Retronauts - 549: Video Pinball

Episode Date: July 31, 2023

Clang! Blong!! Flenk!!! and other pinball noises. Stuart Gipp, Diamond Feit and Ralph Barbagallo (Demon’s Tilt, Xenotilt) bring their multi-balls to this fast-paced discussion of the fine sport of pinball on the television. Tilt!

Retronauts is taking over Long Island Retro Gaming Expo. I mean, there will be other non-retronauts-affiliated people there, too, but mostly, the show is all about Retronauts and Friends of Retronauts. On Friday, August 11th, you can come see me, Jeremy Parrish, talk about the history of epoch game consoles with Kevin Bunch. That's Epoch, not Epic. And on Saturday, you can see the main Retronauts panel, as I discussed the first decade of Metroidvania Evolution,

with a whole slew of people in the main theater. I'm in fight, Nadia Oxford, Kat Bailey, Jared Petty. I don't know how they're going to cram us all into the main stage, but it's going to happen. And I know that everyone in the main panel will be presenting other talks that weekend, including separate presentations by Jared and Diamond, as well as an Ax of the Blood God presentation by Nadia and Kat, with guest appearances by me and Diamond. What I'm saying is that if you like to hear Retronauts-related folks talk about old video games,

you're going to want to attend Long Island Retro Gaming Expo. at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Long Island, New York, August 11th, 12, and 13th. And when you're not attending our presentations, you can check out tons of amazing free-play retro games in an amazing museum in the coolest space ever devoted to retrogaming. Seriously, you should go. It's August 11th through 13th, and it's going to be rad. This week in Retronauts, they call him, flipper, flipper. Now I'm not going to do that, actually.

Hello and welcome to Retronauts. Today's subject is extremely important and expensive somehow. And I'm joined by some excellent and terrific guests now what i'm going to do is i'm going to introduce them in order of familiarity beginning with the most familiar uh i think that makes sense um so uh okay which other retronaut is here with me today uh my name is diamond fight and i i don't know am i does that make me you're familiar is that what's happening here i'm afraid that's how it works yes it's a very unfortunate for you because it's but i'm afraid that's how it works uh yes and

And who else is with us today? I'm Ralph Barbigallo. Excellent. And Ralph, Ralph, Ralph. Yes. Who are you, Ralph? Yes, that's a good question. I'm Ralph Barbegallo, one of the developers of Zinotilt.

Really? Yeah, one of the greatest pinball games ever, which you can wish list right now on Steam. Can I, is it okay to say that I agree with you, or is that breaking an embargo? No, no, you can say it. Okay, okay. I agree. I think it's really good. Nice.

Nice. Diamond, have you played Zinotilt yet? I'm sorry, I haven't played Xenotilt yet, but I certainly played a lot of demons tilt, right? The predecessor, yes. Yes. I played a lot of that on my switch with the flip grip, so I had the nice vertical view of the entire fake table with a giant space nun who's got like demon energy inside of her. I thought that was an excellent, very, what's the best adjective? not frightening but just but sort of unsettling and uncanny it's an uncanny pinball experience because none of it really makes sense but you know you want to keep petting it because you want to see that lion pop out of its shell and it's like absolutely yeah that's exactly what we go for a weird a weird exciting game

now this this however this is not an advertorial for Zinotilt no it's despite the fact that Ralph begged me for weeks to make it so that's not true that's not true I made that up but we will obviously talk about that game as it relates to our subject today, which you may have guessed is, drum roll, video pinball. Now, I was slightly anxious about doing this subject because I, truthfully, and I know a million mad comments I'm going to spawn by saying this, I don't actually know that much about video pinball. I play a lot of video pinball games, and I have played a lot of video pinball experiences, but I wouldn't call myself particularly knowledgeable about the sort of ins and outs of those games or how they work exactly. I wouldn't call myself good at those games, you know, I find them very difficult. I lose my ball quite a lot.

Nobody make a joke about that. In fact, that's just moratorium. We're not doing any balls jokes today. It's not going to happen. We're all going to think them constantly. It's the only thing we're going to want to say, but we're not going to do it, okay? I just want to lay that out. I don't normally get this officious, but it's happening today. No balls jokes in this episode. And as you think of a really funny one in which case, go ahead.

You know, then it's fine. But what I wanted to do in a way is create a kind of video Pimble 101, you know? Like, what's the deal here? What makes a good video Pimble? How do you play video Pimble with skill? I thought that would be interesting. And, you know, talk about the games that we've played

and what we enjoyed about them or what we didn't enjoy about them. Try and find, you know, what we consider to be good examples and bad examples. I mean, I think that sounds fun. But I think the best thing to begin with would be to ask, I'll start with you, with you Diamond, if that's all right.

What is your sort of experience with video Pimble? When did you sort of first encounter video pinball as opposed to, you know, physical, mechanical pinball? I guess you would make the distinction. Well, I couldn't say for sure which was the first because I'm sure the first was something that was put in front of me when I was like three. Because, you know, looking back, and this is a shout out to Ralph, this incredible list of video pinball games dating back before my existence. Yeah. So I'm sure, you know, as a kid, I'm sure I liked pinball. It was, you know, it's a very colorful, attractive, you know, loud, yeah, loud, noisy, you push, you, you push a button, something happens, it's very, you know, it's very palpable. It's a good, it's a good game, pinball. I think, we all agree, pinball good. Yeah, I think it's fine. I think it's fine. Yeah. I love pinball. Glad, glad we're on that table together. So, whatever first video pinball, I'm sure, was kind of a little bit off-putting me because I was like, well, let's, where's the, where's the, where's the feedback? Where's the, where's the pizzazz? Where's the, where's the big sound,

you get when you get a free game? What, like, what is that? It's something, is a hammer hitting someone in the head? What's going on? But I'm confident, and reviewing this list convinces me that I'm correct. I am confident that the first one that I experienced and therefore, the best one must have been the pinball constructor set, which was an early 80s game where not only do you get to, you know, you play a video pinball game, of course, you get to play it, but also you get to make your own. They give you all the parts, and you get to put them together, and then you to play it and you can have your friends come over. It's like, hey, look, look what I made. And, you know, is it that different than what the game had? Probably not. I wasn't, I wasn't

an especially creative child at the age of, you know, five. But I'm sure I did this. I'm sure I did this. I'm sure my friends and I were showing it off to one another. I absolutely remember playing this a lot and being excited at the notion of, wow, what if I could make my own pinball table? And obviously, that didn't, that didn't pan out. I'm not sitting here today, laughing on my my bags of money that I made in the pinball industry I didn't do that I'm sorry it's not that's not the life that's not the life I have well so this pinball construct a set are we talking about like a PC game here like a dust game or are we talking about I I think it was on PC I mean I think it was on everything I had on a common or two yeah I I grew up I had a

Commodore 64 in in my household but a lot of my friends had you know Apple Apple computers or IBM you know compatible like I don't know who owned it when I can't I can't I You can't dust for pinball memories. I'm sorry. You can't. No. I just know, I just know in reviewing the video of it. I just have a lot of, you know, untapped memories, hours and hours of this pinball simulation.

Yeah. And then I think, like, a lot of kids of my age, you know, the next big frontier was the Nintendo pinball game, which is just kind of like cute. It's very much like, no, this isn't a real pinball game. There's animals in here. That would be cruel to have an animal in something. a pinball game, but it's okay because they're cute and they appear

and they disappear, and no one's getting hurt here. Everyone's having a good time. This is the NAS game, the Black Box Nez Pinball game. Yeah, exactly. So I'm sure my timeline was Pinball Constructurette set untold hours, and then Nintendo Pinball is like, oh,

look at this. Isn't this cute? Isn't this fun? Am I saving a late? There's a lady in this pinball machine? What's going on here? So, yeah, that was probably the trajectory, and then, you know, after that point, toss a coin, there's so many they'd pick from it. Yeah, I mean, there's way more than even I can't consider really. I mean,

when you mentioned the constructor set, my immediately sort of thought was when I was a kid, I used to, I've talked about this, but I used to draw a video game designs on paper a lot, as I'm sure many children did. Sure. And one of the games that I designed in its entirety was called Pimble Man. And it was

a little fella whose head was a Pimble and he could fire the head into a Pimble light table while moving around like kind of a platform character. You get what I'm going with this. And I designed like a hundred different tables for that game and I found out a friend of the family told me that their nephew made

video games. So I was like, right, I'm getting this made. This is happening. I took Pimbleman like the hundred page design dock with all of the things drawn in Biro to this guy, handed it over. Never saw it again. Didn't make my game. So, you know, rip off merchant, to be honest,

right there. I've got swindled. But if you ever see Pimble Man on Steam or something, come and tell me because I'm going to sue pants off him. Ralph, how did you get into video pinball a mess task? Well, I mean, I'm a man of a certain age. I'm pretty sure I'm older than both of you, so I live through the natural progression of like, oh, we have video games now. It's a white dot on a black screen. Oh, you know, there's a pinball game.

If you look at the earlier games that called themselves video pinball, they were literally just versions of Pong until eventually. There was an Atari 2,600, at least one pinball game. And that one had, like, actual flippers. Because there was an Atari video pinball standalone console that was still kind of like a bunch of punk variants that but they had like a drain and they had like a paddle on the bottom. So we'll call that pinball. But by the time you got to Atari Video Pinball or whatever, actually that was their arcade game. But the Atari 2,600 Atari Pinball game, that game, which I believe is late 70s, yeah, 1980. So by that time, that was the first game that I saw that was like a pretty.

pretty accurate, I wouldn't say accurate, but for the time, pretty accurate representation, because I had working flippers. Yeah. And so then it was just, so atrocious, but yeah. Yeah, I mean, but for 1980, it was pretty cool. And then eventually, you know, oh, all of a sudden there's monsters in pinball games. Okay, that's what we're doing now. Which is kind of a normal progression as video games progressed. But it is funny because I do have this distinct memory of my uncle taking me to an arcade.

This must have been, you know, 1983 or something. And the top floor was all pinballs and the bottom floor was all video games. And my uncle was just like, video games, those suck. I'm going to play pinball. And I remember being like, pinball is for old people. You know, there was like this division. Yeah. Pinball versus video games.

And then they just kind of blended together, at least in this genre. Yeah. You know, that's wild. To imagine someone 40 years ago saying pinballs for old people. And it's like, here we are today. And it's like, I mean, you're not wrong. But it's also like, it's still just as good. But it's also like, you're not.

I think it's not to divide between like, you know, a video game and simulated kind of fully, well, non-mechanical, you know, there aren't really mechanical parts, I guess, I mean, they're kind of are, but you get what I mean. With Pimble, there's still a element of physical construction to a table, and of course, making video Pimball,

while it takes away the practical sort of element there, it doesn't take away the design, but it's just different, you know. Unless you're trying to recreate exactly an existing Pimble table, like, you know, Black Knight 2000 or something, was a very different skill set because I think you come to video pinball expecting a different experience

from mechanical pinball it's kind of the appeal of the genre the subgenre isn't it to go beyond pinball do stuff that a pinball machine couldn't do well you would think so this is true but it's funny because for me video pinball was a common thing

so by the time you get to the early 90s you've got devils crush alien crush you got all these games and it's like oh yeah cool video pinball That genre kind of went away by the mid-90s and it was replaced by sort of 3D accurate simulations at pinball machine. So I can say that from my experience developing Demons Tilt and even a little less so with Xenotil, but especially with Demons Tilt, I had a lot of friction and resistance from, you know, gatekeepers at conferences, like at festivals and things when I would submit the game, they'd be like, oh, it's just a pinball game. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. I mean, it is a pinball game, but it is not a pinball game. It is its own thing.

And people just didn't understand because if you're a bit younger than I am, that whole era never. You didn't experience it, and video pinball is just a weird concept for some people to understand. I mean, I'm not saying I agree with them, but I guess I can sort of see it, because if you didn't grow up while there was that divide between mechanical and video pinball, it's all going to come blend together. Like, you're just going to, in your head. I mean, there's not to say that's correct, because we have got games that are pushing the boat out like Xenotilt and, you know, Yoku's Island Express and things like that. But for me, I guess it didn't really, I always thought of video pinball as just like a cool version of pinball. The actual mechanical difference between it didn't really occur to me until we actually started planning this episode. I mean, obviously it was there and I was cognizant of it, but I was just thinking kind of like, yeah, what you want to do is you want to get a high score, you want to get multiple, you want to get the jackpots, it's the same, you know.

But then, of course, the execution can be so much more dynamic and exciting and sort of discovery is kind of the name of the game as well as just scoring. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And some games lean super heavy on that to the point where they almost hide all the pinball elements. And then other games are just basically look like pinball machines and then others are a blend between the two. So, you know, it is like a good example is Alien Crush versus Alien Crush returns. Alien Crush came out in 1989, I think, and that... Returns is the Wii game. Yeah.

Yes, yeah, sorry. So it's a good example of, like, the distinction between you because Alien Crush is still clearly a pinball game. It's got aliens and monsters that skitter around the board. There's subtables, bonus tables and stuff. But it's got multipliers. It's got, you know, bumpers and stuff. It's clearly identifiable as a pinball game.

But if you play the Alien Crush returns, which is like around 2008 or so, they, there's flippers, but everything else is like giga-esque, gross-looking, Like, they hide, like, the bumpers aren't bumpers, like weird intestines of some alien. And they hide everything to make it look like it's not a pinball game. Yeah. And it's just, that's kind of a good example of, like, one extreme or the other. I wonder if that hurts the readability of the game at all, because, you know, the more's going, the more that's going on, I guess the harder it would be to keep an eye on where the ball actually is, which is obviously the main thing that you need to be. Yeah, I mean, I was playing that for a bit.

I hadn't played it a while. And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, those guys kind of games kind of like you say are like kind of really focus on. So those games are almost more based on like, hey, can I get to the boss versus like, hey, can I get this multiply really high to get a high score? Which is kind of what pinball is kind of all about is like mastering the scoring system. And if you go into the more discovery range, you're going to need a lot of content to pad that game out. Whereas if you're just doing a more scoring focus game, you know, gravity provides infinite gameplay, you know, possibilities. I mean, I mean, I, I think it, I mean, I, I think it, a good, I mean, I, I think a good, I, I think a good point. place to start, actually, although it may seem counterintuitive.

Do we have a favorite, a specific favorite game? And it can't be one that you made, okay? That's true. But Diamond, do you have a particular favorite video pinballer, one that you keep going back to or you've got the most value sort of out of, the most enjoyment out of? Well, you know, I don't really have a favorite as far as, like, when I play the most. Yeah. But I have one that lives in my brain the most.

That's what I'm looking for, yes. That's great. And I'm sorry, I've brought up on the show before, but I have to because you asked me. Yeah. And it's Screaming Mad George's Paranoyscape for the PlayStation 1, a truly bizarre, first-person horror pinball game where you are controlling, you know, as he talks about, you don't really have bumpers, you've got like flying skeleton wings, and you sort of use them to batter this ball around, and, you know, it's first person, so you're like, you're moving around, and there's other things that are moving around in front of you. you and you're trying to hit the ball and there's like some monsters or whatever. So it truly is a, you know, it's a one-of-a-kind experience. It's obviously, it's impossible to replicate in real life. Of course. Yes. You know, skeletons don't work that way. I know. I've tried. But

it's just the kind of thing like, you know, when you even see it, before you even play it, when you just see it, you're like, what is this? I need to know everything about this. I need to meet the man who made this. And I really do need to meet the man who made this. Screaming at George is a Japanese man who I'm pretty confident is within 50 miles of my current location. It's a hunch. I've got a hunch. He's in my zone. Just listen for the screaming and follow the screaming.

It's in the name, yes. Was it on a, this month in Retronauts that you brought this up before? I can't remember, because I remember never heard of it at all until you brought it up. I don't know. I'm sure I told it to you. I know you and I have had this conversation before. I don't know if it was a community podcast or we were talking about pinball in another episode, but we've, I just, you know, I've made it my mission live at this point to, like, whoever talks about pinball for more. more than a few minutes. Like, oh, do you know what the first person, you know, horror, adventure

pinball games, freaking me at George's Farronautcape? I mean, it's kind of, it does seem to me like it's kind of super obscure. I'm not trying to brag at all, but I've been, like, kind of obsessed with video games for, like, 30 years, and I'd never heard of it. And I, I've, I've heard of everything. I've not played everything, but I've at least, I feel like I've heard of everything. That's one of the things I love about the PS1 is there's always some other stupid little game that you've not. never even heard of that comes out of nowhere, blows your mind. Yeah, I heard about it about five years ago.

I think that's the first time I heard about it. And it's a, he's a special effects legend in Japan, right? Yeah, FX guy, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that game's like, it's like a first person shooter, except you have flippers instead of a gun, right? You kind of walk around corridors and flip balls at targets. I've been trying to play it. It's very hard to play.

I know of it, but have not played it. That is such an awesome, insane idea. I love it. I mean, the PS1 has some interesting Pimble games, like the fantastic Pimble games. like the fantastic pinball, which is on the PSN. You can buy it right now. And I sort of got a slight unseen when I saw it was pinball because I was like, hello. And that's an interesting thing.

It's like a two-layer, very cartoony kind of anime, super deformed kind of pinball experience that I thought was quite a lot of fun. But no, that's getting away from the point. Because what I wanted to ask was, Ralph, do you have a favorite pinball? I mean, the favorite has to be the king. My favorite has to be Devil's Crush. I mean, it's just, I think, the perfect blend of, video pinball and pinball mechanics.

I think it's just, it's just, it's the best, it's the best one that they've made. I've got other ones I like. I mean, as Diamond talked about, pinball construction set is also burned in my brain. I mean, one of the things I tried to do with that. It's probably one of my earliest game development experiences was I made a pinball table called 1941. It was like a World War II theme one, which it just had like 30 balls hovering when you started the game. And they all just fell down like a bombing raid. That was my big game design genius with pinball construction set.

so but like those two but like let's say as an actual game devil's crush for sure Ralph Ralph I hate to ask this question on the record we can cut this if you if you want but you called your pinball game 1941 so whose lawyers called who'd first did Steven Spielberg call you did capcom call you did you call them it is unreleased it is unreleased I could probably find it though I bet you I haven't on desk so maybe I'm really suppressed by the studio system it's just not fair like 1941 you know just ridiculed yeah and yeah And, you know, that bombing raid, Pimball experience, it's like you're there. It's like going back in time.

Yeah. You know, it's terrifying. Medal of Honour, eat your heart out, frankly. I've been thinking about what my favorite Pimball game is. It's almost impossible for me to choose. But the sad thing is, I'm very keen on the constant changing up of things. Like, I enjoy that experience of things changing. I don't mind doing a single table.

I enjoy that. but what I do find fun is the exploration. So I was going to say Flipnik for PS2, which I put quite a lot of time into. And it seems to be a really oddly unknown game. Because even back when it came out, I remember it reviewed well in like PSM2. They were just like, yeah, this is actually really good.

You should consider buying this. And of course, nobody did consider buying it. And even on day one of launch, I had to look buried deep within this stack of other PS2. games. But it has these multiple tables all based around distinctive themes that all look completely different and all have aspects of kind of traveling around and making your way through in order to progress. I can't actually recall whether or not it's still score threshold that unlocks the sort of further areas. But it's an incredibly strange and sort of almost like

the warrior wear of pinball, you know, the way that it's not as frantic as that, but the way it keeps changing up the way it looks, the way it feels is really compelling. And I wish that it got re-released somehow on some way because it deserves it. It really deserves another go-around. I think it would do well as a Steam game or something. Oh, yeah, I agree. I mean, it's like, I saw the game for the first time. I think I only heard of it like two years ago. And I don't understand how I never saw it. I mean, PS2 was, I was all over at that point. And I never, It's got this interesting, it's sort of a relic of the early 2000s. Like, I don't know how to put it, but it has kind of like this aesthetic.

It's like Design is Republic frutopia, you know, wipeout kind of style to it. It's like, back then was really hip. And now it's like retro. And it's just very cool. You know, it's, it's, it's, I, that game's really good. It's, it's really good. I'm shocked that like, I hadn't heard of it until like two years ago. I just can't believe they've never re-released it, like I said.

It seems like it's such a prime candidate. But what I would like to talk about now is the structure of video pinball and of pinball. because, you know, they are similar, obviously. But would you think that it's, that it would be fair to describe most contemporary Pimball as kind of mission-based in a way? Like, you're usually lighting up X number of a certain thing in order to activate the next sequence, and then activating said sequence leads into another sequence. And you're sort of achieved, I mean, in Xenotilt, you have the wall of achievements,

which to me represents not so much just. just, oh, you did this, but it's more like, you are learning how to score. Sure. You are learning how to play the game, which is what achievements should do, I think. I'm not going to blow smoke up yours, you know. Well, please do. Okay, well, perhaps later. But I do like that.

I do think, because when I'm thinking to myself, like, I'm enjoying this, but I am losing the ball and I'm not really sure what to do with the ball, then you can go into that menu and you can get some ideas. It would just be like, you know, activate this, shoot up this, you do this. Okay, okay. And an unusual system, and talking about Xenotilt a bit more, I've never seen anything like the guns.

Ah, yes. When you trap the ball on one of the flippers, you know, hold the flipper up, set of ball sticks there, and then tap down on the analog stick, if you're playing with the controller. The gun emplacements will fire, and they can take out the targets that are flabbing around.

I mean, I don't know the ins and outs of it, but how did that come about? Because that seems like a new thing to me. I have not seen that before in a bit. Pimble game. Yeah, and I, I, to be clear, you know, Adam Ferando, he's the creator of the game, the desire of the game. So I don't want to speak for his, you know, artistic statement, but I can't say that we

were looking for, you know, a new mechanic. And he invented that idea. And it's one of those things, to me, I mean, I'm biased, but I look at that mechanic and I'm like, oh, this is it. This is the thing. This is the hook in the game. It's something I haven't seen before. It's once you start using it, it's so intuitive.

Also, I don't know if you know, but if you get plasma ammo, if you hold down to at a tap, you'll shoot the little squiggly toothpaste laser. It's kind of like, it's an homage to Ryder, too. Yeah, nice, nice, nice. So, yeah, like, it's a great way to clear the field if you are having trouble moving up to the next tier, you know, it targets everything automatically

and just blasts it. Well, I mean, the thing I like about that is it, what it does is it removes banality. Like, you don't, you don't necessarily, I mean, there's nothing wrong with hitting a few, you know, millions, but if you want to just get to the next area and you don't really want to keep bouncing off these things, you can just shoot them out of the sky.

And I don't think that takes away any of the strategy. It's just another option, which, you know, I think is fun. But that's one thing. I mean, let's talk about this because pretty much all video pinball games seem to fall into this, whether or not it's in terms of getting to the end of a stage like in Sonic Spinball, where you're progressing across levels, or just scoring further. Because I was playing Psycho Pinball earlier, and that's the whole thing of hitting up this ramp, and then you'll get one letter of the word psycho on the fake LED screen that comes up,

which is really cool, by the way. So I guess what would you expect, like, from a video Pimble game rather than just, you know, scoring. I mean, thinking back to one night I played a lot when I was a kid, which is 3D Ultra Pimble Space Cadet, which I'm sure many people have played, because it was packed in with Windows 95. That game, while it had its sort of mini-up to emissions, like, you know, the lights at the top of the screen, which when you hit one, of them, you can use the flippers to turn the lights on and off so you can get the right

one when it drops back through. That's something I've seen recreated in almost every pinball game I've ever played. So what are these kind of tropes that you need to hit? Do you think that they are something that there's always going to be present? That depends on the audience you're trying to satisfy. I think you need those tropes, though, because you have to, I think you need those tropes because you have to make it a pinball game at some point. And like we were talking with Alien Crush.

It has some of that in Alien Crush returns, but I feel when you start removing those elements, it stops being identifiable as pinball. And you kind of need to link those to newer elements. So, yeah, like the lane light up stuff, skill shots where you can like half pull the plunger and make the ball kind of drop a little bit closer down the middle. There's all these things that are common tropes in pinball that you want to carry over. We have a lot of ramps and things like that in Xenotilt, even though it's fictionally a spaceship you're inside. but it's a spaceship that coincidentally as ramps that your ball can shoot up the ground.

So you want to, it still needs to be recognizable as a pinball game. I think the more the games lean towards the video side and remove the pinball elements, I think kind of it loses a lot of the, what makes it interesting

because there's still those skill shots. There's still, you're trying to hit that ramp. You're trying to hit that light. And you're trying to activate this sequence that will then trigger multi-ball or a multiplier advance or something. I mean, an example of that,

sorry, Diamond, did I speak of you? I just, I want to interject at this point. because I think what both of you touched on in your respective, you know, commentaries, I think is important here. When you talk about pinball, you know, the original pinball experience, it really was, it was scoring. But obviously, you're playing the game, so it's not like, you know, it's the journey, it's a destination kind of thing. Like, you have to be having fun slapping the buttons and slapping this little ball around on the table.

Like, that has to be fun, you know. Yeah. The points, you know, you're chasing a high score, yes. But you have to enjoy the experience of slapping the little ball. I mean, it's critical, obviously, this is an obvious statement, but it does go with what you're saying. You've got to keep the ball in play, like, obviously. And, you know, a lot of, I'm not going to, I'm not going to keep going. I will stop.

I will come back to you. I'm sorry, you really need, that's why, I mean, a lot of pinball games that I've played, if you do lose your ball very early on, they will release it for you. They'll give you the, they'll give you a mulligan, basically, several mulligans, even if you're, there's like a time limit where you can't lose the ball, basically, in a lot of games. But sorry, Damon, do go out and I apologize. So I think one of the problems that Pinball probably had, like, as an industry, is that, you know, once video games arrived and video games, you know, early video games also were all about scores. Yeah.

But then arcade games and console games sort of branched off and explored new things. Like, okay, what if we made the video game where there is no score? What did you mean the video game where there is no, you know, limited chances? You just play as, you know, whatever. And what if the video games is all about, you know, living your life as a flower? Like, video games went off and explored a lot of different areas, whereas Pinball. sort of got stuck with, well, we're pinball. You put the, you slap the ball around, you know what I mean?

So I think one of the keys for me, certainly when I pick up a video pinball game, to me, I personally am looking for some kind of variety. Like, obviously, if I'm playing pinball, I do want pinball. You know, I do want the little ball and I want to slap it around, of course. Yeah. But in the case of, say, Demon's tilt, like, okay, we've got, you know, we've got these giant heads, you know, we've got things flying around the table. table, you know, the longer you play, you're going to see new things. The board isn't necessarily

going to change, but elements of it will sort of open up and you get to do new things, and that leads to variety. And, you know, you have to last long enough to see that kind of stuff. So, like, that's the incentive. Yeah. But I also think, you know, you mentioned Yoko's Island, which is Yoko's Island. It's like, oh, it's not really one pinball table. You're basically this little guy and you've got a ball and you're sort of exploring this big open space. And some of those areas are like pinball tables, but some of them are just kind of like, you know, a little Meadow and you talk to a guy and then he lets you on an elevator like I want I mean I wonder if you can call I mean I'm not saying it's bad obviously it's a cool game but I was wondering if yoke's on

Express could even reasonably be called a pinball game it's kind of like a pinballvania yeah but I'm just like it's it's trading on the the language of pinball and it certainly has you know it has enough pinball elements to like if you if you hate pinball you don't want to play yokel Islands Express that game will drive you crazy you know you have to at least you know have some familiar with pinball and be interested in a pinball game to enjoy Yoko Zai Express, in my opinion. Yoko Zana is not a scoring game. It's a progression game. Now, I wonder if the fact that you are trying to progress rather than score makes it

more frustrating when you can't progress, because you're not achieving anything. Like, and I'm not, again, this is not me attacking the game. It's just, it makes me think about, oh, yeah, not even remotely funny story, but I wanted to buy Yoko Zand Express, but I couldn't remember what it was called, so I bought Momonga Pinball Adventures, which is shit. And it's just the wrong game completely. And I just wanted to put that on the record. Add that to my list. I think I missed that one.

It's not actually, that's not fair, but it's not Yoku Zion Express. Okay. Now, what this makes me think of is Super Mario Ball, which was a very late Game Boy Advance game. I think U.K. I think Fuse games to develop it, who also did Metro Prime Pimble, which was really good. Now, Super Mario Ball, I think, falls down by trying to be an adventure game because the actual progress, process of adventuring, is really frustrating.

when you're trying to hit a specific target in order to actually get to the next bit of the game and finish the game, it's exponentially more annoying, I think, than when you're just trying to hit a ramp to get a jackpot because even if you miss it, you're probably still going to get some points, you know? Yeah.

When you make the points kind of not matter, I think Pimble loses something. I agree. So I guess the soul of Pimball is always going to be scoring, you know? But keeping the ball in play brings me to another thing I wanted to bring up. Tilting. Because most video pinball games simulate tilting. Some of them let you do it completely all the time, like with no punishment.

Yes. Some of them don't. And I've never actually really understood that mechanic. Yeah. I mean, I understand what it's simulating. Well, it's a real part of pinball. I mean, it's actually legitimate technique. Now, the owner of the pinball machine, I think, can set the sensitivity, can choose how much tilting you can do.

But it's in the game. And most video pinball games, the older ones, ones, don't really do it right. I feel like the tilting in most video pinball games, it's just one button, and it just kind of bumps the pinball table. And I think literally what that is in the older games is a bug solution for when the ball gets stuck. Because balls get stuck in real pinball as well.

And sometimes you have to call somebody, and they actually have to pull the glass on and move the ball out. But in, for instance, the simulation games, like the pinball effects and stuff, you can accurately nudge the table left and right. And in real pinball, you're actually moving the table, not the ball, if that makes sense. So you can. Filting is literally physically moving the table.

So if you're close to the drain, you can kind of move the table, push it to the left, right a little bit within the tolerance level that machine allows to save the ball. And it's a totally legitimate technique. And most of the older games don't really have, you just kind of nudge it to kind of just do a, I guess it just adds like a random force to it, which can't get it over the hump if it's struggling to go up a ramp, but also can unstick the ball if it gets stuck because of the physics.

How did you implement it in Xenotilt? I must ask. Well, it's completely different. It's totally unrealistic. In the Tilt, Demon's Tilt and Xenotilt, we, it's called a nudge. And it actually, it's a force applied to the ball. So it's far more intuitive than tilting in real life, which is kind of inverted. You literally are adding a velocity to the ball.

So if you want to move the ball right, just nudge to the right. And it'll push the ball over to the right. But it will swing the pendulum of the actual tilt meck and the tilt ball. And if that tilt bob slams into the side, you can see the spiked sides, you'll tilt out. And which is kind of how a tilt mechanism in a real Pimbaugh machine really works. There is a cool way of representing it visually, I think, without just having the kind of big tilt morning. Because I never quite understood it. Because the sensitivity is unclear in these games, like old games.

I mean, Psycho Pimble has a tilt, and sometimes it feels like it will go off on a hair trigger, and sometimes it won't. And you can just do it for ages. And I never understood exactly how it works. which is kind of a shame. I want to just say something because I frankly, frankly deserve applause for this. You just said,

you sometimes have to call someone to get the ball out of the glass and I didn't make a joke about that. And I was thinking it the whole time, I was like, don't say it. Incredible restraint, incredible. Yes, and I feel like I should get some applause for that, so you know, you're welcome.

Yes. Now, Super Mario Ball, I want to talk about that a second because I'm hung up on it. Did you play this game? I did, a little bit. Because I think what this game does as it exemplifies video Pimble,

what's wrong, things that are wrong with it, basically, which is, as much as, I've actually played this through a few times because it's still compelling.

Yes. Pinball games are inherently compelling. And with Super Marriable, because you basically can't really lose to any degree of, you can't really fail because it's not about Pimble anymore. It's about getting to the end

and beating Bowser and beating bosses. And something that Video Pimble does bring to the table, which I do enjoy, joy is those sections where you are walled off and you have to hit something as a boss battle, you know, that's, to me, very compelling. There's something cool about the idea of facing off against a creature or a mecca, but hitting it with the silver ball, you know. And something like one of my favorite ones, Dragons Fury and the sequel Dragon's Revenge from TenGen,

I think they do this really well. Yeah. Now, you can't, I mean, the big face in the, them in the sort of the center of the board. That's an alien crush thing, right? Because everything copies that. Like, Dragon's Fury copies the shit out of it. Yeah, well, Dragons...

Demon's... Is the, you know, Dragon's Fury... Sorry, God, there's so many different names of that game. You know, Devil's Crush. It's a sequel to Alien Crush, so they share a lot. I think the iconic female face is a devil's crush feature, which is... I don't know what her name is, but... No.

But that's... And we kind of did an homage to that in our game, because it's just such an iconic thing. Yeah. I mean, for me, I mean, Because Devil Trush's Turbographics, right? Yeah, the original, yeah, that Devil's Crush's Turbographics, Dragon's Fury is the Mega Drive port, which is slightly different. It has different stuff, but it's also a good game.

So ignorance, but Dragon's Fury actually is a port of Devils Crush. So as I understand it, Technosoft licensed Devil's Crush from Naxat, and I guess compile, Ghost developed it for TechnoSoft. So it's, I have no proof of this, but the, that Compile did it. But anyway, so it's different in some ways. I think some ways it's different because of technological restrictions. So, you know, if you'll notice, Dragon's Fury has its sort of window box on the right side. And I think that's because there's a resolution difference in between the PC engine or the Mega Drive.

Although, I don't really know why that would create that issue because they read it all the graphics anyway. So the graphics are all different. And I think partially it's because there's a different color palette in the Genesis or the Mega Drive. but also there's Technosoft kind of had different in-house

style and they redid the boss rooms I think totally and both of the games are censored in different ways which is kind of funny

because they removed the pentagrams in the European and American versions in different ways so I think they look better in Devil's Crush because they just added

more points to it so it's not a pentagram whereas in Dragon's Fury it's just like a star I mean, yeah, the thing is that they've changed it, they've changed it, in a way that I consider so drastic that I didn't even realize it, was a port. Oh, really? No, really didn't.

And I just thought that he were ripping it off. No, no, no. No, it's legit. I honestly was like, man, this is biting the devil's crush so hard. It's got a few new songs. The soundtrack's pretty much the same, but redone with the Genesis instruments, but it has some new songs. So what is Dragon's Fury?

Is that an original sequel or is it a port of something else? No, wait. So then, so wait, Dragon's Fury is Devil's, sorry, Dragon's Revenge is an original sequel. And I feel like it was developed, I might have happened in my notes. I think it was either of the dropped in America or Europe. So it's a completely, it has nothing to do with the original game as far as the teams concerned. But I'm guessing Tengen had like, the IP was able to do this. But it is an actual, I think it's canon.

It's an actual sequel. Oh, well, okay. I mean, I thought it felt, I mean, when I played it, it seemed pretty good to me. I didn't spend an enormous amount of time. Yeah, it's not bad. It's not bad. It's not bad. Can I talk about for a second here?

You just mentioned it. The face, the face on the table. Because this, this to me is important. Because one of my all-time favorite, you know, actual pinball games is called Funhouse. Uh-huh. Classic. Yeah, okay. Okay, Ralph, Ralph knows.

All right. So, Fun, you know what's two? No. Okay. So Funhouse has a character in it called Rudy. And Rudy is some sort of, suppose, I don't know, it's hard to understand the scale of things. But from the perspective as a player, you're using the ball around. He looks like a giant, but I think he might just be a ventrocus dummy.

But the point is... No, I know this. I do know this. Yes, yes, yes. Sorry, I don't know this. Go on. So, Rudy's head is in the field of play. And Rudy talks to you sometimes as you're playing, and he taunts you a little bit. He makes funny of you sometimes.

Yes. But the point is, he's in the field of play. So you can hit him with the ball and you get points for that. If he's talking and you get in his mouth, he, like, chokes one for a second. So you get, like, a bigger bonus. And at certain key moments, at certain key times of the game, you advance a clock, Rudy falls asleep. And guess what? Rudy sleeps with his mouth open. So if you get the ball in his mouth when he's asleep, then you unlock, I think, a multi-ball,

you get to make a jackpot. And it's this ongoing thing. So the game, obviously you still have, it's a pinball game, you're still scoring points. But to me, as a player, it's like, I need to get that little bastard Rudy. I need to give it to him. I need to shove my silver ball down his mouth. So I think to me, that's high on my wish list of video pinball experiences. I want a antagonist. I want someone who is against me, but who I can then hit with the ball and, you know, get revenge on and eventually exploit their palpability to, like, score more points, like bounce things off for them to get more point. That, to me, should be an element of video pinball games. It's like, give me someone to root against, but then also make sure I can touch them so that way I can use them in the physics of the world.

Like, that to me is incredibly important. I mean, that sounds like a really, really creative way to bring a lot of character into a Pimble game to have the antagonists like that. I mean, I think what you said about getting the ball into his mouth and causing him to choke is really, really funny. Like, I would laugh every time I did that, I think, if I played that game. And it reminds me of just cool additions to physical tables. And that's not really what we're talking about, of course, but it sort of is relevant because of the way that it sort of expands your idea of what Pimball sort of can be. It makes me think of the lethal weapon table where the plunger is a gun. gun.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. And, you know, criminals will appear on the LED screen and you have to really quickly just, like,

blast them by pulling the plunger down. Well, yes, those are video modes, which were kind of controversial at the time because pinball players also have this sort of, I remember at the time, like in the early 90s, pinball players saying,

why did you just make this a video game? You know, when you add too many of those video modes becomes too much real pinball, becomes too much like a video game. And that was also controversial. I think it, I think it climaxed with Pinball 2000,

where there's all documentary about it, But they tried to make a new kind of pinball, the first one being the episode one pinball machine. And it had like a screen that reflected on the glass. And it had video modes that tried to make it look like almost an augmented reality thing where like sprites would be superimposed in the play field. You could hit it with the ball. So yeah, that blend of video in mechanical pinball is always going to tug a war. I mean, I kind of want to play that now. But of course, that goes back decades.

I mean, we didn't say it out loud yet. But, I mean, it's baby Pacman, right? Oh, baby Pac-Man. Yes, it's on my list of ones I wanted to talk about. Right. Baby Pac-Man is literally, you know, it's literally a hybrid. You've got a pinball table and you've got a video screen. And sometimes you're playing pinball and sometimes you're playing on the video screen. It looks like, so that is, that was definitely an early experience for me. It was like, oh, wow, pinball can be other things. Pinball can be a combination of things. And of course, by its nature, it became an incredibly hard machine to maintain because it has had twice the number of parts. Yeah, and nobody liked it. It was one of those sort of orphaned Pac-Man games made in a man. America by, you know, Midway. So it's like, I don't even think it's in the canon, but there is a homebrew Atari 7,800 conversion of it, which is actually really good. I can imagine that's

great. Yeah. I mean, I went to Arcade Club in Leeds a while back, and they had this, and of course it was broken, so I didn't get to play it. But I saw it, and that was almost good enough, you know, to see this thing, for real was cool. And, and, you know, and just as an earlier point, because it's just a wild game that it's very rare, but there is Atari video pinball, which came out in I think 78, that's an arcade machine where the pinball table itself, it looks like a regular stand-up arcade machine. It doesn't look like a pinball machine, but there's a wooden playfield with lights, working lights on it and stuff. And then there's a monitor that's, I think, underneath, and it does like a Pepper's Ghost reflection on top of the wooden playfield.

So the flippers and the ball and some of the bumpers and stuff are all black and white video game elements that are reflected under this glass that's on top of the wooden pinball table. So it plays a game of video. video pinball primitive 1970s probably well maybe it's probably microprocessor maybe TTL video pinball on top of a wooden playfield and the ball will hit you know the virtual ball will hit a wooden target and light up a real light on the playfield it's a crazy looking machine that is kind of wild yeah I'm going to be able to be. It wasn't going back very slightly, but talking of the games, like the Pimble games, the video Pimble games that were the most seen, you know, the most sort of in the Zykeyes, like, I mean, Alien Crush, yes, dragons fury, yes, to a degree, but the, the game, like, that was the Pimble game on video was surely Kirby's Pimble Land back in the day. Like, yeah. And, I mean, to me, that was kind of the one, like, because you did have Revenge of the Gator, which was also very good. but it felt like a trial run for Kirby's Pinball Land.

And did everyone play this game on Game Boy? I didn't play that one specifically, no. It's really good. Really, really good. It's fun. It's, it leans into the pinball. Like, even the menu is a pinball. Like, you have to hit the, you have to hit Kirby,

into the menu options to pick. I'm like, yeah, I want to go to Krak out. Oh, God, damn it. I can miss completely. It's so good. And I wish they would put it on the Nintendo Switch online. I hope it's in the next. tranche of games, but it is so fun.

I would be amazed if they didn't. They've got to, surely. Yeah, it has really cool little mini tables in addition to the regular. It's such a great game. It's really brilliant. Yeah, yeah. One thing I love is the integration of the Kirby's Adventure recover thing. When you miss,

you fall down and land on a cloud, and when is it it's lowest, you press A, and you might bounce back up. And if you do it just right, you'll bounce all the way up to the third table, as well, the third screen as well. It is flick screen, much like the later Pokemon Pimble, which was big deal. We'll talk about that as well.

But, I mean, this was the first Pimble game I can think of that I played that had, like, bosses, although I assume Alien Crush predates. Yeah, I mean, this was, like, 93, I think. Yeah, so, but it's such a great game. Yeah. I, uh, yeah, I really like this game. Kirby did a whole bunch of different, like, ball sports, obviously. Yeah. But they didn't revisit Pimble until Kirby Mass Attack, which has a shockingly full-featured Pimball mini-game.

Yeah. As you play through the game, you'll eventually unlock pinball, and it's like a proper throwback to this, but full-color, with boss battles even, and extremely good. And I feel saying I try to emulate this with Sonic Spinball. Sonic Spinball, where do we even start with that? I don't think it's anywhere near as successful as the Kirby Pinball at all. I mean, it's a valiant attempt. I think that my, when I say this, I think it's going to resonate with many, many people. I love Sonic Spinball for exactly one level, and then I lose interest in it completely.

I have finished it before numerous times, but I think the first table is a joy, and the remaining stages are a slog, basically. The bigger, the more complex they get, the more awkward and less enjoyable they are, because the purity of Pimble gets lost. There is some platforming in the first table, but it's very minimal, and the puzzles are related to pinball. Like, the bit where you're on the mind cart, the fact you can use the flipper to change the tracks,

is extremely cool. The idea of exploring a giant pinball table to find the chaos emeralds is extremely cool. It helps that the game is extremely metal. Like, the music is really metal in this game. And it's full of just awesome, weird, muddy, dark, grimy graphics. Yeah, it's just, yeah, I don't know.

It's mixed with vivid colors like the toxic waste in the first stage. Yes. There's something very cool and almost adult looking about it. The fact that when Sonic lands in the center, a big badnik will come up and get him in his mouth. And you have to mash the buttons to escape. There's just, oh, it's just a cool game. Like you land in a barrel and you have to then paddle the barrel over towards the KL Sun Road.

It meshes it really well. And then you go to level two and you're just like, I'm over this now. Yeah, it has a lot of good ideas with the implementation. You know, it's very sluggish, too. Like, it just feels like it's underwater. I think for me, one of the big appealing points of Sonic Spinball was the fact that, you know, I came to it from playing, you know, the original Sonic, the Hedgehog, where in that game, if you got to the bonus stages and you were looking for the chaos emeralds, you were basically playing a kind of like, it's not quite pinball, but it's more like Pachinko, it's like, you were sort of like rotating this, like, Sonic is sort of rolled up and you're sort of rolling him around this sort of contraption. At the speed of sound, yes. Right. So it's like, to me, Sonic's Pinball felt like an extension of that mode in the, you know,

exitant Sonic the Hedgehog game. God, I have actually never thought of that as Pachinko, but you're absolutely right. Like, even the way that you blink through the targets is very like Pachinko. But I think that's probably a key here because I think, you know, pinball as a game, I don't think is as popular in Japan compared to Pichinko, whereas like, Pachinko is everywhere in Japan. Yeah. So I think, like, you see that, you know, in extension, when you see video pinball games or video pinball modes, I feel like a lot of Japanese games are going to lean towards Pichinko style, whereas other countries might be more interested in pinball, which is a shame

because the more I think about it, I've been thinking about it for at least 15 minutes now while we've been talking, the more I think about it, the more I want a Resident Evil pinball experience. Oh, yes. I say this all the time, yes. That would be sweet. I don't know who to talk to about this. I know Cap, I know I could drive and I could crash into Capcom's front gate. I'm not going to do it. You know a developer, but you know a developer. I'm just saying. You know what I want, I want a retronauts pinball table. Okay. Well, we'll see what that. Of course I want that. Giant Jeremy Parrish head and I want to hit the ball into his mouth. You know, you know, you know, you're, you could say that the house of the dead pinball kind of

spiritually could be a similar. Pimble of the Dead. Pimball of the Dead on the Game Boy Advance is incredible. It's another one of those games that I only heard of a couple years ago. I don't know why because I was a GBA freak at the time. And I never heard. heard of this game. And that kind of reminds you of how I would like a Resident Evil pinball to play. And it does have familiar pinball mechanics, but then it has a video mode like a pinball machine would have. But then it has bosses and creatures that run around the table. It's so good. It's real good. I mean, the GBA, it's a hotbed for quite good pinball games. You've got, like, Pac-Man Pimble was pretty good, I thought. And you've even

got Muppet Pimball Mayhem or something like that. You've got Pimble of the Dead we've already mentioned. And the one that I spent the most time with Sonic Pinball Party, which is a ludicrously good pinball sim, though it is closer to Sim than it is to video pinball, because I think the machine is very like doable. You know, the only thing is the way that you travel through the zones, obviously, you couldn't really do. But what is appealing about this, and I think it's worth raising, because most of the games we're talking about here don't really have this is I sort of weirdly liken it to like mortal combat and fighting games because pinball is very well it's pinball and if you're not versed in pinball while you could pick it up

and play it you're probably not going to be good at it you know um with respect to new players it takes time to learn the intricacies of a pinball machine much like it does to learn a character in a fighting game I think that's fair to say sure it's not exactly the same but you see what I'm getting at here. But Sonic Pimball Party has this kind of actual, much like I like into Mortal Combat, even if you're not an expert, there are challenges for you to overcome. Like there is a single player mode that chart gives you tasks. So if you don't really want to just go in and score for the sake of scoring, you've got these missions to do. Like you've got make your way to this stage or score this much in this much time. And I'll always remember the final

stage of that game because you're playing, Sonic playing against Robotnik. And Robani is represented by a score that goes up by $2 million every five seconds. So you're essentially racing his score. And I've always thought that was a really fun, tense way of doing a Pimball, like, mission-based Pimball game. Yeah, it's a very good game. And it also has, am I right in that it has the story mode, which is essentially a Pimball tournament, and it has brackets. And you have to... Yeah.

Yeah. And so one of the key things about Pimball, if you play it sort of an isolation, you'll eventually maybe get bored of that you have to compete against somebody else's score or some other target. And, you know, there are pinball leagues around here all over the world. And, you know, people have brackets and they play against the shirt and they're trying to win. And I think it's the only place I've ever actually seen a pinball tournament simulated in a game, which is like this little story RPG where they put you in brackets to another fictional Sonic Universe players and you have to beat their scores to advance.

It's pretty cool. If you're a Sega fan, it's definitely worth getting because it's got like not only Sonic. There's also a Knights of Dreams table. There's music from the likes of Burning Rangers of all things and like Sambi Amigo. It's a real Sega Lovin. There's a Sambi Amigo table in it too, but I don't know how to get to it. I've seen it on the long play.

It surprises me that Sega haven't done another Sonic Pimble game. It just seems like the most obvious possible thing to keep making. Stu, we just played Sonic Frontiers. That's true. Oh, God, I forgot about that. Oh, shit. Jesus, wept. But seriously.

Oh, Diamond, why did you have to remind me about that? Oh, God. Facts are facts But no, you talked about You mentioned fighting games Immortal Combats do So I would be remiss I would lose my retronous privileges

If I didn't bring up the fact that Again, going back to a real pinball game And also that early 90s feel There was a table Called Creature of the Black Lagoon Oh yeah By Midway And one of the interesting things about this table

Is that in theory you look at it It's like oh this is based on the old monster movie But in reality What the Pinball game is about is it's about going to the drive-in and seeing said monster movie. Oh, that's so cool. The game is full of little elements related to, you know, a drive-in movie theater, which is another thing that I think very people, you know, that's a lost art too.

So in this game, there are lots of little mini modes you could do. There was like, you know, there's scores. Obviously, you can unlock scores and miniball, but also you can unlock events that trigger new things. And at one point, you can get into a fight. You can get into a fight with someone at the drive-in. At which point, you stop controlling the ball and the flippers control your fist and you punch this guy in the face. Incredible. And because this is midway and because it's the early 90s, guess what?

If you win the fight, you can punch his head off and the game says fatality in the voice. Amazing. That's so good. To me, I feel like any video pinball game should at least consider, if not implement, a fighting mini game where I get to kill a guy. We talked about this in the MK2 and 3 episode, but do you think that's one of the games that would offer you a combat code if you got to a certain point in it? Oh, geez. I mean, I was playing Creature the Black Lagoon, and it was like 93. So, I don't think they were working on Moral Kombat 3 yet at that point.

They were still finishing on Mortal Kombat 2. But certainly, while I was there in, you know, I was playing this in France a lot, so I got the message saying Snackbart est uvert. So, but yeah, Moral Kombat. it was still huge. So I remember I had to tell people in France how to like do fatalities, but I had to do it in French, which, you know, I didn't speak much of, which was an exciting challenge for me as a, as a teenager. And you got to give a shout out to the street fighter pinball machine, which has the car bonus round, I believe. Amazing. Does it, do you just match the flippers? I think there's actually a car. Is there a car on the tail? I haven't played it in a long time.

Oh, wow. It was actually physical. Capcom was making pinball machines for a while. And it was, it was a guilty pleasure of mine. How do you do a Shuriken with two flat flippers? I do not remember. It's a long time. You have to hold the left flipper up, let it drop a little bit and then hold it up again, I think.

Yeah, there's a car under the playfield and you could smash it up with, like, the bones around, a physical car. That's really, really cool. It brings to mind one I want to talk about real quick, just so it doesn't get lost in the crush, which is, when I was a kid, I used to get Sega Power magazine, and I know I've talked

about it a million times, and I apologize to listeners, but they've reviewed a pinball game called Twisted Flipper in there. And I remember when I was older, I wanted to play it, I wanted to download the ROM, which of course, you know, 24 hours I did delete it. I'm not a criminal. And I couldn't find it.

I was like, where the hell is this Twisted Flipper game? It does not come out. This is insane. And it turns out that it had been rebranded crewball after the bad Motley crew. Not sure if the editor can blast a bit of Dr. Feelgood here. Probably not. Probably not allowed to.

But nonetheless, that's what greets you when you boot up the game Crew Ball, you get Dr. Feel Good, and it's awesome. The actual game itself, not so good, in my opinion. It's a very empty-seeming table. It's very big and wide. It doesn't have much going on.

But you do get to listen to Mega Drive versions of Motley Crew tunes, so that's cool. Yeah, my friend Tony Barnes worked on that. It was one of his first games, first Genesis games, at least. Well, no shade intended to be thrown at Tony Barnes. I don't know what his opinion is of the game, but he did tell me that the Motley Crew license was added

in the last two months. So it had nothing to do with Motley Crew, and they had to kind of cram. I get that impression. Yeah. Hence the fact that it was reviewed in magazines. Like, it went out to magazines as Twisted Flipper. Yeah. Well, there's a ROM floating around with Twisted Flippers, the title.

And I was also confused because I thought, is this a name that they use in different regions, but that must have been the beta that are close to final or something. It's kind of a shame because Twisted Flipper is a much cool name than crewball. Yeah, it's aged better. I guess those kind of music tie-ins are quite common in arcade games, and presumably there are a lot of band-based pinball tables as well. Yeah. Yeah.

Sorry, stupid question. They are still making new pinball tables. Oh, tons of them. It's a huge renaissance right now. There's a renaissance of pinball. I feel like every 10 years there's a pinball renaissance. That was a very ignorant thing to say, I apologize, but I did not know that. I mean, I assume they still made them.

I didn't know there was any of those thriving. I mean, there's so many new pinballs now. There's actually so many. There was a period of time where Stern, I believe, was like the only company making pinball games for a while. And now there's a ton of them. And if you go, like, there's some of the new ones, the foo fighters, there's a new table. Jack Danger there, he worked on that game. He's a, he was a big pinball streamer who now works at Stern.

And that's, you know, based on food fighters. That's one of the newest music ones I've seen. Can you get a multi-grawl in that? Sorry, that's stupid. There's, you know, there's new. There's Godzilla. There's a new James Bond one. They're coming out with tons of new ones.

A lot of them are people also buying them for their home collection, which is a very expensive hobby. I can't imagine how expensive that is. I mean, I would love to have a legit pinball table, but I don't have the space or the money. I would like the baby Pac-Man, because that one's nice and tiny. I think it's a funny game, and I would like, you could stick that in the corner. A real pinball machine? Kind of too big. Yeah.

Yeah, I have to give a shout out here to a local hotspot, Silver Ball Planet, which, as I said, pinball is not that popular in Japan. So you can imagine my surprise when they opened a dedicated pinball space here in Osaka. And it is, it just packed to the gills with tons of machines. Most of them are, you know, older machines going way back. But they do have a regular, you know, influx of new machines. And pretty much all of them are just, you know, licensed properties. But, you know, they're fun. I know I'm very fond of the Batman 66 table, which actually has a spotlight on top.

So it shows the bat signal, like, on a nearby wall. So, like, it's always easy to find the machine because it's a spotlight pointing at it. And it's got, you know, now, you know, it's funny. We talk about the 90s, early 90s introduced that LED screen element, which had, you know, gave you a little bit more variety. But these new, these new machines just have straight up, like, a full color screen in them. Yeah. So it's like, you could play pinball. And it's like, if something unlocks, then you can.

And you can watch like, you know, it's almost like we've reached the full motion video era of pinballed out, you know. Well, the wild thing, too, is the new stern machines, they have an app, and you get a QR code. I have in my Apple wallet. And if you show the QR, yeah. If you show the QR code to the machine, it'll sync your game up to your account. And you actually get achievements. And you can look at them when you're following. Wow. That's so fucked up.

And it saves the achievements to your account. It saves your scores to your account and everything. So when you play the machine next time, you can actually see your progress and your history. God, that makes me think about when I, when I, when. into the arcade the other day for the first time in probably like six years. I'm very fortunate I live very near an arcade. And I was just seeing like this huge halo

fire team machines and going, what the hell is going on? It's, I mean, going back to something like Ghost Squad where you could use a card and save your progress and unlock things. And that stuff is still wild and crazy to me, you know? Yeah. But I meant to ask this, Diamond. This is probably, again, this is a very

ignorant question. Because you mentioned Pachinko, yes. Are there lots of like video Pachinko games They just never leave Japan as well. There must be. Oh, there's a whole... You have to understand. So Pichinko, on its face, Pichinko is a very simple game.

You've just got... You've got this near, I believe, vertical-oriented cabinet, and you're launching the balls in there, and you pay for more balls, and you... But you win balls, and if you have enough balls, you can basically exchange them for, like, prizes. But, of course... Like in the Scarface video game.

Yes. But, of course, you know, the prizes can, in turn, be exchanged for cash at a little window next to every particular parlor. Oh, so it's a gambling game? Yeah, it's a hush-hush, we're not really gambling or are we? You know, it's kind of a nonsense thing. Right, so you win tickets that you can then exchange for money. Almost exactly, yeah.

Right, right. There's a middle man in there. Actually, it's usually an old lady, but still. So is that like, that's like the get, because I don't know if, I assume gambling is not legal in, I don't know, okay. But. Hey, you know where it is legal in Britain? Jesus Christ.

Anyway, go on, sorry. But because Pachico has been popular for so long, for so many years, and because it's basically this enclosed space that it's just like a ferocious din, honestly, I think everyone comes to Japan, they're all tempted like, oh, what's in there? What are all these bright lights? And they open the door, and they spend three seconds inside of Pichikaparo, and they decide, you know what? I prefer to live my life elsewhere, and they just step right out. You're going to be like, you know what, I'm going to hang on to the sense of hearing. I'm going to give that. Absolutely.

I think that's the first time I went to Japan. The first thing I did was dropped through a Pachinko Parlor because I want to know what was going on. And that was the reaction that I had. Yeah, absolutely. I can't even imagine how. I mean, when I go to Japan, I've got to go. Those machines are beautiful, though. Like, some of these Pachinko machines are absolutely beautiful.

And there's a Castlevania one. You can look it up. Oh, my gosh. It was gorgeous. And I just want to hang in on my wall and put it in the track. The reason I ask is because when I went on the PS3 to download PS1 games as I want to do, because there are so many on the Japanese PSN that are still there. Probably, like, of the 800-odd PS1 games you can download,

I would say probably 100 of them are Pichinka games. Yeah. Like, so, so many of them. And none of them are the good one, Bichinko's Sexy Reaction. I'm just throwing it out there. Yeah, that's the thing. So you've got this, you know, long-standing Pachinko tradition. Yeah.

And those machines over time have, like, some of them have, like, little slot machine reels in them. And, of course, at this point, almost all of those screens that can show you, you know, you know, high-quality video. But it's like, you had, Pichiko tables. And then, of course, I'm probably, probably from the earliest Japanese home computers, you had computer Pichiko games. And that led to console Pichiko games. So it's like over time, the two of them have evolved sort of separate, in separate directions, but they've also

interchanged a lot. So like, Pichiko parlors are always full of licensed properties where it's like, you're playing Pachinko, but if you get the ball on the right thing, you get to see this video, you get to unlock this. And, you know, I think probably the most infamous version, you know, Because Konami basically stopped making video games for about 10 years, they have never halted the Pachinko factory. So it's like there are Pichiko, you know, licensed Pachinko machines based on all sorts of Konami stuff, including a Silent Hill Pichika machine, which I'm sure, I'm sure I saw it on YouTube, some crazed Silent Hill fan bought it, brought it back from Japan to the United States and has it hooked up in their house, and they've played it to show all the stuff in there because, like, there's lots of just weird things like videos that play. You know, with James running around and, like, fighting, fighting a monster or whatever, but you have to play Pachinko to get it. And it's like, it's all sorts of, you know, there's a deep, deep hole of Pichinko games

that, like, few people are willing to explore because, guess what? It costs an exorbitant of money, and you have to sort of sacrifice your life force to be in that building. Yeah. I mean, it is tangential, but I did want to bring it up, because I think there is a relation there with video Pachinko as well. Like, and I've mentioned it already, but the game that I played on MAME that taught me what Pachinko even was was this thing called Pachinko's sexy reaction. which is, I think it's an

Arc System Works game where you're playing the Pichinko mashing the button to fire more and more balls into the playing area. Your control over said balls is very limited. You're essentially just watching but what will happen is you'll go into the slot reels

will pop up. You'll get a jackpot of some sort and you will suddenly just get launched like 600 more balls onto the screen just like carnage. And there's something so compelling about that. I mean, ignore the fact that between stages, there is like soft porn, ignore that. Doesn't matter. What actually matters is getting more and more balls onto the screen. So, I don't know, I think it's a fascinating little world, to be honest. And it's never really crossed over, has it? There isn't really a

Western appetite for Pachinko, just for slot machines. I know that, I know that Pachinko, I'm pretty sure Pachinko was originally imported from America, I think. I remember as a kid, a friend, I would go to one of my friends' houses and, like, their parents had a vintage Pachinko. machine in their house, like something from like the 1950s maybe. And it, I don't think, I don't think it was in Japanese. I'm pretty sure it was an American-made machine. So I think, kind of like Mr. Donut and many other cultural icons, I think it was imported in Japan, and then Japan just embrace it in a way that it's just Japanese now. Like, sorry, we own this now. It's ours. Yeah. Well, we can't really get mad considering where I'm from. As a weird data point, I don't know, that might be backing up

this theory is that there is a Magnavox Odyssey 2 Pachinko game from 1980, although it doesn't really resemble Pichinko. It's actually kind of a cool game where, like, there's characters on the bottom, and you have to bounce these balls up, and they land in these little cups, and it's a two-player game with these two characters, but it's called Pachinko, and that was the first

time I ever heard of the word. It was in 1980. That is cool. I mean, this is this dumb question, Diamond, but going back to Pimball, as has no one to do. Is there an appetite for Pimball in Japan as well? Is it popular there? at all. Do you know?

I feel like it's really limited. That's really, it's why I'm so surprised that, you know, Silverwall Planet even exists. Like, there's a dedicated space that's all pinball. I'm still amazed that it's here and it survived the pandemic and everything. So there must be, there must be a crowd for it. Like, it's not just me because I only go down there maybe once a month tops. But like you won't find machines in normal standard arcades or in bars or anywhere.

No, no, no, no. That thing, you almost never see that. Like, I can think of one bar, which I don't even know if still. open. But I could think of one bar here in Japan that is just a casual bar for people to hang out in. It has pool tables. It has dartboards. And they at least had a pinball machine for quite some time. But it was unusually large space. So I feel like they had so much space. Like, what else can we do? I don't know. Pinball? People like pinball, right? What's pinball? I don't know. So I don't know if that place is even still open, to be frank. But yeah, it's basically

like you've got this one day to get space and that's about it. Like I once saw a bar. bar that had a name that sounded like a pinball related gate name, which made me wonder, like, oh my God, did they pinball machines in there? But it was like a tiny, tiny bar in a town that's like a few miles away from me. So it's like, when am I going to be there at night late enough to go in and find out? I don't know. I don't know if I'm ever going to be there late at night to find out. I don't know.

Now, I apologize for the tangent. This is very typical of me, listeners. But I did want to know. And going back to the subject at hand, video Pimball, I think we've got a real. We've got a reasonably good overview, I think, of what these games offer. So I think what would be good to do now personally is just what we're missing? What are the hidden gems that people maybe haven't played or don't know about? As well as that, what is left that's big enough to talk about? Because I know there are plenty of Sims, but stuff like Pinball Dreams or Pimble Allusions, Pimble Fantasies, those Amiga games. Well, I mean, there's a pinball game nobody's played, which is Last Odyssey, Pinball Fantasia, which is this. Neo Geo's lost prototype.

I'm putting it out there because I've been looking to figure out who owns this. I want to acquire the rights to this game and put it out because somebody... Yeah, yeah. The NeoGeo proto scene is weird, very secretive. Somebody actually has this cartridge and there's a couple playthroughs of it on YouTube. The game looks incredible. It looks like it's done. It has voices.

The game looks complete. As I understand it, the game is totally complete and never released. And it was made by a company called Modolith Corp, which is not Monolith Soft and not Monolith. There's too many goddamn monoliths in the game system. Nobody knows who they are. I've asked all my friends in the game industry. I know, I don't know how to pronounce that company, Nichibitsu. It's an ex-executive from there who started that company.

But that's all I know. And this, if you look at the YouTube videos of this NeoGeo prototype pinball game, it's incredible looking. I'm literally looking at it right now. It looks outstanding. It looks so good. Yeah. And it's, and somebody has an actual cartridge and nobody knows his real name. I've actually...

So this is a... This is a, what do you call it AES or... Yeah, it's a... I think it's a coin-op cartridge. It might be an MBS cart. I don't know if it's an AES or MBS prototype. But it just is awesome looking, and it's one of the most legendary prototypes,

I think, in the NeoGeo prototype lore. It looks amazing and nobody's... I feel like if you... I feel like if you have a unreleased ROM game and you don't dump. pit then I'm afraid I dislike you I'm afraid I hope it's preserved I mean I don't know how many copies because because the weird thing is there was this really rough look like almost a VHS promo copy YouTube clip but then another clip came out I want to say maybe even under a year ago that's crystal clear so must have been capped from the wrong the one I'm looking at now is the 12 year old VHS clip one that came out not too long ago and it's like crystal clear so this thing is still around somebody has it I want it I want to play it I want to release it and look incredible. I mean, it's so crystal that it looks like it's running on an emulator.

I know. It's crisp. I'm looking at it right now. Yeah. I mean, it's even got a scanline filter on it. Right. It looks like cross swords. It's so wild. You know what I mean? Like, it has that stuff. It specifically says that it's been dumped for NeoRage X, but they've not shared it. They haven't shared it. I mean, I've asked people at S&K Japan and stuff, and nobody knows. If you're listening to this person who has this game rom, I just want to say two things to you know, I want you to pick whichever one of these approaches works. Okay, here we go. of all, please dump the game. I'd be so grateful if you would do that.

If you would let this out into the wild so it could be preserved. And here's the other approach. I hate you, your scum. If you don't do this, I'm going to beat the shit out of you. Whichever one works. Just go with that, please. Oh, God. See, unreleased games and stuff like this would be a great subject for an episode, wouldn't it?

I'll do that sometime. You could buy you a whole episode of NeoGeo prototypes. Because when I was looking for this game, I went down a rabbit hole, and there's all these, like, weird, like, missing Neo Geo games. I didn't even know that this was a thing. This is why gaming is so great every day you learn about some new insane cool thing. The animations on this

Pimble Fantasia are just insane. Yeah, it looks awesome. As far as I know, it's completely done, or at least done enough. I mean, I don't know what condition it's in, but I'm sure you could maybe finish it off in some way to be shipable. It looks incredible.

Yeah. I mean, I can't imagine that this game won't see the light of day at some point. Like, surely it's got to, uh, please see the light of day. it at some point. Yes. Now, I think what's left really is, like, what other pinball games do we want to talk about?

Because I noticed you've put down Akira Psycho Ball. Ah, yes. Akira Psycho Ball is a cool game. That's, I don't know how to pronounce the company. It's a Kase. It's a Japanese pinball developer. That's a PS2 game, right? Yeah, it's a PS2 game.

They did a couple other games that are famous, like, Last Gladiators and Necromonicon. They have this very, you know, high-concent pinball games, but they're very simulatory, very well done. and Akira Psycho Ball is sort of the most sort of fantastic game they did as far as fantasy oriented. And so it's based on Akira. It has animation clips from the movie integrated into the game, almost like video modes. And it does resemble a physical pinball machine, but it's a really good blend of physical and video. The only thing about it is it starts off the first level is this weird head-to-head, which I believe is also separated out in a versus mode. It's a head-to-head pinball table.

Imagine two pinball machines stuck together. but there's like a gap that links the two machines together at the top. And you're supposed to shoot your ball onto the right side or onto the left side and get down the other players drain to beat them, which is kind of an interesting concept. But it just sucks, especially when you're playing against a computer. And the first, when you have to kind of play the game in the campaign mode,

which is kind of how most Kase paintball games work. There's like a story mode where you play through all the tables. So it starts you off with this table every time. And it's awful. And I know people who haven't even bothered to play past this. But I'm like, no, no, no. If you get past it, it has these really cool tables based off of other parts of the movie, and those tables actually will split in half, and then this other piece will slot in,

and it will transform the table at different points. And it's just really, really cool. It's a very cool game. That does sound really cool. Now, this didn't release in the US, right? No, I don't think so. Powell and Japan, presumably. Yeah.

Because I never, I know that the Powell version is out there, but I never saw it in the stores. I didn't think of off. I never saw it. But the PS2 was ridiculous the number of games that were on that thing, so it's easy. to overlook some of them, I think. Dammer, are there any other pinball games that you want to flag up here that you want to highlight? None that exist. All I have left to contribute to this point is talk about what kinds of pinball games I want

to see in the future from innovative developers. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to talk about that. What I will do, I think I want to talk about one more pinball game. Sure. And then I think we should talk about fantasy, like pinball games that we want to see. I think that would be fun. But I don't think we cannot talk about. Nintendo stuff.

We've not really talked about Pokemon Pimball at all. And I think that's important. And there's also Metroid Prime Pimble, which is sort of the follow-up to Pokemon Pimble in a way. Though Metroid Prime Pimble was made, I want to say, by Fuse again, he said it's actually good this time.

This is a more, it's closer to being, you know, down to earth, in a sense. Did you play Metroid Prime Pimble? I think this was the one that came with the Rumble pack. Yeah, it has a Rumble option in it. Yeah, it's, which is really cool for pinball game. Yeah, it's a cool game.

I played it a bit. The separation between the screen sometimes is a little distracting when the ball's dropping between the two windows, as it were. It kind of makes one long pinball table out of the two screens. But it's cool. Good idea in theory. Good idea in theory. Yeah.

I mean, there's nothing else they could have done. But it's, it's very cool. It's a little bit more anchored towards a physical real pinball machine. But then you get these different modes where, you know, Sammas can transfer, you know, it rolls out of the ball and stands up and you can start, shooting and stuff. It's pretty good. Yeah. I mean, visually, I love it as well. It's very impressive, I think. And I guess the thing that throws me off a little bit is there aren't really any other DS pinball games that I can

think of. Like, there was going to be a Pokemon pinball on the DS that got cancelled. I think that was by Fuse as well. Yeah. If Fuse did some DSIware pinball game, I think the last game they ever did was some like Greco-Roman pinball thing. I can remember it's called. It's like a downloadable Because, yeah, it just surprises me that they didn't do more because it almost feels like the vertical format for the DS is perfect in a way for pinball. But it was pretty much just that, that I can think of them. But there's probably more that I don't remember. There was that Kirby Mass Attack minigame, which was pretty great. I don't know.

It just, it seems like a shame that they didn't take more advantage of that, you know. I mean, the Switch has quite a lot of pinball games, but then again, it has quite a lot of games, period. Most of them are physical stimulation pinball games. Yes. Yeah, I mean, there is, there's Star Wars Pimble, which I mentioned to you off, of Mike, which I think is really rather good. The thing is, while the Pimbles are aimed at, sorry, the tables are more aimed at sort of relative realism, they're not actually real tables. Yeah. Which, to me, raises the question of, like, if you have the freedom to make something that isn't authentic but still has the right feel, why wouldn't you do that?

Like, I don't know, that just seems to me like a waste of energy almost. Like, I'm not saying it's a bad game, but you've got Star Wars there. You could do anything almost. I know, I agree. So why not go crazy? Why not like give Darth Vader breathe on your ball? I think it's their in-house style, though. I mean, that's what they make.

That's what they know. No disrespect. It's a good game. Yeah. But there are things like Yokosan of Express. There's a game called The Pimble Wizard that I'm kind of interested in, which is like an RPG adventure dungeon pinball game thing, which I'd like to play. And then, of course, you've got, you know, Demons Tilt, which I assume is going to be on Switch at some kind of Zeno Tilt.

It'll be everywhere the first game was, I hope. Demons TIL obviously is already on the Switch. Yeah, it is on Switch. And it looks amazing on the Olet, I have to say. Yeah, it's, you know, and the great thing about the Switch, which was mentioned earlier, you could play it vertically. Although the flip grip does not work with the OLED switch. Oh, what? I'm told. I haven't tried it.

That's an awesome. It's slightly longer, so it doesn't fit. But then I saw on Japanese Twitter somewhere, there is some other company that just made. a flip-grip kind of clone that works with the OLED switch. But let's not tell Parrish about that. I mean, I went down, I went to the 100th store and I bought just a, you know, a cheapo, like, tablet stand. Okay. And I can just place switch vertically on that if I really need to.

So, I mean, we did make an option where you can rotate the controls if you have a switch light or you don't want to, it's very awkward, but you could hold the switch vertically and kind of use your bottom hand to control the flippers and your top hand to control the nudge or something. We do have that mode, but I wouldn't quite. recommend it. It does work, though. It's good to have. My suggestion to do is to port the game to the Fagade XP, which has Tate. Definitely do that, 100%. They just need to write me a check.

Yeah, of course. No, I mean, I think for me, like, we've covered quite extensively video Pimble here. Obviously, there are hundreds of games we haven't talked about. Sure. And I think there is scope for a further episode that does dig into the history a bit more. Sure. But for the time being, what I'd like to do is talk about what we'd like to see from future Video Pimble, like the sort of fantasy games.

I think there's a lot of fun to be had from that and then sort of wrap it up after that because nice and breezy, you know, nice and breezy. But, yeah, Diamond, you sound like you're sort of chomping at the bit to give me this idea, or I'd really like to hear this idea.

Well, ever since Chris Kohler, a friend of the show, talked about it on a video years ago, I've been fascinated by Hercules, which... The big giant one, the big pinball thing? Yes, okay. I was waiting for a reaction.

Yeah, I worked in an arcade. had that had that. Okay. So Hercules is this famously oversized pinball machine. The machine itself is gigantic. And the ball is gigantic. It's like a softball, right? It's like a cue ball. It's like as big as a pool cue ball. Okay, cue ball. That's so funny. And again, obviously like the baby Pac-Man problem, it's got special parts. It's hard to maintain. So it's very hard to find these days. But to me, I feel like the dimensions of that game are very interesting to me. And I feel like in a video pinball game where nothing is built and nothing matters, I feel like shape changing and size, mass shifting, I think would be very exciting. And I feel like that would also

let itself to a Transformers license. So things that transform, things that change shape, things that get bigger and smaller. So, you know, maybe you, you know, a transformer comes out of something and suddenly the table is much larger or the ball changes shapes and can go into different areas, you know. Yeah. I feel like that's an area that is relatively unincorably. explored when it's like the ball, if there's no table and there's no ball, like in reality, then we should be able to change those things. You know, maybe, maybe, you know, power-ups that make the ball different shapes. Like, maybe it's not a ball anymore. Maybe it's a cube now. Maybe it's a triangle, you know, and frankly, frankly, speaking, Arkanoid is more of a

breakout clone than anything else. Yeah. But I feel like Arkanoid has some pinball energy to it. I mean, breakout in general does, I think. Well, have you ever played Dead. Devlish? Yes, devilish is insane. The music is, oh, my God, the music. Yeah, I feel like Arkenoid, because Arkenoid, there's been hints of Arkenoid comeback. Someone made a new Arkenoid game, like, in the last two years, and I played at TGES and was kind of like, eh. Yeah, Arcanide versus Space Invaders came out.

Well, no, that new, what does it call Arkenoid, endless struggle or whatever? It came out last year. Yes, yes. That was the one. That was the one. So I do feel like that's something else that could be explored where it's like, it's not quite pinball, but it is pinball adjacent and that you could have, you know, you're controlling, a ball on the field and you can give special abilities that come and go. And I just, I feel like, as I said earlier, I feel like variety is a big appeal for me. And I, I feel like a video pinball game should embrace its fantasy aspects, should embrace

its non-realness, you know, I don't, I don't think there's any, you know, much like video games that seek photorealism, I'm sorry, if I want photo realism, I'll go outside, thank you very much, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me something weird, you know, I've spent, you know, I've spent, you know, I don't, I don't want to guess how many hours I've spent playing Tears the Kingdom, which is, looks like nothing. No one in that game looks realistic. No scenery looks realistic. It all looks like a weird, you know, pastel cartoon. But guess what? I love it. Can't stop playing it. So I want a video pinball game that is

willing to deliver that unreality to me, but also shifting it so that I'm always surprised at what comes next. Because yes, obviously, I have to enjoy slapping the ball around and getting the points, sure, but I also want things to change, so I'm like, oh, what happens next? What happens if I get the ball over here enough times? Oh my goodness, that wall wasn't real, it's broken, and now we've discovered hidden meat

and now we can refill our life meter. I don't know. It's just that's what I'm talking about here. I think, I mean, I think that sounds good to me. I mean, what you've just said has made me think about the idea of a Castlevania pinball game, which has made my tongue tickle. I almost feel like it's redundant

than asking you actually, because you've kind of done it. Like, you seem to have made pinball games, or at least, you know, so it's, but I'm going to ask anyway, is there anything that you would like to see specifically? Well, a couple of things. First of all, video pinball or real pinball, but maybe in the real pinball world, I don't know why there's no Wu-Tan clan pinball machine. I don't understand it. They've done every group.

That's a very good point. I mean, they did a spinal tap pinball machine. I mean, come on. Why is there no Wu-Tang Clan pinball machine? Maybe they were doing a thrill-kill pinball team that got canceled and turned into a Wooten. Well, I did work at the company that made that. An obscure industry and joke for you. Sorry, go on.

I worked at the company that did make the Wutang Clan PlayStation game. And the stories of wrangling the whole clan together to make that game are legendary. Did you, in fact, taste the pain? Yeah, you know, did you get the Wutang exclusive European control that looks like the Wutang symbol. I did not get that, but now I feel like my life is empty without it. So, yeah, a Wutang Clan Pinball. machine would be incredible. I don't know why it doesn't exist. They obviously can get together when the money's correct, because I just saw them at the Hollywood Bowl altogether. It was

amazing. Anyway, that, but on the video pinball front, you know, we have obviously ideas for other games, but we occasionally have been, and we were talking a lot about IPs being applied to pinball. We've occasionally been approached by different companies who want to do pinball games that use other IPs. But we do have IPs that we would like. You know, or I would like, perhaps, to use. I mean, we often kick around ideas. It would be great if we could do Kirby pinball again. Because, I mean, they did a Zelda necro dancer.

Why can't, you know, Nintendo, give me a call. Yeah. You do a new Kirby pinball. But also. It really does surprise me they haven't done it. I know. I'm kind of shocked, actually, especially with all the Kirby resurgence as of late. And then, you know, we talked about Resident Evil pinball would be cool.

But I think a Monster Hunter pinball would be awesome because you could do crafting. You could do crafting loop to it. Yeah. You could do all kinds of stuff with Monster Hunter in pinball. Pinball with a crafting system, I think, could be pretty cool. There are so many games I can think of would be cool as pinball. Like most Capcom things, like Devil May Cry would be cool as pinball. It all would, because pinball is just inherently quite cool.

Like, you can't see a pinball machine and not become excited, I don't think. If you can, then you are not with me. You are not my kin. Right. I mean, for me personally, the thing is, I don't want to, be the most repetitive imaginable human being, but sometimes circumstances come together in a way that means I have to be,

and I want to see Dizzy Pimball. That's what I want to say. Because you basically here's a ball, like an egg is close enough, right? All you need is a little egg per dizzy. I don't know why they have it. They did dizzy everything. That's a good point.

Why is there no Dizzy Pimble? Code Masters did Psycho Pimble. How hard is it? Well, you know why? It's because he's an egg, and an egg wouldn't roll. the right way. Yeah, well, they've just make him a circle then. It doesn't matter.

You know, I think he might actually be in Psychopimble, or in like, interstitial screens and things, which is even more of a disgusting, like, betrayal. But no, think about it. Think about it. You'd be a little dizzy. You'd have, like, little wooden flippers and, like, tree house stuff, you know? You'd have to

get all the oak folk to get a huge jackpot bonus. All of the oak folk, Danzild, at Grand Dizzy, all those people. Get all of them. You'd have to get items, like, you'd have, like, a big fire so you'd have to get the water then you'd have to go and use the water on the fire to be able to get through to the next area

and then you'd have to find the poe the pogey and get it in its cage everyone in Britain knows what I'm talking about nobody else does though and that's fine to come on dizzy pinball it's such a no brain it why didn't they do it I don't get it what's the problem it's insane that they haven't done this

it's insane to me Stu how are you going to play pinball with an egg that game's going to last one second you hit the ball you hit the egg and it breaks just change it just stays around now say that the evil wizard zacks turned him into a ball it doesn't matter it's all bullshit anyway the evil wizard zax has turned dizzy into a ball oh no written by the oliver twins obviously basically any character that's ball like can be made out of i mean that's why there's you know

metro pinball sonic spinball uh i mean what sonic sonic spinball evolved from you know the casino night zone which has pinball flippers and the uh eight bit sonic one which has pinball flippers in the bonus stages. And they did it first, by the way, a bit of trivia for you there. But what that brings us to, I think, is we've covered our sort of fantasy pinball games. We've talked about a lot of pinball games today. And I think it's about time that we said a game over. Yes. Yes. That's what it says in PIMBOR. Tilt. Yeah. But I think there's enough scope to talk more about PIN ball at some point. So I'm going to put that a pin in that. A pin ball. I know. Wow. Okay. Yeah, I know. It was shit. I'm sorry.

Thank you. So, I guess the best thing to say at this point is thank you very much for being on this episode. And Ralph, where can our delightful listeners find you on the internet? Should they wish to pursue your doing? Yeah, well, I mean, you know, you can Google me, you can find me, but at Flarb on Twitter, at Xenotilt on Twitter. Yeah. Wishless Demons Tilt. It's very good.

Flab.com. But, yeah, wishless demons tilt on Steam. That's the place to keep up to date on the game. Yeah. Zenotilt. Zeno Tilt. And you can always just buy Demons Tilt. You can wishlist it if you want. You can wishlist it if you want. You can wishlist it if you want. You should probably should just buy Demons Tilt because it's a classic. If I do say so myself. But yeah, Demon Stilt's available everywhere. And Xenotilt, you can wishlist it on Steam right now. We'll be announcing a release date soon-ish. But yeah, please do. And Diamond, where can our listeners find you? Because I'm sure they have no idea. Yes. Well, before I get to that, I just wanted to highlight one last thing because if we're talking about Pinball, I have to. also mention the Seattle Pinball Museum because I was in Seattle a few years ago with my children.

And to me, I've had a very, to me, it was a very exciting time because my kids, they don't really know what pinball. It's again, they've grown up here in Japan, they don't really know a pinball. So I was very interested to see what's going to happen. What's going to happen when I take them to this building that's full of pinball games? They don't even know what pinball is. And I was pleasantly surprised that, you know, the magic of pinball is that it is, it's so easy to understand, like conceptually. It's so easy to understand. So it's like, you see this, you know, you see, so they, they went in this room, they saw all these machines, you know, they watched one or two people, like, played over machines, like, okay, I get it. And they played

pinball. And like, were they good at it? Of course not. They were, you know, the little kids. They got tiny hands. They can barely, they can barely do anything. But it's fine. They had fun. They learned a little about Doctor Who. And, you know, they just, they just had a good time. And I went upstairs and I played an original missile command cabinet. So I had fun in my own way. But nice. The point is. Pinball is time, is not for old people. Pinball is, in fact, for everyone because everyone understands it. So even a baby, a dumb baby can play pinball.

The stupidest, fat, boring baby. Yeah, they can. It's a fact. They can play binball. I apologize to my uncle for calling him old for liking pinball in 1982. Now he is old, but back then he was not, and I called him old for liking pinball. But everybody could like finball. But guess what?

We're all getting older, you know, spoilers. It's fine. Pinball is still good. It doesn't matter. It's timeless. Yeah. Anyway, if you want to find me around the internet, look for Fight Club. F-E-I-T, that's my last name, C-L-U-B.

That is a blunt instrument that should be in pinball but isn't. Thank you very much for being on this. Now, if you've enjoyed this episode, listeners, and you would like to support Retronauts, you can do so via our Patreon at patreon.com. Where for a mere $5, which I think we all have to agree is a very small amount of money, really. not very much at all. You will be able to get not only each weekly episode a week early, making you the coolest kid in the playground,

but also two completely brand new and full episodes of retronauts every month that no one else is getting. Like, you know, the cool kids with the Patreon support get these episodes. The lame kids don't. They're not getting this stuff. But not only that, you're also getting tremendous columns by... Now, who are they by again? These columns?

These things are recorded to? I cannot remember who they're by. Oh, yes. It's Diamond Fight, the best person in the world. And they are called This Week in Retro, and they are excellent, and I recommend them heartily. They are worth subscribing for, and I mean that sincerely. You can also go on the Discord, the Retronauts Discord. Call me as many swear words as you want, and I'm not allowed to do anything about it.

I've been told specifically. If people are abusing you, you have to just take it. So I've agreed reluctantly to do that. And, you know, there's going to be plenty of other bonuses of some sort that I don't actually know. But, yes, thank you very much for listening. And I'm sure to be more Pimball at some point. And, you know, until next time, even if you're deaf, dumb, and blind, you'll probably... Nah, to be honest, you probably wouldn't be that good at Pimball.

So maybe do something else. Cheers. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.