Episode 113 - Best Game Ever: WHITEWATER

0:00I'm not completed, I'm just conserved. I'm the greatest of all time. You are arrogant, hot tempered, and tired to roll. I like that. Greatest genius who ever lived. I'm the smartest fitness man in the world. King Kong ain't got that horny! Sometimes, hard geniuses. It's almost frontman. And that's a bottom line. Just don't call it that's all. I am the greatest flaunting ever. Well, Jack, here's the deal. I'm the best there is. Playing simple. I mean, I wake up in more and I piss excellence. Such a thing would be greater than all magic and all the treasures and all the world. I am the greatest in a kind of no-way champion that ever lived. And I am the greatest professional wrestler that ever lived. Perfection being measured by its own relentless logic.

1:04But I'll say one thing. I am for one very, very good reason. The best there is. The best there is. And the best there ever will be. Hold it! Come back to another episode of the Wedget Pinball Podcast. I'm your host, Alan of Wedget, one of the owners of the Pinball Bar. For which this podcast is named. But I'm in the basement studio of my co-host, Alex the Waterboy. He's back. I'm back. How are you doing? I'm doing great, you know. I was sick for like a fucking week, which is pretty miserable. But I'm not the most miserable person on the planet. Because, you know, after, as we round about a hundred episodes here, we passed a big milestone recently. And we got our first official hater of the podcast. That's right. A real, real bitter dude who clicks into every post that mentions us on Reddit and complains in the comments.

2:05But what seems to upset him the most is when I plug our coffee fundraiser. Does fight us never pay a wall in any content. He's mad as hell. We do this. So I want to stress that donating to the show is absolutely a no way required. But we do appreciate it. If you think we do a good job and want to throw us a few bucks, go to keo-fi.com slash Wedget Podcast. As a perk, you get an invite toward discord where we're always talking about the latest rumors, giving off air opinions, just kind of fun little discussion about pinball. It's a good time. Good crowd in there. Well, we've been doing this show as Waterboy had said for a few years now. And we talk a lot about a lot of different games, a lot of excellent games even. Recently, we've even done a couple of episodes with the express title of The Best Game Ever. Waterboy declared that NASCAR was, in fact, the best. And a former guest in the show created their very own episode where he erroneously claimed that it was actually jobs. But this nonsense ends today. Today is the day that we discuss the actual best game ever. And that game, of course, is...

3:06Why? Why? Get your prayers! Is that a call out in the game? I don't even remember that. That's why the line was here. I'm like, what is that? Yeah. Well, I'm going to cut it into the episode and I like slice it in. Yeah, good. Smooth with that. Okay. Some quick facts about whitewater for anyone listening unaware. This marvelous, marvelous game was released in January of 1993. That's six months before I was born. I was born in January of 87. So I was six years old when this... Wow, like six and say we're kind of straddling this thing. Six different sixes. But you know, that's pretty cool. Are we there yet? It's a cool game. It was designed by Dennis Nordman, who will get his own episode one of these days. Yeah, we got to do a Dennis app. But this game deserves his own episode first. Yeah, that's fair. Software is by Mike Boone, the brother of Ed Boone, the guy who created Mortal Kombat. It was the voice of Rudy in funhouse.

4:06Yep. That's the same guy. That's crazy. I knew that name from both like video game programming and as... Like I've heard people be like, oh, yeah, that's Ed Boone. Yep. And I didn't think I ever put together. That's the same guy. That's the same guy who's the voice of Rudy and created the Mortal Kombat franchise. Because this was all one company at the same time, right? Valley Midway had been bought by Williams. Yep. And it was a lot of cross-platforms. You know, obviously like Steve Richie did call outs in Mortal Kombat. Like the fatality call outs. Yeah. The software on Whitewater was done by Mike Boone, who is kind of like Mark Richie, is best known as being the brother of Ed Boone. At my company, I'm the little brother. Yeah, exactly. I work with my brother. He gets to do all the good stuff. And I'm just kind of like, yeah, in me. Well, he did a killer job in this game. Art by John Yousey, another legendary pinball artist. Music and sound by Chris Granner, the goat.

5:06The champ, man. Which we had on the show before. If you haven't listened those episodes, you need to go back. And the game also sold 7,000 units, which is big seller. Yeah, that's pretty good. That's like 10 times more than like the best selling games that a lot of companies have ever met. I mean, you're looking at it in modern day numbers. Massive. That's crazy. Yeah, we always just kind of bring this up all the time. But you're like, man, these little games. Because like, what are feels like a relatively rare game? I don't think it was seen as like this smash commercial success for 93, 7,000 units. But you're like, dude, that's a lot of units. That's a lot of games. That is. Okay. So what's the case for this being the greatest of all time? Long time listeners have known this, because I say it on the show all the time. And when I say, it's my favorite game. I'm really saying, I think this is the greatest game ever made. Yeah. Right? Because I think day to day are favorites. Change. And we, you know, you play a game a lot and then you go play something else or whatever. But like, if I had to break down pinball into categories, which I have for this episode,

6:11and we'll talk about one by one. I just look at whitewater as the best in all categories. And so I want to go through these one by one. I want to start with the most obvious thing that's so different from today's pinball. And that's starting with the original theme, which is in this game, a suicidal and insane river guy. What leads a group of rafters deep down a desert canyon into increasing hazards, including whirlpools. Waterfalls, folder gardens, and even bigfoot's cave and along the way your fellow rafters might even drown. Not that it surprises your guide wet Willie. It never seems to phase him. But I'm starting here because this game. I believe like truly an actual work of creative genius from the core inception of it.

7:12Other games like modern games, whitewater is completely original unique pinball world. It doesn't rely on the crutch of some old ass movie tie in. It stands completely on its own. Yeah, I think this is about as strong as an argument can get for how to do like the advantages of a of an original theme game because you're like, this shit is insane and it's so good. And you're like, yeah, it could be like some what's what's like a famous rafting movie and blanking on the one as such. There's like deliverance or there's river wild with Meryl Streep. Yeah, river wilds the one I was thinking of. And it's like, yes, it could be like they could have made a river wild game. It would not have the tone of this. It wouldn't there wouldn't be like a big foot with his own little cave move in and shit. Yeah, move the little diverter and the head spin it like all like the kind of like whimsy and everything that they added this game wouldn't have happened if it was licensed. And this is the argument to me to make an original theme. It can be so much better than any kind of not like a fucking you know movie tie-in game.

8:13Something made to promote an existing me like media franchise. Yeah, at the end of the day, it's funny talking to other friends of mine who play magic the gathering and they're talking about how lately they're getting a lot of tie-in magic cards. And they're all kind of like, yeah, now Spider-Man's on this magic pack or you know these as Marvel characters, you're like, it kind of sucks. And you're like, we magic used to have its own thing. Yeah, I'm just like, that's what happens with pinball guys. Like now we don't get our own shit. We don't get fun houses no more. We don't get white waters or whirlwinds anymore. It's a cop out, dude. It's a way it's built in sales. Yeah. And it's like, I love a lot of licensed games. I buy a lot of licensed games. If you're going to like modern games, you have to. Yeah, I mean, we don't have a choice. Well, you can buy an American. Can you? And are they like not for long? Yeah, I mean, are they around? Kind of. You can get one used. But yeah, yeah, this is something we don't really see. You pick up the phone for tech support.

9:14And it's just like the sound of like whistling wind. It's just. Like I'm against anyone there. This is what they tried to do with galactic tank force. And they failed to hit the mark in my and most others opinions. But yeah, I think that's a. It's it's a big piece of this. A big piece of this magic. We haven't talked about it. I mean, we did a whole episode on original themes. We did a whole episode on licensing. And we did a whole episode on soft license. Man, back when we were doing weekly podcasts, we could do that kind of stuff. Yeah, you remember that? Yeah, now we just do like two hour long episodes instead. But I think that a game should just like a video game franchise. A game should get extra credit for doing an original theme versus a license theme. Well, well enough that people like it. I want to spend good money on it and whatever. Whitewater, the original theme. I think it's the first thing we got to bring up and talk about. Yeah. Next thing I want to talk about, which supports this, which is the term that pinball players use, the world under glass or theme integration.

10:16How it implements the theme. And again, whitewater has to be the single greatest world under glass game ever made. The molded plastic canyons, the ramps that mimic raging water features like whirlpools and waterfalls, the top down perspective of the play field art, the big foot diverter, as far as world under glass effect, top tier. You are the ball and you as the ball flow like water. Absolutely immersive. And it looks like nothing else. I know it looks unlike any other pinball machine. It's not like difficult to play. None of that gets in the way, which is the biggest, it's fucking crazy because it's loaded with shit in a way that many companies would love to load their games up like whitewater. This is what they're trying to emulate and they fail to make an actually fun game still. In this one, it's loaded with stuff. It looks packed. It has a whole mountain in it with the waterfalls and the caves and all this diverters going on. And it all works slick.

11:16I guess that's kind of a separate thing. But just the, it's like a world building like experience here. And it, it's truly impressive. The amount of like the moldings look good. They don't look like chancy. They've aged really well in my opinion. Well, it's like if you look at a game like not to pick on this game, but you look at a game like Alice Cooper Nightmare Castle. Really good world under glass. The integration. The molded castle kind of molded. It actually looks really rad. Really good. Yeah. The game isn't nearly the game that whitewater is. The game suffers as a result. It has a really sick castle in it, but it takes up half of the main play field. And it hides a bunch of shots. Most of the complaints, not, not just us. Most of the complaints about that game are related to the compromises made to put that castle in there. Absolutely. Castle looks sick. Was it worth it? Not if the game's not that good. Whitewater. Mountain looks sick. It, the game all works. It's like, it's, it's functional. Like the Boulder Garden feels thematic and appropriate. And it puts the ball into danger.

12:17It's, you know, it's like all of it really, really, really works remarkably well. Unbelievably well. Even when you're, you're getting the whirlpool. We're talking about toilet bowl shots making a comeback in modern pinball games. But you're like, here it's thematic. It's the whirlpool. And I've never, it's never bugged me in this one, man. Yeah, because you get to, you know what? You get to see the ball and then it drains and then disappears. Like you went to the bottom of the whirlpool. Yeah, dude. The waterfall ramp. I mean, we'll get to this. But it's like, it brings me to the point that I want to say is like, I just think that that is the gold standard of world under glass. There is no other game that surpasses world under glass combined with theme integration. There are other packed games. There are other beautiful games. There are other games with, you know, the set dressing. Exactly. There's other games like Bram Stoker's Dracula with its little houses and everything. But I think the thing when you do, when you do a licensed theme, you're trying to cover so much more material in white water is covering like one trip on a raft.

13:20You know, it's going down there like one river. And it's like one little snippet of a story. And if it was in a movie, you know, if this was the Hobbit has the movies, have a painfully long river sequence. And you could make a pinball machine just based off of that river sequence. Yes. But when you're trying to cover nine hours of mediocre movies in a pinball machine, you have to make compromises the whole thing. It's like they, like the Hobbits look really good visually done game. It's got a lot of elements of the movies included in the game, cool sculpts and stuff. But it's like all scattered. It's like little scenes here. This corner of the play field is seen. This corner is seen. And when you play white water, the whole thing is one scene. And to me, I think that's a big piece of why it works so, so well. It's like it doesn't bite off more than it can chew. It's just like, it's just as one thing done well. Because can you imagine if they made like a Lord of the Rings game and they're like, this isn't all of the movies. This is literally just like the forest with ends. You know, it just looks like a fucking forest.

14:21Yeah, that'd be sick. It's narrated by Treebeard or something. You'd be like, whoa, it's just like Merkwood, you'd be like, that's crazy. That'd be cool as fuck. Something like that. And you're like, it's because when you, the further back you zoom out, the more you're trying to put in that game, the less of a world that actually feels like. Yeah, exactly. It's just a strong area. That's what Godzilla includes the Sega Godzilla I'm looking at here. So we always bring up the game sitting in front of me. But like Sega Godzilla, it kind of has some of that because it doesn't include anything from the movie because they didn't get the rights to anything. So it just has a big Godzilla. And you're like, oh, that's cool. Yeah, he's like tearing through the play field. It's like the one thing. Yeah. And so I think there's, I think there's value in that. There's like a lesson to be taken from that. It's like the idea that, you know, you go see like a local play or something. And it's like, there's the one stage. Yep. They might try to like drop a sheet down and change it from day to night or whatever. But it's like, they're the limitations of the story that they're going to tell. Yeah. Is something that makes the story richer in a different way?

15:21Yeah, versus like a Marvel movie where there's a green screen and unlimited options. And as a result, there's nothing of interest. I think whitewater is just stands on its own in a class of a tone here. The next thing we got to talk about is the sound package. So yeah, we already did. We kind of already talked about the sound message quite a bit in a couple other episodes, right? With Chris Granger, aka the go to pinball sound composers. Those are episodes 96 and 97 in case you're a new listener and haven't listened to those yet. We cover his career and we listen to music that he composed. And he gives us thoughts and memories of my favorite episodes of the show or those two episodes. And whitewater is and I told him this is his greatest masterpiece. Each raft all the way up to wet willies, which is the wizard mode. Welcome to wet willies as its own little tune or variation on the main theme. Yep. The voice calls and voice acting are superb. Wet willy is voiced by Warren Davis, the guy that created Cuba.

16:22Like there's all these like little Easter eggs of shit. That's hilarious. I didn't know that either. No we are. It's just insane. And he is so good. The main multi ball start lit as fuck. The high score tune banger. Literally pinball sound does not get better than this. It's just perfection. Even past the music and the call outs are always kind of the big things we talk about with audio.

17:27But just the little sound effects in this are absolutely top notch. How it's like you get the like the low sound when you're coming back out of the cave. You're getting that eject. How you get the little high pitch whistle when you're going up like the Vuck to the top of the play field. Just fucking really some top notch sounds in this game. Yeah. And just water effects and sounds effect. I mean again, Chris is the master of manipulating the player through sound. Yeah, this is the fucking the like there's the world under glass. And then like the sound is bringing the world out of the glass. Like we said, we've gone over this before. So we don't need to belabor the point. But if you haven't listened to why even if whatever you feel about the gameplay. If anyone wants to look me dead and the fucking eyes and tell me that this isn't an epic sound package. I'm still waiting on that person that wants to say that, you know, you're wrong. It's a hard argument to make, you know, because it really is one of the best.

18:36The next piece is the art package. One of john y'all see best art packages yet again. That water came out in the beginning of 1993. And it's perfectly evocative of early 90s pin bar. The cabinet with the name carved out of desert rocks. It's got the top down perspective of the river canyon on the play field. A la python angelo type of thing. I really like, I mean, I just really like top down perspectives like that. It's something we don't really see anyone even attempt to do. Just creates like a depth of field, man. It just makes it looks like you're like it makes the whole thing feel very like thematic. And inclusive and like cohesive. The whole thing. It really makes it feel like it's its own little like story there. Yes. And it makes it one picture makes it feel grand and grandiose. And like in this game, it gives a lot of verticality, right? Because there's an upper play field. And there's like lots of like starting at the bottom and then going up top. And then gravity bringing you back down. And then you're looking down into the desert canyon. And y'all sees art is just absolutely top notch iconic.

19:37It's fucking embarrassing when people replace it with knockoff art. But that's what we got to talk about because this is the absolute fucking perfection that is the translate that depicts a wild world of river rafting chaos. This is the best singular art package of the 1990s. And once again, I am willing to fight anyone who wants to about it. This game stands out in a lineup. It reads from a distance and up close. It's a distinctive color palette and is stunning all around. It's campy and goofy fun for sure, but it's still dynamic and exciting. And that backlash is beautifully airbrushed in true 90s fashion. When people replace this with a Brian Allen trash show, it's disgusting. It's confusing to me. It's disturbing. It's very, very confusing to me. When people are drawn to classic games, these are iconic pieces of, you know, functional art.

20:40And then you swap them out with something like chancy that looks like it just with what the equivalent of like gas station t-shirt art. And it's just, I'm confused. I don't know why. I get it if it's like something that kind of is like arguably ugly, but has anyone ever before knowing there was an alternative out there. Did anyone ever go? Man, white water is a great game, but it looks like shit. No, it was never looked down upon. There's not an argument. I don't get it. People just do it because the option exists and pinball people like spending money on little things to differentiate. Feel like they're customizing their game, taking kind of ownership of it. This isn't the place for it. Don't do it, dude. I think it's weird too, because it's like he's borrowing John Yousey's imagery. He's borrowing other characters from Williams games. He's basically stealing the composition and the depth of focus, but it's just all worse in every way. Yeah, man. But I love about it. It's just like what we talked about with Sega Lost World, where it doesn't say the name on the back glass.

21:41Whitewater also doesn't say its name because it's on the fucking cabinet. It's on the apron and it's on the topper, which we haven't talked about. Yeah, we'll get to the topper. But when you look at whitewater, is anyone fucking confused what game you're playing? Again, like, what's going on? Talking from a graphic design standpoint or from an artistic standpoint. Just look at that game and it's immediately a draw to the eye. It's immediately beautiful. It immediately stands out and line up. No matter what the lineup is, the game stands out. And it's not like when you're looking at... I think it needs like heavy cartoon line art, you know, girls with just fucking balloon tits. I mean, I want to see guys with splintered fingernails and holes in their teeth. Angry eyes. Yeah, Easter eggs. Just all cool stuff. We're going off here, but it's just... Bugs both of us, man. It is one of my favorite games of all time. I love this art package. But I hate walking up and seeing a whitewater with like the translate swapped out.

22:43And I was like, that's John fucking Yousey, dude. Show some respect. To me, it's again, it's just... You're allowed to do whatever you want to your game. It's a reversible mod. Thank God. But you're doing the game a disservice and I'm confused. I'm just genuine. It comes from a place of confusion with me. But I suppose that's all we need to say on it. That's all we need to say. Okay. Moving on from the incredible art package, the incredible sound design, the incredible world in a glass and theme. What's next? The rules set. Okay. So this is the one I want to talk about. Mike Boone absolutely crushed this one. He also worked as the lead programmer on Indy 500 and scared stiff, which are other 90s Nordman bangers. Absolutely. Incredible games, both of those. But, you know, I digress. What is perfect about whitewater is that there is the perfect balance that the greatest 90s games had. Wherein the further you progress, the higher the values are. In this case, multi-ball jackpot values are increased every time you clear another wrath level.

23:46The multi-ball start itself is dope too because it puts a ton of pressure on you to make those first three stage ball shots. Because if you botched the first one, you've pretty much cut your multi-ball value into 30%. Yeah. Because you're going to fuck up. You're going to be in the way for two and three. Yeah. It's like, yeah, it does feel like nerve racking. Yes. And it's awesome because the start is hype as fuck. And then you immediately feel the pressure because if you hit all three, the rest of the multi-ball jackpots are all worth three X. The jackpots can be very lucrative, but to avoid endlessly farming the main multi-ball each subsequent time you start the multi-ball, it requires more shots to qualify the locks again. And the targets themselves are fucking dangerous. Yeah, they're like to very, very dangerous stand-up targets that you really want to hit them on accident. You want to glance off them. And pot shots at them, not recommended. Literally every bit of the game has value properly weighted to me. It has the risk reward elements, yet it also will just reward you properly for climbing the ladder.

24:49Nothing feels out of whack. Even the play field multiplier is so perfectly hidden and requires a ton of risk. If you want to get it early and set up the quote unquote perfect stack, which is hotfoot by the way, not the multi-ball. Again, you guys don't know ball. You know, we can go deeper into that if you want to come into the discord. I can explain all this to you. But if you want to roll the dice, you know, you can throw it in the pop bumper or the boulder garden, but I wouldn't recommend it. Again, like it's that perfect thing where it's like, all right. Well, the first multi-ball is really easy to get, but it starts the 5X multiplier really far away. I can still go get it, but the way I, you're rolled the dice, I have to throw it into the pop numbers, which is fucking dangerous. Exactly. You're like, you can shoot the orbit into the pops, but like the pops are going to kill you a lot of the time. Yeah. And so it's like, you could do that or you could wait for it later. And there's just a lot of those moments and lots of decisions to make.

25:51And even on modes like whirlpool, which is the first whirlpool award, which is a multi-ball, you can choose whether or not to put, yet you can get hundreds of millions by repeating the whirlpool shot over and over. It comes out the buck on the side, you control it, you send it up the middle, and then you hit the shot. But it starts out worth almost nothing. And then it keeps ramping up every time you hit it up to like 30 or something that goes back down and it goes back up. And you can ride that roller coaster, as long as you can hit that relatively easy shot over and over again. Or you can choose to just use the two ball multi-ball instead to advance your rafts into shoot dangerous shots. Yeah. With one of your other balls instead to try to move towards what will you in both their viable. That's what I like about it is it feels like there's not a wrong way as long as you're kind of like making some progress in the game. You're not like, oh, this is like a waste of time. Everything feels like, no, this was a good thing to do. Yeah. And it's well thought out. I mean, did I mention that there's no fucking ball saves.

26:56I mentioned that yet. No, there's a, I mean, do you, can you hit one switch? You can, you can full plunge as long as it doesn't hit like a sling or anything on the way out. And hit one switch. So there's, I mean, it's kind of a ball save if you really, if you really fuck up. But other than that, go listen to the episode on ball saves. You want to know how I feel about that. But I think there's also brilliant uses of work around to advance the riskier hazards to advance your rafts. But they all take more shots, but they're safer. They take more shots. You know, it's all that kind of shit is layered in this rule set. The whole game is literally risk reward perfection. It has a wizard mode and it has a special vacation jackpot award, which is also just insane the first time you do it. I won't say anymore. You guys should try to figure out how to do vacation jackpot and then go try to do it on whitewater. If you can watch the tutorial without seeing the show that it gives you when you do it, that's even better because it's a great surprise.

27:57The first time you do it. Yeah. Zero notes, Mike Boone fucking cooked on this bad boy perfection. When I, when people are like, what game? Like, what do you like in a game? You know, like, Alan, you only like frontier. It's got to be just like light spinner, rip spinner or hit drop. I was like, that's not it. I can appreciate a game with multiple ladders and modes and wizard modes, but it's got, I got to feel like one I can do multiple things and score well too. I want to feel like there's not one fucking thing to do. Yeah. This game breaks a lot of the things that I don't like in other games. Yeah. One of them is play field multipliers. Not a big fan. But this is the fucking way to do it. This is a good one because again, if you get this one, not only does it last a very short amount of time. Yeah. And nothing stops the timer. So if you, if you get it ready and you have two balls locked and you're like, okay, I got to get the ball. My timer's already going, you know, I got to hit that shot. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. I'm counting down like nothing stops the clock. Then you got to start your multiple, like most people try to do.

28:59Then you just hit three jackpots in a row. Like, yeah, that's under pressure until you fuck those up. Yeah. That doesn't say I really like the play field multiplier in this. Because you can only collect it once, right? And then you have to go through all the other awards. Yeah. You have to get all of your awards to collect to get it back around to get it again. So most of the time, the way I'm playing this game, I see it once in a game. And it's usually it's not the type of thing that I like go out of my way to try to set up. I just pay attention to what I have lit for an award. And then when I start it, I panic. And I'm like, wow, do I get what's, what's the most points? Yeah. What's the best way to get points right now? Like I'll fuck the multipliers coin. And that leads to me like fumbling the ball a lot. And I like that. I like being challenged in pinball. I like it when the game makes me freak out. It's why I like scared stiff the wizard mode the first time you feel like. So much fun. So long for me to clear that wizard mode. And you're like, those aren't hard shots. Yeah. Hit a ramp. Then hit the center crate. Then hit a ramp. Hit the center crate. It's just, you're like, when the pressure is on pinball, it turns into a different game.

29:59And I love that because it's just like you get a little, you get a lot of those little like pressure moments in white water. Yeah. It's perfection. Mike Boone. He nailed it. Hopefully one day I will get to meet you. He's the big, big Boone to us. Yeah. Big Boone. Now the last thing we got to talk about, which is the physical layout. Dennis Nordman, I think we've set it on the show before. This is my personal opinion. Gotta be the single most overlooked and disrespected designer of the modern ramp slash mode era of pinball. So the last 30-ish years or so, the guy gets higher than fired than let go. Then, you know, like, taking off a project. All this. And really, like, when you play as fucking games, the guy understands flow better than Steve Richie. Dude, he makes fun functional layouts in a way that no one else like his games are all so fun to shoot. And they all work really well.

30:59They work. It's crazy. It's not like, oh, like that one almost that was close, you know, like that was a cool idea. But like, it doesn't really work that well in reality. You're like, no, this shit all works. And it's all cool. And he's just, he makes some remarkably fun games. Yeah. I mean, this layout in particular, it's buttery and smooth and flowy. It has shots close and far. And he makes the mundane parts like stand-ups necessary, invaluable. The light locks. The extra ball. Dude, the extra ball. The advanced hazards. The extra ball is basically just like collect and drain for me. Most like 50% of my 50% of my extra balls go basically are coming back to me within like three seconds. Dude. The extra ball stand-up placement is so damn perfect. It's so good. It brings a tear to my eyes thinking about it. This is what every extra you're like, okay, there's your extra ball. There it is. Right there. Go get it. And it's like the fucking, it's like six inches away from a flipper.

32:01Oh, dude. So good. It's so good. That's like the most over, I forgot about that. I'm like, that's the most overlooked thing. You're like having an extra ball collect. That's just fucking dangerous is genius. It's perfect. I love it. Extra ball. Absolutely perfect. You know, the waterfall ramp is the greatest ramp. And then a default. Once again, this is what I say. This is like, this is the greatest game of all time because some of all of his parts. Each individual part is excellence. Yeah. That is rarely matched on its own. Yeah, each one of these, you're like, it is at least in the conversation. I don't think anyone could argue against any of these, in any of these categories. You're like, best world under glass. You're like, you might have some other ones that you like, but white water is absolutely in every conversation. in every conversation. Sound package, absolutely up there. Art package, absolutely up there. Rules, if you like the rules, that's maybe the most subjective. One of these, which is funny,

33:04you'd think art would be more subjective, but I disagree. I think rules sets are their own art, and this is a beautiful execution of the rules I like to see. And you're like in those layout, dude. The waterfall ramp on the left side is the best ramp in pinball, and he lets you combo it from the left ramp at speed. So it's like, it's like the Steve Richie Picard manoeuvre shit. But even fucking better. Yeah. The ball is flowing like water. Eat, eat, fucking cool. No, Steve liked this shit because he did his own kind of tweak version with no fear. Yeah. The elevated flipper, where if you don't flip, it just returns like a normal ramp shot. And it's obviously it's got its own Steve flavor with the magnet accelerator and stuff. But it's like, that's how you know if Steve's biting something from you, you know it was good. Yeah, you know that shit was cooking. Yeah. Yeah. Is that Emerald Agassi, dude? Fucking bang. We cook on this show, dude. It's one of those things where like it's a dangerous game

34:08if you're flailing, but an absolute flow monster when you approach it with control and skill. And people are always saying that they want unique layouts. This is the perfect example of a game with unique layout that feels like no other game ever. And yet it still remains buttery smooth. That's the that's the one I'm saying. It's like his games are fun and unique and there's not a catch. Yeah, because most of the time when a designer starts fucking with unique layouts. There's a catch. There's the catch is there's some element of jank or clunk that gets introduced. Yeah, there's usually a reason that no one else has done it exactly like this. That's not to say that those games might not still be fun. Yeah, absolutely. But it's rare that something can be so weird and off the wall and still feel so good like this. Yes. That's what makes this one special. It's wholly original. The rule set matches Dennis' layout perfectly. Elevates it even further. You got to hit shots all over the play field at some point and

35:09everything has value at certain moments. Like I said, that extra ball stand up. Fucking perfection. Dude, it's so good. It's just it's just funny because I hadn't thought about that until now and I'm like, that's probably the best. I'm like, that's it. If I was stealing one thing from this game for like my own game, I'm making here something. I'd be like, extra ball. I want to stand up exactly there in that angle, that same William style stand up because I'm like, that's such a good collect. We got to talk about the big elephant in the room as well, which is he made an upper play field. That doesn't fucking suck. Do you know how insane that is? It's still to the state the only great one ever made. Like it feels only I'm to the point is, you know, I love my like caveats and I'm like, we've got to define the white water upper play field out of this. It shouldn't be in the discussion with other upper play fields because it's good. And as a rule, upper play fields, they're not good. Normally an upper play field slows the slows the game down. It acts as safety

36:14and it's just kind of a place to park balls. I mean, it's just a safety net. It's a safety net and it's not fun because like flapping at little stuff six inches away from the flippers, usually not very fun. I mean, like that's the reason pinball is fucking four feet long. You know, it's like it wasn't fun when it was in cocktail form. And it's like upper play fields are that times a hundred, you know, compressed even more. They're not cool. Somehow Dennis made one. The ball, it isn't in danger because the ball doesn't fall off in danger. It returns to an in lane. It's, I mean, it's got multiple shots up there and it doesn't have any targets. It's just the shots. It's just the shots. There's two shots and you either hit one of two or you train one swing at it. Yes. You get one flip at it. That's it to me where it's like you don't get stuck up there. Yeah. That's what makes it good. And I know there's other upper play fields that you don't get stuck up on. And those ones are probably some of my favorites too. But it's like it's so good. This is like one of the few games that I'm like genuinely like that upper play field needs to be there. Yeah. It's part of the game and it makes it so much better. It's good. It's

37:19magical dude. It's a magical magical game. We got to put some respect on Dennis' name. Like I said, dude's a legend. Whitewater's his masterpiece. I think it's fucking a stunning piece of just design and layout and engineering. Things all coming together to create this perfect fucking game at the perfect time at the perfect company with the perfect talent in every position. It's like there's every single person doing their part on a team project to the absolute highest level. Like as if they had something to prove. And I don't know. There's not any reasonable argument against this game to me. Unless you're like I don't like games with ramps. You know what I mean? Like short of that. Unless you have some like real black and white reason to just be like, no sorry I don't play DMD games. Hey you found the secret passage. That'd be about the only thing I can accept. But even then I'd be like are you sure you should play some whitewater because it's the one that would win anyone over. It's just phenomenal. The dot animations are great too.

38:25The one thing I will say, I don't know. Did you have to any bow to put on this? Can I can I fight back on one thing? Go for it. There's one critique I have and that's the fucking plunge. Okay, I agree with this. Okay. And how you have before you before you even before you go off on this. I would prefer if it was just a dead end. And so you just launched the ball and it just dead and always delivered to the upper flipper because any competent player is going to short plunge the game until they deliver it's a very safe short plunge. But to air on the safe side, most people take a few tries before they get over the crest of the plunge hill. And that's the downside. That's the one catch. I agree. It's the skill shot. Although you can argue that if you took that away or if you put say a one way gate or a dead end, then it's no there is no nothing to lose. There isn't the skill shot in this game isn't points. The skill shot in this game is safety. Well, the skill shot, see, I consider this a flipper skill shot, you know, where it's just your first shot is your skill shot in quotes, which isn't really like a plunge

39:28skill shot. But I agree with you that your skill shot is just delivering to the because there's no ball save on the lower play field. So it's like, if that's all I'm saying, if I was if I was running this game, if I was a certain manufacturer that was remanufacturing reimagine versions of Valley Williams games, which is a bad shit crazy thing to do as we've kind of alluded to already. But if I was reimagining this game, I think I would reimagine it exactly how it is, except for I would change that humped plunge to just be a dead end and just plunk right to the flipper and you'd be like, there, now you can put an auto plunge on it so you can put like, what I guess I won't want an auto plunge because I was just lead to problems. That's the one thing I would tweak other than that. It's like perfection. Yeah, the plunge is, you know what it should be, here's the here's how you make it even better. You don't even do that. You just fucking you make it the full plunge just as dangerous as it was before. But you just add an auto plunger so that if it pops off and you and you have plunge, it's just auto launching it at full speed. See I like

40:29like you see what I'm saying? Yeah, so yeah, you can't like kind of how Keith Allen when takes away his skillshot. Yes, exactly. And you're like, you didn't get the ball out of the launch lane. Not just play the fucking game now. It would be hilarious. If just some tweaked, there's got to be some little tweak like that. So if you were remanufacturing it, that's about all I would do. That'd be pretty funny actually. So it's like, you detect ones and poof just shoots it out. It comes right out like a fucking tip of the left flipper. Is that is there there is like you could just soft plunge, soft plunge, soft fail, soft fail, soft fail, soft fail, soft fail. Yeah, skilled player, such as ourselves, usually like maybe you fuck up once if it's the first time you've played that copy of whitewater, you're feeling out the spring. But like you will have people, especially like tournaments where they really don't want to accidentally overplunge, take like six tries to plunge a ball into whitewater. And that's when I'm like, this is on the designer. I definitely also what I do too is I change the shooter spring. Yeah. And I make it weaker. Yep. So that a full plunge barely goes over the hump. Yep. So when somebody pulls it back all the way,

41:34it's just going to drop there and it's not going to go all the way around. So I do sort of modify it that way. Yeah. So that's a pretty easy tweak to make the absolute most perfect game of all time 100% perfect. Yeah. You know, so when I did NASCAR, that was a little facetious, a little exaggerated calling it the greatest game of all time. It's hard to argue against whitewater. I'll have to think of what I truly think is the greatest on all fronts. And I'll have to do another greatest game of all time, which is a funny. I just want to put that out. We'll have to do one more. I got to do one more. And then you put your allow one more. Now that this is it, man. I don't know if I'll be able to think of anything. So I'm like, this is a really hard one for me. I have some in mind. I don't want to spoil them in case I do one of them. But I'm like, I can't say it's better than this in all of these categories. Yeah. This is excellence in all categories. It's a perfect game. It's a perfect piece. It's a perfect example of the art form that is pinballed the kinetic satisfaction

42:34of the game in the way it moves and the max and the magic of the game and the theme and the sound and the art and it all works together to create this special moment that playing a pinball machine is at its highest level. And that's why to me, white water, greatest game of all time. Yeah. Well said. I think in on that. Well, we want to thank everyone for listening to another episode of the Wedget pinball podcast at the end of these episodes. You know what we always do, Alex? We always say use the pinball map. Go out and find a white water near you and go play it. Yes. You're lucky. If you have a white water, you have access to you are a lucky person. Because they are also not fun to clean or maintain. But actually, you don't get 7,000 of them. The service ability of the game. Not perfect. That might be the one part. I was like, yeah, like, we didn't, you know, we talked about that a lot of NASCAR. Yeah, NASCAR got dogged on for reliability, but we're not talking about that. We're talking about this just as a piece of art. Yes. And this is perfect pinball art and go play it. By the time this episode comes out,

43:35I'm going to force Roadsie to bring our white water back onto the floor so you can come play the best part of a nice dialed one at Wedget after this episode airs. But until next time everybody, good luck. Don't stop.