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Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Ep 45: Keith Is Here & We Fell Apart
PodcastAnalysis updated 3d ago1 hr 42 min listen
Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Episode 45: Keith Is Here & We Fell Apart Hosts: Joel Engelberth, Tom Graf, Travis Murie and Keith Elwin Well we finally landed Keith on the podcast and in typical...
Highlights
- Joel defeated Neil McRae 5-4 in a best-of-nine head-to-head tournament match at Domino Arcade in London, winning final game on Jurassic Park with 202 million points
- Stern does not design games with tournament play as primary consideration; games are designed for mass appeal with secondary tournament accommodations
- Younger generation tournament players (Escher, Z-Max, Jared August) dominate modern Stern games, making it strategically important to avoid Stern games in head-to-head matchups
- Single-tilt-warning tournament setup narrows skill gap more effectively than physical adjustments like removing rubbers or modifying pitch
- Overly aggressive tournament setups (excessive shot multiplication, removal of all rubber posts) actually make games easier for novice players and hurt skill discrimination
- Stern's new programmer Elizabeth Gieske comes from District 82 tournament scene and explicitly focuses team on designing for casual players, not tournament experts
- Venom's XP/leveling system is performing well on location operators and will influence Stern's future persistent-data design philosophy
- Keith is releasing new code updates for Bond 60th, Jurassic Park, and Bond 6, with co-op mode for Jurassic Park particularly embraced by community
- Stern typically announces new games in late December/early January window; Keith expects announcement coming soon
- Excessive game pitch angles (raising back legs with two-by-fours) make games easier, not harder, by reducing slingshot effectiveness
Notable quotes
“I've been waiting for this my whole life”
“Travis is in his new house in his basement, so the chances of his audio and video working this entire episode are very, very small. It's zero.”
“I ran out of strengths. Yeah.”
“When we're designing games, we don't think about tournaments at all...modern pinball has become this storytelling era with long ball times. And of course with that comes, well, you can't put too many dangerous shots in there.”
“You're actually hurting the more novice player...if you really want to screw up someone like Escher, put him on a flat pitch game where it's really floaty.”
“If I can't explain what to do in like 10 words or less, I don't even know where to start because I know they're going to turn off.”
“We're not designing this game for us. We have to design a game everyone's going to like.”
“I've beaten him four times. So I have everything unlocked, but I still have Insider Connect...my mind is shifted to okay I can check that box but now how do I want to play the game”
“It's all Carl's fault. It's Carl, yeah.”
“I'm excited for the next few months...normally right around late december early january is when stern will announce another game”
Entities
- Stern Pinball· company
- Chicago Pinball Expo· event
- Bond 60th· game
- Godzilla· game
- Jurassic Park· game
- Venom· game
- District 82· organization
- Freeplay Florida· organization
- Pinball Republic· organization
- Triple Drain Pinball Podcast· organization
- Carl D'Angelo· person
- Elizabeth Gieske· person
- Eric Stone· person
- Escher· person
- Jared August· person
- Joel· person
- Keith Elwin· person
- Logan· person
- Matt Freeman· person
- Neil McRae· person
- Raymond· person
- Robert Byers· person
- Tom· person
- Travis· person
- Z-Max· person
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