(Topic ID: 203700)
Linked Games
Alice in Wonderland
Zidware Pinball USA, 2013-
Celts
Haggis, 2021
-
Magic Girl
Zidware Pinball USA, 2017
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Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland
Zidware Pinball USA, 2012
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Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland (Arcade Edition)
Deeproot, 2020
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Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland (Xtra Edition)
Deeproot, 2020
Topic Gallery
Quoted from JodyG:Looks like Samsung ripped off Deeproot with their battery shipping container! This is for a 2022 Wrangler. Or maybe Deeproot ripped off Samsung?
[quoted image]
Deeproot ripped off or licensed another company’s product that will happily slap a company’s logo on it.
PinPod was a trademark, not a patent
Boulder, CO
And now, the big money: Trustee just dropped a 134-page motion to be able to sell the minority non-lapsed insurance policies owned by Policy Services, Inc. I'm also uploading the motion for an expedited hearing.
OK money business people, this one's on you. I have neither the time nor knowledge to suss out the good stuff (though I will say, while skimming, I spotted a few funny tidbits and at least one intriguing nugget).
There's a lot of repetition in the latter half, but still a lot of legit content throughout. One nice thing is that a bunch of the docs were already redacted so I only had to delete about a half dozen pages which contained investors' names and contact info (which is a minor shame because some of them provided further details on the policies).
Have at it.
deeprootcapital-78-2022.03.15.pdfdeeprootcapital-79-2022.03.15.pdfQuoted from Roostking:One of the lawyers in the Skit B shit show added the term "Accoutrements" to the pinball lexicon..
I believe that term was brought up by Mr. Kulek himself 
Just to clarify one point. Robert started with intent to steal and deceive investors. His split personality, Roberto, started with a dream of killing it in pinball. Deeproot shows signs of each from the start. Deeproot was set up with a Byzantine style of shell companies AND Robert never kept any records of expenditures (in spite of being in the highly regulated financial services and investment services fields). He knew before moving the first deposit under a shell, this was a bunch of bullsh*t. Secondly, when Robert dreamed of being a pinball star - he thought he was well on the way. Make no mistake, Robert was scamming from the start. Why didn’t he do all the normal stuff you’d think? Like false invoices and payments to offshore accounts etc? Well, Robert was a genius and he thought he knew a better way. Keep paying bills and don’t keep records. Buy a large amount of jewelry to keep the women happy, coming and going. Pay for tuition etc. Condo, oh yeah!
Quoted from JodyG:It's archaic and imprecise, and I'm prepared to die on that hill. Just because they have been doing it that way forever doesn't mean it's efficient
Everything could be done with a 1/8" bit easily in that thickness plywood...it has to be done after printing and clear coating anyway. I've done it myself already on my CNC cut homebrew playfields ive been working on, and the results are excellent. You just need to use compression bits.
There's also a possibility that all the inserts and outer shape are the same for the multi-tiers (pro/prem/le), but posts may get moved or added depending on version so it may be easier to create one CNC program that just keeps churning out blank playfields, and depending on which model they are running at the moment they can easily swap out the punches. Homebrew is one thing, production is another story. It's all about efficiency and keeping parts coming to assemble.
Quoted from TreyBo69:The secret scribbles on a dry erase board that will solve it all
[quoted image]
This dry erase board from the auction has these weird abbreviations from the account summary from the post above
Quoted from LeonSpinkx:On a completely unrelated note (hah), King Crimson's "Indoor Games" just might be the only song in human history to have the word "bagatelle" in the lyrics.
I had a hunch that The Decemberists had used "bagatelle" somewhere. I was not disappointed. (OK, it's "bagatelles." That still counts.)
Quoted from toyotaboy:cutting anything "wood or metal" you want the biggest bit possible to rip through that work as quickly as possible to keep costs and leadtime down...
I don't think RM worried about that very much.
Halifax, NS
How about CPR just using the laser to burn the wood. You still have to drill for dimples if you want to paint the bottom gray. Having a press that has done it the same way for decades is a plus!
Policy Services has a $2 million A/R Accounts Receivable from Bobby.
$700k paid out in “finder fee” commissions
$2.5 million capitalized in “commissions and fees”
Rent expense of $380k
Inter company loans of $33 million. Money shuffle
Ran $2.2 million in losses through Policy Services in 2020
Accumulated losses of over $14 million in this Company booked as of 12/31/20
F me running. “No accounting”. BS, he knew where every dime was flowing in and out of.
Would need to see the books of all the other companies to tie it together
Quoted from TreyBo69:Some numbers on assets, income, salaries, etc[quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]
"Other Current Assets --- Hawaii Investment --- $135,000."
Screen Shot 2022-03-15 at 4.33.19 PM (resized).png
Pennies on the dollar.
Also, remember that name. Interesting stuff on that later.
Bobby could still get paid??
Screen Shot 2022-03-15 at 4.34.29 PM (resized).png
Sounds like this thing is already pretty far along.
Screen Shot 2022-03-15 at 4.36.04 PM (resized).png
Bad news for the "little old ladies."
Screen Shot 2022-03-15 at 4.39.20 PM (resized).png
Can't imagine this doesn't start some shit.
Screen Shot 2022-03-15 at 4.40.12 PM (resized).png
The costs of doing business with Bobby.
This is weird:
Screen Shot 2022-03-15 at 4.50.04 PM (resized).png
One of the members of the party that is trying to buy up deeproot's insurance policies owns/runs the company (https://turnerlogic.com/) that Robert contracted to do all of deeproot's websites and deeproot pinball's programming, despite their having no experience experience programming pinball or games in general.
https://twitter.com/TurnerLogic/status/1196888059062734848
Screen Shot 2022-03-15 at 4.54.20 PM (resized).png
The hell is that about?
Clearly Turner Logic is in cahoots with Robert, this also explains why there is no mentioning of licenses and there is suddenly no software on any of the machines anymore.
Turner Logic is an independent company operated by Chris Turner - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cturner80. They (Chris and a number of his programmers) were collocated within the deeproot offices. My understanding is that they managed the various deeproot financial websites and then were involved with doing some programming for deeproot pinball/tech. I think at some point they were working on a web-based rules editor for the pinball machines. I’m not sure if they did any unity stuff. My guess is that when everyone at deeproot stopped getting paid, Turner Logic received some ownership in deeproot financials as compensation.
I was wondering where all the servers are... No server racks listed in the auction. Where's all the data? Who hosted their email, documentation, code, QuickBooks, etc. If not cloud hosted, where are the physical local servers?
I wonder if this turner logic hosted all the code on their servers and acted as derproots host, if it wasn't on site.
Large cloud companies will turn over server data in federal criminal cases and it's backed up all over the world; hard to delete permanently... Local servers not so much... But again, if local, where are they?
Quoted from Inside:Turner Logic is an independent company operated by Chris Turner - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cturner80. They (Chris and a number of his programmers) were collocated within the deeproot offices. My understanding is that they managed the various deeproot financial websites and then were involved with doing some programming for deeproot pinball/tech. I think at some point they were working on a web-based rules editor for the pinball machines. I’m not sure if they did any unity stuff. My guess is that when everyone at deeproot stopped getting paid, Turner Logic received some ownership in deeproot financials as compensation.
Maybe they have the working RAZAs as payment?
Quoted from VonPinball:I wonder if this turner logic hosted all the code on their servers and acted as derproots host, if it wasn't on site.
There may absolutely be nothing unseemly to it the Turner Logic connection.
However, without knowing the backstory, I do find it interesting that the head of the company Robert contracted on tech projects before the pinball crap even started (he introduced the company that would be handling pinball programming as the one that has done his websites for years) and whose business address was listed in many places (including the company's own website within the past month) as the same as deeproot's
Screen Shot 2022-03-15 at 8.38.50 PM (resized).png
Screen Shot 2022-03-15 at 8.38.27 PM (resized).png
is now part of a group aggressively trying to buy for 25 pennies on the dollar deeproot's insurance holdings, along with other stuff they'll try to use to make money which—if successful and I'm reading things correctly—would be split with Robert after his debts and obligations have been covered.
And truly, it could be as simple as Chris Turner, having had a front row seat to Robert's idiocy for years, believed that money could have been made legitimately if only someone not stupid were in charge. And now that there's a chance to grab deeproot assets at bargain basement prices, he intends to be that not-stupid person.
However, it does feel like Turner Logic and deeproot have maintained a very close relationship for years (which includes sharing the same office / headquarters address). And someone only reading the ho hum disclosure in today's filing ("one of the prospective buyers of the policy services assets did contract work for the debtor) would not get that.
Sharing the same address is setting off my Spidey senses. Are they now on the street as well, or did they rent a different portion of the building? Also kind of interesting their social media presence hasn't been updated since the RAZA post from 2019. Have they actually done any other non-deeproot work lately...or ever?
Quoted from JodyG:Sharing the same address is setting off my Spidey senses. Are they now on the street as well, or did they rent a different portion of the building? Also kind of interesting their social media presence hasn't been updated since the RAZA post from 2019. Have they actually done any other non-deeproot work lately...or ever?
You can look their their portfolio at https://turnerlogic.com/portfolio/.
Deeproot was the single tenant for the building it rented as their hq. So anyone else using the facility was doing so at Robert's invitation.
Quoted from JodyG:Which blows my mind they are still using dimple locations and hand drilling to spot playfield features in 2022 and not just having all the holes pre-drilled in a CNC. Some poor schmuck gets to have carpel tunnel frim hand drilling thousands of holes every day.
Not 100% sure how Stern is using their press, but at Williams they used it to pinprick spotting locations and press in t-nuts, on both sides of the playfield in a single operation. Not sure where you get the drilling thousands of holes idea - the pinpricks are to spot the tips of screws that hold things to the surface of the playfield, presumably put in with power tools.
You can use a CNC router to make all those spotting holes, but just picture all the movement on that CNC head, vs 30 seconds to load in a playfield, press it, and then pull it out again. Not having to hammer in all those T-nuts by hand is just a bonus. The downside of course is making all those press plates, altering them if there are design changes, and storing them somewhere when you're not using them. (Not so much of an issue for Williams, as they literally never re-ran games. And note that sometimes when they re-ran playfields for Parts Sales too far down the road, they didn't get spotting holes.)
Quoted from frobozz:Not 100% sure how Stern is using their press, but at Williams they used it to pinprick spotting locations and press in t-nuts, on both sides of the playfield in a single operation. Not sure where you get the drilling thousands of holes idea - the pinpricks are to spot the tips of screws that hold things to the surface of the playfield, presumably put in with power tools.
You can use a CNC router to make all those spotting holes, but just picture all the movement on that CNC head, vs 30 seconds to load in a playfield, press it, and then pull it out again. Not having to hammer in all those T-nuts by hand is just a bonus. The downside of course is making all those press plates, altering them if there are design changes, and storing them somewhere when you're not using them. (Not so much of an issue for Williams, as they literally never re-ran games. And note that sometimes when they re-ran playfields for Parts Sales too far down the road, they didn't get spotting holes.)
At the 4:05 mark you can see the guy drilling out the hole locations using a jig plate with drill bushings welded in. And he has to change drill bits at least once with a key chuck on every PF. There's nothing efficient about that. If you want to dimple the underside so you know where the screws for the bulb sockets go, that's one thing...but for through holes, jig plates and drills should have been replaced 20 years ago. I imagine top side dimples are for wood screw-style posts which do not have a through hole for a t-nut. I run into this stuff when people buy ramps and the mounting locations vary upwards of 1/8"-3/16" from game to game at times. Things got tweaked and flexed into place at the factory, because the assembly process in certain areas isnt that precise.
Quoted from Roostking:Maybe they have the working RAZAs as payment?
With recent discoveries of no software in sample game, no servers or racks in auction and a backdoor deal by Turner Logic to get paid for their programming and website efforts, ahead of all other creditors … I am thinking that this group is planning to win the sample game without software for $20k and add their newly paid for software. Then who knows, but this sample game might be worth $60k in semi-working condition. I don’t even care what the Turner group is trying to do, only noticing that their actions are suspect and applauding their success in positioning for a payoff. I’ll bet the second missing sample game appears at Turner Logic Studio also, after auction closes.
Quoted from JodyG:but for through holes, jig plates and drills should have been replaced 20 years ago.
That's a 32-year-old video. Wish granted! I seriously doubt Stern is doing anything like that any more. They're using the press to put pinpricks for screw spotting, I suspect.
Quoted from VonPinball:I was wondering where all the servers are... No server racks listed in the auction. Where's all the data? Who hosted their email, documentation, code, QuickBooks, etc. If not cloud hosted, where are the physical local servers?
I'm pretty sure Robert kept all the data on his AOL account. 
Quoted from blueberryjohnson:This is weird:
[quoted image]
One of the members of the party that is trying to buy up deeproot's insurance policies owns/runs the company (https://turnerlogic.com/) that Robert contracted to do all of deeproot's websites and deeproot pinball's programming, despite their having no experience experience programming pinball or games in general.
https://twitter.com/TurnerLogic/status/1196888059062734848
[quoted image]
The hell is that about?
Well, now it all makes sense.
Sandwich John gets short sheeted in the repro playfield game.
So he seeks out ANYONE that will give him the time of day.
Enter Chris Turner.
He grabs up the deeproot assets for a song.
Sandwich John continues to cheerlead for jpop as the messiah of pinball and screams use me! I’m the real playfield expert!!!
All this time, sandwich John screaming on the inter webs, “I know stuff! I know people”
“Jpop just needs to be managed”
The asset’s are there!
Now it all makes sense.
And now we know who haunted the old amusement park.
Mystery solved.
I’ll take my Scooby snack now.
Here’s a more recent example of Gomez explaining why they have someone drill a dozen or so holes by template instead of CNC
Pants press shows up right after
Quoted from frobozz:As long as we're sharing 32 year old videos, here at the beginning you can see Williams was CNC-routing their playfields, not using routing jig plates!
Those are insert holes...we all know they are not drilled by hand.
Quoted from TreyBo69:Here’s a more recent example of Gomez explaining why they have someone drill a dozen or so holes by template instead of CNC
There are more than a dozen holes there. Also, if they can't figure out tooling and machinery to do small holes more quickly and efficiently on a CNC than with a human and a template, they are not trying hard enough. I have a degree in computer aided machining and have been a journeyman Tool & Die maker and T&D CAD designer in a large consumer product manufacturing facility for close to 20 years now, and I feel confidant in my assessment here. If you want to stay ahead in the current manufacturing world, you constantly need to be assessing your processes for improvements. This is especially true with the current labor situation in this country.
Quoted from JodyG:If you want to stay ahead in the current manufacturing world, you constantly need to be assessing your processes for improvements.
Or just steadily charge more and more for similar products. No need to improve the process if you're making plenty of profit as-is.
Quoted from mrgone:Well, now it all makes sense.
Sandwich John gets short sheeted in the repro playfield game.
So he seeks out ANYONE that will give him the time of day.
Enter Chris Turner.
He grabs up the deeproot assets for a song.
Sandwich John continues to cheerlead for jpop as the messiah of pinball and screams use me! I’m the real playfield expert!!!
All this time, sandwich John screaming on the inter webs, “I know stuff! I know people”
“Jpop just needs to be managed”
The asset’s are there!
Now it all makes sense.
And now we know who haunted the old amusement park.
Mystery solved.
I’ll take my Scooby snack now.
Still here waiting to see who gets what from the auction, & any other useful stuff. I personally will not be buying anything going through my personal bankruptcy. Continue to talk with people in the industry, dreamers & people that still think pinball manufacturing is easy. Some have decided to back out before they sink a load of money down the drain. People that have money, get a decent team together, & know how to properly manage can still get into the market.
Where is the LE? I like to buy only LE’s
I’ll be there March 23rd at 1 pm for the inspection.
Got my eye on a few of the thousand chairs up for sale and maybe a whiteboard or two.
Maybe pick up a handful of life policies? Great way to invest, waiting on people to die, the sooner you die, less premiums paid, more profit. Great job Bobby
Quoted from JodyG:Those are insert holes...we all know they are not drilled by hand.
There are more than a dozen holes there. Also, if they can't figure out tooling and machinery to do small holes more quickly and efficiently on a CNC than with a human and a template, they are not trying hard enough. I have a degree in computer aided machining and have been a journeyman Tool & Die maker and T&D CAD designer in a large consumer product manufacturing facility for close to 20 years now, and I feel confidant in my assessment here. If you want to stay ahead in the current manufacturing world, you constantly need to be assessing your processes for improvements. This is especially true with the current labor situation in this country.
Somehow I think we've lost the thread, even on our already-lost thread. The original question was Why the big press? The answer is because that's a much much faster way to do the hundred or more spotting holes (pinpricks) on both sides, than to have a CNC router run around and drive a tiny bit a tiny-bit into the wood in a hundred places. Secondary-operation drilling using a jig plate is a completely unrelated thing.
Quoted from blueberryjohnson:You can look their their portfolio at https://turnerlogic.com/portfolio/.
Deeproot was the single tenant for the building it rented as their hq. So anyone else using the facility was doing so at Robert's invitation.
Yeah this is super shady. Turner Logic created and managed the investor portal for Deeproot Funds:
https://web.archive.org/web/20161006041702/http://turnerlogic.com/portfolio/
https://web.archive.org/web/20170912105135/http://turnerlogic.com:80/portfolio/
pasted_image (resized).png
It's gone from their portfolio page now, but you can read the text: "Login to access your account information and transaction details." The notice at the bottom of the screenshot is clearly meant for investors ("All investments are subject to varying degrees of risk").
Since it's a 100% custom app, it's highly likely that Chris Turner knows many of the financial details behind the company since they're stored in a database that he manages. Now he comes in as a stalking horse bidder -- he gets a cool $50,000 if he's outbid or he gets to own $4M of the policies at a fraction of the cost ($1M).
Quoted from greatwichjohn:People that have money, get a decent team together, & know how to properly manage can still get into the market.
Money and a team are nice, but optional. You know what's mandatory? Elbow grease. That's pretty much all Spooky had in the beginning. They've cranked out more games than all the rich guys with teams combined. Of course now they have money and a team, but it was all built with elbow grease.
Quoted from Inside:Yeah this is super shady. Turner Logic created and managed the investor portal for Deeproot Funds:
https://web.archive.org/web/20161006041702/http://turnerlogic.com/portfolio/
https://web.archive.org/web/20170912105135/http://turnerlogic.com:80/portfolio/
[quoted image]
It's gone from their portfolio page now, but you can read the text: "Login to access your account information and transaction details." The notice at the bottom of the screenshot is clearly meant for investors ("All investments are subject to varying degrees of risk").
Since it's a 100% custom app, it's highly likely that Chris Turner knows many of the financial details behind the company since they're stored in a database that he manages. Now he comes in as a stalking horse bidder -- he gets a cool $50,000 if he's outbid or he gets to own $4M of the policies at a fraction of the cost ($1M).
That seems plausible. Hopefully whoever the hell is in charge of deciding stuff related to this stuff is aware. Wouldn't want them making decisions without pertinent info.
Quoted from JodyG:...
There are more than a dozen holes there. Also, if they can't figure out tooling and machinery to do small holes more quickly and efficiently on a CNC than with a human and a template, they are not trying hard enough. I have a degree in computer aided machining and have been a journeyman Tool & Die maker and T&D CAD designer in a large consumer product manufacturing facility for close to 20 years now, and I feel confidant in my assessment here...
Perhaps it just might be as simple as Stern having an CNC that doesn't play well with some of the smaller bits needed?
Quoted from blueberryjohnson:That seems plausible. Hopefully whoever the hell is in charge of deciding stuff related to this stuff is aware. Wouldn't want them making decisions without pertinent info.
Looks like there's a "TuYo HOLDINGS LLC" match on the Texas entity search website: https://mycpa.cpa.state.tx.us/coa/coaSearchBtn
"Tu" is for Turner and "Yo" is for Yost -- which is who the LLC is registered to (this is also spelled out in the filing), a lawyer who lives in Boerne.
Do we know of any pinsider lawyers who live in Boerne? 
Quoted from blueberryjohnson:And don't forget the outfit in charge of all this pinball coding is turner logic, the group that makes Robert's websites but has zero prior experience with pinball.
Quoted from SirScott:Well, in all fairness, they did develop his financial software as well.
From https://www.thisweekinpinball.com/deeproot-pinball-new-home-new-hires-5-days-deeproot-exclusive-follow-interview:
RM: Turner Logic is providing most of the software. They designed our financial system. Like everything else with the project, nearly all of the innovations and designs are my own. In the case of software, Turner Logic has put their own spin on it for implementation.
^12 months back in the thread time machine (and referencing a quote from an interview 4+ years old)
Also, from a former employee:
"While Turner Logic was on site at deeproot, Robert told us that the San Antonio facility was going to start getting snacks delivered every day from a corporate service (it didn't happen). I believe Robert actually hired or intended to hire Chris Turner to do the daily snacks delivery. If you look on his LinkedIn, it says his company offers that service as well. That's certainly an odd combo with coding."
Here's that company/service, owned by Turner Logic: https://SnackDot.com
Quoted from Inside:Looks like there's a "TuYo HOLDINGS LLC" match on the Texas entity search website: https://mycpa.cpa.state.tx.us/coa/coaSearchBtn
"Tu" is for Turner and "Yo" is for Yost -- which is who the LLC is registered to (this is also spelled out in the filing), a lawyer who lives in Boerne.
Do we know of any pinsider lawyers who live in Boerne?
Good find. Had researching that entity on my to-do list. Glad you've got it covered
In other discussion, anyone know what lots were removed? I thought there were 380 lots, now it's down to 371?
Quoted from Inside:In other discussion, anyone know what lots were removed? I thought there were 380 lots, now it's down to 371?
Looks like all the 9 removed lots are in the first 100. So probably furniture type stuff. Maybe JPop wanted to keep his desk?
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