Transcript
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
Speaker: This is episode 49.
Speaker: With me, my co-captain as always.
Speaker: Scott Larson.
Speaker: And Scott, let's talk about our friends really quick and then let's introduce our guest.
Speaker: Okay, so friends of the show, first and foremost, if you're looking for that new pinball machine or anything to accessorize your game room, please contact Zach and Nicole at Flippin' Out Pinball.
Speaker: Always useful to help out.
Speaker: Secondly, also, if you want to check out Rate A Pinball, he'll be able to give you all the tips on the machines and teach you how you're supposed to be playing as opposed to you flailing around like I do.
Speaker: Also, this week in pinball, please check out Jeff Patterson's site.
Speaker: He goes through all of the information and summarizes it into five quick talking points.
Speaker: Also, check out my friend's blog, The Pinball Loft.
Speaker: It just has his review of the Avengers.
Speaker: He has a lot of fun tidbits of information.
Speaker: Also, pin shades.
Speaker: If you want to be able to play on location without those annoying glaring lights, go ahead and pick out the pin shades.
Speaker: There's also a Black Friday code.
Speaker: I'm sure it's still active.
Speaker: It's a loser kid.
Speaker: Is it pinball?
Speaker: BF.
Speaker: It's BF.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Check out the Black Friday sale, Loser Kid BF.
Speaker: Also, Brian Allen, if you're looking for the alternative trans lights for classic Williams Valley games, check it out.
Speaker: I have the Medieval Madness one in my game, and it's a lot of fun just to swap it out.
Speaker: Just mix it up a little bit.
Speaker: Also, check out Lit Frames if you want that trans light to be illuminated and you don't have the game.
Speaker: Go ahead and check out Bradl at Frames.
Speaker: He'll be able to hook you up.
Speaker: Also, another website to check out, Pinball Supernova.
Speaker: If you just want to check out alternative stuff that is out there, please check out his site, too.
Speaker: And Josh.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: Who do we have today?
Speaker: Sorry, when you said alternative stuff, he's talking about pinball.
Speaker: He's not talking about like... Oh, okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Get your fetish off kind of thing.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: I didn't even realize you were going to go there.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Let's... Okay.
Speaker: Alternative music?
Speaker: Like 90s alternative music?
Speaker: Is that what you're thinking of?
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: You're thinking of whips and change.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, our guest...
Speaker: It is always an honor to have him on.
Speaker: You know, this man has been on.
Speaker: This is his third time.
Speaker: We couldn't think of anyone better than to have Mr. Goatzilla himself, Keith Elwin.
Speaker: How are you doing, Keith?
Speaker: Hello.
Speaker: Nice to be back.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, we're excited to have you back on.
Speaker: We heard that, you know, you're adding more Christmas songs or something into Iron Maiden.
Speaker: Like...
Speaker: What's going on there?
Speaker: Well, there is a twist that's just a Christmas album.
Speaker: So I think there's going to be an Iron Maiden Christmas album coming out and you can just throw those in.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Eddie sings Christmas carols.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That would be awesome.
Speaker: But in all seriousness, we know that you threw up Eddie up on your Facebook and whatnot, and everyone's been hounding you about more songs in the game.
Speaker: Are you putting some more songs in that game?
Speaker: uh unless somebody wants to pay for them uh no the game's coming to the end of its life cycle so that doesn't make too much sense but uh we do have a pretty big update which should be out which will definitely be out in 2020 you're not going to go like guitar hero rock band style where you could you know pay 99 cents for more songs and whatnot inside your game huh
Speaker: Oh, people want to pay me, sure, but I can't help them there.
Speaker: Now, in this new update, you get to play as the Beast, right?
Speaker: And you get to attack Eddie.
Speaker: You attack Eddie, yeah.
Speaker: You reverse Soul Shards.
Speaker: Wow, God, I haven't played the game in a long time, so it's really... I'm trying to remember.
Speaker: All the games are a blur now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, when you have all the games of the year in your optional, it's pretty hard to keep them all straight.
Speaker: Well, they're working you like a dog down there, too.
Speaker: It's like one game a year.
Speaker: And man, like we didn't expect another game from you this year.
Speaker: All of a sudden, bam, here's Avengers.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's tough.
Speaker: It's tough.
Speaker: It's tough being one of the go-to designers, right?
Speaker: I mean, I love being busy.
Speaker: I love working.
Speaker: So I'm not complaining.
Speaker: OK, actually, I do love having you on because I actually started taking notes on the Avengers.
Speaker: I've been playing it nonstop since I've got it.
Speaker: Actually, my other games are staring at me, just kind of wondering when I'm going to turn them on.
Speaker: But I've just been playing that nonstop.
Speaker: And I do have some some follow up questions about the different modes.
Speaker: And so we want to get to those, too.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: Didn't Raymond answer any questions?
Speaker: Well, he answered some, but, you know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was interesting when he came on board, because I had already written a rule set.
Speaker: And so when he first started, he just made them verbatim as I made them.
Speaker: But then kind of towards the end of the project, I was like, no, I thought that sucked, so I changed it.
Speaker: It was actually pretty fun having someone to go back and forth debating rules with.
Speaker: And yeah, it's pretty fun working on the rules with him.
Speaker: Well, it has to be pretty amazing actually at Stern because it's not like you're the only high level pinball player.
Speaker: There are other people that you can say, hey, what do you think about this?
Speaker: And they're like, yeah, maybe, maybe not do this.
Speaker: Yeah, that was definitely easier pre-COVID.
Speaker: Now, if they don't have the game at home, you get no feedback.
Speaker: So it was real, real nice when Raymond came on, got his play field and I got his feedback on stuff.
Speaker: So, so do you and Raymond fight over, he gets to have their initials on the, uh, like unattainable final mode in the games.
Speaker: Cause I noticed on Ninja turtles, KME is the Cowabunga initials.
Speaker: So do you have like a game off and see who, who gets there first and then you get to put your initials in?
Speaker: No, I think usually, uh, Ricky is, he just, uh, drags and drops whatever's from the previous game.
Speaker: And I think Ray added a bunch of his Northwest buddies, but, uh,
Speaker: Yeah, we're trying to mix it up a little bit.
Speaker: We gave Zombie Yeti the default grand champion because he's such a special guy.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And yeah, I think Ray added a bunch of his friends.
Speaker: I didn't have much input in this game for that.
Speaker: I just let them put whatever they want.
Speaker: Oh, gotcha.
Speaker: Yeah, I just saw KME as my cowabunga champ.
Speaker: I'm like, is it just default now?
Speaker: Everyone just assumes Keith's going to be the only one that gets a cowabunga.
Speaker: So just put his initials there first.
Speaker: Yeah, Dwight seems to be doing that for me.
Speaker: So that's a little shout out, I guess.
Speaker: But thanks, Dwight.
Speaker: Hey, well, Dwight gave us a flipper code so you can actually see us on Turtles.
Speaker: So that was a lot of fun.
Speaker: Ooh, neat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hey.
Speaker: Okay, so to start off, we said the Iron Maiden code is coming out.
Speaker: You said it's a major update.
Speaker: It's been out for, you know, it's been out for what, three years now?
Speaker: Two and a half?
Speaker: 2018?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so we're coming up on three years.
Speaker: What was the big impetus to do a major code update for that?
Speaker: I mean, it's not a major, major update, but there are a lot of little tweaks and changes.
Speaker: Basically, when the DJ Mixer thing came out, they said, hey, you have to update Iron Maiden.
Speaker: And
Speaker: When Rick was working on Iron Maiden, Jurassic Park dropped in our lap and we had just kind of cut it off where we're at to get to Jurassic.
Speaker: And then when we're done Jurassic, then Avengers drops in our lap.
Speaker: And so it looked like nothing was ever going to get done on our big list of stuff to do.
Speaker: And then when Raymond got hired,
Speaker: They wanted to get his feet wet, working on some stuff.
Speaker: So we actually handed that to him for a few weeks so he can learn our system, our code, what we do.
Speaker: So he implemented a good chunk of the changes we had made.
Speaker: But now we have just a few more to do and then hopefully test this up and get it out.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: So when you say end of life, though, does that mean you're going to be wrapping up production on it here soon?
Speaker: They're not going to be making any more Iron Maidens?
Speaker: Or is it just kind of like the code's kind of almost as complete as we can get it, and so it's just going to be kind of the last update for the foreseeable future kind of thing?
Speaker: Yeah, I would say barring any glaring bugs, this will be the last update.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It doesn't make sense for us to spend a bunch of time on a game that's three years old.
Speaker: So a lot of this stuff was stuff that's been on the list for a while that we've wanted to get in there since before 1.0, but now's our chance.
Speaker: It's been pretty amazing what you guys have done there at Stern over the last three and four years.
Speaker: Really, it seemed like the code was lagging on a lot of these games, but it really seems like a huge push for you guys to be able to get the code updated, get it out fast.
Speaker: And most of the games seem to be...
Speaker: at least fairly complete when they come out.
Speaker: I mean, even Avengers came out in a 0.91 or 92.
Speaker: And so it feels like in the old day, the old days seem to be a distant past where you would release a game and it would be on like 0.41 code or something like that.
Speaker: So it flipped and it was an expensive box of lights.
Speaker: But now it seems like you're getting a really good feel of the game.
Speaker: I'm really impressed with what you guys have been able to do at Stern.
Speaker: Well, thanks.
Speaker: Yeah, we've definitely gotten better.
Speaker: And my design team, myself, Rick Nagel, I think Rick's a great programmer.
Speaker: He's very fast.
Speaker: And the fact that I'm doing all the rules and scoring changes, I do know that in my head.
Speaker: Rick just has to go in, figure out how to implement it and do that rather than getting bogged down on rules himself.
Speaker: So I think that's a big help to push forward.
Speaker: Sorry, I muted my mic there for a second because the laundry was going.
Speaker: Hey, I've done like 10 loads of laundry today, too.
Speaker: Well, it is laundry day, which is the next game that's going to be released by Keith Elwin, right?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Is that game number four or game number five?
Speaker: Yeah, I'm thinking maybe game six.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: We'll just keep pushing it off.
Speaker: Okay, so I want to talk about Avengers.
Speaker: So one thing we were mentioning before is there is a big difference between the Pro and the Premium slash LE.
Speaker: And the obvious visual cue is the Captain Marvel ramp.
Speaker: And so I want to talk about the differences between the Pro and the Premium LE and how the Captain Marvel ramp changes the gameplay.
Speaker: And if you have any tips about maintaining that ramp.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Ramp maintenance.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: We're getting to the nitty gritty now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's funny when I was designing Avengers, I had this two ramps way in the back, really steep.
Speaker: I remember George came over and said, oh, those ramps are never going to work.
Speaker: Those are way too steep.
Speaker: And then Ray Tanzer.
Speaker: who works at Stern, who designed Stargate, looked at it and says, oh, it's just like the Stargate ramp.
Speaker: As long as they're metal, they'll work fine.
Speaker: And so we put those in there.
Speaker: We shot them.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, they work fine.
Speaker: And so I was like, man, that kind of inspired me.
Speaker: I just want to make the steepest ramp possible, but have it fun.
Speaker: So that's the Marvel ramp that kind of came about.
Speaker: experimented with a couple of different ideas of what it would actually do.
Speaker: Um, one interpretation was a kind of a sideways helix that went back behind the, uh, the ramp entrance to the right.
Speaker: But my engineer just had laughed at me and said, no, we can do this.
Speaker: So, uh, we did that.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And then when the bill came in for that ramp, we were amazed how much it costs.
Speaker: And it was like, wow, there's no way this can go on a pro.
Speaker: So I had very little space to work with there to put something else in.
Speaker: So I was like, well, yeah, I'll just put a stand-up target here.
Speaker: And so I drilled a hole in the play field, put a target.
Speaker: First time I shot it, went straight down the middle.
Speaker: I was like, oh, this isn't going to work.
Speaker: So I kind of racked my brain a little bit.
Speaker: And it's like, how can I slow the ball down and just come like a little U-turn?
Speaker: So I put a spinner there and a spring gate.
Speaker: The only purpose of that spring gate is to slow the ball down because the ball's never going to come back through the other way.
Speaker: So I didn't blow out the side ball guide there.
Speaker: And this is all 11th hour.
Speaker: Didn't really get the chance to shoot it until we had...
Speaker: basically two days to say, hey, is this going to work or not?
Speaker: So we got it all together, made the modification, shot it, and it was like, oh, this actually shoots pretty good.
Speaker: So I was relieved, and we didn't have to make any changes.
Speaker: So yeah, that's a big difference between the Pro and LE.
Speaker: As far as maintenance, if you keep the ramp clean, it should work fine.
Speaker: It is very steep, so if you kind of rattle the entrance at all, it's going to be tough going.
Speaker: but if you make a nice smooth entrance shot, it should be good.
Speaker: I use, back when I had a game at my house, I use turtle wax to keep it nice and clean and flowing fast.
Speaker: And yeah, if you're having any kind of issues, make sure the wire and the ramp entrance are nice and flush.
Speaker: Sometimes the wire farm kind of starts moving forward, then you
Speaker: getting out of smooth transition and then it gets a little clunky at the top.
Speaker: So that's something to look out for.
Speaker: There's a nut on the back of that wire form.
Speaker: Just make sure that's tight and tight, waxed clean.
Speaker: It should be fine.
Speaker: So the one thing I want to point out with Avengers and in really it's with all of your games and I just don't know how you do this game after game after game, but it seems like you have the expert in mind along with the beginner because it rewards.
Speaker: I mean, take a power gem, for example, you know.
Speaker: If you shoot the Hulk spinner, the easiest shot is worth small points, but it seems like if you go for the big hard shots, you get three times the point value.
Speaker: Is this something you've always tried to incorporate in your games?
Speaker: Is this something you're actively like, I don't want to leave the beginners out versus the experts?
Speaker: Is this just something you're trying to obtain across all games?
Speaker: So I know there are two different types of pinball players.
Speaker: Those that play for score and those who play for story.
Speaker: So I approached this game with, okay, I'm going to make it super easy to advance the story.
Speaker: You can get through the game.
Speaker: You can get into your quests.
Speaker: They're not going to be, you know, obviously the quests aren't easy to win, but they're easy to get to.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You know, Thor is easy.
Speaker: You know, I put all this early stuff to advance the game.
Speaker: So, you know, the casual player can see a bunch of different stuff.
Speaker: But yeah, if you're actually scoring points, you might approach it completely differently.
Speaker: Like if you watch Carl's streams, he actively avoids getting multiballs so he can set up some huge, you know, stacked combo.
Speaker: And that's how I approached the game.
Speaker: And I hope it worked.
Speaker: Oh, it does.
Speaker: And like I said, each game, there's just little nuances that I love at each game.
Speaker: Like the spinner in Jurassic Park is fantastic.
Speaker: Not only the sound and the spin, but the shooting each ramp, which lights all your values at the spinner, and then getting super spinner and just hitting that guy is fantastic.
Speaker: Like just these little things.
Speaker: And like you said, like...
Speaker: You know, if you're just looking for the story and whatnot, you can kind of advance.
Speaker: I know it's Avengers a little easier to advance than maybe Jurassic Park, but it's just awesome.
Speaker: My son is addicted to this Jurassic Park game.
Speaker: Like I texted you, his favorite game of all time was Congo and we've had Jurassic Park here.
Speaker: And now he's like, dad, this easily beats Congo.
Speaker: And I haven't been able to get him off of Congo for, well, since we owned it three years ago.
Speaker: So you're doing something special.
Speaker: You're doing something right.
Speaker: I love Congo.
Speaker: Any chance you can change the pop-up bumper sounds to saying hippos?
Speaker: Hippos!
Speaker: Hippos!
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Getting back to the power gem, there's actually two things I want to say about that.
Speaker: One...
Speaker: So when you qualify the gamma ray shot, I don't think anything makes my heart pound faster than trying to actually get that shot.
Speaker: I can hit it all the time in the game.
Speaker: But as soon as I hear that gamma ray shot for the spinner just cranking up, I cannot hit that to save my life.
Speaker: It is actually the most stress-inducing shot that I have.
Speaker: Go ahead.
Speaker: No, no, go ahead.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: Every time it's like, I can hit this before.
Speaker: How can I not hit it now?
Speaker: So originally, I wrote up the rule as Hulk Rage.
Speaker: And there was no sound.
Speaker: There was just some text on the screen.
Speaker: It's just your basic super spinner.
Speaker: Each shot scores points and then boosts the value.
Speaker: That's how Raymond implemented it.
Speaker: He did a build.
Speaker: I shot it.
Speaker: And I was like, wow, this is super boring.
Speaker: So I went back to the drawing board.
Speaker: And I was looking through, you know, what assets we had for Dr. Banner, which were basically his eyes.
Speaker: What can I do with this?
Speaker: I was like, Hmm, I think I'm going to channel a little bit from the 80s TV show and have an actual gamma ray incident.
Speaker: And so I went to the archives, what can you do with this very small picture of his eyes?
Speaker: And, well, yeah, we can just put, you know, put these gamma ray things looking down as like,
Speaker: And, uh, they did a quick mock-up and I was like, yeah, very cool.
Speaker: Now I need a sound.
Speaker: So yeah, kick it over to Jerry Thompson and he's sent me a couple of different things.
Speaker: And I was like, it doesn't really grab me.
Speaker: And then I remembered that Jerry gave us the sound for Jurassic park that we ended up never using because it was like 15 seconds long.
Speaker: And I was like, Hey Jerry, do you remember this?
Speaker: He's like, no.
Speaker: And that's, so I asked Rick, do you remember that sound that we both liked, but couldn't find a place for Jurassic?
Speaker: And then he, uh,
Speaker: A couple hours later, he found it, sent it over.
Speaker: I was like, yes, yes, this sound.
Speaker: So I sent that to Jared, and he's like, oh, I don't remember doing this.
Speaker: Yeah, we tried it in the game.
Speaker: He's like, yep, we have our sound effect.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a cardiac stress test.
Speaker: I mean, it's just if you ever wonder if you are having a heart attack, just go ahead and play that and try to trap up and shoot that shot.
Speaker: Oh, the thing is now because the reality gem now goes up to 5x.
Speaker: So if you have a 5x on Hulk and you start Gamma Rite, you just have so much pressure to hit that spinner because you know you're probably going to get at least 30 to 50 million on a good shot.
Speaker: I love that you went with like the gamma ray because you only had Bruce Banner's eyes.
Speaker: It was like, can we do this or like romantic evening, like stare into Hulk's eyes as long as you can kind of thing, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like I said, originally it was just Hulk standing.
Speaker: There were some texts.
Speaker: I was like, wow, this is, this is super lame.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it works, though.
Speaker: That Gamma shot, like Scott said, it's absolutely fantastic.
Speaker: And if you hit it once, you feel like King Kong.
Speaker: And then you h it it twice, and you're like, I own this game.
Speaker: And then you watch Keith on stream on the first day they're streaming it, and you hit it like three times in a row.
Speaker: I saw that last time I've done that, too.
Speaker: It was like, ugh.
Speaker: Most of the times you hit it a second time, it's horizontal, and it goes right through.
Speaker: And you're like, ugh!
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I do want to talk about the power gem though, is that, um, because when you do it, you have the three illuminated shots on the right and you have the, uh,
Speaker: What are you guys calling that avocado ramp, the banana ramp, the potbelly ramp?
Speaker: Yeah, the potbelly ramp.
Speaker: Okay, so you have that and you also have the Captain Marvel shot and then you have the Panther shot.
Speaker: But they're all blinking at different rates.
Speaker: Is that because the Captain Marvel shot is worth more because you're shooting that?
Speaker: Because I've always wondered that because I've never been able to figure out why the flashing lights are flashing at different rates.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We have critical blows and glancing blows.
Speaker: The critical shot is worth three times as much as the other two.
Speaker: And the spinner builds the value.
Speaker: A one-time shot through the spinner will build the value until it stops spinning.
Speaker: And then you have to shoot one of the other shots to relight the spinner to build value.
Speaker: Originally, that mode sucked because I had it... So...
Speaker: Critical shot would do a certain amount of damage, and the glancing blows would do not as much damage, so that mode would take forever to beat.
Speaker: And after playing it for a while, I got with Raymond, it's like, yeah, I misjudged how fun this is going to be.
Speaker: Let's make it real short and sweet.
Speaker: Three, four rounds of shots, I want it to be done, but have a big point boost if you shoot the middle shot.
Speaker: So yeah, I think it worked out.
Speaker: It is one of my favorite modes.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: I was going to say it's one of my favorite too.
Speaker: Like I, I gravitate towards that mode.
Speaker: It's just a really fun mode.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The ones that are, are hard.
Speaker: I, there are a few that are actually pretty hard.
Speaker: So, uh, the, uh, the mind gem.
Speaker: And so when you're actually, so I, I do have this question when it says, you know, like the Panthers under mind control.
Speaker: So you're shooting the disc to break that.
Speaker: and then you shoot the Panther shot.
Speaker: Did I understand that correctly?
Speaker: No, you're backwards.
Speaker: So there's three phases.
Speaker: For each round, one of the Avengers is being controlled by Supergiant, and that's the one that blinks faster, and the callout will say, you know, Panther.
Speaker: There's four shots.
Speaker: You can shoot any one of those shots that light the disc to break the mind control.
Speaker: But if you don't shoot the Avenger that calls out,
Speaker: you have to shoot the Sanctum in order to finishing blow.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: So for all three rounds, if you shoot the affected Avenger before shooting the disc, you get to skip the final blow to the Sanctum, which can be a bear, as you know.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's hard.
Speaker: Yeah, so whoever says it's infected with a faster blink rate, you definitely want to shoot them before spinning the disc.
Speaker: But if not, you can still beat the Moe.
Speaker: You just have to shoot the final blow of the Sanctum.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: So the real question is, when do we get to play as Thanos?
Speaker: I mean, seriously, all these people are craving... Scott wants a Bible game where you can play as Satan instead of God.
Speaker: Hey, I just think it'd be fun, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was almost like it was designed to play as Thanos.
Speaker: Yeah, kind of.
Speaker: Not a coincidence.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just one of our listeners, Tim Lee, I'm going to give you a shout out.
Speaker: He I guess he was harassing Dwight about being Shredder on Turtles.
Speaker: And he's like, why can't we ever be the bad guys in these games?
Speaker: It's driving me nuts.
Speaker: Like he wants to be the bad guy.
Speaker: And so he wanted me to ask you if there's any any hope maybe of maybe Thanos being the guy you can play as on on Avengers.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: Sadly, no.
Speaker: That's the homebrew option.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Hey, I think it'd be a lot more interesting.
Speaker: That's all I can say.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Tired of the good guys always winning.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Reenact a Thanos punch right into, was it Captain America's face or Thor's face?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: It's Iron Man.
Speaker: Iron Man.
Speaker: Golly.
Speaker: I think Thanos is an admirable villain.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Very well balanced.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I do want to get through the other modes though.
Speaker: So you got space.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So tell me about space.
Speaker: Space gem.
Speaker: It could be as easy as right orbit, left orbit.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But there are other shots lit.
Speaker: You can combo the black widow ramp into the right orbit.
Speaker: Everything's worth a double.
Speaker: On that phase, if you shoot the potbelly ramp to Hawkeye to the left ramp, everything is triple.
Speaker: And one thing nobody realizes on this mode, because it doesn't do a very good job showing it, is after you attack... Crap, who's that?
Speaker: Whatever villain, Black Order villain that is on the left orbit.
Speaker: Oh, it's the Cornelius.
Speaker: Oh, Cornelius Glaive.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Each pop bumper also adds a bunch of points to the final shot.
Speaker: So you shoot the left orbit, it gives you a point award, but each pop bumper, I think it's like 250K or something, additional points.
Speaker: But yeah, it gets kind of trounced with the display animations.
Speaker: That's on our list to fix.
Speaker: But yeah, it's pretty straightforward.
Speaker: If you just want to blow through the mode with the minimal points, right orbit, left orbit, if you want to build up points, you'll combo one of the two metal ramps in first.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: And what's the... So here's the question, though.
Speaker: Each of these modes, they give you bonuses that carry out through the game.
Speaker: So what is the bonus on this one?
Speaker: So the bonus that you're eligible for would be the Soul Gem jackpot.
Speaker: But you first have to get the Soul Gem.
Speaker: So once you have the Soul Gem, then a certain percentage of the points you got in each mode, you can collect instantly as a jackpot when the mode's done, if you shoot the Soul Gem.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: So that's your incentive to do well.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So we talked about mind, power, space.
Speaker: We got time.
Speaker: And, uh, which one?
Speaker: Do you see reality?
Speaker: No, well, uh, well, there's reality and there's time.
Speaker: Those are the last two.
Speaker: And so reality.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I spin the disc, uh, have very many strange letters of lit.
Speaker: Those are your multiplier for the shot.
Speaker: So the letters will start counting down.
Speaker: So, uh,
Speaker: The more you can keep spinning the disc and shooting the yellow shots, the more points you can be.
Speaker: And I think that's probably the easiest mode in a game.
Speaker: And Tyne Gem is probably the hardest because that can really affect how you play the game.
Speaker: So if I do time gen first and win, then I know all my ball savers are extended and all my super modes from the drop targets, I can make them last for a very long time.
Speaker: So it's a game-changing gem if you make it.
Speaker: If you don't, then you kind of change strategy to probably not as much emphasis on the super modes and more on just the quests.
Speaker: Okay, because that's the one I typically choose.
Speaker: Man, that is a bugger.
Speaker: That is hard.
Speaker: It is hard, yeah.
Speaker: But that's by design, so.
Speaker: Yeah, well, it's a risk-reward, right?
Speaker: You're getting rewarded for the hardest one, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so there are six quests, or however many there are, and I wanted to, you know, two easy, two kind of hard, one middle of the road, so.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Great power comes great difficulty.
Speaker: That's the Spider-Man mode.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Now, one thing I do want to talk again, the other cardiac stress test I have is doing the soul gem.
Speaker: So let's talk about the soul gem.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So that is, that's the one that it's flipper counts.
Speaker: So you start with 30 and you have to go through all eight progressions.
Speaker: And it's also hard because I always, the first shot is the Panther shot, which is the orbit on the right.
Speaker: And so as soon as I activate it, I always hold up the right flipper because I want it to bounce over to the other flipper and I don't want to count that against my flips.
Speaker: Yeah, you got to shoot the Widow ramp.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, the Widow is the second one.
Speaker: Yeah, but if your first shot should be the Widow ramp.
Speaker: rather than trying to pass the ball to the left flipper, because I don't think that's even possible.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, Widow Ramp and then shoot Black Panther and then combo back into the Widow Ramp.
Speaker: So there's your tip.
Speaker: Oh, there you go.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: That's good to know.
Speaker: Or if you have the Mind Gem 1, you can just hit the button and forget it.
Speaker: Oh, well, there you go.
Speaker: But yeah, that's that is every time I try to activate that, that is fun.
Speaker: It's it's great because you've you've collected all the Avengers.
Speaker: So that's how you start the mode.
Speaker: You collect all the Avengers and then you drop it down the subway.
Speaker: And so, yeah, that it's just a fun mode.
Speaker: That's not very common to actually have a flipper count on a mode.
Speaker: What was your inspiration for that one?
Speaker: It's something I experimented with in Jurassic Park.
Speaker: I was afraid to put it in, so we saved it for the topper mode and kind of made kind of a gag mode out of it just to see if it actually worked and if people hated it or not.
Speaker: Didn't really get much response, but I figured, okay, I'll just take that same premise and make it important.
Speaker: And, you know, make it stressful.
Speaker: Put it early in the game so, you know, average players will have a chance to play it.
Speaker: And I remember when Raymond first implemented it, I think you started off with like 20 flips and you got like five.
Speaker: And I was like, Ray, this isn't for us.
Speaker: This mode isn't for us, man.
Speaker: Let's give these people a chance.
Speaker: So, yeah, we boosted everything.
Speaker: And I think it's pretty good balance now of the average player has a good chance to beat it.
Speaker: I totally agree.
Speaker: I mean, it's, and it is one of those stressful modes as well, especially like you feel the pressure, especially when you drain and it's like, and we're taking five flips, but I do love that.
Speaker: It's, it's, uh, what's the word I'm looking for a little forgiving in that sense that if you do drain, you don't lose your ball.
Speaker: You just lose flips.
Speaker: That's pretty cool.
Speaker: It makes you think it's like, ah, do I try to save this ball, waste flips and drain, or do I just let it drain and take the five flips?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then, of course, the hardest part is after you've been playing that, your mind says, don't flip, don't flip.
Speaker: Oh, wait, no, I can flip now.
Speaker: Okay, I have never had, I think this game is going to start swearing at me, though.
Speaker: I am typically not a shaker or a mover, but I swear that I'm going to rattle this game right off the hinges because I am shaking it so much to keep it from actually draining.
Speaker: I'm surprised that I don't get more tilts.
Speaker: I'm actually surprised it's as draining as it is because it's shipped at the post all the way down.
Speaker: And that left side, I think the ball barely fits through there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I saw your post where you actually, you updated it and you pointed to the left outlay and you said, don't move this.
Speaker: But that actually made me feel I love this game because it does feel like even me as an average player, I feel like I have a chance to actually get more into the game.
Speaker: And now the funny thing is, it's not really a slow game, though.
Speaker: It's actually pretty fast.
Speaker: I was over at my friend's house last night and we were playing Lord of the Rings and it felt like that was the slowest ball in the world.
Speaker: I felt like I could flip it, go get a drink, use the bathroom and come back and actually still destroy the ring.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Those old sterns weren't the fastest.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the answer to your question about the left outlane, I hate when the ball's in the left outlane area, hits that metal rail and just dies and drains.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I hate that.
Speaker: So that's why I put the left outlane post all the way down and the right outlane's a little wider.
Speaker: Does this have a ball save on Avengers?
Speaker: Because I know Jurassic Park does, but I can't remember if Avenger does or not on the left outlane.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A ball save?
Speaker: Not ball save.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: Kick back.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: It's not the kickback.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: I went into this game.
Speaker: I was like, I don't want to play field multiplier and I don't want an outlane save.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: Because I did that in my previous two games.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: Well, I know that Nedry's on the right because I'm like, well, at least if I death save this, I still get the Nedry points too.
Speaker: Oh, see, every time I see that, I just think I'm nerdy.
Speaker: I always read it wrong.
Speaker: It's nerdy.
Speaker: So I was originally in Jurassic Park going to have, if you're on ball three and haven't done squat and you cashed in your Nedry, it would be a ball save, but we never ended up implementing that.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: That would be the boomerang, like what they used to do in old games where like on NBA Jam, you could only be like seven points ahead because it would actually start augmenting the guy who stinks.
Speaker: So they would actually catch up because otherwise they'd be like, it's not worth it.
Speaker: Yeah, that was that was my original intention.
Speaker: It's just like, I don't want that much randomness.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: Just giving worthless points.
Speaker: So on Jurassic Park, we have Escape Nublar.
Speaker: Are you doing something with Avengers where it can be just a quick accessible mode from the flippers?
Speaker: Yes, it's a full version of Battle Royale.
Speaker: That's already in the game.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: It's already in the current code that we have out now.
Speaker: In.94?
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Oh, so you hold down the button.
Speaker: Okay, was that in.93?
Speaker: Because I didn't try that.
Speaker: It's been there since release.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Scott, explore your game.
Speaker: Hey, I've been playing it.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So hold the flippers and see what happens.
Speaker: Good things will happen.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So in the game itself as a wizard mode, there's a smaller version of Battle Royale that's much harder to beat, but it takes not nearly as long.
Speaker: So the minigame that you choose, I think all the shots are doubled, and it takes twice as long since it's a dedicated game.
Speaker: But yeah, actually, I haven't played it that much either.
Speaker: The funny thing is I've played it on Jurassic Park.
Speaker: I've played Escape from Nublar a lot.
Speaker: I still stink at it, but it's still a lot of fun.
Speaker: But I guess I never even thought, I thought that because it wasn't 1.0 that it hadn't been implemented.
Speaker: But okay, here's a pro tip for you kids.
Speaker: Well, that brings me to another point, too, then.
Speaker: I don't think this has ever been done in any other pinball machine.
Speaker: I'm a big fan of the 90s games because they're kind of easy to get to the wizard mode.
Speaker: But after you beat the wizard mode, it just starts back at the beginning.
Speaker: And it feels...
Speaker: anticlimactic to say the best because then you're like I really have to do this all over again it always it drove me nuts especially with the Addams family because of Tour of the Mansion but in Jurassic Park if you are lucky enough to secure the troll room do Museum Mayhem and visit the Visitor Center and you can finish Escape Nublar and you finish when Dinosaurs Roll the Earth the game's actually over
Speaker: And so is this, I don't think I've ever seen this in any other pinball machine.
Speaker: And so it makes you also think of, well, how do I get the most points if I'm actually going to try to complete this game as well?
Speaker: Is this something that you're trying to implement in all your games?
Speaker: Because this is awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As a player,
Speaker: When I get to the end of a game that takes a long time, it's like, you know, you use Lord of the Rings as an example.
Speaker: I've gotten to Valinor.
Speaker: I was like, what's the last thing you feel like doing after you're done with Valinor?
Speaker: And that's starting over.
Speaker: Keep flipping.
Speaker: Woo.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's the approach I take now.
Speaker: It's like, you know, after playing for 45 minutes, do you really want to keep playing with everything reset?
Speaker: Or do you want to go in with a strategy knowing, hey, this is the end.
Speaker: It's like a video game.
Speaker: This is the end of the game.
Speaker: I got to get all the points I can before getting here.
Speaker: uh because it's the end so um and i thought jurassic park was perfect because it matches the storyline uh new bar blew up so what are you suddenly doing back at new bar with all the dinosaurs back so it didn't make any sense to restart the game uh i took a bunch of flack internally for thinking that but uh we put it in a game and i've only gotten positive comments from it so yeah that's probably something i'll be doing for all the games it was it's it's awesome
Speaker: Legitimately, how many people are really going to get to that point?
Speaker: You're talking about a very specific elite player who's knowing that that's it's like on Donkey Kong going for the kill screen.
Speaker: Like, you know where you're going.
Speaker: It's like I'm not going to stumble into it by by chimp flip in both sides.
Speaker: It's just not going to happen.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just, I know some people would don't like, they'd like the never ending play forever game, but to me that you're going to get bored of it that way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, it's like after, yeah, like I said, Lord of the Rings, you get Valinor.
Speaker: It's like, I don't want to play this anymore.
Speaker: You're just, you're just plunging and draining.
Speaker: You don't care.
Speaker: You just want to put your initials up and go.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Especially on a game like World of the Rings where you spend an hour.
Speaker: Well, probably for you, Keith, it's like 20 minutes.
Speaker: But for someone like us, it takes an hour, hour and a half.
Speaker: You finally finish Valinor and you're like, and I'm rewarded with flips more.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It's funny because we always talk about, well, pinball, you can never win pinball.
Speaker: It's just unwinnable.
Speaker: But doing this literally makes it winnable.
Speaker: You're trying to get to the game over screen.
Speaker: Yeah, so not only winnable, but you get a little bonus game if you do everything correctly and when dinosaurs ruled the earth.
Speaker: So you can add another billion to your score when the game's over if you beat all the mini wizards.
Speaker: So yeah, I like that formula.
Speaker: I'll probably stick to it.
Speaker: I love it too.
Speaker: Well, it reminds me, like TNA was really the first one that I can think of that actually had the kill screen, I guess.
Speaker: But this feels, it feels perfect.
Speaker: I love other games being able to look at those things and being able to do different things.
Speaker: It's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: TNA did do that.
Speaker: I think you still plunged your balls, but yeah, it's pretty much, yeah, same concept.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, I forgot about that.
Speaker: Sorry, Scott.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Denisey.
Speaker: He's the man.
Speaker: He gets the credit for that.
Speaker: Hey, I just wanted to make sure that we're going to get, you know, the three emails that we get.
Speaker: Hey, you forgot about this.
Speaker: I totally forgot about that, too.
Speaker: I haven't played that game forever.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hey, so I want to talk about the drop target bingo card on the left, too.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So it's been a while since I've seen one of these in a game.
Speaker: And tell me about what your thought process of putting it in and exactly what do you do with it?
Speaker: I still haven't really figured out how to maximize it.
Speaker: My thought process was I'm a big fan of the old Tic-Tac-Toe games.
Speaker: Big Game was one of my favorite games growing up.
Speaker: It was kind of lost and forgotten, and then Ripley's comes along and kind of does its own implementation.
Speaker: The thing I didn't like about Ripley's, though, was it was really hard to get those squares, and so I wanted to make it more upfront in gameplay, so...
Speaker: So I decided to go with the squares that kind of rove.
Speaker: So you choose, you lock it in.
Speaker: It's not random like Ripley's where you're trying to nudge it into a lane.
Speaker: And the awards are not locked in either.
Speaker: So you have to use the LCD screen to see what bingo grids award.
Speaker: So that gave me a lot of flexibility in what I could do with it.
Speaker: So we got mini wizards modes in there.
Speaker: We got six modes total, I think, and a bunch of other random awards.
Speaker: that is my thought process.
Speaker: I'm not sure if you need to elaborate.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So if, if you, is there a bonus for blacking it out for getting like all nine squares or.
Speaker: The most you can do is I think you can get a quadruple bingo if you have the power gem on there.
Speaker: So that is the most you can do.
Speaker: So it's, there's a list of awards that you see on the instant info.
Speaker: And each time you collect the bingo, you collect that award and the list moves up and there's a wizard and any wizard mode in there.
Speaker: called Computer Frenzy.
Speaker: So the more bingo grids you knock out, the closer you get to Computer Frenzy.
Speaker: And you hit a bingo to light Computer Frenzy at the right ramp.
Speaker: And then you play that mini wizard mode.
Speaker: And then once you're done with that, I think the whole thing just resets.
Speaker: I just got thinking about this.
Speaker: Where did the idea from the trophies come from?
Speaker: Because I don't know why, but every time I think of trophies, I think of PlayStation.
Speaker: When you unlock something, you get a trophy for it for your case.
Speaker: Was that kind of similar to this or was it just Iron Man has a lot of hardware in his tower, so we're putting trophies as a thing you can obtain?
Speaker: Yeah, I can't answer that, but you're warm.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: I see a lot of feedback.
Speaker: What does that have to do with Avengers?
Speaker: It's like, you're right.
Speaker: It has nothing to do with Avengers.
Speaker: It has something to do with something else someday, maybe.
Speaker: Hey, it's still fun.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: It's reminiscent of every time Keith was holding up that Pemberg trophy, which is sadly we're not going to see anymore.
Speaker: Something will happen.
Speaker: Here's my take on that.
Speaker: I know that we're all in semi-morning for the replay and Papa and what they're doing, but the bottom line is...
Speaker: This isn't like 2002, 2003 when the interest in pinball is waning.
Speaker: And it's actually, if anything, it's on a crescendo and it's growing exponentially.
Speaker: And when all this craziness is over, there's enough interested parties to make something happen.
Speaker: And I don't know what that is going to be or how it's going to be implemented.
Speaker: But I think there will be some sort of Super Bowl winner take all of pinball again.
Speaker: And, uh, probably something similar where it's like the math, you know, like Papa would be like the masters of it where it's like, Hey, an invitational to the top 64 players and see what you can do with the best of the best.
Speaker: Um, but I, I still think something like that's going to happen.
Speaker: I know that's a clunky transition, but I don't know.
Speaker: What do you guys think?
Speaker: Oh, it was a sad day, wasn't it?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Very.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: As sad as it is, I mean, you got to appreciate Kevin Martin and everything he put into that, uh, for keep it going out of his own pocket for all those years.
Speaker: So it's hard, hard to blame him for it.
Speaker: It's like, yeah, I can't do this anymore.
Speaker: So, um, but, uh, kudos to him for making it what it was and, uh, what it could be.
Speaker: And bummer for me, because now I got to figure out what to do with the 30 games I have.
Speaker: I loaned them.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just bring them back to Chicago and start up Elwyn's Basement or something.
Speaker: I'm so happy to get rid of all my storage units now.
Speaker: Well, you can contact Logan's Arcade and see if they have an annex.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: The one that made me chuckle, though, Ian Harrowar, who listens to the show, he posted, you know, looking at the 2020 IFPA numbers, he can safely say that he thinks that the dollar fee is what killed competition play.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's the Fight Club reset on the IFPA.
Speaker: It's needed.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: Okay, I do want to talk more about portal locks.
Speaker: Apparently, that's the only thing I care about is this game right now.
Speaker: So tell me about the portal locks.
Speaker: Tell me how... I know you get them by combos, but a lot of times I either get them either by doing a skill shot or by dumb luck.
Speaker: So how do you tell me to use the portal locks?
Speaker: Well, if you're saying dumb luck, you must be the one on the bingo grid.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because there is one there.
Speaker: Obviously the secret skill shot, which is very hard.
Speaker: So that's not dumb luck.
Speaker: So either you're shooting combos or getting your super secret skill shot, or you are completing the correct line, bingo line on the drop targets.
Speaker: That'll raise that disc up there.
Speaker: You shoot the ball in there.
Speaker: Your next quests will either be double value or triple value, depending on if you have one or two locks.
Speaker: Yeah, this is a play dynamic I experimented with.
Speaker: I know other games have done it, but I'm not sure if they acted as multipliers as well.
Speaker: I was kind of thinking, OK, it's like a physical multiplier.
Speaker: Because as long as you have old school Fathom style, as long as you have these amount of balls in play, that's your multiplier.
Speaker: And as you drain one, and then it goes down to 2x.
Speaker: And if you drain down to one ball, the scoring goes back to 1x.
Speaker: So that was my thought process behind that.
Speaker: I'm just happy that the up-down disk has been pretty much flawless.
Speaker: That was something that I was worried about when we were designing that, because it's never been done.
Speaker: and, uh, it seems, it seems fine.
Speaker: Well, and you bring this up and I know that you kind of talked about an insider, so I know maybe a handful of people haven't heard this yet, but, um, cause a lot of people refer back to as Circus Voltaire, but you, you had mentioned in there that you knew that there were so much issues with Circus Voltaire.
Speaker: That's actually what pushed you towards this idea, correct?
Speaker: Um, no, actually it's funny.
Speaker: I never thought of it that way when I was designing it.
Speaker: Uh, I've owned two Circus Voltaires in my life too, which is funny, but, uh,
Speaker: I just remember Circus Voltaire that spring.
Speaker: I hated that.
Speaker: So the thing that Harrison designed looks like kind of a golf tee.
Speaker: So it just shoves the ball down in that hole and it does not come back out.
Speaker: So that's just funny.
Speaker: Whenever I think of circus, I just think of hitting that thing and not going down into the hole and me cursing at it, getting rid of the game, buying another one, trying to get it.
Speaker: It was like, oh, now I remember why I got rid of this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We'll buy a third now and replace it with your mechanic.
Speaker: You'll be good to go.
Speaker: So actually, I thought I found a glitch because one time I activated something and it was telling me to spin the disc, but it was in the up position.
Speaker: Oh, super disc?
Speaker: Yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker: If you have that running when you've got a portal lock...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I was like, I can't do this.
Speaker: You can, you can air ball into it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But actually, okay.
Speaker: I will say that the best part about this game is there's so many wire form ramps.
Speaker: If I get an air ball, it's going to be caught by something.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I remember where we're looking at the whitewood and it was like, Oh my God, nobody's going to be able to see the ball.
Speaker: Well, but that's the nice part about the premium because I played on Scott's LE.
Speaker: I still feel like I can see everything.
Speaker: I don't feel like I'm being blocked by wire forms.
Speaker: I'm sorry, but I then played as Ninja Turtles Premium, and I felt you can't see the top half of Turtles Premium because of the wire forms and the contraption in the middle for the diverter.
Speaker: And so I'm very impressed that you've included all this wire form, yet I don't feel claustrophobic is probably the best word I can think of.
Speaker: So ball vision is very important to me.
Speaker: All three of my games, especially with the upper flipper, I need to see the ball coming to the upper flipper.
Speaker: So I try to keep that as open as possible.
Speaker: Iron Maiden is a good example.
Speaker: I just wanted the ramps out of the way so you can see the ball going around those loops and just have good vision.
Speaker: To me, that's important.
Speaker: Is that also why you did the because in most games when the ball comes back around to the upper flipper, it usually goes back through the back box and then comes around to the flipper or, you know, it usually makes the loop around back with the Hawkeye one.
Speaker: It comes right in front.
Speaker: It almost displays the ball in front of you as it comes to your flipper.
Speaker: Was that part of the reason?
Speaker: Does you want a vision or is it just something different than what's been done before?
Speaker: Yeah, I just wanted to do something different.
Speaker: I'm trying something different on the plunge for all my games.
Speaker: I was like, how cool would it be if you plunge into a ramp?
Speaker: You know, it's just, yeah, I was just trying something different.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which is way cool.
Speaker: Yeah, it's great.
Speaker: And I will say that what you did on that Potbelly ramp that comes around to return,
Speaker: That really, and I told Ray Day this, that it makes the upper flipper so much more usable.
Speaker: A lot of times with the upper flipper, the ball is screaming past it and you're hitting it and just hoping that something good happens.
Speaker: But the way you did the return, it actually makes the upper flipper a calculating shot, something that you can line up and do repeatedly, which I don't think I've ever seen any other game where I have reliably used the upper flipper as much as I do in this one.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, the upper flipper is primarily there to shoot the disc, but I did give it a couple other shots.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, just like Jurassic, I wanted a ramp that fed an upper flipper.
Speaker: And obviously Jurassic Park, when it's kind of a fast flowing through to the upper flipper.
Speaker: And so this one is like, well, we're actually going reverse gravity because it comes down and then back up again.
Speaker: Um, so yeah, it was a nice little, nice little setup shot to shoot the disc hopefully, but if, or if you want to keep shooting that ramp or shoot the Hawkeye, uh,
Speaker: Well, the hockey challenge, that is another one where it's just that stress test where I probably, I probably get it two out of 10 times just because it's stuck up into the tower.
Speaker: And then when it drops, you know, it's either too soon or too late or it is a hard shot.
Speaker: My biggest regret is I guessing most people have not seen the level three difficulty on that where the drop is random.
Speaker: Oh yeah, no, I haven't.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it goes, you know, get ready.
Speaker: And you're just like, wait, the ball did drop.
Speaker: So you think something's wrong.
Speaker: And then it just releases it without warning.
Speaker: Like an amusement park.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, we're going to put a fourth level in called the Carl D'Angelo challenge.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: So it's going to be a random drop.
Speaker: You have to shoot the Hawkeye and the middle drop target without shooting any of the other drop targets to, to win the fourth level.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: what the fourth one should be though is it should drop randomly, but the up post stops, stops the ball right before it gets to the flipper and then drops again.
Speaker: So that way it does like a psych thing.
Speaker: Psych.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: That's great though.
Speaker: I, I, I do love it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I also saw you post something and I, I, I'm probably not as good of a player to figure out how to do this, but I saw you had two balls locked up in the Avengers tower.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, so tell me how to do that.
Speaker: I've never been able to do that.
Speaker: So during Iron Man multiball, especially with the new code update, you just shoot the two orange shots.
Speaker: Once you do that, it lights the tower for super jackpots.
Speaker: So you have 15 seconds to shoot two balls in there.
Speaker: It's not always guaranteed to catch a second ball, but at least on mine at home, it's pretty consistent.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Yeah, just 15 seconds, you shoot one for a super jackpot.
Speaker: And if you shoot another in there before time runs out, you get a double super jackpot.
Speaker: Oh, got it.
Speaker: The old Iron Man rules, you had to spin the disc first.
Speaker: We got rid of that.
Speaker: You could just shoot the tower now.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Yeah, because I know the Iron Man, it seems that I end up starting it usually during a mode.
Speaker: And so I'm just using the balls to fly around the playfield and collect as many points as I possibly can.
Speaker: Yeah, that's one of the reasons I boosted the scoring in Iron Man multiball in.94.
Speaker: I figured it was just being used as a vessel to further your quests.
Speaker: So I wanted that one because it's harder to start than Thor.
Speaker: I wanted that one to at least have some scoring potential.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It definitely is.
Speaker: You know, I thought it'd be easy to do Iron Man, but play on Scots.
Speaker: I felt like, because you can't just switch, you know, knowing Keith, you can't just do it the easy way.
Speaker: You just press the flippers and do lane changes.
Speaker: You got to hit the disc to move those iron letters.
Speaker: And so it's surprisingly harder to get Iron Man multiball than I thought it would be.
Speaker: Yeah, it is.
Speaker: Yeah, well, that's why I implemented the other secret skill shot.
Speaker: So you just wait for the lit square when it gets to lock.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: you shoot the middle drop target and it awards you that square.
Speaker: So try that.
Speaker: Usually when it's on the bottom left, the square starts blinking.
Speaker: That's when you plunge.
Speaker: And then by the time the ball gets to your flipper, it should be on the lock square.
Speaker: And if you hit the middle drop target, there's your instant Iron Man lock.
Speaker: Oh, nice.
Speaker: Is that a short plunge or a full plunge?
Speaker: There's a full plunge around the whole ramp.
Speaker: And the middle drop target, it just has to include the middle drop target.
Speaker: You can shoot the top two, the bottom two.
Speaker: As long as the middle one's included, it'll award whatever bingo square is flashing.
Speaker: So if you hit the lock one when it's flashing, that saves you a lot of trouble.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: I love that you have all these skill shots too.
Speaker: Exploring Jurassic Park, you can explore it just for the secret skill shots.
Speaker: There's four or five of them and it's just amazing.
Speaker: Yeah, I like exploring things that are secret.
Speaker: That's why I made the DNA combos kind of a secret in a game release.
Speaker: I didn't really tell anyone how to get them.
Speaker: I still smile with Mr. DNA when he pops up.
Speaker: It's so funny.
Speaker: My friend said, can I get that as a ringtone?
Speaker: I was like, sure.
Speaker: And then hanging out with them, all I hear is, da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da.
Speaker: He's like, that's awesome.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: So I know that you talked on Jurassic Park.
Speaker: You didn't want to do a flipper in it, an upper flipper.
Speaker: But as you started to play it, you just felt like something was missing.
Speaker: I know now with Avengers, you have an upper flipper.
Speaker: Are you trying to actively not put an upper flipper in maybe future titles because you feel like it's getting overplayed?
Speaker: Or do you just love upper flippers?
Speaker: I love upper flippers.
Speaker: I love upper flippers.
Speaker: They're great.
Speaker: It's funny because my wife even, she doesn't play much pinball, but she's always like, make sure the games have upper flippers.
Speaker: So now we have Turtles.
Speaker: We'll have Avengers on the way.
Speaker: We have Jurassic Park.
Speaker: The only game I don't have an upper flipper is World Cup soccer.
Speaker: So obviously we have a type.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I like upper flippers.
Speaker: My next game has one.
Speaker: It has an unusual twist.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'll just leave that there.
Speaker: I'll just leave that.
Speaker: A juicy morsel.
Speaker: I think it's so funny because we always talk like Avengers has been out what two months now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's funny because people are always like, what's, what's the next thing?
Speaker: What's the next thing.
Speaker: And I got to admit, I really think this all blindsided us with Avengers because we weren't expecting another Keith L one game this year.
Speaker: Jurassic park had been out since July of last year.
Speaker: And then all of a sudden here comes Avengers in September.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As a game designer, we don't stop until the game releases.
Speaker: We have to, we have to move on to the next project.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I will say it is amazing though.
Speaker: Like when I, when I found out that yes, this next one, and I basically, I, I knew about a couple hours before it was released that it was you and it was zombie Yeti.
Speaker: And that was when I called and I said, I want an LA put me on the list because I was like, I, I, I have a Jurassic park, which is my next favorite game to play right next to it.
Speaker: And it's like, I, I gotta have the, the longterm one on this one.
Speaker: So nice.
Speaker: Well, just like Josh Sharp said on our show, I mean, it's getting harder and harder because if you're releasing a game a year, now we're having to figure out what games we have to get rid of to get the next Keith Elwin game.
Speaker: And like, seriously, like I played Jurassic Park in the bars and whatnot, and I really enjoyed it.
Speaker: But now that I've gotten it home, it is addictive.
Speaker: It is just, I can't even explain.
Speaker: Once you get that flow down and you get in the zone, like everyone knows that feeling when, when you feel like the flippers are getting closer together because you just can't drain and you're hitting all the shots just like,
Speaker: beautifully there's something magical happens and and with your games it rewards you for that like it's not chopping wood it's not doing this and that and i love that you especially in jurassic park i don't know with avengers yet but you can stack everything like i felt like well i guess you can't stack t-rex and control room modes but like i can knock out a dinosaur while i'm working on a t-rex mode or i can i can knock out a control room while i'm trying to capture another dinosaur and it's just it's fantastic yeah thanks i think the key to stacking is uh
Speaker: Limit what you can't stack.
Speaker: Otherwise, it just becomes, hey, just stack everything.
Speaker: That becomes the thing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well, and I think you were talking about, if I remember correctly, you were talking about when you were starting up designing, Lyman said to make sure they don't just go for the multiballs.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And so I've always thought about that, is that it does make it feel different when you're playing a game.
Speaker: Because when I'm playing on a single ball, you're taking targeted shots.
Speaker: When you're playing a multi-ball, especially that first 10 seconds, you're just hitting as fast as you can and looking at the flippers and knowing where the shots are, but not really following where the balls are.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: You know, some people give you flack, oh, Thor multiball's not worth very much.
Speaker: It was like, dude, you hit the captive ball three times.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What do you want?
Speaker: That's the Bozo multiball for a reason.
Speaker: It's also not that hard, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: However, it is good if you're trying to get that extra...
Speaker: help though when you're uh when you have that difficult uh soul gem yeah yeah no it's a strategic multi-ball that's it's a helper the thor helper yeah i guess not soul gem but you know one of the other power gems you're trying to to just like hey i just need a few extra shots so we had the added thing on avengers is all the uh
Speaker: the drop target modes share a single timer.
Speaker: So if you start another mode while one's running, then that timer resets.
Speaker: So I think Raymond, the party started, as what Raymond calls it.
Speaker: Once he starts one, he'll play that for a while.
Speaker: And then the timer starts getting low.
Speaker: He'll try to bring in another one to reset the timer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so that is basically how all the – because it doesn't really seem like when they're attacking you, you brought the Deadpool thing.
Speaker: When they're attacking you, that seems to be more of just like how long you are taking, right?
Speaker: It's kind of a controlled descent on your power level, right?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's basically just a bonus for finishing it faster.
Speaker: But you can't lose.
Speaker: You only lose while draining.
Speaker: Well, but I also, like I love on Jurassic Park, though, like T-Rex multiball can be as lucrative as you want it to be or is what your skill range can be, you know?
Speaker: If you're able to hit all those shots and then start the T-Rex, feed T-Rex, man, you can blow that game up.
Speaker: So long as you're paying attention, too, you got to hit the red arrows, not the blue ones.
Speaker: And just yesterday I got $117 million on that.
Speaker: And I was just...
Speaker: I felt like I was King Kong.
Speaker: It amazes me the more and more I am discovering about these games.
Speaker: And I cannot wait to get Avengers.
Speaker: I cannot wait to explore this game as well.
Speaker: And the problem is, you've ruined other games for me, Keith.
Speaker: Seriously, I can't go up to a 90s game now.
Speaker: I had Attack for Mars.
Speaker: It was enjoyable.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: It's a fun game.
Speaker: There's a reason it's towards the top of the list.
Speaker: But it feels like it's missing something now because the depth of the games that our recent games have had.
Speaker: And I feel like you're pushing pinball further because I don't know if it's because we all have ADHD or what it is.
Speaker: And so our brain demands more while we're playing pinball.
Speaker: But it's funny because Jurassic Park just feels like, to me, it hits that itch that I didn't know I needed in pinball.
Speaker: Oh, thank you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My goal is to not necessarily have the deepest game in the world, but have a game with multiple paths.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that is certainly the key to a fun game where you don't want to just plot through the same path every single time.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And also, it's important to me to have some kind of basic gameplay.
Speaker: So Iron Maiden, pretty much every shot works towards the cyber multiball game.
Speaker: Obviously Jurassic Park, the paddock is the main, you know, base gameplay and Avengers, you're collecting Avengers as your base gameplay.
Speaker: So I want every shot to mean something in some way, not just all or nothing.
Speaker: Well, you didn't get a mode or a multiball.
Speaker: You're just shooting shots.
Speaker: So, yeah, that's my philosophy right there.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: Everything about it.
Speaker: It's just, it's fantastic.
Speaker: Seriously.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: I sound like a little fanboy crushing.
Speaker: I do apologize.
Speaker: I'm pretty turned off right now.
Speaker: But no, I just, if you haven't played a Keith L1 game, please do yourself a favor.
Speaker: Go out to your favorite, your favorite game place or rent one for a month.
Speaker: the whopping 200 bucks you support someone local and and play one of these because there's a reason that keith's games are all in the top what 20 of pin side easily avengers last time i checked avengers is at nine uh jurassic park is at two and iron maiden i want to say is it maybe 13 i can't remember i do apologize but but i mean that that's saying something all of your games are just up there and so there's there's got to be a reason for it so
Speaker: Thank you, sir.
Speaker: Sorry, Scott, throwing you off, throwing you off on a tangent again.
Speaker: Oh, no, it's fine.
Speaker: No, I was actually just thinking of like anything else.
Speaker: I mean, legitimately, the you've kind of become my go to design for like the last games that will be leaving the house.
Speaker: So it's yeah, it's right.
Speaker: It's
Speaker: It's pushing the boundaries on what we're doing in pinball, which is as it's an express train to a new, new frontier that we didn't think was possible because pinball has been around for almost a hundred years.
Speaker: So, Oh yeah.
Speaker: I've loved it since I was a kid.
Speaker: I mean, it's, I'm enjoying myself.
Speaker: So we heard that you're going for the big franchises now.
Speaker: And we saw that Disney princesses are on this list.
Speaker: So when are we going to get our Keith Elwin Disney princesses game?
Speaker: That's what I really want to know.
Speaker: That's what the families across America want to know.
Speaker: Josh wants to collect all the princesses.
Speaker: That's what he wants to do.
Speaker: I want to get my gorillas pin done.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: A little Clint Eastwood.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: That would be awesome.
Speaker: Wait, are you talking gorillas like the band?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The cartoon band.
Speaker: The cartoon band.
Speaker: How amazing would that be?
Speaker: Actually, that would be pretty good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I don't think it's been done yet because they're more of a, I guess it depends on your definition of gorillas, but they're more of a hip hop mix.
Speaker: We haven't really had that in pinball yet.
Speaker: That'd be, that'd be amazing to see.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That artwork though, man.
Speaker: Well, have you seen them live?
Speaker: Well, kind of.
Speaker: They had that movie that came out, right?
Speaker: Like that was the animated concert movie.
Speaker: They do that?
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, that'd be legit.
Speaker: I would back that.
Speaker: But then again, like Jeff Teala said, I think we kind of made Laundry Day trending on Facebook when you talked about that.
Speaker: So people are really looking forward to their Keith Owen Laundry Day game.
Speaker: Yeah, you know, household chores.
Speaker: That's one of my favorite Simpsons episode where they had the yard work simulator.
Speaker: That's kind of, that's kind of where I'm thinking there.
Speaker: That would be amazing.
Speaker: Sounds a little Tom Sawyer-esque where you're getting someone to out to do your work, where you're the paint the fence multi-ball.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, Keith, I know that we have, we've come up on basically an hour, but we know we, we,
Speaker: One, do you need any more hats?
Speaker: And two, we have a hoodie that we are just releasing that we'd love to send you a copy of that.
Speaker: Well done.
Speaker: I could use another hat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We just barely, we just barely wrapped them up.
Speaker: So we'll get that sent off.
Speaker: Go ahead and contact us too.
Speaker: If any of the listeners are interested in getting one of those suckers, Josh just got a new, it's actually a pretty fun hoodie design because we had a few requests for that.
Speaker: And so we'll go ahead and throw that up on the Facebook page too.
Speaker: Yeah, we just barely finalized it.
Speaker: So we'll definitely... I'll shoot you over a picture of it, Keith, and see what you think.
Speaker: I know Kate, we sent a picture to her because when we talked to you last time about our beanies, you're like, you got to talk to Kate.
Speaker: She's the one, when it comes to fashion, she'll lead you straight.
Speaker: So she's actually been helping us a little bit with it too.
Speaker: I just wore the beanie, I think, two days ago.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Lovely Chicago weather.
Speaker: It's got to be better than this Utah weather.
Speaker: It bounces from single digits up to what were 40, 45 today.
Speaker: It's goofy, so...
Speaker: Okay, but I wear the old school beanie, the one with like the pom-pom on the top and the stripes.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: That's the one I've been rocking.
Speaker: The 70s beanie.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: It's because it's fleece lined and like this isn't a secret, but you're bald.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Hey, just, you know what?
Speaker: My dad always said, God only create a few perfect heads in the world.
Speaker: The rest he had to put hair on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think that pretty much wraps up unless you have something else for us, Keith, that you want to you want to talk about.
Speaker: It doesn't have to be pinball related, you know, so.
Speaker: Well, since it's COVID, I'm not really doing much.
Speaker: So, oh, wait, wait, I saw something.
Speaker: You posted a drone footage.
Speaker: Was that like?
Speaker: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So were you flying around your apartment?
Speaker: What was that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that was a racing drone.
Speaker: Uh, also have a camera drone.
Speaker: Uh, that's something, yeah, that's my COVID hobby.
Speaker: Uh, it's flying drones around here, having a virtual life through them.
Speaker: So you got the real question is, are you going to go professional though?
Speaker: Cause I know they've got some insane stuff with, with the drone racing and whatnot.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: A couple of my coworkers are, uh, do drone racing.
Speaker: They're actually the ones that got me into it.
Speaker: So, uh, it's something I've been screwing around with, but, uh, yeah, they take it way more seriously than I do, but, uh, it's, it is fun.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's way cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I had no idea that was a thing, so I'll have to check that out.
Speaker: You have never watched the drone races on TV?
Speaker: No, I didn't.
Speaker: I didn't even know this was a thing.
Speaker: I thought this was a fantasy.
Speaker: So it's a thing.
Speaker: It's, it's fun.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I recommend it.
Speaker: Yeah, well, we're going to get you some swag out for you, Keith.
Speaker: And I think we'll go from there.
Speaker: And so we really do always appreciate you coming on, chit-chatting with us.
Speaker: And so, yeah.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Thanks for having me.
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: I can't remember if you want people to contact you or not.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Probably a swag I can give out.
Speaker: If you want to contact Keith, how do you get contacted?
Speaker: You don't.
Speaker: That's a beautiful thing.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: Now send a drone.
Speaker: Send a drone.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Send a letter.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: A postcard.
Speaker: Anywho.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you want to contact us, you can find us on Facebook at Loser Kid Pinball.
Speaker: We're also on Instagram and Twitch.
Speaker: Or if you want to get a hold of us the old school way, Loser Kid Pinball Podcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: We are coming up on episode 50.
Speaker: That is next.
Speaker: If you're looking to submit a clip, you got to do it by the 5th, which I want to say is this upcoming Saturday.
Speaker: So we've already got a handful of clips.
Speaker: There are some wonderful people that have dropped their voices and we'll be putting them on the show.
Speaker: And we'd love to hear from you too.
Speaker: So got anything for us, Scott?
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: Stay safe.
Speaker: Stay safe during the holidays.
Speaker: Support what you can with your local pinball places and pick up a new machine.
Speaker: Pick up a new adventures.
Speaker: Go ahead and put it home and you can just play to your heart's content until the COVID ends up.
Speaker: Oh, oh, one more thing before we go.
Speaker: Ryan Kaz, Mr. Ryan C himself.
Speaker: It was his birthday the other day.
Speaker: So if you can, wish him a happy birthday.
Speaker: And I heard they love sweet dancing moves.
Speaker: And so if you'll just record yourself dancing and send them to him, it would really brighten his day.
Speaker: You can win a twerpy with that.
Speaker: Yes, I would.
Speaker: Best dance moves.
Speaker: Oh, and Keith would know if you want professional advice on winning a Twippy, Keith's the man.
Speaker: So get your dance moves into Ryan so you can get that Twippy for sweet dance moves.
Speaker: I want a Twippy.
Speaker: That's my goal now.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, Twippy.
Speaker: Well, the real question is, are you going for a final round reach around?
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: That's their new awards.
Speaker: We're family friendly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hey, I did not write what the name of the award was.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Take it up with Jeff and Martin if you don't like the name of it.
Speaker: Originally, they were called The Roundy.
Speaker: I was fine with The Roundy.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: We better shut this down before it gets any worse.
Speaker: Thanks again, Keith.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: No problem.
Speaker: Shut up and sit down.
