
Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Ep 4: Jingles Make Everything Better
Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Episode 4: Jingles Make Everything Better Hosts: Joel Engelberth, Tom Graf, & Travis Murie – Catching up on the news – NEW SEGMENT: Triple Combo (Mando Edition)
Highlights
- Spooky sold out all Halloween and Ultraman units within hours of announcement
- Spooky Luke and Bug appear to be the primary designers driving Halloween and Ultraman, with more involvement than Charlie Emery based on podcast interview appearances
- Spooky Luke admitted he knew nothing about pinball before starting at Spooky
- The Halloween and Ultraman games use elevator/subway mechanics under the playfield to return balls to flippers instead of traditional scoop ejection to manage chaos and improve control
- Tom Graff does not own Halloween or Ultraman because he is not a horror fan and has concerns about upper playfields/mini-playfields
- Matt Frank (a kaiju/scene-specific artist) created the art for Ultraman and likely Halloween
- Code quality is the most uncertain and critical factor determining long-term game success and secondary market value for Spooky's releases
- Stranger Things pinball experienced significant code improvements between initial 2020 reveal stream and 2021, going from poor player reception to becoming a highly-desired game
- Charlie Emery agreed to appear on Triple Drain podcast but requested to wait a few weeks until the games were officially revealed
- Jason Libel (jingle composer) created both the 'Tom Talks' segment jingle and the Triple Drain intro jingle within days of request with minimal direction
Notable quotes
“Spooky Luke is like, he is the dude leading this game. Um, I know I understand they've made it very much a group effort, but at least on, um, the few podcasts I've learned, like Spooky Luke, it almost seems like he has like more involvement in this game, Spooky and Bug than, than Charlie.”
“They're basically like, what if we hit scoops that become a subway? That way it feeds the flipper in a reliable manner. So now all of a sudden the chaos of a scoop where it spits it back out on you, they've completely removed that and now made it so the ball is safely delivering it back to the flipper.”
“I'm a little bit worried whenever I look at that layout, and I keep hearing the term flow thrown around. And there's certain elements to this pin, if I have to be objective, or if I'm going to be objective, it doesn't strike me as a flow-based pin.”
“just stuffing a pin full of everything might not necessarily equate to fun. It just depends how it all comes together.”
“code usually the code is what keeps a game around and so that that's the biggest uncertainty right now”
“I think they'll sell out of Halloween, but I don't know about Ultraman until I saw the art. And the reality is if that art package would have been, you know, kind of Photoshoppy clips from the show, you know, if it wasn't modernized, if it wasn't cartooned, up you know by this artist i think i don't think they would have sold 250 ultraman”
“I did back out of one LE specifically when I saw it revealed and I saw the gameplay on it and that was Stranger Things when it first came out. And so when I realized that the code wasn't quite there, now, obviously, you know, fast forward, it's 2021, nearly two years later or closing in a year and a half later, it's going for more value.”
“Can you guys imagine how much money is going to be on the line or the actual gameplay reveal? I mean, think about this. They're all sold. so now it becomes a matter of if the game flips well and if it's a home run all of a sudden you're going to see some of those people that are front in line you're going to see some of those pop up for sale”
“I mean, here's the thing with Spooky, they're all spoken for. So they've sold out the allotment. Either way, they're going to be good. But this is going to be really telling.”
“I'm just not a horror fan So really Halloween was out. I just don't get into that genre, the gore and stuff.”
Entities
- Spooky Pinball· company
- Amanda Ellie· game
- Avengers (pinball)· game
- Deadpool (pinball)· game
- Game of Thrones (pinball)· game
- Guns N Roses (pinball)· game
- Halloween (Spooky Pinball)· game
- Mandalorian (Star Wars/unknown manufacturer)· game
- Shadow (pinball)· game
- Stranger Things (Stern)· game
- Ultraman (Spooky Pinball)· game
- White Water (pinball)· game
- Triple Drain Pinball Podcast· organization
- Bug· person
- Charlie Emery· person
- Christopher Franchi· person
- George Gomez· person
- Jason Libel· person
- Joel· person
- Keith Elwin· person
- Matt Frank· person
- Spooky Luke· person
- Tim Lee· person
- Tom Graff· person
- Travis· person
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