Transcript
Speaker: Thanks for tuning into the loser kid pinball podcast.
Speaker: We know you thought we weren't coming back.
Speaker: Guess what?
Speaker: It's episode one Oh one.
Speaker: Whoa.
Speaker: I am Josh Roop with me.
Speaker: My co-captain as always Scott Larson and Scott.
Speaker: Uh, it sounds like more pinball machines are being made.
Speaker: Where are you buying yours from?
Speaker: Well, I, I, okay, do you know, I actually did just pick up and I got shipped out the other day is I bought four insider connected to install in all my games that are compatible with it, but not, weren't currently installed because I purchased them before.
Speaker: So Zach and Nicole Mania at Flipping Out Pinball, they've always been good to me.
Speaker: They're really easy to work with.
Speaker: And not just pinball machines.
Speaker: I got banners from them.
Speaker: And you can eat Translize.
Speaker: Just all that fun stuff that they've always been really a good friend of the show.
Speaker: So we appreciate their support.
Speaker: Yeah, if you need anything, just give them a call.
Speaker: Give them a text.
Speaker: I like to message them through Facebook.
Speaker: Zach's easy to get a hold of that way.
Speaker: So look at their current list.
Speaker: They just updated at the end of January.
Speaker: They've got a ton of games on there.
Speaker: Go ahead and hit them up.
Speaker: They will take care of you very well.
Speaker: All right, Scott.
Speaker: I want to do one shout out before we start this.
Speaker: We'll make our guests wait just a little bit longer.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So Jeff Teolis did his top 10 for 2022, and he put us on there at number eight.
Speaker: And I appreciate the words that he said.
Speaker: That was very nice of him.
Speaker: We love you too, Jeff.
Speaker: You're an awesome dude.
Speaker: And honestly, he's kind of been a mentor in some of this as well.
Speaker: Are you sure he wasn't drunk when he made that list?
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: I have learned from Jeff.
Speaker: He's only sincere like one time out of the year.
Speaker: It's usually the top 10.
Speaker: So I feel like he was either pulling our leg or he was being very sincere.
Speaker: Pranking us.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Jeff's always been a good friend of the show and Marty too.
Speaker: So today we have a very special guest.
Speaker: The guest that's been on our show more times than any other guest.
Speaker: The guest that gets consistently the most downloads.
Speaker: Yes, and he has been named the GOAT for many reasons.
Speaker: The greatest of all time.
Speaker: In playing, definitely has that locked up.
Speaker: The greatest of all time player and rapidly approaching what could be the greatest of all time designer.
Speaker: So Josh, who do we have on board?
Speaker: None other than Keith Elwin.
Speaker: How are you doing, Keith?
Speaker: Hello.
Speaker: I don't know if I have that wrapped up because, you know, when I was in my prime, there was just no tournaments.
Speaker: So, you know, here I am an old man and, you know, these kids like Escher and Jared and Neil are just, yeah, they're very good and they're going to have so many.
Speaker: World Championships to win that, yeah, I don't think that's going to last, but I'll enjoy it while I can.
Speaker: That had been one of the best finals I had ever watched, it coming down between you and Escher and that bonus there on Flash Gordon.
Speaker: I know you probably don't want to relive it, but how was that experience for you?
Speaker: I mean, that was great.
Speaker: I mean, it's just, I don't do this because I need the recognition.
Speaker: I don't need the money.
Speaker: I do it because I enjoy it.
Speaker: And
Speaker: I would much rather have something like that and lose than just plow through finals.
Speaker: That's over before the third game even starts.
Speaker: I think that's boring.
Speaker: The fact that Indisk uses the format where you cannot...
Speaker: picked the same game twice through the entire, you know, the entirety of the finals.
Speaker: So here we are.
Speaker: I was third seed and Zach McCarthy and Eric Stoner ahead of me.
Speaker: So I was like, well, there's no way these guys are getting knocked out in the opening round.
Speaker: So I was, I used all my, my choice picks in my first round.
Speaker: And then lo and behold, they got kicked out.
Speaker: Then I was like, oh, okay, well now, you know, now I have to strategically pick up these games.
Speaker: Like some of them I'm not even that familiar with like bad girls.
Speaker: I had played that once in qualifying, had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker: Um, you know, didn't even have the right backlash in it.
Speaker: So I was like, uh, what, what is this game?
Speaker: Uh, but you know, I felt comfortable in it, but I had no idea what to do.
Speaker: And I was like, yeah, okay, this is fine.
Speaker: I would never pick this as a pick, but, uh,
Speaker: you know, that came back and bit me, but it was actually, it was fun.
Speaker: It was like that.
Speaker: Um, I watched Escher play and I was like, Oh, you know, they helped to watch somebody good play it, you know, on the screen that they're, they had up there.
Speaker: And I was like, okay, that's what you do.
Speaker: And then, so I adjusted my strategy, but yeah, I couldn't quite catch up to him.
Speaker: And then, uh, yeah, I was kind of down to, uh, do I want to pick rush against Escher?
Speaker: Not really.
Speaker: Or I can play flash Gordon.
Speaker: So, uh,
Speaker: Yeah, I chose Flash Gordon.
Speaker: I own one.
Speaker: It's a fun game, but obviously it's a drain monster.
Speaker: So the fact that him and I, I mean, even he was just like, I can't believe I came back on Flash Gordon.
Speaker: I hate this game.
Speaker: So I was like, you know what?
Speaker: That was such an exciting ending.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Even though I lost, it was just like, it was fun.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It was fun for us too.
Speaker: I mean, it was, that was quite intense.
Speaker: I think between that moment and Travis Murie getting a double zero, I think we're the two best moments of that final.
Speaker: Travis going for the donut.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I have not seen anything like that since an EM where like the old Gottliebs that they didn't care if he had zero.
Speaker: And it's like, wow, I think all of us are like, what?
Speaker: I cannot believe he didn't get disqualified.
Speaker: I mean, that would have been awful for him to just walk up and plunge player four.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Because he didn't notice the different blinking scores.
Speaker: So, yeah, good on him for, you know.
Speaker: Keeping us aware of such a thing exists.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think we were all pretty shocked in that moment.
Speaker: His face said it all, which was great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He just like looks up, looks back.
Speaker: But it's great to see you going up against Escher.
Speaker: It's given us quite these games over the last, you know, I've been watching the last few years now.
Speaker: And it seems like you and Escher, at some point in every...
Speaker: leading up to a final, go into the same group with each other.
Speaker: And so it's kind of cool to see the young versus the talented and the experienced.
Speaker: The seasoned?
Speaker: The seasoned, yes, the seasoned player.
Speaker: It's just really cool to see kind of a transferring of the torch, so to speak.
Speaker: And these young kids, it's getting scary how good they are.
Speaker: Well, they cheat.
Speaker: They have YouTube now.
Speaker: That's fair.
Speaker: When we were playing in the late 90s, early 2000s, they come across a game you'd never seen before.
Speaker: You can't watch a video on it.
Speaker: You can't watch any flipper skills.
Speaker: And so I actually think all these streamings and the rigs that they've come out with and everything has really helped promote...
Speaker: these kids getting so good so fast because i think pretty much all of them you know their parents are into pinball and right you're like oh how do i play this game so they'll watch you know carl stream or whatever it's like okay this is how you blow this game up and so you know they'll take that same approach and all of a sudden they're they're just as good as the rest of us and uh so we have to rely on picking these older games so uh we still have that going for us well and those those older games really are brutal so it gives us quite quite a spectacle watch too so
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, it depends on the game.
Speaker: You know, Flash Gordon obviously is pretty brutal, but, you know, some of the games that they had there at Indisc, like Surf and Safari and even Bad Girls, it was pretty controllable, even though there were no ramps or anything.
Speaker: They were controllable.
Speaker: I guess, I don't know if you want to give this information away, but what is your go-to old game if you have one in a tournament?
Speaker: Usually it's Frontier.
Speaker: I didn't really, I wasn't crazy about how the one there played in Classics 2, so it became Super Sonic.
Speaker: That's just a game where you do absolutely nothing with the right flipper, but tap past to the left flipper.
Speaker: And I'm pretty good at that.
Speaker: So that was my go-to game.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: In finals, it was high speed because I've just been playing that game since it came out.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: And yeah, I probably have more time logged on high speed than probably any other game.
Speaker: That's including the games you've made, huh?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: You know, once my game gets released, I don't want to play it for a year.
Speaker: So when was the last time you played Godzilla?
Speaker: Actually, I played it just a couple of days ago because we have a minor update coming out for Carl's thing he's running.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There was a couple of minor bugs, and then we put a little tribute to Dean Grover in there because he passed away since the last code update.
Speaker: And yeah, he did a few modes on the game, so we wanted to make sure that we recognized everything he did.
Speaker: So we put a little tribute in there to him and just cleaned up some bugs.
Speaker: Yeah, so that's the last time I played it.
Speaker: But last time I played it for fun, it's probably been a while.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My girlfriend plays it all the time, but I'm usually like, yeah, I think I need another six months and then I'll want to play it again.
Speaker: It's the same with all my games.
Speaker: After Jurassic Park came out, I didn't want to play it for a year.
Speaker: Same with Avengers.
Speaker: But, you know, it'll come around when I'm not playing it to look for bugs or code ideas.
Speaker: Then then it becomes fun for me.
Speaker: I've actually been playing Jurassic Park a lot the last two weeks.
Speaker: So even though I, I've been playing around and playing Godzilla and all, all the new stuff.
Speaker: And then I was like, I haven't played Jurassic park in a while and I am getting really into that game again.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's funny.
Speaker: It was the same thing with me.
Speaker: Um, it's, you know, it's been here for a while, but I never played it.
Speaker: And then, uh, once Godzilla was, you know, got to the point where Rick wasn't working on it full time anymore, then I started playing, uh, Jurassic park again.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: I was just like, ah, man, I really do enjoy this game.
Speaker: And of course, my Avengers is still in this box, but I will get it out probably this summer.
Speaker: It's my goal to get it out of the box in the game room.
Speaker: I actually just sent off my Avengers glove to be customized.
Speaker: And so it actually looks pretty impressive, and I can't wait to put it back in the game.
Speaker: You make it look like the movie?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: See, that was that thing.
Speaker: It was the comic book version of the glove looks so different than what they use in a movie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: People are like, why is there a dishwashing glove?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You look at the comic, that's literally what it looks like.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah, it does.
Speaker: And the cool thing is I just sent you a picture and you can look at it.
Speaker: And he had the Marvel runes and he put an LKP on my glove.
Speaker: So I sent it with my friends.
Speaker: So we have loser kid pinball.
Speaker: They'll be in the game.
Speaker: Ooh, those are nice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Man, you should have made an extra one for me.
Speaker: You didn't ask.
Speaker: Oh, I didn't know.
Speaker: His name is Alex.
Speaker: He'll, he'll do it for you.
Speaker: I'll have to, I'll have to hit him up.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: It looks really cool.
Speaker: Well, and one thing I want to bring up with Godzilla is like in Jurassic park and Avengers, you had those side modes that you could just access from the, the pushing the two flippers in.
Speaker: Why didn't you go with that on Godzilla?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: We are.
Speaker: It's taking longer, but... Yeah, we're definitely going to have something.
Speaker: Worst case scenario, we'll throw in like maybe... What is that?
Speaker: Not Monsters or the other one.
Speaker: Oh, Terror of Mechagodzilla.
Speaker: I think we'll at least throw that in soon and then work on the one that was actually planned from the beginning.
Speaker: hopefully we get that out, you know, sometime this year, but, um, yeah, it's definitely there.
Speaker: We will definitely put something in there because, uh, uh, I remember when Dwight first put that in, um,
Speaker: Ghostbusters and then we put it in Jurassic.
Speaker: I was like, yeah, this is this is cool.
Speaker: It's fun.
Speaker: Every game should have this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's definitely it's getting done.
Speaker: Not sure when, but it's definitely getting done.
Speaker: OK, I just figured when we hit one point, I was like, well, dang it, it's not happening.
Speaker: But you heard it here first, people.
Speaker: Yeah, it is happening.
Speaker: Yeah, not at one point.
Speaker: It's happening simultaneously with the topper, I guess.
Speaker: You might be on the show.
Speaker: I kid, I kid.
Speaker: I gotta say, Godzilla is so refined.
Speaker: Like, I can see, I've owned all your games, and I've kind of watched as the code has evolved, and you've taken bits and pieces of each code from your other games.
Speaker: And Godzilla has somehow just perfectly refined that all together.
Speaker: Are you feeling like you're creating your own style through all this?
Speaker: Because I think the one complaint people had with Avengers is that they got so focused on the gems, they thought that's what it was about.
Speaker: And then you realize, well, it's really just shooting the Avengers.
Speaker: And so with Godzilla, it feels like there's something accomplished no matter where you're shooting, whether you're going for tanks or a bridge or even just raid.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I guess my question is, do you feel like you're starting to get that figured out and you're just kind of evolving on what you've done before?
Speaker: So I have a theory here.
Speaker: Um, it seems like a good percentage of the players just want to turn their brain off and flip and have fun.
Speaker: Uh, there are other diehards that like, uh, you know, like set your example of Avengers.
Speaker: They're like, well, here's this perk I put on this shot and you know, when do I want to do it?
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So, you know, I have to take the approach of, yeah, not everyone wants to do that.
Speaker: Some people want to be told what to do and other people just don't care.
Speaker: So a good example is the power-up system in Godzilla was something entirely different.
Speaker: And when, you know, we started getting early code into the game and playing it and I was like, do I really want to put this menu up here of, you know, what,
Speaker: what you want to buy.
Speaker: So basically you're, we're gonna, you're building up this power and then you could cash it in for an award.
Speaker: And so, yeah, and you have six.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And I get, I get all these, this list of things I can choose from, and then they all cost a certain amount of energy.
Speaker: And, um, I talked it over with Rick and I was like, you know, it's just, this, this is going to slow the game down.
Speaker: This is going to make too many options.
Speaker: People just want, you know, okay, I'll give me one or the other.
Speaker: Cause it's kind of like, you know, it was a throwback idea.
Speaker: to how the old Data East games worked, where, you know, like Star Wars is like, oh, do I want that or do I want 20 million?
Speaker: You know, you don't spend much brainpower thinking of that.
Speaker: So it's like, okay, yeah, one or the other.
Speaker: So we completely refined the power-up system, just one or the other.
Speaker: And I think that it worked out for the best because I haven't heard one person complain that is like, I don't understand when these power-ups do.
Speaker: I don't understand what to choose and when.
Speaker: It's because we pretty much made it simple.
Speaker: So my designs are, I think I've learned, it's like, oh, this is what people want.
Speaker: They want some ball time.
Speaker: So in Godzilla, we introduced a new ball save system where you get a certain amount of time, no matter how many actual ball saves you get.
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: We implemented that.
Speaker: Even though it's been in all my games, it just wasn't defaulted to it.
Speaker: So this is the first game we defaulted to it because, you know, you're plunging onto the play field, the ball drains, it kicks it back out, you drain again, then you feel robbed.
Speaker: So we implemented that into here.
Speaker: And then we noticed, well, you know, we keep seeing the same video over and over of Godzilla kicking his son.
Speaker: So I talked to Rick.
Speaker: He's like, can we just make this like its own little side story of, you know, Manila's quest?
Speaker: uh, you know, to beat that monster.
Speaker: So yeah, we did, we added like seven or eight, you know, little snippets.
Speaker: So every time you got a ball save, you'd see a different video.
Speaker: So we, we kind of had fun with it.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: And I think people enjoy that.
Speaker: Cause at least they don't feel robbed.
Speaker: I mean, it's like, if you don't get the ball under control after, you know, four or five plunges, that's on you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So you have a game coming out that was just announced anyway.
Speaker: I know that my friend down the street is on the list to get one, and that is obviously Bond 60.
Speaker: So the first question is, when were you approached to do a playfield for Bond?
Speaker: It was probably about a year ago.
Speaker: Whenever George kind of like full-time took over,
Speaker: the Bond Cornerstone, the rumblings of, you know, the licensure wanted, you know, kind of a retro throwback, old school design, you know, featuring all the bonds.
Speaker: And when I heard about this, I immediately volunteered because I knew it was going to be a while before Maddox game came out.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I had a meeting with George and he's like, yeah, you know, have fun, knock it out of the park.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: I kind of paused the project I was working on and pivoted over to this.
Speaker: And yeah, just got started.
Speaker: Well, my understanding too, as we kind of talked a little bit before this, you pretty much just did the design the play field, whereas most of your other cornerstones, you're
Speaker: you're helping with the code you're helping with your, you're, you're doing the whole project, right?
Speaker: So how was it different doing just a play field?
Speaker: And do you have any nervousness with the code, not lining up with your vision of, uh, how, how your play field is going to be laid out?
Speaker: So, yeah, actually when, I mean, I'm on a cornerstone, I, you know, I'm, I'm dealing with the licensor.
Speaker: I'm dealing with, um, the artists, um,
Speaker: I'm designing accessories.
Speaker: So it is a very time consuming process.
Speaker: So in this case, yeah, it was actually kind of nice just to design a play field and then hand it off.
Speaker: And then it's not to say I abandoned it, but I worked closely with Mark Panacho, who came up with the rules for the game.
Speaker: And if he did something that I thought was questionable, I'd say, yeah, I'm not sure about this.
Speaker: And then there's some other things that he put in there that's like, yeah, this is pretty cool.
Speaker: So between the two of us, you know, coming up with a, you know, kind of a, I wouldn't say a simple rule set, but a more straightforward rule set than like you would have on a cornerstone.
Speaker: So it was actually a lot of fun.
Speaker: It's a fun game to shoot.
Speaker: The music's good.
Speaker: You know, it's, it's very fast.
Speaker: So that, that was actually my goal was to take, okay, you know, you want to,
Speaker: simple no-ramp game, but it doesn't mean I can't make it fast.
Speaker: We got two control gates on there, so lots of looping shots.
Speaker: I wanted to feel like you're in the car chase or something.
Speaker: I just wanted to always keep you on your toes.
Speaker: I didn't want the ball to just sit in the pop-umpers for an hour like traditional old-school classic games.
Speaker: We got a ball saver.
Speaker: We don't need to keep the ball in the pops for 20 seconds.
Speaker: We can just
Speaker: You can super scale shot around, get it right to your flipper and go to town like you would a modern game.
Speaker: So you, this is the first time that Stern has done two games with a, you know, with a single license.
Speaker: How does that affect your choices when George is designing a game and you are simultaneously designing a game?
Speaker: It didn't really affect, you know, my choices at all.
Speaker: Other than, you know, we're sharing the same narrator.
Speaker: uh, we have separate recording sessions, but it's the same guy.
Speaker: Um, yeah, we were not originally George had the, uh, the spinning disc on his game too, but where he had it, he didn't like it.
Speaker: So I think he, he yanked it out for that reason, but where I have it, it's much less in the way.
Speaker: And I think it actually, uh, adds a lot to the game.
Speaker: Despite what I see people saying, Oh no, not another disc.
Speaker: It was like, nah, this one's a little different.
Speaker: It's, uh,
Speaker: It's more of a fusion of the Batman disc and the Avengers disc, whereas it homes to a certain position to kind of be always in a meat zone.
Speaker: So when you hit it, it spins a long time because it has these special bearings that they use on the Batman and then it homes to a certain position.
Speaker: So it's not like the Avengers disc at all.
Speaker: And obviously everyone's loving the idea for optical spinners.
Speaker: Was that just like, I've got to do this from the get-go or?
Speaker: I originally had three and then there was this shot on the left.
Speaker: When you rip that figure eight loop, it would just come flying down this left lane.
Speaker: It was like, wow, I can put an optic spinner here and get a bunch of spins there too.
Speaker: So I just...
Speaker: I just told Rob, the engineer, he's like, you know, let's just throw another spinner in here.
Speaker: Let's see how it does.
Speaker: And then once we shot it, it's like, oh, yeah, that's staying.
Speaker: And so I was like, wow, a four spinner game.
Speaker: I'm not sure that had ever been done before.
Speaker: And then we actually have an achievement.
Speaker: If you get all four spinners going and the spinning hat, you get an achievement.
Speaker: You also get a bunch of points.
Speaker: It's like 500 points, which is a lot in that game.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I remember you talking on Stern Insider podcast that like your highest score was 18,000 or something like that.
Speaker: That was recorded like last summer.
Speaker: So that was before any of the wizard modes were in.
Speaker: I think my high score is 80,000 now.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Which is still, so I think it goes to like 200 something, because once you completely roll all the lights, then the over the top light adds as the 110,000.
Speaker: So it's going to be extremely hard to roll.
Speaker: I'm sure Carl will take that as a challenge.
Speaker: You can only get two extra balls in a game.
Speaker: So it's going to be pretty challenging.
Speaker: I'm sure someone will find a way to do it.
Speaker: Can you set it to 10 ball, though?
Speaker: I think it goes to five.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So they now actually you, you just got into the scoring, which I wanted to bring up.
Speaker: So when this came out and it was announced a long time ago by George is like, Hey, it's going to have reels in it.
Speaker: And then we kind of all, I fell into it too.
Speaker: I saw the release and I'm like, are you kidding?
Speaker: They just put an LCD screen back there.
Speaker: Cause it's exactly where the LCD screen is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There was a leak of a render.
Speaker: Um, it, which obviously it was,
Speaker: It looked flat because it was flat.
Speaker: It was just a render.
Speaker: But it's funny, though, because even in real life, if you stand at a straight on angle of the reels, they do look fake because they are so well lit with the LCD lighting system that they have in there.
Speaker: um that they almost do look fake whereas you know because you're used to you know you look at an em you see it's it's bottom lit by one you know yeah incandescent bulb so it has always has this kind of shadowy like it's bright bright on the top and the bottom and kind of darker in the middle but this doesn't have that so yeah it does it's it's not what you're used to seeing as far as a score reel
Speaker: I gotta say though, I love that when you posted the picture with the bezel down or whatever.
Speaker: Yeah, bezel off.
Speaker: Yeah, we really went all out.
Speaker: Virtual panel open.
Speaker: It was great.
Speaker: We talked about going with a single level of retro field.
Speaker: What are the advantages and disadvantages of confining your design to a single level play field?
Speaker: I mean, the advantage is like,
Speaker: creating ramps is actually much harder than you think.
Speaker: Um, cause it usually take up a lot of, uh, entrance space and you didn't got to figure out where do they go and how do they interact with the other ramps.
Speaker: And it's actually like, um, my current, um, current project I'm working on, uh, my, my engineer Harrison and I have been just like, it took us like two months to figure out how the ramps would all interact with each other.
Speaker: It's very time consuming.
Speaker: we do a lot of trial and error.
Speaker: So for this, you know, there's none of that.
Speaker: It was just, you know, Hey, it's an old school game.
Speaker: There are no ramps.
Speaker: That means I can put drop targets wherever I want.
Speaker: You know, I can, you know, have all these dangerous shots, but you know, lots of shots you can bank off of other shots.
Speaker: It's kind of a fun, like relax your brain, just kind of have a throwback.
Speaker: What, what did these designers do?
Speaker: You know back when they were designing these games and then I realized oh I have such an advantage because I'm using you know CAD and then we can 3d print you know whatever we need to You know instantly try, you know, whatever shot we're trying to do.
Speaker: So Yeah, it was actually it was very smooth I was gonna say too.
Speaker: I mean this this game looks fantastic it I don't recall any Old-school game, you know pre DMD
Speaker: that looks like this.
Speaker: Was there any influence that you got outside of, like, is there one of your favorite games that you were trying to put on here?
Speaker: Or was it just kind of like, this is what I'm feeling.
Speaker: This is what I'm doing.
Speaker: I wanted to use, so I actually designed a shot that I never used.
Speaker: And I, I kind of like the, uh, the Harry Williams designs of the, uh, like both cheetah and Ali, they had the rope, a dope little thing.
Speaker: And even that nine ball has it too.
Speaker: So I was trying to do my take on that.
Speaker: And I was like, well, how about instead of just flying back in the middle of the play field, I have it, you know, loop back around.
Speaker: And, um, so yeah, I went to work on that and fast.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: This works really well.
Speaker: Then they had it, you know, dropped down and then it's like, yeah, this is cool.
Speaker: And of course later I find out that, uh, I guess diamond lady has a very similar shot, but I was like, oh, well, oops, that certainly wasn't what that was from.
Speaker: But, um, um,
Speaker: Yeah, I was actually surprised when someone posted that.
Speaker: I was like, oh, okay.
Speaker: I can't say I had much time on that game, but I didn't remember that.
Speaker: I've never even heard of that game.
Speaker: I'm looking it up right now.
Speaker: Diamond Lady, yeah.
Speaker: Somebody posted, oh, it gets very similar.
Speaker: And I looked at it and I was like, oh, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: This looks straight out of the 70s.
Speaker: I want you also to explain to us, because I heard this on the Insider podcast about these drop targets and how they're unique because somehow you can trigger them with the lockdown button.
Speaker: Yeah, so these are trippable inline drop targets, which is something we've never done.
Speaker: So if you've played Metallica and somehow a ball got stuck behind a target, it would just be stuck there.
Speaker: So yeah, we designed these trippable to prevent section from that from happening.
Speaker: But then I realized, oh, we can actually take advantage of this.
Speaker: But you get this gadget that'll enable the action button to just drop the targets so you don't take those dangerous shots.
Speaker: Of course, the trade-off is each one of those targets lights something on the play field that helps you.
Speaker: So when you get this gadget, you can bypass that and go straight for multiball.
Speaker: But you don't get the benefits of actually hitting the drops.
Speaker: So that's how that came about.
Speaker: And yeah, it's actually, I'm really glad we put that in.
Speaker: I was skeptical at first, I was like, why would we need this?
Speaker: I don't see how the ball's gonna get stuck behind the targets, but then I was like, okay, yeah, I'll take it and then I'll use it in a gadget.
Speaker: What's your favorite shot in this game?
Speaker: Definitely that figure eight loop.
Speaker: Also the left orbit is kind of fun, especially from an in lane.
Speaker: So each time you're rolling over an in lane, it lights a spinner.
Speaker: a related spinner for 10 points of spin.
Speaker: And that's fun.
Speaker: The left-hand lane also lights the hat for 10 points of spin.
Speaker: So those are definitely my two favorite shots.
Speaker: I want a list of some of your favorite single level games and why you like them.
Speaker: I grew up playing Frontier Skateball and 8-Ball Deluxe, and I like them all for different reasons.
Speaker: Frontier is just kind of like
Speaker: yeah, here's all these dangerous shots, you know, you need to hit these targets that go right down the middle on you half the time.
Speaker: But it's like, it dares you to do it, so you got to try, because they're worth too much.
Speaker: Again, my Skateball, I thought it had some really cool shots, a lot of flow for its time.
Speaker: It had the reverse in lane and out lane, which I didn't hate, for once, because I usually hate those.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: uh, obviously eight ball deluxe was just an amazing game for, you know, the memory drop targets, the easy theme that, that bonus collect scuba that all came together.
Speaker: And of course inline drop targets.
Speaker: So, uh, those are the games I grew up playing.
Speaker: Um, I, as I, you know, kept playing, you know, ramp started coming in, but it's still some of my favorite games.
Speaker: Like, um, even it's a terrible game, but, uh,
Speaker: alien star that was at a in disc is like, I mean, it's just a smooth shooting game, even though the rules are really bad and you're just shooting a spinner over and over again.
Speaker: It's just something about that, the simplicity and also the, the, the challenge where it says, Hey, hit these five alien targets.
Speaker: If you want the, you know, multi-ball that's like when you shoot them, then just puts the ball everywhere out of control.
Speaker: And there's just something about that that appeals to me.
Speaker: I like,
Speaker: the more I play pinball, the more I realized that when you're always in control, a hundred percent of the time, um, I think you kind of lose something.
Speaker: So, uh, I try, I'm trying to slowly start incorporating like risky shots that put the ball out of control on my game.
Speaker: I think that adds the variety you need.
Speaker: So like in Godzilla's case, here's this pop bumper.
Speaker: It's like, well, I'm never going to aim for that.
Speaker: And I was like, well, okay, well, I'll make you aim for it because there's an extra ball here and there's, you know, you have to hit it to advance some modes.
Speaker: So that's kind of where my head was at with that, you know, trying to get the ball out of control like these old flat, you know, games.
Speaker: It's kind of like pinball used to be.
Speaker: So one question I had about Bond is, and we all know that it's limited to 500, but did any of the design that you put into this compensate for maybe some competition play?
Speaker: Because it would be awesome to see something like this, a modern throwback in a competition.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Neil McRae is already talking about how it's going to be the UK open.
Speaker: So there, I mean, there's no random awards per se, so it should be fine for a competition.
Speaker: There's no lock stealing.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's, you know, Mark Panacho, you know, he went over a couple of things that he did, but there's nothing egregious that you can do in multiplayer that you can't do in single player, which is kind of a shame because I don't entirely hate lock stealing.
Speaker: It actually adds a lot of strategy when they're asking us, you know, what position we want to go in, what game in a tournament, you know, sometimes you strategically pick to go first, you know, it's just, you know,
Speaker: it adds a different element that you're not used to.
Speaker: And how was it working with Mark?
Speaker: Cause is this his first game doing code kind of on his own for Stern?
Speaker: For Stern.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, he's great.
Speaker: Um, he, he works from home primarily.
Speaker: So, you know, we, him and I would see each other like once a month and we'd huddle around the game, play it, uh, get some feedback, get some feedback to Jerry Thompson, the sound guy.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: He's very receptive to my criticisms.
Speaker: Some of the things I didn't like, I told him about, and he either changed them or just trashed them entirely.
Speaker: He came up with a lot of stuff himself.
Speaker: It's my first time working with a team other than my own Cornerstone team.
Speaker: It was a different experience.
Speaker: I got to work with other guys, and it was fun.
Speaker: Do you think that this design and cause he came from originally he came from Valley Williams.
Speaker: And so the last code set he did was in the nineties.
Speaker: Do you feel like this game kind of, um, helped bring him into more of a modern era because of the design and the retro feel it was going for?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, he, um, his last game was fishtails and yeah, and he definitely threw his hat in a ring to program this.
Speaker: Uh, he was brought on board for our, uh, IC system stuff.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: When this game was getting developed, I know he threw his hat in a ring and, uh, you know, George gave it to him.
Speaker: And so he was excited and I was excited to have him.
Speaker: And, uh, yeah, I think that's a perfect, uh, launching point for him to, uh, you know, if he wants to program games in the future, then, you know, this is perfect.
Speaker: Hey, look, look what I did and this people like it.
Speaker: And, um, you know, if he wants to do it again, I'm sure, uh, he can.
Speaker: Now, in this game, you had to choose, it looks like, the six villains, but every Bond movie has a villain.
Speaker: How did you whittle it down to the ones you wanted?
Speaker: Basically, I had to choose from each era my favorite villain.
Speaker: There was one exception, I think.
Speaker: I think there are two from the Roger Moore.
Speaker: Yeah, the Oddjob and Jaws.
Speaker: No, it's, oh yeah, it's Jaws and Christopher Walken, his character.
Speaker: Oh, gotcha, yeah.
Speaker: That was because, yeah, we had one extra, and so it was a wild card, and I got to pick whatever I want, and I was like, well, I grew up with Roger Moore, did the movie, so I decided to pick Jaws because he's the most famous, and then...
Speaker: Max Zoran, it's because that was his last movie, you know, Roger Moore's last movie.
Speaker: So that's why I decided on him.
Speaker: Are you a fan of Bond or is it just something you kind of grew up with?
Speaker: I grew up with, uh, I grew up with Bond.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, I remember, um, for your eyes only was on HBO.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: It's like they would play all the time.
Speaker: And I'd watch that movie so many times.
Speaker: It's probably not one of his better movies, but I really enjoyed it.
Speaker: You know, I was just a dumb little kid.
Speaker: And so then every time, you know, a movie came out after that, I was like, all right, this is my bond.
Speaker: You know, and of course, Jaws, you know, every kid growing up was like, oh, I want to grow up to be Jaws.
Speaker: You know, it was he just bit a chain with his teeth.
Speaker: And, you know, it was amazing.
Speaker: it was just kind of, you know, a kid thing that's like, Oh yeah, this, this movies are cool.
Speaker: You know, I love them.
Speaker: And as I got older, uh, yeah, I didn't, I still watched the bond.
Speaker: I just still not a movie I haven't seen, but yeah, as a kid, you're, you're just, uh, you know, worshiping these, you know, action heroes of the time.
Speaker: Do you and Gomez ever get in it over, uh, who's the better bond with Connery and, and more?
Speaker: No, I already know that George, George is always telling stories about, you know, we would go to the theater and,
Speaker: and see these, you know, these Connery Bonds.
Speaker: And I was like, okay, so I, yeah, I probably never went to a theater to see a more bond, but so I know he's a lot more, he's pretty passionate about Connery.
Speaker: So this is your first game that is a two flipper game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So tell me about that versus all your other games.
Speaker: Cause you, you, you added extra flippers and all the other games.
Speaker: And so this is your first traditional fan layout.
Speaker: This is true.
Speaker: This was by design.
Speaker: I wanted, you know, I wanted just, when I think of a throwback game, I don't think of like cross shots and other things.
Speaker: So it's like, I just want two flippers at the bottom.
Speaker: I want a bunch of drop targets.
Speaker: I want spinners everywhere.
Speaker: That's how I approach this.
Speaker: In this case, like I'm trying to think of a game.
Speaker: I think this stupid hot-dogging game that we played in Classics 2 where it's got this flipper built into the slingshot.
Speaker: You're like, this is totally a gimmick.
Speaker: You're never going to use this.
Speaker: It's like, why is this here?
Speaker: A lot of those extra flippers on these games of those eras just seem like a waste.
Speaker: I was focusing more on a classic game with traditional flippers in a traditional spot.
Speaker: Not doing anything wacky.
Speaker: I would have loved it.
Speaker: I almost thought about doing the twin flippers like Harlem and Captain Fantastic.
Speaker: That would have been fun, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that would have been fun.
Speaker: But I decided against that at the last second.
Speaker: So you've elevated the bar quite a bit with Godzilla.
Speaker: At least that's the response I'm hearing.
Speaker: Between all the awards that won last year, and everyone's claiming it's probably the best game ever made, and even Pinside, you've dethroned Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars.
Speaker: Do you feel like there's quite a bar to achieve with your next game you're working on?
Speaker: I always strive to do the best I can.
Speaker: So I take it as a challenge if people say that, oh yeah, he'll never top this game.
Speaker: Then it's like, okay, well, give me a chance.
Speaker: So as much as I love Godzilla, I play it now and it's like, oh, there's a couple of things I wish I'd done differently.
Speaker: And hopefully I learned from that.
Speaker: And one of these days I'll release the perfect game in my mind and then I can just retire.
Speaker: We hope that day never comes then.
Speaker: Keep falling short.
Speaker: Well, and listening to Gomez, he's done quite a few interviews over these last couple of months about Bond and whatnot.
Speaker: And he said that they were going to the two cornerstones again this year.
Speaker: And we've kind of done the math and it kind of puts Eddie.
Speaker: He hasn't done anything really since Mandalorian and Jack danger.
Speaker: He still hasn't put anything out since that the JP pin.
Speaker: Does that mean we're not seeing anything from you this year?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No trippies from me next year.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And none this year either.
Speaker: What the heck?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, you know, it's nice to give, um,
Speaker: my program of Rick Nagels, you know, a break he's, uh, he's been busting his ass.
Speaker: Cause we had back to back short schedule games and that was, um, Avengers and Godzilla were both considered short schedule cause they were kind of on each other's heels.
Speaker: So, um, he, you know, got through those and we're like, Hey man, take a break.
Speaker: You need to serve it.
Speaker: So, um, yeah, here we are.
Speaker: It's, it won't,
Speaker: have a nice, like fully fleshed out game upon release.
Speaker: Whereas Godzilla, I think released it maybe 0.8.
Speaker: Uh, I think people saw the bones and realized, Oh yeah, this is gonna be a cool game.
Speaker: But in reality, we were, we were still writing rules like, you know, four or five months ago for that.
Speaker: So, um, yeah, it'll be, uh, nice to give this team a little bit of a breather.
Speaker: Has it been a different experience too?
Speaker: And do you feel like you've been able to be more creative with your new game because of the breathing room you've received from
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: I actually, uh, pretty much completely redesigned two or three shots on it already, just because I've had the time, uh, time to like, you know, I do what's called a white with zero where I just take existing parts and bend them and, uh, either 3d print what's missing or just like, you know, just finagle parts together and try out shots.
Speaker: And, um, it's nice to be able to have that time to, you know,
Speaker: get the rough kinks out and it's like, Oh, this is, this works great.
Speaker: This is never going to work.
Speaker: I need something else here.
Speaker: And so, yeah, it's actually, it's, it's nice.
Speaker: I won't lie.
Speaker: So how do you design a great shot?
Speaker: Like what makes a shot feel great?
Speaker: To me, it's a combination.
Speaker: Uh, is it smooth and it's, does it do something interesting?
Speaker: So in a case we'll use a bond 60, this is an example.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So you asked me my two favorite shots.
Speaker: Well, that figure eight shot is not only smooth, but it does something interesting.
Speaker: The left orbit shot, it's smooth.
Speaker: It's not necessarily interesting, but what it does, it feeds your right flipper on the fly for you to hit something that is more interesting.
Speaker: So to me, that's what's important.
Speaker: Is the shot itself interesting?
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: then it's gotta set something up.
Speaker: It's either gotta feed a device that's interesting or feed another shot coming up that is interesting.
Speaker: That's how I approach it.
Speaker: So I don't wanna have like a clunky shot leading into an unfun device, you know?
Speaker: That's not fun all around.
Speaker: So those are my two rules.
Speaker: If you have a clunky shot, it's gotta be there for a reason, it just has to be there.
Speaker: Otherwise, there's no excuse.
Speaker: That's how I feel about the original Jurassic Park.
Speaker: The loop shot's great and all, but it is clunky, and you're lucky to get to go around a couple of times.
Speaker: Which loop shot?
Speaker: The one on the original Jurassic Park.
Speaker: The Data East one.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I thought you meant my spinner shot, the center spinner shot on my Jurassic, which I intentionally have that clunky because originally that flew around so fast that you didn't have time to react.
Speaker: So I have it kind of like slamming into the back.
Speaker: back of the panel and to slow it down.
Speaker: Uh, yeah, like I said, sometimes a clunky shot, like, is that a fun shot?
Speaker: No, but it sets up your upper flipper shot and which is important and does have smooth shots.
Speaker: So I need advice how to, uh, consistently hit the Raptor tower shot.
Speaker: Cause I, that is, that is the most elusive luck shot for me in that game.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That flipper should be aligned to pretty much hit it.
Speaker: It's the shot above that, that I designed to be extremely hard.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: No, I, I hit that one all the time.
Speaker: The one that circles around, but I, are you sure your flippers on a line too high?
Speaker: Cause that's, Oh, I don't know.
Speaker: I'll have to double check.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cause I'm like that, that Raptor tower shot.
Speaker: I'm like, Oh, I got it like one out of 10 times, but I can always sling that sucker around to the upper shot.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Then that upper shots death.
Speaker: That, that was, um, that was never designed to be a repeatable shot.
Speaker: So what I did is I, I made it, um,
Speaker: you know, special that the tower combo.
Speaker: So if you can shoot that and then the Raptors tower, I thought it was a fun one, two punch.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, that shot was definitely not, you know, meant to be de looped or do anything.
Speaker: That's super interesting.
Speaker: It was just meant to scream the ball out of control.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: No, it's exactly what it does.
Speaker: I can de loop it a lot.
Speaker: Well, I think we actually tried code where the post comes up for that.
Speaker: And it was just like, nah, because it bounced halfway back across the play field.
Speaker: And it's like, nah, I'll just have it come flying at you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, and if you forget to tap the flipper, the upper flipper, you're like, oh my gosh, it made me go down the middle.
Speaker: So your new game, can we ask how many flippers you got on this one?
Speaker: There are two full-size flippers.
Speaker: And there are two other flippers.
Speaker: Other flippers you're bringing the banana flipper back, aren't you?
Speaker: I am bringing the banana flipper.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: We're going Iron Maiden 2.0, but with banana flippers, banana flippers and they're going to look like hot dogs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I miss the banana flipper days.
Speaker: Nothing quite like playing a time warp.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So Keith, you are 12 years.
Speaker: Oh, go ahead.
Speaker: I will say it has three flippers on one side.
Speaker: There's, there's your hint.
Speaker: Oh, three flippers on one side.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The, uh, it's Saturday afternoon.
Speaker: You're a 12 year old kid.
Speaker: You can watch any Bond movie on HBO at four in the afternoon.
Speaker: What are you picking?
Speaker: For your eyes only.
Speaker: Haven't you seen that a million times?
Speaker: Yeah, but that was just, that was the movie that got me hooked on Bond when I was young.
Speaker: So yeah, like I said, I'm not saying it was the best Bond.
Speaker: It clearly was not, but.
Speaker: That's when I grew up watching.
Speaker: Is that the one where they climb up like in Greece, like to that chateau on the – there's like an ice skater up there or something like that?
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: Very inappropriate relationship that she tries to have with it.
Speaker: Yeah, that's that one.
Speaker: Yeah, OK.
Speaker: It's cringey today.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: Yeah, it's definitely cringeworthy.
Speaker: But I do remember that one.
Speaker: Of course, I remember the one that came out that for some reason we watched a billion times was Octopussy.
Speaker: So that was always an interesting bond to like, hey, you want to watch that?
Speaker: I remember when that came out.
Speaker: I don't remember much about it.
Speaker: I remember...
Speaker: after I watched a four guys only, I watched moon raker and I was like super excited, you know, it's jaws in space.
Speaker: And then it was just like, Oh, this is not that good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Moon raker was not that good.
Speaker: I don't think I've seen it all the way through because the, they kept doing it like the, the ABC Sunday night movie.
Speaker: And I think the only reason why they kept doing that is because they probably didn't have to pay anything.
Speaker: But no, yeah.
Speaker: Other than that, I liked, I liked all the, the Roger Moore movies that I saw.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Moonraker wasn't my favorite, but I liked the artwork.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What one was it that I shared with you the other day, Scott?
Speaker: It makes me laugh every time.
Speaker: Cause like for some odd reason, Bond always had to be attacked by like an animal in his hotel room.
Speaker: And so there's one where they drop a Cobra.
Speaker: It's a snake.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Where he, he uses a blow torch on it.
Speaker: He uses the, his hairspray and like his aqua hairspray.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's funny because I had never really watched the, uh,
Speaker: The Connery Bonds.
Speaker: And when I had the old school Netflix account where they sent you DVDs, I actually made it a point to watch all those.
Speaker: And I thoroughly enjoyed them.
Speaker: And I was like, I'm actually surprised because I was expecting it just to be way too cheesy and campy for me.
Speaker: But I thought they were great.
Speaker: So how does that affect your time now that Stern, at least for the foreseeable future doctor, George Gomez has announced that they're doing two cornerstones.
Speaker: How does that affect your process?
Speaker: Because that seems to slow it down a little bit because with four designers, you probably were on about a 16 month design schedule.
Speaker: Well, that kind of pushes you out to a 24 month design schedule.
Speaker: Well, nothing changes design-wise because we have to design the game like it's still coming out when it was originally coming out.
Speaker: It doesn't mean we all get to take a break and not work on it.
Speaker: It just means that hopefully when the game does release, the code's done, everything is buttoned up tight.
Speaker: Like I said, this is a nice break for us to actually have the time to have everything
Speaker: buttoned up, you know, when you watch the Jack Danger stream, when we do it, it's like no one's going to say, oh, why is there a placeholder stuff here?
Speaker: It's like hopefully that's not going to happen and we can deliver a kick-ass game day one.
Speaker: I was going to say, so obviously you took on four optical spinners and, and that's a record as far as we know, as, as many spinners on a pinball machine.
Speaker: Are you going to try to attempt something like haunted house and have like a basement main level, upper level and do like nine flippers instead of eight?
Speaker: Oh, I thought you can bring up inline spinners.
Speaker: That's what I was about to say.
Speaker: Why don't you do inline spinners do four inline spinners.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I imagine that probably doesn't work as well as you think, but that'd be interesting.
Speaker: Well, what if you fed it to like the rocket kickback on Guardians of the Galaxy and it shoots it up through four optical spinners?
Speaker: I'm guessing you would see four broken optical spinners.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: This is my wish list for Stern.
Speaker: You can just take it for what it is.
Speaker: My only complaint about this Bond 60 is it's limited to 500.
Speaker: So you're not going to get the Keith Elwin saturation market, market saturation that you're typically getting for a game.
Speaker: So here's my wish list.
Speaker: Sometime down in the future, they release a game that's priced for the masses with the same play field.
Speaker: So just put that in the back of your head and take that to George.
Speaker: Okay, I'll tell him.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I thought you were going to ask him outright and say, are you going to do that?
Speaker: No, I guess I, come on, come on.
Speaker: I'm not going to ask that.
Speaker: I'm just suggesting.
Speaker: Cause I, I would have to sell a couple of games to afford this, even though I have considered it, but I, I'm, I still have all four L ones.
Speaker: So I just need a fifth.
Speaker: You have all the cornerstone L ones.
Speaker: How's that?
Speaker: Yeah, there you go.
Speaker: I wish I still did.
Speaker: There's only so much – that's the bane of our existence, right?
Speaker: There's only so much room and only so much money.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, it is.
Speaker: It just makes – it's just crazy to think about how long pinball has been around, how many games have been produced, and how few in the past 30 years have actually been trashed.
Speaker: I mean they're all going somewhere.
Speaker: yeah so you know back in the day the operator would just throw it away but you know those days are long gone so every game produced is getting parked somewhere indefinitely so that's that's why everyone's problem is space yeah i was gonna say even like a decade ago i remember when i first got into the hobby it seemed like the operators still didn't realize what they had you know there was there was a lot of operators that run nickel arcades or whatever and it was you know once they'd run its time they'd either trash them or
Speaker: I mean, that's how I got my World Cup.
Speaker: I got it for like 500 bucks and the guy thought he was ripping me off and I didn't have a soundboard.
Speaker: And I was like, I'll take it, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Different times.
Speaker: It's weird.
Speaker: Keith, how many games do you have?
Speaker: Because you basically had a pinball business down in San Diego before you moved up to Stern, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I have less than 40, more than 30, I think.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: How do you choose which ones to get besides the ones you design?
Speaker: I actually haven't bought a game in quite a long time.
Speaker: But I would always, you know, back when I was running the business, I would buy something that, hey, is this on location anywhere else in San Diego or L.A.?
Speaker: No, then I had to have it.
Speaker: You know, case in point, I bought a Secret Service just because I had not seen one on location since I was a kid.
Speaker: No one else had one.
Speaker: I bought that.
Speaker: I bought a Bonsai Run for the same reason.
Speaker: That pretty much influenced my decisions.
Speaker: Some games I bought because I wanted to have.
Speaker: I bought Walking Dead Premium just because I wanted to have it.
Speaker: I had no intention of operating it.
Speaker: So it's just how you're feeling.
Speaker: I bought Sea Witch because I thought it looked cool at this bar by the ocean that we had, and people loved it.
Speaker: They also loved Beatier.
Speaker: Some of those games I bought for dirt cheap that I ended up operating for years, it was an incredible time.
Speaker: If you're an enthusiast operator, some of those games that you just don't see anywhere, they can be gold.
Speaker: Well, it's funny, some of these older games too, that like my wife has played Riviera recently within the last six months or something like that.
Speaker: She's like, that's the game I got to have.
Speaker: And people keep sending me listings.
Speaker: But it's funny because it's just not a game you think of.
Speaker: It's not one of those, you know, I think the problem is we get in this mindset that anything made, you know, pre-70s is all the same, maybe even pre-75.
Speaker: And there were some unique...
Speaker: the ideas that went into those games, like you said, they might be gimmicky to a point, but it's, it's cool to explore that because it just, we don't see that anymore.
Speaker: You know, I think, you know, any enthusiast operator is going to try to put something else that, you know, on location that nobody else is.
Speaker: And I think that's actually going to work in a favor of this bond being limited is like, you know, obviously you're not, you're not going to see them everywhere on location, but there are going to be these enthusiast operators like, well, if I put this out,
Speaker: Or else is anyone going to play this?
Speaker: This is going to draw people to my bar.
Speaker: Yeah, it's yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it works.
Speaker: And trust me, because I've been there.
Speaker: I did that.
Speaker: It's like anytime I came across a gem that I didn't know if I'm located anywhere in Southern California, the people would would come play it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's like Sunshine Laundromat having Supreme.
Speaker: I don't think I'll ever play Supreme unless I go to Sunshine.
Speaker: That game is surprisingly fun.
Speaker: Oh, I'm sure it is.
Speaker: Yeah, I remember that there was a Whitewood in our lab, all of us, because this is before we were working from home.
Speaker: We would have daily tournaments on the things.
Speaker: It was just so damn fun to just play a quick, simple, fun game that was actually – it wasn't that easy to beat, but it was fun.
Speaker: So are you guys still working from home or is it because you're getting ready to move or have you already moved to a new operating facility?
Speaker: I actually don't know what's going on with that.
Speaker: But we are, I mean, I work, I mean, last week I went in every day, but it depends what I'm doing.
Speaker: If I'm writing rules or doing any kind of CAD work, I do it from home.
Speaker: If I'm actually working on Whitewoods, you know, test lab, anything, I'm there at the office.
Speaker: So the programmers are mostly
Speaker: working from home.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We didn't know if it was business as usual or if COVID has now made the unnormal now normal.
Speaker: So possibly.
Speaker: So Keith, what are you looking forward to in the next year?
Speaker: Oh boy.
Speaker: I'm finally going to an international tournament in, in May.
Speaker: I'm going to Germany.
Speaker: Something has been on my lists to do, but it's everything always aligns improperly and it doesn't happen.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: That's what I'm most looking forward to.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: That sounds good.
Speaker: Germany's on my bucket list too.
Speaker: That reminds me.
Speaker: So are you, did you qualify as the state champion for Chicago or for, yeah, for Illinois or.
Speaker: Cause I saw Escher did wish Wisconsin.
Speaker: I didn't play in that.
Speaker: I qualified in California, but since I was out there the previous week at Indus, I didn't want to come back.
Speaker: So I, I forfeited my, my spot.
Speaker: You figure a second at the end disc is good enough.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Keith, always a pleasure having you on.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: Uh, we have some more, uh, some more updated beanies.
Speaker: We'll get out to you.
Speaker: That sounds great.
Speaker: And once again, we do appreciate you helping out with, with flipping the script on autism, man.
Speaker: That's, uh, it was a great cause and we're happy that you helped us out with it.
Speaker: Yeah, that was fun.
Speaker: That was, uh, when I walked into it, I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do, but, uh,
Speaker: Amanda was saying, what do you want to do?
Speaker: I was like, I don't know.
Speaker: Let's just wing it.
Speaker: And it was a lot of fun.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't think any of us knew what we were going to do.
Speaker: It was such a unique experience.
Speaker: It was pretty wonderful by the end of it, though.
Speaker: It was funny, though, because I was telling Zach because he was trying to sell his Deadpool before that.
Speaker: And now I'm looking at him like, so you're ready to sell this?
Speaker: He's like, you're joking me, right?
Speaker: Like, I've got Keith that's touched it.
Speaker: Now it's Rogers touched it.
Speaker: That thing was butter.
Speaker: That was a great Deadpool.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And I love the mods that he put on there.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: The NSFW mods where you're like, wow.
Speaker: Just ask about Greg Bell.
Speaker: Yeah, just ask about Greg.
Speaker: But thanks again.
Speaker: I guess if you don't want anyone to get a hold of you, where do you want them to send you email that they're not going to get a response to?
Speaker: Fan letters.
Speaker: Just send directly to George.
Speaker: Send it to my guys.
Speaker: All right, Keith.
Speaker: Well, definitely love all the games and can't wait to see what the next ones are laying out for you.
Speaker: And I know you'll do a great job.
Speaker: I'm really glad you crossed over from playing to designing because you certainly impacted the newest generation of enthusiasts.
Speaker: So it's been a lot of fun playing and owning those games.
Speaker: that's good to hear that all my decades of experience can now be put to new use, but thanks.
Speaker: I appreciate it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Thanks, Keith.
Speaker: I'm going to say, it's been five, six years since you created Archer.
Speaker: Did you think this would all come about because you did a homebrew in your garage?
Speaker: That was my hope.
Speaker: When the, yeah, the P-Roxer thing came out and, you know, people could make their own games.
Speaker: I was like,
Speaker: God, when I was a kid, I used to design games all the time, you know, just out of just stupid household items.
Speaker: And I was like, I'm going to see if I can do this.
Speaker: And then I was like, hey, this thing actually shoots pretty fun.
Speaker: And when Stern reached out to me, I was like, yeah, let's talk.
Speaker: Well, I think it's been good for both of you.
Speaker: Yeah, no complaints.
Speaker: I do miss Southern California.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Especially this time of year, right?
Speaker: The weather in Illinois is not awesome.
Speaker: It is awesome three months a year, yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You should come here where the snow foot, or our snow is up three foot right now.
Speaker: Yeah, we have a lot of snow right now.
Speaker: Oh, it's ridiculous.
Speaker: Awful.
Speaker: Well, if you want to get a hold of us, we are LoserKidPinballPodcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: You can also get a hold of us on the socials on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, maybe YouTube, all at LoserKidPinball.
Speaker: We're trucking along, man.
Speaker: I don't know what else to say, Scott.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: See you in about two weeks.
Speaker: See you in two weeks.
Speaker: Shut up and sit down.
