Wedgehead Pinball Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

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We are back once again, looking back through the decades with the mighty power of Hindsight to accurately give out awards to the best pinball machines that were released in the year 1991!

Unlike network tv awards shows, we do however use occasional adult language. 

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We are discussing the pinball career of legendary pinball designer and mechanical engineer, John Borg.  He worked at Premier, Data East, Sega, and still works at Stern to this day, and we deep dive into his games and what design hallmarks that he is best known for.

As always though, just like John, we don't f*&k around on this show. Curse words are present. 

Career Retrospective Seminar Expo 2024

TOPcast Interview 2008

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Support the show and receive a link to the private discord: ko-fi.com/wedgeheadpodcast

In this episode we talk about the invasive species of multipliers that have invaded the old school bonus multipliers habitat and completely overrun it. Alan discusses why he thinks all games are better without them, and Alex argues why they are good sometimes.

In case you don't know, we swear on the show.

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In this episode Alan and Alex talk about what Alex likes to describe as the "best thing that has ever happened to pinball!".  Hear about what they are, when they started, and whose fault they are.

We discuss our opinions on them in general and talk about some of our favorites, and which ones should be deleted for good.

Are they fun and engaging, or inherently a bad idea?

...also we're adults, we swear sometimes.  

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Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/wedgeheadpodcast

In this episode Alan is joined by his business partner Chris Rhodes, and they form like Voltron into Wedgehead.  We discuss how we met, the beginning of our pinball bar, the evolution and challenges presented by covid and the economy, and about what we feel makes us different from the rest with some occasional colorful swears.

Disclaimer: This episode was recorded in far from ideal circumstances, in our bar with makeshift mics, due to scheduling limitations with myself and Rhodesie.  Thus, the raw recording was extremely noisy and echoey.  I spent a lot of time trying to get this recording cleaned up and salvageable, and I think that while it's still noisy, it's at least listenable, so I am still releasing it for you to enjoy.

I am learning about audio recording and editing on the fly in my spare time, and am trying to get better with each episode.  Some reverb and imperfections exist in the previous episodes too, but this is the most noticeable, and I really thought I wasn't gonna be able to get it to this point even, so I hope y'all like it.  I learn a lot with each one of these, and I promise future episodes will be better.

Lesson learned: Don't record in Wedgehead itself, on bad mics!   

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In this episode Alan and Alex talk about the rise of the little guys in pinball, and what it means to have so many small and independent pinball makers.  We discuss our experiences with some of these manufacturers and their games from both the operator and the home collector's perspective, and we talk about some of the positive and some of the negative aspects of this rapid rise in small scale pinball manufacturing.

It's a brave new world in the number of active pinball manufacturers, and we talk about what to expect, and what to avoid when buying boutique games in general.

As always, we're adults here so there's some swear words in this episode.

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In this double length episode Alan and Alex talk about the brothers Ritchie, and discuss their favorite games from each brother, their individual styles and trademarks, address the Ritchie haters, and Alan tells a couple of anecdotes from the time he met them both at Texas Pinball Festival in 2019. 

Hear us discuss the legacy of these two talented brothers, and compare their catalogue to one another, with the occasional curse word thrown in because we are some passionate boys, and talking about the Ritchie brothers gets us fired up!

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Alan and Alex discuss the curious case of the Williams lightning flippers that were developed and used on a few games in the early 1990s.  Learn about the history of them, what games came with them, and why they're extremely divisive amongst pinball players.  We give our takes and opinions on them, and chat about what other games that didn't come with lightning flippers might be improved by installing them with some occasional swearing throughout. 

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We're back to honor another year in pinball history, with the Pinball Hindsight Awards of 1985!  This was a major downturn of the industry, but that doesn't mean that there still aren't some great games released this year, and we honor all of them in this episode with some awards given out with the power of hindsight!

This isn't network television, so we do swear on the show.

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Support the show & receive a link to the private discord channel: ko-fi.com/wedgeheadpodcast

This episode is all about the rise and fall of one of pinball's most magnificent and enigmatic designers, Mr. John Popadiuk Jr., sometimes better known as JPOP in pinball nerd circles.  He made a string of some the absolute best games in the 1990s including World Cup Soccer, Theatre of Magic, Tales of the Arabian Nights, and Cirqus Voltaire.

But after the closure of Williams' pinball division, and his last production game Star Wars Episode One for the Pinball 2000 platform, the story gets really exciting, sad, and interesting.

Obligatory curse word warning, just like all of our episodes.

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