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LoserKid Pinball Podcast
LoserKid Pinball Podcast
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Ep 102: Joel Crashes the Party

PodcastAnalysis updated 5d ago1 hr 13 min listen
From the creator

Talking TPF reveals and rumors, No Good Gofers 2.0 kit, and lots of Cactus Canyon. Also there is a bonus segment steal! Who will win between Joel or Scott with the Top 100?!

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Highlights

  • Keith Elwin has completed four pinball games and is working on Bond 60th; at Stern's two games/year release pace with four designers, Keith has calculated he releases every other year, freeing him for one-off projects.
  • Cactus Canyon Chicago Gaming Company edition feels like a complete game with modern code from Chicago Gaming (not Lyman Sheets' original unfinished code); Lyman Sheets code has not been released.
  • Cactus Canyon SLE+ and LE units are becoming scarce in the secondary market; demand and value are rising despite initial slow sales.
  • Multiple pinball manufacturers have instructed the hosts to wait until Texas Pinball Festival to discuss upcoming announcements; every company contacted used the phrase 'let's talk after Texas.'
  • Electric Playground Company (teppinball.com) is unveiling a new product at Texas Pinball Festival; they are planning to transition from one-off fan projects to a mod/topper company.
  • A custom Godzilla topper by Electric Playground was so well-executed that community members mistook it for an official Stern topper release.
  • Premium aftermarket toppers (e.g., Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones) cost $1,500–$2,500, roughly 50% of a new pinball machine price.
  • Cactus Canyon's accessibility: easy to accidentally start modes without qualifying: is a feature not a bug; it allows novice players immediate fun without reading rules.

Notable quotes

“If you're doing two a year, that means you're releasing a game every other year. And Keith seems to be able to design them a lot faster. So this totally makes sense for him to be able to jump in and say, hey, let's go ahead and do this one-off, this Bond 60th.”
Scott Larson
“Even his failures would probably still feel like successes. I don't see Keith falling hard enough for it to be like a long-lasting effect.”
Josh Roop
“I had so low hopes for this game. I was just like, ah, it'll be fun. It'll be something to do until Scooby-Doo shows up or Bond 60th. And I have just been completely blown away by this game.”
Joel Engelberth
“Cactus Canyon is just fun. Like it is just fun pinball. And to have something like that, you can just step up and have a good time that you don't have to grind away from or work.”
Kerry Hardy (quoted by Joel)
“This is how good it is: it fooled people in the community to make them think this was the official topper coming out from Stern. That's how good this topper was.”
Josh Roop
“Things are coming to Texas. Yes. And it's from multiple companies. I'm not allowed to say what's coming because they didn't tell me. But I'm not going to tell you what companies told me to wait until after Texas. But I can tell you all of them. Every single one, yeah.”
Josh Roop and Scott Larson
“I don't know what Stern's making, so I don't know if it's going to be better or worse. And two, a lot of it was art pulled directly from the game. So it was Zombie Yeti art that was pulled from the cabinet.”
Joel Engelberth
“There's there's fun there so close to the flipper that it's just like, let's just have a good time. I don't I don't have to focus in and commit to a long playing.”
Joel Engelberth

Entities

  • Chicago Gaming Company· company
  • Electric Playground Company· company
  • Flippin' Out Pinball· company
  • Stern Pinball· company
  • Texas Pinball Festival· event
  • Bond 60th· game
  • Cactus Canyon· game
  • Deadpool· game
  • Godzilla· game
  • Medieval Madness· game
  • Loser Kid Pinball Podcast· organization
  • Triple Drain Podcast· organization
  • Joel Engelberth· person
  • Josh Roop· person
  • Keith Elwin· person
  • Kerry Hardy· person
  • Lyman Sheets· person
  • Scott Larson· person
  • Zombie Yeti· person

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