Transcript
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in to Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
Speaker: I am Josh Roop.
Speaker: With me, my co-captain, as always.
Speaker: Scott Larson.
Speaker: It is episode 129.
Speaker: We've got an epic guest, as always, on.
Speaker: And before we get to that, though, Jaws is now out.
Speaker: If you want to get a hold of that, Scott, how are you going to buy your Jaws game?
Speaker: I actually have one on order right now with Zach and Nicole Minney at Flippin' Out Pinball.
Speaker: So get on that Pro Premium or ask if there's an L.A.
Speaker: We'll see if we can do that.
Speaker: I'm hearing they're selling pretty well, actually.
Speaker: So can't complain.
Speaker: And nor can the man with us, who he really needs no introduction, right?
Speaker: Like people love him.
Speaker: Men want to be him.
Speaker: Women want to be with him, right?
Speaker: Something like that.
Speaker: The man, the myth, the legend, Keith Elwin.
Speaker: How are you doing, Keith?
Speaker: I'm all right.
Speaker: Hanging in there.
Speaker: I heard you're a little sick.
Speaker: You caught something more from California than an Indus trophy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Every pinball tournament, man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Get the pinball crud.
Speaker: You have to walk around with gloves and just change them every game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thank goodness it wasn't COVID, but yeah, it's so lingering and so annoying.
Speaker: I guess Kreisel coined it the con crud.
Speaker: That's what it is, I guess.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It doesn't sound like fun.
Speaker: So you've just been at home.
Speaker: You called in sick.
Speaker: Well, you had a great reveal, so you just kind of called in sick this week or what?
Speaker: I went in for the stream.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: Which was great.
Speaker: So everyone's wanting to know where Jaws just released.
Speaker: You had a little extra time on this game.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: Most of your releases have been within 12 months to 13 months, I feel like.
Speaker: And this one, you had over two and a half years from the reveal of Godzilla to the reveal of Jaws.
Speaker: What was different with this development process?
Speaker: And were you able to test some stuff out?
Speaker: Were you able to get more creative, I guess, with this game?
Speaker: Well, no, because we weren't supposed to release when we did.
Speaker: So it's pretty natural to start on a new project when the other one's kind of like
Speaker: ramping up for release.
Speaker: So this just happened to fall when we decided to cut back to two cornerstones.
Speaker: So my work was mostly done on this a long time ago.
Speaker: So all this extra time went to both the South Park team and the Jurassic Park 30th update.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So here's another question too.
Speaker: This is the first Keith Elwin game that has an upper play field.
Speaker: So, okay.
Speaker: So, so just curious about that.
Speaker: Um, what, this is a departure from your other, you know, your four cornerstones and obviously your, uh, street level game.
Speaker: So what were the thought processes of going into that?
Speaker: Uh, so when I told her I was doing this game, that, uh, number one thing I envisioned was an upper play field, uh, themed as the orca where you're up there, um,
Speaker: Originally, I was going to have the shark kind of bust through the back up there, but we just didn't have room to do it.
Speaker: So we went for kind of like the smallest play field we can do.
Speaker: And my goal was to, hey, what don't I like about upper play fields?
Speaker: Well, it just seems like you're just flailing around, not being in danger.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: It was my goal to just have the upper plate field kind of just flow into the rest of the shot pattern.
Speaker: So you get in there, it does this little, you know, little serpentine, the slow down the ball goes to the mini flipper.
Speaker: And then you got, essentially you have two shots.
Speaker: You got a ramp and then you got the horizontal spinner, which also feeds another ramp.
Speaker: And you also have what's called the radio target, which will spot anything you need.
Speaker: But those rules aren't in at the moment, but,
Speaker: No matter which shot you hit, it's going to find an XGV.
Speaker: For the radio target, it's going to dump out on that little metal dump out that kind of feeds the right slingshot.
Speaker: The left ramp kind of feeds the left orbit, and then the reel feeds the mini-flip on the right.
Speaker: So I didn't make any geometry changes since the initial whitewood, and it's because the shots all did exactly what I wanted them to, and I thought it was perfect.
Speaker: Speaking of the little flipper and feeding to it, did you always have that little post section right there to kind of hold it to slow down?
Speaker: Because in the stream when I was watching it, it's like blazing fast.
Speaker: And almost like you need to stop everything just to line up what you're doing.
Speaker: So was that, I guess, original concept?
Speaker: Yeah, actually, we screwed it up on the first white one and it didn't hold it.
Speaker: So I had to move the hole in everyone's game.
Speaker: But yeah, that was always part of the concept.
Speaker: just adds a thought it would add because there's no like especially during the multiball there's no place to park the ball in this game there's no scoops you know there's nothing the upposts don't come up during multiball so the only chance the player has to park the ball somewhere is using the uh the little flip lock system or just holding the right flipper up so speaking of flip lock i want you to go more into this like i saw it on the stream it looks awesome my like
Speaker: Is it just, it holds it through the whole multiball?
Speaker: Do you have a timer?
Speaker: What exactly, how does this flip lock system work?
Speaker: So the way it works is during a multiball, if you hold the right flippers in, I think it's for like one second, the action button will start flashing green.
Speaker: And then if you hold that down for one second,
Speaker: It'll lock the upper flipper in for, I believe, default is 15 seconds, but that can be built upon by bounty hunts, which add perks to that.
Speaker: So there's also, you can do it once per ball, but there's also a perk that you can get.
Speaker: You can do it multiple times per ball.
Speaker: That is the, right now I think it's the tiger shark.
Speaker: If you catch the tiger shark, you can do it multiple times in a single multi-ball.
Speaker: Is there a, is there a bonus for actually not using that during multiple?
Speaker: Cause that would be, that that's more, that's harder, right?
Speaker: When you have four balls flying at the same time.
Speaker: It's actually the, I think it's more fun to not use it and hold, you know, manually hold the flipper up and try to see as far as you can get without, um, you know, trying to release the right side.
Speaker: But, uh, it's cool.
Speaker: I think, um,
Speaker: I think it's just a unique way to, like I said, safely park the ball somewhere that's never been done before.
Speaker: So, yeah, I was pretty excited to finally get that going.
Speaker: That wasn't actually in the game on that initial release stream.
Speaker: That stream was kind of an older code, so we got that in just before the actual official reveal stream on Monday.
Speaker: So you're talking about stage flipping basically.
Speaker: So for people who don't, haven't really picked this up, if you typically have two flippers, if you hold it in a little bit, it does the, you know, it holds the top flipper, you hold it in all the way and holds the bottom flipper.
Speaker: Now you have three flippers that are activated by the right side.
Speaker: And so if you,
Speaker: if you're trapping up by either stage flipping is the upper play field flipper also being activated or does it lock or how does that work?
Speaker: Uh, the upper play field,
Speaker: is also the same secondary switch as the, uh, the right side mini flipper.
Speaker: Uh, flip lock does not affect the upper, um, basically because, you know, that would defeat the purpose.
Speaker: Cause you know, the easiest way to, uh, use that upper play field during a multi-ball is to have, you know, have balls parked away in the, uh, the flip lock.
Speaker: So are you going to have modes in here?
Speaker: So I'm thinking like terror of Mechagodzilla, right?
Speaker: Like it's a multi-ball.
Speaker: Um, but,
Speaker: if you were able to flip lock and then put a bunch of balls in there, you could pretty pick up, pick off those shots with less hazard.
Speaker: And then it's also like, cause then you lose flips as you drain too.
Speaker: Is there some strategy like that?
Speaker: That's going to go into this or, or what?
Speaker: No, the strategy is just a place to park the balls, man.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: It's exciting.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It's unique.
Speaker: It makes you think, oh, do I want to use it now?
Speaker: Or do I try to get two balls in there?
Speaker: And that way I can play a one ball multi-ball for 15 seconds.
Speaker: It forces you to think a little bit.
Speaker: And then, of course, activating isn't super easy.
Speaker: You kind of have to plan it a couple seconds ahead of time.
Speaker: And is this like a once a multi-ball or...
Speaker: one time per multi-ball?
Speaker: How does that work?
Speaker: Yeah, right now it's one time per multi-ball per ball in play, but like I said, you can add perks to use it multiple times and also have the timer, longer timer.
Speaker: So this is the game where you actually get to play the shark.
Speaker: And this is, this is a, a deviation from a lot of the things.
Speaker: Cause in Jurassic park, that would be kind of fun if you could play as the T-Rex and you could eat the, uh, the villagers or whatever.
Speaker: Or Thanos and Avengers.
Speaker: And you can kill people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So how were they receptive to that idea?
Speaker: And were they excited about that?
Speaker: Were they nervous about that?
Speaker: Because, you know, it's, you're kind of playing the bad guy if you're playing the shark.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We still haven't fully fleshed out the, um,
Speaker: plays the shark.
Speaker: We got our storyboards and everything.
Speaker: Licensor was fine with it.
Speaker: But it's something that we're working on.
Speaker: Hopefully it should be in there spring.
Speaker: But yeah, it'll be connected to IC.
Speaker: So as you collect shark teeth, you can unlock the plays the shark mode, which is its own entirely own mode, kind of like the escape nublar challenge.
Speaker: So it's, you know,
Speaker: Yeah, it's a three balls of its own dedicated mini game.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That actually, that blends into another question that one of my friends asked.
Speaker: He was over last night and saying that we were interviewing you and he wanted to know about, so he has a Venom, he has a Venom LE and with this new phase in, in insider connectivity with the ability to, you know, either build up experience or track things, how is that going to be incorporated into your games or, you
Speaker: Or do you, are you planning on, obviously you're planning on that.
Speaker: And how do you view this?
Speaker: Because this is different than all sorts of, before you would go up, you'd hit start and you were starting from scratch every single time.
Speaker: So how has the game changed now?
Speaker: Yeah, we're not doing any, the, you know,
Speaker: progression towards like actual gameplay.
Speaker: So you can't log in and smart bomb your way to the, you know, the finale or whatever.
Speaker: So the way we're doing it is you're in currency known as Shark Tee.
Speaker: you cash this currency in, in the form of challenge modes.
Speaker: And each of these challenge modes have their own leaderboard.
Speaker: So for example, right now, if you have 20 shark teeth, you can unlock the video mode challenge, which is basically the video mode, but with unlimited levels.
Speaker: And if things start getting really hard after like level four or five, so I'm actually really excited to see the leaderboard on this when it goes live.
Speaker: The other one is it plays the shark and I'm sure we'll,
Speaker: do some more.
Speaker: We do have a ranking system.
Speaker: Basically, for all the teeth you collect, I think it's 100, 150 something, that you're in a shark jaw.
Speaker: Each time you're in a shark jaw, you progress your rank towards, you know, you're working your way up the food chain in the ocean.
Speaker: You start off as a mackerel and you work your way all the way up to a great white.
Speaker: It's 15 or 16 ranks between the two.
Speaker: And then you keep your rank right over time.
Speaker: This is like a, this is kind of the track.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Track progression.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then I assume you keep your teeth as well.
Speaker: It's for bragging rights.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So you have spendable teeth and then you h ave a lifetime teeth.
Speaker: Your lifetime teeth are what, when you have enough to fill in an entire great white jaw, then it becomes a jaw.
Speaker: Then, you know, your teeth reset to whatever you need.
Speaker: But the spendable teeth, those will keep going as long as you don't spend them.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Are these teeth easy to obtain?
Speaker: Is it just hitting a stand-up in the game?
Speaker: How are we collecting these teeth?
Speaker: They work very similar towards just achievements.
Speaker: There's just baked-in achievements like starting Jaws multiball, you get a couple teeth.
Speaker: You land a bounty shark, you get a couple teeth.
Speaker: So it's all just kind of scattered throughout the game and doing different things during the game.
Speaker: So kind of similar to trophies in Avengers, right?
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Easy enough.
Speaker: That's easy to think of.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: And it's cool because if I go out to a location and I'm playing with friends, I can still be working towards progress at home as well, but it's not taking away that gameplay value of the main game.
Speaker: So that's a cool concept.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I didn't really want to have you be able to
Speaker: know, just kind of jumping into wizard modes.
Speaker: I think I'd rather, you know, I'd rather offer the wizard modes or the challenge modes in a different light.
Speaker: You know, you, okay, you want to play this?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You can try it out.
Speaker: But once you, you know, once you spend your teeth, then you have to accumulate enough teeth to try it again, basically.
Speaker: That's like digital currency almost.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You won't get sick of the challenge mode.
Speaker: Like, you know, I know people play it.
Speaker: the Nublar challenge over and over, people who have a top round Godzilla play the time attack challenge.
Speaker: It's like same thing, but you actually, you need to earn it and then hopefully that'll keep it fresh for you.
Speaker: And also it offers leaderboards, which is the other benefit.
Speaker: Okay, so with Jaws, now we all know that Archer was initially your demo game that you converted to Iron Maiden for your first game.
Speaker: Now that Iron Maiden obviously came after you had designed.
Speaker: So for this, this seems very specific to Jaws.
Speaker: And so it seems like you definitely incorporated the theme into the game design because it's not like this would work for Black Widow or Black Panther or something like that.
Speaker: So how would that, like, how is, is that different knowing the theme beforehand or is this typical how you, you do it now is that you get the theme and you try to figure out how to blend the experience with the theme.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, the biggest challenge to doing this game in particular was, you know, when we first concepted it and George was in the meeting too, and he was just,
Speaker: Yeah, dude, guys, we got to have a moving fin mech.
Speaker: And, yeah, we're like, yeah, yeah, you know, we'll figure this out.
Speaker: But I was, like, pretty adamant that it's not, you know, mech on a stick.
Speaker: I was like, if we're going to do this, it has to pop up in the play field and disappear.
Speaker: I don't want it out there all the time hiding behind a post or whatever.
Speaker: And so Harrison and I, you know, kind of stepping out.
Speaker: And lo and behold, man, the footprint, I think, is gigantic.
Speaker: I mean, it's huge.
Speaker: If you ever look under one of these, you'll see how big it is.
Speaker: And so basically I had to design the entire middle kind of middle right side around this gigantic mech, which is why the shots on the back right side are so far back there.
Speaker: This is the only place I can fit it.
Speaker: So that's kind of what you have to take an account when you're designing a game, knowing what you're doing.
Speaker: Whereas, you know, if I took the archer layout and tried to theme it, there was no way that mech was going to fit in that play field layout.
Speaker: And I like this mech because it's like a mashup between like the standups with, and a cactus Canyon mixed with like Dracula from monster bash.
Speaker: And I love that you, I was wondering if it moved back and forth, but as I was watching the stream, it looks like it just kind of moves from left to right.
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: Like it doesn't, it can move back and forth, but obviously it looks silly.
Speaker: The shark can moving backwards.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The shark putting reverse.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We know that.
Speaker: It technically can.
Speaker: It just doesn't.
Speaker: So, yeah, we're using it in two different ways.
Speaker: We're using it, you know, it's in motion.
Speaker: We have, I think, three or four different speeds.
Speaker: It can move smoothly from left to right.
Speaker: And we also have it, like you said, almost that's a good analogy, the Cactus Canyon pop-up tires.
Speaker: We can pop it up anywhere in that track we want.
Speaker: We call it the quick shot feature.
Speaker: So it kind of pops up out of the play field for a few seconds, and if you hit it, you win gear, which is our perks.
Speaker: So, yeah, it turned out exactly how we drew it up, except for the shape of the fin.
Speaker: I covered that in our podcast.
Speaker: It was making quite a mess.
Speaker: Well, and the other thing I love about this, too, on the stream, this is a moment when this fin comes out.
Speaker: And it's the mixture of the music.
Speaker: What Jerry did with that, shoot, shoot now, you know, it just...
Speaker: it feels like there's some urgency and some pressure on hitting this shot.
Speaker: It's amazing.
Speaker: I love how you guys have set this up.
Speaker: It's just, it's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Jerry killed it on this for sure.
Speaker: So now we, okay.
Speaker: There was the, the thing online and you did talk about it in the, in your podcast, but can you briefly talk about why the, why the shark does not eat the ball?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because it seems like that's the main thing that a few people are really focusing on.
Speaker: Oh, we tried.
Speaker: So what people don't understand, we have certain parameters we have to meet from the licensor.
Speaker: And, you know, they wanted the shark that kind of pop up and scare someone.
Speaker: It's like, yeah, that sounds awesome.
Speaker: Then when you try to add a ball-eating mech to that same thing, basically it became a shark elevator.
Speaker: So instead of the shark jumping out of the water, we basically had this elevator and the shark moved perfectly horizontal to the play field.
Speaker: Like Godzilla.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Imagine the building having a shark on top of the building.
Speaker: And that's how lame it looked.
Speaker: By the way, I'm putting a shark on top of my Godzilla building right now.
Speaker: So we scrapped out at one and then we tried another one where it was coming out from under the boat.
Speaker: But the problem is in order to have it eat the ball, it only comes up so far and you can barely see it.
Speaker: And it was just basically a moving scoop.
Speaker: And you know how I love scoops.
Speaker: So all of us kind of stood around us and said, this is stupid.
Speaker: It's like, right now have the shark pop way up, pop out really fast.
Speaker: And then you bash it and it disappears.
Speaker: I want to say this is kind of the first time, like, yeah, you have like the building on Godzilla and it's technically a bash toy, but you can shoot through it with this.
Speaker: It's like a straight up bash toy.
Speaker: Have you always wanted to do a bash toy?
Speaker: Is this just kind of, this is what it is because of the theme.
Speaker: Yeah, it's kind of what it is with the theme.
Speaker: I don't have a thing against bash toys.
Speaker: I think they can be pretty fun.
Speaker: I guess.
Speaker: Is it my first bash?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was going to say Iron Maiden, it's a ramp shot up the middle.
Speaker: Yeah, you have the mummy shot in Iron Maiden.
Speaker: Yeah, I guess it is.
Speaker: I didn't even think of that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was just, once we tried it as a bash toy, we all liked it so much better because it would just send the ball wherever the place.
Speaker: Like I said, the other thing, once it swallows the ball and goes under, okay, then what?
Speaker: We can't shoot another ball in there.
Speaker: And when it comes back up, it's either going to vomit it back out or if the scoop method, you're just going to fire it back at you, which is also strange.
Speaker: Why is a shark firing something on you?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was a team decision to ax that.
Speaker: I agree with your decision, by the way.
Speaker: I do, too.
Speaker: I just find it funny how much.
Speaker: The memes have been ridiculous.
Speaker: I don't know if this is like people really care or they're just.
Speaker: They're trolling.
Speaker: Yeah, they're totally trolling.
Speaker: They're chumming.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They control all they want.
Speaker: I don't care.
Speaker: I think I know what makes the game fun and what doesn't.
Speaker: I didn't like it.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: So suck it, community.
Speaker: No, it's great.
Speaker: I'm really liking the shark mech.
Speaker: It's very unique.
Speaker: The other thing I want to point out too, I've noticed that one of the things that you really like are captive balls.
Speaker: And in this game, the captive ball is the boat.
Speaker: And I find it interesting that the directional play from the ball inside the boat
Speaker: I mean, I don't know if I've ever seen something like this.
Speaker: Is there inspiration where this came from?
Speaker: I can't really think of another game where it does it.
Speaker: I don't think there is either.
Speaker: Unless there's some old EM.
Speaker: Well, it seems like a variation a little bit on the Amy shot, the Congo, where you're punching, but it seems like a step removed from it because you're hitting the ball and it's almost like a pool shot.
Speaker: Instead of the gorilla slapping the ball around, it's you slapping the ball around.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, but it seems like a pool shot because you have the cue ball and then you're hitting another ball to hit a target.
Speaker: And that's, I don't know how many, this is the first time I can consider you have to hit the ball, a ball to hit another shot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that started off originally.
Speaker: It was more of a very target bash toy.
Speaker: So you had the back of the boat.
Speaker: You kind of hit the back of the boat, the back of the boat would kind of just give away a little bit and then supposed to push the ball back, but it ended up just like the ball would hit it, the ball would die and it would just dribble down.
Speaker: It was like, oh, this is terrible.
Speaker: So we went back to the drawing board and then I had the idea of, like you said, kind of not an omnidirectional, but more of a directional captive ball where I was like, hey, you know, since this thing is direct in the middle of the play field,
Speaker: perfectly horizontal, we can have a traveling captive ball in a little cage there that we can, depending on what direction I hit it, we can hit different targets.
Speaker: And so we tried it out.
Speaker: Oh, this is really cool.
Speaker: So the initial code, you had to hit later on the game, you had to hit each individual target with the captive ball in order to light the modes later in the game.
Speaker: But then
Speaker: It became more frustrating than fun.
Speaker: So now we save the actual having to hit a certain target with the ball for certain modes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So getting into that, you have mentioned a few times about code evolving.
Speaker: It seems like your games haven't had a major code overhaul.
Speaker: It seems like it's a natural progression.
Speaker: There are some other games that have had
Speaker: you know, almost complete reboots, Ghostbusters come to mind where it's almost in Walking Dead also comes to mind where it became almost a completely different game later on in the development cycle.
Speaker: But we haven't really seen that from you.
Speaker: The question is, what would prompt the change in code and what does prompt it either from a minor standpoint or like a major overhaul?
Speaker: It does happen in my games.
Speaker: You just don't know about it because I catch it early.
Speaker: There was plenty of times.
Speaker: Godzilla, I remember that the way the city inserts worked were completely different.
Speaker: And with the direction we went, I just didn't like it.
Speaker: So we just changed it.
Speaker: Hey, you know, you just play this mode once in each city.
Speaker: You get your annihilation bonus or whatever.
Speaker: Move on.
Speaker: With Jaws,
Speaker: There were some minor things like the chum bucket.
Speaker: We kind of changed the rules on that.
Speaker: We changed the rules on the bash boat.
Speaker: So like I said, it was stuff that just was, you know, you're hitting a wall in gameplay wise just because, you know, something is a little too hard.
Speaker: So we changed things around.
Speaker: Like the chum bucket originally, you had to hit the chum bucket.
Speaker: And then I was like, well, this is too hard.
Speaker: And it's also, you know, when people bathe in the same thing 10 times, so.
Speaker: We added, like, once you chum the water, you know, it stays on water, it kind of moves around on the RGBs, kind of floats around the game, so you can hit those as well.
Speaker: You know, add some more flow to the game and make it less, you know, central, you know, bashing some central toy over and over.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: How do you decide what is, because obviously your games speak to all spectrums of the pinball player, from beginner to super expert.
Speaker: How do you balance these games out and figure the chum bucket is too hard or whatnot?
Speaker: Because I assume every game you play, you're very well rehearsed in playing it.
Speaker: Or you can obviously get deeper into it than, say, someone that's been only in the hobby for a year.
Speaker: How are you learning to balance these games for that?
Speaker: Yeah, it's a learning process.
Speaker: You know, I have, you know, other people play it and get their feedback.
Speaker: For this game, we hired Elizabeth Gieske, who's a, you guys probably saw her on the stream.
Speaker: She's a
Speaker: I think she came on the scene a couple of years ago, but she's already been hitting up the tournament.
Speaker: She's a very good player and she has a lot of good of ideas.
Speaker: And when she came on board, you know, we sort of started bouncing ideas back and forth.
Speaker: And one of the things I kept telling her and she agreed is her measurement was, does my mom understand this?
Speaker: And if not, maybe we should, you know, revisit it.
Speaker: And those words she said are, they ring so true.
Speaker: You know, if a novice player walks up to it,
Speaker: and is completely confused with what's going on, then we're not doing our job very well.
Speaker: It's like I said, this isn't for us.
Speaker: This isn't for tournament players.
Speaker: We gotta make something that everybody likes.
Speaker: So the key to that is make something easy, obvious goals up front with deep strategies later.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Okay, this is a submitted question.
Speaker: We know you have a lot of Easter eggs in your games.
Speaker: Can you give us some hints on some Easter eggs that we should be looking for in Josh?
Speaker: There's none yet.
Speaker: That's usually 1.0 stuff.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Besides, so is Gary now going to become like the Stanley of Marvel?
Speaker: He's just going to show up randomly in the artwork?
Speaker: Because I noticed he's swimming in the water by the way.
Speaker: He's floating.
Speaker: He's not swimming.
Speaker: He's floating.
Speaker: He's chum.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Gary is chum in the water.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We put him in Godzilla, too, but I don't think many people found him.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Where's he in Godzilla?
Speaker: He's on Mechagodzilla scaffolding with his... He's got a little chart with him.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: That's kind of funny.
Speaker: Because I know he's one of the aliens in Foo Fighters under the right upper flipper, if I remember correctly.
Speaker: Yeah, we had fun hiding him in there, so we decided to do it again, but not as hidden.
Speaker: He's the new cow that just appears everywhere.
Speaker: Just find the Gary.
Speaker: Yeah, find the Gary.
Speaker: Every game, we'll hide Gary somewhere.
Speaker: Can you kind of speak to, so when this game first revealed, or whatever that was, a lot of people were complaining about Brody, but then once we saw the footage and stuff, Brody is very predominant in all the video and stuff, but he's not really on the artwork.
Speaker: Can you kind of speak to, like, is that like a decision that you guys made, or is it something the licensor asked, hey, no Brody on the play field?
Speaker: So the way licensing works, there's likeness rights and the mechanical rights.
Speaker: So if he's in the movie, yeah, we can use it.
Speaker: In order to draw him, we need his permission.
Speaker: And his estate didn't even respond to us.
Speaker: Whereas we had to work with Dreyfus and the estate of... Shaw.
Speaker: Yeah, Robert Shaw.
Speaker: Robert Shaw.
Speaker: and they worked with us.
Speaker: So we were able to draw them, you know, and, you know, pose them any way we want.
Speaker: And you see that in the artwork, but yeah, we, we couldn't get ahold of the Brody estate.
Speaker: Is that, is that kind of why you have, cause I know on the premium on the right side, it shows Brody, but it's kind of from the backside of him looking at the shark and that's kind of a scene from the movie.
Speaker: So is that why that's there?
Speaker: Yeah, because that was most likely a stunt double anyway.
Speaker: So, you know,
Speaker: Ah, that's fine.
Speaker: Every back looks the same, right?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So we did, this is another question that my friend said.
Speaker: So you said three flippers when we talked to you last time and we were talking about the next game, three flippers on the right side.
Speaker: And he's like, okay, I'll give you, I'll give you points that they're all connected to the right side, but you know, okay.
Speaker: So can you give us a sneak peek?
Speaker: on the flipper count for your next game?
Speaker: Four.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: How many fins?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Kidding.
Speaker: Kidding.
Speaker: I hear they make excellent natural ramps.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: That was so bad.
Speaker: Break any, break any glasses with the, uh, with the jump shark.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We probably should have saw that.
Speaker: Well, we're glad that you tried it because you don't know until you try it, right?
Speaker: Well, here's the thing.
Speaker: When we test games, we generally don't have the glass on.
Speaker: So if we shoot them all completely outside the cabinet, we'd have a problem.
Speaker: That's impressive.
Speaker: So you've obviously had some extra time and whatnot, like Scott was saying.
Speaker: Can you tell me how many designs ahead you are or how many you've got in the pipelines?
Speaker: No, my time is occupied by Bond 60th there, which is why I'm not so far ahead of my next one.
Speaker: But that was actually my volunteering when I found out that, you know, this was getting pushed back a bit.
Speaker: I was like, well, you know, they're looking for someone to do Bond 60th.
Speaker: And I raised my hand and kind of worked out perfectly and kind of just snuck that entire design in while this design was already done.
Speaker: And before I started on my next design, which I didn't know what it was at the time.
Speaker: So it was just kind of a perfect,
Speaker: The holding pattern?
Speaker: A little availability for me to get to do a single level game, which I really like.
Speaker: I have mine upstairs.
Speaker: I love shooting it.
Speaker: It's a great game.
Speaker: It is fun to shoot.
Speaker: It's very unique.
Speaker: I'm glad you did it, too.
Speaker: Are you looking to do more outside of Cornerstones, or is Cornerstones the way forward and if something falls in your lap kind of situation?
Speaker: I'll always raise my hand to do a unique project.
Speaker: Nothing in the works right now.
Speaker: Well, the other thing too, Gomez actually pointed this out.
Speaker: I hadn't really thought about it, but you're kind of the king of the monsters right now.
Speaker: Like you, you're, you've done Godzilla and now like Jaws is kind of a monster.
Speaker: T-Rex was a monster.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's kind of your Eddie.
Speaker: Eddie is a monster.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So is this kind of a monster?
Speaker: Is this a signature for you?
Speaker: Or is this like a, I, you know, it's just the cards you've been dealt.
Speaker: It's fine with me.
Speaker: you know, whatever makes a fun game.
Speaker: And I think monsters kind of lend perfectly to that.
Speaker: So I'll keep doing them.
Speaker: It's fine with me.
Speaker: It beats doing music pins.
Speaker: Music pins sell.
Speaker: True.
Speaker: It doesn't mean you have a ton of creative freedom on them.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So you're telling us you're not lining up for like a... You got Billy Joel coming out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, I got one.
Speaker: Okay, go for it.
Speaker: We all know you're a big fan of classics games and kind of the retro feel of games.
Speaker: But obviously, the future of pinball has been changing into...
Speaker: you know, you have insider connectivity, you have deeper code, like the stuff from Valley Williams, you know, the nineties stuff.
Speaker: It just, it doesn't cut it anymore because you have people who are buying the majority of these games and putting them in their homes.
Speaker: So they're really exploring.
Speaker: So what do you feel the future of pinball is moving toward?
Speaker: Yeah, I think you have to nail on the head.
Speaker: I think the more we can offer connectivity wise,
Speaker: the better experience you're going to have in a home.
Speaker: So like I said, what we're doing with JAWS is, you know, offering unlockable currency, kind of like when you play Call of Duty, you know, you're earning XP and you're unlocking skins or whatever.
Speaker: So that's kind of what we're doing with this.
Speaker: You're unlocking challenge modes, and I'm sure we'll figure out some other things you can unlock.
Speaker: You know, the leaderboards, I think, are going to be super cool for, like, the challenge modes.
Speaker: Like I said, when you're doing the video mode, which is, you know, completely different than pinball, it's a different skill set.
Speaker: So I'm really curious to see the leaderboards for our video mode challenge, and I think people are going to love that.
Speaker: Anything you can do to, you know, connect scores, compare them to other people, especially in the video mode because you can't take the glass off and cheat that.
Speaker: So I think it'll be super fun.
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: Oh, that's actually I was going to ask.
Speaker: I was like, how do you, how do you prevent cheating?
Speaker: I mean, obviously if you look at the score and it says Carl D'Angelo next to it, you're like, Oh, nevermind.
Speaker: But, but if, but if I'm beating Carl, then there's an issue.
Speaker: There's rubber bands on the outlanes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, that's why we have verified location and not.
Speaker: So if you're at Logan Arcade, you're probably not going to be the glass off cheating.
Speaker: Someone will see you.
Speaker: So, you know, can we 100% stop it?
Speaker: No, but we can put some safeguards in place.
Speaker: So your team stayed pretty consistent from all your designs and whatnot.
Speaker: And you typically bring a person in or two and whatnot.
Speaker: Liz seems to be the new person on this game.
Speaker: How has her help with contribution changed?
Speaker: has it changed kind of your process a little bit?
Speaker: Is it just been, I don't know.
Speaker: How, how has it changed things up for you?
Speaker: Uh, Liz is hit Liz, Elizabeth.
Speaker: I don't know if she even goes by Liz.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Maybe she does.
Speaker: Um, she has basically implemented, uh, the rules I've written.
Speaker: She's also written some rules herself.
Speaker: Um, most notably, uh, casting catch and, uh, scars.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: She's great because she'll put in what I write and she'll like, well, you know, I think this will work better this way.
Speaker: So she'll kind of tailor them to make them better because it's easier for her because she's right there programming it.
Speaker: She can make changes on the fly rather than having to make me a build and send it to me.
Speaker: Like I said, we bounce back and forth ideas.
Speaker: You know, how is the average person going to understand this?
Speaker: How are they going to understand that?
Speaker: And, you know, what can we do text-wise on a screen to help better understand what's going on?
Speaker: You know, she's a pinball genius, so, you know, you don't need to explain anything to her.
Speaker: She just picks up on everything right away and knows exactly, you know, how the mode should work, what makes it fun, and how best to explain it to both, you know, expert and novice players.
Speaker: Now, we've talked about this before.
Speaker: Before you took your job at Stern, you played a lot more competitive pinball.
Speaker: But as you move to Stern, we all need a break from work, right?
Speaker: And so you have stepped a little bit back from the competitive pinball scene, even though you still show up for majors.
Speaker: Do you still get the same buzz by going to pinball tournaments that you used to?
Speaker: Not really.
Speaker: It was something I did for so long.
Speaker: I mean, my first tournament was in 1993.
Speaker: That's how long I've been doing it.
Speaker: And, well, when I lived in Carlsbad, I had a whole room full of games set up.
Speaker: Super tournament hard, you know, the outlanes gone, steep, wax, whatever.
Speaker: And that was kind of like my training ground for when I would go to a tournament.
Speaker: And now I have like, you know, three or four games that I don't really play at home.
Speaker: I live in the game I'm testing.
Speaker: Yeah, it's just, it's like one or the other.
Speaker: It's really hard to focus on both.
Speaker: So one of the things that you've talked to us about before is when this game release, when your game releases, you're pretty much sick of it because you've been playing it nonstop for like two months prior.
Speaker: Same situation with Jaws, getting it prepared?
Speaker: Or since you had a break, is it kind of like refreshing coming back and be like, oh, yeah, I do remember this now?
Speaker: Well, yeah, I've been playing nothing but Jaws for the past six months.
Speaker: So yeah, when I went to Indus, you know, playing anything other than Jaws felt weird.
Speaker: And, you know, it's a hard feeling to describe.
Speaker: Like I said, you know, it's my own fault.
Speaker: I know I can go out and play other games, but I just haven't chosen to.
Speaker: And, you know, it's fine.
Speaker: I wouldn't say I'm sick of it.
Speaker: Like, I never got sick of Godzilla.
Speaker: I never got sick of Avengers.
Speaker: I never got sick of Iron Maiden or Jurassic.
Speaker: But there is a time where it's like, yeah, I'm good not playing it for a few weeks.
Speaker: you know, usually, you know, once we hit 1.0 and then we start like dabbling in the next game, then, uh, yeah, I'll take a break.
Speaker: And speaking of big tournaments, Pinberg is back.
Speaker: So, and, and you're the king of Pinberg, if I understand correctly.
Speaker: So you, you planning on being there or are they, I can't make it that weekend.
Speaker: Maybe you can play virtually.
Speaker: Yeah, it's all right.
Speaker: We'll, uh, we'll see next year.
Speaker: Maybe hopefully they'll grow some and,
Speaker: it won't fall in a weekend that already had plans, but yeah, I'm curious to see how it goes there.
Speaker: I'm excited that, you know, those guys were, I believe Doug is a screwheading this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If I remember correctly, Doug was on pinball profile with Jeff Teola.
Speaker: So if you want to hear more about that experience, go over and check that out.
Speaker: It was a really good interview.
Speaker: Now, you are in the new facility now.
Speaker: You have officially moved.
Speaker: Has that changed anything from what you are in charge of and what your plans are?
Speaker: No, but I lost my window view.
Speaker: I'm in a much bigger office now, but yeah, I did lose my view.
Speaker: But that's cool.
Speaker: I have my new office.
Speaker: I can probably cram six or seven machines in there.
Speaker: It's so much bigger than the old office.
Speaker: And yeah, the building is really cool.
Speaker: I'm sure you've seen footage of it and where we streamed the other night.
Speaker: You can see it over the farm, all the planners we have hanging up.
Speaker: Yeah, it looks huge.
Speaker: It's really cool.
Speaker: Well, that's what made me chuckle too.
Speaker: So I was watching the videos between the new presentation video, which I loved, by the way, with Gomez and you.
Speaker: kind of just doing a brief five minute.
Speaker: This is what it is.
Speaker: That was great.
Speaker: Do that every time.
Speaker: Seriously.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: But it was funny because I had been in the new facility and I saw that was in the lineup, like right as you walk through the front.
Speaker: It's not right as you walk in the front door, but if you walk in the front door, you can see over that location.
Speaker: I'm like, how'd you guys sneak that up front without you just guys not plan tours for that day?
Speaker: And you're like, okay, let's say we're sticking jaws up front and we're doing this, this presentation.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of hard to see through all those doors.
Speaker: I know what you're talking about.
Speaker: You can kind of see through the whole building there, but it's really hard to make anything out.
Speaker: Trust me, we've all tried.
Speaker: Can we see that from there?
Speaker: I guess we really can't.
Speaker: It seems like at any given time, there is a Keith Elwin game on the line.
Speaker: Does that put pressure on you?
Speaker: with your next games?
Speaker: I mean, obviously Godzilla was, to put it bluntly, a monster.
Speaker: It's highly rated.
Speaker: It really did the unthinkable and it took over Medieval Madness for the number one ranking, which Medieval Madness has been there forever.
Speaker: Was there any concern with you coming out with the next game to say, wow, I hit a huge high mark on my last game.
Speaker: How was this one going to be received?
Speaker: I mean, I can't think like that.
Speaker: I just got to like, hey, here's what I have to work with.
Speaker: Here's what I'm thinking.
Speaker: Let's try to make this work.
Speaker: I take, you know, not to sound too baseball-y, but, you know, one game at a time and not worry about what I did in the past other than I'm trying not to repeat designs, which is
Speaker: One of the reasons that this game kind of, if you walk up to it, it looks different than my other designs.
Speaker: It's because I'm trying something new.
Speaker: It's like, you walk up, you look at it, oh, these shots look familiar, but then when you shoot them, they go a completely different path than what you're expecting.
Speaker: So I was trying something a little out of the box for me, and I think it worked.
Speaker: I really like the way it flows.
Speaker: So you spoke that you worked on Jurassic Park 30th.
Speaker: What'd you do to help kind of bring that to fruition and what's different about that?
Speaker: It kind of looks like just an art package slapped on, but it sounds like there's more that was involved.
Speaker: Well, it was the adding the whole co-op stuff was a very time consuming and stuff that we had to, you know, we had to dry out saying, okay, what, what can we share?
Speaker: What can we not share?
Speaker: It was,
Speaker: very time consuming to figure out, you know, what, how to balance it between the teams.
Speaker: So if this person lights, you know, two control rooms, does this mean the third person only has this one option left?
Speaker: A lot more goes in the co-op than you might realize.
Speaker: I didn't even know that was it.
Speaker: So is that, so I have an LE, is that on the LE also now?
Speaker: Every Jurassic Park has it now.
Speaker: So that was the benefit of doing the 30th is that everyone's game now has co-op.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: So the flipper buttons, you'll see the co-op menu.
Speaker: You know, there's co-op, three against one, two on two, one on one.
Speaker: And yeah, I think there's something else.
Speaker: I don't remember.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: So definitely check that out.
Speaker: I didn't even know that was a thing.
Speaker: Nor did I. Yeah, that's... You asked what was so time consuming.
Speaker: It was...
Speaker: you know, Raymond helped with that too.
Speaker: Rick Raymond and myself just kind of like sat down and it's like, well, this is what it's going to be.
Speaker: This is what it's going to share.
Speaker: This is what's not going to share.
Speaker: This is how this is going to work under this circumstance.
Speaker: And it was very complicated.
Speaker: All the UI works.
Speaker: And now we're showing like each team is now color coded and where they are respective to each other on the map.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A lot of work went into that, Rick, you know,
Speaker: Rick and Raymond really busted their butt on that.
Speaker: So is it kind of similar to Turtles where everyone works together?
Speaker: If one person gets to a mini wizard mode, everyone gets to the mini wizard mode?
Speaker: On your team, yes.
Speaker: Or it depends what it is.
Speaker: Some of them, like King of the Island, I know that whoever gets to it first gets to it.
Speaker: But I think most of them are set up that if one person gets there, it's live for the next person.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, I was not aware.
Speaker: I don't feel like this was pushed at all.
Speaker: I didn't know there was co-op at all.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's funny because Scott owns the game too.
Speaker: Well, okay.
Speaker: I just did a major rehaul on my room and I brought down Godzilla.
Speaker: I brought down Rush and I brought... So I've been playing those a lot more because they were in my garage and they were so cold.
Speaker: So it's nice to have them down now.
Speaker: So yeah, I finally got Iron Maiden and Godzilla in the same room.
Speaker: We got more call outs added too.
Speaker: Rick Zeke came and did another session for us for the Jurassic Park call out.
Speaker: So yeah, it was a solid update.
Speaker: That's great to know.
Speaker: So I've noticed Jaws is Spielberg.
Speaker: Jurassic Park is Spielberg.
Speaker: Is there any Spielberg like
Speaker: movie you you would just die to do is spielberg are you a fan of spielberg or duel man duel duel yeah i don't know what duel is that's his first movie oh is it nope it's basically it's basically jaws it's a big truck it's chasing a little car and you know wow i've i've never heard this now i'm gonna have to look this up yeah
Speaker: You guys should watch it.
Speaker: Be like George Luke doing a George Lucas.
Speaker: That was a THX one, five, seven or whatever that, that sci-fi movie he did before he did star Wars.
Speaker: I'll have to check this out.
Speaker: That is pretty random.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So I'm just so much older than you guys.
Speaker: That's, that's not true.
Speaker: I, I, I turned 50 this year.
Speaker: To be fair, it was one of my mom's favorite movies.
Speaker: So when I was a kid, she would say, oh, it's on.
Speaker: Watch it.
Speaker: That's how I knew about it.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: Well, if you rewound to what my mom watched all the time, it was Murder, She Wrote.
Speaker: So if you want to do a Murder, She Wrote pinball machine, that would be great.
Speaker: I would be all in.
Speaker: I think she's actually a serial killer, though.
Speaker: She's in a very small town in Maine, and everybody dies.
Speaker: Yeah, everybody dies.
Speaker: Like she's the one who's doing it all.
Speaker: It's just like a diehard Bruce Willis, wherever he goes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Stay away.
Speaker: Stay away.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So in keeping with the theme of the, of the water.
Speaker: So if you are on a desert Island and you could only have one triple drain guy.
Speaker: So you have Joel, you have Tom and you have Travis.
Speaker: Who would you want on the Island and why?
Speaker: I had deserted.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I saw cast away and I saw his two things.
Speaker: So I'm taking Tom.
Speaker: You're thinking Tom.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Oh, you know what?
Speaker: That is, that's hilarious.
Speaker: I didn't even think about that.
Speaker: That's brilliant.
Speaker: That's brilliant.
Speaker: Which is funny because Tom's follow up question is why don't you like him?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: any kind of tooth pain tom what's going on that's right you know what that's yeah i'll drive him nuts yeah that hey you know what you you went a completely different direction i just thought like joel would be better at back rubs travis would do feet rubs travis could cook i'm not exactly sure but toothache you know what i i'm with you on that uh my job is to take away pain too so i i'm totally on board with that
Speaker: Scott's making anesthesia out of like coconut husks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Blending coconuts.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that'd be great.
Speaker: You can just grab a nice skate.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All time favorite game from the seventies and all time favorite game from the eighties.
Speaker: From the seventies.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's a tough one.
Speaker: I guess.
Speaker: I would have to say Harlem.
Speaker: And I remember being at the bowling alley when they unboxed that.
Speaker: I was just a little kid.
Speaker: I was like, wow, this game is so cool.
Speaker: Because I was, you know, a little kid into the Harlem Globetrotters.
Speaker: I was like, I had to play that thing for days.
Speaker: If you haven't.
Speaker: I just set my torpedo alley back up.
Speaker: And I was like, man, 80s are so bumpy.
Speaker: Oh, you mean the painted on pants?
Speaker: Yeah, painted on pants.
Speaker: Those are really awkward.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Whirlwind really stands out to me as one of my favorite 80s games.
Speaker: And then, of course, the classic valleys, you know, Frontier Skateball.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: You're going to make me choose one?
Speaker: Yeah, it is a desert island.
Speaker: We're still on the desert island.
Speaker: I'm definitely taking Whirlwind.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's a really good choice.
Speaker: And the big one, the 90s.
Speaker: One Desert Island pin from the 90s.
Speaker: I'm going to have to say Congo.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: I've got to add.
Speaker: It's probably my favorite shooting 90s game.
Speaker: It's a good one.
Speaker: It's a good one.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: There's not as many produced as people thought.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: I think a lot of them got converted to a monster bash.
Speaker: I remember back in the day in search of Congo to part out and convert to a monster bash.
Speaker: And there was one there.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: There was one that was like a black and white option too.
Speaker: If I remember.
Speaker: I think there was some kind of kid or something.
Speaker: I don't, I don't really remember.
Speaker: I know somebody has a hairy one that they used to bring next to them.
Speaker: Had a gorilla for on the outside of it.
Speaker: It was very strange to play.
Speaker: Like it was rubbing hair on your hands as you flip the buttons.
Speaker: The entire cabinet was covered in fur.
Speaker: It's a wow.
Speaker: That sound insulation, you know, you play that and the sound doesn't go anywhere.
Speaker: That's a good point.
Speaker: But yeah, it was kind of an interesting mod.
Speaker: I knew that because I never thought it was weird growing up that my parents put carpet on the walls.
Speaker: I legitimately carpet on the wall.
Speaker: Like you go to Graceland and you see the carpet on the ceiling and people think it's so weird.
Speaker: And I'm like, I don't know.
Speaker: I just, I grew up with that.
Speaker: That I figured out that my parents were like, you know what?
Speaker: You guys are down there and loud.
Speaker: So just shut up.
Speaker: So are you going to try to do more upper play fields or is this kind of like one and done kind of thing or never say never, but, um,
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The, the horizontal spinners though, that's, uh, did that prime the, okay.
Speaker: Did you do this first or cause you have them on, uh, bond 60.
Speaker: This is a completely different type.
Speaker: Um, if you're familiar with the Jurassic park, uh, premium, the helicopter spinner, it's more, it's more based on that or it's a top loaded disc.
Speaker: with playfield underneath it, whereas the Bond 60, if it's actually a mechanism that comes up from underneath the playfield, it's completely routed out whole.
Speaker: And the ball hits post on the disc itself, whereas this, it's all completely above the playfield.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: It's a lot lighter.
Speaker: I do like that when you hit that spinner, cause like you have to reel in your shark with it.
Speaker: That is as cool that it sounds like an actual reel reeling in your shark.
Speaker: Like, well, I needed something to slow the ball down because without that, if you take that thing off that ball, which around there is so incredibly fast that it's, it's just crazy.
Speaker: So I needed something to slow it down and a standard spinner would not do it.
Speaker: So I was like, well, you know, I can,
Speaker: Thinus is a fishing reel and use a disc.
Speaker: It's a metal disc with plastic on top and it's counterweighted to always go to the same spot.
Speaker: And that creates a lot of weight.
Speaker: So it really slows the ball down.
Speaker: So it feeds the figure eight, you know, catch portion of the mini flipper.
Speaker: So that's where that was born.
Speaker: And then I used it again in the upper play field because it kind of just fit perfectly.
Speaker: There's the ship's wheel.
Speaker: I wonder if I can install that on Godzilla because basically the repeatable shot from the upper flipper, I can get it twice and then it's going way too fast.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Godzilla, man, if you keep that thing waxed, it is so hard.
Speaker: Jaws is the same way.
Speaker: It is a really fast game.
Speaker: You don't realize it until you're in front of it.
Speaker: That center ramp just whips so quickly right back at you.
Speaker: I'm hearing very positive reviews from people that have already got to play these in arcades and whatnot.
Speaker: And that's one of the first things they say is it's a very fast mover, and they weren't expecting the upper playfield to – you have to get used to it because it just goes so fast.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm reading these stream comments, nobody's shooting the upper playfield.
Speaker: It's like, no, we are.
Speaker: You just don't see it because it's so fast.
Speaker: You'll see it.
Speaker: When you play at the upper playfield, yeah, you have about one second to aim and flip, and then the ball's gone.
Speaker: So like I said, it's a flow-based upper play field.
Speaker: I get that on stream that probably doesn't really come across too well, but when you're playing it, I actually, I really like it.
Speaker: I like it too, because it rewards you for making the shot and it punishes you if you don't like if you miss it drains right down or not drains, but it shoots it towards the middle of the flippers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That was one of the first things I noticed.
Speaker: I was like, man, this upper play field just looks like it's got so many unique shot combinations.
Speaker: What's the top different amount of shot combos you can do?
Speaker: Like, if you're stringing a bunch of shots together, what's the most you can string together?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I didn't think about it.
Speaker: We don't have a standard combo system on this game.
Speaker: We have modes that are combo-based.
Speaker: But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: I know Iron Maiden was 6-6.
Speaker: I think Jurassic was six.
Speaker: If you can do more than six, then you're doing something good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It seems like the left out lane is significantly lower than the right out lane.
Speaker: Um, is there, does that feed into, into the design process?
Speaker: Because the bottom line is the, the kickers, the, the, the goal of the kickers is to shoot it toward the outline and it's too.
Speaker: So how does that change when you're, when your kickers are roughly the same, because it doesn't really, at least just from my eye, it doesn't seem like it's shooting to the outline.
Speaker: Um, yeah, it probably doesn't.
Speaker: Um, it really, um,
Speaker: Slingshots are fairly safe on this game.
Speaker: And first for me, they're non-symmetrical slingshots.
Speaker: The right one was smaller than the left one.
Speaker: And that was to accommodate the ball screaming down the left lane and feeding the in lane.
Speaker: So, yeah, I'm not a huge fan of slingshots that just dump the ball in the out lane.
Speaker: I think they create enough chaos as it is that they don't need to do that too.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: That's one of the reasons why I make games.
Speaker: I've always had the slingshots further back as well.
Speaker: But you also have, and you have two posts down on, on each side on Jurassic park.
Speaker: You just had one that left.
Speaker: And so is it, tell me about that.
Speaker: It seems a little bit like cactus Canyon where it'll, it'll freeze it.
Speaker: And is there something that pops up that you have to shoot like a time shot or, or what's the point of those?
Speaker: Uh, only on the first, um,
Speaker: the first time when you're first starting multiball when you have time hitting the fin target, the post will come up, it'll be, you know, shoot it, shoot it now, and then releases and you have to shoot the moving fin.
Speaker: That's the only time we're using a timed feature like that.
Speaker: We tried it, you know, for every one of the lock shots, as it were, and Elizabeth's like, oh, God, I hate this post, and I'm like, yeah, me too, so we just
Speaker: We'll just do it for the first one to introduce people to the mechanic and make this little mini moment.
Speaker: And then we'll just use it to stop the ball for our mode starts and whatnot after that.
Speaker: Can you not post transfer on this one?
Speaker: Because I know with Godzilla, you really can't.
Speaker: These are looking pretty far back.
Speaker: I mean, all my games you can.
Speaker: It's just harder than... You just have to be better, Josh.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Play better.
Speaker: Okay, I will say after moving my Godzilla downstairs, I don't know if the way it's set up, hitting that scoop is one of the hardest shots, like for some reason.
Speaker: And I don't know if like maybe the play field is not leveled to the right, but sometimes I nail it and it just kicks right back out.
Speaker: I will say if you have aftermarket flipper rubber, it might be impossible to do a post-pass on flipper.
Speaker: with the standard black factory rubber, it's possible.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I've got to ask.
Speaker: So it's really random.
Speaker: I don't know if people have seen this picture.
Speaker: I'll probably put it as, as the podcast picture, but it's you Richard Dreyfuss and Jody Dankberg for some odd reason.
Speaker: He's holding up a little donut.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What's up with the donut.
Speaker: And why is Richard look like he's so ticked in the picture?
Speaker: Like he just doesn't.
Speaker: He hurt himself playing tickle ball like a couple of days before we recorded.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He was on some meds and he needed to eat donuts.
Speaker: He needed some sugar.
Speaker: He needed to eat donuts and I think he had some Diet Dr. Pepper or something with him.
Speaker: And then he had a few donuts left over.
Speaker: So when we're done recording, he handed both Jody and I a donut.
Speaker: You guys want a donut?
Speaker: So we posed with the donut.
Speaker: Hey, if you post with the donut, that's a good thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like, Hey, I got a donut from Richard drivers today.
Speaker: Of course I can't post that because you know, the secret, right.
Speaker: You actually kept it home when you put in a plexiglass and it's on your desk now.
Speaker: So I think, I think Jody did.
Speaker: I think Jody had him sign it.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Well, how was it working with Richard and the call outs?
Speaker: Oh, it was great.
Speaker: It was funny.
Speaker: He, um,
Speaker: it's like almost like he didn't know what he was recording he was thinking yeah so so this casino game i was like oh no the pinball machine he's like oh okay that makes a lot more sense like i said i know he i know he had a rough couple days because of his pickleball injuries um but yeah we have jody and i were both excited for him to show up he showed up and he was really nice cordial and then
Speaker: let me know what you want.
Speaker: So he went through and read everything way too fast.
Speaker: And so we're like, oh yeah, can you slow this down a little bit and a little more emphasis on here and there.
Speaker: I really hope that you got him to do the what about Bob call out where, um, where he's, he's tied to the boat.
Speaker: He's like, I'm sailing, I'm sailing.
Speaker: I did get him to say this means something.
Speaker: Close encounters.
Speaker: I don't think he understood.
Speaker: That was a long time ago.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: 77 or something.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Next time we're playing with our mashed potatoes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Bust that clip out.
Speaker: Hey, did you know that this is weird trivia with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas?
Speaker: Did you know that they had a bet on which movie would make more money?
Speaker: Star Wars and Close Encounters.
Speaker: And so they each gave each other a small portion of the movie as the bet.
Speaker: And Star Wars, obviously Star Wars completely obliterated Close Encounters, but they were both, George Lucas was confident that Close Encounters was gonna make way more money.
Speaker: I liked it, the movie as a kid.
Speaker: I really enjoyed it.
Speaker: The pinball machine came out, I was like, yeah, and then I started playing it.
Speaker: Wow, this sucks.
Speaker: That is the worst when you have a dream theme and you go and play it and you're like, yeah, I think I can pass on that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The 70s were tough for Gowley.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So when you were storyboarding, was Quint and shark hunting always kind of the, this is the way we're going?
Speaker: Or did you have any other storyboards for?
Speaker: Well, I mean, this is kind of a tough license to work with as far as like things to do pinball wise.
Speaker: So we had to come up with a way to kind of, you know, fill some space.
Speaker: And one of those ways is, well, how does Quint earn a living?
Speaker: Well, he's a bounty hunter.
Speaker: He basically goes after sharks and, you know, collects a reward on them.
Speaker: So we decided to integrate that into the game itself.
Speaker: And so we took all sharks that they mentioned in the movie, or at least Dreyfus mentioned in the movie, or, you know, Quint did in stories.
Speaker: And then we, you know, that's how we came up with the four other sharks.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I was going to say, yeah, because I just watched Jaws recently this past couple of weeks and I was noticing that all the sharks that were in the movie, you'd put a game like the tiger shark and the Mako and whatnot.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Well, and you have the license plate, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the license plate that you took out of the, was it a tiger shark or like in the movie, I can't remember which shark they pull it out of the gut and they're like, oh yeah, this is it.
Speaker: It's like, there's the tiger shark.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's actually part of the player screen in the top middle.
Speaker: It tells you what ball.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: It's from Louisiana.
Speaker: So, Keith, I mean, obviously Stern did Baywatch and it had a shark in it.
Speaker: Did you guys think about repurposing that and putting that in this game?
Speaker: We thought about it.
Speaker: We do not know where that tool is anymore.
Speaker: The tool for the flipper mech?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was actually a topper.
Speaker: Oh, it was?
Speaker: Yeah, it was built into the top of a mini flipper.
Speaker: It wasn't all one molded piece.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I didn't know that.
Speaker: And then Baywatch has, it's kind of like Phantom Flip for Monster Bash and whatnot.
Speaker: Did you guys ever consider putting that in with this?
Speaker: I hate that.
Speaker: Okay, seriously, that shot never works, by the way.
Speaker: Trust me, nothing that Baywatch is thought about during this game, other than that they're both blue.
Speaker: Wait, you mean you don't have a Pamela Anderson cameo running across the screen, away from the shark?
Speaker: That's the Easter egg right there.
Speaker: That's the Easter egg.
Speaker: That's the best video mode ever.
Speaker: That definitely has to be in the 3D.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: I'm getting my 3D glasses.
Speaker: That is great.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Actually, that is one thing I didn't bring up.
Speaker: We didn't bring up.
Speaker: So you have the 3D mode.
Speaker: And so you have the glasses.
Speaker: How does that work?
Speaker: Do you like, okay, you got the move and you just throw them on real quick.
Speaker: Cause you can, you can enable it or you can disable it obviously.
Speaker: But I mean, it's, it's kind of a fun little Easter egg tidbit thing because Jaws, Jaws was 3d, like Jaws 3 was Jaws 3d.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it's just a fun little thing we thought of because when we're, you know, doing this video based on an old rifle game where you're, you know, you're standing at a rifle and you're looking depth wise, you know, technically you're looking straight ahead, but it's a mirror and you're looking down to gives you this great depth.
Speaker: So I was like, what if we can, you know, if we use 3D, we can kind of simulate, you know, the sharks are back here and then they're marking their way towards you.
Speaker: Our art guys took a few stabs on it and they were like, well, yeah, check it out.
Speaker: This actually works.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: And then George sat and he's like, oh my God, this is awesome.
Speaker: We're going to include 3D glasses with every game.
Speaker: I was like, oh, awesome.
Speaker: That's fun.
Speaker: Now you can buy your Stern pin gulp for your machine.
Speaker: So hold your glasses.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Hold your glasses.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The glasses were mainly meant for the challenge mode when you're playing multiple levels.
Speaker: I don't expect you to rip out the glasses to play the 20-second video mode and then take them off.
Speaker: You can.
Speaker: That's why we left that option in there.
Speaker: But realistically, it's for the challenge mode.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: That actually, that does play into my childhood because I swear every single, like three books, like from the book fair, they were huge when I was a kid.
Speaker: Like for some reason, it's like, I don't know.
Speaker: And also the paint by dots where it had the paint already there and you just put like water on them.
Speaker: They blend it all together.
Speaker: That was definitely the childhood.
Speaker: Our art guys all ruined their vision to make this one possible.
Speaker: Zach would be wearing his glasses for so long.
Speaker: He would take them off.
Speaker: He's like, if I look at a white wall and close one eye, it's completely red.
Speaker: It's cyan.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I tried it too.
Speaker: I put the glasses on for like a minute to come off.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The color of the wall is changing.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: It takes a good, it takes a good 20 minutes for your vision to get back to normal.
Speaker: How do you find, cause when you're playing this mode, it's like the old school bells and reels.
Speaker: The clicker mode.
Speaker: Like how did you get those sounds without like telling, like telling one, like we need to find this machine to get it sounds.
Speaker: Jerry has quite a big catalog of the electromechanical sounds.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, because I'm like, it sounds pretty spot on to what was in the movie.
Speaker: And I've never played this game.
Speaker: I heard it's not that like the 70s games, not that great.
Speaker: It's awful.
Speaker: Most of those games are terrible.
Speaker: Like if you buy it is awful.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you buy a lot of those games and put them in your house, you'll play them for like five minutes because there's a reason why you put a quarter in.
Speaker: And that was kind of the attention level that that game deserved.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There are some shooting games I really enjoy.
Speaker: Most of the older ones.
Speaker: That one is from, that one uses, I think it uses like a projector.
Speaker: So kind of projector to project sharks like floating around.
Speaker: It's kind of weird.
Speaker: I just, I just remember the, there was one that was called battle zone where you put your head in like this, this little, you know, it was like a periscope type thing, but yeah, that was a similar type thing, but I think that was a vector game.
Speaker: I think that pretty much does it for all the questions we have.
Speaker: So I'm going to wrap this up.
Speaker: If you want to get a hold of with Keith, you just don't, right?
Speaker: Like don't send him memes of sharking ball.
Speaker: Just wave at him on a show.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I gotta mention though, I ran into you at Expo and we were chit chatting and it was funny because I brought my little Godzilla card for you to sign and not even like five minutes before your girlfriend or whatever was like people really having you sign things and then here I walk up and can you sign this for me?
Speaker: Hey can you sign this?
Speaker: Yeah, she doesn't get why people like me, I don't either so fine.
Speaker: Okay, well, that's kind of back to when I think George was on a date and he took his date to a pinball place and someone recognized him and she's looking at him like, who are you?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Getting a walk down the street, man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Terrible.
Speaker: It's hard being pinball famous, I know.
Speaker: Yeah, pinball famous.
Speaker: Well, if you want to get a hold of us, we are Loser Kid Pinball Podcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: On the socials, we're at Loser Kid Pinball.
Speaker: That's Facebook, Twitter, X, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube, all that jazz.
Speaker: Make sure to subscribe and like.
Speaker: Give us our last word, Scott.
Speaker: We're going to need a bigger boat.
Speaker: Thank you.
