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Hello There! This is Episode 1 · Pinball Minority Report

• Erika’s Pinball Journey: We're live here at my bedroom and Manu's bedroom or his office. Where are you, Manu? Are you in your bedroom? OK, I would hope so, because there's a whole game cabinet in there. That's a I mean, actually, that's a really cool bedroom set up. If you think about it. Yeah. What's up? Here we go. Yeah, let's get this started. That was me being silly. was just like, saw the timer go down. was like, oh, I'm going to get Manu. Mpt3k: No, it's in my office. You want me to start it off? That was you, that was you starting it off. I love it. Never stop being silly. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Pinball Minority Report This is Manu. And Erika what's going on? What's the show about this time? Erika’s Pinball Journey: so we are just getting started here, Manu. We're talking about pinball because we just have so much fun with our stuff our lives and we get involved in a lot of pinball things and I'm ready to talk about TPF. We went to that and there's a lot of fun things about it that won't end up in my recap. ⁓ Mpt3k: The Texas. The Texas Pinball Festival out of ⁓ Is it Frisco or is it outside of Frisco? It isn't Frisco. It's kind of. ⁓ Erika’s Pinball Journey: Frisco. Frisco. Well, yeah, Frisco is like the address that I saw it in at the John something at the embassy suites on John Hammond's or something street. But yeah. Mpt3k: Yeah. Yeah. A big gathering of pinheads and companies, is this your first one? it? Erika’s Pinball Journey: That was my first Texas Pinball Festival. Yeah, I had never gone to Texas Pinball Festival before that, so it was really fun. Mpt3k: Let's get this out of way quick. Texas Pinball Festival or ⁓ Pinball Expo, which one was your jam? Erika’s Pinball Journey: Ooh, wait, ⁓ why would you do this to me? ⁓ I really, well, ⁓ well, like if I wanted more of a party, then I think maybe Texas, because it felt less corporate. It felt like less corporate than what Expo feels like. Expo feels like. Mpt3k: Mm hmm. Because it's the kind of dude I am. Wow. Erika’s Pinball Journey: I'm a pinball company. I'm here to represent that I have a pinball company. then Texas is like, there's some of us here, but otherwise we're just vibing and playing games. And so I think it's what you're looking for because ⁓ I like both. ⁓ I guess this time around, really thought the Homebrew booth at expo is just so epic. Mpt3k: The homebrew booth was twice the size in terms of number of homebrews. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. That's a hard one. I'm gonna have to say that Texas was really fun ⁓ for me on this time around. but Expo is also so fun Mpt3k: I didn't realize I tried to mean this set you up such a tough question. Yeah. They could both exist. They could both exist and we're OK. ⁓ Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, why would you bully me so easily? Yeah. Yeah. What about for you? I'm gonna put you in the hot seat. Did you enjoy Expo or TPM? Mpt3k: OK, so moving right along. Now, I agree 100 percent. TPF is like a party and Expo is a little more corporate. But I got to I got to say this when Rob Burk Rob Burk basically said, hold my beer like what all of his games to Expo really kind of cranked it up. You know what mean? And so Expo went from one year was pretty boring that I went and then the next year it was most insane thing and I just had to go again. So it was close. you were all right there for two different types of people. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, definitely. would say ⁓ the bigger the pinhead you are, like if you are more into the companies and meeting the designers and doing all that stuff with them, then that's that's the show to go to. ⁓ Dang it. Now I want to say Expo Can I change my answer? Mpt3k: Expo. Well, Expo is all about the seminars, right? TPF is not really about the seminars. So that's it. There are seminars, but yeah. Erika’s Pinball Journey: There are seminars though, I did film or capture little clips of each of them. Mpt3k: Yeah. But either way, we're going to talk about some I'm going to we're going to talk about some of the manufacturers that were there. Who stole the show? We got spooky pinball. Did you get a chance to play? Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. And I only said it twice because the show. Erika’s Pinball Journey: You don't want him to show up. Yeah. Yeah, I there were so many Beetlejuices there. That was pretty sick ⁓ and made feel ⁓ super easy to play. Like I just felt like at any time you're waiting less than 10 minutes, you could just get in line behind somebody. Sometimes I would see them open like no one was even playing one. Mpt3k: I know. Erika’s Pinball Journey: And I was like, this is awesome because they brought enough for like everyone to get to play and enjoy. It was a little crowded. I'm not going to lie. Like with being in that line, like it was hard to create a line for those ones. Right. So some of the more wall machines, maybe if you were, if you were really strategically planning your games to play, that maybe you would huddle in those little corners there because the line couldn't get to be so long so that you would play sooner. Mpt3k: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Erika’s Pinball Journey: But that game honestly was so fun. I'm so stoked for whoever is getting it in the Bay Area. I think the Flipper Room's getting one. I'm not really sure, but... Mpt3k: Indie darling's getting one. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Ooh, man, that's going to be sick. They're great. Mpt3k: Yeah. That game feels like there's a lot. To learn. ⁓ I don't know, I got a hand at the spooky, they kind of like they just like drove in their lane and then just like slowly started just like. Just. I don't know what happened. They just like something that they did that just every game is just hidden. You know what mean? Evil dead. I'm not either. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, Evil Dead's been really great. I'm not even like a spooky, like I don't like scary, but I will play those games, which is kind of nice for me because I know I'm not gonna watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but I will play it. It makes it a little less scary, but the noises and everything, ugh, so creepy, gross, but a lot of fun. Mpt3k: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The only complaint I heard about that game was this too much green flashing. I'm like, well, OK, all right, then all to your games of the green. I don't know, put a filter on it. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Okay. That's an easy code update though. Lights and stuff is super easy to fix. Mpt3k: Yeah, it is. I'd be willing to bet they have something in the settings. go, do you want green flashing? Yes. No. Erika’s Pinball Journey: green flash? Yes, no. Because it's Beetlejuice. Like, why wouldn't you want green flashing? I don't know. Mpt3k: ⁓ you said it one more time. Does the person have to say it three times or? OK, so anyway, good job. did. ⁓ I guess that's all that's all really to say about spooky and. They're just whatever. OK, we're going to just make awesome games. Erika’s Pinball Journey: sorry. I did. I said, I think you have to say it three times. Yeah. I've already said it twice now. Maybe more than once. Yeah, no, it's honestly and it's it's so cool. I wonder if their next one would end up being something like a Looney Tunes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre where it's the double, right, like a double release. But their games have been so good the way that. Yeah, because you can't you can't do the. Yeah, well, because they did it also for, you know, Ultraman and Halloween, which is also really cool, so. Mpt3k: I don't... Good question, but it seemed like they... I think they should focus on one. Just focus on one. Yeah. It was a good exa- good experiment. Mm-hmm. Yep. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, props to Spooky. I hear they might be coming to a local show of ours. That they're bringing some games to Golden State. Yeah. Yeah. Like for real Spooky Like Bug had said that he looks like he's coming to Golden State. He had like stopped me on my way to the elevators back to my room and was like, hey, I hear this is your local show. Are you going? Like, it it a cool one? Is it fun? So looks like they're going to bring like six games. So ⁓ Mpt3k: ⁓ Golden State? ⁓ really? Like, for real spooky? Like spooky spooky? Like, bug is coming out? Erika’s Pinball Journey: That'd be super sick if they do actually come out. I'd be really excited for that. Yeah. Mpt3k: Cool. Whitewater two. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let's take two, three, two, Yukon Yeti from Turner. Hi, this is Turner. This game is. What Erika? He's. It's a beautiful day and it's me. You know what the game freaking slaps? Erika’s Pinball Journey: ⁓ my God, he's so gentle. He's such a gentle sweetheart. ⁓ Mpt3k: Period. got a couple of complaints, but the game, like the pinball game of Yukon Yeti. Let's go. Erika’s Pinball Journey: I only had one game on that. waited. I got there early with like when the vendors get to kind of go in, because I had like one of those special passes for like shooting stuff for Marco. And so I got in a bit early and I still waited like half an hour to play this game. And I was only behind two people. They were just both really good at pinball. So the game was a lot of fun from what I experienced. And I liked the avalanche. That's pretty fun to watch. Mpt3k: Yeah, it's a good risk reward there. Dennis Nordman and his this design was passed over by David Fix when David was running American Pinball or something like that. It was that American. Yeah, that was a big whole thing on the what's the big Pinball website? ⁓ Knapp Arcade. ⁓ back in time and read that. But ⁓ could be wrong, but it was supposed to be on another Pinball manufacturer and. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Hmm. Is Knapp Arcade Yeah, Knapp great. Mpt3k: Chris Turner and their guys, I guess, managed to snag it. the, mean, I mean, a lot of people are saying this, ⁓ music and the call outs just aren't up to the same level as the pinball machine itself or as Whitewater, everyone's going to compare it with because there's no ⁓ denying it's a Dennis Norman follow-up to Whitewater. And so just this morning I was, Erika’s Pinball Journey: ⁓ Yeah, definitely. Mpt3k: you know, at the shop and someone was playing whitewater, man overboard, shoot the flashing lights, you know, it's just like, and then, you know, it's a little different. So I hope they work on the sound. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, I'm sure they will. I see some things that look like they might be cooking. So we'll see what happens. yeah, because the sound package definitely was ⁓ interesting. It's hard, though, you know, like it's there's a lot to do when you're already building a game and you got all the bits and pieces to put together and Turner's still relatively new, right? They have Ninja Eclipse and Merlin's Arcade. yeah, so. We'll see what happens. Mpt3k: such I'm such a stickler for sound, though, because I, you know, I'm in the Jeff Dodson camp of ⁓ Every sound needs to be amazing and everything has to make a ⁓ And like after doing a homebrew myself and being the guy to do all the ⁓ it is awesome. It is it is. Yeah, you could say it's tough, but it's it's ⁓ half of the ⁓ even though you're in a loud arcade and you can't. Erika’s Pinball Journey: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. hope you're in a loud arcade, but obviously this is like not just, pinball machines now are not just advertised for, for arcades anymore. You know, a lot of, especially with these runs of like 500, like 500 units, like that's a definitely something that feels like it's meant more for the home. but I do really hope a lot of arcades snag them. from my understanding, they're not sold out yet. They have 500. Mpt3k: here. Right. Yep. Yeah. Erika’s Pinball Journey: and they're not yet sold out. But I have a feeling within the next few months we'll see an announcement where they do. just feel like more people will play it because right now just Texas played it. And like if you played it at Texas, you waited at least like an hour to play it. Right. Like ⁓ was like Disneyland. They only brought two games, which are still cool because that they had anything to bring to show at the show, which was great. Mpt3k: My other gripe is the price point. mean, and I understand. I understand. If you're. They're only making 500. They will sell out 500 at 10,000. No doubt. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, Turner Mpt3k: but it's mostly going to be collectors and so whatever. Right. But I mean, I can complain about the price all day. It's pinball. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, it's pinball. Yeah, powder coated. I saw the lights show on it. The lights look really good. Like whoever's on that, whole design, the everything looks really great. I also really enjoy Brad Duke's artwork. ⁓ He's doing the art for all their games. It's very like animation kind of style thing that I'm like more into. ⁓ So. Mpt3k: The lights are great. I'm not in that camp. ⁓ I will say that artwork is too. It's not. See, here's the thing. It's like it's almost like one last thing about this game and all their games seem to be you can't really complain. Like they are fine. This is my opinion. They're fine. But there's no like soul, like dirt, like grit. Like I need I need something to have like a little edge. some grit, some soul, some dirt. And speaking of a game that maybe doesn't have grit, soul and dirt, Pokemon is segue is not supposed to have dirt and soul and grit. There you go. Did you get to play Pokemon at all? ⁓ Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, segue. I didn't play Pokemon at all at this show. It was very sad. The lines were so long and I've been so lucky to get to play it. You know, I went to Stern and I went for their media day and I played Pokemon there and then, and then I played the Electric Bats Pokemon. I went out to the Electric Bat, played their Pokemon. That was really fun. I pretty well I think on that. And yeah, I logged in. Mpt3k: That's right. You did it. You already played it. That's turn. Erika’s Pinball Journey: once at the fun booth on John Wick. I was putting up some scores on John Wick playing some of that. So I wanted to get the TPF badge if they had one going on there at that booth. So I wanted to make sure I got it. Did you, you probably got it. You probably logged in and put a bunch of time in. Mpt3k: So. for what? No, actually for Pokemon. Erika’s Pinball Journey: You're like just an insider connected. Did you insider connect during the show? Mpt3k: No, I did. I did zero. In fact, I don't think I played a stern. I was I mean, not for any hatred. I was busy with Marco in the homebrews Yeah, I did get a really wonderful tutorial of Pokemon from Isaiah over a Free Fold Watch today on stream. As far as Pokemon, you know, I like it. It's simple. It's a seven shot array. Some people say six, I think there's seven shots there. It's a fan layout, as they would say. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah. Mpt3k: ⁓ think Stern needs this to. I told I was I was telling the story to people anybody I see is the other day I free go watch a kid came in a ⁓ small kid came in, saw Pokemon, pointed to it like ⁓ he just saw the biggest rock star on the planet was like ⁓ said he couldn't even talk. The kid wanted to play so much. So the dad just brought over like a little Marco stool, set it down and they flipped on it and he was like Erika’s Pinball Journey: ⁓ my god. Mpt3k: Yeah, you know what mean? And that's the customer you want for Pokemon. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah. ⁓ definitely. No, I seen it at the show too when I was walking around TPF some kids just like Mpt3k: Yeah. Yeah. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Like that's like their, that's their pinball moment that they're having right now. And that's very exciting. Mpt3k: And it's important to have that kind of excitement from young kids, because if Pokemon was their pathway into pinball, then thank you, Stern, right? Thank you for bringing this generation up and to say maybe something else is fun. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah. I mean, I hear that Dungeons and Dragons has done a huge thing too for that community. And they've now been taking those games out to other conventions that are not pinball focused at all. They're just Dungeons and Dragons conventions. And now you have all these new people joining in. I've ⁓ kind of looked at the numbers on Stern's Instagram and social media and stuff like that. they went up a lot when Dungeons and Dragons came out. ⁓ Yeah, when I was... Mpt3k: Really? Erika’s Pinball Journey: Therefore the John Wick release, Stern's Instagram following was only like 60k, like 60,000. Now it's in the hundreds. would have to like it up. But yeah, they're definitely in the hundreds. Yeah, they, it's growing, pinball's growing and it's really exciting and. Mpt3k: That's exciting. Erika’s Pinball Journey: I like it. ⁓ like it a lot. Mpt3k: I like it. I like it a lot. Let's ⁓ talk about Harry Potter and portal. Those were already announced. I did go get to talk to my boy Eric Minier. I showed him my custom topper I made for Harry Potter. I'm so excited. I did it's a Free Gold Watch Yeah. Erika’s Pinball Journey: ⁓ nice, I didn't realize you made a custom one. ⁓ man, well when I go play in league on Wednesday, I'll go check it out. Mpt3k: You can go ignore it like everyone else. But no, they were there. They had Harry Potter and Multimorphic is there. They had their portal. And OK, there you go. Both two amazing games. Erika’s Pinball Journey: ⁓ Yeah, great. I actually put time in on Avatar. I don't get to play that often. So was like, I see Harry Potter out on location now. So I went to go play Avatar since only one place in the Bay Area I know has it. So yeah, I really like that game. Mpt3k: Avatar is fun! I know it's fun. It's. Yeah, good job, Mark. ⁓ Erika’s Pinball Journey: I'm excited because his I think the from what I understand the next game is probably Steve Richie and then it's Mark again So I'm really looking forward to seeing what is up Mpt3k: Yeah. What do you think it is? What do you think it Steve Richie is? I think I know what Steve Richie is. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Steve Ritchie, everyone says the rumor ⁓ is Sonic, right? ⁓ But I wonder if that's Mark's game. Mpt3k: Yeah, Sonic. It should be Mark's game, think. Richie should have like another like dad band. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah. I feel like Steve might have a band. Yeah. Yeah. Mpt3k: band. Steve Richie, the Bee Gees. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Well, Steve just did Elton. That was his last game with them. then after Elton was Harry Potter, right, which was Eric. And no, Steve, no, was Elton John and then it was Avatar and then it was Harry Potter. So then yeah, it's Steve again ⁓ coming up and then Mark and then yeah. Mpt3k: Steve Richie's new game. David Bowie. And it was Harry Potter. Steve Richie's ⁓ Ambrosia. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Maybe Journey do some. Mpt3k: Steve Richie's Journey. Yes. No, no, no, no. Don't put Steve Richie near Prince. What is wrong with you? What's going on? Eric, what happened? Steve Richie. Yo, that's the one pairing I could see. I could see Steve Richie like Wu Chang forever. ⁓ Finish him. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Prince or ⁓ Beach Boys. ⁓ Wu-Tang Clan. I don't know. Finish him! Mpt3k: that'd be serious. What's going on over at American Pinball? Because there's like all new people that I don't even recognize. Erika’s Pinball Journey: You don't know? Oh, so they got the electric playground guys. So they got Rob and Nick. Rob was making toppers. Tony Hawk? Yeah, that's Nick. Nick made Tony Hawk pinball and it's cool. Actually, I just saw a video of Tony Hawk on Instagram where some guy made a Lego thing that he's trying to get to win a Lego competition. Mpt3k: Yeah. Tony Hawk? Erika’s Pinball Journey: Tony Hawk invited him out to come see his spot and so he could show him his Lego creation. ⁓ sick. Tony Hawk then brought them into his game room to show some stuff. And I saw Tony Hawk as a Skateball and a Radical in his collection in this game room. I like ⁓ the in me. was like, what is that? And so I ⁓ recorded video so I could pause it. And then I went back and I paused it. I'll probably clip it in somewhere. ⁓ Mpt3k: Yes, of course That's pretty slick. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, so he's got a and it's a beautiful radical. It looks like maybe he even has the one that was like all supped up at Expo a few years ago because like he's got the blue like metallic powder coat on it. So nice. ⁓ But yeah, I played a lot of Portal though. I know you kind of went to American, but Mpt3k: Mm-hmm. Of course he does. Erika’s Pinball Journey: I just going back to to Portal real quick. I played a lot of the Multimorphic booth because I don't get to play all those Multimorphic games all the time. And man, I was playing Portal and I was getting the faith plate and I was doing all the ramps and things. It was a lot of Mpt3k: You know, it's funny about Portal. I have it and I for a while I. It's it's hard for me to get down to the garage and play Therefore, I wasn't thinking that much of the game. And then, like just last night, I went down because Gerry gave me Gerry from Multimorphic gave me a hint about how to get scores. How's everyone getting scores? He's like, basically, if you do this and you do that anyway, I went down in the garage. I did this and I did that. And I was like, holy smokes, there's a whole new game here. So, yeah. That's it's rare to get access to all the Multimorphic games. When they come out to TPF, they bring all the almost all the games and you get to flip all of them. I was really digging Final Resistance again. People keep telling me I have to buy it. I think I'm going to buy it. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, that game is so good. Maybe we can split it and can share custody. Mpt3k: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy whatever module I have you have. So it's cool. That's what I hear when I said at the at the seminar, was like Erika and I like trade them like this. was something like that. Yeah, you're sitting there. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we get, yeah, I it's, it's fun. no, and I played heads up a lot, with Roko. So that was like, we were like, ⁓ again? Okay. Best two out of three. ⁓ best two, best out of five. ⁓ Mpt3k: I played heads up. That was fun. Yeah. Yeah. Heads up for people to know is a multimorphics. There's it's like two games connected to each other and you play against the other person and there's a ⁓ I think it's just cut. It sends it to the other person. Erika’s Pinball Journey: And then when you lose a ball, sends it over to them. if you get it in the wrong one, it sends it to the other person that you don't have a ball. And you're like, no, you have to hope that they lose the ball. I had been doing so bad and I was playing with my partner, Roko, and he was just like, and I was losing so bad towards the end. After the first few games, he was getting into it. And then I was like, I'm game over, man. It's like, he's got it. He's got the strat down. Mpt3k: Yeah, and you can't do anything. Mm-hmm. Yeah Erika’s Pinball Journey: just surviving. Mpt3k: They definitely have the tech. just need one insane designer to come out with a game that, you know, the killer app right now. ⁓ And I feel like Multimorphic should leverage a little bit of like hiring designers outside of when Scott Denisi did Final Resistance, that was huge. ⁓ But generally speaking, I think I mean, I give him credit with creditors do they're good designers, but then they're also amazing designers out there probably have ideas that could lend itself better to a multimorphic. So anyway. Erika’s Pinball Journey: You've got such a cool, crazy platform. Yeah, we could talk about that for a while, but yeah, Mpt3k: Yeah. Yeah. Erika’s Pinball Journey: I could skip back to American Pinball ⁓ if you want. Mpt3k: You got anything else to say about American? I mean, that's all new to me. Erika’s Pinball Journey: ⁓ I mean, yeah, with Rob and Nick, they are moving over from Electric Playground and I saw that Electric Playground is like hiring more of a team. So it looks like they'll be probably helping out American with those toppers too. And probably making that sort of ⁓ partnership from, from what I can see. But, they're just such good people. I really like the Electric Playground. They are always incredibly kind to me, at least I've had a lot of really great interactions with them and they seem to want to do a lot with their communities and try to get people into this. It's like a very niche thing, a topper, right? Like that's not like huge in, like it's huge in Pinball, but it's not huge in Pinball. People talk about basements. I don't like have to worry about that headroom space, but like when Spooky came out with their giant snake. On top people are like where am I gonna ⁓ put it? In California I don't deal with the basement size, but I can understand that that's a Thing but it's cool because I think that's gonna show a lot of really great change for American pinball I was really worried because I was thinking that ⁓ Maybe like a It was gonna go through like a haggis situation, you know what I mean, so unfortunate sorry to Mpt3k: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Erika’s Pinball Journey: another company like that, but ⁓ I'm glad to see that they are like, they're reviving themselves that the people are excited. I'm excited. I want them to succeed. Like there is no, there's no part of me that's like, I hope this pinball company fails like that that's not good. ⁓ So want people to succeed and ⁓ I'm but one thing I am really grateful is that they changed their logo. ⁓ They're like, their AI logo was like, Mpt3k: Yeah, of course. mean, yeah. Did they really? Erika’s Pinball Journey: really bothering me. Like they made this just impromptu AI logo for American Pinball and now they've changed their logo. Yeah, you didn't see it all weekend, bro. Come on. Their booth was right next to the Marco booth. Did you have your glasses on during the show? Jeez, Mpt3k: ⁓ I'm looking at. ⁓ that's cooler. I was not even looking straight. I couldn't see ahead of me. ⁓ I see it. Yeah, it's much better. It's cool. Erika’s Pinball Journey: so yeah, it's much better. ⁓ it looks a little like I don't have it with me, but I have a hat of Bally's old logo. kind of looks a little, it's a little, but it's, it's, it's slight, but it's very cool. Cause like people there's a connection to that already. And they're going, they got the contract with planetary, right. To make, ⁓ Williams and Bally games. So that's Mpt3k: That's cool. Yeah, it does. It does. Yep. Circus Voltaire? Is that the one? Wow. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Circus Voltaire? Yeah, they revealed that they'll be making Circus Voltaire. I haven't played that game very often. Are you excited for that? Mpt3k: Well, Cirqus is fun. Yeah, I mean, sure. I mean, Cirqus is a fun game, but they already kind of have the topper, don't they? They have the. was I supposed to say that? I don't know. I saw their I saw electric. ⁓ Erika’s Pinball Journey: The electric playground made a topper, was it for Cirqus Voltaire Mpt3k: Yes. That's all. No, that was it was definitely Voltaire. Yeah, it does a thing that Voltaire does anyway. Maybe we should move on. No. Erika’s Pinball Journey: I thought they made a... I remember. I remember they had a... You wanna cut this part out? We are editors. the power. We both understand media very well. ⁓ Yeah, no, I think that that's cool ⁓ that they're working on some good things ⁓ I'm excited. Circus Voltaire I'm kind of like, it doesn't excite me the way that some of the, like Pokemon, ⁓ like whoa, I'm super stoked. ⁓ like Circus Voltaire I'm kind of like. Mpt3k: Well, we are both editors. Yes. But yeah. Erika’s Pinball Journey: I like pinball history and I love learning about it and the games, but that's not a game that I've played that's really like pulled me. But that being said, I'm not the audience. ⁓ am. Yeah, yeah, that's just not for me. But I do enjoy playing the remakes and I will play them and support them at my local arcades. So I give back in that way because not everything needs to go in my home because that's not where pinball is only supposed to live, too, because if it's in everybody's houses, how are you supposed to play it and find out if you like the game? Mpt3k: Sir. Yeah. All right. Good luck. Good luck to American pinball. Keep going. Let's see some more games. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, the Houdini art though too was really nice. Franchi did a really cool job on the new art for the new Houdini, ⁓ 100th anniversary. That's what they were selling at the show, only 100 of them. ⁓ So Houdini though is such a hard game. Like I think if they just made it a wide body and they like adjusted things just slightly, the game would Mpt3k: Hmm. ⁓ my God, don't say wide body. You've lost half of our listeners. Some people don't like wide bodies. Erika’s Pinball Journey: I just, I just, I just feel like that's the shots are so tight. Like if you just needed more space to fit it all in, just like add the few extra inches and make it a little bigger so that you can make it so the tights, the tight shots aren't, cause like you hit the ball up and then it'll go brrrr and then come back down. It's like not satifiying You have to like be a precision, like maybe they should put some precision flippers in there. Mpt3k: Yeah. ⁓ those shots are, they've always been really tight on, know, Jeannie. You have to be a precision flipper is what I gonna say. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, man. mean, some of the games I play with precision flippers and them just like they're killer. I really like them. I think that some of them play a lot better. Don't you guys have some you guys have precision flippers? You had them in Guardians at Free Gold Watch right? Mpt3k: There are, yeah, it's in Guardians, it's in Metallica LE, it's in Dungeons & Dragons. It's in Dungeons & Dragons, yeah. Erika’s Pinball Journey: And then John, John Wick Dungeon. ⁓ yes. I was doing killer on my league night game with Dungeons and Dragons with those precision flippers. I'm just, ⁓ I mean, I'm in love. Mpt3k: Not a sponsor, but hey, if you want to, yeah, we'll talk to you. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Let's talk. Mpt3k: about barrels? Erika’s Pinball Journey: Barrels. ⁓ I mean barrels is great too. They've got some great games. Barrels. Barrels of fun with David. Mpt3k: barrels barrels of fun. They had their their they had their barrel ball games on the Friday night and the Saturday night. It had to be like 60. Yeah, it was out in two seconds. I was eliminated immediately. Barrel ball, if you guys don't know, is actually stall ball. So it's a game called stall ball where you line up and then you go and you make one shot and you go to the end of the line. And if you hit the red shot, you you're eliminated or if you drain, you're eliminated. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Did you play? ⁓ Mpt3k: So you just got to keep the ball going. Barrel ball. Barrel ball is a basically stall ball, they put it into the it's in the pinball machine. So Dune has it. Labyrinth has it. think all the barrels of fun games. Erika’s Pinball Journey: ⁓ Winchester will have it. Mpt3k: I guess they just did it on dune and on labyrinth this week. It's that past weekend. Erika’s Pinball Journey: ⁓ that's cool. That's so fun. I love Stal Ball. Stal Ball is such a fun game. I didn't get to play it. I was so tired. Like I did a lot at the show, a lot of different things. You and me were both kind of working it. I think my brain was just like, don't... Another line to wait in? I can't. Like I don't... Mpt3k: Yeah, we're working. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's like getting a rise of resistance over and over and over Erika’s Pinball Journey: I just couldn't I couldn't do that. but also is really cool because Fliptronics when stream that as well, you can go ahead and watch the stream on. Yeah, it's a Fliptronic with Rebecca and Jordan. They were super great too. And they brought their stream so that we could have it at the homebrew section. Mpt3k: Shout out to Fliptronic. Yeah. Yeah. So ⁓ not as big as Expo, but still exciting and amazing. We got to see a lot of things that we got to finally catch up with Kyle and his Friday the 13th ⁓ Did you play the Tiki? ⁓ Tiki Tapu, that was fun. It's a Tiki based. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Tiki tapu. That was so fun. ⁓ Nick did Nick Lembecky, I think is his name or Nate. I think his name is Nathan. I'm so sorry right now, dude. I'm going remember later. But ⁓ his game was great. And ⁓ it was the design, the look. And he got approval from the artist because it's not like his original art. It's like an art from Shaggy Shag. Shag. Question mark. Mpt3k: Yeah. Question mark. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Some famous Disney artist, but he kind of like Photoshopped and like added in and changed things himself because he had little aerials, you know, he had a little aerial. That sounded a little weird. Yeah, a little air. Mpt3k: Mm-hmm. ⁓ He had little aerials. It didn't sound weird until you said it sounded weird and then it sounded weird. Go ahead. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah. ⁓ Mpt3k: Cayman had their Alice in Wonderland or Pinball in Wonderland that they were working on. There was a ⁓ King of the Hill Pinball, which I don't, I'm not sure if we streamed that. I'm not sure. Erika’s Pinball Journey: No, it didn't stream it. ⁓ He was working on it a bit, but I did see it working towards the end of the festival. So some people got to flip it. ⁓ So that was he's local to Tacoma. So he'll be bringing the game to T.P. to Northwest Pinball Show. Mpt3k: Okay. Nice. I saw George Gomez and Jack Danger kind of sneak up to that and check it out. I think one of the but one of the hits of the show outside of Big Trouble in Little China, which no one can get enough of. That game is so good. It's Kyle is cheating. I think it's Kyle. Kyle Smith. Smith, Smith. Yeah. OK, they bought that game. We met. I'm so glad to meet you. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah. that game is really good. Kyle Smet, Smet? S-M-E-T. Smet. I think it's Smet. We've Smet before. Mpt3k: They I swear they bought that game from some manufacturer that we don't know about and just put it on the floor. That game is done. That's a game is like commercial quality. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, no, that game is excellent. I mean, he's got Randy Martinez as an artist on it. ⁓ It's got some really great clips. mean, it had a line all weekend long, all weekend long that game was playing. Mpt3k: Yeah. Dude, can I tell you that some lady got real super salty because we had to stream it. And so we were look, we were trying to be as unobtrusive as possible and as polite as possible. But at the end of the day, we are in the Marco Pindev con ⁓ homebrew area and honoring the creators of these games is priority number one, not. Erika’s Pinball Journey: ⁓ yeah. Mpt3k: One person who's in line who has to wait 10 minutes to play this game. This woman got so mad. We were like, hey, we have to cut the line for a second because we want to interview the guy who made this game. And she was like, OK, fine. We're going to go complain about this. I'm like, where where are you going to complain? Who are you going to complain to? Like we were like, OK, go complain. I don't know. You know what? Pinball people just chill out. Really? Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, I remember. Yeah, that's a that's so tough, man. Yeah, no, I feel I felt bad about that. But I know that we were we were on a time crunch. We only had people for a certain amount of time. We're live. I didn't have the resources or means to things changed in the schedule. Like people were like, ⁓ hey, actually, that time slot you signed me up for. Can I like do it later? And I'm like, ⁓ yes, let's be flexible. And ⁓ Mpt3k: It was a bummer. Yeah, we have to be flexible to that too. Yeah. Yeah. Erika’s Pinball Journey: changed some things. So I'm super grateful for all the creators that came out to come help stream to we had ⁓ we had a flip tronics come help stream. You were there and then retro Ralph and Jamie virtual came out and then even Don from Don's Pinball podcast came out to be on for a little bit. So helping out the stream Jeff dirty pool as well. Yeah. So really grateful for all those creators and I'm building a database for that so that for future shows and Mpt3k: Yeah, so did Jeff. Dirty pool pinball. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Definitely took a lot of notes from it as well to better, have a better, I think it was something that we didn't predict as well because I know at Expo, you for the stream, you took each game away and you brought it to its own personal spot. So it was a very different experience. But for this one, like having that, ⁓ and I kind of felt like I tried talking to these people and being like, hey, so sorry, we're gonna do the stream here. Like we just, ⁓ Mpt3k: Yeah, it was different. Erika’s Pinball Journey: we're doing it for this thing. And I wish I had like a little plaque or a little whiteboard or something I could put up on games, be like, this game will be streamed. Or maybe I can talk to like, Emoto or Marco about having some sort of like, these games, yeah. I know. Thanks. That's my like producer filmmaker brain. Mpt3k: You're you're you're going in the weeds. It's all good, Eric. You did an amazing job. I know you turn into producer mode. Everyone just saw it happen live on the air. I do want to shout out to Brad Holliday, though, for bringing Top Gun. That was like the showstopper right there. So this Top Gun pinball machine that Brad created all on his own was amazing. Erika’s Pinball Journey: So... Wow. Mpt3k: ⁓ I saw Mike Vinokor over there shooting on it from Stern. We got to chat. ⁓ Becca from Jupy electronic got to chat with Brad, but posted something really nice on his Facebook about how the community was, you know, amazing and awesome and all the support that they got from the building of the game. So I told Brad, you know, you're cheating. He's like, what do mean I'm cheating? Because your your background music is danger zone. Erika’s Pinball Journey: ⁓ good. Mpt3k: That's not you. Highway to the... I mean, you can't. You already won. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah. To the danger zone. Yeah. No, his game was excellent. And that's his first game. He's never built a pinball machine before. And it was just like something that he loved. And I loved watching the seminar, which you can catch on Texas Pinball Festival's like YouTube channel. And he said a lot of really wonderful things about when he was making his game and what he did and ⁓ I think that it's so cool to see what the homebrew community is coming up with. Like I'm very inspired. I'm going to be starting, starting up next month, April. I'm doing it. I've bought the parts. I have the homebrew kit. You helped me open it. And I got my dad. If I didn't have my dad making this pinball machine would be a harder, but that would also probably look for a team. Mpt3k: Yeah. ⁓ boy. Yeah, there you go. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Kind of like the way that, um, like I really like, Kaymen. Yeah. Like she, she found a team. She's a lead designer, but she found other people that like, cause it's pinball. can't pinball is not as fun alone. Right. It's fun. Yeah. Yeah. I think that pinball is fun and meant to be enjoyed with others. What's the point of me knowing all the facts of a designer and everything. If I have no one to share it with be like, Oh yeah, I'm to play this little game by myself. I'm like, I know that Steve Richie. Okay. Mpt3k: That's very true. I agree. I don't know if other people agree, but I agree with you. Right. Erika’s Pinball Journey: I know that it's super cheap, but like, I should be able to share that with people. ⁓ So pinball is meant to be shared. That's why we can put it up to four players, maybe six if you're playing Scooby Doo. So, or five. I think it's five. Mpt3k: Okay. Uh, is it five? It's, it's, it's, Erika’s Pinball Journey: I think you and you could put six in for Godzilla for the older Godzilla, not a new Godzilla. Mpt3k: It's Velma, Daphne, Fred, Shaggy, Scooby, it's five. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Fred, Shaggy, and Scooby. Yeah. Yeah, think, yeah, it's five. I think that's spooky Scooby Doo goes up to five so that you could play the gang. ⁓ And then Godzilla, the older one, like the older Stern, six. Mpt3k: That was six. was was Sega trying to be. We could play six players. Imagine being the sixth player and be like, I'll be back in an hour. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah. Yeah. Mpt3k: Speaking of everyone playing together, one thing I want to give a shout out to is my guys Ron and Jay over at Scorbit Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah. ⁓ Mpt3k: What was going on there? Scorbit huh? name you haven't heard in a little while. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, they're like ramping up. I saw that they were in the booth and I know Ron is actually he used to live in the Bay Area from my understanding but now he's up in I think New York. But I saw their booth and I actually did like even a little collab video with them because I was like, Oh, people should know about this. Like I should make a little video and like help you guys get more people to come play make the jackpot even bigger. And yeah, it was a lot of fun. Mpt3k: Yes. Well, that let's talk about that because the this and what you're describing is their tournament that they set up. Now, Scorbit now supports tournaments like tops tournaments or like golden tea tournaments. don't know if you're familiar with any of that where you win money for playing games like Golden Tee ⁓ like ⁓ I think Big Buck Hunter and stuff like that. So you can actually enter pay an entry fee and then you're playing against a jackpot, a progressive jackpot that grows and grows and grows. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Go. Yeah. Mpt3k: They had, I think Lynn's Arcade had a, a, a No Fear there. Matt Talley's No Fear They had that sucker set up with Scorbit enabled and a, it started off as a $500 cash, not cash, well cash prize. Yeah. For the top three, was like 50 % then 30 and then 20 for the split. And, um, everybody contributed, everyone contributes to the pot. You step up. I must have pumped and dumped like six bucks into that Erika and got 11th because freaking Tim Hansen rolled up. Yeah. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Well. Oh, Tim Hansen, our local guy. He came in to Texas to, to win. He came to win. Um, yeah, I put in, I think two games on it. Um, cause I, I just didn't get to, when I would go by, swing by, I'd be like, is this, Oh, okay. Nope. Okay. Okay. So. Mpt3k: came to an end. It's amazing. So it's now it's competitive, but kind of a cool kind of competitive mode because you can. We're we're have already it took me five minutes to talk Matt Henry into incorporating that into some games at Free Gold Watch. So we're already going to have a conversation with Scorbit and we're going to get that in there because I can imagine like just general public. You know, if we do ⁓ a match, a tournament every week, general public get involved. But but definitely people in league will definitely get involved in that. And Erika’s Pinball Journey: ⁓ yeah. Mpt3k: If you're if you're going to get a little extra side pot of whatever money you might as well, you know, instead of playing for fun, you might as well play for some cash, too. So. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, totally. also looking to ⁓ at The Rewind arcade. ⁓ do. ⁓ he got Adam to to to get some stuff. So he's going to get I think Adam said he was going to get 20. Yeah, I think. Mpt3k: you've got Adam over at The Rewind looking to, yeah. Yeah. Wow. Is that I'm going to do coin drop or just tournaments? Yeah. Erika’s Pinball Journey: tournaments because Rewind arcade operates off of ⁓ ⁓ have a card system. ⁓ ⁓ yeah, well, I'll find out some more. It's relatively new, but Scorbit into The Rewind arcade, it looks like, ⁓ to get whole Bay Area because I know they have it at ⁓ out in Sacramento, where close kind of close, close ish. It's like an hour from me, probably like an hour and a half or two from you. ⁓ Mpt3k: They already have, okay, right, right. they have there. Mm. Yeah. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Capital Pinball Parlor already has it all installed there and they've been using it and I think that they've been really enjoying it. Yeah, yeah, because I was logging in, because was thinking about Scorbit when INDISC was coming out. ⁓ And I saw Jeff did a really great video with Ron on his YouTube as well. And so I watched that. Mpt3k: Do they really? Wow. Mm hmm. That's what inspired me to even talk to Ron. I reached out as like, how is Jeff talking to Ron? Those are my friends. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, no, I was it was so funny because I was thinking about Scorbit and I was like, I think it's going to end disc and then I saw yeah, then I saw Jeff's YouTube video and I was like, that's so cool. I want to learn more. And I know that he's sort of local and it's a sort of local thing. And a bunch of people that we know have had it like Lynn's Arcade. That's like was my first real arcade that I would go to that I regulared. And I live a little farther away now. So it makes it pretty it would take me like two hours to get to Lynn's right now. If I wanted to go join on a league night, but when I go stay with my parents, ⁓ then I can be like 45 minutes away, which is, that's, that's awesome. I can't wait to go visit next, next month. Mpt3k: Go. Yeah. Well, big shout out to Ron and Jay for, I guess this is an evolution of this platform. Scorbit still does everything it did before, but now you can win cash also if you want. And you don't have to, you can just use Scorbit to do what you did before, which was track your games and do all this stuff. But very exciting. That's Scorbit.io. And I'm giving the URL for that because they're my buddies and I want to see them. Awesome. ⁓ Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, we want to see them succeed. I mean, they're just trying to do something new for Pinball and they've like reverse engineered things and just kind of like done all this complicated work. And yeah, I'm excited to see where it goes. I see their like slogan is like, pays to play. So that's the that's like the little it pays to play is like on top of it. So, yeah. Mpt3k: Is that the new slogan? It pays to play. All in all, think I had a good time when I got to play some stuff. don't know, TPF was another solid year. What about for you? Erika’s Pinball Journey: As for my first year, it was really great getting to go to the show. Like I said, it felt less corporate. There was a lot more partying. I got to give a shout out to the concert held by Pinball Rod and the Extra Balls. Holy moly. That was so fun. I had a blast watching those guys play and I filmed some of that with Imoto So a video should come out at some point soon with his edit. Yeah. And the show for me, like I felt I was definitely, you know, I was with you at the homebrew booth as we were streaming and I was kind of like coordinating some of that. so on, honestly, I probably only played like three hours of pinball that the whole show. And I was there since like Wednesday. a lot of talking, a lot of that stuff But it was all it's all for the love of pinball. I was there for the tech day, actually. So I will like ⁓ bring in another little thing there is that that Mpt3k: Okay. Erika’s Pinball Journey: they're doing this thing, Tech Day now, it's like kind of sponsored by Marco Specialties. And they are looking to help teach people how to fix their games before the show. So this way everything's up and running and people can ⁓ get knowledge about how to fix their games. But also I found out you don't even have to bring a game to come to that day. You can just like be a spectator and you can learn from whoever you want to learn from and like whatever games they're working on. ⁓ But that was really cool because they have techs from like all over the country that are just so good and that they're just incredibly talented. have some this guy, his name, I want say his name is Nick and he works at the Roanoke, Roanoke museum, Pinball Museum. And he's an expert on EMs. So he's an at like Electronical Mechanical Machines. And it's just like. Mpt3k: Right, right. Hmm. Cool. Erika’s Pinball Journey: So cool to see these people work. And then there was another guy, I want to say his name is Thorne or Thorm I feel so bad, but so many new people, so many new faces. yeah, just a lot of and Todd Tucky and Frank ⁓ Chuck and just like all sorts of new technician people I got to meet that just do so many cool things. Mpt3k: I feel like I got to get in on that next time. That's amazing. I didn't know about that. Yeah. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Oh, dude, you got to go next time to the tech day. And I was just filming it. So I'm actually working on the edit for the recap of that for Marco right now. So yeah. Yeah. Mpt3k: Awesome. Hey, Erika, where can people find you outside of this wonderful podcast? Erika’s Pinball Journey: ⁓ well, I'm Erika's pinball journey, you know, I'm on Instagram and YouTube. I'm mainly just YouTube, Facebook and YouTube, YouTube, Facebook and YouTube, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. ⁓ Mpt3k: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. That's cool. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Um, yeah. What about yourself, Manu? Where can people find you? Mpt3k: Me? I'm so glad you asked. I'm Mystery Pinball Theater 3000 on Twitch. Twitch.tv for slash MPT 3K also on YouTube. YouTube dot com for slash whatever. Mystery Pinball Theater 3000. And I do have an Instagram account and I'm trying to keep up with you youngins with this stuff. I don't know much about all that stuff that you guys know. Erika’s Pinball Journey: I post on there a lot more ⁓ because it's just like quick little things so but I'm trying to like make sure I also Post it onto YouTube after YouTube's for more more my long form content So I get it. It's hard. It's a lot of work. There's so much There's a there's a lot of work and now we want we just love work so much. We've added more work to that with this podcast Mpt3k: Nice. It's a lot of work, but yeah. We've had it with this podcast. Erika’s Pinball Journey: But I think this will be going pretty smoothly because, I think it's just, ⁓ are we gonna add in visuals? Are we adding in visuals to this? Are we gonna show people things? Mpt3k: I don't know. Let's add in some fire rings and some shark tanks to make it even more difficult. ⁓ but this was fun. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I had a great time, man. This was the best time of my life. I have a voice changer. ⁓ Mpt3k: Huh... ⁓ boy. Erika’s Pinball Journey: Yeah, this is just like a Mpt3k: This is Erika's little sister. ⁓ Hannah. little sister. Do you? Of course I know. course you do. ⁓ Erika’s Pinball Journey: ⁓ Hanna I have a cousin named Hanna Do you know her? Did you meet her? Yeah. That's funny. No, thanks so much, Minority? Mpt3k: All right. The pinball minority. The pinball minority report is brought to you by no one. ⁓ All right. Take us out, Erika. Erika’s Pinball Journey: The Pinball Minority Report is brought to you by me, Erika, and Manu, Mystery Pinball Theater 3000. And thank you guys so much for listening. is our trial We'll see what happens. ⁓ And if you like this, then maybe more will come. So yeah, tune in time when we talk about more pinball. Mpt3k: guys. Erika’s Pinball Journey: I don't want to be the bad guy baby. Mpt3k: Hahaha.