BlahCade 295: Jared Needs A Gottlieb Intervention

YouTube Summary

Final episode of 2025, and we owe our subscribers a huge thank you!

Also, we take a behind-the-scenes look at that AtGames moment with Mel from the recent interview.

Jared has added more Gottlieb machines to his garage, which is a clear call for help!

I WANT ONE!: Help support the show by purchasing X-Arcade gear through our affiliate link: https://shop.xgaming.com/?sca_ref=971

Important

No more audio episodes are being produced because we are focusing our resources on producing the YouTube show.

Milestone & Episode 300 Plans

1,000 Subscribers: The hosts kick off the show by celebrating passing 1,000 subscribers on YouTube, reflecting on their purely organic growth since starting the channel back in 2012.
Live Stream for Episode 300: With Episode 300 right around the corner, they plan to host a live stream—a format they haven’t done in a very long time. They are looking for audience feedback on whether it should be a casual Q&A session, a VR gameplay stream, or an open forum.

Debriefing the Mel Kirk (Zen Studios) Interview

Reaction and Industry Focus: They dissect the feedback from their recent 45-minute interview with Mel Kirk from Zen Studios. They note that other YouTubers and podcasts heavily fixated on a brief 5-minute segment regarding AtGames, completely overlooking several hints Mel dropped about future table releases.
AtGames Tensions & Body Language: Chris and Jared highlight Mel’s visibly unhappy body language regarding AtGames.
The New Underpowered TMNT Cabinet: They discuss AtGames' new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles HD+ cabinet. While it upgrades to the same Rockchip board found in the 4K cabinet and includes a DMD screen, they caution that the hardware remains technically underpowered. They point out that AtGames' press releases only specify bringing "select" Zen titles, noting that Williams tables are likely too resource-heavy to emulate smoothly on it.

Jared’s "Gottlieb Intervention" (New Physical Machine Additions

The New Additions: Jared explains the episode’s title by revealing that he bought two classic physical pinball machines: Gottlieb’s Haunted House and Black Hole.
Restoration Strategy: Unlike his previous waterlogged "container jobs" imported from Africa, these machines are in decent physical shape. Jared explains that he plans to use Pascal Pi80 replacement boards rather than trying to fix original, finicky electronics. He also has to custom-build 12 new Wollftech displays over his Christmas break.
Haunted House vs. Black Hole: Chris admits he isn’t a fan of Haunted House due to its annoying mini-playfields, scissor flippers, and sound layout. However, they both marvel at the early 1980s engineering that allowed Gottlieb to run Haunted House’s complex 8-flipper, 3-level rule set on a single system board using logic-switching relays.

Technical Cabinet Troubleshooting & Media Mini-Reviews

The Star Wars Cab Project: Chris shares his frustration trying to update his 2017 physical Star Wars pinball cabinet. Upon trying to update Steam, he discovered the computer inside runs a 32-bit version of Windows 10, which Steam is dropping support for. Upgrading to 64-bit is proving tricky due to potential driver incompatibilities with the cabinet’s custom force-feedback/solenoid boards.
Movie Review - Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair: Chris wraps up the episode sharing his mild disappointment seeing the combined cut of Kill Bill in theaters. While the extended 7-minute anime backstory for O-Ren Ishii and the full-color House of Blue Leaves fight were cool, the second half of the film was completely unchanged, lacking the deeper narrative re-editing he had spent years hoping for.

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