Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 327: Numskull & Fire Pro Wrestling

Episode Date: September 28, 2020

Jeremy connects with the minds behind Numskull's ever-expanding collection of classic arcade mini-cabinets, then tags in Chris Sims to discuss the history and wonders of Spike Chun Soft's Fire Pro Wrestling franchise. Cover art: Greg Melo.

You're listening to Retronauts, a part of the Greenlit Podcast Network, a collective of creator-owned and fully independent podcasts, focused on pop culture and video gaming. To learn more and to catch up on all the other network shows, check out Greenlitpodcasts.com. This week in Retronauts, we have become comfortably numb. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Retronauts. I am hosting this week. I am Jeremy Parrish. And nothing's changed. We're still in a pandemic. So that means I'm still on Skype with people. But once again, I'm taking advantage of the opportunity. this affords to bring on people that we've never talked to before and tackle topics that

might not make it into a studio session. And in this case, I'm speaking to folks from Numskull and Rubber Road about the really cool line of sort of mini arcade machines that they're putting out, arcade replicas. I say sort of mini because, you know, you've got like three sizes. You've got the arcade one up that are, you know, like four feet tall and the replicas. replicate that are what like six inches and then you've got numskull somewhere in the middle at about 12 inches one foot tall so they're beefy little guys sitting on the shelf and i've got all of them on my shelf so i was really interested in taking the opportunity to talk to the people who are kind of you know behind this project and working on licensing and manufacturing and i don't even know

what else i'm about to find out but um should be exciting so gentlemen if you wouldn't mind introducing yourselves um let's make it easy and just go in the order that you each dialed in, I guess. Sure. My name's Chris, Chris Hill, and I am head of marketing for Numskull, Numskull designs and Numskull games, and I play an active big role in Court of Arcades. I also run a channel called Games You Loved, and I'm a huge fan of games from the 70s onwards, really. Still play modern games, but my heart's in the retro space, really.

So I'm next I'm Matt Precious I'm the co-founder with my business partner, Ben Grant we set up Rubber Road and Nunskull back in 2012

before that we worked for a big video game specialist company for many years but then decided to move on and do it on our own back in 2012 eight years ago

All right. And my name is Carl Misen, so I'm the creative director at Numskull. I run the design studio, so we're based up in the northeast of England. We have, it's quite a large team now, so there's 10 designers split between 3D and 2D, and we kind of work on a broad range of products for Numskull. Obviously, one of the big brands, like you've mentioned, is quarter arcades. And basically, quarter arcades is what got me into this business. kind of, I've been with the business about five years now. So yeah, I mean, that's me,

do want to kind of go into the history of quarter arcades? Yeah, that was actually going to be kind of my next question is, well, first, what is NUMSkull and Rubber Road? Like, what's the dividing line there? And also, you know, you mentioned that you have other product lines. It seems like NUMSkull is kind of into a lot of things. There's, you know, collectible trinkets and pins and things like that. There are the quarter arcades that we're talking about. But then there's also, you know, other things like, I know you guys are getting into digital game publishing.

So, yeah, it seems like there's a whole lot happening there. So I'd be curious to kind of hear how the company started up and kind of what it's become. So I guess, Matt, that would be your area. It would be me, I'm afraid, yes. So to start with, so the mother company, if you like, the main company's Rubber Road. strange name. Probably the question we get asked the most why Rubber Road. And it's a very simple answer. Myself and Ben Grant, my business partner, we both worked together in the gaming specialist market for man and boy, nearly 20 years each, I think. We both have a fanatical love for the

Beatles. And that's one of the things that we both had in common. And when we started up and decided to leave and set up our own business. Whatever we do, it has to have a Beatles link. We thought it would bring us luck. He didn't do those boys any harm. So we thought, okay, something with the Beatles. So Rubber Road is basically, very simply, Ben's favourite Beatles album all the whole time is Rubber Soul,

mine is Abbey Road. So we decided to manage the two, and we made Rubber Road, as our little homage to the Beatles. Nice. And from there, it's numskull is basically a brand we set up which sadly has no Beatles

link in there we just thought it was a cool name I think we were banding names around one day I think Ben has texted me numbscull and I went yeah that's it it's a bit of fun and it was the name that we stuck with we got the logo and that was it that was numskull

so that I say that was in 2012 the reason we started up the business As I said, we worked for a big video game specialist and we used to do, obviously, the big launches for the big video games coming out at the time. And the one thing, every time we wanted to write, you know, call a duty is coming out or whatever it would be, right, we need some merch to go with this.

So, you know, to put up the front of the stores. And it was just crap. You know, we were just, we were going there and people going, yeah, I've got a T-shirt and it's got a pack shot of the game on it. And you're like, but what about the fans? What about people who just want more than the logo slapping of a t-shirt or a key ring or a snapback so and it was just for for years we we moaned of the lack of inspiration and the lack of thought and the fan put first into merch and one day in a pub when you'll find that most of the ideas or what we do comes out we just went this why don't we do it you know we've been in the industry a long time we we know people we think we've got good ideas

um so that was it really we just said right okay we're gonna go and do our own merchandise and you know we initially we stuck with what we knew which was a video game industry so Sony PlayStation catcom Ubisoft namco etc you know we went to see these guys came up of our ideas but I think what makes us well what we believe makes us different from a lot of merchandise is we do make it as fans so we go what would we like what would we would we like to see? So we're very conscious, you know, we don't logo slap. We don't just take the lazy option.

So we do make things from, I think we're one of the first ones to do Christmas jumpers based on video games. I think Street Fighter and ones that we came back out, 2013-14. We came up with a VR resident evil candle, that smelt of Resident Evil and Fear for the VR, incense burners, candles. You know, we try and break away from what is easy to the t-shirts and the apparel. We still do snapbacks and t-shirts as well, but we try and bring something through there that is a bit unique and something that you'd want to wear as a fan of that product and of that franchise rather than just, as I say,

what we found when we were in gaming, which was a lot of logo slapping. So, long answer, but there you go. That's how we kind of got started and how numskull was formed and what we do now. Right. And so there's still a pretty big component of merchandise and, you know, kind of tie-in products to the business. Like, you know, you recently sent over the Pac-Man 40th anniversary and, you know, the pins and socks and things like that. And it actually kind of made me curious to know, you know, what is, I guess, the kind of the kind of the creative process that you use for this licensed merchandise because, you know, when I,

when I first saw the Pac-Man 40th line stuff, I thought, well, that's not what I would have expected for Pac-Man because it's not, you know, like pixel-oriented or, you know, kind of the usual iconography you see. But then I looked at it more closely and I was like, oh, this, you know, kind of pulls in the colors of Pac-Man and the ghosts. And so you kind of get these elements that key off the arcade game, but not in a necessarily obvious way. I think what you'll find is when you kind of have an IP, which is kind of still successful, so Pac-Man for Namco is still very big. They actually produce style guides.

So kind of all of the kind of design and styling around that new anniversary selection that we did is kind of based on assets that Namco create to kind of celebrate. So a lot of the time we will kind of get direction from the publishers to say, this is the kind of look that we want to go down. And then we kind of interpret their style guides and assets to kind of create these new patterns. So obviously like the side art for the new black arcade, it's just about trying. What can you get on there that kind still really represents Pac-Man, but kind of has more of a modern feel. Like this is the anniversary all these years later.

And then in terms of kind of the other products, which you've seen, a lot of that is just, it's down to what, we contractually can make so it's nice to be able to do the kind of gift items as add-ons for like the kind of more expensive products like the quarter arcade i think because i'm i'm fairly new to the business i've been in for about a year and a half and um what what i've found is that increasingly i'm i'm involved with seeing more and more where we're just to go with mat's um we're saying that not just logo slapping um we are getting uh things like style guys and it's working closely with the product and brand sort of partners, if you like, to try and get the best out of those guidelines.

So, you know, whilst there are 2D graphic elements, assets available, Matt and Carl's team will go back with, you know, how we kind of take an idea and perhaps put a twist on it. So things like, you know, incense burners we've done before, which are almost like, you know, a bit more than just an incense burn and there's something happening with it to make it more interesting

or perhaps there's a jumper like the Harry Potter jumper that's got lights on it that lights up the castle there so it's kind of it's getting quite early with those things obviously the way that we operate is like Matt said

when is a new game, a new movie or a TV series out we'll be months ahead and I think Carl you'll probably be able to talk about this, how far we start planning ahead with these things. It's quite a key factor. We do do some evergreen brands. Obviously, things are always there and stand the test of time. Perhaps isn't so much of a timely thing. So it's not like a game coming out and we're doing it to tie it. And there are certain brands that, you know, Lord of the Rings, for example, is a good one, Harry Potter,

but just have an ongoing, you know, sort of continuum, if you like. But then there's a there's obviously the launches as well but thinking and ideas and concepts start quite far out, don't they really? Yeah, 100%. I think it obviously depends like you say. If it's an evergreen we can start planning way in advance

but for the likes of a new release you can sometimes struggle to get assets from the publisher. They want to obviously keep a top secret as long as possible so you don't quite have as much time when you're doing a new release for a new game or a new movie. It's not as relaxed as if it is and evergreen weight and kind of take your time

and look through the kind of historic assets that are available. So I think one of the things we try and do and it's a word we use a lot, which I hope translates well to the US, is pub safe. So one of the things when we're designing a t-shirt or a hoodie or a snapback is we try not to be as obvious. And we call it PubSafe is

if you walk in with that product on into a pub, a bar, and your mates are there. If your mates look at it and they're not into that game or they're not into that movie, they just look at that and go, that's a cool t-shirt, cool snapback. But for the fan, for someone else who you meet

who goes, yes, I get it. You've got that slight logo. You've got that name of a bar that's in a movie that's on the t-shirt or something that fans will get, but it's pub safe as in. You can still walk in and it still just looks like a cool product. cool t-shirt, a cool hoodie.

So that's one thing we try and do. We don't think that if you're into Pac-Man, you have to have a giant yellow Pac-Man slapped on the front of your t-shirt every single time. You can just put little touches on there that

yeah, just makes it a subtle product and makes it cool looking rather than just a t-shirt with the logo, which I can point back to. All right, so that's kind of the, I guess the good, I guess the good general overview, but I am curious to talk more about the quarter arcades specifically. Um, it sounds like those have actually been kind of in the works for quite a while, uh, even though the first one came out, what, two years ago? So, um, it's been, you know, I guess

these are kind of premium products. So it's a fairly slow rollout. But I assume there was a lot of, um, you know, getting things right in terms of logistics, not only with licensers, but also with manufacturing and design and that sort of thing. And, um, you know, I will say that I'm, I'm a big fan of these and have been picking them up and giving them as gifts because they are, you know, really great replicas, but also, you know, they're working replicas, which always kind of surprises people. Like I think people, you know, see big arcade machines and think, oh, you know, it has to be like a full-size arcade machine for you to be able to play. But of course, everything's, you know, technology's miniaturized. So it's pretty easy to make a working replica. And I think that is, you know,

a nice touch. But, you know, if these were just like, hey, here's a cool wooden shell. of Gallagher, I'd be kind of like, well, okay, it's kind of big, though, but it's Gallagher and it plays. So all of a sudden, it's, you know, great. Yeah. And that is kind of what we've always wanted to do. I mean, like I mentioned before, this was kind of the project that got me involved with Numskull. It was about, maybe it was a year before I started, I'd met Matt, and we had kind of common interests. And I'd actually just finished reading Ready Player one. And I'd said, Matt, you have to read this book. And obviously, it's about the whole, all the retro video games and that kind of started our conversations about actually could we'll bring

these back as they appeared in arcades obviously at a smaller size and at the time I'd actually I was building just by coincidence I was building a half scale arcade for my son and I think when we're looking at that it's like okay can we'll make this smaller and how much smaller can we go so it's let's do it let's try and at the time this was before kind of it's going to be a quarter scale it was just let's see if we can miniaturize it and get a feel for a kind of proof of concept if you like I think that's the point I think I wanted to do this back in 2012

when we first started the company I always wanted to make replicas of original arcade machines I'm a huge arcade fan of the original machines and we kind of had this idea back in 2012 and it kind of just sat with us and we looked at it

but until I kind of met Carl was when I went actually I now got someone here who has the skill and the ability to make one of these as a concept as much as I can come up with the ideas I'm pretty useless at actually building

it so meeting Carl and you know in a pub and talking about ready player one and just yeah I've built arcades before I was like what I'd found someone who got it who was a bigger fan as me

and understood what we're trying to make so Carl started in your kitchen I think wasn't it, Call? Yeah, it did. It was just, I think it was just looking for parts because like we've mentioned it, it was important that the machines were still playable. So at the time, Raspberry Pi was quite big

so it was just trying to get like off-the-shelf parts and we decided to do a single player which ended up making an Asteroids machine and a two player were done Street Fighter and like I say it wasn't exactly in scale that the sides were too fat the joysticks were too big

but I think just being able to see them side by side I mean we still have them in the office and they look very crude but they did kind of serve a purpose where actually this could really work and basically from that obviously like Matt said I did join the company and really that's when we're sort of kind of focus

and let's really, first of all, decide the scale we'll want to go. That's when we're kind of come up with the name, quarter arcades. But we came up with the size first. First, yeah. You came up with the name and that's why you made them quarter size. It was a bit of a coincidence, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. We decided on quarter size first and then what should we call them?

And the name obviously just fits. And I mean, the first machine, Pac-Man, that did take, it was probably close to three years. from actually starting prototyping and like you say it was kind of find the manufacturers it took a long, long time

but quarter arcades has kind of developed with the company and I think as we've grown and more people have come in and we've been able to kind of throw more bodies at the problem

it's getting easier with each arcade as we'll go down the line but Pac-Man can take quite a long time I mean the first thing we did was buy a Pac-Man and I think this is

like any machine we make we buy the original you know, which is a great excuse to just buy arcades. But we do buy the original, and we measure this thing to death. You know, anyone that has seen the quarter arcades, and you can say yourself, you know, we, the back of the machine's got the vents in it, that the machine's got. The speaker grill underneath has the same amount of screws

and is exactly the same as the speaker vent on the full size one. The screws in the right place. The buttons are exactly quarter. to scale. The joystick, you know, we measure it within a millimeter. It's all done to exact scale and the exact artwork. And that's what we produce. We produce an exact replicate as close as we can. You know, I think the only thing is that we can put in his little mini CRT screens and how God we tried. But, you know, it does have modern stuff on its crops. We've got a battery inside it and everything as well. But he is an exact replica because that's what we're trying to create

first of all is I want a model I want to be able to create that exact Patman that was in that arcade and it's playable with the original ROM in there as well and it has to be the original ROM

is what would have been in there and that is what we try and do but not a single thing that we made comes off a shelf which is really annoying because we're so adamant on the sizes that's why it took three years to make Pat man and get across all those problems.

You know, we've had to make joysticks from scratch, buttons from scratch, grills, tea bars that are on the machines, you know, you're trying to put these on what, I don't know, how thick is it, four mill or whatever for the sides, and you're going to try and put tea bar into that, that would have been on the original. So it's been a lot of blood sweat and a lot of tears making this machine. it really has and the great thing is I think the community really gets that

the people that love these get what we're trying to create and I think you said before you know there is other machines out there arcade one up who do a great job with their machines but they're going for a different market you know for me

Pac-Man wasn't just about playing Pat-Man you can go on your phone and playing Pat-Man for 99 cents if you want to really play Pac-Man but the art work, the cabinet, the way it was put together, the way that it sounded with the grill, that is what an arcade is for me. And that's what we're recreating is trying to freeze in time these machines that are going away. You know, they're very rare. And I think that's what

we've tried to produce with the numbschool quarter arcades. And as I say, Patman was the first one. And I'm sure Carl will go on to, you know, we've developed it. We've learned a lot of from a lot of mistakes that we've probably made at the beginning. And I think you can see that in the future ones we've done with the Namco's, with the Gallagher Galaxians, and our next release, which is Dig-Dug, isn't it, Carl? Yeah, Dig-Dug, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, so, you know, talking to you, You mentioned that the quarter arcade name kind of came along after the decision to go with, you know, kind of the quarter size. I guess that's what, 18 inches? Yeah, between 7 and 18 inches, I think, yeah. Yeah, okay. So it never occurred to me, but like, does the idiom quarter arcade work as well in the UK as it would here in the U.S. I was thinking from a U.S. perspective where, you know, we dropped quarters into the machines. But it occurred to me, you know, every country has their own currency.

In Japan, it was, you know, 100 yen coins. so obviously that wouldn't work there is is that the idiom that was used in the UK I genuinely do not know I think we obviously we grew up with American movies and I was think back when you watch the likes of Tron or

war games or something where we grew up with the American movies and they were putting quarters into our kids so obviously we do put 10 P's in or 20 P's but I just think it's more even in the UK it sounds better definitely It's cooler.

It is, it is, yeah. 20 PRK doesn't sound as great. It's not very sexy, I'm afraid. We do get asked, though, and it's something we discussed the other day. You know, one of the things we do a lot of is listen to the community and people thinking, but someone was asking the other day for, can you do 10P stickers for us for us Brits, because we're a British company, and we went, actually, we should do that. So, you know, you're going to all that thing of making Patman.

You know, when I played Pataman, he didn't have 25 cents on there. It had 10p. So watch this space. I'll leave that one with Chris, but I'm sure we can do something to get stickers made for people because that's what they want. I think it has a double meaning. Weirdly, I came on board for quarter arcades. My first gig was taking it to play Expo London, which was an event just by Docklands. And the litmus test was, you know, I think we had one machine.

actually and behind it Carl had built a set with three you know actual calves the real sort of real deal and I think to kind of draw to that I suppose vision that every corner every angle of corner every detail people were sort of doing that double take and I think you know these are the people who go there are kind of mix you've got families you've got kind of fair weather game as should we call it people who play now and again but then you had what we call you know the we all sort of knows of the hardcore, the real sort of enthusiast. And, you know, the feedback we got anecdotally was, yeah, you've kind of haven't created a version where things are perhaps a little different in certain areas. Like the screen might not be, you know, to scale or you've gone too high

with the marquee. I think that was, you know, we would have found out there and then, even though we've done our real measurements and we knew technically it was right, for people to see the small cab on a plinth which it was play it and then see the ones behind it and there was arcades all around us there was about 150 arcades there was a patman uh galliger uh miss patman in the actual arcade we took it in there and filmed it and again people sort of tapping us on the shoulder saying that looks just like that all great ticking the box because that's really what we um we wanted to have where the eventual goal we only had one at the time it was very difficult me coming on board being, I suppose, sort of

the advocate for this to get it out to customers in the community was trying to think that this was the first of many and almost the many was in the arcade and I even got, newie organised, I even got them to sort of

put all the Namco cabs together because we only had renders at that point and now, you know, here we are in 2020, I've got them behind me we have all the Namco cabs sort of lined up. And I think once you start lining them up, Jeremy, you've probably got the same thing, is that you start to get that feel of like it is,

it's kind of like a mini arcade at home. It's not just the one machine. It's great to have one machine and it's a good object and it's something that obviously you can play. But the idea that you could put in the machines that you either grew up with, for me personally, or you know, machines that you always wanted to own and yourself, you've got a chance to kind of do this here. And I think it's, you know, with the new machines that's coming out and things that we're planning as well, for me, I'm excited because, you know, I would like to have a row. I'm going to clear my shelf of all my other retro stuff and literally try and have a row of, you know, a few machines. Because when they're all on together, again, you get that

ambiance, maybe not the smell at the arcade that it used to be. I was talking about this earlier smells of, you know, that sort of era. And there's no sticky stuff on the control panel. Yeah, there's no cigarette burns. Yeah, we did think about it. We honestly did think about it. Did we put cigarette beds on the, on the Pac-Man control panel where you've used to your cigarette? It's space on the left panel where it's the paint is worn away from people holding onto the machine while they play. We might do that.

We might, you know, like Star Wars toys and then they bring up the back damaged version. We might we might bring out the 80s cigarette bed version of a machine. I mean, that is a really cool feature. I mean, I'm surprised that somebody in the community hasn't done that because that is what it was like, literally, wasn't it? The hand rub on the left hand corner. You know, people used to kick the kit plate, didn't they as well? That was always a bit battered.

And also, I mean, we took a couple of two events and they got a chip on the corner and it's in Ben's office. And I don't mind that because that used to happen. you know so the worn effects it's a bit like star wars isn't it you know when things that they look they look more authentic and you kind of you get that um maybe you can do stickers or something they do but chris you're as old as me you'll know this when we played patman patman looked yellow bright yellow because it was still pretty yeah i think that's the thing is even when you go to these and we go to all these expos because we'll do we're

who were big arcade fans, and I love playing them. But I am playing a battered and worn out. And it has to be the original. There's nothing like it. But they didn't look like that when I was 10. It looked brand spanking new. And I think that was one of the things we did was this is what it looked like, guys. You know, it's weird here.

I mean, I say here in Newcastle, where we do have the original arcade machines downstairs of the ones we're working on plus, you know, future ones or other ones that we like. and most of our designers are in their 20s and it's the first time they've ever seen an arcade machine and first time they've touched one or played one and you're just like, what? It's just completely past them by and what's amazing to watch

so we've got a track and feel downstairs which is the one we're looking at bringing out next year in February everyone's addicted to it it's one of the greatest arcade machines one of my personal favorites track and field and people are just like this is amazing and these are all gamers i mean avid gamers these guys are in you know they're online night and day playing video games that's why

they're they're they're they're they're went for numskill but they're just blown away by how addictive these arcade machines are and it's really great to bring in that new audience and that's why i think you know us want to replicate whoever it may be being able to bring these to a new audience is fantastic Well, you mentioned track and field, and to me that kind of speaks to the appeal of arcade machines, the actual uprights, and creating these replicas that perfectly recreate their controls, because track and field was a game that everyone came up with their own. technique for, you know, pressing the buttons as quickly as possible. I had a friend. We'd go to like the pizza parlor where they had track and field. And I don't know exactly what he did, but he would get a metal spoon from dish stand. And he would, he would like use it to basically

he'd rub his hands back and forth over the spoon, which he had kind of, you know, using his other hand's finger as a fulcrum so that he could just like as quickly as possible get that momentum on the two buttons going so he could win the game. But I know other people had other approaches, like they'd use both fists or something. Yeah, or they'd wrap it in a towel. I think it was like a tea towel or a towel. Yeah, rub it over. Everyone is a cigarette lighter.

You can do it with him. I've seen that recently. Well, our arcade actually had guards built on. Yeah, I know which I'd never seen. Nani that are. So the buttons are covered with a guard so you can't actually use a spoon or a lighter. But believe me, we would. We were very competitive.

At one point, I mean, we had to stop playing it. People couldn't use the mouse because people had blisters on the end of the fingers or wherever because we were just, there was blood on the machine. It was just, we got very, very competitive. But absolutely, and when would you get something like that in this day and age of people with spoons and lighters? I mean, we were standing it. Everyone's got their own stance when they played track and field.

It's amazing. And I don't know any games today that you would get that. But, yeah, physically were destroyed. Right. So you guys mentioned Star Wars, you know, in the Battle Deco and things like that that you get on some of the collector's figures. But, you know, like that does call to mind a question about just the process you use for creating quarter arcades. Because I know, you know, the modern action figure industry really works around standardization. And so they'll create, you know, kind of like the standard body buck is what they call it.

And then, you know, kind of create accessories and, you know, different heads or arms or whatever that kind of work around those bucks to sort of minimize the amount of tooling they have to create and the number of unique pieces they have to manufacture. But it sounds like you can't really do that with your arcade range because you're, you know, manufacturing each individual machine based on what they actually originally looked like, the very specific physical dimension. and details. So, I mean, I guess I'd have to look again, but I guess Pac-Man and Miss Pac-Man were pretty similar. But then, you know, you get to Gallagher or Galaxian and they're different. And then I'm looking at, you know, some of your future range, things like bubble-bobble and track and field. And those are from different companies altogether and have completely different bodies. So how much does that complicate the creative process, you know, that decision to go with like true specifications and not use sort of a generic body for as many machines as possible?

Um, very much so. I'll let Carl talk about the new ones and the, the, the, the, the pains and the tea as we're having over the new machines, because everyone's got a very unique. But I mean, Patman and Galaxian uses exactly the same camera, which was nice. It's slightly different on the fins. A miss Patman and Gallagher, um, use, um, exactly the same cab, which was nice. Um, but the control panels are completely different with the button layout and everything like that. So, our team would like us to use the same cab for everything because it is expensive, you know, and I mean, you've got one there. I mean, even Patman, the front of the control panel, it's got that rough texture. That's because Patman had a rough texture. And it's one of those. How many people would even remember that? But that's not the point.

That's how it was. So every machine he's looked at individually, and it really is a bonus if we can use the same wood paneling as we could. but, I mean, we don't make it easy for ourselves. I mean, Carl can talk through dig, dug, bubble, bubble and our favorite space invaders and the challenges we're getting with ease. Yeah, I think as well, even when it is kind of the same cabinet, you'll still find, like Matt's just touched on, the controls are never the same. And obviously, we're all developing.

So you'll notice there's a difference between Pac-Man's T-Barr and then the later machines, and it was because we'll have to kind of work out a different process. So even though every single arcade comes with its kind of own problems. Obviously with the newer ones, when it is a brand new cabinet and you're just completely starting from scratch, you do always get problems along the way. Dig Dog, Matt just mentioned, the way the bezel is kind of printed on the original, it's on the underside of the glass and some of the kind of artwork juts out. So it's almost covering the screen. That's something that I hadn't really done before. and it's it's problems you don't think about

until you kind of get your first sample and look at it and go out of this it hasn't quite worked so it's kind of working with a factory going back and forward and kind of introducing new processes and trying to get it perfect space invaders for example the original space invaders

the monitors actually down below in the arcade and it kind of projects up onto an angled piece of glass so when we first looked at that we'll like do a cheat so will we just put in an LCD and not straight and then what I actually know I think with quarter arcades we want these to be authentic as possible so that has been a big big job so all this year we've

been working with the factory but we have actually we have managed to do it so the when you play the quarter arcade space invaders it is the same the game is projecting up onto an angle piece of glass and you kind of get the the holographic effect it looks like the game's kind of flown in front of the nice light neon moon. Yeah, we've got the backlight behind. And it's literally a cutout moon behind, isn't it? It's all very physical to give that effect. Yeah.

So it's every arcade has a chat. I mean, I would love to get to the point where it becomes easy. I just don't think that it ever will. Every arcade comes with its problems. I suppose now you can kind of start planning. So Bubble Bobble is in the Tateau cab. and obviously there is or that it or machines in that so there's always a possibility where you could start to reuse the side panels um but usually you're starting from scratch every time

are always different even when the fins are the same aren't they yeah yeah no two i've are the same so how do you how do you decide which versions of machines to use you mentioned you know using original ROMs but you know a lot of these games went through multiple revisions um even not getting into things like the unofficial speed hack from his Pac-Man, there were still, you know, different iterations released on these boards. And, you know, Space Invaders is a great example because it looks like, you know, looking at your website, you've gone with the joystick version, but I know there were some versions where the tank controls were, you know, two buttons, a left-right button. I've played that one in the arcades before. So how do you decide, like,

which of these is the definitive, like, physical version? Which of these is the definitive ROM version? I mean, that is very, very difficult. We try and sort or try and find the original runs, but you're absolutely right with SpaceVaders. I think in, especially in the US, it was the Midway version, which was kind of like two cabinets pushed together.

And I had the two buttons on there. We went with the Tato version, which would have been used more in the UK. So, yeah, that's how we chose that space invaders but it's a challenge yeah I think some of it is obviously when we pick

the machine I mean we'll probably come into how we pick why we select certain ones Matt probably is best place for that but there's quite a lot of liaison on I guess both with the

game and obviously the machine with the license saw so some of these things are very old you know I mean it's Pac-Man 40 years old so having availability of assets and such like there are some situations where we might will have certain drawings and such like so that can that can veer you towards a certain model and I guess it's availability as well I mean the other thing like we said is we don't just

want to do it from drawings we actually want the physical version as well so having our hands on what's available along with what we can I guess gleam and and sort of liaise with with the licensor is a combination of things, I think, probably that lead us down a certain sort of path of choosing, really. And I think it definitely helped. I mean, Namco have been fantastic. I mean, one of the reasons, we obviously work with Namco and a lot of other people. And I think one of the reasons we chose Namco first was it's still part of their DNA.

They've got a lot of respect of where they came from. and that was so important when working on the arcade, especially what we were trying to do, because they just got it. And they really helped us and backed us for this. But, yeah, I mean, the creator of Patman, I mean, we did some special signed 40th, 256, the levels in Pac-Man,

signed versions of Patman's 40th, and the Patman credit still works for Namca. I mean, they really know where they've come from, and they really helped us. And that was really important. I think that really helped. I mean, I know for you, Chris, working with NAMCO. Yeah, I mean, you know, I pretty much speak to them every day.

I mean, we're just, we're creating content. They're extremely helpful in terms of assets, pixel assets, style guides, giving us, you know, sort of steers creatively when we're producing our marketing kind of videos and such like. and it's an ongoing process. It's not a, it's a partnership. It sounds a bit cheesy, but it is. And, you know, we, we're very much proactive with them coming up with ideas and they're extremely supportive.

And we did work really well on 40th together and get the sort of party going with the celebration. Because, you know, these are key kind of dates, really. For everybody, I think fans really enjoyed that sort of, you know, week or so of, you know, a week or so of activity that we did, both Numskow and also the brand itself. So I think... Which is not always the case.

I mean, we speak to some publishers and we ask, can we make this arcade? And they go, do we own that? They honestly have no idea. Which is just head in hand, sacrilegious. But I suppose as companies move on and they do different stuff, but so yes, people like NAMCO and Tato again, You know, they know their roots and they get what we're trying to create.

Well, it looks like you've pretty much just worked with Japanese licensers so far. And I know, you know, when you're dealing with businesses in Japan, kind of making that initial breakthrough is the challenging part. And then, you know, once you've proven, hey, you know, we're reliable, we're trustworthy, we do good work, things are pretty smooth after that. So do you see these partnerships moving forward? And I guess kind of the corollary to that is, like, what would be the upward range of vintage for the games you want to produce? It looks like Bubble Bobble is kind of the outlier here. That was 1986, but everything else is pretty much early 80s. Would you want to explore, you know, delve further into the 80s, early 90s? Like if, you know, you're working with Konami on track and field, if they were like, oh, also, we know these guys at Disney, they'd love to give you the Simpsons license or the X-Men license. Let's do those, you know, early 90s arcade games. Would you be into that? Yes, very much.

I think the original machines were based off age, me. I basically went to high school I was very lucky to go to a high school near a seaside town who had the most amazing arcades but I basically was in school from like 84 to 89 so you'll probably see that the arcades we've chosen are basically based off my childhood

but Carl who was a little bit younger a little bit younger Carl's very keen well what's your kind of favourite machines Carl Well, I would say, obviously, when I was starting to grow up to play, it was things like turtles, see right, turtles, Simpsons. So all those kind of Konami cabs. I would love it if we could do things like that.

But I think definitely, yeah, we would love to expand and not just stick to the really old classics. But move out. Yes, the old, yeah. But yes, we will. We want to expand it. We want, I suppose the idea is we want people to build their own arcade. And to do that, we've got to, you know, give more from late 70s to 90s arcades is all part of the plan, yes.

Since you're basically creating bespoke hardware for each of these products, are you looking at games that have sort of unconventional control or input schemes? Like one of the things I really like about replicades line is that they have Tempest and they have what else do they have centipede? You know, so they've got like a tiny trackball and a tiny dial controller, which, you know, you can't, you can't get those on a console port of these games. So it does add a little extra value to, you know, like it kind of creates a proposition, you know, you can have the actual fairly authentic control experience with these. Are there any, like, dream projects that you would, you would want to tackle that would be kind of an off-the-wall interface or something that would be unique to the arcade hardware? Yeah, yeah, I mean, one for me, I don't believe. but this isn't a hint of anything we've signed because we haven't but I must admit one of my favourite arcades

again a very old one and I played it a few years ago in New York I went to the barcades which are amazing and we don't have stuff like that as cool as that in the UK and they had Luna Lander which is just fantastic

but he's got I don't know everyone remembers it had like a giant thrust I don't know how to like lever that you push backwards and forwards. And it's just amazing. It just basically the frusters for your spaceship. And I thought there's no other game like that. And I'd love to do that.

And I must admit, I know Arcade 1-Up, they did put Lunarlander in one of the machines, but they never put the fruster on. And I was disappointed with that. I thought they would have done that. But I thought that was so unique. And the game just, I mean, you can get it for your eye felt, but it's nowhere near as nice as pushing that giant fruster

leave of that you get on the arcade. I'd love to do that one. I would like to think that there's not a machine out there that we couldn't tackle, whether it was the York on Star Wars or anything like that. I think we could develop and get into there. I don't think any arcade could put off. Well, you guys have the Taito license with Bubble Bobble and Space Invaders. So I'd like to put in a request for the first two Darius games and Ninja Warriors.

so we can get that triple screen action going on because that is an experience you can't easily get at home. No, Ninja Warriors, we've got Arcade Club, which is in Manchester. They have that in mint condition. And yeah, what are you getting the advantage there is a wider screen, a wider screen experience, which would give you a breadth of gameplay, I think.

And they've also got the Darius as well just around the corner to it. So, you know, I mean, I don't think you're going to be able to have a little seat quite like the original, but certainly, you know, on a shelf, it would be something quite unique, I think. Yeah, I encountered a Darius machine for the first time in person last year at an arcade in Tokyo. And, you know, I played Ninja Warriors, but there is something about a horizontal shooter where you have, you know, three times as much horizontal space as usual, that really it's a unique challenge because you're trying to kind of keep an eye on so much and manage so much.

So, yeah, like having a replica of one of those would be really, really cool. Definitely. Yeah. I can hear Carl crying as he is. I'm looking at the countdown. And to be fair, I thought you were going to say Operation Wolf. So I'm very pretty honest. I don't know about a tiny leg gun game. That'd be tough.

Yeah, like a little oozy. I mean we could find a way There's a way I think there's the driving ones as well Obviously my my favorite game of all time Because it's not really a game It's an experience I'm the same sort of age of Matt to be honest

So outrun You know if you could get the sound You know the soundtrack's amazing And you know I don't know how you'd recreate the deluxe version It might have to be a stand-up But driving games are my big thing And light gun

light gun games at like a time crisis or something like that if you could pull it off would be pretty pretty cool guitar hero for Carla thing yes yeah yeah yeah there is a point where you have to I guess balance practicality and usability against the cool replica factor so like you know as great as it would be to have a quarter arcade style spy hunter it'd be really tough to play because you're you've got to use both hands to steer and shoot and then also you've got the foot pedal like how do you how do you accelerate or um you know like the 360 degree version of a galaxy force two or something like that's just not can't can't play that you're not going to fit inside that sounds like a challenge Carl we'll have a look we'll have a look I think the problem is

when you look at the wish list and we all do this you know we've all got different lists it is massive you know and we as I say sometimes I wish we did pick the games off what is easier to make, but we don't seem to do that. But we do want to vary it and bring out different machines. I think we've shown that with the Space Invaders was such a challenge. And track and field, obviously, next series of challenge because, as we all know, it needs to be able to take a bit of a hammering

to work on there. So, yeah, we want to push the boundaries and make cool stuff. And that's, again, we start this as fans, and then we work backwards, which is not, It shouldn't be the way you run a business, but it's much more fun doing it that way. So about how long does it take to bring one of these products from conception to release? I mean, you talked about taking like three years for Pac-Man, but that was the first one. I assume there's a smoother system at this point.

You know, you kind of have worked out the kinks and learned the ins and outs. Yeah, I mean, there still is kinks for every machine, but I think at the moment we're looking about one year. So from kind of deciding we're going to do that machine, sourcing and actually getting a physical arcade to look at, it's about one year. It could go over, could be quick ad all, kind of depends how the development goes once. Once we've kind of done the measurements and created what we call a CAD file, so the whole everything that the factory needs is start kind of sampling and tooling for us, that's where the kind of timescales can go up and down. just really depending on the complexity of the machine. But I'd like to say around a year.

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's a, it's a lesson we've learned. I think when we start this and we kind of guesstimate how long a project is going to take to do and then we go out with release dates for these machines. And obviously the moment due to the pandemic, you know, things have been delayed, which is outside of our control. But one of our lessons we're learning now is we do have. other machines obviously going and we're making samples of them.

And we're not going to announce machines until we've solved all the problems, such as the reflection glass on space invaders. So for future machines, we're going to be able to give much better date. And we are aiming to release a lot more machines in 2021 because it has been quite staggered as we went through these problems. We have changed factories. We've got better factories. and these guys are finding solutions to each of these problems that come up with every arcade.

So it may seem like we're very quiet at the moment and not announced any new machines, but that's because they're much further on than they have been in the past. And when we give a date, we should be able to stick to it and get these machines out quicker. Yeah, I think everyone understands that, Yeah, I think everyone understands that, or most people understand that manufacturing processes have been a bit it impacted by, you know, factory shutdowns and things like that for the pandemic. And I know a lot of your games have been kind of pushed out several months. So, you know, what's announced is already kind of running into spring 2021.

So I feel like, you know, it's a pretty good lineup to look forward to. There's still, what, four games that are you announced? But can you give any, are you able to give any hints or vague allusions to what we can expect beyond Space Invaders and Bubble Bobble? we can't name the machines just because we're not naming anything so we can make it which is one of the issues we've learned before we do have another machine being announced this year I think that's fair for me to say Chris yeah yep yep and also we're looking at other add-ons accessories as well yes and that could so I don't know if it's same in the US

so in the UK we have Hornby trains in trains that people set up. And this is how we're seeing kind of quarter arcades a little bit. So people have the train sets, but what people do with the trade sets is they build in accessories. They have fishing ponds and trees and bridges. And I think this is where we see quarter arcades. We've built a set downstairs with our arcades in it,

and we have carpet, and we have little fire extinguishers, and we have stools and tables and TVs and jukeboxes and all this sort of stuff in there. And we've built our own arcades. It's a quarter scale arcade. And that's where we really see this going as well, as well as the machines themselves is, you know, we've even got ashtrays in that.

I was going to say, like, you're talking about this, and I'm thinking it'd be really great to see some cocktail-style versions of some of these cabinets and then little, little scale models of, like, kind of textured red plastic cups that you would get at pizza parlors and archa, like, ashtrays and things like that. Yes, and this is exactly what we're looking at. building even, you know, the stools that you would find in an arcade. So you can build this set in relatively small areas, you know, on shelves or where it would be.

But the good thing is you can build it based on how you remember arcade. So mine would be very 80s, a lot of neon, a lot of black light on there and stuff, whereas Carl's would probably be a bit brighter, a bit more 90s sort of thing. But I do think that's where we're going with this is when people say, what's your favorite arcade machine? It's more, I think Chris said, alluded to it's the sound of them all together. When you go into an arcade, it's not one machine sound. It's the mixture of them all.

And when we've got all our machines on downstairs, it does take me back to the 80s when I would go into an arcade. And I think that's what we're trying to recreate is customize and make your own arcade. Yeah. I mean, it sounds a bit odd, but I don't. don't care, because I'm a fairly odd guy when it comes to vintage days. The best experience I can ever have is, you know, in my game room, switch all the lights off, to pull the blind down and turn the machines on.

And when it's pitch black with the marquee sort of as dark as anything, that's when you get the real experience. I mean, there was a couple of arcades I went to as a kid. One was by the seaside, and it was, you know, the pier arcade was very bright. but the one just in the town centre you had to go down two flights of stairs and they barely had a light on in there it was it was quite dark and dingy

but it had this sort of vibe that you could get nowhere else and when you come out of the place you know you were blinking because it was so dark and that's often when we go to these gaming events where they do it right where there's nothing worse when gamers are walking around in the arcade going oh it's so bright in here

I don't like it. And when you've got the thing dark, that's where, and you've got all the machines on, that's where you kind of get all misty-eyed, I do anyway, of how it used to be. And that, that for me is the kind of, is the point of it for,

you know, the experience aspect of it. Because it is different from playing on your phone. You know, you've got, it's not full size, but it kind of, it is, you know, you've got the sort of idea of holding the joystick,

and the buttons and everything, just on a smaller scale that, you know, my partner allows me to fit into my room without getting a divorce. So that's really, that works for me quite nicely, I think. Yeah, I think that's part of it as well is actually space. I think would all of a room filled with full-size arcades, but usually it's just not possible. So for us, this is the next best thing. Yeah.

Yeah, well, you mentioned the Resident Evil incense. that you did before. Are you considering like an arcade incense, maybe like a custom pack? So there's like the showbiz pizza where you kind of smell pizza and cigarettes. Then there's like the, you know, the smell of like soda that's been kind of worn into the carpet. And it's, you know, you can just smell how sticky it is in there. It's not necessarily the, the best smells in the world. But I think, you know, for those of us who grew up in arcades, playing games in those, those environments, we'd be like, whoa, that's, that's authentic. That is it right there.

100%. Yes. Yes. Yes. If people want it, we'll make it. I think, again, it goes back to that podcast you did with limited run games when he was on about the smell of trading cards. And he's like, you know, you don't want to wear it as aftershave. But that smell, you know, of opening up some trading cards or going into an arcade. And as you say, it's not the greatest smell in the world. But it's the smell that you remember.

And I think the nostalgia that. comes from smells is something that we bring into it that's why these arcades are there that's why the physical you don't you can't you know you can't smell a download it's it doesn't it doesn't have it doesn't have that same appeal and it's kind of you know going back to my beetles side you know I own all every original Beatles album you know but one of what you know it's not the same when I tell Alexa to go and play sergeant peppers as putting on that crackly album and the art and the art cover and work in there as well and that's what the arcades is all about the machine themselves were just beautiful the artwork you know

some of my favorites like tron or whatever it just looked amazing when you played it it was often blocky squares but that wasn't the point it was the imagination and the feel of it but yes we will make arcade candles it's on the list it's on the list yeah definitely but it is it's It's what it's all about, and the quarter arcades is all about the nostalgia and capturing that moment in time with the arcades, but hopefully as well, bringing it to, as we said before, new audiences and people that haven't played them before, because they are missing out. Yeah, I mean, I have some nephews and nieces who are, you know, elementary age, and they've been really fascinated by the Pac-Man quarter arcade, and, you know, I think it is a fairly simple

game and there's not a lot of equivalence to Fortnite in it, so they lose interest after a little while, but it's still been like, wow, this is a new experience. It's different and strange. So, yeah, there's definitely that element of dipping your toes in something new and different, as opposed to just the nostalgia angle. Yeah, yeah, 100%. And, you know, arcade games had to be simple as in you can pick it up with one quarter or 10p and understand what you're doing. But to master like Gallagher, which it seems a really simple game, but to master Gallagher

and learn the patterns of all the ships and that, it is still very complicated which is simple game. You know, it's 81 for Gallagher, but it's, there's a lot of depth in these games the more you play them.

Yeah, I agree. I think for me as well, I kind of missed Pac-Man and Gallagai in the arcades, but obviously just with work on with these titles and having the, the originals, I've become obsessed with Pac-Man and Gallagher to the point where I was actually

memorizing, I was learning patterns. And it's just kind of amazing how well they were designed where people could put a quarter in one of those and stand for four hours on a single game. It's just, it's quite amazing. Just it was so well made. But like Matt said, easy to play, but just very, very hard to master. All right. I think that's probably about all the time I have right now. So I don't want to cut you guys off, but I also don't want to, you know, keep you on too long. So I think we will wind down here. But it's been great talking to you about the process and getting a kind of a glimpse into what it takes to make, you know, really high quality replica arcade machines that, you know, really evoke the memory and experiences.

Like, I'm really excited for DigDug. That is, along with Gallagher, that is one game that whenever I see it at a convention or whatever. I have to put in a quarter. I just have to play it. So having, having, you know, a very small, somewhat small version of the real thing will be, it may impact my productivity, I don't know, but it's going to be great. So, yeah, if you'd like to each kind of take a turn and let us know where we can find you online and also, you know, give kind of the overall numskull pitch, this is the opportunity to do that. So please jump in.

So if you want to find out about kind of regular. information and what we're doing in the community. There's a few different ways with Numb Skull. You can follow us on our social channels. That's Numb Skull Designs, all one word, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and on YouTube. And we also have a very cool little Facebook fan group. It's actually run by fans, not by us. We're just guests in the group, and that's the quarter arcades fan group on Facebook,

so you can look on there as well. And you've got all manner of people, all different ages, and put in their kind of daily comments about the machines, their own kind of game room pictures and sharing information about how to kind of play the games, even tips on how to play the games. And we go in there and have chat with everybody. And we've also got just recently launched a get featured area for us where we're kind of looking at some of the cool game rooms

that people have with their machines. Often they have other collections as well, which is great because it's not just collecting our machines, also other kind of retro gaming stuff. And we are featuring people on our social channels, picking not the best, but just ones we find interesting. And everybody who gets featured gets a very special members pin, which has landed on my desk this week.

So they'll be going out on a weekly basis. And then at the end of every month, we pick a winner, and the winner can choose an arcade of their choice. That's something we've just got going recently for the community, really. And it's probably worth mentioning here. It's in the title of the episode, but N-S-K-U-M-S-K-U-L-L, just in case people type it wrong. Yes, yes, which people often do to be fair. Good point, good point. Brilliant.

Excellent. Thank you very much. All right, great. Well, thanks everyone for taking the time to Colin and chat, and yeah, we'll look forward to seeing future releases. And I'll keep my eyes open for that Darius machine. Yes. Come on, guys, we're going to be late for our first day. Come on, guys, we're going to be late for class.

Oh, darn, not on our first day. Don't worry. I pressurized all of our bike tires to optimal. PSI for speed. Wow. So we should be able to average 9.6 miles per hour, which should get us to class on time.

We love Podford University for teaching us skills. Podford University, iTunes, Spotify, and everywhere you get podcasts. Welcome to Casual Magic, the show where we explore the fun side of magic gathering. I'm your host,

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Yes, that's right. This episode's not over. We're still talking. But I am now talking with a different person instead of that person I was talking to earlier. The person I'm talking to now is Retronauts East, Mainstay, and fan favorite Chris Sims. Actually, Chris, are you a fan favorite? I was going to ask you the same thing. I'm going to say, yes.

I feel like all retronauts personalities are divisive, and you are divisive, but so am I. There's one dude who comments on every single podcast that we post on the website just to talk about how terrible I am as a host. Every time, every week, there's like 10 paragraphs of him basically saying, Jeremy Parrish does not know how to host a podcast. He is much suckier than Bob Mackey. So, you know, whatever. You win some, you lose some. I feel like I might have been a fan favorite

before that Smash Bros. episode. Hmm. Post Smash Brothers episode, who knows. Yeah, I think we drove away all the Smash Brothers fans. So everything is much quieter around here now. And I was the one who liked it. I know. It's funny.

But you didn't, you didn't religiously memorize every single detail, like the mechanics of some arcane character who's only shown up in one entry or remember where Luigi made his debut. And therefore, you are bad and cannot talk about video games. So instead of talking about video games this week, we're going to talk about wrestling. And by we, I mean you, because I know nothing about wrestling, aside from the fact that it involves large, sweaty people.

And, you know, that can describe a lot of things. So, yes, specifically, we are going to talk about Fire Pro wrestling. Okay, I lied, that is a video game. But it's a video game and wrestling altogether at the same time, one big sweaty mashup of digital information. And who doesn't love sweaty digits? All right, maybe I should let you talk. are we talking about FirePro? We were talking about FirePro.

I mean, the honest answer is we're talking about FirePro because we were talking about things that we could discuss that I would not need to do a whole lot of research on, and I have a long history with FirePro wrestling. Oh, really? How far back does that history go? It goes back to at least 1997, maybe 1986. Okay. That game was not released in the U.S. back then with that series, was it?

It was all import, right? Out of curiosity, completely unrelated to what we're discussing, what is the statute of limitations on admitting that you have, like, played ROMs on Z-Ness in the 90s? You're fine. Okay. It's been more than 20 years. The FBI can't touch you. Yeah, I played it on ROMs on Zinness in the 90s.

Okay. Back in 96-97, I got into what is unquestionably, like, the nerdiest thing I've ever done. and I say that as someone who has written X-Men comics and appears frequently on a video game podcast. And what that is, is e-wrestling. It's like backyard wrestling, but in your basement? No, no, no. This was essentially an online role-playing game.

We didn't really call it that because we were all super into wrestling. Yeah, Sportos don't really call their role-playing experiences, role-playing experiences, even though they totally are. Madden is an RPG, et cetera, et cetera. So basically what there would be was there was a forum that you would post on as though you were a wrestler doing, you know, cutting promos. And then the whoever was the booker of the eFED you were in would decide whoever made the best promos, they would win. There were some where you would like play as existing like real life pro wrestlers in some kind of like, you know, dream federation. where, you know, WCW guys could wrestle New Japan guys, could wrestle WWF guys.

And I never got into those because I didn't really see the point of pretending to be, I don't know, Sean Michaels or whatever. What I was into were the ones that were like full D&D, where you would create your own character and then you would do the promos and you would also write things called strats, which were match strategies, which is where you would specifically. quickly email privately, the Booker, and discuss how you were like going to, uh, how you would, would wrestle the match, like how you would counter your opponent, uh, like their signatures, like their signature moves. And also like whether you wanted to win or lose. Like, obviously, most people weren't it to win, but some people, you know, much like real pro wrestling, wanted to be jobbers. Make the better story. Yeah. See, you do know something about wrestling. I used up, I used up all my knowledge in that.

two-word sentence. It's terrible. I'm done. I'm spent. So this was a super huge thing in the, well, I say super huge, but it was big in the 90s among a very certain, very specific class of wrestling fan. There were a ton of different e-feds. A lot of people who are in wrestling now, like, will discuss things in terms of like, you know, this is the most e-fed booking I've ever seen. A lot of people just wanted to run their own promotions and make themselves the stars. Again, it's a lot like real life pro wrestling. But one of the things that I did, I was made the Booker of an eFED at the ripe and experienced age of 15 years old, which was also around the same time that I was getting into playing a lot of ROMs on Z's Nest.

And what those dovetailed into was that, obviously, I was a big fan of the wrestling games that I know you've talked about on the show, like WCW versus NW Revenge. I have not talked about those. I think there has been an episode that I was not on where that was discussed, but I was forced into seclusion for that. You refused. You were like, I won't. It wasn't that I refused. It was just they put me in quarantine to keep me safe. But you know about them.

You know that, like, they're considered, like, even today, kind of high watermarks for pro wrestling games. Yep. Yep. I mean, people still love trotting out there in 64, make a character, like, create memes and things like that out of it. So there's clearly a lot of mental traction among the gaming audience. Yeah. And the thing that I was really into with games like No Mercy and WrestleMania 2000, which would come along a few years later, were creating a character, especially if you could go in and just choose every single move and choose every part of the look.

And what I didn't know until I got into playing Super Fire Pro Wrestling X Premium was that that kind of started with the Fire Pro games. And when I realized that that level of kind of granular character creation existed in a Super Nintendo game, I got so into it and I ended up making every single character in my eFed like without like I did not consult anyone but obviously like you know I had their

every since it was done on forums you would also have like a GeoCities or an Angelfire page this is actually how I taught myself HTML and why for years I wrote all of my blog posts like in text edit with HTML and then pasted them into a blogger

WordPress. But you would have like the rosters and so people would describe their characters. You'd have a nice physical description, height, weight, all the relevant things. So I would just go to that and then I would look at the moves they liked. I would look at the way they described their characters and I would make them. And I did this for hours pretty much every day for like a month or two because I just really enjoyed the character creation. It's actually something that I still find playing Super Fire Pro World. today, or I guess, I guess Fire Pro World is not super anymore. But even today, I find it very soothing and calming and repetitive in the way that like I like Stardue Valley.

You know, like it's that same thing of finishing of a character and then starting a new one and then being like, okay, what is his light strike? What is their, what is their light grapple? What is their light grapple pressing up, pressing down, pressing forward or back? What's their

finisher? what's their signature move. I love it. And I got into that because of the very granular character creation in Superfire for Wrestling X Premium. That's also how I learned

the names of all the moves because even though the games were in, I believe there are like fan translations now. Again, the statute of limitations is up. You're sure on this.

Yep. Okay. Nancy Reagan can't hurt you. You're safe. Oh, who. Even though like there's fan translations And it's now, like, at the time, FirePro was in Japanese. Like you said, it was not brought to America, like, as an official release until the Game Boy Advance, which would have been, like, well, like...

2001. 2001, yeah. Well after. But a lot of wrestling terminology, even in Japan, is in English, because it's kind of imported from American pro wrestling to Japan. And, in fact, as you know, I'm sure, and as everybody listening... if this knows. Like, even the name pro wrestling is the name of pro wrestling in Japan. Yeah, it's just puro resu. So, yeah, it's just to add some extra vowels in there to the US word, maybe truncate the, you know, an extra syllable or two. And you're good, you got it.

You got the Japanese form. Yeah. And it's worth noting that pro wrestling really became huge in Japan in the 80s when cool America was kind of at its peak over there. And And, you know, people would just use English names for things, English language names for things, because it just made it seem cool and exotic and, you know, kind of fashion forward trendy. And, yeah, I've talked to developers who were like, oh, yeah, our studio has an English language name because we just thought it sounded cool. That's what everyone did. Yeah. And again, there was a lot of crossover in the 80s and in the 90s where the promotions in America would have. working arrangements with promotions in Japan, primarily New Japan Pro Wrestling, which is the

big company. They are the WWE of Japan, but better. In every regard except for women's pro wrestling. New Japan has no women's pro wrestling, but there are several Joshi promotions in Japan. I was going to say, I'm more familiar with Japanese women's wrestling, not character, characters, I mean, kind of characters, personalities than I am with the men's side of things. I think they show up more on sort of the international scene because they're more distinctive and really stand out.

And also, they tend to be kind of unafraid to be who they are in a way that you don't see in a lot of, a lot of personalities from Japan. So they kind of stand out, yeah. Also kind of famed for being, like, innovators and also being, like, super violent. like some of the most devastating looking moves like the the Kudome Valentine from Megumi Kudo which is also called the Vertebraker in America and obviously you see someone like Bolnikano or Asher Kong

and they are like unforgettable especially Bolnikano who will come to the well did did come to the ring basically dressed as Alicard from somebody of the night so you know there's a lot of overlap in my interests going on But because of that, even though the menus were in Japanese, a lot of the terminology was in English. And so I could understand, A, all of the move names were essentially in English. And the specific terminology of, like, calling anything from the top term vocal was an avalanche, which I think is a term that I wish more people would use in America because I find it so evocative. And I found out that Inferno is going from the apron of the ring to outside, like an Inferno choke slam.

That's in FirePro World. So it became something where as a super nerdy kid, teen, adult, who kind of prided himself on knowing minutiaa and details, like that was the way I learned not only all of the moves, but I learned about like these moves that I had never seen before because they were only. in Japan and I actually read a thing fairly recently where someone was talking about a wrestler was talking about how the generation of pro wrestlers that are my age a little bit younger like people who are in their 30s now had this idea of Japanese wrestling because in the era of tape trading and importing and fire pro you would really only see like the big matches so you would see them doing all of the super extreme stuff

that they would only pull out for the biggest shows because those were the only things you saw you just assumed pro wrestling in Japan was like that and that's why this entire generation came up doing these wild, complicated and honestly dangerous moves just as a thing that they do because they wanted to be like

the exciting Japanese wrestling and I think FirePro was a big part of that. Unfortunately, because I was playing it in Japanese and because I was really only doing like the character creation and then having my wrestler

beat up the other guys in matches, I didn't get to experience the story mode of Superfire Pro X Premium, which was the first video game work of someone who had gone to be one of my favorite game developers

who is Suda 51, Suda Goichi. So now that you've mentioned Goichi Suda, this is probably a good time to kind of dive into the history of Fire Pro wrestling, because it's important and connects with a lot of things. It's not just Goichi Suda, who would go on to be the No More Hero Guy, No More Heroes guy, and Grasshopper manufacturer and everything. But the FirePro series stretches back and kind of spiritually to the very popular NES game Pro Wrestling, which was not made by human entertainment, the developer behind FirePro. But the lead designer on it, Masato Masaya, was a huge wrestling fan. He was very young when pro wrestling came out. I think he was like 19 or 20, but he was just a dude who was super, super into wrestling,

pro wrestling, and was really good at translating it into a compelling video game. And he captured, you know, the drama and the glamour and also the grappling of pro wrestling in pro wrestling for NES. And, you know, it really stood out from other wrestling games of the era when it came out. Here, in the U.S., there were already a couple of wrestling games on U.S., there were already a couple of wrestling games on U.S. On NES. One of them was, you know, an adaptation of muscle, Kinnikou Man, and it was terrible, just kind of like a dumb brawler where occasionally you would get invincibility power-ups, very glitchy, not very fun. And then there was tag team wrestling by Dayday East, which I think

was a good intention, like it had a good mindset behind it, but was horrible in execution. because basically what would happen in tag team wrestling is you know you were two dudes in a ring and you'd face off against each other and you'd get in close and then you'd have to press a button at just the right time and that button would bring up a menu and then within like a second maybe two seconds you would have to scroll through the menu choose the move you wanted to activate and then it would execute whatever move you had selected in that menu but that attempt to kind of do you know, real-time wrestling and menu-based commands was really, really not good, especially because the game was so glitchy and so unresponsive,

and it was just really hard to get it to do what you wanted. So when pro wrestling came along and basically let you do lots of cool individual moves for your wrestlers, each of whom had their own kind of personality and style, it really kind of brought the best of both previous games into one work without all the flaws and defects those games had. So it really stood out. And, you know, even though I'm not a wrestling fan myself, I still enjoyed playing that back in the day. And, you know, friends would bring it over and we'd chomp each other's head with the Amazon and so forth. So that was developed by a studio called Try, which I've had no luck in finding any information on. I really dug into the history

of pro wrestling when I was covering it for NES works. And there's just not a lot of concrete info available. And unfortunately, Masato Messiah passed away a few years ago. Actually, been like eight or nine years now. So, you know, that that kind of first person information is no longer really possible to track down. And he was not very, he was not very visible during his life. He only gave a few interviews in Japanese that I've been able to find. So there's not a lot of info on sort of the, the early origins of pro wrestling turning into fire pro, but apparently try was absorbed into human or became human. And, And human for quite a while just produced kind of work-a-day type stuff.

Like, they were responsible for all the NES exercise mat games, like world-class track meet, aka stadium games. So, you know, they do have the distinction of having created the most expensive NES game, collectible ever. But, you know, they weren't really making things that stood out. They made Monster Party, which was weird and cool. But I think they really hit their stride when they created Fire Pro Wrestling in 1989. which was not for NES or Super NES.

It was for the PC engine turbographics. And it really stood out for a lot of reasons, you know, one being the customization and two being kind of the perspective. And, you know, they had kind of dabbled in wrestling a little bit before that or around that time. They produced a wrestling game for Hal, which came to the U.S. as Hal wrestling, which has a lot of the hallmarks of a fire pro, but not its best ideas. I think they were kind of keeping that for themselves because FirePro was a game that

human developed and published themselves. It wasn't a work for hire for another studio. And so what you tend to find with studios that do a lot of work for hire is that they'll, you know, they'll do good work for whoever they've contracted with, but then they will really kind of pour everything into the games that they created. Like you look at way forward and they do good, solid work, you know, really better than a lot of the licenses they get they get shackled with deserve, but the stuff that they really care about is stuff like Shantay or Mighty Switch Force, which they own wholly. And, you know, they just put a lot more

love and care into those games than they do something like, you know, Sabrina or the mummy or whatever, although actually the mummy's pretty good. The mummy game is actually extremely good. Yeah, actually, it is, it is very good. I played it before the switch patch had come out. So it had some some issues, but it's, it's come a long way. And, um, yeah, but anyway, that's, that's a sidebar. We've, we've talked about the mummy before. The point is that basically fire pro is, is humans baby and they did their best work for it. And you, you had, um, Messiah, sorry, I keep calling a Messiah. Um, Masato Masuda, um, was, was kind of the, the big overseer for the series for the first few entries. And then Goichi Suda took it over as director and writer with,

super fire pro wrestling so that was my one contribution to this podcast you are now allowed to talk for the rest of the time yeah so um the kind of major innovations of fire pro ended up being a what i think the signature is of fire pro which is that very intense character creation uh and that would later be adopted by the aki games which would be the kind of certain you know turn of the century in 64 WWF games would adopt that kind of character creation. And that would continue on to being what I think most wrestling game fans preferred. Because you would get stuff like the PlayStation games made around the same time didn't have that. And they were also bad.

But that style would come back. the character creation in like WW2K14 was like that as well, like that kind of granular level. But FirePro, it never went to 3D graphics. It always used a, no, I think I'm right on this one. You corrected me last time I said this word on the show. I think it's an isometric view, right? It's not, but I cannot, I can never remember what it's actually called.

So let's just call it isometric, even though we know that's not 100% accurate and just use that word for convenience because people know exactly what we're talking about when we say it. It's a forced isolinear perspective maybe. I don't know. Whatever. Well, instead of the view of the ring from a side, like you would see in most recent games and on television, FirePro would show the ring from a corner.

They would show it diagonally. So it's a diamond, which gave it the, it may. made it easier to move to corners. I'm pretty sure that's the entire reason for it, so that there could be like a 2D access that would take you to the corner so you could do turn buckle moves. Makes sense.

But again, that's the kind of visual signifier. But they never went to like 3D graphics. Like today, like the newest FirePro game, which came out in 2018, FirePro World, is in that same kind of style. And because of that, it's really super adaptable. Like, they make the wrestlers out of a bunch of parts, and so they have this set of, like, upper arms, lower arms, elbows, upper body, you know, like chest, abdominals, thigh, foot, like all of these individual body parts that they make, again, like hundreds of pieces for, but they can all be combined, and because they're sort of all compatible with each other, you can make anyone out of this set of parts.

which comes back into play with the character creation because not only do you have the characters that it comes with which are often when the games are not licensed as in like it's just FirePro there are always analogs for existing wrestlers divided up into analogs for different wrestling promotions and the Game Boy Advance games were especially I think notorious for this

in that the names in Japanese were maybe just like a little too close to like Stone Cold Steve Austin. Like you had to, like they had to be changed even more for the American version. But that gives it a super amount of granular control in both the look and the movesets. Especially now when you have people doing this massive library of fan-created content, which includes I think maybe just a couple months ago they put out a create a move set for Fire Pro Wrestling which means even if the move that you like is not in the game it can now be made by someone

and people just go super hard with these there's so many really good creations out there there But getting back to the Super Nintendo one, Super Fire for Wrestling X Premium had the story written by Suda 5-1. Do you know anything about this story, Jeremy? I know that it's very dark. It has a reputation. dark. I mean, I wouldn't expect anything less from Suda. It's dark in a way that like his other work, I think, doesn't come close to. Because it is a, and I guess you might want to put a content warning for this on the show for discussions of suicide. But the game, like most of these games, you start off as like a young wrestler who gets in and you progress and you win titles and that's kind of it. The story that Souter writes,

is that you do all that stuff, but you remain unsatisfied and hollow, and it does not fill the void inside you. And then Rick Flair steals your wife and you kill yourself. Yikes. The end. Rick Flair's kind of a jerk, huh? Yeah, he is a heel in this one.

And the character is actually named Dick Slender, which is hilarious. You know, there was a king slender in pro wrestling for NES, so maybe it's part of a legacy. Well, who is, if memory serves, he's the Rick Flair of that game. I could not tell you that. But yeah, that's wild.

And that is mega dark. And that earned that game like infamy in Japan. And as I understand it, kind of launched a suit of 51's career as the guy who writes the weird stories, which is what he is today. Like if you think about the plots of No More Heroes, which is also, I would say, fairly dark. in a cartoonishly violent sort of way he's he's that guy still so that comes back in fire for wrestling world where he returned to write a story where you play as that guy's son who becomes a pro wrestler and all throughout playing that mode I was wondering what the turn was going to be right and then at the end of that story spoiler warning for fire for wrestling world's

Fighting Road mode. You are visited by the ghost of your father on the night before your championship title match, and he approves of you, and then he gets to go on to his eternal rest, and you win the championship. I see. So happy ending at last. Yeah. And keep in mind, that is 21 years later. So it's like a real dynasty.

Yeah. Well, at least 21 years for me, I guess. I played it in 97. Wild. So did you play any of the... FirePro's in between the Super NES one and FirePro world, I assume yes, voraciously. Yes, I played the Game Boy ones, or the Game Boy Advance ones, which unfortunately, because of the limited face buttons, weren't as good as I wanted them to be. Like, I remember being very disappointed in Fire Pro Wrestling advance when it came out.

And I did kind of go back and play around with it a little bit later, or more recently, to prepare for this episode. And unfortunately, I am now comparing it to Fire Pro Wrestling World, which is among the finest, like arguably one of the best pro wrestling games ever made, if not the best. Tough competition. Yeah. But the games remain the same. Like if you have played one, you know how to play them. There are only slight differences in what you can do as far as like countering or different. And, you know, obviously they expand the moves with every iteration.

They explained modes, like Fire for Wrestling World, in addition to all the wrestling stuff, has, like, a MMA-style matches where you are in, it's a hexagon, because that is not copyrighted. That is free to use. So it's more of a strategy war game kind of thing. Yeah. But essentially, they have remained the same with just, like, graphical improvements. and I guess probably more granular looks to them. Fire Pro Wrestling World, like, there have been, like, Fire Pro games that had those licensed characters that had, like, you know, it wasn't just Dick Slender.

It was actually Rick Flair, except I don't think Rick Flair has ever actually appeared in one. But the Fire Pro Wrestling World had a license with New Japan. So kind of the big deal of it was you could get not just, like, the creator wrestler mode versions of all the big popular New Japan guys, but, like, they were actually in there and you didn't have to make like a Bullet Club logo for yourself.

The only thing is there are certain match types and I believe there are probably match types that are more popular in America because I don't think you see a lot of say ladder matches for instance. At least in my experience of watching New Japan Pro Wrestling

you don't see a lot of ladder matches. You see those all the time in America but there's no ladder match mode in FirePro. There is is a regular match, an ODQ match, and a cage match. And then also you can take it to the hexagon if you really want to throw down MMA style. But again, that's kind of the way it's been forever. So do you think there is a future for FirePro wrestling, or is FirePro wrestling world so expansive and variable and DLC friendly that they can just keep updating that one for a long time?

It's worth mentioning that human entertainment dissolved in the late 90s, I believe. And one of the companies that emerged from human was Spike. There was also a grasshopper manufacturer where Goichi Suda went. But a company called Spike emerged from sort of the wreckage of human. And after a while, a few years later, Spike picked up the rights to, they purchased the rights to FirePro. And now Spike has merged with Chunsoft as of like a decade ago. go. So FirePro Wrestling World is a Spike ChuneSoft game, but a lot of the original folks who work on the series, worked on the vintage games, are still with the company and still kind of, you know,

overseeing it. And I interviewed, like, the director of Fire Pro Wrestling World back when it first came out, I went to ChuneSoft's offices and, you know, talk to him. And I really just kind of focused on the current game. And I think he was a little taken aback because I didn't really want to talk about wrestling or like the classic games. I was just like, sorry, that's just not my thing. But I think he was, I keep disappointing Japanese developers who are like, yes, an American, I can talk about my love for American sports. Like Hiro Yuki Ito of Final Fantasy fame really wanted to talk about football with me.

And I was just like, sports, I don't know, sorry. So yes, I'm the disappointing American. But all of that is to say that, you know, there is a lot. lot of the sort of original blood of the Fire Pro games, the classic games, even though Suda's not directly involved most of the time aside from like, you know, contract jobs. And obviously, Masuda passed away quite a while back now. There's still kind of that legacy happening. So the people who are working on the series now are really, you know, they're passionate about it. They care because it's their baby. And they've, they've been with it for so long for decades. And they

really want to do their best with it. So, you know, with that in mind, I'm curious where you kind of see the franchise going from here, if anywhere. I think it is possible for like FirePro World to kind of go on, if not forever, at least for a good long while. And that seems to be the case, because again, the create a move mode was a free expansion for the game that came out like two years after it was released. You know, like their game comes out in 2018, that mode comes out in 2020. There's a very active community. And since the, like, the graphics are, like, very detailed, but they're also, like,

you know, sprites. It's, it's archaic. If you look at this, it's not going to look like a WW2K game. It's going to look like, you know, Street Fighter 2. So because of that sort of studiously archaic design, as well as the, like, nearly infinite customizability. Hey, FirePro world could just be what it is forever. Yeah, it's worth mentioning also that FirePro Wrestling World is a kind of a step back toward the vintage games.

They moved away from polygonal graphics and, you know, kind of immersive realism to that isometric, isolinear view or whatever, and, you know, jointed sprites. And basically said, the appeal of this game is not its visuals. it's not about like realistic you know sweat rendering and things like that it's about customization it's about the the mechanics like it's really important to emphasize the fact that fire pro is really like you can go really deep into the the real tactics and skills and moves of wrestling as you've mentioned and that really sets it apart from from other wrestling games it's very focused on grappling Whereas, you know, especially back when FirePro made its debut, wrestling games tended to be just like bad fighting games,

where you get into the ring and just like hit each other a lot. And then, you know, someone would fall down and they'd keep getting up until they ran out of stamina. Whereas FirePro is not like that at all. Like you can take an aggressive approach if you want, but you really, it's really about the grappling. So, yeah, like as it exists now, FirePro Wrestling World is kind of a game out of time. It's like remove from sort of the current console trends and designs. It looks more like an indie game in a lot of ways. And I feel like that works to its favor because it doesn't have to keep up.

You don't have to get yearly updates. You don't have to worry about roster updates. You don't have to worry about, you know, like I said, the sweat rendering and the ragdoll physics and things like that. It's much more of a classic approach and much less dependent on modern technology. and gimmickery and that sort of thing. Yeah, and that's something that I didn't really touch on was kind of the

depth, not just of the movesets, but of the AI and the way the game is presented and the way the game judges your fights. A fighting game does not capture what's good about pro wrestling. If you win a fighting game without ever taking a hit,

you get that, you know, perfect. Like, that's great for a fighting game, but it's a boring wrestling match. And FirePro, more than any other game, like even the great N64 wrestling games, like the best of the WWE games, it understands pro wrestling and what makes it work in a way that no other game does. This is a game that, like, ideally is meant to go, like, it's meant to simulate a good match. You're supposed to go back and forth. You're supposed to have a dramatic comeback. You're supposed to, you know, hit your finisher and win.

and the game will rate you based on what it's, you know, fictional audience thinks of your match based on stuff like, was it suspenseful? Did it go back and forth? Did it take like a nice amount of time? Or did you just, you know, get in there and get a squash in three minutes and never take a hit? Like, there's literally a button you press in Fireworld for selling moves. Like you can press a button to take a move rather than to do one on. your own. And obviously, like, choosing to take the move has less of a consequence than just getting hit with one because there are mechanical benefits. Like, you have to take time and breathe. The button is for breathing. So you can regain your stamina. It simulates pro wrestling in a way that, like, a lot of video games don't. And that honestly, I feel like maybe a lot of people who like fighting games or even people who are into pro wrestling would probably find boring to play, but that I love, because I get

super into the idea of, like, you know, simulating the matches and trying to tell the story. There's a promotion mode in FirePro that, again, is more of like a sim game than a wrestling game. It is optional to play the matches. All you're interested in in that mode

is signing wrestlers and figuring out what size arena you can run a show in. Again, I love it. But it is something that if You want the experience of a fighting game, you are definitely not going to get. It's, it is a completely different category of game that is a wrestling game in a way that a fighting game can never be. All right. Well, that is FirePro.

I think we've kind of covered it and let you know, there's probably room to discuss it at some point and really get into the lore and that sort of thing. But for the moment, I think that's a pretty good synopsis of the appeal of FirePro wrestling and the, I think what we'll see is, you know, the durability of fire pro wrestling world. And I've dug up my interview and the current head of the series, the franchise is Tomoyuki Matsumoto, who worked at Human back in the 90s. So like I said, you know, there is that sort of legacy attached to it. So I'm sure, you know, as long as he's still with Spike Chunsoft, you know, until he retires, there's still someone at the company who is very deeply invested, you know, on a personal level in making sure the franchise stays alive and active. So, yeah, here's hoping that it continues to do well for them. They bring it to some new platforms.

I think right now it's just PS4 and Steam. It seems like a huge miss not to have it on Switch. But at the very least, maybe they'll put it on PS5, Xbox Series X. Is that what that next system is called? I can't keep track of Microsoft's terrible naming schemes. Anyway, yes, thanks, Chris. Good talking to you. It's been a long time since you've been on the show.

It has been. Yes, maybe someday we will get to see each other face to face again. Wouldn't that be great? One day. Someday. In the meantime, though, it's all remote. So, yes, thanks for calling in. Would you like to do the usual tell everyone where to find you and pimp your work and so on and so forth? Yeah, you can find me by going to t-he-isb.com.

That has links to stuff that I do like other podcasts, things that I've written online. places you can find me on social media that I try to stay as far away from as I possibly can but feel free to follow or yell at me there. Also, if you want me to make Jeremy Parrish and upload him for FirePro, let me know because I will do that. Boy, I don't know about that.

What would your signature move be, Jeremy? I don't know. Shaking a cocktail, the cocktail shaker where I guess I pick up someone and shake them over my head. I don't know. We could do it. I'll figure it out. All right.

Sounds cool. And as for myself, you can find me as GameSpite on Twitter and doing stuff at Retronauts here on the Retronauts podcast, also on YouTube. Look for me, Jeremy Parrish, blah, blah, blah. You know, anyway, Retronauts, of course, is supported through Patreon. That is how we continue to fund this show and all the madness. When we get to travel, that's how we fund travel. And keep the website alive and, you know, have contributions

and stuff like that. So please check us out on your favorite podcatcher or go to patreon.com slash retronauts and you can support us by subscribing to the show if three bucks a month get you, what is it, like the, oh yeah, early access on Monday episodes. And then $5 a month,

you get all kinds of bonus exclusive content, including patron exclusive shows on Fridays. And every weekend, there is a column and often audio about a game anniversary from the previous week by Diamond Fight and other stuff. So go check it out, subscribe, keep the show alive, and we'll keep talking about wrestling games,

even though I am poorly equipped. That's why we have guests like Chris. So Chris, thanks again. Good night, everyone. I'm tapping out. Thank you. Thank you.