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Ep 70: The Return of GOATzilla with Keith Elwin
96 Plays4 years ago
Keith Elwin is back with behind the scenes info on his latest game Godzilla!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of Hosts and Sponsor
00:00:07
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the loser kid pinball podcast.
00:00:10
Speaker
I am Josh Roop with me.
00:00:11
Speaker
My co-captain is always Scott Larson and Scott.
00:00:14
Speaker
Uh, who's, who are we talking about this week with our sponsors?
00:00:18
Speaker
Uh, well, we're, uh, we're talking about flipping out pinball and guess what?
00:00:21
Speaker
I just received in a box, uh, last week that I have not been able to unbox.
00:00:27
Speaker
I don't know.
00:00:27
Speaker
What did you receive?
00:00:28
Speaker
That's right.
00:00:29
Speaker
I got my God.
00:00:31
Speaker
No, I know.
00:00:31
Speaker
Okay.
00:00:32
Speaker
I got my Beatles.
00:00:33
Speaker
So I, I, I got my Beatles, uh, gold finally, and, uh, looking forward to bring that down.
00:00:39
Speaker
X-Men left the building.
00:00:41
Speaker
Uh, so I, I sold that and now I have room for Beatles.
00:00:44
Speaker
So I'm excited about that.
00:00:46
Speaker
I contacted a Zach and Nicole at flipping up pinball and they were able to hook me up with that.
00:00:50
Speaker
So if you have your pinball desires, go ahead and contact them and they'll be able to find,
00:00:55
Speaker
either your pinball machine or your accessories, or if you have a used machine you're trying to get ahold of, go ahead and get in, let them know and they'll see what they can do.
00:01:02
Speaker
Definitely.
00:01:03
Speaker
And if you need a Godzilla... You mean like the Sega Godzilla, right?
00:01:09
Speaker
Right.
00:01:09
Speaker
If you need a Sega Godzilla, Zach will probably even try to help you out with that.
00:01:13
Speaker
But if you want the new Stern Godzilla, give them a call as well.
00:01:17
Speaker
And speaking of Godzilla, who do we have on, Scott?
Meet Keith Elwin: Pinball Legend
00:01:20
Speaker
We have a legend in his own time.
00:01:23
Speaker
This is Keith Elwin.
00:01:24
Speaker
So Keith is not only the world's best pinball player, but...
00:01:28
Speaker
rapidly becoming the world's most respected pinball designer, and he has sacrificed his Sunday to come and talk with us.
00:01:35
Speaker
How are you doing, Keith?
00:01:36
Speaker
Good.
00:01:37
Speaker
And also, I think we surpassed the Godzilla numbers in three days.
00:01:43
Speaker
You mean the Sega one?
00:01:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:46
Speaker
Oh, geez.
00:01:47
Speaker
That game was interesting, but not really awesomely fun.
00:01:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:54
Speaker
It's amazing how short some of the runs were back then.
00:01:57
Speaker
It's like,
00:01:58
Speaker
Imagine doing a game on the line for three days and then that's your entire run.
00:02:02
Speaker
That must have been pretty depressing.
00:02:05
Speaker
Well, just like we had Joe Cam account on a month or two ago.
00:02:08
Speaker
He's talking about how they had to do Back to the Future in like six weeks or something like that from start to finish.
00:02:13
Speaker
It doesn't show at all.
00:02:16
Speaker
It's a masterpiece.
00:02:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:18
Speaker
Meanwhile.
00:02:20
Speaker
On to something completely different now.
00:02:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:24
Speaker
So now here's... So we...
00:02:27
Speaker
I have two of your games and I actually have Iron Maiden still pending.
00:02:31
Speaker
So I will eventually have all four of your games.
00:02:36
Speaker
One, kind of tell me about the development of
00:02:39
Speaker
Of Godzilla.
00:02:40
Speaker
And also, I kind of want to go through each of your games and say, what are the take-home messages you learned from each of them?
00:02:45
Speaker
Because I'm sure there's something... It's like building a house.
00:02:47
Speaker
Every time you build it, you're like, you know what?
00:02:49
Speaker
I did it this way, but I think I would have done something differently next time.
00:02:52
Speaker
So let's go through this, the current game, Godzilla.
00:02:59
Speaker
And what was your thought process when you started designing it?
00:03:02
Speaker
And how did you approach that?
Designing Godzilla Pinball: Mechanical Innovations
00:03:05
Speaker
I knew I wanted to do a...
00:03:07
Speaker
a game with heavy mechanical elements.
00:03:11
Speaker
I wanted to have a building and a bridge.
00:03:16
Speaker
I wasn't exactly sure what they were going to do.
00:03:21
Speaker
So I concepted many different designs of buildings, but none of them were very interesting.
00:03:30
Speaker
And so I actually had this idea of a multi-level diverter
00:03:39
Speaker
that has been kicking around.
00:03:41
Speaker
So I thought, well, maybe I can use, incorporate a building in this.
00:03:44
Speaker
So I sketched something up, handed it to my engineer, Harrison, and he was super excited about it and kind of did like this foam core mock-up.
00:03:54
Speaker
And then we 3D printed something with these different floors and we're like, Hey, this actually works pretty good.
00:04:04
Speaker
But he was like, I think we can go another story higher and have a ball lock on the roof.
00:04:10
Speaker
And so we tried that, we mocked that up and it was practically scraping the glass when the balls were in it.
00:04:17
Speaker
So we made a few tweaks, modifications, because that's a really tall neck.
00:04:24
Speaker
And we figured out exactly where to fit it on the play field so it doesn't hit anything in the bottom of the cabinet or the glass and the rest is history.
00:04:34
Speaker
As far as the bridge, early in the process, development, George gave me this Godzilla toy kit that had this little collapsing bridge on it.
00:04:44
Speaker
And I was like, oh, this is cool and simple.
00:04:47
Speaker
So I just kind of...
00:04:49
Speaker
design something based on this little toy that you destroy and just put it in the game.
00:04:55
Speaker
And actually it turned out pretty cool because we can animate when you hit it, you can animate it and shake it.
00:05:01
Speaker
And it's actually a pretty little interesting bridge.
00:05:06
Speaker
Okay, so I want to go through more.
00:05:08
Speaker
You have talked with us before about enjoying games and the things that make them different are diverters.
00:05:16
Speaker
So when you have states of change, so the ball path is not necessarily the same at every portion of the game.
00:05:23
Speaker
And I counted up three games.
00:05:25
Speaker
three major elements of that.
00:05:27
Speaker
You already brought up the building, but you also brought up the bridge, and you also have that mini turntable in the bottom right with EncanoGodzilla.
00:05:36
Speaker
And so you also have three flippers in this game.
00:05:40
Speaker
So how many paths are in this game?
00:05:45
Speaker
Typically with a fan layout, it's like nine paths or something, but I think that you kind of broke the bank on being able to have the ball go different ways.
00:05:55
Speaker
The magnet actually acts as a diverter too.
00:05:59
Speaker
It can go straight through or it can divert it to the upper flipper.
00:06:04
Speaker
Yeah, I love state-changing shots.
00:06:10
Speaker
I know George loves it too, so it's always an easy sell.
00:06:14
Speaker
We have to present the game and what our ideas are for the game.
00:06:20
Speaker
If whatever mech we have does something like that, then the brass is usually pretty sold on them.
00:06:26
Speaker
Looking at Godzilla, especially Showa era Godzilla, it's hard to find these movies.
00:06:30
Speaker
So do you walk into the billing department with a big old receipt for like a couple hundred bucks, finding like the collection of these movies?
00:06:36
Speaker
And then there's like a theater there at Stern and you guys just get the team together and sit down and watch nothing but Godzilla movies with notepads.
00:06:42
Speaker
Like how does this work when you're doing research for this?
00:06:46
Speaker
Well, funny story because Jody, when Jody got the license, he bought the whole box set.
00:06:56
Speaker
And originally I was supposed to do this game before Avengers.
00:07:00
Speaker
And so I sat through, watched all the movies, took some notes and then I got flip flop with Avengers.
00:07:09
Speaker
And then, so I worked on Avengers for, it was like almost a year and then, okay, now it's back to Godzilla and I'd kind of forgotten everything.
00:07:19
Speaker
So I basically had to rewatch the entire series again.
00:07:24
Speaker
to try to focus on what I was doing.
00:07:30
Speaker
So yeah, I've watched each movie probably four or five times English and actually some of them in the box that were dubbed in English, I'd say about 50-50 and others were just the straight Japanese version.
00:07:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:47
Speaker
So yeah, I watched those a ton and I was like, I don't even remember watching these as a kid, really.
00:07:53
Speaker
I just remember knowing who Godzilla was.
00:07:56
Speaker
And yeah, obviously I saw a couple when I was a kid, but I haven't watched one in many, many years.
00:08:03
Speaker
And I was like, wow, these are so campy.
00:08:05
Speaker
I totally forgot about that.
00:08:08
Speaker
So my whole approach to the game was just like, well, I am just going to make something fun.
00:08:13
Speaker
Yes.
00:08:14
Speaker
Yes.
00:08:15
Speaker
I was a little worried that the purists would not like the classic rock soundtrack that I wanted to do.
00:08:28
Speaker
But I'd already done two orchestral games in a row.
00:08:31
Speaker
I didn't want to do a third.
00:08:32
Speaker
And I was like, I just want this to be like, you're watching a music video.
00:08:36
Speaker
Guys in rubber suits are fighting.
00:08:37
Speaker
Let's just have some fun with this.
00:08:39
Speaker
Let's have some rock music and break away from the pure Toho music.
00:08:45
Speaker
Showa era movies a bit with jazz.
00:08:48
Speaker
And, you know, this is like, you know, I've just, I'm not a huge fan of jazz in pinball.
00:08:54
Speaker
So, uh, I made that call early and I was a little nervous when, when the game debuted, what people would think about the, uh, the music where everyone seems to like it.
00:09:02
Speaker
So, uh, I think it was the right call.
00:09:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:05
Speaker
It really turned out well.
00:09:07
Speaker
And when you're sitting there watching those movies, did you have to make a decision?
00:09:11
Speaker
Because like you said, there's the Japanese style.
00:09:14
Speaker
And then when they brought them over to America, they Americanized and did they took like the original Godzilla and added characters to flesh out a different storyline that they thought Americans would love more in the, you know, because this movie was from the 50s.
00:09:28
Speaker
and so if you look a lot of those movies those godzilla movies have different storylines even though they're the same movie um so did you have to kind of pick and choose or was it just because you're using men fighting in rubber suits it just kind of those storylines didn't really matter at that point exactly we couldn't use any big name actors so that you know anything that was changed or added didn't really affect uh what i was doing or you know basically
00:09:55
Speaker
90% of the footage is guys in rubber suits fighting.
00:09:59
Speaker
Obviously, if you watch the whole series like I did, you'll notice that
00:10:06
Speaker
almost 10, 15 minutes of each movie is just recycled footage of, you know, the toy tanks, the jets.
00:10:15
Speaker
I've never saw this egregious error where Megalon was fighting jets and he was swatting them out of the air.
00:10:21
Speaker
But if you look closer, you can tell it was Gigan's arms that were doing it.
00:10:24
Speaker
So it was, they just get shamelessly recycled so much footage that it was just like, Oh, this is pretty funny.
Creative Challenges and Licensing Issues
00:10:34
Speaker
That is awesome.
00:10:36
Speaker
At any point, did the Stern employees get dressed up in rubber suits and there's an Easter egg in there for you guys fighting in rubber suits?
00:10:44
Speaker
Please tell me, yes.
00:10:46
Speaker
Oh, no.
00:10:46
Speaker
We talked about making our own like civilians fleeing scenes of Stern employees running out the building.
00:10:52
Speaker
But since there's COVID, that became impossible to do.
00:10:56
Speaker
So we had to scrap that.
00:11:00
Speaker
That would have been awesome.
00:11:01
Speaker
I know that you have your little Easter eggs of where you're at in each game, but that would have been
00:11:05
Speaker
That would have been priceless.
00:11:06
Speaker
You and Gary Stern running away from Godzilla, you know?
00:11:10
Speaker
Either that or Gary is Godzilla.
00:11:12
Speaker
I'd love to see that.
00:11:13
Speaker
That's not me doing that.
00:11:14
Speaker
That's our guy, Danai, our animators.
00:11:18
Speaker
He likes putting goats in me, hiding them inside the games.
00:11:22
Speaker
I do love the soundtrack, though.
00:11:24
Speaker
The game that I'm playing the most right now, it's one of my newer games, is Deadpool.
00:11:30
Speaker
And I love the humor and the campiness of that game.
00:11:34
Speaker
And so I love that you brought that type of feeling toward Godzilla.
00:11:37
Speaker
And it makes it just fun.
00:11:40
Speaker
Like you said, it's not taking itself too seriously because it's kind of hard to take yourself seriously when you're watching 1950s special effects.
00:11:49
Speaker
And they are pretty bad.
00:11:52
Speaker
But yeah, I think you made the right call on the soundtrack.
00:11:54
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:11:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's been so long since I've seen the movies.
00:11:58
Speaker
I forgot how campy they were because, you know, we've been... What we see in America is totally different.
00:12:03
Speaker
We're seeing these dark, gritty, you know, action movies, whereas these were just like...
00:12:09
Speaker
After the first couple, I thought that the first movie was great.
00:12:11
Speaker
Then after that, you can tell they just slowly started tailoring towards kids.
00:12:17
Speaker
That's when a campiness kind of went off the charts.
00:12:19
Speaker
I was like, all right, yeah, we're just going to have fun with this.
00:12:24
Speaker
Well, I love that the double kick, was it the drop kick, the sliding along the tail made it in.
00:12:30
Speaker
That's a classic meme.
00:12:33
Speaker
Love it.
00:12:34
Speaker
Well, I also love the little kid Godzilla when he's dancing with Daddy Godzilla.
00:12:40
Speaker
I don't even know.
00:12:41
Speaker
I haven't seen the movies all the way.
00:12:44
Speaker
These were on Saturday afternoon.
00:12:47
Speaker
So usually when I was supposed to be turning off the TV and cleaning my room or something like that, that's when I would find these.
00:12:53
Speaker
Yeah, the Son of Godzilla, we actually have a whole sequence of videos that play.
00:13:01
Speaker
It hasn't been released yet, but it will be there soon.
00:13:03
Speaker
Every time the ball drains, you get a different video from the sequence where he's getting bullied.
00:13:09
Speaker
It's just something different to try.
00:13:11
Speaker
He's like, hey, we got all this footage of Manila that I don't know what to do with.
00:13:14
Speaker
So let's just have a storytelling through ball saves.
00:13:18
Speaker
Nice.
00:13:20
Speaker
Well, and remind me again, you guys did, there's 10 or 13 Showa era films, if I can remember correctly.
00:13:26
Speaker
How many of those, which ones did you leave out?
00:13:28
Speaker
Because it seemed like you had more in there than what you left out.
00:13:34
Speaker
We couldn't use Hetera, Godzilla Raids Again, and Destroy All Monsters.
00:13:42
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:13:42
Speaker
I guess those rights don't currently belong to Toho, so we couldn't use those.
00:13:47
Speaker
But everything else was fair game.
00:13:49
Speaker
What about Kong?
00:13:51
Speaker
Godzilla vs. Kong.
00:13:52
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:13:52
Speaker
No, Kong.
00:13:53
Speaker
We couldn't use Kong either, but that movie is so bad.
00:13:57
Speaker
No lie.
00:14:01
Speaker
The new one or the old one?
00:14:02
Speaker
Because I watched the new one when I was flying over to Hawaii, and that was... I'm not sure if the ambient kicked in at that point, but that was interesting.
00:14:13
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the Inner Earth Sun.
00:14:16
Speaker
Hey, I just thought it was interesting, but I may have had a less critical eye considering I saw it probably at 3 a.m.
00:14:28
Speaker
It's one of those movies that's better at 3 a.m.
00:14:30
Speaker
It probably is, yeah.
00:14:32
Speaker
You also put, and you put the UFO bumper down at the bottom.
00:14:36
Speaker
So looking at the different design things.
00:14:37
Speaker
So usually the pop bumpers are kind of like time.
00:14:42
Speaker
It's, they usually don't contribute much to the game as opposed to giving the player a feeling like, oh, I'm actually having more ball time, even though it's just a time waster.
00:14:52
Speaker
Yours is, is dangerous down below.
00:14:56
Speaker
What was your thought process on putting a single one down low?
00:15:01
Speaker
Just to be different.
00:15:02
Speaker
It originally started off as two with no scoop, but there was just so little action that I was like, I need a scoop.
00:15:12
Speaker
The second pop doesn't really do anything, but this bottom pop, I love how it interacts with the slingshots.
00:15:21
Speaker
There's actually a little shot that when you shoot between the pop and the scoop, there's a switch there,
00:15:28
Speaker
And what that does, it lights saucer attack.
00:15:31
Speaker
And so then you actually have to shoot the pop to get the saucer attack award.
00:15:35
Speaker
And that eventually leads to a mini wizard mode.
00:15:37
Speaker
So I try to incorporate it much into the design as I could.
00:15:42
Speaker
It's used on a couple of modes.
00:15:43
Speaker
You have to shoot it.
00:15:45
Speaker
So it's not just there to create chaos.
00:15:47
Speaker
You actually need to shoot it sometimes.
00:15:50
Speaker
So with the extra time that you had with this game, do you feel like it actually played to your advantage to help with Godzilla?
00:15:55
Speaker
Did you go back and rehash some stuff because of the Switch schedule with Avengers?
00:16:03
Speaker
It didn't really create more time other than I knew I was working on it longer.
00:16:08
Speaker
Sometimes we don't know what we're working on until...
00:16:11
Speaker
a couple of weeks before our current game goes out.
00:16:14
Speaker
But I knew what I was working on for a few years.
00:16:18
Speaker
So that did help.
00:16:21
Speaker
Ideas, theme-wise, rule-wise, it helped in that manner.
00:16:25
Speaker
But I didn't actually start physically laying it out, the design, until a couple of weeks before Avengers was announced.
00:16:35
Speaker
And then design was pretty much done a month after that.
00:16:41
Speaker
Now, this is the first game you've actually put a scoop in.
00:16:46
Speaker
You've talked about scoops not being a huge fan because it stops the action, but you did put one in on this one.
00:16:50
Speaker
So what's the thought process on that?
00:16:55
Speaker
I needed a place to stop the ball so you can select your battles.
00:17:03
Speaker
There's also a...
00:17:05
Speaker
an element of the game called Godzilla Power-Up, which isn't in yet, but it will be, which you need the scoop for.
00:17:13
Speaker
So it just came down to, I need a place that I can guarantee to stop the ball.
00:17:18
Speaker
The only other place where the ball stops is on the magnet, which isn't guaranteed to stop the ball.
00:17:22
Speaker
So scoop was necessary in this case.
00:17:26
Speaker
And I didn't have room to do like a shot in an up post.
00:17:28
Speaker
So begrudgingly, I put a scoop in, but I think it's fine.
00:17:33
Speaker
It's far enough out of the way and you're not shooting it all the time.
00:17:36
Speaker
So I'll break my own rule there.
00:17:40
Speaker
Always an exception to the rule, but it looks great.
00:17:44
Speaker
I've seen that they've started landing at different locations and people are out playing the pros so far, and I've heard nothing but good reviews so far.
00:17:51
Speaker
People say it's fun.
00:17:53
Speaker
Do you have to decide what you leave in on a pro versus a premium, or is that more of the higher-ups decide on that?
00:18:01
Speaker
It's generally a combination.
00:18:03
Speaker
When we pitch the game with all the devices, we have to propose what comes out on a Pro and then...
00:18:12
Speaker
It's up to management who's like, yes or no, this needs to stay.
00:18:17
Speaker
So it's kind of the whole design team plus the stern management that decides that whole process.
00:18:25
Speaker
I mean, if there's something that I really, really want, I can go to bat for it and fight for it.
00:18:29
Speaker
But usually it's just kind of a joint agreement.
00:18:34
Speaker
And I'm assuming typically that comes down to like you have a set budget.
00:18:38
Speaker
I mean, any game has a build material and
00:18:41
Speaker
what you can do and what you can't do depending on how much.
00:18:47
Speaker
Now you've been able to,
00:18:49
Speaker
creatively, I guess, utilize a build of material to really feel like the game is super packed.
00:18:58
Speaker
What are some things in a game that you're like, well, that would be expensive or that would be easy to be able to put in because it's cheaper.
00:19:06
Speaker
Are there things that you have to really debate on whether or not you put them in because of the cost of the material?
Navigating Project Constraints and Innovations
00:19:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:14
Speaker
So right now with the, obviously the COVID slash,
00:19:20
Speaker
supply line stuff, the cost of everything is just all over the place right now.
00:19:25
Speaker
So, I mean, we would go from right on budget to $100 over to $50 over to $200 over back to, it was just, this whole project was just crazy.
00:19:38
Speaker
And eventually it just got to the point where we can't nail down a number on this.
00:19:43
Speaker
Let's just get what we think.
00:19:48
Speaker
get it to where we think will be fun, not strip too much out of it.
00:19:52
Speaker
On the pro, the pro is fine.
00:19:54
Speaker
We kind of have to ignore the numbers and just plow forward.
00:20:00
Speaker
We can't just keep constantly checking and looking.
00:20:05
Speaker
But mostly the, I can propose an idea
00:20:11
Speaker
And I can do some napkin drawings and CAD drawings, but it's, it's usually up to the engineer to actually get anything in budget.
00:20:21
Speaker
You know?
00:20:21
Speaker
So in this case, it's like Harrison, I want to have this, you know, this building that diverts all these different places and do this.
00:20:27
Speaker
And he's like, wow, that sounds super expensive.
00:20:29
Speaker
I was like, okay, well let's, let's build it and see how much it is.
00:20:33
Speaker
And then,
00:20:35
Speaker
You'll take a look at it.
00:20:35
Speaker
Oh, you know, it's not as bad as I thought.
00:20:37
Speaker
And then a lot of the costs in these things are just the metal work.
00:20:41
Speaker
You know, the more bends you have, the more that's going to cost.
00:20:44
Speaker
So it's basically myself and the engineer working to figure out how to do it as...
00:20:54
Speaker
cheaply as possible, but still maintain what it needs to do.
00:20:57
Speaker
And it's just, it's just a back and forth of the engineer.
00:20:59
Speaker
I've worked with Harrison so many times now that, you know, he basically knows what I'm looking for and he just goes ahead and does it.
00:21:06
Speaker
And he's like, Oh, I saved us five bucks by, you know, taking up this mounting point.
00:21:10
Speaker
It's like, Oh, great.
00:21:12
Speaker
You know, I don't even need to bug him.
00:21:16
Speaker
Did, uh, removing two of the pot bumpers really help too?
00:21:19
Speaker
Cause I mean, that's, that's coils and stuff.
00:21:23
Speaker
Um,
00:21:24
Speaker
They're such a common part that they actually don't save us that much.
00:21:29
Speaker
The price of coils has really shot up.
00:21:33
Speaker
So it definitely helps us there.
00:21:34
Speaker
But for the rest of the assembly, since they're used on every single game, obviously the costs on those are a bit lower.
00:21:41
Speaker
But every dollar helps.
00:21:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:45
Speaker
Well, and do you feel like the, the pop bumper itself is kind of becoming not obsolete, but it's like Scott was saying earlier, it's either like in Avengers, it's there for pretty much the hits for captain America, but it also does create an interesting shot when you shoot through them.
00:22:00
Speaker
You, you did that also on Jurassic park because that was like your, your Amber shot for your chaos and whatnot.
00:22:07
Speaker
And on Iron Maiden, you're shooting through pops.
00:22:09
Speaker
But other than that, um,
00:22:11
Speaker
They don't really seem to interact with the ball except for to slow it down.
00:22:14
Speaker
So do you think we're starting to see a gravitation away from pop bumpers as we start to come up with these designs?
00:22:21
Speaker
Maybe pop up our nests.
00:22:24
Speaker
Sure.
00:22:25
Speaker
Actually, I like pop bumpers, so I don't think I would really consider doing a game without them.
00:22:32
Speaker
But I think that the requirement to have three pop bumpers with lanes above them, I think people are starting to gravitate away from that.
00:22:44
Speaker
Just because it's pretty much every game from...
00:22:48
Speaker
the eighties through, you know, the two thousands kind of has that same configuration somewhere.
00:22:53
Speaker
So it's nice to, uh, break away from that a little bit, I think.
00:22:58
Speaker
But I, like I said, personally, I, I'm probably always going to want to have at least one, one pop bumper.
00:23:04
Speaker
I think they create a, some chaos that's always invited into a pinball game, but because if you have too much certainty, it becomes boring.
00:23:12
Speaker
You know, you get, you get in a Stern's Indiana Jones.
00:23:16
Speaker
Yeah, well, here's the thing.
00:23:17
Speaker
If you have three pop umbers, but only one place for the ball to exit, that's not creating chaos.
00:23:22
Speaker
It's like you said, it's just killing time.
00:23:24
Speaker
So, you know, of all my games that do have multiple pop umbers, I try to have multiple exits out of there.
00:23:31
Speaker
Jurassic Park was kind of an exception because I wanted to use that as a setup shot, but I intentionally did not put a spring gate in there.
00:23:42
Speaker
Uh, just to create that random chaos that sometimes it can come flying back through there.
00:23:46
Speaker
So you have to be on your toes.
00:23:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:48
Speaker
Oh, and it's such a satisfying shot when you get, when it's, when you're squeezing past with a smart missile and you get in between those, that, that Newton ball and everything, and you finally hit that shot just feels so great.
00:23:58
Speaker
Every time you land.
00:23:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:01
Speaker
That, that's like one of my favorite shots in pinball actually.
00:24:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:05
Speaker
Well, it's good.
00:24:05
Speaker
Cause you are threading that needle.
00:24:07
Speaker
It's like Indiana Jones sliding under the doors.
00:24:12
Speaker
It's coming down and he reaches under and grabs his hat.
00:24:16
Speaker
Yeah, I've said it before.
00:24:17
Speaker
I think every game needs at least one hard shot.
00:24:19
Speaker
Otherwise, it just kind of feels samey.
00:24:25
Speaker
You don't get excited about hitting the left ramp on Jurassic, but you do get excited if you thread the needle and hit that shot.
00:24:33
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:24:34
Speaker
Now, on Jurassic, I still have a hard time hitting the right ramp for some reason.
00:24:37
Speaker
It is a mind block on me.
00:24:39
Speaker
Really?
00:24:41
Speaker
Okay, so the wire form.
00:24:42
Speaker
I want to talk about your wire forms because you are known for having a lot of creative wire forms and a lot of good use of them.
00:24:50
Speaker
When you're designing a wire form, there is an art to it in that it's...
00:24:56
Speaker
You are simultaneously creating movement of the ball, which is fun to see, but you're also generating the speed of the ball too.
00:25:03
Speaker
Like you want to calculate how much it's coming in.
00:25:08
Speaker
Do you do much thoughts on that and on how much the speed is?
00:25:12
Speaker
For example, on Lord of the Rings, there's the shot that comes down the wavy wire form, which George obviously did to slow down the ball.
00:25:20
Speaker
How much of that goes into your wire forms?
00:25:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:24
Speaker
For, I mean, Godzilla was 100% to slow the ball down because you can lower the building to the lock position from a ramp shot.
00:25:32
Speaker
And so we had to make sure that the building was all the way down by that time that ball returns the flipper.
00:25:37
Speaker
So that's why they're, they're kind of dancing around, crossing the play field.
00:25:42
Speaker
Uh, so yeah, you're a hundred percent correct.
00:25:44
Speaker
And, um,
00:25:47
Speaker
say on Jurassic Park, that left ramp wire form kind of serpentines back to the left flipper.
00:25:53
Speaker
And it's the same thing.
00:25:55
Speaker
It gives you time to kind of breathe and set up your next shot.
00:26:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's just when I used to play pinball all the time in the 90s, I think that was Sega and Data East's way to, hey, instead of some fancy mech on a game, we're going to have these really intricate wire forms.
00:26:16
Speaker
And so if you play games like, uh, lethal weapon, you know, there's nothing on that game, but it's got that really cool double helix wire form on it.
00:26:23
Speaker
And you're like, Oh, okay.
00:26:24
Speaker
This is cool.
00:26:26
Speaker
Uh, well, you know, it's good.
00:26:29
Speaker
It's kind of take a page from that.
00:26:30
Speaker
It's fun.
00:26:32
Speaker
I think for the longest time, pinball, you know, during the cost cutting era, you shoot a left ramp, it would just hug the left side, return to the left flipper and same with the right side.
00:26:44
Speaker
I look at those ramps now and I was like, wow, those are boring.
00:26:47
Speaker
You know, we can do better than that.
00:26:48
Speaker
So that's kind of where I got the inspiration to kind of channel back to what was done early in the wire form ramp days.
00:26:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:00
Speaker
And speaking of inspiration, this magna grab is insanely cool.
00:27:04
Speaker
Like watching this on the stream, how did you guys figure out?
00:27:08
Speaker
Cause watching it, like it grabs the ball, but then it will actually shift to one side as it's swinging back and forth.
00:27:14
Speaker
So that way it can set up that shot for that upper flipper.
00:27:17
Speaker
Who came up with this and, and what even, what made you even think of it?
00:27:23
Speaker
Well, I came up with it.
00:27:24
Speaker
Um, originally when I was, uh,
00:27:29
Speaker
started on Avengers, I was thinking, okay, I got this Thor captive ball.
00:27:34
Speaker
I want to do something cool with it.
00:27:35
Speaker
And I experimented with putting a magnet in that, but it didn't work that great.
00:27:43
Speaker
And it kept magnetizing the balls, the ball, you know, two balls will stick together.
00:27:46
Speaker
And then that was it.
00:27:47
Speaker
You had to pretty much tilt the game to get it off.
00:27:49
Speaker
So I kind of shelved that for Avengers.
00:27:51
Speaker
And then once Avengers was out the door and we started playing
00:27:57
Speaker
full steam on Godzilla, Harrison and I did some experimenting with some non-magnetic covers that we can stick on the magnet core to prevent the ball sticking to it.
00:28:11
Speaker
And we tried a few different materials and then we found this one little cap that goes over it and
00:28:18
Speaker
it'll grab the ball and it'll release, you know, a hundred percent of the time, right where it should, uh, with no, uh, residual magnetism.
00:28:27
Speaker
And so we, uh, yeah, we just kind of trial and error on that thing and we could bash it.
00:28:32
Speaker
Uh, it can fling the ball.
00:28:33
Speaker
It could grab the ball.
00:28:35
Speaker
So, uh, after, um, basically we basically took two hot wires and, you know, one of us would shoot the ball and the other one would,
00:28:45
Speaker
you know, short the wires together to grab the ball.
00:28:48
Speaker
And we would, we would do that and say, Oh, this, this works great.
00:28:51
Speaker
And we didn't cause a fire or anything.
00:28:52
Speaker
So we just kept moving forward on that.
00:28:56
Speaker
And that's what you have.
00:29:00
Speaker
I love that's the design process.
00:29:01
Speaker
We didn't cause a fire.
00:29:02
Speaker
So it's good.
00:29:03
Speaker
You got Rick Nagel saying, standing in the background with the fire extinguisher with you and Harrison Drake working with the wires on it.
00:29:10
Speaker
Well, it was the same thing for the T-Rex in Jurassic Park.
00:29:12
Speaker
We stuck a magnet in his mouth, but there were no drivers to actually drive this magnet.
00:29:16
Speaker
So one of us would shoot it and the other one would arc two wires together and, oh, it catches.
00:29:21
Speaker
Okay, let go.
00:29:21
Speaker
All right, it catches.
00:29:22
Speaker
Let go.
00:29:23
Speaker
Because we're full driving the magnet, which you never do on the game.
00:29:28
Speaker
You get initial quick pulse and a quick fire, then you pulse it so it doesn't melt the coil.
00:29:35
Speaker
So you have to be really careful how long you hold those wires together.
00:29:41
Speaker
So on the Godzilla multiball, you did put the physical ball lock on the top.
00:29:47
Speaker
So you have the three balls coming out.
00:29:49
Speaker
But you have six balls in the game.
00:29:51
Speaker
So you could have put, it's big enough, you could have put like Jackie from Aerosmith or the Ark on Stern.
00:30:00
Speaker
And you could have put a whole bunch of balls up there.
00:30:03
Speaker
What's the theory behind limiting it to three?
00:30:07
Speaker
Well, if you know that,
00:30:09
Speaker
how Aerosmith works.
00:30:11
Speaker
If you have five balls in the toy chest and then you start elevator multi-ball, then you got, it dumps all those balls out in the play field.
00:30:18
Speaker
Uh, it didn't really want that same situation.
00:30:20
Speaker
I wanted to be able to lock balls up there and then player two walks up, he can still get a three ball multi-ball, uh, and whatnot.
00:30:27
Speaker
So it just came down to not screwing up everything.
00:30:31
Speaker
Um, yeah.
00:30:33
Speaker
So player one locks five balls.
00:30:36
Speaker
uh, player two, if they start a different multi-ball, I guess where those balls are coming from.
00:30:40
Speaker
You can't kick out one or two.
00:30:41
Speaker
It has to kick all of them out.
00:30:43
Speaker
And we'd face the same problem.
00:30:44
Speaker
We can't control how many balls it kicks out.
00:30:46
Speaker
It's all or nothing.
00:30:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:49
Speaker
When do you, you, is there like an add a ball in Godzilla multi-ball or do you have other things where you're using all six balls?
00:30:56
Speaker
Is that, do you have six balls in there because of the physical ball lock, but you don't want to screw things up for other players?
00:31:04
Speaker
So the Godzilla multiball, there is an add-a-ball.
00:31:06
Speaker
You bash the three shield targets, the shield opens, and then you shoot Mecha for an add-a-ball.
00:31:14
Speaker
You always have an add-a-ball available if you have the ally Anguirus.
00:31:17
Speaker
So anytime you're in multiball, you hit the action button.
00:31:20
Speaker
It will add a ball.
00:31:23
Speaker
Right now, most you can get is five in play, but none of the wizard modes have been written yet.
00:31:30
Speaker
So those will for sure use six balls.
00:31:34
Speaker
So my thought, I just thought of this while we've been sitting here, though.
00:31:38
Speaker
Last time we had you on, we were talking about Avengers and the trophy system and how that was supposed to be kind of part of the online coming out.
00:31:45
Speaker
And now that we have online as connectivity came out two weeks before Godzilla and whatnot, is that the reason the achievement system was in there?
00:31:53
Speaker
Because you said that Avengers was originally supposed to come out now and Godzilla before.
00:31:58
Speaker
So I guess it's a chicken and egg situation.
00:32:01
Speaker
Was it connected supposed to come out last year along with Avengers?
00:32:04
Speaker
Or was it always supposed to come out now?
00:32:07
Speaker
And just because Avengers got switched around, that's what happened.
00:32:10
Speaker
Actually, I wasn't 100% sure, but I wanted to be ready.
00:32:14
Speaker
Actually, I discussed it with Raymond and he was fully on board for these little trophy system thing that we implemented on it.
00:32:21
Speaker
So yeah, at the time we were doing the rules, we weren't sure if Connected would be around, but we wanted to be ready.
00:32:27
Speaker
And it's like worst case scenario, if it's not, we'll have our own dedicated little trophy section in the game.
00:32:35
Speaker
Cool.
00:32:35
Speaker
I think Raymond just said he wanted the trophies because he knew he'd be able to get them all.
00:32:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:41
Speaker
Yeah, he kept changing them and making them harder.
00:32:43
Speaker
Oh, I put it in a trophy extra hard mode.
00:32:45
Speaker
And I was like, oh, wow.
00:32:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:49
Speaker
So let's talk about the plunge on this game.
00:32:51
Speaker
So this plunge goes across the field and that has had mixed reviews on previous games.
00:32:57
Speaker
So you're risking plunging into danger by crossing the field on the plunge.
00:33:02
Speaker
So what was the thought process on that one?
00:33:04
Speaker
I don't know.
00:33:06
Speaker
Live a little?
00:33:07
Speaker
It's just...
00:33:10
Speaker
We do have a multi-ball ball saver implemented.
00:33:14
Speaker
So you can't plunge an outlane or anything.
00:33:18
Speaker
So it's not as dangerous as it seems.
00:33:22
Speaker
Ball being out of control, yes, but you're not going to just plunge it one target and drain.
00:33:26
Speaker
It recognizes that and will give it back.
00:33:28
Speaker
So with modern games and software, it's not really a thing where someone's just going to plunge outlane three times and, wow, that was a ripoff and walk away.
00:33:38
Speaker
So.
00:33:39
Speaker
Um, so I was comfortable doing it.
00:33:42
Speaker
So I know you love your skill shots as, as evident on Jurassic park and Avengers.
00:33:48
Speaker
How many skill shots do you have here on, on Godzilla?
00:33:52
Speaker
Um, as of lunch, there are three and I believe there are three or four more coming.
00:33:59
Speaker
Um, yeah, I don't want to spoil them, but there are more coming.
00:34:05
Speaker
Awesome.
00:34:06
Speaker
Well, I love that one that goes behind the flipper.
00:34:08
Speaker
That one behind the flipper kind of reminds me of Kongo when you shoot into the outlane.
00:34:12
Speaker
Even though it's not an outlane, but still.
00:34:15
Speaker
It's kind of a mini outlane up there.
00:34:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:19
Speaker
What made you decide to go with the floating flipper?
00:34:23
Speaker
Has this ever been done before where there's not a direct...
00:34:26
Speaker
uh lane to a flipper i mean how did was that a lot of trial and error trying to make sure that came down to the flipper from the upper spot without it hopping and and being kind of random yeah yeah that took me that actually probably took me longer than anything else in the game was to angle that uh ball guide you know right to that flipper and get it going in that that loop um it did take a lot of trial and error it wasn't really um
00:34:54
Speaker
Originally, my design was to have a shot that shot behind that upper flipper and was grabbed by like a normal magnet, like a normal magnet core.
00:35:07
Speaker
And we experimented with that a bit.
00:35:13
Speaker
Because that ball comes flying through there so quick.
00:35:15
Speaker
It didn't work the way I wanted it to.
00:35:17
Speaker
So I scrapped that idea, but I loved the shot after playing it like that.
00:35:21
Speaker
So I kept that.
00:35:22
Speaker
And then we went back to the drawing board on the magnetic Newton ball and was like, oh, this fits perfectly right here.
00:35:29
Speaker
So after we got that working,
00:35:36
Speaker
pretty good.
00:35:37
Speaker
And that shot, I had just become in love with that shot of shooting it behind a flipper.
Embracing Creative Freedom and Cultural Influences
00:35:44
Speaker
And a lot of times you can deflect it off the magnet core and it goes to that right lane, the Mechagodzilla lane on the right.
00:35:53
Speaker
And so kind of a full around the world orbit.
00:35:56
Speaker
And the first time I did that, I was like, oh yeah, I'm still keeping this floating upper flipper.
00:35:59
Speaker
It's just, like you said, something you don't see.
00:36:03
Speaker
I don't know if it...
00:36:04
Speaker
I don't know if it's a first, but it's probably been a very long time if it's been done ever.
00:36:10
Speaker
I'm like, the only thing I could really think of would be Monopoly, but that was like that weird spinning flipper, right?
00:36:15
Speaker
I don't know.
00:36:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it gains like, I think Hot Doggin has a flipper built into the sling.
00:36:27
Speaker
But I don't think that really is aimed for anything.
00:36:28
Speaker
It's just for something for people to flip.
00:36:31
Speaker
So yeah, dialing in the lane to the flipper took some time.
00:36:36
Speaker
All right, so how many modes are in this game?
00:36:40
Speaker
I'll say there's seven battles, four city modes.
00:36:48
Speaker
There's like two or three micro wizard modes, too many wizard modes, and another wizard mode, so...
00:36:59
Speaker
Probably 12 to 14 when we're done, I'd say.
00:37:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:37:03
Speaker
Nice.
00:37:05
Speaker
And obviously nonlinear, you can kind of choose your own adventure and you don't have to hit all of them to get to the end.
00:37:12
Speaker
Is that fair?
00:37:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair.
00:37:15
Speaker
Right now, so we have cities.
00:37:18
Speaker
Upon release, they don't really do much, but the idea of the cities...
00:37:23
Speaker
it's kind of similar to Jurassic Park paddocks where you, you have objectives in each city.
00:37:27
Speaker
You want to destroy the power, destroy the bridge, destroy the, the tanks that are there and, um, uh, defeat the monster that's raiding, um,
00:37:37
Speaker
hasn't been fully implemented yet, but that's pretty much the idea of the cities.
00:37:40
Speaker
And then you can get as far as you want in each city.
00:37:44
Speaker
And the further you get, the more points you get for the Planet X wizard mode.
00:37:50
Speaker
Or you can just kind of blow through the cities just defeat the monster that's there and move on and not worry about knocking out the power or destroying the bridge.
00:38:00
Speaker
So yeah, there's a whole bunch of stuff missing as it launched.
00:38:05
Speaker
So...
00:38:08
Speaker
When you play it now, some stuff may not make sense, but it will at the end.
00:38:13
Speaker
So when you were making these games, was it kind of a combination because you were an operator for so long, you knew what worked and what didn't work in a game?
00:38:21
Speaker
Did you have a book of notes that you write this all down?
00:38:24
Speaker
Is this all just kind of coming to you as you start making these games?
00:38:28
Speaker
I mean, the operator in me is more like what annoys me about being an operator.
00:38:35
Speaker
And a lot of that was...
00:38:37
Speaker
Oh, Hey, this rubber broke and it's under six different ramps.
00:38:40
Speaker
Have fun.
00:38:41
Speaker
Uh, so I tried not to, uh, I try not to have, you know, rubbers in, in, inexplicably hard to get places.
00:38:51
Speaker
Um, so to combat that I'll do like, instead of two posts with a big rubber between them, I'll do, just do multiple posts with a single rubber, which greatly reduces the chance of that rubber breaking.
00:39:06
Speaker
You know, stuff like that.
00:39:08
Speaker
It's basic gameplay.
00:39:10
Speaker
My operator days don't really affect that at all.
00:39:14
Speaker
But it's mostly just like, hey, I can't get to this screw to take this mech off.
00:39:19
Speaker
This is bad.
00:39:21
Speaker
So, you know, Harrison will put a hole in the plastic or something so you can get a screwdriver in there.
00:39:25
Speaker
It's more stuff like that.
00:39:26
Speaker
Stuff that 99.9% of the people will never notice.
00:39:29
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:39:30
Speaker
Except for the people that operate and appreciate it.
00:39:34
Speaker
Yes.
00:39:34
Speaker
Yes.
00:39:35
Speaker
Well, okay.
00:39:35
Speaker
Here's, here's a good example.
00:39:36
Speaker
I've saw stuff online where, Oh, this reminds me of the doctor who play field.
00:39:41
Speaker
That thing was a nightmare.
00:39:42
Speaker
It's like, yeah, you know why that was a nightmare?
00:39:43
Speaker
Cause it had bundles of wires inside of it.
00:39:45
Speaker
This building, all the wires are on the outside of the frame.
00:39:50
Speaker
So there's the wires aren't being stretched or moved.
00:39:54
Speaker
It's going to be fine.
00:39:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:39:57
Speaker
So this is your fourth game in.
00:40:01
Speaker
So what are the take home messages that you have learned from each of your games?
00:40:07
Speaker
Oof, that's a tough one.
00:40:10
Speaker
You know, I haven't really thought about it.
00:40:13
Speaker
I know after Jurassic Park.
00:40:17
Speaker
I'm trying to, you know, I don't want to like to make the same game over and over again.
00:40:20
Speaker
So Jurassic Park, a lot of people said, wow, this thing is like hard to shoot.
00:40:24
Speaker
So I was like, oh, OK, so I made Avengers easier to shoot.
00:40:28
Speaker
And then for this game, I knew I wanted to have a bunch of mechanical devices.
00:40:34
Speaker
So I knew I'd be giving up flow in order to do that.
00:40:38
Speaker
So I kind of tried to design these shots where they'll interact with a mechanical device, yet still maintain some flow, which is actually a lot harder than it sounds.
00:40:53
Speaker
So it was kind of an experiment by me.
00:40:55
Speaker
Hey, can I have these four mechanical devices in a game and still have a bunch of shot flow going on?
00:41:01
Speaker
So I think it came out well.
00:41:05
Speaker
I don't have any complaints about how it shoots and how it interacts with the devices.
00:41:08
Speaker
So that was like really the challenge for me on this project.
00:41:13
Speaker
Iron Maiden.
00:41:14
Speaker
Wow, you go, because I worked on that Archer design for so long that
00:41:21
Speaker
George is like, yeah, okay, let's do this lab when he got, when I got hired and I was like, oh, great.
00:41:26
Speaker
So sick of this.
00:41:28
Speaker
Um, but, uh, yeah, we made some geometry changes on it, which actually really helped it.
00:41:33
Speaker
Um, and if anyone played Avenger, I mean, uh, Archer when it was at, um, expo, but yeah, you can tell it, you can totally tell the difference that geometry changes made were, uh,
00:41:44
Speaker
Archer is a bit slower and had a couple harder shots.
00:41:46
Speaker
And I think Maiden just came out perfect with the shot flow and the range of easy, medium and hard shots to make in that game.
00:41:57
Speaker
So like I said, if I try to take anything, I'll look at my previous games and it's like, OK, what do these all have in common?
00:42:04
Speaker
OK, well, for my next game, I'm not going to do that.
00:42:06
Speaker
And you guys brought up the point.
00:42:10
Speaker
all my games have a shot through the pops and none of my games have scoops.
00:42:12
Speaker
So I was actually fine for this game, having one pop and a scoop, you know, no shot through the pops.
00:42:20
Speaker
So I knew I'd throw you guys all off with that one.
00:42:26
Speaker
And I can't wait to play this game because I think it'll be not a welcome change because all your games are welcome change.
00:42:32
Speaker
I feel like you've revamped the game from what it was even just a couple of years ago.
00:42:37
Speaker
It's definitely shaking things up.
00:42:39
Speaker
So.
00:42:41
Speaker
Thanks.
00:42:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:42
Speaker
So Expo is coming up.
00:42:44
Speaker
So are you going to be doing a presentation on this at Expo?
00:42:47
Speaker
And what are your plans during Expo?
00:42:49
Speaker
Are you playing in the tournament?
00:42:51
Speaker
I am not.
00:42:52
Speaker
My brother's in town.
00:42:53
Speaker
So I'm going to be playing host.
00:42:55
Speaker
I have a I'm doing a make enough Godzilla seminar on Saturday.
00:43:00
Speaker
So I think that's going to be the only day I go there.
00:43:04
Speaker
But it should be fun.
00:43:05
Speaker
And since we completely did not do one on Avengers, there'll actually be some stuff to talk about.
00:43:12
Speaker
which is a lot more fun than when I was doing the making of Iron Maiden.
00:43:16
Speaker
It was my only game.
00:43:17
Speaker
So when we're done talking about Iron Maiden, I had to fill the air for another 20 minutes with pinball playing tips or whatnot because I only had one game to talk about.
00:43:25
Speaker
So this should be a lot more fun.
00:43:29
Speaker
People can ask whatever game I've done.
00:43:32
Speaker
So I no longer have to fill dead air with tournament questions.
00:43:37
Speaker
So we had someone submit a question.
00:43:40
Speaker
This is Josh S. from Chicago, Illinois.
00:43:43
Speaker
I don't know if you know him, but he wants to know, how do you feel to have only finished second place in majors three times while Josh Sharp has done it four times?
00:43:52
Speaker
And does it eat at you?
00:43:54
Speaker
Yeah, well, you know, we put a little tribute in all my games now.
00:43:59
Speaker
This Josh S. guy gets the default second place score.
00:44:03
Speaker
It's just an ode to him, the master.
00:44:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:07
Speaker
And, and, uh, Greg Waparelli asked, how does it feel to be goatee?
00:44:12
Speaker
Oh, um, hi Greg.
00:44:14
Speaker
Uh, sure.
00:44:20
Speaker
So, so we're going to play segment still for a second.
00:44:22
Speaker
If you were on a boat with all four of your games, you could only save one.
00:44:27
Speaker
Which one would you save?
00:44:30
Speaker
Oh man.
00:44:30
Speaker
Um, yeah.
00:44:33
Speaker
I think, or I guess the, the first one to go over.
00:44:36
Speaker
That's what I want.
00:44:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:39
Speaker
I can't, they're all my children.
00:44:41
Speaker
Um, I think Godzilla, I can throw one of my kids over.
00:44:45
Speaker
I think Godzilla has surpassed Jurassic park to me as my, my personal favorite.
00:44:50
Speaker
Um, wow.
00:44:51
Speaker
It's just, wow.
00:44:52
Speaker
All right.
00:44:54
Speaker
It's just campy old fashioned fun.
00:44:57
Speaker
And,
00:44:57
Speaker
that's all you can ask for as a game designer is just to have creative freedom.
00:45:01
Speaker
He's like, Hey, I want to do this.
00:45:02
Speaker
And the license is like, cool, go nuts.
00:45:04
Speaker
It's just the greatest feeling in the world.
00:45:06
Speaker
And I think it benefits both, you know, both the licensor and the, the, the game maker and the game designer.
00:45:13
Speaker
It's just, you know, let me do my thing.
00:45:18
Speaker
And it's, this will be amazing project.
00:45:20
Speaker
And I think it shows in this game.
00:45:21
Speaker
I think it's just,
00:45:23
Speaker
It's super fun.
00:45:25
Speaker
I play it every day.
00:45:26
Speaker
And even though that the rules are maybe half, a little more than half done, it's still have a blast playing it.
00:45:34
Speaker
Well, and I love the campy too because it's like a throwback to the 90s.
00:45:37
Speaker
You know, this is what we, a lot of people love the 90s games because like Monster Bash was just campy fun.
00:45:43
Speaker
Same with, you know, Elvira's Scared Stiff.
00:45:46
Speaker
And Stern really hasn't been doing that lately, but with Elvira's House of Horrors, that seems like it went that way.
00:45:51
Speaker
But this just feels like it hits on those 90 notes as well.
00:45:54
Speaker
And a lot of those 80 games kind of, we grew up with those as well and they had the campy vibes.
00:45:59
Speaker
And I just, I really like that Godzilla's kind of a throwback to that as well.
00:46:04
Speaker
Yeah, like I said, after watching the movies for the first time in decades, I was like, oh, I forgot how campy these were because I'm so used to the new Godzilla, which is dark.
00:46:18
Speaker
Action, action, action.
00:46:19
Speaker
These things are masterpieces in their own right.
00:46:25
Speaker
This whole movie on anti-bullying, All Monsters Attack, it's just hilarious to watch now.
00:46:32
Speaker
And I was like, what am I going to do with these clips?
00:46:34
Speaker
And that's, that's when I came up with the whole ball save thing where Manila is getting bullied and just, so we took, we basically copied the subtitles as ball save, uh,
00:46:45
Speaker
ball save notes instead of, you know, ball saved or return to battle.
00:46:48
Speaker
We just copied whatever that section of the movie had to hang in there.
00:46:52
Speaker
You can do it.
00:46:54
Speaker
Focus.
00:46:56
Speaker
All these different ball save clips.
00:46:59
Speaker
So, yeah, it was I think we all had a fun time on this one.
00:47:04
Speaker
You also have the ability to play in Japanese mode or in English mode.
00:47:09
Speaker
So whose idea was that?
00:47:10
Speaker
It was actually the licensor.
00:47:12
Speaker
They're like,
00:47:14
Speaker
Oh, really cool.
00:47:15
Speaker
Because they're going to have it in Japan.
00:47:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:16
Speaker
So they were like, hey, really be cool if you guys can do this.
00:47:19
Speaker
And we're like, oh, yeah, I think we can.
00:47:21
Speaker
So.
00:47:24
Speaker
Rick saw that and he's like, great, more work to do.
00:47:26
Speaker
And then it turned out to be it really wasn't that bad.
00:47:31
Speaker
You know, we just put a flag in there for which speech is in there.
00:47:35
Speaker
Obviously, when you get a bunch of.
00:47:38
Speaker
Japanese voice work and you had no idea what that call out is.
00:47:42
Speaker
So, you know, we had, we had to do a lot of Jerry Thompson to do a lot of work to set all this up, uh, to verify that this is the quote for, you know, for us written on the line because we have no way to verify it.
00:47:54
Speaker
And, uh, those guys did a great job.
00:47:57
Speaker
Just all the legwork necessary to make that happen.
00:48:02
Speaker
So did you have to have like a translator there to help or how did that work?
00:48:07
Speaker
So we sent English script to our VO guy and he sent it back with, and he, you know, he made the corrections.
00:48:15
Speaker
Hey, you know, this doesn't translate well.
00:48:16
Speaker
So I did the best I could.
00:48:18
Speaker
And, you know, some of it was, you know, slightly different.
00:48:20
Speaker
So we had to figure out, okay, this must be for this call out.
00:48:23
Speaker
This must be for this call out.
00:48:25
Speaker
So,
00:48:25
Speaker
Like I said, it was a lot of work, Jerry Thompson, Rick Nagel to figure all that out and get everything in the right place.
00:48:33
Speaker
And hopefully it is.
00:48:34
Speaker
Like I said, we may have some totally wrong call outs in there and not know it.
00:48:37
Speaker
So hopefully someone will let us know if that's true.
00:48:42
Speaker
I'm sure it'd be hilarious, though.
00:48:43
Speaker
Like, have you ever gone to like when I travel and I go and I obviously I don't speak the the native language I'm going to, but it is interesting when I see when they try to to translate to to English.
00:48:55
Speaker
But I'm sure that it would probably give the Japanese people a chuckle when it looks like what Americans are trying to translate into Japanese.
00:49:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's our it's our our version of bad dubs back at them.
00:49:08
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:49:10
Speaker
Okay, so what time is your seminar on Saturday?
00:49:16
Speaker
I think it's after dinner.
00:49:18
Speaker
I'm not sure.
00:49:19
Speaker
Yeah, I've been so busy.
00:49:22
Speaker
We'll get a crowd for you there.
00:49:23
Speaker
I've been so busy on the line.
00:49:27
Speaker
These past two days, I'm in my first two days off in a month, so it just feels great.
00:49:32
Speaker
Just kind of shut my brain off and not think about that stuff, but I believe we are the last talk Saturday night after dinner.
00:49:39
Speaker
Oh, you're the keynote talk.
00:49:40
Speaker
I think so.
00:49:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:43
Speaker
It's probably like the month up to a release and a month after release is probably the busiest time you have in the whole development cycle, right?
The Role of Programmers and Artistic Direction
00:49:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:51
Speaker
Um, for me, I mean, my poor programmer, Rick, I don't think he's taken a vacation in years.
00:49:57
Speaker
So, uh,
00:49:58
Speaker
I think I have no right to complain because he's the one under the gun to, hey, this has to show while on the stream.
00:50:05
Speaker
Hey, this has to have no bugs when we're released.
00:50:07
Speaker
Hey, this, you know, I can't imagine that the stress he's under in sleepless nights.
00:50:11
Speaker
So for me, me waking up early and going to the factory, I can't complain because I know that's nothing compared to what he's going through.
00:50:21
Speaker
Well, and honestly, his work is amazing.
00:50:23
Speaker
Like I said, I've played plenty of Stern games.
00:50:26
Speaker
They're all fantastic.
00:50:28
Speaker
but I feel like Rick does a good job too.
00:50:31
Speaker
You don't find like a consistent bug.
00:50:33
Speaker
Um, there's some games that like I own turtles and I love turtles, but it always seems like, uh, there, there might be a bug or something after the update.
00:50:41
Speaker
Like the current one right now is final battle for some other reason.
00:50:43
Speaker
The audio is not there when you get there, but like, I haven't found that with, um, any, any of the Rick ankle games that he's done for you.
00:50:51
Speaker
And so,
00:50:52
Speaker
I mean, next time you see him, tell him great job.
00:50:54
Speaker
I know you probably tell him enough as is, but I mean, like it's definitely showing in the work that he does too.
00:51:00
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:51:01
Speaker
He's as far as programmer goes, he's very competent.
00:51:04
Speaker
I can, Hey, I want this to do that and this.
00:51:06
Speaker
And then he'll like, okay, no problem.
00:51:09
Speaker
And then we'll eventually get implemented and he'll like, yeah, that was really hard to do, but it's working the way you want it to.
00:51:15
Speaker
And I was like, Oh, you should have said something.
00:51:17
Speaker
I could have done it differently.
00:51:19
Speaker
But yeah, no, he's, he's very good at figuring out what I want.
00:51:22
Speaker
how I want it done and, uh, making it happen.
00:51:26
Speaker
I mean, it's the same with Harrison too.
00:51:27
Speaker
I know the game designer gets all the credit, but, uh, it's a team effort for sure.
00:51:32
Speaker
Um, you know, Jerry got all this, all the great original music in there.
00:51:35
Speaker
Harrison got those mechs working perfectly.
00:51:38
Speaker
Rick's code obviously speaks for itself.
00:51:40
Speaker
So, um, it's a whole team effort.
00:51:44
Speaker
And I, I, zombie Eddie always knocks it out of the park.
00:51:47
Speaker
I know we love that saying, but,
00:51:48
Speaker
his artwork it astounds me i know i know this i don't know why but some people complain of colors and yada yada yada it's like i think it looks fantastic so i don't think what people keep in mind is um the licensor wanted you know what the licensor wants the licensor gets it's you know we're not going to tell them what to do so that's the direction they wanted for this and that's that's how it goes um
00:52:13
Speaker
It's funny to hear that.
00:52:14
Speaker
Oh, that's, this isn't that this isn't accurate.
00:52:17
Speaker
And I was like, well, it's what they want to, you know,
00:52:22
Speaker
Well, it certainly catches your eye when you see it.
00:52:24
Speaker
And that's certainly what you want, especially in pinball, where it's fighting for floor space from the Raw Thrills games that look like a Skittles explosion.
00:52:31
Speaker
And like I said, this whole thing, from the beginning, Toho's like, yeah, let's make this great campy game.
00:52:38
Speaker
And it's like, you don't have campy games with dark, gritty artwork.
00:52:41
Speaker
It doesn't make sense.
00:52:42
Speaker
So this direction we went, this is the direction they wanted us to go.
00:52:46
Speaker
And I would not change a thing.
00:52:50
Speaker
Well, and I think oftentimes people forget too, because I don't want to say I criticize, but I brought up the point on the last episode, like when you guys did the reveal trailers, typically you do like a reveal trailer and then you do like a pro premium features and stuff like that.
00:53:03
Speaker
I was like, where the whole is that?
00:53:04
Speaker
And someone had reached out and said, Josh, you realize like sometimes our hands are tied and we have to wait.
00:53:11
Speaker
And I think we forget that being on the outside is, is, as he had put to me is sometime, you know, you guys need the licensor and, and you never want to get that message saying like, like you didn't do what we asked you to.
00:53:24
Speaker
We don't want to deal with you guys again.
00:53:26
Speaker
And so it's, it's a fine balance of what to do as well.
00:53:28
Speaker
You know?
00:53:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:32
Speaker
Toho has been great to work with and, but there's, there's more than one entity making up Toho.
00:53:39
Speaker
So yeah.
00:53:40
Speaker
You just don't sign off with one person.
00:53:41
Speaker
You're signing off with multiple people.
00:53:43
Speaker
So obviously that creates delays.
00:53:46
Speaker
That was what happened in this case.
00:53:48
Speaker
So that's all that was.
00:53:53
Speaker
I think it's good to wait until you get everything right, though, because it's clumsy when it seems like you announce something and then you have to walk it back.
00:54:03
Speaker
And we've seen other games that have announced too soon and then had to walk things back and it didn't.
00:54:08
Speaker
You know, it became awkward for them.
00:54:10
Speaker
And I like that you guys wait till it's dialed in before it's all set out.
00:54:14
Speaker
So if we're up to me, we would just blindly show the stream when it was ready to stream and then we'd release all the promotional stuff.
00:54:20
Speaker
So that's it.
00:54:21
Speaker
That's it.
00:54:22
Speaker
It's over to
Reflecting on Gaming's Evolution
00:54:23
Speaker
me.
00:54:23
Speaker
Obviously, it's not.
00:54:24
Speaker
But it'd just be fun organically discover this game because that's how we used to do it.
00:54:28
Speaker
You know, 80s and 90s.
00:54:29
Speaker
We'd walk into an arcade.
00:54:30
Speaker
Oh, look, a whole new game.
00:54:32
Speaker
There's no Internet.
00:54:32
Speaker
So you didn't know this game was coming.
00:54:34
Speaker
You just discover it organically and you start pumping your money in it.
00:54:37
Speaker
And it's like, yeah, I think that's, that's kind of lost today in the, the internet age where you just, you know, what's coming.
00:54:42
Speaker
You've seen pictures, you've seen gameplay before you even play your mind's probably already made up.
00:54:46
Speaker
So, you know, kind of miss those days, but I know they're never coming back.
00:54:53
Speaker
Well, that's why I assume that's why you kind of keep some mystery to as well when you're streaming and stuff like that.
00:54:57
Speaker
I know that other developers and whatnot might actually go through the whole code set, but it's kind of like explore with us.
00:55:04
Speaker
We're not going to tell you everything because we want you to explore it for yourself.
00:55:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:08
Speaker
I think for for Iron Maiden, I think I took the glass off and, you know, started shooting shots and make making all the modes.
00:55:15
Speaker
I remember I went back and rewatched that and I was like, this is boring.
00:55:17
Speaker
I'd rather just play it, you know?
00:55:20
Speaker
So that's how I've approached my streams ever since.
00:55:23
Speaker
And I honestly haven't heard any complaints, so I'll probably continue to do that.
00:55:28
Speaker
Yeah, Zach told us that after the stream, the orders went up, which he said is a little unusual.
00:55:34
Speaker
And so I rewatched the stream today.
00:55:36
Speaker
And yes, it seemed like you guys were having fun.
00:55:40
Speaker
And my daughter walked up and she looked at the game and she's six and she said, that game looks fun.
00:55:46
Speaker
So, well, I'm just saying that's a good thing, right?
00:55:49
Speaker
You don't want someone to look like, I don't understand what's going on.
00:55:51
Speaker
She just said, that looks fun.
00:55:52
Speaker
So, Jack approached me and he's like, oh, what do you want to do for the stream?
00:55:56
Speaker
I was like, I want the music loud.
00:55:59
Speaker
we're not going to talk just put the music on loud so we can get some energy in the room because sometimes you know during the streams we had the volume turned either all the way down or it's direct audio where the people in the room can't hear it at all i was like i don't want that uh i don't want to look bored let's get some energy in the room um just don't capture the audio directly just put a microphone by us it'll pick up what it picks up and uh i think it works fine are you are you tired of hearing blue oyster coats godzilla now though
00:56:26
Speaker
Oh, no, but I think the line workers are because they have to they have to test the speakers in order to do that.
00:56:32
Speaker
They turn the volume all the way up.
00:56:33
Speaker
And of course, that's the default volume change song.
00:56:35
Speaker
So they're probably pretty sick of it.
00:56:38
Speaker
I'm not there yet, but well, ask me again in three months.
00:56:43
Speaker
So I did look at the schedule and on the schedule, you are set at seven o'clock and followed by Dwight with Family Feud.
00:56:51
Speaker
So.
00:56:52
Speaker
you are definitely in the evening on Saturday.
00:56:55
Speaker
So I guess I better eat first.
00:56:58
Speaker
Well, it's always a party with Dwight, right?
00:57:00
Speaker
So it'll be, it'll be interesting to do family.
00:57:03
Speaker
What's it called feud without the family, right?
00:57:06
Speaker
Feud without the family, which I don't even know if that's a feud.
00:57:09
Speaker
I mean, you got any recommendations.
00:57:12
Speaker
So this is my first time to expo.
00:57:13
Speaker
Keith, you got any recommendations for anyone that's going for their first time to expo?
00:57:17
Speaker
Well, you know, not really because it's in a whole new venue this year.
00:57:20
Speaker
I don't even know where it's at.
00:57:21
Speaker
So, uh,
00:57:22
Speaker
Before I could say, oh yeah, you know, there's these places to eat, these places to avoid, but I haven't even looked to see where this new venue's at.
00:57:29
Speaker
I think it's actually down by Stern's headquarters, if I'm correct.
00:57:35
Speaker
It's only a couple, I want to say maybe five, ten blocks away.
00:57:39
Speaker
I think it's in Schaumburg, which is actually a pretty populated suburb.
00:57:44
Speaker
So...
00:57:46
Speaker
There's definitely the mall.
00:57:48
Speaker
We've got a pretty big mall out there with an arcade, Antarium Arcade, which has a lot of new games.
00:57:54
Speaker
So that's definitely worth checking out if you're in the area.
00:57:58
Speaker
Yeah, I'm flying in Wednesday night, so I'm looking to do something on Wednesday night.
00:58:02
Speaker
Yeah, I don't spend a lot of time in Schaumburg, so I have no recommendations.
00:58:07
Speaker
But it's definitely much more convenient than the old location, that's for sure.
00:58:13
Speaker
I got to know, though, I don't think you talked about this on Final Round.
00:58:16
Speaker
If you did have to choose between Teolis and Martin, who would you be throwing over the boat?
00:58:25
Speaker
I kind of like Marty for his candor.
00:58:28
Speaker
He was just like, I'm not impressed with any of these mechs.
00:58:32
Speaker
I was like, okay, yeah, that's another industry guy talking.
00:58:34
Speaker
So I got to keep him.
00:58:36
Speaker
He's honest to me.
00:58:37
Speaker
I would toss Teolis over.
00:58:39
Speaker
All right.
00:58:40
Speaker
I'm just wondering what does it change with the level of gin that's going through Martin's veins?
00:58:47
Speaker
Cause I think the filter, the filter goes as the gin goes up.
00:58:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:51
Speaker
Tealus is Tealus no matter what, but yeah.
00:58:53
Speaker
Marty's the wild card.
00:58:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:57
Speaker
Well, cool.
00:58:57
Speaker
I don't have any other questions.
00:58:58
Speaker
Do you have any more questions, Scott?
00:59:01
Speaker
No, I think that's good.
00:59:02
Speaker
We have taken an hour of Keith's time, and we appreciate him coming on.
00:59:06
Speaker
We do appreciate it.
00:59:07
Speaker
And the Bears are winning, so it's a win-win.
00:59:11
Speaker
Well, maybe Chuckle is, you know how many emails and messages we've received in the last month of, when's Keith Elwin coming on?
00:59:18
Speaker
Why haven't we heard a Keith Elwin interview yet?
00:59:21
Speaker
Like, guys, we don't usually have him on directly as soon as possible, but it just made me chuckle.
00:59:27
Speaker
Yeah, he's busy before and after.
00:59:29
Speaker
Yes, you've got to catch him at the right time.
00:59:31
Speaker
But even Raymond Davidson's like, where's Keith at?
00:59:33
Speaker
I'm surprised he's not on the show yet.
00:59:38
Speaker
Well, Keith is finally starting to get some days off again, and he can do these shows again.
00:59:41
Speaker
You've definitely deserved some days off.
00:59:44
Speaker
You've earned them.
00:59:46
Speaker
Wow, thank you.
00:59:47
Speaker
All right, Josh, you want to send us out?
00:59:48
Speaker
Yeah, I'll definitely do the send off.
00:59:50
Speaker
If you want to get ahold of us, we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com.
00:59:54
Speaker
If you're looking for us on the socials, we are at loser kid pinball on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
01:00:00
Speaker
We do have Twitch going on as well whenever I feel like it.
01:00:03
Speaker
So,
01:00:03
Speaker
I record like three times in one week and then nothing for a month.
01:00:06
Speaker
So whatever works.
01:00:08
Speaker
If you do want to get ahold of us, we do have some hats.
01:00:11
Speaker
We have a couple different, not designs, but different colors we're going to be bringing to Expo, but not a ton.
01:00:18
Speaker
So if you want a guaranteed hat or a shirt or a beanie, anything of that nature, you need to get the order in like today.
01:00:26
Speaker
And so if you want us to bring it to Expo, if not, we can ship it to you later.
01:00:29
Speaker
So other than that, what you got for me, Scott?
01:00:33
Speaker
Josh, what's your insider profile?
01:00:36
Speaker
Oh, it's just Loserkid.
01:00:38
Speaker
I stole it.
01:00:39
Speaker
Someone's like, that's not very nice.
01:00:40
Speaker
Did you guys arm wrestle for it?
01:00:42
Speaker
Yeah, I know.
01:00:42
Speaker
He just grabbed on it.
01:00:43
Speaker
So I keep trying to sign up, but I forgot my login for Stern.
01:00:48
Speaker
So I've been trying to reset my password for three days.
01:00:51
Speaker
So I will be Loserkid2, the number two.
01:00:56
Speaker
And Keith, if people want to follow you, what is yours?
01:01:01
Speaker
KME Stern, I think?
01:01:03
Speaker
Wow, I don't remember.
01:01:04
Speaker
I don't think your profile is public because I found out that if you just typed in Stern and you looked under connections, it seemed like everyone at Stern was Stern-Rate-A or Stern-Rick.
01:01:17
Speaker
Yeah, the Stern employees had the designation of Stern and there's...
01:01:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's just Stern-KME, KME71, something like that.
01:01:26
Speaker
All right, well, check it out and let us know if you can find Keith.
01:01:32
Speaker
We can make it a whole challenge, find Keith.
01:01:33
Speaker
There you go.
01:01:34
Speaker
Exactly.
01:01:34
Speaker
Where's Keith?
01:01:36
Speaker
You can even unlock the achievement once you found Keith.
01:01:38
Speaker
Where in the world is Keith?
01:01:43
Speaker
Cool, Keith, we really appreciate having you on.
01:01:44
Speaker
It's always fun having you on.
01:01:46
Speaker
And we wish you well.
01:01:47
Speaker
Hopefully, we'll see you here in a couple weeks at Expo.
01:01:50
Speaker
Yeah, thanks, Keith.
01:01:50
Speaker
All right, good to talk to you.
01:01:58
Speaker
Shut up and sit down.