May I offer a semi flatwood that was definitely a world under glass, or should I say worlds... Pinbot. The integration of the view of him in space on the BG, to there he is on the playfield, the little space men floating around him... there are a lot of ways you can argue his Bride continues the tradition. But I think it is clear, from a world under glass perspective, Python is truly missed, both in art and theme, especially if we look soley at his catalog... Big guns, for cripes sake. Comet, Cyclone, Pinbot, Bride... Taxi and yes even his swan song Pinball Circus, all are worlds under glass. RIP, Python. We will miss your worlds for sure.

Not sure if it was the Jack Herer talking or the chipmunk tangent, but I nearly pissed myself on that episode laughing. Good job... and put me on Team Zach for at least remembering Cyclone.

Wow, two callouts to WUG on recent pins and suddenly everyones a hater... (DP and IMDN are the correct answers btw). I guess these people don’t like model trains that much either... you know with all those train and track thingies, and miniature buildings and little people running around... You never know when Godzilla is going to show up... can be very triggering and frieghtful to some who hate having fun... have you seen your doctor and looked into a fun-electomy? I heard having your fun gland removed can really help those who are allergic to fun...

I like the term “World Under Glass” because the phrase “Sewer Under Glass” was already trademarked by Stern <flame repellant undies firmly in place>

Listen, what you two do in the privacy of your own homes is not any of my business... but smoking ass is not something recommended by the American Cancer Society...

I think its hillarious we are all on here talking about smoking ass... and how that would play out on partially overheard conversations... “Have you been smoking his ass again?” “I smoked some ass yesterday... boy was that sweet.” “Damn these kids, they kept asking me about smoking ass, saying they didn’t know which end to light, and wondered how well they drawed...”

Free ass smoking (or a Hook translite) to anyone who can tell me where I stole that last line from...

(Hello, Mcfly, Anyone remember Junk Yard Time machine modes?!?)

Don’t disagree... yes, he did go further with video/audio callouts, and they are an interesting side addition, but I think he was just capitalizing on existing animations and sounds he culled during his reverse engineering of the code for CC.

The rarity issue makes this machine higly collectable, but the original code is not a great lasting title in a small home collection. CCC would make it stay a little longer, but ultimately you will move CC out for a MB, MM, or AFM, and eventually once you have a few of the tribute machines in your collection, CCC will move on too, imho.

CCC would be a good title for CGC, but not a good choice for players and small HUO collectors like myself. I have always thought CC was a yawner once I got the chance to play a lot of it. Those who have played it on PA, the live experience doesn't differ much from the PA experience. If you get lucky and can play a CCC somewhere, check it out, it’s worth a play or two or a 100. Thanks guys for the review, my take CC is a C+, and CCC is closer to a B- than B+

But my biggest complaint is Bring back the chipmunks!!!!

Zach,
MB continues to challenge me because it has more challenges you can try for. Not just Frankie MB or Bash for the casual player, but MOR for wizards, and then there is Rock before Bash, 666, MMP and stacking monsters to get to MOR. CCC adds some more challenges that CC desperately needed, but it borrowed more content, imho, than it created new things for us to see and play. It certainly improved CC a lot though, but not sure it pulled it even with some of the greats like AFM or MM, or even MB, which was a thematic grand slam, even if the ruleset is lighter than the other top 90’s pins.

I agree on being overated for some things, and on CC, absolutely. On MB, only the ruleset is it’s biggest Achilles heal. Thematically, I give both CC and MB similar marks... for the theme, the toys and the shots and the artwork all fit and are very congruent. I think CC hit every thematic note from the western genre. What is missing is just what does one expect will happen in the shootout at the OK coral? Massive wizard mode multiball and jackpots? CC has no reveal appeal. Did anyone know what Monsters of Rock was going to be?!? Just what was a Monster Bash? We kinda get it, but did anyone wonder if there was an interesting Bart mode buried at the end? Not so much. I think Champion Pub had this same reveal appeal letdown when the guy turns around and it is the same fighter with a different name, it kind of ruined the ride.

@epthegeek, Seems to me this is the right time and place to chime in with any pertinent and interesting info you could share on your adventure of creating CCC, and let us pinheads discuss it with you. I know I would have a lot of questions. Thanks for finishing CC, and giving it a better final polish. You turned a wood chopper into a playable machine, and thats not an easy task.

@epthegeek, what was your background in coding going into the project? How much time on average were you spending a week on CC? Was implementing existing game code into the project a big portion of your time? Did you complete the original ruleset and then add new modes/code or did you do it simultaneously? Any idea on how many CC have been converted to CCC? Which mech was the hardest to code for? What ideas did you try but ultimately got scrapped and why? Did this satisfy any desire to make your own original titled game, and what advice would you give someone thinking of reworking a title using a P-ROC, like on a Pinbot, or DP’s Bride 2.0, or possibly a Roller Games?

@epthegeek, first off, I want to give you a big round of applause, CCC was a labor (of love) and is well recieved by everyone I know who has played both versions of the code.

Here is a little bit of who Bublehead is... and why I am so interested in your project.
I was in the Visual Pinball scene back when they first married VPinMAME to visual pinball and I was the developer responsible for making the AFM saucer and wiggly aliens work, making the prototype toys for the Ferris wheel in Cyclone, the fishing reel in Fishtales, as well as creating and making the crane toy work in Junk Yard, I animated and got the TRex working in JP. I completely developed the Jackbot title, doing everything from playfield layout and all graphics, animated the Visor with all ball lock combinations and visor flashers that worked. I did the first version of a working rotating BOP head toy as well. I own both Pinbot and Bride, I have built my own virtual pinball machine using an old Roller Games cabinet, and I am a software developer for a large national bank.

I have always wanted to either do my own take on Bride 2.0, my own original title, or retheme Roller Games and make it worth actually owning.

Thanks for your answers, and again thank you for all that free love you gave CC, you truly are a pinball hero and a great pinball resource in my book.

BH

Ok, so if you guys are having issues putting out a show with non-pin content in it that might be under appreciated, may I suggest two edits published weekly... the family friendly monetized version, and then the unmonetized “talks like a sailor” version where you leave in all the swearing and the non-pinball content... let the viewer decide which version they prefer, and then, when you figure out we are all watching the “dirty” version and the views of the clean version fall off, you can get back to swearing like sailors again, post more chipmunk tangents, let me laugh my ass off (ok maybe I was a little wasted when I was watching that episode) and not worry about it.

@who-dey, I enjoy my entertainment mostly uncensored, even though “creative” bleeping of profanity has at times been funny as well... I enjoy it when someone gets bleeped on a non profane word and then the speaker breaks the 4th wall with the censor. But what does it hurt to have a link to both versions? I most assuredly would not let my children poke around on Pinside... unless I was trying to fuck them up on purpose... not certain I would consider Pinside or SDTM as anywhere close to family friendly to say the least. Entertaining, though, absolutely.

@gunnut40, lol... only if you help- it looks like we are down to 48 more posts before morning...

45
@zmeny, that comedy gold is what I am interested in. I enjoy the show and it reminds me of sitting in our rooms at an event, be it CAX, or pin expo, and a bunch of us pinheads shooting the pinball breeze, where any and all things are on the table and said. And yes, sometimes that gold is locked inside a chunk of politically incorrect quartz and no amount of peer pressure is going to make you crack and unearth those gems... maybe live streaming is what we need?

36

Ok, I got to ask, just to stay simply near on topic, have you guys ever done a “stranded island” episode on which pinball machine would you like to see wash up in a cargo container with solar panels, a Tesla home battery, and a single machine either nib or vintage strapped to a palet?

I really wouldn’t chime in here except this counter isn’t moving fast enough to get it to 0 by tomorrow.

31

I rode the bourbon train from 2005 to 2010 because I lived in the heart of Ky in Frankfort, about a half mile from the Buffalo Trace Distillery. And yes, I drank a lot of great bourbon for cheap... we used to buy Pappy Van Winkle 23yr reserve for under $275 a bottle as gifts for friends, and Blantons was under $80

B710355C-B525-4825-9108-32A23E57BCF6 (resized).jpeg

25
You guys need to do a “performance enhancement drug” of choice for pinball episode... and then talk your favorite drinks, or smoke, or crack, or meth... I think Zach is mainlining Skittles, and Greg has been caught freebasing Novus 3...

@jgentry, I got a few stoppers, but not the whole set... back then, the tour guides would slip kids a stopper if they asked nicely when touring the single barrel bottling line, which was an all manual process. The bottles went down a line, but everything was done by human hands... I was actually wondering what we paid for Blantons back then, it was so inexpensive. I thought I remember paying under $40 at Red Dot Liqour, but can’t find an old receipt to be sure. Here is what’s left after 8.75 years in AZ... needless to say.

4EDEE5E8-C913-4B49-BBC6-E2F8EFEEA61D (resized).jpeg

The Munsters is just an Addams Family knockoff cash grab trying to masquerade as a Monster Bash remake killer. That ought to get a rise out of somebody... who-dey?

+1 jgentry lol... but I am afraid that horse is no where near dead enough yet not to whip... I am sure we will see more Great White Lion Snake machines in Stern’s future.

Afraid someone used that one already in another thread... or this one, I can’t keep track of all the monsters and Munsters threads floating around, but it may have been on the SDTM thread....

That is the hope in the speculation thread, but after playing DP, compared to IMDN, and looking at all the more recent Stern titles, and at the leaked layout and the possible toys, my gut tells me this will not be as epic as everyone hopes. If you love the Munsters, I hope it meets your expectations, but for me, it adds up to a pass. I will get to play one soon enough, as my pin league is full of early adopters who will have one on order as soon as it goes on sale. For the love of pinball, I hope I am wrong.

@who-dey, I give... of course no comparison, they just have almost the exact same set of parts... cabinet, legs, playfield, display, flippers, ramps, lights, sounds, power supply, rubbers, posts, translites, backboxes, plungers, troughs, wire, and electronic components all designed to waste time in exchange for money. Hmm... nope no similarities at all. My take on Munsters is this machine will be just another meh Stern title, and I am not that excited by it. Everyone wants it to be sooooo goooood, yet why can’t some of us expect it to be reeeeal baaaaad and express their opinion as such?

That’s easy, I add up all the previous titles by Stern and divide that into the number of really enjoyable Stern titles and then use that and the limited playfield Munster pics as input into my difference engine and turn the crank... it does not come up good for Munsters... no matter who is designing it. I made sure and played a lot of all the machines at Expo this year. Every one of the new machines with the exception of POTC and MBrLE made me ultimately yawn. They were fun but not as much fun to me as POTC or MB. So between the two, we decided to go old school remake instead of POTC, which was because of theme, not gameplay. Here, theme, not gameplay makes me question Munsters. We are an Addams Family, not a Munsters household, we would buy TAFr in a heartbeat, and we pass on Munsters...

Thats how.

Oh, not critical of Stern per se, just lately they kind of went to a formula... I own a Stern, so no, not overly critical of the craftsmanship or quality, that seems to be adequate. Just not liking their games as much as older Bally Williams machines. So Munsters is a pass. I will play it on site, but not looking to own.

@jgentry, that made laugh. ok, teach, I guess you can take 10 points off my quiz score for not showing my work... lol.

Been called worse things... didnt phase me then either. But wait, I think you’re all getting jealous of my exploits as a seamen (yeah twist that word any way you see fit ) I proudly servered on the USS Andrew Jackson, SSBN619 Gold crew for 7 strategic deterrent patrols off the northern coast of Russia circa 1982 to 1986. Was trained as an Electronic Technician and as a Nuclear Reactor Operator, qualified on the S3G and S5W Submarine Nuclear Reactor Plants. We call ourselves the Silent Service, Death from Below. To each other we call ourselves bubbleheads because thats what sailors living on targets called us and it drove them nuts... So place my head wherever you want. I have been through hell, and it was so you could put my head wherever you want, so you are welcome. Moving on...

@noquarters, thank you. And yes, we used to laugh at VTTBOTS, with their zipper in the back monsters and the glass windows that would have had to have been over 8 feet thick... we had two windows. periscope 1 & 2.

@who-dey, You look like you were having fun at Pincinatti. You and my Dad would have got along great... I think he had the same NRA hat and was a Bengals fan (he was born in Dayton where I grew up.) He had to give up shooting due to Parkinsons, but he left me and my siblings a nice collection. Do you hunt, compete, collect, or a little bit of everything? Been ages since I got back home and took the guns out to shoot, but my brother keeps them cleaned and oiled for us.

Ok, you guys are going to start a “Challenge Coin” industry now for pinball. We used to just lay quarters on the glass to hold your place in line... but now we are going to need some “Custom”, “One-of-a-Kind”, “Personalized”, Pure solid tin/brass/bronze/silver/gold/platinum/unobtianium coin encrusted with 37 diamonds, 132 garnets, 3 pearls, and a partridge in a pear tree to lay on the glass at pin shows where everything is set on freeplay...

Who-Dey and @gunnut40, I might have accidently “tripped” over the power cord, or just pulled it from the plug and walked away... but I try and not be an asshat even when faced with other asshattery, but sometimes pin ettiquette needs to be taught to the newbies.

See my marketplace ad for all your challenge coin needs...

After playing a nice Tron LE, when I walk up to a Tron Pro, my overwhelming thought is:

“What’s the point?”

Don’t disagree @jgentry, for the money the Tron Pro is a bargain, I just have had more time playing and having fun on an LE personally. Never owned either of them, though, so cost was not the issue for me.

Thanks go out to Zach and Greg for sharing their lists with us. I won’t be fool enough to critique them because they did a better job of that themselves. Not sure what Greg could have said that required visual censoring, but it must have been a whopper.

My list: and in order... can you say “old school”?
Pinbot
Monster Bash
Fire Power
Black Knight 2000
Attack from Mars
Fish Tales
Fun House
Fire Ball
Flash
Subway

This would be way easier if it was a top 20... because after looking at @jvspin’s list, most of his top 10 would be a good start on the bottom 10 of my top 20 list. There are just too many good old titles to skinny it down to 10...

To Zach and Greg, my challenge to you is to pick just one... one machine available publicly and playable RIGHT NOW to play for the rest of your life on a deserted island... and discuss. Maybe start out challenging each other with a title... and have the other shoot it down until you reach the ultimate desert island pin.

Goronic , thank you. It is a tough question... I would want something hard to get rocking, but once rocking, hard to stop...

And I do not begrudge a man his solitude while in the depths of an ether binge either... which POTC just might rank as for him and he’s probably tripin balls right now, literally.

Correction: flippin balls...

Screw POTC, Zach was working on the TWIPY reveal! ... and playing POTC

Sailors condition their livers by ripping them out, throwing them on the grinder and running over them with a couple of liquor trucks...

Are there any other sailors going to chime in here, or do I really need to taunt the marines to save the day and tell a few drinking stories?

Try putting away 5 long island ice teas just to get the night started... uh, 6'4" 240lbs can put away some tequila too...

@who-dey, well, life is more fun when seen through the bottom of a cocktail glass... but when you are young, stupid, and seemingly indestructible, you think your liver can take anything, and back then it could...
God do I wish I had the liver of a 18 year old again...

But I say bat-shit crazy stuff because waiting on NIB pinball machines has been known to cause: mental fatigue, loss of sleep, fever, chills, loss of focus and/or the ability to hold on to reality, sudden weight gain or weight loss, loss of appetite, hearing non-existent sounds or noises, hallucinations, vomiting, diarrhea, blisters, rash and/or lesions, skin discoloration and/or hives. Other side effects have been known to occur. Please see your distributor if conditions persist.

I like the SDTM thread because it doesn't take itself as cereal as the rest of Pinside.

And Zach and Greg are a pair of characters... you get that "sitting in your hotel room shooting the shit at Expo with your buddies" vibe and I love shooting the shit at any pinfest.

And yes I am being very cereal!!!

@who-dey... absolutely. You will need hip waders.

As a fellow MBrLE awaitee and a fan of POTC, let me try and help you out. That MBrLE will be made, sold, and gone. That is almost a certainty. The number of POTC to be built is not a finite number or published like the 1250 MBrLE that will be produced. So you have to ask yourself how lucky you feel and whether or not a Monster Bash will stay in your collection like a POTC will. If you pass on MBrLE, finding one in the future might be harder than finding a POTC. It's up to you to decide which one is more fun on a long term basis and if you pass on POTC now, will finding one later be harder than finding an MBrLE? Which one will hold it's value best? Sitting side by side, the light show of MB tends to outshine POTC, but Pirates is a sweet and fun shooter. If the wife didn't hate the franchise, it might have had a shot in our collection.

Ok, I want to ask Zach and the Bone the same question I was faced with in 2008... Three machines, all the same price... no pro, no premium, no LE, just one trim level, Stern. So at the end of Expo 2008, Mike Pacak had 9 machines NOB used in the Flipout tournament, three of each title: Stern Spiderman, Stern POTC, and Stern Family Guy. Price was $3500 out the door, your pick. Which machine would you have chosen? Total number of plays after tournament was 255 on the machine I brought home.

@chuckwurt, I love shooting Spidey... but there were some things that Zach mentioned that makes playing Spidey, um, tedious. The ruleset doesn't go deep, and I might say is somewhat of a standard old school (mid 2000’s old school) mentality. At one point it feels like you are stuck in shampoo mode... Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

I want to thank everyone for their honest responses... at the time, ops were kind of mad about SPOTC and the sinking ship and airballs... a mod came out to put up poly carb blast armor around it and it started to survive more than a day on site. Spiderman was a great shooter, but the depth of the ruleset compared to Family Guy and the fact that the original heavy metal music package was not what either my wife or I had in mind to listen to for the next umpteen years, we opted for Family Guy, a Lawlor design which we thought might hold it’s value due to the popularity of the TV show.

You have to remember, my thinking was not clouded by a lot of choices for a NIB (or NOB post Expo bargain) HUO pin at the time. I mean we were looking down the barrel of what we thought might be the end of pinball, the titles coming out were 24 and CSI... and as a better than average player, I was looking for more depth than Spiderman, which was kind of a tried and true straight forward ruleset, SPOTC which was ok, but might be a maintenance nightmare (as ops and players alike were complaining about) or you take the latest Pat Lawlor design, and the one with the MOST callouts in the history of recent pinball (in 2008 at least) and that it was $3500 with 255 plays on it (MSRP was like $5700, which meant you could get it for $4k to $5k NIB depending)

So, FGuy was not a bad choice, for me, for $3500 in 2008. At least I know I can most likely break even if I sold it now.

Thanks for the episode guys. There were some decent pins in the 60’s, I know I played them in the 70’s haha. You got to remember us old farts are watching you young guns... with a great big stink eye when you go dissing the pins we grew up with in the 60’s and 70’s... still going with team Greg right now unless Zach can save himself and name a 60’s pin he has played and liked.

I think any movie with an uptick on itunes, netflicks, etc... between TG and Xmas can be considered a xmas movie, but by that logic alone, some REALLY questionable movies are xmas movies...

I said what the heck and set my IOT web enabled baby monitor botnet to voting for you guys the minute the page went live... man having to generate all those emails using one botnet, and then leveraging that with my ai botnet to fool the botnet fooling software, (and which has almost all those traffic light images mapped already by the way) So you guys shouldn't have to worry about a thing...

Good Luck and a wonderful way to mix bussiness with pleasure... should be a wonderful new dynamic now between you and your wife... Now she can nag, nay, dare I say actually Bitch at you to sell more pinball machines and now you will love to hear it and thank her often for it. I’m kiding, sure, but it is probably true.

But why corn hole for the name, huh? Of all my really early youth slang terms from when my friends and I thought “doo doo” and “pee pee” and “pregnant” were on the list of seven things you can’t say on television, “corn hole” had such a bad reputation as a specific euphemistic act that every time we hear someone say “Let’s go corn holin’ today we cannot keep a straight face. Ymmv.

And don’t we know it @who-dey... we only grew up right next door in Ohio.

I dont think you will find a better bunch of folks than in the KOI Tristate... Lot of pinball memories there.

Come on, everyone knows Mail Pouch is the best Burley chew out there... But nothing runs like a Deere.

My grand dad, Elmer Ison (RIP), from Isonville, Kentucky, a tiny little town in Elliott county named after his great great grandfather (and my great great great great grand pappy) Archibald Ison, chewed nothing but Mail Pouch. He also grew it. I forgot to add, he made moonshine as well, but almost all the farmers back then did.

Flippin’ Out Moonshine. You got a brand going right there.

I want to again wish Zach and his wife the best of luck in their new endeavor, we need this kind of energy (and humor) at the distributor level if we are to keep this pinball resurgence thing surging.

“...and I cannot wait to... <Bling-da-la-ring> f*$#@ myself.... one second...”

Ok, funniest thing I have heard today...

@Who-dey, just wait a little and save your spare change and get a MBrSE on the scondary market (or buy it new), and then sit that next to your Munsters Pro and let your guests decide which one they like best. You know that is what you really want to do.

Some of the new fun is watching Zach HAVE to hold his tongue, and tip toe around content on which he should not say anything...

It feels like what Thumper's Dad told him... "If you can't say anything nice, don't say nuthin' at all" or in Zack case, have an epileptic seizure, watch his eyelid twitch, and do what I like to call the Zach Maneuver-
First cock your head in an up right or up left motion... now roll the neck and follow through... include a well timed eye-roll, sideways glance, and his newest addition, the full beard hand rub-mouth block.... now, lock eyes with Greg and intimate your displeasure with current line of comments and sit there think what a pain it will be to clean up in post production...

The tension is unbearable, I hope it lasts...

Isn't he in prison? Edit- nope... not yet....