BlahCade Pinball Podcast

Buckle up, folks, and grab a hefty snack because this episode will be a long one! We have LOTS to say about Pinball FX Early Access on Epic Game Store, and a lot of it isn't pretty.    We try to keep the commentary fair, though, so let us know how we did.   Read the show notes for this episode at https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-238/

It's here! Indiana Jones was released this week on every platform that carries Pinball FX3.  We discuss our thoughts on playing (admittedly not much) of it.  We also discuss (again) why the game costs what it does.  Spoiler alert, licensing isn't cheap. Show notes (including competition details) at https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-237/

Tony Walsh, Company Director and Founder of indie game studio Phantom Compass , joins us to chat about their sequel to the award-winning Rollers of the Realm Pinball RPG. This breakthrough game set the genre for hybrid pinball and RPG gameplay. The studio's new title Rollers of the Realm: Reunion takes the genre even further with new gameplay styles and better RPG balancing between the characters....

We take a look at the new visuals dropped for PinballFX, mainly those of Indiana Jones. We also react to features and purchasing options that were announced. https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-234/ for the show notes.

We're starting off 2022 with Jared sharing an update about his Gottlieb pinball machine restorations. Then we recap our interview with Mel from Episode 233 and finish off with an annual tradition of Chris sharing his list of best/good/worst movies he saw in 2021. https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-233/ for all the show notes for this episode.

Mel Kirk, COO of Zen Studios, joins us for an in-depth talk that covers all things Indiana Jones, Zen Pinball Party, PinFX, and much much more.

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-232/ About this time last year, we predicted what we would see released about now (December 2021). Naturally, things didn't go exactly to plan, but some predictions aren't too wild. We also talk about Zen's new release _Funko Pinball Party Arena_ available through _Zen Pinball Party_ on Apple Arcade. Thrown in for good measure is a segment on our addiction...

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-231/ We are back with another episode that, this time, features the gameplay of Zen's newest Pinball Party title, Peanuts. Plus, we take a look at Skillshot FX's new virtual pinball cabinet. And then there's the big question mark over Zen interviewing Spooky Pinball! Does this mean we'll be seeing digital versions of their tables in Pinball FX?

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-230/ That's right, Pinball FX has been delayed according to the latest episode of The Pinball Show.  That however is not the only news... Chris and Jared take another deep dive look into what Mel Kirk had to say. Much speculation ensues.  Plus, beer!

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-229/ It's a mish-mash of topics that concludes with the outrageous auction prices of a huge pinball collection.  First, though, we catch up on Zen and Stern news as well as a rather odd video with the world's largest pinball machine.

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-227/ We're back after an extended break! We talk about what has gone on in the month we were away and deep dive into Zen's announcement of Zen Pinball Party on Apple Arcade.

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-226/ This episode's main event is a curious development with arcade machine producer Arcooda and a tweet stream they have been leaking out over the last few weeks.  There are some interesting revelations in this block of tweets that we dive head-first into and explore.  It is all leading somewhere, but you will need to listen to the episode to find out more...

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-225/ With this podcast, we can officially say that Farsight Studios is no longer in the pinball business.  It turns out that AtGames did not contract Farsight Studios to produce the announced Taito pinball tables last year. The good news is that Magic Pixel got the gig to produce the licensed properties from Taito.  We had to give our reaction to the news a...

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-224/ Zen Studios dropped a pleasant surprise on their VR customers recently with a free table: Han Solo. We take a good hard look at Han Solo in VR and discuss what frustrates us about the table.  While that may sound negative, we really want to make a case for making some improvements to the rules and gameplay aspects of this game, so it becomes more enjoy...

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-223/ Stern announced that they will release a Mandalorian pinball machine. This is interesting because both tables from Zen and Stern were in development concurrently.  We start by comparing Zen's table first and list out the pros and cons for you to consider.  Then it is time to take a look at Stern's version and talk through what Zen could learn from the...

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-222/ Now that Chris and I have both played Star Wars Pinball VR (SWPVR) extensively, we wanted to provide a different perspective on the game for people who are on the fence about getting it. After we get the review in the bag we talk about the other aspects of SWPVR that didn't really fit in the scope of the review but are important enough that they deserv...

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-221/ Mel Kirk gave us a lot to think about in the interview he did in Episode 220.  As is tradition on the show, we go into deep speculation mode and try to work out what games might be released in 2021 from Zen Studios. We also announce a new website and go into why this was necessary..

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-220/ This episode is a massive interview with Mel Kirk, COO of Zen Studios. We have a pile of questions as follow-ups to what was said in Zen's The Pinball Show Ep 3, and Mel doesn't flinch from any of them. You are definitely going to want to watch the entire interview. 

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-219/ In Zen's The Pinball Show Ep. #3 Mel Kirk sat down with Bobby and they talked more about Pinball FX, including some hard questions that they knew they'd need to tackle eventually. It’s worth breaking down some of the points that Mel raised and extrapolate upon them because you might have missed some of the contexts due to information overload.  

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-218/ This whole episode is all about the news revealed in Zen Studio’s The Pinball Show Ep #2 about a certain Oculus, Steam VR, and PSVR pinball game coming in April 2021. For our podcast fans, this episode has a fair bit of reference to what we're seeing in videos so you might want to jump over to the show notes and check those out before listening.

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-217/ This whole episode is about our thoughts concerning AtGames and their Legends Pinball cabinet (referred to in forums as "ALP" for short). Well, nearly all of it. There is a bit of information about Arcade 1UP cabinet issues that we need to comment about as well. ???? For this episode, I've put the BlahCade Mini episodes as a rough guide only. They will...

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-216/ Zen Studios announced that they will be releasing a brand new pinball app this year called Pinball FX. Not Pinball FX4, just Pinball FX. There is only one thing we can do with news like this: tease it apart and analyze the inside line of the news.

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-215/ In this episode, we talk about Virtual Reality as it relates to pinball. The entire show focuses on every aspect that we could think of when you are considering playing commercial pinball games in VR.  We talk about hardware differences, gameplay differences, UI differences, and the overall "feeling" of bashing around a pinball in VR. If you are a podc...

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-214/ In this episode, we ask a favor of YouTube content creators who received their pinball cabinets from At Games and Arcade 1UP. In other news we talk about real pinball and whether it is better to go with trying to touch-up a bad paint job, or whether you should just take a deep breath and sand off the playfield art so you can lay down what's known as a...

https://www.blahcadepinball.com/blahcade-213/ With the year drawing to a close, it's time to take a break from all the serious PinCab discussion and look at some other stuff that's been happening that isn't strictly what we normally cover on the show. This episode was recorded live in front of a YouTube audience, so we also took some cues from the folks in the chat about what to talk about. Enjoy,...