location going to five ball. That was strange to me, but got every, I got on the board. was fun. It was actually playing for class to play the game.
00:19:27
Speaker
It was one and a half euro. Oh yeah. So in Europe, I was in i was in Belgium. How many dollars is that? I don't know. I thought it was Belgium, Indiana.
00:19:39
Speaker
No, no, no, no. no so the ra youre wanted to like The reason I wanted to bring this up, which blew my mind was one, it was really fun. It was a fun way to play the game. I wasn't trying to play for progression. I was just trying to teach my coworkers how to play and get high scores and actually changing my brain on like not trying to focus on things and just try to focus on points was a fun change. It was a fun change of pace.
00:19:59
Speaker
Um, The second thing that I thought was really cool was once I got home, I got two different Facebook messages and it was people that happened to play at those bars, see my name, Joel Bob, and messaged me like, were you in Belgium?
00:20:15
Speaker
And I was like, I was. And I just think that's, That's a really neat, I don't know, i just think that's really kind of a crazy experience. And and long story short, the guy, Buck Rogers, was one of the guys that reached out to me um because he's like, hey, I saw your username. I don't know. I just thought that was, it was one of those things, I'm assuming every arcade owner loves Insider Connected just because it motivated us to keep playing just to get our name on that board.
00:20:40
Speaker
Absolutely. And that was something that's that's different than I've experienced. don't It's really cool. It's really cool. That's my side story. Um, okay, Potter, we're how many,
Harry Potter Pinball Appeal
00:20:51
Speaker
20 minutes in. Perfect. This is what everybody clicked on. Everybody wants, everybody's ready to do ah i I love the side tangent or the side story about going to Europe,
00:20:59
Speaker
trying to get on leaderboards on five ball stern pinball machines and i did it be proud of me it's hard it buddy i did it i want you be proud i want you say it you please wait okay what games did you play before we move on it's it's just i'm proud of you joel that's it i can't be proud until i know what games you played what'd get scores on i played turtles i played godzilla i played jaws i played stranger things i played x-men metallica what did you get on the board of i' not I don't have to share my numbers, right? i mean Well, no, i don't. know I got on the board for all those. I played every game until I was on the board.
00:21:33
Speaker
My highest two were Jaws and Godzilla. I got four on those this place just open last week? like how How is this possible? How did you get on the board? ah Well... I don't know.
00:21:45
Speaker
I would say so. Godzilla. I remember the good empty in there the Godzilla board. Did they reset the leaderboards for the beginning of the month? I know. Buck Rogers, feel free to write in to triple train at gmail.com. Let us know because he had the high scores at like the Godzilla. um Number one was two point something billion.
00:22:04
Speaker
That's pretty good. Which is good. But yeah to me, I ended up with fourth. I only played it one time, but like my final score was, I think it was like 700 million was my final score. was happy with that. Yeah, that's a good score. That's a good score on location. What's crazy to me, though, was like X-Men. To get on the board, it's very clear X-Men eats people alive.
00:22:24
Speaker
Because the to get on the board was, it was like 15 million points or something. Like, it was crazy low. Is it a premium? It was. Yeah, it eats people like it's just it was one of the stranger things to like the to get on just to get 10th or 8th place 10th place like very low very low score.
00:22:43
Speaker
So you can but also you assume a lot of actual casuals probably don't have an insider connect log in and are just actually not logging in. um But yeah, maybe or maybe the games are just hard to play for.
00:22:58
Speaker
casuals that don't play pinball very often at all, but like once every couple of months. Turtles was easy to get on the board. God, will you get to Potter? And yes, you know, he's asking these questions. Oh yeah, let's talk about Potter. i I've had Potter now in the house for a few days.
00:23:14
Speaker
I will say. Lucky bastard. This is the first game. This is the first game that my wife, when she heard I was getting Harry Potter, was legitimately excited. This is also the only game I've ever borrowed from Zach.
00:23:27
Speaker
that she played by herself. um That's not true. She played Jaws once by herself. Okay. um Otherwise, like, she was down here with the kids, and next thing I hear, I was upstairs, I heard pinball noises, and it's like she turned on the game to play it by herself.
00:23:42
Speaker
Because she loves Harry Potter. Harry Potter is a theme that she resonates with. When I stood next to her when she played her first game, she's like, see, this is all you need. You just need to get a good theme. That was her thought of like, that's why she wanted to play. Tell the rest of the pinball industry. that That Harry Potter is a good theme. it it's ah Did she have any idea what she was doing?
00:24:01
Speaker
No. But she was just playing the game and having a good time. um I played this game a bunch. I got it on Tuesday. i probably played it three hours on Tuesday just because I was just i wanted to understand the game before I streamed it.
00:24:14
Speaker
That was my entire goal. And this was one of the one of the first times I had to actually take the glass off and throw the ball around to really try to understand the rules because of all the overlapping. Travis has raising his hand, which is a polite way to say, shut up, Joel.
00:24:29
Speaker
I have a question. No, we have a good follow-up question. Did your wife play a second game? Because if she played the first game on her own, okay, there you go. So she kept wanting to play. She kept, she came, but that's where, that's what I meant by she played by herself. Like the, it was later that day or the next day she went downstairs when she was downstairs, turned on the games and played them by herself.
00:24:49
Speaker
um I think that's cool. Cause my wife would not do that. It's a rare, this is weird. This is a rarity and I'm, I'm really, I'm pumped. She did. So because of that now part of me is like, crap, is Harry Potter going to be a game that I have to own? Cause it's the first game that like she's excited about a thousand percent. I can tell you from experience, if you have a wife and you're trying to figure out the end to have pinball in your house or to enjoy a hobby together,
00:25:15
Speaker
Buy her a game that she likes. That's like easiest way. that's why you're lucky you That's why you bought Princess Bride. buth Stern. Stern pinball pirates.
00:25:28
Speaker
No, she she does not want to get Princess Bride. Oh, okay. Yeah, I've talked to her about it. I asked her about it. And the idea of hauling like a big-ass machine down these stairs when we're trying to remodel.
00:25:41
Speaker
It's pretty heavy. It's super heavy. Well, plus, too, I'm trying to sell machines, too. Like, I'm selling this like pretty soon. i know you're in a weird You're in a unique position because you go to work every day.
00:25:52
Speaker
The Jurassic Park 30. Oh, nice. Yeah. I'm going to sell it for $30,000. Whoever wants it. Wow. You go to work every day and can play every game as much as you want, which is, which I understand your home collection. Kind kind of. well I mean, I still have to actually work, Joel. I can't just show up and tell everybody, Hey, I'm just playing pinball today. I'm tired when I get home.
00:26:15
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I get pinballed out like after working in it all day long and then just sitting. I just like sit on butt. Okay, so Harry Potter. Harry Potter, you got to get it. You got to get it, right? Well, I don't know.
00:26:26
Speaker
I would say my initial impression coming away Tuesday night, I was i was very... yeah I like, I really enjoy this game. I came away Tuesday night before I streamed it Wednesday. i came away Tuesday. i was like, this game is really good.
00:26:38
Speaker
What I can say confidently. Um, I think it's their, I personally find it to be their most enjoyable shooting game. Um, Elton John is very good, but Elton John's layout is just, it's, it's, um, safe. Not say it's like, it's, it's comfortable. Like Elton John's layout is it's people know that layout. People have experienced that layout.
00:27:00
Speaker
some of the decisions Eric's made in this game, there are some very fun shots. I think, um, the, the way certain, like there's a shot under the left ramp that whips around to feed the left side. That's a cool little loop, the diverters and everything. It's, it's, it has curvy ramps, kind of like what J pop is known for. Like the the ball pass that he has.
00:27:20
Speaker
Um, there's, I see some of that in this. Um, yeah, I mean, honestly, I don't have any complaints with the layout. With that said, though, the layout is also very challenging. And I'm okay with that.
00:27:33
Speaker
But that is something that ate Jared alive Wednesday night when he played. um He's more worried about the Pacers game. Let's be honest. He was locked into the Pacers game. But even after the Pacers game, where Jared was, Jared's takeaway with with Harry Potter was he was overwhelmed.
00:27:49
Speaker
He basically is like, there's too much stuff. There's too much going on. He's overwhelmed by trying to just, you know, when, when he steps up to the game and he goes, what are you, what am I, so what do you want me to do? What am I supposed to do?
00:28:02
Speaker
And when that question isn't a simple answer, he was overwhelmed. And because there's a lot going on, it's all overlapping. There's a lot going on. And then you throw on top of that, the layout, the lower layout, the fact that there's no wire form safely feeding the in lanes to feed your flippers is It's challenging.
00:28:22
Speaker
The ball flies down the the far left lane or the far right lane to feed the flippers, and it goes fast. And that's something that you really have to adjust to. I adjusted to it playing Tuesday night, had a great time.
00:28:35
Speaker
I feel comfortable with this layout. I feel comfortable with the speed of the game. But For even somebody like my brother, who i would I would consider an experienced player at this point, it is challenging. It is challenging.
00:28:46
Speaker
um And I know that's something that Travis noticed the moment the game was announced and was making comments about how challenging that was for casual. So I don't know if I knew some of your impressions. mean what are you With hearing all that, what do you what do you guys think? Thoughts? Questions? Yeah.
00:29:02
Speaker
You know, I think like some of your things I think could be controlled with the code. Um, you, yeah I know we've talked about this privately, but like the shot on the left that comes back to the flipper and it like flies.
00:29:20
Speaker
Sure. There's a post there. post like an uppost there's an uppost yeah So like initially it stops the ball the first time. So, you know, it's coming. And then after that, it's like gloves are off, you know? yeah Yeah. Good luck.
00:29:35
Speaker
Yeah. So I, I think, you know, maybe some of that could be controlled if, if people think it's, it's too hard. Well, let me talk about that for a second.
00:29:47
Speaker
ah Sure. Attached to the keys. What do they call this? Hashtag game changer, I think, or hashtag something. i forget, but it's, there are three QR codes. There's an easy, a normal, and a wizard.
00:30:00
Speaker
So the thought is when you hit start and it's ball one, if you hold up a QR code, if I hold up easy in front of the camera, it just changes for that individual player. It changes the code to easy settings.
00:30:15
Speaker
So how does that make the design easier to shoot? Well, What it did do, so Jared actually played in easy mode the the set the latter half of the stream the other night. once Does it roll the ball for you, Joel?
00:30:28
Speaker
No. How does it make the design easier to shoot? Well, oh it doesn't. It doesn't. Oh, OK. It doesn't. So we we can go ahead then. but what is ah So like ah explore Hogwarts multiball. To do that, you have the main ramp in the middle and then you have the staircase mech on the right.
00:30:45
Speaker
You have to collect the different school colors. So the inserts in front of them change colors. So, you know, if if yellow and green are already collected at the beginning of the game, you need to know, okay, I need to hit a blue and a red shot. Once you've done that, you've qualified explore Hogwarts multiball, and then you start the multiball at the stairs on the right.
00:31:03
Speaker
So it's it's minimum three shots to start multiball. If it's in easy mode, it's already lit. All you have to do is hit the stairs one time, boom, you're in multiball. So it's, they've, there are things like that. And I think I need to pay attention more to see the differences. But I think even when you're playing the modes or the modes are running in the background, I think more shots are lit or maybe it gives you more time. I don't know, but they've adjusted all the software, but you're right. They could in easy mode, they could have it where that up post stops the ball every time or something so that it's a slower feed to the left flipper.
00:31:38
Speaker
They could have ball saves be longer. They could have the, um, The spell on the right that protects you from the outlane, that could be lit twice as much. i don't I don't know. I mean, there's stuff that they could do, but you still have to hit the shot, right?
00:31:54
Speaker
I mean, is that what you're getting at, Travis? You still have to hit the shot, even in an easy mode? mean, in most games. we're talking Yeah, we're talking about two
Balancing Game Design for All Players
00:32:00
Speaker
different things, though. We're talking about software accessibility and play field design, like physical design yeah accessibility. And that's only going to be relative to whatever the end user, what their skill set is.
00:32:12
Speaker
Right? Like you, like it doesn't matter. It could be the easiest coded game in the world, but if somebody doesn't have the flipper skills or understand how to do anything right with their flippers, like it's not going to matter. So I think it's, it's just two separate things. But the last thing you want to do is design a game to where it's so overwhelming that you have to have software compensating for multiple things.
00:32:33
Speaker
Like you're going to have it compensating for a few things. Like that's natural. That happens. It's a physical, physical game. But if you're trying to compensate, for so many things.
00:32:45
Speaker
Like yeah to me, it's just game theory wise and game design wise, you gotta be careful of that. But it's understandable why you would have to do that though. Sometimes it just is what it is. so Eric mentioned in the, ah Eric Minier, designer of the game, he mentioned this in the Loser Kid podcast that um almost every shot on the game can be diverted or stopped.
00:33:04
Speaker
And so his thought was, if you make the layout challenging, but yet you make the layout where it could be diverted or the ball could be stopped or you can change it in software to make that aspect easier, then you have the ability to make the game easier. While, I mean, we've all played pinball machines where the layout itself is super easy and and you really can't do anything to make the game harder unless you start pulling out posts removing ball gates and like making physical altercations so i think i i understand the design mentality of if you but what make the design a little harder than but what customers at scale are not buying a modern machine because they think it's too easy
00:33:50
Speaker
Like that customer base does not exist. there's too There's too many times we see people on Facebook and everything, they have fricking rubber bands on their out lanes, like trying to prevent the ball from draining. They're trying just to figure out how to stay alive. You can go across any location that has stern pinball machines there and you can look at the scores and these are default setups it's not like every single location has scores that are just elite world-class scores like this doesn't exist we' were talking about this joel like i was honest with you like i give you shit all the time because we're buddies but honestly you're above average for what a pinball player like if you go out and you see people play
00:34:29
Speaker
that are super casual, I'm telling you, it's not the people that listen to this podcast. It's not the people that watch pinball a ton. Like they're there's a lot of players that just aren't very good. And that's that happens, that's fine. Like we all can't be great at everything. That's fine and they they're probably having a great time.
00:34:44
Speaker
Exactly, exactly. But with that being said, it's just like those types of players, especially if they are buying machines, right? You have somebody who just loves buying a ton of machines and they just love playing whenever they get a chance. They don't have to be great at the game.
00:34:59
Speaker
like the players at scale just are not saying games are too easy. So I just won't get it. Like if it's too easy, if it's too easy for them, they'll just move on, but they've already bought it.
00:35:10
Speaker
They're already a customer. They've already converted it. ah well You know what I mean? we'd be talking about people We'd be talking about people not buying a game at the very beginning because they like, okay, it's just too easy. Like, I don't want to buy it because of that. so we just We just don't see that happen often at all. Like, I can't recall. I mean, there might be, hopefully somebody knows, maybe you guys know, has there been any game in recent memory that's come out to where it goes on location and everything and everybody's like, this game is just too easy to play. I'm not going to buy it.
00:35:41
Speaker
Like, I can't recall any game that's been like that. game I can think of that comes to mind is Cactus Canyon. I think a lot of... I heard from a lot of people before I bought this game that people were like, that game's easy. You're going to see the end of it. You will get bored of it.
00:35:57
Speaker
Right. But you still bought it, right? I did. Okay. So you're still a converted customer. Yeah. I mean, it's... Like, people are going to get games for different reasons. I think we just... I think we just got to be careful of...
00:36:10
Speaker
of creating a reality that doesn't actually exist. Oh, somebody just died in Travis's house. That would be CJ. That'd be CJ. But creating a reality that doesn't exist for the buyer base. You know what I mean? Like it's just... That's your I will say... That's his dog, yes. I will say... So Travis, being that you work for the pinball company, you see a side of the industry that I think a lot of us pinball enthusiasts don't recognize or see.
00:36:34
Speaker
And that's something that you have you have educated us on many times in our, in our Facebook chat is just honest, like the vast majority of pinball buyers in this hobby Don't listen to podcasts. Don't watch streams. Don't consume pinball content.
00:36:53
Speaker
It's a mass majority are very casual players. It's much different than what all of us in our little bubble believe it is. It is yeah much different. And I mean, it's, but we see it like Tom and I get to see it from both sides too. It's like, I get to see it from the high end tournament point of view.
00:37:11
Speaker
which is you know yeah why we can look at Potter and see like any type of intricate detail, like see the geometry of it, try to figure out a rule to it, try to figure out a ball path to it. like That's the type of mindset. But yeah, I think it's also important that when you look at machines is you kind of consider it from...
00:37:30
Speaker
The person that doesn't know pinball yet, that's just now at the baseline discovery of it, because they're going to act much different. I mean, yeah I've gone to homes before with Rush LEs there, and they played it for a year to even know the diverter was on there. They didn't know how use the action button for it.
00:37:45
Speaker
Yeah. You know, i've I've met people that own Godzilla's that have never even seen Mechagodzilla multiball. They had no idea. Like it's like things that we take for granted.
00:37:55
Speaker
Trust me. It's, there's a lot of people that just haven't seen, like, it's the same way. Um, I ran into somebody the other day as owned a turtles for three years. And they still don't know how to relight their turtle van logs.
00:38:10
Speaker
Like they never knew how. And it's because they they never got halfway through the game. It's a team. Right. They never have seen it. In three plus years, thousands of plays. It happens.
00:38:20
Speaker
The person that never saw Mechagodzilla, had that person experienced a battle in Godzilla? I mean, yeah, I would assume so. But it was just it was just us talking about because I have a lot of conversations with people. It's us talking about the different parts of the game. Right. And we could circle this back to Harry Potter.
00:38:37
Speaker
And this is what happens when so much is in the game. I think we take we take it for granted of what people actually see in the game. That's why we talk about how the first 10 minutes are so important because that's what everybody's going to see.
00:38:51
Speaker
right Even the first five minutes. Even the first three minutes. And that's why I've told you guys like my non-negotiable yeah or especially high-end themes for rules is what? I've told you this, Joel, constantly. yeah What is it, Joel? but Don't put a mode start on a scoop or put a mode start on a hard shot.
00:39:08
Speaker
You want a mode start to be selectable and if anything... And when does that mode need to start? Yes. 100%. It needs to start at the plunge. So let's about that. Question for you. Go ahead. Why is Godzilla so popular when you have to hit two ramps and then a scoop?
00:39:25
Speaker
That's easy because Godzilla was not a huge IP at the beginning. I'm talking about IPs at the very beginning that you know are going to sell gangbusters that you know is so unique.
00:39:36
Speaker
that it's going to go. Godzilla didn't do that because it was Godzilla. Godzilla was a slow seller, like first week. A lot of people forget that. We were all talking about how the play field art was and all that. And Joel and I even had a podcast about it live that I was like, I think this is going to be the sleeper, like number one.
00:39:55
Speaker
yeah I'm looking at it. I can see how it's going to develop.
Pinball Theme Engagement
00:39:58
Speaker
So a lot of that, we're talking about like two different things. I think the design and the rules and what Godzilla is pulled it, not the theme.
00:40:06
Speaker
Now, Harry Potter, that theme is going to lead it. It's going to get people like Joel's wife to come up and want to play it. yeah It's going to get a lot of people to want to play it. Now, the problem is that means you're going to introduce so many people that haven't played pinball consistently, have never played pinball.
00:40:22
Speaker
And if they step up to Harry Potter and they're not even in a movie yet and they have no idea how to start a movie. Like you've lost, you've lost the hook. Yeah. You've lost the hook. So what you're saying is have, have that movie mode start at the plunge at at the pouch. Oh yeah. A thousand percent. Select your movie mode. Yeah. right ever Everybody's going to have their opinions. And we talk like Tom and I talked about this before that we always create something in our minds. It's always better in our minds besides the actual reality. That's just creativity right there.
00:40:54
Speaker
But If I was in the room there at JJP and we're going over the rules and somebody said, we're going to start the movies at the scoop that's on the right hand side, that's already a difficult shot for even experienced world-class players. And I promise you it is, it can disappear for a lot of people, even people that are world champions or people that are top 50.
00:41:13
Speaker
True. how How is a casual going to handle that? And now we are automatically putting up a barrier unnecessarily in front of the meat and potatoes of a game to get people into the experience immediately.
00:41:27
Speaker
Like if I have a game and I want people to experience that world, I want to thrust them into that world. Otherwise, it's like riding a roller coaster and not getting to your first drop until like five minutes of just going around. Like I might do it. Nope. I'm waiting. I'm still going like... You just into it. and not getting to the actual meat of the podcast until five minutes in, right? You know, you're just waiting. Hey, it's all about hooks.
00:41:54
Speaker
We sure all know that. Everything's about hooks. You got to hook a player in. You got to give them a reason to keep playing. And simplest way, if somebody's playing Harry Potter... I play Harry Potter. I have a lot of thoughts on that. I was going to, one side comment was Tom had asked why is why was why is Godzilla? Because we've we've taught we've talked before that.
00:42:14
Speaker
Unfortunately, the the scoop, you have to hit you have ramp ramp but then you have to hit the scoop. And the scoop is so hard to hit on Godzilla for casual players that a lot of them don't experience battle. But I remember asking my dad who played Godzilla, was like, why did you enjoy that so much? He goes, well, I didn't know what I was doing, but every shot I was hitting made me feel like I was accomplishing something. They've designed it well.
00:42:31
Speaker
There's other stuff going on. he could fumble his way into Godzilla multiball or maybe even hit the Mexican. He doesn't need the battle. It doesn't feel like you're in a waiting room waiting for something to start because you haven't started. like there's Yes. as he played Harry Potter yet?
00:42:46
Speaker
My dad has not played Harry Potter. So let's also not get it twisted either. They did have to adjust Godzilla afterwards to make easier. They did, to two ramps. Yeah, to that well, to that you could hit the same ramp twice instead of alternating the ramp.
00:43:01
Speaker
So you get done you get done with your stream on Wednesday night. Yep. How did Jared feel? Like, honestly, honestly, that's what he said. He goes, he goes, that's a good game.
00:43:12
Speaker
He goes, I enjoyed that game. I look forward to playing that game more. That's a good game. He goes, there's just so much going on. There's so much going on. I don't quite understand what's going on.
00:43:23
Speaker
And that led us to a very interesting conversation about, um, I mean, long story short, I said, if I had to buy a game right now, would you rather me buy or Harry Potter or evil dead. And he, without hesitation said evil dead, like evil dead.
00:43:36
Speaker
Really? he loved evil dead. And that, because I think evil dead does max and moments very well. That's then that's what he enjoys in pinball is max and moments. Um, so Harry Potter,
00:43:49
Speaker
I agree. Everything you said, Travis, I completely agree because that was the frustration i had on my first few games was if you're playing Harry Potter, you want to see the movie. I don't want to sit there and watch it. I'm not going to don't I'm don't don't misconcee what I'm saying here. I don't want to sit there and watch the movie.
00:44:06
Speaker
um I know a lot of people are bent up about the sound balancing, which is, i do agree, needs a little bit of work. There's a lot of Mark Silk. like you His call-outs are are loud and clear.
00:44:18
Speaker
The music's great. David Thiel did a great job with the music and the fanfare. But there's some audio dipping to, you know, make Mark Silk so loud and clear. But the movie clips are very quiet in the background. Here's the easiest question to ask because you guys all know how I feel about LCDs and all that. We don't even have to go over that.
00:44:35
Speaker
Jared doesn't like it, by the way. but yeah But what I'm asking is, is since you guys have played it you've yeah started a movie, you're in the lessons because the way it works is I guess it's lessons for 30 seconds and the timer goes, it rotates the next lesson regardless of yeah right regardless of if you complete it or not, you just get the points for whatever you've done at that point.
00:44:55
Speaker
My question is, does it feel like you're actually playing that movie? Do you feel like, do you realize what scene of that movie you're playing and you're going? Cause like, if I take it to rush, which is Tom's baby, like but that is very well integrated to where I feel like the modes actually are what they are. You know, will say yes and no.
00:45:18
Speaker
And what I mean is when I took the glass off, let's go. no No, no, no. Let me, when I took the glass off, When I took the glass off and and started throwing the ball around, and what that allowed me to do was focus.
00:45:30
Speaker
So it's like, I want to understand this multiball. So all I did, I never started a movie. I didn' i just i just had the multiball. So only the multiball is being displayed. It's very easy to see what you're saying. So if you're only playing a movie and you can and only the movie shots are lit,
00:45:47
Speaker
Yes, they actually did a decent job of like, oh, this movie's with Ron, so the Ron targets are lit. Joel, you're you're saying that in order to understand what's going on, you have to have the glass off that's why and just use your hands.
00:45:58
Speaker
I think the modes themselves, they just like that's something I think Simpsons does well, where the modes, you know, Homer's Day, you're hitting the areas of the playfield that are Homer's Day. They made that mode immersive.
00:46:11
Speaker
I think there are modes in... Harry Potter, as in the the the lessons that if you can focus on just the lit shots, they do correspond to what's going on in the scene. Well, yeah, well, of course they will. But it's about the totality of the package, not the individuality of everything. Because if you take the glass off, of course you can isolate anything. yeah Nobody's going to go on location you and say, hey, hey, if glass off. I want to experience this right now. Like, you know what I mean? Lesson going.
00:46:40
Speaker
And then start a Quidditch match. So that's this the snitch is writing is flying all over the screen. And then accidentally start a multiball.
00:46:52
Speaker
And then while you're doing that, hit a Death Eater shot. And you got all that going all over each other. Yeah. At that point, you have no idea. Everything's lit, but then you have to teach yourself, okay, red that red and gold, that color's for that. This is for this. Oh, this is for this.
00:47:06
Speaker
Right. But yes, it's you're not experiencing a moment at that point. You're experiencing all of it. You're experiencing Skittles thrown in your face. You're going to get all of it. I mean, it's it's fine and here's why it's fine.
00:47:19
Speaker
Okay. Some parts it's okay, some parts it's not. Tom will fully understand this because we have to do this all the time in tournament play when we try to stack things together get the perfect stack. yeah It's natural in pinball to have overlap of certain features going But at some point you do have to have certain features that are priority.
Game Feature Complexity
00:47:38
Speaker
Right. Right. And so that's the main thing is that you, you're going to always have background stuff like side features. That's what makes the game very accessible. But if everything tries to be like the number one, that's when it gets like super confusing. And this isn't just a JJP thing. I've seen this across every manufacturer. yeah It's not just as like, this isn't just picking on JJP. That's what happens. That's what makes it overwhelming.
00:48:02
Speaker
Even in King Kong, if you if you're in the middle of a scene, a movie scene, and then you start King Kong multiball, you're going to have those two things overlap. The colors are going to overlap, but that's just two items. And that's the issue that I see. And that's what Jared was voicing.
00:48:16
Speaker
that's That's the challenge with Harry Potter. Two items would be great. You could have four different things all running at one time. And then, oh, I hit the potion shop. So now my next shot will, will, will set a potion on that thing. Like there's so much that can happen. And and this is, this is, um,
00:48:34
Speaker
My main takeaway was honestly one of my favorite JJP games is The Hobbit. I had The Hobbit for a long time. And the reason I loved, loved The Hobbit was I think it's one of the most cinematic, immersive pinball experiences out there.
00:48:48
Speaker
The sound package, the design, the, sure, they have, they have a guy, you know, super jackpot, but it sounds like Gandalf. Like it, it really, it's so good But when I remember when I had Hobbit, one Jared's complaint was it's too much. It's too much. There's too much going on. And what you need to understand with Hobbit is there's five sections.
00:49:08
Speaker
One's the mode. One's the orbits. One's hitting all the drops. But the orbits and the drops just kind of happen in the background. They never take priority. It's just kind of there. And then you have two multiballs, Beast and Smaug.
00:49:21
Speaker
You can set it so that you can't overlap beast and smog, smog, multiball, which I highly suggest people do. So then at that point, all you have possible overlap is mode and multiball, just two things.
00:49:36
Speaker
And the modes, they did a very good job to make the modes unique and immersive. But the biggest reason I loved Hobbit was once you've done all five things, that unlocks the mini wizard mode, the out of the fire, into the fire. And that mini wizard mode dominates. It it shuts everything else off.
00:49:55
Speaker
You're only experiencing that mode. It goes full screen. It's all movie clips. It's a multi-ball. It's high energy. It's such an amazing... I mean, you guys have played it. that Those mini wizard modes, there's three of them.
00:50:09
Speaker
Just boom, that that turns on goes on and it just takes over the game and it's so so much fun to play. Did you get that feeling on Potter? Never. It's like you got to a final exam. okay I never got it. And now i could have not have gotten it because maybe there's certain modes...
00:50:24
Speaker
I think we were talking to Carl D'Angelo and he got to a mode. I had to look at the rule sheet because I was like, I haven't seen that mode. And I looked, it's like, oh, he played four multi balls, which got him. think it's called Battle of Hogwarts. He got to something and he said that mode was really good.
00:50:37
Speaker
So it's like, OK, there there might be experiences like that, but they look pretty deep into the game. To me, yes. if If we're talking about logistically, if the thought of a mode is a mode is a movie, you would think the pinnacle, the end of that movie should be something epic.
00:50:53
Speaker
Yeah, kind of like the planet modes on Star Wars or something like that, right? Sure, yes, yeah yes, yes, yes. once you've caught Once you've done the three parts of the episode, when you get to the main part, it should be something epic. And unfortunately, the way it's presented right now,
00:51:08
Speaker
To start the final exam, you have to hit the scoop. So it is it is one, it doesn't just roll into final exam. You actually have to hit a shot. Okay. But once you've started final exam, it's just one more thing going. Stacked on everything else. So what you're saying, the final exam should be the the headpiece or the... It should be a moment. A standalone priority. should be, exactly. Correct.
00:51:31
Speaker
I would rather if the thought is, well, where we allow you to overlap that we could bring a multiball into it and help get rid of it. It's like, no no, no. If you think that's an important enough piece that you want a multiball, then just make it a multiball. Start it as a two ball multiball, but turn off Quidditch, turn off Explore Hogwarts, turn off the Golden Trio multiball.
00:51:52
Speaker
Just let me live in that mode then until I either fail it or beat it. Um, that's to me. And that's what a lot of the feedback is on Facebook and pin side is like, I'm read it, you know, Joel got the final exam and it just, it was just happening. And then I even beat one and I beat it. and i didn't even know I beat it like, because it just ended.
00:52:14
Speaker
You know, so those are. Yeah. Well, and hopefully that's just something with early code that they're going to. I would. Sure. But I don't. But I don't. go We don't know.
00:52:25
Speaker
We don't know. We don't know. So, I mean, do you do you think it's one of those things, guys, that maybe because the rule or the design is going to be a little bit tougher for players to play?
00:52:35
Speaker
That there's just a focused effort to try to get to try to cram as much as possible. Like we talked about into that first 10 minutes. So it's like, I think everything to go. i think that's generally what happens in Jersey Jack games. I mean, you're talking, you're wizard of Oz, Hobbit, um, maybe Wonka. Yeah.
00:52:55
Speaker
Yeah. You know, think the only one I've never felt that on is dialed in. That's the only And can get there. Maybe Elton John Elton John was good. Elton John was decent. Elton John lets you breathe a little bit.
00:53:06
Speaker
mean, it can't, you can start stacking a lot. don't. But it lets you breathe and up things though. Yeah, but it doesn't feel like, it doesn't feel like you're stacking like nine things together. Let's put down. You're not getting hit over the head with it. Right. I don't, don't mind.
00:53:20
Speaker
I don't mind having everything available right at the beginning. Like, I don't mind the overlap, but I do... I do mind... mean, kind sounds like you do, Joel. Well, no. Everything's going at once. I want don't want it all the time.
00:53:32
Speaker
I want final exam. I want the final exams to be a moment. And right now, they're not. I also want... I find it frustrating if somehow I got through ball one and never started a mode.
00:53:43
Speaker
Like the fact that it's that scoop is harder to hit than I think it should be. so So me, going to be people going a full game without playing. Absolutely. Casuals will never see a movie clip. I guarantee you.
00:53:55
Speaker
You know, a casual, even the multiballs, some of them are challenging unless they put it in easy mode, but like golden trio multiball, There's a lot you have to do to start that multi-ball. um There will be casuals that may never see a movie clip because if they don't start a mode or don't start a multi-ball, then they're playing in this limbo world for all three balls. So there's just like most JJP games, there's a lot of skill shots and you can select them with the button.
00:54:20
Speaker
Even if they give us that option of like, you give up your skill shot to just get into a mode, that would be great. Now, I don't know for a casual, they may not understand that they can, you know, like it would need to be communicated in a good way.
00:54:36
Speaker
For easy mode, I absolutely expected when Jared scanned that easy mode thing that it would like give him in the mode. Just something like- Does not put him in a mode immediately? He still has to hit the scoop.
00:54:47
Speaker
He still has to hit the scoop. And so that's, these are these are things that I'm not, I'm not here venting about. Like, sure. The, the, the feed on the right side can be a little wonky. That screwed me like two or three times over the last three days.
00:55:00
Speaker
Um, and it is super fast. I think some of the shots are challenging the under the flipper shot, but it's the more that I play, I will get better at those shots, but the experience that I want out of Harry Potter i think I think currently is going to be hard for a casual player to so really experience because hitting the scoop to get into a movie is a hard task. I don't think my wife experienced, I don't know if she's experienced a movie yet um out of the two or three games she's played. So I absolutely agree with you. I think they should allow you to select the movie right at the beginning.
00:55:35
Speaker
right at the beginning or make it more than if, if, if Eric's saying they've designed it where almost every shot in the game will divert the ball, then, then, then make it lit at the beginning where advanced term, all the advanced term shots are lit.
00:55:51
Speaker
And if they hit any of them, it stops the ball and allows them to select a movie in that moment. Like go ahead, Joel. But that's what I'm saying. Like, just get allow somebody to get into a movie as soon as possible because there's six movies.
00:56:05
Speaker
So if I was a casual and I select movie number one and I drain, they're gonna go, wanna see what the other five movies are. They're gonna play that game five more times to see the other six to see all six movies or start all six movies.
00:56:17
Speaker
But right now, if if if somebody walks up to the game and doesn't experience anything, oh, that was Harry Potter, they move on. I mean, I think the other part is too is Like if everything's going at the same time, my concern is, is that somebody that's playing may not even realize that they are supposed to be experiencing the movie, right? They might fall into the scoop, like not the side, but the front start, like pick whatever. They're like, okay, I guess I'll go with this.
00:56:42
Speaker
Yeah, but then it's just fighting for dear life. Like they're not going to look up at the LCD and be like, oh, I'm supposed to hit these. It's just trying to figure out, okay, out of everything that's lit, I'm just going to keep flipping and whatever advances advances.
00:56:55
Speaker
So the mode's going to naturally advance regardless because of the timer, just as long as you stay alive long enough. But Well, I don't, I don't know. I think it's kind of like, I don't What do you think, Tom? I feel like we're, we're like discussing two or three different things that just fly in together and contradict each other, which is experiencing stuff, right? It's really hard to talk about it. Cause again, i mean, I haven't touched the game yet, but I was actually going to ask Joel a question. The diverter thing
00:57:28
Speaker
Do you know like when you hit a shot which way it's going to divert the ball? Yes. This is actually something that's really good. If you look at a picture ah in front of the... So the staircase is the main mech on the right, but then the the center ramp is called... I forget what it's called.
00:57:45
Speaker
But... In front of it, that center ramp feeds into the the top of the of the staircase mech. So okay that means the staircase shot is going to be diverted in some direction and the middle shot is going to be diverted in some direction.
00:57:59
Speaker
In front of it are four inserts. They're four arrows. Yeah, I see that. They're cardinal arrows. called Colored ah yellow, red, blue. Exactly. So let's let's say the center ramp, the yellow arrow is lit. That's the top arrow. What that signifies to me is the ball is going to be spit out up.
00:58:16
Speaker
It's going to go up out of that mech into the pops. Versus if the green arrow is lit, that's telling me, hey, that ball is going to go up the ramp and come right back at me because it's pointed at me. while to the right will feed to the right, to the left will feed over to the left. So yes, they, they actually do. it did a good job on those two mechs to tell you where the ball's coming out or where it's going to come out when you hit that, when you hit that shot.
00:58:40
Speaker
Um, you You're talking about the four inserts that make a diamond together in front of both. And those are also the like Hogwarts banners. Correct.
00:58:51
Speaker
Yeah. okay So by default you start with two Hogwarts colors. So, um you can see that at the top middle of the screen and then you want to find the other color. Like, like I said, if, if, if you already have green and yellow, then you need to, you know, I just need to hit a red and a blue shot.
00:59:07
Speaker
Um, and so if, a red and a green shot happens to be lit red on the center ramp and green on the stairs. I would prioritize the red shot. Cause I don't have that yet. I would shoot up the middle instead. So there's, there's stuff like that where I i think everything's here. i don I don't, I don't think, um,
00:59:23
Speaker
I mean, my, my, I, to be positive, like I really do enjoy this game. I enjoy the layout. I, I, I've really loved the way this shoots. Um, this, the, they got ah from a licensing standpoint, it's all here.
00:59:39
Speaker
It's all here. It's not like they're tiptoeing around stuff or, I mean, everybody's face is there. Everybody's voice is there. They've got so many different moments from the different movies when you're playing,
00:59:50
Speaker
the different mode. I mean, it's all there. I just think from a code standpoint, you know, maybe some audio balancing, maybe some, maybe bring in the movie, like maybe more center into the, maybe make but some, how do you make those moments more impactful or bring out the final exam, ah adjust overlap. Like, uh, I don't know when, don't know what, and I think you can, you can overlap golden trio multiball and, um, explore the Hogwarts multiball. I would,
01:00:20
Speaker
Preferably, I would not want those to overlap. um Same thing with, you know, like, I think they, if they could tone that back a little bit on, on so that you can't do it all at once. And I, and maybe that's just personal preference or the coders, that idea of like, oh, you can get Carl D'Angelo to step up there and he can literally get everything going all at once and get the 11 trillion game, you know, but to enable it for Carl D'Angelo, but make it really, really difficult for the, the novice.
01:00:52
Speaker
Sorry, Carl. I feel like we should probably prioritize the novice, you know, like I, I don't, I'm not a designer. No, a thousand percent. You don't, you design games and design code for pinball players.
01:01:05
Speaker
But you can't do everything just geared towards elite players. If you do that, you're going to lose 99% of everybody else. You got to be very careful of that. You got to have accessibility.
01:01:17
Speaker
So I think like to me, like what's the number one thing I told you, Joel, as soon as we saw this game like reveal, I said, I'm excited to play it because i thought it's going to be a challenging layout. Like I don't look at it and like, this is going to be a cakewalk at all. And I mean, and it's exclusively because not because of all the diversions and all that, that's kind of like just whatever, you know, from a design standpoint, but it's not having a traditional return back to the in lanes. Like everything is just going to be dump it out on the waterfalls.
01:01:47
Speaker
bring it to, you might have the up post that comes up. You might have, you know, whatever it could be like ski jumps trying, or then you just got to send it. Like there's, yeah that makes it difficult. And having the inverted out lanes have a degree of difficulty too. like we're We're all used to something slightly different. So, I mean, from a layout perspective, it looks intriguing to me. And I do like how the upper play field works. so I like the little whip around on the ramp and you can just keep looping ah shoot And there's a shot off to the,
01:02:15
Speaker
you can, there's like a 180 ramp up there. There's a loop up there. But then if you shoot it right on the tip of the flipper, it actually can shoot off the right side of the upper play field and feed the ramp, like the center ramp and feeds the mech.
01:02:28
Speaker
Like it's really, I have zero complaints with the design of the game. Eric Minier, I think the physical design of the game, I'm really, I'm very happy with that. I just think but if they asked me, okay, Joel, what's the one thing you would change in Harry Potter right now? I would say,
01:02:45
Speaker
make it easier to get into a movie. And if that means off the plunge, you just select a movie. Great. Eric's rebuttal is going to be, it's one shot. Like it's lit by default. All you have to do is set the scoop. It's one shot to get into a movie, but unfortunately they made it a difficult shot. If, if, if it was shoot the center ramp, shoot the center ramp to start a movie,
01:03:04
Speaker
Okay, I could maybe see that. That's one, it's it's right up the middle. It's the one, the easiest shot in the game. Okay, I could see that. um Well, I mean, it's it's kind of like, why i even have it like that though? Because at least in other games, like in Tom, you could probably notice this, like on Godzilla, for instance, right? Even though it's at the scoop, you still got to hit a few other shots.
01:03:25
Speaker
You get it going, but you're making progress elsewhere. I can hit a ramp and get that ball to a flipper. On this game, there's no wire form to a flipper.
01:03:36
Speaker
Yeah. Right. So it automatically. Yeah. It's going to automatically be tougher for anybody. You have to get under control. Right. You got to get under control. i mean, how do you do that?
01:03:48
Speaker
I mean, it's almost like a early solid state, right? Yeah. I mean, a thousand percent. That's the number one thing I noticed. A thousand percent. yeah I mean, it's it's honestly, I view it the same way as like... ah You know, if you're playing World Cup soccer and and you can't start a match, you can't start a match until you hit the final scoop.
01:04:07
Speaker
You know, the scoop like that. It's a challenging scoop, um which seems somewhat centered. Like it's not the far right. It's not like the that's pretty far right. But it's not like it's the Metallica scoop or the Guardians of the Galaxy scoop.
01:04:18
Speaker
Well, just imagine that. Imagine Guardians of the Galaxy. But you can't, you will not experience any character mode until you hit the scoop on and you can't backhand that scoop, right? cannot backhand the scoop. And here's the fun here's the hilarious part.
01:04:32
Speaker
With Guardians of the Galaxy, for high-level tournaments, there's a setting there where you make it to where you can't have your modes at the plunge, where you have to qualify it into the scoop.
01:04:43
Speaker
Which, to Because that makes it more difficult. So if we're talking about pure accessibility... Here's the difficulty things. If they did that for easy, okay. I would be okay with it.
Game Mode Introductions
01:04:54
Speaker
Make it easy. make you You log in with easy, great.
01:04:57
Speaker
You log in with normal, no. But to me, I would say for all locations, it it should default to you start in a mode. If they want to do these rules for the wizard key...
01:05:08
Speaker
Fine. Now here's a hit 18 shots before you start a mode for the wizard key. Like, no, don't do that. Don't it. No, no, no, no. But, but here's a question though. Um, is there a setting to where you can get it to where you don't have to start it at the scoop to where you could start it? Talk amongst yourselves. Let me click. Let me click.
01:05:27
Speaker
I don't click. So I mean, what do you think amongst yourselves? Because Tom, you're going to get a wizard edition, right? So it's like, what about this? Like, obviously, nostalgia theme and all that. But what else outside of that intrigues you the most about this pinball machine?
01:05:42
Speaker
ah The diverter, basically, all the... I mean, I do like that there's stackable elements to the game. I think that's cool.
01:05:53
Speaker
I mean, I... Like Joel was saying, mean, the design looks great. It's just, you know, i I'm buying this solely on theme.
01:06:06
Speaker
I like the Harry Potter theme, but I also know it's going to be fun to play and shoot and stuff. Yeah. yeah And you've had JJPs in the past. Like you've had a Wonka, a Godfather. I've owned most JJPs.
01:06:23
Speaker
What's the one that you haven't had? Elton John. haven't owned it. Did you have an avatar? well No, I didn't own that either. So two. Elton John, I'm actually surprised you didn't get that. and one's That's an excellent shooter.
01:06:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's just the space. Space or theme? kind of Kind of theme, I guess. but i mean I do like Elton John's music, but I'm kind of keeping my eye out for one, honestly.
01:06:49
Speaker
yeah I might buy a used one. yeah The answer on that is maybe. And I might have to start it. And what I mean is, if I get to school year modes, selection screen, yes. So that's one thing is, by default, you can select your movie.
01:07:03
Speaker
If not, they were going to have it where you the movie is picked based on your flipper. ah Like, how many every time you you hit your flipper, it changes movie. But um qualifying difficulty, by default, it's medium.
01:07:18
Speaker
But there's an option for extra easy. So I could set it to XtreEasy and see what does. Let's see what that Put that on immediately. Tom, I feel like we need to invoice JJP for this episode. We need some music or something.
01:07:37
Speaker
There we go. We're just doing research for JJP software. What I just saw is i have an x there's an update available. So if one of you wants to Google... Maybe they've updated, like, see what they added in the update, which I just see is available right now.
01:07:54
Speaker
It's gotta be to shut up, Joel. but Okay, so I have it on extra easy. I started a game, and, uh... What's it do? I can't pick a mode. I can't pick a mode. So I so i bet I still to hit the scoop.
01:08:05
Speaker
Really? Are you serious? Yeah. Oh, could be a placeholder. Okay. What's great is I just immediately hit the scoop. Like it was nothing. It was, i mean, so yeah obviously extra easy made it easier.
01:08:16
Speaker
Of course. Well, Joel's proving this. ah Yeah, I literally plunged a flipper plunge it to the left flipper and just drilled the scoop like it was nothing. But let me see if hitting a ramp or something. I will say, i know people are probably listening to this and there's other people out there like, it's just a scoop. Like, why should it matter? It's trivial.
01:08:35
Speaker
But I promise you, there is so many people that play pinball that either are not on Pinside, they're not on Facebook, they don't watch YouTube, they don't listen to this. They just play.
01:08:46
Speaker
They have no idea to look up stuff. And those are the people like you want to reach. That's how you grow an industry. That's how you get people fully involved as you make them have fun. You hook them to it. And you know, there's just having somebody play a game and never start a mode from a massive IP. I think you just got to be super careful about that. and So here's a question.
01:09:09
Speaker
Where do I find the code on Jersey Jack's? Support center? Oh, here it is. Okay. So the new release, as of today, added QR difficulty attract mode page.
01:09:23
Speaker
I don't know. the Oh, QR code. Updated Death Eater multiball rules, increased Nocturne alley scoring, updated status report, and fixed a bug.
01:09:34
Speaker
ah Corrected an issue with the QR difficulty. No. So nothing. No. They didn't. but they're not They're not fixing it. They didn't add it on on on plunge or anything. No. That's okay.
01:09:46
Speaker
it's ah I doubt anybody else is really going be talking about this issue. But overall, I can guarantee you, i can guarantee you more people would buy this game and more people would be involved in this game if they felt like they were making like actual progression towards movies early on.
01:10:04
Speaker
So this is a shout out Elizabeth Gieske. She said one thing, you know when you read feedback like this, you don't necessarily have to...
01:10:15
Speaker
give them the feature, but maybe give them the option to turn it on or off. Like all they have to do is make that a setting in the, in the game. If that, if, if, if Eric's vision is no, you need to hit the scoop to start a mode. Well, if they just add it, if they made right there, the, the starting difficulty, if extra easy is start on plunge, then just add it in the code. And then people at home or operators can decide whether or not they want to turn it on. That's what Elizabeth's main quote was. She goes, don't ever remove something from the game. Just make it ah Make it a ah rule that you can adjust. Make it an adjustment.
01:10:46
Speaker
So that that I think that would be a ah huge a huge thing that they could do to make this game even more. Because it's all here. It's all it's all there.
01:10:58
Speaker
it's just so It's a single rule change. And that's I don't want to come off like I'm not enjoying this game. Honestly, I'm really enjoying this game. I'm just trying to wrap head around. It doesn't sound like it. Well, I mean, it's just true, though, because even if you go look at the video, Joel, we were talking about this.
01:11:13
Speaker
There's like three plus minutes to where you're trying to hit the scoop. I know. And, you know, shit just happens sometimes. The shot leaves all of us. I mean, I guarantee you, I'm going to play a few games of Harry Potter and probably not start a movie either.
01:11:26
Speaker
I might have to figure out the scoop as well. i've Like, we've all been there. I'm just looking at from the perspective of, Well, players should just be able just to hit it more or less. I'm just looking at it from everybody should have access to it. Okay. i most important part I'm looking at the pinball rules flow sheet and it's, uh, it's time Turner spinner to light start term hit scoop.
01:11:50
Speaker
And then, so you actually have to hit the spinner Yeah. No, I think that's on harder settings, or I think that's once you've finished a term to start the next one. You have to hit that shot. um Which should not happen either.
01:12:05
Speaker
It should automatically be lit immediately. I mean, there's somebody we chat with who's a very good player that their their response after playing the game was, scoop is stupid. So they they just, even ah even a good player that we know I've heard it from multiple people. I'm not just one.
01:12:23
Speaker
If, if Eric, if you're listening this, I i honestly, I'm, I don't mind. Like, I don't think that the design of the scoop is bad. Like it's, it's just, yeah, he does. Eric, Joel's been shitting on it all. parties You need to rewind this episode. There are, there are, um there are times when you're playing modes where you have to either hit under the, under the flipper on the right, or you have to the scoop. And ah sure. When those shots are lit,
01:12:45
Speaker
to me, I'm like, oh, this is going to be a challenge. like it's But I'm okay with that. I'm okay with having spots on a play field be challenging. I'm okay with that. But don't make that the like if Jared says, what am I supposed to do when he steps into the game?
01:12:59
Speaker
the The first thing he should do is hit the scoop. And yet the very first thing you should do in that game is the most challenging shot on the game, in my opinion, or one of them. um That's that's that's hard.
01:13:12
Speaker
That's that's a hard thing to get around because also, you know, you're trying to lead somebody to get to a multiball. Okay, now I can explain the diverters. Oh, you want to get the color, so hit this and this. Golden Trio.
01:13:23
Speaker
To start Golden Trio multiball, you have to spell Hermione. That's two stand-up targets that you have to hit to spell her name. And where are those stand-up targets at? By the left ramp? By the left ramp, yep. Okay.
01:13:35
Speaker
So you kind of, you have to spell her name, you have to spell Ron, that's three letters, and you have to spell Harry, so they have to go through the in-lane, out-lanes to spell Harry. You can move it with your flippers. Okay. That's a lot. And you have to lock three balls.
01:13:48
Speaker
That's a lot of individual things you have to do to get to that multiple. time I don't think my wife will ever see that multiple ever. Um, e and that's okay because difficulty settings, you know, if she plays an easy mode, then more of Hermione's already spelled or more of Harry's already spelled.
01:14:04
Speaker
Um, there are skill shots. That's what I do. I, I do the Harry, the Harry skill shot. So you just short plunge and boom, it spells Harry automatically or, You do the Hermione skill shot where you just have to hit one of her targets one time and it'll spell her whole name as a skill shot.
01:14:18
Speaker
There's things you can do to get around it. But um these are the things, and and this is the, hopefully is hopefully is taken as constructive criticism, but these are things that could be adjusted or changed to make the game great.
01:14:33
Speaker
Like, and I- Joel, Joel, I promise you, nobody's getting pissed off by us saying the mode should start at the plunge. I promise you. Everybody has thick skin in this industry. What we're looking at here is the rule set overall, what I see on the sheet, what I've watched is generally okay. In my opinion, like the overlap is whatever you can always prioritize things. I think the layout is intriguing. I think the way it shoots is intriguing. I'm excited to play it overall.
01:15:02
Speaker
I think more than anything, it's just, Like our our opinions are our opinions and mine's always going to squarely be, i want everybody to experience the first minute or two minutes of the game and then progressively other features get a little bit more difficult to get to. So that way you have the carrot on the stick for the experienced players, but you need the carrot on the stick for everybody at the very beginning, especially if you're wanting a game to really take off and really have have longevity.
01:15:31
Speaker
Because if you don't have that, and we've seen it, I'm not going to name games, but we've seen it across every single manufacturer. If you have a game that's not highly accessible to everybody in the first couple of minutes, it's DOA.
01:15:46
Speaker
It's like, it just is. and Joel, tell us about your Halloween experience. I know. hi oh i There you go. No, i but i I see it. I'm just, I understand that. Yes. If a modern pinball is typically wrapped around or like focused around modes.
01:16:05
Speaker
And if you make your game, if you, you make your game so people can't experience a mode there, they're missing it. and And you said something earlier, Travis, about how important the first five or 10 minute experiences for a game.
01:16:18
Speaker
Realistically, There are a lot of people that will own this game in the first five, 10 minutes of the game is all they will ever see ever. So if you make these amazing epic things, 15, 20, 25 minutes into the game, you're going have an entire buy buyer base that will never experience it. And that's fine for like a wizard mode.
01:16:40
Speaker
But when you're just talking about a mode, you know, like that's that's my one hold up on Godzilla. I think there are plenty of people that probably have never experienced a battle. And honestly, the battles are awesome.
01:16:52
Speaker
Luckily, there's plenty of other fun things that they're experiencing. Yeah. So this is what I really, that's why I have so much respect for game designers and game coders, because trying to balance that, something that'll keep the two of you guys entertained, because you can get 45 minutes deep into a game and yet keep somebody like myself, my brother, my wife entertained.
01:17:14
Speaker
to balance that is really, really hard to do. And you can definitely look at like, why do people gravitate towards certain games? Right? So take, cause there's different ways to start ah mode.
01:17:26
Speaker
And to me, I find this conversation like actually very interesting because Once you really peel the layers back and you kind of see it, you kind of figure out, okay, there's just different ways to do this. So Jaws, for instance, right? What makes that game so popular at the beginning, because most people realize you have to bash the boat.
01:17:44
Speaker
You to bash the captive ball, right? You have to hit the shark when it comes up. But then what happens? Every shot gets lit for you to start an encounter. And even a super casual player does not need to know what encounter is what does not need to know how to play it, but they're going to hit that shot.
01:18:01
Speaker
And what's going to happen with the ball. It's going to stop somewhere. I just want let you go ahead. No, no, no. I'm i'm sorry. You just what? What got? I just got a message that Harry Potter's at Lumberjack Johnny's right now. Oh, well, you need to go start. Show everybody how to mode. I'm going to go stream later.
01:18:21
Speaker
ah But think about that. There's that, right? Yeah. And then you could start it at the plunge. That's another version of it. Or you could start it at a scoop. Or hitting some dungeon. There's different versions of it. Is it unfair Here we are critiquing Harry Potter to start a mode. You hit one shot, no qualifying anything. It's one shot. It's the scoop. It's kind of to the front, to the right.
01:18:43
Speaker
To start mode in King Kong, you have to bash the gong. It's either once or twice, and then you have to hit a scoop. yeah We're okay with that. Is that just because that scoop happens to be further back?
01:18:57
Speaker
so It's an easier to hit target or why are why are we okay with Kong's mode start? I can list two reasons for that. One, let's face facts. Kong is not as strong as of an IP as Harry Potter.
01:19:08
Speaker
And I say this as working with a company that primarily sells Stern pinball. If you put King Kong and Harry Potter next to each other yeah and you bring a family up that knows nothing about pinball... more than likely they're gonna pick Harry Potter.
01:19:21
Speaker
Correct. Just on theme alone, theme alone, right? Yeah. That's another thing. The second part is like you said, shot location. On a pro, that's super easy to backhand, super easy to hit. You can get into it pretty good.
01:19:35
Speaker
Like obviously premium and l LE, little bit more difficult. And we've talked about that difficulty. I mean, it just is, but there's different versions of this. Like Elwynn's done all kinds of versions. Like you look at, um, you look at iron maiden, it's center ramp.
01:19:50
Speaker
You have to center. Yeah. And then you you hit different shots. You're making progression. You hit the center ramp. right like that game is squarely designed for like pinball players like because that was his first design that he had before he even got to start right and so you look at other things like take for instance you know avengers it's just spinning a disc and then hitting one ramp every dwight sullivan game is going to essentially be ramp ramp scoop or ramp ramp Yeah, it's ramp ramp and then one other shot.
01:20:21
Speaker
And that's, I mean, that's, that's turtles, D and D star Wars, which is which is perfectly fine for pin. for So what I don't want to get twisted, it's perfectly fine for pinball players because we all accept that we're all used to it.
01:20:35
Speaker
That's like the baseline foundation for us to understand how to start, how to get into it. What I'm looking at is, is not this demographic here that will do it anyways and be fine doing it.
01:20:47
Speaker
I'm looking at this demographic over here. that's discovering pinball, figuring it out, and having it be accessible for them. Because if you can have either version of this, yeah because you have the software, you could change the rules up, why would you not want the most accessible version on locations for players or for people to buy it and play it at home?
01:21:07
Speaker
Like, I've talked to too many people that have bought certain games and been so frustrated, they just stopped playing it altogether and they just sold it. Tom threw his hands in the air. What... what it's It's not even set up yet.
01:21:21
Speaker
He's going box it. He can do so much. he's He's ready to wrap it up. He can do all kinds of content on it. We're going wrap it up in less than 30 minutes. Easy. um But that's just like, it's just a game theory point view. agree. Like I saw the same thing on Dune. When I played Dune, you got to start at the scoop too.
01:21:36
Speaker
Yeah. right And that's supposed be a cinematic thing. Is there a game that you start a mode right when you plunge? Guardians. Guardians.
01:21:48
Speaker
Okay. and that And that game still does very
Game Design and Player Engagement
01:21:54
Speaker
well. Like it crushes on location. You have the sounds. Like I i had a Guardians on on route.
01:22:02
Speaker
And I love Guardians. That sucker made like double what it was. And this is after it came out too, right? I mean, we can, like, I still see people buying pros for $8,000, $9,000 if they can't find one. Like it's, and it's not even, it's not like we look at the, uh,
01:22:17
Speaker
We look at the art and we're just like, okay, you know, it's like, it's what it is. it's So that's not necessarily a big seller. Marvel, Marvel. Star Trek. Star Trek, you.
01:22:28
Speaker
Yeah. and the Star Trek, you do the same thing. I mean, it happens. It's there. and So my question. Okay. So Harry Potter, it's arguably one of the, it's probably like the biggest, it was, people have said it's the biggest thing.
01:22:42
Speaker
uh theme for pinball that hasn't already been made into a a pinball machine i think i think you could compare that to just star wars you like star wars the movie's biggest theme so star wars if ah if somebody steps up to stern star wars they're expecting to see movie right uh to qualify or to experience i know you select your character leah han whatever but and then you plunge and it goes straight to the left outline then you plunge again and you start to play, what is it that you have to do in Star Wars to start seeing parts of the movie, to start a mode? It's...
01:23:16
Speaker
Is it ramp ramp or what are you hitting? you got to just qualify planets. So you could either do or certain features like there's a Death Star shot. You hit that so many times to qualify that. Indoor at the left ramp, so many times to qualify that.
01:23:28
Speaker
Hoth, which is the horseshoe, you got hit that many times. You're going flail. And it has a scoop on it. And there's a scoop with Tatooine and nobody really aims after that at the very beginning. So imagine Star Wars if that you had to start the modes at that scoop instead.
01:23:44
Speaker
I agree, but I'm saying, do you feel that casual players just flailing around, hitting random shots, do you feel casual players get to experience Star Wars? Do they get to see the movie?
01:23:55
Speaker
No. and it's it sells It sells a lot on theme, but I've lost track how many people I've talked to that still have no clue how the multipliers work. They've never seen a planet mode, like a final thing. They've never seen that. Yeah, getting through three modes. I've talked to people that didn't even know hyperspace multiball was a thing.
01:24:12
Speaker
have They have no idea what it is. So this comes back to your, you need to design. We're giving passes to King Kong and Godzilla because if somebody steps up to Godzilla, they don't immediately assume I want to battle something.
01:24:26
Speaker
They don't assume that. They see building, they want to break building. king kong they step up to king kong they may not assume what i there's a movie mode right they've got to get to a movie mode they don't assume that but casual player steps up king kong might be difficult for a casual i'll admit that because there's you know you there's nothing that stands out on the pro outside of hitting lit shots to get your scene going right it's on the premium clearly the gong stands out the most and when we look at it it's very much like shot based design right with the ah sweeps and all that so i think for something like kong you do have to be like pretty much if you're a pinball player you're going to appreciate what kong is yes if you're not a pinball player it might be a little bit more difficult to make that connection yeah because of that what am going to experience but you're saying it when the ip is a movie basically
01:25:19
Speaker
Spoon feed that movie to the user as quickly as possible. Get that movie because that's what people want to experience. You're pulling the theme into pinball, right? You don't pull the pinball into the theme. So it's like people, people step up to a machine because they want to play pinball, but they also step up to a machine because they see the theme. They want to experience it. They want to feel like they're in it.
01:25:38
Speaker
And the way you get that is the totality of the package, the lights, the sounds, the shots, and just, you want them to experience that as fast as possible. Yeah. Take the barriers down as much as you can. And it's like that across the board. And I get it. There's different ways to do that.
01:25:53
Speaker
I won't argue that all day long because there's like Venom, for instance, right? Much different. You're doing XP. Good luck explaining that to a casual. Like they yeah i don't know. Eyes just glaze over after that. But I still think it's a cool thing if you fully understand pinball and you have it at home and you're getting your character going. And it's just kind of same thing with Dungeons and Dragons.
01:26:14
Speaker
I don't know any casuals that fully understand what's going on. in that game like it's not easy to understand all the rules because a lot of people it's like uh it's like drinking out a fire hose when you start getting rules and you're talking to people you're trying to teach people so and that's when you uh that's when you steer them to the uh flipping out youtube channel right to uh all you just send them the link right to it um i mean you might as well take take the glass off and see the hell are you talking about joel You'll love them. you' alone though they They'll teach you so many good things. glass-off tutorials.
01:26:51
Speaker
it's It just boils down to, you guys, it's just I think it's just game theory, design preference, and rules preference. And there's many ways to do this. Like Evil Dead. How do you do on Evil Dead? You've got to hit the ramps, right?
01:27:03
Speaker
nor in order to qualify a mode and then you guys hit underneath the ramp? Well, there's white shots and once you hit enough white shots and you hit underneath the ramp. right So it changes as the game goes on. But I mean, same. yeah and nobody And see, nobody complains about that. Nobody's saying modes are too hard to play on that. You know what I mean? Because everything is lit essentially. And then yes, the ramp pops up and it's a relatively easy shot. right There's just different there's different levels of accessibility. And something that may seem easy to us isn't as easy to somebody else. You can't always assume that.
01:27:35
Speaker
And that's what Jared, the reason he was, I mean, he stayed normally. So when we wrap up the stream, it's midnight. Sometimes he's like out and he just like, but he just leaves. um But ah he stayed, he he didn't leave till after one.
01:27:48
Speaker
Like, cause we were just talking, we were talking about the game and and it got into rules and game theory and all this stuff. And, and what he loves about Evil Dead was when you're in a mode, that is your focus. Everything on that screen, all the audio you're hearing, everything is that mode.
01:28:03
Speaker
and you're getting clips and audio and it's full screen and it's huge. And, um, you're in that mode. Sure. You can bring a multiball into that mode, but I don't necessarily think the multiball overpowers the mode.
01:28:15
Speaker
It's prioritizing the mode. So, um, he's loving it. That's what he, he loved. That's what he loved about evil dead, the experience that he had in evil dead. And I understand, you know,
01:28:26
Speaker
you talk to different people and some people would, they don't like evil, evil dead is they see design flaws in the layout or they're just like, I can't get over this and this and this, but that's what makes pinball fun, right? Everybody, everybody can like games for different reasons.
01:28:38
Speaker
Yep. You're not going to please everybody. No, but I definitely Tuesday night, I came away after playing that game for three hours and learning it and discovering it and starting to really appreciate the different aspects of it. I came away from it going, um I might have to own this game one day.
01:28:52
Speaker
because I know my wife loves it. But then I was surprised the very next day for Jared to be like, he wasn't in love with it the way I was, which is fine. But he's also not in love with it the way my wife is, because it's Harry Potter. He doesn't have that attachment to Harry Potter.
01:29:06
Speaker
So to him, it's like, that's a good game. And I'm excited to play it more. But I do think there are limitations right now in the way that the code is structured, that is keeping him from potentially enjoying it.
01:29:19
Speaker
deeper but and again i mean it could very well be isolated too i mean i do believe that they would move more units the more accessible it is the more people discover it down the line like once retail realizes this machine exists like a year two three years from now but the game is selling gangbusters right now i wanted to give you two yeah so pinball people are responding to it anyway so mission accomplished It's easy. I mean, I respect Tom because look at him. he's He's a respectful, honorable, amazing human being. It's easy. It's easy to love and respect Tom.
01:29:51
Speaker
Travis is a challenge. And but what I can do, Travis, is I do actually respect your takes from a marketing and sales perspective, because this is actually what you do and think about all day, every day.
01:30:04
Speaker
Um, there has been some criticism with Harry Potter and the marketing campaign, the rollout campaign that was Harry Potter. At the same time, I've heard from a lot of distributors. This is the best selling game they've had since like Jaws. It's selling amazingly well.
01:30:19
Speaker
So you, I'm not going to say marketing expert because that's dumb. You with the experience that you have and the job that you do on a daily basis, what are your overall thoughts on the marketing rollout or the overall sales of this game?
01:30:34
Speaker
It's perfectly fine. Like it's, I mean, that it's doing what it's doing. I think a lot of people in pinball content, and I'm trying to say this delicately without hurting some feelings, but You only know what you know. And unless you're inside the industry and you're seeing the actual numbers, you're understanding how these games are truly manufactured, how the shipping goes, how the insurance goes, how everything goes to make this whole machine go the direction you want it to go. It's very easy to sit by second guess, wonder why didn't somebody do this? Why didn't somebody do that?
01:31:09
Speaker
Like we talked about it. think Stern kind of laughed about it during in Kong when it's like, people are like, why didn't you include the Empire State Building? like, oh, yeah, we didn't think about that. Why why do we totally forget about that? yeah So there's just there's lots of parts to this. But I think a lot of people, when they think of marketing and pinball, I think we miss the boat entirely because it's not about marketing one product.
01:31:31
Speaker
I truly believe it's about pushing a brand. Because the product only has so much shelf life and these companies are producing multiple products. It's not just one pinball machine and that's it.
01:31:44
Speaker
There's merchandise, there's accessories, there's updates that they push out. They push it to locations. They go to expos. Like it's not just the single product itself.
01:31:55
Speaker
And even then you have other products that come. So. I mean, just the true flow of things. And I hope people, if anything, they get out of this, that they understand that the true flow of how these machines go, you don't reach the retail people.
01:32:10
Speaker
on day one right like you remember we talked about john wick right we didn't and i caught all kinds of flack about that but it was the truth we did not sell an l le on day one but guess what we made the adjustments we knew what we had to do because we knew what our target market was what our avatar looked like and how to get that to them and we ended up selling all of them anyways So I think people just miss the boat that they think, okay, these games have to just fly off the shelf or it's not a success, or they have to reach retail immediately day one within three hours of announcement, or it's a failure. It's like products have a lifetime.
01:32:49
Speaker
of them. It takes a while to get, to get noticed and get out there. And I think anybody that's on social, you could look at it, play out on there. You go to YouTube. What happens when you find a random YouTube video with millions of views that you never even seen before, right?
01:33:03
Speaker
We've all done that. You click on it, you look at their channel and you're like, holy shit, they've been around for 10 years and they have 5 million subscribers. Never heard of them until now. It's, yeah it's like that you have to reach people over time. And I think when I look at how, um, Jersey Jack did it,
01:33:19
Speaker
Yeah, sure. Their rollout, it was clunky as all hell. Like we were all confused by it, right? They kind of announced it at TPF. I think we even had a podcast right afterwards, right? Where we're kind of just yeah like, what's going on?
01:33:31
Speaker
Yeah. So there was that. But, you know, I think at the end of the day, for pinball manufacturers, it's very, very easy to get noticed by the pinball enthusiasts.
01:33:43
Speaker
Because you just put something on socials, content creators roll with it. They disseminate it You see it on pin side, it gets on Facebook. It spreads like wildfire. That's the easy part, right? The hard part is reaching retail because then that just takes time. It's a press release won't just do that.
01:34:00
Speaker
There's just, there's just no way that it will. But you know, that's, I think people need to understand how important it is though, to reach the pinball enthusiasts and crush it those first 30 because they're, we're the biggest cheerleaders, right? Like yeah we're the ones rating the game, talking about online.
01:34:19
Speaker
So you get six months down the line, somebody is just now discovering the game. They look it up and they see just post after post after post, just shitting on the game. Like why would they want to bother getting it?
01:34:30
Speaker
They're going to like social proof is just so powerful. I think that's really where it's at. It's not marketing the product. It's marketing the social proof of something because we are all, we're, we're all little apes on this rock. Right. And we, and we go towards what looks popular. What every other ape is looking at. We're like, okay, what what is he looking at? I want to see it.
01:34:52
Speaker
Like that's evil dead prime example. Right. Like, sp like, think about like spooky has done so well developing their brand. That should be a case study. It is amazing. They start out with a podcast, right?
01:35:06
Speaker
And you look at their first game that they came out with. What was it like roughly 10 years ago or so at this point? And you see where they're at today with Evil Dead that people are feeling like this is a game that can compete with everybody else.
01:35:20
Speaker
Like to me, it's, it's clear you build brands. You don't worry about marketing products. You worry about marketing brands. And that's why, like, why do you think Stern calls themselves a lifestyle brand?
01:35:31
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Like that's how it works.
Pinball Marketing Strategies
01:35:34
Speaker
I think, I think all that makes sense. I think it's sure. It's easy to, to nitpick or question, you know, well, okay. The one thing we can't, we can't question is,
01:35:45
Speaker
or can't deny is it's selling really well. It's going, it's so not just selling really well. It's selling it's so really well. Yeah. I'm never going to get my Harry Potter. If we were to scrutinize, well, if they would have done this, they would sell more.
01:36:01
Speaker
Sure. Maybe. But right now, It's going just fine. Like it's going just fine because my bigger question is, ah it's what Tom just said. I'm never going to get one. Like Eric had mentioned in the loser kid podcast, apparently the way their stations are set up, it's right now they have one person doing two stations or one person doing three.
01:36:18
Speaker
So to scale up, they just hire more people so that each person has their own dedicated station. And then that will increase throughput. Awesome. I have no idea. how if they're prepared to match the throughput needed for the orders coming in right now. I mean, they, I think they're being flooded with orders, which is a good problem, but we'll have to, you know, this'll be a, we'll have to wait and see whether or not six months down the road, they've, they're close to fulfilling those orders or if they're way behind. Yeah. don't know And I mean, and, and there is other ways to market your brand out there.
01:36:52
Speaker
That's unseen, right? Because if, if the pinball enthusiast sees your marketing, You've effed it up. Like, because they they already Yeah, don't need the Facebook reel.
01:37:03
Speaker
Right. They already know you exist. Like, why are you spending dollars on your brand for people that know you exist when you already have it organic with all the content creators, everybody else? You're wasting your money.
01:37:15
Speaker
They could purposely be holding back in a way where, you know, let's get the games. Let's make sure we get all the issues out. If there's any, let's get them out to people. Let's get people pumped about it. Let's get it to number three on Pinside. Well, what I'm getting at then start pushing external marketing. Number three? Well, Jersey, Jersey Jack's already done external marketing.
01:37:32
Speaker
You can, like a lot of people don't realize this you, anybody, and I'm not going to say how, but anybody can look up Facebook ads and figure out what's going on, where it's targeted to where it's going. right Jersey Jack has like 18 to 20 of them running since March or February, sometime around there. I haven't looked recently. It's been a couple of weeks, but those are all things we got to pay attention to.
01:37:54
Speaker
So it's not like sometimes you might see those ads. I'm sure all three of us did, but then there's a lot of them out there that like, okay, I've never seen that one. I wonder who that's geared toward. I wonder who's actually seeing that because it's active.
01:38:07
Speaker
So it's actually being used being paid for. And that's, that's the key. It's like, if If we already know people listen to Triple Drain, why do we want to be like, hey, you guys be the only one to see this advertisement for Triple Drain?
01:38:19
Speaker
Like, they're like, okay, you three bozos, already listened. Like, why do I need to, you know, yeah like, you got to reach other people. If you're listening to this podcast, you've never seen a Triple Drain ad because we're really good with our marketing. We're not going to we're not goingnna aim towards you. now ah Maybe we don't have any ads, but still. Travis said we did.
01:38:36
Speaker
Yeah. fact no it's just ah It's just different strategies, right? Because you got your organic, you got your branding, you want to make sure that you're respectful to everybody that's the fandom that just loves pinball or might love your brand or love the IP that you're playing like or that you're building. So there's a lot of layers to this.
01:38:55
Speaker
And I mean, it is interesting. But yeah, I think... If it were me and I'm building a pinball manufacturer today, i'm never like, of course I want good themes, but I'm never worried about advertising that theme.
01:39:08
Speaker
I'm more worried about how do I convince people that my brand is good? What associations do I want them to draw about my brand? Because my brand is going to outlast the production of any one model.
01:39:22
Speaker
Like it can't be just all about, we're just all about like Harry Potter. We're just all about Godzilla. We're just all about evil dead. Like it has to be about the manufacturers. Well, let's just hope that you're never the face of a brand.
01:39:34
Speaker
And then there'll I already am, though. Thank you ah So to wrap it all up... um Tom's going to play Harry Potter.
01:39:47
Speaker
ah Tom's going to go play Harry Potter. He's probably going to stream Harry Potter. Today, Tom? I'm going to play it today. I don't know if I'll stream it today, but I'm going to definitely play it today. I'm excited for you to play because maybe he'll come back and be like, you guys are all wrong. This game's incredible.
01:40:00
Speaker
Or he may. I'll be like, I shot the scoop 50 times. I don't know what your problem is. I canceled my wizard order and I got a CE. You know, that'll be time. That's what I'm afraid of. ah Well, I mean, they're unlimited, right? I think. That's true.
01:40:15
Speaker
They're limited, unlimited. I don't i don't know. it's it It's a beautiful game. Well, the bottom line is I think all three of us can agree regardless of like us analyzing it, being like, okay, what about this? What about that? Only JJP knows why they did what
Evaluating Game Design and Updates
01:40:29
Speaker
they did. i think all three of us can agree. It looks fun.
01:40:32
Speaker
I'm sure Joel's already played it. So he knows if it's fun or not. And i'm in I'm interested to play it. I didn't watch Joel's stream and be like, okay, I don't need to play that game. And there's been tons of games I've seen out there. i'm like, okay, i don't care. I'm waiting for Harry Potter to be around so I could go play it.
01:40:45
Speaker
I will tell you, so you know it's it's awesome. where i'm very for Jared and I have a blast streaming these games, and the fact that people are turning out and the numbers are turning out now to watch them live, it's awesome.
01:40:58
Speaker
I'm never nervous about that. I'm never nervous about... you know, if there's like the other night, there are 500 something people watching have 500 people. Somebody watch me play. That doesn't make me nervous. What makes me nervous is the day after when I get a message in our Facebook group and from freaking Travis going, and all right, time to watch Joel's stream because I know he's, he's not watching it to like, Oh, let's laugh and have a good time. He's watching it to like scrutinize it. Like, and, and, and learn, like what's going on here. What's going on here.
01:41:27
Speaker
Wow. You know, Jesus, I get that all the time. He's like, You know, you started aiming for the scoop at 1307 and it wasn't until 1608 that you hit it.
01:41:37
Speaker
What happened? You know, like that's one of those, I'm just getting these messages and it's like, yeah. i honestly, yeah Joel, I will say this. I will say this again. This goes back to and to like if Tom, if I was the CEO and Tom was co-CEO of our new pinball company, ah our first mandate would be anybody that ever designs games for us it just does anything, they watch your gameplay.
01:42:01
Speaker
And the reason why I, no, I promise you, the reason why i say this is because you are above average overall compared to everybody. But you're obviously not elite, which is fine. I'm not elite. Tom's not elite. Those are like the top 10. Like those are like the Eshers and everybody else that just have like,
01:42:21
Speaker
S tier God blood running through their veins when they flip like Zoll or somebody or Johannes. yeah But what I'm saying is, is that when I, I'm most excited to see you play and see how you react to these things, because it gives a baseline for what the majority of people are going to do on the game.
01:42:38
Speaker
It's going to give you an idea of what the majority of people will go after. And I think that's just invaluable insight. that is readily available for everybody five years from now or five years ago, probably not as widely available. 10 years ago, definitely not available.
01:42:55
Speaker
So today seeing that, like, I think that's a good thing. And that's why I always like watching your game play to see it. Cause I know if I want to watch somebody that might approach it a little bit different in terms of maybe looking at scoring, like I'll watch Tom or I'll watch like a tournament game or I'll watch Carl play cause Carl does that.
01:43:13
Speaker
But when I see somebody just trying to experience the game, trying to progress through the game, that is the majority of people. The majority of people just try to stay alive and just see progression. So I'm always curious about that because I want to see those things yeah happen because they're happening. Yeah, go ahead, Tom. And you want to see the joy on and Joel and Jared's face as they play a game.
01:43:35
Speaker
absolutely like i get i gave joel shit i gave joel shit for thinking he completed the ron targets when he didn't but you know what damn it he was happy about it uh you know that's all that matters right yeah yeah no it's yeah it's fun we have a we have a ton of fun so um thank you but uh yeah we should probably wrap it up uh tom's gotta go tom's gotta go play some harry potter um But yeah, I, what movie are you going to play first, Tom? Sorry. I got to ask him, Joel. I don't know. As soon as I hit the scoop, probably Goblet of Fire. i think that was my, is that the fourth one? Yes.
01:44:09
Speaker
yeah That was, that was my favorite movie. So yeah. i was Was it the goblet? The fire? Was it the fire? so the fire one yeah he um he He lights every drink that he drinks on fire.
01:44:23
Speaker
That's just the world that Tom lives in. um And it's all goblets. He only drinks out of goblets. He's like, I can identify with this movie. he yes I'll have a water, but in this. thing This is what Octoberfest should have been. My God.
01:44:41
Speaker
Um, what I will say, if, if any listener has a Harry Potter on order, I ah like, I think you will enjoy this game. I think you will enjoy this game. I'm excited for you to get the game. I'm not trying to, you know, sway your, your buying, uh, thoughts. It's just, I, I, I'm really enjoying what's here, but it is 0.7, whatever. And, and, um,
01:45:01
Speaker
there's a ton of time for them to tweak and adjust and make it more whatever they want and and add this. So i think I think feedback, constructive criticism is valuable. i you know I hope JJP's listening to this. And um if if you have more questions, call Tom because he's going to play it in a few hours and and tom Tom knows best.
01:45:19
Speaker
um So yeah, let's plug it up. We'll start with you, Tom. Go for it. I am Tom. I run Fox Cities Pinball and Triple Drain, sort of. Goodbye.
01:45:31
Speaker
Nice. Fox Cities Pinball. Check his stuff out on Silverall Swag if you want merch or Fox Cities on YouTube and Twitch. ah Travis, plug away. Nice.
01:45:41
Speaker
Well, you can find me here as the face of the triple drain pinball podcast. And then I'm also part of the pinball company. We do some content there, but we recently just shifted over branding to pinball.com. So you'll see me do pinball.com stuff, going to expos under that banner and all that. So that's singular, right? Pinball.com. Pinball.com.
01:46:03
Speaker
Just P-I-N-B-A-L-L period C-O-M. just that's awesome i n e a l l period c o um You practiced that, didn't you? i I, did I nail it? I hope I did. I've been looking in the mirror and doing that a lot. res Make sure.
01:46:18
Speaker
um no. And then, um, I'm Joel. I do the flipping out pinball stream every Wednesday night with my brother, Jared on the flipping out YouTube channel. also do tutorials. Um, there's a King Kong tutorial up there. And then I just filmed a Simpsons tutorial, which will hopefully be up soon.
01:46:33
Speaker
And then I'll be filming a Harry Potter tutorial before this goes. so Um, so those are a ton of fun and, um, yeah, thank you. Uh, thank you so much to the Patreon supporters we have. You can check us out on Patreon.
01:46:45
Speaker
I know we don't do a ton. Like we don't pay. It's not like the patron people get all these exclusives or anything. And that's the thing that I'm, I'm very, I'm very grateful you guys. Cause you support us, even though, you know, we've really only been recording monthly, but that financial support has been awesome.
01:47:00
Speaker
Uh, we just had pay for Zencastr the other day and, um, it's just, it's nice to, to, to support the podcast. So you for More for Tom and more, uh, rims for Joel's golf carts. And silver ball swag. There's people keep buying the merch, which is awesome.
01:47:13
Speaker
Um, so thank you for all the people that support us here as well. So, um, yeah, this was fun. And, uh, like always, Tom, you get the last words. Go find a Harry Potter, play it, cherish it.