S2E10 - Avengers Infinity Quest Got a BAD RAP with Glenn Waechter

Did Avengers Infinity Quest (AIQ) from Stern Pinball get a bad rap? Join Paul, George, and Glenn Waechter as they discuss both the good and the bad of AIQ

George's Info:
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/dontpanicflip
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dontpanicflip
Email: george@dontpanicflip.com

Paul's Info:
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/bumpernugget
Email: pckardell@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to the Basement Dad's Pinball Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Game begin. Welcome to Basement Dad's Pinball Podcast, where we talk everything entertainment that's comic books, boring board games, mediocre music, and of course trash pinball. I'm Extra Paul, and I've got George and Glenn here too, we'll be your host for this episode. So hold on to your banisters, kids, because we got a heck of a show for you. Now, before we get into it, George, I want to give a shout out to Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. They've been doing something similar to what we're about to do on this episode. They've been doing it for longer and probably better too. So if you haven't listened to a Die on This Hill episode from Wedgehead, stop listening to us right now and go listen.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Oh, that makes sense. I thought you were trying to say that you were ready to die on this hill in this episode. I didn't know that that was the title of their episodes on Wedgehead.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Yeah, they they have several episodes where the, you know, a lot of times they'll do a repeat guest where, you know, on one episode they'll be speaking with this guest about kind of what they do in Pinball or just about a specific topic, and then they'll have a backup episode to that with that same guest about a very poorly rated game on pin side, and someone uh the guest is there to unironically defend the game because they legitimately think it's great and that it's fun, and that everybody else should think that it's great and fun. And Glenn, you've been on one of these episodes that I'm speaking of with with Wedgehead before, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Yeah, I died on the hill defending High Roller Casino.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

High Roller Casino? I don't think I've played it before, quite honestly.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

I feel like I've played it in a tourney somewhere, like they maybe had it at District 82.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

I feel like I maybe played it there, but I want to say if I have, it was probably like three or four years ago. But regardless, I want to say I had fun on it. I don't know. Yeah. Regardless, we're not here to talk about High Roller Casino. Uh real quick though, like Glenn, who were who are you?

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Glenn Wector. I'm a Nashville native. I've made a few homebrews with my small with my friends, and and I bought AIQ when we bought this house because we sold the last one for more than we thought we would. And I was either gonna get buried in the backyard if we didn't get enough for the previous house, or if we got more, I was gonna get a pinball machine. And I wanted Jurassic Park Pro. It was right when they turned from the insider connected before that to and the price was gonna go up, so I missed the cutoff of all the new pricing, so I couldn't get a uh a Jurassic Park, but the distributor still had an AIQ, so I got that instead, and it it really was a a match made in heaven because it was a deep game that I could have at home to myself and really fully understand.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

So close to having a great game there. I'm sorry, Glenn.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

So yeah, uh to sorry, just real quick here, because we're gonna be calling it AIQ probably the rest of the episode. What we're really here to talk about is Avengers Infinity Quest, AIQ for short. Yeah, and this is a I think if you are watching us live, we have it the these types of episodes dubbed as a bad rap, right? Yes. So yeah, Avengers gets a bad rap. Why, why though? What's wrong with it?

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Great question. Um, I feel like I could launch into a whole bunch of things, and I don't know if what we do is start off with all of the negative stuff and then come back and address each. Kind of figuring this out live.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Yeah, yeah. Jump in, tell us what's wrong with it.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Figure it out alongside of us, uh, or or with us, if you will. This is Keith Elwyn's third release after Iron Maiden and Jurassic Park. It is, I think, by far and widely agreed upon his worst game. Yeah, uh Avengers. By the way, I I think this is figuring if we can figure out what's wrong with Avengers, I think this is actually a really good way to develop a rating scale. If you pick a bad game, figure out why it's bad, and then judge other games on that actually work against the things that don't work for games that are bad, which is this one, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Possibly. You know, now I'm going into it with a big question mark. We've got Glenn on one side who Glenn, Glenn, you you called me before you finished the last podcast, like literally got a phone call.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Like, yeah, you were you were four hours into the episode, and it was like maybe 10 minutes left, and then you just decided you were gonna slam AIQ out of nowhere and just lob this shot. Yeah, so you this blind side hit, and AIQ is like, wait, where'd this come from? And I just hit stop and I just called you, and I'm like, you gotta tell me what your problem is now. And George picked up. Our friendship's over, done. Yeah, George.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

Can be immediately picked up on his landline.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

True, yeah. Bring bring. Oh my god, Glenn, is that you? Caller ID still works in 2025. You know, we ended up chatting for an hour, and I thought, man, you know what? There's a whole bunch of games that get a bad rap that somebody out there absolutely loves. That said, I'm really struggling to find someone who loves Godfather. Not gonna lie, finding somebody who wants to defend it has been really tough. Nick, but Nick Lane will. Okay, cool. So, Nick Lane, you were the second person, I think, to recommend Nick Lane at this point. So maybe that ends up working out for us in the future, but Avengers actually was super easy. I I uh A, you you not only called, but but even when talking about it briefly on stream or even talking about it in person, Paul, with with you and the the Fort Collins gang, it's a lot of people who love AIQ. But I want to start off with a couple of I would say easy to point to signs that AIQ is not a liked pinball game by maybe the masses, which would be A, it's ranked pretty low for an Lwin on pin side. Now, which is still really high, which is still in the top 100, right? Yeah. That was number one. Number two, AIQ. You can typically pick up a pro for under 5,000, and you can pick up a premium for in the sixes. Now go with a pro. Go with the pro. Go with the pro.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

We'll all agree. Go with the pro.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yeah. Now we do have to talk about the premium tonight, though.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Yes. Do you want to start with the premium and and what's wrong with the premium? Okay, we can do that.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Yeah, the I guess the main wow feature on the game, there's there's three differences that come immediately to mind, right? Let me, I don't, I have very little time on the pro. So let me just clarify the targets uh all the way over on the the left hand side on the pro, are those drop targets or stand-up targets? Yes, they're drops. Drops. Okay, so there's no change with the the the drop targets from model to model or trim to trim. The disc in the middle will on the premium will raise up, and you hit underneath the disc to start your gem modes on the room.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

We call that a speed bump in pinball that slows the game down. Totally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

But I mean, to start your modes on a pro, you have to hit that big old fat banana ramp or pot belly ramp. Which one do you prefer? Which what do you call it? What do you call that right ramp? Do you call it the gauntlet ramp? Okay, just gauntlet ramp.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

No, that's what the game calls it, but we can yeah, we can call it banana ramp.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Yeah, I mean, if we're if we're talking slang type of thing. I feel like they called it banana ramp. Like yeah, I've I I like banana ramp. I've I have also heard it called the the pot belly ramp, though, because it's is it's it's wide in the center, yeah. It's got a big old belly there. So, but when you hit that to start your modes, there is a an up post. Yep. George's mouse is almost on it right now, but it'll it'll stop the ball still, right? On a pro? I think it does.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

I'm asking Glenn here. The Avenger Tower, the Avenger Tower, is that what we're talking about?

SPEAKER_02 8:44

Yeah, yeah. Right underneath the the Avenger Tower, there's an up post. Yeah, there's a post that catches the ball.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Okay. Okay. So I've it's that's still a game stop, but it's not nearly as much as as what the subway does.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

When does the premium need to do that, though? I'm now I'm curious. Premium. The premium doesn't start the modes on the right ramp to start the modes.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

When you it it it still does that after you capture a gem.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

The arrow change gems too. There's the the the arrow guy, I can't think of his name. The one who shoots the Hawkeye, the the Hawkeye challenge, it holds it there. No, that that gets on the tower of ketchup.

SPEAKER_02 9:23

Oh, that's right. No, yeah. Yep. So it's it that really only pops up in certain circumstances when you collect a gem or you change them. Primarily when you collect a gem. Or or even when you're changing gems. I think that's a no that that's another different feature from the premium to the pro. A great segue there, Glenn. On the the next feature, I would say, we'll we'll save the biggest one for last. So we're actually going to go down to the scoop. On a premium, it's a scoop. On a pro, it's not a scoop. It's a dead end shot, all the way over to the right hand side above the pretty, pretty closer, a lot closer to the flippers than most of the other shots on the on the game. And that's where you need to shoot into in order to change where your gems are at. So the the ball will get trapped up there and allow you to pick where you're placing your gems before it spits it out again. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

If that makes sense. But the on the pro, on the pro, it lights change gems at the right ramp, the gauntlet ramp. So if you shoot that shot when it's lit, then you have to then hit the the the gauntlet ramp to change your gems. So you don't get into the weeds too much.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

No, I mean there's there's some differences here, and and and we the three of us, and I think a lot of people online as well, will agree. I I don't know anybody who will say that the premium is the superior version of this game over the pro. I don't know a single person. No, yeah. Um pro for the win. Yeah, pro for the win on this. So the the main feature, the the most glaringly obvious one, is the Captain Marvel ramp, as opposed to a big old fat spinner that will does a the yes, it's a spinner, but the geometry of the shot is a uh horseshoe that feeds it to uh feed out of the right orbit shot. Yes, on the pro. You're saying it's on the pro. Yeah, instead of because we're looking at the you know, if you're if you're live on the stream or oh, okay, it's right there. Yeah, there you go. And so it's a horseshoe shot coming feeding out of the the right orbit down to your right flipper, but on the uh premium, it is a a horseshoe ramp that will feed it directly to your your right flipper.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Yes. Okay. So you've nailed the three major differences. If you can hit that ramp to begin with, though, because most of the time it doesn't work. I don't know where to start. I have so much I want to say. So I'm just gonna jump in. The Captain Marvel the Captain Marvel ramp on the premium ruined this game for me. Uh I bought the premium, I was sold once I saw this game, and and if if you remember at the time The Wow Factor, the Wow Factor, so much ramps. There was so much metal all over the place when this came out. When it got announced, when you got to see the videos, you're like, oh my god, there's it has they would they showed you a play field level picture looking over, and you saw this crazy half pipe style ramp.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

Yeah, maybe that's another thing. Since you're talking about when this game came out, that might be another thing that's not doing this game all that many favors is when this game was released, it was released during the heart of COVID. Very good point. So uh the way that it was released with you know all the stuff in the back rooms with development or the RD team, you know, with with any of it, with anything, it was just such a confusing time. Uh of course, you know, a lot of the work had gone in before COVID really hit, but when the game was released and how it was received was kind of in a sp time when pinball was really up in the air with COVID just hitting, everybody was kind of like, is pinball gonna die? We're we're all touching these and and breathing on these same games, and we're not we're supposed to be six feet apart right now. Yeah. So is is pinball gonna survive? And then and then of course it took off because everybody wanted a pinball game at home, and now we're in the market we're in.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

So uh jumping back in to the easy to the really easy one, the Captain Marvel ramp rejected. And it wasn't until I had the game for a month, I feel like, and and you get to the first mini wizard mode, which is the soul gem. And the soul gem requires you to hit a certain a certain specific series of shots, and you have to hit them in order in order to complete soul gem. And the second to the last shot is to hit the captain marvel ramp. Yep. And when you get there, and and at this point, a month in, I feel like I'm I'm playing a little bit better, I'm consistently getting there, and to have it reject, not only be forced to hit that shot, but have it reject like 75% of the time. And when it rejects, it falls down the middle. It felt it felt like I was being cheated, which is one of those few things in a new pinball machine that really, really gets me. Like TMNT's layer shot, dropping the ball into the outlane, and and they they built a software fix for that, but they didn't really implement it completely correct. So you still end up getting screwed, especially in final battle. And it's the same thing here. You're in another mini wizard mode, and there's a shot in the game that that mistreats you despite how how correctly or accurately you may have hit it.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Well, I'm really glad that we have our guest on here because I think Glenn has a few workarounds for situations like this on this game. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it if there's a a shot that's straight up busted, like uh, I know you mostly have time on the pro, so there's no Captain Marvel ramp to worry about. You just get enough spins and you move on, right? But what if a shot is what if there's a malfunction on the game where the the shot isn't registering? How do you get around that?

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Okay, well, you collect the mind gem first before you play your soul gem, and then you put the mind gem on one of the shots and level it up to level one, and all of a sudden you have three action button pushes that you can use to spot the best shot, the most valuable shot at the time that you're at the game. So you can prep yourself to not have to shoot that shot with the mind gem. So there you go. There's one quick, simple, quick, simple, strategical way to get around it. Yep, yep. Quick simple.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

I love that you went there with that, actually. So, how does one collect the mind gem?

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Well, you spin well, all right. First of all, this is more of a companion piece to the electric bats three and a half hour marathon explaining all the rules to this game. So I will explain it. However, there's gonna be a lot of other people that have already just listened to that, and I don't want to like revisit too many of like the basic rules. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

I haven't personally heard it. Have you heard it yet, George? No, I have not. Okay, I'm I'm I like those guys, so I'm I am gonna listen to it eventually here. Shout out to Serge. Yeah, yeah, and Kale.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

And so, so, anyways, so to collect to collect the mind gem, you spin the Doctor Strange disc, you you shoot the right ramp on the pro, the gauntlet ramp, and then you select the mind gem, you get five different modes you can pick from, and in the mind gem, you basically have to alternate shots between blue shots or the disc or and the disc until you do that three times, and then you can hit the little stand-up target behind the disc, and then you finish the mode, put the ball back in the gauntlet ramp, and then it says select a shot to place the Avenger on, or select an adventure to give the mind gem to. And so then you have all of your six Avenger shots. If you put it on one of those, the next shot you hit, you'll either put it on the drop targets on Hulk, Captain America, and the pop bumpers. You can put it on Black Widow and the left ramp. You can give it to uh the right ramp, what's her name again? Captain Marvel, or you can give it to Black Panther. So once you hit one of those shots, that gem is now on that shot. And this is the part that people get really upset about. That gem stays there until you change it. But the power of that gem determined is determined based on how many times you've collected that Avenger. So every single Avenger on the play field has a certain amount of shots required to collect it. Are you sure to collect yes? Well, there's spins for for Hulk, like so I think it's like a hundred and some spins to collect Hulk. Okay, and then the Iron Man, you have to spell I R O N at the bottom. You don't collect him, that's just for your multi-ball locks. Captain America is a number of pop bumper hits, Black Widow's three ramps, Thor, you just got to spell Thor one time, Black Panther. You get hit that three times on the right orbit.

SPEAKER_02 18:04

Okay, I heard a couple of Vengers that you didn't mention, which would be Vision and Captain Marvel.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

How do I level those guys up? So Captain Marvel is not level upable, and I don't know who Vision is. Is that where the drop targets are? Yep. Okay, so that's one of the other quirky things about this game that's very confusing. Those two shots cannot be leveled up. You can place gems there, but they just stay in one award the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

But you can put a gem there on that spot, but you can't level it up.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Yeah, it's on the play field. You see the little diamond? So you don't even you almost don't even need me to tell you that because it's right there, but it's okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

No, no, no, no. Sorry, I'm lost. Yeah, I'm so confused, man. Yeah, sorry. The diamond means that you can place a gem there, but how do I know that you can or can't level up that character?

SPEAKER_00 18:47

You just have to know that role. Okay. If you own this game, you will have enough time to learn these rules. And that's the other thing that I'd like to tell people. It is hard to learn this game on location.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Sorry, and what was the name of the design?

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Um, we were talking about the mind gem. Mind gem. The mind gem. So that's the blue one. Okay. And its power is the action button power.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Is that the only power it has? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

No. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

No, it has a second power.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Oh. No, on certain shots, it does different things. So if you put it on vision. Oh wow. I gotta do it. If you put the blue gem on the drop targets, it's actually really cool. Once you get to the end of the game, you can utilize it there. It allows you to hit the action button to move which award you're going to collect next when you complete the drops. So it is pretty stupid, confusing, also really powerful, satisfying, and gratifying once you understand how to use it. And then you can kind of cheat the game a little bit. Even you're not cheating, but you're just taking advantage of the rules and what you know about them. So, like at the end of the game, let's say you still need to collect the Avengers a third time to get to Battle Thanos. Or actually, the the third, the third time you collect all the Avengers, you don't get to Battle Thanos. You have to play the Battle Royale multiball. To get there, you can that's no, the second time is Black Order multi-ball. And then there's the Battle Royale multiball. Gotcha. Which isn't really multi-ball, it's the battle royale. It's it's like the the single that you can add a ball to it. But, anyways, if you have to collect the Avengers a third time, you can use that grid to collect an Avenger every time you drop those targets. So if you just hit the action button until it lines up with the correct drop target that says collect Avenger, you can collect half of the Avengers with the mind gem with just completing a drop a set of drop targets. So that's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

And no, that that does sound cool if you're you ever reach the end game, which most people I know have have are lucky to get to the battle royale. The second the second mini wizard? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Not black order multiple.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

Oh, sorry. I'm confusing them still. So to me, they're similar names. The second one is Black Order, the final one is Battle Royale. Am I clear on that? Or am I still messing that up? Okay, you are correct. Cool. Let me check my notes. Yes, yes. Battle Royale is after Black Order Multiple. So you know so much about you. You you gave us a great rundown of mind gem. Is this what you usually start with? If like once you have modes lit, is that what you personally? I like to.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

Okay. I like to because I I want to make sure that I get the soul gem and and having the mind gem really helps. If I'm in a tournament, that's a different story. But if I'm just trying to play through the game, the path that I have found is to get two gems pretty quick because then you end up doing the Thanos attacks, and you only have like two gems to defend, and that's pretty easy. That's a that's another thing people complain about is when Thanos decides he's gonna jump in there instead of playing in other gem mode. Yeah, Thanos takes all of your gems. And then you have to win.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

Yeah, he's he's not nice. Okay. No, I I I run a lot of tournaments at the arcade that I work at at Pinball Jones here in Fort Collins, and I know a lot of players that love to start with the mind. Gem. So I think that's a solid, solid start. Um, you uh you've how long have you owned the your pro?

SPEAKER_00 22:08

I had it and I sold it because I wanted to upgrade my recording gear so that I could be more prolific at doing pinball audio, and so I want it back, but I don't have money for it. Otherwise, I would buy it back. Actually, I'd probably buy some other games first. I wouldn't, I would have never sold the game, but yeah. Okay, so I at the moment I don't have machines, so the whole, well, if the game was so great, why did you sell it? Yeah, okay, buddy. No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

No, it's for we all understand that one. It was no, not you guys, some other no, no, I totally get it. Uh 100% get it. Okay. Uh well, before you sold it, how long did you have it? I had it for almost two years. Okay. All right. So you've put in some time on this, you know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I pretty much know almost every I learned a couple things on on Kale's podcast with Surge. Like, for instance, if you if you have the space gem and you go to change your gems, it gives you like an extra five seconds to pick your gems where you want to place them. I had no idea that perk was in the game. It's it's so minuscule, it doesn't even matter.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Yeah, that's such a small thing. But that's that's my least favorite mode. Maybe we should go into that one next. The space of the space gem.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Okay, so hardest mode to complete, worst perk. It it is hard to complete, but again, if you have the mind gem, not that hard. So the space gem, it requires you to hit the inner side shot from the flipper. I can't really point at it. Can you point at the flipper? Yep. Upper flipper, and the shot that comes around the back and then feeds the right flipper. If you hit that shot and then hit Hulk right after it, it'll feed the pops, and the pops will give you damage toward uh whatever the dude's name is. And you get to do that three times, and then the modes over. But like every mode in this game, there are ways to increase scoring if you choose to do something more difficult. Every single mode has risk reward that are based on higher scoring. And so if you choose to go right ramp, no, sorry, left ramp, right ramp, and then orbit and then hulk, so you do a four-way combo, you get like really good points. It doesn't make you finish the mode faster, it just gives you a crap ton more points. And so that's kind of like the way to play the space gem better. So now once you collect the space gem, this is the most complicated and most probably most useless gem feature in the game. Because when you place the gem on a shot, if you hit that shot, it allows you three seconds to then push the action button, and every single gem you have on the play field will move over one spot to the right.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Useless.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

No, it's not because some of the gems help you collect your Avengers faster or score more points, but also power gem, right? Yeah, the power the power gem allows you to basically double up the progress toward that Avenger, not the points, just double up the progress. So like every spin is worth it. So let me ask you a question about that.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Uh just for clarification, then if let's say I had this ability and I hit a shot and then I hit the middle and I move the power gem, let's say, from Hulk over one shot to Captain America, let's say, or I hit it twice, so move it to Captain America, and then I hit Captain America, I will increase his level twice as fast.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Correct. Okay, cool. Half as many pop bumper hits to get to collecting and then leveling them up and then leveling them up again.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Got it. Now, what's really interesting about that is that it's moving all of the gems, so you have to keep in mind any other gems you have, you may have moved them to a different place. And each gem does each gem have a secondary benefit it gets if you put it on one of the non-leveling characters?

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yeah. Yes. It does.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

So keep going. So like well, not every gem, because the time gem, the time gem basically does the same thing on every shot. It just adds time to your time bank, and your time bank is up above the screen on the display. And whenever you start a timed mode, it adds that time to the already existing timer for that mode. So that helps. Like okay. It also it also increases your ball save marginally when you start multiballs. And so that's a nice function for the time gem. But the time gem doesn't have a special thing that it does on the drop targets.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

Actually, so that's the one weird one. You have to remember that the time gen time the time gem benefits on any position you put it, and it doesn't change, whereas the other gems all do change based potentially on which shot you put it on.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Yeah. However, if you have, let's say, Hulk leveled up to level two, which is as high as it gets, you add more seconds to the time bank every time you hit Hulk. Based on level. Based on level, where you'll never increase the amount of seconds. You're still adding time, you're just not adding an increased amount of time.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Exactly. Okay. Cool. Yeah. No, no, no. Keep going. This is great. Okay, so what's the next gem we want to talk about? The reality gem. Okay, so the reality gem is the yellow one. The reality gem requires you to shoot the disc, it'll spin, and then it gives you like a 9x hurry up on every mode shot. So that those are the points. It doesn't necessarily give you more progress to finishing the mode, but that's the that's the risk reward you get in the in the reality gem. Is if you want to maximize points, you spin the disc and then you hit other shots as quick as you can because they're worth more points. And it requires like maybe five or six completed shots, and then the modes done. Collect the gem at the right ramp, and then you get the choice to put the reality gem on any one of the shots that have a lit flashing diamond.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

And and what the reality gem gets you is that's a shot multiplier. So your shot multiplier can be higher than 2x given how leveled up that Avenger is.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

But I it's like when you have the reac I like to think of it like soul shards on Iron Maiden. Yeah. But that but that also I don't know how often like people come across outside of you know me and my own personal community here in Fort Collins. How often do people come across an Iron Maiden? And and do they get to the shoulder soul shard? And do they know what the freak that means?

SPEAKER_00 28:31

It's it's not it's not described well in the game as you're playing. Like after you finish a mode, you shoot up the middle, right? The bullseye to get a soul shard. Is that what that is? Welcome to pinball. I think so.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Where things aren't no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

The soul, no, the soul shard, the soul shard is collected on the right orbit after you've finished a mode, right? No, that's where you've done well.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

That's the award on the right orbit. So the soul shard is the middle.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

Yeah, soul shard is like a hurry up a straight up the middle ramp.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Yes, which is a percentage based on how many points you got in that mode and then how much closer to the bullseye you get a yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

So the reality gem, when you place it on a shot, how does that multiplier work?

SPEAKER_00 29:08

So it depends on how leveled up that Avenger is. So the more it's leveled up, the more the multipliers. So a good strategy would be get the reality gem, put it on Hulk, and then try to get one of those gamma ray jackpots. Okay, yeah, those are cool.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

The the it's a really cool light show, and and it's it never seems to be worth very many points unless you're doing what you're you're saying, where you put the reality gem there.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Yeah, the game, the game is really smart, rules-wise. It's not just that all of these things can happen and be really complicated and not crash, but it also allows every feature in the game to be worth something if you do something correct. Like, yeah, not only worth something, but worth a crap ton. It sets up all of these super unique opportunities to blow the game up in weird ways, and that I think is its staying power.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

And speaking of like the rules/slash code or however you want to term it, because sometimes staff, uh especially at Stern, are rules experts, but they're not like software coders at the same time. Um, I'm drawing a blank on who coded this game, who who takes coding lead is, but Rick Nagel.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Rick Nagel definitely was lead on this game. Okay, Rick. But Ray Day was. And then Ray Day came in.

SPEAKER_02 30:34

Ray Day was very heavily involved on this game and and had a lot of ideas. This was kind of his debut game on a team, I want to say, and and he he put a lot of effort into this game. I don't want that to be like swept under the rug at all. Even though this game is is it's very deep, there's a lot of different options, and and it's all in there. It works any which way that you can place a jam on any Avenger. And in the end, that wasn't kind of the intention of Keith Elwin, the designer, of where you know, ultimately, a a lot of players will say, Well, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

But I think Keith realized that he created a monster in this, and when he was talking about this game originally when it was first came out, he was not trying to get people to think about the gems. So he's like, Yeah, that's a thing, that's a thing that happens, and that just put it on a shot and just play the game. And I think that's because he knew that maybe they did go a little too far for the average player, and he didn't want to intimidate people by telling them how many permutations there could possibly be with every gem on every show.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

I know, right? It's it's it's a lot to grasp. Kiwi Frenzy is jumping in on chat here. Don't forget, Keith has a lot of say in the rules. Usually, however, as I mentioned earlier in this episode, this was an odd time for pinball. This uh this game came out shortly after the COVID quarantine happened. And for whatever reason, I I think it was pushed out, it was a little rushed in a way, and Keith actually did not have as much say in the rules on this game as he usually does. How do you know that? From from meeting my heroes, from talking to them.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Okay, cool. Yeah, I just wanted to you're you're you're pulling from it sounds like a like a you've had conversations with people involved in the game. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Okay. I I think it's weird that you talk to Richard Simmons about Keith Elwin, but that's fine.

unknown 32:36

What?

SPEAKER_00 32:37

When meeting your heroes. Oh, sorry. Okay, hey. It's a bit some sometimes these jokes don't stand. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 32:44

I'm gonna go back to drinking my whiskey. If we had a sweat sweat into the old oldies pinball, I can't talk right now. If we had a sweating to the oldies pinball, I would play the fuck out of that thing.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

Yeah, me too. Yeah, you know what? There's a homebrew community that makes pinball machines, and maybe somebody should make one.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

I I think that would do well.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Oh god, maybe if you just re-themed hard body.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

No, no, sweating that that is actually a fantastic idea. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

All right, so let's let's talk about the soul gem. The soul gem is worth talking about because that's that's something that that got missed on Kale and Serge's long conversation. Not all of it, just a little bit. Okay, so Soul Gem. So once you have one that you can pick, right? Correct. We're we're gonna take an intermission on the ones you can pick. We're gonna we're gonna do a seventh inning stretch and talk about the first mini wizard mode. Because that it actually kind of makes sense. Because after you've played a couple modes, you'll probably be ready to play the soul gem before going any further. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

So once you've collected every Avenger, here George, can you scroll down just a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Absolutely. I want to show people on the inserts. There we go, right above Hulk at the bottom. You see each each Avenger in a semicircle. Once you get enough spins and you get enough pop bumpers, you know, you get the iron lanes, you get enough mid-left ramps, enough Thor, and and and and then you get enough of Black Panthers, and it tells you on the display how many of each you have left. So it's actually a really good UI. Yep. The user interface. It makes it very clear what you have left when you know what to look for. So this game does a really good job in communicating the basics of what you need to do to navigate to the wizard mode, not the extra stuff, the little the things that you need.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

I do want to throw out um, you actually need to look at the L C D. This was this was kind of jarring for me for the first time. And I think I'm I'm much better now about this, but for for me, I had to look up at the L C D because there was no lights on the play field telling me what to hit. I actually there and and there was no progress show uh unless you collected. You you had to look up, look at the L C D and see there with each one of those characters. It makes so much sense now, but keep in mind Avengers was still, I feel like earlier on the side of Spike 2 with L C D's, and and it was it was a requirement to look to figure things out the very first time. And I I think a lot of the community could probably agree in some ways that like Jurassic Park is is not immediately easy to figure out because it's not intuitive when you get a paddock, the different things that you have to do. And they went back and added audio callouts to help everybody figure out what it is they're supposed to do. Hit the targets to the left of the of the not a jeep or whatever they end up calling it, right? Yeah, shoot the trap shot. Yeah, exactly. You gotta hit uh hit the helipad shot. Like they added all of those because they understood that it required somebody to stop looking at the game and look up at the LCD to see what was there. And for me, this was the first time where I sat down with the game when I got it. I I unboxed it, I got it in place, and I trapped up immediately and I looked at the play field and nothing was lit. Like, I what am I what am I supposed to do? It it it took me it took me a few games to trap up and then look up and notice that I was that that I was I was seeing progress up there. So I think you're right. I think it's fantastic. There was there was a weird transition for at least me at that point, moving from I would say old school, let's say I had just got done playing um Star Trek. I want to go with Ghostbusters, I want to like the old school DMD games where man, the lights made it really easy to just understand what was going on. To we're playing a new game, and and to play this new game, you absolutely need to be focused on that LCD to know what to hit next. Now, please continue.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Yeah, so you don't have to go right into the soul gem mode once you do collect all the Avengers, because one of the other things about every part of this game, I've re I've already said it once, but the risk reward allows you to maximize scoring. Sure. So once you start, once you collect your Avengers, you got to spin the disc just like you did with Doctor Strange to start your other modes, and then you shoot the right ramp or the the gauntlet ramp, sorry. And and what'll happen is that post comes up, it's up right now, you can see it, it's holding the ball. Yep. And then it'll tell you, it'll give you like a scoring bonus, almost like an end-of-ball bonus based on how many of your Avengers were collected, how many of them were leveled up, and then to what degree. And then you get a you get almost get like an end-of-ball bonus just by starting the soul gem. So if you wanted to, you could point press and maybe do one more shot or a couple more shots to level a couple more Avengers up to make more points in the Soul Gem. Sure. And then the game gives you the option to play standard, or you can hold in the action button to play expert mode or hard mode, whatever they say, and you get far less flips to complete the seven or eight shots.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

One of the first times I had seen a limited flip count, by the way, which was awesome the first time through.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

It was so funny, man. Yeah, it was it was that's the coolest part of the game, honestly. Um, but it's a little hidden at the same time. It's you know, most people aren't gonna get there.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

Yeah, it's one, it's one of the big moments of the game. And my buddy Jonathan Hall, he uh he owned the game for a long time and he never finished the the soul gem. But I think I learned tonight it's because he had a premium. I didn't realize that that's that makes it that much harder.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

But it does so much harder. This shot ruined this game. I'm just gonna interrupt to say that, but please keep going.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

Really quick though, like uh uh George legitimately got hung up on the no no pun intended. Well, pun intended. Let's let's leave the pun there. No, George got hung up on the ramp that uh often doesn't work. And Glenn here had mentioned if you get the mind gem before you do the soul gem, you can bypass it by just hitting the center button. There is another way around it though. Oh, let's hear it. That would be your flank shot. So if you hit the right orbit and it doesn't make it all the way up the ramp in the back, which would feed it all the way back down to your what right flipper? Yeah, if it falls into the pops after you hit the the the right orbit, that's a flank shot and it'll spot your next shot. It does it once during the mode, so don't waste it type of thing.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Sorry, you're saying use the accidental oops. My shot, I didn't hit my shot perfectly in order to get around Captain Marvel's situationally. Listen, if you got a premium, you gotta you gotta figure it out, dude.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

All right, please. There's a there's another situation, we'll come to it later. Remind me what the other other strategic flank attack shot is good for. Okay, guys, so once once you collect the soul gem, you finish the last shots at the tower, which I think is the best moment in the game. It's so cool. Yeah, but as far as pinball moments go where you feel like you really did because it the game sounds and looks and holds the ball, and it does give you the whole Doctor Strange, whatever he does, this thing with his hands and and makes it, you know, makes you feel like a pinball wizard.

SPEAKER_02 39:52

It's very rare that we see a dead end ramp. No, and until Avengers, I I don't think we had seen dead end ramps until ever since Fire. You guys remember the game Fire?

SPEAKER_00 40:03

Was space shuttle after fire or before? Where does space shuttle have a dead-end ramp? Oh, it changes your mystery award. The right the right ramp, it just hits a stand-up target at the top. Maybe I'm thinking of the other similarly named one.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

You're thinking of the space odyssey or not Odyssey. Space something, right? There's space shuttle space station. Station, thank you. Thank you. Okay, all right. Well, very rarely do we see dead-end ramps. And I think this is the the first dead end ramp that we saw with a magnet at the top. So it was it was very cool, and and it creates an awesome moment. I I will give it credit for that. Credit where credit's due, right? I'm I'm I'm here to shit on this game, but but that part's cool.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

So then you collect your you collect your soul gem and it says place your gem. Where are you gonna put it? What's it gonna do? So where you put that gem gives you the option to get a soul gem jackpot every time you finish a mode after that moment. So you really don't get anything when you place the gem until you finish another mode. So again, your drop targets and your captain marvel shot, they cannot be leveled up. So you're gonna be stuck with a certain percentage, and I don't have the percentages map memorized. It might be like maybe 25 or 50 percent. Okay, and it's locked in at that. But if you put it on Hulk and you've leveled Hulk up to level two, which is the highest it can go, and you play another mode and you finish it. Once you finish that mode, you you shoot Hulk and it gives you all those points at 150% of that previous mode you just played as a soul gem jackpot. That's huge.

SPEAKER_02 41:45

That's and it can be worth a lot of points. So I confused some rules earlier. We were talking about the reality gem, which is you would describe as a shot multiplier, and it is correct, in fact, that I was misdescribing it earlier as the soul. Oh, when you called it like the soul gem on on Iron Maiden. You know what's like the that that's not accurate. You know what's like the soul gem on Iron Maiden? This uh sorry, the soul shard is on Iron Maiden is like the soul gem here.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

Both Keith Elwin designs. I wonder if he's gonna use soul again in something else.

SPEAKER_02 42:17

Yeah, maybe. But like ultimately, uh to reiterate my point that I'm gonna be making this entire episode. It's easy to get confused, guys.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

It's uh there's oh not just confused, we're not even through all of them at this point. I don't remember the names and what each of them does. And like you said, there's permutations.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

I represent half of the people who know what the fuck they're talking about on this game, and I don't know what's happening.

SPEAKER_00 42:49

So we got we somebody somebody's got a comment here. Third way, if mystery is lit in Soul Gem, mystery spots a Soul Gem shot. That I didn't know. Look at you.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

Yeah. So Brooklyn Penn, by the way, has said multiple times they love AIQ. This is this is one of their favorite games, I'm assuming. And okay, and they like a premium too. And they like the premium. You know what? If the Captain Marvel ramp works, I'm okay with the trough slowing things down. It actually that never bothered me. It was pretty cool to watch. And on top of that, I love putting a camera on the the the window you get on on the disc and underneath the play field because they're lit individually. Yeah, the subway. Thank you. I like having a camera on that for streaming. It looks really cool. It's just the Captain Marvel ramp was was uh an issue for me. But please keep going. I love Okay. Wait, hold on.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

Real quick, Glenn. Are you what's your favorite feature on a on a pinball machine? Do you like pop bumpers? Are you a slings guy? Do you like ramps? Do you like spinners? Nobody's a slings guy. Losers.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Sorry. Um, I'm a ramp. I'm a ramp guy. You're a ramp guy. I like metal, metal ramps specifically. Yeah. Metal ramps. So if Rammstein had a pinball machine, those ramps would be metal. Brooklyn Brooklyn pin saying, I I love Wamps.

SPEAKER_02 44:15

Um shoot the wamps. Shoot the wamps. I love wamps. Um Paul, what's your favorite? Spinners.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

I'm spinners are good on classics. That's that's tough. Always good. They're good on this game, too. Both spinners are really good on this game.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

Well, our I've so I I haven't spent the time here. I I'm I'm really good at juicing and balancing spinners. That's kind of I I had mentioned, I think, earlier before we had started the podcast. Maybe, maybe it was mentioned earlier in the in this episode. I'm the second tech at Pinball Jones, the first tech, you know, gets the games working and making makes sure that they turn on and accept quarters and all of that, and is the the heart and soul of the place. Uh, I really just go in there to tune up machines and make sure they feel good. And a big part of that is is balancing spinners and make sure they rip a lot. I have not done that on the Hulk spinner on this on our copy of this game. And I I kind of want to know.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

You should, especially knowing that you can slap a multiplier on it and then wait for the Hulk situation if you've leveled it up and you haven't accidentally moved it to a different shot with the other power gem by hitting the center button.

SPEAKER_02 45:35

I should. I did it on the the Dazzler spinner on Deadpool, and now you can like I had to I had to increase the the settings on the the difficulty goal. Yeah, for disco multiball because you could get it in one rip. Uh it was it's like it became stupid. Typically, I don't like increasing difficulty stuff through software like that. I I think you should keep it original, but yeah, everybody was complaining at me about it. It's like this is so easy. Why do you why do you make you gotta you gotta you gotta ungrease the spinner or whatever you did to it? And it's like absolutely not. There's there's nothing more satisfying in pinball than a spinner that rips.

SPEAKER_01 46:18

I'm gonna go with the bank shot. I'm sorry, the the snicked on Deadpool is an incredibly satisfying shot.

unknown 46:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

Is there another bank shot in pinball that's satisfying though? There, I haven't nailed it. Oh, the gem shot on Tron's pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

Oh my god, gem. Yeah, because you can bank it off the Tron targets and get it to go the other direction. I love that. Also, and Harry Potter, there is a bank shot in order to get it to kick over to the right off the Hermione target, evidently.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

Which you just brought home tonight, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:52

Yes, I did. Although we shoot. I'm sorry. No, but I I wanted to take a second here and take a step back. If we if we take out the premium and the Captain Marvel ramp, which had, I would say, a design, uh, a design flaw at the beginning that really caused a problem specifically with Soul Gem, which at the time, because I didn't understand the gems at all. In fact, I just had this game back and I never went and figured out the gems. I was just trying to get to Thanos without having to go and understand the complexities of the gems. And what's really fun about that, I'm gonna quick aside, is that Glenn, as you've gone through and described this and and also your your obvious love for it, and I know there's other people on the stream who have a lot of love for this game. I kind of want to get it back, but it would never be the premium. So from I I almost want to scope it, dude. This game sucks. I from the scope of of just the pro, the only major issue I would see with the game at this point is the complexity of of the rule set and understanding how to make progress utilizing the gems as as efficiently or effectively as possible. I would say that that is the hardest hindrance.

SPEAKER_00 48:11

It's hard if you only play it on location. I can see how people get frustrated. Yep. And I also understand that not everybody has the budget to buy a game and own it. So I'm not trying to I'm not trying to shame anybody that can't afford to buy a five to six thousand dollar toy.

unknown 48:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

However, this game plays long and the code and the rules support the long play. So when you play it on location in tournaments that are set up hard so that it doesn't last 45 minutes for a round, it's frustrating. And I think that's where most people's anger comes from, is that they can't get far enough into the game to appreciate because tournaments would get bogged out. So get one in home to but just bite the bullet if you can afford one, if you can sell a game and bring one in for like give it five or six months.

SPEAKER_01 48:58

And a pro.

SPEAKER_00 48:59

Really let the rules set in. Yeah, get a pro. You will love this game. Glenn. And if you don't, you can sell it for what you bought it for.

SPEAKER_02 49:07

As somebody who tunes up games and sets them up for tournaments and then also runs same-said tournaments. I will have to 100% agree with you on this. This is a great game to have at home. It's it's like most people will think that it's oh, it's it's so complex and it's brutal. Well, yeah, that's what you want at home. If you get a standard, like easy-to-play game at home that's that's just easy to shoot, easy to understand, and you can do all the things, you're gonna get tired of it very quickly. I I guess it all depends on why you're getting a game at home, or if you're getting it for your Joel Engel Englebirth's friends and family, if you can invite all of his friends and family over to your place and play with them as much as he does, then maybe that's a good pick and and they'll all enjoy it. But if you're playing getting a game in your home, a pinball game in your home to for yourself selfishly, it's your it's it's your selfish six thousand dollar toy, right?

SPEAKER_01 50:07

Well, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 50:08

This one's 4,500. Oh, okay. Even better. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is a great game to have. One of my first games that I I guess my first modern-ish game, my first DMD game that I had at home is Walking Dead. And uh and when I once again I I bought it when COVID was happening, and I was like, I'm not a huge fan of Walking Dead, but this game came along at the right time, at the right price point, and sure, I'll flip on it and I'll I'll probably sell it in a few months. Still have it. I still have it because it's brutal and it's a great game to have at home. A game that kicks your ass is a great game to have at home.

SPEAKER_01 50:49

Got it. And you're comparing that then to this. This game can kick your ass. It's it's you can you can leave it long playing or standardize it uh or replay the play it the way it was sent from the factory, and it is a longer playing game.

SPEAKER_02 51:00

Yeah, but I've been through I've I've explored all there is to explore on Walking Dead. That would take me a lot longer to do on Avengers here, which to me sounds like a winning point for the sale. No, that's what I'm I'm I it's a perk. I know I'm here to hate on this game, and I'm probably doing a terrible job, but I would I would agree that this is a good game to have at home. Uh over the game.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

So I'm gonna try to convince you Mando, for example. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Mando, Mando's a little too linear.

SPEAKER_02 51:31

Um yeah, that's all I'm trying to say is that there's a lot of paths on this game that you can flesh out and and you know explore. Kind of in the in a similar vein to a Game of Thrones, if you will. I was gonna say that. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

So Game of Thrones, I think, was one of the first that had all of like the it had it had way more high score lists than others because you had every house high score, right? Okay, and then you had each multiball high score, then you had your high score high scores. So AIQ has a very similar thing where it's like, you know, the soul gem champion, the action, the mind gem action button champion, the the black order multiball champion, the you know, all of these things in the game, every gem, every quest, everything has a high score within the game. So that's almost an inspiration to try to like, okay, how am I going to maximize this? For instance, let's say you wanted to get a gigantic score using the mind gem. So I told you how to get the mind gem up to where you get three action button pushes, but if you level that gem up to level two, which is the highest it goes, then it lights it'll actually collect every single shot on the play field that's lit. I have a question.

SPEAKER_01 52:47

Sorry, before we go, I and this is clarification to make sure I understand. Yep. You're saying the gem can be leveled to max level two.

SPEAKER_02 52:55

Well, you're you're you're not the gem itself, the the Avenger that you're placing the gem with can be leveled to max level two.

SPEAKER_01 53:03

Oh, I thought that the Avenger could be max level three. That's not correct. No, it's just level two level two. Please keep going.

SPEAKER_02 53:09

When you collect them, they start at zero and then you can level them up to level one.

SPEAKER_00 53:13

I will say that that is a that is a confusing thing because I wish that when you collected an Avenger, it said you have them at level one, but it does not. It says you've not collected the Avenger. And then you level them up to level, yeah. Yeah, I would it Raymond. Please, like just make the world a better place. Just go in there. Just you know, you've collected Hulk level one. That'd be great. Because then people would understand one, two, and three were nobody wants a level zero hero, right? Correct. Well, uh my workers love heroes. Anyhow, yeah. So, all right, let's say, all right, so you got the mind gem level. You let's say you put it on Black Widow, which is the shot up the middle, it's the easiest shot in the game. Look, this is a this is an exact strategy. I want anybody watching this to take this strategy and congratulations on defeating Thanos five to six times. Yeah, pinjamin. Yeah, it's that's hard to do. Pinjamin. Um, all right, so you you first play, you get the mind gem, put it up the middle on Black Widow, level her up to level two, which is the highest it gets, and then if you can, here's here's where we haven't talked about yet. You got to collect some portal locks. Do you know what portal locks are, George? Yes. Yes, also. So portal locks act portal, each one you collect acts as a play field multiplier for the modes. Oh, no, I had no idea on that.

SPEAKER_02 54:32

Oh, really? Okay, it's it's an extra ball as well.

SPEAKER_00 54:36

Yeah, portal locks, portal locks are really, really hard to explain, only because there's so many different ways to get them, but you can collect up to three, which would be a four X multiplier.

SPEAKER_02 54:45

Can I sure can I try it really quick to explain portal locks? Okay, all right. So when if if you got two portal locks, uh this might be different on the premium because I've never been able to to get a four-ball mode by doing three portal locks. By on the premium that we have, at least, it the once you get to your third portal lock, you you that portal lock is lit, but it's only gonna go under the next mode. So you can the max max portal locks you can do per mode on on the premium that we have is two portal locks, which would be a three X play field, and your mode is a three-ball multi-ball. So, George, for portal locks, each portal lock you get is gonna be a at a ball. So the first portal lock you get is gonna be a two-ball multi ball for the next mode, and as long as you have two balls in play, it's a two X play field. You're gonna have a multiplier for each ball that you have in play during that mode.

SPEAKER_01 55:48

Now, how do you light a portal lock as opposed to it? It was always random to me when I got portal locks because I never figured out how the portal locks were lit.

SPEAKER_02 55:56

Perfect. Easiest uh the the most standard way to light a portal lock is through your combos. You're gonna light your first uh uh your first portal lock at four combos. You light your next portal lock, I want to say, at ten combos.

SPEAKER_00 56:12

So it's like fifty. It's it's a lot more. I think it's more than ten. I think so.

SPEAKER_02 56:18

I want to say it starts at four combos and then it it jumps. It does start at four. And then and then another six combos after that, which would mean ten combos total. And then another maybe. I don't I want to say it goes four, then six, then eight, something something along those lines. Got it. Okay, but it's combo based though. Like honestly, good luck. That's a lot of combos, man. There's other ways to get portal locks, though. One would be one of them is the probably the most easiest would be on your bingo card, the drop target little chart on the left-hand side of the play field. If you can scroll down to that.

SPEAKER_01 56:55

Okay, this.

SPEAKER_02 56:56

As long as the game is in competition play, the awards for that bingo chart will always be in the same position. So if it's on, if you're in a tournament and you're playing in competition play, you want the center row, not column center row. 750 spot adventures bonus X. Yep, I went column immediately. Thank you for that. Yep, yep. So uh if you if you are able to lock in the at the very start of the game, as soon as you hit the start button, you are automatically gonna have the 750 and the spot Avenger lit. They're gonna be lit solid. So to complete that center column on competition play. Wait, column or row? Or sorry, I I now you've got me doing it. The row, the row. We want the row, not the column.

SPEAKER_01 57:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 57:50

I'm I'm a freak in the spreadsheets. I know what I'm talking about here. All right. So we we just need a a bonus X to complete the row, the center row. And that will light your portal lock. Okay. How we how do you know that that lights a portal lock? By holding in your flippers and looking at the menu because it's Ray Day. It doesn't say portal lock. It's another one of the things. No, no, it's it's it's one of the each each different, like every time you the the way the the bingo card works is also fucking confusing. Uh, and it it works in a similar way to how Walking Dead does. So there's a light that's scrolling around from square to square to square. As soon as you hit any drop target, doesn't matter what drop target that you hit, it's going to stop on that square. As soon as you clear the rest of the drop targets, it will give you that square. And if that square also completes a row or a column or a diagonal, it'll give you an additional perk that's not listed here on the play field, but it is listed in the submenus. Got it. So the if it's on competition play in the submenus, you can check and see if it's on competition play when the center row will light portal lock. So you can do that from a skill shot by hitting the center drop target that'll automatically spot whatever light is lit. And ideally, you want it to be on bonus X by the time it hits that. So you want to plunge a little bit earlier than that. There's a third way to get a portal lock, though, that we haven't even gotten into, and that is the super secret skill shot, which is a short plunging all the way up at the top to where it goes kind of framed and then and then falls back underneath the it through the loop part. Yeah. And that will always, always, always light a portal lock for you.

SPEAKER_00 59:47

Okay. And Brooklyn Pin is correct. If you hit all three stand-up targets and then do a Hawkeye challenge, you will get a portal lock with a successful Hawkeye challenge. Yep. So you see the little arrow. You see the little the little inserts with like arrow flights? There's three of them. One, two, three. You hit those, and then it lights Hawkeye challenge at the the tower, and then it'll do a countdown, and then you hit either the target right there or the inner loop, it'll give you another portal lock. But it'll only light them at the disc where you'll have to spin the disc to collect them.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:22

And if if a game is set up well, then uh most people that I know who have this game and and want it to play as well as it can will set up the game to where you can just hold up that upper flipper and it'll fall under the target and get you the portal lock.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:40

And so what happens when the portal locks are lit, you have to spin the disc to collect them, and then you'll see little inserts light up where the ball would fall underneath on the premium. So if you kind of scroll down on this on the screen a little bit, you'll see right above Thanos' hand right there, there's actually three lights that will light up. So on the Pro, you can collect three portal locks and have a four-ball multiball with a four X scoring.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:06

Oh, it tracks the locks by lighting up the not used.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:10

Yeah, because they're virtual.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:12

Okay. So I don't know why on the premium, that's uh the I've I've lit four portal locks and and have only ever been able to max it out at two. Two portal locks per mode, and that's that's where it max out maxes out on uh on our premium. I don't know if that's a gameplay setting thing. I kind of want to look into it now.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:35

I almost wonder if because they're actual balls, maybe maybe the game doesn't have enough balls to be able to support another multi ball if they're in there.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:42

So they've got maybe six multi balls in there for sure. And I also have virtual locks turned on, like all the time. Like I there's some malfunction with the subway stuff sometime where I I just turned on virtual locks forever ago and just left it on. Because a lot of times I'll get a portal lock, and then after locking a portal lock, then it'll naturally spit out two balls, and I know that's a malfunction. And if I just turn on virtual locks, it doesn't happen. That doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:19

Yeah. Once again, reaffirming, just don't buy the premium or the LE version of this game. Yeah, agreed. I I gotta ask a question, Glenn. Oh, uh I I don't want to interrupt you though, but I want to ask you a question. Go ahead, finish your thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:34

Let me let me finish. Remember, so we were talking about the strategy. So yeah, all right. So let's say you have three portal locks. You you've collected the mind gem, you've placed it on Black Widow or any any Avenger and leveled it up to level two, and then you start the reality gem, and this is where it gets amazing. Because once you start the reality gem and it kicks all the balls out, all the portal locks, you're now a four X play field. If you spin the disc and you get it to 9x in the mode, and every shot's lit at 9x, then you hit the action button, you get a 4x times 9x of every mode shot collected in one button push. Bananas. Never done it, but those are the kind of sets, those are the kind of challenges you can set up in Avengers to like, okay, I've beaten the game. Now what can I do to kind of have fun with this in order to like get the most ridiculous score in given scenario? Got it. And and every mode has something like that you can do to exploit and and maximize the points in it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:34

That's the key right there. And that honestly, I feel like is is the difference between some level of player. And and bear with me here a second. But when when I had Escher in here a bunch, he wasn't thinking so much about hitting the shots and progression. His focus in every single game we ever played was how can he exploit the game? So, for example, he would talk about Game of Thrones, and you guys talked about that as well. And it was testing every multi-ball to see if there was a cap put in in the maximum jackpots that could happen. And if he found that no cap was put in in a particular situation, it meant that it could be abused in some way.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:14

Could you imagine being that good at pinball?

unknown 1:04:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:16

I can't. I can't. And here's the other messed up thing. Sorry, it's an aside, but like Escher taught me how to play a rhythm game while he got to Escape Nublar on Jurassic Park, was playing it, but was focused in watching me play a rhythm game and explaining to me how I was supposed to play it while he got to escape Nublar.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:37

I can't he solved that ref uh that Rubik's Cube in record time too.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:43

That's kind of it. Like to have a conversation and solve a Rubik's Cube. I can't, I literally can't fathom. I can't, I can't. There's sympathy and there's empathy and sympathy. Uh like I can't I can't empathize with with what it would be like to think that way.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:57

We miss Escher. Uh like he was very, very cool, dude, very uh easy to talk to, very approachable, very wise beyond his years, too. Uh uh young kid, I guess. You know, he's a fully fledged adult these days, but when we met him, he was a teenager.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:14

Yeah, what a what a boon, quite honestly, to to have the pleasure of, you know, I I got to say that I I played with one of the best pinball players in the world.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:24

And focused on exploits, which connects back here. This game feels like it's focused on on the type of players who enjoy exploits. So it's ray-day coded. Right, right. Yeah, and it's early Ray-Day code on top of that, which is I I think he was maybe in some ways trying to build something that that he and the Eschers and other people of that caliber would really appreciate. But I want to bring this back to Glenn. Glenn, you love this game. What's something we haven't gone over yet that you think is is something that that makes this game fantastic, despite the fact that we're It sells for 4500. That it's the worst rated of all the Lwinds. What what's that thing for you?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:07

Okay, there's three wizard modes that are like progressive, but then there's other wizard modes that are award-based. So if you play every single all right, so all right, the grid, the the the bingo card. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. If you play every super mode, which are super disc, super reactors, super combo, super gauntlets, super targets, and Hulk Rampage, if you play all of those by getting tic-tac-toes, and then that corresponding award lines up with a tic-tac-toe that you get from the instant info screen. There almost needs to be another screen. If somebody could make like a mod for AIQ that just had a constant like updating computer grid award screen, like just a L C D sounds off side and also complicated to create. Yeah, the computer frenzy, which I've never got to. I never got I that's one of the things I never did. There's another thing where every single every single mode you play has different trofe trophies based on how well you do point-wise. And then every super jackpot you get every like the when you do things well, every every skill shot you get, because there's like three or four different types of skill shots you get trophies for. If you get 24, there's a total of 32 in all, but if you get 24 trophies in one game, you get trophy mania, which is another wizard mode.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:55

I've never gotten to trophy mania either. Me neither. Pinge Pinjamin. No, I don't know anybody who has, except for maybe Esher, but we haven't really talked about it. Um okay, so uh yours your strat though is you you place mind gem on Black Widow. Is that where you go for it?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:14

Yeah, because it's the easiest to and because you're gonna get to get to the soul gem between your stack first and second or your second and third mode you play generally and then and then after that you just kind of let it fly, or you you're just flowing with the game. And we haven't we haven't talked about like the multi balls yet, but you use those the best you can to stack. Uh I I use the multi balls in order to finish modes. I don't necessarily care a lot about getting jackpots and super jackpots. I'm focused more on I know these shots have to be completed because the game is so much more than the multiballs. You have to get the modes and get the gems in order to progress.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:52

From my experience, the there's there's not as many points in the multi balls as there can be in the modes and mini wizard modes that you typically get to on uh a game once you once you get a hold of it. I have a different strat though. I know I don't I don't go after mind gem. Oh, let's hear yours. Is this a tournament strat or a progression strat? Uh this would be progression strat. I I I will I will say that. If I'm trying to get the the greatest score of all time, if I'm trying to beat the game, then I'm gonna leave mind gem for later. Not not alone. Okay, are you going are you going power gem? No.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:30

No, I'm going reality gem.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:34

Yeah, yeah. I I it it depends on circumstances. So if I if I get it, I'll go after because once again, this this thing gives me paths, right? So I I want I want a reality gem if I have portal locks. If I don't have portal locks and I and I happen to get into you know choose your gem, what what gem are you gonna go after? And I have no portal locks, I'm gonna go after time gem. Okay. So yeah, depending on that. Did we talk about time gem very much?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:05

Just it extends just just just what it gives the awards. We didn't talk about the shots you have to hit, but yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:11

It's kind of a simpler mode, like uh there a lot of the modes that we were talking about, like Mind Gem, there's four different shots uh that are lit at once, and then it you could you could to maximize on points, you could hit all four of these shots and then rip the disc, which I I I think I'm better about that. Uh uh back in the day, a lot of people call that disc a spinner, but there's also spinners on the game, which makes it confusing. So the disc is a disc, the spinners are a spinner. Okay. No, seriously, that's that that's some that's some confusing shit. Yeah, especially in the pro. You have two different spinners, and then you got that, you know, the the flat one, the uh the disc call like a sling ring or something, too.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:56

I think they call it a sling ring.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:58

Uh I I in the code they always call it a disc.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:02

Oh no, it's right spinning sling ring disc. Wow, right there. Look at that. Called it out, dude. It's both. That's so great. No, it's a disc. Shoot the disc. No, it's a spinning sling ring disc. You had now have to call it the SSRD every time you reference it. How is that a sling anything?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:18

Isn't that like a mental mental health thing that you get melatonin from? To address the yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:26

Literally, the only reason they called that sling dot dot dot is because it rhymed with ring. That's it. That's the only reason. They get to name it. Sure. Yeah, it's theirs. Nobody calls it that, though. It's it's everybody calls it a spinner. Everyone admits it from now on. Confusing as fuck, because there's two other spinners on the game. But all right, what was I saying? Your time time gem time gem, time gem strat. I don't typically like to I I I mentioned earlier if I'm doing reality, then I'll I'll do that only with a portal lock because what how do you play reality? Well, you points aside, you you gave a Glenn gave a an excellent rundown earlier as as far as how to maximize points, especially if you have a mind gem in your back pocket, which I didn't even know about. But how do you complete mind gem points aside? We're just looking for completions. Um, well, you rip the disc and then everything's lit. That's it. That's the reality gem. You just said mind gem, but yeah, the reality gem is you rip the disc and now everything's lit. So if you're already in a multi-ball from portal locks, then it's done fast. Let's go. I'm in multi-ball. I've got everything lit. It's time to just flip. So, on the other hand though, time gem is a little bit more careful. Let's let's be careful with time gem. So, how time gem works is we need to hit both ramps, the center ramp and the banana ramp. And then after both of those ramps have been hit, then there will be a scrolling target on the drop targets. On the columns or the rows, right? Uh no, it's in this case, it's it's the individual targets. So if and if I miss, then it's not as good because I can, you know, it's it it definitely once once you get to the targets portion of this mode, it really specifically wants you to hit that specific target.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:33

Um and it'll continue whether those targets are up or down, it'll continue to scroll over that target, and even though you can't hit it anymore. So if you if I happen to hit drop the the the top two drop targets and only the bottom drop target is left, that makes it really tough. Well, sorry, yeah, you gotta wait for the light to get the bottom. I gotta wait for the light to hit the bottom on the drop target and then also hit the drop target on purpose at the right time. It it makes it really tough to do that, unless I'm gonna clear them all and then then they all pop back up. But I feel like it's trouble. It's trouble.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:11

I feel like you're edging the audience here. What's the benefit of going time gen? I you're you're walking us through the steps, Paul.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:19

All right, where's the payoff? So time gem is is tough to complete, is what is what I'm trying to get at. It's it's quite simple. It's it's ramp, ramp, drop target, ramp, drop target, ramp, ramp, drop, drop target. So nine shots. Okay, nine shots to complete. Glennon mentioned it earlier in the episode, though. It's it's when you place your when you collect and place your time gem, then it's going to give you a time bank. And where I place that gem is on the easiest shot in the game, which is Black Widow. Accessible for both flippers, and anytime that I'm running out of time, then I just hit the center ramp. And now, guess what? I had the time gem, so now I have more time.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:02

But you would choose that over reality and just being able to end the mode faster when you're going for progression.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:08

Oh, I don't need to end the mode faster. I have no George, you're thinking mind gem. Darn it. But you're forgetting, George. I don't need to end the mode faster. I have the power of time.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:19

Well, I mean, yeah, but the more time you spend in the mode, the greater the likelihood that you're gonna drain at some point.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:25

I I would say from a competitive, from a competitive standpoint, trying to play against the game, the reality gem when you do that is nice early because it's it's easier to hit any shots because all the shots are lit. So you do get through that last. So if you're trying to get through the game, that is a good strategy because you have more shots.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:48

I go after time gem, and that's if I don't have a portal lock, just because it's easier to complete in single ball play. And if I do have a portal lock, then I go after reality gem. That's those are my two priorities is I want time gem on the center ramp, and I want reality gem, my multiplier, on the right orbit. So black widow and black panther is uh are the two Avengers that we are going after. And so, along with the time gem, George, time gem awards time to all, including how do you light portal locks again? How's our natural way if we're not doing the combos? I know that okay, combos, okay. How do you hit combos? They don't need to be back to back to back to back combos. I can do a two-way combo, and that counts as a as as a plus one to my combo meter, I guess, for my next portal lock. And then I can wait trap up the ball and then completely wait it out and do another two-way combo. And now I have two combos towards my next portal lock, right? So, really, what this is is ultimately in the end focused on is getting to my next portal lock. I want to make portal locks as easy as possible. Which gets me multipliers. I make how do I make my portal locks as easy as possible? Yes, which which gets me to multi ball slash multipliers for my next mode. And how do I make that as easy as possible? Well, I I add time to my combos, and the reason I do reality gem is because after so many combos, then I have a combo jackpot of sorts, I forget exactly what it's called, on my right orbit, which is where I placed my multiplier gem.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:36

That was the longest, that was like 10 minutes of edging to get there.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:41

But wait, oh no, we're not gonna have listeners off just yet. We're gonna keep edging them. Okay, Jesus. So then you start, then you start super combos on your computer grid, and then you just combo left ramp, black panther over and over and over, and then every five shots you get a super combo.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:00

I think they nerfed that though. I don't think you can combo Black Widowed a bat Black Panther after so many shots. I think they they turn it off.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:09

If they did that, then that's bold because that's a hard thing to do, and I can't do more than one.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:14

Black widowed Black Panther. Oh, you can do that all day.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:17

At least you're yeah, the what for whatever reason, like being able to hit the left ramp is simple, but then then Black Panther on the right orbit, it doesn't always make it all the way up, which is where that flank attack thing comes in. Yeah, no, I see that. But anyways, Raymond, Raymond Davidson's got some really good tutorials on some of the fun ways, like that. That that specific situation, time gem on this Black Widow, and then and then reality gem over there on the Black Panther to get super combos going and then get all the combo jackpots, like he get gets billions of points doing that. But maybe they did nerf it, they might have.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:58

Sure. No, I I can do it until it times out, and then I can't you know do it anymore. Like, I mean, I can't, I just can only make the shots so many times. So they tie for me, they time it out at a at a great time because I can't make the shots, anyways.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:15

Quick question on combos combos just require you to hit two alternating shots. Would that be a combo?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:21

Okay, sort of. You you hit a shot and then a bunch of shots will light up flashing white arrows, which would be corresponding combo shots for that. So if I hit the center ramp, then uh since that feeds back to the left flipper, then your right orbit, your your banana ramp, your right orbit, or your Captain Marvel shot will all be lit for a combo. Yes, but you won't have Hulk won't be flashing in a combo after that shot. Okay, exactly. So yeah, it it it the game is smart and and lights up corresponding shots that would be reasonable to to combine to do a combination on. But those those combos, as far as your portal locks are concerned, don't need to be back to back to back. When we say a four-way combo, that's not a true four-way combo where I hit four shots in quick succession, one after the other, after the other, after the other, it can be just a one-to-one pause, one-to-one pause, one to one until you get to four.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:26

So like you could you could repeat the left ramp over and over and over, Captain Marvel, but you won't get combos because it's the same shot. Same thing with the gauntlet ramp feeding the upper flipper. You have to pick different shots.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:37

So once you light a uh a portal lock, how do you how do you start the multi-ball? Or in this case, I want to I want to get to three portal locks. How do I avoid starting the multi-ball?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:50

You just don't you don't shoot the right ramp? The banana ramp? Okay, the banana ramp. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:55

On a pro. Unfortunately, on the premium, you're disc rating. Yeah, and it falls in there so easily.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:00

Once again, reaffirming the pro is the right way to go with this game. In fact, is there anybody out there right now? I of us three, I think we're we're all on board with pro over premium slash LE.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:12

Somebody in chat said it earlier. They they they're big fans of Avengers and they like the premium. Brooklyn to I think said that. Yes, I think you're right.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:21

Okay, and they would choose the premium over the pro. Penjamin agreeing, pro always for this one. Pro always, always is my stance. And you can get it for 4,500 to 5,000 used. Freaking steal, man. It sounds like a steal if what you want is a game that has really shitty animations and call-outs. Oh, I forgot about the animations. I forgot about that and the crap. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:47

That's that's true. That's true. And and there's not a lot of really great moments in the game. That that is another bummer. Um, the soul gem being my favorite moment. Some people really do like the the Hawkeye challenge is a fun moment. It does feel good when you do it, and then when you get the Hulk uh uh award for the what's the the jackpot, the gamma ray, yeah. That's a lot of fun, but kind of like Game of Thrones, you're like, okay, the the beauty in this game is the scoring. It it really is like how like crazy can you get something to explode the score? And then that's where the gratifying payback payout is. There is also uh here's a cool thing if you have the soul gem and you get to the second wizard mode, which is black order multiball, it gives you the option to gamble your soul gem for an attaball. Where if you finish and get the super jackpot in the black order multi ball, you get the soul gem back, otherwise you lose it and you don't get it back. And the soul gem doesn't just give you a soul gem jackpot from modes, it also allows you to replay modes you failed. So there is that perk as well. So it has two perks. The soul gem is pretty valuable.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:00

Yeah, wait, are there other gems that have multiple perks? Because I feel like some of them have multiple perks.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:06

How many gems we got? Six, right? Six six gems. So we have time, reality, mind, power, soul, soul, and then one more, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:17

Space. Space. Space. Yeah, so the space gem, we went over that earlier, where if if you have the space gem and you complete one of the mini wizard modes, it likes change gems in which you can shoot the far bottom right shot and change your gems. Sure. On the pro, you shoot that, but then you got to shoot the gauntlet ramp because that's the only way to stop the ball from moving on the play field. It's the only place to stop the ball. All right. And so then you get like 13 seconds to select every shot you want and then put each gem that you have on different shots. So there was if you have the sp Sorry, you finish your thought. I I don't I'm if you have the space gem, you get a little bit more time to do that, which you'd think would be a time gem perk, but it's not a space gem.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:58

Okay. Interesting. Uh there's so there was a major tournament uh I want to say within the last year and a half at most, where I want to say it was Z Mac and Jason Zoller playing on it. And Zoller. I should watch that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's somewhere out there. I I don't remember I I wish I could tell you what event it was. Maybe somebody chat and chime in.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:26

Um it was probably at Expo because those games at Expo come out of the box and they get set up. It's the only tournament I know where they don't try to nerf anything, it's factory settings on everything, and the games are set so easy.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:37

That's why that tournament goes out.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:38

So I think this game is so uh it's a few years old at this point. I don't I doubt it was out of the box, but Zoller was playing on their uh I can't remember if it was the the pro or the premium. I want to say it was probably the pro, but regardless, Avengers. It was Zoller was playing AIQ and and got to Thanos attacks and made a bold, he made a bold move. Once again, this is in the same mindset as Esher, where Zoller is is number one in the world at this very moment, and is Zoller picks this game at many different competitions. Yeah, because people don't know it. People people don't know it, and he knows how to exploit it, which are is is massively different. You can you can know how to play a game and you can not know how to play a game, and then there's that's that's one thing. And if you know how to exploit a game versus not knowing how to exploit a game, it's a very different thing. So yeah, how did Zoller exploit when he got to the the final wizard mode? It wasn't the final wizard mode, it was which wizard mode is Thanos attacks? So first off, you play what it's not a wizard mode.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:52

Thanos attacks is just when he comes after your gems, it happens like after you've collected a couple just randomly. Instead of there being a instead of there being a gem mode, he jumps in and he's like, No, you're not playing a gem mode. I now have the gems you've collected, and now you have to defend them.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:08

Okay, okay, well, okay, here's the bold move that Zoller did during this competition, and it got him points. It arguably won the game for him. He let Thanos attack, and then when Thanos was going after his reality gem, he let Thanos take it. He just let Thanos take it. To what end? That's really cool. To what end? Well, great question, George. Here's the end is after he got out of that mode and and the rest of the Thanos attacks mode was over, well, you no longer have the reality gem, which means you can play it again. If you have the soul gem. No, not not even if you have the soul gem. He was just he just didn't, it was like he never played that mode, so it was an easy mode to complete, and so he was just able to play it again because he doesn't have it anymore, so he's got to get it back.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:06

Penjamin is saying that you and both Glenn, you're you're saying that you have to have the soul gem in order to get it back because soul gem is what enables you to play modes a second time.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:17

Not after Thanos attacks, I don't think.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:19

I think maybe maybe not. There might be I think the rules say, I think the rules say you if you have the soul gem, you can play a mode that you failed. But there is that wouldn't be a failed mode, then stipulation.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:29

But it's not a failed mode. You completed the mode, and then the mode and then the gem was taken away, and now it's available again. So I think that's that's hilarious. I love that. I don't think it was he might have had the mind gem, like no in Zeller. He had all soul gem, but yeah, and or sorry, soul gem. Yeah, uh, but okay. I listen, I've pim pim pinjamin completely. I'm wrong, and it's not the first time, and it's not gonna be the last time. Just just saying Penjamin sounds like they know what they're talking about. I'm gonna Believe Glenn here too. There's there's enough people, you know. We were just talking about Thanos attacks, community attacks.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:06

No, no, Frisco jumping in saying it was Pinburg, and the meta currently is to let Thanos take the reality gem so you can play it again, and it's why the scoring can get nutty.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:15

Okay, well, maybe Frisco can back this up. Do you have to have the soul gem in order to replay it or not?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:23

Oh, Frisco did a whole podcast deep dive into this specific situation because Frisco does You don't. Okay. Okay. Okay. Interesting. Boom. Mic drop. Mic drop. Headphone drop.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:37

Okay. Sorry, Penjamin.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:40

Boom.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:40

Now we all need to go. Go ahead. I want to learn stuff like that. I don't need to be right. No, I just be right either. No, no, no. I'm not going to be able to do that. No, you want to drop your mic and you're going to put your headphones down. Sure. Headphones down.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:54

No, but that's I think to bring this back to this game. And if we're going to shine a spotlight on a game that gets shadown, then this is this is it gets a bad rap, is that this game is complicated and you have to play it a lot, likely to understand the rules because it's about it's kind of like Magic the Gathering. Like every card breaks the rules in some way. And the mind gem or that sorry, not the the the the gems allow you to to kind of break the system in some way, in some unique way. And it's all of these different things you can do. And and the goal is to find exploits.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:31

So maybe this is where this is the hill I'm gonna die on is the the fact that this thin little thing that we're getting hung up on is like, can you replay that mode or can't you? And that's such a deep, obscure part of the game, which is why it sucks. Okay. That's my that's the reason I think this game sucks. In all honesty, if you're if you're to come and and meet me in person, I I enjoy this game. Okay. I I'm not I'm I'm just playing this playing devil's advocate. Yeah, yeah. I got you. But legitimately, you know, these obscurities in within the rules and how complicated the rules are, and how long it takes to get to the rules that we ourselves, amongst the community of players that play this game and enjoy this game, can't agree upon is why this game sucks.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:28

Okay. I think that the game surprises you the longer you own it and hears you to it. Yeah. And and then you get to go on a podcast to do a three-hour humble brag that you've gotten to the end and pretend like you're helping people when honestly all I'm doing is saying I've beaten the game multiple times in different ways, and I'm still not a state champion. But if you get if you get to the end of the game and you fail, it's kind of cool because it like it actually lets you try it again. Like if you die on the the wizard mode, it doesn't like reset the game, you're still stuck. You get to go back like Doctor Strange goes back in time and lets you play him again on the next ball.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:11

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:12

So that's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:13

That is super cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:14

I didn't know that. Yeah. And then if you if you carry every gem to the end of the game, which is hard to do, and only done it once. If you carry every gem to the end of the game, you don't even have to play the wizard mode, it just gives you a billion points and says good job.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:34

Right, that makes sense because at that point you have the glove. You you you you have the exact figures, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:31:41

Yeah, okay. So it's kind of it's got it's got some really cool stuff all the way to the end, and it still has stuff in it I've never played. I've never been to Trophy Mania, I've never been to the supercomputer frenzy. There's there's some cool stuff in the game I haven't experienced, and yet I still also haven't gotten every achievement on Insider Connected. Getting three successful Hawkeye challenges in one game is one of the things. Yeah, no, that because each one's harder.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:07

No, yeah, yeah. So getting the first one's all I really care about because that will typically light my portal lock if I if my disc post is out of the way, right? But I can't that's insane, man. It's what they're asking you to do on this game is a lot, it's a tall order.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:28

But they were smart about it because they knew that they made a layout that was safe, that was combo friendly, that fed flippers for more shots that were safe. And there are some dangerous things that you have to go for, but then it also lets you move the gems in ways that gets you the next Avenger collected with a shortcut if you take the time to understand it, and then you feel smart because it's like it's like anything where like you you feel like you're outsmarting the machine, but you're just actually using the rules that they were trying to let you have from the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:00

Okay, we're this is just in. I'm wrong. The Penjamin is correct here. Hottie looked it up and double checked the uh data, I guess. Sorry, let no, that's that's that's disingenuous. Hottie checked the facts. All right, let's let's let's really give credit to to Penjamin here. Uh you do need to have the what is it the easier or give them? The soul gem. Yeah, you gotta have the soul gem in order to, yeah, okay, all right. Shit. Pull it up actual record stuff, but regardless, it's still what a play of just letting the reality gem go so that you can play it again.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:48

Yeah, but this is and this is kind of what I was trying to get at here is that this game I think is made for the kind of player who enjoys exploit uh exploits, uh, exploitive playing in pinball. Uh-huh. Right? Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:02

I and I'm I'm finding that more and more and more in the games that are released in this day and age. Potter is a prime example that I think I've spoken to you at nauseum about, where it's it's Potter, Harry Potter is a very deep game that we talked about in a previous podcast. And since then, spoiler alert, I've changed my opinion on it. I actually like playing the game a lot more than I did during our little first impression outing. So so my opinion on Harry Potter has changed quite a bit. At the same time, I don't think that's uh that's a monster license that should ideally uh be there to introduce a lot of people into pinball that I think it isn't. It's not hitting that mark. It's it's a very deep, very confusing game. Somebody who's been playing pinball for the last 10 years, I'm I'm struggling with learning that game because it's so deep and everything, and and I can only imagine for somebody who's walking up to a pinball machine for the first time after they just caught their breath after saying they still make these, and then they're flipping on this now, and it's like, whoa, dude, uh, that's too much to throw at anybody. And Avengers is kind of in that same boat. What's your thoughts there, Glenn?

SPEAKER_00 1:35:26

Yeah, I think I think the hardest thing about Harry Potter is that right scoop. Um my god, that's just trying, just trying, just trying to get a mode started. But but no, I I don't know. I'm I'm being selfish here. I want every game, I want every game to present a puzzle to take apart. Yeah, but I also I also understand certain certain IPs are better off for new players to be able to get a dummy multi ball. And Avengers does have that. You know, you hit Thor three times and you're in Thor multi-ball. And the attaball is pretty easy. Actually, here's another fun fact: most multi balls in this game don't just have one at a ball because you have both the Captain Marvel spinner will let your mystery, so you got that at a ball, as well as what other attabball that that multi ball has with Thor, spin the sling ring disc, and then you hit the sanctum target behind it for an attaball. Where Iron Man multi ball, you gotta spell I R-O-N and then hit the magnificent target behind behind the sling ring disc. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:28

Well, yeah, Thor Thor will light that that that stand-up target too. I I think you said that. Oh sorry, am I yeah, I'm I'm no, they do, they both do. They both have yeah, behind the sling ring disc. Yes, yep, yep. The the yeah, the stand-up uh target behind the disc will add a ball if you do the right thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:48

So to let it at this point, I'm thinking, man, in in a uh wow, I just lost myself. Paul was pointing out that maybe this isn't a great game for a newbie, but for somebody's not at all. Okay, no, it's not. All right, we all agree on that. Yeah, yeah, we all agree this is not the game for a newbie, but in a collection or somebody who is more advanced, who who isn't just struggling to kind of keep the the the ball above the flippers, somebody who's been playing for a while, this is the kind of game where there's so much depth, so much depth into what can be achieved beyond just the wizard mode. This is the kind of game that that maybe has a a staying power in a collection. Would you say that, Glenn?

SPEAKER_00 1:37:30

Yeah, and it's non it's non-linear, so you can do things in different orders where where literally you have a different strategy, you can go with any gem. This is a great game to have at home. People wind up playing Guardians of the Galaxy the exact same way every time, even though you can choose different modes. Yeah, you end up playing with the same. It is a path of better, same with Godzilla. Some of these games really don't give you a lot of once you get deep enough into the game and you understand it fully, you're like, Well, I could do that, but it's not as beneficial. You can just like Game of Thrones, every house in Game of Thrones has a strategy, every mode and gem in in AIQ has a strategy. It it has so much staying power. If as long as you have a skill set that's high enough to take advantage of it and a willingness to understand the rules, it's a perfect game.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:20

If you have all those elements, if so, and spinner instead of a upside down ramp.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:27

Yeah, and I don't want every game as complicated as Avengers either. Like, if every game was this complicated, I don't think that would be good for pinball. We need a few games that have this next level. I'll agree, I'll agree. Yeah, this is this is the supreme pizza with anchovies.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:42

So I like uh George has had a a lot of a boatload of of different games here in his uh panic room over the years, right? Yeah, here in the panic room over the years. I've George is a buyer and seller. There's there's nothing that's bolted here, right? You're not you're not uh attached to anything, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:39:07

Uh the I want to say yes to that question.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:09

The the right deal comes along and you're willing to let it go. Yeah if if the if the timing's right. Yep. If nothing else. Okay. On the other hand, I've I own only two games at this point. My girlfriend owned owns one. I I used to own three. I so I've out of playing pinball for 10 years, and I've I've purchased three games and I've sold one. Uh, and so the the three games that I have in my possession now, including my my girlfriend's one, would be Jungle Princess, Walking Dead, and Trident. And that's it. And the and the game that I sold was World Cup Soccer.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:53

And are you saying that this game, if you bought it, would be a bolted-to-the-floor situation?

SPEAKER_02 1:39:59

No, I'm saying out of those three games, or out of those four games, sorry, out of Jungle Princess, Trident, World Cup Soccer, and The Walking Dead, the one I got bored with was World Cup Soccer. Like almost immediately. Okay. I had it in my house for less than a month, and I was like, I don't, I I really liked World Cup Soccer, and now I'm just bored with it.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:26

And yeah, your super modes in that game you can't even exploit very much because they're they cap pretty quick.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:32

No, totally. Yeah. And what I'm really trying to say is you're not gonna have that experience on Avengers.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:37

Ah, got it. Okay. I really needed the back. That was the edge.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:44

George, I'm the edge lord.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:45

I know you are the edge lord. I love it. The climax of my dreams. Yes. All right. Glenn, you mentioned that there's some other games you would get, I think, in place of Avengers, if first, but before grabbing and putting Avengers back in. You've just described Avengers as like the ultimate home game. Now that you've said that, what what's what's higher than Avengers for you right now?

SPEAKER_00 1:41:11

Anything new that I don't really know very well. So I think King Kong would be the top of my list. Got it.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:16

What you're looking for is that new relationship energy, the NRE.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:19

Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know that any I don't know that those games would have staying power longer than Avengers, but I just I just don't know those games as well as Avengers. And so as a tournament player, I want to learn the games that I'm gonna play to the point where I have knowledge where if a game is set up different, I have a strategy for that different setup.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:39

Because that's that's what you wind up walking into at a tournament. It's like, oh, the Hulk spinner gets three spins on this Avenger because you know, extra Paul wasn't there to choose. Yeah. And so, like, well, then you're not gonna go for you're not gonna even go for the soul gem mode in that situation, which changes which gem you go for. Like, there's there's so many cascading penalties for a shot that doesn't work and on Avengers, like it's a puzzle. Then you're like, all right, now you're reverse engineering. Where are the points if this shot's not there? So if it's to me, that's fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:13

If it's not King Kong and it's not any other Elwin design, what's replacing Avengers?

SPEAKER_00 1:42:21

Okay, so then it's not gonna be Harry Potter only because that's not in tournaments. Nope. As much as I would love to play Harry Potter and have it, still don't want to lose when I play I'm putting it in tournaments. I don't know, Jaws or like you said, you saw okay. So all right, so Star Wars Follow the Empire. I don't know that game very well yet, and I keep hearing it's really, really good. And okay, fine. I've seen a lot of Star Wars games, but Tim Lee says that that game is the best Star Wars game. So Tim Lee is Tim Lee, and he's gonna do Tim Lee things.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:56

I I feel like Follow the Empire shoots very similar to Walking Dead. It's it's brutal, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:02

It is brutal. It forces you to shoot stand-ups.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:05

But it's I mean, the code on it at the same time is very fun. It's it's kind of it's kind of the I I know we just got Walking Dead remastered, but to me, Follow the Empire. George and I went to the media day in Chicago to to watch that be released, and it it was definitely giving me some vibes. I was invited. It's it gave me some Walking Dead vibes on it, just just with the brutality of like the way it shoots and what you can do with look, I don't I don't know, it's it's it's back to basics, but like in a in a brutal way. Yeah. I would agree. Kind of. I I don't know how else to describe it of that it's punishing and it's it's not complex.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:51

Also, it's another ray day. So if we're connecting dots here between Avengers and Fall of the Empire, there may be another opportunity for for some of this very interesting depth. I don't know that we're ever gonna see anything ever like Avengers again, but some of that's gotta be there.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:10

I think I think that there's a lot of modes in Star Wars. I don't know how much they all tie into each other and how much because like every character, there's a whole like spray of like fan shots that all have different characters with their own their own modes that are attached in a sequence to them. I don't know how deep that gets and how far it goes, but do you think in just relationship to this conversation, do you think Pokemon will have any depth, or do you think they're going to do something?

SPEAKER_02 1:44:38

I hope it's like an onion man, where it's really easy to peel the first layer off and it's very approachable to most people, but as you dive deeper and deeper and deeper, it there's there's more and more there. That's that's how I want. Um if if I as somebody who's the leader of a community here with all the tournaments and and leagues that I run, I I want I I genuinely want uh uh what I want most out of Pinball is it to grab more people. That's that's really what I want, is it is that I want to see new faces and I want to see them often. And a lot of these games that we've seen come out recently are really just here to keep the same people coming back. And then and and there's something to that. Don't don't get me wrong, that's not nothing. Uh uh those games are are valid and and loved too at the same time. But it's not it's not uh where the longevity of the hobby lies.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:52

It's it's an interesting decision if you compare them in a way like so, for instance, name me a classic rock band that would be made, that would be a great seller for the so if Journey gets made, there's so many pinball players currently that would buy that game, and it's guaranteed sales, x amount of sales. I can't say like top-notch best seller ever, but there's guaranteed sales. If you make Pokemon, you're risking alienating the buyer base to hope to get new players from a gigantic potential pool of buyers that maybe only don't have the income for that. It's it's it's it's I think it's a risk.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:36

Do you but you you've seen people buy Pokemon cards? Those those people have money.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:41

Okay, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:43

Like a Pokemon card pack is what five bucks? Sure, but the the people who buy there's there's there are people out there, there are Pokemon fans who buy relentless amounts of Pokemon cards. Oh, I want to meet these people. Yeah, no, there's listen, that's it's its own hobby that's way bigger than pinball. Seriously, the Pokemon card collection, just anything Pokemon. People who buy Pokemon things buy all things Pokemon.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:13

I think that was the key. You said it. Pokemon is bigger than pinball. Oh, yeah. Magic the gathering is bigger than pinball.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:19

Like, all of Star Wars, but how many did they sell that many Star Wars pins more than they would have Journey?

SPEAKER_02 1:47:26

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:28

The way the the way the I don't know what it was, but the way the start the the Fall of the Empire Star Wars game came out made me feel like I had never heard of Star Wars before. It was like, are you kidding me? This is like the fifth Star Wars pinball machine that has existed now. We this isn't you're not breaking ground here. We've we've had Star Wars pinball from Sega and from Data East and from Stern again.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:04

And Hankin.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:06

Yeah, and and uh again and again and again. Like it's it's this isn't new. And it's it was it felt like it was like no eat it. You like it, you like Star Wars.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:19

I told you that you did. So okay, so the three of the three of us, the three of us are a little bit beyond just caring about a game because of the theme. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:29

So sorry. Oh, I don't give a shit. So give me the theme. I care about the the the game play.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:34

Yeah, so give me give me give me your percentage. Like if you were to give me like I care X amount percent about the theme, X amount percent about the rules. It's like 8020. And the shot.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:44

And yeah, me too. 8020 for me. I I'm I'm a Ninja Turtle super fan. I fucking hate it game. I love that game. I hate that game so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:53

That's in our list of games that uh that people struggle with that uh that we have someone lined up to defend in the very near future, actually. Oh, oh yeah, I can't wait for that one.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:02

Yeah, not me, somebody else.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:03

Yep, yeah, we have somebody else coming in on that one. What a turd. I think I'm 50-50. The the the the theme theme does a lot for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:13

Well, okay, so in in my defense here, like if if you have a a dream theme for you and it doesn't hit the mark, then it falls that much shorter for you personally. True. Queen. Okay, yeah, yeah, that's a good example. That's a good example. But no, I I I feel like you know, if it if it falls a little short, there's there's some people who out there who are quite a bit more positive than I am on things, just just a little less pessimistic. And I think Hottie's actually a great example. I want to say Avengers, or no, it was Venom. Venom was a a dream theme for Hottie. Yeah. Yeah, perfect. I support that. So uh for a lot of people, I I won't say this is a falls into the bad rap category just yet because I I personally like Venom.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:12

No, Venom falls into the bad rap. We literally have Frisco lined up to talk about Venom. Don't I'll shank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:23

It's Hottie.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:24

What is the best what is the best what is the best prison shank tool? I I'm gonna go toothbrush. Yeah, I was gonna say toothbrush. Toothbrush, yeah, but there's no question.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:33

All right, so yeah, once again, like a lot of for me, you know, Ninja Turtles is a dream theme and it fell short, so I hate that game now. But on the other hand, there's much more positive people out there, much more optimistic people who can, you know, I think I've I can loosely quote Quaddy, Quaddy, Hottie here by saying that if if Venom had a single pop bumper, he would still would have loved it, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:51:03

Question, question, the new new topic for five minutes.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:07

Oh we have five minutes, and we do actually have an ending thing here.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:11

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. So so as a member of the homebrew community, I'm I'm gonna make a shameless pug pug, Jesus, have another homebrew community is crushing it these days, by the way. So we're making a lot of games that people want to be made, uh huh, but I'm hearing from the manufacturers that that's not a good idea because it can ruin the momentum and basically destroy an IP for a manufacturer to make if a homebrew already made it. That's what I've been told. Do you guys believe that?

SPEAKER_01 1:51:44

Because I don't think not get ruined.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:48

My response to that, if I was you and and being told this from a manufacturer, my response would be then hire me.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:59

Well, we made saw pinball, and we were told, we were told if you make a really good homebrew, you will ruin the license for a manufacturer to make it.

unknown 1:52:10

Then hire me.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:11

Buy a manufacturer.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:12

So that's like, come on, oh, okay, make a hire high manufacturer. I am hireable.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:19

Yeah, that that is an interesting statement. I'd say that if if it was once again, you nailed it with the statement if you make a good homebrew with a particular license and they buy that license, they should just buy the design off you if it was really that good.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:34

No, we we we we re-themed a whirlwind, so that's not something that's even possible. So we we didn't even think we were gonna make that good of a homebrew, like we were hoped for a good homebrew, but we made a pretty good homebrew, and it was a pretty damn thing. We wish that we we we wish that it was an original layout at the end of it because it's like, well, maybe we could have done something with it, but either way, like come on, spooky. If you if you put that's right next, and spooky wasn't the manufacturer that told us this, but if you put if you put Saw right next to Evil Dead, they're not even close. Evil Dead's amazing, so much you can you can make a better game than our saw, and I want somebody to. I want somebody because we built the get the best game we could with our abilities, and then I want to see what a manufacturer does, like yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:19

To be perfectly honest, I don't I don't know the full context of this outside of literally what you just told us. I think that's rude. I think that's really rude, yeah, as as hell. I would agree with that for for a manufacturer to tell you a person who who built the put your heart and heart and soul into this thing as a passion project that you're not making any money out of, and they're coming up to you saying, Well, since you did that well, well then I'm not gonna make any money off of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:46

Sorry, thank you for saying that, Paul. Uh I want to change my statement. I don't swear. I try my best not to swear, but I would tell that manufacturer to go fuck themselves. Like, that is such a douchebag statement to make to somebody who put all of that effort into something for no money. Like, y'all aren't doing it uh to to make a big deal. You're doing it for love. It's for the love of the hobby. Fuck them.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:13

No, it's that's that's legit. I I'll I'll die on that hill. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:20

You tied it back to the first where we said.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:23

The other podcast, yeah, better podcast. But no, that's that's shocking to me. That that blows my mind that somebody told you that.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:31

And we don't even need to out them, but no, no, no. But you also have the Harry Potter homebrew that got a cease and desist from Warner Brothers.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:38

That's different. I'm okay with somebody.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:41

However, they don't know how though, but they don't they don't get no, they weren't. They did nothing wrong. They actually did nothing more than a thousand other YouTube channels that use Harry Potter's image and likeness in the same way he was, but he got shut down. And we all know why.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:02

Because he was making a pinball machine that somebody else was already in the process of making. And then if you would have seen his his his homebrew at Expo this year, he brought it back and they told him not to. And he had this big old like gigantic sign saying why he's not breaking any laws by having the game here. And so it's it's it's all right. So let's put it this way we have uh 50 homebrews at Expo last year. This isn't going away. The manufacturers have to figure out how to navigate big trouble little China China. Kyle, he just got hired by barrels of fun. Congratulations. Super, super happy for Kyle. He's a really good dude and a good designer. Um, we had uh, what's the guy that went to American Pinball? Uh Ryan McQuaid. Yep, you know, he was a homebrew with all the guys that did Legends of Alhalla. You've got homebrew guys that have been able to take their and Keith Elwin as as well. But then to think like with 50 pinball machines being made that are homebrew projects, there's gonna be overlap. So the manufacturers just have I think they have to just figure out how to just be like, okay, cool, they made one and we're gonna make one too. We have we have unlimited budgets as homebrew people, whatever we can afford. The manufacturers have a limited budget, and I think that the buying market can understand the difference. So I think so too.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:22

Okay, so there is an aspect, a massive aspect that often gets overlooked in pinball to this entire conversation is that the I'm here to back the the homebrew community. Let me just get that off my chest here. I think what the homebrew community is bringing to pinball is freaking amazing, and the way that they're doing it is beyond impressive. Like it it blows my mind what people are able to do out of their freaking garage. With that being said, when you when it comes time to manufacture uh a pinball machine with an IP, there's some hoops and hurdles to judge through and over that the the homebrew community is blessed to not have to deal with.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:20

Oh yeah, no, we did saw pinball and I made like 15 songs in the game. Would any of those have been cleared by the licensor? I don't know, probably not. Yeah, because I wrote them and I I played them and I whatever.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:33

And I mean sometimes it means my call-ups people in that in that whole interaction where they're like, no, we like what you do and how you do it. Like, keep it going.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:41

So when I say in the voice of Jigsaw, just how valuable are your flipper fingers, or how how important are your flipper fingers to you in the jigsaw voice? Like, I think it's funny, but would Lionsgate be like, Yeah, you can put that in your game. No, they have to approve it or not. Who knows?

SPEAKER_02 1:57:57

Yeah, John Wick didn't get guns, right? Like, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:00

You have we have all sorts of oh, look at this. Thanks, George. Yeah, and then we made Monster League hockey, and that was a completely unlicensed theme. So we did it for our front, our friend uh Jake Danzig, and he brought in some people in the hobby, um uh Antoinette Johnson and then Nikki Green, and then also Madspin, I think is her is her handle, and and they were characters inside the artwork that Brett Albright did. By the way, Brad is killing it. He's over at Multimorphic, he's over at Barrels of Fun. He did he did he did uh Winchester, he did our game, and then he also had what's the multimorphic goal all at the same show, portal. So, anyhow, like so. This game, this game, they're thinking about trying to put it in production right now, but like we don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:52

I'm picturing Joust. There was another soccer one type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:56

It's a hockey game. You you're playing hockey against your opponent. There's a goalie between the flippers that's a drop target, and every time you hit the drop target, you lose a save. Once you're out of saves, the drop target's gone, and you score a goal. It's it's three minutes of head-to-head hockey. It's great. That's awesome. Yep, that's great. And there's there's more to it than that, but it's really simple, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:59:14

Oh, and there's an L C D here. Like when you're playing here, you get to watch the L C D over here, which is a scoreboard. It's actually super fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:21

No, that's ingenious. Yeah, that's yeah, I like that a lot. That's that's really smart.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:26

Okay, so yeah, you're uh we did we did one licensed, one unlicensed, and then the one unlicensed has a chance of being manufactured, and then the one that's licensed, there's no chance, right? Actually, we did talk to Lionsgate. They they would have wanted they would have wanted like Stern to pick it up. Yeah, oh well, I I do because they're like, Well, we just worked with John Wick. We would like we would like Stern to take this, and I apologize to my teammates for bringing that up, but we actually had a meeting with them, like with the licensing that head of like look at the look at the plunger. Did you see the plunger that Paul? Go back up. The plunger is a jigsaw that goes into the machine with the hacksaw. That's awesome. I can't even tell you how proud of this game we were.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:09

And and like as you guys should there were balls, like don't get me meetings aside. Listen, deals can go south for a variety of stupid fucking reasons. Uh, the the joy that you guys had in making this game and being able to see other people walk away with with joy from playing it. Oh that's that's something that you should hold on to.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:34

Here's a story: Eric and Joe, two of the guys, or so Eric and Austin. Austin brought the crew together, and and and Eric Eric Austin brought the crew together. Eric went with Austin to a horror convention that had Shawnee Smith and shoot, not the jigsaw actual actor. He was supposed to be there, but he backed out. But the other the like the guy that's that took over, like the the the main bad guy from like four to like ten, he's an Australian actor, he was there, and both of them like went bananas when they saw it. And then that's how we got connected to the the licensing lady that wanted a meeting with us to talk to us about what we could do about this passion project to get it manufactured. And she's like, We gotta get this to Stern. And it's like, well, this is a re-theme of a layout, and it and then and I think back about it, I'm like, well, would Stern have even made a game that they might have sold like 800? Like that's a spooky run, right? It's not a Stern run. Yeah, that well because they nope, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:33

Yeah, this is this is definitely in in Spooky's realm more so than it is with Stern. Um what's the Stern horror? Is it just Walking Dead, pretty much?

SPEAKER_00 2:01:44

No, I don't think they're ever gonna do one after Walking Dead. I think I think I heard them say that we'll never do another horror theme after Walking Dead. But yes, they did Walking Dead.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:52

Okay, yeah. Spooky's been doing great. This this would have been a perfect, I feel like, thousand I think, I think they easily would have sold a thousand saws.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:01

I think so too. Yeah. Yeah. I I don't know. And and Spooky's been making some headway lately. Some people, you know, will hate on him because of quality, but recent games have shown, you know, a new leaf. Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:19

We'll see with Beetlejuice, but I don't want to go too far into that. Sure. Glenn. Sorry, I want to generate this. Yeah, that's good. I'm bringing it back around. Glenn, uh, how if people want to get a hold of you, if they want to talk to you about doing music, if they just want to chat with you about Avengers and your opinion on the pro version of Avengers being like the perfect at-home pinball machine, how how would people get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_00 2:02:45

There's two ways. You can call me 615-476-3349. Okay. How many people are watching? Good point. Just call me. Out of the blue, I will answer. I have to answer because I have a work phone number that I don't know who's calling. And if the person on the other side of the phone says, let's talk pinball, we're gonna talk pinball.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:03

What was that number? I'm putting it in the chat.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:05

615-476-3349. And if if you want to message me on Facebook Messenger, that's probably the best way. Yeah, and I'll and yeah, I'll get back to you. I don't I don't know what we talk about, but I'm I'm down.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:19

Okay. I'm putting your name in there. Facebook Glenn Wector. I had to say your last name once. I figured out how to say it correctly.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:29

Okay, cool. Yeah, I mean David, David Fix put his number out there and I called him once.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:33

And uh, yeah, so Zach Minnie. True, true. Call him late at night and on weekends, please. What's your mother's main name though? Uh Peterson.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:43

Oh god. All right. Paul, if people wanted to get a hold of you, how would they go about doing that?

SPEAKER_02 2:03:51

Uh probably just on Instagram, pbj.pinballjones on Instagram. Yeah, I guess everybody, it's it's really pinball Jones is is what it comes from, but everybody's just been calling it PBJ for years.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:08

So yeah, I don't know why that that's that that that weird weird highlighted pbj.pinballjon, but left off the ES on Instagram. That was funky.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:19

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, that's the easiest way. I do also stream here on Twitch as well. PBJ underscore pinballjones. If you want to email me, you can totally do that too. That's league at pinballjones.com. Barton Elementary.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:38

Oh, that's so great. And lastly, y'all, if you want to get a hold of me, my name is George. You can email me at George at don't panicflip.com. If you just Google don't panicflip, you can hit me on any of the social media stuff. Facebook, Instagram, X. I haven't been on X in a couple of months, but you know, whatever. Uh email's probably the best way. I am not putting my phone number out there, but Glenn, I really appreciate that. 970. Thank you. Now, we typically end the stream on a pun. I'm ready. Are you great? I'm so ready. Go, go, go. Now, this goes to both of y'all. What would you get if you crossed Captain America with Hulk? I don't know. You would get the Star Spangled Banner. Because it's Bruce. Because it's Bruce and Bruce Banner. Captain America. I got one. Can I can I have to? Oh my god, please. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:33

I should have offered that up first. I'm so sorry, Glenn. Please. What did one dehydrated Frenchman say to the other dehydrated Frenchman? What do we do now, Pierre?

SPEAKER_01 2:05:42

Because you P hair. Got it.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:44

Because you're a dehydrated, yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:46

That's awesome. Glenn, thank you so much for jumping on. Uh Paul, thank you for hanging out as usual. I don't know, I don't typically thank you. Like you're you're a part of this show. But um, audience, thank you so much for being here. I'll wait for the thank you until we unbox the thing that we're about to do.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:06

And on top of that, we're gonna stop this show. Uh, and then we'll be back on in probably about 20 minutes as soon as we get really yeah, then all it's gonna take is 20 minutes. And I am not a dehydrated Frenchman. I've gotta go. Yeah, I also need to maybe 25 minutes, let's say. Yeah, exactly. Game over.