Transcript
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
Speaker: We are on episode 157.
Speaker: I am Josh Roop.
Speaker: With me, my co-captain... Scott Larson.
Speaker: And Scott, it is an epic day.
Speaker: It is new pinball release day.
Speaker: We've got some amazing guests on, and we're going to talk about Dungeons & Dragons.
Speaker: I know you're eyeballing that Dungeons & Dragons.
Speaker: Who are you buying yours from, Scott?
Speaker: So I'd kind of die.
Speaker: Zach and Nicole Minney at Flipping Out Pinball.
Speaker: They are always great, including all the accessories.
Speaker: And so if you want to get in on LEA Premium Pro...
Speaker: They'll be able to work that out.
Speaker: And we are excited about this game because we are exploring different directions in pinball.
Speaker: But that is 100%.
Speaker: Just reach out to them flipping out pinball.
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: And if you're looking for some sweet swag, because you're watching us on YouTube right now, I know you are.
Speaker: Loser Kid Pinball, this Attack from Mars shirt.
Speaker: It's Attack from Loser Kid shirt.
Speaker: Logo.
Speaker: Loser Kid Attack.
Speaker: It's the Attack from Mars font, and it says Loser Kid Pinball, which is pretty boss.
Speaker: But go to silverballswag.com slash loserkid.
Speaker: You can pick up all your gear there.
Speaker: We got shoes.
Speaker: We got shirts, anything your heart desires.
Speaker: You can deck out from head to toe in loser kid.
Speaker: We got new swag coming soon too.
Speaker: Also, if you're watching via YouTube, hit like, subscribe, all that jazz.
Speaker: You know that.
Speaker: And, uh, one last thing that the Twippies are back.
Speaker: So they just announced you can start voting today.
Speaker: Go hit up their website, twippies.com, uh, and vote for your favorites.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: Now, Scott, would you like to introduce our guests that we have?
Speaker: I would love to introduce our guests.
Speaker: So we have a team up of epic proportions.
Speaker: So first off, we have the game designer who is legendary in industry because for the longest time ever since I got into the industry, he held the number one, number two spot on the Pinside 100.
Speaker: which is Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness.
Speaker: He also designed the shadow and then took a little break for a while.
Speaker: And then Stern was able to bring him back in.
Speaker: And so it's great to have Brian Eddy back in the game.
Speaker: I own multiple of his games and you just picked up a cherry shadow.
Speaker: That's home use only.
Speaker: It's one of the few in existence that you could get, find that nice.
Speaker: Now teaming up with him is legendary man, Dwight Sullivan, who is by far one of the most entertaining people that you'll ever talk to who works at Stern.
Speaker: He's the nicest too, man.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And his, his expo,
Speaker: Like the family feud, we have the win loser or what was it?
Speaker: Let's make a deal last time.
Speaker: So Dwight, we know that Dwight is passionate not only about rules, but also about gaming, which makes this a perfect mix.
Speaker: So we have Brian Eddy and Dwight Sullivan teaming up to bring us Dungeons and Dragons, which is pretty iconic.
Speaker: So I'm going to start off with the first thing.
Speaker: So the theme Dungeons and Dragons.
Speaker: So I know that at Stern, typically they put out a possible themes and you're not going to get on a theme unless you're interested in it.
Speaker: And so here's my question.
Speaker: What drew both of you to the theme of Dungeons and Dragons?
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: For me, I think it's such an iconic brand that's been around for like, what, 40 years, 50 years or so.
Speaker: So it's very well known.
Speaker: I played back in high school.
Speaker: Dwight can tell you some even more in-depth things about his experience in D&D.
Speaker: And it's just such a rich theme.
Speaker: It's got so many different monsters and locations.
Speaker: There's so much you can do with it.
Speaker: We're super excited once we got the chance to be able to do it.
Speaker: And with its rise in interest, too, Stranger Things, I think, helped pump up D&D, too.
Speaker: And there's more people playing today than there's ever been.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We were super excited.
Speaker: Dwight?
Speaker: Yeah, I started a D&D club in the 80s.
Speaker: I was like 18, 19 years old, and I formed a little club in my small town where I grew up.
Speaker: I've been into board games before that and ever since, and D&D has always been part of that, on and off throughout the decades.
Speaker: Now, the one thing about Dungeons & Dragons is there's been a lot of ways that this theme has been implemented.
Speaker: So back in the 70s when it came out, a lot of these were kind of a role-playing game.
Speaker: So it used your imagination.
Speaker: You would have a dungeon master who would come, and they would know this rule set.
Speaker: So you'd have a book that actually led you through, okay, you
Speaker: And people know about these a little more.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Those things.
Speaker: So people know about a little more with character development.
Speaker: So back before video games, you would do this on paper.
Speaker: You would say, okay, my strength is going to be this.
Speaker: My charisma is going to be this.
Speaker: And so it really hinged on someone being able to be a compelling storyteller to be the dungeon master.
Speaker: And you'd get people.
Speaker: Now,
Speaker: The question I have, though, is that is the basis from this.
Speaker: And even the teaser, you had a 20-sided die rolling, which anybody who's played Dungeons & Dragons knows it's a D20-based system.
Speaker: Now, here's my question.
Speaker: I've been familiar with Dungeons & Dragons forever, and I've also been familiar with pinball forever.
Speaker: Now, help me align that Venn diagram.
Speaker: How are you going to overlap that?
Speaker: Because especially in pinball, your game times typically tend to be like maybe 3 to 10 minutes,
Speaker: And, you know, 10 minutes is if you're having a really good game.
Speaker: And if you have an epic game, you have 30 minutes.
Speaker: Well, some of these campaigns can go on for years, literally.
Speaker: So how are you going to implement that philosophy into a pinball machine?
Speaker: So that's, that's a good question.
Speaker: You want me to take that Brian or?
Speaker: Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker: So it's a two part question.
Speaker: The first part is how did we integrate pinball and D and D and,
Speaker: First thing we did was we, so back in the beginning, Zach Prost and I, Zach Prost is our writer, he and I, so we decided, let me start at the beginning.
Speaker: So we knew that we wanted to make, you know, a game about a normal pit ball machine, right, where you play modes and you play multi balls and you so forth.
Speaker: Well, where are you going to draw all that from?
Speaker: Because we don't have a movie.
Speaker: We don't have, like, a TV series or anything.
Speaker: So in order to draw from something, we needed to make a story first.
Speaker: So we decided that the first thing we needed to do is make a story.
Speaker: So Zach Kroos and I, our writer, we, for months, we wrote a story called, that finally, eventually was called The Tyrant's Eye.
Speaker: And, um...
Speaker: And then basically we just made a pinball machine like we've done a thousand times where we draw from that story and make modes and multi balls and so forth, make a regular pinball machine.
Speaker: That was the first half of your question.
Speaker: The second half of your question is sort of taps into how are you going to compare it to a campaign?
Speaker: Well, we have Insider Connected, right?
Speaker: So we have, because of Insider Connected, because you can be logged in, you can pick up where you left off.
Speaker: You can play a little bit, and we have a map on the play field, and you wander around the map and you play modes and multiballs just like normal.
Speaker: Pinball.
Speaker: But then on your next game, you're going to start wherever you left off on that map.
Speaker: And your accomplishments and the things you did in the past will still be there.
Speaker: And your level, if your character went up a level, he's still up a level.
Speaker: And if you had, you know, a thousand gold, you still have a thousand gold and so on.
Speaker: So across... So we made a game that you can play at what we call a one-shot, where you just play it from the beginning and you play it at the end like a normal pinball machine, and it's extremely deep, like lots of pinball machines are, and if you're good enough, you can get to the end in one game.
Speaker: No mortal person I know can do it, but maybe like immortals like Keith Elwin and so forth, right?
Speaker: Those guys, they can probably get to the end maybe in one game, but...
Speaker: But with the help of Insider Connected and picking up where you left off, everyone eventually will get to the end.
Speaker: Yeah, and from my standpoint, it's similar, right?
Speaker: I wanted to bring the classic elements of D&D from a mechanical standpoint onto the playfield.
Speaker: So the things that fans would recognize, but also if you're not really deep into D&D, you're going to see a big dragon and you're going to want to fight that dragon.
Speaker: So it was a balance between all of those and then tying that in with the deep story that Dwight and Zach put together,
Speaker: I think it makes for a compelling product for whether you're really into D&D, there's going to be tons of details.
Speaker: Or if you just want to fight dragons, get stuck in a gelatinous cube, go into a multiball, and go into a dungeon crawl.
Speaker: We have the elements there, I think, for everybody who are going to have a good time.
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: And really, I mean, you're taking something that can be super complex, but also trying to bring it down to a simplistic level is what it sounds like you're trying to do.
Speaker: So that way, it's still a person walks up to it and they're intrigued.
Speaker: They see the giant dragon head and they're like, oh, I want to see what that does.
Speaker: Or what is that big cube in the back?
Speaker: I want to try that out.
Speaker: It sounds like you're aiming for all audiences across this whole thing with the thought of D&D in mind, D&D players, those that are into the lore, and the casual pinball player.
Speaker: The question I have is, this is called the Tyrant's Eye, and if I'm correct, that is an actual campaign.
Speaker: So is this a Stern story, or is this the Tyrant Eye, or is it a combination kind of like... The Tyrant's Eye is not an actual campaign.
Speaker: It's something we made up.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's a story that we wrote and then we just use that story to make everything we needed in the game.
Speaker: So like when, you know, as I'm directing artists and so forth, you know, well, this looks like this because it came from this part of the story and so forth.
Speaker: So the entire world- Of course, it does take place in the D&D universe, right?
Speaker: So the map is Faeran, which is in the D&D universe.
Speaker: The monsters from D&D are in the game, but it's our story.
Speaker: Very cool.
Speaker: So it's Stern's version of D&D while using all of Dungeons & Dragons assets.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: It's a custom campaign.
Speaker: Like if you're playing D&D, we've made the same campaign.
Speaker: Just like all D&D anywhere is.
Speaker: Yeah, all D&Ds are custom campaign depending on your storyteller or your dungeon master.
Speaker: So, okay, Brian, I want to get into the layout.
Speaker: So when you're looking at the layout now, you have some iconic layouts of pinball, especially medieval madness and attack from Mars.
Speaker: The shadow is, it's, it's one of those outliers where you have that, that upper play field and,
Speaker: Now, this time you have, what is it?
Speaker: It's three flippers in the game, right?
Speaker: Now, how did you engineer the flow on this game?
Speaker: Because now walk me through it really quickly because it's hard to find an overhead shot right now of the play field.
Speaker: But you have a dragon on the left and the gelatinous cube on the right, which, by the way, I love.
Speaker: I'm a big fan of Onward.
Speaker: And the fact that in Onward, the gelatinous cube came out in that one, it's an awesome thing.
Speaker: So lead me through what is the philosophy on the shots of this game?
Speaker: Hold on just two seconds.
Speaker: If you want to follow along with what Brian's talking about, you can hit up naparcade.org.
Speaker: And on there, he has posted the top-down views, all the art, everything for Dungeons & Dragons, the Tyrant's Eye.
Speaker: So if you'd like to head there now while Brian's all explaining this.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, so to me, most games are about flow.
Speaker: There has to be some flow that feels good for you to make combination shots that go in a pattern.
Speaker: And it just feels great when you complete two, three, four in a row, right?
Speaker: And I haven't done a three-flipper game since Shadow, so it's been a while.
Speaker: So I thought this would be an interesting theme to expand upon that.
Speaker: Just because it's such a rich universe, right, to have lots of different shots that can lead to different things, I think makes complete sense for this game.
Speaker: And the third flipper for a lot of like newer players, even average players having a third flipper upper, sometimes they don't even pay attention, right?
Speaker: They forget it's there, they miss it and they don't always take full advantage of it.
Speaker: So one of the things that I did in this game that I really like is the fact that we have the gelatinous cube right above that flipper and the ball can be frozen inside the gelatinous cube and it can also be frozen unside in the right orbit lane.
Speaker: So there's a number of shots in the game where we will freeze the ball under the gelatinous cube so that we can do a soft feed to the upper flipper.
Speaker: So the player gets a second, a pause to catch their breath, knowing the ball is going to come at the right speed and they can make the upper flipper shots.
Speaker: which is pretty varied, right?
Speaker: We have two shots that are kind of exclusive to the upper flipper, but you can also hit the captive ball, you can hit the buck, you can hit the dungeon when it's up, you can hit the dragon, you can even hit the three bank at times with the upper flipper.
Speaker: So there's a lot of options with the upper flipper.
Speaker: So I really wanted the player to be able to get into using it a lot.
Speaker: So to me, we have all the flow of like the lower flippers that can lead to various shots smoothly.
Speaker: And then when you combine that with the upper flipper, that's, I think, when it takes on another level.
Speaker: So now the question is also your focus.
Speaker: Oh, go ahead.
Speaker: Go ahead, Josh.
Speaker: Oh, I was just going to say, speaking of all this flow and whatnot, just one thing that comes to my mind is when you're looking at this, I mean, the dragon is very predominant, kind of front left.
Speaker: I guess one concern for someone that is not as well seasoned into playing pinball is it's a pretty close shot and it can be kind of intimidating, especially with the dragon spitting balls at you.
Speaker: Is there like a ball save to kind of accommodate for the brutality of where this is located?
Speaker: There's something even better than a ball save.
Speaker: There's a shield, a player-activated shield, that pops up between the middle of the flippers.
Speaker: And whenever it's lit, the player can activate it.
Speaker: Just tap the action button really quick, and it pops up.
Speaker: And it'll stay up for different amounts of time, depending on what character you're playing, what class you're playing.
Speaker: And that can change throughout the game as you level up and such.
Speaker: Well, and also...
Speaker: Yeah, go ahead, Dwight.
Speaker: So that's there to help you because we really wanted the dragon battles to feel like a battle, to be an intense fight against you against the dragon.
Speaker: So that's one of your defenses against it.
Speaker: Dwight, go ahead.
Speaker: Yeah, so the other thing is, during Dragon Multiball, during Dragon Battles, the ball save is running the entire time.
Speaker: During the battle, he's spitting balls out at you constantly.
Speaker: Balls are coming back into play as you drain them, and going back into the dragon, and he spits them back out at you.
Speaker: And the whole battle is about...
Speaker: how many times can you hit him in the jaw before you drain 10 balls or before you drain 15 balls?
Speaker: Before the dragon makes you drain 15 balls.
Speaker: So he's trying to shoot them down the middle.
Speaker: He's trying to shoot them out of out lanes.
Speaker: He's shooting balls all over the place.
Speaker: Trying to mess up your ass.
Speaker: Meanwhile, if you hit this three bank,
Speaker: Or if he comes down, if you hit his three bank, he comes down and tries to protect the three bank.
Speaker: And then you can hit him in the jaw.
Speaker: Or he comes down to shoot out another ball.
Speaker: Either way, when he's down, hit him in the jaw from any of the three flippers.
Speaker: And if you hit him in the jaw like six times, you know, depending on the settings...
Speaker: then you win.
Speaker: You go into town celebration mode.
Speaker: And if you drain X number of balls, like right now it's 15, then you lose.
Speaker: And the ball saves running the entire time.
Speaker: You're trying to get his gold, right?
Speaker: The three bank is gold, so you're trying to steal from his hoard.
Speaker: So he's not happy about that.
Speaker: so it's not really a ball.
Speaker: It's a ball counter.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: It's, it's a, it's a little bit like, um, uh, you know, some of these challenge modes that you, you guys have had in other games where it's like, you know, you have, you can drain it so many times, but after that it's, you know, the modes over.
Speaker: But so, so with the, the dragon now, it's always been like, I keep thinking about the same story back in the day when Lord of the Rings came out and you have the ball rock and,
Speaker: You know, Gary always like, if you, if you're going to put a big thing in a game, it needs to come out fairly regularly in the game.
Speaker: And so, you know, how are you going to balance that?
Speaker: Because typically a dragon battle in a dungeons, that's like more of an end goal type thing.
Speaker: And so how are you going to incorporate a regular dragon battle in with, you know, the casual player, you know, the guy who's chimp flipping with both hands?
Speaker: So we're not that concerned about that.
Speaker: We're concerned about having a blast while playing against the dragon, the dragon toy.
Speaker: And when we come across things like that, well, we just go, well, it's pinball, and it doesn't have to make sense.
Speaker: Yeah, we actually had this discussion with me and Blake quite a bit at the beginning.
Speaker: We have lots of excuses why he might fly away or whatever, but right now it's so much fun.
Speaker: We don't care much about that.
Speaker: And he's the first thing you want to do.
Speaker: Well, the first multiball you want to do, the one that's closest to the start button.
Speaker: And it's a blast.
Speaker: So I think fun wins, right?
Speaker: It's the rule of cool.
Speaker: Because you're 100% right.
Speaker: In real D&D, right?
Speaker: You wouldn't battle a dragon for a long time, right?
Speaker: This may be a year-long campaign until you level up high enough to even have a chance at battling a dragon.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Now we have, so that's the dragon battle.
Speaker: That's the dragon feature.
Speaker: We have, you face the toy in the story, in the Tyrant's Eye story, like deep in the game and your, your higher, your whole party is going to be higher level then.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And it might make more sense.
Speaker: I'm assuming there's entry level dragons and, and bigger, so you, as you level up with your party, the dragon's going to be harder and harder.
Speaker: Is that, is, is that, is that on the philosophy?
Speaker: No, he won't.
Speaker: So the dragon multiball kind of lives outside that realm.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And it doesn't really matter what your party level, your character level.
Speaker: All that really matters is can you hit him in the jaw X number of times before you drain 10 balls or whatever.
Speaker: And then there are, it's more of a pinball thing than it is a D&D thing.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, the battles do get more intense, obviously, as you play them in a game.
Speaker: Level 1, level 2, level 3.
Speaker: But like I said, if you're going to face that toy, the toy is used for multiple things, and the thing that we're talking about is just the normal multiball that's close to the start button, that every person can walk up and just bash on the three-bank and eventually start a multiball.
Speaker: But he has unique modes within the storyline, within the dungeon crawl, various areas, too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's a couple of climaxes in the story where the red dragon shows up and he's involved.
Speaker: And what level your party is does matter at that point.
Speaker: So one question I have is pertaining to the dragon.
Speaker: I know that Gomez said in a recent interview that like,
Speaker: Dungeons and Dragons was to play because of some technical issues.
Speaker: And that's why kind of X-Men was bumped ahead and whatnot.
Speaker: Is that because of this dragon mech?
Speaker: Because this is a pretty cool mech.
Speaker: It looks like it's very well done.
Speaker: I just didn't know if you guys could speak to that.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know if it's particularly because of that, right?
Speaker: Because we started this after Venom, so it hasn't been a tremendous amount of time, but we did spend a lot of time working on the dragon because he's pretty complex, right?
Speaker: He can move up and down, left and right.
Speaker: He can spit pinballs out at any point.
Speaker: And he also knows his position in the world, so he can target and aim things or stop by a ramp to block it and such.
Speaker: So we put a lot of time and effort into the dragon.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know if it necessarily delayed us, but... Yeah, there was no point in time when the dragon slowed us down.
Speaker: Okay, when the dragon is... Now, are the pinballs the dragon is spitting out, are they virtual, or are they coming at you from some sort of part of the playfield?
Speaker: They're coming out of his mouth.
Speaker: They're coming out of his mouth.
Speaker: Endless balls will come out of his mouth in all different directions all over the game.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: He breathes spitballs.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That was a question.
Speaker: That was unsure to me when I was watching your little teaser, your six-minute reel thing.
Speaker: We can auto-fill the dragon from the shooter.
Speaker: We can keep as many balls in him as we have.
Speaker: When the game's at rest, it has eight balls in it.
Speaker: Five are in the lower trough, and three are in the dragon trough.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Now tell me, because this is an advanced mech.
Speaker: How are you going to modify that for a pro?
Speaker: Okay, so a pro, we still obviously have the big dragon.
Speaker: He looks very similar, the sculpt and the cave that he lives in and such, but he does not spit balls.
Speaker: So he is mainly a bash toy, and he's either up or down.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So when he comes down, that's the battle.
Speaker: You have to hit him X number of times, and we'll balance it for the pro so it's a little bit different.
Speaker: And he can also go up and down at different times, right, to make it a little harder and to ramp up the battles and such so he can't be just hit all the time easily.
Speaker: So we'll play with that on the pro, but he doesn't spit balls.
Speaker: He doesn't have the diverter in the back that feeds the dragon.
Speaker: And he can't move up, down, left or right, just up or down.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: On the premium, he's two stepper motors, so he can move left, right, up and down asynchronously of each other.
Speaker: And so he's just very smooth movement in all directions.
Speaker: Yeah, and he'll look around the play field where you're shooting and make comments.
Speaker: He's a big character in the game, too.
Speaker: And he can block shots.
Speaker: He can go all the way to the play field level and block two shots or block the three-bank in front of him from you hitting it.
Speaker: That happens from time to time.
Speaker: So a lot of variety.
Speaker: On the Pro, the balls just shoot out of the trough and come around the orbit and come around the left-hand side like they do normal.
Speaker: So I was actually looking, because the Pro is pretty packed for what you guys have done, and I know that the Dragon's articulating up and down
Speaker: But you've still got the shield, you've still got the magnet and the gelatinous cube that I can tell.
Speaker: What is different?
Speaker: Because I almost feel like the pros are just as good as the premium.
Speaker: Besides, I mean, that articulating head is amazing.
Speaker: I don't want to discount that.
Speaker: That's pretty cool.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a pretty sophisticated toy.
Speaker: Well, you also spit out balls or hold balls.
Speaker: So that whole underground trough and the diverter in the back, all of that's gone.
Speaker: Is the dungeon still there that pops up to grab the ball and stuff?
Speaker: That's gone too.
Speaker: So you don't get the pop-up dungeon and that timed task to try to get in the dungeon before it falls back down.
Speaker: So we use that in various modes within the game too.
Speaker: So you don't get that.
Speaker: You still get the dungeon crawl mode that's attached to it on the VUK, but you don't get the physical toy that goes with it.
Speaker: Yeah, I would argue you guys have done a good job about modifying the, you know, the pro for typically a location type thing to simplify it, but while maintaining the essence of what the game experience is and what the rule set is.
Speaker: And I'm assuming that's what you're trying to do with this too.
Speaker: absolutely for me and dwight's side we want every game to be fun to play right they may have a slightly different feel right but we want them all to be fun to play so absolutely i i gotta say this game looks amazing i i think people are like dungeon dragons really but honestly like dwight with your background like seriously like venom and and and ninja turtles and it just it's it and games of thrones you're this i feel like the theme was made for you i mean this this code is amazing and i know that you talked about like
Speaker: The map changes every Sunday.
Speaker: Can you kind of explain?
Speaker: The map doesn't change.
Speaker: So the random numbers in the game change every Sunday.
Speaker: And anything that's affected by the random numbers change every Sunday.
Speaker: What's the random numbers?
Speaker: And what do they do?
Speaker: Well, anything in the game that would be random.
Speaker: Like with normal.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You're touching a Venom cabinet, but I'm assuming you have a... Okay.
Speaker: You have a D&D play field in there.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Just making sure on there.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So when you say map, I'm just wanting to be clear.
Speaker: The play field has a map in the middle.
Speaker: And the story of the game, the Tyrant's Eye, is you wandering around that map sort of freely and playing modes that are related to the Tyrant's Eye story.
Speaker: None of that changes every week.
Speaker: What changes every week are things like the dungeon crawl.
Speaker: So the dungeon crawl feature is sort of this pinball feature that's part video mode, part pinball, but mostly pinball.
Speaker: And what it is is you make shots and go down hallways and turn corners and go through doors.
Speaker: And every time you come to a decision point, the ball is held and you've got like three seconds to decide.
Speaker: Are you going to go left?
Speaker: Are you going to go right?
Speaker: Are you going to go straight?
Speaker: And then the ball is released and you're making more shots again.
Speaker: Sometimes you come across a room with monsters in it.
Speaker: And sometimes you come across a room which is like an award room or stairs or a trap.
Speaker: And that dungeon is pre-generated.
Speaker: It's generated on Sunday for all the games all over the world.
Speaker: everyone will play the exact same, and there's actually five levels to the dungeon.
Speaker: So everybody everywhere will play the exact same dungeon for that week, and then it changes on Sunday.
Speaker: Stuff like that, the things that are more virtual that can change do change on Sundays.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Now speak to that, because I will say just from a...
Speaker: from an owner perspective i i own games for a long time like i i tend to be a legacy on if you look at the games behind me and the games i buy i tend to own games for like five ten years okay so how like how long is stern going to continue to do this type of thing like like every every sunday for the next 10 years or it's automatic it's built into the game and it's okay
Speaker: I generate a new seed and then that's the seed, that's the random seed I use for that week.
Speaker: And everybody, all the games everywhere use that exact same seed for that week.
Speaker: So it's already in the code.
Speaker: It's essentially just the thing goes out on Sunday via Insider Connected and says, hey, this is the new seed we're doing.
Speaker: And it presents that in the game, right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: The only, right.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And that bases the dungeon layouts and, you know, where the extra ball is that week.
Speaker: Somebody will find it, talk to their friends and say, hey, go left, left, left, right, and you'll find the extra ball.
Speaker: But then next week it'll change again, so...
Speaker: But everything that can be affected by it has changed.
Speaker: So if you play new characters all the time instead of playing save characters, which is completely fine, then your character stats and stuff are going to change every week for all the characters you have unlocked.
Speaker: And you get four in the beginning, and then you get three more.
Speaker: Every time you finish a campaign, you can unlock another character.
Speaker: So speaking of stats, I know one of the stats, because you guys talked about it in the video, is like a longer shield time.
Speaker: What are some of the other stats you can actually build up with your character that are an advantage to you in the game?
Speaker: So the other characters, so all the characters have a bonus.
Speaker: Like, that's the wizard.
Speaker: The wizard has longer shield time.
Speaker: The dragonborn paladin, he's better against dragons.
Speaker: And, like, each of the classes has a different boon like that.
Speaker: The rogue has more luck.
Speaker: Luck is one of the things you can have.
Speaker: And he gets more luck.
Speaker: And luck affects how much treasure you get when you get treasure.
Speaker: And so on.
Speaker: So the Cleric is good against undead monsters.
Speaker: We have like, right now we have like about over 30 monsters in the game.
Speaker: And we're getting more all the time.
Speaker: So some of them are undead.
Speaker: And so if you're playing a Cleric, he's going to help you.
Speaker: He's going to be more powerful against all the undead monsters in the game.
Speaker: Now with Dungeons and Dragons, it typically is a, it's a cooperative game.
Speaker: I mean, by essence, you typically have, you know, some sort of, you know, a paladin, a healer, a wizard, you know, roger or whatever.
Speaker: How is it possible?
Speaker: Now you have made hints at progressing things like that.
Speaker: Is there a way, say I have a, not a Venom, a Dungeons and Dragons game and Josh has a Dungeons and Dragons game.
Speaker: Is there a way for us to do a cooperative campaign or play like that?
Speaker: Is that in the cards?
Speaker: Not currently.
Speaker: I'm assuming you mean like you playing at your basement and Josh in his basement.
Speaker: Yeah, that's currently not in the cards.
Speaker: Like all the past games I've done, both of you are in the same basement.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You could log in, both of you could log in, and Josh could bring all of his characters and play any one of them he wants to alongside you and any one of your characters that you want to play.
Speaker: And the two of you could play together on a campaign that starts from the beginning.
Speaker: Yeah, and then you'll progress together and your successes will be shared and all that.
Speaker: So we'd love to obviously do online play, but yeah, we're not, we're not there yet.
Speaker: That would be crazy complex.
Speaker: That's why I'm asking.
Speaker: Cause I'm like, that would be, that would be interesting thing.
Speaker: But you are saying that say Josh comes over to my house.
Speaker: I have a dungeons and dragons.
Speaker: We both log in and we both bring our shared achievements.
Speaker: Yep, your characters.
Speaker: So Josh could come play his paladin and maybe his fifth level.
Speaker: And you guys have chosen co-op from the gameplay menu, right?
Speaker: So now you could play your seventh level wizard.
Speaker: And the two of you could play together.
Speaker: The game would assign two more characters to be part of your party.
Speaker: Every party has four characters in it.
Speaker: So then you'd have two other characters that wasn't the two of you.
Speaker: And then the four of you would play throughout both games as both of you played.
Speaker: And if you had four players, obviously, all the spots would be filled by real-life players, whatever their characters are.
Speaker: So, Eddie, you took a break from pinball for a little bit, and you came back.
Speaker: You've done Stranger Things, Mando, Venom.
Speaker: Now we're doing Dungeons & Dragons.
Speaker: How has it changed making pinball at Stern versus the days at Bally Williams?
Speaker: That's what I want to know.
Speaker: Well, every company is different in the way they do things, right?
Speaker: So it takes a while to learn, you know, what are they good at and how does the whole process work?
Speaker: So there's a little bit of a learning curve there.
Speaker: But I think probably the biggest thing, to tell you the truth, is the world has changed and social media is now here.
Speaker: And it's kind of grouped players together and they can find other players and they can meet up and all the leagues and the shows and stuff that are going on.
Speaker: And the number of people who buy games for their homes, right?
Speaker: I think those are the things that probably have changed the most since the 90s when I did pinball before.
Speaker: And it's only propelled the whole industry, right?
Speaker: And the fan base out there is really exciting to bring everybody together like that.
Speaker: Do you feel like there's been kind of a learning curve coming into this modern era of pinball?
Speaker: A little bit.
Speaker: I mean, games are deeper now, right?
Speaker: They're much more involved and a lot of games go into homes.
Speaker: So we want to have a lot of depth and a lot of variety of different ways to play.
Speaker: And I think that's great, right?
Speaker: I love the ability to add all that stuff to a game.
Speaker: So to me, that's a big plus.
Speaker: It's a lot more work than we had before in the 90s and
Speaker: We also have three different models now, right?
Speaker: We have the Pro Premium and LE.
Speaker: So that's more things to do.
Speaker: And now we have Insider Connected.
Speaker: So that's more things we can add to the game.
Speaker: So from my standpoint, it's all a positive.
Speaker: It's obviously a lot more work, but there's a lot more things we can put in the game that are fun and interesting to play.
Speaker: What enticed you to come back to pinball?
Speaker: You know, George reached out to me a couple of times on those years saying, hey, you know, pinball is starting to come back.
Speaker: It would be great to have you back in the game.
Speaker: And I absolutely love doing pinballs in the 90s.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: If pinball wouldn't have taken the dive, it kind of did toward the end.
Speaker: I would have loved to continue making pinball.
Speaker: But.
Speaker: you know, I have to eat and, you know, have to have a house, you know, things like that.
Speaker: So I took, I moved over to video, which I love all types of games.
Speaker: You know, I think just like Dwight, we both of us are, whether it's board games or video games or pinball, we love all types of games, but I got to say pinball was kind of my first love, right?
Speaker: That's, I spent 10 years making pinballs and they're so fun to make because they have a little bit of everything, right?
Speaker: We have video, we have
Speaker: physical elements.
Speaker: We have all different materials on the play field.
Speaker: We have different rules we can make.
Speaker: We have sound and music and, and even sometimes video from the actual theme that we're doing versus making up, you know, brand new art for the display.
Speaker: So there's such a variety of cool things to work on.
Speaker: They're just, they're amazing to do.
Speaker: And I absolutely love it.
Speaker: It's a blast.
Speaker: Is there, is there any ideas that you tried with D and D and it just didn't work and you guys had an abandoned it?
Speaker: I think at the beginning, Dwight and I had a lot of talks and I think it was, at some point it was getting too complex, right?
Speaker: Because D&D can be pretty complex and understanding all the rules, but this has to be a fun pinball experience.
Speaker: And which it was great that the Wizards of the Coast guys, they wanted us to make a pinball version of D&D, right?
Speaker: That's what they pushed us to do.
Speaker: We didn't want an exact duplicate of all the rules and exactly.
Speaker: We had to make a fun experience in our medium.
Speaker: You know, which, like you had mentioned, is only a few minutes a game for most people.
Speaker: So I think we spent a lot of time talking about that up front.
Speaker: And we've simplified as we've gone down to the core elements that we think would be fun in a pinball.
Speaker: And to me, Dwight, I don't know what you think, but I think that's one of the big things that we did.
Speaker: Yeah, there was a learning curve there.
Speaker: Remember the flow chart?
Speaker: It was massive.
Speaker: So Zach Prost, we had him.
Speaker: So he had all these ideas, and he didn't really understand pinball, but he understood D&D, and he's our writer.
Speaker: And I said, listen, I'm not quite following you.
Speaker: Start making a flow chart.
Speaker: And then I kind of ignored him for a day or two, and then I went back to the whiteboard.
Speaker: We were doing this on a virtual whiteboard that I love to use.
Speaker: And after, like, I went back a day later, and it was just this monster flowchart that just had all of the story plots and all of the different twists.
Speaker: And I'm like, that's awesome, but we need to back it down a bit.
Speaker: It was really impressive.
Speaker: Someday we'll show that, I think.
Speaker: Yeah, we will show that at some point.
Speaker: So it was a learning process on trying to figure out how to make our own story, our own campaign, and make pinball at the same time.
Speaker: Keep that flavor of D&D in it, but not overwhelm the player, right?
Speaker: And keep those core elements that are fun, that we can make fun in pinball.
Speaker: So you have quite the cast of people in here for voice talent, too.
Speaker: You've got the critical role people with Matt Mercer, Laura Bailey, and Marshall Ray.
Speaker: I, the one that caught my eye was Kevin Smith, AKA silent Bob.
Speaker: I mean, how, how do you write a script for these people?
Speaker: And then on top of that, like, do they improv at all?
Speaker: Is there every time they're like, we're going to say this and okay.
Speaker: You're leaving out Michael Dorn.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: Michael Dorn, man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I just, the list goes on.
Speaker: Well, you're going to miss some people.
Speaker: Cause there's like 10 different voice actors in this game.
Speaker: It's insane.
Speaker: It's cool.
Speaker: It's really insane.
Speaker: Amazing cast.
Speaker: It was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun.
Speaker: We wrote, we spent a few days writing script, Ryan, right?
Speaker: Yeah, at least.
Speaker: Plus, we had writers helping write, too.
Speaker: Oh, right.
Speaker: Yeah, Chris.
Speaker: Right, so Chris Pronovsky, he helped write a lot of scripts.
Speaker: We created all of the buckets.
Speaker: I call them buckets.
Speaker: All of the places in the game where we want speech.
Speaker: the different events that happen.
Speaker: And we're like, okay, this mode is happening and during this mode, we're gonna need speech here, here, and here.
Speaker: When you get an award and when you make this shot and whatever.
Speaker: And so we create this huge spreadsheet of all the buckets.
Speaker: And then, so that's one axis.
Speaker: And then the other axis is all the different characters we have in the game and who might talk during these different events.
Speaker: And we ended up having a lot of characters.
Speaker: We have 18 characters or
Speaker: Yeah, thousands of lines of speech.
Speaker: The one thing unique, I think, about D&D is that there's this whole Hollywood consortium, too, that play D&D, and they all kind of know each other, and they get together.
Speaker: So a lot of the people who are doing speech are doing it because they're just fans of D&D, and they think it would be cool to be in a D&D pinball.
Speaker: We had a lot of other names come out of the computer, like people came forward and wanted to be part of this project, but then their schedules didn't allow them to get it done when we needed
Speaker: I know one of the biggest D&D proclaimed D&D nerds that has been very profound, you know, pushing this in Hollywood is Joe Manganiello.
Speaker: And I'm like, I'm kind of surprised he didn't throw his hat in the ring too, just because.
Speaker: Wait, is he the magic mic guy?
Speaker: The magic mic guy loves D&D.
Speaker: He is obsessed with, it's funny because like someone had posted like,
Speaker: a picture of themselves like cut at the gym.
Speaker: And they're like, yeah, I don't play Dungeons and Dragons.
Speaker: And Joe posted a picture like cut man of the year.
Speaker: And it's like, but I do.
Speaker: So ladies hit me up or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The demographic has definitely changed over the last 50 years.
Speaker: Let's put it that way.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely.
Speaker: And that's great to see, right?
Speaker: There's so many people enjoying it now.
Speaker: And it's about storytelling, so it totally makes sense that all these Hollywood people and actors, that they're into it because it's an experience that they're creating.
Speaker: And it's co-op, right?
Speaker: So there's no pressure.
Speaker: So all you need is one person who's really into it.
Speaker: He's the game master, and he's worked out all the details, and he knows the story.
Speaker: But all the other friends that are friends of friends in Hollywood, they can just show up and play and have fun and role play.
Speaker: We have one of the best DMs out there as our DM voice, Matt Mercer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he was incredible.
Speaker: And DM Dungeon Master for those who don't speak Dungeons and Dragons yet.
Speaker: So you asked also about improv.
Speaker: Some of the VO guys, the talent, especially like Marisha Ray and Micah Burton and others, they were great at just giving us different influxes.
Speaker: They would say a line and then say the exact same line again.
Speaker: but add on a little laugh at the end or something and it made it completely different.
Speaker: And that was great.
Speaker: And then so that we, you know, they had 600 lines or so and, but we ended up getting, you know, 1200 wave files, you know, or, you know, 1500 wave files from them.
Speaker: It's just more variety for the player.
Speaker: I think it's cool to hear different takes.
Speaker: And I told them all, I said, just have fun with it, right?
Speaker: Like, if you think your character, this character, wouldn't say this, then change the words.
Speaker: Rewrite the script.
Speaker: And they did.
Speaker: They would often just change it and roll with it.
Speaker: So speaking of the community out there, so just randomly over Christmas Eve, I was talking to some friends.
Speaker: I was at their house.
Speaker: And I said, yeah, there's a game coming out.
Speaker: And it's...
Speaker: rumored to be Dungeons and Dragons.
Speaker: And they said, oh, well, you should follow just someone I grew up with.
Speaker: Their son has a fan page and I pulled it up.
Speaker: It's called MyDND.
Speaker: It has 274,000 followers.
Speaker: So tell me about how has the community reacted to this and
Speaker: And how is it, you know, how, how have they seen this?
Speaker: Because I know some people, I told the story before, they always have three questions when they get exposed to pinball.
Speaker: The first question is, they still make that every time.
Speaker: That's the first one.
Speaker: Second time there's like, can I come play it?
Speaker: And then the third question is, can I buy one of these?
Speaker: So it's interesting.
Speaker: How has that, how has the reception from the D and D community been?
Speaker: I don't think we completely know.
Speaker: Do we do it?
Speaker: I mean, it's just launched today.
Speaker: It launched like, like minutes ago.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: But there, there, okay.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: This is the official launch.
Speaker: However, there's always buzz out there about possible future themes and D and D has been a buzz future theme for a while.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I've been watching sort of the rumored threads, you know, on different forums, and it's all been pretty positive.
Speaker: And everyone has ideas about what the ball could do and what the toys should be.
Speaker: And some of them were close to the mark and some of them were not.
Speaker: Most of those, I think, are pinball people, right?
Speaker: So we're hoping to bring in the people who play D&D, but like you were saying, right, they haven't really been aware of pinball or played it.
Speaker: And there is a crossover between them.
Speaker: Like a lot of the board game shows, I mean, Dwight goes to a number of them.
Speaker: They have rows of pinball there.
Speaker: So that world is aware of it, those people who play D&D and play other types of board games.
Speaker: they enjoy pinball too.
Speaker: So we think we're going to bring them some new players, which is awesome.
Speaker: So one question I have, I know that licensors can sometimes just be notoriously hard to work with.
Speaker: It sounds like with all the assets you guys have gained, the freedom of the story you're able to make, it sounds like the licensor was pretty flexible to work with and actually pretty great to work with, especially with the world that you're kind of making up yourself.
Speaker: Can you kind of speak to how the licensor was to you guys?
Speaker: Yeah, they were great.
Speaker: I mean, they make games.
Speaker: So it's a leap we don't have to make when it's a big Hollywood studio where you have to kind of teach them a little about pinball.
Speaker: They understand games and they know what our craft is and they know they can't do what we do, bring D&D to pinball.
Speaker: So they were a great support all along the way.
Speaker: There are certain things right in their universe they want.
Speaker: to be right, right?
Speaker: The red dragon has this number of scales on his body, right?
Speaker: It needs to be that way.
Speaker: But they were things that were pretty straightforward for us to be able to implement.
Speaker: You had Dwight counting the scales on the dragon to make sure it was all correct.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: They had certain, like, since dragons are used in lots of different places, games and TV shows and movies and whatnot, they have very strict rules about how their dragons look.
Speaker: And, you know, but other than that, they were very, very great.
Speaker: In fact, we would give them tons and tons of stuff and, you know, like storyboards and story and whatnot.
Speaker: And they would like I thought I was great at crossing my T's and dotting my I's and making it all very D&D and perfect.
Speaker: And then they would come back with dozens of ideas and notes.
Speaker: And I'm like,
Speaker: helped improve the product at every step so i love working with it yeah and that's what you want in a partnership with a licensure yeah i gotta ask too real quick on the gelatinous cube in the very front top right there is a scythe is that a throwback to the uh tmnt since you worked on that dwight the scythe yeah
Speaker: No, I don't think so.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Right, from turtles.
Speaker: No, I... Oh, come on.
Speaker: Just say yes.
Speaker: Just say yes.
Speaker: The gelatinous cube ate a turtle.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Ate a turtle, and that's where they... That would be hilarious.
Speaker: There are nunchucks in the gelatinous cube.
Speaker: Confirm or deny.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I do have to ask the floor.
Speaker: I promise.
Speaker: The one thing that is so important to dungeons and dragons is the art.
Speaker: When I, that was the thing that sold the, the, the kids of the seventies and eighties, because we didn't have the great visual graphics on the video game to sell us.
Speaker: So, so it was the art that sold us on the book cover on the,
Speaker: you know, on the video game, even though it was like an 8-bit video game, it was terrible.
Speaker: Tell me about getting the right artist to draw this.
Speaker: Yeah, so as soon as I heard that we had the chance to do D&D, the first person I thought of was Vince Prost.
Speaker: I had worked with Vince Prost on video games in the 2000s, and he was just an incredible artist.
Speaker: And over the years, he honed his ability, and he's gotten out into Hollywood, and he's done creature development and design for all sorts of big Hollywood movies, It 2 and Smile 2.
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: He's really made a name for himself in developing monsters in these dark worlds and stuff.
Speaker: And he also, within that time frame, he's done work for D&D.
Speaker: He's a D&D artist, and he's done tons of things for D&D and Magic the Gathering.
Speaker: So it's like there couldn't be a more perfect guy.
Speaker: We know this guy, worked with him before.
Speaker: We all get along really well and he totally gets it.
Speaker: And that's part of somebody doing art for a theme is do they understand it?
Speaker: Do they understand the feel and what we're trying to achieve?
Speaker: And Vince just gets it.
Speaker: And the guy is so talented, he can draw anything.
Speaker: He's just amazing.
Speaker: He's fast.
Speaker: He's great.
Speaker: And we were so happy that he was able to do the project, too, because he's a busy guy and he was excited about it.
Speaker: It's his first pinball that he's done the art package for.
Speaker: He has done a little bit of work for Stern in the past.
Speaker: I think he worked a little on Aerosmith on the display stuff and animations, but this is the first full pinball he's done.
Speaker: And I think he knocked it out of the park.
Speaker: Oh yeah, this thing looks amazing.
Speaker: I'm loving it.
Speaker: Sometimes you look at the artwork and you go, yeah, I can see the universe there, but everything on this screams D&D and it works so well together.
Speaker: It looks great.
Speaker: It's one of those play fields.
Speaker: You keep looking at it and you'll see different things every time you look at it, which is fun.
Speaker: If you just look at all of the troops at the bottom of the play field, they're all different.
Speaker: And like George would say, Vince probably named them all.
Speaker: They all have a backstory and a bio and a history.
Speaker: There's like 200 of them.
Speaker: So is Stern going to get their own manual now for D&D just for this game?
Speaker: We wish.
Speaker: That was something we would have loved to have.
Speaker: That's the trade-off.
Speaker: Does the LE come with a Stern D20?
Speaker: Because that would be awesome.
Speaker: It would be.
Speaker: One of our listeners did want to ask, so I know you can't really tell us what the topper's going to be, but can you tell us, will it or will it not have fog attached to it?
Speaker: Laser lights?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're thinking more flames.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, that would be awesome.
Speaker: You know how people did a whirlwind?
Speaker: They hooked up like a leaf blower.
Speaker: Can you imagine having a fireball blower on top of a game?
Speaker: That would be so great.
Speaker: It would be dangerous.
Speaker: Okay, but in seriousness, I'm assuming you guys have started developing the accessories because at some point the accessories will come out.
Speaker: Are they close?
Speaker: Far?
Speaker: Somewhere in the middle?
Speaker: Pending release tomorrow?
Speaker: What?
Speaker: They are in development.
Speaker: They're moving along.
Speaker: We'd like them as soon as we can after the launch of the game.
Speaker: So we're trying hard to get that as close as we can.
Speaker: It's above my pay grade.
Speaker: We haven't released the Venom Topper yet.
Speaker: You can release them simultaneously.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Why can't they be the same thing?
Speaker: That would be awesome.
Speaker: I got to say, I do like that you guys went unique with the shield.
Speaker: Because when I think of a pop-up between the flippers, you think of just the round.
Speaker: Like Champions Pub, I know you're aware of that one, Dwight.
Speaker: You may have worked on that one.
Speaker: But this looks like a legit shield.
Speaker: Was that part of the beginning process?
Speaker: We got to incorporate this into the theme?
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: It moved a bit on the play field.
Speaker: I think really early on, it was a huge shield that was way up front, but that was just way too complicated.
Speaker: And I think where it ended up is a perfect place because it has a few other benefits too.
Speaker: Well, the nice thing about it is it's rounded.
Speaker: And so the problem with a lot of those pop-up things is it's just like a post that sits in the middle between the flippers.
Speaker: And so it really sets up shots poorly.
Speaker: Yeah, sometimes those annoy me that they mess me up more than they actually help.
Speaker: Yeah, they're not helping.
Speaker: Yeah, this one definitely helps.
Speaker: Yeah, so with the rounded, it actually moves it over to an actual good shooting position.
Speaker: Yep, exactly.
Speaker: It was part of Brian's original dream, right?
Speaker: He brought tons of ideas to the original, like right in the beginning, and most of them aren't there anymore, but
Speaker: But the dragon moving and articulating and spitting out balls and breathing balls at you and the shield being there and it being a battle, that was part of Brian's original.
Speaker: Yeah, Delightless Cube, I think, was there too.
Speaker: Tell me about the lighting of the game because the one thing that has significantly evolved in Stern over the last, I would say, even five years is
Speaker: is how they've illuminated games and used lights to emphasize and to be thematically immersive in the game.
Speaker: So tell me how you used the lights in Dungeons & Dragons.
Speaker: So, I think, is that me?
Speaker: So we have two different color GI.
Speaker: We have white GI and blue GI.
Speaker: And then we have four...
Speaker: orange big domes, big flasher domes, and I use those as GI as well.
Speaker: So like when you're in the dungeon crawl, you know, I have those sort of flickering, those four, those four lanes that I have the other GI kind of turned down a bit, you know, and I try to pull you in and be as immersive as I can, depending on what's going on and what you're doing.
Speaker: Plus we do have a lot of RGB lights on this game too, that allows us more flexibility too.
Speaker: So I got to know, you've got the beholder, that giant flying eye Medusa thing.
Speaker: The eye thing, yeah.
Speaker: Is that, is the beholder in the game as well?
Speaker: I mean, he's obviously in the artwork, but have you tied him into the game as well?
Speaker: No, that's Xanathar.
Speaker: That's one of the big bads in the D&D world.
Speaker: So that's one of our three endings.
Speaker: So the game, like you have four different places you can start on your campaign.
Speaker: And as you work through the different modes and you work your way toward the end of the campaign, um,
Speaker: He's, he's, that's Xenathar.
Speaker: He's, he's a known character and, and he's one of the three main endings of the game.
Speaker: So the three main bad guys is a Lich, Xenathar and Balador, which, which is like an evil paladin.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: One of the cool things that we did do is that all the artwork you see on the cabinets and the back glasses and the play field, they're all in the game somewhere.
Speaker: And they're usually one of the big story elements are tied to one of the scenes.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like everything, everything you could see is points to somewhere in the story, somewhere in the game.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And it was great in this because it was a collaboration between the writer and the artist too.
Speaker: And since one was the father and one was the son, right?
Speaker: They talked together all the time to make sure that the two lined up and that the elements from the story made it into the big moments on the back glass and the cabinet and the play field.
Speaker: So it was really cool collaboration.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So are you telling me there's multiple optional endings, kind of a choose your own adventure depending?
Speaker: Okay, so you just kind of snuck that in there because most games have a wizard mode, which means that ultimately, regardless of which path you choose, you're all going to end up at the same point.
Speaker: But you are saying that you are developing a game that has multiple different options for the boss level.
Speaker: There's three nulls.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Depending on your choices in the game, what mode you decide to play and where you go and what you decide to finish first, you're going to get one of three different endings.
Speaker: And the great thing about that, too, is if you succeed at those endings, you unlock a new class of character.
Speaker: No, even.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: You have to succeed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: you're going to come to a decision point where in the story, in the story, it's like, do I, I don't want to spoil it, but do I stay and fight this threat that just happened, that just arrived?
Speaker: Or do I go save my friend over there and I have a choice?
Speaker: And then you're prompted, you know, to do this or do that.
Speaker: And you got like three seconds, make a choice.
Speaker: And then that determines your path on which ending you're going to do.
Speaker: Wait, do you get a play?
Speaker: So for those of you who are not familiar, I'm going to briefly explain character generation.
Speaker: So you typically have good, neutral, evil.
Speaker: And then in each of those areas, you have lawful or chaotic.
Speaker: Yeah, or neutral.
Speaker: Or neutral, yeah.
Speaker: So it's basically a grid of nine.
Speaker: Does that factor into the storyline at all?
Speaker: It does not, no.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: Because if you could be an evil wizard, oh, man.
Speaker: We explored that for a while.
Speaker: We did.
Speaker: We didn't know how to make it work in the time we have and the resources we have.
Speaker: Yeah, that's the complexity side, I think, one of the things that kind of whittled down.
Speaker: It would be pretty hard.
Speaker: I totally agree.
Speaker: I was just curious to see if you were able to find a way of implementing that.
Speaker: As it is, this game has turned out to be the most ambitious game I've ever been a part of.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: That's more content than any game I've ever done.
Speaker: So I've got to ask, I know code is just a number.
Speaker: Tell me, Dwight, what is already in the game at shipping?
Speaker: I know it's probably like.81 or whatever it is.
Speaker: Shipping, when we ship tomorrow, it's not really tomorrow, but it's going to feel like tomorrow, it'll be.8 code.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And what does point A include?
Speaker: Does that include mini wizard modes?
Speaker: Like, what are we going with?
Speaker: Is there any endpoint currently in the game?
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So the game, the map, like, when you wander around, like, so we're getting now down into the nitty-gritty, but, you know, you asked.
Speaker: So as you wander around the map, the map itself has like 12 modes and six wizard modes.
Speaker: Six dungeons, I call them.
Speaker: So you play these quests.
Speaker: There's quest givers in each town, and they're giving you quests and things to do.
Speaker: And then when you complete all of the modes around the town, you can play the dungeon of that town.
Speaker: And then you can do that six times, and then that eventually leads to one of the three final wizard modes, which, you know, one of the three final endings of the story.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Some of, so several, four, right now, four of the lower wizard modes are all complete, and we're working on the others above them.
Speaker: So it sounds like you have a lot to chew on here.
Speaker: It doesn't sound like you, I mean, it sounds like out the door, you're going to be pretty well busy with what you have.
Speaker: There's more content in the game now than some of the games I've completely released.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: There's going to be a lot of variety.
Speaker: There's a lot more coming.
Speaker: And realize that, right, we have the save system, pin save system, and you pick up where you left off.
Speaker: So we want the adventure to be longer, to be more interesting.
Speaker: And there's three different endings to that.
Speaker: So you're going to want to play it three times.
Speaker: So this game has so much content to keep you occupied.
Speaker: You're going to want to win it three times.
Speaker: Yeah, win, too.
Speaker: Yeah, you have to win it three times.
Speaker: So in order to lock a character, you have to win that final boss.
Speaker: And you might not be high enough level.
Speaker: You might not, you know, maybe you drain too many times, but... This is hints of what you started exploring with Venom.
Speaker: And so what I want to know is what lessons have you learned from the Venom experience that you are bringing to Dungeons & Dragons to take it up a level?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So one... Well, I don't... So one thing I really want to communicate is...
Speaker: Venom has two great ways to play it.
Speaker: It has... I can play saved mode, or I can play not saved.
Speaker: And both are fun, and both have different things to do.
Speaker: You can go after Null, and then you can just keep hammering and hammering and hammering until eventually you beat Null.
Speaker: Or you can play from the beginning every single time and just see how much you can get done.
Speaker: This has that too.
Speaker: This has one-shot mode, we call it.
Speaker: But, so that was one thing we learned is, in Venom, because the save progress was such a new shiny thing, we played that up early on.
Speaker: And in this game, we're like, well, let's make sure everybody understands right from the beginning, there's two ways to play this game.
Speaker: One is you can use your saved characters and play through the game and try to unlock more characters.
Speaker: And another is just play one shot right from the beginning and see how far you can get without a saved character.
Speaker: And I think both are extremely fun.
Speaker: What else did we learn, Brian?
Speaker: I think it's, you touched upon it.
Speaker: I think once you got to like Grendel Dragon and Null, it became, I got to just keep building up my level till I get strong enough to where my skill level can beat them.
Speaker: And you kind of were locked into that for a while doing that pattern.
Speaker: I think with D&D, it is more of an adventure because you're going to be doing new stuff every time you come back.
Speaker: And if you have one character who's in that final level, and you're going to face that final boss, and then if you win or lose right then, you're done.
Speaker: You start the campaign over.
Speaker: Your character doesn't go away or anything.
Speaker: It stays.
Speaker: You're now like 17th level or 15th level or 12th level or whatever.
Speaker: But win or lose, you're not stuck in that final battle forever.
Speaker: And then your second time through, you can make different choices and decide which way you want to go.
Speaker: Or play with a new character.
Speaker: Yeah, or play with a new character.
Speaker: Start another campaign with a new character.
Speaker: Well, and you both have kind of alluded to this.
Speaker: This is the, I mean, you've flat out said it.
Speaker: This is the most ambitious game that you guys have done.
Speaker: And I feel like each game has been upping the ante.
Speaker: Every time you guys have started a new game, like with Venom and Mando,
Speaker: And now, you know, D&D, it seems like you're upping the ante more and more.
Speaker: I don't know how you're going to do it on the next go around because you guys have been at this a couple of years and it seems like you've deserved quite the vacation from this.
Speaker: Do you already have plans on how to up the ante for going forward after this?
Speaker: I cannot confirm or deny.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: We...
Speaker: Right now my mind's so full of this game I don't have any thoughts on it.
Speaker: It's hard to think past it.
Speaker: But yeah, somehow we always do.
Speaker: We get into a new theme and we come up with new ideas and we're excited and we want to implement them.
Speaker: And the thing just grows.
Speaker: We can't help it.
Speaker: We're game makers at heart and we want everybody to have that.
Speaker: different, but kind of the same experience and mix it up and give you something new.
Speaker: So yeah, I'm not sure either.
Speaker: I will do that, but somehow we'll find it.
Speaker: I think the game will tell us like the theme will tell us like this, this game just allowed us to do all this stuff.
Speaker: But when we went to Mando, Mando wasn't, you didn't choose a character at the beginning of Mando because it didn't make sense.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: So, you know, the player was Mando.
Speaker: Well, you were.
Speaker: You were Pedro Pascal.
Speaker: So it always begins with who am I, who's the player, and should they have choices in the beginning of the game or not?
Speaker: And where does that go from there?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The theme really helps point us in the right direction.
Speaker: If the next theme doesn't, then we won't go that way.
Speaker: Tell me about the LE.
Speaker: How many numbers?
Speaker: And what are the special things that people get if they up for the LE?
Speaker: Yeah, and what's the 740 number?
Speaker: That's what I want to know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In 1974 was when the game came out.
Speaker: I think that's what... So Seth was torn on several different numbers.
Speaker: And 1974, I think, is when the game first was invented.
Speaker: So he picked on, you know, 74, 740...
Speaker: I think that's where that comes from.
Speaker: I think that's where it comes from.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, tell me about the R-Blades.
Speaker: You have custom armor on this.
Speaker: You have...
Speaker: Custom arm blades, you get the fire side armor on it, and then you get all the special things, upgraded speakers and the no-glare glass, and you get a stunning back glass.
Speaker: It's got mirror on it, and it has sparkle.
Speaker: It was the first time we've done a sparkle, so the Dungeons and Dragons has a sparkle to it.
Speaker: That's actually really cool to see in person.
Speaker: It really catches your eye.
Speaker: And of course, it's a custom art package that's only available on the LE for the cabinet and the side art and the back glass.
Speaker: Yeah, that is.
Speaker: Now, usually I think sometimes I actually like the premium or the pro bar.
Speaker: OK, my eye really goes toward this back glass because I'm assuming those green lightning arcs are going to look really great in person.
Speaker: Yeah, it's hard to really, until you actually see the mirror and the sparkle and backlash, even a footage film doesn't really show it off.
Speaker: You have to see it in person.
Speaker: And yeah, it looks stunning.
Speaker: Is there anything we haven't asked that you guys are just excited to talk about this game and just say, hey, what are we missing?
Speaker: I think we covered the big things, right, Dwight?
Speaker: We got Dragon Dungeon.
Speaker: What's been your favorite thing about working on this game?
Speaker: Well, one thing I'll say, we didn't really talk too much about the gelatinous cube because I think it does have that unique function we touched upon, the gelatinous cube multi-ball, which actually turned out to be really fun to start.
Speaker: So you first, you keep making left loops and then the up-down ramp comes down and making shots that go through the gelatinous cube.
Speaker: Eventually the gelatinous cube will grab the ball and hold it and freeze it and then kick out another ball.
Speaker: And then you have a chance to try to
Speaker: get another ball locked underneath the cube.
Speaker: And if you're managed to do that within the timeframe, then another ball kicks out and you have a choice of either getting another ball on the bottom or another ball inside the cube and it'll basically, or it times out and you can get a two, three or four ball multi-ball.
Speaker: It's actually a really fun task to do once it starts up.
Speaker: And then that's where some of the blue lights are used and the lighting dims down.
Speaker: And the graphics are really fun.
Speaker: The sound is really fun.
Speaker: Yeah, this thing looks so epic.
Speaker: And like Scott was saying earlier, gelatinous cube is so iconic.
Speaker: And it's funny.
Speaker: And the bottom line is there are things about pinball that make you want to play again.
Speaker: And a lot of it's humor.
Speaker: Like, you know, there are, there are just call outs that you find hilarious that you're like, I just want to hear all those call outs again.
Speaker: And I would say an element of the gelatinous cube because it's so ridiculous.
Speaker: It really, the storyline is so ridiculous, but it's hilarious at the same time.
Speaker: Love that element.
Speaker: I, I am, I'm excited to get to try this game out.
Speaker: It, because of the complexity of it, it is one that,
Speaker: I think it would probably really shine in a home collection because you really do want to explore all the different options.
Speaker: Yeah, there's a lot of depth for a homeowner.
Speaker: And that's what I think Dwight and I in all our games, we really try to provide that for him.
Speaker: But we also like this game, I think is great if you just walk up to it and you're going to see the big dragon, you're going to fight in this intense battle and you're going to h ave a great time.
Speaker: So I think we're covering both worlds.
Speaker: At least that's what we're aiming for.
Speaker: And that was very important to us.
Speaker: You don't need to know anything about D&D.
Speaker: You could just walk up and you choose a character.
Speaker: And the right-hand side is very clean of when you're choosing a character.
Speaker: It just says, like, Paladin, good against dragons.
Speaker: And you're like, I'll choose that.
Speaker: He's cool-looking, and I want to fight dragons.
Speaker: And I'm going to choose a Paladin.
Speaker: You don't have to know anything about anything else.
Speaker: Well, you're also giving the option with the pen save system that even if you can't afford to have one of these at home, you can still achieve the same amount by going on location and playing it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then you can even move around.
Speaker: Like you can, your characters come with you.
Speaker: Now on the teaser, if you like met up with a friend every week to play pinball and you play co-op together and every week you just continue your campaign, you know, along the way.
Speaker: Well, that is in keeping with Dungeons and Dragons.
Speaker: That's what people do.
Speaker: They get together once a week to play.
Speaker: So this plays into it.
Speaker: Now you did have the 20 side to die in the teaser.
Speaker: Does that play into the rule set at all?
Speaker: Yeah, there's dice.
Speaker: So when you're in a battle, so battle is something we didn't really talk about.
Speaker: Like, there's lots of monsters in the game.
Speaker: You're often fighting a monster when you're in a mode.
Speaker: Modes are often about, like, there's a monster that you have to fight.
Speaker: Yeah, there's a monster you have to fight, and then maybe some other goal you have to do.
Speaker: And sometimes there's just a monster, or two or three or four monsters or more.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So when there's a battle going on, shots are lighting up red.
Speaker: And what was the question?
Speaker: The 20-sided die.
Speaker: How does that play into your coding?
Speaker: So then...
Speaker: It's pinball, so you don't have to roll to hit like you would in D&D.
Speaker: You have to make a shot.
Speaker: If you shoot one of the red shots, you hit automatically that monster that's associated with that shot.
Speaker: But your party shoots automatically.
Speaker: You're automatically spotted like three more shots.
Speaker: So every time you make a shot, you really make four shots against the head guys.
Speaker: And then on the screen, they roll dice.
Speaker: And then if they hit or miss, it shows you right there whether or not they hit or miss.
Speaker: and then it shows you how much damage is done on the monsters.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So is co-op already in the game too?
Speaker: Co-op is in the game.
Speaker: Every co-op game starts from the beginning of the game.
Speaker: But I can bring whatever character I want and whatever level he is.
Speaker: You can bring your saved characters to the co-op game.
Speaker: Yeah, I just know with Ninja Turtles, you added it later.
Speaker: So this is out the door.
Speaker: You're getting co-ops.
Speaker: You can already start your own D&D stuff.
Speaker: When we go in a box, yes.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: It works now, but I have to finish testing some things.
Speaker: Do some tweaks.
Speaker: And this is one actually aspect that I don't think you get enough credit for, Dwight, in adding things like challenges into games or being able to do co-ops or things like that.
Speaker: That is actually huge.
Speaker: And I tell people about that.
Speaker: I say, it's kind of fun.
Speaker: Well, it's a lot of fun when you have someone over and you're like, okay, us two against you two, or a lot of times there's one person who's really good at pinball.
Speaker: You know, in the family, like, you know, it's, it's like, you know, if I'm playing against my three kids and I'm like, okay, I get one, you get three, let's see who, who does it.
Speaker: And that, that's a cool aspect of being able to do a teamwork approach where it doesn't just feel like I'm watching the, the really good player play forever.
Speaker: And then three people drain balls.
Speaker: Well, not only that, like the accessing the wizard modes from the main menu and playing those as a mini mode.
Speaker: You did that first with Ghostbusters.
Speaker: Are you a god?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Somebody asked you.
Speaker: Would somebody ask you if you're a god?
Speaker: You say yes.
Speaker: But I want to thank both of you because you both have driven innovation in both your own ways over pinball over these years and it's
Speaker: we are at where we are now because of you two driving and trailblazing stuff like this.
Speaker: So, well, thanks.
Speaker: I mean, we're having a blast doing it.
Speaker: So, you know, we want every game to be something new and unique and hopefully we do that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we, we certainly, we've had Dwight on, we know he's a great talker.
Speaker: We, we are so excited that Brian, we're so thankful that you came on too.
Speaker: This is our first interview with you, but,
Speaker: It's always fun to meet the people who create the stuff that you love and consume all the time.
Speaker: And so we certainly appreciate you letting us talk about your game and being able to share it with everybody who listens to us.
Speaker: Yeah, it was awesome.
Speaker: I had a great time.
Speaker: So anytime you guys want to talk, I'm here.
Speaker: Actually, I have one final question and you can tell me no.
Speaker: I've got to give a little history because I was listening to Eclectic Gamers Pinball Podcast
Speaker: a week or two ago, and they stole a game from Slam Tilt Pinball.
Speaker: I know that Eddie's been on there before, but they have this game called Make It Pro.
Speaker: So they take a Bally Williams game
Speaker: And if it were made at Stern today, what would they take out of it to make it pro?
Speaker: And since I've got a game designer and a game coder that does this for a living, I have to ask.
Speaker: So the game they did on Eclectic Gamers last time was Twilight Zone.
Speaker: So give me just your 30 second.
Speaker: What would you do, Eddie, to turn it into a pro?
Speaker: What would you take out of Twilight Zone to make it pro?
Speaker: Same with you, Dwight.
Speaker: That's hard.
Speaker: Yeah, that's hard.
Speaker: My very first thought was the gumball machine, but you don't want to get rid of the Powerball because that's quintessential Twilight Zone.
Speaker: So I think you'd have to diminish everything but the Powerball and the things the Powerball needed.
Speaker: Yeah, that was pretty unique.
Speaker: The little guy that pulls it down from the center, I'd probably pull that.
Speaker: I mean, it's a clever device, but it's not for it.
Speaker: So like the clock wouldn't move.
Speaker: Yeah, the clock wouldn't move.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So you're talking about the lever.
Speaker: So when you shoot up to the power playfield, it grabs it and drops it back onto the playfield if you're not ready for power.
Speaker: So maybe that whole playfield comes off.
Speaker: It could be, yeah.
Speaker: If we really had to make a pro and we had to make a street piece, yeah.
Speaker: And then the ramps just return the ball to the flipper.
Speaker: I don't know, that upper play field, though, is pretty iconic to that game.
Speaker: That's the thing about a pro versus a premium.
Speaker: You get something more.
Speaker: Yeah, and we have to make those choices all the time, and it's tough on our side, too.
Speaker: Okay, Josh.
Speaker: I'm going to take it to the next level, though, and I'm going to take it to a game that Brian and Dwight are very familiar with, okay?
Speaker: I'm going to give you a challenge of make it pro, premium, and LE.
Speaker: and I'm going to give you medieval madness.
Speaker: It's been 25 years.
Speaker: What would you do to make it a current release?
Speaker: What are the epic things you would do?
Speaker: What are the things you would do to make it a, a, a pro level game go?
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That's a tough one.
Speaker: So I believe them.
Speaker: Go ahead, Dwight.
Speaker: I think the 90s pins, I think we put some more stuff in games now.
Speaker: Yeah, you do.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: It's a pro game.
Speaker: It's a pro game by default.
Speaker: Well, it's somewhere in between.
Speaker: In order to make a premium, you have to add things to the medieval madness.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So what was your hand, Brian?
Speaker: Yeah, good God.
Speaker: To make it a premium.
Speaker: That's like 20-some years ago.
Speaker: You're really stretching the memory because I'm sure, like most of my games, there's like two or three mechs that don't make it for some reason, right?
Speaker: Either they're not as fun as you think or they're too expensive.
Speaker: Wasn't there a different multiball that you guys were experimenting with?
Speaker: I think that was from Attack from Mars because you originally talked about the
Speaker: the spaceship actually articulating out kind of thing.
Speaker: But I think there's also even like a different multiball from, from medieval madness.
Speaker: I've heard the stories before, but you know, who knows?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know if I remember that.
Speaker: Like we built upon the rules of attack from Mars doing that, right?
Speaker: Cause it's the same shot X number of times, but then we added the stacking that kind of added a twist to it.
Speaker: So, but they're very similar.
Speaker: So I don't know if I would change that much about the rule set other than,
Speaker: making the game deeper, like what he was saying, because I think they probably have half as much content as probably a third of what like D&D has of content.
Speaker: Plus you have all those different ways of playing.
Speaker: Like I'd love to make challenge modes in those games, right?
Speaker: And focus on certain elements that you have to do.
Speaker: And those would be a lot fun.
Speaker: We didn't have anything like that back then.
Speaker: But as far as mechs and stuff, Medieval Madness is pretty packed on the playfield as far as square inches of things.
Speaker: Yeah, you've got the catapult, you've got the right ramp, you've got the old castle.
Speaker: You've got the peasant ramp, you've got the castle lock shot, you've got the drawbridge.
Speaker: Maybe the drawbridge doesn't do its thing.
Speaker: Yeah, maybe it only does one function up and down the gate.
Speaker: Yeah, no motor.
Speaker: You'd probably have to take the motor out of it coming down.
Speaker: It would just be the gate that goes up.
Speaker: Maybe the catapult goes away, you know, and something simpler that kicks out.
Speaker: But that's tough.
Speaker: I don't want to think about that.
Speaker: That's horrible.
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: That's why I gave you the option of making it LE.
Speaker: Make it better.
Speaker: Make it more blingified.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm sure we'd come up with a ton of interesting things to add to it.
Speaker: Maybe we'll do a remake one day.
Speaker: Who knows?
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I do got to ask, did Mievel Madness play into Dungeons & Dragons at all?
Speaker: Was there anything you took from that and put in this?
Speaker: I mean, I think there's always gained experience from doing certain themes, and it kind of fits in that world of themes at medieval time and stuff at D&D.
Speaker: It's not really the same exact world, but it's kind of in that fantasy genre.
Speaker: So I think you take things from it, but I won't say there's anything like directly, oh, we did this in medieval.
Speaker: We've got to put this in D&D.
Speaker: I think Dwight and I, we always start from a scratch.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Brian, we added some speech.
Speaker: There is some speech.
Speaker: We added some speech from lots of different games that people are going to recognize.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: We couldn't resist.
Speaker: Did you get Tina Fey to voice anything for Dungeons & Dragons?
Speaker: We would have loved to have Tina Fey.
Speaker: Because I always say, without pinball, she would have had no career.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: Her career is her pinball.
Speaker: It is irrefutable that she did that and then her career took off.
Speaker: Straight up, right?
Speaker: I think it's obvious.
Speaker: Use pinball as a stepping stone.
Speaker: She must have been busy, I think.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: Before we wrap it up, though, I got one thing.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Go ahead, Dwight.
Speaker: So I want to shout out to Paul Chemotkin and the entire LCD team.
Speaker: That's something we didn't really talk about.
Speaker: So there's way too many people to name and they're all stellar and they're all stars.
Speaker: I could name off, you know, so...
Speaker: So Paul Chamontkit is the lead, is sort of my counterpart.
Speaker: He's the guy that I heavily work with to get all the LCD assets done in the game for this very, very challenging game you've done.
Speaker: And eventually this project has soaked up and vacuumed up like the entire LCD art team of Stern Pinball.
Speaker: And we got, in addition to that, we got like five or seven outside artists working on the game, even as we speak, right, this second.
Speaker: So, you know, a big shout out to the entire LCD team led by Paul Shemotkit.
Speaker: And, of course, you know, Chuck Ernst is the director of LCD teams.
Speaker: Yeah, great call.
Speaker: They went over and above.
Speaker: And I really want to do a book that's just the art of Dungeons & Dragons, The Tyrant's Eye, and just highlight, it's just a picture book full of all of their art that made the game, because there's an amazing amount of content.
Speaker: We have dozens of places that you can fight monsters, and then we have
Speaker: All of the monsters had a pipeline.
Speaker: There were several artists that worked on every monster, right?
Speaker: So some of them did a sketch, and then some of them colored the sketch, and then some of them animated the sketch, and then some of them took the animated sketch and made it into something that
Speaker: could use.
Speaker: And then Corey, so then a shout out to my software team that led, you know, like with me and Corey Stoop and Elizabeth Gieske, she's doing all my modes.
Speaker: And then David Sullivan is my, this is his first game, my son, and this is his first game as a full-time Stern employee, you know, so that's, that's all pretty awesome.
Speaker: Anyway, back to art.
Speaker: Then like, um,
Speaker: Then Cory has taken all of the monsters and put them in the game so that you can fight them.
Speaker: And that's been a lot of work.
Speaker: And that's just the monsters.
Speaker: And then, you know, not counting all the pinball stuff, all of the jackpots and multiball starts and all that stuff and bonus and, you know, all the normal pinball things.
Speaker: It's just been an amazing amount of LCD art work.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think that's a good job.
Speaker: Absolutely right.
Speaker: They did an incredible job, that whole team.
Speaker: And I mean, in the same way, we should shout out to the mechanical guys, Tom Malcolm and John Rothamil.
Speaker: And even I think everybody at some point played some part in the game mechanically at Stern Harrison and Elliot even.
Speaker: They gave their input.
Speaker: They worked on some mechs and we wanted to make sure this game was solid.
Speaker: So the whole team was there to help make sure.
Speaker: And the mechanical shooters were always so excited.
Speaker: Like every time the dragon would do something new or they'd
Speaker: they had some problem with the dragon or something, they would, like five mechanical engineers would descend upon my room and then they would work it out.
Speaker: And, you know, then they would go off and they would fix it and they would, you know, it was pretty awesome.
Speaker: Okay, the dragon shooting the ball out of the mouth, that is, that's pretty epic.
Speaker: And the up, down, left, right ability of it to shoot it, that's, visually, that is awesome.
Speaker: You have to play it to really experience it.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: And we can't forget Jerry Thompson, who always does an insanely incredible job on all of the music and sound effects in the game.
Speaker: And he got to work with Chris Velasco, who's another guy that I've worked with in the past on video games.
Speaker: And he did this epic soundtrack to the game that just fits D&D so perfectly.
Speaker: We are really honored to have him on the project, too.
Speaker: It sounds like it was all hands on deck for this game.
Speaker: It was a team effort.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When I first started thinking about this project in August of 22, we were, we were neck deep in venom and working on venom, but then it came down the pipe and we're like, yeah, we're on board.
Speaker: Yeah, we're, yeah, we'll do that.
Speaker: And we've been thinking about it and are working on it since then.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Well, if, if you want someone to get ahold of you, Dwight or Eddie, or you don't at all,
Speaker: You can tell us now, but if you do want them to get ahold of you, how do they get ahold of you?
Speaker: Oh, feel free to write me at Dwight.Solomon at SternPinball.com.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And I'm similar, Brian.Eddie at SternPinball.com.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Be happy to answer questions.
Speaker: I, I, I'm going to do the, the feature at shout out.
Speaker: So this, this is just a content creator focus.
Speaker: If you guys are into D and D or,
Speaker: live action role playing there is a hilarious YouTube channel called Viva La Dirt and if you go in there they make a lot of hilarious funny commentary about basically action games or action role playing or anything like that and so definitely just go check them out
Speaker: Yeah, I can't.
Speaker: If you check them out and you find one that's really funny, send it to me because there's a lot.
Speaker: That's my focus of the day.
Speaker: So if you want to get a hold of us, we are LoserKidPinballPodcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: Like Scott was alluding to, you can hit us up on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram.
Speaker: I guess it's X. Sorry.
Speaker: YouTube, all that stuff.
Speaker: Hit us up.
Speaker: All at LoserKidPinball.
Speaker: Also, like I said, we got our Silverball Swag stuff.
Speaker: SilverballSwag.com slash LoserKid.
Speaker: Scott, give us our last words.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: Go and play Dungeons & Dragons and definitely level up.
Speaker: you
