We got a podcast. Please welcome Kevin Manny on this episode, JBS Podcast.
SPEAKER_03Hello and welcome to another edition of the JBS show. Haven't recorded in a while, but here I am with Kevin Manny. How are you, sir? Buffalo pinball fame. JBS. Bro, do you even talk pinball fame and now multimorphic fame? It's incredible, Kevin.
SPEAKER_01Man. When you get into pinball, you go all in. Yeah. You know what I mean? There's no just doing it half-assed. You go all in or nothing.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Push your chips in and let's go. I mean, Ralph and I were gonna start a distributorship. That's a true story.
SPEAKER_01Dude, I heard that. That was a crazy like hearing what they require of distributors. That's insane. I had no idea. There's so many things I had no idea about, especially now that I'm working with multimorphic and seeing all the behind-the-scenes stuff. Like, new level of respect for everybody who does anything in this industry. The amount of talent, time, effort, determination it takes to bring one of these machines to market is crazy. So everybody doing it. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03And you know, well, we're gonna we're gonna start off with uh a thank you to you, and then we'll we'll get to multimorphic and we'll get to all of it today because I just saw both machines that we'll talk about in a little while. And uh we can say machines now uh because you know this is after the case, so you know we're gonna talk about Dungeon Crawler Carl and Ender's game, and we're gonna talk about that a lot because I got to play the hell out of him.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, it's weird to say it out loud. It is weird. I haven't said it.
SPEAKER_03You know, I'm not the guy that broke that. Okay. I you know That's crazy. Isn't it crazy? And it sucks though. It's like what's what sucks about it is now Jerry probably won't ever do that again. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, I can't speak to that, but I can say that like having come from the other side of like having a podcast, yeah, like the the the like currency we deal in is information. It is, you know, so it's like everybody wants to be the person that has the scoop, right? Yeah, and nobody can help themselves, even though it's we're all like, oh yeah, we promise, we won't say anything. It's like somebody told somebody. Yeah, as soon as you start showing people something, yeah, the the floodgates are open. It's it's like impossible. So it's a shame that it comes to that, but it's also like you gotta kind of know it's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_03So in a way it's good though. Don't in a way it's good because it gets people pumped up. And the the problem is people have expectations in in their head, and whether the organization, the company meets those expectations or not, who the hell knows? But anyway, it's gonna be great, and we'll talk about it in length. But I wanted to shout out a thank you to you. Okay, this is a big thank you because when we first started out at the old joint, right? The only stream that would raid us that even knew we existed was Buffalo Pinball. And thank you so, so much, man. I I I don't know how much you know that how much that meant to us. You know, because we had just started and we were making some waves, and and you kind of were like the first to really thank us. And God bless you, dude.
SPEAKER_01Well, I appreciate that. And you know, and we've we we've been doing this a long time, and we were kind of among the first to jump on Twitch and start doing all this crazy stuff, and we were lucky enough to get partnered way back in the day. So, with that, we were able to build an audience, and uh, you know, we had connected with manufacturers, and yeah, we're doing reveal streams, and so like pin you know this like pinball, the the audience is very small. Sure to build anything of substance takes a lot of time and effort. Yeah, and I feel like we put that time and effort in, and I wanted to recognize other people who were putting the effort in because I know what it takes to build one of these crazy contraptions that streams pinball and all the things that can go wrong with it, your stream, your pinball machine, and there's like so many things that can go wrong. So if you're putting the time and effort into it, I always tried to like look for other people who were doing it, new people who I hadn't rated or whatever that were doing uh pinball content after I wrapped up my stream. And it's like, here's somebody else doing this, check them out. And if you're cool, I kept coming back to you. And and I liked what you were doing over at uh at your old uh setup, and you know, it's uh it was great.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and it really put me on the map, man, and I appreciate it. Put it put us on the map, and uh really without that, I wouldn't have been able to get TPF and all these big streams that we started getting. And and then when I left the joint, you know, I've had this kind of resurgence, and it's been great. So I I never would have happened without you guys. I appreciate you so so much.
SPEAKER_01No, it's it's awesome. Plus, you're a Yankees fan, so like you know, go Yankees. We lost today. Yeah, I will let everybody know that I'm foregoing watching Tonight's Yankees game to do this podcast. So the sacrifices I'm making for the content, you guys, come on.
SPEAKER_03I barely miss a game ever. And today I had meetings today, so I missed the loss and the doubleheader. Uh, but I heard Cole pitched good, so we'll see. I mean, you know, whatever. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. It's like, you know, the season is long and there's all these up to ups and downs. And I know. It's like a it's like a big uh soap opera throughout the whole like spring, summer, fall season. And there's all the it's it's very similar to pinball in some ways, and people like lose their minds over the the littlest things and like there's drama every day, and yeah, you know, Aaron Boone's gotta go, and I know Anthony Fulpey, what's he doing out there?
SPEAKER_03Get rid of him, get rid of him. Dominguez sucks. You know, it's this whole anyway. It's I find it fascinating how many pinballers don't like sports. Like, you know, when we were at the old joint, I put TVs everywhere uh because I wanted to watch sports. And I would be the only guy in there. Everyone else is playing pinball, and I'm watching NFL playoffs in there, and I was just like, you guys, none of them cared. None of them gave a rat's.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we're in Buffalo, but the bills are like everything. Everything. You know, we have the club, the Nichols shout out, Nickel City Pinball Club. There's a TV there, and 99% of the time it's just got like the tournament standings on there, not you know, whatever game is happening or whatever. That's good. I get my buddy Jeff to like cast the Yankees game up there, and people lose their minds. Like, oh, I gotta look on my phone for the standings now.
SPEAKER_03That that was the rule in the old joint. I don't know if you know this. If it was a Yankee game on, uh, I wouldn't put match play on the um, and then we had to buy another TV just for the match play so that Jamie could this true story. Jamie could put the Yankee game on because I just don't miss them. So that's amazing.
SPEAKER_01I was you're a man of after my own heart. I would do absolutely do the same thing. Same thing, right?
SPEAKER_03I mean, what's 300 bucks? It's $300.
SPEAKER_01Throw a TV up there. Come on. You throw a TV up there. That's what I did. Jamie, I got a question for you. Go ahead. Is that a Ford Gum pinball machine or a pinball, a gum ball machine behind you? Yes, an original Ford. Do you want to see it real quick? I have one too. Do you really? Yeah. So I'll give you. Well, show me yours and then I'll tell you about my my story with Ford Gum.
SPEAKER_03Don't drop it, Jamie. It's heavy. Oh, yeah. Um, it's an original and it has the original top. Yeah, mine's got a Kiwanis Club top. It does? Yeah. You gotta have a topper on your gumball machine. Those are hard to find. Uh yeah, Ford a gum machine. This one, um, I got this years and years ago for Janine, uh, my wife, for a Christmas present. I just thought that this is the coolest damn thing on the planet. And to find it with the topper.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, if your pinball machine's gonna have a topper, you gotta have a topper on your gumball machine. I mean, you have to. Those gumballs haven't been eaten in like 15 years since I got that thing. The hardest part is like finding pennies to put in the thing now. Yeah, I mean, exactly. It's awesome. So the Ford Gum factory is like five miles from my house in Akron, New York. And I actually did a tour of it one time because my day job, I work for uh university, and the guy who runs Ford Gum is an alum of the school there where I work, and I do communications and public relations for my day job. So I I got to tour the factory and I did a profile story about this guy, and then I was at the Ohio Pinbrew show, and they had one of those Ford Gum machines there. I was like, I gotta buy one. And it's like it's right, it's right by my house. I toured the thing. I used to see them everywhere when I was a kid. It was like walking through them all. It's like, Mom, can I have a penny for a gumball? You know, I know it was like super super nostalgia trip, and I ended up finding there's a stand you can so you can floor mount it too. I've seen those.
SPEAKER_03I got it, I got the stand flo Oh, that's money.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's that's really cool. Yeah, so it was pretty cool.
SPEAKER_03I got to I learned how to take them all apart and clean it and stuff. And yeah, me and my son did it, and um, it was not working, and we got it to work, and uh it was a little bit of work, but it wasn't that bad.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, if you're into fixing pinball, you can you can dig into one of these.
SPEAKER_03I can't fix shit on a pinball machine, but I can fix a gumball machine. Who the hell knows? There you go. Right. There it goes. Um, so when did you start streaming Buffalo Pinball?
SPEAKER_01Uh I think it was like December 2014. We did our first like test streams. Which is crazy. That's like 12 years ago.
SPEAKER_03So the technology, if you think about it, in 12 years has gotten ridiculous. Like, I have a YOLO box. Have you seen this thing?
SPEAKER_01No, like you guys are doing stuff that I like I can't, I don't even I still have I'm running my uh Logitech C920 camera right now on YouTube. No. That's why you look so much better than I do.
SPEAKER_03Well, I've got the YOLO Live camera that Kale got, um and he hooked me up with this YOLO Live, and the Ralph hooked me up with this YOLO box. If you really want to get geeky, it is we are about to do a stream with me and my buddy versus Retro Ralph and his buddy, and we're gonna have it simultaneous on the same on his channel, and he'll be able to cut to us in Houston, and then cut to himself in Phoenix and play against each other. We're gonna do teams.
SPEAKER_01That's crazy. The things we used to do to make that happen, we would have like two Twitch streams set up, and we would s capture the second Twitch stream onto the first Twitch stream, and then you'd have to like delay the timing so they would match up, and then you'd be talking, and it'd be all out of things. So like the fact that you can do that is crazy.
SPEAKER_03We can do roadcaster to roadcaster is how we'll talk to each other. Okay. And the roadcaster's just the best. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I don't understand why Stern or anyone that doesn't have that has does interviews doesn't get a little roadcaster. Doesn't make any sense to me. But that's just me. And I I I'm dying on that hill, Kevin. But uh you can go roadcaster to roadcaster over the internet and it's and it's seamless.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's it's crazy. It's crazy, and it's funny too, when you think, you know, uh, you know, I I watch like Fox Cities and things like that. Yeah, they're getting a decent number of subscribers and things like that. But you know, and I heard Ralph talking about how much money he's made on YouTube over the past like 12 years or whatever it's been. Yeah, and it seems like a lot, but like it's like three pinball machines. It's like you spend so much money to stream with so low return, you have to do it for the love of it.
SPEAKER_03You just do it because you love it, right? And uh, you know, I've told the story I wanted to be on the radio, and I was my kid's lacrosse announcer. That's how badly I wanted to be heard. You know, so for me to do streaming, it was just easy.
SPEAKER_01It was just Yeah, I I did uh so actually I was on the radio in high school. Yeah, I did. Well, I grew up with it. My dad was a radio announcer, so I used to go with him when I was a kid on the weekends to be in the radio station, and I would help him pick out the carts. Like, what do you want to play on the radio next? And I'd go over to the wall and be like, I don't know, Nat King Cole, I guess. Throw this on. I don't even know what it is. And uh he would play it, and I would hear him doing the announcing. And then when I was in high school, he was like managing the local like little AMFM radio station, and he they had an opening, and I was like, Can I do it? And he's like, sure, audition. And I auditioned, and it was awful. I actually have still have some of my old air track tapes, and they're they're hilarious. I should digitize some of them at some point.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely digitize and throw that up on YouTube because that's awesome.
SPEAKER_01Doing like the acky weather forecast and stuff. It's so funny. Yeah, it was a uh it was like country radio station at that point, and I had like zero interest in country music. Growing up, I was into like heavy metal, and again I got into punk rock and all that, and I was like, I don't know anything about this, so I'll just fake my way through it. So I wasn't a great radio announcer, especially when I didn't understand them what I was talking about. Um, but when it's pinball and it's like a thing you're like so passionate about, it's super easy. So I was it was it was the same thing when I went to college and I was able to play the music I liked. You could just like bring my rack of CDs and go to the radio station and be like, here's all the bands I love. I went and saw them this weekend, check these guys out. That that's when it's natural and easy. Did you did you do college radio? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So cool. I yeah, I I went to college to do it. And they canceled the calm program and c and closed the radio station my freshman year. Of course, I fell in love with a girl, right? And this broad, and so now I gotta stay with this girl. And I should have transferred, but you know what? Life then I would never have mentioned my senior year, so it all worked out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it all works out, yeah. Yeah, they actually they the college radio station I was on stayed on until like two years ago they finally shut it down. Yeah, and I live in a pretty rural area, so having like that, it was like, oh man, I can call these college kids and they could play Metallica on the radio for me in like the late 80s, early 90s. I was like, this is amazing. Yeah, I'm gonna do that someday.
SPEAKER_03I'm so envious of you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I saw what radio announcers make, and I was like, I need to find a different career. Unless you're like Howard Stern or something, you're not making anything.
SPEAKER_03No, they made no money. You know, they they make no money, but you know, they love it. And uh I I just wanted to spin records, man. I wanted to be Howard Stern, really. Okay. I mean, just hearing him in WNBC when I was WNBC. Um when I was a kid, that he was everything. And he was afternoon. Most people don't remember that. I don't know if you do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03But growing up in New York, you know. Oh, growing up in New York, I've got a being a Yankee fan, I'm gonna say this, if see if you remember this, okay? Okay, yep. Picks. WPIX. Yeah. Do you remember the video game where they would call in and someone would play a video game and you would call the station and say, PIX, PICs, and they would play the video game?
SPEAKER_01Do you remember this? No, so the the way I knew, so I I'm on like the other end of the state, so the only time I would be connected to WPIX was when they would like air the New York City games on our local station. So I wouldn't, we didn't actually get that channel. I would just get it over the air on like our our local Fox affiliate or whatever, you know.
SPEAKER_03This podcast is just for me and you, so no one's gonna be able to do it. Yeah, and I mean there are people listening. Okay. I and I don't know.
SPEAKER_01You said it was gonna go off the rails, so I don't know. I don't give a shit.
SPEAKER_03Okay. I'm not as bad as Orville Albert, but I just do go off. But it's just very funny to me to talk to New Yorkers, and I've been gone for so long that WPIX was such a big thing in our childhood, you know. Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's just fucking funny to me. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Anyway, yeah, the so that you'll like this too. I grew up, you know, I was I think I'm a little younger than you, but not much. Um so Don Mattingley was my man growing up. Yeah, Don Mattingley, 23. Yeah, yeah. I it's the only Yankee jersey I've got. The only one I'll ever have is Don Maddingley. You never wore a Jeter jersey? Nope. Mattingly's my man.
SPEAKER_03I mean, I love Donnie baseball, but you know.
SPEAKER_01I mean, there's a dude, there's so many great Yankees, though. You know what I mean? It's like Yeah, I know. I mean sorry, go ahead, go ahead. I know. I mean, come on. Uh so I was like 12 years old, idolized on Mattingley. We finally go to New York City. I'm going to my first Yankees game, old Yankee Stadium, it's gonna be amazing. It's the game where he got suspended because his hair was too long.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god.
SPEAKER_01Do you remember that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I didn't get to see him play. It's so tragic. So tragic.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I didn't get to see him eventually. I mean, guys, if you're if you're thinking when you went to the ballpark and you wanted to see Reggie when I was really young, right? You were gonna see Reggie because they played. Yeah. You know, they they played 162 games. I mean, these guys were iron horses, so you you didn't miss your guys like you do today. It sucks. But yeah, it's insane.
SPEAKER_01So there you go that's my I did eventually get to see him play. We went to the first season where they opened Sky Dome in Toronto. Yeah. And we we went there and we saw him play. We saw the Blue Jays throw a no-hitter into the ninth inning, and then we finally finally got a hit in the ninth inning. Sneak out of there. I almost I almost saw history about for a bad reason. Yeah, it's funny because people ride you for being a Yankees fan. It's like, oh, you just you know, they win all the time. I was like, bro, when I was growing up, they were in the 80s.
SPEAKER_03They were terrible. That's where people went to die. And it's just surrounded Donnie baseball with the shit. Yeah, and they would be like three quarters empty. Yeah, we can't get it. We can do heavy. No more baseball talk because we're getting in trouble. I'm gonna get yelled at. I get yelled at more than. I know, but I get I get ims, right? And I'll go, too much baseball.
SPEAKER_01Everybody, if you're going in the comments, uh everybody go in the comments right now on YouTube. Yeah. And you can yell at me. This is my fault. I keep bringing it back to baseball and and for gumball machines and stuff.
SPEAKER_03No, the gumballs are yelling at me.
SPEAKER_01It's funny.
SPEAKER_03Um, so when did you start bro?
SPEAKER_01Do you even talk pinball with Nick? So yeah, we started the gameplay streaming in 20 late 2014, early 2015. Uh, and then we would so Nick and I I'll give you the the Kevin and Nick origin story. So Kevin and Nick, we go back to 2012-ish. Uh, we both work at the the university. We didn't know it at actually I didn't work at the university at the time. He was working there and I was not. Uh, but we were in this local Facebook group, and he posted on the local Facebook group that he was getting a brand new um ACDC pinball machine. And if anybody in the the local coin op group wanted to come over and play, you could play. And I was like, my mind was blown that you could buy a brand new pinball machine and just have it in your house. Like, so I was like, I had a couple arcade machines at that time, but no pinball machines. Um, so I was like, absolutely, I'm going over to play this brand new pinball machine. That's right. Yeah, with this random guy, I don't even know. Yeah, from the from Facebook, you know, like your parents always told you never to do, right? Uh so that's when I first met Nick. And guess who was also there? But David Fix. So that was the first time I met David Fix. Crazy. Buffalo Zone David Fix. So, you know, uh, he was there, it was just the three of us, and we were playing this AC ACDC. Nick and Dave, I forget how they met each other, but Dave was like, he had so many pinball machines, he was like putting them at Nick's place, and Nick was like cleaning them up and stuff, and that in exchange for like having these pinball machines. So Nick had like five or six pinball machines at his house. One, I think two of two of them at that point were his. He had an Iron Man and uh and the ACDC, and the rest were Dave's. Uh, and yeah, that's where I met Nick. And then so we got to be friends. We ended up starting the Buffalo Pinball League a couple years later, which grew out of this. So we had a coin op collectors group where we would get together once a month to play each other's pinball machines of video games and just hang out, and it was a casual social thing. And then Nick had started going to Pittsburgh, I think mostly, and playing in Pinburgh and seeing kind of how their tournament and league scene worked. And he was like, hey, we should start doing this in Buffalo. And you know, got a bunch of the people who were hosting who had pinball machines, which would be open to doing this once a month, and we put our our league together, and that's everything kind of grew out of the Buffalo Pinball League. So then we started doing the streaming, and then streaming was a way because we were like, we were in the like, oh my god, pinball's amazing, we have to tell everybody about it. You have to tell everyone, you have to tell everyone. So uh streaming was a way to like take this local crazy thing we had going on and bring it to a wider audience because we were like, if people here are crazy enough to do it, there's probably gotta be people all over doing this who are into it. And uh yeah, so we started doing that, um, doing the tutorials and gameplay, just hanging out. And it's funny because I Hear people say things about the round table that people used to say to us about the bro show, the the gameplay streams, where it's like it feels like I'm hanging out with my friends playing pinball. It it did, by the way. It really did. Yeah, and it was when you have something that's such a passion that is so niche that you want to like find people who are like-minded like you. Yeah, a lot of people don't have that in their immediate area. So if you're able to do it online, that's awesome. Um, so then what happened was Nick and I would start getting together for lunch once once we both started working at the same place together, um, like once a week, and we would just sit there and talk about pinball and eat tacos. And we're like, right, we should we should do this on the internet, we should do a podcast. At that time, I think there was like three pinball podcasts. It was uh Coast to Coast, right? Spooky Pinball had their podcast, and the pinball podcast with Don and Jeff. Pretty sure that's all there was back then. May there may have been the um the one with uh oh god, I can't even remember. I think there may have been one more. Um but we were like, why does the world need like five pinball podcasts? Why are we starting a fifth pinball podcast? There's already four pinball podcasts. And we're like, okay, like, okay, there's only especially at that time there were so few pinball machines getting released, it's like, what are we gonna talk about? So we were doing like, you know, uh top, you know, sterns of of the modern era, top classic games and things like that. And you know, as you've seen over the years, the number of manufacturers have gone up, the uh amount of releases have gone up, so the the amount of content to talk about has increased. So uh that helps for all these. There's way more podcasts now. Um and you know, we that's uh another reason why we decided on the monthly release schedule, because it's like, what are you gonna talk about more than once a month? And I think it worked out because if you do it more often than that, you kind of like run into the same content, and it's like, what are we gonna talk about? And it gets to be a bit of a stretch, and it also like helped us avoid burnout because we didn't want to like totally go overboard with it either. So um, so that's when we started that, and uh you know, we built up the stream team in a similar way because Nick and I were doing it to well, we started with the bro show, and then Nick and I added our own individual nights where we were streaming, and we were like, we don't want this to feel like a job, so let's see if there are other people who want to join us after we got partnered, let's give people more value for their money. So we'll build a stream team and see if some of these other smaller streamers who we want watch, like you know, your stream back in the day.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01There's other people that want to join up, and so they would stream on our channel once a week. And so there was a really fun time when I especially when I think back about it on it, the kind of like stream team we built and the community we built. Uh it felt really cool and special. So it was it was fun.
SPEAKER_03I love how you goed him.
SPEAKER_01Nick?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, my favorite thing on the planet.
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, after we've been doing a podcast for like eight, ten years, yeah. I know what pushes his buttons, man. I know.
SPEAKER_03It got even better and better and better. And it was just one of my favorite things to do was to watch you guys and to see when you would go to them. God, I loved him.
SPEAKER_01Well, because I would do all the show notes and I'd be like, all right, this is the thing that's gonna set Nick off. And Nick, as his like involvement in pinball went on over time, his like awareness of the intricate details of everything that was happening went down because he ended up getting a new job that was like he's like so involved in his job that he just doesn't have the time to pay attention to all the minutiae. So I knew he wasn't following all the insanity that was happening. You know, we're talking about ballarama pinball or you know, deep root and all that stuff. It's like it's like I know I know it's just gonna set him off. And it it totally did every time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I wish the round table was around back then to rip on Deep Brood. Could you imagine? Oh my god, dude. The crap we would say about them. Jesus.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and Nick is like, you know, just none of this makes sense. Like, how does he have all of these people working for him and zero product coming out? Like they're making no money for years, and he's just paying all of these salaries and all of this RD, and it's like lo and behold, it didn't make sense. It didn't make sense.
SPEAKER_03Old people, special place in hope, man. Yeah, that guy. Yeah, man. But I do so I you had a long run on the show, and I totally understand when when you took this new role multimorphic, that you you couldn't stream and and do that as well, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so that was that was like so. I was kind of like starting to feel like the podcast, like, you know, we did it for 10 years. It's like, what else is there to say? There's always new payment machines to talk about, and I know people really like the show, and I appreciate that. You know, I love that people liked listening to us. But for me and for you, I'm sure as well, it's like a creative outlet, right? And it's like, let's see what we can do in here. What kind of like stuff can we make that people will like? And is it is it gonna like you know satisfy that creative need that I had? And it I feel like it had at that point, like the streaming and podcasting, it's like, and it's like okay, I have but I still have this interest and energy for pinball. What else is out there where I can contribute? And you know, we've been working. I personally have been working with multimorphic since like I guess 2017 or so, doing when Jerry came to my place and we did an interview at the in this very spot. Jerry flew to my house and we did an interview, which was awesome, uh, about the upcoming at that point, it was cosmic cart racing. And he brought the module and we got to do the reveal stream with Jerry here. That was really awesome. Uh, so we've had a relationship ever since then. He had loaned me a P3. Um, one of the, you know, I think that was like the second year they were making machines. So I had uh cosmic cart racing and Lexi Lightspeed at that point. And you know, it was like I was like, hey, you know, we'll stream it for a while, we'll show it off to everybody. Uh we took it to our Buffalo Pinball Summer Open that we were running at that point, which was our Papa Circuit tournament event, which is another crazy level of insanity and involvement that we were doing in pinball. Yeah, big big tournament. Another shout out to everybody who runs pinball events and tournaments.
SPEAKER_03I know we ran big ones too, man. It is a pain in the ass.
SPEAKER_01It's so much.
SPEAKER_03So much involved. I'm not doing it again.
SPEAKER_01No, no way. Pinball tournament players, I love you, but you're also a huge pain in the butt. You're a pain in the ass. You're a pain in the ass.
SPEAKER_03No, they're great. God bless them. But it's just it's so much work, right? It's a lot of work. Put on these events, and God bless those TDs that get and I've given TD shit too. So I know this is a tough, that is a tough game.
SPEAKER_01They're all volunteers. They're volunteers. Exactly. They're volunteers.
SPEAKER_03Stop yelling at them. They're making a ruling.
SPEAKER_01I I understand too, because I get passionate when I play. I'm a competitive player still. I know not as much anymore, but you know, I still play in tournaments.
SPEAKER_03I still play in tournaments, and I, you know, I I have a joke. Can Jamie play pinball? Sometimes I can, sometimes I fucking can't. So I just document it, but I still get red ass a little, but I'm not gonna take it out on a on a volunteer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I still get passionate about it, but I've yeah, my my seriousness with pinball tournaments has come way down. I like I care way less, which I I feel like that's good.
SPEAKER_03It it's much better for my mental health being 4,000 in the world. It feels good. Yeah, it feels great, and I'll still do some streams and I'll still talk pinball. And uh, but I'll never beat Kyle McAlpine. I mean, I could be him what not he's gonna beat me nine out of ten times, and his tenth is just terrible.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It was fun to see like when when I was really pushing, I was like, how good can I get at this? Right? And I got up to like 750-ish in the IFPA, which is pretty good.
SPEAKER_03Uh I got 1800, but they changed the rankings, and ever since they changed the system, I've given I I don't even go to IFPA and check my ranking anymore. Remember when you used to check it and see how you were doing? Right?
SPEAKER_01Were you crazy like that? Oh, yeah, okay. I still look at it once in a while. If I have a good tournament and the rankings come through, I'll be like, let's see where I'm at. And I'm I'm in like the 2000s now, I think.
SPEAKER_03Okay, that's pretty damn good. It's pretty damn good. What would you say in golf that is? Like a five-handicapper, a seven handicapper? I know nothing about golf. Oh, that's too bad.
SPEAKER_01I could talk baseball with you all day, but not zero about golf.
SPEAKER_03We can go down that damn hole forever. Um, yep. So what were you talking about? We're talking about multi-morphic.
SPEAKER_01And yeah, so it was like, you know, I I've got I've I've I've got these skills, I know pinball. Yeah, I've been working with multimorphic for all these years, and it's the opportunity came up, and I was like, I have all these ideas of how they can do their communications, these are the things they should be doing. And I was like, can I just do this? And Jerry's like, yes. And it's been incredible. I've you know, because I I was like, Oh, here's the thing. So you you know, I'm sure you've run into this too. Like when you work with a manufacturer and you're a podcaster, uh, there's a relationship there, and then you start getting called a shill, right? It's like, oh, you're just shilling for them. Yeah. And we were always very transparent. We've had a screen up that said they're a partner of of the show, and you know, we work together. Here's the here's the the news and updates about them. We're not gonna review their games because we have a partnership with them, it's not fair to you, it's not fair to them. I love the listeners. Um I I've always respected that, right?
SPEAKER_03Because I thought that was a pro move. You're like, look, hey, we're shells. Okay.
SPEAKER_01It's like they sponsored the show. We're not gonna talk about the show.
SPEAKER_03We're not gonna give crap about heist, okay?
SPEAKER_01Shut up. And but on the on the flip side of that, I was at, you know, through playing all these games and being a hardcore pinball player, I was like, I could see how awesome these games are, and I just wanted the opportunity to just like go all out and say how awesome these games are. And I was like, here's the videos we should be shooting for you know, reels that show off all these mechanical features, and people say the flippers are weird, so I'm gonna do uh a reel that shows all the cool flipper maneuvers you can do on a P3 to just like the ones you can do on a traditional pinball machine, you know what I mean? And it's like, oh, it's it's a it's a virtual machine. No, check it, they're doing some of the craziest max interactive ball, interactive max and pinball, like the the crane in heist, the the canon and final resistance, the uh the disc on uh uh dungeon caller Carl, and uh um Andrew's game. I was called it by the code name. I'm I'm so not used to saying it. So it's fluorine and sodium are the code names. Okay, and I'm so it's so like ingrained in me. And we put them on social media this week, so people are kind of like speculating, whoa, what does fluorine mean and what does sodium mean? And they're uh it's been hilarious to watch. Um yeah, so it's like I've been, you know, and then portal came out, and there was people mostly this one guy on Facebook saying, like, oh, I wish some other company had got it because you know they would have been done a better job with the theme integration, and it should have portals on it where the the ball portals from one side to the other. I'm like, dude, this is literally all this machine does. So I'm like, I'm gonna make a reel that shows the 18 portals in this game, and I'm gonna count them one by one, and I'm gonna put it up. And this is like everybody always has to have this narrative when a pinball machine comes out, right? There has to be a thing. Like, it's like, you know, it's the three spinning discs. It's the the tr non-transforming thing, it's the there's no guns, you know what it doesn't eat the ball. There's always something, you know what I mean? So it's like this is my chance to be like, here's the here's the reality of the situation, here's how awesome these games are. And um, you know, with as much time as it takes to create content, I re it really doesn't leave me enough time. I still have a day job to do like content creation and also exactly.
SPEAKER_03This does not pay the bills. If it did, this is all we would do.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. So I have my day job, and in the night, nighttime, you know, I've had people on Discord being like, Oh, when are you gonna stream? Because I got I got a Harry Potter machine. Like, oh, you should stream Harry Potter. I was like, bro, my time if I'm working now or if I'm making content, it's gonna be for multimorphic now. It's like that's where my you know, I still have a day job. I have a family, a wife, and yeah, you know, so it's you know, it's all about the balance. And I appreciate that people want to see me stream, but you know, it's like you gotta I I try to like keep a good, you know, work-life balance kind of thing going. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. I look, I I think what you guys are doing is fantastic. We're gonna clear something up, though. Okay? Because everybody gets this wrong. It is, I'm gonna say it, and you tell me if I'm saying this correctly. The multimorphic, multimorphic is the name of the company, and the module is P3.
SPEAKER_01So, not the module. Okay. Here, I'm gonna put it in like I was thinking about this earlier that we should talk about.
SPEAKER_03Explain this to us because I screwed this up on a reel the other day, and Joe Chervino called me up and said, Jamie, you screwed this up.
SPEAKER_01My man Joe, we're he's coming to town this well, this will be this past weekend. We're going to ride roller coasters, so that's gonna be a good time. Uh he's gonna be. So, multimorphic is the company. So multimorphic in pinball terms, multimorphic equals Stern, right? Okay. P3 is the platform, so P3 equals spike two, right? So it's like the system that it all runs on. And then the game are the module, so it's like uh, I don't know, Tron equals portal, right? So there's there's three layers to each company. I don't know why it's so confusing. I think it's just the modularity of the P3 throws people off, but company, system, game. It's it's it's you know, it's it's the uh it's the equivalent, you know, it's confusing like when when Stern does uh Pro Premium L E and then JJP does standard collectors and wizard or whatever. You know what I mean? It's like everybody's got different slightly different terminology for everything that's basically the same thing. So it's multimorphic P3. So thank you for clearing that out, Joe. Hopefully that clarifies things.
SPEAKER_03I don't know if it will, but it does. And Joe gave me a lot of shit about it, and uh warrant definitely warranted because I gotta get it correct. So thank you. Good looking out, Joe. We appreciate you. I love Joe. I love him, he's the best. Um, and you're gonna ride roller coasters. Yeah, that's his new passion, right? He's losing his mind over it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's funny. I've got a couple other friends who are roller coaster and pinball enthusiasts, so uh, and they like very much like pinball, they know that who designs the machine, the the roller coasters and the companies that make them, and you know what are the different features of the inversions and the airtime and all this stuff, and it's it's great. And they have like checklists, they try to fly all over the world and ride roller coasters. And I've always I've ridden roller coasters since I was a kid, so I appreciate it, but I never got into it with that level of fascination. But it's been very cool because my roller coaster friends have pointed me in the direction of the really good ones, and now I can really appreciate the good ones. My favorite is Steal Vengeance at um uh Cedar Point. That's my favorite.
SPEAKER_03I would totally make fun of you and all of you, but uh, we're on a pinball podcast, so I'm gonna say you can't. I mean, basket weavers get more views than we get. So I mean, you gotta humble yourself, Matt.
SPEAKER_01Cornhole, and you know, hot dog eating contests, everything. Everything.
SPEAKER_03I picked the absolute worst hobby to be popular at. It's okay.
SPEAKER_01You can be a big fish in a small town. It's all good.
SPEAKER_03Whatever. I don't know what kind of fish I am, but I'm some kind of it's just absurd that we do that.
SPEAKER_01It's funny. Is it weird for you? Like going to T, we you and I met for the first time in person at TPF. Yes. And do people come up to you and they're like, Yes. Like you'll just be doing something and be like, oh, you're whoever, and it's like, I'm so not ready for that.
SPEAKER_03I I at TPF I I am ready for it because that's kind of my hometown. That and Houston Arcadex. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I wasn't ready for it at Chicago. And and then there'll be times where I'm not ready for it at Eureka Heights. Like someone will just walk up to me and say, Hey, I love your stream. I love the round table. They love the round table more than they love me, but that's okay. I'm I I get that. Right? That makes sense. You know, too much Jamie. I get that shit, Kevin. But it it happened the other day. A guy comes up and he goes, I've been watching you since the old joint, and you're really he goes, I'm nervous to talk to you, and I started laughing. I just started laughing.
SPEAKER_01It's funny. I've had people say, like, oh, I saw you, but I didn't want to say something. I'm like, dude, I'm just like a guy who plays I have to like turn the camera on and talk about it sometimes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm a toolbox that loves this shit so so much that I love talking pinball with other people. It's the best. It's it really is. It's fantastic. And uh and we miss you.
SPEAKER_01My open invite to anybody at a show who sees me and they're they're like feeling weird. Just let's play a game of pinball together. Yeah, let's play. It's you're gonna whip my ass, probably, but let's we'll still play on pinball. Pinball's great because like you don't really have to interact with people, but you can still interact with people if you want. Yeah, you know what I mean? So if you're like you don't have like the whatever, you don't you're not feeling comfortable, but you want to just hang out a little bit, we can play a game of pinball.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, without question. Uh let me ask you this. Right when you joined, did you find out about Dungeon Crawler Carl and Ender's game at the same time? Or did they how how did this happen? How did this morph?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I jumped on, I think it was like October of last year, and both games were in full development. Okay. For whatever reason, Jerry decided to like have me follow the Enders game development, and not really the um Dungeon Crawler Carl development, which was which was cool because I got to like have the reveal for when I finally got to see Dungeon Crawler Carl. I knew it was being worked on, but I didn't get to see like the play field or any of the art or anything like that until it was the I think the first thing I saw was the sculpts that Stumbler did. Unbelievable. How insane are those?
SPEAKER_03They're unbelievable. You know, I'm just finishing the first book. Okay. Okay. I started it when I got the invite to the VIP event thinking that this might happen. So I'm like, well, someone's got Dungeon Crawler Carl, the damn the the author was like, We're getting a pinball machine made.
SPEAKER_01He released it. I mean, so yeah.
SPEAKER_03Way before any of us. So yeah, you know, oh yeah. Anyway, I was everyone has been talking about it, it's really making waves to the pinball world. So I listen, and I'll tell you, it it's fantastic. I I am five chapters away from finishing it. It's so incredible.
SPEAKER_01It's incredible. And the fact that they're I I think multimorphic just like nailed the timing of this because it's the the TV series is getting green lit. There was like a flash game I saw on uh the internet said that like IGN posted like there's a Dungeon Color Carl video game you could play on in on your browser now. So I was playing that, so it's you can really feel the hype building on this, and seeing people get excited for it by word of mouth on pin side and stuff has been awesome. And picking it up and people like being like, This is amazing. I've read all eight books now.
SPEAKER_03I haven't read eight books, but I I could see myself going down a hole reading these damn things. Uh I like this guy who does the the audible.
SPEAKER_01Uh Jeff Hayes, he's doing the voices in the game too, dude. No, it's so cool. He's so good. I couldn't call it the same guy doing all those different voices.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I couldn't believe it either. And so I was the only one allowed to film. And it was me and uh Brad Albright were the only people allowed to film. Okay, so we're filming and and what was so cool, and we'll talk about both games in detail now, is Wesley, once he revealed both games, Wesley Johnson, who's one of the coders for uh Dungeon Crawler Carl, kind of like posted up on Dungeon Crawler Carl. And then Kyle McAlpine, who's the coder for and did the rules for Ender's game, kind of posted on there and he they just helped everyone through the machines, right? Because yes, are they on are they the same just like Spooky did, okay? I would say, right?
SPEAKER_01Just like Yeah, I mean it's uh you know, if you even think back to like Shrek and Family Guy, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Shrek and Family Guy. Exactly. That's a great analogy. But it's totally different game, totally different code.
SPEAKER_01And you know what? Uh Jerry showed me the the video of you guys seeing so they showed you Dungeon Crawler Carl first, and then he he pulled back the curtain and there is Ender's game. Yes, and that's and Brad watching people try to figure out like I could see of them processing and it like Little by little, they're like, Oh, I think this is, yeah, look at this. This is kind of similar to that. So it wasn't like you look at them both, and it's like immediately these are obviously the very same play field, they just reskinned it. There's like all these different sculpts on DCC and everything, and it game has a totally different art package, totally different vibe. It's sci-fi and futuristic. Um, when I first saw so I was following along with the Enders game development when I saw uh Dungeon Crawler Carl, I was like, wait, this is not how this play field is supposed to look. It's supposed to look like this, you know what I mean? So it's they've done such a good job of differentiating the two. And they also had like the two teams were developing the games in parallel, like not talking to each other. So I heard I heard Wesley talking about this where it's like if they came up, if something exists in both games, it's because both teams thought it was a good idea. But otherwise, they like totally approach it with their own rules and concepts and ideas. I thought that was fascinating.
SPEAKER_03I found that fascinating having Wesley uh playing Ender's game and looking at wow, you guys did this and that. It was yeah, it was a really cool event to get to see that. And um the art is amazing, the sculpts are amazing, the code really is fantastic. Um, they've done a really great job. And um, call me a show. I don't give a shit. I don't get paid. I lost money going over there, getting a hotel. Okay. That's pinball, baby. Yeah, I didn't get paid. All right. I just the machine that I miss the most from the old joint out of all those machines is the P3. I just do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. It's I think about it like sterns are awesome, right? And you know, JJPs are awesome. I love I'm just the pinball fan. But I like I can play sterns everywhere, right? I can't play I I'm always looking to like what else is out there, right? That's what's so cool about these boutique manufacturers. It's like they're taking chances doing crazy cool innovative things like that that disc on the color call. And the both discs are different, by the way. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I mean, they're the same discs but different stuff underneath and different. Yeah, and the way they use them is different.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they can like set up shots on either side of the play field. And I I like that on one game, like the skill shot goes one way, and on the other game, it goes the other way because they point the disc in different ways. Uh, so it's it's it's crazy. So yeah, that's what that's what's cool about the P3 to me is like let's take some chances, let's do some things nobody else is doing, right? And uh they're able to do that, and they do it in such a cool way because they've got this awesome platform. And um it's when you when you first so when you first saw the game, what was like what was like the standout thing? What was the first thing you noticed?
SPEAKER_03On Dungeon Crawler first, yeah, yeah. The the first thing I noticed um was when I was playing and the boss battle. I thought that was totally epic. Okay, to hear the sound. But I you know, I don't know, it's just the art really was like I I was just blown away at the art of the machine and and and the sculpts. I couldn't believe because I we had heard the rumor that well they had announced it, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we announced Stumbler ahead of time, okay, but we didn't say, you know, he was yeah, it's either like he's gonna be working with us on a on future games, right? It's part of our kind of iconic.
SPEAKER_03We were all like, oh, okay, cool, that's great. We didn't think that the designs, I I never thought that the Stumbler mods would be in there, you know.
SPEAKER_01People were speculating, oh, he's gonna be doing like add-on mods for existing modules and things like that. Yeah, that's what people were saying, but they were wrong. Yeah, it's so funny, dude. It's so funny seeing the rumors and speculation when you know what's happening. I love it. So it's like I having been on the other side of it, it's like, oh yeah, I can see how you would think this, or why you might draw that conclusion. Yeah, yeah. It's been pretty wild, I gotta say, it's been awesome. And the the the multimorphic team is is great. I knew that going into it. That was the other thing that made it like an easy decision to partner up with them in a more official capacity, is like I knew Jerry and and TJ and Steven and all the guys in the world.
SPEAKER_03Let's talk about real quick.
SPEAKER_01Because how good is TJ at his job? The mechanical integration, the the mechanical engineering, the the things he's able to do and things up is insane. You know, that disc. So it's it's funny because like I feel like everybody's putting a cannon in their games this year. Yeah. There's like cannons in all these games. Yeah, and and this game's got like two legit cannons, and then two other things that like fire balls at you. So it's got the big cannon on the disc that fires like the magic missile in Dungeon Caller Carl, or it does the um pistol training and enders game, where you can like move it around and try to hit a specific target, and then it's got the one in the upper right that fires fires a ball back at you, and then it's got like the ball release on the on the left, the other side of the balance Mac, and then there's a kickback down in the on the bottom side of the disc. I don't love the kickback, by the way. That's scary. You know what's funny? I love so as soon. When I first you asked me when I like first saw the game, when I first saw the game, I was like, people are gonna say there's stuff that's too close to the flippers now. Because everybody's always like, everything's in the back third of the game, there's nothing close to the flippers. No, it's like in the uh gameplay video that uh we do a vendors game, uh Josh Kugler narrates it and he's like, We heard you wanted shots closer to the flippers. Well, here you go. And then the the disc ring turns and there's like a bank of targets right in front of your flippers. I know. It's like, come at me, bro. Here, you you get what you asked for.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Wow, again, if you give people in this hobby a bar of gold, they're gonna complain it's too heavy. So forget it, don't even worry about that. So but TJ, I got to meet him and his wife, and they're lovely. And um, what a what what a great job he does.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, incredible. He just cranks it out, and he's he's super, super chill, super smart, amazing work, doing things nobody else is doing in the in the hobby, which I appreciate. Um, you know, and Steven Silver, you can see so Steven Silver came on as creative director with Heist, and I feel like that's when like Multimorphic just got turned up to 11, right? It's like, oh, okay, let's see. He started bringing together all these like creative, innovative ideas, and yeah, uh the video production value went way up. That's you know, he's a video production guy. Um, and you know, multimorphic kind of structures their teams a little different. They don't have like a designer and a programmer, they have creative directors, and Steven has served as creative director or co-creative director on on a number of games now, and uh you can really see that that coming through uh in the skills that he's able to provide. And then you bring on people like Colin and Ian and Wesley and Brad, and it's it's like, yeah, like hook, I'm gonna hook my wagon to this train because I like what they're doing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03God bless them, right? I mean, uh good, good group of people. And that's the hardest thing as a content creator is that you fall in love with the people too, right? Yeah. And and what if it was a stinker?
SPEAKER_01Right? What do I say?
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01Uh what I would not yeah, I mean, not every game's gonna be a hit, right? Right. So it's like that's the reality of like I mean of any creative endeavor, right? Not every album that comes out from your favorite band is their best, and not every movie you see is amazing. That's right. But it's still pinball. Just like having seen the other side of it, like like just try to respect the amount of work and effort that goes into these. You know, this is people are pouring their hearts and souls into these machines. So just try to. It's easier when I don't know, it's it's a billionaire or whatever. It's like they're not gonna listen to you, but like the people in the pinball industry hear what you're saying, and it it if it it matters. It does.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it does. Uh I you know, I got into a thing with the P3 person the other day. They they were not a P3 fan. And I said, All right, how many how many times have you played it? Three to five. It doesn't talk to me. And I said, Well, you're just a potato head. You've got to put games in on this thing, and you will learn that yeah, is the flipper feel a little different than a stern? Sure, it's different. Okay. So what? All manufacturers' flippers feel a little different. They all feel different, all right? Yeah. Okay, because they're a very good player and they're whining about it. And I said, Look, we had heist in our tournaments at the old joint, and people didn't complain because they loved heist. It was incredible. It's a great module. I love Dungeon Door Defender. I must have played. I told Jerry, if he doesn't have Dungeon Door Defender on Dungeon Crawler Carl, that's crying shame.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's a that's a Michael Ocean thing. You're gonna have to. I know.
SPEAKER_03Well, Michael, I got Michael on before. And Michael, listen, you've got to get that coded up right now before these things go out. Okay, because that is perfect. Okay? Yeah. Uh but you know, I I enjoyed the machine. Me and Donovan loved it. And we really enjoyed it. And the support that we got from Multimorphic, and even the guys that worked at Barrels of Fun would come over and play a lot of the P3 and they would work on it. Because we we had a little issue with um Weird Owl with the flight swatter. These guys got it. Yeah, they got that down, no problem. We fixed the fly swatter, and it was fun.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You know, five games on the P3 and it wasn't for me. It's like, do you play one game of I don't know, Adam's Family, and you're like, all Belly Williams games are not for me because I didn't like that one game, right? It's like, no, that's like each game is its own experience and own rule set and everything. It's like switching between two different pinball machines. Um, just because you didn't like, you know, uh cosmic art racing back in the day doesn't mean you're not gonna like Dungeon Crawler Carl, right? I I to me that is like an o uh an obvious thing, but I think people just like to write it off and be like, oh, I played the P3 once at a show and it I didn't like the game that was in there, so I'm never gonna play it again. Yeah. Um the other thing they've done is if you've played it years ago, or even like uh you know, last year or the year before, they've made systemic improvements to the machine over the years that are now being built in from the factory that you may not have experienced, or uh, you know, they provided a free kit for all the old the one thing that's been great is like they they if you bought your P3 on day one, you can get all the new features that are in it now. And they provided a free kit, quality update took the time. You know, they were hearing the feedback on PinSide and they were like, We hear you, we we're gonna take the time to assess where the problems are. They they held back their production schedule to to upgrade the quality of their machines, and then they rolled it out. So yeah, I really respected that that they took the time to do that. Uh, but that's not to say everybody has installed those updates on their machine. So if you go to a show and it's down, it's probably because like there's some easy fix that somebody, you know, the show runner is not familiar with the P3, it's a little bit different and takes a little bit of time to to know how to how to fix it. But you know, a quick adjustment in it would probably be back up, but people are just shut it off, and then the person going to the show sees the P3 and sees it off, and it's like I don't know.
SPEAKER_03It's no, you know, what is it? Just barrels down and people just keep pummeling. You know, it's just ridiculous.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we talked about narratives before, so that becomes the narrative, right? It's when in reality they've been making these improvements. My P3 uh when people would come on when I was streaming my P3, you know, back when I would do it all the time, um, I'd be like, look how many hours I've played this thing on the internet, and it always works. Yeah. It's like it's pinball things, you know, you need to make adjustments and things like that, just like any other demo machine. But like I would stream it for two hours at a time every Monday night for years, and it was fine. It's like people it's it's it's not it's not what you think it is. So that's been part of my role is to kind of like tell the story of multimorphic and the P3, highlight all the awesome things that they're doing, all the cool gameplay things because I'm like, like, I know I'm communications is what I do. I'm a pinball person, I know what people pinball people want. You guys are doing it. We just need to kind of tell the world about how you're doing it. And you know, just because you look at it, I would always have people when I streamed, they would come on and they would just like see the screen, the interactive play field screen, and be like, oh, is this virtual pinball? And I remember I one time I must have got asked like three or four times. I like took the glass off and like put my hands and I was like poking the targets and everything on the machine. I was like, this is a real pinball machine.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You know, it I I I just enjoy it. I I I enjoyed the machine, and I uh I had a really fun time playing Dungeon Crawler Carl and Enders game, and you could see the passion that everybody that was there, they were excited to show this off, and they should be. Because I think that disc is is a game changer, it's just it changes the game so much. It's like Winchester and Batman 66 on steroids in front of you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and the way the the play field, like I so I I would watch Jerry play it as the like the development progressed, and I would see him hitting the shots, and I was like, man, is this game really as flowy as it looks on stream? And when Jerry's playing it, because he would like record videos. I was like, there's is it really gonna shoot that way? And I stepped up to it, and man, I was hitting those shots, those upper flipper loop shots and stuff, and yeah, the like crossing play field, and it sets it up, and he can shoot either the ramp or the orbit. It was like the layout is good amazing. And the fact that they were able to get that that disc like the rotated shot, so it would be either either the left orbit or that little like turnaround loop. I was like, this is crazy. And then there's like a diverter that can catch it, and it can catch on that magnet, and oh, it's insane. And they have seven books, right? Yes. Seven books. That's bananas. Yeah, yeah. So if you're a DCC fan, this has got it in there. And so you may have watched the launch stream uh trailer at this point, the official trailer.
SPEAKER_02Wednesday of the week of uh launch.
SPEAKER_01If you're listening to this, you watched it. If you heard the swear words bleeped out in the launch video, they are not bleeped out in the game. You can they're like they are doing this theme justice as you would want. That's I, you know, some of the speculation leading up. It's like, oh well, multimorphic does family-friendly games, so they're not gonna do Dungeon Crawler Carl. But they and that's relatively true. Most of the games they've done have been, you know, available you know, good for everybody. But they knew if they were getting a license like Dungeon Crawler Carl, you gotta do it right. So it's like you gotta go all in, the humor, the vulgarity, the violence, everything you want from the books are in there.
SPEAKER_03It says god damn it, donut, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01It says god damn it. He drops F-bombs, I mean everything goddamn it, donut.
SPEAKER_03That's the that's the phrase of a book one. He says it a million times, so it's pretty hilarious. And it's Ender's game. I never watched or read it.
SPEAKER_01Did you? Yeah, so I saw the movie and then I went back. Once I knew they were working on the um the game, I read the book and I was like, wow, this is really really good. Actually, I listened to the audiobook version of it, but that's reading in my book. I drive a lot, so I listen to audiobooks. It's reading. You know what's funny is like you know, okay, spoiler alert for this is like a 30-year-old, 30 or 40-year-old book at this point. Uh-huh. The big the big twist at the end, the reveal, you you have you've read it, right? I have no idea. No. Okay. So there's a big twist. I won't spoil it for you. Go ahead. There's a big twist at the end. Oh you want me to? Yeah, go ahead. I feel like I shouldn't, even though it's so old. Anyways, the twist that happened, I was listening to the audio book in my car. Okay. And I was like, kind of like zoned out because I was commuting home. Yeah. And I was like, wait, wait, did that just do what I think it did? And I re- rebounded it and listened to it again. I was like, I can't believe that just happened. So it's like, that's the thing that like when people read this book or listen to it, it's like that well, wow. I did not see that coming. So I I would I would recommend giving that a read or a listen if you haven't. Or if you want like the gist of it. The movie is not great. It's okay. But it'll give you at least a kind of like a sense of what the concept is about, if you're not familiar with it at least. But it's got uh Harrison Ford in it, and uh it's got Haley Steinfeld, who is like the Queen of Buffalo because she's married to Josh Allen now. So yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01When was this movie out? Uh it's like mid-2010s, I think. No kidding.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it just went right by me. Never thought. Yeah, yeah. All right, maybe I'll give it a watch.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It is at least you'll have an idea what the story is.
SPEAKER_03I have an idea. I have no idea. When they when they unveiled it, I'm glad he didn't get on my face because it was like, I was, I don't know. I never heard of it. But I'm a good one.
SPEAKER_01I saw that and uh I heard somebody in the crowd was like, oh my god, Ender's freaking game. So it's like that theme. Like, if you know that theme, you love that theme. She knew it.
SPEAKER_03Uh I know exactly who you're talking about. She went bananas for it. And I was like, all right, I'm getting up to, I'm getting excited.
SPEAKER_01It's like Jerry's dream theme. So if you want a game that if you want games that people are passionate about, bring if they're the ones that bring it to life. That's Ender's game for the P3. Jerry loves it. He's like, this is the license I've always wanted to do. He's like, I'm glad we're making it happen. And I was like, I can see why. Like after I was like, totally in it's totally up my alley. Like sci-fi, you know, 80s, like video gamey kind of feel. It's the gist of the story is like it's like a kid growing up going to they're training kids to like fight in battle, and it's like okay. It's the story of this kid coming up through battle school and getting recruited into the to the the space army, basically. So um, and then you know, the big the big reveal at the end. Okay.
SPEAKER_03I will watch I'm gonna watch this movie so I know what the hell I'm talking about before this comes out.
SPEAKER_01And there's there's other other spin-off books that came out afterwards. It's like there's another version of the book that tells the same story, but from the other character's perspective, which is kind of cool. Um and there's there's there's a there's like pre uh prequels and sequels, and so yeah, it's all it's a whole series. So if you know, you know, I guess.
SPEAKER_03I don't know if I can do it, but I'll try. I'll just at least watch the one.
SPEAKER_01Watch the one.
SPEAKER_03I'll watch one. No, no problem. I'll watch it before this before this comes out. But uh there you go. So I go there, right? Jerry says, Hey, can you film uh and do a thing uh like you did last time for Portal? I was like, Yeah, no problem. Then I go, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Like, I'm a podcaster that did pinball streams. It's not hard to do a pinball stream. You just gotta, I mean, it is hard, but I don't have to like I'm not retro Ralph. Okay, yeah, yeah. I'm not retro Ralph. So I can't even call Ralph for advice because I'm under, you know, and I don't want to I don't want to do this to Jerry. So I was like, all right, what am I supposed to do? And I remember Ralph telling me before I went to Barrels of Fun for Dune, he goes, You gotta record everything. Everything. I was like, okay. And did I record everything? No. So now this time I re I got this Osmo Pocket 3, really nice camera. Me and Brad Albright are geeking, recording each other on the Osmo's Pocket 3s, and my footage is hot garbage. It's garbage.
SPEAKER_01It's hard, man. That's that's why I started streaming too, because it's like, I don't want to edit video.
SPEAKER_03I have been editing this thing, and it's it it kind of I I just kind of make fun of myself. So if you if I'm gonna launch that the day it it launches, and it's just my journey of going to it. It please. I can't wait to see it, dude. It's pretty bad. It's not the editing is great, okay? It's the footage. Like the raw materials is so bad. I'm so not good at this. Like, I don't like Ralph would go, I mean, he's done so many, and he would stand here and he'd go, okay, I want the lighting to look like this, and I want the lighting to look like that. I don't I don't know shit about lighting. I have a big light on me right now and a really nice camera, and I'm just talking. I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, that's why we started doing the podcast live on Twitch too. It was like, let's just stream it. And then when we're done, we'll chop it out, and then we're done.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I know. Zero editing, zero taste. If anyone sees my video and you hate it, just cut me a break, okay? I'm a podcaster that has a YouTube channel. Not the opposite. Not like retro rough. He is a YouTuber that has a podcast.
SPEAKER_01That's why I like your content, Jamie. It's just like, chill, let's just talk, hang out.
SPEAKER_03I don't know. I think so. I think I got on people. I went I kind of went for that, like the vlog style of Jamie coming here and seeing the new P3 modules. But, you know, I we again we walk there, we have no idea what it is. You sign this NDA, you walk in, he reveals Dungeon Carler Carl, the place is going bananas, right? Everyone's so excited. And then he does the Steve Jobs one more thing thing, okay, and pulls Ender's game, and people are like, What just happened? Yeah, but there's only 30 of us. It was a very small crowd. Um and it was I I'm glad you got to see that footage um from uh it's moments like that that like the the team really appreciates like seeing the excitement.
SPEAKER_01And then the enthusiasm and the genuine reaction from everybody there was like super awesome. It's funny because we were like debating like, do we show him Ender's game first and then like surprise him with Dungeon Crawler Carl or the other way around? And we decided to go with that way because like Ender's game wasn't on anybody's radar at that point. No. It's like, what is this? And then it's like seeing everybody trying to figure out if it was a different module, different layout, or what's going on here? I wasn't ready for this at all. So yeah, it's been it's been pretty fun to be a part of. It was a really cool Steve Jobs moment, Jerry.
SPEAKER_03So congratulations on that one. Uh so what have you been doing for the launch here? What what's been taking all your time?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we've been we've been hunkering down. I've been busy these past couple weeks. It's uh you know, since I started in October, I was kind of like free to do what I what I wanted to do. So I was like shooting gameplay reels and the little like feature reels showing off different aspects of the the past P3 games. And then now it's like it's go time when when launch time comes around, you gotta you gotta hunger down. So it's been you know planning, uh connecting with influencers, talking to uh setting up uh drafting news releases and getting those out. Um doing the plan we've you know, we have like the the two-week plan for you know, okay, we're gonna like tease it this day, and I guess this will also be out by the time this you know, this is coming out Wednesday, right? So the game's gonna be at um um Gen Con. Oh, really? So we kind of had to plan around that. Okay. So that's why it's and we had to like ship the game out before, you know, I think it shipped out last week. Don't quote me on this, but there was a like a time frame involved where like we have to like get the game over to Gen Con. The Gen Con's like a huge like book book RPG kind of like geek fest kind of show. I'm not sure. Okay. I'd have to look it up, but someone just got Google. But Matt Dinnerman's gonna be there, Jeff Hayes is gonna be there. Oh wow. It's gonna be part of this huge Dungeon Crawler Carl display. And so that's why it's like, all right, so that's our that's our that's our end zone, right? The the this that's the goal line right there. So we had to work back from that. It's like okay, why don't we all open up you know orders and when we start talking about it? And so it's all these considerations that go into it. It's funny too, because I see people talking about, oh, you know, you breadcrumb marketing, just announce it. Why are you doing it like this? Like, believe me, we've all thought about the pros and cons of all types of launches, and this is what we decided would be best for this launch based on like having to get this game out to to Gen Con. So um, and we didn't, it's I feel like it's not a breadcrumb launch because yes, we we gave you the date originally, the multimorphic Monday. Uh, but then you know, all along the time we've been announced that we've been bringing all these new distributors, all these new uh um uh team members. Like so it's been like this, it's like, oh well, there's actual news to talk about. We're not just showing you like here's the the color of the armor, the here's here's the leg bolts on the the front of the cabinet or anything silly like that. Like we're we're making substantial announcements, we're not just like teasing this over and over again. And then like the week ahead, so this past Monday, we're like, oh, here's the we are actually doing two games, you know. So we did the like split apart cabinet, and then you know, we're gonna so this Friday we're gonna have like a schedule of like here's when orders open and oh great, all this stuff. So everybody's gonna know you're gonna have all the material. This is when the gameplay video is gonna go on, these are when the teasers are gonna go online, and so we have all this stuff in the bank. So I was actually out there about a month ago being part of the video shoot and the promo shoot. So when you see Dungeon Crawler Carl, the the trailer, I'm actually the one in it playing it this year. Oh, there you go. So that's when a dream realized I got to be the guy in the in the promo video. Nice. Um uh so yeah, seeing everything that just goes into like all these promotional materials and all the photos and flyers and yeah, yeah. So it's been a month of craziness. So doing social media posts, media relations, you know, influencer relations, all that stuff. So I've been I've been helping out with all that stuff. So it's been crazy. I said the timing is good for me because it's like in academia, the things things that settle down a little bit during the summer. I still work full time, but it's not as like bonkers insane. So I'm not feeling totally stressed out when I get home from work and need to switch gears and start working on this stuff. Um, but it's like this year it's had it's falling in like the two good months of weather we get in Buffalo. So it's been kind of a bummer that I'm inside working. I need to get a laptop and just go on my deck and and work out there, I guess. Or go to the Rochester Pinball Collective. Exactly. I do I do that quite a bit. Exactly.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, go work from there and just put a little thing around you to not look at my screen.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, nobody would definitely peek over and keep an eye on what I was doing.
SPEAKER_03What a great place, by the way. Congratulations. We never talked about that. But what a dream come true, Rochester Pinball Collective.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's crazy. It's funny because I go out there. So when we started Buffalo Pinball, there was like no location pinball in Western New York, all of upstate New York. We used to have people coming from Syracuse to play in our Buffalo League, which is like two and a half hours away, because there's literally no other place to play pinball. So seeing it go from that to like, oh, Syracuse started up their own league, Rochester started up their own league. Everybody starts opening up their own location. So now I could just go to RPC and play pinball in a tournament and I don't have to run the thing and just go and have fun because all these other people have have stepped up to the plate. And so it's kind of that dream realize when you're like have that moment of this is awesome, more people need to do this, and having it seen it played out over the past 12 years or so is pretty awesome.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna be in Goshen next year, but it's that's still pretty far from Rochester, isn't it? That's pretty good. Well, if you end up at RPC, let me know. We'll we'll meet up and hang out. Okay. Because I'm gonna be in Goshen. Uh because my cousins live there. Nice. He works for the Yankees, my cousin. What? He does amazing. He really does.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna hit you up for some tickets the next time I'm in New York.
SPEAKER_03I mean I got me on the jumbo. Dude, that's awesome. It was hilarious. Hilarious. Uh, real quick shout out. You know who we missed? Glenn Wector. Who? Oh, Glenn, yes. How amazing is that? So, how amazing is that dude? He does all my music for my intro, my outro. He does all my announcing. And when he when Jerry announced Glenn Wector, I got so giggly that someone has given this dude finally a chance and he killed it. You can't even tell it's you it's just the sound that he did on Ender's game is so incredible. Not discounting the sound that was done on Dungeon Carl Carl, just different sounds. It's incredible.
SPEAKER_01And he does the voice of the general, so like the big like the announcer voice, it kind of sounds like the Halo announcer guy. That's what it reminds me of a little bit. Yeah, you sound like the dude in Halo, you know. It does betrayal, you know, that guy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It was really it's very well done. Congratulations, Glen. I know you worked your butt off too, like everybody else.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's been great and super rewarding putting those posts up and seeing people just like lose their minds that their friends and people they know are working in pinball now. So him and Wesley are the the two new people to the industry and and to multimorphic, and you know, and we're announcing people are coming back from previous teams and things like that. But when uh it happened when I when I joined Multimorphic too, and they announced that I was like doing communications for it. People are very super excited for you. So yeah, it's been awesome to see that.
SPEAKER_03I'm super excited for him and Wesley. I you know, Wesley was an original guy that used to come to the old joint, and uh and boy did he play the hell out of that P3. So I can see it. He knows a good thing when he sees it, yeah. I mean, I could I can tell you he did. So great, great dudes. That's so great. Yeah, I love it. All right, well, that's enough for me. I don't think oh no, I had some Buffalo, I had some Bro do You Even Talk Pinball. I had one question. Alright, I love this. Let's go. I had two questions. Okay one, one of my favorite skits that you did, not really skits, was when you said unnecessary mods. That the mods you don't need. Mods you don't need, thank you. Really funny, man. Did you get any shit for that? Did you get any card for that?
SPEAKER_01Dude, that was like the one segment that would get the most uh interaction from the audience, dude. People were always sending me dumb shit to put in that segment. Yeah, I can see that, right? Yeah. It because like there was no end to the amount of dumb crap you can like pay to.
unknownOh my god.
SPEAKER_01It it gets me fired up just thinking about it. Like the the stickers that go on the inside of your apron. I'm looking at like the uh Batman 66 behind you. Yeah, you'd never see that. It's like in a spot you would never why would you spend money to do that? These stickers here, right? No, it goes out like on the wall that sends it to the drain. Oh yeah, why? Why do that? Why? What are you doing? And then the 3D brand garbage and I know. I forget which one started it off, but it got to the point where people were like sending me stuff. I was like, no, we already featured this one. Oh, you did. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I was always wondered that would give me cringy because I always wondered if the guy or girl who made this mod uh hears about the Yeah, probably.
SPEAKER_01I had somebody thank me for doing it, so which was pretty funny. It was like the the anime girl translate mod for Godzilla. Did you remember that one? Yeah. What is this have this has nothing to do with Godzilla?
SPEAKER_03I you know, people they want to make a buck. The best one mode mod that I saw was my friend Clint, and he made uh a mod for Insider Connect that can go into the coin door.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. It goes into the dollar sign, the dollar bill slot. So it makes it easy if you've got an older game that doesn't have the spot for it on the apron, or if you don't want it staring at you while you're playing. That's cool. I'm not anti-mod. Look, my Tron is loaded with mods. Like, no, no, no. I'm not saying you're anti-mod. I'm just saying that was a good thing I'm just for the for the audience. I'm not anti-mod. I'm anti-wasting your money.
SPEAKER_03I I saw it as a public service, really. Did you guys ever get um did any of you ever say anything in a manufacturer reach out to you to correct you or to yell at you or any of that? Once.
SPEAKER_01I'm not gonna say what it was. We did we did get one. Yeah. Have you gotten it? Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_03A lot. A lot more recently. I think people are scared of Nick. That's probably why they didn't reach out to us very much. Yeah, people are scared of Kale. Yeah. That's why I think Kale and Nick are the way to go. Don't you think? Yeah, yeah. They should team up and have the like once a month, but those two together, if I can pitch something, I would love to be with Nick, because I think I could go to not as well as you. Oh, yeah, you can play the role of me. Yeah. I could do it. But people have already seen that, right? Because I'm just you know, uh another copy of you. But those two together, Kale and Nick, could be something serious. Pimulenhing. Let's go. Oh boy. We'll see. All right. Thank you, Kevin, so much for joining. Congratulations on this launch. I hope it goes I hope it is going and will go as well as possible because uh people need to come and play this machine because it really is two separate modules with two separate themes that are just really fun to shoot, man. I had a great time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, appreciate it so much. Love what you do. Uh appreciate you having me on. Uh, my call to action for everybody listening. Yeah. If you've played the P3 and it wasn't for you or whatever, you played it at a show, give it a give it a fresh look at one of the upcoming shows. Try to like put any preconceptions out of your mind, step up to it as if you were stepping up to a brand new game from any other manufacturer and see what you think. And I think you're gonna like what you're seeing because you know it's a great time for multimorphic. They're really firing on all cylinders. They've got these great themes that people are really connecting with, and uh I'm I'm stoked to be a part of it. Congratulations, brother.
SPEAKER_03Congratulations. Thank you for coming on. I really, really appreciate it. That was really nice.